Maybe I’d left the party too late. Maybe I’d had too much to drink. Maybe I should have spent the night. Maybe I’m not as good a driver as I think I am.
These thoughts went through my head as I sat in my broken truck. It was still night and I could barely see a thing. The engine was dead; no power at all. I was stiff and sore all over. Dried blood masked my face, making it sticky. I’ve been here for a while, but how long I couldn’t say.
It was an accident – that much I knew. I’d hit a tree or a hydro pole or something. The truck was slanted, practically lying on its side. Probably in the ditch. The driver’s door was aimed at the sky, and the only thing holding me in place was my seatbelt. A creaking, moaning came from somewhere, but it was outside. Not important. I had to focus, figure this situation out. I tried the keys, but the engine wouldn’t start, which was a first since I’d owned the truck. Good old Dodge, reliable to a fault. A diesel, with large silver smoke stacks in the bed. It was badass looking, and never let me down. They don’t make them like this anymore.
Technically, I guess they didn’t make it like this to begin with. I’d jacked the truck up myself, put some sweet forty-inch tires on. But the previous owner had made some modifications as well, such as the smoke stacks.
I couldn’t see it, with the darkness being almost absolute now, but the steering wheel felt bent. I must’ve hit it pretty hard with my face. I had no airbags – or at least I did until I pulled the fuse. I switched it to something else that needed it, figuring I wasn’t using the airbags. I was going to replace them sooner or later but…whatever, too late now. I was probably lucky to be alive. The door wouldn’t open. It would budge, but with the awkward angle, and what little strength I had at the moment, I couldn’t shove it open more than a few inches – enough to let snow in. So I left it closed. Better to wait out the storm, which is what I should’ve done from the start.
I was at my friend Jeff’s place. He was having a party, and yeah, I was drinking. But I had my last beer before midnight and I left some time after one in the morning, so I should’ve been okay to drive. Jeff said I should stay the night, but I worked in the morning and wanted a shower. I’d driven through my share of blizzards and I knew these roads like the back of my hand. Besides, home wasn’t even that far away – twelve miles at most. I didn’t think it would end in disaster.
I’ve lived in Delta County most of my life and was used to the brutal winters, but this was the worst snow storm I’d ever seen. Wind like I’d never felt before; I had to fight just to get to my truck. The snow was so thick I could barely see ten feet in front of me. But in my arrogance I thought I could make it. I’d made the drive dozens of times before. It was actually going pretty well until the large hill. I took it slow, watching for the familiar landmarks that dotted my journey, never going above twenty-five miles an hour. No need to hurry; it might take a while to get there, but at least I would get there.
The moaning brought me back to the present. It wasn’t the wind; that was a separate, constant noise in the background. This was a low, almost heartbreaking sound. The sound of something dying. But I was still dizzy from the crash and perhaps my mind was playing tricks on me.
I suddenly noticed it was lighter outside. It took me a moment to understand that I must have nodded off for a couple hours. Good news I suppose, considering I woke again. Must mean I didn’t have a concussion, right?
Now that I could see better I took better stock of my surroundings. In the rear view mirror I found a crimson mask on my face. A matching brownish stain coated the steering wheel, like I’d imagined. My windshield was pretty severely cracked, and just outside I could barely see my hood, bent all out of shape. I think I cringed more at that than the sight of myself.
Beyond the truck, the snow hadn’t stopped falling, the blizzard was still orchestrating chaos, and the haunting creaking sound was still there. Worse: the snow had climbed halfway up my slanted windshield; the drifts were beginning to bury my truck.
I began to worry. My truck – a white truck – was already hard enough to spot in the winter. If the snow got any deeper no one would even know it was here, and that I was trapped inside. I would remain here in this tomb until the snow melted anyway.
Panic began to set in, and I began smashing my hands against the rear window. It didn’t have sliding glass – that would’ve been too easy – but it should shatter under enough pressure. A minute of punching only left me with sore fists, and there wasn’t enough room to kick at it. Instead I tried bracing my back against the dash and pushing with my legs. But all the straining hurt like a bitch, and didn’t get me anywhere. Perhaps too much snow on the outside was creating a wall. I tried again near the top of the truck, on the driver’s side, but between gravity and the steering wheel I couldn’t mount enough pressure; I kept sliding back down to the passenger seat.
My only hope was to exit though the driver’s door, so I began shoving it again. As before, it would only move a couple inches, letting in handfuls of snow each time I pushed it. I didn’t seem to be getting anywhere, but if I just kept at it…I mean, I had to try right, no matter how much it hurt? If I’d had manual instead of power windows I’d have been out of here a while ago.
Then a new noise entered the car: the sound of my phone. It should’ve been the first thing I thought about after waking up, calling 9-1-1 or something, but in my defence, I was just in an accident and had sustained some head trauma. Besides, it was nearly dead when I left the party and I figured it would have died by now. I was surprised it still had a little juice left. Now I just had to find it.
From the direction of the sound, it was somewhere under the seat on the passenger side of the car, which was resting against the ground. I removed my seatbelt and practically fell onto the door. A symphony of agony rang through my body, and as I struggled to right myself with as little pain as possible the ringing stopped. I crouched against the door and reached my hand under the seat. After scrounging around for a minute I pulled out my phone. It was showing a low battery warning, as well as a missed call from my girlfriend. I called her back.
“Jake,” she said, answering the phone. “Where are you? I thought you were coming home last night?”
