Five Total Strangers

by Natalie D. Richards

  Still, when he adjusts his leg and groans, I wince in sympathy.

  “This couldn’t have been fun at an airport,” I say, nodding at the hefty brace on his knee.

  He frowns. “It had its moments.”

  “So, what did you do?”

  “I’m doing a social experiment on that,” he says with a chuckle. “What’s your guess?”

  I tilt my head. “Pardon?”

  “What do you think happened to my knee?”

  “Sports thing,” Harper says, though he was asking me. “I’m also going to guess that you’re a psychology major based on that comment.”

  Given that comment, I’m not sure I’d classify Josh and Harper as friends. She must be one of those popular girls who introduces any person they’ve ever met as a “friend.”

  “It’s not sports. No way,” Brecken says, without looking to Josh for verification. “My vote is something involving stairs?”

  “Both wrong, but both noted,” Josh says with a grin. “Mira?” he asks, prompting me for my answer.

  “I’m going with a rogue bear attack,” I say.

  “Rogue bear.” His smile widens. “That’s my favorite yet.”

  Okay, maybe not totally pretentious. And definitely coffee shop cute. Like half the guys at Perkilicious in San Diego, he’s tall, blond, and in dire need of a meeting with the business end of a pair of scissors. I can’t see the rest of his clothes, but his gloves are sporting holes in a couple of fingers. When Harper starts maneuvering out of the parking spot, he pulls out Kafka’s Metamorphosis and a red pen. All we’re missing is a mug of some bougie dark roast and a sulky guitarist in the corner.

  “This could take forever,” Harper says softly as she eases into the lane leading out of the garage.

  Brecken twists in his seat, looking left and right and then squaring his shoulders like it’s time to make decisions. He reaches for the radio first, scanning through the stations. “We should listen to the news. Try to find out if there’s some sort of traffic report. There might be road closures.”

  “It’s not bad at all so far. And we have the emergency kit,” Harper says. “Snow chains and flares—everything we need to get home for Christmas.”

  I touch my phone, grateful that we’re moving. This is it. Six awkward hours in the car with strangers, and I’ll be home with my mom. It’s going to be fine. We’ll talk. I’ll gripe about her not telling me. She’ll explain. We’ll get over it.

  “So, what’s your major?” Josh asks me. He’s smiling like he already knows. I think that’s the Kafka talking. Coffee shop boys are pretty sure they know everything.

  “Undeclared,” I say quickly, and I manage not to flinch at the lie. “You?”

  He shrugs. “I’m on a business track, but lately I’ve been interested in other things.”

  “Heads up,” Brecken says. “Looks like the storm is coming.”

  I look ahead to an electronic display sign over the highway. It’s blinking out a message in orange digital letters.

  BLIZZARD WARNING FROM 1:00 P.M. SATURDAY UNTIL 8:00 A.M. SUNDAY.

  I look around at the mostly dry roads and flurries. Are they getting heavier?

  I check the clock on the dashboard. 11:28 a.m.

  It doesn’t look like a blizzard yet, but that might be because the blizzard hasn’t hit.

  Chapter Three

  We slip for the first time on a patch of highway that doesn’t look bad at all. It’s nothing big—a quick sideways shuffle of wheels that’s more surprising than scary. Before my heart can even speed up, some high-tech traction system gets us back under control. The road looks mostly dry.

  Black ice?

  Maybe just a slick spot.

  I check my seat belt, making sure it’s snug across my hips. Planes are safe, but cars are a different matter. I’ve spent a lot of time in these mountains.. And I can’t remember the last Pennsylvania winter storm that didn’t involve a news story of an awful crash.

  Not that the roads are bad like that. Just some icy patches. And we don’t seem to be going very fast, but the snow is falling harder now, and ice is collecting on the windshield. All the electronically sprayed blue cleaner in the world doesn’t seem to be wiping the glass clean.

  “Dammit,” Harper says, her voice high and tight. “I can barely see for all that ice.”

