Chapter 4 - The Escape into the Freeze
"Run!" I yelled, grabbing Claire by the waist and pulling her up the steep wooden steps.
Dad turned back, raising the tire iron, but Brenda slammed her body directly into his back. The sudden impact threw him off balance, his heavy boots slipping on the top step. He crashed hard onto the stairs, the tire iron clattering down the wooden steps past us.
"Go, Shawn! Go!" Brenda screamed, holding Dad’s jacket to keep him down.
I lunged past my father, dragging Claire through the basement doorway and into the kitchen. Mom was cowering by the sink, clutching a kitchen knife, her eyes wide with terror.
"Mom, don't," I snapped, pointing a warning finger at her as I pulled Claire toward the mudroom.
Mom dropped the knife into the sink with a loud clang, sinking to her knees, sobbing uncontrollably. "I'm sorry, Shawn! I'm so sorry!"
I ignored her, pulling Claire into the mudroom. I grabbed her dark green wool coat from the closet where Mom had hidden it, throwing it over her shivering shoulders, and grabbed a pair of my father’s heavy winter boots from the rack, shoving her feet into them.
Behind us, Dad let out a roar of fury as he shoved Brenda off him in the stairwell.
"Keys!" I shouted, frantically searching the wooden key board near the back door. "Where are the truck keys?!"
"On the counter!" Claire gasped, pointing toward the island.
I sprinted back into the kitchen, grabbed the key fob for my SUV, and bolted back to the mudroom just as Dad stumbled out of the basement door, his nose bleeding, his eyes wild.
"Shawn! Stop!" he yelled.
I hit the push-bar of the back door, throwing it open. The freezing night air hit us like a tidal wave, carrying thick, heavy snowflakes that swirled through the dark yard.
I dragged Claire down the back wooden steps, both of us slipping on the fresh ice. The driveway was completely covered in six inches of white powder. My silver SUV sat near the barn, a cold metal mountain under the pine trees.
"Get in!" I hit the unlock button on the key fob. The headlights flashed twice, illuminating the blinding snowstorm.
Claire scrambled into the passenger seat, her hands still trembling so hard she couldn't pull the heavy door shut. I slammed it for her, sprinted around the hood, and threw myself into the driver's seat.
I jammed the key into the ignition and turned it.
The engine cranked—rrmmm, rrmmm, rrmmm—but failed to catch.
"Come on, come on," I muttered, slamming my hand against the steering wheel.
I turned the key again. The engine sputtered, then died.
Through the snow-covered windshield, I saw my father emerging from the back porch. He wasn't running anymore; he was walking deliberately, holding a heavy steel crowbar he had grabbed from the porch tool chest.
"Shawn, he’s coming!" Claire shrieked, clutching my arm.
"The battery’s cold," I grunted, pumping the gas pedal and turning the key a third time.
The 3.5-liter engine finally roared to life, the dashboard lights flickering brightly.
Dad reached the front of the SUV, raising the crowbar over his head to bring it down onto the glass windshield.
I didn't wait. I threw the transmission into reverse and slammed my foot onto the accelerator.
The tires spun wildly on the ice, throwing slush into the air, before gaining traction. The SUV surged backward, tearing down the long gravel driveway away from the house. Dad’s crowbar hit the hood with a sickening metallic CRACK, leaving a deep dent in the steel, but we were already out of his reach.
I hit the brakes at the end of the driveway, shifted into drive, and fishtailed onto the dark, unplowed country road.
The snow was coming down so hard I could barely see ten feet in front of the high beams. High snowdrifts lined both sides of the narrow lane, towering like white walls.
"We need to get to the main highway," I said, my chest heaving as I gripped the leather steering wheel with white knuckles. "There's a state police barracks in Mercer, fifteen miles out."
Claire pulled her coat tight around herself, turning on the passenger seat heater. She looked back through the rear window into the white darkness. "Shawn... he’s not going to stop."
"He doesn't have a choice," I said, eyeing the fuel gauge. Half a tank. "He can't catch us in his old pickup truck in this weather."
"You don't understand," Claire said, turning to look at me, her face pale under the green glow of the dashboard lights. "It’s not just your father. The man they owe money to... his name is Vance. He’s been coming to your parents' house every month to collect cash. Shawn... he was supposed to come tonight."
I felt a cold chill run down my spine that had nothing to do with the winter air. "Tonight? On Christmas Eve?"
"He uses the holidays," Claire whispered, her voice cracking. "He told your father that if the payment wasn't doubled by midnight tonight, he was going to take the deed to the property and sell it to a local logging company. That's why your father panicked when I showed up with the bank statements. He thought I was going to lock him up before he could pay Vance."
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Just as she finished speaking, a pair of blinding yellow high beams flickered into existence in my rearview mirror.
A massive black pickup truck with a heavy steel snowplow attached to its front bumper surged out of the blizzard behind us, closing the distance at terrifying speed.
