Page 59 of Snowed In

After what had happened… I just wanted to be left alone while I relearned how to live. After five years, that feeling hadn’t really gone away, even as I’d gotten comfortable with my prosthetic and my raging PTSD had dialed down. I like the quiet, though I do get lonely sometimes.

There are a few others on this side of the mountain I’ve gotten to know, but I’m not particularly close with any of them. I know them well enough to have a beer at the tavern, but that’s about it.

A few times a year, I’ll venture down the mountain to Stonewood Ridge, the closest town, but I usually regret it. It’s far from a bustling metropolis, but I can’t do crowds anymore, needing to know who’s nearby at all times.

Aunt Marie likes to tell me that living alone for so many years is turning me into an agoraphobe.

She might be right.

But I don’t have any plans to change or move.

Was the cabin supposed to be temporary? Sure, but I’ve adapted it to live in long term, and the boys and I get along just fine on our own. And since that fancy resort went up a couple of years ago and paid to have a fiber optic line run up, I’ve even got decent internet now.

Do I lie awake some nights, wishing for a warm body next to me? Someone to share responsibilities with. To spend evenings with my head on his lap while he reads and cards his fingers through my hair.

Maybe.

But adding another person to the mix—assuming I could convince them to move up into the mountains with me—would mean having to change my life all over again. And what happens when they get tired of it just being the two of us and some alpacas and take off?

I have a good thing going, really. I’m not looking to upend it because I get horny sometimes.

That’s what hands and Fleshlights are for.

I don’t know what has me so introspective tonight. Grimacing at myself, I heave a sigh. That’s a lie. With Christmas right around the corner, I’ve been thinking about my life and my parents and what they would have thought about the fact I never came back down from the cabin. Mom loved the holidays so much I know she’d be disappointed I don’t celebrate at all anymore.

The first year after they died, Aunt Marie tried to get me to visit her for Christmas, and I shut her down so hard she never brought it up again.

I stomp my boots on the front porch, trying to get as much snow off as I can. In a few weeks, I’ll stop questioning my life and go back to enjoying the peace and quiet.

Just as I wrap my fingers around the handle of my front door, I hear a loud crash not too far away, the metallic crunch tickling at the back of my mind. I whip my head around, searching in vain for the source.

That had to have been a car hitting a tree or something. Nothing else up here could make a sound like that. There aren’t any other houses for miles, the turnoff that leads back to my place not having a single other property on it.

Why the hell is someone out in this weather, and why are they near enough to my cabin that I could hear them crash? For a second, Itry to deny what I heard. Maybe it was a tree falling, the sound echoing oddly on the snow-covered landscape.

I know that’s bullshit though.

And I know I can’tnotcheck it out.

My place and the barn sit on a few acres of cleared land, but the rest of my property is trees and rocks and the road is narrow on the best of days. Which this is far from.

It’s not hard to imagine someone losing control or going too fast and hitting one of the huge pines covering the mountain at this elevation.

Grunting in annoyance, I head back in the direction of the barn but veer to the left before I reach it, using a button pad to open one of the stalls of my detached garage. Not knowing what I’m walking into, I grab a few tools and fire up my snowmobile.

Fingers crossed, whoever is out there simply took a wrong turn onto my road, and I’ll be able to get them on their way without issue.

I follow my driveaway around the edge of the clearing and then onto the road, keeping my eyes peeled behind my helmet’s shield for any signs of a disturbance. About a mile from my place, I spot it, the rear lights still lit up.

The front end is crunched against the trunk of a tree, smoke rising from under the hood, which is bent and popped halfway up. There isn’t any visible movement, no sounds of someone searching for help.

My heart rate speeds up, a cold sweat breaking out on the back of my neck and my face going numb.

This isn’t like that night.

This isn’t my parents’ car.

I pull up right next to the Accord and disembark, ripping my helmet off to see better. There aren’t any tracks to indicate someone’s left the scene. Whoever was driving—and any passengers with them—has to still be inside.

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