Winter’s Edge

Please be aware, this story contains references to themes including addiction, violence, threats to children and suicide.

            Sam’s eyes flickered momentarily then closed again.  Minutes passed before she stirred in her car seat, eyes slowly opening, confused.  Snow was falling, big heavy flakes tumbling from a pewter coloured sky. 

“Pretty,” she whispered as her car bonnet turned from red to a soft white.  Her head hurt, as did her neck and shoulders.  Sam’s hands and feet felt cold, and she was aware of being restrained by the seat belt.  Groggily she looked about her, knowing she was in her Mini but not where she was nor how she’d got there.  Sam leaned forward and the car gave a little lurch.  The snow was heavy now and settling around her.  Turning her head she sensed the sleeping shape of Freya, her infant daughter in the child seat behind her.

            The view from the windscreen was obscured as the snow fell so she pressed the ignition switch, not sure she felt up to driving as she was so dull headed, and the car gave a sickening jolt each time she moved.  Clicking the stalk for the wiper blades the screen cleared but she was at a loss to understand what she was seeing.  Before she slipped back into unconsciousness two things bothered her; the first were the strangers standing around the car, the second was why she was precariously balanced on a cliff edge.

#

Stirring again, this time woken by Freya’s fidgeting, Sam tried to fight the tiredness and think, where am I?  Turning on the wipers again the blades squealed a complaint and struggled under the weight of snow.  Sam tried to shake her head, grunting at the pain across her upper back and skull, to make out what she could see.  Her stomach tightened as she looked at the wintry scene unfolding, her car bonnet obscured, the grey sky meeting a darker sea ahead of her.  Winding her window down she was met by a gust of icy wind so pushed away the accumulation at her door mirror and saw in horror that she was hanging directly over a precipitous drop to the crashing waves far below, only the rear wheels of the Mini sunk into what was once thick grass but was now a glistening polar landscape.

            “Hungry,” whined Freya, strapped in tightly, little podgy arms reaching towards her mother.  Each time she moved the car threatened to topple forward. 

            “Freya sweetheart, stay absolutely still,” Sam tried to speak as calmly as she could.

            “Hungry,” Freya repeated.

“Okay honey, Mummy will get you something to eat, just be patient.”  Her confusion and terror was mounting; how on earth had she got here?  Sam felt she was being watched and turned her head, peering through the increasingly heavily falling snow to make out several figures, people standing apart from each other, all of them facing the car.  

“Hi, oh hi, could I get some help?” Sam called to the strangers only to watch them fade away, melting into the blizzard.  She cursed them under her breath, hoping Freya wouldn’t repeat the words.  The car shuddered and she felt it slip forward, the increasing weight of the snow on the bonnet creating an imbalance.  Terrified, Sam was desperate.  Gently, she tried to unclick her seat belt, even the slightest movement rocking the car towards the depths ahead.  Trying to depress the button Sam realised something was wrong; the mechanism seized.  Looking down she saw the entire buckle receiver was coated in a transparent film, “Superglue?”  That’s when she knew for certain Richie was responsible.

#

They’d been married three years and he’d changed so much.  Gone was the fun, hardworking, confident Richie she’d met and fallen for.  Oh, don’t forget he was handsome too, and he knew it.  He always liked a flutter on the horses, and then increasingly more online.  Almost imperceptibly he began getting jittery about phone calls and refusing to answer the door, wary of strangers, not wanting to go out to the park with her and Freya.  He became increasingly paranoid and angry all the time, so angry he scared her, shouting if she suggested meeting up with friends and point blank refusing to drop Freya at the childminder.

“You don’t get it, do you?” He’d shouted at Sam, “they’re talking about me, telling lies!”

Sam was scared and confused, “Saying what, Richie?”

He’d stormed off, hiding away in his study, on his laptop until all hours, falling asleep in his chair.  Talking to her Mum, his Mum and close friends they had various suggestions, 

“Do you want me to try talking to him?” 

“Why don’t you try couple’s therapy?”

“Have you considered leaving?”

Just a week ago it became crystal clear.

#

Sam thought she had a pair of scissors in the little bag she kept for emergencies in the seat well in the back,

“Freya, honey, Mummy needs you to do something?”

“I want biscuit!”

“You can have all the biscuits you want Freya, if you help mummy.”  Sam frantically tried to find the right words a toddler could grasp, “See that big button near your tummy where Mummy fastens you in?”

“Belly button?”

“Nope, not your belly button,” Sam took an extra deep breath, “the button on your safety harness, the one that goes ‘click’ when you press it?”  In the rear view mirror Sam could see Freya was already losing interest, “Sweetheart, I need you to press that big button so you can climb out of your car seat.”

“I need to go poo!”  Freya began to whine.

Sam wondered if it would be quicker just to pick out the glue in the seatbelt mechanism with her frosty fingers.  She tried to turn around and slip out of the belt only for the car to judder, its nose dipping sickeningly.  Steadying herself until the car became motionless again, Sam knew she dare not reach behind her.

