Snowblind

by Christopher Golden

  They attacked as one, riding the wind with spindly fingers outstretched. Another took hold of Isaac and Jake shouted, knowing he could not win this battle. Keenan kept firing, destroying two more, but Jake felt his feet leave the ground and wrapped both hands around his brother’s waist. A demon slashed at his arms and then another grabbed him by the back of his shirt and now they were both being dragged upward.

  Gunshots came from the other direction, only one bullet striking home, blowing the arm off an ice man a dozen feet above them. Jake twisted to see that it was Miri who’d been firing, but now she tossed the gun aside and ran to him, jumping to wrap her arms around his legs. The storm had thinned dramatically and Jake heard ice cracking and felt something snap above him. For just a moment he feared that it had been Isaac’s neck, but then they were falling, he and Isaac and Miri, and they hit the snow in a tumble of limbs.

  Miri held Isaac, looking for injuries. Jake gritted his teeth against the pain in his wounded back, enjoying the freezing snow beneath him. He let his head loll to the left and saw Harley shuffling toward them, bloody and cradling one arm.

  Jake heard his mother cry out and dragged himself up again, the pain in his back like fresh daggers as he saw the ice men concentrating on her, half a dozen of them—all that remained—dragging at her clothes and hair with their pitifully thin fingers. They were barely more than ghosts themselves but they swept her from her feet.

  Detective Keenan took aim, but his gun clicked on an empty chamber. Whatever ammunition he’d had was gone. Jake staggered to his feet but knew he would never reach her.

  “Joe, please!” he shouted.

  Keenan did not hesitate. He hurled himself into their midst, using his bare hands to snap icy limbs, curling himself around Allie and driving her to the snow, covering her with his body to protect her, screaming as the ice men slashed at his back.

  And then they had him.

  As the snow became nothing but a flurry, the last of the ice men came together to drag Keenan into the sky. Jake could no longer stand and fell to his knees as his mother and Miri, Isaac and Harley gathered around him and the five of them watched the ice men carry Joe Keenan into the storm clouds, so high that they lost sight of him.

  They heard him screaming as he fell, thirty yards away, crashing through tree branches before hitting the ground with a puff of white and a crack of bone that echoed across the snow.

  “Oh my god,” Miri whispered.

  Side by side, Jake and Harley staggered through the snow, bleeding and exhausted, until they reached him. Detective Keenan’s eyes were open and his chest rose and fell with wet, guttural breaths, but one leg had folded beneath him and a tree branch jutted from his abdomen, pinning him to the snow.

  “Joe,” Harley said. “Jesus, no.”

  Keenan gazed up at them. “I found him, didn’t I? The lost boy?”

  Jake frowned for a moment and glanced at Harley, who slowly nodded.

  “You found him,” Harley said quietly, as the last snowflakes floated to the ground around them.

  “He’s home, now,” Jake said, glancing back at Isaac and Allie and Miri. “He’s with his family. With his mother. You saved her, Joe.”

  But Keenan didn’t respond. The rattle of his breathing had ceased, and when Jake moved nearer, he saw that the light had gone from the detective’s eyes. They were dead, now, and bottomless, as if the void left by his spirit’s passing went down and down and down, forever.

  Jake grieved for him, and yet he knew that, in a way, even Joe Keenan had gotten his second chance tonight, and made good.

  TWENTY-TWO

  Coventry had never been more beautiful than in the days that followed the storm. Blanketed in snow two feet deep and with drifts three times that height that gave the illusion of a frozen white ocean, the city was enveloped in a gentle calm. The skies were blue, the days warming up just enough that by Friday, the ice and snow that had caked trees and power lines had melted away. The streets had been plowed. To the delight of children, the sidewalks had not been completely cleared in time for school on Friday morning, allowing them the pleasure of a third snow day in a row.

