Snowball

by Gregory Bastianelli

  The body of the mailman lay sprawled facedown on the side of the road, mailbag discarded beside him, a red puddle seeping out from beneath his head and forming a stream flowing down the street through the snow toward her.

  She glanced up, forgetting about the envelope on the ground, to see a man walking away from the body. He carried an object in his hands. It looked like the large metal ice tongs used by the guy who delivered ice blocks to their house in the summer. Blood dripped from the pointed tips of the tongs.

  The man had straw-like scraggly hair flowing over the collar of his black coat. He turned and looked over his shoulder at her, round bloodshot eyes above a pale creased face. The thin cracked lips of his mouth did not move. He did not smile, did not talk, did not even break stride, only stared back before turning away and continuing up the road.

  Felker no longer felt warm inside as Francine told her story. It was as if some cold beast ripped open his flesh and crawled inside him, curling up along his spine. He swallowed hard, wishing he hadn’t finished his flask. She had described the image of the man he had seen out in the snow earlier. How was that possible?

  “Did the man get away?” Felker asked in a shaky voice, his fingers drumming on the tabletop again. But did her answer matter? She said this happened when she was ten years old, and she had to be close to eighty, if not older. That would be over seventy years ago. It couldn’t be the same man. But he asked anyway.

  “Based on my description, the authorities figured out who the culprit was,” Francine continued. “His name was Everett Wick, and he worked for the Jericho Ice Company, delivering blocks of ice to residents throughout the town. He lived in a cabin with his mother on a private road in the woods out off Route 110 near Jericho Lake.” She paused and licked her lips. “The papers ended up nicknaming him ‘the Iceman’.”

  Felker got the impression she enjoyed telling this tale. The others in the RV listened with intensity, no one interrupting.

  “The state and local police converged on his cabin. What they found inside was the remains of Wick’s mother. They say she was cut into pieces with a saw and stored in his icebox. Rumor has it he and his mother had been snowbound for a while in the cabin, and that poor Everett Wick had gone stir-crazy and killed his mother and then all the others.” The old woman leaned forward from her seat. “They say some of the remains in the icebox looked like they had been gnawed on.” She leaned back and there was maybe just a touch of a smirk.

  Mason Drake cleared his throat. “And did they find this Wick guy too?”

  Francine nodded. “Bloodhounds found him out back and chased him through the woods and out onto the frozen Jericho Lake. He had his ice tongs strapped to his belt and was carrying an ice saw. Before they got to him, he had cut a hole around himself in the ice, and let himself drop through.”

  “So – he’s dead,” Felker spurted out, his voice strained.

  Francine shrugged. “One would suppose.”

  “Of course,” Graham said. “Froze like a popsicle, I’m sure.”

  “Could be,” Francine said with that sly grin. “But they never found his body. They even dragged the lake in the spring when the ice thawed.” She paused. “No remains were ever recovered.”

  Chapter Twenty-Five

  Clark heard the back bedroom door of the RV open and looked up to see Shelby emerge. Her hair was mussed, her cheeks flushed and the slightest hint of bags had begun to form under her eyes, but he still found her rumpled state attractive. She looked like a real woman, not pretentiously made up like a lot of the women he met in California. He slid over on the bench seat a bit to make room for her and she plopped herself down between him and Francine, but inched a little closer toward him. Clark liked that and smiled at her.

  “The kids are asleep,” she said to everyone, but looking at him. “I tried, but the wind kept me awake.”

  “The storm doesn’t seem to be letting up any,” Clark said.

  “I lay there listening to that morbid story.” She now looked at Francine, and the old woman just smiled. “It gave me the willies.”

  “We’re just sharing our worst winter memories,” Francine said. “Would you like to tell us yours?”

  Clark watched the lines on Shelby’s face. He could see the tension in them and knew she remembered something horrible.

  “No thanks,” Shelby said.

  “We may be here awhile,” Graham said from his seat at the table. He glanced toward the front of the RV to where Mr. Volkmann sat in the captain’s seat. “How’s your fuel supply?”

