Snowball

by Gregory Bastianelli

  Clark came over another rise into a clearing and looked ahead. There was his grandfather’s pickup parked on the side of the road. But I don’t know how to drive, he thought, not even sure he’d be able to lift his grandfather into the vehicle.

  He looked at the way he had come and the woods behind him. There was no sign of the man in the black coat. But Clark felt he was still out there somewhere, in the snow and the woods – waiting.

  Clark looked back at the pickup and up and down the road. There was a house not too far away. That’s where Clark went to get help.

  Later that afternoon, while his grandfather lay in intensive care at the hospital the ambulance brought him to, Clark lay on his bed upstairs in his room staring at the snow globe Grampa gave him. He shook it and then held it in his palm, watching the snowflakes drift down over the trio of snowmen. The tall one in the top hat with the crooked nose and twisted grin stared out at him. It reminded him of the figure he saw in the woods. Did he really see that? It was just your imagination, he told himself. He wasn’t really there. He didn’t want to take your grandfather. Then why isn’t Grampa here? Why isn’t he all right?

  Clark threw the snow globe across the room. It hit the wall and bounced off, dropping onto the carpeted floor with a thud. He had wanted it to shatter, but the glass was sturdier than he thought. Then he regretted it. It was a gift from Grampa and he jumped off the bed to retrieve it. There was a small crack at the top, but not enough to spring a leak. He set it on his desk, snow still swirling, and left his room, wanting to go outside, his nerves too churned up to sit still.

  Once outdoors, he decided to build a snowman in his front yard. He needed to make one that had a happier face than the tall one in his snow globe. With the fresh snow that had been falling throughout the day, he managed to roll a large ball for the base of his snowman. In no time he placed a smaller ball on it for the middle, before working on getting a good-sized head. He had to dig under the snow near the road to find some rocks, gathering these up in his gloves. There were two small chunks of tar that he pushed into the snowman’s head for eyes. The rocks he arranged in a curve to form a smile.

  Clark heard the front door open and saw his mother emerge.

  “I brought you a carrot for your snowman,” she said, handing it to him. She hadn’t put her coat on before coming out and was shivering, wearing only a stained apron over her blouse and slacks. She must have been in the kitchen cooking.

  “Thanks,” he muttered, taking the carrot from her. He stuck it in between the space below the eyes and above the mouth and stood back. The carrot was long and straight, with a sharp point.

  “Doesn’t that look nice,” his mother said.

  He nodded, agreeing, glad the carrot wasn’t crooked like the one on the snowman in the globe. “Any word?”

  “Your father called from the hospital. No news yet.”

  No news is good news, isn’t that what they say?

  “I can find an old hat for your snowman if you want.”

  “No thanks,” he said quickly. He didn’t want that. That reminded him too much of— “No.”

  “Okay,” his mother replied. “I’m going back inside. It’s freezing out here. Don’t stay out too long. You’ll catch a cold.”

  She left and he was glad to be alone again. Besides, he hadn’t finished. He walked around to the trees on the side of his yard and found some dead branches on the ground. He picked up a couple and brought them over to the snowman, sticking them into the sides for arms. Now his snowman was complete. The branch for the right arm was bent in the middle and rose up, twigs at the end forming a misshapen hand. It made it look like the snowman was waving hello. Clark liked his happy snowman. But as he looked at it, he started to think that maybe the snowman was waving goodbye.

  He went in the house, having had enough of snow for one day.

  Clark, his sisters and his mother ate alone, waiting for word from the hospital. He had no appetite, but took mouthfuls of beef stew, slurping it down, not really tasting the meat. Not long after dinner, his father came through the door, his face grim.

  Clark stormed out of the house after his father delivered the news, not believing that Grampa had died. He had saved him, pulled him through the woods in the storm, giving everything he had, keeping him away from the dark figure in the trees, bringing him to safety. What was all that for if he just died anyway? It wasn’t fair. It wasn’t right. He didn’t deserve this.

