Snow(90)

Kate didn’t answer, but Todd already knew what the answer would be. On the TV, the reporter was replaced by a computerized map of the United States alight with red “hot zones,” as they were labeled, throughout the country. “This just in,” the female reporter’s voice carried over the scene of the map. “Eleven people were discovered alive in the small South Dakota town of East Fork, their stories no different from the hundreds of others we’ve been hearing for the past two days now, bringing the total number of Midwestern towns involved in this uncanny and unexplainable nationwide event up to—”

“Please shut that off,” he said.

Kate clicked the TV off. “Gerald’s down in the lobby. We’ve been here for a few hours. I didn’t want to leave until I knew you were all right.”

“Thank you.”

“I took the liberty of putting my number in your cell phone,” she said. “I hope you’ll keep in touch.”

“After all we’ve been through?”

She laughed. “I’m not your only visitor, by the way.”

His own smile faltered.

Smoothing his hair to one side, she said, “I hope you don’t mind. I found the number in your cell phone and I thought it was the right thing to do…”

Looking past Kate, Todd could suddenly see Justin standing in the doorway of the hospital room. The boy was wearing the same ski jacket and bright boots he’d been wearing in what Todd had assumed had been a dream. When the boy caught sight of his father’s face, he closed the distance from the doorway to Todd’s bed in no time at all. Justin hopped onto the bed and, despite the pain it caused his shoulder, Todd gripped the boy and squeezed him hard. He smelled Justin’s hair, his skin, his clothes—taking in every bit of the boy.

“Daddy,” Justin said against his cheek. “Are you hurt?”

“I think I’ll be okay, sport.”

The boy hugged him hard and painfully around the neck. Todd felt his throat tighten and his vision grow blurry.

Brianna appeared at the foot of the bed. She looked frail and thin in a coat that hugged her too tightly, her hair tucked beneath a white beret. She clutched her handbag before her with both hands, uncertain what to say or even how to look.

“I’ll leave you guys alone,” Kate said. She turned and rested a hand on Todd’s shoulder. “Take care, Todd.”

“You, too.”

Kate did not look back at him as she walked quickly out of the room.

His arms still wrapped around his son, he offered Brianna a tired smile as he rested his chin atop Justin’s head. He could feel the boy’s heartbeat against his own, the child’s body warm and good. There was no pain here. Not here, not now. Still smiling at Brianna, he could feel the silence between them in the room, interrupted only by the scuffing of shoes outside in the hallway.

After a while, Brianna smiled back. “Merry Christmas, Todd.”

“Merry Christmas, Bree.”

She came and sat on the edge of his bed. Hesitantly, she rested a hand on his leg. After a few seconds, she began rubbing his leg…timidly at first, but gradually warming up to him.

Closing his eyes, Todd leaned back against the pillows and listened as his heartbeat strummed in sync with his son’s.





EPILOGUE



Nineteen miles west of Bicklerville, a thirty-eight-year-old woman named Tracy Murphy stood beneath the lighted awning of a gas station, pumping fuel into her Mercedes while surveying the stars that hung low over the distant trees. Somewhat jumpy from the strange stories that had been on the news the past two days, Tracy now doubted her decision to drive from her folks’ place in Iowa back home to Nebraska. She’d originally planned to stay with her parents until New Year’s Day, but she should have known better—Cliff and Joan Murphy fought like two feral cats tied up together in a sack. Had it not been for the snowstorm, the drive would not have been a difficult one at all. But the roads hadn’t been plowed and Chuck’s goddamn Mercedes kept overheating. Last night, as her eyelids had drooped lower and lower, she’d had no choice but to take refuge in a shitty roadside motel where the sheets stank of dirty feet and a bloated tampon floated in the toilet like detritus from a barge. And with all that weird shit on the radio about people disappearing from neighboring towns…well, the thought was unsettling, to say the least.

A rust-colored pickup truck pulled into the gas station and shuddered to a stop beside one of the pumps. Tracy could make out two slumped shapes in the cab, one larger than the other. No one got out of the pickup right away; as Tracy watched, the two figures remained inside, although she did not think they were talking. It looked like they were both staring straight ahead out the windshield at the highway as it wound off into the distant pines.

Eventually, a man climbed out. He wore a checkered flannel jacket and a grim expression. Several days’ growth shadowed the line of his jaw. The man cast an uneasy glance at Tracy, his skin looking sallow and almost dull green beneath the recessed fluorescent lighting up in the awning. Tracy felt a cold twinge at the base of her spine. Quickly, she turned away from the man and silently willed the f*cking pump to go faster.

She heard the man’s footsteps approaching. Waiting for the man’s reflection to appear behind her in the smoked window of the Mercedes, she balled her fist around her keys, the ignition key jutting straight out between her index and middle fingers. She’d jab him right in the eye if he laid a hand on her…