“Freya, if you push that big button hard you can get out of your seat and help Mummy and you can have a poo and I’ll get you some biscuits.”

“It hurts,” Freya grizzled, flailing her arms and legs like an upended turtle, making no attempt to release herself.  

Sam felt sick as the snow kept falling, creating a stark white light throughout the car as the landscape was buried and transformed, daylight beginning to fade.  It wouldn’t be long now, Sam knew, before the car simply toppled under the weight of snow and plunged onto the rocks some distance below.   A single hopeless tear rolled down her cheek before she shrieked.  At the passenger window a figure was bending down, arm reaching out, its grey face featureless.

#

“How long has this been going on?”  Sam confronted Richie, adrenalin making her tremble.

“I don’t know what you’re talking about.”  Richie, unshaven and wearing the same clothes for the last three days had emerged from his study to find Sam waiting for him.

“I’ve just someone at the door asking for you, saying you owe them money.  Who the hell are they, Richie?  How long have you been gambling away everything we own?”

Sam had been confronted on her doorstep by two men.  They’d wanted to know which car was Richie’s, was this his house and did he own any other property?  Refusing to answer them she slammed the door then went through the waste bins to find torn demands and overdue notices.  He’d taken out loan after loan, some using the house as security, and lost everything. 

She felt so stupid, taken for a mug.  When she asked him why he hadn’t told her he’d turned his back, walked away and locked the door.  She called her mum and through her tears explained what was happening, gathered up Freya and the seemingly endless accumulation of ‘stuff’ kids need, stuffed it into her Mini and took off to stay with her mother, Barbara.

Richie called after two days, saying he was sorry, he’d get help and would sort out the money.  Barbara had told her to ignore him, get a solicitor and have the courts deal with the mess but she’d gone back anyway.  At home he’d made himself reasonably presentable and poured her a glass of wine as they had what she would describe as an adult conversation, despite him looking over his shoulder all the time.  She’d felt sleepy and then everything got hazy and next thing she’d woken up in her car hanging over the cliffs at Beachy Head.

#

The face at the window had backed away from her screams after Freya joined in.  Sam could just about make out the creepy figures standing like stones along the cliff edge.    Wiping the condensation away with her sleeve she saw there were at least twenty of them.  Some, for whatever reason, looked like old sepia images; faded and indistinct like the faceless one who’d approached the car.  A woman wearing 1940s style clothing was clear enough but was monochrome, then there were those in colour, all seemingly oblivious to the whiteout around them.

“It must be the cold,” Sam rationalised, shivering, hands numb, still groggy and her neck and shoulders ached like all hell.  Who were these people, she wondered?  Walkers?  Twisted performance artists or volunteers like her old dad who walked the cliffs trying to talk suicidal people back?  

The car gave another lurch causing Sam to yell and lean back in her seat.  The accumulation on the bonnet was growing thicker by the minute and it wouldn’t be long, she thought, before the precarious balancing act would end and she and Freya would drop like stones.

“Mummy, need toilet.”

Sam remembered she kept a nail file and clippers in the pocket of her spare coat which was always behind the driver’s seat.  With enough time she reckoned she could pick at the gummed up seatbelt clasp and clamber free.  The car jolted again and she let out a gasp knowing time was not on her side.  

“I need poo!” screamed Freya, clearly in pain, never mind being hungry, cold and bored. 

“Do it in your pants then, I’ll clean you up later.”  Sam was not in the mood for tantrums.  Reaching back she tried to grip her coat sleeve only to fumble over something solid.  She felt her way across what she thought was a collar until she ran her numb fingers across a cold ear and nose then into thick hair.  Snatching her hand back in fright she painfully turned to see what or who it was.

“Daddy sleep.” Freya noted.

No, thought Sam, Daddy dead.  

#

There were three of them, she vaguely recalled, heavy set guys in the house.  Sam was lying on the sofa, doped she guessed, as Richie argued with them, a crying Freya in his arms.  One of the men had grabbed the screaming little girl and threw her, back arched and legs kicking, beside her near unconscious mother.

Richie had been punched repeatedly; she could remember that.  He was on their carpet, blood coming from his mouth.  One of the men kept asking Richie where the money was and all he could do was shake his head and cry, “I’ll get it, leave my wife and baby alone.”  After some more punches Richie stopped saying anything.

Sam could recall being grabbed hard then carried somewhere but everything faded away again.  There was a car radio playing, she could remember that, then something about a weather warning for heavy snow.

#

Freya had calmed a little allowing Sam to feel around her husband’s corpse lying on her coat until she came upon his wallet.  Her fingers were so cold she could barely bend them and when she tried it was agonising, but she had to keep going.  Fumbling she managed to drop the wallet in her lap, the car giving another sickening shake at the slightest movement.  With some effort she managed to dig out a credit card, bound to be maxed out she couldn’t help thinking.  Using the card, she tried scraping and scratching at the glue, picking away.

