Tic-Tac-Mistletoe - N.R. Walker Page 0,3
car on the damn road.
It took a few kilometres for my heart rate to return to non-cardio-infarction levels, and a few kilometres after that, I realised I was talking to myself. Telling myself I could do this, I was almost there, this was fine, Hamish. This didn’t look like some road out of a horror movie at all, and not even serial killers were stupid enough to be out in this stupid weather, and how far did I have to drive on this stupid road? Twenty-five kilometres, right? How far had I driven already?
I let the car come to a crawling stop and double-checked the map, then tried to make sense of what I could see outside my windscreen and the windows . . . but there was nothing. Just trees and so much fucking snow. The road was too narrow for my liking, and I was certain I’d taken the wrong turn somewhere.
I drove the car at a snail’s pace, looking for some kind of road sign or mailbox, something with a name or number on it at least.
But there was nothing.
I checked my phone.
Still nothing.
I don’t know how long I drove for. I was driving so slow, it was hard to tell. It felt like it took hours but maybe I’d gone just a few kilometres. Or maybe it was ten. And the road was getting harder and harder to see. The snow was making driving close to impossible.
Panic was bubbling up inside me, and now I was really trying not to cry. I was overwhelmed, tired as hell, and so stupid for thinking I could do this, and I was going to die out here, some kind of Australian human popsicle, frozen solid.
And I don’t know how it happened. One minute I was driving on the road, albeit a close-to-panicking mess. The next thing I knew, a corner came up too quick or the tyres didn’t stay on the road, or maybe it was the idiot driver who had never driven in snow before, but I was sliding off the road and down a slight embankment.
I think I screamed.
And once the sheer panic and the screaming was over, I realised the engine wasn’t going.
I tried the ignition again and . . . nothing.
Oh God, this isn’t happening. This isn’t happening. Just breathe, Hamish . . .
But this was happening! And I was stuck in some wall of snow with no engine, which meant no heating and the snow was still coming down and I could already feel the cold.
So I did the only thing a completely sane person could do. I thumped the horn while I wailed and screamed and lost my shit. “Such. A goddammed. Disaster. Hamish. You. Idiot.”
Then, after my screaming and horn-thumping meltdown was over, all those tears that had threatened to fall that I’ve talked about, well they just built right up in some Moses-worthy flood and spilled out of my eyes.
And so, because I promised myself I wouldn’t cry, I thumped the horn again in frustration. Then, once my little dramatic fit was over, I took some deep calming breaths and tried to think of what the bloody hell I was supposed to do now.
God, I was going to have to get out and walk. Were there bears in Montana? Oh my God, there were bears in Montana. I’d just had the worst twenty-four hours ever, my life was an on-going shitshow, I ran my car off the road in a freaking blizzard, and now I was going to end up a frozen human popsicle or mauled to death by a bear two days before Christmas.
Then something big and dark and remarkably bear-shaped tapped on my driver’s window and scared the ever-loving shite out of me so bad, I let out a high-pitched scream of terror, and I swear to God, I almost peed a little.
Chapter Two
Reynold Brooks
“Are you sure?” Mrs Barton asked me for perhaps the fifth time today.
“Yes, more than sure.”
“I just worry about you being alone for the holidays, is all. And you know we’ll have enough food at our place to feed an army. The house will be filled to the rafters, but what’s one more? It really would be no problem.”
Mrs Peggy Barton had worked three days a week at Hartbridge Hardware for thirty-four years. She was sixty now, with a brood of grandkids she adored, and she really was the sweetest woman I’d ever known. But I knew she wasn’t kidding when she said her house