Ice Cold

5

WE MUST HAVE TAKEN A WRONG TURN,” SAID ARLO.

The snow was swirling thicker than ever, and in between swipes of the windshield wipers, the glass instantly clouded over in a thick lattice of flakes. They’d been winding steadily up the mountain for nearly an hour now, and the road had long since vanished under an ever-deepening carpet of white. Doug drove with neck craned forward, straining to make out what lay ahead.

“Are you sure this is the right way?” said Arlo.

“Lola said so.”

“Lola is a disembodied voice in a box.”

“I programmed her for the most direct route. This is it.”

“But is it the fastest route?”

“Hey, do you want to drive?”

“Whoa, man. I’m just asking.”

Elaine said, “We haven’t seen another car since we turned onto this road. Not since that weirdo gas station. Why isn’t anyone else here?”

“Do you have a map?” asked Maura.

“I think there’s one in the glove compartment,” said Doug. “It came with the rental car. But the GPS says we’re right where we should be.”

“Yeah. In the middle of nowhere,” muttered Arlo.

Maura pulled out the map and unfolded it. It took her a moment to orient herself to the unfamiliar geography. “I don’t see this road on here,” she said.

“You sure you know where we are?”

“It’s not here.”

Doug snatched the map from her hands and propped it up on the steering wheel as he drove.

“Hey, a helpful suggestion from the backseat?” called Arlo. “How about keeping your eyes on the road?”

Doug shoved the map aside. “Piece of junk. It’s not detailed enough.”

“Maybe Lola’s wrong,” said Maura. God, now I’m calling the gadget by that stupid name.

“She’s more up to date than that map,” said Doug.

“This could be a seasonal road. Or a private road.”

“It didn’t say private when we turned onto it.”

“You know, I think we should turn around,” said Arlo. “Seriously, man.”

“It’s thirty miles back to the fork. Do you want to make it there by lunch or not?”

“Dad?” Grace called from the back of the Suburban. “What’s going on?”

“Nothing, honey. We’re just having a discussion about which road to take.”

“You mean you don’t know?”

Doug heaved out a frustrated sigh. “I do know, and we’re okay! We’re fine! If everyone would just cool it, we can start having a good time.”

“Let’s turn around, Doug,” said Arlo. “This road is getting seriously scary.”

“Okay,” said Doug, “I guess it’s time for a vote. Everyone?”

“I vote we turn around,” said Arlo.

“Elaine?”

“I think the driver should decide,” she said. “I’ll go with whatever you want, Doug.”

“Thank you, Elaine.” Doug glanced at Maura. “How do you vote?”

There was more to that question than what it seemed. She could see it in his eye, a look that said Back me up. Believe in me. A look that made her remember what he’d been like two decades ago as a college student, carefree and hang-loose in his faded aloha shirt. No worries, be happy. That was Douglas, the man who could survive falls off rooftops and broken legs without ever losing his optimism. He was asking her to trust him now, and she wanted to.

But she couldn’t ignore her own instincts.

“I think we should turn around,” she said, and her answer seemed to wound him as deeply as an insult.

“All right.” He sighed. “I recognize a mutiny when I see one. When I find the right spot, we’ll turn around. And retrace the thirty miles we just drove.”

“I was on your side, Doug,” said Elaine. “Don’t forget that.”

“Here, this looks wide enough.”

“Wait,” said Maura. She was about to add: That could be a ditch there, but Doug was already turning the wheel, sending the Suburban into a wide U-turn. Suddenly the snow collapsed beneath their right tire and the Suburban lurched sideways, sending Maura slamming against her door.

“Jesus!” yelled Arlo. “What the hell are you doing?”

They had jolted to a standstill, the Suburban tilted almost onto its side.

“Shit. Shit, shit!” said Doug. He floored the accelerator and the engine screamed, tires spinning in the snow. He shifted to reverse and tried to back up. The vehicle moved a few inches, then shuddered to a halt, the tires spinning again.

“Try rocking it back and forth,” suggested Arlo.

“That’s what I’m trying to do!” Doug shifted to the lowest gear and tried to roll forward. The wheels whined, but they didn’t move.

“Daddy?” Grace’s voice was thin with panic.

