Stuck in Storm- Stanger

  Ryan felt the truck sliding towards the ditch, and there was nothing he could do to stop it. He tried to remember exactly where he was, and whether he was about to crash into a cliff or fall over one.

  It was a really shitty night to be driving, and after all the years he’d been on the highway, he knew better. This load was supposed to be in Crofton by morning. By the look of it, he never would be able to deliver it, not tomorrow, not ever.

  Then he remembered the girl still in the sleeper, totally oblivious to the situation. If they went over the cliff, neither one of them would survive the crash, but maybe she’d die quickly, before she ever regained consciousness.

  The girl. She had been standing at the side of the road, hitch-hiking in the pouring rain, in the middle of nowhere. Ryan didn’t usually pick up hitch-hikers, but even in the glare of the headlights he could see her shivering, and if he hadn’t picked her up, she wouldn’t have lasted another hour in that cold before hypothermia got her.

  Now that they were about to crash into God knows what, maybe he hadn’t done her such a great favor after all. Dead was dead, no matter what the cause.

  The truck hit some gravel, then began to lean to the left as it careened off the highway. Whatever was out there was going to come through his door before anywhere else, and he leaned to the right of the big steering wheel by instinctive reflex. It seemed like hours, but it was only a second or two before the side window exploded into a million little shards of glass and sheet metal crumpled like paper all around him.

  Ryan blacked out almost on impact.

  When Ryan regained consciousness, he had no idea what time it was, where he was, or how long he’d been out of it. He was cold. He was wet. He was covered in snow. It was pitch black everywhere. Oh, and he couldn’t move. There was no real pain, but whether that was the numbness of shock or just dumb luck took more thought than he could muster.

  The girl. Was she dead or alive? And if she was unfortunate enough to have survived, was she injured? How bad? Ryan wanted desperately to look in the sleeper behind him and try to help her. If he could have moved, he would have checked, too. But he was trapped, and of no use to her now. That’s when he blacked out again.

  The next thing he remembered wasn’t much different than the last one. He was still wet. He was still cold. It was still snowing. And he still couldn’t move. About all that had changed was that it wasn’t dark any more.

  Ryan carefully tried moving his arms, then his legs, and finally his head. Amazingly they all responded. They just didn’t have any room to move from, or to. Looking to his right, he realized that the passenger seat had ripped off its mounts and was pinning him to where the door should be. That seat had bent the steering column away from him, probably saving his life, for what that was worth right now. The air bag that supported his driver’s seat had ruptured, leaving the seat as low as it would go and pinning his legs against the kick panel in front of the door.

  Now, if he could just get the stupid seatbelt undone, maybe he could push that seat off him and get out of this metal coffin. Slowly, he inched his hands and fingers to where the release latch should be. Shock and disbelief! It was there, and he managed to get to it, then unfasten himself. With what felt like his last ounce of strength, Ryan got a perch on the seat that had him pinned and pushed with all his mite.

  Unbelievably, the seat moved! Summoning up one more burst of energy, Ryan shoved again, and the seat careened to where the windshield had once been, then tumbled out of the cab. It was immediately replaced by two feet of the coldest snow Ryan could remember! But at least he could move a bit, and that made him feel better. Not a lot better, but better.

  The girl! He had to find her, to discover what condition she was in, whether she was dead or alive! He turned to look into the sleeper, which should be to his right. But all he saw was white, white, and whiter. What the hell? Where was the sleeper? Where was the girl?

  Ryan gave himself a few minutes to clear his head. He could feel a couple of broken ribs stabbing at his sides, but that seemed to be the only damage he’d sustained. Shit, what a miracle that was! Then he realized that where the gear shift should be on the floor no longer had a gear shift. There was only a hole left, and a lot of light coming through it. That didn’t make any sense. There should be the top of the transmission, at least!

  He cautiously peered out where the sleeper should have been. There it was, about 20 yards away! Both the cab and the sleeper must have come off the truck and been thrown clear of the chassis, but with all the snow, that 20 yards might as well be 200 miles! There was something lying on top of the doorway. What the hell was that, he wondered. Then he focused his blurry vision and realized it was the crash guard that should have been anchored to the truck’s frame, right behind the sleeper. He had to get over there and check on the girl. That’s if she was still alive, which he doubted.

  It took all his will and energy to cover that 20 yards. A lot of the time he seriously considered turning back and finding some sort of shelter in the remains of the cab. But he just had to find out, to keep going, and if she was still alive, to do everything he could to keep her that way.

  After what seemed like two lifetimes, Ryan managed to get to the bunk and pull himself up to the entranceway. His first idea was to just push the crash guard off, but something stopped him. Maybe it was a lack of strength left, or maybe it was some kind of Divine Intervention. He didn’t know and didn’t care. It was only afterwards that he realized that the sleeper offered more protection from the elements than the cab did, and the guard would act as a roof to keep some of this frigging snow out. Pushing the guard back enough to see inside, he saw her. She was shivering, and there was a lot of blood splattered over everything, which didn’t bode well for her survival. Shit!

