“That’s our friend,” Todd said. Then, shouting: “Fred! Over here!”
The rifle swung back around to face Todd. His hands shot up immediately. “Calm down. Those are our friends. We’re lost. We’re not here to hurt you.”
“They’re running,” Kate said.
Todd turned and looked out across the square. Nan was careening across the ice, amazingly balanced, her thin arms
and legs pumping like machinery. Fred followed close behind, though he was not facing forward: something, it seemed, was following them.
“Shit,” said the woman with the rifle. “Get in the store.”
Todd shook his head. “Those are our friends.”
“Get in the fucking store!”
In her panic, Nan practically slammed into a parked car. Todd reached out and grabbed her before she lost her balance and spilled to the ground. There was a look of pure terror on her face.
Fred came next, shouting something indecipherable as he ran. Also…there was someone else closing the distance behind him…
“What the hell is going on around here?” Kate muttered.
Fred barreled up over the curb and collided with Todd and Nan, his breathing whistling audibly. Fred’s pursuer slammed on the brakes, skidding to a clumsy stop on the ice before his legs pulled out from under him. Had the circumstances been different, the fall would have been comical. But as it was, tensions were high, and the man did not stay down on the ground for more than a split second. Back on his feet, he appeared to waver in the air, his weight moving from foot to foot, like a swimmer about to dive into the deep end of a pool.
The sound of the rifle fire was almost deafening.
In the street, the man’s head evaporated into a red mist. The body sagged forward, then dropped straight to the ground, its legs folded neatly beneath it.
Nan screamed and Fred cursed. Kate clawed at the back of Todd’s neck, gripping a fistful of hair.
Then something else happened. The headless body in the street bucked once, twice, three times. Hot blood spurted from the abbreviated neck and coursed like an oil slick across the ice. There was the impression of levitation, although the
dead man never actually left the ground; rather, something from
within
the man’s body was rising up, up. For one insane moment, Todd actually believed he was witnessing the dead man’s soul vacating the body.
But this was no one’s soul. What rose up was a hurricane swirl of snow, funneled and compacted so that it was nearly tangible. It held the vague form of a human being, though as it continued to withdraw itself from the man’s body, Todd could see its arms—or whatever served as arms—were nearly twice the length of a normal person’s. It had no definable characteristics beyond the vague suggestion of humanity. And as it peeled away from the corpse—from
out
of the corpse—it hovered briefly above the body, nearly solid and comprehensible, before it dispersed into a scattering of snowflakes and was gone.
The silence that followed was thundering.
“What the hell was that thing?” Todd asked.
They were locked inside the convenience store now, trapped in the dark with a young, rifle-toting stranger who looked barely old enough to drink legally. Fred and Nan sat against one wall, a dazed look on poor Nan’s face. Fred absently rubbed the back of her head while occasionally peering back out the store’s windows at the corpse in the street. Whatever the thing was that had exited the dead man’s body, it hadn’t come back.
The woman with the rifle said nothing. She went around peering through all the windows, then headed to the back of the store where she proceeded to load another round into the rifle.
Todd stood shivering in one darkened corner, his eyes volleying from the corpse out in the street to Fred and Nan and, finally, to Kate. Kate was sitting on the floor between two overturned racks of canned food and potato chip bags, her legs drawn up against her chest, her whole body vibrating from the cold. She was staring at the body that lay sprawled over a fallen crate of soda—the body Todd had glimpsed while shining the flashlight into the store moments earlier. Two dead bodies: one out in the street, one in here with them.
Todd frowned. “You gonna answer me or just hold us hostage?”
The woman looked up at him. “You wanna go out there again, be my guest.”
“What about the power? The electricity?”
“Dead.”
“And the telephones?”
The woman leveled her gaze at him, clearly showing her displeasure in answering such mundane questions. “Dead. One of those things must have cut the lines.”