  On Friday morning, just after nine o’clock, Allie Schapiro drove her five-year-old Nissan through the gates of Oak Grove Cemetery and followed the familiar, narrow, curving roads until she came to the place where Niko Ristani had been buried, twelve years past. Another car had already parked beside the high snowbank near Niko’s grave, and though she was expecting them, it took her a moment to recognize the car as Miri’s rental. Miri waited by her father’s grave, a red knit cap on her head and a matching scarf setting off the somberness of her long black coat.

  As Allie drove up, the doors of the rental car opened and Jake and Isaac stepped out. She parked behind Miri’s car and put on the parking brake, her heart fluttering at the sight of her two sons. It jarred her, looking at Isaac—knowing he was Isaac—and seeing the face of Zachary Stroud. The other dead who’d returned had all inhabited the bodies of people whose spirits were still intact, but to hear Isaac tell it, Zachary Stroud’s spirit had left his body when the little body had begun to drown, and Isaac had stepped in before the body could surrender its life in full. She had to believe him; surely Isaac would not lie to her. And yet she shuddered a little whenever she thought of it, wondering if some shred of the Stroud boy’s consciousness remained there, a prisoner of his own flesh and blood. She prayed that his soul was gone, told herself that it had to be.

  It had to be, if only so that she could sleep at night.

  “Hi, Mom!” Isaac said, rushing to throw his arms around her. She hesitated for only a fraction of an instant before returning that love, and hoped he would not notice.

  “Hello, Ikey,” she said, kissing the top of his head. “I like the outfit your brother bought you.”

  Isaac stood back and glanced down at his clothes as if he’d forgotten what he had put on that morning, a blue-and-red-striped sweater with a gray winter coat, black boots, and jeans. Allie smiled; that was just like him. He’d never paid any attention to what he wore. No matter whose face he had, this was her little boy. She hoped that she would be able to get used to that.

  “Hey, Mom,” Jake said. “You look good.”

  Allie thanked him, frowning as she noticed the stiffness in his posture and the tightness of his expression. Beneath his clothes—his outfit similar to Isaac’s—Jake had tape and bandages covering much of his back, protecting the stitches that had been required to close the worst of the puncture wounds there.

  “You, on the other hand, don’t look so good.”

  He arched an eyebrow. “Gee, thanks.”

  Allie went to him and kissed his cheek, ruffled Isaac’s hair, and turned to watch Miri, who had both hands on top of her father’s marble headstone, leaning on it as if it were the only thing keeping her upright. Her mother had been badly injured during the storm, sustaining broken bones and severe internal injuries in a fall that the authorities could not explain. Angela remained in intensive care and had still not regained consciousness more than twenty-four hours after the storm had ended. Allie could only imagine what Miri must be thinking, here at her father’s grave with her mother in such dire straits, but the girl was strong. No doubt about that.

  After a moment or two, Miri shifted, seemed to take a deep breath, and turned to smile wanly at Allie.

  “Together again,” she said.

  Only two words, but they echoed back across the years, hinting at the familial promise that Allie and Niko’s relationship had held before the evil came to Coventry. Whether or not the ice men were truly evil did not matter to her. Their malice and hunger had destroyed her happiness and taken the lives of people she loved. She hoped that wherever they were now, they were starving.

  “Come on, boys,” Allie said, taking their hands.

  With Jake shuffling painfully on one side and Isaac on the other, and her own cuts and bruises still aching, she clambered over the snowbank until the four of them
stood together around Niko’s grave.

  “It’s like we’re burying him again,” Miri said.

  Allie wanted to argue with her, but she felt the same way. Jake put a comforting arm around Miri, and Allie wondered where their lives would take them, now. Miri had run pretty much as far away from Coventry as it was possible to go without leaving the country. Could she stop running, now?

  “Mom?” Isaac said. “Am I buried here?”

  A dreadful ice slid through Allie’s veins, colder than the touch of the demons they’d faced in the storm. She looked into her son’s eyes—into the face of a stranger—and she could not reply. Instead, she hugged him tightly.

  “Hey, Ike,” Jake said, grabbing his little brother playfully by the ear. “You’re not buried anywhere, man. You’re right here with us.”

