Snow Burn

by Joel Arnold

  What was he thinking? Was he planning on burning us? Reduce Vince and me to ashes?

  Then no one would find us, not until spring when the snow melted and some unfortunate hiker stumbled across our charred bones.

  Another shot of lighter fluid. A stream of hot flame.

  Vince turned his head and looked at me. My heart skipped. I could see the wheels turning in his mind.

  He said quietly, “Remember the football game?”

  His question caught me off guard. “Huh?”

  Quinn flicked the can upward, and another stream of lighter fluid ignited, landing dangerously close to Vince’s face. “What did I tell you?” he barked. Vince squeezed his eyes shut tight.

  I winced, too. “Stop it,” I pleaded.

  Quinn rubbed his eyes, then pressed his fingers into his temples as if trying to get rid of a headache. “I just don’t want to hear his voice anymore. Okay?”

  Why did Vince ask me about a football game? Was he trying to tell me something?

  I wished I had paid more attention to the games. Some of the marching band actually did watch the game, but there were those of us who did more goofing around than keeping our eyes on the field. We made up cadences, pounded them out silently on the grass beyond the end zone. We practiced spinning our sticks between our fingers, played catch with our fuzzy hats, made trips to the concession stand, ogled the cheerleaders. Just about anything but watch the actual football game.

  The football game…

  What football game?

  The football game? The last game of the season?

  I felt Vince’s eyes on me. I looked at him. His eyes were wide and watery. His jaw moved back and forth as if struggling to hold back words. He pursed his lips. Raised his eyes, causing furrows to spring across his forehead. He was pleading for me to remember.

  Remember what?

  Remember what?

  Another squirt of lighter fluid shot from the can. This time it got so close to Vince that it singed his hair. He turned away, cringing, rubbing his head against the igloo walls, whimpering.

  “Stop it!” I shouted. The smell reached my nostrils. I barely fought back the urge to panic.

  “Look,” Quinn said, staring at the fire. His voice trembled. “I appreciate you kids saving my life, but I’m backed into a corner, here.” His eyes were red. “I don’t have a whole lot of choice.” He looked from me to Vince. “I’m sorry,” he said. “I wish I could just walk away, but I can’t. I can’t. I’m not going back to prison. And the only way I can guarantee that…” He sighed again, and said quietly, “I’m really sorry.”

  He stood up shakily, the top of his head brushing against the roof, sending a shower of snow crystals down into the fire. He hovered there, the flames tossing his shadow this way and that against the igloo walls.

  I couldn’t back any further away from the fire. I pressed my back hard against the wall, wanting to disappear into it. I heard Vince’s rapid, shallow breath, saw his hands behind his back struggling to free themselves of the rope. The smell of burning lighter fluid and wood made me dizzy, the smoke thickening, turning black, and stinging my eyes. I looked back at Quinn, squinting.

  He held the can of lighter fluid in both hands now, the red cap flipped open. He took a deep breath.

  “No,” I pleaded. “No!”

  Chapter 34

  Football game.

  Football game.

  FOOTBALL GAME.

  The urge to panic was almost too great to control. My heart tried to leap from my throat.

  …football game…

  Of all the games I’d attended, all the games I’d screwed around at, ignored until I heard the drum major’s whistle signaling us to play the fight song, the only image that came to my mind was of Vince getting his prosthetic leg tackled off.

  Good old Vince. Now that was something worth watching. Something worth remembering.

  The opposing team freaking out. The sounds of the crowd shouting for horror and joy.

  Vince holding his prosthetic leg high in the air as the team carried him in a victory lap around the field…

  Of course!

  That’s what Vince wanted me to remember.

  Quinn shook his head slowly from side to side. He lifted the can of lighter fluid and examined its label. “I’m sorry,” he said again. He held it out in front of him.

  Vince finally found his voice. “Don’t,” he croaked.

  I stood, my head knocking a chunk of snow from the roof. The walls sweat from the mounting heat. “Don’t,” I said.

