Shift: A Novel

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The apparition appeared at 11:22 a.m. over I-35, in the two-hundred-foot gap between the north- and southbound lanes where the interstate passed over Commerce Street. Traffic was heavy at that hour, but moving well: twelve lanes on 35, average speed sixty-six miles per hour, another six on Commerce traveling only slightly less fast. When the flaming figure appeared in the sky, the results were predictably disastrous.

According to the Texas State Highway Patrol, thirty-five vehicles collided with one another, resulting in seventy-seven injuries: cuts and bruises, whiplash, broken bones, concussions, at least three seizures. A pregnant woman went into labor, but both she and the baby—and, remarkably, everyone else involved in the pileup—survived the trauma. In addition to the injured, another 1,886 people claimed to have seen the apparition, making a grand total of 1,963, a figure later confirmed by both the Dallas Police Department and the Dallas Morning News. It was this last number that sent the story, already ricocheting around the airwaves and the Internet, into the stratosphere.

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