Continued from: 1. Impact   2. Home  3. Hiccups  4. Someone

The moment Angus had secured the last button on the coat, he was instantly warm, as if swaddled in a heated blanket.

The baritone rumble of the stranger’s voice awoke Angus from his nirvana-like trance.

“Once it creeps in, it’s hard to chase away.”

“Thank you,” Angus finally spoke. His voice sounded small and very tired and he wondered if he might start crying.

The man dipped his head once, then nodded toward the phone.

“Called the police?” he asked.

Angus had forgotten that Sara was still on the line.

“Oh!” he exclaimed, and then put the phone to his ear. “Sara?”

Sara sat up straight, and Oscar peered up at her. “Are you okay? Are the cops there?”

“No, a man came over, but it’s okay. He gave me a coat… I’m not cold anymore. I’m fine.”

“Oh thank god,” Sara breathed.

“One more minute.”

“Yes, okay that’s fine.”

Sara leaned back in the chair and closed her eyes again. Tears still poured down her cheeks, but they didn’t sting; now they felt like relief.

“It’s my wife,” Angus said to the imposing figure.

He still had his white hood on, but now that he was up close, Angus could see past the shadows.

He was much older than Angus, although how old was impossible to tell – the man seemed as timeless as a marble statue. His face was lined with wrinkles above the gray mustache-beard which concealed the rest of his neck. Angus imagined it grew long, all the way down to his waist like the images of Father Time. The man’s lips were pink, not chapped and tinged blue like Angus’s surely were, his nose wasn’t red or frost nipped, and his eyes were bright green.

The image of a single spring flower in a field of snow popped into Angus’s mind. Its petals were white and lost in the background, but the proud little stem and its two leaves were the lively green of the stranger’s eyes. Grass green on stark white. The green so bright it buzzed.

“Your lifeline,” the man said, not in a question, but more of a statement. His tone was steady and matter-of-fact, almost to the point of sounding flat. He was referring to Sara.

Angus blinked. Lifeline. That is exactly what he had thought earlier.

“Ye… yes,” he said falteringly. That didn’t sound like it had been a coincidence.

The tall man simply nodded once – stoic… and now seeming a bit unnatural. Angus looked past him, across the road in the direction he had so quietly come from. There was only snow. No trees, no roads, no homes, only rolling hills of snow and a single track of footprints leading far off into the distance. He looked farther left, then right.

Nothing. Snow.

Suddenly acutely aware how much he had to look upward to meet the man’s intense green eyes, Angus asked, “Where did you come from?”

“I live out here,” was the stranger’s only response.

Angus blinked again.

“Out here?”

Nod.

“How did you know I was here?”

“I heard the crash.”

When Angus didn’t respond, he continued. “Have you noticed how quiet it is right now?” Now it was Angus’s turn to nod.

“Well, your accident,” he looked toward the gnarled wreckage crushed up against the tree, “caused a bit of a commotion. I couldn’t just ignore it. I had to come.”

“Oh,” Angus said. The man spoke with minimal expression in his face. Even though Angus clearly felt an aura of serenity surrounding the man, his mannerisms were keeping him slightly off balance.

“And it’s a good thing I found you, isn’t it,” the man continued, suddenly with a hint of joviality in his voice, as if he had sensed Angus's unease and was trying to reassure him.

“Yes, it is!” Angus brightened considerably at the change in his tone. The man didn’t sound unnatural at all – it was Angus’s own mind acting up. What, with the crash and the cold, it was surprising he was still standing, let alone having a conversation.

He continued, “I tried to walk back to town, but I got turned around somehow and ended up right back here.” He chuckled, gazing in the direction of the car but not actually looking at it. Seeing the mass of metal, crunched together like a paper ball churned up a knotted lump of dread in his stomach and he didn’t want to look. “It’s crazy,” he said to the snow.

“Yes, that tends to happen in these types of situations,” the hooded head nodded sagely.

Angus frowned and brought his attention back. “These types of situations?”

