She stood there in the flickering light, looking into his face, looking a little faint and a lot worried.
“Come on,” Warren said. He’d decided cleaning off the blood had been a stupid thing to worry about. “Let’s go get your clothes on. You must be freezing.”
As if him saying it had made it true, she began to shiver. She wrapped her arms around her quivering breasts and shut her mouth when her teeth chattered.
Warren lowered the candle and ushered Tess back down the hall. Bub got up before they reached him and led them into the living room, limping. He looked back at them once and wagged his tail a single time, to the side and back to center, as if asking if everything was okay.
“It’s okay,” Warren said and thought he’d been saying that a lot lately. He guessed that’s what you did when bad things happened: assure your loved ones everything would be okay until either it were or it weren’t. “It’s going to be fine.”
He brought Tess to the bare mattress and grabbed her clothes from the floor. They had a few splatters of blood on them, and he guessed they’d have to throw them away when this was all over, but they were fine for wearing, for keeping warm.
“Here,” he said and handed her her undergarments. “Turn around; I’ll help you.”
She shook her head. “I can do it.” She stepped into her panties and slipped her bra straps over her shoulders.
“So what are you going to do?” She reached around to hook her bra. She struggled for a minute, sighed and ripped the bra off.
Warren reached down to pick it off the floor and help her back into it, but she told him to leave it be and give her her shirt.
“I can go braless. I don’t feel like something squeezing me around the chest. Makes me feel coughy.”
He handed her the shirt and waited until she’d pulled it over her head.
“I think there’s only one thing I
can
do,” he said. “I’ve got to go for help.”
“Go how?” She took her pants, a stretchy pair of pajama bottoms, and pulled them on.
He circled the mattress, found his own clothes, and started dressing.
“The Young place is only about three miles down the mountain.” He tugged his shirt over his head. “If they’re home and their phone is working, I’ll call for help.”
“You’re going to walk?”
He raised his eyebrows and tried to smile. “I don’t think I have a whole lot of options.”
“What if they’re not home? Or their phone isn’t working? Or they don’t answer the door?”
“You think they’d leave me out in the cold?”
She shrugged. “We barely know them.”
“They’ll let me in,” he said. “And if they don’t…”
“What?”
He buttoned his pants and sighed. “I don’t know, but I’ll figure out something. If they’re not home, I’ll break down the damn door.”
“Three miles is a long walk on a nice day,” she said. “It’ll take you hours in this storm.”
He nodded. “At least. It’s still dark out there, too. It won’t be easy going.”
A pair of tears dripped down the sides of her face, and he wished he hadn’t said that last part.
She said, “Don’t do it. You’ll freeze to death. I’ll be fine. Promise. You don’t need to go, okay?”
“I won’t freeze. I’ve got enough warm clothes to keep me cozy in the worst blizzard you could ever imagine.”
“I don’t think I could imagine one worse than this.”
He couldn’t argue with that.
“I have to go. Okay? You’re coughing out blood and need help. This is the only option left.”
She tried one more time: “Even if you get there, and they let you in, and their phone is working, no one is going to send an ambulance or a helicopter in this weather.”
“If they won’t send help, I’ll borrow the Youngs’ car and come back up here for you myself.”
“But—” She pressed her palm against her chest, and Warren hurried around the mattress. She held out a hand, stopping him halfway there, clutched her chest for another second, and then said, “I’m okay. It’s nothing.”
He rubbed her shoulder and kissed her lacerated face. “I don’t know how or when or who or what,” he said, “but I will find a way to help you.”
Or die trying
, he thought but wouldn’t say.
He put on the rest of his clothes, grabbed the flashlight from the mantle, and went into the bedroom for another layer of clothing. Tess didn’t follow him this time, and when he came back, she’d added another log to the fire and plopped down in one of the chairs. Bub lay at her feet. When he saw Warren, he gave him a worried look and then laid his head on Tess’s foot. Warren didn’t think he was going to have much trouble getting the dog to stay put when he left this time.
