If you hear thunder in a snowstorm, run.

I?d never heard of a thundersnow until I was in college. When you live in the midwest weather can be chaotic, but this particular storm came up quickly, even for us. On Thursday morning there was a normal snowstorm coming, by Friday morning, they were preparing to shut down the city. Businesses began announced early closings. Even the mall was closed by 3pm. The college I attended even ended classes at noon. A group of friends and I decided to take advantage of the early release by going to a restaurant by the mall for lunch. We were only inside for an hour or so, but by the time we got out, there was easily an additional six inches of snow on the ground.
On the way home, every time we stopped, my friends would have to get out and push the car until it started going again, including pushing to get the car going so I could manage to drive off after dropping them off.
I decided to gamble and stop at the gas station closest to our apartment on the way home. If we were getting snowed in I was going to pick up a pack of cigarettes and some basic supplies. I managed to park under the canopy by the gas pumps where a patch of bare concrete would provide enough traction to get going again.
The gas station is a larger chain gas station in the heart of a college business district. Basically it?s bars, clubs, pizza places, head shops, and at least one hipster coffee shop. Locals referred to the whole thing as ?The Hill.? My point is, we were at this gas station at least once a day, often two or three times. The same was true for the hundreds of students who lived within blocks of the area.
I wasn?t the only one stopping in for supplies. It was filled with people, most of whom had stories similar to mine. I was standing in line holding some frozen pizzas, soda, and chips when I heard the clerk talking to the other customers about the coming storm. The forecast had escalated significantly.
Behind the counter a small tv was playing. The weatherman came on, standing in front of a map of the midwest that was basically a giant purple blob that covered our entire state.
?Jesus Christ,? I said. The clerk reached over and turned up the volume. A hush fell over the people near the counter as everyone listened.
? . . . Highway Patrol has issued a statement. Do not leave your homes. Do not travel.?
The interstates and highways had been shut down. Rescuers in snowmobiles were shuttling people trapped in their cars to the nearest rest areas. Plows had been called in for the night.
?Please, everyone,? he said. ?Stay home. If you don?t, you will be on your own.?
The silence hung heavy and felt . . . ominous, I guess, would be the right word.
?Well! I guess I better go!? said the person at the front of the line, breaking the tension and prompting a few laughs from the growing number of people in line.
?Well I?m not going anywhere,? said the clerk. ?I have to work all night anyway. Besides, my apartment is right next door.? She gestured toward the window, but instead of the blue apartment buildings we should have been able to see, the window was nothing but solid white.
Just then the doors opened and two of my roommates ducked in.
?You guys have the same idea as me?? I said, gesturing at my pizzas and snacks.
?No,? A.J. said, ?Blazer?s stuck in the bookstore parking lot.?
?I thought the blazer had four-wheel drive.? I said.
?It does,? chimed in A.J.?s girlfriend Jenna. She?d shared his room for months, and for the most part, she was pretty cool.
?Damn that sucks, let?s get our stuff and I?ll drive us home,? I said.
Even though I?d been in the gas station less than ten minutes, the small patch of concrete I had carefully parked my back tires on was filled in with two inches of snow. The tracks from where I drove in were almost completely filled in with snow. I was glad we didn?t have to go far.
By car, it was two blocks. Most of the time we walked, and from the back door to the gas station it was more like a half a block.
Going slow and occasionally getting out to push, we managed to not only get home, but get the car in the driveway, as well. My third and final roommate, Trevor, got home just after we did, pulling his tiny car in right behind mine. Making our way into the house, the snow was so deep had to walk in each other?s footsteps and try not to fall over along the way. By the time we got inside, we were laughing and happy to be home.
In the foyer that we shared with the apartment upstairs, we paused to stomp the snow off our shoes and brush it off our clothes and coats.
?Holy **** it?s crazy out there!? A.J. said, stepping carefully out of his wet shoes onto the dry carpet in the living room.
?It?s pretty when you look at it from in here,? Jenna said, peering out the window at the houses across the street. It was definitely one of the prettier types of snow. The kind with big fat sticky flakes. Still, the uneasy feeling lurked in the back of my mind. We weren?t strangers to winter or severe weather, but this was unnerving. The weatherman wasn?t even trying to guess how much snow we?d get anymore. He just kept saying it was impossible to predict how much snow we would actually get. Local news was an endless stream of businesses that had closed early and warnings not to travel. At the hospitals, staff were staying over because the replacement staff couldn?t get through.
