Terror in the Snowstorm

I was driving home from college for Christmas break. My sophomore year had been, so far, pretty boring. I had broken up with my girlfriend from freshman year shortly after summer break had begun, because I caught her cheating with her old high-school flame. I worked hard all summer, trying to save up enough money to pay some of my tuition and costs for my sophomore year, so I had pretty much had no life over the summer. When I had gotten back to campus at the end of August, I applied myself very hard to my studies, and really didn’t socialize much. I made no time in my schedule to pursue a campus romance, partially because I had been hurt so deeply by my experience the previous year. I had really only tried to approach one girl, a sophomore who came from the city only a few miles from my home town. She had pledged the snooty rich girl’s sorority. Tara was polite enough to me at first, until she found out that I had worked as a mechanic at a small garage in my home town for a year between high school and college to save enough money to go to college. She learned that I was the only son of a dirt-poor family, while her mother was chief of neurosurgery at a well-known research hospital and her father was senior partner in a powerful corporate law practice. Both parents came from old money, so Tara had been raised in the lap of luxury. Basically, she was a spoiled brat who never had, and probably never would, understand hard work and hard times. She was beautiful, 5’6”, blonde, slender, with what I guessed were C-cup tits, a tight little ass, and a come-fuck-me smile. She had initially seemed attracted to me, until she found out about my pedigree. Then she would only talk to me in the one class we shared. Another dream shattered.

It started to snow as I was packing for my hundred-mile trip home. I wasn’t really that worried, since I knew that my old rust-bucket Chevy 4X4 pickup was mechanically sound and I had mounted four good used snow tires on it before I had left for school in August. Even when the radio station I was listening to announced that the main highway I was planning to use for part of my trip had been closed due to a massive pile-up, I figured I would be OK, since I knew the back roads I could use to get home. I settled in for a long, slow drive.

After about an hour of crawling along in what was turning into near-blizzard conditions, I saw a car ahead of me. The emergency flashers were on. I quickly realized that the car had skidded off the road and had crashed into a large tree. There was a lot of front-end damage. I put on my own four-way flashers and parked behind it. I zipped up my insulated hunter coveralls and put on my warm hunting cap and got out of the truck. As I approached the car, a new BMW coupe, I could see the driver was still inside. I walked up to the driver’s window and knocked on it. The driver opened the window an inch or two. It was Tara.

“Seth! What are you doing here?”

“Driving home for the holidays, same as you,” I replied. “Are you OK?”

“Do I look OK, you fucking moron?” she spat back at me.

“Tara, don’t talk to me like that. I want to help you.”

“Wonderful,” she said, “use your finely honed mechanical skills to fix my damn car so I can get home!”

“Considering that the radiator is leaking, the airbags are blown, and you have pretty heavy front end damage, this car isn’t going anywhere without the help of a tow truck and a body and frame shop. I don’t know how you even got this far on those performance tires you have.”

“Daddy said it has all-wheel drive. It has all the latest driver aids, including a built-in GPS system. That’s how I knew the route through this god-forsaken wilderness when they closed the interstate. Oh, shit, Daddy’s going to kill me when he finds out I wrecked my car. I wish I still had my Cadillac Escalade that he and Mom gave me for a graduation present.”

Her and her damned money, I thought. “Tara,” I interrupted, “are you OK? Are you hurt?”

“My left hand hurts like a bitch. I think I sprained my thumb, and part of my hand burns like fire. I guess that’s from the airbag. The engine won’t start, the climate control is only blowing cold air, and I’m getting really cold. My cell doesn’t get any reception out here in the boonies. What am I going to do?”

“You’re going to come with me. I put a new radiator and heater core in my truck this summer, and it gets toasty in there in no time.”

“I’m not riding with you in that piece of shit. I’d rather wait here. You go home, and call my family, so Daddy can send out the gardener to get me. Oh, wait, do you actually have a telephone in your family shack?” she sneered.

“Tara,” I said. “At the beginning of the semester, when I first met you, I thought I could have real feelings for you. I’m actually glad you snubbed me when you found out I was not born with a silver spoon in my mouth. I’m embarrassed to admit that I didn’t see at first what a miserable, snobby little bitch you are. That being said, I still feel obligated to help you. Not because I’m the least bit attracted to you anymore, but simply because you are a fellow human. No amount of money is going to keep you from freezing to death if I leave you here, so you might as well gather your designer purse and get you blueblood ass in my truck so I can get you home before Mommy and Daddy have drunk all the vintage scotch and eaten all the caviar they probably have waiting for their little princess.”

