Snow(9)

She leaned forward in her seat, too. “What kind of something?”

“A road sign. At least, I think it—”

“There!” Kate said, as excited as a schoolgirl.

“Yeah. I see it, too.”

It was one of those standard green roadside signs with the luminous white letters, and it came sliding out of the snow-covered pines like an apparition. The moonlight caused the white letters to glow.





WOODSON 3 miles


“Civilization,” Kate breathed, the relief in her voice so evident it was nearly comical. “Thank God.”

“No exit number,” Todd said.

“There’s a Woodson on the map,” Kate said. “It looks like it’s just off the main highway. Which means we’re in Iowa already.”

“Christ. I don’t remember seeing a sign entering Iowa, either. Do you?”

“No…but it was snowing pretty hard until now. Maybe we missed it.”

The Cherokee bucked and whined. Todd eased it down to thirty-five. Glancing up in the rearview and beyond the snoring portrait of Fred Wilkinson, the world had vanished into heaps of white snow and, beyond the snow, infinite blackness. The moon was a blazing silver scythe in the sky.

“Todd!” Kate’s hand clamped down on his arm. He jerked his eyes back to the road just as a shape—indistinct except for the fact that it had been undeniably human—shuffled into the swell of black pines off the right shoulder of the road. Kate’s grip tightened on his arm. “Did you see it?”

“A man,” he said.

“Are you—”

Suddenly, the figure was in the middle of the road, only a few yards in front of them as if he had materialized out of thin air. Kate made a sound like a small dog and Todd slammed on the brakes. The brakes locked and the Cherokee plowed forward, sliding effortlessly on the ice-capped snow. The man stood as still as a frightened deer, the vehicle’s oncoming headlights seeming to drain all color from his face. A man in a black-and red-checkered flannel coat and high boots, mid-forties, bearded, pale—

“Jesus, Todd!”

He jerked the wheel to the left and felt nothing. Then he overcompensated to the right and instantly knew it was a bad move: the Cherokee fishtailed until it was running perpendicular, the headlights now illuminating the high bank of packed snow along the right shoulder of the road. For two split seconds, the world ceased to make sense. Then, miraculously, the Cherokee somehow righted itself and faced forward again, though not perfectly centered on the roadway as it had been before. Todd could no longer see the man in the red and black coat and was overcome by a sudden, nauseating certainty that he had run over him. Then the right front bumper slammed into a snowdrift, smashing out the right headlamp and causing the Cherokee to shudder to a stop.

White-knuckled, Todd clenched the steering wheel. Beside him, Kate was running her fingers through her hair and repeating, “Oh, God,” over and over again like a mantra. In the backseat, Fred Wilkinson scrambled to sit up straight, one hand pawing stupidly at the side window.

“Everyone okay?” Todd managed. He sounded like he was talking into an electric fan.

“What the hell happened?” Fred’s voice was equally shaken.

“There was a man in the road,” he told Fred. “I think…I think…”

“No,” Kate said. Her hand had returned to his arm, much more tenderly this time. “You didn’t hit him. He moved.”

“Did you see him move?”

“A man?” Fred sounded incredulous.

“You didn’t hit him,” Kate said again, as if repeating it would make it fact. “We would have…would have felt it if…if you…” Amazingly, she uttered a nervous laugh. A sprig of red curls had come loose from under her wool cap and dangled down her left temple.

“We’re okay,” Nan piped up, speaking for both herself and her husband. “You’re okay, aren’t you, Fred?”

“Sure,” Fred said, calming down. “Wish I would have thought to buy some extra undies at the duty-free shop, though…” He cleared his throat, then said, “A man out there, did you say?”

“Yeah, Fred. Yeah.”

Their nervous, mingled breathing had fogged the windows. Todd could see nothing except the dull tallow glow of the remaining headlamp cutting through the darkness outside. He exchanged a look with Kate, then popped open the driver’s side door.

The cold attacked him mercilessly the second he stepped from the vehicle. He hugged his coat around himself, stuffing his bare hands beneath his armpits. Something was hissing beneath the Cherokee’s hood, causing vapor to billow up in a cloud from the grille where it practically froze into crystals in the freezing night air. Todd afforded it no more than a cursory glance—the right front corner was wedged into the snowdrift, of all luck—before stepping out into the middle of the roadway.

He expected to see a black ribbon of blood snaking through the packed snow, perhaps one of those high forester boots strewn off to one side. Entrails, even. But the road was clear, the snow unblemished except for the double helix carved into it from the Cherokee’s fishtailing tires.

“Hello?” he called out…though he could hardly muster more than a pitiful croak.

“Todd?” Kate said, coming up behind him. Her breath clouded the air like great bursts of magnolia blossoms. She placed a tentative hand on his right shoulder. “Todd?”