Stone Cold Dead by James Ziskin (great novels of all time txt) 📕

and held me steady. Once I’d come down from the ceiling, I began panting furiously, my mind careering in search of an out. The pressure on my throat caused me to gag, and my passenger ordered me to stay calm. Why hadn’t I locked my doors? Better still, why had I taunted a pack of poorly supervised juvenile delinquents? I pictured myself plunging over the shoulder of the road in a spectacular, fiery, cartwheel of doom, coming to a tortuous, painful end: me slumped over the steering wheel, my jugular sliced clear through, as the car eventually scraped slowly to a halt against a snow bank beside the road. I knew without looking that it was that mutant, Frankie Football Mustache, holding the blade to my throat.

Imagine my relief when I glanced in the rearview mirror and discovered that my stowaway was actually Joey Figlio and not Frankie or one of his inbred chums.

Employing an abundance of caution and attention to his feelings, and staring straight down the icy road as I drew deep, calming breaths, I asked Joey to take the shank away from my neck.

He eased the pressure slightly and informed me that it was a knife, not a shank.

“Where would I get a shank?” he asked. “I took a knife from the cafeteria.”

“Take it off my neck, Joey!”

He complied but then told me to pull over up ahead.

“Pull over? What for?”

“Sorry, but I’m going to have to steal your car.”

I told him I had no intention of pulling over, and he stuck the knife against my neck again, this time a little harder. I sensed it was only a butter knife, but he could still cut my throat with it.

“Pull over now,” he said and he meant it.

I rolled to a stop and yanked the parking brake.

“Now get out,” said Joey.

I reeled around to look at him, sure that he was joking. But he looked annoyed.

“Come on, hurry up,” he said, shooing me with his free hand. “I got to get out of here.”

The heater had just started working its magic, so I wasn’t keen on leaving the warmth of the car.

“It’s ten degrees outside,” I said, but he wasn’t moved.

He climbed over the seat from the back and landed next to me with a heavy bounce. Before I could react, he’d reached past me and pushed open the door, inviting a blast of arctic air inside. Then, the rotten little thug shoved me out onto the ground. The very cold, hard ground. I rolled a few feet into the road, righted myself, and scrambled back to the car on my knees. I reached out for the door handle, intent on fighting for my warm car, and managed to grab hold of it just as Joey pulled the door shut. The engine roared, louder than I would have imagined possible, and the tires spun on the frozen shoulder, firing gravel and ice like buckshot behind them. The wheels soon found their traction, though, and the car shot forward, taking me with it.

God knows what I was thinking, but I held fast to the door for about twenty yards, skidding along through the frozen slurry of snow, salt, and dirt covering the road, tearing my stockings and skinning my knees as I went. I’d seen plenty of local kids skitching in the frozen streets. After a cold snowfall, they’d lie in wait along the side of the street until a slow-moving car rounded the corner. Then they’d dart into the road, grab the rear bumper, and crouch down low, knees bent, boots skating over the snowy surface. It looked like fun. Too bad I was wearing heels, one of which had fallen off when Joey hit the gas.

Once I’d accepted the bitter fact that Joey had no intention of redressing his ungentlemanly conduct and inviting me back inside, I let go of the door handle and tumbled several rotations before rolling to a stop in the middle of the road. I’d nearly been run over by my own car and had a tire track on the tail of my overcoat and a black scuff on my forearm to prove it. Now, lying on the frozen pavement with only one shoe, torn stockings, and scraped knees, I watched the taillights recede into the white distance, a blowing mist of snow swirling behind my warm car as it disappeared. I dusted myself off and, sitting on my frozen rear end, cursed the little JD who had quizzed me about my driving, asked me the make and model of my car, then stolen it out from under me as if performing a tablecloth trick.

It was bitter cold. I hadn’t seen so much as a barn since driving away from the reform school, let alone a house or a filling station. And the school was at least three miles back. I struggled to my feet and examined the sorry state of my person: bloodied knees soaking through sagging, torn stockings; white gloves tattered and soiled with slush, about a shovelful of which had been forced down my collar as the car dragged me and was now melting down my back; and one broken shoe in the middle of the road some sixty feet behind me. I limped and hopped back down the road to retrieve the shoe, soaking my foot in the process. Then I started to worry about frostbite. I rubbed my right foot furiously, but the sopping stocking meant my efforts were futile. Now my gloves were wet, and my fingers stung from the cold. I sat down beside the road and cursed Joey Figlio.

I huddled in my overcoat for warmth, pulling my head and feet inside, as I debated whether to wait where I sat or hobble three miles ahead to Route 5 and potential salvation. Either way, it was even money that I would die where I sat or somewhere further on up the road. For, make no mistake, if the cavalry didn’t arrive soon, I would freeze