The Road Sign

The Road Sign

The unhasty winter sun rose slowly above the frigid façades of the stately houses on both sides of a wide suburban road. The birds that bunched up during the freezing night inside the thick waxy branches of evergreens began to shuffle and chirp. Inside the warm foyer, two large suitcases were standing by the double front door adorned with fresh balsam fir wreaths giving out the comphorous scent of the holidays. Lenora and Sebastian were finishing their coffee and getting ready to head for the airport. They had a flight booked to visit Sebastian’s parents up in Western Pennsylvania for Christmas. His mother had recent heart surgery, which took her several weeks to recover from. The sixty-seven-year-old Cindy, who preferred an active lifestyle, could not wait to get out of her strict bed rest regimen. As soon as she did, she ordered a new 9-foot flocked Christmas tree and insisted that both of her sons and their families come home to celebrate.

Sebby’s phone beeped as he was locking the patio door. He looked at the phone and gave out a rather sinister sounding burst of laughter.

“What is it?” Lenora swiftly turned around from the suitcases and stared at Sebastian.

“Nothing serious,” he chuckled, “our flight just got cancelled due to the impeding snowstorm.”

“Wow, great! What are going to do now?” Lenora took Sebby’s phone from his hand and read the message from the airline.

The couple decided that they had no choice but to take a five-hour drive from their Maryland home all the way to Fayette County. The Northeaster, that was not supposed to hit the area early in the morning, was moving faster than forecasted. If they got on the road right away, they would most likely beat the storm before it started dumping the snow in the mountains along the Pennsylvania-Maryland border.

The first three hours on the highway were uneventful, the grey concrete and the grey sky all around, mud-splattered cars and trucks swooshing by. The sky was yellow, and the first flurries of snowflakes were swirling down. The jovial holiday tunes on the radio were somewhat helping with staying fully awake and focused. The couple took an exit from the highway, heading northwest on a minor road running up and down through the hills.

“What time did you tell your mom we will get there?” Lenora asked with a yawn.

Sebastian rubbed his eyes and yawned as well, “I told her we would probably be there around three-ish. You think we will make it there by then?”

“I don’t see why not.”

The snowfall, however, was increasing rapidly. The snowflake clusters were getting bigger, smearing the windshield with icy slush. Sebastian turned the wipers up. As they were getting to higher elevation, the temperature outside was dropping. The road got slippery as they slowly climbed up. They reached the top and moved downhill, Sebastian driving as carefully as he could. They had a rather sturdy vehicle for the ride, but the tires were getting bald. Sebastian did not plan on driving through mountains on a snowy day, otherwise he would have definitely had the tired replaced, he thought.

“Are you ok to keep driving? Do you want me to take over?” Lenora noticed a concern on her husband’s face.

“I am fine.” Sebastian did not trust anyone but himself in a treacherous situation like that and wanted to be in full control.

They had to negotiate a steep downhill curve. Moving in low gear, Sebby had to hold the wheel tight until the road straightened out and they could see the bottom of the valley ahead. But what they saw did not look very promising. It looked like a light show of a myriad of red and blue lights that were coming from multiple fire trucks and police cars.

“Oh no, an overturned semi,” Lenora sighed.

“Let’s keep going, I don’t know where else to go. Maybe they will help up go around.”

The firefighters flagged the couple to stop. One of them got close to the driver’s window as Sebby rolled it down. “You have to go back! There road will be closed for a while!” he spoke very loudly, almost yelling.

“What is the best way to get back on this road?!” Josh yelled back.

The firefighter gave directions moving his hands up and down imitating the hills. “It won’t be long till you get back on the road, just be careful making the shortcut on the dirt road!”

