12 Deaths of Christmas

by Paul Sating

  But so did Dad.

  The noise of the engine screamed its way up.

  Up.

  Up.

  Then faded behind the face of the mountainside below. There was no turnoff, no option for the driver between their location and Sam. Within a minute they would be zipping up the pass. Where he parked, the rental car was at risk, thanks to the juvenile approaching from below.

  “Jesus Christ!” Sam stomped back toward the car, slowly at first, then picking up his pace as the roaring engine echoed up the narrow valley. The speeding car had made the first switchback, where the two lanes acted like a coiling snake, pulling back on itself. Good. Sam didn’t feel like walking up on an accident scene. His CPR certification expired years ago and he’d never quite made it back around to re-certifying. Besides, he was trying to process his father’s death. This atavistic driver’s thrill-seeking was screwing up his ability to do that.

  Fucking teens!

  An old model Chrysler 300 barreling up the road was not what Sam expected to see. That wasn’t a teenager’s car. That was a luxury vehicle, dated as it was. And if this punk was joyriding in his parent’s car Sam fully intended on getting the license plate number, tracking down the parents, and ruining this little asshole’s day. The car’s headlights locked on him. No, only older people drove these ships with wheels.

  But old people didn’t race through mountain passes.

  “Slow the fuck down, you idiot,” Sam snarled, hurrying toward the rental car now. He wasn’t sure he would make it.

  As if complying with his command, the Chrysler slowed, approaching the hairpin turn. He’d run out of time. Avoiding an accident was now down to the skill of the driver. Sam hoped they would be able to navigate the turn without clipping his rental. Hell, clipping the car might be the best–case scenario at the speed they were going. Moving it now would mean putting himself at risk.

  It’s just a rental car, he reminded himself. I won’t be at fault. It’ll suck to have to try to find a ride out of here, but it’s not worth it.

  Car tires chirped. The Chrysler lurched to the left, making an adjustment. It was crazy; the switchback turned to the left. Why in the world was the driver cutting the angle even tighter? They were putting themselves and any passengers in danger. His heart thumped. This was going to end badly for someone. Without thinking, Sam took tentative steps backward. This car was going to share the same fate if the driver didn’t act and he wanted to be far out of the way.

  I’m going to see someone die, the dark thought bounced around in his head as he retreated.

  The driver downshifted. The Chrysler’s engine roared in orgasmic joy at the forced thrust of torque.

  The car jerked again, this time correcting to the right. Sam felt a brief moment of relief, thinking the driver realized his predicament and was trying to rescue the situation.

  But then it all became real. Sam stood in shock.

  The Chrysler was close enough to see inside the window.

  To see enough detail.

  The operator was old enough to know better than to drive like this.

  The driver was someone he knew.

  That was why the car looked familiar. He’d just seen it.

  At his mother’s house.

  Mind and body scrambled. Survival instinct encouraged him away from danger.

  Rhonda was behind the wheel, and Sam swore she was grinning as if she were enjoying this youthful irresponsibility. Shadows of two other heads accompanied her.

  He swallowed, stepping back further. Why was Rhonda racing through the mountains like this?

  Why was she careening in a straight line that would take them straight past him, off the road to certain death?

  But they weren’t going to careen past him. They were going to run into him.

  Sam lunged as the Chrysler 300 slammed on its brakes, leaving the surface road and sliding into the gravel bank where he stood. Seizing pain exploded in his hips at the moment fiberglass and steel met flesh. His legs were no longer his own, unfeeling and useless. The world tumbled.

  Sky.

  White earth.

  Clouds.

  Brown boulders poking out of the snow.

  His legs flopped, arcing over his downward-pointed head.

  Then he landed. The world punched him in the face. Rocks of all sizes, small and tiny, cut into his back, his arms, his face. Sam tumbled over and over before finally crashing into a lawnmower-sized boulder. Radiating warmth in his hip was the only thing that convinced him that he still might actually be alive.

  Oh my God! I can’t move!

