The Snow Swept Trilogy

by Derrick Hibbard

  "I'll always love you." This time it was her father's voice, just before he died.

  Then her mother was whispering, "You gotta move, baby girl, before the devil gets you."

  And strangely, a memory that she thought was long lost, resurfaced. The feel of her first kiss, the brush of his lips on hers, and the taste of the kiss, and the autumn mountains blanketed with mist.

  You gotta move—

  Mae kicked toward the surface, struggling against the current to reach up to the air above the water, so tantalizingly close to her face yet separated by a layer of ice. She pounded against the ice and screamed, the last of the air from her lungs forming into bubbles and bouncing along the underside of the frozen water. Her lungs burned and her body ached. Mae slammed into a large rock and slipped around it with the current. Her arm hit a branch, sending her body spiraling along the riverbed, and her head collided with another rock. The shock of the collision didn't drive away consciousness, but she stopped fighting the river. The will to live, so intense and vibrant only seconds before, quickly drained from her body as the cold numbed her and the lack of oxygen slackened her grip on reality. She floated along the bottom of the river, bouncing into rocks and fallen tree trunks.

  Her foot suddenly snagged a branch, ripping her body from the current and pulling her closer to a gnarl of roots along the riverbank where the ice was still thin. She pushed up hard against the icy surface, even as her lungs felt as though they would explode. She burst from the dark water with a gasp, chunks of ice and river debris floating in the water next to her.

  She kept breathing hard, gulping and relishing each breath, and then her body was forcing short breaths despite her need for oxygen, hypothermia setting in. Mae climbed from the water and slowly squirmed out of her wet clothes, knowing that she had mere minutes to warm her body before hypothermia would claim her. Once the outer layer of clothes was a sopping bundle on the frozen earth, she peeled her bra and panties from her body, the material already stiffening as the moisture mixed with the bitter temperatures and began to freeze. She was naked in the cold, night air, vulnerable.

  Mae ran her fingers over her numbing skin, and her body felt hard and frozen. Her muscles convulsed rapidly, rattling her bones and teeth, and sending waves of dull pain to her fingertips. She lay on the ground and curled into a ball on the forest floor, no longer noticing the biting cold or the frozen twigs and branches that stuck into her skin like icy needles. She fought the urge to just fall asleep and let her mind and body go to a place where it was warm, to a place where she didn't have to fight for survival, where she couldn't cry or scream or run. She was tired of running, and tired of outpacing death, which always seemed to be just a few steps behind.

  She was just plain old tired, and the fight was gone.

  The warm blanket of darkness called to her, and she closed her eyes for just a moment, allowing the warmth of oblivion to take control of her mind and body.

  I'll sleep for just two seconds, she thought, but she wasn't really thinking at this point. Her body was methodically shutting down, and she welcomed the nothingness that swept over her, simply because it was warm. The darkness came upon her and wrapped its comforting coils around her body, slithering into her throat and around her neck.

  The violent shaking in her body slowed, and the dull, but raging ache seemed to fade away. As she lay dying, she opened her eyes and stared at the black sky overhead. The moon shone behind the clouds, illuminating the tufts of winter storm with a faint glow.

  She almost closed her eyes again, and it really would have been over had her eyelids finally slid shut, but the clouds parted for a moment, and the sky caught her gaze.

  The stars twinkled—tiny bits of contrast in the black emptiness of the universe. She thought about a time when she was a child, looking up at the sky from her trampoline, her mom and dad laying on either side of her on top of a patchwork quilt that was soft and thick, watching the big sky unfold. It'd been summer then, and the air was warm and spiked with the scents of lilac and honeysuckle. They'd eaten popcorn from a big metal bowl perched between them and sucked on red strands of licorice. It was one of those endless nights, caught in memory on repeat, a moment when she'd been happy, when she'd wanted to live.

  And her thoughts drifted to another time and place where she'd studied the stars, laying in a mountain meadow on that same patchwork quilt, listening to the crickets and cicadas, and his breathing beside her, his hand closed around hers.

