CHAPTER 1

 Awakening       

Consciousness came slowly climbing through a searing haze of pain. I glared through the windshield of my car and all I could see was a tree.  My head felt as if someone had used an aluminum baseball bat on me.  With the rather unsteady back of my hand, I rubbed across my forehead and gazed at the smear of blood across it.  "Great " I grunted.  The realization of my situation came just as groggily.  I had imbedded a rather large pine tree into the grill of my car. The reptilian like hissing of the radiator emphasized that point rather poignantly. 

Through the fog of my unsettled psyche, I attempted to piece together the happenings of late.  The huge warp in the steering wheel meant my head must have been the instrument of the reconfiguration of steel and plastic.  Something flashed across my mind; I seemed to remember an animal in the road a dog or maybe a wolf.  However there was something different weird about it.  It was like no other canine creature I had ever seen in these woods or anywhere else before. 

I had swerved to miss it but because of the road conditions, lost control of the car and all hell broke loose and settled around my head.  "How do I get myself into this crap? "  I mumbled but my mind drifted back to the animal.  The eyes of the creature haunted me; they were the deepest darkest cobalt blue nearly black but with a glint in them that seemed sentient.  "Now how the hell do you remember that?" I mumbled under my breath.

      Leaning sideways in the seat I glanced at my forehead in the rearview  "...that's a real looker of a Goose egg ain't it Ken?" I grumbled.  Unbuckling the seat belt I tried to open my door... jammed!  It must have been from the impact duh!  The passenger side was jammed as well.   I tried both back doors and found them jammed tight as old dick's hatband.  I jerked on the lever angrily and slammed my shoulder hard against the door.  Succeeding only in banging my funny bone and feeling the agonizing numbing tingle running the length of my arm and down into my fingers. 

      Frustration took over immediately; "Oh great " I screamed  "I'm going to bleed to death trapped in my car on a deserted stretch of back mountain road and no one will ever know or for that matter care."  The echo of my voice seemed to bring me back.  It was unlikely I would bleed to death not from a knuckleheaded knot on my forehead or for that matter be forgotten.  Exasperation frustration and pain seem to be excellent reasons to feel extremely sorry for one's self at this particular moment (yadda yadda yadda).  No time to play poor pitiful me I had other problems to deal with.

I knew none of the windows would roll down (simply because the electric motors had been removed) so I lay back on the seat and placed my feet against the glass took a deep breath and held it.  Drawing back both feet, I kicked with all the force I could muster.  The impact with the bulletproof Plexiglas nearly unhinged several vertebrae.  "I knew that glass would get me in trouble someday " I moaned. 

I rubbed my back with my left hand and breathed slowly trying to ease the spasm.   Suddenly a thought flashed through my brain the escape or more likely dump hatch.  Someone had roughly cut it into the rear floorboard of the old limo.  I had discovered it last summer while drinking a few brews and doing some minor repairs to the muffler.  Imagining at that time the former owner must have been some kind of drug smuggler if they needed a trap door.  I thought back to when I bought the car; a gentleman dressed in a black suit and tie and looking like an attorney said he was an "agent" of the owner and would not entertain any questions of the current or former owners of the vehicle.  That was fine with me all I wanted was the car.  It seemed strange to me that this car needed to have an attorney attached to it.  Since they were only asking twenty five hundred bucks for it.  Nevertheless, I paid for it signed the papers and received the title in the mail two weeks later.  As far as I was concerned, the deal was legal binding and complete.

Oh well! That was then and this is now shrugging my shoulders and returning to work.  The faded red (it looked like watered down blood) wear worn carpet; pealed back from the hatch easily. I hooked my fingernails under the lip of the hatch and tried to pry it up.  The fingernail on my right index pealed back from the cuticle and I screamed from agony and anger. "Jeez that hurt," I yelled (around the injured finger stuck in my mouth). "Of all of the stupid things to do I had to break a nail ".  The sound of my own words reminded me of Janice my ex and I began to laugh  "That sounded just like her; 'I just broke a freshly manicured nail and ruined my new polish.' "  I mimicked and it caused me to laugh harder.  I sat there laughing for what seemed a long time as much from anguish as from humor. 

Scared hurt and unsure of being able to free myself from this coffin made me feel forlorn  "This is ridiculous."  In utter frustration, I raised my leg and kicked down hard on the hatch.  It fell open and just as quickly so did my jaw.  Obviously in a traumatized stupor, I had forgotten that the hatch opened the other way.  I shrugged and looked at the hole between my feet.  Dirt and gravel but the fresh air coming through that hole carried the scent of freedom. 

The only way anyone could have used this hole for escape was if that person was either a very small man or possibly a woman.  The hole was only eighteen inches square and jagged.  Obviously it was not intended for a person at all much less one of my girth but there were no other options at least none that I could see now.  To get through that hole I was going to have to shed some clothes first.

The first thing to come off was my Mackinaw coat.   I remembered when I got it.  Dad had bought it for me when I turned 16 and when I put it on it swallowed me like a whale he laughed and said " One of these days son you'll grow into that coat and it will be one of your best friends"; I guess he knew then that I'd never let it go...