Todd caught a look from Kate. Her skin looked nearly translucent in the moonlight issuing through the store windows.
“Who’s this guy?” he said, acknowledging the body bent over the crate of soda.
“Jared.”
“Can we cover him up with something?”
“There’s some trash bags on one of the shelves,” said the woman.
Rubbing his hands together for warmth, Todd walked down the aisles until he found a box of trash bags. He tore into the box and pulled out a number of bags, then carried them over to where the body lay in one corner. Its head was split open like a ripe melon, the innards frozen and nearly sparkling. Todd draped the body in the plastic garbage bags, trying to not look at it too closely.
“Thank you,” Todd said after he’d finished.
The woman shrugged. “Not my trash bags.”
“I meant about what happened out in the street. I guess you saved our asses.”
The woman set the rifle down on the counter…then, looking over the rest of them, must have thought better of it and picked it back up again. She went around to the rear of the counter and produced a case of bottled water. She heaved it up onto the countertop. “This water’s fresh. If you’re thirsty.”
“Christ, yes,” Kate said, getting up. She looked to Fred and
Nan, both of whom nodded, and she approached the counter. It was obvious she was keeping her distance from the woman with the gun.
“Eat whatever you want, too,” said the woman.
Kate screamed and staggered backward, her hands over her mouth. She was looking down at something on the floor. Todd couldn’t see it; the rows of junk food blocked his view.
“What is it?” Fred asked, his voice hard.
“Another one,” Kate practically groaned. “There’s…there’s blood all over the floor.”
Todd stepped into the aisle to see a second corpse—this one much more mangled than poor Jared, whom he’d just covered up with trash bags—strewn like roadside garbage against one wall. It was nearly impossible to discern any sense of humanity from the black, glistening heap. A dark smear of blood trailed behind it like the tail of a comet.
“Jesus,” Todd breathed.
“That’s Mr. Farmer,” said the woman with the rifle. “He used to own this place.”
Kate looked up at her. “Did you kill him, too?”
“He wasn’t Mr. Farmer when I killed him.”
“What’s your name?” Todd asked, pulling fresh plastic bags from the box. He moved closer to the glistening heap on the tile floor. Glancing down, he could see where the blood was beginning to congeal and where ice crystals had started forming along the sections of exposed white flesh.
“Shawna Dupree.”
“You from around here, Shawna?”
“Spent my whole life in Woodson.” Then, as if it were a humorous observation, she added, “Might die here in Woodson, too, you know.”
“What’s going on?” Fred asked from across the room, as Kate, all too anxious to get away from Shawna and the mangled corpse on the floor, brought him and Nan bottles of water.
“It started earlier this week,” Shawna said. “They came in with the snow.” She seemed to consider this, then added, “They
are
the snow.”
“Who came in with the snow?” Todd asked, draping plastic bags over the thing that had once been the proprietor of this little convenience store. “What was wrong with that guy out there in the street? He looked about ready to kill us.”
“He was,” said Shawna.
“Why?”
“Because he wasn’t himself,” she said. “He was one of those things.”
“What things?” said Kate.
“Whatever came out of him when I shot him,” Shawna said. “Didn’t you see it?”
“What
was
it?” Todd pressed.
Shawna Dupree took them all in, as if deciding what to do with them. Finally, she propped the rifle over one shoulder and headed around the counter. “I have to pee. I suggest you all keep that door locked.”
When she was gone, Nan sighed and looked down at her hands. She said something to her husband about their daughter Rebecca.
“Here.” Kate handed Todd a bottle of water, once he’d finished covering up the second body.
“I guess we’re lucky it’s so cold in here,” he said. “Otherwise these two would be stinking to high heaven.”
Kate grimaced.
“Sorry,” he said, popping open the bottle of water.
“Your leg’s still bleeding. Let me see.”
“It’s fine.”
“Let me see.”
“Fuck.” He hunkered down, his back against a freezer door. He tried to roll up his pant leg but it would only go so high before it caused him too much pain. “I can’t.”