  Clark had rushed out without his coat and now found himself shivering. He wrapped his arms around himself, rubbing them to keep him warm. He wanted to go back inside to the heat of his home, but didn’t want to see the others just yet. Didn’t want to see his father and wonder if he’d let him down.

  He walked over to his snowman. Something had changed. Maybe the snow had softened, because the right branch had slipped down, the arm no longer raised and waving, but sticking out…as if reaching. For what? Him?

  Clark took a step back.

  Some of the rocks that formed the mouth had fallen out, leaving now a gap-toothed grin instead of a smile.

  And the carrot nose had broken, bent in the middle.

  Clark stepped forward, swung his right hand, and knocked the head off onto the ground.

  He looked at the headless snowman, whose arms seemed to wave in a panic.

  Down on the ground, the grinning face with the crooked nose and deep black eyes stared up as if mocking him.

  Chapter Twenty-Six

  Tucker Jenks stirred from a state of semi-consciousness in the sleeper cab of his tractor-trailer. He wouldn’t quite call it sleep, more a dazed condition. Who could sleep with the wind howling like that? If that was the wind. Its cry seemed more preternatural than natural in origin. He listened, the back of his head sunk into his pillow. Why won’t it stop calling me? Just leave me alone till this damn storm ends.

  He thought about how convenient this delivery run had been when he’d originally got the route. Zip up to New Hampshire with a load of toys and electronics for the department store and then he could make it to his sister’s home in Cranford, New Jersey, in time for Christmas Eve cocktails. Now the storm had driven him farther north and he wouldn’t even be able to make his friend’s house. Once the roads got cleared tomorrow, he could try and turn around and head back to New Jersey. But that’s not even where he wanted to be anymore. North Carolina was where he wanted to be. The hell with this northern climate. They can keep it.

  A knocking sound came from outside.

  Had those guys returned? He told them he was staying put. He didn’t need to cram into some RV with everyone else. He had all the comforts he needed right here. Maybe they were worried about him. They didn’t have to be. He wasn’t worried about any of them.

  Knock, knock.

  Tucker lifted his head off the pillow.

  Maybe the guys got in trouble out there, he thought. Could be they got lost, turned around in the storm and maybe never found their way back to the RV. Now they were out there knocking on the door of his cab, trying to get his help. They would be freezing. Tucker tried to think about how long it had been since they were here. How much time had passed? Out in this weather they would be near hypothermia, no matter how much they were bundled up.

  Tucker sat up. He started to put his boots on when he heard the knock again.

  It came from behind him.

  It came from inside the trailer of his truck.

  What the hell? Someone (or something) had gotten in there. How could that be? He had locked the truck, hadn’t he? Of course he had. Or maybe not. Maybe after making his delivery at the department store, in his rush to get back on the road before the storm got worse, he had forgotten to lock the trailer door. Maybe those guys had sought refuge in the trailer, lost in the blinding whiteness of the snow.

  There’s only one way to find out, he said to himself, grabbing his bo
ots and shoving his feet into them. Go look. They must need help. Something inside him thought this wasn’t a good idea. The banshee was still howling outside, calling for someone’s death. Don’t make it yours. Let some other idiot die out there. You’re safe right now. Stay safe.

  Knock, knock.

  Tucker looked at the back wall of his sleeper cab and started wondering about who, or what, might be on the other side in the trailer.

  “Damn!” he uttered. Be a fool, he thought as he put his coat, gloves and hat on. Be a stupid fool.

  Once outside, he instantly regretted it, the cold clawing at his face with icy nails, the wind sucking the breath from his throat, crystallized snow stinging his eyes. Stepping down, he sank into the snow up to his crotch. It took extreme effort for his legs and thighs to plow a path through the snow, stopping at the juncture where his cab connected to the trailer, which angled off at forty-five degrees.

