The Chill of Night (21 page)

4:00
A.M
.

Abby moved, mask on, head down, Spider-Man trudging through a fog of silence. The snow, whipped by gusting winds, was blinding. Forced by drifts to walk on the road, she could barely see the houses behind the mounds of snow, let alone make out their shapes or colors. Not even the ones on the near side of the street. The ones on the far side were totally invisible. She’d been walking for hours, or was it days? She was sure she was going around in circles. She couldn’t concentrate on where she was or where she was headed. She was just too tired. All she knew was that there were no people and there were no cars. There was only the snow and the wind and the endless empty streets. She’d never felt so alone in her life.

At least the Voices were quiet. The meds were doing what they were supposed to do, keeping the crazies locked in their box where they couldn’t jump out and torment her. Even so, all it would take was a little bit of bad shit and, boom, there they’d be, popping up like jack-in-the-box clowns, loud and vindictive. On top of that, the extra pills were making her dopey. Forcing her to fight for every clear thought through a fuzziness that seeped in and around and through her brain. Screw it. She didn’t have to think right now. She just had to keep walking. Street to street. Block to block. Don’t think. Just walk.

As she walked she repeated a low rhythmic chant.
Gotta find Leanna’s house. Gotta find Leanna’s house. Gotta find Leanna’s house.
Leanna Barnes, her friend from Winter Haven. Leanna would take her in. Abby knew she would. Bury her in the big extravagant folds of her flesh. Keep her safe. Leanna wouldn’t tell anyone she was there, either. Except Abby couldn’t find the right house or even the right street. She’d only been to the house a couple of times before, and then always in the summer when everything was green and gold and you could see where you were going. Not this blinding white, this emptiness where even the street signs were impossible to read. She was too tired and too cold to walk much farther. She was starting to go numb.

All she really wanted to do was lie down on top of the snowbank at the side of the road and drift off to sleep. She’d be covered up in no time. The plows’d dump more snow on top of her and that’d be that. The trash collectors wouldn’t find her body till spring. Trash. That’s all she’d be in the end. Frozen trash. She remembered seeing on the Discovery Channel how people who freeze to death feel warm before they die. They just slowly go to sleep and never wake up. It seemed a pleasant idea. Burning to death would be a lot more painful. One time, when she was off her meds, the Voices tried to get her to pour gasoline over her head and set herself on fire.
Gonna turn you into a crispy critter
, they told her. She went and found the gas can in the shed next to the house and a box of matches and almost did what they said. She remembered their mocking voices.
Crispy critter. Fried golden brown. Crispy critter
. She thought the fire would purify her, exorcise the evil, rid her of the Voices. At least she hoped it would. She unscrewed the top of the gas can and held it over her head. In the end, though, she chickened out. The idea of burning up scared her too much, and she put the can away. She wasn’t
that
crazy. But the Voices kept spewing their filth and ugliness. How they hated her. She must deserve it.

Abby looked up and saw a low dark thing moving toward her. A black form, now visible through the whipping snow, now obliterated by it. With each step it grew clearer and bigger. At twenty feet it began to take shape. Animal. Not human. A large dog, gray fur glistening under crystals of snow, cruel icy eyes shining through the night, more wolf than dog. She stopped, but the animal kept coming. She could hear its rumbling growl. Low. Menacing. Commanding. Her heart beat against the walls of her chest so hard she was certain it would break through. She knew what the creature wanted. She knelt on her hands and knees. It bared a fang long enough and sharp enough to penetrate the soft flesh at the back of her neck. She lowered her head and waited for release … but release didn’t come. Finally, after a minute or two, she looked up, and it was gone. She could see nothing in front of her but the snow-covered street and the windswept flakes still hurtling down through the night sky. She stayed where she was, kneeling in the snow. She could hear a child crying. She listened. After a bit she realized the sound was coming from her. She got up and started walking again.

She wrapped her arms around her body and rubbed to warm herself. She was still wearing the running clothes from four nights ago. After the cop dropped her off, she hadn’t taken the time to change or brush her teeth or even to wash. She didn’t know when Death was going to come walking in through the door. So she just stuffed the seventeen dollars and sixty-three cents she had in the desk drawer into one pocket, her wallet with her license and nearly maxed-out Visa card into the other, and took off. She had her cell in her fanny pack, along with the bottle of Zyprexa, but the phone was dead and the charger was in her bedroom back on the island. Dumb. She couldn’t worry about that now. All she knew was that she had to get to Leanna’s house. If only she could find it. She thought about a hot shower. God, that would be heaven. She’d take a hot shower at Leanna’s.

