Seven Is My Lucky Number

I could go all day without hearing a single sound except nature’s song, but when it was time to sleep, I would roll around for hours if I didn’t have something in the background. I flipped on the radio and climbed into bed. It would give me enough meaningless noise to go to sleep. It took one hell of an antenna pyramid to get good stations, but it was worth the cost. I felt my eyelids growing heavier and heavier as the music played, and then a commercial came on, followed by some local news.

“Authorities are still searching for missing nineteen-year-old Heather Westbrook. The Tennessee native was supposed to be meeting friends at a cabin near Lake Rutherford, but she never arrived. Authorities are asking everyone in the area to be on the lookout for a 2014 burgundy Volvo with Tennessee plates... Ms. Westbrook is 5’6 with blonde hair and green eyes...”

“Wait a second...” My eyes opened.

Every bit of progress I had made towards falling asleep evaporated in an instant. I thought back to the car I saw and the blonde goddess driving it. I called it red, but perhaps it was burgundy. I didn’t pay attention to the license plate, but there was an orange T in the corner of the back window.

Fuck. It was a University of Tennessee logo.

If she was headed towards Lake Rutherford, she was way off course. There was no way they would go looking for her as far out as Wolf Creek and they certainly wouldn’t check Devil’s Pass. As much as I wanted to just ignore the news and go back to sleep, I couldn’t. I was probably the only one who knew where she was.

Not my problem. Not my—ugh.

I thought about calling it in, but I was a lot closer than the sheriff to Devil’s Pass. If her car broke down, she was likely going to freeze to death. It really wasn’t my problem, but I couldn’t just go back to sleep and ignore it. I got dressed and bundled up in my coat before tossing a couple of gas cans in the back of my truck.

The snow tires were going to get used a lot quicker than I had planned. My truck moved down the mountain at a crawl until I reached the flat part of the road. Snow was already accumulating and it wasn’t an easy drive. Devil’s Pass was going to be even worse if she had put some miles on her tires without turning around.

Chapter 3: Heather

I don’t know how long I slept, but when I woke up, I realized something was clearly wrong. The weather outside was a lot colder than I anticipated, and the storm wasn’t letting up. I tried to turn the car on, just to get something flowing in the vents for a moment, but it was totally out of gas. It wouldn’t even turn over.

Oh God. This is really, really bad.

I couldn’t even get it to power on so I could use the radio for a possible weather update. I sat there with my teeth chattering, my skin cold to the touch, and not even enough heat from my breath to warm me up. I got my lighter from my bag and struck it, using it to just warm my hands.

Sweet Jesus. Heat!

Once they were slightly warm, I rubbed them on my neck and face, trying to transfer some of the heat. It wasn’t perfect, but it was a temporary relief. I lit a cigarette, no longer caring about the air quality, willing to just trade it away for a little bit of warmth. My situation was getting desperate.

I don’t want to die out here.

My phone was completely dead and if I didn’t have help soon, I was going to be joining it. I started to regret my decision to stop. I should have pushed on or turned around. It was too late for that, too late for anything except the cold misery of my impending demise. I reached down and pulled my jeans back up—at least they’d find a corpse with some dignity intact. The clothes I had used to cover them had been totally ineffective and they felt like icicles. Even my pussy felt like it had frozen shut.

“I’m going to die a virgin.” I tried to fight back tears. “I’m actually going to die here...”

Attempting to fight the tears didn’t stop me from crying, but nothing ran down my face. My tear ducts were apparently so cold and frozen I couldn’t even produce tears. I couldn’t see out my windows so I had no idea if I was buried in snow or not, but I was not going to try and open the door. The little bit of heat I had would be gone in an instant if I did.

Please. I meant it, God. I’ll go to church! I promise!

I tried to think of the good times, the fun I would have had with my friends, but dark thoughts clouded my mind. I thought about my funeral, the tears that would be shed, and the life I would never live. I would never fall in love—not really. I would never have a wedding or a honeymoon. I would never have a baby.

Stay positive, Heather. Try to stay positive.

My attempt at positivity failed before I even thought the words. Time would forget I even lived and there would be nothing left of me except a few news articles about my stupidity, freezing to death in the middle of nowhere. Even if I could somehow get word out, I didn’t even know how to tell someone where I was.

This is how it ends. This is how I die.

I lit another cigarette and nursed the little warmth it provided, but it was minuscule. When it went out, I tried to just use my lighter for heat again, warming up my hands the best I could. My feet were hopeless and felt like numb ice cubes stuffed in my shoes.

“God...” I muttered. “I know we don’t talk much, but I really need a miracle right now. I need something Biblical here with divine intervention...”

I doubted I was worthy of that kind of intervention but I didn’t know what else to do besides pray. The wind was louder than my thoughts.

I SLIPPED IN AND OUT of frozen consciousness, seeing warmth in my mind even though it didn’t exist. I wondered if the warmth was death, beckoning me into the afterlife with an illusion of warmth. My mind was in absolute disarray and it felt like madness gripping my brain. Suddenly, I heard a noise that didn’t sound like the weather.

Was that in my head?