Death is much easier to accept if you know exactly when it’s coming for you. I think that’s why living is so hard for a lot of people. They try to put their minds on something else, going to work, sleeping, watching movies, reading books. But somewhere in their body, a little stop watch is counting down the seconds. Add a few seconds every time you skip the burger for a salad. Subtract a few with every drag of the cigarette. And you never really know when this little clock will count down those last few seconds of your life. At least in the movies, they have the computer counting down out loud for you. Three minutes.

Through the onslaught of white pounding down furiously around me, I swear I see a black figure moving around. He moves slowly, methodically. He’s moving parallel to me, sort of wandering into sight then back out of it as the snow overtakes him again. I blink my eyes a couple of times. I guess maybe I imagined him, but something in my mind tells me that he is real, and he’ll be here soon.

Oh yeah, here. Where is that anyway? For the first time since waking up, I start to remember. I was talking to someone, although I was alone in the car. My cell phone. I was on it. No telling where it is now. Then…the deer. I see it now. Lying on its side as a halo of red forms around its stiff body. It jumped out in front of me and I had no time to stop. I swerved and hit it as I left the road. Now I can see that I’m upside down, the snow piling up around the sides of the car. Two minutes.

The hairs on the back of my neck stand up. The black figure cuts another lateral path across my line of sight. He’s clearer now. I can tell he’s big. Dressed in black from head to foot. He wanders slowly, with some purpose. I should shout while I have the chance. I should yell to him for help. But I don’t. Something tells me that above all else, I don’t want him to find me. I can’t let him find me.

The phone call was from Solomon. He was calling because he needed something from me. He was upset, but I can’t remember why. But I remember that I didn’t want him to find me. I was leaving town because he wanted what I had in the car. I crane my head around now, and there is a red duffel bag partly buried in the snow and collapsed cargo area of my SUV. I reach for it, desperately trying to remember what’s in it. My head burns now, and it’s harder to see out of my right eye. I manage to grasp the zipper. One minute.

The black figure begins another trek across my line of sight and as though the weather itself where under his control, the snow drift seems to change directions, flowing upwards, making my view of him very clear. The snow frames his silhouette perfectly, rubbing it in that I am stuck here upside down, as he closes the distance between us methodically, toying with me. His stature is powerful, his gaze fiery, although it has luckily not fixed on me yet. He searches with determination, and I hold my breath and movement, praying to the God I don’t believe in that he won’t look this way. Then all at once, the snow closes up with a new deadly ferocity, concealing us from each other, and pounding my vehicle with such strength and noise that I have to believe he will not find me for a few hours now.

I grasp the zipper, pulling and jerking at it, desperate for its contents: my memory. The damn thing is caught, like any zipper when you try to pull it with only one hand. I swear loudly, and yank harder. The whole bag flies past the seat and hits me in the head, which causes the burning feeling to swell intensely. I reach up and grab my head in pain, and I notice some wetness next to a hole, too perfectly round to have been caused by anything related to a severe car accident. The burn around it assures me that this hole was made by an outside force. Still a little confused, I look up at the windshield. It was shattered in circles, the innermost circle being a hole where snow has been coming through. As blood drips out of my head, I grab the bag and open it. A gun and bundles of cash poor out.

Then I remember. Solomon was upset with me because I double-crossed him and took quite a bit of cash of his with me on my way out of town. We were arguing on the phone. He told me it was my last chance to turn around. I hung up the phone, and just then the deer leapt in front of me. As I swerved, there was a loud bang, and a bullet passed through my windshield, and into the side of my head at such an angle that it probably only grazed my brain before passing out of the back of my skull. So the black figure must be searching for Sol’s money. And for me. Thirty seconds.

The snow clears again. The black figure is staring directly at me. I could have played dead if I’d known he was going to look, but I know now he must have seen me moving around. He starts walking slowly towards me. With the practiced grace of an orchestral conductor, he sweeps a huge hand gun out from under his jacket and points the barrel at me. No need for a silencer out here. The snow picks up a bit, not so much that our views are obstructed, but enough so that he’ll need to get closer to get off an accurate shot. I reach back for the bag as blood loss starts to catch up to me. Everything is getting blurry. Five.

The snow clears one final time and he is here. I can’t make out his face clearly enough to see who he is or if I know him, but I can see that he is smiling. He smiles devilishly from ear to ear. Four.

He holds his gun at his side, just smiling. I squint, trying to stay awake, and I think he might have just laughed. Three.

The gun slowly rises from his side, as though it is lifting itself along with his arm without any command from his mind. The gun comes up along my forehead, down to my throat, and rests at a stop on the center of my chest. Two.

The man says something. My hearing has faded, so I can’t make it out. He seems to wait for an answer, but I just hang silent, trying to stare him coldly in the eye, although I can’t see well anymore. He gets tired of waiting and places his finger on the trigger. One.

I pull the gun from the bag, and fire several shots, unable to take the time to aim, not that I can see more than blurs anyway. When the gun is empty, I let my heavy arm drop and concentrate until my vision is clear enough to see him. The look on his face is one of complete horror. I have never seen fear like this before. He just stands there, frozen in shock. Then, suddenly, his body collapses.

He didn’t know his time was up. I, on the other hand, can see my clock clearly now. There is no horror on my face. He is lying in the snow, heaving rapidly, trying not to die, and looking at the zeros on his clock in disbelief. Then the heaving stops. It’s a difficult way to go.

I close my eyes, embracing my end peacefully. I won’t care what happens here soon enough anyway.

Zero.