Out of the Shadows

by Timothy Boyd

  He felt the lower half of his legs pushing past the chilled tingle of exposure and beginning to fall numb, which concerned him. But he could worry about his limbs another time; he could still live a happy life with Leslie without his legs. Each step took more muscle than the one before as he neared his small backyard overlooking the rocky cliff leading down to the frozen bay.

  Not stopping to see if Christine was following, he imagined them falling to their deaths, snapping their necks, and becoming submerged under a deadly sheet of ice in the bay. A few months later, the fishing boats would flood the harbor, and one of them would end up snagging the corpses of the one and only Brody & Colt.

  Shaking from his mind the morbid image of his own frozen carcass tangled in a fishing net, he reached his hand out to grab the corner of his house, hoping to pull himself around and onto the level ground right outside his back door. A particularly strong gust of wind pummeled his back mid-step, knocking him off balance.

  And he slipped.

  * * *

  Even though he knew little more than a second had passed, his mind slowed the speed of time as the windy blast assaulted him, knocking him off balance. He felt himself wobble, one foot in the air getting ready to step down into the snow. As his weight shifted, he lost his traction, and he felt himself fall forward. Knowing the momentum would carry him down the hill, forcing his body to bounce relentlessly off of the frozen rocks and boulders before his broken cadaver would crash through the ice on the surface of the water below, he closed his eyes and waited for death.

  But he didn’t fall.

  His senses were muffled, and his face stung, his arms outstretched before him. He felt something gripped onto the back of his pant leg and assumed he had snagged a bush. Once he realized that he had fallen face-first into the snow, he struggled to rise up, but his hands only pushed farther down into the snowdrift. He flailed his arms, struggling to right himself before he felt a hard tug from whatever had grasped him.

  He managed to flip over onto his back and looked up to see Christine, crouched to the ground, one hand grasping tightly to a metal conduit that ran up the corner of the house, and the other hand clutching his pant leg. He struggled as she assisted, climbing his way back to steadier ground, brushing the excess snow from his coat and hair.

  The two leaned against the side of the house, panting to catch their breath. She looked over at him and said, “You got your gun?”

  He nodded, raising it to show it was still clutched in one of his hands.

  “Colt?” she said between painful inhalations, her lungs freezing from the frigid air.

  “Yeah?”

  “Every year I tell you the same damn thing, and every year you ignore me.”

  “What’s that?”

  “Build… a damn… fence.” She rose to her feet, carefully stepping around the corner to get a better look inside the house through the windows on either side of the back door.

  Moving to a flanking position, she carefully peeked into the house so as not to be seen from anyone inside. As she lightly pressed her face against the chilled glass, she saw the brightly lit kitchen and dining room. It didn’t look like any kind of huge struggle had taken place. Jonathan retrieved his house keys from his pocket, but he knew that the second the door opened, whoever may be inside would be alerted to their presence from the vicious sounds of the storm. So once the lock became unlatched, he and Christine would have to move quickly, sweeping the house.

  Making eye contact with her, she understood the silent directive and nodded, raising her weapon for potential combat. Crouching under the window, she quickly crossed her partner, readying herself on the other side of the door to charge in when he opened it.

  In a flurry of movement, he flung the door open, and Christine slipped over the threshold, quickly panning back and forth, checking the kitchen for signs of movement. She didn’t stop her fluid motion, continuing into the adjoining dining room as Jonathan entered and quickly closed the door behind him, headed the opposite direction around the small kitchen table at which he had eaten his breakfast with his wife earlier that morning. His heart cringed as he continued into the next room, hoping that every item in the house wouldn’t become a “last time with Leslie” memory.

  In the study, he remembered the last time he rubbed her feet, the last time they made love on the couch, the last time they fought, the last time they kissed. He took a deep breath, pushing his pain back down into his gut where he hoped it would stay for a while.

  He hated how cold it felt in the house, and he wondered whether he would ever truly consider the building “home” again after this night. He made his way into the entrance foyer, seeing where the barricade of ice began at the front door, spreading across the whole front wall. The only place left to check was the parlor, where she would have been curled up on her chair in front of the fire reading her book. But from the black smoke they had seen escaping the chimney outside, he knew that one no longer burned.

  “Colt!” Christine’s voice rang out through the small house, thick with frightened urgency that sent a weight of dread dropping through Jonathan’s body, freezing his feet in place.

  He shook with fear and trepidation, not wanting to enter the living room but knowing that he must.

  “Colt, in here! Now!” she called out again.

  Willing himself to push forward, he broke free of his invisible shackles and dashed into the living room. In the center of the space was a large globe made entirely of ice. The surface was smooth and moist, glimmering in the warm light from the lamp on the end table. For a flicker of a moment, he thought that it was a stunning creation, and then he noticed that there was a small wooden chair in the center of it – a chair from the dining room table. And bound to the chair at the wrists and ankles was his wife, Leslie.

  Through the ice, her body appeared distorted and warped, almost fluid, but he knew without a doubt that it was Leslie. The bottoms of his eyes brimmed with tears, and his muscles quivered, feeling the anguish rise into his throat, forming a lump around which was nearly impossible to breathe.