  “I’m sorry,” Quinn said. He aimed the small nozzle at me and squeezed the can. A stream of lighter fluid flew over the fire. It’s smell filled my nostrils, bringing tears to my eyes. It landed on my chest, but had arced well over the fire, and hadn’t caught.

  I had to act.

  I quickly dropped on Vince’s back, reached down and grabbed his false leg. With a swift, hard jerk, I yanked it from its moorings and out of the rope that tied it to his other leg.

  As Quinn shot another stream of lighter fluid at us, I blocked it with the prosthetic leg. Then I swung it over the fire, knocking the can out of Quinn’s hands.

  “What the – ” Quinn said.

  The fluid on the leg caught and flared up, the flame biting my hands. I swung the flaming leg at Quinn’s face. Felt it connect. I heard a crack, a howl of pain.

  I swung again as the flames leapt up and blinded me. An intense heat sliced across my chest.

  My shirt was on fire.

  I screamed, swinging blindly. Again, I connected, but the pain on my chest was unbearable. I had to do something to stop the flames, and there wasn’t enough room to roll on the floor without rolling into the fire.

  As the flames spread over my clothing and blistered my skin, I thrust upward with Vince’s leg into the roof of the igloo. I thrust it up again and again, feeling the cold, snowy roof collapse around me. I heard sizzling, ragged screams, howls of pain, and the thump of big snow chunks falling to the ground.

  The screams didn’t stop until I realized they were coming from me.

  Chapter 35

  The brightness that had flared in front of me faded quickly to blackness. I opened my eyes to a dark night sky full of raging snow. I caught a glimpse of Quinn’s back as he ran away into the night.

  Vince. Where was Vince?

  I turned in a frantic circle, looking at the collapsed igloo, now only a mound of ice and snow at my feet.

  I dropped Vince’s leg and started shoving aside the loose snow, feeling for my friend.

  I found his arm and pulled. The rest of Vince came up with it, and his eyes blinked away the snow.

  “Untie me,” he said, barely able to get the words past his chattering teeth. “Hurry.”

  My fingers were brittle sticks, and I felt they might crack off as I struggled with the rope. But little by little it came free.

  We dug recklessly through the snow until we found our coats and gloves, boots and ski masks. Vince balanced on his one leg as we quickly threw on our protective gear. We looked for our skis, but couldn’t find them in the relentless storm.

  Vince leaned against me, ducking his face away from the snow as best he could. “Where’s my leg?” he asked.

  The pain on my chest where I’d been burned was like nothing I’d ever felt before. It was like a thousand hot needles poking me all at once. I reached down, grabbed a handful of snow and held it beneath my clothing against my chest. I let out a cry of pain that was swallowed by the wind.

  “I need my leg,” Vince said.

  I nodded and stumbled back to the pile of snow that had once been the igloo. My foot hit something hard, and when I reached down to see what it was, my gloved fingers grabbed onto a plastic set of toes. I yanked at it, pulling the prosthetic leg from the snow.

  I showed it to Vince. It was a charred mess.

  He took it, turning it this way and that, shaking it. Something rattled inside.

  “Will it
still work?” I asked.

  “We’ll see,” he said.

  He lifted the leg of his pants to reveal his stump, the place where eleven years earlier, a surgeon had removed the leg from just below the knee in order to save his life.

  He brushed soot off the prosthetic and held it against his stump. He shook his head. “No good,” he said. “The attachments are broken.”

  “What do we do?” I asked

  Vince stared at his useless leg as if it might give him an answer. Then he looked up at me and grinned. “You’re going to have to save our asses,” he said.

  “You want me to carry you?” I asked, dumbfounded.

  “I’d like to see you try! Come on, we need to think of something else.”

  We had neither the time nor energy for thinking. I looked him up and down. “Can you lean against me?”

  “Pretend we’re running a three-legged race?” he asked.

