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The mountainside was coated in snow. Outside of the low hum of the engine, the only sound was the whistling of the wind. Snow was quiet, peaceful, beautiful, but I couldn’t help feeling like it would become our enemy. It had been a long time since I detoured onto Route 33. There were other turns onto smaller roads that seemed to go on forever. I reached for my phone and tried to pull up GPS, but I didn’t have a signal.
“What kind of detour is this?” Kim asked. It was the first thing she’d said since we’d exchanged angry words almost an hour ago. “It feels like we’re never going to get back to the main road.”
The fear in Kim’s voice heightened my own anxiety. “I don’t know. I’m not used to this part of the state.”
“Roads are taken out of use all the time when the weather’s bad.” Tamar interjected. “Sometimes the trip back to the main road is long and winding.”
The anxiety that had risen in my gut was on overload and I couldn’t shake it. “I hate not having a signal out here. I’m tempted to turn around and go back.”
“It’ll be just as bad going back. We might as well push forward,” Tamar said.
I looked at Kim again. I hated to see her so uncomfortable, especially when I was the one driving. She was really struggling. I’d never let anything happen to her. She looked back at Tamar. I glimpsed Tamar’s reflection in the rearview mirror. Eyes closed and hand resting on her belly, she wasn’t suffering from the same angst as Kim and me. Although unfamiliar at the moment, this area was home to her.
I felt Kim’s hand on mine. I looked and she mouthed the words, “What’s wrong?”
I cut my eyes back to the road and then back to her before whispering, “No one else is on this road. We haven’t seen another car. If this is a detour, why aren’t people detoured with us?”
Kim released a long sigh and let my hand go. “There weren’t many cars on the main road.”
“True, but there were some.”
Tamar cleared her throat. “Most locals are in.”
“Smart of them. This is nearly a blizzard,” Kim said.
I shook my head. “It’s not a blizzard. It’s heavy snow.”
“Okay, okay. If heavy snow makes you feel better, I won’t call the blizzard a blizzard.” Kim sighed again.
We came to a part of the road that was in the mountains as evidenced by the steep incline. I braked and put the car in park. “I don’t trust this hill. These aren’t snow tires.”
“What are you going to do?” Tamar asked.
“Make you angry. I’m going back, and we’re going to find a hotel and try again tomorrow when this blows over.”
“But we’re almost there,” Tamar whined.
“I’m driving, and I don’t know where we are. I haven’t seen a detour sign in at least five miles. I must have taken a wrong turn.”
“You didn’t,” Kim said. I looked at her and our eyes connected. For some reason, her confirmation was important to me. I needed the reassurance that I hadn’t gotten us lost. “I was watching too. You followed the signs.”
Tamar pouted. “Do none of us have a signal?”
We all looked at our phones.
“There’s no OnStar?” Tamar asked.
I turned and cocked an eyebrow at her. “You know this is a rental.”
She shrugged and rubbed her belly.
There was no point in delaying the ride back. I’d made up my mind that we weren’t going up the incline. I put my hand on the gear shift.
“Wait,” Kim said, unfastening her belt. “I’m jumping in back. I need something out of my bag. She opened the car door and then the side door to the back and climbed in with Tamar. My coat came over the seat and landed where she’d been. I watched through the rear-view mirror as bottom up, she leaned across the seat. She turned around and seated herself. A smile covered her face as she waved a small bag of Jolly Ranchers in the air. “I need reinforcements.” Her beautiful smile brightened the vehicle and stopped my heart. She clicked herself into the seat belt and opened the bag.
“Does everyone have what they need?” I asked. I could only hear candy wrappers unravel from the rear. I put the van in reverse and turned it around.
“Are you sure we can’t keep going?” Tamar whined again.
“Sorry, Mrs. Pierce. I don’t know what’s ahead, but I do know what’s behind us so back we go.”
Kim offered us candy, which we both declined.
I drove about five hundred feet when the van hydroplaned a little. I slowed down from thirty to twenty miles. And then, suddenly a huge deer leaped from the wooded embankment onto the road and into the van’s path.
Reflexively, I hit the brake pedal. The van swerved and fishtailed wildly. Screams rose from the rear. I pumped the brakes – gradually, but the van slid to the right, downhill into the ditch. The sound of metal scraping, breaking branches, and brush bumping under the chassis stopped my heart.
“Jesus!” I had no idea who screamed.
I would have thought about him myself, but I was too busy remembering my words:
I know what’s behind us.
I swallowed every one of them as we plunged into a thicket of bushes.