  Searing, scorching pain detonated in his shoulders as he tried to push himself up. He collapsed back into the blood-red gravel.

  His blood.

  Through cloudy eyes, Sam looked down at his useless legs and noticed the pool forming from his hip down to his feet.

  Somewhere in the fog of the accident, three car doors closed. Rhythmic, crunching footsteps approached, wafting into his clouded mind. He opened his eyes. Even that hurt. Three shapes angled over him. Indistinct, but known.

  “Rhonda?” he croaked.

  The council of ladies stood over him. Rhonda was in the forefront, her large frame blocked out most of the remaining sunlight poking through the clouds. She stood with her legs angled apart, her fists planted on her hips. Even through squinted eyes, Sam saw a face twisted in rage.

  “You won’t leave her,” Rhonda spat.

  “What?” Forming words was difficult, requiring more energy than he had to give. The icy chill of the boulders began to subside as his body transferred heat into them. Cold. So cold.

  “You think you can disappear for years at a time and not check in on her? Not care about her?” Rhonda snarled. “You think it’s okay to swing into town like some fancy big shot, pretend like you’re worried about her, and then disappear again? Do you know what she’s done for you?

  Rhonda’s voice bounced off the surrounding mountains. Even the world wanted nothing to do with her rage. She was shouting herself hoarse. She’s losing her fucking mind. “I—I want to bring her home with me.”

  Rhonda’s cackle exploded from her thick frame. Loose skin jiggled everywhere on her face, threatening to detach in clumps. “And take her away from here? Take her away from her home? Oh no, you little bastard, you won’t be doing any of that. You’re going to be staying here. With her. You will not abandon her again!”

  Sam groaned and tried to roll over, tried to roll away. Useless legs refused to participate. Their mercy would now determine his fate. Cecilia and Jane circled him. Rhonda supervised, her eyes never leaving his. She snickered like she was trying to cough up phlegm. “Your father tried that too. Did you know that? Dipping his willie into that slut over in Georgetown. Living his life only for himself. He thought he was so clever, so smart. But we taught him. We taught him good. Taught him the Lord’s justice for fornicators.”

  Cecilia and Jane heaved together, lifting him off the ground. They were so strong. His shoulder exploded in fiery pain. Sam screamed, hoping against hope that someone would hear him. By the time breath came, they were placing him in the trunk. Sobbing, Sam realized his useless legs couldn’t even prevent them from closing it. If he could resist them he’d have a chance to crawl to freedom. But he couldn’t do anything except succumb to their whims in his condition. He had to fight. What other option did he have? Giving up now would seal his fate. If that trunk closed he’d lose the chance to escape.

  But he couldn’t. Even as he thrust his good arm up to stop it, the trunk lid slammed down. His elbow took the brunt of the force, sending stinging jolts up into his shoulder. He cried sobs on top of sobs.

  And the world went dark.

  ***

  With no idea how much time had passed, Sam came to at the sound of voices. The inside lid of the trunk greeted him when he cracked his eyes open.

  Rhonda. The others belonged to Cecelia and Jane. The Council was gathered.

  This time, though,
there was another voice he recognized. His bones became as rigid as steel. The fight was over. Hope scattered.

  “Did he survive?” his mother asked.

  “Yes.” Even muffled, Rhonda’s voice dripped pride. “We took care of his rental car too. Took us a while to drive out to the ravine.”

  “We opened the door and pushed it over the side,” Cecilia bragged.

  “It burned,” Jane said, her voice devoid of emotion.

  Sam was about to pound on the trunk lid, to cry out to his mother for help and warn her that she was in the company of madwomen. But the words froze in his throat.

  “Good. Thank you, ladies. Thank you for always being there for me and taking care of me. Thank you for bringing my son home.”

  “You’re welcome, dear,” Rhonda replied. “We’re happy you’ll never be lonely again.”

  “Never again.” Jane and Cecilia mimicked.

  “Never again,” his mother laughed.

  “It will be a long time before he’s ambulatory again,” Rhonda prophesied.

