Ice Cold

10

I DON’T KNOW HOW TO EXPLAIN IT,” SAID DOUG AS HE SCOOPED UP A shovelful of snow and flung it aside, clearing the space behind the Jeep so he could lay out the tire chains. “All I care about now is getting out of here.”

“Doesn’t it bother you just a little? That we don’t know what happened to these people?”

“Arlo, we have to focus.” Doug straightened, his face florid from exertion, and glanced up at the sky. “I want to be on that main road before it gets dark.”

They had all been shoveling, and now they paused to rest, their faces cloaked in the steam from their breath. Maura eyed the winding road out of the valley. There were deep drifts in their way, and even if they did make it up to where they’d abandoned the Suburban, they still had another thirty-mile drive down the mountain. Thirty miles during which they could get stranded again.

“We could also just stay right where we are,” said Maura.

“And wait around to be rescued?” Doug snorted. “That’s no way out. I refuse to sit back and be passive.”

“I’m supposed to fly back to Boston tonight. When I don’t show up, they’ll know something’s wrong. They’ll start searching for me.”

“You said no one knows you came with us.”

“The point is, they will be searching. We’ve got food and shelter right here. We can hold out as long as we need to. Why take the risk?”

His face flushed an even deeper shade of red. “Maura, it’s my fault that we got into this mess. Now I’m going to get us out. Just trust me.”

“I’m not saying I don’t trust you. I’m just pointing out the alternative to getting stuck on that road, where we may not find any shelter.”

“The alternative? That we sit here and wait for God knows how long?”

“At least we’re safe.”

“Are we?” It was Arlo who asked the question. “I mean, I’m just throwing this out there for you all to think about, since I’m the only one who seems to be bothered by it. But this place. This place…” He looked around at the deserted houses and shuddered. “Something bad happened here. Something that I’m not sure is over with. I vote for getting the hell out, as soon as we can.”

“So do I, Daddy,” said Grace.

“Elaine?” said Doug.

“Whatever you decide, Doug. I trust you.”

That’s how we got into this mess in the first place, thought Maura. We all trusted Doug. But she was the outsider, overruled four to one, and nothing she could say would change the balance. And perhaps they were right. There was something wrong about this place; she could feel it. Old echoes of evil that seemed to whisper in the wind.

Maura lifted her shovel again.

With all of them working together, it took only a few more minutes to clear enough space behind the Jeep. Doug dragged over the clanking tire chains and laid them out behind the rear wheels.

“Those look pretty banged up,” said Arlo, frowning at the rusted metal.

“This is all we’ve got,” said Doug.

“Some of those cross links are broken. Those chains may not make it.”

“They only have to hold out till we reach the gas station.” Doug climbed into the Jeep and turned the ignition. The engine started up at the first crank. “Okay, we’re good!” He grinned out the window. “Why don’t you ladies pack up some supplies? Whatever you think we might need on the road. Arlo and I will work on the chains.”

By the time Maura came out of the house with an armful of blankets, the chains were on, and Doug had the Jeep turned around and facing the road. Already it was past noon, and they scrambled to load in food and candles, shovels and the bolt cutter. When they finally all piled into the Jeep, they paused a moment in silence, as though simultaneously offering up prayers for success.

Doug took a breath and put the Jeep into gear. They began to roll, the chains clanking noisily against the chassis, and churned ahead through the snow.

“I think this is going to work,” murmured Doug. Maura heard a note of wonder in his voice, as if even he had doubted their chances. “God, I think this is actually going to work!”

They left behind the houses and began to climb out of the valley, retracing the route that they had scrambled down on foot a day earlier. Fresh snow had covered their footprints, and they could not be certain where the edges of the road might be, but the Jeep kept barreling ahead, steadily ascending. From the backseat came Arlo’s soft chant, one word repeated over and over.

Go. Go. Go.

Now Elaine and Grace joined in, their voices synchronized in time with the rhythm of the tire chains slapping the truck.

Go. Go. Go.

The chant was mixed with laughter now as they climbed ever higher, almost to the halfway point out of the valley. The road grew steeper, curving in hairpin turns, and they heard snow scraping the undercarriage.

Go. Go. Go.

Even Maura found herself murmuring the words now, not quite saying them aloud but thinking them. Daring to hope that yes, this was going to turn out fine. Yes, they would get out of this valley and roll down the main road, chains banging all the way, to Jackson. What a story they’d have to tell, just as Doug had promised them, a story that they could dine out on for years to come, about their adventure in a strange village called Kingdom Come.

Go. Go. Go…

Suddenly the Jeep lurched to a halt, snapping Maura forward against her seat belt. She glanced at Doug.

“Take it easy,” he said, and shifted into reverse. “We’ll just back up. Get a little running start.” He pressed the accelerator. The engine whined, but the Jeep didn’t budge.

“Is anyone getting a bad case of déjà vu?” said Arlo.

“Ah, but this time we have shovels!” Doug climbed out and looked at the front bumper. “We just hit a little deeper snow here. I think we can dig our way out of this drift. Come on, let’s do it.”