It was getting dark, yet the interior of the car was filled with an opalescent light from its shroud of snow.  Sam knew she couldn’t keep doing this.  Each time she tested the release button the card would slip from her fingers, and she’d have to carefully scrabble for it on the floor only to feel the vehicle shudder ever closer to its tipping point.  She wanted to give up.  It was hopeless and on top of everything she was again conscious of those useless people surrounding the car like standing stones.  What was wrong with them?  They’d offered no assistance, no acknowledgement of her desperation, only ghoulish curiosity.

 There was a tap on the passenger window again.  All she could see was a drab shadow the colour of dust.  Ignoring it she carried on scraping away at the seatbelt catch.  Again, a knock.  She wondered if it was the police or were the watching strangers now finally intervening to stop her ending her and Freya’s lives and trying to talk her out of it.  Pressing the ignition button made the car slip again and she held her breath until the wobbling steadied.  Gingerly she pressed the button to wind down the window, a great mound of wet snow flopping onto the carpet and an icy breeze cutting through the already frigid interior.

“Please, get help, we need help!”

The figure was silent, watching.  

“Can’t you understand me?  Please, call someone, anyone, I could die.”  

There was no response other than the biting snap of the air.  Sam began to sob.

“Why won’t you help me?  If not me, my little girl.”

p

The car jerked and began to slide forward.  Sam let out a scream, her hands gripping the sides of her seat, finger-tip glancing against something on the passenger seat.  Slowly she turned her head and saw a small penknife, blade unfolded.  Confused she gripped it.  Where had it come from?  It wasn’t there a second ago.

Furiously she began to hack at the mechanism, this time making inroads, lump after lump of dried glue coming away as she poked the thin blade deep within the innards until with an accidental press the clasp popped out, releasing the belt from her body.

“No,” she yelled, as the car began to topple forward again, snow skidding from the windscreen revealing only darkness.  With a push she clambered into the backseat, standing on Richie’s head for leverage.  

“Biscuits!” demanded a sleepy Freya, who was looking worryingly blue around her lips.  Her mother popped the release button in her child seat and Freya sprang free into her mother’s arms.  The car gave a faltering bob backwards with the extra weight in the rear seat but quickly seesawed forward again as Sam fought to lie flat with her struggling child.

“Help!” she called, praying one of the sentinel shapes would do something, anything.

A shrill scream rang out, only marginally dulled by the deadening landscape.  It wasn’t Sam, she knew that and Freya’s persistent tears now just background noise.  Again, a scream, pitched painfully high.  Sam heard a cracking sound, the car slipping forward with a sickening jolt.  Holding her daughter tight, Sam braced for the inevitable drop.

The scream filled the night a third time and with it the rear window shattered, little cubes of safety glass imploding within the car and into Sam’s mouth and eyes.  Gripping the now hysterical Freya, Sam pushed upwards with all her might and threw her daughter through the gap where the rear windshield had been.  The car began to upend, moments away from tumbling, Sam’s only thoughts were at least Freya would survive.  The shadowy people had clustered around the child as Sam closed her eyes for the inevitable drop.  Instead, the back of the car began to gently, imperceptibly, lower.  Sam knew she had but seconds to make a final effort and with bloodied hands she grasped the rim of the window and pulled her agonising neck and shoulders through the opening.  Several figures appeared to be holding the car, allowing Sam a fraction of a second to tumble into the accumulated snow, then turn to watch the wheels and exhaust pipe flip swiftly and disappear over the cliff edge.

#

Sam was being treated for hypothermia and lay in her hospital bed, cannulas in both her forearms.  Her mother was beside her and smiled when Sam opened her eyes and took in the white room, terrified suddenly she was still caught in her car in the snow.

“It’s okay!” Barbara soothed, “You’re fine.”

“Freya?” Sam groaned, her neck still incredibly sore.

“She’s staying with me and she’s okay.  A proper demanding little madam.”

“Just like her mum,” Sam whispered.  She had images playing out in her mind, the strangers, people in browns and greys and blacks and colours.  “Did you say thank you?”

“Who to?” 

“The people who helped.”

Barbara was confused, “Nobody helped.  The police had CCTV of two cars heading towards the coast, yours didn’t come back but what with the snowfall it took forever to find you.  Your car went off the cliff love.”

Sam nodded, “I know.  People helped.  They were there, standing, looking sad.  Gave me a knife.  Broke the window so I could get out.”

Sam’s mum shook her head, “I expect it’s the trauma love, the doctor said it might happen.  No one was there, Sam, no footprints, nothing.  Your Dad used to say people in trouble saw the ghosts of those poor souls who took their lives, jumping.  Just old wives’ tales but you know what he was like.”

The door opened and a nurse came in holding the hand of a purposeful little girl carrying something in her hand.  She broke free and ran to the bed where Sam let her bruised arm fall and pulled her daughter close.

“Mummy!”  She shouted, raising her fist triumphantly, “Biscuit!”

END