He scowled. “A what?”
“Go and see,” I said, motioning to the window. He looked at me and then got up and went to the window.
“What the fuck.”
“It was just meant to be rain but it turned into a blizzard. Missy said their flight had to be rerouted and everything. If we don’t leave, we’re stuck.” His jaw worked as he thought.
“You drove here, right?”
“Yeah.”
“Your sedan won’t make it in this storm but the car I drove might. We have to leave, now.”
I nodded and got up. This was not the start of my first luxury vacation that I envisioned. Far from it.
5
Toby
I go to sleep for a couple of hours and what happens? The goddamn apocalypse. I looked out the window at the damage. The trees were already covered in snow and looking down at the ground, it looked like the kind of cover you got in an entire night, not just a couple hours.
My stuff was downstairs so I hurried down, getting my shoes on. Maggie followed, coming down the stairs behind me. What had she done since I went upstairs? Why the hell did I go upstairs? Why didn’t I get here, see that she was here, and immediately leave? If I had, we wouldn’t be in this situation. I hadn’t heard anything about bad weather on the way here. Depending on how long it had been snowing and the severity, I could probably make it down the mountain.
Downstairs, I flung the front door open but stopped in my tracks. It was practically white-out outside. The wind was howling, and the snow was coming down like rocks from the sky. How long had I been asleep? It couldn’t have been more than two or three hours, and had the weather conditions change this much?
I ran down the porch stairs to the car. There was a thick sheet of snow over it. I raked it off the windshield with my arms. I tried to do some calculations in my head. Vail was about forty-five minutes away. Forty-five minutes in this kind of weather, trying to navigate windy, narrow mountain roads. That was just a long and painful way to die in the worst-case scenario and this weather wasn’t going to give us any better most likely. I wanted to at least try. What was the alternative though? Getting stuck up here indefinitely with Maggie.
It was like trying to figure out what I would rather do more, die here from a lack of supplies, or die trying to get down the mountain. Besides, it wasn't just me up here. The only thing that was worse than failing was not trying at all.
I got the car open and tried to motion to Maggie to come up, but she couldn't see me from the porch, just a few yards away, the snowfall was that thick. I ran back up to the porch and we came back to the SUV together.
She got in, wrestling our bags into the back seat. I started the engine. I had dealt with bad snowfall before, but never anything like this. I didn't tend to be nervous behind the wheel, even though I didn't drive that much being in New York. These were extraordinary circumstances and had nothing to do with how well I could drive. I could barely even see the end of the driveway that would lead us out onto the road.
The windshield wipers squeaked back and forth loudly. Snow crunched under the wheels of the SUV.
“Are you sure you can do it?”
“Maggie, no offense but I don't need commentary right now,” I snapped. I’d apologize later for being so short with her. It just wasn’t the time. I wasn’t sure the car or I could make it down off the mountain. The snow falling on the windshield might as well have been hitting me in the face.
It was freezing but I could feel sweat pouring down my neck and my back. I got the car to the end of the driveway and turned onto the road. Right then, the wheels hit some wet snow and the car ricocheted one hundred and eighty degrees. Maggie squealed, gripping the handle on the door.
Nope, that was it. We were done. I started the engine up again and began crawling back up the driveway towards the cabin.
“Wait, what are you doing?” Maggie asked.
“Did you see the road coming up here on your drive? It’s hard enough to navigate under normal circumstances. I'm not going to try and do it blind. The snowfall is too heavy and it's coming down too hard. It's dangerous. I can barely see the road and the snow is only getting higher.”
“If we wait, the way things are going it's probably only going to get worse.”
That might have been true, but we weren't talking about navigating our way down the mountain successfully anymore, we were talking about general survival. Were we more likely to survive a night or two up here or were we more likely to survive trying to get down that road under these conditions? As if that wasn’t enough, my brand new challenge was convincing Maggie.
“Look, we have a better chance of getting down in one piece if we wait for the worst of it to be over. A lot of it will probably melt off tomorrow and visibility will be a hundred times better.”
“If you don't want to drive, just say it, I'll do it.” Jesus Christ, why was she turning this into an argument? Did she think I wanted to be up here? Initially, sure, before there was a fucking blizzard that meant we were going to be stuck. She was acting like this was my fault. No offense but she was dead last on the list of people I wanted to spend any amount of time with, especially out here with no escape.
“Look, at this point, it wouldn't matter who is driving, me or you. We’d h
ave to move so slow that we would probably run out of gas before we got to where we needed to be. Would you rather be stuck somewhere out on that road, or here where we at least have food and heat?”