“I’m definitely feeling that déjà vu,” muttered Arlo as he climbed out and grabbed a shovel.

As they began to dig, Maura realized that their problem was worse than Doug had advertised. They had veered off the road, and neither of the rear tires was in contact with solid ground. They cleared the snow away from the front bumper, but even then the Jeep would not move, the front wheels spinning on icy pavement.

Doug climbed out of the driver’s seat again and stared in frustration at the suspended rear tires, girded in the rusting chains. “Maura, you take the wheel,” he said. “Arlo and I are going to push.”

“All the way back to Jackson?” said Arlo.

“You have a better idea?”

“If this is going to keep happening, we’re sure not going to make it by sundown.”

“So what do you want to do?”

“I’m just saying-”

“What, Arlo? You want us to go back to the house? Sit on our butts and wait for someone to rescue us?”

“Hey, man, take it easy.” Arlo gave a nervous laugh. “It’s not like I’m calling for a mutiny.”

“Maybe you should. Maybe you’d like to make the tough decisions, instead of always leaving it up to me to figure out everything.”

“I never asked you to take charge.”

“No, it happens by default. Funny how it always seems to work out this way. I make the hard choices and you stand back and tell me what I’m doing wrong.”

“Doug, come on.”

“Isn’t that how it usually goes?” Doug looked at Elaine. “Isn’t it?”

“Why are you asking her? You know what she’s going to say.”

“What’s that supposed to mean?” Elaine said.

“Whatever you say, Doug,” Arlo mimicked. “I’m with you, Doug.”

“Fuck you, Arlo,” she snapped.

“It’s Doug you’d rather be fucking!”

His outburst shocked them all into silence. They stared at one another as the wind swept the slope, pelleting their faces with blowing snow.

“I’ll steer,” Maura said quietly, and she climbed into the driver’s seat, glad to escape the battle. Whatever history these three friends had together, she was not a part of it. She was merely the accidental observer, witness to a psychodrama that had begun long before she joined them.

When Doug finally spoke, his voice was quiet and in control. “Arlo, let’s get behind this thing and push. Or we’ll never get out of here.”

The two men positioned themselves behind the Jeep, Arlo at the right rear bumper, Doug on the left. They were both grimly silent, as if Arlo’s outburst had never happened. But Maura had seen the effect on Elaine’s face, had watched it freeze in a mask of humiliation.

“Give it some juice, Maura,” Doug called out.

Maura put the Jeep into first gear and lightly pressed the accelerator. She heard the wheels whine, loose chain links clanging against the chassis. The Jeep inched forward, propelled by sheer muscle power as Doug and Arlo pitted their weight against the vehicle.

“Keep feeding it gas!” ordered Doug. “We’re moving.”

The Jeep rocked forward and rocked backward, gravity tugging it once again off the road’s edge.

“Don’t stop!” yelled Doug. “More gas!”

Maura caught a glimpse of Arlo’s face in her rearview mirror, bright red from exertion as he strained against the car.

She goosed the accelerator. Heard the engine roar, the chains banging faster against the wheel well. The Jeep gave a sharp jerk and suddenly there was a different sound. A dull thumping that she felt more than heard, as though the Jeep had hit a log.

Then came the shrieks.

“Stop the engine!” Elaine banged on her door. “Oh my God, stop it!”

Maura instantly shut off the motor.

The shrieks were coming from Grace. Shrill, piercing wails that did not sound human. Maura turned to look at her, but didn’t see why the girl was screaming. Grace stood at the side of the road, hands pressed to the sides of her face. Her eyelids were clenched shut, as though desperately blocking out something terrible.

Maura shoved open her door and scrambled out of the Jeep. Blood was splattered across the whiteness of snow in shockingly bright red ribbons.

“Hold him still!” Doug yelled. “Elaine, you’ve got to keep him still!”

Grace’s shrieks faded to a choked sob.

Maura ran back to the rear of the Jeep, where the ground was awash in more blood, steaming on the churned-up snow. She could not see the source of it, because Doug and Elaine blocked her view as they knelt near the right rear tire. Only when she leaned over Doug’s shoulder did she see Arlo, lying on his back, his jacket and trousers saturated. Elaine was holding down Arlo’s shoulders as Doug applied pressure to the exposed groin. Maura caught sight of Arlo’s left leg-what remained of it-and she reeled backward, nauseated.

“I need a tourniquet!” yelled Doug, struggling to keep his blood-slicked palms positioned over the femoral artery.

Maura quickly unbuckled her belt and yanked it free. Dropping to her knees in the bloody snow, she felt icy slush soak into her pants. Despite Doug’s pressure on the artery, a steady stream of red was seeping into the snow. She slipped her belt under the thigh and blood smeared her jacket sleeve, a startling stripe across white nylon. As she looped the belt, she felt Arlo trembling, his body rapidly sinking into shock. She yanked the tourniquet tight, and the stream of blood slowed to a trickle. Only then, with the bleeding controlled, did Doug release his grip on the artery. He rocked back to stare at the torn flesh and protruding bone, at a limb so twisted that the foot jutted in one direction, the knee in another.