  Summoning energy he didn’t know he had, Ryan clambered through the opening and bent over the girl’s body. She was a pretty thing. Maybe a little on the skinny side, but she was about 18 or 19, had beautiful looking breasts, firm, round and soft. Her little patch of pubic hair looked a little long and untrimmed, and her inverted -V camel toe was a delight to behold. But she was naked!

  It took Ryan a few minutes to remember that when the girl had crawled into the truck, she was soaked to the skin. He’d told her to get into the sleeper, get out of her wet clothes and into the sleeping bag. He had explained to her how to crank the heater all the way to maximum, and demanded her to stay in that sleeping bag until she built up a real good sweat. Oh, and if she felt thirsty, there was a cooler on the floor with lots of bottled water in it. She could help herself, to make sure she didn’t dehydrate, under any circumstances.

  Looking at her body, Ryan broke out of his reverie and realized that she was still breathing! Shit, she was alive still! The crash guard had held in most of that heat that she’d poured into the bunk, and after all these hours, it was still relatively warm in there. He grabbed anything that would work like a blanket and threw it on top of her in effort to give her some of that warmth back.

  Ryan’s mind went back over the few details he had, and realized that when the sleeper had come off the truck, the girl had been covered by all the blankets and pillows, the mattress, and his flying laundry as she was tossed around. The bunk’s padded upholstery had protected her from anything sharp. If she had broken bones, he could deal with those. If she had internal injuries, however, that was a different matter. He’d never been a religious man, but for the next number of minutes, he prayed like a Benedictine monk!

  Checking her pulse, he found it was strong and steady. There was some blood on her lips and nose, and she was going to have one hell of a shiner over her right eye. Now if he could only get her back to consciousness.

  In an attempt to bring
her back, he slapped her face. Not hard, but enough to get her attention. And the result? Nothing. He waited a moment, then slapped her again. She rolled her head and moaned. More gently now, he patted her cheek to help her back into the land of the living. Suddenly she grabbed his wrist and slammed his arm against the sleeper roof with more force than he figured her to have.

  “Fuck off, asshole!”, she growled at him. Well, he’d gotten her back to being conscious, but wasn’t sure if it had been worth it.

  “Hey, take it easy! I’m not going to hurt you, okay? Promise. Can you move at all?”, he asked her.

  “Who the fuck are you, anyways?”, she glared at him. “Where the hell am I? And why is it so fucking cold in here?”. Well, she sure had a colorful vocabulary, if nothing else, but the memory wasn’t too good. He glanced at her hair and saw that she was a brunette. So much for the blonde jokes.

  “Take it easy, girl. I’m the guy that picked you up when you were hitch-hiking back near Standard. You remember that?”.

  “No! No, I don’t remember hitch-hiking! You son-of-a-bitch! You fucking kidnapped me! I’m calling the fucking cops!”

  Shit, no one should have to take that kind of crap! He’d saved her life, sort of, and what was he getting for his trouble? Yelled at, accused of kidnapping, threatened, that’s what! Maybe he should have left her there to freeze to death. Not that this was much different. Same death, different location.

  “Look, I saw you standing at the side of the highway with your thumb out, shivering and soaking wet in the rain, three quarters frozen, and stopped to try and help. When I asked you where you were heading, you just yelled at me to get you the fuck outta there. Actually, you were a lot more insistent than that, but anyway. That was sometime yesterday evening. Now we’re about three hours into the mountains, we’ve been in an accident, and it’s snowing like a sonofabitch! No one will be down this road until after it stops snowing. That might be tomorrow, and it might be next week! But I’ll tell you this, right now. If it’s any longer than that, it ain’t gonna matter because we’ll both be froze to death! Okay?”. It took all Ryan’s will to keep from screaming at her, until he remembered that it wasn’t her fault that they were stuck here in the middle of nowhere. It was his, and he owed her a chance to survive.

  “I . . . I’m sorry. The last thing I remember is three guys grabbing me and dragging me off to someplace. I was scared they were gonna rape me, or maybe kill me. When they were busy, I snuck out and ran like hell. I didn’t know where I was or where I was going. I just knew that I had to run before they caught me again. But I don’t remember any highway, or sticking my thumb out, or any of that stuff you said”.

  “Yeah, and I’m sorry I bit your head off like that”, Ryan apologized to her. “Let’s start again, okay? My name’s Ryan. Ryan Cuthbertson, but you can just call me Ryan. You got a name? Girl doesn’t sound right, and I gotta call you something”.

  “Hi Ryan. I’m Christina. And I apologize for screaming at you, too. But how the hell did we get way the fuck and gone in the middle of nowhere?”.

  “It’s a long story. Let’s see what you’ve broken and injured first. Can you move your head from one side to the other? Go slow”.

  Christina turned her head all the way to the left, then to the right. That meant there was no real damage to her neck.

  Okay, try to lift you right arm, as high as you can.” she raised it almost up to the far wall. “Good. Now the other one”. That moved freely, too. “Perfect. Now try to sit up a bit, but go slow”.

