WICKED WEDNESDAY
Please join me in welcoming back one of my favorite and frequent guests, Dee S. Knight. Wicked comes in all forms and Dee has a fun take on wicked today with an exciting true life adventure.
Instead
of focusing on a wicked person or even a character, I'd like to tell you about
wicked Mother Nature. She'll pull a fast one and there everyone is, made humble
by snow or rain, ice or heat. There is an old commercial that famously intoned,
"It's not nice to fool Mother Nature!" Well, it's not nice for
her to fool us, either.
Back
in our trucking days, we had to drive through some truly wicked weather. I
remember once in Montana, realizing the highway I was driving on was covered in
black ice. Snow storms were common. We outran a dust storm in Texas once, and
lost our air conditioning in horrendous heat and humidity. Through it all, we
had to keep going to deliver the freight.
But
once, coming into Chicago, we heard about a storm approaching from the west. The
snow was a late one, and sure to be wet and heavy. It was early morning and
still dark. Hubby was driving the stretch on I-80, just as Illinois meets
Indiana. An accident and detour held us up for nearly an hour, and before we
knew it, the storm caught up with us while we were driving the Indiana
Turnpike.
I
woke up as it turned light, and crawled out of the sleeper. "Look at that
idiot," I said. "That trucker thinks he can park in the ramp to the
service center. And look at those guys, just parking on the shoulder. What's
going on?"
"A
storm came in from the west. What I didn't know is, another storm came up from the
south. And we're right in the middle of the mess."
Ahead,
I could see the toll booth that marked the end of the Indiana toll road. A
couple of miles past that, we would be on the Ohio Turnpike. Best thing about
the turnpikes? They always kept the roads clear. Sure, they cost money, but it
was worth it. Right?
We
slowly came to a stop, about six trucks back from paying the toll. And then… We
were stopped for sure. Word came back that Ohio had closed its road. What??
That was why those "idiots" had been stopped and parked strangely at
the service center.
While
the two storms met up and churned everything around us, we sat in a row of
trucks, in the cab of ours. On the second day, they "let" us pay our
toll and move to the snow-drifted area between the two turnpikes. We sat while
it snowed. We sat while the storm ended and the sun shone through gray clouds.
We sat day and we sat night. We sat there in no man's land for three days
and four nights. It felt biblical.
A
restaurant about a mile away (walk to the fence separating the toll road from
the rest of the road, climb said fence, climb an embankment to the road and go
another three-quarters of a mile, all through deep snow) was snowed in, so the
waitress and cook who couldn't make it home had a bunch of truckers for
customers. For three days. I'll bet they were thrilled.
Finally,
through more flurries, Ohio opened its toll road—single lanes in each
direction. After a day's drive that normally took three or four hours, we
passed into Pennsylvania. Say glory! There was next to no snow! The real
kicker? Had we stayed on the Indiana toll road instead of moving through, they
would have let us off for free. Any trucks stuck on the turnpike did not
have to pay the toll to get off. So we had to pay both Indiana and Ohio
and that's no small amount of money! Thank you, Mother Nature!
I
featured some wild foggy weather in my paranormal erotic romance, Passionate
Destiny. The unexpected—and unexplained—freaky fog meant the hero, Aaron,
had to stay at the heroine's house that night. Oh, darn. 😉 In this excerpt,
Aaron and Margaret are on their way home from dinner.
They
lapsed into silence.
Fog
covered the bed of the pickup by the time they got to the stop sign at the main
intersection in town. "Looks like it's getting a little foggy," Aaron
said as he checked the rearview mirror.
"A
little?" Margaret leaned forward to look in the side mirror. "I can't
see the tail lights reflected. Is this usual for here?"
Aaron
made the turn to go through town. "Well, I wouldn't say it's unusual.
We're near the river after all, but this is a little heavy."
By
the time he turned onto the county road, fog rolled off the roof and down the
windshield. Within seconds their sight out the side windows was blocked. Long
before they got to the driveway, they lost all visibility.
Aaron
slowed to a crawl and leaned forward, straining to see. Margaret could hear him
muttering to himself. Too afraid to distract him, she kept her own counsel,
holding onto the seat with one hand and the door with the other. Twice he had
to stop and back up because he had wandered off the narrow road and into the
weeds at the edge. The third time he was forced to reverse, it was due to
nearly running into the maple tree at the end of the road.
"Look
out your window and tell me when you see the driveway," he ordered, as he
eased the truck backward.
It
seemed like forever before Margaret she saw it. "There!" The dark
outline of a cleared passage leading off to the right indicated the path to the
house. He turned the wheel and maneuvered the truck up the drive.
"Stop!"
Aaron
slammed on the brakes, stopping barely three feet from the back porch.
Margaret
exhaled slowly, trying to quit shaking at the same time. For long moments after
putting the vehicle in park, Aaron sat with his hands clenched on the steering
wheel, not moving, not speaking.
"Are
you all right?" His voice, quiet but steady, gave her confidence to relax
a bit and turn to him.
"Yes,
I think so. You can let go of the steering wheel now."
"Sure,
as soon as you let go of the seat." They laughed, finally breaking the
tension. He flexed his fingers, lifting them off the wheel. "I've never
been in fog this thick before. Up in the mountains it gets bad sometimes, but
this is worse than I've ever seen it. Look, you can't even see the edge of the
house."
Margaret
turned to look out her window, seeing nothing but white.
"I
don't know how the hell I'm going to get home in this."
Without
hesitation she said, "You can't. You'll have to stay here." Finally
releasing her grip on the seat front, she opened the door. White swirls of mist
immediately invaded the truck cab. "If you'll leave the lights on for a
minute, I'll get up the steps and turn on the porch light."
"Wait
a minute." The tightness of his voice caused her to turn back to him,
pulling the door closed in the process. The temperature in the cab had dropped
with the influx of the thick, moist air. "You left the porch light on but
I don't see any illumination now. I wonder if there's power. Let me back up a
little and reposition the lights onto the steps."
Leaning
back in the seat she let a frown cross her brow as he moved the vehicle to
light up the steps and screen door. "You're right, I did leave the porch
light on." Glancing quickly at Aaron to see that he was focusing hard on
the house, she narrowed her eyes and did the same. "We won't know if the
power's out or what's happened until I get in there." She opened the door
and slid out.
Moving
in front of the vehicle, she crossed the twin beams of light as she plowed
through the fog. Even with the headlights she tripped over the bottom step,
catching herself against the door at the last second.
She
heard Aaron open his door. "Are you all right?"
Nodding
her head she called, "Fine!" and waved at him before letting the
screen door close.
The
back door light was not on. Standing on the partially lit porch and looking
back into the murkiness, the truck with its bright headlights seemed far away.
Worse, Aaron seemed far away. She shivered as a chill ran down her back. Even
with the faint evidence of headlights piercing the fog, and knowing that she
was a mere couple of miles from a town, she almost felt alone in the world,
stranded in this house, a small island shrouded in a vast, white sea.
Using
a tiny flashlight she kept on her keychain, she lit the lock so that she could
slip in the key. Pushing it open, she reached in and flipped the switch. Light
flooded the porch.
