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When Kate and Michael stepped into their new home in Redwood, Nevada, it felt like stepping into a painting. The Victorian mansion stood at the end of a tree-lined cul-de-sac, framed by the soft glow of the setting sun. Its sprawling porch, intricate woodwork, and gambrel roof sold on the “hidden gem of the desert,” priced well below its worth.

Too good to be true.

The first night was peaceful. They unpacked lazily, drinking cheap wine under the dim chandelier in the dining room. Kate marveled at the ornate wallpaper, though its faded roses bore faint stains she tried not to think about.

“Probably water damage,” Michael said, his voice reassuring.

It didn’t match Kate’s unease when she noticed the lines did not meet perfectly, like it was hastily applied, hiding something underneath.

The next day, Kate found the basement, its heavy door, hidden behind a false panel in the pantry. She called for Michael, who descended the creaking stairs with her, phone flashlight guiding the way.

The basement was cavernous, the air thick and musty, as though the room hadn’t been disturbed in decades. Four thick wooden beams crisscrossed above them, while the ground beneath was uneven and dusty.

A wooden table stood in the center, its surface marred with deep gouges. Michael joked that it was probably where the previous owners had made wine or canned vegetables, but Kate failed to shake the feeling that the scratches looked deliberate. Intentional.

That night, Kate awoke to the sound of scratching. She sat up, her heart pounding.

It wasn’t coming from the walls or the roof but from under the bed. Kate nudged Michael awake, her voice a sharp whisper.

“Did you hear that?”

“What?” Michael groaned, groggy.

Before she could respond, the scratching stopped. Kate leaned over the edge of the bed cautiously, her breath hitching. Nothing was there.

But as she straightened, she swore she saw something move in the mirror across the room. A fleeting shadow that didn’t belong to either of them.

The next day, Kate tried to shake off the incident. She chalked it up to nerves, the stress of moving.

She distracted herself by unpacking and putting books on the shelves in the sitting room. But as she worked, she found something odd—a diary wedged behind a false back in one of the shelves.

The leather cover cracked, pages brittle, entries scrawled in looping, hurried handwriting.

“I’ve seen them,” one read. “In the mirrors, the windows. Watching.” Another, dated the day before the final entry: “It won’t let us leave. Not all of us.”

Kate dropped the diary, her chest tightening. When Michael came home from the hardware store, she showed him.

“Probably just some creative writing project,” he said, flipping through the pages dismissively. But his tone lacked conviction.

That night, the scratching returned. This time insistent.

It echoed through the house, a cacophony of nails dragging across wood. Michael stormed into the basement, determined to prove there was a logical explanation.

Kate followed hesitantly, the flashlight in her trembling hand casting frantic shadows against the walls. The basement looked the same as before, but the air was colder now, heavy with a metallic tang.

On the table was a knife. Large. Rusted. Michael swore it hadn’t been there before.

“Maybe someone’s been squatting,” he said, though the words sounded hollow.

They returned upstairs, bolting the basement door. But the atmosphere had shifted. The house seemed alive, its walls groaning and floors shifting beneath their feet.

As the days wore on, the couple unraveled. Michael became withdrawn, pacing the halls at night, muttering to himself. Kate caught glimpses of things that weren’t there—a face in the window, a figure disappearing around a corner.

Then, she started hearing whispers. Faint, barely audible, but unmistakable.

“Get out,” they hissed. “It’s not your home.”

One night, Michael didn’t come to bed. Kate found him in the basement, standing before the table. The knife was in his hand.

“They showed me,” he said, his voice detached as if speaking from somewhere far away. “It was here. All of it.”

“What are you talking about?” Kate cried, grabbing his arm.

“They killed them. The whole family. Right here.”

He gestured to the table. His eyes were wide, fevered as if he hadn’t slept in days.

“And they’ll do it again. Unless…”

The whispers grew louder, surrounding them. Kate tried to pull him upstairs, but Michael yanked free, turning the knife toward her.

