Rise of the Neanders

The snow was falling thick and heavy.  Blanketing everything with a solid sheet of white and obscuring my field of vision so badly that I could not see anything further than five feet away. Driving along in my Spirit I started panicking for the first time. At any moment I expected to ram into the back of another car. I looked in my rear view mirror to see if there were any cars beside me, but I didn't see anything so I flipped on my blinker and started to change lanes. Just then a horn blared at me and I quickly swerved back into my own lane. The sudden jerk however, caused me to lose the tenuous control that I had held over the car and I started fish tailing. I took my foot off of the gas and concentrated in holding my steering wheel tight. When I finally got the car back under my control again I looked up just in time to see the brake lights go on of the car directly in front of me. I slammed on my brakes but I just kept on sliding and a sinking feeling landed very hard in the pit of my stomach. I took my foot off of the brake pedal and started pumping it over and over again, hoping desperately that the wheels would catch some pavement under the snow. At the very last second they actually did dig through the snow to the pavement and got a good grip and I stopped with about two inches left between our cars.
        I let out the breath that I had been holding and felt my heart go racing a thousand miles an hour. That was too close, I muttered as I sat there waiting for those lights in front of me to move. If anything it looked like the snow was coming down harder than before.  I sat waiting for about a half hour and the lights in front of me had not moved.  I could barely see them now. My windshield wipers barely kept up with all the snow that was falling on the windshield, and there was already about a foot of snow piled upon the hood of my car. I decided to get out and go see why this car in front of me had not moved for so long. I opened my door and immediately a big pile of snow fell into my lap from the top of the car.  I opened the door the rest of the way and brushed all the snow off on to the ground outside. 
As I stood up and looked around the full force of the wind hit me almost knocking me off of my feet and filling my face instantly with blinding snow.  The wind blowing in my face was so cold that I could feel it burning my lungs as I breathed.  Instantly my face and my ears were stinging with the cold.  Better make this quick, I thought to myself as I started walking towards the car in front of me, or I will freeze to death before I get back to my car. As I walked the snow came half way up to my knees and filled my shoes.  The snow was blowing right into my face and was collecting on my eyelashes faster than I could blink it away.  I was totally unprepared for this weather. 
I came to the car and knocked on the window, then impulsively brushed the snow off the top of the doorjamb remembering what had happened to me a moment earlier. The window started rolling down and a woman's face appeared. Her red hair made her paste white face stand out startling even in the
halflight this snow was producing.
"Do you know what is going on?  Why aren't we moving?"  I asked her.
She immediately nodded her head. "I just heard on the radio that there was a big accident a little ways ahead of us. There are supposed to be about fifty cars involved," she definitely looked a little worried, "they're saying that there is an expected delay of several hours at least. I'm worried that if we sit here that long our cars will get buried under all this snow."
"Fifty cars" I exclaimed, "this is horrible, my wife was expecting me home about twenty minutes ago. I think I will walk up there a little ways and see what's going on. I can't just sit in my car and wait that long."
"Well the radio announcement said that the police were asking everyone in this traffic jam to stay in their cars until they get it cleared up", she said.
"Sorry, I can't just sit here and wait while my car gets buried in the snow.  I'll go see what I can find out.  Maybe I can do something to help."  She looked dubious about my proposed rebellion but didn't say anything so I walked forward to the next car and told the couple in there what was going on. They thanked me but didn't look very concerned yet. Of course they had each other to talk to and keep company.
As I walked forward my feet started getting really cold and the wetness from the melting snow that had slipped into my shoes was starting to freeze again leaving my feet colder then they had been before.  I was seriously questioning whether it was the wisest course for me to continue. Up ahead I could vaguely make out flashing lights from an emergency vehicle that was headed straight for me. I stepped off the road for a minute to let it pass and sank down in the snow to my knees. This was getting worse and worse every minute. As I came back on to the road I slipped and nearly fell.  Gathering myself together I took another step and fell flat on my back when my feet came flying out from under me. Getting up I realized that the whole road was covered with black ice. Now thoroughly wet from falling in the snow I came to the first police car.
The officer looked at me and said, "can I help you, sir?"
"I heard there was a big pile up and I came to see how bad it was", I told him.