  “I can drive if you want,” Brecken says. “I learned to drive in upstate New York, so this is nothing.”

  “I’ve got it,” Harper says. “I just wish I had clean glass.”

  I stare out the window, pondering a lazy stream of internal questions. Is this really a blizzard? How fast are we going? Is Mom doing okay? Is someone in this car watching me?

  I straighten, because it’s a strange question to pop into my mind. Stranger still is the chill that rolls up my spine, the prickle of the hairs on my arms standing on end. I look around, because it’s exactly the kind of feeling I’d get if someone was watching me.

  But they aren’t. No one is paying me the least bit of attention.

  Harper sighs in the front seat and hits the washer fluid button. The wipers—clogged with ice—drag cloudy turquoise streaks of fluid and road salt across the windshield.

  “I can’t see very well,” Harper admits, slowing.

  “Just follow the car in front of you,” Brecken says. “I really can drive if you want.”

  “I’m fine,” Harper says, but she grips the wheel hard. “I spent six months with my mom’s family in China. I drove on the Sichuan-Tibet highway. Multiple times. I can handle this.”

  Brecken laughs. “The Situ-what?”

  “Sichuan-Tibet. In China. You know, that country in Asia.” I think she’s teasing but there’s an edge to her tone.

  “I know where China is,” Brecken says quietly.

  “I’m sorry,” Harper says, slowing even more. “This is just…really annoying.”

  I pull out my phone, because this is obviously not going to be a quick trip. So, it might be a good time to let my parents know I wasn’t kidnapped and stolen away to some remote corner of the globe.

  Of course, telling either of them I volunteered to drive with a bunch of strangers probably won’t fly. But neither will ignoring the six text messages that have been vibrating my pocket for the last hour.

  Dad: Weather looks nasty. Text me when you’re there.

  Mom: Missed your call, but I know the flights are grounded.

  Mom: Call me when you know what’s going on.

  Dad: Your mom called about the flights. Did they get you a hotel?

  Mom: I’m done with lunch, but I’ll step out to call you during break. Or you call me!

  Mom: Mira? Why are you not calling?

  She won’t be on lunch now. I could try to text, but she’ll call anyway. Unless I tell her I’ll call and I give her a time. What time, though?

  I chew the corner of my lip and create a message for both of them. I need something that’s close enough to the truth to keep me from bursting into guilt-induced flames. But far enough from it that my mom won’t alert the National Guard.

  My fingers move over the touch screen with purpose.

  Me: All flights canceled, but I found a ride home. Seatmate from San Diego and her family live near Pittsburgh and rented a supersafe SUV. Mom, I’ll call when we stop in a few minutes.

  Mom’s typing bubble pops up almost instantaneously. Of course it does. She lost her sister last Christmas. Daniel a couple of weeks ago. And now her only daughter is driving through a snowstorm that news outlets are treating like the blizzard that drove people to cannibalism on Donner Pass.

  The message appears.

  Mom: Who are you with? What kind of SUV? I don’t know that I like this.

  Me: Don’t worry. The roads aren’t even that bad. Seriously, it’s mostly flurries. I’ll call
in a few. I can’t wait to see you!

  Mom: You too, but this storm is getting bad. Please call.

  The SUV slows and I look up from my phone to see a smattering of brake lights. Outside, the snow has started to stick, but just barely. Tire tracks ahead leave wide dark trails through the white.

  “The traffic is going to get worse,” Brecken says.

  “I think you’re right,” Josh responds, the light from his phone illuminating his face. “It’s nothing but red in ten miles. It looks like traffic hits a dead stop.”

  “Maybe the road is closed?” Brecken asks.

  “Could be,” Josh says. “Maybe an accident?”

  “It’s not even that bad,” I say.

  “Can we take another route?” Harper asks. “I don’t want to be stuck in traffic until Christmas morning.”

  “Maybe we should,” Josh says. “All that red probably means an accident, right?”

  “I’ll start looking for an exit,” Harper says with a sigh.

  “Let’s do the travel plaza,” Brecken says. “My phone says it’s eight miles up, just past a big bridge.”