“Michael, no!”

The lights flickered and died. Darkness swallowed the room, and Kate screamed.

When the sun rose, Redwood was quiet. Neighbors noticed that the house at the end of the cul-de-sac was eerily still.

By the time the police arrived, the front door swung open to reveal a gruesome scene: the basement walls smeared with blood, a rusted knife lying on the ground. They found no bodies, only two sets of footprints leading away from the house, disappearing into the desert.

And deep in the basement, the whispers continued. Waiting for the next family to arrive.

Ladies and gentlemen, I bring you news of an extinction crisis—not of a noble species but of something far rarer in these modern times: common sense.

Free-range horses are under siege, not merely by the relentless march of human encroachment but by an equally insidious adversary—”garbage-redneck-science.” The term, which I believe is the polite way of saying “a heap of nonsense wrapped in a cowboy hat,” has been trotted out over the last 20 or 30 years to argue against every credible, evidence-backed fact concerning these majestic creatures.

Allow me to put this predicament into perspective: the scientific literacy rate in America hovers around a stunning 28 percent. That is to say, nearly three out of four adults struggle to comprehend the science section of The New York Times—and if you’ve ever read it, you’ll know it’s not written in the hieroglyphics of advanced quantum mechanics.

By this measure, it is not just free-range horses endangered but the ability to tell the difference between a research paper and a rodeo program. Social media, that great modern marketplace of ideas (and bad ones), has only deepened the crisis.

Here, facts are not so much debated as they are shouted down, often by individuals armed with an internet connection, a dubious YouTube video, and a hearty disdain for anyone who uses the word “data.” These online tribes, fueled by their echo chambers, have perfected the art of “Push Back”—a phenomenon where evidence is met not with thoughtful consideration but with a collective sneer and the kind of reasoning that might make a parrot blush.

Meanwhile, free-range horses are getting pushed closer to the brink. Population stress and habitat destruction are not matters of opinion but statistical realities. And yet, as their numbers dwindle, a considerable portion of the populace remains convinced that the science is flawed—or worse, a conspiracy cooked up by the horses themselves, no doubt, to take over prime grazing real estate.

But I digress. The state of literacy in this country only adds to the calamity. While a respectable 79 percent of adults are literate by definition, more than half read below a sixth-grade level, and a fifth of the population struggles to distinguish “fiction” from “nonfiction” without consulting the movie poster. How, then, can we expect nuanced debates about ecological crises when the average citizen is just as likely to argue with gravity as they are with natural science?

If this trajectory is not corrected, the free-range horse is doomed. The extinction of a species is a grave loss, but perhaps the greater tragedy is that the battle for their survival could be lost, not on the plains, but in the comments section of social media, where truth goes to die, and the hashtag roams free.

It seems the free-range horse and rational thought share a similar fate. Both are rare, both are magnificent, and both are teetering on the edge of survival.

hanging boobs, loose lips
others painted red with care
too good to fuck me

The whole back seat smells like dried puke and sweat. My face stings, my knuckles throb, and blood pools in my mouth, electrifying a broken tooth or two. I taste the copper every time I swallow. My cheek remains stuck to the plastic seatback with the kind of old gum you never think about until it is under your skin.

My wrists burn against the cuffs, wrists that once held a glass of whiskey steady as anything. Now they’re just raw, scraped meat. I can still see the bastard’s face in my head—his smug smirk when he threw the first punch at the bar. I’d ordered my last drink of the night—hell, maybe my last drink ever. But I never get to have anything go smoothly, do I?

Somewhere in between the second whiskey and a cigarette I’d been looking forward to like it was a hot date, I felt that fist hit my jaw. I don’t remember much after that except a lot of fists and broken glass. Then the fuzz showed up, and it was all over.

I couldn’t just go quietly, though. Why should I?

