Chapter One -- Dark and Stormy Night
The headlights of my Volvo sparkled off the big snowflakes as they fell so thickly that they seemed like a solid sheet of snow. The big white dots hit the hot glass of the windshield and melted as the wipers swept them away. It was now falling far more steadily and intently than just fifteen minutes earlier.
I heard the loud whirl of the fan and felt the dry hot air blow around my legs, but I also felt the icy cold that seemed to radiate from the glass straight to my skin. Of course the radio reported how the weather had certainly worsened only now that I was in the middle of it.
I now drove at a crawl looking for tell-tale signs of where the road was and was not. I could hear the sound of snow crunching upon snow. So I knew I was driving only on snow now, the pavement was buried under a foot or more still loose snow at least.
As I passed tall markers that the road people use to guide the plows, I could see these were now only barely half exposed. The snow was falling faster and faster. I knew my way but it now looked completely foreign to me as the snow obscured every familiar landmark.
In the darkness I did not see anything familiar at all anymore. Only stands of tall pines covered in snow and endless white beyond. The cabins in the distance were all dark, now vacant as their weekend only owners were home elsewhere.
I was encouraged only by the passing sets of high reflectors that glinted as my lights hit them and the confidence they provided that this was still a road to somewhere.
"Shit," I mumbled to myself at just how bad the weather had gotten in such little time.
As I passed an open gate to a drive, I saw the lights on in a cabin off in the distance. These fleeting signs of life emboldened me to trek on down this lonely road just a little further.
"Fuck!" I cried out loud as I hit the brakes I felt the car slide to a long stop.
I glanced at my bulging belly where my baby still waited to be born. Not even a kick as she felt no danger it seemed. My heart pounded though and I felt how tightly I gripped the steering wheel.
"What the fuck?" My cursing continued unabated.
A literal wall of snow blocked the road where its route teasing went straight ahead just another mile and one-half to my road.
"I'm only a mile from my road, maybe not even two." I spoke only to myself.
In summer I could get home in minutes I thought. Even in winter it rarely took much time at all.
"Just calm down," I said to myself with all the bravado I could muster. "You can back down to that drive and turn around."
Thankfully I was nearly stopped when I saw the wall of snow. I was fine. And it is only about ten miles or so back to the main road I reminded myself in thought.
"Shit." I whispered as I looked out both side windows.
To each side was a near vertical wall of snow just a few feet from my mirrors.
"That drive was recently plowed and big enough to turn around," I once more spoke logically.
Details unnecessary then flashed back as survival made my mind think. I put my car in reverse and carefully backed down the gently winding road. At this snail's pace it took many minutes to thread back through the snow canyon to that spot I remembered.
In my haste to get back turned around I forgot how I had seen this drive usually barred by a heavy steel tube gate shaped like a triangle between two round posts. I never recalled it ever being open before. In summer when you can see more clearly, I had seen how it led maybe a mile or so back to a large undeveloped tract of private land on the border of the State Forest. The cabin was virtually isolated and had been abandoned I assumed.
I backed into the clear space between the road and the two big posts, it was snowy but cleared recently.
"Fuck!"
I heard how my tires began to spin and felt how the car wobbled but did not move. I was stuck! Foolishly I gunned the engine in hope that I might break free. I heard the tires spin freely! The sound was sickening.
"Fuck, fuck, fuck." I muttered to myself.
I was already regretting going out at all, then for taking the short-cut up over the mountain rather than go all the long way around, and now for foolishly trying to turn around in loose snow.
I reached for my cell phone to call my husband. I dialed but got no connection. Worse I saw how my battery was also very low.
"Shit." I muttered. "Fuck! "Damn!"
I called and called again but still got nothing but silence. I could not find my charger as the sense of fear rose in me. I had called him before I left town and he knew I was on my way home. But I worried how he will be concerned when I don't get home.
"Stupid."
Suddenly, in the pool of light ahead of me, I could not even see my own fresh tracks in front of me now. And I felt a sense of real panic now. The snow just kept coming!
"Think."
The car was not too low on gas but it was not enough to idle all night I reasoned. At this rate I reckoned that the snow would soon bury the car and cover the exhaust too. I sat for awhile in the car frozen not by cold but by genuine fear.
"What now." I asked myself as if I had the answer hidden from myself.
I knew that a cabin was at the end of this drive. I assumed if the gate was open someone was there. I knew there was no other sanctuary for miles in every direction. Finally, I assumed I had no choice but to try and go to what I hoped was safety before the snow would be too deep even to walk through.
