SUMMATION Read Online Free Page A

other, both lifting up almost vertically, on end, as if both had
begun climbing a steep, turning, invisible hill, headed straight up.
                Bill Foster saw McGarret's car, just ahead of
him, begin sliding sideways, with the truck wrapping around behind him. Stepping
on the brake, he looked for a safe haven, some direction to turn to avoid the
inevitable accident ahead. He saw the trooper in the median, but knew he could
avoid him. He turned the wheel to the left, gently, not wanting to lose control
or go into a skid himself. Reflexively, he glanced in the rear view mirror, and
saw several vehicles closing in.
    It was going to be close.
    He edged over, trying to get onto the shoulder, slowing
before hitting the grass, but nothing happened. Puzzlement turned to panic as
his car began to slide, to follow McGarret's into a slide. The car disregarded
his frantic attempts to steer onto the median. Stomping on the brakes, he
expected a long, screeching skid, but again, nothing. His full weight on the
brakes, turning the wheel both left and right, it was as if the car was
floating, totally out of contact with the ground.
                Which it was.                                                                         
                Tom was the first to realize it, as his car was
the first to nose up toward the sky. To his left, through the window, he saw
the truck do likewise. A moan slowly escaped from his now very tight throat,
constricted almost as tightly as his white knuckled hands on the wheel. A low
moan, but enough to wake his young wife. Groggy, she looked up, seeing nothing
but sky through the windshield. Quickly looking over at Tom, she saw the truck
through the window, as she was pushed back into her seat. Her disorientation
now complete, her arms flailed out, trying to get a grip, to keep from falling
over the back of her seat into the rear of the vehicle. Unlike Tom's low moan,
her screams could be heard clearly outside the car.
                If anyone had been listening.
                Bill saw Tom's car rise up ahead of him, beginning
a spiral dance upwards along with the semi. Like Tom, his control of the wheel
and brakes had long since been lost and he felt the station wagon, already
slipping along, begin to rise, front end first as if it were a plane departing
a runway. He heard both girls calling out in back.
                The girls felt the odd, skidding motion, and
reached out to steady themselves.
                "Dad? DAD!!?" Both yelled out
together, unable to see what was happening in front. Behind them, they saw the following
driver pull his face forward, toward his windshield, and look up over the girls'
vehicle, trying to see something high above them. Jodie looked at her sister,
whose panicked look mirrored her own feeling. They both felt the car sliding,
shifting sideways...
                They both sensed they were about to hit
something. Jodie's sister clutched her shoulder harness with both hands,
squeezing the nylon band with a death grip. Perhaps a poor choice of words. Jodie,
who wasn't wearing one, reached out, stabilizing herself against the back
window, her left arm hooked around the back of her seat, trying to see what was
happening in front. Puzzled, she saw nothing through the front windshield or
side windows, but felt the car tilting and lifting. Her arm, wrapped over the
back of her seat, was all that kept her from falling backwards as the car nosed
up. Both girls looked out the rear window, out to the other, no, DOWN to
the other car. The younger Foster felt herself pressed against her seat belt as
they saw themselves rising up, away from the ground, in a surrealistic view not
unlike that of a rocket departing the Earth, rising and turning. Jodie looked
back at her sister, now white with fear, speechless.            Losing