Snow(34)

Also, the f*cking car stank. She shifted in the seat and heard ice crystals crunching beneath her weight. Leaning forward, she could make out what appeared to be frozen blood on the dashboard and along the console. She reached up and adjusted the rearview mirror until she could get a view of the backseat.

There was something dead back there. A person. She could make out a white, blood-streaked hand.

Oh Jesus oh Christ oh f*ck oh Jesus…

“Calm down,” she told Nan. She reached down and cracked the window the slightest bit. The wind that whistled in was ice cold but it helped clear out the smell. “Nan, please calm down.”

Nan swiped at her eyes. Once she got her crying under control, she stared down at her hands. Her breath came out in little clouds of vapor and fogged up the windshield. “He’s dead. He’s really dead. You shot him.”

“He was dead before I shot him,” Shawna promised. “Believe me.”

“I know.”

Shawna reached out and felt the steering column. A sudden spark of hope ignited within her as her hand closed on a set of car keys in the ignition. She turned them but the car made no sound. “Goddamn it.”

“Fred already tried this car,” Nan said, her voice so small it was practically nonexistent. “He tried every one on this side of the street. That’s when that…that man came out of the shadows and started chasing us. The man you shot.” Nan turned to look at her, but Shawna could not face her. “What are we going to do?”

We’re going to sit here and freeze to death in this car, Shawna thought. Amazingly, the thought nearly sent her into a fit of laughter. Surely that would have calmed Nan. Sitting in a car with a crazy person…

“What if we just walked back out to the main road?” Nan suggested. “We could wait for another car to drive by and flag them down.”

“We’d never make it.”

“Well, we certainly can’t sit here all night, can we? We’ll freeze.”

“I know. I’m thinking.”

“It…it became real for a minute in there, didn’t it? That thing. When you set it on fire, you made it whole.”

“I know. I noticed.” She ran a hand through her tangled nest of hair. “Those oil drums outside, the ones with the fires burning in them? That was Jared’s idea. He noticed those things tend to stay away from anything too warm. Heat makes them tangible, and when they’re tangible they can be hurt, probably even killed. I think that’s why they get inside people to feed—the warmth of the human body makes them whole enough so that they can eat.”

Nan said, “Who’s Jared?”

“My boyfriend. The dead guy back at the Pack-N-Go.” Lowering her voice, Shawna said, “They got to him two days ago. I had to shoot him. This is his rifle. He used it to hunt deer.”

Suddenly, she laughed. And her laughter turned into tears. Nan draped an arm around her neck and drew her closer. Together, they cried.


Through absolute darkness, Todd followed the girl deep into the bowels of the church, her slender hand cold in his. When they reached a narrow corridor, Meg relit the candle, casting tallow light down along the wood-paneled walls.

“Come on,” Meg urged him, continuing down the hallway.

Todd followed. Lithographs of Jesus Christ and the Virgin Mary glared accusingly down at him from the walls. At the end of the hall, Todd could make out a single closed door, beneath which radiated a soft orange glow. Meg stopped outside this door, resting her hand on the doorknob.

“Don’t be mad,” she said.

“What do you mean?”

“Just promise. Don’t be mad.”

Stupidly, he nodded. “Okay. I promise.”

Meg opened the door and led him into the room.

Kate was tied to a chair in the otherwise empty room, a series of candles burning in ceramic plates on the floor. Kate lifted her head, her hair a stringy mess before her eyes, her shoulders and arms bound by rope. Her sweater had been removed—it sat balled up in one corner of the room, dangerously close to one of the burning candles—leaving her in nothing but a flimsy satin bra.

“Jesus, Todd,” Kate groaned.

Todd rushed to her, dropped to his knees in front of her. “What the hell happened?” He glared at Meg. “What’d you do?”

“You promised not to get mad.”

“There’s another one,” Kate said quickly. “A boy. He tied me up…took my cluh-clothes off…” She was shivering from the cold, her skin bristling with gooseflesh.

“Hang on,” Todd said, moving around back to untie her.

“You shouldn’t do that,” Meg said. “Chris tied her up for a reason.”

“Oh, yeah?” Todd returned. “What reason was that?”

Angry, Meg did not answer. She blew out her candle, which was pointless, since the room was littered with them.

The ropes untied, they dropped to the floor and onto Kate’s lap. Kate squirmed her way out of them and up out of the chair, hugging her bare chest. Her breasts were small and prickled with goose bumps, the nipples straining against the fabric of her bra in the cold. Embarrassed, Todd looked away. He gathered up her sweater from the floor and tossed it to her.

“Did your brother take the bag of ammunition, too?” he asked Meg.