by Amy Cross
“You're looking a little green there,” he tells me. “Do you wanna go wait this one out in the truck?”
“Absolutely not.”
“But if -”
“I'll come and see,” I stammer, getting to my feet and wading through the snow, heading around the rear of the vehicle. The last thing I want is to spend even another second down here at this awful scene, but I'm damn well not gonna let the side down. Despite the knot of nausea in my belly, I make my way around to the vehicle's other side and finally I crouch next to Buddy.
Sure enough, there's a small flick-knife in the dead woman's right hand.
“Now,” Buddy says after a moment, “I don't reckon she was driving with that thing out. Do you?”
“I guess not.”
“Which means she opened it after she crashed.”
“I guess so.”
“Which means she survived the initial impact. Either she stayed conscious the whole time, or she was knocked out and then she woke up. And then she was pinned in the wreckage.”
“Uh-huh.”
“And then...”
His voice trails off for a moment.
“Oh God,” he continues finally. “I think there's a good chance this poor woman froze to death.”
“I guess so,” I tell him, focusing on the need to not pass out.
“That's gotta be a hell of a way to go,” he mutters. “Out here in the wilderness, bleeding, cold, scared. Maybe there wasn't so much snow when she crashed, but either way, she must've been cold, especially at night. I'd like to think that maybe she bled out, at least that would've been quick. But that wound on her leg doesn't look bad enough. There'd be more blood in the snow, all frozen around it. Clearly the damn thing was bad enough to keep her pinned in the car, but not bad enough to kill her. I guess maybe she was going to try to cut her leg free using the knife.”
I nod, while looking at a nearby tree, trying to steady my spinning head a little.
“Molly? Are you okay?”
I turn to him. “I'm fine.”
“Are you sure? There's no need to be brave.”
I turn and look into the car, and for the first time I see the dead woman's face from this side. There's a reddish patch on her cheek, suggesting that she suffered a nasty cut during the crash, and trickles of red look to have run all the way down onto her neck. It's not difficult to imagine her bleeding heavily in the aftermath. I guess Buddy is right, it would have been better for her if she'd just been killed instantly.
“She's naked.”
I turn to him. “What?”
“She's naked,” he continues.
I look back at the woman. Her body is frozen, discolored blue, and there's a lot of snow caked around her. Still, enough of her torso is poking out for me to see that he's right, she is naked.
“Now why do you think that is?” he asks.
I stare at the woman for a moment, but I honestly can't think of a single answer.
“Well, she wouldn't have been driving while she was naked,” I say finally.
I wait for him to agree with me.
“Would she?” I add uncertainly.
“Highly unlikely,” he replies. “She was awake at some point after the crash, then. I guess it's possible she hallucinated, but I think the more likely explanation is that she was trying to stay warm.”
“By taking off her clothes?”
“By starting a fire.” He looks down at the snow all around us. “It's probably covered up now, but I'm betting she used everything she could find to keep it going.”
“The suitcases are open,” I point out.
He shines his flashlight past me, toward the back seat.
“Good observation,” he says after a moment. “I think she reached behind and pulled out a bunch of clothes, and she burned them for heat. Then when she ran out of those, she resorted to using the clothes she was wearing.”
“So she must've survived for a while, then,” I continue, feeling as if maybe I'm finally being useful. “I mean, a good case of clothes would last... How long? A day?”
“Or two, depending on what else she had,” he mutters. “I think there's a fair chance this woman was down here for a while, trapped in her car and hurt but still alive, and still conscious.”
“Like a horror movie,” I whisper.
“Huh?”
“Like a horror movie,” I say again, staring at the dead woman's face. “Think about it. Pinned in her car, injured, unable to call for help. She was probably screaming at the road for a while, desperately trying to get help. Then night came, and the temperature dropped, and she started a fire. She must have been hoping someone would find her, but she was out here alone in the forest. Deep down, she must have known that she didn't have a chance. But she wouldn't have been able to give up. She'd have kept fighting, and she'd have been screaming to the end. And finally she must have frozen to death.”
I pause for a moment, and in my mind's eye I see the woman's frantic struggles. I even hear her screams.
“That's very... evocative,” Buddy says cautiously.
I turn to him. “Sorry. I was just thinking about what it must have been like for her.”
“The coroner's gonna have a field-day with this one,” he continues, getting to his feet. “It's gone midnight now, Molly. There's nothing more we can do here except make sure this woman's death is properly investigated. I'm gonna head back to the office and put some calls in, and then I'll get the tow-truck ready. Whoever Charlotte Stewart was, she doesn't deserve to be out here like this. It's indecent.”
My legs ache slightly as I stand up.
“So we're done here?” I ask hopefully.
He turns and starts wading through the snow, heading back around to the other side of the wreck. Glad to be getting out of here, I start following him.
“I'm sure it was just an accident,” I tell him.
“I'm sure you're right.”
I glance over my shoulder, looking back at the wrecked car as I keep walking. A moment later, just as I'm about to turn and look ahead, I slam straight into Buddy. Startled, I find that he's stopped in front of me.
