Claire's body trembled.
But she pressed on anyway.
"I'm telling the truth! If you don't believe me, check the dashcam on the semi—"
Before she could finish, the man pulled a baseball bat from his trunk and brought it crashing down on my hood.
The windshield shattered. He reached through the broken glass, ripped the dashcam from its mount, and hurled it to the ground. Then he stomped on it until it was nothing but fragments.
When he was done, he turned his venomous glare on Claire, a silent warning etched into every line of his face.
She was shaking harder than before, but she refused to back down.
"Smashing the dashcam won't help you. There are traffic cameras on this stretch of highway—"
The bat came down on her head before she could finish the sentence.
Blood ran down her face. The students on the bus screamed and shrank back in horror.
The man didn't even glance at her. Instead, he turned to the other drivers.
"I didn't use my turn signal because it was broken."
"But I slowed down and used a hand signal!"
"This woman is making the whole thing up! For all we know, she and this trucker have something going on!"
"I say we make him pay up now, before he skips out on us!"
That animal was lying through his teeth.
He had slowed down, sure, but that was when he'd been toying with me, drifting in front of my lane and then pulling away. Right before he actually cut over, he'd floored it. He nearly killed me.
And the "hand signal" he'd used? It wasn't a lane-change gesture. It was a middle finger.
"That's not what happened! He's lying!"
"Let's call the police and let them sort this out!"
I pulled out my phone. He snatched it from my hand and slammed it against the asphalt.
Then he jumped on it. Twice.
He didn't stop until the phone was in pieces, its guts scattered across the pavement. Only then did he grab me by the collar and pin me against the hood of my truck.
"Clever little move, huh? You know you can't afford to pay all of us, so you want to call the cops and play the victim for a smaller bill."
"Not happening. You're not leaving here today until every single one of us is compensated."
The other drivers seemed to think he had a point. They closed in around me, demanding money.
I tried to explain, over and over, that the pileup wasn't my fault. I had insurance. Even if I were liable, the insurance company would handle the claims.
Nobody listened.
And the man kept fanning the flames.
"You all heard him, right? We nearly died out here, and this piece of trash won't even cover our repair costs!"
"Insurance company, he says. Easy for him to say. There are over a dozen wrecked cars here. We're talking millions of dollars in damages. What insurance company is going to cut a check for that all at once?"
"They'll drag it out for a year, maybe two. We've all got jobs to get back to. Families to feed. Can any of you afford to wait that long?"
Every word out of his mouth was designed to whip the crowd into a frenzy, and it was working. I was drowning in their spit and fury.
A few of the more hot-tempered ones were already rolling up their sleeves, ready to do to me what the man had done.
Left with no choice, I told them the truth: today was my first day back at work after the holiday. I didn't have any money on me.
Somehow, the man had already climbed into the back of my truck. He pointed at the cargo bay, packed to the brim.
"Then we'll take what you're hauling!"
"No!" I didn't even have to think about it. "Absolutely not."
That cargo belonged to a charity back home. I was delivering it to a children's shelter, free of charge.
It was everything those kids would need for the next six months. Food. Clothes. Supplies. All of it.