“It’s okay, honey. Everything’s going to be okay.”

“What’re we gonna do?” Grace wailed.

“We’re gonna call for help, that’s what. Get a tow truck to pull us out, and we’ll be on our way.” Doug reached for his cell phone. “We may miss lunch, but what the heck, it’s all an adventure. You’ll have something to talk about when you get back to school.” He paused, frowning at his phone. “Is anyone getting a signal?”

“You mean you’re not?” said Elaine.

“Could you all just check?”

Maura pulled her cell phone out of her purse. “I’ve got no bars.”

“No signal here, either,” said Elaine.

Arlo added: “Ditto.”

“Grace?” Doug twisted around to look at his daughter.

She shook her head and whimpered: “Are we stuck here?”

“Let’s all just relax. We can work this out.” Doug took a deep breath. “If we can’t call for help, we’ll have to get ourselves out of this. We’ll push the sucker back onto the road.” Doug shifted into neutral. “Okay, everyone out. We can do it.”

Maura’s door was jammed tight against the snow, and she could not exit from her side. She crawled over the gearshift, into the driver’s seat, and Doug helped her climb out through his door. She landed in calf-deep snow. Only then, standing beside the tipped vehicle, did she grasp the scope of their predicament. The Suburban had tumbled off the shoulder into a deep ditch. The wheels on the right were buried up to the chassis. The wheels on the left weren’t even touching pavement. There is no way we’ll push this monster out.

“We can do this,” said Doug with a burst of enthusiasm. “Come on, folks. Let’s work together.”

“And do what, exactly?” said Arlo. “You need a tow truck to pull that sucker out of there.”

“Well, I’m willing to give it a try,” said Elaine.

“You’re not the one with the bad back.”

“Stop whining, Arlo. Let’s pitch in.”

“Thank you, Elaine,” said Doug. He reached into his pocket for his gloves. “Grace, you get in the driver’s seat. You’ll need to steer it.”

“I don’t know how to drive!”

“You only have to steer it onto the road, sweetie.”

“Can’t someone else do it?”

“You’re the smallest one here, and the rest of us need to push. Come on, I’ll help you climb up.”

Grace looked terrified, but she clambered up into the driver’s seat.

“Good girl,” said Doug. He waded down into the ditch, landing hip-deep in snow, and planted his gloved hands against the rear of the vehicle. “Well?” he asked, looking up at the other adults.

Elaine was the first to scramble into the ditch beside him. Maura followed next, and snow seeped up her pant legs and into her boots. Her gloves were still somewhere in the car, so she placed bare hands against steel so icy that it seemed to burn her skin.

“I’m gonna throw my back out,” said Arlo.

“You have a choice,” said Elaine. “It’s that or freeze to death. Will you get down here?”

Arlo took his time pulling on gloves and a wool cap. Laboriously he wound a scarf around his neck. Only then, fully garbed against the cold, did he wade down into the ditch.

“Okay, all together,” said Doug. “Push!”

Maura threw her weight against the Suburban, and her boots slid backward in the snow. She could hear Arlo grunting beside her, could feel the vehicle begin to rock forward.

“Steer, Gracie!” yelled Doug. “Turn left!”

The front end of the Suburban began to inch upward, toward the road. They kept pushing, Maura straining so hard now that her arms were trembling and her hamstrings ached. She closed her eyes, her breath locked in her throat, every ounce of effort focused on moving three tons of steel. She felt her heels slide. Suddenly the Suburban was sliding, too, rolling back against them.

“Watch out!” yelled Arlo.

Maura stumbled sideways just as the vehicle rolled backward and toppled onto its side in the ditch.

“Jesus!” yelled Arlo. “We could’ve been crushed!”

“Daddy! Daddy, I’m stuck in the seat belt!”

Doug scrambled up onto the vehicle. “Hold on, honey. I’ll get you out.” He pulled open the door and reached inside to haul out Grace. She dropped, gasping, into the snow.

“Oh man, we are so fucked,” said Arlo.

They all climbed out of the ditch and stood on the road, staring at the Suburban. It was now lying on its side, half buried in the snow.