“Take your pants off.”
“Miss Jansen, you’re engaged.”
“Ha. Very funny. I’m being serious.”
“Just let it be. It’s not that big a deal.”
Fred appeared over Kate’s shoulder. “Let me have a look.”
Todd managed a pained smile. “You gonna put me out of my misery?”
“You should be so lucky,” Fred said, bending to his knees with some difficulty. Todd noted that maybe the old guy wasn’t in as good a shape as he’d initially thought. “I can cut the pant leg or you can take them off. It’s up to you.”
“Christ. You two should buy me dinner first.” He unbuttoned his pants and managed to worm his way out of them, until they were bunched up at his ankles. He didn’t bother looking down at the wound.
“Not so bad,” Fred said, leaning over him. “How’d you do it?”
“Chasing that son of a bitch Eddie through the woods. I think a tree limb came out and took a bite out of me.”
Fred told Kate to seek out some implements from the shelves—adhesive bandages, rubbing alcohol, gauze pads, whatever else she could find. When she returned, she was juggling a bunch of boxes and had a bag of pretzels under one arm.
Fred unscrewed a bottle of peroxide and emptied it over the wound. It fizzed and burned slightly. Todd glanced down and saw a lightning bolt tear along his right shin, perhaps three inches long. Blood ran in muddy tributaries down his leg.
“Pretzel,” Fred said, as if requesting a scalpel from a nurse, and Kate popped a pretzel into his open mouth. As he crunched, he blotted the wound with a sanitary napkin, then proceeded to dress it in a gauze wrap.
“Some bedside manner,” Todd commented, and Fred chuckled.
A shadow moved out from the darkness. It was Shawna, looking younger and smaller than ever without her rifle slung over one shoulder. “Hey,” she said to no one in particular. “You think you could help me, too?”
They all looked over and saw that the left leg of her pants was saturated with blood. She had been walking with a considerable limp, too, although Todd hadn’t put two and two together until now.
As Todd pulled his pants back on, Fred turned to Shawna. He reached out and lifted the hem of her pant leg. Her entire sock and sneaker were black with blood. A firm look passed briefly over Fred Wilkinson’s face.
Without a word, Shawna carefully stepped out of her pants. Her naked skin looked nearly blue. Striations of dried black blood coated her left leg, and there was a deep gash along her left thigh that made Todd’s injury look like a pinprick.
“Good Lord,” Fred mused, leaning closer to examine the wound. “How long ago did this happen?”
“Yesterday evening.”
“Did you put anything on it?”
“I cleaned it out with some peroxide. Oh, and some bourbon.”
“You wouldn’t happen to have any of that bourbon still lying around, would you?” Kate said, probably only half joking, Todd thought.
Fred turned to Todd. “Can you help her up onto the checkout counter?”
“Sure.” Todd looped one arm under Shawna while Kate came around and lent her support on the other side. This close, the girl smelled of days-old sweat and unwashed flesh. “How long have you been holed up in this store?” he asked her as they carried her over to the counter and hoisted her up.
“Since this afternoon.” Shawna winced as Fred came over and straightened her injured leg. “Before that, I locked myself in my house on Fairmont Street. That’s two blocks over, by the church.”
“Do you still have that flashlight?” Fred asked Kate.
“Hold on,” Kate said, and went over to dig around in her purse.
“No flashlights,” Shawna said. “I don’t think they know we’re here.”
“I have to see what I’m doing,” Fred said. “I promise we’ll keep it to a minimum.”
“Cover it with a towel,” she suggested, and reached down beneath the counter to produce a shoddy-looking dish towel.
Kate returned with the flashlight and Nan at her side. For some reason, the arrival of the older woman caused Shawna to blush, and she self-consciously tugged down her shirt to cover her panties. Until that point, Todd had hardly realized the poor girl was practically naked and on display to a roomful of strangers. He reached over the counter and found another dish towel, which he draped over Shawna’s hips. She looked up at him and offered wordless thanks.
