When Mr Drake opened his front door, he was momentarily blinded by the cold morning air. The sudden drop in temperature made his eyes water, and it took him a moment or so to realise that the glittering sheen surrounding his car was a layer of ice. "Mags!" he called over his shoulder. "I may be a while!"

There was a muffled acknowledgement from the inside the house.

Mr Drake squeezed through the gap between the fence and his car, and gingerly took hold of the driver's side door handle and pulled hard. The morning silence was shattered as the skin of ice around the door cracked. Once again, Mr Drake called out to his wife. "stay inside and keep warm! I'll let you know when I've cleaned the car off!"

Having been a Boy Scout in his youth, Mr Drake had prepared for the cold snap. There was an ice scraper in the car's glove box, and Mr Drake was soon putting it to good use. He scraped away with a will at the ice that covered the vehicle's windows, digging the blade into the thick rime and lifting dusty layers off the glass. Despite - or maybe because of his efforts, Mr Drake's enthusiasm soon waned. His hands were red from the cold, the muscles in them cramping, and the front of his coat was crusted in half-melted ice crystals. It was time for a change of tactics.

He got into the car and fumbled his keys from his pocket into the ignition switch. The engine coughed twice, then roared into life. A steady stream of tepid air - it felt like a furnace on Mr Drake's skin - came from the vents on the dashboard. But, with a few deft adjustments to the air-conditioning, the air started to get warmer. Slowly, the ice on the car's windows began to melt. Patches of condensation appeared where the warm, moist air touched the cold glass and slowly spread out. It wasn't long before the windows had misted over and the outside world was barely visible.

Still, it was easier than scraping.

A knocking on the passenger door attracted Mr Drake's attention. He leaned across the seat and pulled on the latch. "I thought I told you to ... ." He stopped as a stranger, their face and head concealed beneath a hood and bandana, leaned through the door.

"Nice car," the stranger said as they sat down next to Mr Drake and pulled the door shut. "Shall we go for a ride?"

"You can't do this!" Mr Drake began to protest. His passenger pulled a knife from inside their jacket and pushed the point of the weapon ever so gently into his side.

"Oh, but I can," the stranger said. "Drive."

Mr Drake put his car into gear and hoped that someone was coming.