But Dan didn’t have two or three hours. He needed to make time now. He should be traveling at twice his current speed.
Slowly he pressed the accelerator. The car handled the increase in speed easily, taking turns without even the slightest slippage. Dan continued to accelerate, testing the responsiveness of the vehicle and traction of the tires. Thirty-five. Forty. Wind blew snowflakes directly at the windshield as if it were under heavy fire from an army of snow devils. A sharp right turn approached. Dan eased on the brake and turned the wheel hard. The tires slipped but quickly regained traction and pushed forward.
Again, he eased the accelerator toward the floor. The engine responded; tires turned faster. Forty-five. Fifty. The radio went back to its regular programming, some morning call-in jock going on about the president’s new border defense bill. Dan turned it off. He hated that stuff and couldn’t have cared less about whether or not to build a fence between Texas and Mexico. Anyone with murder in their belly would find a way to fulfill its hunger; no fence would stop them.
Another turn, this one to the left, took Dan by surprise. He braked hard and jerked the wheel. The car hit a snowdrift, the rear wheels lost traction, and it spun counterclockwise a complete 180-degree rotation. Wind swept by on the other side of the glass and threw snow at the window in cloudy gusts. The tires lost all traction and the vehicle slipped off the road and down an embankment. Dan stood on the brake, but thirty-seven hundred pounds wouldn’t stop without friction. Newton’s observation of bodies in motion was flawless. The weight of the vehicle pulled it nose-first down the hill until it slammed into a tree. With a burst, the air bag deployed, then deflated. The car had come to a stop, tipped at a sharp angle, nose down, front fender bent around the trunk of a young pine.
Dan’s heart beat like a rabbit running for its life, and he’d broken out in a cold sweat. He gripped the steering wheel with white knuckles, frozen to his seat. The engine now hummed with a rhythmic chirp every other beat, but all the readouts on the dash were normal. Whatever damage the Volvo had suffered was minor and mostly external, which meant it was still drivable and could possibly get Dan out of this mess.
He shifted into reverse and stepped on the gas. The wheels spun with a high-pitched whine and rocked the vehicle side to side, but it got nowhere. Dan unhooked his seat belt and stepped out into the cold and snow and wind. The swirling flakes nearly blinded him. Holding on to the vehicle’s panels, he climbed through the two-inch deep snow to the back of the car and saw that the roadway was only another five feet beyond it. And the embankment wasn’t as steep as he’d thought. He still had a chance.
Entering the vehicle again, he shifted into reverse and stepped on the gas pedal, pumping it to give the tires a chance to either grab fresh snow or work their way down to the grass beneath it. The tires whined and the car pistoned back and forth as if it were tethered to a spring.
Eventually the tires gained some traction and the vehicle climbed the bank, swerving as the tread dug into the wet grass beneath the snow. But just before the rear tires crested the hill, the tail end slipped sideways, pushing the tires into fresh snow. They lost their grip and drifted to the right. Dan hit the brake but it did no good. Gravity had taken over. The corner of the front bumper bounced off the pine, pushing the car farther to the right.
Clutching the steering wheel like it was a serpent that would unwind itself and bite him, Dan leaned on the brake pedal and grunted. But the momentum of the vehicle pulled it more to the right and down the hill. Arms rigid, Dan braced himself against the back of the seat. Snow beat at the vehicle’s windows like a white angel of death demanding entrance. But his time wasn’t up yet. He’d been promised seven hours.
The car accelerated down the hill and Dan continued mashing the brake pedal to the floorboard, hoping in a fit of panic that somehow, someway, the tires would find purchase in the loose snow.
The world came to a jarring stop with a terrible crunch of metal and breaking glass. Dan’s arms buckled at the elbows, and he hit the steering wheel with enough force that for an instant everything went bright white—the black dash and control panel, the clock and radio and disc player, the interior cloth and molded plastic all disappeared. Then an inky blackness surrounded and finally overcame him.
