A Bloody Good Carwash

I’m not always sure about when they are necessary, but in the case of this story, I’m going to assume that safe is better than sorry. So, that being said… Minor TRIGGER WARNING for those that aren’t comfortable with talk of blood.

Now that we have that out of the way, I’ll go ahead and jump right into this weeks story.

When you were in high school did you ever do one of those carwash fundraisers? You know, the kind where you usually don’t ask a specific price but ask for donations. The kind where the local perv brings literally every car he or his neighbors have so that he can look at high school aged females in wet clothing? Hmmm, was that only in my town?

Well, this wasn’t one of those carwashes. This one was being put on by our church. We were still operating under the generosity system, but we had a few factors on our side that allowed us to garner a premium donation for our services. First and foremost most of those participating were adults who had cars of our own. We weren’t trying to quickly get rid of someone who pulled up to get their car washed, we took our time and made sure the cars looked good.

Secondly, we had way more cleaning options available to us beyond the usual hose/soap bucket/wash cloth set up that most school club carwashes utilize. We had shop vacs to clean out the interior, we had tire polish, we had Windex for the mirrors, we had Turtle Wax. You could really go all out if you wanted to.

Finally, rather than holding our carwash in the parking lot of a restaurant or convenience store, we had the spacious parking lot of our church, that also happened to be located on a very busy highway that led to the beach. Lots of traffic, with many of the cars being occupied by travelers who were willing to spend a bit extra if they happened to stop.

We had been going along at a pretty good clip that day. Trucks, boats, even a pair of semi’s that paid upwards of a hundred dollars each. I had been put in charge of the station closest to the parking lot’s entrance. I think my crew included myself, a pair of teenage boys, their mom, and another adult. We had just waved goodbye to a very nice family traveling to the beach from West Virginia when I noticed a white sedan coming down the highway driving rather erratically.

The car was traveling at a pretty good clip but suddenly slammed on its brakes as it came upon the entrance to our parking lot. The driver swerved wildly into the parking lot and came to a stop directly in front of me. As I looked at the vehicle, something in the back of my mind was screaming at me. Telling me something about this car was wrong. The drivers side door opened, and it was then that I realized just what it was my brain was trying to tell me as I processed the car.

A young woman stepped out of the car, covered head to toe in blood.

I really wish this was one of those times I was exaggerating. But I am not. There was blood all over her, and the inside of her car matched the outside of her.

Other than the teenage boys, whom I’m guessing were very freaked out, we rushed to the woman to ask if she was okay. She had clearly been crying, but she stated that she was okay. Slowly but surely, we got the following story from her. (Oh, look at this, a story within a story!)

According to her, she had been driving down the highway, when a dog came running out of the grass along the embankment. It was a big dog, and her car struck it squarely in the head. She had slammed on her brakes and jumped out of her car to see if there had been any damage to her car. (These were her words, not mine, so don’t throw any hate my way)

The dog however had other plans. Evidently it didn’t stay down when hit, but instead jumped up. She had left the door to her car open, and the dog jumped INTO the car. Its head was bleeding profusely, and the poor animal, likely reacting to the wetness it felt, began to shake its head back and forth violently, splattering the inside of her car with gore.

She, wearing of note white jeans, tried to get the dog out of her car. The animal continued to shake, taking her panic as a sign of wanting to play. This continued for a moment until a man arrived from a house close by to claim the dog. At this point the woman said that she had apologized to the man, who seemed worried about his dog, but otherwise didn’t seem mad (again, this is from her story).

At some point as she had been explaining all this, I looked inside the car. If you’ve ever seen the movie Pulp Fiction then believe me when I say it was EXACTLY like that scene, just one-thousand times more surreal. The woman said that she had been planning to drive directly home to try and clean up her car, but had then seen our sign, and thought maybe we could help her. She offered to pay us $40.

We agreed to do it and set about organizing as many people as we could to try and make the job go more quickly. I think by the end we had 6 people working to clean the inside, including one particularly generous youth who likely ruined the clothes he had on. In the end, I can’t swear it was perfect, but it was vastly better than she likely could have done just going it alone.

I’m pretty sure the mom from my group actually paid for the wash when it was all said and done. I had lobbied to simply not charge anything as it was clear she had been pretty traumatized by the whole experience. A few people had even helped her clean off her skin and hair.

It wasn’t until she pulled away that my imagination started wandering into dark places concerning the whole affair. We had pretty much taken this woman at her word concerning the dog story. It was certainly within reason. There were plenty of farms and family homes along the highway or adjacent roads. A large dog could theoretically survive being struck by a car. Could even stand up and jump into a strange vehicle if, as part of said striking, it had become confused. It was all perfectly reasonable.

But what if that wasn’t what had happened? What if we had just helped to cover up something. Something like… a murder? At a molecular level, I’m going to guess that animal blood and human blood have some discernable differences. But to the naked eye, they look the same. In our haste to help this woman in need had we done something unimaginable?

I will not lie to you. I watched the news for a good two weeks, on the off chance someone locally were to be reported missing. Silly? Probably. But the images that had been burned into my brain by the encounter simply wouldn’t let me just dismiss the possibility. Nothing ever came of it.

There are two factors that lead me to believe the events as told by the woman.

One: She self confessed to being more worried about her vehicle than she was about the dog. While a very tiny detail, it feels like something a person might actually do, and something you wouldn’t think to lie about in the spur of the moment.

Two: There was no part of that car’s interior that didn’t have blood on it. To have achieved the level of slasher movie viscera inside of that small space the person doing the killing would have to have stood outside and yet somehow sliced and diced a victim who was inside the car.

Three (yeah I said two, you’ll live): She didn’t appear to have any wounds whatsoever. While I don’t guess that technically makes her stone cold innocent, I’ve watched enough Law & Order to know that unless you shoot someone, there is a high probability that you will injure yourself when attacking or killing someone.

Well, there you go. Don’t say I didn’t warn you. In my first ‘Story’ post, I mentioned that I don’t assume just because something has happened to me, that doesn’t mean that it hasn’t happened to others. This experience however is one that I would guess has a very, very low chance of being ‘shared’ by anyone besides those that were there at that carwash with me that day. One of the most memorable things I’ve ever seen, or probably ever will see.

Until next time friends, take care.