The stranger sighed. “Oh, the snow, the crash. People get confused in the beginning. End up wandering.” He spoke like he was talking about people meandering through a museum without their little paper guidebooks.

“Have you seen this a lot?” Angus asked. How many accidents could possibly happen out here in the middle of nowhere?

“Often enough,” was the man’s quizzical answer.

Angus couldn’t think of anything else to say. But he didn’t have to. The giant fur coat rustled and the stranger began to back away.

“But you, you have your lovely wife to talk to. I’m sure she’s worried about you,” he said, and then added as an afterthought, “And you have some things to tell her.”

Angus frowned again and wanted to question that last statement, but the stranger was already walking away.

“Your coat,” Angus called, but the man simply held up a hand, without slowing or looking back. Again, his steps were massive and soon he had crossed over the black line of pavement and was well into the empty field on the other side.

“But – ”

“You’re fine,” the stranger shouted, still without turning back. His voice cut through the snow-laden air like a rumble of thunder.

“You don’t need my help.”

As Angus watched, speechless but not afraid, the white fur coat and hood melded into the ocean of snow and vanished from sight.

“Odd…” Angus trailed off. He had pressed the phone closer to his face once more. Now that the stranger was gone, he wanted to be close to Sara again. And he did have some things to say.

“What happened?” Sara asked. She had been listening as well as she could to the conversation taking place across the line. She had heard the man, with his deep, baritone voice, but had only picked out a handful of words. Trouble, police, line, crash, tell her. The rest sounded like the rumbling of some distant gong.

Now it had been quiet for a few moments and Sara wondered if the man had left. Why did he leave? Had he called the police? Why didn’t he take Angus with him?

“He’s gone,” Angus said.

“Gone? Did he call the cops?”

“He said I’ll be fine.” Angus’s voice sounded dreamy, almost content. He had gotten that coat after all, maybe now all he had to do was wait for help to show up.

“Do you feel okay?” she asked.

Angus still stood halfway between the car and the road, in the same spot he had met the stranger. Snowflakes floated into the tracks where the man’s shoes had squashed ruts in the snow. Angus wondered how long it would take before the tracks would fill in.

Do I feel okay? he had heard Sara ask. Angus actually thought about that.

Physically, he was fine. His body was warm and more than comfortable out here – his hands weren’t cold, even though he wore no gloves, and his face was warm even though he had no hat. He didn’t hurt anywhere (how do you get out of a wreck like that without a scratch?) and his mind wasn’t muddled like it had been at first. In fact, Angus realized, strangely, he felt great.

“I do,” he answered. “I actually feel good.”

“Thank god,” she sighed, audibly relieved. She hated the thought of him injured somehow out there alone in the cold. At least he wasn’t suffering.

Angus took a deep breath – his first strong, purposeful inhale since it had all happened. The cold didn’t burn his throat or his chest; instead it felt refreshing, like awakening sensations that had been deadened for so long. The icy air shot deep into his lungs and then a crisp tingling poured through his limbs, like he was just an empty shell filled with champagne.

This is what it’s like to be snow, he thought.

He felt clean, purer than he ever remembered feeling before. Standing alone in an ocean of snow, reveling in the buzz of a fresh breeze coursing through his body, Angus felt content. And he smiled.

As if mimicking his emotions, the sun spilled out onto the road, seeming to come from the road itself. Angus hadn’t even been aware there was no sun before.

Sara.

Her face leapt into his mind – her dark hair, her beautiful brown eyes, the way her lips stretched when she smiled.

“Sara,” he blurted out, as if he had something to say that just couldn’t wait. And it couldn’t. Before she had answered, he continued.

“I love you. I can’t believe how much I love you.”

Sara was briefly taken aback at his abruptness, but she smiled. “I love you too.”

“You are the most beautiful woman I’ve ever seen,” Angus wasn’t finished. “And you made my life absolutely perfect. I can’t imagine a life without you.”

Fresh tears welled up in Sara’s eyes. She let them fall.

