Rough draft--please don't quote or repost. Thanks!
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The road stretched out before him,
lined by fence posts that stuck out of the snow like sentries standing at
attention as he passed. He had
encountered no other vehicles in the five miles he’d already come. Adam realized that the term “country road”
used by the patrolman hardly described the isolation.
A mile or so further on, he passed
a farmhouse, set well back from the road, and the tracks he had been following
turned in at the driveway. Lights
gleamed from the windows, penetrating the snow-engendered gloom, and a string
of glowing Christmas lights hanging from the eaves gave Adam a wistful feeling.
He’d lay odds that Christmas was going
on inside that house. A real
Christmas. He hadn’t seen what he
considered a real Christmas in a long time.
Of course, Tiffany would have been glad to spend Christmas with
him. As a matter of fact, she would have
been insistent on it, he thought wryly. He felt fairly confident that
high-fashioned, high-powered Tiffany wouldn’t know what a real Christmas was if
it bit her. Not a home-cooked meal
surrounded by family. Adam thought
Christmas to her would probably mean some party with friends where she could
show off her latest outfit and give and receive expensive gifts.
Movement caught the corner of his
eye. Instinctively, Adam slammed on his
brakes. He caught a flashing glimpse of
brown fur and antlers before his Mustang slid off the road and hit an
embankment. The deer he had almost hit scrambled up the opposite embankment and
jumped the fence, disappearing into the driving snow. He sat for a moment, stunned. What was a deer doing out in the middle of a
snowstorm? Didn’t they hole up somewhere
during the day?
The Mustang’s engine still
ran. He pressed on the accelerator, and
the back wheels spun in the snow. He
moved a couple of feet along the ditch, but the car could find no purchase to
pull itself out. Muttering under his
breath, Adam opened the car door and stepped out into the snow. The wind immediately took his breath, and the
snow, far deeper than his shoes, clutched at his unprotected ankles with icy
fingers. The wind found every gap in his
clothing, piercing like little knives. He
waded the snow, moving around the car, looking for some way to get it out of
the ditch. A quick check in the trunk
revealed exactly zero help. He
registered a resolve never to leave home again without sand or cat litter, and
definitely packing overshoes when the forecast called for snow.
Adam slammed the trunk lid and slid
back into the car. He fumbled for his
cell phone, fingers shaking with the cold, and dialed information. Nothing but silence met his ear. He brought the phone away from his ear and
looked at the screen. The words “no
service” caused him to stare in disbelief.
“Really?” he said to the universe
at large.