  Christina attempted to sit up then screamed loud enough to be heard for miles in spite of the snowstorm they were stuck in.

  “Ow-w-w-w-w! Jesus Christ, my fucking leg!”, she hollered.

  “Easy, easy! Here let me see. Which one is it?”.

  “My left! Holy shit, that hurts!”.

  Ryan carefully felt her left leg, starting at the top of her thigh and working down towards her ankle. As he put his hand over her upper thigh, he could feel the warmth of her crotch radiating against his hand. Under different circumstances, he’d love to explore that juncture. Get your mind out of the gutter!, he told himself. As he got passed her knee, she howled at him again.

  “Oww! Take it easy! That fucking hurts!”. Well, he’d discovered two things. First, she’d broken her lower leg, but it wasn’t a compound fracture, so a simple splint would hold it in place until they got medical attention. That’s if they lived long enough to get medical attention. Second, she definitely had a colorful vocabulary, and wasn’t afraid to use it. Damn! The girl could make a sailor blush!

  Ryan reached out his hand to her. “Here. Pull yourself up on my arm, and don’t use that leg. I think it’s broken, but it ain’t that bad. I’ll see what I can dig up for a splint so it doesn’t start to set all wrong”.

  She grabbed the offered hand and pulled herself up. It was at that point that she realized she was naked from the waist up.

  “What the fuck? You sonofabitch! Where’s my clothes?”, she screamed at him.

  “Christina, when you crawled into this . . . make it that . . . truck, you were soaked and shivering. I was really scared you were gonna die from hypothermia. Anyway, I chased your butt into the sleeper, told you to get the hell outta them wet clothes, crank up the heater, and crawl into the sleeping bag. You were told to stay there until you started to sweat up a storm. That’s the only way I know of to counter that hypothermia stuff. Anyway, when we crashed, you were still in the sleeping bag, I think. It should be around here somewhere, but it’s probably soaked by now. But I got lots of extra clothes laying around here, so we should be able to find you enough to wear. Ain’t gonna be designer gear, but it’ll keep you warmer than what you’ve got on now”. Ryan began to route around and found a wool shirt and T-shirt that were still dry, and an old pair of jeans. He shoved them to where Christina could reach, then searched for some socks and maybe a coat.

  “Umm, I hate to sound ungrateful, Ryan, but I really could use a pair of panties”, Christina said, and it was the first time he’d heard her talk without screaming or cussing. “I don’t suppose you have any, do you?”.

  “Sorry. I gave up wearing those a couple years back. Might be able to find a pair of my shorts, though. Would they do, ya think?”. The levity of his comment broke the tension, and Christina started to chuckle. Her chuckle became a belly laugh, and its infected Ryan, too. Maybe, if they could keep their spirits up like that, they’d actually survive this horror story situation!

  As they got over their laughing fit, Ryan figured out that Christina hadn’t broken any ribs, but he sure had. Shit, his sides felt like he’d been run over by a train! But if he could splint her leg, maybe she could help him wrap his ribs. First things first, though, and he searched for those socks and hopefully a clean pair of underwear she could use. After turning half the sleeper upside down, he found what he was looking for.

  “Here, Christina. They’re gonna be a little large, and probably won’t fit worth a shit, but these undershorts are clean, at least. And here’s some socks, too. Oh, I just might have some boots that’ll work. What size shoe you usually wear?”.

  “Usually a size 7. Why . . . fucking Jesus!”, and she winced in painful agony. She’d tried to lift herself up to put Ryan’s shorts on and had forgotten about her leg for a split second.

  “Whoa, girl! Don’t even consider thinking about using that leg! Here, give me the shorts and I’ll put ‘em on for you, okay?”.

  As Ryan worked the undershorts over Christina’s ankles, he never even thought about how he was going to get them past her thighs and up to her waist. He was fine until he past her knees and half way up her thighs before that logistics problem reared its head.

  “Umm, Christina, we may have a problem here”, Ryan mumbled. “Your naked under that blanket, and these things have got to go over your hips. With that leg all busted, the only way I can think of is for me to put my hand under your . . . butt . . . and lift you. You’ll have to pull ‘em up wh
ile I do, and it’s gonna take a couple of tries to get them up. You gonna be okay with this?”.

  “Shit, I’ve trusted you this much. Hell, you could have done anything you wanted when I was out cold, then left me to die, right? If flashing my pussy at you drives you over the edge now, what the fuck, huh? Let’s just do it and get it over with. Besides, I think my ass is starting to freeze, so let me get some clothes on before it falls off”.

  It took quite a while and a lot of non-existent co-ordination, but between the two of them, Christina was clothed again. Ryan’s pants and shirt were big enough that she could have worn one half this year and the other half next! Christina wasn’t too keen on wearing the T-shirt until Ryan pointed out that the wool of his shirt would grind strata marks in her nipples if she didn’t. He’d pulled the crash guard over the doorway, giving them, some shelter from the blowing and drifting snow, but it was still damned cold in the bunk.