  Harper’s shoulders inch closer to her ears. “Bridge? Don’t bridges ice over?”

  “They do,” I say, because even though the snow isn’t bad, it is sticking.

  “Don’t worry,” Josh says. “We won’t let anything happen.”

  Really? It’s a nice sentiment, but unless he’s going to call on some sort of mutant ice control powers, I think the roads are going to do their own thing.

  “Whoa,” Kayla says.

  Her voice is a jolt. She’s mostly slept since we’ve been in the car, so I’m surprised to see her upright, her slender hand pressed to her window. There’s something out there on the road that she’s looking at. A wreck, I think. Harper slows, and Brecken curses softly under his breath, but I can’t see what they’re watching.

  I strain against my seat belt, trying to piece together the scene obscured by the snow and Kayla’s foggy window. Then the pieces come together. A sports car sits on its roof in the ditch. It’s like a flipped over turtle, four tires like curling legs, the dark underbelly exposed to our gaze. My stomach tightens.

  I know what this is—it happens every year in Pennsylvania. A dozen snowflakes hit the road and all common sense pours directly out of drivers’ brains. Half of the people drive fifteen miles an hour and the other half weave in and out of lanes doing seventy-five.

  The weavers are often the ones that end up like this, but Dad always told me the slowpokes cause it. As we pass, I see a dazed-looking twentysomething behind the car with a cell phone to his ear and—I’m betting—a newfound appreciation for seat belts and airbags. Another car is parked on the curb, a broad-shouldered man heading toward the car to assist.

  “They seem okay,” Brecken says. “Just keep going to the exit.”

  “That was crazy,” Kayla says. She’s bleary-eyed when she grins at me, still half asleep and seemingly delighted by the accident. It’s creepy.

  “Ugh,” Harper says. “I still can’t see anything.”

  Brecken reaches like he’s going to take the wheel. “Hey, stay in your lane already.”

  “I can’t see my lane, okay?”

  “It’s the windshield,” Josh says it at the same time I think it. “It’s getting worse.”

  He’s right. Ice is building up on the wipers, so every arc across leaves a narrower section of clean glass. I have no idea how Harper can see the road at all through those tiny clear sections.

  “Try the cleaner again,” Brecken says, pointing out the right control. Blue liquid dribbles weakly from the top. Clearly ice has clogged the sprayer.

  “Shit.”

  “Do the smacking trick,” I suggest. “You know, pull back the wiper blade and whap it against the glass.”

  Brecken rolls down the windows, and the air is arctic. He does his wiper first, gripping the blade in his glove and pulling it back hard. It hits the glass with a perfect smack, but though snow sprays, it’s nowhere near clear enough.

  “Okay, try to do mine,” Harper says. “I can’t see like this.”

  “I can’t reach your window. And it barely worked on mine. We need to pull over.”

  “No, we can do this.” Harper rolls down her window, and I cross my arms. The wind is a weapon. My coat might as well be made of lace.

  Even twisting in her seat, Harper can’t reach the blade. “I don’t think I can.”

  Brecken shakes his head. “Try again.”

  “She’s not going to be able to do it,” Josh says simply. I shoot him a glare, but he shrugs. “Her arms are too short.”

  He’s right—she’d have to stand up in her seat to reach it. But I hate that he said it when I’m sure she’s already stressed enough and painfully aware of the limitations of her reach.

  “Just pull over,” Brecken says. “It’ll be okay. This will be easier if you can see.”

  Josh leans forward then, straining against his seat belt to get closer to Harper. “He’s right. You can pull over. You can do this.”

  No response.

  Josh reaches over the seat, slow and hesitant. Then he pats her shoulder, once. Gently. “Harper? Trust Brecken. Let him tell you what to do. Just follow his directions. You can do it.”

  “She definitely can,” Brecken says. “She’s killing it.”

  “I don’t need directions.” Harper sounds nervous. Really nervous.

