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“Mommy, my toes feel like ice cubes,” Chloe’s small voice drifted back through the roar of the wind, thin and muffled against the fabric of her mother’s coat.
“I know, baby,” the mother panted, her breath coming in short, wheezing gasps that sounded like dry paper tearing. “Just twenty more steps. We’re almost at the cabin. Remember the golden rule of camping?”
“Dry socks first, then the sleeping bag,” the child recited softly, shivering against her mother’s ribs.
“That’s right. Dry socks first. And I saved that clean pair of thick wool ones Aunt Sarah gave us last year. They’re right at the bottom of the yellow tub.”
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The mother turned off the highway, stepping over the rusty steel guardrail where the ground dropped six feet down into an overgrown briar thicket bordering an abandoned commercial self-storage facility.
Arthur stopped at the edge of the guardrail, crouching low behind the galvanized steel barrier to keep from silhouetting his frame against the white glare of a passing tractor-trailer.