"You heard right and it's about as bad as it can get. You can probably tell just from walking on this road how slippery it is."  He looked grim and upset. "Would you please go back to your car and wait until we have this mess cleared away". Without waiting to hear my response he turned his back on me and walked away. Feeling cold and miserable I turned around and, being careful not to slip again, started walking back to my car. I had gotten a glimpse of some of the wreckage and I knew that it would be a long time before I got out of this mess. As I approached the car that had stopped directly in front of mine I saw the lady stick her head out of the window. 
"Any news?" she called.
I shook my head and replied, "nothing that you didn't already tell me. It's a real mess up there. Just walking up there I slipped twice and fell once.  I think we can just be thankful that we weren't involved in that mess up there".  As I got back into my car I noticed that the snow on the hood was now about halfway up the windshield. If it kept snowing like this our cars really were going to be buried. I started the ignition and as I sat there shivering waiting for the car to warm up I thought back to what had happened this morning that had put me into this mess.

        "Good morning Caitlin", I said sleepily coming down the hall from the bedroom and seeing her there in the kitchen feeding the baby, "I overslept so I'm in a hurry this morning. Did you have a chance to pack a lunch for me?" She glared at me and said, "When would I have had time to pack you a
lunch? I've been with Jayden ever since I got up. He does need to be fed and have his diaper changed". Even upset like this I would have to say that my wife was the most beautiful woman in the world. Her almond brown hair framed an oval face that accentuated by stunningly blue eyes. She had a presence
about her that was noticeable from the moment you walked in to the room and it made her five foot four seem like a lot more. I knew I was in trouble from the way she bit off the end of each word. 
Carefully I said, "Caitlin, are you still mad about last night?" She looked at me and didn't bother to reply. "Look, we've been through this a hundred times in the past few weeks, why now do you suddenly decide to get upset about it?"
"Because, it may not be that big of a deal to you, but it is to me. Your cousin owes you close to two thousand dollars and you haven't even tried to get it back.  We really need that money. I don't care what you do, but you have to get that money.  We're already behind on our bills as it is, and this is not helping."
I suddenly felt very tired.  "Come on Caitlin, I have tried repeatedly to get some money from Allen, but if he doesn't have the money then there is nothing that I can do.  My hands are tied just like his are and putting pressure on him will just make matters worse for all of us."
I couldn't believe I was getting pulled into this argument again. We had gone through all this many times and this morning was not a good morning. "I'll tell you what, if it will make you feel better I will drive down to his house tonight after work and talk to him about the money and see if I can arrange some kind of deal. Will that make you happy?"  She looked mollified, a little, "the only way I'll be happy is when we get all of our money that is owed to us by him and your brother and you get a job somewhere else." 
I could understand why she was upset, I had been experiencing some anxiety lately myself due to my cousin Allen Clark. I had gone to work for him about five months earlier when he had moved out here with his family to start a branch of his computer store. We had been friends since we were little and had always had a dream of working together. This had been our big chance.  The store had thrived for the first couple of months and we were doing so good that my younger brother came to work with us, because we had more work than we could handle. Then a couple of months ago things started going wrong at the store. We weren't getting very many orders and we were getting way behind on all our bills. No matter what we tried it seemed like things were always turning out wrong. Checks started bouncing and we were getting deeper and deeper in the hole. Then one day we came to work and our phones were turned off and we didn't have the two thousand dollars to get them turned back on. The next day we were served with a notice saying we had three days to get the rent paid or we would be thrown out of the store.  With all this going on our salaries got behind by over a month. Then one day I was talking to Allen and he asked me to go get a job somewhere else temporarily. Now it had been almost a month and still no money from Allen. I knew why my wife was starting to get edgy. That money was going to get us out of our basement apartment and into a house. We had been saving for a while and were about two thousand short of the money we needed for a down payment on a house we had both fell in love with, and if we didn't get the money soon we were going to lose the house to another buyer.
As I walked out to my car to go to work I noticed a few snowflakes were starting to come down, and it was cold enough that they weren't going to melt when they hit the ground. I could already tell that it was going to be a miserable day. All day I tried to call Allen, but I could never get a hold of him at work or at home.  I knew from working with him that when he didn't want to talk to somebody, and he usually didn't want to talk to anybody that he owed a lot of money to, that he was very good at ignoring the phone, so I decided that I would just have to go to his house and hope that he would be there. I was late getting away from work so I had high hopes that he would be home, but when I got to his house there was no one there. I got back in my car and waited for almost an hour but they never showed up. At last, I gave up and decided to go home.  By this time it was snowing hard and heavy. I heard on the radio that the freeways were packed and moving at a snail space, so I decided to take a longer route on a side street.  When I got off of the highway I knew instantly that I had made a bad mistake.  The street was unplowed and was full of snow.  I prepared to stop at the first stoplight and when I put on my brakes nothing happened and I kept sliding.  Fortunately for me there were no cars going through the light from the other way or I would have been smashed because I finally came to a stop three quarters of the way through the intersection.  I immediately pushed the gas to get through the intersection and all I did was spin for a minute.  My tires finally got to the pavement underneath the ice and snow and I started moving again.  I had only been on this road for about five minutes when I was stopped by the accident. 

