Total pages in book: 128
Estimated words: 120230 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 601(@200wpm)___ 481(@250wpm)___ 401(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 120230 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 601(@200wpm)___ 481(@250wpm)___ 401(@300wpm)
Light shone off metal about ten steps later.
I bent over in sheer, bone-melting relief. I’d been worried “farm vehicle” meant a tractor, but before me was a Toyota Land Cruiser. An 80 series. No, I was no genius at identifying vehicles. I just knew Land Cruisers thanks to my maternal uncle’s obsession for them.
A man who lived off the land in the back of beyond, he wasn’t officially a farmer, but he owned a huge sprawl so rugged that it was half rock. Despite the constant and repetitive hard use, he’d been through only two Land Cruisers in twenty-five years. These things lasted. Per Uncle Frank, the old-model Land Cruisers might as well be tanks, they were so heavily built.
I had no idea whether those were snow tires on it or not, but they looked like what I imagined snow tires must. As if they’d eat up the snow and spit it out without even noticing.
I almost ran to the driver’s side door.
No key in the ignition, but I found it tucked into the sunshade. Of course. Who was going to come all the way out here to steal a car?
I inserted the key, then stopped, closed my eyes, and said a prayer to Aaron’s God. I might not believe, but he did, and his life was on the line, too, so perhaps his God would have mercy on us all.
Lifting my lashes in the aftermath, I turned the key.
The roar of the engine almost blew out my eardrums. Only then did I realize how used I’d become to the howling quiet of the estate. Rain, endless rain, wind, and nothing else. Not even any voices now but for my own.
Shivering, I crossed my fingers, then glanced at the fuel indicator. Over halfway full. I dropped my head back against the headrest on a deep exhale. That was plenty enough to find out if there was any chance of getting to help.
“Okay,” I said to myself, both hands on the steering wheel. “Okay.”
There was really only one choice. I’d try for a signal on the bridge, though I had little hope of success. If I could get to the location of the slip, on the other hand, I could judge the weather at that point, decide on if I could walk to the small settlement beyond.
It wouldn’t be easy, but it could be done if I prepared myself.
My plan assumed I’d be able to clamber over the slip itself, but I had to assume that, or I might as well give up now and watch my friends gasp their last breaths one by one. “Not an option.”
Decision made, I left the engine running so that it could warm up—another lesson imparted by my uncle—and jumped out to open the huge barn doors. The rain was needles against my face, but it no longer held even slushy ice. The chill remained murderous.
Break down in this and I’d freeze to death.
Just one more victim of an incomprehensible massacre, my body to lie cold and wet and decaying under the spring sky.
46
After getting the big doors open wide, I glanced over at the far smaller door through which I’d come.
How was I going to get to the house without a guide rope? The snow might’ve turned to rain, but that made no change to the visibility as far as my eyes were concerned. There just wasn’t enough light, the world a smeared blank.
In the end, I made the call to drive the Land Cruiser out, decide my next move from there. Once through the doors, I turned immediately left, so that my headlights pointed in the direction of the house.
All I saw at first was rain, a delicate haze of it. As if it was aglow with candlelight. Wondering if I’d switched on the wrong lights by accident, I fiddled with the switch—but couldn’t amp up the wattage.
“Shit.” I squeezed the steering wheel . . . and came to the startling realization that my eyes reacted better to the glow than they did to light bright and biting.
I picked out the tree first, a smudged outline in the fog with waving octopus arms. “Gotcha.” I grinned, scrolling mentally through all the images I’d taken in back of the property.
If I was right, the distinctive tree was positioned halfway to my destination.
I began to roll the car slowly forward. It moved without problem over the snow. This vehicle wasn’t going to slide off the road into a ravine. Not unless I made a mistake.
My shoulders were stiff and my fingers white-knuckled by the time I reached the tree. Stopping, I searched the rainy darkness for any hint of the house.
I couldn’t see any—No, there it was. I hunched over the steering wheel, my eyes narrowed. Was I imagining the twin glimmers of light . . . my headlights reflected back on a window?