“It’s going to take me a while to get down there,” Warren said.
“I know.”
“This is going to sound all kinds of motherly, but try to relax while I’m gone, okay? Stay close to the fire and try not to move much.”
She gave him an exasperated look.
“Hey, I said it was going to sound motherly. But I’m serious. Whatever’s going on in there, I don’t want it to get any worse.” He went over to her, kneeled on the floor by Bub’s head, and took her hands. “I’m not gonna say anything like ‘I’ll be back before you know it’ but I promise I
will
go as fast as I can.”
“Only as fast as is safe,” she said and squeezed his hands. “Promise?”
He did.
He brought three armloads of firewood from the back hall, his back muscles aching the whole time, before putting on his final layers of outerwear and lacing up his boots. He knew the flashlight wouldn’t do a lot of good out in the blizzard, but he put it in his pocket anyway.
Before he left, he kneeled on the floor beside Tess again. She kissed him once on the forehead and once more on the lips.
“Take care of her,” he told Bub. The dog looked up at him, wagged his tail, and pressed himself more firmly against Tess’s legs.
Warren kissed Tess’s hand, but neither of them said another word. He took the flashlight out of his pocket, turned it on, opened the door, and stepped into the storm.
12
One of the mostly formed things lay in the truck’s bed, which was now just a depression in a pile of snow and no longer really part of the vehicle. The monster writhed and bucked as its limbs formed themselves from the surrounding snow.
If you’d been there to see it, you could have watched Warren exit the house and trudge right past the monstrosity. Until he had passed, the creature lay still. You might have expected it to get up and attack, but maybe it wasn’t ready for that yet, wasn’t developed enough. For whatever reason, it let Warren go.
When it was alone again, the creature continued its slithering formation. After the last coil of ice had slid into place, the thing lifted its head and looked down at the man’s tracks. You could see them there, running alongside the snow-covered truck, already disappearing in the ever-falling snow.
The thing looked toward the house and then at the tracks again. Back toward the house. Tracks. House. It cocked its head and flicked a frozen tongue over its teeth. It slid out of its depression, rolling across the snow, picking up bulk as it moved. Curls of ice formed ahead of it, melded with it as it rolled and slithered across them; the tendrils curled around its many appendages, froze into place.
When it reached the bottom of the mound that had once been a truck, it stopped moving and basked in the blizzard’s swirling winds. It stared at the house for a long time before making a gurgling noise that sounded almost, but not quite, like insane laughter.
13
Before he’d gotten as far as the truck, Warren began to wonder if he was going to make it. The storm seemed to be getting worse by the minute. Despite the layers of clothing, he felt every gust of wind. His scarf was moist over his mouth and nose, and his eyelashes were already collecting snow and ice. He had tried using the flashlight, but it was worthless. The reflected light disoriented him. He could see more clearly without it. It was night, but not completely dark; ambient light reflected off the ground, the falling snow, and the white sky. He still couldn’t see much more than a few yards ahead of himself, but he wasn’t totally blind. If he could stay close enough to it, he thought he’d be able to follow their fence down the long private drive to the road beyond, but once he reached that, he wondered how he’d ever be able to find the Young place.
You won’t. This is suicide. When this is all over, they’ll find you frozen to death less than half a mile from the house. Count on it.
No. He wouldn’t give in to that kind of thinking. The Youngs had a big metal mailbox at the head of their driveway; he’d passed it plenty of times driving into town. If he followed the tree line down the side of the road, he’d find the mailbox and go from there. He might not see the thing until he was a few feet away, but he would find it. Probably.
Maybe.
From a distance, the snow-covered fence was barely distinguishable from the rest of the landscape, but once Warren found it, it was easy enough to follow. He took a few shuffling steps through the snow, looked up to be sure he hadn’t wandered off in the wrong direction, and then took a few more steps. Repeat and repeat again. It was slow going, but the wind was blowing at his back, which was lucky. He wasn’t sure he’d have had the energy to walk through the snow drifts
and
into the storm.
