Snow(82)

It took less than a minute for the programs to load. Todd danced his fingers over the keyboard and summoned the Internet Explorer box.

“Where are you going?” Kate asked.

“I’m going to contact the Bicklerville Police Department,” Todd said. “It’s the next town over and the closet police station to Woodson.” The Internet Explorer page was still loading, the screen blank. “Come on, come on…” He looked behind the laptop and saw the row of green lights blinking on the faceplate of the modem. “This should work. Come on, baby. Come on.”

The Web page died without loading.

“Fuck,” Kate said, the word nearly sticking to her throat.

Todd slammed a fist down on the desktop. He closed out the box on the screen and attempted it again. A new box appeared as the Internet Explorer began to load. “Come on…let’s make this happen…”

“If this doesn’t work, we’re dead. Those things will come back. They know we’re in here and they’ll come back. And they’ll find a way in.” She was thinking of the horrid wormlike thing she’d smashed to death with the hammer. She shuddered.

“It’ll work.”

The page was still loading…

“It’s our last chance, Todd.”

“It’ll work,” he repeated. Digging around in the front pocket of his pants, he pulled out a single dollar bill. He slammed it down on the table, then turned to her, grinning. “I’ll bet you a buck it works.”

Kate laughed and felt tears trace down her cheeks. “I don’t have any money, Todd.”

“It’s okay,” he said. “I know you’re good for it. Take the bet.”

She looked at the computer screen.

The page was still loading.

“Go on,” he urged. “Take the bet.”

Still loading…

“Okay,” she said. “You’re on.”

Still—

“Hot damn!” he howled, slapping his hands together. The Yahoo! home page opened, the Yahoo! icon header outfitted in a Christmas theme with snowmen and an ornamented tree. “We’re in business!”

Laughing through her tears, Kate clicked the lighter shut and said, “I guess I owe you a buck!”

In the search box, Todd typed “Bicklerville Iowa Police Department” and hit the search button.

Back out in the hallway, someone else began pounding on the front doors. “Oh, shit!” Kate cried, hopping up and banging the barrel of the shotgun against the lip of the desktop. She ran out of the office and down the long hallway, the dreary light coming in from the pebbled windowpanes making the hallway look as though it was submerged underwater. She struck the doors with such force she felt a twinge in her funny bone, and quickly unlocked the padlock again.

Brendan slouched through the doorway, bleeding from a gash at the side of his neck. He hooked onto Kate for support and Kate fought off a scream, the shotgun protruding up toward the ceiling between them. One hand pressed to the wound at his neck, Brendan opened his mouth to speak—“Mawwwh”—just as blood as black as squids’ ink spilled from his mouth and dribbled down the front of Kate’s shirt.

“Shut…” Brendan managed, “…doors…”

Still clinging to Brendan, Kate kicked the double doors shut, then shouted for Todd. “It’s Brendan! He’s hurt!” Black shapes began flitting behind the pebbled glass. “Jesus, Brendan, did you bring them back here?”

Brendan collapsed in her arms; it took all Kate’s strength to hold him up.

Todd came up behind her. He seemed to do a double take at the horrific amount of blood. “We need bandages,” he said, sliding both hands beneath Brendan’s armpits. “Lock the doors!”

Kate rushed to the doors while Todd dragged Brendan’s twitching body down the hall toward the bank of offices. Just as she pushed them closed, an arm slipped through the gap, firing like a piston and clawing at her. Kate screamed and began pounding at the arm with the butt of the shotgun. The thing on the other side of the door hissed like a snake just as a second arm appeared, this one stained with blood the color of Mercurochrome. The thing shoved itself against the doors, its strength too much for Kate. Instead of fighting against it, she jumped back several feet and allowed the doors to swing open.

The thing that stood on the other side of the threshold had, at one time, certainly been human—but what had happened to it over the past week or so had twisted it, broken it, carved away any sense of humanity it once had, leaving only a fiery, razor-eyed husk in its place. Its head tipped so far back on its neck, Kate was certain its Adam’s apple would burst through the taut flesh of its throat…then, opening its mouth, it released a deafening wail that shook the windowpanes and caused snow to shake off the front awning.

“Cocksucker,” Kate muttered, and fired a round at the thing’s head.

The blast tore through the upper torso of the thing, its chest opening up like some rare undersea plant. Blood splattered everywhere. The thing’s body shook, trembled, then folded almost neatly to the ground as something whitish and forceful as a windstorm funneled out of it. The whitish cloud took off like a shot out across the front yard and vanished into the veil of trees at the other end of the street.

Covered in blood herself, Kate rushed forward and slammed both doors shut. She padlocked them and felt the world tilt, as if to shake her off into space.