Benji and Gio had been best friends since middle school.
They were 21 now. Old friends who had gone to the same college and eventually, in their third year, ended up as roommates.
They had also made the same terrible decision regarding their winter break travel plans.
A bunch of their friends had snagged a snow cabin up in Park City, and so they decided to eschew the icy road conditions and attempt to get Gio's older Jeep through some gnarly back road conditions to make it through the snow and somehow get safely to their AirBnB.
"I'm gonna get so fucked up tonight, man. I think Lacey is gonna be there." Benji said hopefully, referencing a sexpot they'd been close with in school.
"Same. It'll be amazing to see the old gang. Some of the girls have fucking blossomed. Lacey is a perfect example." Gio held up his knuckles which Benji knocked.
Unfortunately for them, when the weather guy said two feet overnight, he had actually meant four.
This was a record snowstorm, and their horrific T-Mobile service flickered like a candle as their Waze app attempted to navigate them down the right backroads.
"Fuck dude, these roads are starting to get slippery," Gio complained, as he peered out at the wipers struggling to keep up with the onslaught of snow flurries continiung to fall. Their phones were plugged in and the defroster was on blast, but it was barely helping their vision, as the road grew all the more dark.
They had turned down a very dark road as their navigator attempted to redirect them around a huge accident on the interstate.
"Yeah man...just take it slow, no hard breaking," Benji assured him. They both wanted to come off as sounding relaxed, even though they both were inwardly nervous about the worsening conditions.
This was not a well-traveled or plowed road. And as the houses became fewer and the snow became heavier the risk grew.
Their quarter tank of gas should've been plenty, but they were twenty miles away still and their cell service was like a stoic, mormon town—zero bars.
Then things went from bad to worse. On a series of steep hills, the weathered SUV began to fishtail.
As they headed down a hill with a curve up ahead, the brakes locked up.
"Fuck." Gio muttered, releasing the brakes. But the car was sliding down the slick, snow covered hill now.
"Fuck dude, brace yourself." Benji warned.
The car coasted right off the edge of the road and rumbled down a small fifty foot hill, coming to a stop when the front end smashed into a giant tree and began to sputter.
They were lucky not to be injured, though Gio's hand felt sore.
They were also somewhat lucky none of the windows had broken. It was 15 degrees outside and their car wasn't turning over.
"You okay man?" Benji checked in.
"That was fucking scary, but yeah I'm okay. The car is fucked." He tried it again to no avail.
"Any reception on your phone?" Gio asked the next important question as they tried to remain calm.
They both checked.
"Zilch. Zero. Nada." Came Benji's tittering levity.
The car was still warm from the heater they'd previously been blasting right before the accident, but it was amazing how quickly the cold began to creep in to the old SUV.
"So what do we do? Do we walk?" Benji wondered aloud.
Gio turned to look out the back of the car. The place the car had stopped was mostly flat but the hill they'd careened down was dark and rocky and covered in snow. There was barely any moonlight due to the all the thick forest of trees they were surrounded by. Climbing the hill would be a bitch to attempt.
"I don't know man, whatya think? That's quite a climb in the dark," Gio responded. they both peered out at the tiny glimmer of light back up the hillside they'd driven down. The thick shadows of trees and bushes and falling snow closed in all around them.
"What do the books say to do? Stay put right? Stay warm, don't freak out, use what you have," Benji got out of his seatbelt, which he was thankful he'd been wearing, as neither of the airbags had managed to go off even though they'd rammed the tree pretty firmly. He climbed into the backseat and began to look over the supplies they had with them.
"Well we've each got our sleeping bag, a couple of blankets, and whatever clothing we brought," he said.
"Yeah...too bad we don't have any snow gear on us," they had planned to go snowboarding but were going to be renting all of their gear from the local shop for this trip. Which meant their clothing was basically sweats, jeans, sweatshirts, and jackets.
"Well...we could put a bunch of clothing on, and grab all of our stuff, and basically just try to stay warm throughout the night, and then in the morning when we can see better we can try to climb up that hill and find some cell service." Gio reasoned, as he climbed into the backseat with his friend.
They both grabbed as much as they could, working fast and trying to stay as calm as possible.
They each put on a pair of pajama pants under their jeans, and an extra pair of socks to boot. And then their heavier jackets and gloves and scarves and beanies finished off the task.
They put the backseat into a flattened position which created a central squate of space for them to roll out their sleeping bags to face each other. Then they wrapped the two blankets that were in the car around their border, basically facing each other. Gio had also set up his emergency camping lantern, which his parents had thankfully forced him to carry in the back of his car ever since high school. This gave them enough light to see each other and see a little out of the windows as well.