“This is going to sting,” Fred said, and poured some of the peroxide into the wound while he held it open just slightly with a finger and thumb.
“Oh,”
Shawna cried, and bucked her hips. One hand shot out and grasped Todd about the wrist. “Oh,
shit!”
“Easy-easy-easy-easy,” Fred crooned. It was probably how he muttered to the dogs and cats he worked on in a typical day at the office. “Atta girl…” Glancing over at Kate, Fred said, “Give me some light, will you?”
Nan held up the dish towel to shield the soft beam of the flashlight from anything that might be just beyond the convenience
store’s windows. Todd snuck a glance over Fred’s shoulder. The gash was deep, the tissue dark red and fibrous inside. Something wet rolled over in his stomach.
“How did this happen?” Todd asked.
“One of those things took a swipe at me.”
“What things? You mean like that guy out there dead in the street?”
“No,” she said, gritting her teeth as Fred addressed the wound once again. “I mean like what was
inside
that guy dead out in the street. What came out of him when I shot him.” She grunted and added, “That was Bill Showalter, by the way. Owned the hardware store since I was a kid.”
Todd and Kate exchanged a glance over Fred’s head.
“Shit, that hurts!”
“Hold still, darling,” Fred said, his nose nearly pressed to the wound. “Kate, would you give Nan the flashlight? I need you to find me one of those portable sewing kits.”
“No fucking way,” Shawna said, and attempted to draw her injured leg up to her chest. Fred’s hand was surprisingly firm and held her down on the counter. “You’re not seriously gonna sew me up, are you?”
“You need stitches. It’s the best I can do.”
Kate handed the flashlight to Nan, then slipped down the nearest aisle in search of the sewing kit.
Shawna’s grip on Todd’s wrist tightened. She looked up at him with dark, bleary eyes. Her face looked muddy and out of focus. “That bourbon I mentioned,” she said. “It’s down behind the counter.”
Todd nodded, then liberated his wrist from her grip. He dipped down behind the counter and was uncharacteristically heartbroken by the tiny dog bed, blankets, paperback novels, and random snacks stacked back here: Shawna’s makeshift hideaway. He located a bottle of Wild Turkey and unscrewed the cap.
“One for you, one for me,” he said, taking a swig, wincing, and handing the bottle over to Shawna.
“Down the hatch,” she said, and embarrassed Todd with the amount of alcohol she downed in one swallow.
Kate returned with a little plastic case full of various threads, some sewing needles, and spare buttons.
“Perfect,” Fred said. “I’ve got a lighter in my right coat pocket. Heat the needle to sterilize it.”
“Fuck,” groaned Shawna. She took another swig.
Kate fished the lighter out of Fred’s coat pocket and proceeded to heat the needle while Nan balanced the flashlight beneath the tented dish towel.
“They’re almost not even there,” Shawna said. She was looking blankly across the store, her eyes unfocused. “They’re like smoke. They showed up with the snowstorm earlier this week. They look just like little…little tornados of snow, just twirling in the air, until they let themselves be seen. Then they only look like ghosts…like the suggestion of a person, an unfinished drawing. Not all there.”
Once again, Todd thought of the little girl with no face. Emily. Who the hell was Emily? Who the hell was Eddie Clement? Or
what
the hell was he?
Kate handed over the sterilized needle to Fred, who managed to thread the eyelet on the first shot.
“They can pass right through you and you wouldn’t even know it,” Shawna went on. She was in a different place now, her eyes so completely unfocused she could have been staring at the surface of a different plane of existence. “Except for their arms. They can concentrate and make their arms solid, just long enough to get inside you. See, that’s how they do it—with their arms. But they’re not like regular arms. They’re more like those big curved sickle blades. Like the kind of blade you see Death carrying in the movies.”