by Ronald Malfi
“Now what?” asked Nan.
“We get out and walk,” Todd said. “There’s a town somewhere up ahead and we’re going to find it. Fred, I’ve got a duffel bag behind you filled with some clothes, some bottled water, stuff like that.”
“Check,” Fred said, already popping open his door. Freezing ice whistled into the Jeep. Not wanting to be left alone in the backseat with Eddie Clement, Nan quickly followed her husband out.
Todd leaned closer to Kate. “Grab the flashlight and the map. Also, my laptop’s under your seat.”
“Anything else?” She looked hopeful.
“You don’t happen to have a portable gas stove in your purse, do you?”
“Shoot,” she said. “It’s in my other purse.”
They both climbed out of the Jeep. Todd went around back and helped Fred pull the duffel bag from the hatchback. Nan had already scavenged the oversized teddy bear; she clutched it now, almost childlike, to her frail chest. As she stood at the shoulder of the road, Todd could hear her teeth clattering together.
As she tested the flashlight and folded the map into her coat pocket, Kate cast a glance back at Eddie Clement’s silhouette still seated in the car. “What about him?”
“To hell with him,” Todd groaned, pulling the strap of the duffel bag up over one shoulder. He unzipped it and squeezed his laptop inside.
Fred slammed the hatchback shut, then gently gripped Todd’s forearm. “While I’m just as anxious to part ways with our good friend,” Fred whispered, “I think I’d feel more comfortable knowing where he is for the time being. Do you catch my drift?”
Todd considered. Fred was right. Walking alongside the Jeep, Todd thumped a fist on one of the windows. “Let’s go, Eddie.”
The man’s head barely turned to acknowledge him.
Todd opened the door. For the briefest moment, a smell passed through his nose—of something moist and rotting in a hot root cellar. Inside the Jeep, Eddie’s eyes seemed to glint like stones flecked with mica.
“Get out of the car, Eddie. We’re going for a walk.”
“I’m tired of walking.”
“What about your daughter?”
For a moment it seemed that Eddie Clement would remain seated in the backseat of the Cherokee until the apocalypse showered the earth in nuclear winter. Then, expressionlessly, he shifted his considerable bulk toward the door and practically fell out onto the snow. Todd caught him with one arm. Beneath his flannel coat, the man’s arm felt like the limb of an oak tree.
As they walked, it started to snow again. Lightly at first, but with each footstep it seemed to intensify. Todd’s toes felt numb in his boots and, after just a good five minutes, his legs began to ache. Around them, the trees seemed to grow taller and denser and crowd in closer on all sides. If it weren’t for the road, which was covered in snow but still identifiable, they would have surely wandered off into the woods and disappeared.
“I don’t like this,” Kate said, saddling up beside him. Her face had gone as pale as the moon, the only exception being the tinge of red at the tip of her small nose. “Where’s the goddamn town? We should be seeing streetlights, smoke coming up through chimneys.”
Todd nodded, then shot a look back over his shoulder. Eddie had been bringing up the rear, deliberately dragging his heavy feet like some overgrown and obstinate child. But Fred Wilkinson was apparently not comfortable with Eddie walking behind him; the older man had slowed his gait until he fell back far enough to keep Eddie firmly in his periphery.
“We should have left him back at the car,” Kate said. “What was it Nan said before? He gives me the willies.”
“Fred thought we should keep an eye on him.”
“Why?”
“Because he doesn’t trust him.”
“Do you?”
“No,” Todd said after a moment.
Behind them, Fred called out to Nan. Todd and Kate stopped in their tracks and spun around.
Nan had negotiated her way off the road and over into the billowy mounds of snow that lay thick and heavy at the foot of the pines. Still clutching the teddy bear to her chest, she stood somewhat aloof, peering through the twirling snow and into the trees.
“Nan,” Fred called again, this time hustling over to her. He gently took one elbow and followed her gaze into the shadows of the dark pines. “What is it?”
