Keweenaw Hope

The snow was falling heavily now and the road so familiar a week before had become a pillow of white with no tire tracks to follow. The roar of Lake Superior on their right, and the ethereal shadow of the sun trying to break through the falling snow enhanced the mystique. The ghost of the sun soon faded as it slid toward the cold waters of Superior. Most of the passengers in the van had never seen anything like it. Johnny put his bright lights on to warn oncoming traffic of their presence, but he quickly switched back to low beams to even see the front of the van. The wind was roaring north along the water blinding anyone traveling south.
Conversely anyone driving north had clear sailing. It was a nightmare. Johnny was forced to maintain a reasonable speed to keep his tires from spinning on the glare ice beneath the heavy snow. His back and shoulder muscles were tightening up, but there was nothing he could do to alleviate the tension. There wasn’t a sound in the van except for the wiper blades which were ice encrusted making it impossible to see.
In the U.P. it was called a white out, and of all the winter conditions this was the worst.
“Everybody buckle up,” Johnny said in a voice no one recognized.
“Hang to the left,” Jenny shouted as she spotted a snow marker tight to the right front fender. There was no middle of the road; no yellow line; no nothing. He couldn’t stop; he couldn’t see.
“I see headlights at the top of the windshield,” Miia screamed.
As time stopped and turned dark, the sound of twisting metal wrenched the world from their souls. The van began careening and crashing through the right snow bank down the rocky abyss toward the edge of Lake Superior. Although they landed upside down, none of the snow impacted wheels were spinning. The bottom of the van was frozen solid and barely visible from the road some twenty yards up the hill.
“Help me please,” shrieked Heather who was tangled up with Rod lying unconscious above the back passenger door.
“Don’t try to move him,” shouted Paul from the third seat. Lakeesha and Becky were hanging upside down too. The rear window had exploded inward and their hair was infused with tiny shards of glass like little decorations on a Christmas tree. Paul was able to lift himself and unbuckle his seatbelt. There was moaning and crying throughout the van. He was able to unbuckle Becky and Lakeeshsa and slowly drop them down to the headliner. They were both in shock but conscious.
“Johnny can you hear me,” Paul shouted to the front of the van.
Silence.
Icy wind was lapping through the shattered front passenger window with Jenny’s head bashed against the front pillar. Her right arm was skewed at an unnatural angle. Blood from her eye brow congealing with the icy crystals rushing in through the window made her face look like a red snow cone.
Miia took one look at Johnny; thought he was dead and immediately turned to help Jenny.
Paul tried to push open the rear door, but they were lodged up against a huge boulder holding them fast. He moved forward calming Heather and carefully lifted Rod and laying him on the headliner of the inner roof. Heather took off her coat and made a pillow him.
The front seat was a different matter. The wind shield had been crushed by whatever had hit them, and shards of glass had exploded in the faces of Johnny and the girls. Miia seemed in shock and was shaking uncontrollably. Jenny and Johnny looked dead.
“Can anybody hear me!” shouted a voice from outside of the van.
“Carl, I think they’re all dead,” anguished Uno in disbelief.
The men crawled over the granite boulder to the right side of the van getting drenched by the cold spray off the lake.
“Dear Lord,” Uno prayed pulling his head from the battered window frame.
“Help us,” Heather cried to the voices coming from outside.
Carl reached in and carefully lifted Heather past Jenny, and she and the two men climbed the slippery frozen boulders up to the road. Heather looked aghast at the biggest orange snow plow she had ever seen. Uno Issacson wrapped Heather in an emergency blanket while Carl Wetzel climbed up into the cab and called 911.