  Tucker kept his left hand on the side of the trailer as he pushed through the snow, afraid if he let go, he’d wander off and get lost. The connection made him feel secure, grounded to something real in the surreal atmosphere of this blinding whirlwind of weather.

  How could there be so much snow? Damn! He longed for North Carolina and Nana’s house, where the rare snowfall occurred every so often, but never like this. No need to worry about shit like this, he thought.

  Though wasn’t it Nana who told you the stories about the banshee that haunted the woods along the river? But those were just stories.

  The wind howled.

  Nana told those stories to a curious boy to give him chills on a lonely night in the Black Mountain woods. They weren’t real, and North Carolina was a long way from here.

  But couldn’t the banshee follow you?

  Look at where you are now, on a lonely road in the woods, with a river running nearby. Maybe the banshee followed you here, chasing after you like some vengeful spirit. But why would the banshee want him? Why would she need to warn him? He had done nothing.

  Tucker reached the back end of the trailer truck. The door was closed. He looked in the snow but saw no disturbances. If someone had opened it up to climb in, they had left no tracks.

  No tracks, so go back.

  Looking back, down the highway, he could see the shapes of the vehicles stuck on the turnpike behind him. They were nothing more than rounded humps in the snow. He couldn’t see any sign of an RV.

  How far back was it? He wondered if he should make his way there. Maybe the security of other people would be better. And he could forget about the noise inside the trailer.

  But of course he wouldn’t.

  Because you’re stupid. Didn’t Nana say that to him when he did something senseless. Don’t be a stupid boy, she’d say. Where’s your brains at?

  He grabbed the metal handle of the trailer door latch. It was frozen tight and he jerked it a couple times, trying to unlatch it. See, of course no one could have gotten in here. Leave it well enough alone and get your ass out of there.

  Tucker tried one more time and the latch released. He rolled the door open, the rattling of the wheels on the track barely heard amid the screams of the storm. He climbed up into the trailer, exerting great effort, his legs feeling stiff from the cold of the night, his soaked pants hardening like cardboard.

  At the far end of the trailer, buried in shadows, was a large box.

  Hmmm.… He remembered emptying the contents of the trailer at the department store. There had been nothing left over, just some empty pallets stacked up on the side. This trailer should be empty. There shouldn’t be anything here.

  “What the hell?”

  The square cardboard box was about four feet tall and the same wide. He couldn’t have forgotten it, no way.

  Then where did this come from? Don’t be a stupid boy, Nana said. Of course you forgot it. Why else would it be here in your truck? You’re going to be in trouble for forgetting to make a delivery.

  No. He emptied the truck. Of course he did. Where’s your brains at? Nana asked.

  What if it was something important, something the store needed very badly? But it was too late now. The store would be closed; it was already Christmas morning.

  Christmas!

  Maybe this was a present. Maybe it was something the truck company left for him, like a Christmas bonus.

  Don’t be stupid.

  It’s Christmas morning. Go ahead and open your box.

  Forgetting the storm behind him and the snow cascading down from the night sky beyond the open trailer door, Tucker shuffled farther into darkness toward the box.

  Standing before it, looking down, he noticed the top of the box wasn’t taped or stapled closed.

  That’s not right, he thought. That’s against regulations. All cargo should be secured. Who had left this box open?

  Tucker reached a gloved hand toward the top of the box.

  He felt an excitement in his chest, a sensation of exhilaration, like a boy on Christmas morning. Isn’t that what he was now? A boy? A stupid boy?

  The wind screamed behind him, startling him, and he turned.

  The open end of the trailer seemed far behind him. Too far, as if the trailer had elongated and stretched itself out. If the door started to close on its own, there was no way he’d be able to run fast enough to reach it and he’d be trapped inside here. With the box.

  Don’t be stupid.

  What was the scream out there? Was it her? The banshee?

  The snow outside the door whipped around in circles, dancing on the wind, the thick flakes shuffling to and fro. The flakes shined, like constellations in the night sky. He could almost make a shape out of them, like seeing images in a cloud.