12
The alarm sounded the same time it did every morning, pulling Dan Blakely from his dream. Slowly he lifted his head and immediately groaned. It hadn’t been a dream. He wasn’t in his bedroom, and the sound he heard was not the alarm clock obnoxiously signaling 7 a.m. His head throbbed and jaw ached. He was in his car, pointed downhill. The engine had cut out but the radio had somehow been turned on and retuned and now played “Ring of Fire” by Johnny Cash. Outside the cabin, snow spiraled and accumulated on the windshield.
The beeping, not unlike that of a car’s horn, continued, not as steady as his alarm clock but just as annoying.
Dan rubbed his eyes and checked his watch—3:59. An hour had passed since leaving the gas station.
He pushed back in the seat and stared at the windshield. A crack, like a fault line dividing two tectonic plates on the earth’s crust, ran from roof to hood and parted the glass into two equal halves. Snow accumulated quickly, forming a white, glistening wall that blocked out the rest of the world. Dan nearly expected a hand to swish it away and the face of Death, all snaggleteeth and greasy hair, to appear on the other side, peering in at him, lips pulled back in a grim smile. When the snow remained undisturbed, he relaxed a bit and rubbed his jaw.
The beeping stopped momentarily, then started up again. It came from somewhere outside the vehicle, in the land of snow and cold. Dan pushed open the driver’s door and stepped out into the storm. The frigid air went through him and stung his bones, froze his marrow. The front of the car sat squarely against a mature pine.
A man’s voice called to him from up the hill. “Hey, you there.”
Dan squinted into the wall of snow and could just make out the faint outline of a man, lean build, black suit. Thomas Constant. No doubt come to taunt Dan about his driving ability and remind him of his waning time.
“What do you want with me?” Dan hollered. He wiped snow from his eyelashes and looked again. Only this time he saw more clearly that the man forty feet above him on the hill was not Constant at all but an elderly man in a thick coat standing beside a pickup.
The stranger waved an arm. “Hey, you okay?” His voice grew faint as a gust of wind swept it away and buried it somewhere in the falling snow.
Dan waved back. “Okay here.”
After retrieving the keys from the ignition, he shut the door and made his way up the hill. It wasn’t tremendously steep but finding traction in the freshly fallen snow was as difficult as climbing a ladder with both feet tied together. Slowly he advanced, using his feet and hands to pull himself forward. At the midway point a rope landed in front of him, a lifeline from above. Looking up and through the snow, he could see his rescuer more clearly now, standing beside a green pickup.
“Grab hold. I’ll pull you up.”
Dan took the rope in both hands and got to his feet. Inch by inch, step by step, the stranger pulled him along, as if he were scaling the walls of a snowy grave. Wind buffeted his face, and snow blinded his eyes. Unseen hands grabbed at his ankles and feet, refusing them traction. His hands quickly took to aching, then went numb. Then his lungs burned as if the air contained not harmless microscopic crystals of ice but jagged shards of glass. Finally the terrain leveled and Dan went to his knees, gasping for breath and rubbing his oxygen-starved muscles.
An old pickup was there—an early eighties model Ford with peeling paint, rust around the wheel wells and bumper—and an older man bundled in a red plaid wool coat, gloves, a scarf, and a heavy skullcap. A wiry, white beard covered the lower half of his face. Dan had long ago stopped believing in Santa Claus, but the kind, aged eyes looking at him could have changed his mind.
“You okay, mister? You look like you just fell off a ten-stor
y building.”
Dan waved his hand, caught his breath. “I’m fine.”
The stranger grabbed Dan under the arm and lifted. “Well, let’s get you up and in the warm truck. Gotta get you to a hospital.”
Dan stood and shook his head. “No. I don’t need a hospital.” He pushed back his sleeve and glanced at his watch—3:50. “I need to get to New York.”
“City?”
“Yes.”
The man looked up the road, then turned his face skyward. Snow landed on his beard, rested for a second, then melted. “In this storm?”
“Please, I have to get to New York. It’s . . . it’s an emergency.”
He looked Dan over top to feet. “Looks like it.”
“Please.”
“Well . . .” He paused, eyed the storm again, and moved his lips like he was chewing a thought. “I can take you as far as Sloatsburg but that’s it. I’m headin’ that way, then goin’ north. You can get the train from there.”