They’d been looking at me sideways for years like they’d been waiting for me to slip up, give’em a reason to throw me in cuffs. When they grabbed me, I went down swinging, teeth bared and spit flying. A couple of hits to my ribs and a nightstick against my temple, and here I am—bloody, bruised, and cuffed in the back of a cop car.

The cop driving glances at me in the rearview, and I swear I see him smirk. He’s got the face that screams Monday morning on a Friday night. I give him a half-smile back, blood smeared across my teeth. He looks away like he’s got better things to think about, but I know he’s getting a kick out of this.

My head’s pounding. The blood in my mouth has gone sour, like everything else. I don’t even know where they’re taking me. Maybe it’s back to the same cell I’ve been in a dozen times, the one with the peeling paint and that smell of piss you can’t get out of your nose for days. Or maybe this is it–they’ll finally put me in a cage I won’t claw my way out of.

Outside, the streetlights smear yellow across the car window as we pass through town. And I know that when they throw me in that cell, I’ll sit there, as I’ve always sat there, waiting for the bruises to fade, for the blood to dry, for the ache in my chest to turn back into numbness.

But for now, it’s just me, the broken glass in my mouth, and the cops who got the last laugh tonight.

Ah, Virginia City! A grand experiment in human coexistence, where the ingenuity of horseless chariots meets the timeless dilemma of “Where in the blazes do I leave this contraption?”

If ever there was a job I would not care to assume, it is that of the town planner tasked with balancing parades and parking—an occupation more thankless than refereeing a saloon brawl after half-price whiskey night.
The locals, ever passionate and armed with all manner of grievances, took to hurling revilements—presumably the metaphorical sort, though with Virginia City’s history, one can never be too sure—at our esteemed constabulary. Their crime?

Denying the privilege of parking along C Street, where ample spaces beckoned like sirens on the rocks. But alas, the parade masters, in their infinite wisdom, had shuttered the street hours before the grand Christmas procession, forcing us to confront the terrible truth: we might have to walk.

For my part, I parked on B Street, which, while technically legal, involved an odyssey through a local business to attend not the parade, mind you, but a somber memorial at the city’s farthest reach. I pause to reflect: does any planner truly relish the role of such chaos? Surely not. And yet, someone must endure the slings and arrows of public opinion, or so the theory goes.

Waltzing on that symbol of simpler times, where one might trip the light fantastic or, as in my case, merely trip, is the boardwalk. Yet even as I kept my balance with the poise of a drunken heron, I could not help but notice a peculiar breach of entrepreneurial etiquette: cups of free coffee and cocoa doled out with reckless abandon.

Now, one might applaud such generosity, should it not be the cruel irony that the largesse occurred within sight of at least three businesses whose very survival depends upon selling such liquid warmth. I ask you, what manner of madness is this? To offer a free alternative while the hardworking purveyors of steamed beverages sit idly by, wondering why their carefully calibrated espresso machines are as silent as a church at sunrise?

The shame of it all lies not merely in the giveaway itself but in the failure to promote the livelihoods of these merchants. A cup of complimentary cocoa might be a grand gesture, but could we not also spare a thought—or at least a sign—for those whose livelihoods rest on the sale of precisely this product?

These businesses should have been given top billing, with their wares paraded as the superior, handcrafted, premium-priced experience they undoubtedly are. Instead, they were left to watch as would-be patrons gleefully slurped their way past the very doors that might have fed their children.

It is curious about humanity—our tendency to undermine ourselves in the name of good intentions. Charity, when misapplied, becomes a kind of economic sabotage.

And while I do not grudge a man his free coffee, I must lament the oversight that left the merchants in the lurch. For what is a boardwalk without its small businesses? Merely a path of wood, cold beneath our feet and devoid of the rich aroma of commerce.

Let us learn from this travesty. If free cocoa is to flow, let it do so in partnership with the local vendors, who might benefit from the goodwill and return the favor by selling even more sumptuous confections, or, failing that, let us at least apologize to capitalism, whose noble mechanisms got ignored.