  Mae, frozen and dying, felt a spark of life within her nearly lifeless body, a remnant of that the spark she'd felt, both with her parents on the trampoline as a little girl, and then again with the boy she'd first loved.

  "I've got to get up," she mumbled in a voice so soft and strained that it sounded alien, even to herself. "I've got to get up."

  Mae uncurled her fingers, the muscles and bones creaking and trembling as they straightened. She flexed the muscles in her hands, slowly at first, and then more quickly, forcing the sluggish blood to circulate.

  She forced herself to roll over onto her knees, her entire body in a seizure of cold, and she straightened up into a kneeling position, vigorously rubbing her bare skin. She reached toward her drenched knapsack and unzipped the top pocket, pulling out a plastic shopping bag. As she unfolded the bag, she prayed that the contents inside had not gotten wet. Tiny puddles of water had pooled in the creases of the bag, and her heart sank when she felt the clothes inside.

  The extra pair of clothes was protected to some extent by the shopping bag, but was by no means dry. She pulled the damp bundle from the bag, set it on the ground, and ignored for a moment longer the fact that she was naked and freezing to death. Mae unfolded the pair of blue jeans that had been wrapped around her sweater, which was in turn wrapped around a t-shirt and a pair of underwear. At the very center of the bundle was a small, black iPod, one of the older models, wrapped in a pair of equally antiquated headphones. With the music player was a small notebook containing mostly blank pages, but with a few sketches toward the front. She made sure the notebook was dry and then put it aside, focusing her attention on the iPod. She turned it over in her hands and examined it closely. Her hands shook and it took a great deal of concentration to keep from dropping it. The casing was intact, but it was slippery with moisture.

  The iPod had obviously been protected first by the plastic bag, and then by her clothes, but not saved completely from getting wet. Mae examined the 32-pin docking bay for the connecting wire and made sure that no moisture had found its way inside. The docking bay seemed to be dry, but she blew inside for good measure. She held it between the palms of her hands and brought it close to her face. She kissed the hard, cold surface, and gently placed it again inside the shopping bag with her notebook. She wrapped the plastic tightly around the little bundle and returned it to the knapsack.

  Her body shook violently and her teeth clicked as she pulled the underwear and clothing onto her body. Even damp, the clothes provided some degree of cover from the winter air.

  She moved jerkily, the blood pumping slowly through her body like a trickling stream. She stood and pulled the jeans up and over her petite hips, buttoning the front and zipping the fly. She squeezed water from her boots and pulled them over her feet.

  Mae gathered her wet clothes and rolled them into a ball before shoving them into a hole beneath the twisted roots of a tree, then brushed dead leaves and twigs over the hole until the clothes were completely covered. She didn’t know if Eddie and the guys from the cabin would come looking for her body tonight, or during daylight, but she couldn’t risk having her clothes found, as they would know that she'd survived the river.

  Mae stood, her body aching and screaming for some relief from the cold. She had to move quickly, knowing that slowing her movements would only quicken death's grasp on her. She picked up her knapsack, slung it over both shoulders, and pushed forward into the dark forest beyond.

  Part Two: Route B, Michigan Ave.

  Chap
ter Seven

  Paul Fremont remembered the heat hitting him like a sledgehammer to the face, as he walked out of the airport. The air was thick and wet, and smelled like a salty swamp. The taste and smell of the air, and the never-ending heat always came with his thoughts of Ground Zero at Miami, as did the general discomfort of the weather, the running stream of Spanish spoken with a Cuban staccato accent, constantly in the background as he walked through the steel beams and broken concrete.

  It came at him in flashes. The yellow police tape, the groups of men and women, some crying, others standing with their hands shoved deep into their pockets, all of them looking lost and helpless, standing in front of the temporary chain link fence that was erected around Ground Zero. The fence plastered with pictures of loved ones lost in the explosion that wasn't an explosion, victims of the bomb that wasn't a bomb. The broken sidewalk, littered with glass and debris, bouquets of flowers, and flickering candles to the Saints.