  They keep encouraging her, but it’s part patronizing man and part fear, and it’s one hundred percent annoying as hell. There might be a sliver of kind intention, so I try to hold onto that instead of grinding my molars at the “follow directions” comment.

  “Go right here,” Brecken says.

  Harper nods and inches the wheel to the right until we’re stopped on the side of the road. She fiddles with controls and frowns, presses the wiper fluid button and the two beside it. “I don’t know how to stop them.”

  “What do you mean?” Brecken asks.

  “The wipers. They’re automatic. They keep kicking back on—I don’t know how to turn them off.”

  Brecken leans over and fiddles with some of the buttons and displays on the high-tech dashboard. Hazard lights start up and then the radio, and then I’m pretty sure the car tries to send a text message to God knows who, but the wipers keep wiping.

  “I’ll just turn the car off.”

  “Don’t bother, we can do this with them running. Might even work better since it’ll clear off the ice we knock free,” Brecken says. He turns and winks at all of us in the back. “We’ve got this.”

  “I’m a believer,” I say with a laugh.

  “I knew you would be,” Brecken smirks.

  Harper follows him outside, her heels traded in at some point for stylish boots that probably aren’t providing any better traction. She doesn’t close the door completely, and the alarm dings incessantly, a succession of pleasant chimes alerting us that something is not as it should be.

  Outside, Brecken demonstrates his windshield-wiper-thwacking technique while Harper watches with somber focus. He pulls back his wiper and smacks it against the glass and says something to Harper while the blade arcs across the windshield. Then he repeats the action, shattering more and more ice off the blade until his side of the windshield swipes clean. He steps around the hood of the car just as Harper grabs the wiper.

  Harper doesn’t have Brecken’s sense of timing. She pulls back the blade just as the motor tries to drag it back from the glass. It jerks from her grip, hitting the glass at the exact moment she screams.

  Her sleeve is caught. For a second, I think that’s the problem. Then, she rips it free and a crimson drop hits the windshield.

  Blood.

  Harper jerks her hand up to her chest protectively, cradling it with her other hand. Breck
en approaches and the wipers smear that tiny red drop into a thin, grotesque arc across the glass.

  I wince. “I think she cut herself.”

  “Yeah,” Josh says. “On the wiper blade probably. They have sharp edges.”

  “Really? She cut herself?” Kayla asks, leaning forward to get a better look. I ignore her. If this girl starts professing her love of Japanese horror films, Josh is sitting in the middle.

  Outside, Brecken tries to examine Harper’s cut, but she pulls out of his grip. He shucks his gloves and reaches for her like she’s an injured animal. Her hand drips red onto the white hood. Josh sighs and twists in his seat. Maybe the blood is making him squeamish? No, he’s looking for something in the back.

  Kayla laughs again.

  “Really?” I ask her.

  She frowns at me, but she stops laughing, so I guess I made my point. Beside me, Josh unbuckles, grunting as he tries to shift around.

  “What are you doing?” I ask.

  “I need to get my suitcase. I was going to get them something for the blood.”

  “Let me try,” I say.

  I unbuckle and twist around so I can reach his bag. It’s as sturdy and unremarkable as the rest of him, an oversized navy-blue messenger bag sandwiched between Harper’s leather bag and the back of our seat. I tug it free inch by inch, but Josh pats my arm.

  “Just unzip the front compartment. There’s a little bag in there.”

  “Shit, she’s really bleeding,” Kayla says, finally sounding concerned.

  “Thanks, Mira,” he says. Then, to Kayla, “She’s fine. Fingers and heads bleed a ton.”

  “What am I looking for here?” I ask.

  “There should be some gauze in the first aid kit.”

  “First aid kit?” I laugh. “Are you a Boy Scout?”

  He raises three fingers with a rueful grin. “Motto is ‘be prepared.’”

  I find the gauze, as promised, and pull a couple of individually wrapped squares out of the box. A rush of icy air freezes me when Harper’s door is flung open. The car alarm dings in harmony with Harper’s whimpers. Brecken ducks his head in around her.