What else was there to do? We did what every college student does when there are four people in the same room. We played cards.
It was close to 4:3O in the afternoon when there was a knock on our door. One of the guys upstairs poked his head in. We didn?t know the guys upstairs real well, but of the four, he was by far my favorite. His name was Metal, which I had been pretty pleased to find out was his actual last name. He was a bit of a power stoner, but was generally cool to be around. But to be fair, he was also a little bit crazy.
?Guys! Anyone want to go to the gas station with me?? He asked, in a wide-eyed excited tone.
?Not possible,? A.J. said, not looking up as he carefully arranged the cards in his hand. ?Roads are all ****ed.?
?I?m not driving, dude. I?m walking.? Metal said, as if he had thought of the most innovative weather problem solution of all time. ?Anyone wanna come with??
?What are you getting?? I asked.
?Smokes, certainly. Toilet paper definitely. Beer probably. Pizza possibly.?
I shrugged, ?I?m in.?
I got up and rummaged through my room for my warm coat and gloves. When I came back out of my bedroom, my roommates were holding out cash in my directions.
?Hey, would you bring me a pack of smokes?? A.J. said first.
?And me!? Jenna added.
?Yeahhhh, me too,? said Trevor
?No way. You can come with us and buy your own,? I said in a joking voice but he right well knew I was also serious.
?I?ll send enough money for two and you can have the other one,? he offered. The others agreed.
?Uno, dos, tres, cuatro, cinco, cinco, seis,? Metal sang, doing a strange little dance in the kitchen by the back door.
?Good enough,? I said, taking their money. Of course, at this time smokes only cost $1.87 a pack. So the ?payment? wasn?t as big as it would be today. We frequently made deals like this, especially when the weather was bad.
Now before you chastise me for going out, you need to remember a few things.
First, it was only about 7pm, so it wasn?t overly late.
Second, if we walked through our backyard, the gas station was only about a half a block away.
Finally, we walked this route not only to go get smokes and snacks, but also to get to classes. I?d personally walked this route in every possible state of mind and influence. This was twice as true as Metal because he?d lived upstairs for twice as long I had and had definitely done twice as many drugs.
It was because of all this, that I didn?t worry too much about making the trip. It?s also why none of my roommates worried too much for us. Honestly, I thought it would be kind of novel. I?d never seen a storm like this, and I was kind of looking forward to checking it out. Nothing about going to the gas station felt unsafe, to any of us.
Just as we were getting ready to go, an odd yet familiar sound rumbled through the house. My brain couldn?t quite register what it was right away, because it was so out of place.
?Was that . . . thunder?? Jenna asked.
?I think so. I heard it too,? A.J. confirmed.
?That?s crazy,? I said. I didn?t think much of it at the time. I do remember looking over at the window where Jenna had been marking the rising snow by scratching lines in the frost on the window. They were low on the house, so the fact that we saw snow at window level wasn?t alarming, but I was a little surprised to see that the snow was now about an inch above the line she?d drawn not five minutes earlier.
When you?re 2O and in college, well, you?re damn near immortal, or at least you think you are, so we finished getting ready and made for the back door.
?If we?re not back in 3O minutes send the sled dog,? Metal said laughing, referring to our landlord?s dog Charlie, who was a notoriously aggressive ankle-biting chihuahua.
The back steps were a mound of snow so we just sort of trudged our way blindly through it until we were on the ground level. The snow wasn?t actually too bad. It was up to just above our knees which required us to lift each leg up out of the snow to take each step forward, but it was doable. We paused when we got to the alley at the end of our back yard. The snow had gotten noticeably thicker. I looked up at the security light up over our heads. The light was visible through the snow but I couldn?t make out the details of the fixture at all. Across the alley from us was the chain link fence that bordered one of the houses we walked between. It would be helpful to hold onto as we walked through the snow. Only about a foot and a half of it stuck up out of the drift, but we were able to keep moving.
The whole time we walked, Metal chatted away, generously peppering stories and observations with top shelf profanity as we made our way through the deep snow, with the help of the chain link fence.
We were losing visibility, but we could still see individual street lights lining The Hill, like glowing orbs in the night.
Suddenly the snow around us filled with a barrage of flashing light followed by the unmistakable sound of a thunderclap. The glow of the streetlight faded away as we were suddenly hit with the weight of a massive amount of snow from out of nowhere.
