this is a story about Joe sixpack.

no,that’s not his real name.but it could have been.I’m his good friend and was asked to chronicle this part of his otherwise hum-drum,average life.

we went to high school together.after graduation he went on to a vo-tech school and i did a brief stint in the army.Joe soon got a job as a machinist after graduation and married Marlene,a local girl.

they moved into a small house on a quiet street and he worked his 40+ hours a week and she was a part-time hair dresser and babysat for some neighbors.it was a quiet,average life and they both seemed content enough with it.

that is,until the storm.

it was a day in late march.the weather forecast was for near 60 degree temperatures and clear skies.it also happened to be Joe and Marlene’s anniversary.they had planned to take Friday off and make a long weekend of a trip up the shore.they planned on staying at a bed and breakfast and doing the whole tourist thing.seemed like a pleasant enough idea and the weather lent itself to their plans.

well,as we all know,television weather forecasters are often wrong.that Friday turned out to be the worst snowstorm on record.unfortunately for Joe and Marlene it hit while they were on the twisting,winding,narrow trails of the shore.

to this day i never heard the whole story in all it’s detail from Joe.but,apparently,it snowed so hard it was a white out on the trail and Joe lost control of the car.they spun out on an ice patch and plummeted nearly 100 feet off an embankment and rolled the vehicle over multiple times.somehow Joe was able to not only survive that wreck,but crawl from it and tried to rescue Marlene.he was able to free her from the car wreck… piece by piece.the steel from the door ripped and tore Marlene’s lifeless body into numerous pieces.

rescue workers spotted the wreck from the air hours later after the worst of the storm had passed.they found what looked like a charred demon removing blackened pieces of a cadaver from a burned out wreck.apparently Joe had gone on trying to recover what was left of Marlene after the car burst into flames.he continued the ghoulish task until the wreck burned itself out.Joe was found totally insane and burned over two thirds of his body.the paramedics had to call in the DNR people who finally shot Joe with a tranquilizer gun,before they could render care.