Arlo gave a laugh tinged with hysteria. “One thing’s for sure. We’re going to miss lunch.”

“Let’s think about this,” said Doug.

“What’s to think about? There’s no way we’ll get that tank out.” Arlo tugged his scarf tighter. “And it’s freezing out here.”

“How much farther is the lodge?” asked Maura.

“According to Lola, it’s another twenty-five miles,” said Doug.

“It’s been almost thirty miles since we left the gas station.”

“Yeah. We’re about smack dab in the middle.”

“Wow,” said Arlo. “We couldn’t have planned it better.”

“Arlo,” said Elaine, “shut up.”

“But the thirty miles we just drove is mostly downhill from here,” said Doug. “That makes it easier.”

Arlo stared at him. “We’re gonna walk thirty miles in a snowstorm?”

“No. You’re going to stay here with the women. You can all climb back in the truck and stay warm. I’ll pull my cross-country skis off the roof and ski out for help.”

“It’s too late,” said Maura.

“I can do it.”

“It’s already noon. You have only a few hours of daylight, and you can’t ski in the dark. You could fall right off the mountain.”

“She’s right,” said Elaine. “You’d need a whole day, maybe two, to make it that far. And the snow’s so deep, it’ll slow you down.”

“I got us into this. I’m going to get us out.”

“Don’t be an idiot. Stay with us, Doug.”

But he was already wading back into the ditch to pull his skis off the roof rack.

“Man, I’ll never say anything bad about meat sticks again,” muttered Arlo. “I should’ve bought a few. At least it’d be protein.”

“You can’t go, Doug,” said Elaine. “Not this late in the day.”

“I’ll stop when it gets dark. Build a snow cave or something.”

“Do you know how to build a snow cave?”

“How hard can it be?”

“You’re going to freeze to death out there.”

“Daddy, don’t.” Grace stumbled down into the ditch and grabbed his arm, pulling him away from the skis. “Please.”

Doug looked up at the adults standing in the road, and his voice rose to a shout of frustration. “I’m trying to fix things, okay? Don’t you see that? I’m trying to get us out of here, and you’re not making it any easier for me!”

His outburst startled them and they all fell silent, shivering in the cold. The seriousness of their predicament was starting to sink in. We could die out here.

“Someone’s going to come by, right?” said Elaine, glancing at her companions for reassurance. “I mean, this is a public road, so there’ll be a snowplow or something. We can’t be the only ones driving on it.”

“Have you seen anyone?” said Arlo.

“It’s not that far off the beaten track.”

“Look at the snow. It’s already a foot and a half deep and getting deeper. If they were going to plow it, they would have done it by now.”

“What are you saying?”

“This must be a seasonal road,” said Arlo. “That’s why it isn’t on the map. That damn GPS sent us on the shortest route, all right-straight over a mountain.”

“Eventually someone’s going to come by here.”

“Yeah. In the spring. You remember that story a few years ago, about the family in Oregon who got stuck in the snow? They thought they were on a major road and ended up in the middle of nowhere. No one went looking for them. A week later, the man decides to walk out to save his family. And he freezes to death.”

“Shut up, Arlo,” said Doug. “You’re scaring Grace.”

“He’s scaring me,” said Elaine.

“Elaine, I’m just trying to impress upon you that this is not something Dougie here can just blithely fix for us,” said Arlo.

“I know that,” said Elaine. “You think I don’t know that?”

Wind gusted across the road, sending snowflakes whirling into their faces. Maura blinked against the sting. When she opened her eyes again, everyone was standing in exactly the same place, as though paralyzed by the cold, by despair. As a fresh gust blasted them, she turned to shield her face. Only then did she see the fleck of green, vivid against the relentless background of white.

She started toward it, wading up the road through snow that sucked at her boots, miring her in its grip.

“Maura, where are you going?” said Doug.

She kept walking, even as Doug continued to call out to her. As she moved closer, she saw that the patch of green was a sign, its face half obscured by clinging snow. She brushed away the flakes.

PRIVATE ROAD

RESIDENTS ONLY

AREA PATROLLED

So much snow had fallen that she could not see any pavement, only a narrow alley that cut into the trees and twisted away through the heavy screen of woods. A chain was draped across the entrance, the metal links encrusted in white fluff. “There’s a road here!” she called out. As the others trudged toward her, she pointed at the sign. “It says residents only. That means there must be houses down this road.”