  I nodded. “Yeah.”

  “We can try, but I don’t think we’ll get very far.”

  A fresh wave of pain spread across my chest. I winced. Swallowed a lungful of frozen air. “That’s no attitude for a dumb jock,” I said.

  “Screw you, brainiac!”

  “Should we take anything?”

  Vince put his arm around me. He looked around. “Let’s just go for it,” he said. “It’s too damn cold to hang out here.”

  Chapter 36

  Would it be so much different from marching in a two-mile long parade in my wool band uniform, stepping in the crap left behind from the horses trotting up front?

  We could do this.

  But then, what if he was still out there? What if Quinn waited for us somewhere out in the swirling snow? Behind a tree? What if he was watching us right now, ready to finish what he’d started?

  I strained to see through the snow and the darkness, but it was impossible. Well, if we can’t see him, then he can’t see us, I thought.

  I hoped.

  We took only a few awkward steps before we tumbled into the snow.

  “Where’d you learn how to walk?” I gasped, helping Vince up.

  “I still got one good leg to kick your sorry ass with,” he said. He put his arm around me again and steadied himself.

  With our heads down, we tried again, this time taking it slowly. I began to count so that we’d step in rhythm.

  “One, two. One, two.”

  “Didn’t know you could count,” Vince said.

  “Shut up, stumpy. You’re breaking my concentration.” I started again. “One, two. One, two.”

  “Bet you don’t know what comes after two.”

  “Three, four. Three, four.”

  “That was some stunt you pulled with my leg,” Vince said.

  “You’re the one who put the idea in my head.”

  “I was hoping you’d take the hint.”

  “One, two. One, two.”

  I took two steps to his one, and when he took the weight off his leg after each step, my one leg supported us both. Vince was a big guy, and heavy, and the snow grabbed greedily at our boots. But as hard as it was for me, at least I had two working legs. I couldn’t imagine how hard it was for Vince, having to put all that weight on just one leg over and over again.

  One, two. One, two.

  The wind stung my face. It stung my eyes. It forced its way up my nostrils and froze the front of my skull. It grew hard to talk, hard to count out loud.

  “One, two,” I said. One, two. Could Vince even hear me?

  And how far was it to the van? Were we even going in the right direction? Suddenly, I wasn’t so sure. I could hardly tell up from down, in from out.

  I stopped. Vince hopped to a stop next to me. I leaned over, gulping in air. The cold clawed at my throat.

  Vince breathed hard, too. “We gotta keep going,” he wheezed.

  “Gotta catch my breath.” I coughed. My lungs hurt. My head pounded.

  And the burn on my chest, the damn burn. It felt like someone had poured salt on a thousand paper cuts.

  I closed my eyes.

  Concentrate. Calm down and concentrate.

  I never felt so lost. So completely lost. It felt like the entire world had disappeared. We might as well be on the moon, I thought.

  Could I continue?

  Did I have any choice?

  My mind turned to Mom and Dad.

  Were they worried? Did they even know I wasn’t anywhere near Vince’s house? Did they know that instead of lying in sleeping bags, eating popcorn and watching slasher movies, we were trudging blindly through a blizzard, trying to keep from freezing to death? They were probably asleep. Of course they were. No one’s up at this hour, especially my parents. And when they woke up in the morning…

  I straightened up, my head down. Stop thinking like that. I braced myself for a few more steps.

  Don’t think of how far I have to go. Just take it a few steps at a time.

  I reached for Vince. He was bent over, now, the wind devouring the mist of his breath.

  “Come on, let’s go,” I shouted.

  He didn’t answer.

  I pounded him on the shoulder with my gloved fist. “Come on, man. We need to keep moving.”

  “Uhhhh…” A strange sound came from him. A ragged sound. “Unghhh…”

  “Vince, come on, man.” I leaned down and lifted his head with my hands. Tears ran from his eyes, freezing halfway down his cheeks.

