Carter's Army - 2. Chapter 2

November 28th

It was the end of the day, and as usual Will was running late for his bus. He sprinted through the halls of the school trying to get to his locker. He had been held up trying to finish a review problem with his physics teacher. Miss Smith seemed in no hurry to explain it, expecting him to wait patiently while she droned on about how object A when pushed affected object B and gave C result. He had enough trouble trying to grasp the concept, but when he had so little time until the bus left and he was stranded at school, he really hadn't given it his full attention.

He flew down a flight of stairs trying to get to the basement level of the school where, due to overcrowding, several banks of extra lockers had been set up. It was tucked away from the rest of the school beside the boiler room and the chemistry labs; due to its proximity away from the rest of the school, it was a favorite hangout for those kids looking to grab a smoke in the emergency exit well that led up to the student parking lot. A little bit of shelter from the wind.

Will didn't mind having his locker down there; it was out of the way and he could always chat to Brody who was often hanging about the exit with some of his buddies. But Brody was off that day, and everyone else had gone home as soon as school let out, so he was alone.

The ruined door to his locker soon soured his mood.

He stood and stared at the mess of his books turned out onto the floor, and his notes scattered about torn and disorganized. His heart sank as he dropped to pick them up, pushing them back into his locker in an effort to preserve them. He couldn't help but sigh dejectedly as he picked up the two halves of his English book, a faithful friend that had died valiantly. He tossed it into the locker after his notes and stood up; he didn't have time to report it that night, and he would have to wait until the morning.

He stopped when he saw his coat was missing. He swore loudly. Who the hell stole a coat from someone in a snowstorm? It was so supremely cruel that it just fit some of the guys who went to Will's high school. Will reluctantly closed the door of his locker as best he could on only one hinge, bending the twisted metal back into shape. He was screwed and he knew it.

He jogged back up to the main office of the school, but found it locked up; only a janitor left sweeping the floor. He caught sight of Will and shook his head. "They all went home, the storm. You'd better go home as well. There is a big snowstorm coming and it is already pretty messy out there!"

Will nodded as he hurried through the halls to where the buses always waited day after day, hoping he wasn't too late.

He burst out of the doors just as the last bus pulled out of the parking lot and headed out into the street. And Will felt hope evaporate as he stood there watching large flakes of snow falling down around him. It didn't truly hit him how bad his situation was until he turned back to the doors to find they had locked behind him, he was trapped outside the school in the storm. He realized only then that the storm was much stronger than he had first thought. What he had seen when he had burst out of the school was only the view from the lee side of the building. He didn't realize the full danger ahead of him.

He pulled his plaid shirt closer about him to ward off the cold as he struggled down the hill the school was built upon. He was glad for once that he tried to keep up with the latest fashion and had worn a tee shirt under it, otherwise had he just been in his tee shirt...

He slipped a little on the icy sidewalk that had yet to be cleared, and managed to steady himself. His Aunt Majella lived about ten minutes from his school; if he could make it there he would be able to call his dad for a lift home. He dreaded the prospect; his father hated it when he missed a bus. He could just hear the lecture now about responsibility and how he should take better care of his property. As if he wanted to be struggling through a snowstorm in just a thin shirt with no gloves.

He buried his hands into his armpits; trying to stay warm was critical. It wasn't far, he just had to keep telling himself that. It didn't matter that the snow came down harder, that his cap brim was now forming a ledge of snow. As if on cue, the wind snatched it from his head and sent it sailing into an embankment.

He stared after it mournfully; short of his climbing through a four foot high snow bank which he simply wasn't dressed for, there was no way to get it back. He swore again, it just wasn't his day. He struggled onwards, determined to get out of the cold.

He didn't even notice as the black mustang slid to a halt beside him.

"Are you nuts?" the driver called as he rolled down his window.

Will glanced over at the captain of the hockey team and shivered, "I missed the bus," he explained, continuing to walk; if he stopped it meant he would be out in the cold longer.

Andrew let the car coast along beside the snow-covered sophomore, "What happened to your coat?" he asked as he turned down the radio.

Will shrugged;"Someone trashed my locker..." he slipped again on a patch of ice and again managed to stay upright.

Andrew shook his head;"I can give you a lift, beats walking in this without a coat."

Will looked over at the classic Mustang. Andrew's car was the envy of all the students at the school; it was a beautifully restored 1969 Coupe that seemed to epitomize Andrew. He embodied the kind of person that the car had been designed for, young and full of energy. He nodded as he crossed to the coupe and slid into the passenger seat, immediately glad of the car's heater, even though he was still soaked to the skin from the melting snow.

Andrew looked over at him and undid his seatbelt. Shrugging out of his varsity jacket he handed it over to Will. "Here, put this on, you're soaked."

Will accepted the treasured jacket; it was as much a part of Andrew's identity as the car was. He held it for a moment, feeling the soft leather in his hands, before he put it on. It was already warm from Andrew's body heat, and the combination of Andrew's sweat, cologne and worn leather assailed his nose. He relaxed wrapped in the warm coat and sank into the seat, glad just to be warm.

"So where am I taking you?" Andrew asked as he drove the car down the hill and onto the street.

"My aunt's should be good; I can call my dad and get a lift home..."

Andrew rolled his shoulders in a shrug, "Might as well take you straight home, rather than let this storm get worse." He gunned the engine and was satisfied that the tires had a firm grip on the snow-covered road surface. The ploughs hadn't been past yet so driving was treacherous and he kept it slow.