“Arlo?” Elaine said. “Arlo?” She shook him, but he had fallen limp and unresponsive.

Doug felt Arlo’s neck. “He’s got a pulse. And he’s breathing. I think he just fainted.”

“Oh my God.” Elaine rose and stumbled away. They could hear her throwing up in the snow.

Doug looked down at his hands, and with a shudder he scooped up snow and frantically scrubbed away the blood. “The tire chain,” he muttered, rubbing snow against his skin, as though he could somehow purify himself of the horror. “One of the broken links must have snagged his pants. Wrapped his leg around the axle…” Doug rolled back on his knees and released a breath that was half sigh, half sob. “We’ll never get this Jeep out of here. The chain’s broken all to hell.”

“Doug, we have to get him back to the house.”

“The house?” Doug looked at her. “What he needs is a fucking OR!”

“He can’t stay out here in the cold. He’s in shock.” She rose to her feet and glanced around. Grace was huddled off by herself, her back turned to them. Elaine was crouched in the snow, as though too dizzy to stand straight. Neither of them would be any help.

“I’ll be right back,” said Maura. “Stay with him.”

“Where are you going?”

“I saw a sled in one of the garages. We can drag him back on that.” She left them and started running toward the village, her boots slipping and sliding in the ruts left by the Jeep’s ascent. It was a relief to leave behind the bloody snow and her shell-shocked companions, a relief to focus on a concrete task that required only speed and muscle. She dreaded what came after they moved Arlo back into the house, when they’d be forced to confront what was left of his leg, now little more than mutilated flesh and splintered bones.

The sled. Where did I see that sled?

She finally found it in the third garage, hanging on wall pegs alongside a ladder and an array of tools. Whoever lived here had kept an organized household, and as she pulled down the sled, she imagined him hammering in these pegs, suspending his tools high enough that young hands couldn’t reach them. The sled was made of birch and had no manufacturer’s label. Handmade, it had been crafted with care, the runners sanded smooth and freshly polished in readiness for winter. All this she registered in a glance. Adrenaline had sharpened her vision and made her reflexes hum like high-voltage wires. She scanned the garage for anything else she might need. She found ski poles and rope, a pocketknife and a roll of duct tape.

The sled was heavy, and dragging it up the steep road soon had her sweating. But better to labor like a draft horse than to kneel helplessly by your friend’s mangled body, agonizing over what to do next. She was panting now, struggling up the slippery road, wondering if Arlo would be alive when she got there. A stray thought slipped into her head, a thought that shocked her, but there it was nonetheless. A little voice whispering its cruel logic: He might be better off dead.

She yanked harder on the towline, pitting her weight against the drag of snow and gravity. Up the road she trudged, hands cramping around the rope as she curved up hairpin turns, past pine trees whose snow-heavy branches hid her view of the next stretch of road. Surely she should be there by now. Hadn’t she been climbing long enough? But the Jeep tire tracks still curved ahead, and she saw the shoe prints she’d left when she’d run down this same road a short time earlier.

A scream pierced the trees, a pain-racked shriek that ended in a sob. Not only was Arlo still alive, he was now awake.

She rounded the curve and there they were, exactly where she’d left them. Grace was huddled by herself, hands clasped over her ears against Arlo’s sobs. Elaine cringed back against the Jeep, hugging herself as though she were the one in pain. As Maura dragged the sled closer, Doug looked up with an expression of profound relief.

“Did you bring something to tie him to the sled?” he asked.

“I found rope and duct tape.” She positioned the sled beside Arlo, whose sobs had faded to whimpers.

“You take the hips,” said Doug. “I’ll move his shoulders.”

“We need to splint the leg first. That’s why I brought the ski poles.”

“Maura,” he said softly. “There’s nothing left to splint.”

“We have to keep it rigid. We can’t let it flop all the way down the mountain.”

He stared down at Arlo’s mutilated limb, but could not seem to move. He doesn’t want to touch it, she thought.

Neither did she.

They were both physicians, pathologists accustomed to slicing into torsos and sawing open skulls. But living flesh was different. It was warm and it bled and it transmitted pain. At the mere touch of her hand against his leg, Arlo began to scream again.

“Stop! Please don’t! Don’t!”

As Doug held down the struggling Arlo, she insulated the leg with folded blankets, cloaking shattered bones and torn ligaments and exposed flesh that was already turning purple in the cold. The limb now cocooned, she taped it to the two ski poles. By the time she’d finished splinting the leg, Arlo was reduced to quiet sobs, his face streaked with glistening trails of drool and mucus. He did not resist as they slid him sideways onto the sled and taped him in place. After the agonies they had put him through, his face had paled to the waxy yellow of impending shock.

Doug took the towrope, and they all started back into the valley.

Back toward Kingdom Come.