December ‘25, New York / Mass Border, The Berkshires in the Winter

  I sighed and rubbed my eyes as I drove down the interstate. I knew the weather was going to be rough on this section of i90, but I guess I just didn’t realize how bad it’d really be. Definitely worse than I thought. I let off the accelerator, and the motor eased up so I could slow down. I didn’t bother with brakes and I definitely didn’t use the jake brake. Using the engine brake on icy roads can go very badly for a truck driver. I had checked the weather before I started driving, but I think it was even worse than the weather people were predicting.

  My head bobbed to the 80s hardcore band that blasted through my speakers, and I sang along. “And we never will, cause we’re just a minor threat!”

  I had been listening to an audiobook to start the day. Audiobooks were life, and they usually kept my mind more engaged than music, but in bad weather sometimes I couldn’t really pay attention. I was right in the middle of listening to, like, the longest book series ever that was part isekai and part LitRPG and it was a great series and I was trying to binge through the hours and hours and hours of content it provided me for only a few credits.

  “Welcome to M-A,” that tablet that ruled my life had said right after I crossed the border and officially got onto the Mass Pike. I had thought about stopping at one of the truck stops at the last exit, but they both seemed full because of the weather, so I had pressed on. The company I was running for had me planned pretty tight, and as a new owner-op, I didn’t make money if my wheels weren’t turning.

  I had started this run out of a grocery distribution center for BuyMart. I had a trailer full of turkeys and hams for a busy store in MA. After that I was supposed to go down to the Boston Markets and pick up and then go down to Virginia, where I didn’t have to worry about this kind of nonsense weather.

  This was my life. I had a pretty sweet setup, especially as a brand new semi-truck owner and operator. I had an agreement with the largest retailer in the country, if not the world, to run directly for them and do things their own drivers rarely wanted to do. Before this, I worked directly for them, but I was in the office when someone found out they had won the lotto. In his excitement, the guy sold me his truck for a deal that only an idiot would pass up, so here I was.

  At that moment, though? I wished I had never even gotten my CDL. What the hell even possessed me to want to drive a truck for a living? Christ on a stick. It was four in the morning on a Sunday and normal humans were still busy sleeping. Yet there I was sliding around on a highway like I was in the goddamn Ice Capades.

  “Where the hell are the snow plows?” I cursed as I drove along full well, knowing I should have stopped before now.

  It was fine. I was fine. Past that little moment of weakness, I remembered I had driven in much worse weather around Central NY in that goddamn snow belt. One thing I had learned early was that lake effect snow didn’t fuck around. It just sucked was all. I shook my head and sighed.

  “Ah well, welcome to driving in the Northeast. We got this,” I told myself as I drove deeper into the baked bean state on the pike.

  I kept pushing it but I was going slow. The snowflakes at this point were big and easy to see, even in the dark. The problem was the speed they were going down. I tried to ignore it and made warp speed noises with my mouth as I turned on my high beams for a minute to break up the monotony. As long as there weren’t any other cars or trucks on the road, I didn’t mind fucking around a little.

  That was partly how I knew I wasn’t being completely crazy. A few milk haulers had passed me. Yeah, people passed me, even in this weather. Those milk hauler boys didn’t fuck around and they didn’t let up on anyone. There could be an asteroid bearing down on Earth and one of them, or the fuel haulers, would fly by to make sure they got their deliveries done and could get home on time.

  When I got to the first service plaza on the pike, the snow had let up a little and I could hammer down a little more and make up some time. I grinned and cranked the music once the morning rays beamed over the horizon and blinded me. With a few pushes of a button on my steering wheel, the radio got louder and I once more sang along.

  Stolen novel; please report.

  “And New York City? Well, I wish I was on a highway….”

  The better weather didn’t last very long, and I sighed and once more let up on the pedal to slow back down. The snow turned from big heavy flakes to those little rapid falling flakes that made it hard to see and I gave a heavy sigh.

  As I came up to the second service plaza on the pike, I looked up at the big yellow sign that stated in big bold words.

  TRUCKERS TEST YOUR BRAKES.