  Isaac stared at him for a moment, then looked at Miri. He had died at the age of ten and had spent a dozen years aware and alert—thinking—trapped in a kind of hell Allie could only imagine. He still had a boy’s face and manner, but he understood far more than he let on.

  “Okay, Jake,” Isaac said. “Okay.”

  An agreement. A contract, Allie thought. They wouldn’t speak of it again.

  “Thank you guys for coming,” Miri said. Her curls framed her face and Allie thought she looked adorable, not at all like a girl who’d been in mourning for more than a decade.

  “Of course,” Jake said.

  Miri glanced away, her smile fading, and then turned to focus entirely on Isaac.

  “Hey, Ike,” she said, “can I ask you something?”

  The little boy looked up at her with a terrible wisdom in his eyes.

  “You want to know if they got him,” Isaac said.

  Allie’s heart quickened. “No,” she said. “Miri, you saw him escape. He vanished, you told me.”

  “I thought so,” Miri replied, “but he hasn’t come back. I guess I just thought that he’d…” She turned to look at the headstone again, at the letters of her father’s name so deeply engraved in the marble. “I thought he’d stay.”

  Isaac hugged her. “I don’t think they took him. I think he’s gone wherever we were supposed to go back then, the night we died. He’ll be all right, now.”

  Allie and Jake exchanged a look. After a second, Jake shoved his hands into his pockets and peered down at his brother.

  “What about you? Are you staying?”

  Isaac would not face him. “Not if I have to be Zachary Stroud. So I guess we’ll see.”

  The boy stared down at where his boots were plunged into the snow until they all heard the approach of an engine, and car tires crunching over the grit left behind by the sander. Allie turned to see a silver Mustang rolling toward them. The car drew to a halt but she could not see through the tinted windows. The door opened but it took several seconds for Harley Talbot to extricate himself from the driver’s seat. His height forced him to fold himself into the car, and the sling on his right arm had to have made it difficult to drive.

  “You must love that car a lot to be willing to jam yourself in there,” she said.

  Harley grinned and slammed the Mustang’s door. “A man’s got to have style.”

  She smiled. “Thank you for coming.”

  “We needed to have this conversation,” he said as he strode toward them, stopping on the other side of the snowbank, as if he felt he’d have been intruding if he came any nearer. “I can’t think of anywhere more private to have it. First thing you should all know is that the department’s likely to release Joe Keenan’s body on Monday, which means the funeral will probably be Wednesday or Thursday.”

  “He saved my life,” Allie said quietly. “We wouldn’t miss it.”

  Jake put a hand on Isaac’s shoulder. There were circles under his eyes that had never been there before. “Seriously, Harley. Thanks for being here.”

  “Don’t thank me yet,” he said.

  Miri stepped up beside Allie and took her hand, and for a moment—there by Niko’s grave—they really were the family that she believed they had always been meant to be.

  “What are you saying?” Miri asked. “Don’t keep us in suspense, Harley. Please.”

  Harley nodded, reaching up with his good hand to rub the stubble on his chin. He was on medical leave, and while his right arm healed he had apparently given up shaving.

  “Nobody believes it was a bear,” he said, his voice a low rumble. “If it had just been our injuries they might have gone for it, but with Keenan and Torres and that Harpwell guy dead, and what happened to Miri’s mother, they’re going to have to take a closer look.”

  “Shit,” Jake muttered.

  “What do you think will happen?” Allie asked, a strange calm enveloping her.

  Harley shrugged. “No idea. When Lieutenant Duquette pressed me on it, I asked him if they’d ever closed the investigation into the weirder deaths from twelve years back. He said those cases were still open. I figure that’s where this will go. As long as we keep telling our story and stick together, the investigation will go on forever.”

  Miri exhaled. “Do you think they realize they’re never going to find answers that satisfy them?”

  “I think they do.” Harley glanced away, across the trees and graves and the gate, toward the rooftops of downtown that were visible from the hilltop cemetery. “I think it’s over.”

  Allie put an arm around Isaac’s shoulders. “Not for us.”

