-The Road

The road rolled up and down before dad, and seemed to go on forever.  He had to stop often to catch his breath and get his bearings.  He didn’t feel overly tired at that point, but he didn’t want to push it.  If he could get to the main road, someone would see him sooner or later, even if he dropped dead when he got there.  Hopefully they would be able to tell from the condition of his corpse that something dreadful had happened nearby and at least go looking for that.  With any luck they would find the wreckage and the kids before they all froze. 

He only had to make it to the road.

He paused again in a trough between two small rises for a moment, and then began to climb once more.  As he reached the crest of the hill, he abruptly stopped again.  He was stunned to clearly see the octagonal glare of a stop sign glinting in the moonlight just at the bottom of the rise. 

The asphalt of the State Highway 81 appeared black before him as he stumbled down the small hill the 30 or so yards to get to it, like a man finding water in the desert.  When he reached it, he slowly wandered slightly dazed into the middle of it, looking up and down the long black and empty moonlit ribbon of road.  He stood in silence for a few second to consider it. 

To the south he could make out the lights of what appeared to be a small town in the far distance.  He had no way to know what town it was as he still wasn’t sure where the hell he was.  To the north, west and south, there were no obvious signs of life or activity.  If no one came along, he decided to make toward the town to the south.

Just then, as if on cue, he was spun around to look south again.  He heard again the familiar whooshing that suddenly emanated from that direction.  Over a far off rise in the road, a halo of light faded up brighter and brighter simultaneously with the rising pitch and intensity of the whoosh, until it’s source suddenly burst into view with a flash as the high beams of a big truck crested it, rushing straight toward him!

For the first time in the last fifteen hours, his cracked and puffy lips slowly curved upward into a smile.  Finally, they would be saved!  He lifted leaden arms and waved up and down at the still distant truck excitedly, stumbling desperately toward it.

“HEY!” he yelled as loud as he could, even though it hurt his side.  He was to overcome with joy.  If he could have he would have jumped up and down.  “HEEEEEY!”

The truck raced toward him, and he moved to stand in middle of the southbound lane where he was sure it would see him.  He could quickly tell it was a big 18 wheeler.  He continued to wave and the truck continued to come. 

Fast. 

Suddenly, the reality that it wasn’t stopping gripped dad.  Could the driver not see him?  He waved his arms over his head frantically and with all his might and screamed at it as loud as he could, but it wasn’t stopping.  He waited till the last possible second then dove off of the road as the massive truck careened by with a long blast of it’s horn, kicking frozen dust and rocks at him as it rumbled by without so much as a pause. 

Dad landed on his good side in the deep ditch beside the road, smacking the frozen trickle of water that was gathered at the bottom of it.  It quickly soaked his clothes. 

His head swam in a swirl of throbbing pain and angry amazement as he struggled to catch his breath.  He closed his eyes, and waited for something to happen. 

Slowly it did.  Focus began to return and the pain of the dive began to dissipate.  He forced himself to sit up disbelieving, and tried to catch his breath and make sense of what had just occurred, but was cut short. 

The whoosh of another big vehicle was approaching from the same place as the last, heading north.  Again its lights broke the crest of the hill and bore down on his spot.  He struggled to his feet and hauled himself out of the ditch and onto the asphalt, again waving and hollering with all of his might.

Again he was forced to dive into the icy bottom of the ditch a few moments later to writhe in pain on his back as the second truck rumbled by as if he were invisible.

What the hell? Dad thought, blinking at the starry sky above him utterly baffled.

Chris lay next to mom without making a sound or moving for a long time.

It wasn’t really a voice that shook him away from the edge of peace and caused him to open his eyes again.  It was more like an impulse.  Like a feeling. 

Don’t go to sleep, it softly nudged him. 

He lifted his head, and listened, only capturing the sound of the icy breeze.  He laid his head on frozen ground again, and again he felt it. 

Don’t go to sleep, my sweet boy… 

He could make it out clearly.  It rang through his mind, although its origins were as foreign to him as this field.  It spoke to him from somewhere deep within him, a place he couldn’t quite finger.

Go back, he felt.  It will be okay.  The kids need you.  Go back…

He looked at his mom again, and thought he understood.  She was still, but suddenly he felt like he could sense her around him.  Suddenly he realized that even in her death he knew what it was she would have wanted him to do.  It wasn’t to die out there next to her, either.  She would have never had that. 

It was to live.  It was as if she were in him and speaking to him, even in death.  He knew what he had to do.  He had to live – for her. 

He slowly worked his way to his feet, and looked down at her again.  He was taken that she looked as if she was at peace, too.  That was enough for him right then.  The thought that it would be that last time he would ever see her didn’t ever cross his mind.  If it had, he may not have left after all.

He turned and walked through the cold and dark toward the plane.  He never looked back, and he never saw her again.