“Good enough. Thank you.”
13
The interior of the truck smelled of oil and grease. But it was warm, and the contrast between it and the outside winter wonderland was so stark it could have passed as an alternate world altogether. The vinyl seats were torn, revealing slivers of the foam core. The dash was faded and warped. Dan pulled the seat belt tight and put his hands near the vents, letting the warm air bring circulation back to his fingers. Despite the balminess in the cab and the tropical air exiting the vents, he still shivered as if he were standing outside in the middle of the storm with nothing but his boxers to keep him warm.
The Santa impersonator got in the driver’s side, shut the door, and extended his gloved hand to Dan. “Name’s Pete.”
Dan was surprised his name wasn’t Nicholas. He shook Pete’s hand. “Dan. Thanks for doing this.”
Pete wrinkled his nose and said, “Nah, don’t you mention it again. I’m just glad I came along when I did and saw your taillights. Who knows how long you’d’ve been stranded out here.” He motioned toward the embankment and the snow-covered Volvo. “What do you wanta do with your car?”
“Leave it. I’ll get a tow truck to come back later for it.” He knew he’d be doing no such thing.
“I guess it ain’t goin’ nowhere, huh?”
“Not in this storm.”
Pete shifted the truck into gear and pulled out onto the road. “They say it ain’t supposed to last long.”
“It’s a fast-moving one.”
“Yep, from what I hear, it got kinda lost on its way to Maine. Crazy thing, ain’t it?”
“Moronic, even.”
Pete settled into a steady speed of just over thirty miles an hour while Dan rested his head against the back of the seat and closed his eyes. Images of Sue and the boys were there again, smiling at him, laughing, playing games, and horsing around. Sue in the kitchen with her apron on, her nose and forehead dusted with flour. The boys in bed, covers pulled to their chins, sleeping peacefully. He thought about how quickly they’d grown, how the time had slipped past him unnoticed. It seemed like just weeks ago that they were both toddlers, waddling around and acting silly, playing peekaboo and hide-and-seek. His thoughts then turned to the future and what he’d miss. High school, sports, girlfriends, college, weddings, grandkids. No one would teach his boys how to become men, to change the oil in a car, replace a broken light switch, cut wood in a straight line. No one would teach them how to love their wife and nurture their own children. They would be journeymen without a guide, lost and alone in a strange world full of hate and violence and Santa Claus imposters.
Sue would go it alone too. He doubted she’d remarry—they’d had that talk before and she was adamant about remaining alone the rest of her life, embracing widowhood as the burden she must carry. She’d said giving her heart to one man was enough to last her a lifetime; only if she were a cat with multiple lives would she consider remarrying. She’d enjoy retirement by herself, travel the country, spoil their grandkids, and never go a day without telling them how wonderful their granddad was. The fact of the matter was that time stopped for no one and would continue marching onward. And when Dan was gone from this life and passed on to the next, time would still march on without him. Over the years the memory of him would fade until all that was left were a few fond moments, like strands of thread holding together torn fabric, and a stack of old photos no one looked at.
He regretted not spending more time with Jack and Murphy, not concerning himself more with the things Sue cared about. She loved photographing the boys and organizing the pictures into ornately designed and decorated scrapbooks. She had a knack for visual beauty and symmetry but only ever succeeded in capturing Dan’s halfhearted interest.
A lifetime would not be enough to make up for the time he’d squandered; seven hours didn’t touch it.
Dan shut his eyes tight to dam the tears threatening to break loose. Time trickled away while he sat in a stranger’s truck.
“A penny for your thoughts?” Pete’s voice was an uninvited hook pulling Dan back to reality.
Dan opened his eyes and looked around, squinted into the light. The snow had slowed some, making the roadway a little more visible.
Pete had taken off his gloves and turned down the heat in the cab. He’d removed his hat, too, revealing a crown of wispy white hair. He looked at Dan and smiled. “You looked like you were lost in some thought.”
Dan rubbed his eyes, massaged the thudding behind his temples. “Yeah, I guess I was.” He reached into his coat pocket and pulled out the bottle of aspirin, emptied two in his hand, and swallowed them without water.
