Someone had already been here. Other drivers had come down this road, seen a girl dying in the freezing mud, and decided it wasn't their problem. They didn't want to get wet. They didn't want the hassle. They had driven on into the warm and the dry.
Walter gripped the steering wheel. His arthritic hands throbbed in the cold. He was terrified. He was seventy-eight years old. He knew what a fall in the dark could do to a man his age. He knew the mud was like ice, and if he went down in that ditch, he might not have the strength to get back up. The freezing rain would take them both.
But Walter Briggs was a man of the old world. Whatever else the years had stripped away from him, they had never touched his core. He shut off the engine, zipped up his thin coat, and pushed his door open into the roaring storm.
The wind immediately tried to knock him off his feet, stealing the breath from his lungs. The rain felt like needles against his face. Walter grabbed a heavy rusted flashlight from behind his seat and began the treacherous descent into the ditch.
His boots slipped on the clay. He slid down the last few feet, landing hard on his knees in six inches of freezing water, pain shooting up his spine. Gritting his teeth, he crawled the rest of the way to the woman.
She was young—maybe twenty-two. She was clutching a heavy, oversized leather jacket around her shaking shoulders. A deep gash on her forehead was pouring blood, washed away instantly by the rain. Her lips were entirely blue.
"Hold on, sweetheart," Walter shouted over the roaring wind. "I'm right here. I've got you."
She mumbled something incoherent, her eyes rolling back. She was slipping into extreme hypothermia.