  And then from within the icy sphere, her head turned to face him, her eyes wide.

  At the realization that she was alive and that the globe was hollow, adrenaline flooded his body, and he began pounding on the ice, screaming for his love. “Leslie! Leslie, I’m here! I’m gonna get you outta there!”

  Seeing her husband seemed to have given her new hope, for she struggled against her bindings, trying to break free from her cloth chains. Her skin was pale, and her movements seemed lethargic, but she was struggling nonetheless.

  Christine searched around the room, frantically looking for the solution of which she had not previously thought when she was dealing with the front door earlier. Jonathan pounded and kicked, viciously trying to tear his way inside the globe, desperately needing to grasp hold of his wife.

  “Leslie!” he hollered again, reminding her that he was there and was trying to help her. He felt an emotional storm swelling within him, a typhoon of anguish on the precipice of release. “Brody, help me!”

  “I’m trying!”

  Jonathan watched as Leslie’s struggling became less fierce, and she began to grow docile. “What’s wrong with her?”

  Next to an ice slick on the dining room floor, Christine found a black iron stoker for the fireplace, and she snatched it up in the hand that didn’t contain a gun. “She’s running out of air.”

  Jonathan imagined his wife slowly suffocating inside her personal snow globe, the panic overtaking her before that final moment of calmness where she would accept her fate and close her eyes.

  “Move!” Christine ordered him, dashing toward the ice globe, the stoker clutched tightly in both hands, rearing back to swing. The iron rod collided with the ice, breaking tiny chunks away. The globe was thick, like the ice across the front of the house. As she swung again, slowly chipping away at Leslie’s frozen prison, she thought back to how fragile the crystallized people had been compar
ed to how impenetrable this new ice seemed to be. Clearly, whoever was doing this had a certain level of control over the outcome.

  Again and again, Christine assaulted the slick dome, small chips falling to the floor, her arm muscles beginning to burn with discomfort. Inside the globe, Leslie’s movements grew less pronounced as her oxygen depleted.

  Jonathan grabbed the end table lamp, raising it above his head and bringing it down fiercely on the ice, shattering the lamp’s frosted shade.

  Another chunk fell to the ground.

  Leslie’s body jerked awkwardly in the restraints.

  Christine swung, making a small crack split over the globe’s surface.

  Jonathan attacked again with the broken lamp, vision blurred with salty tears.

  Leslie lurched in the chair, but subtly this time.

  Stoker to ice, Christine used every ounce of force her muscles would allow, but she watched the life slowly slip away from her partner’s wife.

  Jonathan cried now, whimpering his wife’s name while trying to break through.

  Harder and harder Christine assaulted the ice.

  And then Leslie’s head slowly drooped forward, limp.

  Everything fell still in the Colter House in that brief moment of time. The storm outside raged, making the walls cry out in misery. Quietly sobbing, Jonathan lowered himself to the ground, one hand still on the ice, wishing he could touch his wife and tell her he loved her one last time. All of the “what ifs” in the past thirty minutes flooded his mind with regret. What if he had ended the phone call differently? What if the SUV hadn’t gotten stuck in the snow? What if he had not taken a minute to cry in the middle of the street? What if…?

  Christine watched her partner break down before her, and her own eyes began to sting with loss. She shared in his suffering; perhaps not as deeply as he, but she still felt that she had been gutted with a serrated knife, a dry knot forming in her clenched throat.

  Suddenly filled with fury, she reared back and continued swinging the stoker, breaking off chunk after chunk of ice. Each collision echoed through the empty house like a nail being driven into a lonely coffin. She continued to swing, an intense anger building inside her at the frustrations of the day that was still only half over.

  Before she realized what she had done, a large section of the icy dome crashed to the floor, scattering frozen debris across the room.

  She allowed only a brief instant of shock to wrack through her body before she dropped the iron rod and ran inside the half-globe, quickly untying Leslie’s bonds. “Colt!” she called out for help, but he was already behind her, ready to assist.

  They carried her body out and laid her on the floor, Christine immediately proceeding with her emergency training, tilting Leslie’s chin back ever so slightly and performing CPR on the woman. Breathing into her mouth, and pressing firmly on her chest repeatedly, she felt tiny beads of sweat ooze from her pores.

  Jonathan knelt beside her, nearly holding his breath. “Brody…” he pleaded quietly, afraid that his voice would be enough to destroy any hope that was slowly filling the room.

  She ignored him, counting to herself so she didn’t screw up.

  Seconds ticked by, filling voids that felt like hours.

  Breathing – watching Leslie’s chest artificially rise and fall. Compressing – trying to push blood through her body.

  Sweat dripped from Christine’s face, but she refused to give up.

  Eventually, Jonathan’s hope waned, and he took his wife’s cold hand in his own, clutching it, hoping she would squeeze back but knowing she would not. He lowered his head and cried, but Christine would not admit defeat.

  Finally, he softly spoke. “Please stop.”

  Christine’s eye flinched, but she acted as if she didn’t hear him, continuing to perform CPR on Leslie.

