Snow(19)

The keys were dangling from the ignition.

“Figures,” Fred muttered, leaning over the messy seat and cranking the ignition. The engine groaned but would not turn over. Which was just as well; could they have really all piled in here and driven away? All that blood…

Someone would have to pry that sneaker out from under the accelerator first, he thought, then immediately vomited in the driver’s side foot well. Thankfully, the snow across the windshield blocked him from Nan’s view.

After a few seconds catching his breath, Fred wiped his mouth with his sleeve, then extricated himself from the Volkswagen. As he stood, tendons popped in his back. Nan had been on him about not doing his exercises lately. He was paying the price for his lethargy now.

“No good?” Nan said.

He shook his head. “Wouldn’t start. I think it might—”

A man was standing directly behind Nan, no more than five feet away. His clothes hung off him in tattered ribbons and were splattered with blood. The man’s eyes were dead in their sockets, his face as expressionless as an Egyptian mummy.

“Hon,” Fred said quickly, holding both arms out toward his wife. “Come here. Quick.”

“Fred, what in the—”

“Come here,” he repeated. “Now.”


Todd pressed the flashlight against the window of the convenience store to eliminate the glare. Inside, the flashlight illuminated overturned aisles, bags of potato chips and popcorn on the floor. Soda had congealed to the tiled floor and busted soda cans were scattered about like spent shotgun shells.

“What do you see?” Kate said in a low voice by his ear.

“Place is a mess.”

“Is there someone in there?”

“I thought I saw movement…”

“But now you’re not so sure?”

“I’m not—”

The flashlight’s beam fell on what at first appeared to be a strange tropical plant caught in the process of blossoming. It took several seconds for Todd’s brain to register what he was actually seeing, and he jerked backward away from the glass. The flashlight clattered to the snow, causing the beam to cut out.

“What?” Kate said. “What’d you see?”

“Someone’s dead in there,” he managed. “Head was split open…”

“Oh my God…”

Again, movement from within the store caught Todd’s attention. He jerked his head up and squinted through the darkness just as a whitish shape flitted across the aisles. Whoever—or whatever—was inside was heading for the door.

“Get back,” Todd shouted at Kate. Together, they both stumbled backward off the snow-packed curb.

The convenience store’s door flung open, Christmas bells on a strip of rawhide rebounding off the smoked glass, and a shape sprung out into the night. There was the sound of a long-barreled gun being charged and Todd felt his body brace for impact.


Nan took a hesitant step toward Fred, an odd, almost coy smile playing across her features.

“Fred, what is it?”

But Fred was through pampering. He reached out and grabbed Nan’s wrist, yanking her down off the curb and into his arms. He was still staring at the man in the tattered and bloodied clothes, who was staring right back at him with inkblot eyes. Holding Nan in a strong embrace, Fred began to back away from the curb.

Nan pushed off him, looked up at his face. “What the hell has gotten into you?” But she must have noticed that he was looking at something over her shoulder, because she turned and followed his gaze. When she saw the man in the bloody clothes on the sidewalk, mere feet from where she’d just been, Fred felt her entire body go rigid.

“Are you hurt?” Fred said, addressing the stranger. He continued walking backward, unwilling to take his eyes off the stranger. “Hello? Are you okay?”

“Fred…”

He rubbed Nan’s head with one hand. It didn’t appear that the stranger had a weapon; if he were to rush at them, Fred was pretty confident he could fend him off. Still…

“Todd!” he shouted. “Kate!”

The stranger hunkered down, like an animal preparing to pounce. A silvery rope of spit oozed from the man’s bottom lip.

Fred froze in midstep. He felt his bowels clench. In Nan’s ear, he muttered, “Run.”


“Who are you?” said the stranger who’d just come bursting out of the convenience store. It was a woman—that much Todd could tell from her voice—and she was pointing a rather angry-looking rifle at them.

“We’re lost,” Todd said, somehow finding his voice. “Our car broke down just outside of town.”

“What happened here?” Kate said from behind him.

The woman appeared to scrutinize them from behind her rifle. After a few drawn-out seconds, she said, “Turn around.”

“Please,” Todd muttered.

“I said turn around.”

“Don’t shoot us,” he said, turning around as the woman requested. He consciously stepped in front of Kate, although he wasn’t sure if his body would be enough to arrest any bullets that came shooting out of that gun.

“You, too,” the woman said to Kate. “Turn around. I want to see your backs.”

Kate did as she was told, her hands up in the air.