  “Gas and propane tanks are pretty much full. We could last out here for days.”

  Joy Drake perked up from her sleepy state beside her husband. “Oh Christ, I hope we’re not here that long. I’d go stir-crazy.”

  “Of course it won’t be that long,” her husband responded. “Highway crews will most likely be out here by daylight, if not sooner.” He looked hopeful, or was it a façade?

  Graham stirred in his seat. “Well, it’s good we can keep warm for the immediate future. But we’re still in a pretty dangerous situation. I just want to make sure everyone understands that.”

  Clark sensed Graham was going to say something about the young couple’s bodies they had found in the hatchback. Clark didn’t think it was a good idea to let everyone know about what had happened to the couple. Seeing Shelby’s fragile state, he didn’t want to worry her any further. She had enough on her plate trying to keep her kids secure. He looked at Graham and shook his head ever so slightly, hoping no one else would notice. He mouthed the word ‘no’ and his friend got the hint. Felker eyed him suspiciously. Had the man seen his signal?

  “How about if I tell about my worst winter memory?” Clark said, trying to shift the topic. He looked at Shelby beside him. “And I promise it won’t be as gruesome as Mrs. Volkmann’s tale.”

  She half smirked in response. “I hope not.”

  Clark dug into his memory bank, rummaging through the details. Not gruesome, he remembered. But not entirely without some unease.

  Clark was ten that winter, living in Evergreen with his parents, his younger sisters and his grandfather. Grampa Brooks had given him an early Christmas present, a snow globe he bought at a gift shop in North Conway. Inside the glass ball was a winter scene: three snowmen on a snowbank before a copse of balsams. The snowman in the middle was taller than the other two, a black top hat perched on its round white head. Two black coal eyes loomed over a crooked carrot nose. Its jagged mouth looked like something more appropriate for a jack-o’-lantern than a snowman. A red-and-white striped scarf wrapped around its neck and hung down over its middle. Branches formed its arms, twigs at the end like long narrow fingers.

  The other two snowmen on either side were shorter, one of them a bit more rotund and wearing a Santa cap. The carrot it had for a nose was short and stubby. Its mouth was round, as if frozen in the middle of a laugh. The third snowman wore a black pork pie hat with a wide brim, its carrot nose long and narrow. They both also had tree branch arms, bent like elbows with twiggy fingers.

  Clark shook the snow globe and set it down on the desk in his bedroom, watching the snowflakes inside the watery glass orb flutter with fury over the three snowmen, as if they were trapped in a storm.

  “I love my snowball, Grampa,” Clark told the old man with excitement.

  Grampa Brooks didn’t correct him, letting Clark call the ornament by its misnomer.

  “That’s not the only surprise I have for you today,” his grandfather said.

  “What else?” Clark asked, trying to contain his enthusiasm.

  “We’re going to pick out a Christmas tree today.”

  “Oh boy,” Clark said. “Down at the church parking lot?”

  His grandfather harrumphed. “That’s not how to pick out a Christmas tree,” he said. “We’re going out into the woods to cut down a fresh one. Tha
t’s what we did when I was your age.”

  So the old man loaded up his pickup truck with snowshoes, a saw, some rope and a wooden toboggan.

  Clark’s father was hesitant about the excursion into the woods. “I wish you’d just let me get one downtown, Pop,” he said as the two of them climbed into the pickup.

  “Nonsense,” Grampa said. “Waste of money. The forest is full of trees. The boy needs to learn that you don’t have to buy everything.”

  “Just be careful,” his father relented. “You’re not a young man anymore.”

  “Poppycock,” his grandfather responded. “I could outlast you on a hike through the woods.” And he was probably right. His grandfather was a sturdy old man, still hiking, fishing, hunting and camping, even at his age, while Clark’s father was not much of an outdoorsman, content with indoor activities.

  “There’s snow in the forecast later today,” his father said. “Don’t take too long out there.”

