Slippery

Slippery roads and snow blown air
Wind through the mountain path
My car slides sideways, veers into
A ditch filled with solid ice pitch
Black and murky green under
the mound of snow.
I sit and try to slow my heartbeat
Down as I reach for a cell phone
With a dead battery.

A truck stops and a man with
A grizzly beard and slicked back
Hair jerks my car door open
Lends his hand to me and I crawl
Out holding on to his arm so my
Feet don’t slip out from under me.

Thank you for stopping I praise him
for his ability to walk on the ice
and extricate me from my car.
He never said a word. I tell him
I’ll wait if he will call the police.
He won’t hear of it. He’s sure
I will freeze to death by the time
anyone gets that far from town.

Then I hear the heavy door slide shut
and automatically locks behind me.
As he turns on the ignition, the roar
of the motor crashes into my senses.
The bile rises in my throat while
adrenaline pumps through my veins
and I know the night will slither into
a nightmare of life and death.