Winter Rescue (I'll Be Home for Christmas) (2 page)

Winter Rescue • Dawn Kimberly Johnson

he’d insisted everything was fine. He’d made it sound as if he

was just tooling along the road, unobstructed, top down, sun

shining on his face. He sighed sadly and ran a hand through

his wavy blond hair.

He looked toward the backseat and hoped all the gifts in

the trunk were okay. At the law firm, he made excellent

money, and without a husband or children of his own, he

was thrilled to be able to go a bit overboard on his parents,

siblings, in-laws, nieces, and nephews.
Those little ones must

be pretty big now
.

During phone calls with the family, which became more

frequent over the years, his parents had gradually thawed,

so to speak, on the whole gay thing. He remembered the first

time his mother had asked if he was seeing anyone. Curt

had been too stunned to respond for several seconds but had

admitted there was a man he was interested in, which ended

that line of questioning until the following month.

Unfortunately, by then, the man Curt was interested in had

made it clear
he
was not
interested
in monogamy, so that

ended.

Still, progress continued. Arianna had even written

telling him that Mom and Dad were secretly going to PFLAG

meetings the next county over—
but don’t let on you know
—

which had prompted him to send his mother flowers and his

father a smoked sausage gift basket,
Just because I’m

thinking of you
.

Curt smiled and closed his eyes, trying to imagine their

faces, their smiles, the hugs, the cocoa, the blankets, the

logs crackling in the fireplace…. Without the heater running,

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Winter Rescue • Dawn Kimberly Johnson

the cold had quickly seeped through the metal of the car and

was poking against his jacket, attempting to gain access to

his bones. He rubbed his arms vigorously and began to

wonder about the temperature. The only thing he could

remember from the radio report was that the storm was

expected to end before morning.
Then they can begin digging

out my dead body
.
Merry Christmas, Ma!

An idea stuck him, and he turned in his seat to grab his

duffel. He switched on the flashlight again and held it

against his chest with his chin so he could see what he was

looking for. He unzipped the bag and sifted through the

contents: jeans, socks, slippers, sleep pants, two flannel

shirts, underwear…
ah ha!
He removed a pair of canary-

yellow boxers with handprints stamped on the seat—a

birthday gift from Bobby. He went digging again, and from

deeper in the duffel he retrieved a toiletry bag containing a

shaving kit, hair gel, toothbrush and paste, dental floss,

and—ever optimistic—condoms and lube. He took out the

dental floss.

Then Curt opened a small zippered compartment in the

duffel and fumbled through several pens until his hand

closed around a black Sharpie.
Success!
He sealed the duffel

and tossed it over his shoulder and into the backseat before

spreading the boxers flat on the passenger seat and carefully

writing SOS in big, obnoxious letters across them. Curt

smiled as he imagined Bobby’s face when he informed him

that these shorts had saved his life.

He capped and dropped the pen before grabbing the

shorts, getting his knees under him, and shoving for all he

was worth against his door. At first the wind buffeted the

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Winter Rescue • Dawn Kimberly Johnson

door back at him, but he was determined and successfully

shoved the door all the way open.

Blinking rapidly as snowflakes gathered on his

eyelashes, Curt practically stood on his car seat and grabbed

the antenna. He scraped off the snow, gasping at the

temperature and finding it actually painful to breathe.

Working quickly, he used the dental floss to tie the shorts to

the antenna, making sure they would be secure even in the

face of that murderous Minnesota wind. The car shifted

suddenly beneath him, throwing him back inside, where he

bruised his side on the center panel.
What the fuck?

It hadn’t entered his mind that the car wasn’t stable,

and he shuddered to think how precariously he might be

perched and what exactly lay beneath him. The door had

shut out the wind, but the temperature in the car was a hell

of a lot colder than before he’d initiated his rescue plan.
It

was worth it
, he thought.
It’ll get me home to Ma’s cocoa
.

Now conscious of his uncertain perch, Curt carefully

reached for his duffel, bringing it into his lap and emptying it

to slip on more layers of clothing. After that he picked up his

cell and checked the time: 11:47 p.m. It was going to be a

long night.

urt grinned and honked his horn as he drove up the

long driveway to the family home. Coated in pristine

C white snow that sparkled in the sunshine, the

farmhouse looked pretty as a picture postcard. The

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Winter Rescue • Dawn Kimberly Johnson

front door opened, and his mother stepped out, followed

closely by his father, brothers, sisters, and their respective

families. The porch quickly filled with a motley collection of

tall, formidable-looking Scandinavian blonds and shorter

tanned brunets—the Italian half, his mother’s, asserting

itself. Curt climbed out of the car, and several little children

came running toward him. He wasn’t sure how many or who

exactly they belonged to, but they were beautiful and happy

to see him. Everyone was happy to see him, and it warmed

his heart. He couldn’t stop smiling. He hurried over and

shook his father’s hand and hugged his mother.

“Ah, it’s so good to be home,” Curt said. But when his

mother opened her mouth to speak, a horrific screech came

out. Curt stepped back, startled, but his mother pointed at

him, screeching even louder, an inhuman sound. “M-Mom?”

Curt grimaced and covered his ears, stumbling backward in

the face of her alien accusation. “Mom, it’s
me
.” But the

screeching and grinding and sound of straining metal

continued.

Curt jerked awake into darkness. For a moment he

didn’t know where he was, but the numbing cold and his

inability to feel his toes and fingers reminded him quickly

enough. He groaned and rubbed his face.
Oh God, I hate that

moment in
Invasion of the Body Snatchers
. Couldn’t they

have just said
,
“There he is! Get him!”
Was all that screeching

and pointing really necessary
?
Those horrifying accusations

of “You’re not one of us!
You are
‘
other’
.
”

The sound seemed to continue for a moment, and when

the car shuddered and shook, Curt began to squeak in alarm

and spread his arms across the seats as if to catch himself,

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Winter Rescue • Dawn Kimberly Johnson

keep from falling. Then it all stopped—the noise, the

movement. All Curt thought he could hear was his heart

pounding in the silence. Then someone knocked on his

window.

A muffled voice asked, “Anybody in there? Need some

help?” Curt was too stunned to speak, but then a hand

began scraping away the snow and ice coating his window.

He squinted at the light coming through the window as

someone tried to peer inside, and it took Curt a moment to

see the face looking back at him. Well, it wasn’t really a face,

but he was fairly certain there was one beneath the muffler

and ski goggles. In addition to the face protection, his

rescuer wore a big blue parka.

The guy waved, and Curt could almost imagine him

smiling, and he wondered what his expression must look like

to the stranger. When the man tugged on his door, Curt

finally took action, unlocking it and pushing from his side.

But even with them working together, it still took a good bit

of effort to open, and when it did so suddenly, Curt went

sprawling out of the car and into the snow at his savior’s big

booted feet.

Just as Curt looked up at the figure silhouetted in the

headlights of a massive pickup truck, the stranger grabbed

him by the collar and lifted him to his feet, then rushed him

forward and into the passenger seat of the truck, where he

covered Curt with a blanket and belted him in. The heater in

the cab was on high, and Curt thought he’d died and gone to

heaven—that is until the feeling began to return, bringing

with it pins and needles and shivers galore.

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