The Blizzard

“Good God!” Isabelle shrieked as she grabbed the dashboard of the pick up truck with such force that her clawed fingers turned white.

The truck swerved with such violence that Dave swore the part of it had left the icy road. Instinctively, he twisted the steering wheel to the left as his foot let go of the gas pedal hoping to counter-balance the lurch. That’s when he felt as if he were in free fall. In that fraction of a second that stretched into an eternity, he waited for that sweet spot where he felt the meager pull of friction. It was now or never to call in his gambit. Like a rocket, he spun the steering wheel to the right and slammed on the gas pedal. The 390 horsepower V 8 engine bawled like an enraged monster as it savagely gripped the ice and snow. His wife narrowly avoided the near collision with the passenger-side window caused by the sudden whipping momentum.

“Slow down!” She boomed into Dave’s ears. Her long, golden blond hair was strewn all over her face like a tangled octopus revealing patches of a terror-bleached face.

Dave opened his mouth but an abrupt wave of nausea seized his throat like a vice, locking his words inside. His eyes quivered and bulged as the wipers struggled to clear the snow-packed windshield, leaving short streaks that rapidly disappeared under a new coat of snow. His heart pounded like a stampede, beating inside his chest like boxer’s fists on a canvas bag. His fingers were wrapped so solidly around the steering wheel’s undulated texture that he felt them bleed.

“You moron, you could have gotten us killed!” Tears were flowing down her thin, Cinderella face.

“I’m a moron? Who the hell insisted on braving Alaska’s worst blizzard in centuries to visit her grandmother in that creepy church-like house of hers?”

“Well what would you have me do? Let her spend Christmas Eve by herself? She’s eighty-five years old for Christ sake! You bast -!”

A piercing shrill from the psychotic wind muffled the end of her sentence but he got the full gist. The Silverado slightly weaved as the storm battered its sides.

Dave felt his blood boil like a churning volcano. Christmas season always brings out the worst in her, every fucking year. And she always has to crank up the bloody heat in my goddamn truck!

“Go to hell!” The venom in her words chilled him to the bone.

“I’m already there,” leaving it open for her interpretation.