The ground rumbles as it moves through the trees, shooting like a rocket back to its home.

I can see its bulk from the dirt road I'm driving on.

But what concerns me more at the moment is the black smoke rising from the shallow valley ahead.

The road dead ends at a small ridge overlooking a highway.

I park and step out of the Jeep, looking down at the chaotic scene there.

I already know what I'll see, but that doesn't make it any easier.

I lean heavily against the vehicle as I look down on the highway. Screams reach my ears as black smoke

from a flaming semi-truck reaches for the stratosphere.

The smoke stands out, marring the cloud-scattered afternoon sky.

A man crawls from his overturned car, dragging his mangled legs behind him.

A woman tries to pull her husband out of smoldering wreckage.

A teenager stands beside his car, looking at

his friend's head where it sticks out of a bloody hole in the windshield. I can't even count

how many cars have wrecked on the busy rural highway. Some of them are so entwined, it's hard

to tell whether there are one or two vehicles. Other people, lucky people, get out of their cars back behind the swath of wreckage.

Phones pressed to their ears.

What the hell was that thing?

One man yells at another.

Did you see that?

I saw it, but I don't know what the fuck it was.

Another man yells back.

Good God, I think, surveying the carnage.

...