The evening climax was not the parade nor the memorial but rather an incident of festive calamity. A Christmas tree fell. Not a tree in the arborist sense, but a woman—a reveler bedecked as an evergreen, who performed a spirited “timber!” first upon a doorjamb and then the stone floor.

She twice struck her head, bouncing as if to test the theories of Issac’s apple himself. A finer demonstration of resilience I have yet to witness, for she sprang to consciousness moments later, proving that while Christmas might knock you down, it cannot keep you there.

Being well-trained in such emergencies, I moved to assist, only to be shooed away by the proprietor. I briefly considered calling for fire and rescue, but the scene already felt adequately dramatic. Besides, I had a 35-mile journey ahead, and wisdom dictated that I let the chips—and the tree—fall where they may.

Running a town, attending a memorial, or nursing a head injury—none of these tasks are for the faint of heart. And yet, one lesson emerges clear as life, like parades and parking, requires a grain of salt, a splash of lime, and occasionally, a firm handshake with absurdity if tequila is not available.

The house holds its silence like breath on a bitter night, and I sit within it, frail against the vastness of winter pressing at the windows. There is eggnog with rum, no fire in the hearth, only the thin heat of the lamp, the scratch of my pen, and the weight of the stillness that settles everywhere.

Winter’s chill is not merely a coldness of air. It is alive, creeping in through the cracks, wrapping itself around my shoulders, and seeping into my marrow. I feel it there, not only in the shiver of my hands but how it slows the world, turning heavy and sluggish. It is a deep, quiet ache that belongs to this season, a kind of emptiness that asks questions and offers no answers.

And yet, I write. My fingers, numb as they are, find their way to the pen, and the pen finds its way to the paper. The words come haltingly at first, stuttering like footsteps on an icy path. They feel fragile, as insubstantial as the frost that disappears with the first touch of sunlight. But they are all I have to keep the dark at bay, so I press on.

As I write, the words take shape, surprising me. They don’t warm me the way a fire might, don’t chase the cold from the corners of the room. But they do something stranger as they rise from the quiet, from the chill itself, as if the cold had to press hard enough for me to crack and let the words spill out.

I realize then that the cold and the quiet are not merely my adversaries—they are part of this work. They hollow me out, leave me raw, exposed, where in emptiness, the words find space to grow. They are not warm words, not soft or comforting. They are hard-edged and honest, reflecting the frost on the windows, the bare branches clawing at the sky, and the endless stretch of white beyond the glass.

Winter will not let me forget its presence, and I don’t try to. Instead, I lean into it, let it carve its mark upon me, and give it form on the page. As the cold remains, the chill still deep in my bones, the words, too, remain.

And somehow, they are enough.

The coffee was bland, weak, and watery, yet he sipped at it as though it might yield some clarity. Seated caddy-corner from his wife at the kitchen table, he tried not to look directly at her swollen face. She cried silently, tears streaking down her cheeks and falling, unheeded, into her lap.

“What’s wrong?” he asked again, though her answer—another tremulous sob—was no more illuminating than the first.

He stared at her, willing her to speak, to lash out even, but the silence between them grew thicker, pressing against the walls. He raked a hand through his hair, and his eyes wandered to the half-full mug.

“What’s wrong?” he asked once more.

The coffee had gone cold, but that wasn’t the reason it tasted so wrong. He couldn’t recall the day—struggling to trace the hours of his work shift. His memory felt as thin and stretched as a threadbare sheet.

Something should have stuck: a conversation with a coworker, a song on the radio during his drive home. But there was nothing, only the hollow echo of the present moment.

The doorbell rang, and he flinched.

“I’ll get it,” he muttered, but his wife was already on her feet, her sobs momentarily stilled. She moved with a quiet urgency, opening the door before he could even rise.

“Mom,” their daughter-in-law said softly, her arms encircling his wife’s trembling frame. “I came as soon as I could.”

They clung to each other, the two women, and he stood awkwardly in the doorway to the hall, watching the tableau. His daughter-in-law glanced at him once, her eyes sharp and unreadable, and cut straight through him.

