Snow(88)

A moment later, they were left staring at a natural night sky.

Todd put an arm around Kate, hugged her close to him. They were breathless and in awe. Squeezing her tightly about her shoulders, Todd could feel Kate’s heartbeat strumming through her entire body.

“Look,” Kate said suddenly. She pointed down into the valley of the town square. “Do you see?”

He did: down in the square, several pairs of headlights appeared. He thought he could hear the grinding of gears as the heavy vehicles crept slowly through the town square.

“That doesn’t look like the cops,” Kate said. “Those vehicles look military.”

Todd’s arm slipped down off Kate’s shoulder. He grabbed her hand and urged her forward. “Come on.”

Kate began laughing. She was about to run along with him until she heard something behind her. She managed to turn around in time to see Molly standing in the open doorway of the sheriff’s station, her enormous belly protruding from beneath her too-small sweatshirt, her fuzzy pink socks planted firmly in the snow. There was a look of haunted desperation on the girl’s face that caused Kate’s blood to run cold.

Molly raised a handgun and fired a single shot.





CHAPTER TWENTY-NINE



Todd was aware of vagaries—the indecision of fragile consciousness. Faces peering down at him. A bright light shining directly in his eyes. The sensation of hands tugging and pulling at his body. Then blackness.

In his dreams, he was running along a snowy hillside that crested high above a model train village. Something chased him. Something hideous and malformed, the noises of its pursuit akin to the feral ululations of wildcats. He ran, his skin burning and his eyes tearing, knowing that he could not keep up the pace forever. It was only a matter of time before a sharp bladed talon pierced through the soft flesh of his back, bursting through his backbone and severing his spinal column…

At one point, Kate was looking down on him. She smiled warmly and smoothed the hair back from his forehead. Then he was in a truck or an ambulance or some such vehicle, with whirring buzzers and blinking lights all around him. Faceless people in white attended to him. At one point he sat bolt upright (or at least imagined he did) and shouted nonsense into the ether.

There was a room—puke green walls, paisley curtains, water-stained acoustical ceiling tiles. There was a small television set bracketed to the wall, and in the doorway, shapes blurred back and forth like memories of family members long forgotten.

Justin was there. His son. He stood for a moment in the doorway, his mournful dark eyes almost pleading with him. Todd felt himself wanting to say something, wanting to reach out and touch the boy, but he felt strapped down and helpless. This isn’t my body, he thought. And if it is, I am no longer in control of it.

Which made him think of monsters. Monsters that took over people’s bodies and marched them around like puppets on strings.

But no…no…

Later, the pain came.


Still somewhat groggy, he blinked his eyes open to find a large Hispanic female in a white jumpsuit of sorts drawing blood from his inner forearm. She looked down at him and smiled humorlessly.

“Where…am I?”

“Hospital,” said the nurse. “You were shot.”

“Shot?”

“Do you know your name?”

“Yes,” he said. “What happened to my friend? A woman. Her name’s Kate.”

“There are people outside waiting for you,” said the nurse. “You should rest, but they seem very eager to see you. The doctor said it would be all right, if you are up for it.”

“Yes,” he said. “Please.”

The nurse left and Todd attempted to prop himself up on the stack of pillows at his back. The movement caused a sharp pain to go shooting straight across his right shoulder, where it pooled like lava along the right side of his ribs. Wincing, he gripped the bedsheets in both hands until the pain subsided.

Two men in black suits entered the hospital room.

“Mr. Curry,” said the first suit—a well-built man in his late thirties, sporting a buzz cut that turned silver at the temples. They both stopped at the foot of his bed, their hands folded in front of them. “I’m Carl Freed and this is Michael Shovenson. We’re with the Department of Defense, Chicago field office.”

“Am I under arrest or something?”

“Not at all,” said Freed. Beside him, Shovenson—skin the color of ground coffee and a bald head reflecting the fluorescent ceiling lights—produced a notepad and pen from the inside pocket of his suit jacket. “We just need a statement from you about what happened.”

Todd attempted to raise his right hand and drag his fingers through his hair, but just lifting it halfway caused the pain in his shoulder to explode again. He sucked air in through clenched teeth.

“You in pain?” asked Shovenson. He had a voice like a bassoon.

“A little.”

“We’ll just take that statement,” said Freed, “then get out of your hair. Your girlfriend is outside waiting to see you,” he added, as if hoping this information would move things along more quickly.

“I’m afraid you won’t believe a word of what happened,” Todd said. He tried on a smile but it felt false on his face. For one horrible moment he thought he might actually break down in tears in front of these two men.