?****ing wind!? Metal shouted at the sky as we shook the snow off of our shoulders and hats. It had blown off of something nearby and directly down on top of us. Or at least that?s what we thought happened. At that point, why would we have thought it was anything else?
One big step at a time, we followed the chain link fence until we made it to the front yard of the house. From here, all we had to do was cross a small street, walk around the bank, and the gas station would be right across the street.
I didn?t say anything to Metal, but I was starting to get a little nervous. He didn?t seem to notice as he yammered away about all the things he always yammered about. Music. Drugs. Pulp Fiction. Music and drugs. Drugs and music. Drugs and music, and Pulp Fiction. All we could do was keep moving and get back as soon as we can. I was kind of regretting the trip, but we were already half way there, it would be stupid to turn back at this point.
From here I could just make out the overhead glow of the streetlights again just on the other side of the bank.
The snow on the street was as deep as the snow by the chain link fence, but here there would be nothing to hold onto. We?d just have to walk in the direction of the bank. I could tell Metal was starting to feel uneasy too, when he got quiet and walking closer to me. I didn?t mind. It was getting harder and harder to see and that was unnerving enough. The thought of being out here alone, was more than a little unpleasant.
We began to make our way across the small road. Halfway across the lightning flashed again, followed by a crack of thunder that ushered in another ?blanket? of snow that fell heavily on our heads and shoulders. There was nothing we could do but stand there until it eased off. It took longer for the snow to lighten this time. When the streetlights came back into view, it seemed like they were softer and farther away.
We didn?t hesitate, just continued moving toward the bank, straining to make out its shape in front of us somewhere. Even though it was dark outside, the snow seemed to have its own sort of light. It swirled around with the snowflakes and dazzled your eyes. Almost hypnotic. But if it was actually as light as it seemed, we?d have been able to see more than we could.
Just as I was pretty sure we were almost at the bank the wind began to howl. I?d heard the expression before, but I?d never truly understood how real it could be. It was a terrifying scream that seemed right next to me, making me shudder not from the cold, but from a deep, penetrating fear.
?What the ****!? Metal shouted and started pushing harder toward the bank. I had to struggle to keep up with him, but I knew he couldn?t go far.
The bank didn?t have a parking lot. It was a small building with just enough room for one car to drive around to the drive-thru. It served mostly college students who were almost always on foot.
Metal was getting farther ahead of me and I could barely make out his black parka.
?Metal!? I shouted, but the words seemed muffled by the snow and swept away by the wind. I kept moving in the direction he had gone, even though I couldn?t see his coat anymore. He wanted to get to the bank and I didn?t blame him. I knew feel a whole lot better when I was touching that wall, too.
Another flash of lightning and another shriek. This time it sounded like it was right in front of me. I cried out in fear. The thunderclap hit, and the snow that followed knocked me off my feet. I came up sputtering, trying to clear the snow from my mouth and nose.
?Metal!? I shouted again and this time I thought I heard him reply from up ahead of me. I kept moving in the direction of the bank, and after a dozen or so trudging steps, I was blindsided by an arm that darted out of the swirling white wasteland, grabbed my shoulder, and yanked me hard in their direction.
It was Metal. He was standing with his back against the wall of the bank. If he hadn?t grabbed me, I?d have probably kept walking. Who knows what would have happened if I?d have missed the bank.
It wasn?t easy navigating around it. On this back side where we were, the snow had blown up against the wall, so it was deeper and harder to walk through, but neither of us wanted to leave the reassurance of the wall, even though the snow was harder to get through.
I tried to shout to Metal that we needed to head for the foyer with the ATM machine, but I don?t know if he heard me. The snow was quiet but also took the words out of your mouth as soon as you said them. It was just like talking underwater. Muffled, and dull.
Metal?d had the same idea as me though. On the other side of the bank, there was a 24 hour ATM that was located inside a small glass foyer that was always unlocked. We could stop there and get out of the snow for awhile. By this point, we were fighting for forward momentum. It had been a bad idea to try to walk to the gas station, and I regretted it with every step.
God it was great when my gloved fingers found the front corner of the bank building. I was way beyond wanting to be home or at the gas station. All I wanted was to be inside and not in this storm. I?d have climbed in a doghouse if we?d come across one.