How long would it take him to get to the end of the drive? He wasn’t sure. It was about a mile long. On a nice day, he might have been able to walk the distance in fifteen or twenty minutes. Tonight, he guessed he’d be lucky to make it there in an hour. He considered counting his steps, but he wasn’t sure how many steps there were in a mile, and trying to count would only discourage him. Not to mention that, in this case, a step was more of a shuffling, irregular lurch. Instead, he decided to lower his head and just keep on keeping on.
What about frostbite? You think you’re going to make it through this without having to sacrifice a few fingers or toes?
He wasn’t so worried about his fingers—his gloves were keeping his hands surprisingly toasty—but he guessed his toes probably
were
in some danger. His boots weren’t lined or waterproof. Maybe he should have worn a few extra pairs of socks, but even that might not have been good enough. He had to admit there was a chance he’d lose some toes, but if that was the price for keeping his wife alive, he’d pay it. Gladly.
His back twinged, and he stopped for a second to try to massage it through his layers of clothing. Throwing his back out earlier might have been inconvenient, but now it would be deadly. He didn’t want to stop any longer than he had to, but he promised himself he wouldn’t push his back to the breaking point. He twisted from side to side; his muscles burned and throbbed. He stretched forward and backward and then sideways again. Although his back was still sore (and likely would be for the next few days or weeks), it no longer felt like it was going to go out on him.
He shuffled forward a few more steps and looked up at the mound of snow that was the fence.
Something sped through the snow beyond.
What the hell was that?
He stopped and squinted. It had looked like something biggish, almost human sized, but that couldn’t be, could it? He was sure he’d just imagined it; or maybe he’d seen a clump of ice on one of his eyelashes and thought it was something farther in the distance. Whatever the case, the movement didn’t come again. He stared at the empty space beyond the fence for another second, then lowered his head and moved on.
You’re not even out of pissing distance of the house and this storm is already driving you crazy.
He staggered on, one step, two, trying to ignore everything except the movement of his legs and the ground just ahead.
When he looked up the next time, he saw movement again. This time, he was sure of it. The shape was just a blur hurrying across the road ahead, but it was definitely there. Not ice on his lashes. Not his imagination.
What then?
He stopped again and cupped his hands around his mouth. “Hello?”
He waited to see if the shape would move again. When it didn’t, he called out a second time: “Hello? Is someone there?”
Although he was screaming with the wind, his voice didn’t seem to carry. The falling snow muffled it, dampened it. It was like trying to scream through a pillow.
“If there’s someone there,” he said, “show yourself.”
Nothing. No movement, no return call. Warren considered turning around and going back to the house. But that was stupid. There was nothing out there. He was imagining it. He’d seen a swirl of drifting snow and nothing else. Besides, what would he tell Tess?
Sorry, I couldn’t go for help because I got scared of the snow?
That was crazy. Cowardly.
He glanced back at the fence, made sure he was still heading the right way, and shuffled on.
He didn’t see any more movement, but he got the distinct feeling there was something out there. Watching him.
Crazy? Of course. But he couldn’t shake the sensation.
He remembered what Tess had said earlier, that she thought she’d seen someone’s hand breaking the glass. He’d told her she probably hadn’t seen what she thought she’d seen, and most of him still believed it, but what if there
had
been someone? What if he was wrong? What if there was someone out there right now, watching him, stalking him, hiding in the blizzard?
That’s insane. No one’s out here but you, and you know it. You’re trying to trick yourself into going back, getting out of the cold. It’s a survival mechanism. Nothing else.
Warren guessed it didn’t matter either way. He wasn’t going back. Freezing cold or not. Crazy blizzard stalker or not. Turning back wasn’t an option.
He tucked his head even lower and tried to move a little faster.
14
“I can’t take this,” Tess said.
Bub looked up and cocked his head. It was funny how human he looked sometimes, how much he seemed to understand.