The Ice Wife

Roland Johnson has carried around the guilt of his wife's death for the past two years, after failing to hold onto her and letting the current of the Snake River carry her away when their canoe tipped over in a freak accident. Losing Choo (her nickname) and abandoned by his friends, he sells his farm in southern Idaho and, after many dreams of Choo in the snow, he decides that he's tired of the stifling heat of the high desert and heads for Alaska to try and shock some meaning into his shattered life.

Stopping in the town of Tok on his way to Fairbanks, he visits the local watering hole and witnesses old Dr. Waller crying in his whiskey about a Veronica Stills, who was the wife of one of his WW2 buddies who had come to Alaska with him just after the war. Tired of the slow progress of the convoy, she had traveled ahead by herself and was never seen again. As Roland listens he cannot shake the feeling that Dr. Waller is somehow familiar to him, but soon realizes that he's also seen the old man in his dreams. His friend Clyde looks disgusted and tells the doctor that he has to let her go already, but this just puts him in a worse state of mind.

The next morning, with the temperature at -50, Roland checks out of the lodge and heads for Fairbanks and his destiny. After only thirty miles he hits black ice on a corner, which causes him to spin out of control, smash through the guardrail near Yerrick Creek, and end up out of sight under the bridge with his foot caught between the brake pedal and firewall. Unable to escape the car and with the cold seeping in, he is dragged into the world of the Ice Wife, who is what Veronica Stills has become after years of being enslaved by the demon Ohno. Thus begins a day-and-a-half struggle against the cold, Ohno, and a scared Ice Wife, guided by the realm's gatekeeper, a ghostly old native named Siqokte, to free her soul before it's too late. Even his late wife gets involved from the grave.