Refuge
255 Words
Halfway House
by John Smistad
Josh fought like hell to steer through the vicious snowfall, dead tired from battling the dense brush and towering trees of the Idaho panhandle wilderness. His clandestine escape from his frat's "Wicked & Wild Wilderness Weekend" camping debauchery wasn't nearly the "sanity break" he'd imagined. Josh had heard of freak snow storms.
But this s**t is freakin' ridiculous! And why is it gettin' so damn dark?!
Josh knew there was usually a couple hours of daylight before pitch blackness consumed the frigid winter evenings of the Kaniksu National Forest. The towering Douglas-firs were considerably taller and thicker than Josh ever remembered. They appeared to bunch together, forming tightly packed timber barricades.
A rock shot up at his face, splitting his visor. With a violent jerk Josh twisted his handlebars, scraping his leg against a tree stump protruding from the snow. He looked down to see his pants ripped, blood squirting from the punctured skin of his calf. The engine started to convulse in jolting spasms. Reflexively his mind flashed to a hideously frozen Jack Nicholson at the end of The Shining.
The snowmobile lurched to a bone-jarring halt. Exhausted, hurt and hopelessly lost, Josh was never more afraid.
He could die tonight.
Suddenly he saw it.
"A light!! Yeah!! Thank you God!!"
About fifty yards ahead of him stood a cabin, the light shining from a window. A column of smoke rose from a chimney.
No vehicle. The lake's iced over so no boat access. But somebody's gotta be inside.
- Writer
