I lie there, panting, the ice melting against my cheek.
Get up!
I crawl.
I dig my fingers into the snow, finding roots, finding rocks. I drag my body up the incline inch by inch. My breath comes in ragged gasps, steaming in the dark. My lungs burn as if inhaling glass shards.
My vision begins to tunnel. The darkness at the edges of my sight creeps inward. Hypothermia. The brain starves for oxygen, for warmth.
I hallucinate movement in the trees. Shadows looking like wolves. Voices in the wind.
Boyd.
It sounds like she’s right behind me.
I stop, whipping my head around, heart hammering.
Nothing. Just the trees and the snow.
“Iris.”
My voice drops to a ghost. A whisper failing to make it past my lips.
I keep moving, focusing on the mechanics of lifting my leg, planting my foot, shifting my weight, and dragging my body.
Lift. Plant. Shift. Drag.
It becomes a mantra. A rhythm drowning out the cold.
I lose track of time. It stretches, distorts. It feels like I’ve climbed this ridge for days. The night runs endless. The cold feels eternal.
Then I smell it.
Diesel. Coolant. The acrid stench of deployed airbags.
The scent strikes sharper than the pine, cutting through the numbness.
I stumble over the crest of the ridge.
I slide down into the clearing.
The F-250 lies on its side, wedged against a cluster of pines like a slain beast. The frame twists, the metal groaning as it settles in the cold. The headlights lie smashed, dead eyes staring into the dark. Steam still rises faintly from the shattered radiator in a ghostly plume.
It looks like a carcass. Picked clean. Broken.
I stumble toward it. My boots catch on the debris field, shattered glass, plastic molding, the contents of the cab scattered across the snow.
I reach the undercarriage.
The truck rests on the driver’s side. The passenger side sits exposed to the sky. The chassis forms a wall of mud-caked steel.
I lean against the tire, gasping for air. My head spins. I need to sit down. I need to shut my eyes.
No.
I force myself to move toward the rear axle.
I run my hand along the frame rail. The steel burns my skin; it’s so cold. My fingers search for the seam.