  “Of course it’s going to snow,” Grampa said. “It’s winter. It’s supposed to snow.” As the old man started the engine of the pickup, Clark’s father came over to the passenger’s side door. Clark rolled down his window.

  “Look out for your grampa,” his father told him. Clark wasn’t sure what that meant or what his dad expected from him.

  In the woods, Clark saw plenty of trees that would look good in the corner of their living room, but his grandfather dismissed them all as either not tall enough, not full enough, not the right shape or having some weird gap in their branches. Snow began to fall as Clark followed the trail his grandfather blazed, the old man pulling the toboggan behind him.

  Clark’s legs were tired from the arduous hike through the snow and he wanted to ask his grandfather if he could ride on the toboggan, but he thought about his father’s concern for the old man and didn’t want to be a burden. He wanted to be tough, like his grandfather. So he plodded along, one snowshoe step at a time as the old man led them deeper into the woods, down one slope and up another, the trees growing larger around them, shadows darkening the landscape and the snow thickening in the air.

  His grandfather came to a sudden stop.

  “What is it, Grampa?”

  The old man stood still, as if frozen, and Clark’s breath shortened. Then his grandfather raised his gloved hand, pointing, and spoke.

  “There it is.”

  Clark looked ahead and spotted the lone balsam, entrenched in a clearing of pure white snow. It was a perfect triangle, with thick green branches powdered in white flakes. It reminded Clark of the trees inside his snowball at home, though he knew those were made of plastic.

  Grampa dragged the toboggan over to the tree and grabbed his saw.

  “Hold the tree steady, boy, while I cut it.”

  Clark reached in between the branches, grabbing onto the trunk of the tree with a gloved hand while his grandfather hunkered down in the snow at the base. Clark gripped the tree tight, listening as the saw blade chewed through the trunk. Once the tree was removed from its base, the two of them lowered it onto the toboggan. Grampa tied the rope around the branches and secured the tree to the sled.

  “Okay,” his grandfather said with a clap of his hands. “Let’s go.”

  Clark walked beside his grandfather, who pulled the toboggan along behind him as they retraced their path.

  “Wait till Mom and Dad see our tree,” Clark said with glee.

  Grampa responded only with puffs of exhalations as they trudged up a hill. Snow fell heavier, the flakes thick. Hadn’t his father said something about a storm approaching? Clark stopped to look up, opening his mouth to catch one fat flake before it hit the ground, melting the instant it touched his extended tongue.

  “Do you think the tree will fit in our living room?” Clark asked. “It’s pretty tall.”

  Again his grandfather didn’t respond, only breathing heavily as they ascended the hill. He didn’t understand why the old man had grown silent. Had he said something wrong? Clark decided to keep quiet, not wanting to annoy his grandfather.

  Just before reaching the crest of the hill, his grandfather stopped in his tracks, head tilting back.

  Clark glanced from him to the sky above. Was the old man analyzing the clouds, concerned about the storm? Clark grew worried too.

  Grampa’s face twisted, his jaw grimacing, as if something had frightened him. He dropped the rope to the toboggan and grabbed at the front of his jacket, as if trying to tear through the fabric.

  “Grampa?”

  The old man keeled over onto his side in the snow.

  “Grampa!”

  Clark rushed to where he had fallen, kneeling down beside him. His grandfather’s eyelids fluttered, his right hand flapping around in the snow like a trout pulled from an ice fishing hole. Drool dribbled out of one corner of his crooked mouth. Tears welled up in Clark’s eyes as he set his hands on his grandfather’s shoulder, shaking it gently.

  “What’s wrong, Grampa!” The tears flowed down over his cold cheeks. He couldn’t tell if the old man knew he was there.

  All Clark could think was that he needed help. But they were in the woods. Where could he find help out here? A thought burrowed into his brain. No one knows where we are. His father’s words came back to him: Look out for your grampa.

  What to do? What to do?