"Fuck man...this is the dumbest thing that has ever happened to us," Benji said with a half-hearted grin. They were trying to maintain some sense of levity.
"Yeah...if we make it through this we should probably buy a lotto ticket or something," Gio encouraged him.
"I'm gonna fuck Lacey's asshole like a prize breeding stallion," Benji joked regrettingly.
"I'm gonna eat an entire box of Toasters Strudel," Gio joked in contrast.
They busted up laughing. The warmth on the car was fading fast and they could see their breath when they joked now. They were in good spirits but getting colder.
Even with the sleeping bags and layers, there was a definite prickle creeping up their spines.
"Wait...I've got an idea," Gio said. He reached back to his duffel bag and then quickly came back into the shelter of their warmth. He was holding a handle of Jameson they'd packed for the cabin.
"Should we drink a little...that would probably warm us up, right?" He held the bottle up for Benji to decide.
"Fuck. Yes." He grabbed it dramatically and unscrewed the cap and took a big swig, even as his teeth began to chatter. It was a long, painful gulp.
"Wow. That's impressive," Gio laughed, as he took the bottle back when he was finally done. Benji burped.
"Fuckkkk," he groaned.
"Pretty sure that was like two shots," Gio was impressed. He took his own, long swig to match his friend's.
They traded the bottle back and forth until they'd both done probably five shots.
They were very quickly drunk.
"Dude...I'm stillll fucking cold," Benji whined, as then car temperature continued to lower.
"I know man...but like...the booze has strangely numbed me," Gio said, slurring his words a little.
"That's not the booze you idiot...you're just dying," Benji joked a little darkly. Guys were such assholes. The laughed anyway.
"Oh fuck! Welp...it's been real, man!" And Gio punched his best friend in the shoulder. Wow, he really had been working out over that summer, he thought.
"No but seriously...you're right. It's as cold as the lukewarm jizz that I splooged on your mom's ass before we left. This isn't gonna work for the whole night," Benji razzed Gio, while still discussing the problem at hand. Gio cracked up but could also see his breath as he did so. It was only 10:00 PM and they were going to need to figure something else out and fast. Time was ticking and more snow was falling. Soon the car itself would be covered in a thick layer of white stuff.
They also realized this meant they would need to figure out a way to keep the snow from covering them too much, lest they run out of oxygen, though that seemed like a stretch somehow. The alcohol made reasoning a little shaky.
"We also have to keep a space clear so we don't get too heavily snowed in...ya know? Cuz the doors won't open if it gets much higher," Gio added.
"Well...what if we use the moonroof and just clear that?" Benji thought. They looked up between them at the smaller moon roof the car had. It had a function where it could be opened without power thankfully, and Gio decided to bite the bullet and pop it open quick.
He cleared the six inches that had formed since they'd first crashed and made sure the square of space was empty, in case they should need to open it for air or escape routes later on. Then he was quickly back down in the car and the window was closed.
"Ohhhh fuckkkk dudeeee that's sooo cold," he complained. The snow had soaked through his cotton gloves and when he took them off, his very red hands came into view.
"Damnit dude...here...you gotta let me warm you up," Benji said. Gio sat down and he grabbed his friends hands and stuffed them into his much warmer shirt, pressing them against his skin.
Gio immediately groaned a little from having the warm flesh touch his frigid fingers.
"Ughhhh...it's so cold in this car," he said, laying his head on Benji's shoulders as they held each other in a friendly hug, wrapping themselves as tightly as they could.
"I know...I don't know what we should do," Benji bemoaned back.
"I can't believe I'm going to say this but, I think I know what you're supposed to do in a situation like this," he leaned back from his friend's shoulder, but kept his hands in his shirt where Benji was massaging them through his clothes to bring back warmth.
"What's that?"
"We need to use each other's body heat. Even you pushing my cold hands against your chest was like, much warmer than my clothes. Is that a fucking weird idea? I don't mean to be weird." He was clearly looking at this logically. Benji could see that.
"Yeah...I think that actually sounds smart. Okay...so...should we just strip down to our boxers then?" He decided after a moment.
"Yeah, and quickly...because It's gonna be cold as fuck when we open these blankets up," they quickly got to work taking their jackets, shirts, pants, and socks off. All they were wearing were their tight pairs of black and grey boxer briefs.
They climbed into the sleeping bags and drew down the zippers so that it created a cocoon of space, then they pulled both blankets over the top, followed by their jackets.
"Come here...fucking hold onto me," Gio told him, as their teeth clattered inside their mouths.
"Holy shit that sucked, I'm so cold now," Benji protested, as their naked limbs and chests and arms intertwined.
They were laying side-by-side and spooning the way two lovers might if they were making out, but they were literally just trying to get at each other's warmth.
