You’ve seen it a million times. Or heard about it a million times. Your next door neighbor brings it up over beers.  A co-worker tells everybody about it between shifts in the break room. You hear people discussing it at the table next to you. At college parties someone knows a friend of a friend. Or two women are in a debate about it on aisle 14 at your local supermarket. Somewhere, someone knows the story eventually, it tumbles down the hill.

It’s about a girl.

The girl is independent, mid-twenties, a college graduate, lives alone in a semi-expensive finely furnished apartment, drives a standard vehicle to a dreary job that she is thankful for but doesn’t really plan on staying there long because it’s just another step in the process of forming a respectable career. She goes to the gym three times a week, doesn’t drink too much, prefers dogs over cats yet owns no pets, and calls her mother every other day.

One day the girl meets a guy, a charming guy, a one in a million-type guy. Mr. Right. The cheesy fantasy that everybody denies. It usually happens through a group of friends, or maybe her co-worker sets her up on one of those blind date type arrangements. Or if she’s really lucky, they just meet naturally on their own in passing while waiting in line to order lunch. She’s having the chicken and mixed-greens with salsa on the side and he’s ordered the a turkey on wheat with lettuce, tomato and mustard. Over lunch they exchange glances from across the café, then polite smiles, then he makes his approach. After a few key phrases make her swoon, then a quick “I have to get back to work” exit accompanied by parting words, he casually saves her number into his phone, calls it on his way out so she now has his.

After several missed calls and voice messages the two make plans to meet for coffee.  The coffee then leads to a walk, or a drive, some tame conversation, the getting-to-know-you phase. If that works out we then see them at dinner at some posh bistro where everything is illuminated by candles and there’s a guy in a tuxedo gently playing a sort of a love ballad on the piano in the far corner of the room. They build a deeper rapport over appetizers. They tell each other stories, they give away their insecurities, they allow cupid to aim and fire. The lighting gives a false sense of security and when she looks into his eyes she just knows she’s found him. The one. This is it, she tells herself. He is everything I could ever imagine. I feel like I have always known him.

They finish their three-course meal and go for drinks at the bar inside the restaurant. As the tune on the piano reaches its crescendo the drinks go from a gin and tonic and a light beer to shots of tequila. They ease their seats closer until their knees are touching. Then the mood switches into its next gear and she escalates this by touching his leg when she laughs from his not-so-funny jokes. He smiles and brushes her hair out of her face during a lull in conversation.

Cut to her apartment: clothes loosen and fall. She can’t believe this can be happening so fast. Every move he makes turns her on; every time he holds her closer and pulls her tighter she melts further into his arms. Waves are crashing against rocks. Fireworks explode overhead. She throws her head back and exhales into the night. She knew it would be like this. She was always told this was a farce—there’s no such thing as love, it’s just a Hallmark fixation—“that kind of thing only happens in the movies.” They are all wrong, she thinks. What she is feeling is real, and passionate. This is passion she has never imagined. She gives herself to him completely—from this night forward, it is the two of them, always. She pictures meeting his family, his friends, his dog. Then she sees the wedding, the reception, and then who knows.

A week later her mother grows concerned when she hasn’t heard anything. The police are notified and maybe the next thing you’ve heard what happens is the girl winds up missing or ends up dead.

When the body is found it is almost never recognizable. The limbs will be missing—buried in an off-shore compost heap somewhere, or ground through the garbage disposal. The face will be rotted away and featureless—maggots always find their way to the scene of a decomposing corpse on a hot summer night. The torso will be hollowed out and swarming with gangrene. All the college courses in the world won’t bring this one back.

You think about it, but you’d rather not: How will I die? Where will I die? Is anyone going to be there? Will I be aware of it when it comes? What comes after? It’s that little uncertainty that creeps up behind you and flicks the back of your ear when you’re drinking beers at the game, or when you’re enjoying a really good film. Standing in line to get fast food at the end of a long night. Riding your bike to a friends house. You can’t help it. That uncertainty consumes you day and night.

