Welcome to fast food horror. In this episode, a good Samaritan picks up
a stranded person along the road during a snowstorm, but he picks up a
lot more than he ever expected. In this tale entitled the Scene en Route
sixteen by E. J. Miller, the snowfall in my town has been
greatly exaggerated over the decades, you know where. I speak of one mega
blizzard in the seventies, and we're forever known as Snowmageddon Capital of the world.
Yes, we get our share over the course of the winter, but
we are not feet deep in it. From October till April. We get
our squalls, our lake effect, our blizzards, but for the most part,
we get light snowfalls here and there through the winter months that make us
look like a Rockwellian snow globe, just enough to keep our town a wintry
wonderland. That day, however, was one of the former. I was
driving my bus at Gtopos, I think down sixteen on that frosty night.
I say Route sixteen because I couldn't see any landmarks, signs, houses,
businesses, or scenery to figure out exactly where I was. It was just
the last road I remember being on For all I knew, I was driving
in circles across some farmer's field, or still in the mall parking lot,
doing laps around the light pole. It was snowing so hard. I felt
like Hans Solo as he took the Millennium Falcon to light speed, traveling through
nothing but darkness as blurs of millions of white stars whizzed past the window,
or in my case, millions of snowflakes racing past my windshield at ten miles
an hour. And before you say, why didn't you use your GPS or
whip out your cell phone? And this was in the days before GPS and
cell phones. This was the late eighties, the days of maps and the
Rand McNally, the days of pulling over and asking a kind stranger for directions,
or dropping a quarter in a phone booth to call for help. I
had none of these. I couldn't even see the last two, nor did
I want to exit the warmth and relative safely of my posgto to find either.
I just knew I needed to keep moving slowly, carefully, or end
up stuck and buried. An hour later, my dogged perseverance was rewarded or
at least I thought it was, as in the distance I saw the familiar
flashing red and blue lights signifying emergency vehicles, like so many lighthouses, dancing
against the snowy night sky. Probably an accident for some poor soul. But
help was there at those lights, help I could use, or at least
some guidance. I found myself joining a procession of vehicles slowly making their way
in each other's ruts, in a single file of pulsing red lights along the
snow covered road. Past the scene, an officer waved me through. I
rolled down my window and heard him yell, you're almost out of the storm.
Just keep going, don't stop, just go slow. I waved and
I smiled shouted back a thank you as my eyes took in the scene.
A small compact, something no longer identifiable, had been rear ended by a
semi and pushed into a second semi. The air bags had deployed, now
smeared with red glass broken out of each window of the car, its once
sleek lines jammed between the two trucks into a mangled mess. I set a
silent prayer for its passengers and continued past, focused on the road ahead my
focus was broken only fifty yards from the accident, seen by eyes drawn to
the slight figure illuminated by my head lights standing knee deep in the snow along
the right side of the road. There she stood alone, a teenage girl
about thirteen, brown hair, flying in the icy wind, clutching her arms
around herself and the light blue coat that seemed oversized for her small frame and
woefully inadequate for the conditions out there. Tears rolled down her cheeks, and
her body physically shook from either the frigid conditions or her outward showing of emotion
or both. Where did she come from? Had she got out of one
of the cars ahead of me? Was she involved in the accident? Or
had she been caught walking in the snow from the surrounding area. Was she
hurt? How long had she been out there? And how had no one
else seen her or stopped to help her? No matter, I couldn't leave
her, but I would have to stop quickly or else become just another snowbank.
I quickly rolled down my window as I got closer and yelled for her
to get in the back. As I turned the heat all the way up,
I watched in my rear view as she got in the car, still
sobbing, and put the car back and drive thankfully. It continued along the
rutted path, now quickly filling up with snow. Hey, I said,
I'm Cooper. What's your name? Are you hurt? Where's your parents?
Were you in a car? And got out? Each question was answered with
continued sobs. I continued driving slowly forward, looking in my rear view periodically
to check out my passenger. I can take you home. Still more sobs.