“The chain’s up,” said Arlo. “I doubt anyone’s there.”

“But there’ll be shelter. Right now, that’s all we need.”

Doug gave a laugh and threw his arms around Maura, crushing her against his down jacket. “I knew it was a good idea to bring you along! Sharp eyes, Dr. Isles! We would have missed this road completely.”

As he released her, Maura noticed Elaine staring at them, and it unsettled her because it was not a friendly look. Suddenly it was gone, and Elaine turned back to the Suburban. “Let’s get our things out of the car,” she said.

They didn’t know how far they would have to carry their belongings, so Doug suggested they take only what they needed for the night. Maura left her suitcase behind and grabbed her purse and a tote bag, which she filled with toiletries and an extra sweater.

“Elaine, you’re not really going to bring your suitcase,” said Arlo.

“It’s just my carry-on. It has my jewelry and cosmetics.”

“We’re in the frigging wilderness.”

“It’s got other stuff, too.”

“What stuff?”

“Other. Stuff.” She started toward the private road, her roll-aboard plowing a trench in the snow behind her.

“I guess I’ll have to carry that for you,” Arlo said with a sigh, and he took the suitcase from her.

“Everyone got what they need?” called out Doug.

“Wait,” said Maura. “We need to leave a note in case someone finds the Suburban.” She pulled a pen and notepad from her purse and wrote: Stranded, please call for help. We’re down the private road. She laid it in full view on the dashboard and shut the door. “Okay,” she said, pulling on her gloves. “I’m ready.”

They clambered over the chain and started down the road, Arlo huffing and puffing as he dragged Elaine’s roll-aboard suitcase behind him.

“When we get back home, Doug,” Arlo panted, “you owe me a major dinner. I’m talking major. Veuve Clicquot. Caviar. And a steak the size of Los Angeles.”

“Stop it,” said Elaine. “You’re making us hungry.”

“You’re not already hungry?”

“It doesn’t help to talk about it.”

“It doesn’t go away if we don’t talk about it.” Arlo trudged slowly, the suitcase scraping across the snow. “And now we’re going to miss dinner, too.”

“There’s bound to be some food down there,” said Doug. “Even if you close up your house for the winter, you usually leave stuff behind in the pantry. Peanut butter. Or macaroni.”

“Now, this is desperation. When macaroni starts to sound good.”

“It’s an adventure, guys. Think of it as jumping out of a plane and trusting in the fates to get you safely on the ground.”

“I’m not like you, Doug,” said Arlo. “I don’t jump out of planes.”

“You don’t know what you’ve missed.”

“Lunch.”

Every step was hard labor. Despite the dropping temperature, Maura was sweating inside her ski parka. Her throat ached with each searing breath of cold air. Too tired to break a path through fresh snow, she fell into step behind Doug, letting him plow the path first, planting her feet in the craters left behind by his boots. It was now a matter of stoically marching ahead, left-right-left, ignoring her sore muscles, the ache in her chest, the sodden hem of her pants.

As they slogged up a slight rise, Maura had her gaze focused downward on the trail of broken snow. When Doug suddenly halted, she almost bumped into him.

“Hey, everyone!” Doug called back to the others. “We’re going to be okay!”

Maura moved beside him and stared down into a valley, at the rooftops of a dozen houses. No smoke curled up from any of the chimneys; the road leading down was covered in unbroken snow.

“I don’t see any signs of life,” she said.

“We may have to break into one of those buildings. But at least we’ll have a place to stay tonight. It looks like maybe a two-mile walk down, so we’ll make it before dark.”

“Hey, look,” said Arlo. “There’s another sign here.” He slogged farther down the road and brushed snow off the surface.

“What does it say?” asked Elaine.

For a moment Arlo was silent, staring at the sign as though it were written in a language he could not understand. “Now I know what that old man in the gas station meant,” he said.

“What are you talking about?”

“It’s the name of that village down there.” Arlo moved aside, and Maura saw the words on the sign.

KINGDOM COME