I headed into a blizzard, driving too fast, the snowflakes chasing each other across the highway and glittering in my headlights like schools of silvery fish in a dark sea. Deep drifts covered the prairie all around, but the road looked clear, scraped and plowed after the last storm. I wanted to make the interstate junction at Wamsutter, Wyoming, before the storm hit. If I got stuck out here, the plows might not come through for days. The radio warned me of the deteriorating conditions ahead in a tinny voice full of static, wavering in and out at the very edge of the signal strength. I clenched the wheel, bit my lip, and squinted hard, trying to will the lights of Wamsutter into a glow on the horizon. Instead, a storm edge abruptly loomed in my headlights, a swirling wall of white that was not there, and then it was. I plunged into it at seventy miles an hour. Thick wet snow clotted on my windshield and blinded me in an instant. I braked gently and reached for the windshield wipers, telling myself not to panic, don't panic and hit the brakes; just keep calm, you'll get through this.
       Glaring headlights burst through my back window and lit the inside of my car like a searchlight, as bright as a scream. I yelped in fright as the lights shifted to the left and the huge snout of a semi-truck filled my side windows, then skidded beyond me, out of control and already jack-knifing. The taillights disappeared into the whiteness ahead of me as I tried to gain control, my windshield completely covered with snow thrown up by the truck's wheels, everything going white for endless seconds as I fishtailed back and forth. The Taco Bell bag from my lunch flew out of the side seat and hit the dash, dumping empty salsa packets and half an uneaten taco onto the floor. I could smell corn chips, and cold taco meat and my stomach gave a big greasy lurch as I slid into the deep snow at the shoulder of the road and came to a jarring stop.
       After a moment, I pried my hands off the wheel. My car engine rumbled pleasantly, unconcerned. A half-flattened salsa packet fell off the glove box and hit the floor mat with a damp thump. I almost laughed and then almost threw up. I would have looked just like that salsa packet if the semi-truck hadn't shifted to the left.
       My wipers caught up with the snow, and I spotted the big vehicle just ahead of me in the ditch, crumpled, ghostly white and steaming like a freshly killed animal. The big engine coughed and smoked. One headlight beam illuminated the falling snow. I smacked at my glove box with trembling hands and scattered the contents until I found my first aid kit. I pulled on my hat and my gloves, zipped up the kit in my coat, grabbed my flashlight, and opened the door. The air was sucked away from my lungs by the wind, and I had to grab the door to keep it from being torn away from me. The storm battered into the car and hit me with a million tiny needle pricks as I slammed the door shut and stumbled forward, lurching through old crusted snow that was rapidly covering over with fresh drifts.
       The snow fell so fast that I could only see smears and blurs of the truck as I struggled forward along the exposed bottom of the trailer. Steel ribs and air hoses, like entrails, hung twisted and dripping. The wind howled and shrieked through the twisted metal of the wreck. I kept going. Whoever was in the cabin had somehow avoided smashing into me. Whoever it was had tried to keep from killing me, and if he wasn't beyond help, I would do my best.
       Did I have dreams of saving a life, starting a heart, maybe just wrapping up a bleeding cut? I suppose I did. Everybody wants to be a hero.
       The smell of burning oil and fried rubber and spilled diesel fuel filled my nose, so dense I could taste it in my throat, and underneath there was something deeper, something that made my breath want to stop, something that didn't smell right at all. I was scared all of a sudden, scared in a way I'd never been since I was a child, scared so deeply that my steps slowed and then stopped.
       It took an effort to force myself on, to crouch down next to the driver's side of the cab and see the body inside. Movement, a fluttering, as though a hand moved. I turned the handle of the door, and ice cracked as I wrenched metal from metal and then I made a terrible little bleat of disgust as a warm, bloated smell breathed into my frozen face, a smell like something long dead, a smell so foul that tears rose in my eyes and ran down my face, hot against my cold cheeks.
       A man peered up at me, his face narrow and gaunt, his long hair twisted into dirty ropes and snarls under his trucker cap. Mad eyes rolled and fixed on me, muddy brown with white showing all the way around them, his eyebrows raised high like he was surprised at all this mess. He smiled a strangely merry smile. I could see the blood underneath him, the bits of bone sticking through the checkered shirt, and I clutched my pathetic first aid box under my coat. Nothing could help this man now.
