The Shuddering

groaned.
    “Get up, dude,” Pete replied.
    “I’ll get up if you get off my fucking bed, man. You don’t do that.”
    Pete forced himself off the mattress, wobbly on his feet. “Do what? Listen, hey…”
    Clyde crawled back across his floor, climbed onto his bed, and immediately collapsed face-first into his pillow.
    “Clyde.” The name was nearly a whine. “We’re fucked, buddy. Totally fucked.”
    A muffled syllable drifted from the folds of Clyde’s sheets, a “what?” squelched by a pillow in dire need of replacement—its body shapeless and flat, its sham stained with hair grease and sweat.
    “Hey, did you hear me?” Pete kicked at one of Clyde’s still-shoed feet. Without warning, Clyde rolled over and launched the dirty pillow at his roommate with surprising force. Pete stumbled backward, nearly tripping over a pile of clothes before his shoulder caught the wall. After regaining his footing, he said, “Guess what?”
    “What?” Clyde asked begrudgingly.
    Pete ambled over to Clyde’s window, shoving the curtain aside to reveal the darkness of the morning. Fat flakes tumbled past the glass.
    “Aw, shit ,” Clyde hissed, then clapped his hands over his face. This was just what they needed. They hadn’t partied in nearly a week, holding out as the meteorologist fumbled every forecast. They’d finally had enough, ending up at the liquor store, where, lo and behold, there was a sale on thirty-sixers of brew. Deeming it a sign from God himself, they proceeded to get epically plastered while playing Xbox and listening to Metallica’s Master of Puppets on repeat. And now it was snowing .
    “We got called in,” Pete announced, holding his fist up to his mouth, fighting back a diaphragm-rattling belch. “Side roads off the highway,” he said. “We’ve got an hour.”
    “What time is it?” Clyde murmured, trying to sit up.
    “Four thirty.”
    “Goddamn.” He winced against the taste of his own mouth. “Coffee?”
    “I’ll make some,” Pete said. “I need some fucking Tylenol.”
    Clyde sighed unsteadily, then pulled his hand down the length of his face before letting it fall to the bed. He was tempted to call in, but the resident road crew was small, and that would leave the others high and dry. Clyde liked to think of himself as loyal—not the kind of guy to screw over the other guys on the team.
    Dragging himself into the bathroom, he leaned over the sink and splashed cold water onto his face. He was still dressed from the night before, so all he had to do was grab his coat and hat and charge into the snow. Clyde’s plowless pickup was parked just yards from the house. It was a pain in the ass to detach the plows after every use, so the boys took turns—one truck would be street ready while the other was left with plow and chains. It saved them a hell of a lot of time on mornings just like this, mornings when the wind was so cold it made their bones ache and their eyes sting. Clyde winced against the chill as he marched toward his pickup, his head throbbing, his brain swollen, his stomach sour. He had to pause next to the front fender, anticipating the inevitable as sickness curdled at the back of his throat, but after a few deep breaths, he regained his bearings and climbed inside the cab.
    He drove around to the back of the house, headlights cutting across the darkness, illuminating Pete’s old Chevy and the self-built carport next to it where they kept all their gear. Clyde’s plow was parked beneath the lean-to structure, bright yellow paint chipping off ten-gauge steel. He had helped his dad paint it decades before, just before Christmas. His mother had picked out the color—yellow being her favorite. Parking so that his highbeams shone against the carport’s shoddy construction, he rolled down his window and stuck his head into the cold, expertly lining up the truck so that the plow would slide into place. Satisfied with his position, he cranked the stereo and reached into the glove compartment for a smoke. Despite his pounding headache, music helped wake him up, and at the moment being awake was more important than being comfortable.
    Lighting his cig, he sucked in a lungful of smoke and slid out into the predawn darkness, snowflakes glittering along the sides of the carport that would more than likely collapse in on itself before next winter. He busied himself at the pickup’s front bumper, Slayer coiling through his open door. When the CD paused between tracks,