"I can do this."
Opening the door I felt the cold blast. I doubted my decision. I was afraid.
"Damn its cold." My breath felt literally taken away.
At least I had a good coat, thick wool socks and warm boots; although my boots were only low ones and hiking in deep snow would be difficult. But the rest of my clothes consisted of just a pair of jeans and a now too thin casual sweater. Obviously, I had not planned for hiking in the snow. As I put back on my driving gloves and tugged down my knit cap, both too thin for being out in this weather too long, I really tried to think of any other option.
"Damn its cold." I repeated to myself as the door swung open and a blast of cold hit me.
As I shut the door and stepped around it, I could smell the crisp clean of winter and the sight of barren trees. It would have been beautiful had I not been stranded. Off I tromped through the snow in a shallow depression that although filled with new fallen soft snow was firmer underneath. Still, I sank in past the tops of my boots with every step. It was really cold! And slowly, it led me off towards the cabin I hoped.
It was warm enough in my clothes, my coat hung almost to the middle of thighs, but I could feel how my feet and hands were getting cold fast. It was now hard going as the snow got in my boots as I increasingly sank deeper with every step. The snow seemed to fall even faster now and the wind blew it all around in big flakes.
"Hell." My nose was cold and getting snotty from the painful cold each breath took in.
Cold snow hit my face and each inhale felt like tiny daggers. Yet I was sweating inside my clothes. I felt cold numb at my fingers and toes, and even my ears now felt cold. I carried my bloated body through the deep snow that sank under me to almost my knees with the next step. I had gone less than a hundred feet when I felt totally drained.
"Fuck," I whispered visible breath into the cold.
Every second that passed I swore I could count by my heartbeats. I struggled to free myself and almost lost my boots.
"This is really bad," I cried out in frustration.
Panting for breath, freezing, snow trapped in my boots and clinging to my too thin gloves I sprawled on the snow. Clawing, desperate, I pulled my body through the snow along the track but I kept sinking. It was zapping my strength to just get free, let alone make progress. I thought I might give up just then.
Through the darkness a bright pool of white light enveloped me as I heard a calamitous roar and metallic clattering. Before me was a giant red bulldozer clamoring forward with a mountain of snow roiling before its wide blade. It was bearing direct down upon me!
"Help," I screamed as loud as I could as my arms waived frantically in the air.
As if obedient to my pleas the monster stopped. Two giant lights like the eyes of some beast glared before me. And suddenly it was silent aside from a gentle pounding of the diesel engine and an odd metallic clanking that was rhythmic yet erratic.
"Who the hell are you," I heard a surprised man's voice over the machine's sounds.
Then out of the darkness and into the light stepped a man shaped figure. He was bundled in a camouflage Army coat and matching baggy trousers, a pair of Lumberjack looking high boots and a classic plaid Stormy Kromer cap complete with the earflaps.
I wanted to giggle at the craziness of my rescuer. But all I managed was a sigh of relief.
My mouth began to speak even before my mind had caught up to its excitement. I sounded frantic.
"My car got stuck, I need help, I am pregnant, please help me!"
"Calm down," he sort of bellowed as he stepped through the snow to me. "What the hell are you doing out here." He said in more of a muffled tone as if he spoke not to me but to himself to lessen the surprise. "Give me your hands."
He made a muffled groan as he pulled me up by my hands and seemingly whirled me along until I was next to the machine in a flat spot of firmly compacted snow.
"Thank you," I finally spoke more reasonably.
I told him my name and the pertinent details already set forth so far. Rather, I blathered and he listened. He looked as if I had stepped off the waxing moon still hidden above. Curious were his eyes and he just listened until finally I stopped talking.
"I am Michael." He said with a smirk.
In a quick summary, perhaps only to settle my nerves, he informed me that he was up for the week ahead and opening his place up. He added that he had plowed the drive after hiking in to get "the big red Iron Woodsman", his International Harvester TD-24 that he stroked on its treads as if it were a big cat. It took him all day and he had finally remembered to come shut the gate.
I didn't understand the importance of his pride in such details, instead listening almost dumbstruck, but I was very glad to see such a vintage machine now. He continued with facts, such as how his truck had barely made it in and he was coming back to lock the gate for the night.
In another fifteen minutes that gate would be closed and locked and he would have been gone for the night! I felt a tingle of fear run the length of my spine. "Shit," I thought at the importance of this last fact.