The only thing that I could do was to sit in my car and wait until things started clearing up and we could get moving.  I had just over a half tank of gas and figured that if I needed to I could sit out most of the night with warmth in my car.  I turned the radio to the local am news station to see it there was anything more being reported about the accident.  Fortunately, the local news agencies were all over it.  They had decided to devote all their air time to cover this accident.  I initially learned that about ten people had been reported as dead so far and the news was still coming in.  After the initial news they started repeating things over, saying the same thing in different words. 
A very irritating habit that journalists had I felt was that they always had to rehash everything until everybody was sick of hearing about it.  I soon turned the station again to listen to some music. 
I was thinking of how mad Caitlin was going to be that I was home so late.  She had little patience with me lately and we were fighting a lot more. This kind of thing was just what she needed to start another argument with me.
It was starting to get very dark outside now and I couldn't see anything outside.  I felt very isolated and alone.  The car was warm however and I wasn't too worried yet.  As I sat there in the warmth my eyes started trying to shut on their own.  I didn't figure that I would be going anywhere for a long time so I gave in to the insistent pull of sleep and dozed off.  I was awakened by someone tapping on my window and a very bright light shining in my eyes.  I didn't remember where I was and wondered what was going on.  Then it all came back to me as I felt a sharp pain in my neck.  The light moved away from my eyes and I saw a figure through the window.  He had brushed the snow off of the window so I rolled it down.  It was the policeman that I had talked to earlier.
"Are you ok?" he asked.
"Yes," I replied, "I just dozed off for a while.  What is happening with the accident?"  I looked to see if the car in front of me was still there, but I couldn't see anything because the windshield was covered with snow. 
"We have most of it cleared up and traffic has started moving."  He reached up and brushed a section of snow off of my windshield and I could see that the snow had died down to a light sprinkling and there were no cars in front of me.
"Thank you for waking me up" I said and then noticed that the clock said 3:07 and that my gas tank was almost down to empty.  "I heard on the radio that there were about ten fatalities.  Is that true?"
He shook his head and said, "No that's not true.  There are 41 dead so far with about twenty people unaccounted for so far."  I could just stare at him feeling horrified and shocked. 
"Well is there anything that I can do to help," I asked. 
He started to shake his head again, then, apparently thinking the better of it he replied, "Well if you really want to help there are some stranded people that were involved in the accident and they could really use a place to stay for the rest of the night, what's left of it.  There is one couple and they are from another state and traveling through.  I realize that they could stay in a motel, but after the trauma that they just went through this might be a better solution."
I thought about it for a minute and then asked him, "do you have a phone in your car that I could use to call my wife and prepare her for this?"  He nodded and smiled. He must have been married.
"I'm sure that they'll be grateful for this.  Their car is totaled and is probably not going to get pulled out of the wreckage until tomorrow night." 
"All right, where do I need to go to pick them up?" He gave me directions and I drove on and soon came to the place where they were waiting.  He had described them to me so I was able to find them again pretty easily.  They were sitting in a police car so they could stay warm.  When I walked up to them the lady was asleep on the guy's shoulder and he was struggling to stay awake himself.  The baby was in a car seat on the far side and was sleeping as well.  I shook the guy's shoulder and he snapped awake and looked at me.
"Are you Jim and Shandra?" I asked him.  He just continued to look at me like it was taking him a few minutes to remember where he was and what had happened to him.  Finally I could see remembrance dawn in his eyes when he looked forward and saw the computer and shotgun in the front of the police car. 
"Yes," he said, "do you need something?"
"My name is Jack and a police officer just told me that you were involved in the pileup and that your car was totaled.  I wanted to offer you a place to stay until you can make arrangements.  I don't have much but we have an extra bedroom that you are welcome to." His look of thankfulness was all the answer that I needed.  I opened the front door of the police car and saw the phone there.  I had to dial home twice before Caitlin was finally able to get to the phone.