The door to the foyer was covered in snow. Metal and I had to spend five minutes kicking the snow out of the way before we could get the door to open enough for us to squeeze through, but inside felt like a paradise. I didn?t realize how all of that snow around my face had made me feel like I was suffocating. I ripped my scarf off and opened my coat so I could ?breath? again.
I was so preoccupied with that, it took me a minute to notice Metal was frozen in place, staring into the corner of the little foyer.
?What is it?? I asked, my eyes following his gaze.
?I thought I saw something,? he said, in a puzzled voice.
The snow in the corner swirled in and out. But for a second I did see something. I think I did. Something like a face, but gray skin, gray eyes. You mean snow colored? It was not a stretch to see things in the swirling snow, especially after straining to see in the storm.
Metal shrugged and began foraging inside his coat, pulled out a pack of smokes and a lighter. He pulled out a cigarette and then offered me the pack. I took one.?We probably shouldn?t smoke in here,? I said.
?Extraordinary circumstances call for extraordinary measures,? he replied lighting his cigarette and sitting down in the middle of the room. He was quieter and more serious than I had ever seen him. When he finally made eye contact, I could see that he wasn?t just serious, he was scared.
I?m sure he saw the same look on my face, too.
The bank foyer wasn?t warm, but it wasn?t nearly as cold as it was outside. I took off my gloves so I could smoke less awkwardly. We smoked that first cigarette in silence. As soon as I stubbed out the first one, I fished out my pack and offered one to Metal, which he took.
He lit it carefully and then said in a quiet voice, ?What are we gonna do, man??
I shrugged. ?We could keep going,? I said. ?We could go back or we could stay here. That about sums up our choices.?
?If we keep going, we?re staying at the gas station until tomorrow,? he said, lights flickering overhead.
It wasn?t ideal, but I had to agree with him. I couldn?t imagine making the whole trip back after getting to the gas station.
?Either way, I think we need to stay together,? I posited.
He nodded slowly. ?Maybe we should stay here.?
I couldn?t deny it was tempting. It felt good to be out of the storm. But though it was warmer in here, it wasn?t fully heated. ?We feel warmer now,? I said. ?But is it actually warm enough to stay here? And if we wait too long, will we even be able to get anywhere else?? I asked.
Overhead the light flickered again, ominously.
Metal considered this. ?If we head back home, we could probably make it to the chain link fence but after that, I?m not sure. The backyard was uphill. We may not be able to get to the back door. If we can?t, we?ll have to go around.?
?So we are stuck deciding if we should try to camp down here or keep going to the gas station where at least we would have food and bathrooms . . . and cigarettes,? I concluded.
In the end it was the flickering light, threatening a power outage, that made our decision for us. Without power, the foyer would become cold dangerously quickly. As we bundled back up, a gap in the snow revealed a bright glow in the direction of the gas station before the storm rushed back in again and it disappeared in the swirling chaos.
It bolstered both our moods. I was glad we were leaving the foyer. The longer we sat, the more the swirls against the glass seemed to resemble faces, staring with dead eyes of white swirling snow. Dead eyes that looked at me. Dead eyes that saw me.
I don?t know if Metal?s eyes were playing the same tricks on him. I thought about asking, but he suddenly stood up, pulled his last smoke out of the pack. He lit it with a flair, zipped up his coat, and saluted, cigarette hanging from of the corner of his mouth, just below one squinted eye.
?Soldier!? He shouted. ?We will go out in that snow! We will walk across this street! We will acquire snacks! Those are our order?s maggot, get your ass out there!? He threw his scarf over one shoulder with a flourish and kicked open the door.
The jovial moment ended as the snow hit us like we?d never left it. Metal grabbed me before I could start walking and I realized he was standing with his back to the bank window to orient himself so we walked in the right direction. It was smart, because the gas station was catty corner from where we were standing.
The road we had to cross had two lanes with parking on both. From the bank to the door of the station wasn?t more than 60 feet.
Even though it was dark outside, the swirling blizzard creates the illusion of visibility, but that?s all that it is, an illusion. The reality was that we could not see more than a couple of feet in any direction. We knew there was a car parked in front of the bank, but beyond that, it would be the last physical landmark until we made it to the pumps of the gas station.
We moved carefully forward to the parked car, edging our way around it to the right. Something in the snow banged against my leg causing me to jump back and fall on my ass in the snow. When I got back up I reached out to find a parking meter buried in the snow next to the car. That was going to hurt later, and probably leave a pretty nasty bruise, too.
