Snow(39)

“Dad had them.”

“Your father?”

“Straight down his back,” said Meg. “Two long cuts. Like someone…like someone chopped him with an axe…”

“That’s horrible.” One of Kate’s hands advanced the slightest bit, moving to touch the girl and offer some semblance of comfort…but she stopped herself at the last minute.

“He came back to the church,” Meg went on. Her voice was monotone. “He banged on the door for hours. I wanted to let him in, but Chris said it wasn’t our dad anymore.”

“What happened?”

“He went around to the side of the church to try to break the windows,” Meg said. “That’s when Chris went up into the bell tower and dropped a fountain on him.”

“A fountain?”

“One of those marble water fountains at the front of the church,” Meg said. “I forget what they’re called. Chris knows.”

“Chris killed your dad?”

“It wasn’t our dad. Chris said so.”

“But he killed him?”

“He dropped the fountain on him and one of those things came out. The things that turn into snow.”

Despite the chill, a tacky film of perspiration now coated Kate’s face and neck. Resigned, she turned back to the trunk and stared noncommittally at the garments inside. “Isn’t there anything else? Anything at all?”

“This is the trunk,” was all Meg said. She’d taken a single step back; the repositioning of the candlelight caused the shadows to shift.

Kate looked up. A corduroy blazer hung in the closet. She got up and took the blazer down from the hanger. It would be a bit long on her, but she much preferred it over some religious robes.

“No,” Meg said. There was a strictness in her voice that caused an icy finger to prod the base of Kate’s spine. “Chris said to take you to the trunk.”

“And you did. But I don’t want to wear any of that stuff.” She pulled on the blazer.

“No!” Meg threw the candle down and the light blew out, dousing the room in blackness. The girl stomped out of the room. Standing in absolute darkness, Kate listened to her footfalls recede down the hallway.

I need to get Todd and we both need to get the hell out of here, she thought. Suddenly, she found she’d much rather be back at the Pack-N-Go with the others than here in this church with these two strange kids.

Kate hurried back out into the narrow hallway. Ahead of her in the darkness, Meg’s footfalls struck hollowly as she took off. There was another sound, too—a consistent thumping coming from somewhere above her head, like someone rhythmically dropping a fist over and over against the rafters.

“Meg,” she called after the girl, her voice swallowed up by the darkness.

Dragging one hand along the wall, Kate headed back in the direction of the main body of the church, moving strictly by intuition. Without lights, it was like passing through an enclosed maze. Once, she even thumped against one wall.

Eventually she felt the space around her expand and she could make out the dimly lighted stained glass radiating with the moon’s glow, and she knew she was in the heart of the church. As her eyes grew accustomed to the dark, the bracketed shape of the altar, like white bone, was visible on the chancel. To her immediate right, rows of pews stretched out like the exposed ribs of some giant fallen carcass.

Someone else was in the church with her; Kate could make out the indefinite shuffling of nervous feet across the dusty floor.

“Is that you, Meg?”

“You’re going to make Chris angry,” Meg called back. The vastness of the church made it sound like she was speaking from every direction at once. “He’ll hit me again.”

“No,” Kate assured her. “No, he won’t.”

“You don’t know!”

“Where is Chris now?”

Almost as if on cue, the thumping sound increased. It was coming from directly behind Kate, as if straight through the wall at her back.

Kate spun around, her hands pawing at the heavy shadows. The movement stirred up cobwebs; they wafted down from the nearby rafters and got tangled in her hair.

A door opened somewhere close. Kate could hear heavy, labored breathing. That same instant, a candle flickered to life, frighteningly close to her. It was Meg, having snuck up beside her in the dark, the candle causing the shadows to swim across her narrow little features. Kate peered at the open doorway to see Chris’s broad shoulders come backward through the opening. He was bent over, dragging something…and Kate felt a sickness knot up in her belly.

It was Todd, unconscious or dead. The thumping sound she’d heard had been Todd’s boots thumping down the belltower stairs.

“What’d you do to him, you son of a bitch?” Kate shouted. Beside her, Meg recoiled.

“He was going to open the windows,” Chris rasped, out of breath. He let go of Todd’s arms and Todd’s body slumped motionless to the floor. “He was trying to let those things inside.”

“That’s bullshit. He wouldn’t do that.”

Chris whirled around on her. In the light of the candle, his piggy eyes gleamed like seabed stones. “Were you there? Do you know?”

Through clenched teeth, Kate said, “Is he dead? Did you kill him?”