  At first he didn’t look at me, but soon his eyes found me. “I don’t know,” he said. “I don’t know.” He shook his head. “I’m so beat. My side hurts.”

  “It’s just a cramp,” I said.

  He shook his head, panting. “I think Quinn broke one of my ribs. When he was on top of me, tying me up. I heard something crack.”

  I stared at him. How had he made it this far in that condition?

  “It’s gotta be a cramp,” I said.

  “No. No.” He grimaced. “Something’s broken. I know it. I can feel it.”

  “We can’t stay here,” I said. “We’ll freeze to death.”

  Vince said, “You keep going. Just let me rest here a bit. You go get help, and send them back to find me.”

  “No,” I said. “That will take too long.”

  “I can’t do it.”

  “Come on, you dumb jock,” I said. “You’re the one who dragged me out here. You’re the one who took the winter survival course. Don’t you dare give up on me now.”

  He wiped his sleeve across his face. “I’m not dumb,” he said.

  “I know. I know. You’re not dumb. You know I’m just kidding. You’ve always known that, right?”

  He nodded. “Yeah. But you’re still a brainiac.”

  “If I’m the one with the brains, then you’d better start listening to me. We need to move.”

  “I can’t.”

  I looked around us. It was as if the entire world had disappeared. There was nothing but millions of dizzying snowflakes biting at our skin like piranhas. Nothing but the wind burrowing into us, into our bones like frozen leeches.

  Nothing but us.

  Vince and me.

  “Come on. Hey. Think of what a hero you’ll be when we get home. What’s Cathy Hader going to think of you?”

  “She’s going to think I was an idiot…getting us into…this situation.” Vince started shivering. One of the warning signs of hypothermia.

  “Vince,” I shouted. “Come on!”

  “Go…just…go.” And speech. He was having trouble speaking. That was another sign, wasn’t it? What was I supposed to do?

  I looked around. A shelter? Make another shelter?

  The wind seemed to laugh at me. I couldn’t see a damn thing. I felt more tired than I’d ever felt in my entire life. Suddenly, I realized how easy it would be to lay down and close my eyes. I bet sleep would come quickly, and with it, an all-encompassing warmth that would make all the pain go away.

  But I only closed my eyes a moment.

  Then I b
it my lip so hard I screamed.

  Chapter 37

  “Vince,” I cried. He leaned against the rough bark of a tree. He sank lower with each strained breath.

  I shook him. “Your parents!” I shouted.

  He blinked. “What – what about them?” He coughed into his glove.

  My face was inches from his, yet I still had to shout to be heard. “Remember the stories you told me? About how they made it to America?”

  “So?”

  “You think walking a few miles through a winter wonderland like this is any harder than what they went through?”

  Vince didn’t answer.

  “Come on,” I shouted, my voice hoarse. “At least we don’t have snipers shooting at us. And we don’t have to worry about heat stroke. Or crossing rivers full of poisonous snakes.” I shook him again. “We’ve got it easy, man. We just have to move our legs a bit. That’s all.”

  Vince slowly nodded. He cleared his throat. Straightened up. I guided his arm back around my shoulder. He breathed deeply through his nose.

  “Okay,” he rasped. “Start counting.”

  We took a step. Then another.

  “One. Two. One. Two,” I croaked.

  Another and another and another.

  One. Two. One.

  Two.

  The snow tried to pull us down. The wind tried to push us over. The branches of trees tried to beat us into submission. But we kept going. Soon, my body was on automatic pilot. It knew it had to keep moving, so it moved.

  We plundered endlessly through the deepening snow, and all the while it felt as if we were on a giant treadmill, as if we were going nowhere, just walking, walking, walking. I realized that my nose no longer stung. My cheeks turned numb. I barely registered the cold.

  Frostbite.

  Huh…

  What about that?

  Frostbite and burns, all on the same day.

  There was nothing I could do about it, other than keep moving my legs.

  Would my nose fall off? Would I have to wear a face-mask?