I thought at first Metal hadn?t noticed that I fell. I shouted his name and felt the panic start to rise up, when his outstretched hand appeared in front of me. We clasped hands and started moving forward again. I felt no shame in holding a guy?s hand at this point. I just didn?t want to be alone.
It?s hard for your senses to cope in that sort of environment. Sound is muffled, directions become elusive, you can see but you are also blind. But even though everything is hidden to you, you can?t stop trying to see and to hear just in case, for one brief moment, you can get your bearings.
I?ll be honest. I was starting to get pretty freaked out. The panic I felt was threatening to boil over. Being in the storm felt like being underwater, slow and foreign. Pretty, but deadly.
I ran into something again, this time with my right leg. ?What the ****,? I said, reaching down to see what I had hit this time, but after fishing around for whatever it might be, I came up empty.
?You okay?? Metal said, shouting with his head close to mine. Even a few inches away he sounded muffled and distant.
?Yeah!? I shouted back and we continued trudging forward.
There was no point pretending we weren?t pretty thoroughly run down at this point. I mean, we were both young, but we were also smokers. We were much more likely to be found playing guitar on top of the student union, than in an intramural football game. At this point, the snow was closing in on waist deep and it was almost impossible to step over it anymore. I worked to make a simple rhythm of it. Pick up your leg, like you?re marching. Pull it up and slide it back down in the snow. Then bring your other leg up to meet it. I would lead with my right foot for awhile then alternate to my left.
We walked and walked and time stretched out behind us.
Any sense I had of our position and pace was long gone. How long had we been walking? We left the house around seven, but neither of us were wearing watches. The more I thought about it, the harder it was to figure out. I decided it had probably been a half hour or so when you factor in the two cigarettes they had at the bank. How long would it take to get to the gas station?
I concentrated on my footsteps. How many steps would it have taken me on a regular day to get from the bank to the gas station? I tried to pace it off in my head as I forced my legs to push through the snow. It was maybe six steps from the bank to the car, eight steps around the car to where I got whacked by the parking meter. Probably about fifteen steps if we went directly across the street. So cross-ways across the intersection would be, say thirty, maybe even thirty-five paces. From the curb to the gas pumps would add another fifteen or so.
If I counted two snow steps for every good weather regular step, that would put me at about 130 snow steps to get to the pumps. But you see, I honestly thought my snow steps were larger than regular steps based on how I had to put my foot down, but I was trying to be as conservative as possible.
Was Metal doing the same? I hoped so, because at this point, any energy I had left after walking was being used to keep me from losing my ****.
I counted in my head as we went. ?One . . . and . . . two . . . and . . . three . . . and . . .?
When I got to 150, I knew something was very, very wrong. I was about to try to ask Metal what he thought when lightning flashed all around us, revealing swirls of blues and whites in thick patches like clouds, but with no visible boundary between the falling snow and the snow on the ground. Thunder cracked loud overhead and seemed to echo around us. Like the thunder before, the snow that followed landed on us like a blanket. It was up to our waist now.
We fought to shake it off our arms and shoulders, but we could both feel it. The storm was gaining on us. I moved in front of Metal and took the front for awhile. He had been forging the path for long enough. He had to be exhausted. I leaned in and shouted in his ear, ?We should have been there by now!?
I got a quick glimpse of his eyes, a few inches from mine. He only gave a small nod. There was nothing we could do but keep walking.
?157 . . . and . . . 158 . . . and . . .?
Just then I tripped over something and fell forward, face-first into the snow. I panicked and flailed. The snow was packed in my mouth and ears. It was hard to breath and for a second I couldn?t get away from it. It was like being underwater without any buoyancy.
Metal?s hand had been ripped out of mine when I got knocked over. I finally found my feet and felt around with my arms until I bumped into him and we clutched each other in the darkness.
Before I could take another step I ran into something else and suddenly realized, I wasn?t running into something. Something was running into me.
This time it was Metal?s turn to fall on his ass, and my turn to help him up. But as I was pulling him onto his feet, the snow rippled around us and without warning, Metal?s hand was torn out of mine and he disappeared back down into the snow. I felt wildly for his hand and managed to get ahold of it it, but Metal hadn?t fallen. Something was pulling him. I could hear his thin terrified screams being swallowed by the wind and snow.