It’s a reason to hit the snooze only once. It’s a reason to work a job you hate. It’s a reason to draw out a plan, set goals and tolerate all the things in life that make you uneasy. It’s a reason to save up money. You take that money and you buy a car, or a house, or a boat—whatever. You fill that void which can never be satisfied. You invest your money into something you feel is worthwhile, something to distract you from the inevitable.

Like a camping trip, for example.

A camping trip that starts out like most camping trips start out: A group of friends and a whole lot of cheap beer and hot dogs and dusty old borrowed tents driving at sunset, determined to rendezvous at a secluded little spot someone in the group has only heard about but has reliable directions and everyone can’t wait to get there to break out the acoustic guitar that will ultimately grow tiring within a few minutes and when everyone wakes up in the morning they all keep drinking.

You are introduced to a young cute girl with that sandy blonde hair you only see in the magazines. She is looking to completely lose herself and go crazy for the weekend, says her best friend. You find out through the smiles and loud noise that you get to share the smaller of the tents with her. Just the two of you. You can hardly contain the excitement—she’s wearing these short shorts, she has a tight flat stomach and perky little breasts you can’t stop staring at. She smells like jasmine and loose morals, and in some way you sense she still has an innocence inside her that you so dearly want to break. She loves to drink. She may try smoking if she’s in the mood. This weekend is looking better by the moment.

So, this secluded little spot is off the coast somewhere, and from the directions you figure the highway sign swinging on its corner by a rusty nail is a sure fire path to nothing but good times. Who else is going to be out there? No one. You can make as much noise as you like, as late as you like without disturbing anyone within fifty miles. Perfect.

The ride was spent telling stories and listening to pop songs and 80’s hits you’ve heard over and over and over again, blaring from a ridiculous sound system that emphasizes the bass, shaking your guts and rattling your teeth, but because it’s a fun, careless getaway where you may or may not see some action you’re willing to forgive the banality of said chosen music vibrating through every cell in your body and upsetting your stomach and you let your hair down for the sake of a piece of ass.

It took less time than everybody anticipated to get the fire going. Your friend with the guitar is bored and wished he had learned more songs for the trip. The rest of the group have stuffed themselves with charred hot dogs and can’t wait to wake up in a sweaty uneven catastrophe in their tents at sunrise to explore the area in search for the lake someone heard is there.

Someone sparks a joint. More stories are told going around the circle, followed by jokes, laughter and all things playful. Voices get loud, then plane out to the din of an average big city diner. The sound reminds you of a long but exciting roller coaster. The joint comes your way and you pass it to the girl, and she takes a long hard pull and lets out a plume of smoke in your face. As she coughs into her fist you can’t wait until it hits her, works her up, gets her hot and bothered, bettering your chances for a story to tell the rest of the guys tomorrow while the girls run off to brush their teeth together.

These are the times when you appreciate everything in life. When death is forever away, not real, nonexistent, something made up like Santa Claus or organized religion. It’s late, and you are young. No cares, no worries. You look around and everyone is laughing and playing and drinking and enjoying and toasting. The fire burns hotter. Everyone’s faces have that same orange glow and when you look away the cold soothes your face.

As you turn your head, you hear a sound approaching. It’s quick, intent, and suddenly everybody stops.

Someone screams. The next few moments are a great big blur, a calculated plan of attack set to strike during your weakest moment. A demon is upon the group, mad and vicious, and all you can hear or feel are screams in varying pitches and timbres. The group is being eaten alive.

The sounds of gurgling and despair echo off the surrounding trees. You sit there, frozen, unaware what your last moments will be like, who teaches these things, who’s right, what to do, what to do.

Instantly it comes. You feel a flash, followed by heat. You’re inability to act has left you with a torn jugular and your main artery is spurting a perfect fountain stream right into the fire.