“I’m sorry Lydia. But, look, first you have to know that I’m okay, okay? I’m not sure…” the phone made a noise. I pulled it away from my ear to see the phone turning off. “Shit!” I yelled, tossing it onto the nearly vertical dashboard. That was my only chance. Nobody knew I was out here, and now no one would be looking for me, since I’d told my girlfriend, the one person who would look for me, that I was fine. Now she won’t worry about me. She won’t call the police when I don’t come home. Of course, eventually she would, but for now I was on my own.
After a minute of silent contemplation, I knew I had to put together a plan. While I was injured, I wasn’t out of commission, but I was running out of time. I was going to die of exposure if I didn’t figure a way out of this.
I climbed back up to the driver’s side and began shoving the door again, but stopped after a minute. The creaking, moaning sound had reached a crescendo and was alarmingly loud. I began to seriously wonder what it was, and more importantly, where I was. Maybe I wasn’t in a ditch; maybe I was on a cliff. Maybe the creaking was my truck teetering on the edge, and my movement was –
Suddenly the roof hit me, and pain shot through my head. The sound of crunching metal and shattering glass invaded my ears. I fell back down to the passenger seat and looked up, woozy. The driver’s side of the truck had caved in. Was it a landslide? Did a tree or telephone pole fall on my truck? I hoped for the later, since that meant someone from the phone company would be around sooner or later to fix it. I just had to hang on until then. How long could it possibly take them? A few hours? I guess it depended on how many poles were felled in the blizzard. And they’d probably wait until the storm passed before attempting any repairs. All that, of course, was assuming it was a telephone pole that fell on me.
I suddenly grew very claustrophobic. If I couldn’t get out and nobody knew where I was…I was going to die in my truck, either of dehydration or exposure, or something. I was screwed.
I closed my eyes, forced myself to breathe normally. Deep breaths, inhale and exhale. Calm down and figure this out. Panicking wasn’t going to do me any good.
I sat there for a few minutes, and when I opened my eyes I saw a stream of light coming in from a tiny crack near the top of the windshield. Fuck! I kept drifting in and out of sleep. The few minutes my eyes were closed was actually much longer. Dawn had come, and I could see how much snow had fallen, and was probably still falling. From my position, lying against the passenger door, I could see around the dented roof the left-most side of the windshield, what would now be the topmost part of the truck. Snow was covering all but a couple of inches.
I was being buried alive.
My truck, deep in the ditch, was probably barely sticking out above the snow. People could be driving by right now with no idea I was trapped in here. Weeks from now, when the snow melted, they’d find my truck, find me inside, perfectly preserved, frozen.
I tried to stand but found it difficult, so stiff had I become. That’s when I realized I was covered in a light dusting of snow. When I was steady, I reached up and felt along the edge of the window where light was shining in and found snow was also getting inside. When the tree or whatever fell on my truck it must have split the windshield from the window frame. The gap where light was coming in was actually a hole. I wiggled my fingers through and felt a slight breeze.
Air, escape, freedom. This was my chance. I began prying my fingers along the edge, trying to widen the gap. I pushed and pulled them back and forth, working away at it. At first I ignored the feeling something wet run along my wrist, assuming it was just melting snow. But then when it dripped onto my face I saw it was red.
I pulled my hand back and found blood. With my fingers being numb, I didn’t even feel the cuts. Although that was bad news in the long run, meaning frostbite had set in, I could use it to my advantage for now. I sucked my fingers in my mouth, relishing the warmth of the blood, then put them back to the windshield, intending to be more careful. Soon, with snow spilling into the cab, I was able to squeeze my arm through. I pushed it as far as I could, and began trying to yank the windshield out. I felt the pain, but I had to suffer it, or remain in the truck and wait to die.
I don’t know what you know about vehicle windshields, but they’re not made to break. They don’t shatter. They crack and everything, but stay together, as if it’s made with glue or something. I couldn’t just pound my way out; I had to shove the glass as one piece. Despite the biting sting of both the cold and the glass, and the blood dribbling down my arm, running into my shirt and jacket, I had to keep going. I couldn’t give up now. Using the dented roof as a fulcrum, I levered my arm almost to the point of breaking, prying the glass open against the weight of the snow an inch at a time. I was shivering like crazy, but the adrenaline kept me going.
Soon there was enough room to squeeze through. Standing as tall as I could, using parts of the seat and dashboard, I tried to climb through the gap. It was slow-going and hard, with little to use for leverage. Much blood was spilt, but the closer I came to freedom the more desperate I got. I don’t remember most of the struggle, but I grabbed anything I could reach, shoved against anything my feet could find.
I remember the scraping of the jagged glass down my face. I remember grabbing fistfuls of snow, trying to find purchase. I remember the cold wind in my eyes, but not being able to feel it on my face. I remember pulling free of the wreckage and sinking into the snow, thinking it was going to be my grave. It was so cold.
***
Later I would learn that my truck was found the afternoon after I’d left the party. Once the blizzard died down a highway maintenance team had come along to remove a fallen tree lying dangerously close to the road. What they’d found was a bloody trail that led to my body. An emergency crew was called in to take care of me. They said it would be a miracle if I survived. This is what they’re telling me at my funeral.
Not that I believe any of it. I didn’t die out there, in the cold. I didn’t crawl from the wreckage and loose half my blood from gashes in my neck and wrists. Actually, I don’t think I escaped at all.
I believe I’m still in my truck. I believe that, despite the damage, my truck drove out of that ditch. I believe I’m still out there roaming up and down the highway. Maybe you’ll see me out there.
The Chris Effect 