?Don?t let go!? He cried. I pulled my right glove off with my teeth and got my bare hand up under his sleeve, wrapped around his bare skin for traction. His warm skin felt hot and prickly against my cold fingers and but I held on as hard as I could. Even when I knew that it had to hurt him like hell where I was pulling.
Whatever had his legs yanked harder. The storm thickened. I could hear Metal screaming but I couldn?t see his face. Whatever had him pulled over and over, until I felt like my arm was going to get ripped out of its socket. Lightning blew up the sky around us. For a moment, I could see Metal in front of me, his face pale with exertion and pain, his eyes wild with fear. I wish that was all I had seen, but the flashes of lightning showed so much more.
Around us, in the layers of the light bursts, huge pale eel-like creatures swirled through the falling snow like water, the snow swirling like eddies in their wake. I could tell that Metal had seen them too. Then I felt it again, the movement under the snow, bumping hard against my leg. Jesus Christ there was something alive out here with us.
The next time the lightning flashed, I watched as white tendrils of snow slithered up from the snow behind Metal and wrapped themselves around his arms and then around his neck. The force of it made his eyes bulge and his skin began to turn purple.
I shouldn?t have been able to see any of it. Or at least not as much as I saw. I know it sounds crazy but it felt like the lightning kept flashing to make sure I saw the thing taking Metal. To make sure I saw him die.
Because there?s no way he could have lived. I wanted to believe he could, but deep down, from that moment I knew.
The thunder cracked and the storm went black and Metal?s hands were violently ripped from mine in a white hot sheet of pain that tore through my shoulder as my grip on his arm was broken. All I saw after that was a flash of black as Metal disappeared into the ocean of snow.
I clutched my now useless arm against my chest and tried to look around. Tried to see anything in the darkness. The snow was deeper now. In a little while it wouldn?t matter what was out there, I wouldn?t be able to keep going.
My good hand was numb and my feet felt like blocks of stone I had to drag along underneath me. My eyes were tired from squinting and trying to make out anything in the darkness.
For awhile, every time I contemplated giving up, the things in the snow would nudge me, toying with me, like a cat with a mouse.
But a person can only keep moving for so long in those conditions. no matter how determined they are. I just kept pushing forward in the direction I thought the gas station was. By that point I had stopped counting steps. I could only concentrate on one step at a time now. If I could just keep going, I still had a chance, right?
A wild shrieking suddenly whipped in the wind around me just as something struck me hard in the face, nearly knocking me off my feet. A hot wetness trickled down my cheek and onto my coat. Suddenly brilliant white light flashed and flooded the world around me, followed by a turbulent slithering around my legs and waist under the snow. But this time, the lightning revealed something else. The gas station. Metal and I had gotten off course and I had nearly missed it. I lunged in the direction of it had been in great flailing strides, that felt like running underwater, a slow-motion escape more frustrating than any nightmare.
But I had seen the gas station. I knew I could make it.
Instead, I was knocked violently forward, face first in the snow. Before I could get my knees under me, an ice cold tendril wound around the wrist of my bad arm and yanked it back, brutally, causing pain to cut through my consciousness like a white hot blade. The adrenaline gave me just enough energy to take a few more steps. Blood was pouring down my face, and I was dragging my now useless arm behind me in the snow.
The thunder boomed right above me and I knew the snow was coming and that would be the end. I knew deep down, I could not shrug off another dumping of the heavy snow. Not that I didn?t try, but as it hit me, I fell forward, limply.
The things swirled around me in the snow, rubbing against my legs, then disappearing, only to be replaced by another one. Then a sharp pain bit through the haze I was in. Something had sliced the back of my leg.
The jolt of surprise and the new pain helped me to get to my feet again, even as I could feel more of them swimming through my legs and around my waist. The lightning flashed one last time, and there, in front of me, were hands and arms that reached out to me, pulling me out of the snow.
Behind me, I felt the tendrils wrapping around my legs and ankles, the sharp slicing of the skin on my thighs and calves. I screamed in pain from the cuts and being torn in two.
I kicked at the things swirling around my feet and suddenly, my foot made purchase with something hard and resistant. Very much like packed snow. But I felt it give, and then the thing holding my feet loosened its grip just enough to allow the hands and arms to tear me free of it. Human hands and arms that were real and warm and alive. It was there, on the concrete just outside the door of the gas station that I closed my eyes and everything went quietly, mercifully dark.
It was around 3am when I woke up and found myself lying on the floor behind the counter of the gas station my head resting on a package of toilet paper.
