Rapid beat of the windshield wipers tore at her, though warred with the roar of the car’s heater. The ice storm raged above, and Sheila clicked off the radio, which spoke of the historic downpour. Even with the cab’s heat, crystals formed at the bottom of the glass. She swallowed, peered over the wheel, but the sour, bitter tang of bile hung at the back of the throat. Mango banana air freshener was a tangy miasma. She tried to lower the window, but it was frozen. Sheila cursed. Sweaty palms had made the steering wheel oily, hands slipped. They shook, when she released the wheel. Head lights did little to cut through the torrential downpour. The road snaked back and forth in a forest that shimmered and sparkled.

Although the small car slid at the low speed, Sheila peeked at the small box. Brian had called her, and told her of Chris’s death. They still haven’t found his body, although the Plant Manager of Leitch Industrial Company had reportedly died in a car accident. Someone had set fire to Chris’s pool house, and Brian suspected the Van Lear family.

“Accident, sure,” Sheila shook her head, “a bunch of crazy hillbillies!” Chris dies in a car wreck, his body disappears, and then someone burns down his pool house, she chuckled, but shook her head. “That guy,” Sheila shivered, Barnett, an Enforcer for the Lear Family, had come to the factory’s office. She swallowed, recalled his hard smile under the trilby hat. She had dismissed his and Brian’s fear at first, but that was before Chris’s death and apparent disappearance.

No matter, she thought and swallowed. Sheila shivered despite the cabs heat. I’ll be gone before they come to talk to me. Chris was a tubby idiot, and Brian is a lecherous fool, who never really made it back from the war. All I need is the box, and I’ll be out of the country soon. If I can get off Lear Mountain, she mused, but knuckles popped on the steering wheel. Even if she had to drive at a crawl, all she had to do was leave.

She glanced at the box with a smile. Headlights caught the sign, and Sheila whipped her head back. A curse leaped out, and she corrected the wheel. The car slipped. “Am I sliding?!” Sheila bellowed, and the small car crept towards the road’s shoulder. “NO, NO,” she bounced in the seat and pounded the wheel with one sweaty palm. Bile rose, and she screamed at the windshield.

The car came to a slow halt. She blinked, listened, and looked about the road. “Okay,” Sheila’s shoulders rose and then fell. She pressed the accelerator, but the tires spun. She put it in reverse, and tried to back up, but it remained in the same spot. Sheila tried forward again, but the car went nowhere. “ARE YOU KIDDING ME?!” she shrieked, and slammed both hands on the horn. Its beep was petite.

Hands shook as she rubbed her temples. Sheila slammed it into park. “I hate this redneck cesspool!” she screeched. I’ve always hated it, she thought, and lips puckered.

She pulled out her cell phone, prayed for a signal. She let out a jagged breath, for it had a single bar that flickered on and off. After running out of gas back in the summer, Sheila had kept the number as a contact. Warren Haas answered, though his voice fell, and agreed to come.

Sheila hung up the phone. Light a bruised purple flame reflected in the smart phone’s dark screen. She frowned. His eyes had that color in them, she thought, and recalled Kayden’s eyes had the same brilliance in them. She had laid him off that morning, before the rest. It had all came down about their heads after that. Someone had told the Queen atop Lear Mountain. They had brought Kayden back the next morning, but none of them could recall the conversation. Mavis, Chris’s wife, had complained about her husband sleepwalking. Kayden had disappeared, but people from the Lear Family were looking around the plant.

A hissing click echoed in her ears. It was only a matter of time, Sheila mused, and the myriad noise’s pressed on her, but felt farther away. “Lady’s Man,” she sneered, and Brian’s face swam into focus. If he could have just kept it in his pants; she rubbed her eyes which ached. She closed them, but the brilliance burned through.

Sheila sat back, mind drifted through alien galaxies of light. Low grunts passed between parted lips and gritted teeth. She jerked, body trembled, and feet drummed on the car floor. Mind was unmoored from body. All was purple flame. She held a hand up in this strange dream, and lines thin as razors raced over her skin.

“Ma’am,” Hass tapped on the window with a frown. For a moment, he thought a purple light was on in the cab, but the ice already covered the car. “Miss Richardson, I am here,” he said, and she stirred inside. “Are you okay, Ma’am?” he asked, thick brow furrowed.

“Horse,” Sheila looked at the distorted image of the giant man.

“It’s Haas,” he sighed. “I’ll look at it,” he walked around the car, but stopped by the front passenger side tire. Despite the downpour, he kneeled down. Back beside her, he asked for the trunk to be opened, because of the flat. Sheila done as asked. He stepped to the back and looked inside. The trunk closed, and he came back.

“What’s wrong?” she asked, but felt her stomach drop.

“Well, Ma’am,” he leaned down, for he towered over the car, “there are a couple of problems. You don’t have a tire iron or a spare.”

“Don’t you have them?” she snapped. “You are a tow person!”

“Uh, no,” he said, managed to hold in his sigh. “I can at least give you a ride back to your house.”

“I think that’s the least you can do Horse!” she wailed, added a curse. Why does all the Help behave like idiots? She asked herself with a deep sigh.