  Clark looked at the toboggan and the tree strapped to it. He went to it and began untying the rope. It was fortunate his grandfather’s fingers hadn’t been able to tie very tight knots. Still, it seemed to take forever before he got the last knot undone and shoved the tree off the sled. He pulled the toboggan over beside his grandfather and with great effort, rolled the old man onto it.

  Grampa’s eyes were now closed, but his chest still rose and fell. Clark tied the rope across his grandfather’s chest, waist and legs. He stood up, grabbing the rope, and began to pull. The toboggan wouldn’t budge. It didn’t help that he was trying to pull it up a hill. That and the fact his grandfather weighed a bit more than that stupid tree.

  Clark dug his heels into the snow and pulled again, straining with all his young might. The toboggan moved a few inches. He adjusted his feet and pulled back on the rope again. A few more inches. It went like this for the ten feet or so to the top of the hill. Clark tried to keep his tears submerged, but the slow pace frustrated and terrified him.

  He finally reached the peak of the hill. Once they were over the crest, gravity took over and the toboggan picked up speed. It was going too fast and he had to jump out of the way as the sled careened by him down the hill, Grampa strapped in tight. Clark ran down the hill trying to catch up, stumbling and tumbling into the snow a couple times.

  When he reached the stopped sled, Clark glanced at the path ahead, the one they had blazed on their way into the woods. It was mostly level, with just a few slight dips and rises. The hardest part should be over. But would he make it out in time? He looked down at his grandfather, who looked peaceful, as if he were taking one of his usual naps on the couch.

  Clark stood, grabbing tight to the reins of the toboggan, bore down and began pulling. The snow fell heavier, and he worried it would bury the path they had made. He had to hurry. One foot in front of the other, he kept his head down and stayed the course, the weight seeming lighter.

  He paused at the top of a slight incline, trying to catch his breath, looking around at the desolateness of the woods. His eyes caught something.

  Through the snow-covered trees about a hundred yards behind him, there was movement. He brought a gloved hand to his forehead to keep the snow out as his eyes strained. There! He saw a figure standing between a pair of trees. It looked like a man. What was he doing out here? A walk in the woods? Didn’t seem likely. Had he been looking for a tree too? He didn’t appear dressed for a winter excursion. He wore a black coat, unbuttoned, exposing a red shirt tucked into black pants. He w
asn’t wearing a hat, his long white hair kicking up with a gust of wind.

  Clark waved. “Hello!” he yelled at the man.

  The man didn’t move. No response at all.

  Something’s not right, Clark thought. Something was odd about this man.

  The urgency to get his grandfather out of the woods increased, Clark grabbed the rope and began pulling the toboggan again. Got to get out, he repeated to himself. Need to get Grampa somewhere safe. Desperation spurred him on and he didn’t want to look back. When he did, the figure wasn’t there.

  Clark was glad the tears had stopped. They had felt like cold streams down his face. Fear stifled them. He barely felt his feet in his boots, numb from either cold or fright. In fact his whole body felt disconnected, as if his thoughts were moving and his body just kept pace with them. He stopped, his breathing hard. He bent over and rested his hands on his knees, chest hurting. Just a few seconds, he told himself, and then I’ll keep going. But I need a moment. Just one moment.

  Clark heard a crow caw and looked up. He spotted the black bird in the sky to his right, swooping down to rest on a naked branch of a maple tree about fifty yards away. His eyes scanned down the thick trunk of the tree to the ground. Standing beside the tree was the man in the black coat and red shirt.

  The sudden appearance startled Clark and a knot tightened in his chest. He stared at the man. The man stared back. He didn’t understand the sensation that came over him, but he felt he knew what the man wanted, what he had come for.

  Clark picked up the rope, not taking his eyes off the figure, and began pulling the sled, turning away. After several feet he looked back over his shoulder. The man was still there.

  “You can’t have him!” Clark yelled. “I won’t let you take him!”

  The man didn’t move.

  Clark turned away, legs pumping faster, the toboggan seeming lighter still as he focused on the path ahead, the one they had cut through the woods, which seemed like ages ago. Keep moving. Can’t stop. Keep moving.