  The press zone was a small area blocked off from the rest of the world, allowing reporters a glimpse of the building beyond, but no cameras were allowed. The press zone was filled with bodies, all of them sweating in the South Florida heat and humidity. The reporters and journalists, those sharks and snakes, their arms extended with microphones, or Dictaphones, or cell phones, recording every word of fluff dished out by the police, and only one thing stuck in his mind.

  No evidence of a bomb, no evidence of an explosion.

  Tell that to the building that looked like it'd been turned inside out before being crushed.

  Paul took a deep breath and tried to push the memories of the attack in Miami from his mind. He unwrapped a piece of spicy cinnamon candy and placed it on the center of his tongue. He closed his mouth around the candy, ignoring the flashes of destruction. Ignoring the images of crying moms and dads, of the skeletal remains of buildings, Paul focused instead on the initial tingling sensation of the candy.

  Paul loved Atomic Fireballs, and when he was stressed or nervous, he constantly popped them into his mouth. At the moment, Paul was more stressed than he ever remembered, probably more nervous and upset than he'd been even during the last few months of his marriage. Already, he was sucking on two pieces, and that third piece of cinnamon flavored candy was about all he could handle.

  Paul savored the initial burst of cinnamon spice, moving the candies around the inside of his mouth and feeling nostalgia and comfort. The taste reminded him of scorching summers when he was a child in a small western town in the foothills of the Rocky Mountains. Every morning during that magical summertime between school years, he would work hard to finish up his chores around the house early in the morning, not just so he could run and play outside for the rest of the day, but so he could earn a dollar or two to spend at the little town store.

  He would take the money and ride his bike to the store, a building not much bigger than a two-car garage. He would prop his bike on the wooden porch and when he went inside, the dark and cool interior would always be a welcome relief against the dry mountain heat. Always, he would use the money to buy a cold bottle of Sprite and a handful of Atomic Fireballs. Paul would then sit on the wooden steps, watching cars drive by while sipping the soda pop and relishing the cinnamon candy. The taste of the candy as an adult somehow brought it all back, even the dusty summer air, the sweat on his forehead, and the cool bite of the carbonation on his dry throat.

  The cinnamon spice turned to fire as it stung his tongue and the insides of his cheeks. He opened his mouth and inhaled deeply, the air rushing into his mouth and throat and cooling the nerve endings, while delivering a healthy dose of spiced air to his lungs. He held onto the breath for a moment, like a smoker savoring that first lungful of tar and tobacco.

  As he exhaled slowly through his nose, Paul crinkled the wrapper into his pocket and leaned forward until his forehead touched the frosty glass of the window.

  The city spread out before him like an explosion of light—beautiful and vibrant on the surface, but cold and dark and dirty within. He squinted, trying to make out Lake Michigan behind the sprawl of concrete and people, to no avail. Even if it hadn't been snowing a full gale blizzard, and even if the moon hadn't been covered with thick clouds, he doubted that he'd be able to see the lake anyway at night, because the city lights were just too bright.

  Paul focused again on the city, the high rises and office buildings, the lighted windows, and the cars driving slowly through the streets. Several blocks away, flashing red and blue lights burst to life and pulled an unsuspecting driver to the side of the road.

  The sidewalks were sparsely populated this time of night, especially with the temperatures diving below freezing and the snow falling faster and faster. What few people were brave enough to face the elements had coats pulled tightly to their bodies, scarves blowing in the frigid wind from the lake.

  Paul stepped away from the window and paced the small room as he took another piece of candy from his pocket and squeezed it between his fingers.

  He stopped for a moment in front of the coffee table where loose papers bulged from a stack of manila folders. He considered rifling through the pages for the millionth time, but knew that he wouldn’t be able to sit still for longer than a few seconds. He glanced at his watch, the second hand seeming to tick by in slow motion. He wanted to sip a finger of Wild Turkey to calm his nerves, but thought better of it. He needed a clear mind.