“And where do you think you're going?” he asks with a faint smile.
I step back. “Huh? What do you mean?”
“I'm going back to the station to get the truck and start the ball rolling,” he continues, “but somebody has to stay here at the scene until I get back.”
“You're kidding,” I reply.
His smile grows.
“You have to be kidding,” I continue. “There's no rule about that!”
“There's an unwritten rule,” he tells me. “Think of it as a kind of code, something people in our profession live by. It'd be wrong to leave this poor woman all alone out here, even for a couple more hours. Besides, what if we can't find her again?”
“Of course we can find her again!” I stammer. “We know exactly where she is!”
“This is the way we do things out here,” he continues. “You're a rookie, so it's all new to you, but somebody has to stay at the scene until I get back. Now, I suppose you could drive to the station and I could stay here, but then people'd start wondering whether you were scared. They'd start thinking that maybe you've failed the rookie test, and that we can't rely on you.”
“I'm not scared!”
That's a lie. I'm terrified but, well, I can't exactly admit that to him.
“It'll just be a couple of hours,” he tells me. “If you're really scared, you can go up and wait by the side of the road, but -”
“I'll wait down here.”
“Molly -”
“I'll be fine,” I continue, realizing that this is my chance to prove myself. I might not be smart or brave, but I can most definitely stay where I'm told to stay. “So long as this isn't some kind of prank.”
“Prank?”
“You're not just pretending that someone has to stay here, are you?” I ask him, before realizing how dumb that sounds. “Forget it. Ignore
me. I didn't mean to question anything.”
“But -”
“I'm good.”
He smiles, and it's clear that he's not taking me very seriously.
“Take my flashlight,” he says, reaching over and slipping it into my pocket. “There. Now you have two.”
“I was fine with one,” I reply, although I can hear my voice wavering slightly. I sound scared.
He stares at me.
“I'm fine,” I continue. “Honest. I don't even know why you'd question that. 'Cause I'm a girl? Pfft! Whatever.”
I roll my eyes.
“I'm totally, totally down with staying here by myself,” I add. “In fact, I'd enjoy it.”
Damn, I think I'm protesting just a little too hard.
“Maybe this is too much for you right now,” he says finally, gesturing for me to follow as he turns and starts heading back up toward the road. “Come on, Molly. I'll cover for you. A dead body on your first night is kinda extreme. None of the guys had to deal with that, so it's not fair if you have to.”
“I'm staying.”
“There's no need.”
“I'm staying!”
He turns back to me, and I swear I can see from the look in his eyes that he's impressed.
“I'm staying,” I say again. “It's the right thing to do. It's the job. So it's what I'm gonna do. I'm staying. Just hurry back, okay? Don't leave me out here all night.”
“Are you sure about this?” he asks.
I nod.
“Are you really sure, Molly? Or are you just trying to prove something?”
“I'm really sure. And yeah, I guess I'm also trying to prove that you can rely on me.”
He opens his mouth, as if he's going to ask me again, but slowly a fresh smile starts creeping across his face.
“Well alright, then,” he continues, placing his hands on his hips for a moment. “I'll be quick, I promise. I won't pull any funny business and leave you here.”
“It doesn't matter if you do,” I tell him, placing my hands on my hips too. “I can manage.”
“Just stay out of trouble,” he adds, turning and starting to clamber up the snowy incline. He shouts something else, but I can't make out many of the words.
“Wait!” I call out suddenly, feeling a burst of panic in my chest.
He turns to me.
“What about the truck?” I continue. “I mean, the hook on the back, and all that stuff. You can't set it up by yourself, so maybe you need me to come with you?”
“One of the other guys'll be around to help.”
“But what if they're not?”
“One of them will.” He pauses. “They'll be mighty impressed that you stayed out here, too. I've gotta tell you, Molly, some of them were a little doubtful about having a girl on the team. They thought maybe you wouldn't pull your weight. But when I get back to the station and tell them about all of this, and when they realize you were brave enough to stay by yourself, you're gonna shoot up in their estimation. You're really proving your mettle tonight.”
“Yeah,” I reply, as my throat seems to dry up. “Sure. That's not why I'm doing it, but...”
My voice trails off. What have I gotten myself into?
“But Molly...”
He pauses.
“But Molly what?” I ask.
He looks past me for a moment, toward the treeline and the vast, dark forest, and then finally he turns to me again.
“I need you to promise me something,” he continues, and now his tone sounds much more serious. “This is another part of you proving yourself to me, okay? I need you to promise that you'll stay right here, and that you won't go out into the forest.”
“Into the forest?” I furrow my brow. “Why in the name of heck would I want to do that?”
“I can't possibly imagine, but you have to promise that you won't, for any reason at all, go out there. You've gotta respect the boundary. You'll be fine just here, because you're close to the road, but under no circumstances are you to go past the treeline and into the forest.”
