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insistent noises to his agent about threatening legal action to recover some of his advance money. Jay couldn’t miss his deadline without even the hint of an outline.
    He was snapped out of his dismal reverie by a patch of black ice. The rear wheels of the Jetta whipsawed and he almost sideswiped a passing delivery van.  Jay pulled off onto the shoulder and sat for a moment, breathing hard.
    The rain had changed to sleet. Little pellets of ice clicked and popped as they bounced off the windshield. "Fuck," he exclaimed.  The wheels spun as he threw the car into gear and pulled back out onto the freeway. The sleet mixed with snow and what little traffic there was, slowed to a crawl. Jay checked the dashboard clock and found that he’d lost almost an hour.
    Four hours had elapsed when the car’s radio began presenting mostly squawks and static when he punched the seek button.  When he did find a station, Jay discovered he was in a hell for anyone who didn’t like country music or the oldies.  Hit radio in the sticks was the music that time forgot.
    Once he got to the outskirts of Albany, he ran into white-out conditions that made it seem like a curtain had descended around the car.

 
     
                                                            CHAPTER 6
     
     
    Jay was more than an hour behind schedule and out of gas by the time the sign for the Haddonfield exit flashed into view.  The storm had let up some, but he still had to snake his way through the deep ruts left by other drivers on the exit ramp.  Not much had changed.  There were still no gas stations near the freeway.  He just hoped he could make it into town and get fueled up before the Condition Red denoted by the gas pump on his dashboard became really serious.
    He didn’t relish the idea of tramping through a foot of snow for several miles in his new designer shoes.  For a moment, Jay even imagined ending up like one of those people he always heard about when he was a kid.
    They went off into the forest to do a little hunting and a storm like this, which was really minor by mountain country standards, would blow up and catch them.  Sometimes, they were found alive.  Other times, they would be found frozen and buried in a drift, their toes turned black from frostbite, their cheeks imparted with a permanent blue hue.  Jay shuddered.
    Over the next five miles, the snow cleared up and the going was a lot easier. Still, he kept a tight grip on the steering wheel and one eye planted on the gas gauge needle, which was pressed hard up against the "E".  He finally made it to where the old county road began its descent into the valley and let the car coast the last mile into the lot of the "Blue Lightning Service Plaza".
    Calling it a service plaza must have been Frank’s dad’s idea of a joke.  It was just four pumps with a convenience store and repair bay that looked like its better days were long past.  Jay got out of the car and stretched. He took a deep breath and looked around.
    The cinder block building was covered with peeling paint. In some spots, the layers of pigment were like an exposed bank of sedimentary rock that told the history of the land. No one had made any effort to clean the snow from around the pump islands, so he gingerly stepped to the back of the car through the slush to unlock the gas cap.
    The interior of the station wasn’t in much better shape.  The concrete floor was painted battleship gray.  It looked like it hadn’t been mopped in a week.  Furnishings were sparse, just a metal desk and office chair.  A set of dented metal cabinets with an ill-fitted Formica counter top ran the length of the rear wall.  Above the the cabinets hung an odd assortment of fan belts, fuses, pine tree air fresheners, and other accessories.  On the counter itself were strewn a collection of oily rags, tools.  "No Sale" blinked in cool green on the electronic cash register.
    Gene