"Shut the hell up, Mother!" yelled Donna.
It was bad enough listening to her teenage son in the back complaining, but now her mother was bitching as well. She knew she was lost, but they weren't helping the situation.
"Well that's no way to speak to your mother," Helen replied, irritated. "I told you that was the wrong turn back there."
Donna ignored her. They had been driving for over three hours now and hadn't seen any sign of life for at least two miles. It was supposed to be a nice weekend at a mountain resort, but she must have taken the wrong turn or the map was wrong. They were now driving down a desolate, narrow road, with a steep drop by the left-hand lane. Donna drove as far to the right as the road would allow. To make matters worse, it was a bleak day with thick cloud cover and a heavy fog lingering in the distance.
"Oh God," moaned Donna, as dread gripped her like a vice.
Donna had hoped that this trip would give her a nice break from work, and allow her to spend some quality time with her mother and son. Donna had always shared a close relationship with her son and mother.
After all, Mikey and Helen were all the family Donna had left now. Donna's husband had run off with another woman some ten years ago, leaving her to bring up Mikey on her own. This had installed in her a natural disliking for men, and she had been single ever since. She had also been celibate for the past ten years. It had been hard, frustrating at times, but these past six months had been unbearable. She yearned more than anything for a man to sweep her off her feet and fuck her senseless. God, she missed sex so much. Her sex toys were her one saving grace, but even they were losing their appeal. Besides, with work taking up all her time, she had no time to form any meaningful relationships. Now thirty-seven, she was almost resigned to the fact that she'd be single forever.
Donna's mother Helen was a sixty-one-year-old widower. Her husband had died eight years ago. But, unlike Donna, Helen had an insatiable sexual appetite if rumours were to be believed. She had entertained many a man since the untimely demise of her husband – most notably quite a few beaus from her salsa dancing classes. In that respect, Donna was the mirror opposite of her mother. Donna had never broached the subject with her mother, but it was obvious she was a real floozy around town.
Then there was Mikey – her biggest worry of all. He was a strange boy, to say the least. He found socialising with women difficult. Now eighteen, he had scarcely even spoken to a girl, much less slept with one. He was an eighteen-year-old virgin, but with a sexual appetite verging on insatiable. As you can imagine, this caused problems at home. Recently, he had refused to wear clothes around the house. This caused Donna some embarrassment to begin with, but she was now becoming accustomed to it. Every now and then he would turn his desires towards his mother, sometimes trying to sneak a peek at her in the shower or when she was sleeping nude. He was one frisky young man and a strange boy to boot, but Donna had learned to live with his quirks. She just hoped he would find a girlfriend someday, and not drift into a life of sex crime and debauchery.
Donna glanced in the rear-view mirror at her son Mikey. He had his headphones on, listening to music on his Walkman, completely oblivious to the perilous situation that they were in. Donna stole a peek at her mother in the passenger side. Her face wore an expression of happy surprise as she watched the approaching fog in the distance.
"Wow, look at that fog," beamed Helen in the passenger seat. "Oh, isn't it beautiful?"
"Not for me," replied Donna. "I've gotta drive through it."
The fog started to blow past the windscreen. Then, like something from a horror movie, the whole body of whiteness engulfed them.
"I need to pull over!" screamed Donna.
Through the thick white mass, Donna could barley make out the front of the car. She stepped on the brakes, praying that another car wasn't behind them. The wheels crunched gravel. Then the front of the car plunged down.
An instant before the sudden halt threw Donna into the steering wheel she managed to cover her face with her arms to cushion the blow. Her mother folded at the hips, her forehead hitting the soft dashboard, leaving a red mark across her forehead. Mikey was in back frantically screaming, "What happened? What happened?" over and over.
"Okay," said Donna in a voice as cheerful as she could muster. "Let's check for injuries."
Helen checked herself out. "Just a slight bang on the head for me," she said, relieved.
Donna was fine, but Mikey had a red welt across his stomach where the seatbelt had chaffed. There was a slight chill in the air, so Donna turned on the heater. Then they were silent for a while, all in shock, lost in deep thought, all hoping, preying, that someone would come to their rescue before the heating packed up. They had nose-dived into a ditch, so the back end of the car was sticking out and visible from the road. Any passers by would see them and, hopefully, come to their aid. They just had to wait it out a little while. Donna could have cried. She was hoping this break would be a good bonding experience for the three all them. But it was all going wrong.
It was some thirty minutes later when Donna first saw the man in the rear-view mirror. He was hunched over the back of the car, shaking his head slowly as he looked in at her. His beady eyes, his crooked nose, his toothless mouth, all seemed too small, as if they belonged to someone half his size.
A gloved fist knocked on the rear window.
"Mum," gasped Mikey, startled.
"It's okay, honey," sighed Donna. "Thank God, it's someone here to help us."
Helen and Donna managed to get out of the car and let Mikey out from the back. With the car nose-down in a ditch, Mikey was high in the air, but his mother managed to grab his hips and help him down. Mikey was a small lad and not too heavy. They were then faced with the task of climbing out the ditch. The fog-wet grassy covering of the slope was muddy and slippery.
The strange man grabbed a rope from his four-seated flatbed tow-truck, tied one end to his tow bar and threw the other end into the ditch. "Grab a hold of that and climb on out," he shouted.
They were grabbing each other to steady themselves and swearing, loosing their footing and falling over, and, by the time they had made it out, they were all covered from head to foot in mud. Covered in dirt and breathing heavy, all three sat on he grass verge peering through the fog. It was obvious now why they had crashed. The road had curved left without them, and they had nose-dived into a ditch.
The stranger left them to their thoughts for a moment as he untied the rope and threw it back in his truck. They sat at the embankment watching him. He was just a dark shape in the fog. They noticed he was limping. As he approached them, the figure became distinct. He was in his fifties, with a baldhead, real ugly looking with pockmarks on his face. His body was large with a huge beer gut, and his 6 and a half-foot frame was limping and hunched over as if bearing an unseen weight.
"Looks like you had some bad luck, there," the old man said in a gruff, gravelly voice.
Donna noticed he had on an old ragged shirt and overalls covered in engine oil and grease.
"Please, we just need to get to a phone," replied Donna with a tremor in her voice. She was wet and covered from head to foot in mud. The frigid air was biting into her body, chilling her to the bone. "Could you give us a ride to the nearest town?"
"Nah, I'm not going that way," replied the callous old man. "I live just up road, right out in the sticks, nowhere near town." He hocked up a loogie and spat it on the floor.
"Can't we use the phone at your house?" pleaded Donna.
"Ain't no phones at my place, sweetheart. Don't care for the damn things. Work of the devil, if you ask me."
Donna glared at him, furious. "You gotta help us. We'll either freeze or starve to death out here!"
The old man thought for a moment, biting into his bottom lip. "Yeah, I guess you're right. It could be days, possibly weeks, before another car drives through here. Plus the nearest town's 20 miles away. In these temperatures and with those wet clothes, you'll die of hypothermia before you reach town. So, okay, I guess I'll help you out. We'll swing by my house first and then I'll drive you into town."
"Oh thank god!" she cried with relief. "Here, take some money for fuel." Donna reached in her pocket for her purse.
Just as she handed him some money, he said, "You and the old lady here are gonna have take off your clothes before you get into my truck – all of them."
Donna was fuming. "What the hell did you just say?"
"Listen, lady. You're wet and covered in mud. You ain't getting that shit all over my back seat." He turned to Mikey. "What's your name, son?"