  “That’s fine,” Bethany giggled. “It’ll be nice to have someone to take care of again.”

  The sound of someone tapping on the trunk was the last thing he heard before the world shattered.

  “Honey, that’s how we do things around here,” Bethany whispered just above the closed trunk.

  The council of ladies howled their approval.

  END

  The Most Terrifying Time of the Year

  “Are you sure?” Kilo Harkness asked, leaning sideways toward the window to read the note in the dying daylight.

  “Fuck if I know, man,” Damien Pierce responded, his eyes focused on the road. The unrelenting snow whited out the lines long ago. Even the signposts were starting to disappear in this fierce display of natural power. “I just want to get us somewhere safe. Even if it’s a motel.”

  Kilo dropped his hands into his lap, no longer paying attention to the note he held. “You don’t plan on getting to Shelley’s tonight?”

  There was a hint of despair in his tone. Damien didn’t blame him. He felt it too. A lifelong city boy, Damien wasn’t accustomed to snow like this. Or unplowed roads for that matter. He wasn’t accustomed to a world without man-made markers to help with navigation.

  “I’m not sure we’re going to make it.” It was an honest answer, the only type of answer he could give. They’d started late out of Seattle on their way to Quincy. Night was falling fast, catching them halfway to their destination. Damien couldn’t believe it. They weren’t even near Ellensburg yet and this blizzard slowed their progress to a near crawl. He didn’t want to admit it to Kilo, but they might be in trouble.

  “What do you mean you aren’t sure we’re going to make it?” Kilo’s voice shook.

  “I don’t know, man, it’s pretty bad,” Damien leaned forward, trying to make out as much of the road as he could. They’d taken the interstate out of Seattle but halfway through Cle Elum there’d been an accident, backing everything up for miles. And in one of the poorer decisions he’d made in a long time, Damien chose to leave the interstate for the less traveled route 10, a road devoid of signs of life.

  Daylight quickened its absence. Kilo shared his unsolicited thoughts. “Man, it’s creepy out here when it gets dark.”

  “I’ll bet it’s creepy out here even in daylight. You just know there aren’t any brothers out here,” Damien laughed, feeling disingenuous at the gesture. He hoped it would lighten his mood. The pressure of responsibility for their safety was exhausting.

  It didn’t work.

  Kilo held out his cell phone, aiming it toward the windshield. “Shit,” he exclaimed.

  “What?”

  “I can’t get a goddamn cell signal,” Kilo explained.

  Damien shrugged. “I lost mine miles ago, back in the mountains. That’s why Shelley gave us old school directions, isn’t it?”

  Kilo turned the paper back to the window, using his flashlight app to read it. Seconds later he turned it off.

  “Why do you keep doing that?”

  “I need to save my battery,” Kilo answered. “My phone is almost dead.”

  A charged phone wouldn’t do them any good if they couldn’t get within range of a cell tower, but they weren’t going to do that without getting their GPS back. And reading Shelley’s directions were the only hope they had of finding their way. “Mine is dead.”

  “I can’t believe you forgot your charging cable.”

  Damien sneered. “Yeah, well I’m driving.” It was as good of a response as he had right now. He needed to focus on keeping them on the road, not winning petty squabbles. “Just keep looking for anything that looks like something she wrote down.”

  Damien regretted not buying a map before leaving Seattle. They didn’t check the weather either because, in Seattle, the weather was perpetually gray and wet. He didn’t expect it to be such a different world ninety minutes east of the city. It wasn’t like he never left Seattle, he had. But his travels only took him north to Vancouver, or south to Portland. Heading west would get him wet and there was no reason to go east. Until now.

  And now Damien almost wished he hadn’t.

  This was also his first experience with being off the grid. Not having a cell signal was weird at first. Now it was absolutely frightening. Seattle had people; the east side of the Cascades did, he saw some of them before the snow started blowing. But where they were now was anyone’s guess.

  As blackness deepened, his trepidation grew. They were getting more lost with each mile.