Look, the girl you planned on sharing a sleeping bag with is being slashed before your very eyes, and her hair catches fire—shame, you had hoped on yanking on it later, sharing sweat, passion, one for the books. Maybe you still can. More than likely, not. Her face burns, her eyes burst from her skull, legs twitching, and it all is recorded as your final image before you suddenly feel the momentum of the earth spinning faster and faster, hitting you on the head, then rolling to a stop.

No more need for a snooze button, or a job, or a savings. The plan is severed. Something like the cutting of an umbilical cord, and it’s bleeding and rolling in the dirt.

Of the group there’s one survivor, and she manages to get behind the wheel of the car. She forces the key into the ignition, turning it at the same time. The engine roars. Without hesitation the girl guns it with all kinds of fury and hell into the loose gravel and out of the scene of the horror that was bestowed upon the rest of the group.

Every few seconds she throws her head over the seat and looks back at the evil that may or may not be following after her. What was that? Did it see me?

Down the slithering highway that leads from outside the campgrounds, the car breaks the silence with its roaring engine, and the survivor never lets off the gas. She tames the angry vehicle around the sharp curves, tires spitting gravel and puffs of dirt over the edge, teasing the cliffs every inch of the way. The trees leer from all directions and then shy away from the fire and hatred blowing hard out of the dual exhaust.

Whatever it was back there worked fast and killed without blinking, and the world is less five people because of it. Now it’s just the girl and her heightened senses that are fighting with a head full of booze. She’s thankful that she passed on smoking, otherwise she might not have made it this far.

She tries to not think about death and dying and what that may be like—if the Christians are right, if the Buddhists in her philosophy class are right, if it’s all for nothing, oh my God—it’s in her mind and she doesn’t want to be there. The speedometer keeps flickering between 70 and 80 mph.

A highway sign approaches. It looks like a straightaway. The girl gets a glimpse of hope and floors it.

But just then, a force, a leviathan of sonic energy slams full on into the blistering vehicle knocking the girl damn near into the passenger’s seat. The car shakes everywhere and it spins out before her hands grip the wheel. The car is right again, but only for a moment. Then the headlights short out, followed quick by every electrical impulse in the vehicle shutting off. The fuses go, the dashboard lights go black. With the car still in full throttle the girl’s eyes quickly adjust in her heightened state of panic—a cliff. Dead ahead.

She braces, screams, jams both feet into the break pedal with everything she’s got. The car jerks and hits a break in the pavement that sends it catapulting into the air, flipping twice before the point of impact. Then the car crashes down—crunching into itself and twisting together like the withered bones from a frail old epileptic.

The girl sees a vision: it’s her first Christmas, it’s her first time going to the dentist, it’s her passing the fifth grade, her first monthly cycle, her first kiss, the time her father caught her masturbating, the car she bought with her own money when she was seventeen, making the swim team, first day of college, landing that internship—it all flashes like a million Polaroid’s rapidly snapping and falling into a pile on the floor, every moment documented and frozen, her world, her life, and the car careens off the edge of the cliff and down it goes.

It tumbles and flips, it hiccups and scatters, glass and sparks spraying in all directions.  The girl inside wearing no seatbelt. The momentum sends her flailing while desperately trying to hold onto something—anything, but when she grabs onto the seat the roof smashes down and breaks a finger or the frame pins a limb momentarily or catches her hair and more tears and screaming and blood and glass and terror and the car explodes into the sweet orange glow like the one from camp.

The next morning at the campsite, the scene left behind is rotting in the sun. The bodies are unrecognizable as they are ripped and pulled apart. Beer cans are spilled amidst the trees. The guitar lay in a stretched puddle of its own splinters. A thick layer of red syrup covers everything, and it quietly drips into puddles. The sound of a cell phone is going off; the ring tone set to a digital instrumental version of “Carry That Weight” by the Beatles. On the screen, the number flashing is accompanied by the word “Mom.”

• Short Stack