Snow(22)

Fred appeared over Kate’s shoulder. “Let me have a look.”

Todd managed a pained smile. “You gonna put me out of my misery?”

“You should be so lucky,” Fred said, bending to his knees with some difficulty. Todd noted that maybe the old guy wasn’t in as good a shape as he’d initially thought. “I can cut the pant leg or you can take them off. It’s up to you.”

“Christ. You two should buy me dinner first.” He unbuttoned his pants and managed to worm his way out of them, until they were bunched up at his ankles. He didn’t bother looking down at the wound.

“Not so bad,” Fred said, leaning over him. “How’d you do it?”

“Chasing that son of a bitch Eddie through the woods. I think a tree limb came out and took a bite out of me.”

Fred told Kate to seek out some implements from the shelves—adhesive bandages, rubbing alcohol, gauze pads, whatever else she could find. When she returned, she was juggling a bunch of boxes and had a bag of pretzels under one arm.

Fred unscrewed a bottle of peroxide and emptied it over the wound. It fizzed and burned slightly. Todd glanced down and saw a lightning bolt tear along his right shin, perhaps three inches long. Blood ran in muddy tributaries down his leg.

“Pretzel,” Fred said, as if requesting a scalpel from a nurse, and Kate popped a pretzel into his open mouth. As he crunched, he blotted the wound with a sanitary napkin, then proceeded to dress it in a gauze wrap.

“Some bedside manner,” Todd commented, and Fred chuckled.

A shadow moved out from the darkness. It was Shawna, looking younger and smaller than ever without her rifle slung over one shoulder. “Hey,” she said to no one in particular. “You think you could help me, too?”

They all looked over and saw that the left leg of her pants was saturated with blood. She had been walking with a considerable limp, too, although Todd hadn’t put two and two together until now.

As Todd pulled his pants back on, Fred turned to Shawna. He reached out and lifted the hem of her pant leg. Her entire sock and sneaker were black with blood. A firm look passed briefly over Fred Wilkinson’s face.

Without a word, Shawna carefully stepped out of her pants. Her naked skin looked nearly blue. Striations of dried black blood coated her left leg, and there was a deep gash along her left thigh that made Todd’s injury look like a pinprick.

“Good Lord,” Fred mused, leaning closer to examine the wound. “How long ago did this happen?”

“Yesterday evening.”

“Did you put anything on it?”

“I cleaned it out with some peroxide. Oh, and some bourbon.”

“You wouldn’t happen to have any of that bourbon still lying around, would you?” Kate said, probably only half joking, Todd thought.

Fred turned to Todd. “Can you help her up onto the checkout counter?”

“Sure.” Todd looped one arm under Shawna while Kate came around and lent her support on the other side. This close, the girl smelled of days-old sweat and unwashed flesh. “How long have you been holed up in this store?” he asked her as they carried her over to the counter and hoisted her up.

“Since this afternoon.” Shawna winced as Fred came over and straightened her injured leg. “Before that, I locked myself in my house on Fairmont Street. That’s two blocks over, by the church.”

“Do you still have that flashlight?” Fred asked Kate.

“Hold on,” Kate said, and went over to dig around in her purse.

“No flashlights,” Shawna said. “I don’t think they know we’re here.”

“I have to see what I’m doing,” Fred said. “I promise we’ll keep it to a minimum.”

“Cover it with a towel,” she suggested, and reached down beneath the counter to produce a shoddy-looking dish towel.

Kate returned with the flashlight and Nan at her side. For some reason, the arrival of the older woman caused Shawna to blush, and she self-consciously tugged down her shirt to cover her panties. Until that point, Todd had hardly realized the poor girl was practically naked and on display to a roomful of strangers. He reached over the counter and found another dish towel, which he draped over Shawna’s hips. She looked up at him and offered wordless thanks.

“This is going to sting,” Fred said, and poured some of the peroxide into the wound while he held it open just slightly with a finger and thumb.

“Oh,” Shawna cried, and bucked her hips. One hand shot out and grasped Todd about the wrist. “Oh, shit!”

“Easy-easy-easy-easy,” Fred crooned. It was probably how he muttered to the dogs and cats he worked on in a typical day at the office. “Atta girl…” Glancing over at Kate, Fred said, “Give me some light, will you?”

Nan held up the dish towel to shield the soft beam of the flashlight from anything that might be just beyond the convenience store’s windows. Todd snuck a glance over Fred’s shoulder. The gash was deep, the tissue dark red and fibrous inside. Something wet rolled over in his stomach.

“How did this happen?” Todd asked.

“One of those things took a swipe at me.”

“What things? You mean like that guy out there dead in the street?”

“No,” she said, gritting her teeth as Fred addressed the wound once again. “I mean like what was inside that guy dead out in the street. What came out of him when I shot him.” She grunted and added, “That was Bill Showalter, by the way. Owned the hardware store since I was a kid.”