  A face appeared. No, not appeared. Forming. Somehow the flitting flakes were constructing a shape in the air, something moving and writhing, pulled and tugged by the different directions of a fickle wind. The snow mesmerized him, transfixing his gaze. He raised a hand, as if reaching for it. He started to forget about the box behind him. His present. He just wanted to stare at the snow and how it was forming a….

  A figure.

  There was a face in the snow. It looked like a beautiful face, a woman’s face with dazzling eyes and a leering smile. Tendrils of snow formed a flowing white gown made of silk, trailing behind the figure as it floated in the air just beyond the entrance of the trailer door. It was calling to him, or was that the wind? A soothing cry, almost like a song. He wanted to just stand there and enjoy the vision and its wailing tune.

  He smiled. Though he couldn’t even feel his lips move because of how numb his face had become in the freezing cold, he was pretty certain he was smiling.

  The face in the snow changed. The flakes thickened as the figure bobbed in the snow, and the face seemed to pull apart and reshape itself. It was no longer the beautiful banshee. It was…what? What are you becoming?

  Then he saw it. His nana’s face, with the look of anger she got when he had done something wrong, something stupid.

  And she screamed.

  Maybe it was just the wind, whipped up in a furious frenzy. But the face leered forward, a mouth opening, and screamed: Run!

  Tucker broke from the gaze that gripped him and turned to look behind him.

  One flap of the cardboard box lip was open.

  Metal rattled behind him as the trailer door began to slide down.

  Tucker turned to run, but his legs wouldn’t move. The wet pants had frozen stiff, as if his lower half had become encased in cement. The top half of his body lunged forward while the bottom half remained still. He tipped over, falling on his face on the floor of the trailer. He could hear the cracking of his pants as his legs shifted, his knees finally able to bend and his legs pushing his heavy body up.

  He ran for the door that descended slowly on its frozen tracks.

  Not going to
make it, he thought. His body just couldn’t move fast enough. Too much fast food on the road had made him out of shape. It was going to cost him. The door kept coming down, shutting out the night and the swirling snow that dominated it.

  I’m going to be too late.

  As his momentum picked up, and he got closer to the edge of the trailer, he saw the gap narrowing as the door neared the bottom.

  Tucker dove forward, hurtling his body into a headfirst slide.

  He slid out the opening and dropped into the snow outside as he heard the trailer door slam down with a thunk, like the snapping of jaws.

  Tucker lay in the snow, looking up at the back of the trailer, unable to move. The latch locked itself when the door shut.

  Just lie here, he thought, staring at the door. It suddenly felt warm with his body sunk down deep into the snow. Lie here and be comfortable, the snow drifting down over you, covering you like a warm blanket. Let it bury you. They can find you in the morning when help comes. They’ll find you with a smile on your face, but it will be too late for you.

  The banshee screamed again.

  Tucker’s eyes popped open. He hadn’t realized they’d been closed. He struggled to his feet, knowing he needed to get back inside the cab of his truck and get warm. He used his right hand to feel the side of the trailer as he retraced the path back the way he had come. It took longer, his legs stiff and numb, barely able to move. He kept listening, worried he would hear the trailer door opening again. The only sound was the wind and he was grateful.

  He reached the cab of his truck and stepped up onto the runner, trying to grab the door handle but his frozen fingers had trouble co-operating. He was worried he had gotten this close but wouldn’t be able to get the door open and end up freezing to death out here, but then his fingers wrapped around the handle and he pulled. The door opened.

  Before he clambered inside, he heard the banshee scream one more time.

  Tucker turned to look behind him, toward the woods on the opposite side of the highway. On a small hill before the edge of the woods, he saw three figures. They looked like snowmen, the one in the middle taller than the two beside it. The middle one had a top hat perched on its head. A scarf wrapped around its neck fluttered in the wind. A stick arm poking out of its right side also bobbed in the wind.