I tried to sit up and was instantly blinded by white hot pain like I had never felt before. I cried out and was quickly surrounded by the clerk and two other girls. All three had extremely concerned looks on their faces.
?Are you ok?? The clerk said nervously.
?Of course he?s not okay,? said the girl on the left.
?He?s inside and he?s alive. That?s ok enough.? The girl on the right said grimly. She screwed the cap off a bottle of Captain Morgan and handed it to me. ?Take these,? she said holding up two pill and then putting them in my mouth. I was too surprised to really resist. ?Drink,? she said, pushing the bottle of rum toward my face.
I washed down the mystery pills with the rum and while it burned going down, it was warm and everything warm was good. ?My friend. He was with me. Have you seen him? Did he make it here?? I asked.
The two girls shook their heads. ?You?re the first one, since we got here. Our car got stuck. It wasn?t bad then. But we were going to try to get it unstuck, only we didn?t get to the car.? The girls looked at one another and were quiet.
?There are things in the snow,? I said. No use pretending it wasn?t true. Tears rolled down one of the girls cheeks.
?I need to call my roommates,? I said.
?Phones are out,? the clerk replied, frowning, then she shrugged.
The four of us sat behind the counter for the rest of the night. The girls names were Sarah and Braden. The clerk was Jill. I told them some of what happened, but not all.
It turned out the pills Braden gave me were serious pain killers she took for ?monster cramps.? The slices on my legs were wide but not dangerously deep. I was able to move around once the pain ebbed a bit.
?What time did I get here?? I asked, at some point, trying to pin down the sequence of events.
Jill brought over three hot chocolates from what my roommate called the crappuccino machine. Braden topped all three off with rum. ?7:15,? she said.
?That can?t be right,? I said. ?We didn?t even leave until seven. And we stopped at the bank for at least ten minutes, probably more.?
?No, that?s right,? Sarah said, taking a sip of her hot chocolate. ?When we got you inside, I looked at the clock so I would know how long you were out. I know it was 7:15ish because I remember thinking my sorority sisters would all be in the tv room watching Friends.?
?It can?t be right,? I said quietly and the girls didn?t contradict me. For the rest of the night, we stayed behind the counter on the floor.
It was better not have the windows to look out of. Better not to be where you can be seen if something was looking in. Sarah and Braden eventually fell asleep. Jill and I smoked and endured the flashes of lighting and thunder in the snow. I tried not to think of what was out there, but I never succeeded.
I guess we all must have fallen asleep eventually. When I opened my eyes the light from outside was bright and clear. The snow had drifted halfway up the window, but above the snowline I could see the bars and pizza places half buried in a fine powdery snow that was perfectly smooth and flat and glittered like diamonds.
We still couldn?t go anywhere, but we did eventually get phone service back. When we did, I called my roommates to tell them I was ok and to ask if Metal was there, but he hadn?t returned to the house. I even made them look upstairs.
Over the next few days, there would be a lot of questions, and a lot of heartache. I tried to tell people what happened, but I couldn?t get anyone to take me seriously. They nodded and gave me a pitying look. To them it was just my traumatized mind making up a story to cope with the horrific event I had lived through. And who knows, maybe I am.
But there?s one thing that makes me think I do remember things the way they actually happened. They eventually found Metal. Found his body, anyway. The day after the storm, the owner of the bar across the street went to drop his deposit at the bank. The dropbox is in the foyer by the ATM. As he turned to go, he noticed, down in the corner window, by the floor, he could see a pale face, with white that stared off into nowhere. It was Metal. He was found lying next to the window with his face pressed up against the glass, completely frozen.
The authorities declared it was death by exposure, but I?m betting they found a lot more in that autopsy than anyone was ever told. Once the storm had cleared, four people had gotten ?lost? in the storm and suffered the same fate as Metal. I wonder how many of them suffered the same fate.
I?ve never really been one hundred percent ok, since then. Physically I?ve recovered as much as I am going to. My right arm is moderately functional but I?m a leftie now.
I transferred to University of Arizona for my junior and senior year. After graduation, I did outreach work at the equator. I don?t go where it snows any more and I?m ok with that. But a few weeks ago I happened to run across a headline about thundersnow predictions in the midwest this winter. I know midwesterners are brave and sometimes reckless, but this is not a normal kind of storm. As one midwesterner to another,
If you hear thunder in a snowstorm, run.


Source.