       "Need a ride?" The smile left his face, and for a moment, the madness did too. He looked puzzled then he twitched. Lunacy filled his eyes like the light of the moon, the moon that was even now sailing beyond the clouds of the storm.
       "Hitchhikers always welcome." He grinned at me, and the red blood pooled up under him, smoking in the cold night, warm and alive and smelling like metal and raw meat. I took a step closer, not knowing what to do, knowing I couldn't help but wasn't there something I could do?
       "Stop!" he said sharply, his eyes abruptly sane. He moved an arm at me in a gesture to stay away, an arm that was broken in more than one place. "Don't come closer. It's hungry. I fought it. I won, for once. Don't--" he coughed, and blood dribbled from his mouth. He waved the horrible thing that had been an arm again, still coughing. I saw he was trying to point and realized there was something with him in the cab. There was something moving inside his shirt.
       The man grimaced. His eyes rolled towards me again, intelligence blown away.
       "Need a ride?" he chuckled. "Hitchhikers always welcome!" He coughed, choking. Fresh blood poured from his mouth, dark and rich. Then it stopped, and his head fell back.
       Within the tatters of his shirt, I saw a questing, wavering arm. A segmented thing, covered with long sleek hair. The collar of the corpse shifted as two more arms slid down from around his neck, releasing him like someone letting go of the controls of a puppet. Something bright moved within the shirt. Eyes. I tried to tell my frozen feet to move as the thing shifted again, and the trucker's arm flopped out of the cab and settled, palm up, on a patch of ruby red ice. The movement broke my paralysis. I scrambled backward, slipping in the snow, my first aid kit spilling from underneath my coat.
       One jointed leg reached out and clutched the kit. The plastic splintered. Gauze and band-aids flew into the air as I struggled further back. The thing pulled free of the man with a horrible wet sucking sound, put two long legs against the cab, and pushed itself into the drift. A dozen eyes rolled wildly, seeking me, finding me.
       I stumbled back as the creature took one step, two long front legs waving in the air, then it scuttled towards me, moving with incredible quickness, a hideous spider with a ragged, bloody-looking fringe hanging underneath its belly and segmented legs ending in pinchers like a crab. The snow gusted, and the big snowflakes streamed by in front of me in the hooting, roaring wind, flooding by in a kind of dreamlike slowness because I realized I wasn't going to be quick enough, that in another few seconds, the jointed leg of this monster was going to touch me and seize me and possess me.
       Black dots swarmed with the flakes as I whooped in and in, trying to breathe but forgetting that I had to breathe out first. A crust of the icy snow gave way beneath it as I floundered back, my arms flailing in big comical loops, and the tiny monster sank into a drift. It thrashed its legs and lunged forward, but the crust kept giving way underneath it as I turned and ran away, panting and making a mad little screaming sound that I couldn't stop.
       I staggered down the length of the wreck with my flashlight jabbing up and down, illuminating jagged pieces of metal and frozen pipes dripping with black icicles. The blizzard shrieked at me as I reached my car and yanked at my door, and for a second, I could feel the bristly touch of a segmented leg as the door refused to open and then ice cracked away, and it opened with a tormented squeal, and I fell inside. I slammed the door shut behind me and locked it, and stuffed both mittens into my mouth, biting on my knuckles and forcing back the screams that wouldn't stop. The creature wasn't with me. I'd left it behind. For a long time, I sat in my warm car, my nose running and my mouth tasting of wet mitten wool, and I put the car into drive three times before I finally set it back to Park.
       I found what I wanted in the trunk. I waded through the deep drifts with slow steps and probed the darkness with my light, making sure the little monster hadn't crawled down the wreck toward me. I found it huddled in the ruined chest of the dead trucker, eyes blinking in sequence and bristly legs churning. The long-jointed arms waved, probing around in a dreamy slow dance. I didn't come close. I suspected it could find the energy to move quickly if I got within reach. I carried my items like gifts. Everyone wants to be a hero, right? I couldn't help the trucker now, but I could finish the job he started. I could do that, at least.
       A can of gasoline. Matches.