Snow(56)

“Smart,” said Tully, “or just driven by some otherworldly instinct. Who the hell knows?”

“Scrambling signals and cutting off power doesn’t explain why the cars won’t start,” Todd said.

“Cars got about a billion little microchips and whatnot in ’em,” Tully explained.

“So there’s no way out of here,” Todd said again.

“Figured we’d sit tight until the power company came out here to see what happened to their line,” said Tully.

“It’s been a week,” Todd said. “I would have thought they’d come out here by now.”

“Maybe. Maybe not.” Tully seemed disinterested. His hand returned from within the refrigerator with a handful of black olives. He popped them into his mouth like medication, then pushed the refrigerator door closed with the sole of his boot. “We should get out of here.”


They followed Tully back out into the yard. Instead of crossing back to the front and down to the street, Tully led them between properties enclosed by trees.

“Wait,” Todd said, surveying the area. “You said we’re going to the sheriff’s station? Isn’t it on the other side of town?”

“That’s right,” said Tully.

“We’re going in the opposite direction. We should cut through the town square and head up the road.”

“You don’t want to go cutting through the square, friend.” Tully was working something out of his teeth with his tongue while he spoke. “That’s their nest. They’ve claimed it. For whatever reason, they all congregate there during the day. You head that way now, you won’t make it out alive.”

Without waiting for their response, Tully turned and continued pushing through the heavy snow. A beat later, Todd and Kate followed.

They cut between narrow fencing and through overgrown holly bushes, Tully leading the charge like a general about to overtake a hill. Aside from his camouflage coat and wool hat, he wore mud-streaked BDUs (every pocket bulged) and a bandolier of large rounds across his flannel shirt. Although he moved lithely through the snow, he jangled like a slot machine: aside from the fuel canisters at his waist and the clanking bottles in the backpack over his shoulders, his belt was overburdened with countless sets of keys. He looked comically like a janitor gone commando.

“Shhhhh,” Tully said at one point, sinking down low to the ground. Todd and Kate followed suit. Peering through dense evergreen shrubs, Tully jerked his chin at something down in the street. “There’s one now.”

Todd maneuvered so he could see through the bushes. Down between two houses, the street sloped close to a muddy ravine, beside which rose the leafless branches of ancient gray trees. At first Todd couldn’t see what Tully was talking about…but then he happened to catch sight of a slight wrongness up in one of the trees. He squinted and leaned closer on the balls of his feet. Midway up in one tree, the air looked slightly discolored, almost brownish, and the tree branches in that particular spot seemed less defined than those around them. It was up there in the tree, perhaps fifteen feet wide, unfurled and just barely visible. The closest thing Todd’s mind could compare it to was a stingray, with those triangular fins and an ill-defined underside.

“Where?” Kate whispered, crawling closer to him. “I don’t see anything.”

“There.” He pointed and spread the bushes just a bit farther apart. “See?”

“I don’t—oh…” Her hand closed around his arm. “I see it. My God, what is it?”

“That, my dear lady,” said Tully, rising back to his full height, “is a question for the ages.”

Tully led them the long way, but claimed it to be safer. They stayed mostly hidden between shops and houses or behind curtains of trees. The only time they crossed out in the open was when Tully led them up the snowy hillside that led to the old church. “It’ll be safest to travel by the church because last night’s fire would have frightened them off.” There was a hint of accusation in Tully’s tone that suggested he knew Todd and Kate, these two outsiders to his town, were somehow responsible for burning down the church. “Yeah…they’ll steer clear of this spot for a while, is my guess,” Tully repeated, his heavy boots smashing craters in the hardening snow. Even with his backpack full of liquor he moved at a quick pace; Todd and Kate had a strenuous time keeping up with him.

“The whole thing burned.” Kate was in awe. She paused to stare at the smoldering black teepee that, only the night before, had been a church. Smoke still poured up into the false sky where it spread out along the low cloud cover as if the clouds themselves were solid, tangible things. As a teenager, Todd had once tried to light a fire in his mother’s fireplace without thinking to see if the flue was open. The result sent billowing columns of black smoke straight to the ceiling where they seemed to collect like helium balloons. Looking at the way the smoke from the church collected at the base of the clouds, Todd was reminded of that day, and how his mother had never been able to get the stink of smoke out of the sofa.

There was something that resembled an enormous scythe blade jutting up from the center of the smoldering rubble, charred black and brittle looking. Todd’s eyes hung on it for a very long time.

“That funky opening in the sky is gone now,” Kate noticed, examining the sky above her head. The clouds were the color of soot and the air itself had a tallow tinge to it.