Laughing, he kneels down next to the car and rests his arm on the inside of my open car door as if we are just hanging out having a chit chat instead of sitting on the side of the road—in a blizzard—in a ditch. I’m sure he’s insane.
“So... What are you doing way out here?” he asks casually.
“My car is stuck! Hello?” What is with this idiot?
“Yeah, uh... I can see that. I meant, where were you headed before you got yourself stuck in this ditch?”
“To the Falls Inn.”
“The Falls Inn?” he repeats and lets out another laugh. “Baby, you ain’t anywhere near the Falls fucking Inn. It’s about fifty miles away. I guess if your car had kept going about fifty miles through the woods, you might have landed there. Is that what you were trying to do?”
Damn GPS! I should never have relied on that useless device. My situation is starting to feel worse by the minute. Where the hell am I and how am I going to get to my meeting? Or home for that matter. I can’t even call my boss and tell him I’m delayed or call Michael to come get me.
“—and it’s about a few miles up the road.” Oh. Sasquatch has been talking to me during the conversation inside my head.
“I’m sorry, what did you say?” I ask him. Snow is accumulating on the brim of his hat. Almost a quarter inch it seems. That can’t be good.
“I said I have a cabin a few miles up the road. We can go there and wait the storm out. My truck is parked on the road. I pulled over when I saw you spin out and crash. You almost hit me, ya know.”
Oh, hell no! The old ‘cabin in the woods’ story. I wonder how many psychos have used that line. It seems to be the basis of many a horror movie or creepy novel.
I shake my head. “I don’t think so, but thank you for the offer.” Yes, be polite and maybe he will go away without killing me and leaving my body bloody and beaten in the snow on the side of this mountain.
“Well, I can’t fuckin’ leave you here. This snowstorm is supposed to go on for almost the entire weekend. They’re expecting almost two feet of snow or more. You could freeze or starve to death out here. I’m not going to hurt you.”
“Oh, so murdering psychopaths announce their intentions to their victims now?” I lower my voice to a mock man’s psycho voice. “Excuse me, miss, but I shall commence killing you now. Please, remain in the vehicle until I have reached the designated killing area.”
He lets out a deep laugh and a long sigh.
“You’re cute... but I’m not a psycho. I’m just the moron who was driving behind you when you lost control of your car. And, I might add, you should be grateful I’m even here. Not many people drive this road.”
Terrific! Backwoods road that no one ever uses! The murder scene could not be planned out any better.
I stand my ground. “I’m not going anywhere with you, so you can just get yourself out of my doorway.”
He lights up a cigarette and takes a few long drags before responding to me. “Look, I’m not leaving you here. I don’t know if its cuz you hit your head, or if you’re just mentally unstable, or what... but I sure as shit am not leaving you here in a blizzard, no matter how annoying you are. So, stop being unreasonable. A friend of mine owns an auto repair shop in town. I’ll call him when we get to the cabin and have him tow your car out of here when the storm is over.
I know Sasquatch is right. I can’t stay in the car and just wait for someone to find me or hope I might get more than zero bars on my cell phone. I can either stay here and surely die or go with him and hope he isn’t some deranged killer on the loose.