  “Yeah, that’s a good idea,” Kilo said after a moment. “I thought it was a bad joke, you know? Writing directions based on landmarks. Who knew it was a real thing?”

  The pair rode in silence, Damien concentrating on keeping the vehicle on the road while Kilo examined their surroundings, trying to pick out anything that might help them find their way.

  After a while, Kilo sighed. “Man, I can’t see a damn thing.”

  Damien laughed. It was bitter, born of frustration and growing despair. “That’s been the last two hours of my life. I don’t know what we’re going to do.”

  “Me either.”

  So they continued driving into the white evening. The shadow of the earth’s curvature passed over them. Damien stared into the eternal void of the universe. Out here, away from the lights of Seattle, the night was blacker than he imagined it could be. The headlights of the car exposed the white landscape and the blinding, curling bombardment of snow, but little else. Only feet beyond those headlights, a black curtain hid the rest of the world. Damien risked a glance at his speedometer. They were going 15 miles an hour.

  “We need to find a place to stay,” he decided.

  “Yeah.”

  Damien was scared, and Kilo didn’t look much better. Neither hid it from the other. That’s how bad this was getting. Pulling over for the night was the only option. But where? Beyond the whitening world, Damien couldn’t see a single home or business. Not even a gas station. Time was running out for finding a solution.

  Silence became an unwelcome passenger.

  Weaved into the quiet, Kilo fell asleep. Damien tightened his grip on the steering wheel. If he wasn’t petrified of ending upside down in a ditch he’d crank the speakers. Kilo deserved at least that right now. Who the fuck fell asleep on their friend, leaving them alone to deal with the stress of these conditions? Hours of driving through this unrelenting snow at a speed that would embarrass a sloth had exhausted him. He struggled to keep his eyes open and needed Kilo’s help, even as hopeless as the situation seemed.

  Especially because the situation seemed hopeless.

  What he didn’t need was to have to babysit someone.

  Damien reached over, grabbing Kilo’s jacket. “Wake the fuck up.”

  Kilo mumbled something and turned away.

  Damien shoved him. But doing so unbalanced him in a situation where there was no margin for error. The wheel jerked in Damien’s hands.
His heart stopped. Snagging the wheel, Damien steered in the opposite direction out of instinct. The back end of the car kicked out, sending them into a disorienting spin.

  Someone screamed. Damien was pretty sure it was his own voice.

  Kilo bolted upright, “What the fuck?”

  The car spun, whipping Damien’s head against the window. Stars exploded in his vision. The whirling snow compounded his disorientation. Seconds of eternity passed before the car jolted as it slammed into something.

  Unable to loosen his hands from the steering wheel when the car came to a rest, Damien reminded himself to breathe. Snow bombarded the windshield faster than the windshield wipers could clear it, enclosing them in their protective shell.

  “Shit.”

  “Yeah,” Damien groaned, holding his head. “We need to check to see if everything’s okay.”

  Kilo looked at him as if he’d spontaneously developed a second set of ears. “I’m not going out there.”

  Damien pointed out the windshield. “In case you haven’t noticed, we’re in the middle of nowhere. Let’s check the car because, if we’re broke down, we’re fucked.”

  “We’re probably already fucked,” Kilo complained even as he reached to grab his jacket from the back seat. “I didn’t bring any fucking gloves.”

  “Neither did I.”

  As soon as he stepped out of the car, millions of flakes of snow assaulted Damien. They were heavy with Pacific Ocean water, too far inland to make sense. The car windshield was already covered and the hood, still warm from the drive, couldn’t melt the snow faster than it was being buried under it. Scanning the night, Damien looked for anything that might indicate some replica of civilization was close. Nothing. The cold fear made swallowing difficult.

  “Fuck!” Kilo went down, his feet kicked up in the air.

  Damien raced around the front of the car to see his friend flat on his back. Kilo laughed at himself and decided then was an excellent opportunity to make a snow angel. The moment of levity released hours of tension as Damien watched his friend act like a fool. Laughing hurt his head.