As the truck pulled off, Moira came running to the porch from inside, “Wait! The Pass! The Pass is too dangerous!” But it was too late, Jack and Bridgette were already heading towards one of the worst accidents Skole County had seen in quite some time.
*
Cole Piedmonte screamed from the backseat of his mother's car, petrified by the noise and the darkness. One moment he was sitting in the car, tugging at his sister's hand to get her to wake up, the next, a horrible groaning noise sounded following a terrible crash. The lights that adorned the covered bridge had gone out, abruptly, and now he couldn't see anything. It was terribly cold, Natalie wasn't waking, and he didn't know what to do. Where was his mother? Why had she left him alone? He couldn't understand what was happening, or who had made the world go dark. He tried to remember how his father had gotten him out of his seat belt earlier that day. He had pushed a button, hadn't he? It had seemed so easy.
Cole pushed the orange button of the seat belt, but it didn't budge. Stubbornly he tried again and again until he began to shriek in a fashion that was typical of an overwhelmed toddler. He pulled the shoulder belt over his head. He began tugging at the lap belt that was strapped across his belly, wriggling out of it, until he was standing on the seat. He smacked his tiny hand at the door window to no avail. He recalled his older sister doing something that made the window go down. He looked at the handle that operated the window and tried to turn it, but it didn't move at all. His hand moved to the door handle and he pulled on it with all his strength, but still, he was met with resistance once again.
From outside the car he could hear sirens and yelling. He thought he could hear his father, screaming for someone. He sounded upset, which in turn made Cole's bottom lip quiver. Getting frustrated with his progress so far, Cole climbed to the front seat of the car, his Buster Brown sneaker scuffing up the seats and center console. He banged on the glass of the windshield, desperate for someone to let him out of the dark. He cried as he banged, not knowing what else he could do.
In a moment of defeat, Cole sunk down in the driver’s seat, feet kicking against the horn. Then something happened that caught Cole's attention. Light began shining in the windshield. Snow was being removed by someone or something from the outside. And fast. Cole watched, pressing his face up against the glass. From the other side of the glass, Jack Morrow was frantically throwing snow off of the car.
*
Bridgette sat in the driver's seat of Jack's pickup truck as she watched Jack manually move the snow off the front of the car. She couldn't believe her eyes. The bridge had collapsed on top of Maria Piedmonte's car, and she could hear the sound of screaming and sirens. She had no idea how far off the sirens were, but one thing was for sure, they weren't getting through that rubble any time soon. She had tried to tell Jack to stay in the car, that they had to tend to Catherine and get her back to the house before they all froze to death, but he wouldn’t listen. As the snow sleeted down from sky, he frantically tried to find the source of the screams.
Jack was now standing on the windshield, yelling something, but she couldn't hear him. He yelled again, this time loud enough to hear, "Get back, I have to break through... Hide behind the seat and cover your face!" A moment later, Jack's size thirteen boot was kicking at the windshield. Bridgette's eyes grew wide with shock as she ran from the cab of the truck towards her brother. As a nurse, she had a certain call of duty. She must help where help is needed. She was almost certain she heard him say Cole. The Piedmontes were their closest friends. She couldn't imagine what she would do if something had happened to one of them.
She tried to run through the snow but it was just too thick, and coming down too hard. Finally she reached the front of the car. Jack had cleared all the glass from the windshield and was now inside the car, looking at something in the back seat. Jack looked behind him to see his sister standing on the hood of the car.