The chill of her gaze tightened around his chest like a vise. What the hell did I do? he thought.

He turned and started down the hallway, eager to escape the uneasy intimacy of the moment. As he reached the end of the hall, their voices drifted after him, faint and uneven.

“What funeral home is he at?” his daughter-in-law asked.

The words struck him mid-step. He froze, his hand braced against the doorframe.

There was a strange, fleeting sensation like the floor had shifted beneath him. He turned slightly, just enough to catch his wife’s murmured reply.

In the quiet, a single thought screamed through his mind: What funeral?

The lighthouse stood alone, tall and steady, its light slicing through the mist. It cut into the gray night, a small and wavering promise, but it was there.

Below, waves slammed against the rocks. The sound filled the empty air, like the echoes inside me.

Every night, I climbed those stairs, one after another, the rhythm keeping time with the weight I carried. It wasn’t the climb that took my breath but the past that clung to me like salt on my skin.

The light shuddered and cast long shadows against the walls, shadows of things I couldn’t shake. Each flash reminded me of storms I’d never sailed past.

“Why do I keep coming back?” I asked the wind.

But the sea answered in its way, in a roar that didn’t care. I thought about the things I’d lost, the laughter that got swallowed along the way. Each wave beat against the rocks, the same way my grief came—again and again, never relenting.

I shut my eyes, letting the cold of the night soak in. The lighthouse kept me close; it was both refuge and prison.

The walls held onto cries that hadn’t saved anyone. In the mist–I sensed them drifting as if they were almost close enough to touch but faded away nonetheless.

“Keep shining,” I told the light.

I felt the flicker in me, too. Maybe I’d vanish one day, lost to the fog, but the thought didn’t scare me. The sea was calling for surrender, and the promise of peace was in its depths.

But I wasn’t ready–not tonight.

I drew in a long breath, tasting salt and cold air. I opened my eyes as the light swept across the dark sea.

I didn’t know where I was going, but maybe it didn’t matter. The light wasn’t a guide, not for finding my home, but it was there.

It kept me here, steady as it could, in the center of the dark.

Gunderson had detoured from Interstate 80 westbound onto U.S. 50 alternate at Fernley because of an accident blocking the road. The moon hung halfway between the mountains and its zenith, marking it early morning, before 3 a.m.

He drove over the rise and started downhill when he saw the lights of a building half a mile ahead.

“Am I to Hazen already?” he thought.

The old building had once been a general store and gas station. Now, it was a diner. Gunderson pulled into the gravel parking lot, rolling up next to an old tow truck that seemed more rust than metal.

The bell overhead rang as he stepped inside, and the five sets of eyes turned to look at him. The air was thick with a tension that prickled his skin. He had the feeling he had interrupted something,

“Coffee, black, please,” he said to the waitress.

She was a petite woman, around 30, with black hair pulled back in a loose ponytail, green eyes, and red lips. Unlike the short-order cook, she smiled at Gunderson as she poured his coffee, but something was unsettling in her eyes.

“Menus on the wall,” the waitress said, sounding too cheerful for the early hour. “Where you coming from?”

“Elko,” he replied, his voice a bit wary.

“Nice place to visit,” she responded, her smile never reaching her eyes.
“Yeah, but I wouldn’t wanna live there,” Gunderson said, trying to shake off the unease.

“Must be from California,” the heavy-set guy, whom Gunderson assumed belonged to the tow truck, said.

“Not for forty years,” Gunderson replied.

The guy glared at him and snorted before returning to his cheeseburger and fries. Gunderson had been looking at the man, then noticed the couple sitting quietly in a booth in the far corner, their eyes fixed on him.

“Don’t mind him, darlin’,” the waitress said. “He’s always like that. Can I get you something besides coffee?”

“A bowl of chili, please,” Gunderson said, feeling the hairs on the back of his neck stand on end.