I drew away from the sentimental stroll and began thinking about the last weather report what was it the DJ had said oh yeah the temperature would be dropping to below zero by early evening with snow beginning around dark.  I looked at my watch; it was just after three now that meant I had two and a half or three hours before it started to get bad.  I chuckled "as if it ain't bad now".  I knew when it snowed in the mountains it snowed a lot and all at once.  I crawled back over the front seat and dug through the glove box I had a 9mm pistol and a couple of boxes of shells in there along with my hunting knife.  I was not sure I would need them but you never know about these things and I always tried to be prepared yeah right! 

I remembered my flashlight under the seat and fished it out of the debris that had collected there.  I flipped the switch; the light almost blinded me. Isn't it funny how some people will do that automatically? They turn on a flashlight while looking wide eyed at the lens and then berate themselves for it afterwards.  Then they have to follow those little dots on the retina around for a while.  The bright splashes of color I could still see before my eyes proved that the torch would last for a while longer.  I laid it aside and dug for my first aid kit.  I looked into the rear view mirror once again at the knot on my forehead; it was not as bad as I had first suspected but it was still painful.  The blood had crusted above my eyes giving me the look of a crazed maniac with the stub of a horn on his forehead.  I giggled at the thought and tossed everything over the seat.  I had started back over when I remembered the keys; I know what a time to worry about some one trying to steal the car.  Well I wasn't worried about that.  I remembered the rifle I had bought for my kid brother Joey for Christmas was in the trunk.  I could not just leave it there for anyone to take now could I?  I rolled all of my booty up in my coat. A shiver ran down my spine it was beginning to get cold now and I was starting to shiver more. "Well no time like the present " I mumbled and stuffed the coat through the hole following it through with my feet.  It seemed like ages had passed before I finally made it through.  Virtually every inch of my torso was scratched.  Otherwise, I was in pretty good shape.  I scooted my way out from under the car; which also seemed to take an eternity.  Finally, I reached up grabbed the door handle and pulled myself up to a sitting position.  I took a deep breath; At last; I was free!

      Then a realization struck me; I slapped my forehead unthinkingly and winced with pain  " idiot! " I shouted both from the pain of hitting my head and the fact that I'd left two sacks of groceries sitting on the front seat.  I had stopped at a road side cafe/grocery about twenty miles down the road near the bottom of the mountain and bought a bunch of canned goods and such to take to the cabin with me. Sure enough there they were on the seat.  I had even crawled over them to get to the glove box " Way to go dimwit " I admonished myself.  I was still forty miles from the cabin snow was about to start and there were no houses anywhere near here.  As a matter of fact, there was nothing between Canyon City Café/Grocery where I had bought the groceries and the peak of this mountain except Jules' small cabin.  That was the main reason I was coming out here to be alone for a while.  I just didn't realize I would be suffering from exposure starvation and head trauma to get my wish. 

I needed those sacks  (a shiver ran up then down my spine like needles) but now I needed my coat worse.  I was freezing.  I grabbed the bundle and hurried to the back of the car. I laid the mackinaw gently on top of the trunk.  Another shiver ran down my spine an avalanche this time culminating in the crack of my butt quickening my efforts.  I unrolled my cache of things and laid them aside.  I pulled the coat over my sweatshirt and felt the warmth engulf me.  I'd had this coat a long time and it never failed to comfort me.

"Well now" I mulled  "back to the problem at hand".  Moving the weapons and such off the trunk lid, I reached into my pocket for the keys.  I slipped the trunk key into the lock and turned it. The trunk lid popped up revealing a jumble of contents not so much caused by the wreck although that had not helped it but more from negligence.  For a long time I had good intentions of cleaning all that crap out I just never got around to it. On top of the pile of miscellaneous paraphernalia lay the bright and gaily wrapped (in some garish snowman with a hat paper) box that held the rifle.  I'd spared no expense to buy this rifle for Joe as much a peace offering as a Christmas gift and in my warped twisted way felt a 30-06 bolt action rifle with a 5 shot magazine and a 40x scope seemed peaceful enough to me.  Any self-aware survivalist would love such a gift.  I reached down and unceremoniously and without a thought of a Merry Christmas ripped the paper away from the box. 

Slowly almost reverently, I pulled the rifle from the box.  Feeling the familiar weight of the weapon and seeing the sheen of the fresh gun bluing on the barrel was almost erotic.  I lifted it up to my shoulder and sighted through the scope. The urge to click off a round or two was strong but I restrained myself.  I'd made a good choice  "even if I do say so myself" I mumbled.  It was a nice piece of hardware.  "I'm sure Joey won't mind I'll just tell him I was breaking it in for him."   I reached back into the trunk for the two boxes of shells to go with it.  Now armed to the teeth I felt like a mountaineer of a couple hundred years ago.  I almost felt invincible except for the fact that my growling stomach reminded me I was hungry.   

The thought of food brought me back to the two sacks sitting peacefully on the front seat of my now useless car.  I felt like such an idiot the only thing to do was to crawl back in there and get them; but the idea didn't really set well.  I was still trying to make up my mind when in the distance I heard the howl of a wolf. "It must be near the ridge of the mountain, " I thought abstractedly.  I was not very worried; it was probably a pack member on a hunt and it would not likely bother me.  The weight of the rifle gave me a great sense of security there weren't many things that could stand up to the impact of a 30-06 shell and I was a pretty fair shot.  I was not worried...   But I should have been.