version of Claude-Marie deCourcey's Spring Fate.
'Oh, humm,' Quill sang. 'Hummmm hummm.' She shivered, despite the fact that the heater was going full blast.
She checked her watch. Three-thirty. At the rate she was traveling, she wouldn't be home before five. When it would be dark.
'This is stupid,' she said aloud. She'd take the next exit, find a motel, and call Myles, then Meg, and tell them not to worry, she'd be back home in the morning.
The miles crawled by. On her left, headed south, two exits went by. The next one northbound would be 50. It was on the outskirts of the city, and her chances of finding a motel right off the ramp were not good, but at least she'd be close to the ground, near a gas station or a diner, where there would be light, and the warmth of human beings, and an end to the white that so ruthlessly wrapped the car.
She checked the rearview mirror. The traffic was gone, the road almost empty but for a pair of headlights traveling at speed in her lane. She slowed again, to under twenty-five, and signaled a move into the far right-hand lane. The headlights moved, too. They were high above the ground, shining eerily above the piled snow, plowing through the drifts like a fish through water. Four-wheel drive, Quill thought glumly. I should have taken the Inn pickup.
She turned her attention to the road in front. The Olds was lugging a little, the snow was halfway up the hubcaps. Her headlights were almost useless, bumping above the snow as often as they were obscured by drifts.
High beams flashed in her rearview mirror. She ducked, swerved, and cursed. She regained control and then the Olds jumped forward, like a frightened horse.
'No,' said Quill. The high beams filled the car, drenching the inside with light. Quill slowed to a crawl. The truck behind her was pushing now, its bumper locked into position. Quill leaned on the horn, the noise whipped away on the flying wind, driven on the snow. She blasted the horn once, twice. The headlights behind her dimmed and flared in answer.
The truck backed off. Quill remembered to breathe. The headlights filled her mirror again, and she peered frantically out the windshield, looking for a place to stop, to let the bastard pass. The truck didn't hit her again, just hung there like a carrion bird, the headlights hovering.
The world was filled with snow. The dark was coming.
She looked at her watch. A quarter to five. The exit to 96 had to be coming up next. She searched the side of the road. A green sign crawled by. Two miles. If she could just make it two miles.
The lights from behind filled her vision.
She squinted. She drove on. She rubbed her right hand down her thigh, pushing hard against the muscle to calm herself. Her gloved hand brushed the flyer she'd dropped in the seat beside her. 'Pizza,' she said, just to hear the sound of a voice. 'Oh, I wish I had a pepperoni...'
She smoothed the paper out.
FREE DELIVERY!
'Lot of good that'll do me.' CALL 624-9123-ANYTIME!
'624-9123, 624-9123,' Quill chanted, fighting a hopeless battle against the choking fear.
It's a local area code, 315. And it's 624-9123, Joseph Greenwald had said.
And then, from days ago, Nora Cahill's voice: No offense, but if you tell me you've got your love life socked, too, I'm going to hit you with a stick. / haven't had a date for eight months.
She got mad.
'You idiot!' she yelled. 'You bonehead! You twink!'
/ could pull over to the side, wait for him to come up to the car, and hit him with... what?
The tire iron was in the trunk. And she wasn't sure she could use it on flesh and bone no matter how mad and scared and stupid she was.
HEMLOCK FALLS, 10 mi., the green sign said.
Quill thought about the exit ramp. At this juncture of 81, the exit ramps were on a gentle upward slope to 96, which ran along a drumlin left by glaciers. So the snow wouldn't be any higher at the exit than it was now - more than likely less, since the wind would blow it downward. And the highway department always started plowing 96 here first, at the boundary of Tompkins County.
Unless the blizzard was too much for even the plows.
'Nah,' said Quill.
Then...
'It's just like the West End at rush hour,' she said aloud, to reassure herself. 'And you remember the West. End at rush hour. Oh, yes, you do. In your short - and unlamented career as a taxi driver....'
She gunned the motor. The OIds leaped forward. Thank God, she thought, I never got a lighter car. Thank God...
She signaled left and instead swerved into the center lane.
The truck behind her faltered, moved left, and spun briefly out of control. She had time. A little time.
She could barely see the signposts now, between the dark and the snow and the wind. The tiny mile reflectors flashed white-white-white as she hurtled by, the front-wheel drive giving the heavy car purchase in the drifts, her speed preventing a skid. She'd be all right until she had to make that turn.
The pickup behind her straightened out, barreled forward, and nudged her bumper with a thud.