“Coming right up. Eddie, you heard the man. A bowl of chili,” she half-shouted through the window where the cook stood, glowering at Gunderson.

A minute later, the waitress slid the bowl in front of Gunderson. “Any cheese, onions, or sour cream?”

“No thanks,” he said, picking up the spoon she had provided.

The chili was delicious, but there was an odd aftertaste that he couldn’t quite place. He said, “That is one of the best bowls of chili I’ve ever had.”

Still, the cook glowered before turning around to act busy.

“More coffee?” the waitress asked.

“Yes, please,” Gunderson said.

She poured the coffee, set the glass pot on the counter, and leaned forward. She reached out with her right pointer finger, and its bright red nail traced Gunderson’s lips. “You have a beautiful mouth.”

Gunderson felt himself turn red. It had been a long while since any woman had flirted with him, let alone a woman half his age.

“Ah, shucks, darlin’, don’t be embarrassed,” she smiled, her eyes glinting in the dim light.

Again, Gunderson felt his face and ears brighten as the couple in the corner got up and headed for the door.

The man, in a heavy parka, slapped him on the left shoulder a little too briskly and said, “Good luck with her, California.” The woman in a denim windbreaker smiled and passed by, her eyes lingering on him a moment too long.

Suddenly, Gunderson felt a sting to his neck. “What the fu…?” he started but never finished.

Gunderson was slow to wake. The sky was full of clouds, and it was cold. Then he realized he was naked and that he couldn’t open his mouth.

As he tried to sit up, he found himself staked to the ground and spread eagle. Just then, it started to snow. That’s when he realized how chilled he was and shivering violently.

He struggled against the leather braids that bound him to the stakes and held him to the ground. He screamed, but the sound came out dull and distant.

He tried to open his mouth, finding that it refused, and the more he tried, the worse it hurt. Gunderson ran his tongue along the inside of his mouth and attempted to push it between his lips, but there was something in the way.

Strands of something held his mouth shut. Again, he investigated the area with his tongue. His mouth felt jagged, ripped, and raw, and the strands, he realized, were pieces of rawhide. His mouth, or what remained of it, had been sewn shut.

He thought of the waitress and her complimenting his mouth while tracing her fingernail gently around his lips. Suddenly, his head was spinning, and he fought harder against his bindings.

The violent shivering he had experienced earlier turned to a general warmth, and Gunderson relaxed. He tried not to, knowing the outcome was certain death, but his mind surrendered to the cold anyway.

Then he felt the tremor in the ground, and again, as whatever was happening seemed to grow closer. He raised his head to see a giant bird perched on a jagged rock near him.

“Oh, Christ, I must be hallucinating,” he muttered.

The bird was large, much bigger than any he had ever seen, yet it seemed familiar. It had an elongated head and membrane-like wings that the thing kept folding and unfolding. Gunderson could not tell if he was looking at feathers or fur. Either way, the vision was frightening.

Then the thing screamed louder and longer than a wildcat. Gunderson laughed because he couldn’t scream, though the beast made him want to, especially when it began to rip his flesh from his body.

The snow hit like the cosmic fist of a god who’d long since stopped caring, pelting her beat-up sedan with all the fury of a hangover that won’t quit. I was gunning it up the Donner Pass with the kind of reckless abandon you can only summon after spending weeks swimming in cheap whiskey, greasy chicken strips, and coffee that was practically begging for a tossing out the window.

It wasn’t just any trip. It was a pilgrimage to the deep heart of hell, where family came to chew you up and spit you out.

The tires hummed on the wet freeway, a low, soothing purr mixed with the kind of ominous hum that signals something far worse than a flat tire is coming your way. I cranked the heat to maximum, setting the car’s vents to groan under the strain, filling the air with the stench of overworked antifreeze and the faint aroma of soggy fries.

I wasn’t expecting a smooth ride. Life hadn’t given me a smooth ride since–well, ever.

No, this was survival. It was a Christmas special, or maybe a damn horror show, but there was no turning back.