“You ain’t runnin’ from the cops, are ya?”
“Do I look like a man on the run from the police?”
Pete glanced at Dan’s lip, cheek, eyebrow. “Never can tell these days.”
“I guess you can’t.”
“Well?”
“Well what?”
“Are you on the run?”
“Not from the cops. Nothing like that.”
“Then you’re runnin’ from your memories.”
Dan wondered if his white-bearded, rosy-cheeked savior possessed the same innate knowledge of boys and girls, men and women, that the real Claus did. “I was just thinking about time and how fast it goes.”
“And thinkin’ hurts your face that much?”
Dan tenderly touched the gash above his eye, then the lump on his forehead. “Oh, this. It’s a long story.”
“We got a long trip.”
“Not nearly long enough.”
Pete shrugged. “Suit yourself.” He motioned toward the dash and the AM/FM radio. “Radio don’t work and I hate drivin’ in silence, just the sound of the engine and tires on the road. Drives me nutty. I usually provide my own music but I’ll spare you the torment of hearin’ my warblin’ and talk instead. That okay with you?”
It wasn’t. Dan craved silence. He wanted to be left alone with his thoughts; he wanted to get to New York. He massaged his temples some more and said, “Sure. It’s your truck.”
Pete chuckled. “I guess it is, ain’t it?”
A big rig silently passed by going the opposite direction, kicking up a feathery plume of snow in its wake.
“Time’s a funny thing, ain’t it? Sometimes it flies by like a freight train blowin’ by a hobo. Other times it moves along in slow motion. Lookin’ back, my life’s been full of long days and short years, you know?”
“All too well.”
Pete paused and rubbed a hand over his beard. “In ’53 I was in Korea. Ever hear of Pork Chop Hill?”
“I saw the movie as a kid. Does that count?”
“Well, I guess that’ll do. I was in the 31st Infantry, a twenty-two-year-old kid, corporal, already with a wife and baby girl at home. We were told to take that hill ’cause the Chinese had it. Fought most of the night. There was no moon—I remember that—how dark it was ’cept for the muzzle fire of the rifles and fire from the flamethrowers. A
nd the screams of men . . . sometimes at night I still hear ’em. It’s why I hate the silence so much. So many times I was sure I was gonna die. When we finally got to the summit and the trenches, I huddled down and covered my head and just cried. And that’s when it happened.”
“What happened?”
“Time. Only time in my life it stood still, as if the world had stopped turnin’. I had to look at my watch every couple minutes to make sure we were still movin’ forward. I thought that night would last forever, that maybe I had died and that was hell, stuck in some trench on top a Korean hill nobody really cared about, dodging bullets and shrapnel as time refused to move on.”
Pete massaged the steering wheel with both hands and slowed to navigate a bend in the road. The snow had lightened even more and it appeared the winds had died some. Finally the storm had lost its fury and retracted its claws. Rounding the turn, the truck accelerated again to almost forty miles an hour.
“But it did,” Pete said.
“It did what?”
“Move on. Time moved on. It always does. It’s constant. I huddled there in that trench counting down the minutes until it was safe to lift my head, and you know how long I sat there until we got the all clear?”
Dan shrugged.
“Seven hours. But I could have sworn it felt like seven days.”
Insect legs tickled the back of Dan’s neck and stood the hair on end.
“Yes, sir, time is relentless. No matter what’s happenin’ in your world or in the whole world, it don’t care. It keeps marchin’ on, steady like, one foot in front of the other, maintaining the same cadence throughout. We finally got off that hill and out of that blasted war. I went home a drunk and had four more children with my wife. I loved Mabelle, loved her with everything I had, but I was usually too drunk or too angry to tell her, let alone show her. We were married fifty-two years and raised five kids. I s’pose for her it was fifty-two years of hell.” He turned the heat a notch lower and ran a finger under his eye. “Went by like that,” he said, snapping his fingers. “And I got nothin’ to show for it. Mabelle and my oldest are both gone, taken by cancer, and my four boys live here and there—they want nothin’ to do with me.” The man’s voice was taut with pain.
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