Chapter 31

Shortly after our two esteemed heroes passed out and started a horrifying snoring contest, the first precipitation found its way to the hood of Squiggy's truck.

It started out as rain, but had turned into ice during its descent to Earth. That drop was followed by others, of course, gradually increasing in intensity as the temperatures continued to go down.

The ice was coming down for a good two hours, snapping power lines and causing tree limbs to crash to the ground because of the extra weight. As the temperatures got below 10, water lines that should have been replaced years ago, started to buckle under the pressure, only making the conditions worse.

Langford lost power at eleven minutes after three on Christmas morning, a gift that Santa certainly did not deliver.

After a while, the ice was replaced by snow, making conditions even worse. It soon resembled a blizzard, one of the hardest snows many residents of Langford had ever seen.

At a closed convenience store on the north end of town, a truck owned by one Walter (aka Squiggy) Lewis was parked with the motor running. He had failed to add gas, never planning to pass out in the truck instead of the ripped mattress in his storm cellar. The engine coughed several times and died shortly after four in the morning. As the key was left on, the heater continued to work, althought not all that great.

Within an hour, his battery had died, leaving the two men without any heat. The temperatures continued to drop until hitting a low of seven degrees. Naturally, it started getting cold in the truck.

Without knocking it, the two men sought heat in their sleeping state and moved closer to each other, eventually wrapping arms around the other male. Shortly after seven on Christmas morning, Mule woke up to a strange noise. It was tough to open his eyes, but he did and could barely see anything. He felt a weight on him and looked to his left, finding Squiggy laying on him. His friend's hand had found Mule's crotchal region.

The strange noise was Squiggy's teeth chattering. Mule shook his friend.

"Hey, Squiggy!" he said. "Get yer hand off my unit!"

Squiggy groaned and actually moved closer. "It's okay, baby! I won't tell nobody!"

"Squiggy, you gone queer on me!" Mule shouted. He shoved Squiggy and his offending hand off.

Squiggy sat up in the truck and rubbed his eyes. "Why're you hollerin?"

"Cause you had yer hand on my Willie!"

"Bullcrap!"

"You did! Ya homo!"

"I ain't no homo!"

"Are too!"

Squiggy was about to fire something back when he started looking around. "What the crap?"

Mule was covering his body parts and leaning against the passenger door. "What's wrong, queerbait?"

"Stop callin me that! Ya retard!"

The two men were sporting nasty hangovers and had not even gotten close to the required sleep they both needed to function.

"At least I wasn't tryin to feel you up!"

Squiggy shook his head and rubbed his eyes. "Where is we?"

"In the truck! Who's the retard now?"

"Naw, I know we's in the truck. But where'd we park? And how come we can't see outside?"

"Don't know. Here, let's get a beer. That might help our thinkin."

Mule pulled two beers out of the sack. He tried to shake the bottles but they were frozen solid.

"They's frozen!" Mule said.

"Crapfire! I coulda used a beer. You got frozen snot hanging outta yer nose."

Mule rubbed his nose and felt the frozen substance. Now that was a first. He had never had anything frozen on his body before.

"What's wrong outside, Squiggy?"

"Must've snowed."

"That ain't just snow on the winder. Them's ice."

"It's okay, Mule. I'll just crank up the old motor and we'll wait for the winder to thaw and drive on home."

"Okay," Mule agreed. He was still shivering and looked forward to a blast of heat. He watched as Squiggy turned the key several times without any response.

"Crapfire!" Squiggy said. "Won't start!"

"Uh, that sucks!"

"Yeah, it does. No juice. Battery must be frozen."

"I'll check it out," Mule volunteered. He tried to open the door but had no luck. He saw that it was locked and pulled the lock up. Again, Mule tried the door but had no luck. "Dang door don't work!"

"Here, lemme try mine." Squiggy made sure the door was unlocked and tried the handle several times, not having any luck. "Crapfire! Them doors must be frozen!"

"What are we goin to do?" Mule was starting to get frantic. He wasn't much for small spaces and felt a panic attack coming on.

"Try the winder," Squiggy said. He had forgotten both were automatic window openers instead of manual. "Crapfire! It ain't gonna work without the battery. Lemme try this."

Squiggy turned around and tried to slide the rear window open. It was also frozen shut.

"We's stuck," Squiggy announced. "Somebody'll come git us out."

"No they won't!"

"Calm down there Mule."

"We's a gonna die!"

"Naw, we ain't gonna die."

Mule started pounding on the door with both hands. It did nothing but hurt himself. "I's scared, Squiggy!"

Squiggy was starting to feel the same way, but didn't want his friend to know that. He realized that there wasn't going to be a lot of traffic out on a day like that and if anybody happened to notice his truck, they probably wouldn't realize anybody was trapped in it.

"We's gonna freeze to death!" Mule screamed.

"No, we ain't. Just calm down."