Nan blinked, then shook her head. “I thought I saw someone.”
“Where?” Fred asked.
“Right there. Through the trees.”
Cupping his hands around his mouth, Fred shouted, “Hello!” His voice echoed and caused Nan to jump.
“There’s no one there,” Todd called back. “It’s a trick of the snow, Nan. Makes you think you’re seeing things that aren’t there.”
“Speaking of things that aren’t there,” Fred said, turning around.
Todd looked, too, and found that Eddie Clement had vanished. What might have felt like relief earlier in the night now caused a tremor of panic to ripple through him.
“God,” Kate intoned. There was an octave-dropping sickness to her tone. “Where’d he go?”
“Eddie!” Fred shouted. “Eddie Clement! Where the hell are you?”
Todd rushed over to where Eddie had been standing just a moment ago. “His footprints go through here,” Todd said, pointing at the ground. Eddie’s big lumberjack footprints diverged from the roadway and cut straight through the trees on the shoulder of the road. The spacing between each print suggested he had taken off at a run.
“Son of a bitch,” Fred muttered, coming beside Todd. “Where the hell do you think—”
But before Fred could finish, Todd had taken off through the trees in pursuit of Eddie. The duffel bag slapping against his ribs, he followed the footprints through the forest, bristling pine boughs whipping him at every turn. For some feral and inexplicable reason, he knew he had to pursue.
“Todd!” Fred called from far behind him, still on the roadway. “Todd! Come back!”
At breakneck speed, Todd continued through the pines. The scent of the forest was overwhelming, infusing itself in his nose and in his skin. An image of his childhood up in Hancock flashed beneath his eyelids like subliminal advertising. Something solid and unyielding struck his right shin but he kept on running. Again, he caught wind of that awful smell—the decomposing of something dead in an old root cellar—and he reached out blindly with one hand as he ran, certain his fingers would close around Eddie’s tattered flannel coat just beyond the curtain of pine needles mere inches before his face—
He stumbled out into a clearing and fell face-first into the snow. His duffel bag swung around and whapped against the top of his head. Briefly, stars exploded before his eyes. When he lifted his face up out of the snow, it took a second or two for all the little pixels that comprised his vision to fall back into place. And when they did, his breath caught in his throat. It took all his strength to push himself up onto his knees.
Eddie stood maybe ten yards ahead of him in what appeared to be an open field of snow. Like Todd, Eddie was down on his knees, eye level with the little girl who stood in front of him. She was wearing a pink snow parka with the hood drawn up over her face, the hood itself rimmed in grayish brown faux fur. Mittens hung from the parka’s sleeves by colored string.
Jesus, Todd thought. His daughter. He wasn’t lying.
Both Eddie and the little girl—Emily?—turned and looked at Todd. After a moment, Eddie stood, clumps of fresh snow falling off his knees.
The girl had no face.
Holy fuck…
A grin broke out across Eddie’s face. “Come with us, Todd.” The grin widened—impossibly wide. “It’ll be warm.”
As if controlled by strings, Todd felt himself rise up out of the snow. Suddenly, he wasn’t as conscious of the temperature as he’d previously been. He could even feel his toes again.
“Come on, Todd.” The jack-o’-lantern smile. “That’s it.”
The sna
pping of branches jerked Todd from his trance. He spun around in time to see Fred Wilkinson, followed by Kate, come stumbling out of the trees.
“Todd,” Kate began, but then looked up and out across the field. “Oh my God…”
Todd turned back to Eddie and the little girl…just in time to see them bounding off into the darkness like a pair of frightened deer. The footprints left behind in the snow were spaced impossibly wide.
“Was that his daughter?” Kate said, coming down beside Todd.
“What just happened here?” It was Fred, still trying to make out Eddie and Emily even though the darkness had swallowed them up already. Nan appeared beside him, pressing the side of her face against the teddy bear’s furry head for warmth.