  “I’m going to do everything I can,” Harley said, but this time his focus was on Isaac. “I swear to you, kid, I’ll do my best. It’s not going to be easy.” He glanced at Miri and Jake before turning to Allie again. “My statement’s with Child Services now, just the way we talked it out. You were driving over to Jake’s when the storm really hit hard. You found the kid wandering on the side of the road and took him to Jake’s. Miri and I were already there, having dinner with him, and we all rode out the storm together. You took care of the boy, formed a bond with him.”

  “But he has family,” Miri said quietly. “Zachary Stroud.”

  “Mrs. Stroud has a sister in California who doesn’t seem to give a damn,” Harley said. “But there are cousins in Portsmouth who seem to want custody. Maybe when the reality of what that means—the responsibility—settles in, they won’t be so eager.”

  Allie took a deep breath. “He’s my son, Harley.”

  “I know,” Harley said. “I know.”

  On Sunday morning, the sky turned gray again and the clouds moved in. TJ lay inside the massive snow fort he and Grace had built into the enormous snowbank at the end of the driveway with his back to the wall, breathing hard and grinning like a fool. He had a snowball in one hand and another half dozen ready to go.

  “Ready to surrender yet, Daddy?” Grace called from the driveway.

  “Not on your life, kid!” TJ declared.

  A pair of snowballs came over the wall of the fort in rapid succession, one of them hitting his shoulder and sending a spray of snow down the collar of his jacket. He laughed out loud at his daughter’s audacity. She’d used his voice to aim by. Smart kid, he thought.

  “Graahhh!” he shouted, scaling the inside of the wall and kneeling on top of the snowbank, prepared to nail her with the snowball in his hand.…

  Grace had vanished.

  He blinked, a flutter of fear in his heart, and then he heard the scuffling behind him and realized he’d been duped. TJ turned just in time to see her emerging from the tunnel that led from the driveway into the fort.

  “Oh, you sneak!” he shouted, sliding back down the snow wall.

  But Grace was too fast for him. Laughing that little-girl laugh that had always broken his heart, she lunged for his pile of premade snowballs, grabbed two, and began to barrage him with his own arsenal. One hit him on the thigh and he turned instinctively and let the other hit him in the head so it didn’t get him in the face.

  “That’s it!” he cried, laughing, and tackled her in the snow.

  G
race giggled uncontrollably, trying to catch her breath as he rolled around with her in the snow, pretending the two of them were in a life-or-death wrestling match. He maneuvered her so that he ended up on his back on the floor of the snow fort with Grace astride his chest, victorious.

  “No!” he yelled. “Don’t hurt me! I surrender!”

  “You are defeated! Now you must do my bidding!” Grace declared, echoing things she’d heard him say in similar play-battles over the years.

  “Yes, master,” TJ said, marveling at the happiness in his daughter’s eyes.

  She remembered nothing of what had happened in the days leading up to the blizzard, and for that he would be forever thankful.

  They heard a car horn honk as it pulled into the driveway.

  Grace jumped off him. “Mom’s home!”

  She dived for the tunnel and TJ’s pulse quickened. He scrambled after her, grabbed her by one boot and the back of her jacket, and hauled her to him. Grace kicked at him, playful but obviously irritated.

  “Let go!” she yelled, giving him a look that made him dread her teenage years.

  “Hang on.” He climbed up to look over the top of the snowbank, watching Ella park in the driveway and turn off the engine. “Okay, now you won’t get run over. Go ahead.”

  In one smooth movement, Grace turned and grabbed a snowball from his stash, hurled it at him, and then rabbited through the tunnel. TJ could only laugh as he clambered over the top of the snowbank and slid inelegantly down to the driveway.

  “No fair!” Grace said when she saw him.

  She might have protested more, but Ella popped open her car door and emerged with a cardboard tray of Dunkin’ Donuts cups. TJ caught her eye and she rewarded him with a smile. What they had been through together—the fear they’d felt for themselves, for each other, and most powerfully for their little girl—had changed things between them. It was as if they had seen each other clearly for the first time in a very long time.