As I rejoined the line of cars. My passenger, sitting in the
rear seat had down, legs drawn up to her chest, light blue coat
wrapped tightly around herself, more now for comfort than warmth. Were you in
the accident? Finally a response, rapid head nods than a break in the
sobbing, A choked voice. My dad. They took my dad to the
hospital. They took your dad to the hospital. He was hurt in the
accident. More head nods, followed by crying and then a muffled Sarah,
before the crying continued. Your name is Sarah, Okay, Sarah, I
can take you there. The hospital? Is that where you want to go?
More head nods, and sobbing my heart just for this little girl,
For Sarah, I was determined to get her to the hospital, no matter
the storm. I continued on for forty five minutes or so, the storm
starting to lighten up as we entered the city limits and we made our way
to Sisters of Mercy Hospital. We entered through the emergency room doors, since
that's where I thought they'd take a person involved in a car accident. I
sat Sarah down in a waiting room chair, where she continued to sob softly,
and went to the front desk for information. Imagine a city emergency room
during a storm after midnight, then increased that by ten it was a madhouse,
but not yet pandemonium. I tried to explain the situation to the attendant
amongst the other noise and action going on around us, that I had picked
up a teenage girl at an accident on Route sixteen and her father had been
brought in by ambulance, That she was unhurt but needed to be rejoined with
her father, whom she was very distraught over. The attendant took this all
in, asked if I was any relation to Sarah or the father, then
told me to go sit and wait and someone would be right with us.
I returned to my seat next to Sarah, who continued to quietly cry amazingly,
not disturbing a soul around us. Apparently everyone was caught up in their
own problems. Right with us turned into three hours, even though I checked
with every other attendant who was at the desk area randomly every thirty minutes or
so, I swear they answer everyone with the same line, no matter the
circumstance, someone will be right with you. At about four am, I
had had enough. I marched up to the desk, blowing past any others
waiting in line, and I demanded I wanted to see a manager or someone
in charge. That we had waited almost four hours with nothing, no answers,
that a teenage girl had sat weeping waiting for any news on her father.
My yelling had gotten a response, not the one I wanted, though
it had triggered two security guards who had rushed in from some unseen doorway.
After a brief yelling match, which they won, they ushered me out of
the waiting area to a security office, where I was cuffed until I calmed
down. After I collected myself, I was told by the bigger of the
pair to retell my story from the beginning, which I did, starting at
driving through the storm on Route sixteen, coming upon the accident to find the
girl. When I got to the part where I first approached the front desk
at the hospital, the second guard said stopped from behind a bank of monitors
and beckoned his partner over. I heard them whispering and saw them pointing to
something on the screens. The first guard came back over and stood me up
and walked me to the monitors. The second guard walked me through what they
were pointing at. Now, these are all the security cameras in the waiting
area and the entrances to the hospital and such. In the top right hand
corner you can see the time and date stamp. Now you said you came
in just after midnight through the emergency room doors. Let's rewind. Ah.
Here you are at twelve eleven. Notice anything, I was alone. Here
you are walking down the hallway and entering the emergency room area. At twelve
thirteen. Notice anything. Here you are walking over to an empty chair before
walking over to the front desk. At twelve sixteen. Notice anything. And
here you are at twelve twenty one till four to oh nine, sitting by
your self next to an empty chair in the waiting room. Again, sir,
notice anything. I couldn't explain it. I had watched every angle of
the waiting room and the entrance doors, and there was no signs of the
Sarah in the light blue coat that I had picked up off the roadside.
Every angle was covered, there was no blind spot, there was no angle
that was left open. There I was alone. I sat there trying to
figure this out, trying to make this all make sense. The guards just
sat and watched me. The silence in the room was broken by the ringing
of a nearby telephone. Guard one walked over and he picked it up.
He mumbled a couple of ascents before placing the receiver back in the cradle and
walking back to us behind the monitors. He stood there, watching me for
what seemed like forever. He then cleared his throat and informed me that there
was indeed an accident on Root sixteen that night, that a gentleman was brought
in by ambulance from the scene who had suffered multiple injuries, as well as
the passenger his young daughter. Both had to be extracted from the car.
No other person were found at the scene, just the daughter and him,
Just Peter Wolf and Sarah. His daughter. Peter had died in the hospital
just a few hours ago. Sarah had passed at the scene. The scene
on Route sixteen.