  It was almost time.

  Months of negotiating with this woman had led to this, and he was minutes away from meeting the woman who would change his life. He hoped, and she promised, that her information would answer the questions that'd plagued him for years.

  A bomb that wasn't a bomb.

  The world had moved on from the disaster in Miami, but Paul had not moved on. The officials had explained away the disaster as a combination of faulty engineering and trembling of the earth's tectonic plates, an accident.

  No matter how ridiculous it seemed, no matter how sure Paul was that a building could not lift up out of the ground and implode in on itself because of engineering errors, he couldn't prove his theories. He had no answers, no evidence, and without the evidence, he was just a crackpot conspiracy theorist.

  But now the woman promised to answer those questions, to shed light on his theories, and for that he was nervous and excited. In the years that had followed the Miami attack, his life had slowly unraveled, one piece at a time. He'd become obsessed with finding answers to the disaster, poring through engineering specs, blueprints, geological surveys and reports for the day of the tragedy. The more he read, the more he was certain that the incident could not have happened by accident. Despite the lack of evidence of a bomb, he became increasingly sure that the attack had been planned and executed. It could not have been an accident.

  The woman promised to explain it all, to give him the evidence he needed to prove that his obsession wasn't some crazy conspiracy.

  He walked to the door and stared out the small peep hole, looking through the concave lens to the hallway beyond. He saw nothing and, and hadn't expected to see anything. He was nervous about the meeting, and he wasn't thinking so much as acting to quell the anxiety.

  He turned back to the room, crossing again to the window while squeezing his fingers around the hard ball of candy in its wrapper.

  Paul glanced at his watch again… and it was time to go. He took his coat from where it lay on the bed and slung it over his shoulders. He considered his knit winter cap, but decided against it. Even though his ears would freeze, the cap made him look like a thug, and he wanted to avoid that appearance if at all possible. He wanted the woman to trust him, and already that would be something of an uphill battle. He'd spoken to her a few times, and while she seemed to open up a little more with each telephone conversation, she remained suspicious and guarded, as if their conversations were being recorded and her location traced. Her carefully chosen words and half-references were seeped in paranoia, and while Paul understood that what they
were talking about was serious business, he never quite understood why she was so scared, why it had taken months of sporadic calls to finally convince her to meet in person. As much as she wanted to avoid her face being associated with the information she had, Paul needed to know that she wasn't a hack.

  On his way out of the room, he picked up a thin stack of documents and a legal pad. He didn't know how long he would be on the bus, waiting for the woman, but it wouldn't hurt to go over his plan of attack.

  Paul was alone on the elevator to the lobby, so he checked his appearance in the mirrors that lined the walls. He wasn't especially good looking, but he figured that attractive or ugly people drew more attention to themselves, and what he really wanted was to blend in with the crowd, to be someone that no one ever really saw. He wanted to be a fly on the wall, always observing but never seen.

  His thinning blond hair was combed into place, and the shadow of his beard gave him the distinguished look of a man hard at work—or so he hoped.

  The elevator door dinged open, and he stepped into a well-lit and cheerful lobby of the Hotel Monoco. A man and woman were getting onto the elevator, both dressed as if they'd come from a cocktail party, and walking like they'd had a few too many cocktails. The man nodded at him, and grinned the sloppy grin of a drunk about to get lucky.

  Paul nodded as he walked past and debated briefly about stopping at the little café in the lobby for a cup of coffee to take with him on the bus. He steered toward the café which sat opposite the hotel bar, but decided against the coffee when he saw the line at the counter.

  Shoulda left earlier, he thought as he pulled out his cell phone and dialed. After two rings, Paul heard the click as the phone on the other end was picked up.

  "On your way?" It was Dennis Johnson, his assistant. Dennis didn't like to be called an assistant because he found that word too similar in meaning to "secretary," and Dennis was firm that he was not a secretary. He preferred to be called an associate