Free A Simple Faith: A Lancaster Crossroads Novel by Rosalind Lauer

sending a little quiver of fear up Elsie’s backbone.
    No … it was just her imagination. Or maybe it was a crooked road.
    But the approaching car wobbled again, and this time Elsie could see that it had crossed the double yellow line.
    Just then, the van began to slow as George pressed the brakes … but it was too late.
    The vehicle loomed closer. As if in slow motion, it floated toward them like a bee moving to a flower.
    Only these white lights were rushing toward them at a sickening speed.
    Oh, good Gott in heaven, it’s going to hit us!
    Elsie wanted to make it stop, but all she could do was stare, horrified and helpless.
    Tires squealed against the pavement.
    The seat belt cut into Elsie’s flesh, a choking yoke across her neck. But that discomfort was forgotten when the world exploded.
    Bam!
    A gunshot? A crack of thunder?
    What was going on?
    The dark mass had smashed into them, sending the van into a tailspin.
    Screams and cries and low groans rose, as if the van itself were moaning against the large, dark beast that was attacking it. Elsie felt something rip from her throat, but her cry blended into the horrible sound of scraping metal, searing tires, and panicked voices.
    The whole world spun around and around, like a child’s spinning top.
    Elsie would have reached for something to hold on to, but she could not lift her arms. Her entire body was pinned against the seat and window.
    Spinning and whirling, round and round.
    Another explosion stopped the spinning motion, as the right side of the van smacked into something hard. Solid. Brutal. Unforgiving.
    The impact rattled Elsie’s teeth and bones. In rapid motion, her body was jostled right and left, flung like a cloth doll. She bangedinto the van’s wall, then back to the right, her head hitting Rachel’s upper arm.
    Then, the vehicle shivered into silence. An eerie calm.
    The terrible spinning motion had ended, but Elsie could do nothing more than close her eyes and welcome blessed stillness.

8
    T he impact had knocked him out of a dream.
    When the first jolt had hit the van, Ruben Zook had been asleep. The fierce noise did not belong in the pleasant dream of a singing where he was the only young man who had attended, and plenty of young girls were going out of their way to let him know they fancied him.
    That dream had quickly given way to a nightmare of shrieking steel and desperate voices.
    A living, breathing nightmare.
    Now the van had stopped spinning, he sat upright in his seat, his nerves tingling with adrenaline. What was that dust that filled the van? Many of the windows were shattered and he couldn’t see beyond the windshield through the pillowed air bags that had puffed up in front of George and Tom Lapp. The van seemed to be intact. Dented in a few spots, but still in one piece.
    Someone had to move … make sure everyone was okay … andfrom the cries and murmurs in the smoky van, he knew that someone was him.
    Beside him, Zed Miller rubbed his eyes, getting his bearings, and Market Joe tended to his wife, who was crying. They seemed okay. All shook up, but okay.
    As the dust began to clear, Ruben noticed a dark mound blocking the aisle down beneath his feet. What was that? He winced to realize it was a man’s body slumped in the aisle. His dark coat was covered with slivered glass.
    One of the older men had been tossed out of his seat.
    Blocking out the murmurs and groans of the other passengers, Ruben unbuckled his own seat belt and nearly fell on the man when his legs gave way.
    Gott, give me the strength to do thy will
, he prayed as he gained his balance and moved over the elderly man. “Jacob?”
    Jacob Fisher, who had been sitting in the aisle seat of the second row, now lay on his side on the van’s floor, in a very bad way. The arm beneath him was angled in an unnatural position, but when Ruben leaned down to see his face, his eyes were moving.
    Ruben moved his face close so that the old man could see him. “All