"You don't have to do that." Will assured, "I mean you've already done so much..."

"It's no problem at all," Andrew said in reply, flashing a charming smile, "I was going to head to practice after school but with the storm it's probably best if I went home anyway. So where do you live?"

"Just outside of town - you know the access road?" Will replied as he returned the smile, "It's the other side of Merrickville."

Andrew grinned, "Not that far from me then, cool."

As they drove to the road, Will found the snow was blowing so heavily that he could not see anything through the windshield. He could catch a glimpse of the road between snow gusts and he knew there was no traffic on the road in that area, especially during the storm. But Andrew seemed determined to go ahead and Will felt a bit reassured when he took a look at the gasoline gauge. The car had almost a full tank.

On the westbound road Andrew drove the car onwards, pushing through the northern wind, into the darkness, where they could see nothing besides horizontally flying snow. The only thing Andrew could do to keep the car on the road was to look out the driver's-side window to keep an eye on the left edge of the road - taking advantage of his car to shield his view.

They could not drive more than five miles per hour. For the entire five miles before the first stop sign, the car stayed in first gear.

Will had survived a few snow storms, one growing up in England, and one the year before when he had first arrived in Canada travelling through vast curtains of falling snow as his family had driven across the country from Halifax to Ottawa along the Trans Canada highway; but this time it was so different: hundreds of tons of snow was flying in a fierce wind, so that he could not tell where the sky ended and the earth began, and there was almost no chance for them to take a breath or find any reference in the gusty wind. What is more, darkness was setting in. Will started to become nervous, since Andrew could barely see five feet away, and he could slide the car off the road at any moment. Will thought of urging him to go back into town, but it would be very difficult to make a three-point turn without running a wheel off the road. It was easier to keep going forward, in the meantime getting farther into the wildness.

Even so, Andrew had to come to a complete stop four times, the blowing snow was so dense. If it were not for the flying snow, they could have caught glimpses of the fields they were passing. The endless fields, lined up in rows and columns that stretched over 20 miles. Their emptiness in the night often gave Will the feeling of an evil presence and he was relieved that he couldn't see them at all. It was as if the storm had enveloped the whole world!

As the car drifted through the snow Will felt as if he were on a boat in a rough sea, or a leaf floating in the sky.

They came to a stop sign and made a right hand turn to the north; two miles further there was an S-curve where the road had a yield sign for CN trains bound for Toronto. Since they were travelling north against the gusty wind, Andrew lost the advantage of having his car be a "vision shield" to let him see whether he was still on the road. The wind was blowing towards them; the snow would have been flying into their eyes if there had not been a windshield. The northbound road was worse, since the snow was thicker. Fortunately there was no oncoming traffic; otherwise they would have instantly collided with each other. The car finally managed to reach the S-curve. And Will became more nervous as they approached the curve, because it was there that he had run into the ditch on his first driving lesson, turning himself completely about on a still, sunny morning. It was the same place that his Father had once run into a deer shortly after dusk. It was just a bad curve.

Will prayed not to run into a deer and not to skid on ice. And Andrew finally managed to get through the curve while keeping the car on the road. It still took them about half an hour to cover the half-mile distance.

By going north for another mile they would come to the second stop sign at a T-junction, where they would turn left and go west. Although Andrew was only driving in first gear, he almost overshot the road into the ditch. Will barely saw the stop sign on his right as the mustang travelled another 15 feet on the slippery road before coming to a full stop. Andrew blew out a sigh of relief as the car made the turn. Luckily there were no cars coming from either direction. Now Andrew could again take advantage of his car as a "vision shield" so he could find the edge of the road through his left-hand window and stay on the road. Even so, several times they went very close to the left edge and almost drove off the road.

The gusting was stronger. It was as if the whole world was being wiped away.

Will knew they would pass by a farmhouse on their right which was almost halfway home. Still, he completely missed the farmhouse, although the house had its driveway lights on and was only 20 feet from the road. He didn't realize this until he saw a dim light on his left-hand side. They were passing a substation, and it was the gate's lithium light he saw which normally hurt his eyes from miles away. He felt a kind of warmth, because he was finally seeing something familiar. There were some wild trees on the roadside after the gate. He could barely see their silhouettes in the blowing snow. And he knew they would come to two more turns, and soon they would be on local highway 6.

He realized the reason he could see the outlines of the trees was that they cut the wind a little bit. He should have also realized that the nearby trees could also cause snowdrifts on the road, which could block any kind of traffic. Very soon they realized they were running into trouble. Snowdrifts extended across the whole area and piled up high, so that neither of them could see where the road was. This realization was so sudden that neither of them had time to think, but could only keep driving onward. Will knew that if they stopped, the car would also turn into a snowdrift, with them buried in the blowing snow. There was no squeal of brakes, no blaring horn, only the sudden smashing impact and the impossibly loud cries of screeching metal. The car lurched to the left, the back end swinging around on the wet, slushy pavement. The impact threw Will against his seat belt so hard it cut off his breath. The car spun like a child's top, whipping almost a full 360 degrees as the back end flew into the ditch. Will's head snapped back when the car crunched to a halt. As suddenly as it started, it ended, leaving complete silence except for the rapid clicking of a ruined motor cooling in the night's grip.