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"Ugh! I can not believe it is this cold, Jake," My sister, Erica said again, disgusted.
We were driving home from an impromptu family gathering. My Aunt wanted us all to stay the night at her house, but Erica had to study for an exam coming up on Monday, and I wanted to have a day to rest up and just be lazy before I had to return to work. It was already late on Saturday night when we left and with the current weather conditions, the three-hour drive would probably take us more like five hours. Mom and Dad agreed to stay the night and said they would head for home in the morning. Erica and I agreed that we would take my car and make the trip tonight.
Snow began to softly fall as we pulled out of the driveway. Our Aunt, Jenny, had suggested that we bypass the interstate and take a shortcut down the canyon. It wasn't that much of a shortcut, but it would save us sixty miles and we could jump on the interstate at the bottom.
Several things should have happened before we took off for the waiting canyon: First, and most importantly, we should have stayed the night. Second, we should have packed some blankets. Third, we should not have taken the shortcut. Then again, mine and Erica's relationship would not have...grown...in such a way had we not taken the shortcut.
As soon as we got in the car Erica started talking about how nice it was to see everybody again, then quickly transitioned into talking about school and what she was studying and what she had to get done before classes started again on Monday. It was an engaging conversation and I was quickly drawn in. Erica was just easy to talk with, she always had been. She was always so animated and usually excited about almost everything, even her upcoming exam which I couldn't understand. She was just confident about that, I suppose.
Before leaving our Aunt's house, Erica had changed into a worn set of sweatpants and a matching faded purple hoodie with the words "Super Star" screened onto the front in huge, feminine lettering. The sweatpants had the same thing screened across the ass. It was her favorite "comfy" outfit. For the long ride home, I couldn't blame her; the more comfortable we both were the better. Erica was prone to wearing form-fitting clothes that didn't expose too much skin. I couldn't remember a time when she wore a shirt that exposed her belly. Her shoulder-length, raven-black hair bounced and swayed as she talked and accented her elf-like features incredibly well. She had a slender, button nose and large green eyes, combined with a wide mouth; thin upper lip and full lower lip. In the soft glow of the radio and dash lights, she looked incredibly sexy and below her twenty-one years of age. She kicked her shoes off onto the floor and was now sitting on the bench seat with her feet tucked under her, Indian-style, her green and pink striped stocking feet peeping out from the knot of her legs.
I had let the car run for fifteen minutes to allow the heater to warm up the cab while we said our goodbyes. Both Erica and I stuffed our luggage, coats, and outerwear, into the trunk so as to be more comfortable for the ride. For my own attire, I chose a ratty old set of sweatpants, gray not pink, and a worn-out blue hoodie that zipped up the front.
My car was an old steel box. A 1979 Pontiac Bonneville and while it was large and comfortable and powerful, being a rear wheel drive vehicle, it sometimes got squirrely on the ice. I knew I'd have to pay attention to the road conditions on the way down the canyon.
As the lights from the house receded and we turned on the paved road south down the dark canyon, I quickly noticed that the light snow falling had not begun to stick on the pavement yet. On the outer shoulders, it had started to collect but not in the traffic lanes. So far it was just melting there.
Erica reached down in front of her to the plastic bag on the floorboard and pulled out a bag of pretzels to munch on as she was telling me how one of the men in her phlebotomy class passed out when two vials of blood were removed from his body via an intravenous catheter. All very interesting.
We had made our way down the canyon about half-way when I let my attention from the road slip to glance at her as she was talking. As my luck would have it, it was the wrong time to do such a thing. She looked back at me as I made a witty comment about the big, strong man that passed out in her phlebotomy class, smiling that sweet smile of hers. As I turned my gaze back towards the road ahead a large cow elk bounced into the roadway from the inclining hill to the right, directly in front of the car. My reaction was a reflex, something beyond my control. Many times when things like that happen, we don't have time to think and our brain just takes over. Call it animal instinct or self-preservation if you want.
My foot came off the accelerator all on its own and slammed down on the brake pedal. The result was that the ass end of the vehicle quickly overtook the front end as we spun down the middle of the roadway. We had not passed another vehicle since we started down and there were no other vehicles in the roadway now. I heard Erica scream as we spun wildly in a counter-clockwise direction.
I had time enough to glance at her again and register the terrified look on her beautiful face before we tore through the four-foot snow embankment on the left side of the road after crossing the other traffic lane. The car sailed at a steep down-grade along the slope of the mountain for a hundred yards before it slammed to a stop. We were both heaved against our restraints. Erica's breath came out of her with a sudden "Oomph" and I blurted out "Aww, FUCK!"
The engine of the car rattled to a stop, death throes, you might say, and then there was silence. The car must have hit a tree on my side as we were tilting that way, maybe a five percent grade.
"Are you okay?" I asked Erica.
"I think so," she said, checking herself. "What the fuck happened?"
"Goddamn elk happened. Jumped right in front of the car. Didn't you see it?"
"Uh-uh." She said simply. She seemed to be out of sorts a little.
I checked myself for injuries and decided other than maybe a bruised clavicle from the seatbelt that I was otherwise fine. I removed my seat belt and attempted to open my door to assess the situation. It wouldn't budge. I turned and looked at all the windows. They were all blocked out by white. We were covered in snow. Having all of the windows covered in white gave off a strange luminescence throughout the cab. I tried the engine again but it wouldn't turn over at all, not even a click. The battery was likely dislodged and disconnected when we hit. Not good. If we couldn't' start the engine we couldn't get heat. If we couldn't get heat we were probably going to freeze to death.
Fortunately, the car was old enough that it had the old-fashioned roller windows that you had to expel energy to open instead of relying on power. When I gave the handle a crank, however, the window came down about two inches and stopped. I tried to force it but it wouldn't move. Something serious had happened to my side of the car. I knew that Erica's window was broken. The cable that ran everything in there had snapped more than a year ago. I had torn the door apart and installed a screw into the window rail so that the window would stay up. That one wasn't coming down.
"Try to open your door," I told Erica.
When she undid her seatbelt she slid down the bench seat into my side.
"Oomph," I said.
"Shit! I should have expected that. Sorry."