“God, you’re insufferable! You don’t know anything about me. And you’re way too poor and ignorant to ever be able to comprehend how I live,” Tara hissed.

“Stop being a bitch and face reality, Tara! You’re going to suffer hypothermia and frostbite, if not worse, if you don’t come with me right now. Hell, I’m dressed for the weather and I’m getting cold out here. You must get out of that car and get in my truck now so I can get us out of here. There’s already a foot of snow and the wind is picking up. If we don’t leave soon, it’s going to be hard for my truck to get through the drifts. Then were both fucked!”

“Oh fine,” she sighed, sullenly. She tried to open her door. It unlatched, but it wouldn’t open. “Why can’t I get out of the car,” she asked, suddenly looking panicked.

I wiped snow off the seam between the fender and the door. “The fender’s crushed around the door, and it looks like you have enough frame damage on this side that we won’t be able to get the door open. You’ll have to get out the passenger’s side.” I walked around the back of the car to help to pull her out, only to find that the other door was wedged against a tree that was at least a foot in diameter. I went back to Tara’s window. “You’re not getting out that way, either. I have a crowbar in the truck. I’m going to get it and try to pry your door open. If that doesn’t work, I can break the windshield and you can crawl out that way.”

“Just be quick about it. I can’t stop shivering, and my feet are so cold they’re getting numb.”

At that moment, we heard a vehicle approaching from the other direction. It was an old Jeep wagon. When it got next to us, I could see that it had huge mud tires and a high suspension. The entire under-carriage was at least 18″ off the ground. This rig would be able to get through almost anything, I thought. The driver and his passenger got out. They were both huge. The driver looked to be about thirty-five years old, roughly 6’3″ and over 300 pounds. He had a beer belly, but still looked like he was mostly muscle. The passenger looked a little younger, but he was taller and could have been close to 400 pounds. They both looked like pro wrestlers who had degenerated into grizzled mountain men. They were dressed for the outdoors in old, ratty hunting gear. I didn’t like the look of them, and Tara seemed actually repulsed.

“Man,” the driver said, approaching Tara’s car. “Somebody really fucked up their purty little furrin car. Oh, pardon my French, little lady,” he laughed, showing his brown, broken teeth. “And pardon my manners. I’m Zeke, and this here’s my kid brother, Merle. I call him Ox, ‘cuz he’s that strong and that dumb. Ain’t you, Ox?”

“Fuck you, Zeke,” Ox growled.

“Aw, that’s no way to talk in front of a fine, pretty little lady. You apologize to her right now.”

Ox just stood there looking at the ground. Finally, he mumbled, “Sorry, missy.”

“That’s better,” Zeke said. “Looks like you kids need a little help. What’s your name, boy?” he said, addressing me.

“My name is Seth, and the young lady here is Tara.”

“Well, Miss Tara, you ain’t goin’ nowhere in that car on these here roads, even if you hadn’t gotten real friendly with that there tree. You’d best get out of that car.”

“I can’t,” she said. “The doors won’t open, but my friend had everything under control. He has tools in his truck to get me out, and then he’s going to drive me home.”

“Oh, missy, I don’t think that’s how it’s going to work out. The road the way you was going is blocked by a downed tree. This here old Jeep was able to crawl over it, but your boyfriend’s pick-up would never clear it. You’re just going to have to come to our cabin to warm up until this storm lets up. Ox, help this pretty young thing get her door open.”

Ox walked over to the car, grabbed the door handle and pulled. I could actually see the sheet metal of the door bow out as he pulled the handle. Suddenly the handle ripped out of the door, and Ox landed on his butt in the snow.

Zeke roared with laughter. “They don’t make ’em like they used to, do they? Ox, get off your stupid ass and grab the door frame.”

Ox did as he was told, wedging his huge hands into the space between the body of the car and the frame of the unlatched door. He started to pull on the door and, incredibly, it began to open. I couldn’t believe my eyes. This beast was actually bending the sheet metal that was crushed around the front edge of the door. The bent hinges were groaning, and the door was moving. I’ve seen rescue crews, using hydraulic jaws, struggle to do what this giant was doing with his hands. In only a few seconds, the door was open wide.

“Good boy, Ox,” Zeke said. “Now help the pretty little lady out of the car.”

“Don’t touch me,” Tara said, her voice trying to sound defiant, but seeming truly scared.

“Now, I don’t know nothin’ about the manners of the high and mighty,” Zeke said, but us simple folk would say thanks to someone who helped them out of a jam and would accept their hospitality.