“Oh, Angus,” her words trembled again. “I’ll always be here for you. You know that.”

Angus smiled. “Yes. Yes I do.”

The sun was growing larger on the horizon, seeming to flow down the road toward him. He knew that was the direction he had to go to get home. And then suddenly, it stopped snowing.

“I have to go,” Angus said calmly.

Sara sniffled, “Are the police there?” She realized that she could hear what sounded like a siren in the background. She closed her eyes and cried, salty tears gathering in the curves of her grateful smile.

“I’ll be fine,” he replied. “I love you.” Angus began to walk toward the sun.

“I love you, too.” She said the words slowly, feeling the weight of each of them. Her voice was wavering and husky with emotion, but deep in her chest, she knew he was safe – and she felt content.

Oscar stood up and licked his mother’s tears from her cheeks, and she returned his love with a nuzzle on his neck.

And then Sara hung up the phone.

Two police officers and an ambulance arrived on the scene at the same time, switching off their sirens when they knew there was no one around to hear. The rental car’s computer security program had alerted their dispatch moments after the crash occurred, sending them precise GPS coordinates and general information on the condition of the vehicle.

The two officers were out of their car first and plodded through low, smooth hills of snow toward the tree line. This road was notorious for icing up in the winter – it was a winding country stretch, shielded by tall old oak and cypress trees that shed moisture onto the road and then funneled freezing storm air to seal it all up. Their heavy limbs kept the sun from breaking through and melting any of the accumulated ice. More than one local had called it a “death trap” over the years.

And now once again, it looked like the road had lived up to its name.

There wasn’t much of a car left. The entire front end, down the center line and all the way to the back seat was torn in half by the scarred trunk of an oak. The front grill had almost come back together on the other side, as if trying to mold itself to fit around the giant tree. The rear of the car was undamaged, however, and they could see a sticker -- “Enterprise – we pick you up! -- affixed to the blue bumper.

The scene was completely still. Snowflakes pattered vehicle’s trunk and what was left of the roof, but melted when they touched the area where the engine was; it was still too warm. As they neared, the officers heard tiny pings and pops of cooling metal, as well as the hiss of air escaping from some small leak.

No one could have survived this.

One of the officers stopped to report into the station and to call a tow truck. The other was about to stop as well, and head back to the blasting heaters in his cruiser, when he thought he heard a faint sound – a voice.

Curious, he approached the driver’s side of the car. All he could see was wrenched and twisted metal – and blood. He grimaced. And then he heard it again, so quiet it was easy to miss. It was a tinny voice sounding like it came from very far away… And then he realized: coming through the speaker of a cell phone.

He plodded around the rear of the car (he didn’t want to see it from the front) to the passenger side and peered in. More twisted metal. More blood. He saw an arm and hand jutting out from under a wadded pile of metal and aluminum, and the thought crossed his mind that the arm was probably not attached to anything.

“I love you, too.”

The officer’s eyes shot down, toward the source of the voice. Squinting, he noticed something shining near the floor. When his groping hand touched it, he realized it was a cell phone – a sticky cell phone.

There was no way the driver (they still weren’t sure if it was a man or a woman, although the hand looked a bit masculine underneath all the blood) had time to make a phone call; he was surely dead on impact. Maybe he was on the phone when he crashed? The officer shook his head sadly. Icy weather, distracted driving... it was no wonder so many drivers lost their lives out here.

He pulled the phone from the wreckage. It was destroyed. A spider web of cracks littered the touch screen and the back cover was off, letting the battery dangle from only one of its two cords. Like everything else in the car, it was also dripping with blood.

He hadn't heard a voice. It was just a trick of the snow.

Thankful he had taken the time to put on latex gloves when they arrived, the officer held the phone at arm’s length and turned to walk back to the warmth of the cruiser, and to where a stack of evidence bags sat waiting to be filled.

Thank you for accompanying Angus on his journey.

And thank you for reading my story; I hope you enjoyed.
Questions? Thoughts? Please comment below.

Image