Snow(30)

“Run!” Todd screamed, lunging forward to grab the bag of ammunition. Freezing wind filled the shop and blew his hair back from his forehead. He grabbed the bag and yanked it down to the floor. When he looked up, he saw that Kate hadn’t moved; she was standing mesmerized at the whirlwind of snow that floated through the busted window. “Kate! Get out of the way!”

But she didn’t move.

The cloud of snow appeared to rear itself up and, only briefly, looked like a wave about to crash to shore. Todd caught a glimpse of that silvery filament twining in the center of the blustery cloud again. Then he rushed forward and tackled Kate’s legs, dragging her to the carpet. A second later, one of those scythe-like arms crashed through the glass display counter, showering them with crystals of broken glass.

“Come on!” he screamed at her, crawling along the carpet toward the shattered front windows.

There came a sound like the screeching of car tires as the thing behind them shrieked into the night. Blood pumping, Todd jumped to his feet and dove through the opening in the shattered window. Outside, he struck the icy pavement with enough force to fill his mouth with powder from a pummeled tooth. He scrambled quickly to his feet just in time to have Kate slam against his chest, knocking them both backward into the street. Todd’s head rebounded against hard ice and for one terrible moment he feared he was going to pass out.

But Kate was yanking him up onto his feet. He stumbled but rose and she jerked him forward. Like a cartoon character, his boots couldn’t get traction on the ice-slicked ground at first…but when they finally did, he shot forward and hurried after Kate.

Close behind them, that screeching cry shook the world.

They hurried across the square just as two figures emerged from darkened alleyways. They were two of the possessed, human beings with feral faces and eyes that gleamed like jewels. Kate screamed and cut to her right, Todd sticking close to her heels. A third figure sprung out of the darkness and Kate swung the bag of ammo at its head, knocking the shape backward into the shadows.

“There!” Kate shouted, pointing to a narrow avenue that wended through more deserted-looking houses. At the end of the street, the dark fingerlike structure of the church rose up against the black sky.

“Go!” Todd shouted, not daring to catch a glance over his shoulder. “Run!”

Kate took off toward the church, the bag of ammunition swinging like a pendulum. Todd stumbled but got back on his feet quickly, chasing after her. He felt the gun in his waistband beginning to come loose, so he grabbed it and held it in one hand as he ran.

The church was at the crest of a snow-covered hill and surrounded by burly lodgepole pines. Through the curtain of snow, the building seemed to tremble in the night. Kate rushed up the steps to the massive doors. She tugged on the wrought-iron handles but the doors wouldn’t open.

Todd hurried up the steps beside her. It was only then that he paused to look down at the road. “Shit.” A few of the townspeople were running after them up the street.

“It’s locked,” Kate said, nearly in disbelief. “It’s a church and it’s f*cking locked…” She began banging on the doors and shouting.

“Better give me some of that ammo,” Todd barked. He’d already popped the magazine out of the pistol.

Kate dropped to her knees and sifted through the bag. Down below, the townspeople were closing in. Worse still, it appeared that sections of the sky were shifting, coming together to form partially solid masses that oozed across the treetops.

“Oh, f*ck,” he groaned.

“Here! Here!” Kate shoved a box of nine-millimeter rounds at him. Then she spun around and screamed, her back against the locked doors of the church.

Todd fumbled with the box of ammo. His hands numb from the cold, he dropped it, sending the rounds in every possible direction. “Shit!” Dropping to his knees, he began to scoop them up and load them one at a time into the clip.

“Hurry, Todd!”

“I’m trying!”

A man in ripped jeans and a blood-soaked sweatshirt was already scrambling up the stone steps of the church.

“Todd!”

Todd slammed the magazine home and charged the pistol. He didn’t need to aim; their attacker was a mere three feet from them when Todd pulled the trigger and took the man’s face apart. Again, Kate screamed. She had both hands clamped to her ears. Todd’s hand trembled as he kept the gun aimed in. The man’s body folded backward down the steps like a Slinky, his limbs rubbery and lifeless. Then, just as they’d seen happen when Shawna had killed that man in the street outside the Pack-N-Go, the newly dead man’s body began to tremble and buck. Something vaguely vaporous began to withdraw itself from the corpse. Except for a milky opaqueness, it was practically invisible…although looking through it was like looking through heat waves rising off a desert highway. Behind it, the world was distorted.

Kate shrieked and pointed toward the road. Two more townspeople were running toward them, their strides impracticably long. They galloped like horses.

Todd fired two shots but both missed.

“Shoot better!” Kate screamed. “Shoot better!”

“I’m trying!”

The thing that had extricated itself from the dead man’s body now hovered before them like a phantom. It was comprised of snow, though the snow itself shimmered like crystal, and again Todd could make out that slender filament of silver at its core. That’s its soul. I don’t know how I know this, but I do. It’s alive and it has a soul.