Snow(38)

“Look.” Nan pointed farther down the street. “A little boy.”

But it wasn’t a little boy. Shawna knew better. The child—maybe six or seven years of age, judging by his size—stood in the center of Fairmont Street in nothing but his pajamas and bare feet. If it weren’t for the considerable distance between them and the wedge of pines that were shielding them from the roadway, Shawna would have sworn the damn thing was staring straight at them.

“What if he’s normal?” Nan said. “What if he needs help?”

“He’s not human,” Shawna assured her. “Not anymore.”

Nan was looking hard through the darkness at the boy’s frail and seemingly trustworthy frame. After a moment, she said, “Is there…there something wrong with his face?”

Shawna was busy patting down her pockets for extra rifle rounds. “Just stay back, Nan. Don’t leave the trees.”

“I think—”

Nan’s voice cut out. Shawna whipped around to see a blurry-faced figure emerge through the pines, one hand covering Nan’s mouth. The poor woman’s eyes blazed above the soot-covered knuckles. Nan’s legs kicked out as the figure dragged her backward through the trees.

Shawna lunged forward and grabbed Nan’s ankle. With her free hand, she swung the rifle around and jammed the butt against her shoulder. Aimed high. Pulled the trigger.

The pine trees shuddered. A low howl emanated from within the copse of trees. Nan’s legs were still kicking furiously, her body buried in the pines from her waist up. Shawna yanked Nan toward her but only succeeded in tearing Nan’s pants. Shawna fell back on her buttocks, the rifle thumping to the snow.

A strangled cry broke through the trees as Nan’s legs were swallowed up into the pines.

Grabbing the rifle, Shawna charged forward, pine branches whipping at her face. She cried out for Nan but the woman did not answer. She got the sense that the figure was dragging Nan through the trees just mere feet in front of her, but she could not catch up. Risking it, she raised the rifle up high and fired another shot. This one vanished into distant space. Shawna’s ears rang.

Finally she burst through the trees and spilled back out into the alleyway. Directly ahead of her, the figure was running at breakneck speed, dragging Nan behind him by her hair. Again, Shawna leveled the gun and fired two shots in a row. Both struck the figure in the back but did not slow him down.

“Shawwwwnaaaa!” Nan screamed as the figure dragged her out into the town square.

Shawna pursued, her lungs burning, her feet numb. Just as she reached the street, she saw the upper portion of the man’s body blur and lose consistency. It became a wavering shimmer of bright light and twirling snow. The figure launched up off the ground as it simultaneously became a cloud of rattling snow, carrying Nan Wilkinson with it.

Shawna raised the rifle…but there was no longer anything to shoot at…

Nan let out one final scream as she was carried off into the night sky.

“Jesus…” Shawna’s throat rasped.

The barefoot child in the pajamas appeared at the opposite end of the square. At this closer distance, Shawna could make out the smooth, unmarred convexity of flesh that made up the child’s face. There were no eyes, no mouth, no nose—just a fleshy bubble that appeared to drip down from the boy’s hairline.

Two more white moon-faces rose up from behind a parked car. Farther down the avenue, a mound of snow rose up off the ground like a missile rising up out of an underground silo.

Shawna turned and ran.





CHAPTER FOURTEEN



“This was Father Finnick’s stuff,” Meg said, lifting open the priest’s trunk. They were in a small room deep in the rectory, which was attached to the rear of the church. A tiny bed clung to one wall; above it hung an iron crucifix. In the closet, dark slacks and buttoned shirts hung neatly from wire hangers. On a small circular table sat a potted plant in desperate need of water.

“Thank you,” Kate said, kneeling down before the open trunk. It was filled with hand-stitched garments, embroidered stoles with gold trimming, and lavish robes made of a material that looked like silk but felt much heavier. “These are priest’s clothes.”

“I told you that already.”

“What happened to Father Finnick?”

“He changed.”

Kate sifted through the trunk. “Is there anything else? A coat or something?”

“Chris said to take you to the trunk. This is the trunk.”

Kate looked up. Her gaze lingered on Meg. In the glow of the candle she held, the girl looked almost savage. What had Shawna said about checking the shoulders? Could this girl actually be one of those things?

“Could you turn around for me?” Kate asked, trying to sound as innocuous as possible.

Meg’s expression—one of stupid incomprehension—did not falter. She did not turn around, either.

“Remember how Chris tore my shirt off?” Kate pursued. “Remember how he looked at those scratches down my back?”

“You want to see if I have scratches, too,” Meg said. It was not a question. The candle’s flame danced just inches below her chin.

Kate struggled to come up with something soothing and placating with which to respond, but in the end her mind came up blank. She said simply, “Yes.”