The Crash

Tegan Werner lives in a run-down apartment in a small town in Maine and works at the local grocery store. She’s almost eight months pregnant, suffers from sciatica pain, is too poor to live in a safe area, and feels like things in her life are as bad as they can get. On a freezing night in December, she gets home to find Jackson Bruckner waiting for her. He’s an attorney and is there to discuss business with her—business that’s about to make her incredibly rich, thanks to the baby she’s carrying.

Tegan is 23, unmarried, and saving money to go to nursing school. She got pregnant from a one-night stand that she can barely remember and only recently learned who the father is. Her neighbor, Mrs. Walden, is very judgmental and condescending regarding Tegan’s situation. Tegan calls her unborn baby “tuna” since that’s been her main pregnancy craving. She has conversations with her baby and imagines that she can hear it talking to her.

Tegan was visiting her brother, Dennis, a ski instructor, when she got drunk at a bar and had sex with a man she just met. Several months later, she recognized him on television: Simon Lamar, a wealthy real estate developer who is married and has two kids. When a paternity test proved that he’s the father of Tegan’s baby, he offered her a huge payoff to sign a nondisclosure agreement, eager to keep his wife from finding out. The settlement will give Tegan plenty of money to raise the baby in comfort. Jackson is Simon’s lawyer, but he’s been very kind to her, and Tegan trusts him.

Nightmares about Simon have plagued Tegan, and she hasn’t been sleeping well. She’s still working, hesitant to quit before finalizing the deal with Simon for fear that it will fall through. Tegan’s parents both died young, but Dennis is a caring and protective older brother. Tegan misses him. He’s too swamped with work to visit her, but he asks her to come and stay with him for a while.

Tegan is attracted to Jackson and worries that she won’t see him anymore after the deal goes through. He and Simon come to Tegan’s apartment on the day they’re scheduled to sign the contract. As Simon looks at Tegan with disgust, she notices his cologne, an unusual scent that he wore when she met him. Suddenly, a repressed memory comes back to her, and she realizes that he drugged and raped her.

Tegan voices the accusation, and Simon calls it preposterous. In private, Jackson urges Tegan to forget what happened and sign the contract. He doesn’t seem to believe her. Thinking of the women Simon might hurt in the future, Tegan opts to go to the police rather than accept his money. Simon insists that she has no proof and that nobody will believe her. He says that he’ll destroy her in court and sue her for defamation and then leaves.

Dennis calls soon after Simon and Jackson leave, expecting Tegan to be celebrating. She tells him that the deal fell through, though she doesn’t want to say why over the phone. Explaining that she was raped is something she needs to do in person. He invites her again to visit him, and despite it being a long drive, she agrees.

Tegan starts the drive to visit Dennis late after picking up an extra shift at work. It’s only an hour until sunset, and there’s a snowstorm on the horizon. She isn’t able to stay ahead of the storm as she hoped, and it begins snowing hard. Her GPS directs her to get off the highway and then loses its signal. She can’t see through the snow well enough to find the highway. Her cell phone rings; it’s Jackson.

The call quality is poor, and Tegan misses most of what Jackson says. It sounds urgent—something about Simon and the police. The brakes in her car stop working, and she crashes into a tree.

After the crash, Tegan takes stock of her injuries. Her nose is bleeding from the airbag, there’s a large bump on her forehead, the dashboard is pinning her in place, and her left ankle must be injured, judging by how much it hurts. There’s no signal to call 911, and she’s freezing. Smoke is coming from under the car’s hood, so she can’t turn the car back on for heat and risk starting a fire. Tegan is having trouble breathing and worries that her lung may be punctured. She’s likely to die if she stays there, and the odds seem to be against anyone finding her in the blizzard, but before too long, she sees headlights. A man gets out of a truck and approaches her.

The enormous man frightens Tegan. He uses a shovel to clear the snow blocking her car door and then moves her seat back so that she’s no longer pinned between it and the dashboard. He introduces himself as Hank Thompson and carries her to his truck since she’s unable to walk on her injured ankle. Tegan says that she needs to go to the hospital, but Hank says he’s taking her to his house and doesn’t elaborate.

Tegan begs the man not to hurt her and offers him money. He explains that the hospital is too far to drive in the storm. He adds that he’ll try to call an ambulance from his landline and that he won’t hurt her. His wife, Polly Thompson, is a former nurse and can care for Tegan in the meantime.

Hank and Polly’s power and phone lines are out due to the storm. Polly says that they’ll take her to the hospital in the morning. Hank carries Tegan to the basement, which the couple converted for Polly’s mother to live in when she was dying of cancer. It has a hospital bed and a bathroom. The basement is pitch black and cold, and to Tegan, it smells of decay. Polly gives her a flashlight and blankets. She tries to look at Tegan’s injury, but the pain is so intense that Tegan won’t let Polly remove her boot.

Tegan doesn’t trust Hank. She gets a weird feeling from him, which doubles when she sees a dark bruise around Polly’s wrist—it looks like it came from someone gripping her too hard. Tegan concludes that Hank abuses his wife.

Polly gives Tegan some Tylenol—the only thing she says is safe for the baby—and makes Tegan comfortable while making polite small talk. Polly asks about Tegan’s husband, and Tegan, not wanting to be judged, lies about being married to a man named Jackson. When Tegan looks through her purse after Polly brings it to her, she notices that her cell phone and pepper spray are missing.

Polly brings Tegan a tuna sandwich and helps her go to the bathroom in the bedpan. Tegan, in excruciating pain, begs for something stronger than Tylenol. When Polly refuses because of the baby, Tegan says that it’s her pregnancy, her choice, and she needs it.

Polly brings Tegan two Dilaudid pills for pain, but after thinking about the baby’s health, Tegan decides not to take them. She tells Polly about her dream of becoming a nurse. Tegan continues to make assumptions about Polly’s abusive marriage, thinking that they’re both victims of the terrifying man upstairs.

Though Tegan is in agony all night from her injury, she resists taking the pain pills. The next morning, she notices that the power is back on, but Polly says the phones are still out, and there’s no cell service in the area. She adds that the roads won’t be plowed until late that evening or the next day.

Tegan cries on and off throughout the morning. She plays solitaire with a deck of cards to occupy herself. Polly confides that she’s not working as a nurse anymore because Hank wanted her to stay home. Tegan considers telling Polly the truth about how her baby was conceived and the fact that she’s not married but ultimately says nothing.

After eating lunch, Tegan sleeps until eight o’clock in the evening. She wakes up feeling groggy and wonders if there was a sedative in her food. As a caretaker, Polly is adept and kind, but she gives Tegan bad news. The snowplows are delayed, and they’re still stranded. She promises Tegan that they’ll take her to the hospital the following morning. Tegan vacillates between hopefulness and fear that she’s going to die there.