  STEEP DOWNGRADE AHEAD.

  Just after this service plaza, there was Jacob’s Ladder. A steep downgrade that was also sometimes called the Blandford Hill, since that was the name of the service plaza. I peered ahead at the plaza to see if I’d be able to park, but of course not. The plaza was full of trucks who made makeshift spots next to little signs that said no parking. This state was a joke when it came to truck parking, and hey, name a better duo than a semi and a no parking sign.

  I sighed and shook my head and let off even more on the accelerator, preparing myself to go down the hill. When suddenly something had stolen my attention in my rearview mirror. I watched for a moment and suddenly, a blast of lightning lit up the cloudy sky. The lightning was blue with a red that outlined and went around it. It almost looked like a plasma beam from Ghostbusters.

  “What the fuck?”

  I blinked as I descended down the grade, and my mind raced. If I had gotten over the fact of there being lightning in the middle of a fucking blizzard, I had to wonder what the hell the coloring was about. I kept coasting down the hill, pumping my brakes so I didn’t rocket down too quickly. I wanted to keep right around fifty miles per hour, again, without using the engine brake. These roads were too snowy, and I’d probably end up falling off the mountain if I did.

  There was another blast of lightning, this time in front of me, and I stared at it for a moment before I shook my head and shrugged it away. It probably had something to do with climate change, I had thought to myself. Truth be told, though, it did have me a little unnerved between the weird lightning and unrelenting snow.

  “And the lack of any fucking snow plows,” I yelled.

  One more lightning that lit up my rearview mirror, and I stared at it as it seemed to last significantly longer than any normal lightning bolt I had ever seen. That’s when I realized that even with all the lightning, I hadn’t heard any thunder to go along with it. That was weird, right? I frowned and looked back at the road.

  “OH FUCK!” I yelled at the top of my lungs.

  While I was watching the lightning behind me, I didn’t notice that there was a snowplow parked in front of the runaway truck ramp at the bottom of the hill. It just pulled out on the main road and I had a moment of rookie-itis and stomped down on the brake. That’s when everything really had gone to shit.

  My trailer fish tailed behind me and sped further down the highway while my tractor brakes worked on stopping me. The fully loaded trailer spun me around with the weight and inertia of the frozen food it held and suddenly I was looking up the hill. My hands were on the wheel, but at this point, there wasn’t really anything I could do. The only good part about all of this was that since I was the owner of my company, I couldn’t really lose my job.

  Just before the next crash happened, it hit me that the damn bridge at the bottom had been under construction for what had seemed like forever. That’s when I felt my body rack against the seatbelt and I looked in my mirror. My trailer’s back end swung into the jersey barrier with such force that it lifted onto it.

  I couldn’t hear anything going on behind me with the blood pumping in my ears as I held onto the steering wheel for dear life. Up to this point, I had never even been in any sort of accident. Then, for my first to be this bad? I didn’t realize it at the time, but I had been yelling the whole time.

  The impact pushed me into my driver’s side door. It was heavy, but with the momentum of the crash I could maneuver it so it landed on the cabinet above my head. The contents spilled open, and I had an energy drink can hit me in the head, but I guess that wasn’t too bad considering.

  This was when I realized I had been yelling at the top of my lungs. Once everything had settled down. Me and my truck were on our side, laying on some Jersey barriers and I could feel my heart about to burst from my chest. I hyperventilated, and I gripped the steering wheel, trying to stop the anxiety attack that was imminent.

  One last flash in my mirror stole my attention, and I looked in time to watch the lightning blast the barriers that were holding my truck. The barriers that were keeping me from falling into the river. I gripped the steering wheel once more and yelled at the top of my lungs as my truck slid backwards into the wall. The impact of the hard, icy water shoved my body into my seat again.

  I think I had passed out for a moment because when I woke, I was hanging against the captain’s armrest of my seat and my seatbelt. I looked down towards my passenger side window and watched the water rushing in through the shitty seals of the old semi. Startled awake, I blinked rapidly, fumbling for the door latch. I looked up and there was one final blast of lightning in the sky coming right for me.

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