It had been over four years since I’d seen my brother, and thinking about him made my stomach lurch like the worst tequila shot you’ve ever taken. The man’s face—the sharp lines, the smugness, the way he acted like he could run over you and send you a note demanding a thank you for the privilege–still haunted me like some filthy ghost with a penchant for ruining holidays.

The radio blasted my favorite Christmas song, a sad, syrupy ballad about redemption and love and all that sugar-coated bullshit. My eyes pricked, and for a second, I wondered if I was going soft–right there–behind the wheel, miles from nowhere, frozen out of my mind with the heat cranked up too high.

Hell no, I thought, cranking it up louder. It wasn’t about Christmas.

It wasn’t about redemption. It was about surviving the madness.

It was a battle for my sanity, and I didn’t know if I was winning or losing. And then the lights.

At first, they were just red and white dots in the snow, a half-hearted attempt at some twisted holiday lights display. But rounding the bend, that all-too-familiar gut-clenching sensation hit—this wasn’t a Christmas card–it was a fucking war zone.

Dozens of cars mangled together, twisted at impossible angles, a jumbled mass of metal and despair, mayhem and destruction. Headlights slice the darkness, reflecting off ice and snow like a bad dream.

People were everywhere, darting around like rats in some unholy experiment–screaming, running, and sliding on the ice. What the hell? I slammed the brakes, but the tires didn’t respond. They skidded, screamed, and jerked, but the damn thing wasn’t stopping.

A massive SUV sat sideways, looking like it had been through a meat grinder, its roof caved in like a crushed soda can. A woman in a puffy jacket was waving her arms like some goddamn windmill, her lips moving in silent screams that weren’t making it through the snow. A sedan smashed against a guardrail, steam billowing from under its hood like some weird fog machine at a rock concert.

No time to stop. No time to think.

Gritted teeth and gripping the wheel like it was a last chance to escape the insanity, I veered left, right, slalomed through the wreckage, barely missing bodies, barely missing cars, barely keeping my shit together. Every turn was an act of blind, reckless defiance against the universe.

A man appeared ahead of me, stumbling out of the snow, his face a ghostly reflection in her headlights. I didn’t flinch. I didn’t brake. I swerved hard, and the bastard fell backward onto the shoulder right as I gunned the car between two twisted heaps of metal.

Then, just as fast as it started, it was over. Coasting to a stop, hands gripped the wheel tightly, knuckles white as if I were holding onto the last shred of sanity in the cosmos. Behind me lay a wreckage of shattered glass, crumpled steel, and broken lives, slowly being consumed by the falling snow.

Blue and red lights flashed in the distance. The highway patrol moved like molasses in the snowstorm, the sirens distant but steady. Pulse racing, something deep inside told me it wasn’t the end of the story. I should’ve driven away, let the past and the wreckage disappear into the night. But for some reason, I couldn’t.

Maybe it was the desperate way the woman in the puffy jacket waved her arms. Perhaps it was the man, wide-eyed and terrified. No, I wasn’t leaving just yet.

I pulled into the nearest rest area, an ugly concrete building with flickering lights and vending machines full of overpriced snacks. I shut off the engine, sat there, and stared at my reflection in the rearview. A face I didn’t recognize. A soul I didn’t understand.

It was supposed to be a Christmas drive. A cozy little family reunion. Instead, I had a front-row seat to the most fucked-up holiday parade the universe could throw at her. But hell, I didn’t come all this way to turn around.

I buttoned up my coat against the biting wind and stalked toward the neon glow of the vending machines, where I fed in a dollar bill. No sooner than I had done that, I found myself thinking, “No wonder the Donner Party ate each other.”

The bag of chips hung in the balance between the glass and the corkscrew they came from. I thought of shaking the son-of-a-bitch, but I was too damned tired, and besides, my ‘give-a-damn’ was broke.

The next time, if there were ever a next time, I would take the fucking Greyhound.