Todd just shook his head. “I don’t know.”
“Come on,” Kate said, slipping a hand under his armpit. “Let’s go.”
Todd felt the bitter cold rush back into his body. Again, he lost all feeling in his toes and he was suddenly acutely aware of every ache and pain that coursed through his musculature. When he took a single step forward, he winced as a jagged pain raced up his right shin and seemed to explode in the socket of his right hip.
Kate looked down. “You’re bleeding.”
“I don’t want to see.” But he’d already caught a glimpse of the blackened snow beneath him.
“We’re here,” Fred said. “Look.”
They all looked up. There were no lights anywhere—no lights in windows, no traffic lights or lampposts—and it took them all a second or two to realize what they were seeing: little houses dotting the far end of the field, masked by the darkness.
“Thank God,” Nan said into the bear’s furry face.
“Why are they all dark?” said Kate. “There aren’t any lights anywhere.”
Fred rolled his shoulders. “Storm must have knocked the power out,” he suggested.
“Come on,” Todd said, hefting the duffel bag back over his shoulder. “Let’s see if anyone’s home.”
Kate looked concerned. “Can you walk?”
“I’m fine.”
“Let me take a look at it,” Fred offered.
Todd shook his head. “No. We need to keep moving. We’ve been freezing our asses off out here long enough.”
“Then at least let me take that bag from you.”
Todd relented, letting Fred slide the duffel bag off Todd’s shoulder and onto his own.
“Come on,” Kate said, bringing an arm around Todd’s back. She hugged him tightly against her hip as they both took a step together. “Use me as a crutch.”
“Did you see the little girl?” he said. His breath tasted sour and his throat burned.
“Let’s not talk about them,” Kate said.
“Her face,” he went on anyway. “Did you see her face?”
“What was wrong with her face?”
It was just an empty socket, he wanted to say. It was just a fleshy concavity where a face should be.
“Never mind,” he said eventually.
The snow had let up by the time they crossed the field and emptied out into a deserted street. Before them, the desolate houses along the avenue rose up like sentries. Something about them made Todd think of medieval knights, long dead and their bodies turned to powder, with their hollowed armor like conch shells propped up against dungeon walls.
“Look,” Fred said, pointing down the street. “Fire.”
They all looked. Indeed, where the street opened up into a quaint little town square, random fires burned. Still, there were no electric lights on; even the stars were blotted out by the heavy cloud cover.
“We should try one of these houses for help,” Kate suggested. She was gazing up at the closest one, a rambling Aframe with windows like black pools of ice.
“I say we check out what started those fires,” Todd said.
“I agree,” seconded Fred. He, too, was looking at the houses, and there was a look of distrust evident in his eyes. “I’m getting the vibe that no one’s home around here, anyway.”
“That’s impossible.” Kate’s arm fell away from Todd’s back as she crossed the street and stood on the snowy sidewalk, looking up at one of the houses.
“Kate,” Todd called. “Come back, Kate.”
“Are you saying an entire block is away on vacation?” She sounded adamant. “You said it yourself, Fred—the power’s probably gone out in the storm. We should knock on some doors.”
“That’s probably true,” Fred responded, “but I don’t see any candles flickering in those windows, do you?”
A terrible image surfaced in Todd’s mind at that moment: all the residents of this quiet little hamlet watching them from the darkness of their homes, cloaked in black, their eyes like silver dollars. Or maybe they have no eyes at all. Maybe they have no faces.
“Maybe the place has been evacuated,” Fred added.
“For what reason?”
“I don’t know.”
“Get away from there, Kate,” Todd called to her again, unnerved.
It was his voice that seemed to reach her. She turned around and tromped back through the snow toward them. Her eyes hung longest on Todd. They were no longer the dazzling green they’d been back at the airport bar; they now seemed drained of color and looked like steel divots.
“Let’s keep moving,” Fred said, slinging an arm around Nan’s narrow shoulders. He administered a kiss to the top of her head and, pressed together as if one, they proceeded down the center of the street toward the fires burning in the town square.