They climbed back up and around the curve again. Their GPS was freezing up on them, as well as their cellular signal. Sebby followed the firefighter’s directions, soon finding the turn to the dirt road he was talking about. It was covered with snow pretty well, about an inch or so, and they were moving steeply downhill again. Neither one was making a sound as they drove, while the snow kept steadily falling from the overcast sky. A yellow road sign came into view indicating a winding road ahead. Sebby slammed on the brakes and his wife screamed as the vehicle skidded violently. “Sorry, we are going too fast on a winding road,” Sebby tried to talk in a calm voice, but the car kept skidding from left to right. He tried to straighten it, but it was not responding. They went down fast and struck the road sign; the impact sent them off the road a couple of hundred feet down the mountain slope. Lenora screamed holding her arms over her head as their vehicle was pounding everything in its path, trees, bushes, rocks. It finally came to a rest after smashing into a large fallen tree. Sebastian was pushed against the wheel; his chest pressed the horn. The loud sound made a commotion deep in the woods for a moment.

“Lenora, are you ok?” Sebby shook his wife who was face down on the dashboard.

She turned her head and moaned, “I am alive, at least.”

“That is the most important thing!” Sebby smiled at her with relief.

They inspected each other and found only minor scratches and head bumps. At least for the moment, they could move and did not seem to have any serious injuries. They found their phones, one under the passenger seat and the other under the pedals. They were useless, however, since there was zero signal. They were able to get out from the trunk after pushing out their luggage. The car did not look good at all, like it had just got out of a war zone, smashed from every side possible.

“We are one to one with nature now. See who is going to win.” Sebby took a deep breath of cold, crisp mountain air and puffed out translucent steam. It smelled moldy in the woods from the damp tree bark. The brown and white, motionless landscape looked like a painting that would occasionally come alive when a bird would flutter up from a tree branch sending spectral clouds of snow down to the ground.

“What are we going to do?” Lenora’s cheeks were red from the frosty air. She put on the hood and zipped up her puffer coat all the way up.

“We probably need to walk back up the dirt road. We need to get to a place where our phones would get a signal. We need to move fast, before it gets dark.”

Lenora’s eyes were filled with great apprehension, but her husband was right. Who would find them on a dirt road in the middle of a storm? She handed Sebby his puffer, gloves, and a hat, “Let’s go.”

It was not an easy task getting through the thicket, with thorns reaping their clothes and tree branches smashing their faces, as they made their way up. Finally, they stepped on the gravel of the road. They held each other’s hands and started to whistle “Jingle Bells” trudging up the road. After getting just about three hundred feet closer to the civilized world, they heard something in the woods. Sebby stopped and signaled to his wife not to move. He then looked at her with dismay. “There is a wolf,” he whispered. He picked up two sticks and gave one to Lenora. “We have to go back to the car. We have no weapons to protect us. At least I have a knife in the trunk. We should also make torches.”

Lenora nodded and they turned back, “Did you actually see the wolf?”

“Yes, it was right there staring at us from behind a bolder.”

Lenora held her husband’s hand tight and kept looking back at the forest road but saw nothing. They got back to the car safely and swiftly got inside through the trunk.

“Let’s stay here for a bit. At least nothing can harm us while we are inside,” Sebby whispered.

They hunched down in the back seats and peeked out of the windows. Everything was completely still until suddenly something moved between the trees. Lenora almost screamed, but Sebby put his hand over her mouth. Now, she too could clearly see a large grey wolf standing by a pine tree, staring at them. It slowly moved towards their smashed car, stopping just a few feet away. The wolf growled, bearing its huge canines, and moving in circles.

“How will we ever step outside?” Lenora started crying. “We will have to stay here until we are reported missing by your parents.”

“Yeah, it would take at least until tomorrow morning before anyone would find us. It is still snowing hard. We might get a lot of snow overnight,” Sebby’s voice was trembling.

They suddenly heard a loud shrieking noise coming right from behind their car and saw the wolf running fast back into the woods. The shrieking sound persisted, but they could not tell what animal or bird was making it. Sebby lowered the window a bit and peeked out. “It’s a fox,” he whispered.