"Hello"
"Hi Caitlin," I started.
"Where are you?  Are you ok?  Do you know what time it is?  You didn't get into an accident did you?"  All her questions came out in a rush and I could tell that she had not been asleep yet worrying over what had happened to me. 
"I'm ok Caitlin," I said "I haven't been in an accident.  But I was right behind a big one and was caught in a traffic jam and haven't been able to get out or get to a phone and call you."
"Oh, I'm so glad that you're ok.  I've been worried sick about you all night.  My mom and dad are here and we have called the police."  she started crying and I felt terrible.  I am a very sensitive person and I hate to see or hear women cry and Caitlin was sobbing.
"I'm fine Caitlin," I waited for her to regain her composure and stop crying.  "I have to talk to you about something."
"Oh no!" she exclaimed, "you did get in an accident, didn't you?"
"No Caitlin, I didn't get in an accident, the car is fine.  What I want to talk to you about is Jim and Shandra. 
"Who" she said sharply.
"Jim and Shandra," I repeated, "they are a couple who were involved in the accident.  They are from out of state and I've invited them to come and stay with us for a couple of days until they can get their car fixed or get another one."  She was quiet for a minute and I started to worry that we had gotten cut off. "Hello."
"I don't think it's a very good idea," she said quietly "our house is a mess and I'm not prepared for it."
"They need our help Caitlin, I can't just ignore them especially after I already told them that they could come over.  I will help you get the house all clean tomorrow after I have had a little sleep.  Please get Jayden into our room and get his room ready for them to sleep in.  They are pretty tired."
"I'm not very happy about this," she said.  I could hear the anger in her voice and I knew that there was going to be a long discussion about me inviting people over without asking her permission first. 
I sighed and said quietly, "I'm sorry Caitlin, but it's the right thing to do.  Please just do as I ask.  We will be home in about thirty minutes."
She hung up the phone without saying another word.
I turned around to talk to Jim and saw a car coming toward us.  Jim had just stepped out of the car and Shandra was still sitting in the backseat.  The car was out of control and fish tailing and heading straight towards me.  I jumped back into the car and threw myself towards the passenger door.  Just as my shoulder smashed into the door the whole car shook and my head struck the window.  I felt a sharp pain in my head and heard glass shatter. 
I gradually regained consciousness and it was hard to hold a lucid thought in my head.  All I could concentrate on was the pain.  My whole world was pain.  I couldn't even feel anything else in my body.  Just my head.  I wanted to die so the pain would go away.  It was all consuming and I could think of nothing else for a few minutes. Then the pain started to go down a little and I could start to think about other things then my head.  I finally noticed that I could feel something wet trailing down my face and dropping off of my chin.  The next thing that I felt was a splash off of the door panel and onto my hand.  Sounds started filtering through and the first thing that I was aware of was a pain choked cry coming from behind me.  I listened to it for what seemed like several minutes before I was aware of anything else. All I could think about was my wife and how she would react if she knew that I was hurt.  I longed to have her there with me at that moment holding me in her arms and telling me that everything was going to be fine.  I needed her to be with me here and she was nowhere to be found.  It hurt me to think that I couldn't count on my wife to be there when I felt like I was going to die.  Where was she?  I knew that my mind was wandering and with a struggle I pulled it back to the present.  I knew that I should try to do something to help whoever was hurt, but I couldn't move.  I willed my legs to move but nothing happened.  I still couldn't feel anything beneath my neck except the blood splattering on my hand.  I tried to turn my head to see who might be hurt and as soon as it moved a shot of pure agony tore through my head and I screamed.  After the pain died down again I could hear other things.  I heard someone walking toward the car from behind by head, which was still stuck in the window. 
"Oh man!"  I heard.  It sounded like the voice of the policeman that I had talked to earlier.  "This is bad.  I have another accident at my patrol car. It looks like there is one fatality and three serious injuries.  Get me an ambulance and some paramedics now!" I heard some static like from a radio and then, "son, can you hear me?"  It took me a minute to realize that this last part was addressed to me.  He was talking right in my ear. 
"Y-y-y-yes," I whispered.  I wanted to say something else but even saying that had caused that pain to flare up again and I was clenching my jaw in agony.  I knew that if I unclenched it again that the only thing I would do would be to scream.  Finally I gave into the unrelenting darkness that was threatening to overwhelm and I sank down into oblivion.