I turn and look over my shoulder, and I can't help feeling that he's pressing this point a little too hard. After all, the forest looks so dark and foreboding, I honestly can't imagine why anyone in their right mind would choose to go out there. After a moment, I turn back to Buddy and see that he's still watching me intently.
“Give me your solemn word, Molly.”
“Absolutely. You have my solemn word.”
“Trust Buddy,” he adds. “Those are two very important words in this job. Repeat them back to me.”
“Trust Buddy,” I reply, although I feel a little silly.
“Always.”
“Sure. Always.”
He stares at me for a moment longer, and then finally he seems to accept that I've taken his warning to heart.
As Buddy turns and makes his way further up the incline, I'm left standing all alone down here with more snow falling all around me. I swallow hard as I watch Buddy disappearing from view, and I have to admit that I really, really want to run after him and come up with some excuse not to stay behind. Still, I know the guys at the station would make fun of me, and for the rest of my career I'd be laughed at for being some kinda chicken. By staying at the wreck site, I can make them respect me more. Besides, it's only gonna be for a couple of hours.
I can handle a couple of hours.
A few minutes later, the patrol car's flashing lights start to move, and finally they fade completely. Buddy is on his way back to the station now, and I'm completely alone. I have a radio, of course, but coverage is patchy out here and, besides, I don't want to treat that thing as some kind of umbilical cord. I'm a grown woman and I can damn well do my job and stay with the wrecked car for as long as it takes. In fact, I'm gonna do more than just stand around. I'm gonna make sure that when Buddy finally gets back with the truck, I've found something or achieved something or uncovered something that makes him proud.
Turning, I trudge back through the snow until I reach the side of the car. I hate the idea of even looking at the dead woman again, but I refuse to be some kind of scaredy-cat, so I crouch down and force myself to face her again.
“Hey,” I say, trying to sound calm as I prop the spare flashlight on the twisted door-frame, so that the beam is pointed into the car.
Sighing, I realize this is ridiculous. I turn and look around at the dark trees, and then I sigh again. I could stay here at the car, or I could explore the crash site and look for clues, or I could take a closer look inside the car. I just have to decide.
Finally, stepping away from the car, I stop for a moment and look out at the vast, dark forest. Maybe it's because I grew up in the city, but I can't deny that the view right now is pretty goddamn breathtaking. I mean, it was amazing from above, when we drove down the mountain road, but it's even more amazing now from down here on ground level. I can see dark trees fading into the distant gloom, and I feel somewhat humbled by the thought that there's nobody else out here, not for hundreds of miles in any direction.
I could scream right now, and no-one'd hear me.
I pause for a moment as the truth dawns on me.
I actually could scream. I've never screamed before, not once in my whole life, not seriously. Suddenly the idea seems rather enticing, and I figure I could at least test my lungs out and see what they're capable of managing.
I take a deep breath.
I clear my throat.
I look back up at the side of the road, and then I look out at the forest again.
I hesitate for a moment.
“Okay, then,” I mutter.
Ready.
“Argh!” I call out half-heartedly, although the sound barely counts as a scream. It's more a faint note of concern.
I take another deep breath.
I can do this.
The second so-called scream is barely any better, and I'm sure glad nobody is around to hear this.
Sighing, I decide to try one more time. I step
a little further away from the car, out between two of the trees, and then I cup my hands around my mouth.
“Argh!!!” I shout.
This is ridiculous. I can't scream. I guess I'm just too reserved, too held-back and buttoned-up. Some people are screamers and some just ain't, and I just ain't. I doubt there's much I can do about that. I'm just not much of a screamer.
I turn to go back over to the car, but suddenly I feel something crunching under my feet. Looking down, I see several large shards of glass resting in the snow.
“Huh,” I mutter, crouching down and picking one of them up. I turn it around between two gloved fingers for a moment, before glancing over at the car. It's hard to believe that glass from one of the windows could have been projected fifteen feet away, but I guess the force of the impact might have been strong enough. Still, a deer or some other passing animal could cut its paws on this mess, so I start carefully gathering the chunks into the palm of my left hand, until I'm sure that I've got it all.
Standing once again, I'm about to turn and go to the car when I spot a set of shallow indentations in the snow, arranged in a series of pairs that are almost side-by-side. I take a step closer, figuring that the indentations probably don't mean anything, and then I see that they run in a pair of parallel lines away from the car and off into the darkness of the forest.
Almost as if somebody walked away from the crash.
Almost.
But it can't be that, because...
I hesitate for a moment, watching as more snow drifts down, and then I turn to look back at the car. There's no sign that anybody else was in the vehicle when it crashed, but I've got this nagging feeling in the pit of my stomach that maybe we should have checked a little more carefully. I can still see Charlotte Stewart's frozen body in the driver's seat, with the light from the flashlight picking out her pale features, and I saw for myself that the back seat was absolutely filled with boxes and suitcases. Still, as I take a couple of steps closer, I can't help wondering whether there might in fact have been somebody in the passenger seat after all.
By the time I get back to the car and bend down, looking past Charlotte and over to the empty seat next to her, my concerns have taken root and become full-on fear.