The fox ran towards Sebastian and whined softly staring straight into his eyes. Lenora asked her husband to roll the window up. “It can hurt us too. What if it is rabid?” She was both concerned and surprised at the same time.

“It doesn’t look sick. Strange that it was able to scare off the wolf.”

“Yeah. She might have her babies nearby.”

“Not this time of the year,” Sebby shook his head.

The fox would not leave. It just paced back and forth from the crash site in the direction of the road. It came back one more time and sat there staring at Sebby for a while, then it suddenly took off.

Lenora got out of the car cautiously and went to get more warm clothes from the luggage. They did not know how long they would have to be in the woods, and it was getting very, very cold. Sebby did not want to risk starting the car and they were afraid to make a bonfire and attract even more animals.  It was getting dark fast; the snow was falling relentlessly, building up to an uneven, white blanket on the ground. The couple reclined their seats and sat there holding hands, blankly staring at the pine trees in front of them.

A bright light shining at the car woke them up. There were voices coming from the woods. “Hello! Anyone there?!”

Sebby got out quickly and waived, “Yes! Over here!”

Two people approached them, holding sticks and rifles. “Come with us. We got here for you.” An older man came close to Sebby and stretched out his hand. Next to him there was a woman around same age as the man. “We don’t have a second to waste. This place is dangerous after dark.”

Lenora got out of the car and went over the woman, “Who are you?”

The woman answered, “We live nearby. We got alerted about you and thought you might need some help.”

“We definitely do!” Sebby asked if they had a phone.

“We have a landline at home. Let’s go, you must be very cold and hungry. Our pickup is parked by the road sign,” the man nodded to Sebby to follow them.

As they drove in the dusk on the dim forest road, the man spoke, “Did you happen to see a fox anywhere nearby?”

“Yes!” Lenora said excitedly, “It sat by our car for a while. Like it wanted to tell us something.”

“Good, I thought so,” the man continued, “it wanted you to follow it to us. The fox has been living near our house for a couple years since we found it injured on the dirt road and rescued it. We spotted it lying injured right under the yellow road sign where you guys went down the embankment. Tonight, the fox acted very strangely. It normally would just hang out on our lawn but wouldn’t come very close to the house. This time though, it came and scratched on the front door. I got out and it looked at me and whined, then ran towards the woods, stopped, and looked back as though waiting for me to follow. My wife got outside and said that the fox was telling me something. We got in our pickup and followed it as it ran in front of us. That’s how we found you,” the man smiled.

They pulled onto a long driveway leading up to a shabby cabin. “Look!” the woman said excitedly, “There she is sitting by the shed.”

Sebby and Lenora looked at each other bemazed. “You know, it rescued us from a wolf attack too,” Lenora smiled warmly.

“Wow, we didn’t know it was that brave!” the woman laughed. “It must have really wanted you to come home safe.”

As soon as they got inside, Sebby asked for the phone. He dialed his parents’ number, but the call went to the answering machine. “Mom, mom! It’s me, Sebastian! Please pick up the phone!”

Then he heard his mother’s voice on the other side, “Sebby, where are you?!” She was crying.

“Mom, mommy! We are safe! Please don’t worry!” Tears were falling down Sebby’s eyes as he hugged his wife, “We had an accident in the woods, but we got rescued. We will fly to you as soon as we can.”

Sebby went outside and walked towards the shed, making crunchy noises on the snow. There was a pair of glowing eyes among the trees behind the shed. He waved at them, “Hey buddy! I just wanted to thank you for what you have done for us! You know, my mom had heart surgery, and I was so worried about her. She is ok now too! I just spoke with her.” The glowing eyes moved, and the fox stepped out from behind the trees for a few moments. It made a soft, barely discernable sound and disappeared into the darkness.

Sebby went back to the house. He stopped for a moment before getting back inside and looked at the trees. “Kindness always wins in the end,” he nodded and stepped inside where hot chocolate with marshmallows was waiting for him in a big Santa mug.