  It pained him to see his wife’s body endure so much abuse. “Brody, please,” he begged. “Let her rest in peace.”

  He began to grow angry when she continued to ignore him, and he reached out to push her away.

  He startled as Leslie squeezed tightly around his hand, her eyes opening, a deep cough expelling from her mouth as her head lifted from the ground, and she began to gasp for the sweet oxygen she had been previously denied.

  Christine fell back against the wall, panting and out of breath as Jonathan lunged forward to hold his living wife. He kissed her and cried as the two embraced and exchanged their love for one another. Christine looked down at her own hands and realized she was shaking. She closed her eyes to center herself, and when she opened them, her gaze came to rest on Jonathan and Leslie, hugging each other fiercely, never wanting to let go.

  For the first time all day, she felt warm inside.

  * * *

  At the police station, Jonathan stared out the window into the blackness of night, noticing that the storm was beginning to lose strength. Almost three feet of snow had enveloped the town, but far more than that had accumulated in areas where the flurries had drifted into an embankment. He was exhausted, and he realized he hadn’t eaten anything since breakfast, but he wasn’t that hungry.

  After the police team and paramedics had been able to safely enter the Colter House, Leslie was examined, and she seemed to be all right, provided she take it easy for a while and rest. Jonathan had decided it was best and safest to bring Leslie back to the station, because he wasn’t sure that his house was safe anymore. He had set up a small cot for her in an unoccupied office, and she had quickly fallen asleep.

  Now, he thought about the information from the day, trying to wrap his mind around the mystery. He felt that there was something nagging at the back of his brain that he just wasn’t seeing.

  “Hey, Colt,” said Christine, walking up beside him, crossing her arms and staring out the window with him.

  “Hey.”

  A moment of silence passed between them as they watched the furious flurries slowly becoming calm, light flutters.

  “How is she?” she asked, looking back at the room in which Leslie currently slept.

  “She’s doin’ good,” he nodded. After a few seconds, he put his arm around her and gave a friendly squeeze. “I won’t evah forget what you did tonight,” he said, his accent thick with emotion. That was as close as he would come to thanking her for saving Leslie, because he knew that she neither needed nor wanted the acknowledgment. He lowered his arm back to his side and continued staring out the window. He hoped that the storm really was passing and that this wasn’t just a calm before the fury yet to be seen.

  Christine fidgeted, wanting to broach a topic with him but feeling uneasy about it.

  “Why didn’t he kill her?” he asked suddenly.

  “What?”

  “Think about it, Brody. He didn’t kill Leslie.”

  Christine’s brow furrowed. “Yes, thanks to us.”

  He shook his head. “He didn’t want her dead, or she would a’ been an ice statue like the others. He wanted to use her as a warnin’.”

  “For what?”

  He looked at his partner, allowing his own mind to connect the dots. “Like he said on the phone: Ignore the Sheffields.”

  “So we’re finally getting close, and you want to ignore our only lead?”

  “I didn’t say that.”

  Her brow creased as she waited for his explanation.

  “I wanna talk to Rita again. Ask her if she evah heard Peter mention a niece named Jessica. I really think the missin’ piece to this puzzle lies with her.”

  “I tried calling her a few minutes ago. No one picked up.”

  “Damn.”

  Christine pointed at the closed door behind which Leslie slept. “You sure you want to push this right now? He came after your wife, Colt.”

  “And he’s gonna wish he hadn’t, but she’s safe here. We’re not goin’ anywhere for a while with this storm.”

  Christine smiled sweetly, placing a tender hand on his arm. “She’s really lucky to have someone like you.”
>
  He knew that her words were peppered with subtext that he wasn’t able to decipher. He furrowed his brow, growing concerned. “You all right?”

  She pushed a bit of hair behind her ear and avoided his eye contact, realizing it was time to come clean. “I need to talk to you about something.”

  “What’s goin’ on?”

  She hesitated, not totally sure where to begin. “The address we found for Frank Sheffield.”

  His eyes narrowed, still confused as to where her thoughts were going. “Ok…”

  She looked at the floor and shifted her weight.

  “Brody, what is it?”

  She looked up at him and answered. “I’m going.”

  “Come off it! Not right now. Not without—.”

  She put up a hand to cut him off. “Listen…” she looked back toward Leslie’s room and continued, calmly and sincerely. “I completely understand why you can’t come with me, but I need you to understand why I have to go.”

  Jonathan sighed and said, “But I don’t understand.”

  “I get that we’re partners. I watch your back; you watch mine. But…” she considered his soft features currently skewed with worry. “Sometimes I just don’t need my back watched.”

  Behind them, a door opened, and Leslie stepped out. “Jon?”

  He looked over his shoulder at his wife, standing in the doorway, eager to speak with him. “Give me a few minutes?” he asked of Christine.

  She nodded.

  He went into the office in which Leslie had been napping and closed the door quietly behind him. “Hey,” he said softly to her, concerned, pushing hair from her face with one delicate hand. “Are you ok?”

  “Still a little woozy, but they said it would pass with rest.”