“You’re scared,” Todd said, walking alongside Kate. She had not put her arm back around his waist. “It’s nothing to be ashamed of.”
“I’m not ashamed. And I’m not scared, either.”
“Next thing you’ll tell me you’re not a liar.”
She folded her arms across her chest but Todd could see the stirrings of a smile beneath the surface of her lips. “I can’t believe this is happening. This is supposed to be Christmas. Happiest goddamn time of the year.”
“Do you have a cell phone? You should probably call your fiancé, let him know what’s going on.”
“Yeah, thanks.” She fished around in her purse for her cell phone. When she finally located it, she tried turning it on, to no avail. “Shit. Battery’s dead.”
Todd dug his own cell phone from his coat. “Here.”
“Thanks.” She accepted the phone but didn’t use it right away. “That guy we picked up—did that really happen?”
“Yes.”
“And the little girl? I mean, what the hell was that all about?”
“I don’t have a clue.”
“Christ. I’m not scared,” she said again, “but I do feel like I’m losing my mind.”
Todd smiled. “And that doesn’t scare you?”
“I’m a tough gal,” she said, shrugging. Suddenly she looked very pretty. “It takes a lot to scare me.”
Todd’s smile faltered. He was thinking of the little girl with no face.
“Shit,” Kate said, looking at Todd’s cell phone. “Take one guess what will make this evening even better.”
“No signal?”
“No signal.”
“Terrific.”
She handed him back the phone. “Right at this very moment, my fiancé’s parents are probably catching him up to speed on all the medication they’ve been on for the past year, and how my soon-to-be father-in-law has been wearing the same pair of socks all week to cut down on laundry. Miserable lot.”
“When’s the wedding?”
“We haven’t set a date yet.”
“How long have you been engaged?”
Kate laughed. “See, you’re hungry to do the math, right? If I say we got formally engaged over two years ago, you’ll smile and say something nice and benign, but inside you’ll be thinking, ‘Man, this chick’s crazy if she thinks this guy is ever going to seal the deal.’”
“Is that true? You’ve been engaged for two years
now?”
“Three. We got engaged on our second date.”
“Hmmmm,” he said.
She cocked an eyebrow at him. “That’s all you’ve got to say?”
“I’m still trying to think of something nice and benign.”
“Forget it. If you’d seen the winners I’ve gone out with in the past, you’d be all about Gerald.”
“So that’s his name? Gerald?”
“Yeah, so?”
“So he sounds like someone’s butler.”
They both laughed.
“Thank you,” she said, “for taking my mind off things. I kept getting a weird feeling.”
“Like what?”
She looked at the rows of houses they were passing, silent and dark and brooding. “Like there are people in there watching us.”
The town square was like a Norman Rockwell painting gone horribly awry. At the center of the square was a bronze statue of a man on a horse, the horse’s front legs pawing at the air. Surrounding the statue and scattered about in the snow like stuffing torn from an old mattress were strips of tattered clothing—shirts, pants, underwear, even a baseball hat. Fires burned in old oil drums that had been erected along the street, the great flames reflected in the blackened windows of the shops that circled the square. Cars had been evacuated seemingly without heed, many of them in the middle of the street with their doors ajar and their batteries dead. A bicycle lay on its side, its frame bent in the middle at a firm 90-degree angle.
“What the hell happened here?” Kate said. She surveyed the damage, then looked up past the shops where the spire of a darkened church punctured the sky like a syringe.
“Looks like a battlefield,” Nan commented as she slowly made her way around the bronze statue at the center of the square. “Who set these fires? Looters?”
Lowering his voice so the women wouldn’t hear, Todd leaned over to Fred and whispered, “Where the fuck is everyone?”
“For their sakes, I hope they left long before whatever happened here.”
“And what exactly did—”
Nan screamed.
CHAPTER SIX