Mule was twisting his head back and forth, up and down. His eyes were bulging. "Wait, I got an idear!"

Mule started digging around for an empty beer bottle. He tossed aside several before finding one.

"What are you doing?" Squiggy asked. He watched as Mule pulled his pants down and took his massive tool out of the camo drawers. Squiggy shuddered. Mule started urinating in the bottle, missing with about half the fluids. "You're peeing on my floor!"

Mule jerked in his friend's direction. He looked like a trip to the psych ward was in order. "It's be okay! I'm gonna save us!"

Mule finished and covered himself up. He took the bottle and dumped the urine on the window.

"Ugh!" Squiggy said. "You just dumped yer pee all over the truck."

"Yeah, I know," Mule said and giggled. "This will thaw out the ice."

"Naw, it won't. It'll just make my truck smell like piss."

"Watch! You'll see I'm right!"

They watched for several minutes. Score one for Squiggy.

"Now I got frozen pee all over my door," he said.

"Crap!"

"Not in here."

"Naw, I didn't mean that I needed to dump a load. What're we gonna do?"

"Well don't throw pee on anything else, okay?"

"Yeah, I was just tryin to help."

"Didn't work."

Mule started looking panicky again. "I know!" He started bouncing up and down, making Squiggy hit his head on the roof.

"Quit it!" Squiggy said.

"This will knock the ice off the doors!"

"Noooo, it won't!"

Mule quit bouncing and sat still, his shoulders slouching.

"We's gonna die," he said, softly. A tear was slowly dropping from his eye and running down his cheek.

"Naw, we ain't. I'll figger out a way to rescue us."

As luck would have it, Chief Arnold was slowly driving around Langford, surveying the damage. This was going to be a bad one, he realized quickly. Probably worse than the ice storm in 2000 that knocked out power for almost two weeks. He liked to turn around at the old store at the north end of town and was in the process of doing that when the chief noticed a truck parked facing the highway.

At first, he thought it was a truck that somebody was trying to sell. But as he made his turn, something bothered him. He had pulled to a stop and was staring at the truck when it started bouncing like somebody was making babies inside.

He stopped the car and pulled closer to the truck. The truck looked familiar and Chief Arnold was sure it looked like Squiggy's. He grabbed a can of de-icer and walked over to the window of the truck. He wasn't sure, but thought he heard voices.

Inside the truck, Mule was still frantic. "Squiggy, hug me!"

"Why?"

"I's scared."

"How's me huggin you gonna help?"

"It'll calm me down and warm us up."

"I ain't gonna do it. That's queer."

"Not as bad as you playing with my goober while ago."

Squiggy shook his head. "I wasn't playin with your unit."

Mule started banging his head on the window. "I don't wanna die!"

In between the headbutts, Squiggy thought he heard something. "Quit! I heard something."

Mule had raised a big knot on his forehead, right between his eys. He was seeing stars and dazed. "What was it?"

"Listen!"

They did and heard a knocking on the window. "Hello!" Mule hollered. "We's trapped in Squiggy's truck!"

"Somebody's out there," Squiggy said. He was almost excited.

They heard another knocking on the window and watched as some of the ice started melting away. At first, it was just the size of a penny, but it slowly grew larger until they could see Chief Arnold looking in.

"It's the cop!" Mule said. "Figger he's gonna arrest us?"

"What for?"

"For bangin up the titty joint and lying to the cops."

"Naw, he don't care none."

If it wasn't so cold, Chief Arnold would think this was hilarious. Squiggy and Mule were trapped inside a frozen truck. They actually looked grateful. Maybe he could use this the next time he needed something from Squiggy.

"Thanks, Porky!" Squiggy said. He saw the chief stop spraying the de-icer and walked back to his car.

"Way to go, Squiggy!" Mule hollered and hit his friend on the arm. "You made him mad and he's leaving."

Squiggy didn't much care for getting hit. He was already in a foul mood thanks to the hangover and getting frozen inside the truck and did not need much to send him over the edge. He spun around and tried to deliver his patented eye gouge. Mule was too quick and stuck his hand up to block the move.

"Crapfire! You blocked my move!"

Mule reared back and threw a punch, missing badly as Squiggy ducked. Mule's fist hit the window. "Ouch," Mule said. At first, nothing happened. But slowly, the lines started spreading across the glass. There were cracking sounds for several seconds before the window finally shattered.

"You broke my dang window!" Squiggy said.

"Sorry," Mule said. "I think I broke my hand."

"Good." Squiggy knocked the rest of the glass out of the way and started wiggling out the window. "Help me out here, Porky."

Chief Arnold was watching from his car. He came over and helped Squigggy out. "C'mon out, Mule."

Mule smiled and started crawling through the window. Somehow, he got lodged. "I's stuck!"

"Good," Squiggy said and walked over to the police car, the first time he had ever chosen to get in one without assistance.

"Help me!" Mule screamed.

Chapter 32