The voice came through on channel 9 at 11:14 at night, so faint that Hank Doyle almost thought he'd dreamed it.
"...anybody... please... we're off the road..."
Hank set down his coffee and turned the squelch knob slowly, the way you'd turn the dial on a safe.
It had been snowing since supper. Eight inches already, and coming sideways now. Lorraine had gone to bed at ten. Hank was out in the garage, the way he was most nights, with the space heater ticking and his old Cobra CB sitting on the workbench next to a carburetor he was rebuilding for no reason except that he liked to.
He hadn't driven a truck in six years. He still kept the radio on. Lorraine called it his nightlight.
Channel 9 was the emergency channel. In forty years of listening, Hank had heard it used maybe a dozen times.
He keyed the mic. "This is Ohio Valley. I copy you. Go ahead."
Static. Then a woman's voice, older, shaking.
"Oh, thank God. Thank God. My husband said nobody uses these anymore."
"Somebody does, ma'am. What's your name?"
"Betty. Betty Kowalski. We're... I don't know where we are. The phone said turn, so we turned, and the road kept getting smaller. Then we slid into a ditch. There's no signal on the cell phone. And Harold hit his head on the window."
Hank was already on his feet, pulling his coat on with one arm.
"Is he awake?"
"He's awake. He's talking. He's the one who said to try the radio. He drove a truck for thirty years. He won't let me take it out of the car."
Hank smiled for the first time. "Smart man. Betty, is your engine running?"
"Yes. The heater's on."
"Good. I need you to do something for me. Get out real careful and check the tailpipe. If snow's piled up around it, dig it out. Then get back in and crack your window an inch."
She was gone for two long minutes. When she came back, she was out of breath.
"It was half buried. I dug it out with my hands."
"You did good, Betty. That's the most important thing you'll do tonight."
Hank called Earl on his cell phone. Earl picked up on the second ring. Earl hadn't really slept through the night since June passed.
"Where are they?" Earl asked.
"That's the problem," Hank said. "She doesn't know."
Hank went back to the radio and asked questions, slow and calm, the way you'd talk to a horse in a trailer.
What was the last town you went through? She didn't know. The last sign? Too much snow. A church, a store, a bridge? Trees. Just trees. Everything was white.
Hank looked at the county map tacked over his workbench.
A car radio like hers, with a short antenna, in hills like these, might reach three or four miles on a good night. That meant they were close. Somewhere in a circle of ridges and hollows and back roads maybe eight miles across.
In the dark. In the snow. With a man who'd hit his head.
"Betty," he said. "Close your eyes and tell me everything you can hear."
A pause.
"Wind. The engine. And... a little while ago, a horn. A long one. Like a train."
Hank stopped moving.
There was only one set of tracks within twenty miles of Pine Hollow. The old spur line that ran past the glass works and out toward the county line. One freight a night, and it came through around eleven.
"Which direction did it come from?"
"I don't know. It sounded like everywhere."
Then, quieter: "Hank? Harold keeps saying he's going to rest his eyes. He's not supposed to sleep, is he? After hitting his head?"
"No, ma'am. You keep him talking. Ask him about his trucks. Old truckers will talk about trucks till the sun comes up."
She laughed a little. It sounded like it hurt.
"The engine's making a funny noise," she said. "It's sort of..."
The radio went silent.
Hank keyed the mic. "Betty? Betty, come back."
Nothing. Just static, hissing like the snow against the garage door.