Ahead of her, up the hill, she saw the lights of a twenty-four-hour Mini Mart on Congress. She was sure she’d passed the place twice before. This time she’d go in, warm up, try to figure out where it was Leanna lived and how to get there. A comforting wave of heated air hit her as she opened the door. The woman behind the counter was munching peanut M&M’s out of one of those big yellow family-sized bags and watching a small black-and-white TV. She stiffened as Abby approached. Didn’t move. Just sat there staring, eyes widening in fear. Abby whipped around, expecting Death to be right behind her, but he wasn’t. Nothing was there.

‘What do you want?’ the woman asked in a quavery voice. ‘We ain’t got much cash here.’

Abby puzzled over that until she finally figured it out. She was still wearing the Spider-Man mask. She pulled it off along with her ski hat and stuffed both into her pocket. She ran a hand through her matted hair and forced herself to smile. ‘Sure is cold out there.’

‘Jesus Christ, girl. You scared me half to death. What the hell you doin’ walkin’ around with that thing on?’ The woman seemed to relax a little. ‘I almost hit the damned alarm.’ She took a deep breath, relaxed some more. ‘It’s cold, alright,’ she said. ‘Down near zero.’ Then, after a few more seconds, she added, ‘They say we’re gonna get more’n a foot.’

Act normal, Abby reminded herself. No crazy stuff. Not here. She nodded to the woman’s comment, as if considering its wisdom and, upon due consideration, concurring. ‘Probably got pretty near that much already.’ Abby smiled again, figuring you couldn’t smile too much. Then she walked over to the coffee station, took off her gloves, clipped them to the bottom of her jacket, and pulled out the smallest of the three sizes of cardboard cups. She pushed down the spigot on the hot chocolate machine and watched steamy brown liquid trickle into her cup.

‘Pretty near that much,’ the woman agreed, peering out the window. ‘It don’t look like it’s stopping anytime soon, either.’

Abby pushed one of the plastic lids onto her cup until it clicked into place. She walked back toward the counter. The cup felt hot under her hands. She shifted it from one hand to the other, thawing her fingers, enjoying the warmth.

The woman swept her arm toward a car shape outside the window, completely covered with snow. ‘That there’s mine. Hope I don’t have any trouble getting home.’

‘Hope not,’ Abby said, putting the cup on the counter.

‘That do it for you?’

Abby nodded.

‘Be a dollar fifty-eight.’

Abby counted out exact change from the seventeen dollars and sixty-three cents she had in her pocket, smiled again, and headed back toward the bathroom. She set the hot chocolate on the edge of the sink, locked the door, peed, and washed her hands, surprised how much the warm water stung her frozen skin. She stared for a minute at her face in the mirror. The last four days had taken their toll. She had dark circles under her eyes. Her hair looked dirty. She was surprised the woman wasn’t more scared of her with the mask off than with it on.

She only half noticed the big blond guy when she exited the restroom, and then only because all her systems were on high alert. He was standing in the grocery aisle pretending to study the plastic microwave cups of beef stew and Chef Boyardee pasta. His eyes followed her when she walked past him to the newspaper and magazine rack. She picked up one of the freebie newspapers, the
West End News
, and pretended to read. The guy was still looking at her. He wasn’t big. He was huge, six foot five, maybe more. Big neck and shoulders. He was wearing jeans and a lumber jacket. She turned back to the paper and sipped her hot chocolate slowly, trying to figure out what to do next. She couldn’t go back out in the cold. Not yet. She needed to stretch her drink out for as long as it took her to really get warm again. But he was making her nervous. She glanced over again. He smiled. At least it was a friendly smile. Not a leer. She quickly looked away. Shit, he was coming toward her. Act normal, she thought. Tough it out. Her heart was pounding. She could hear the Voices starting to rouse themselves from their slumber.
Here comes Death
, one of them said. Even though he didn’t look like Death. At least not like Death had looked in the bedroom at the Markhams’ place.

‘You okay?’ he asked, walking up close to her, cradling an armful of plastic Chef Boyardee containers. ‘You look kind of upset.’

Tell him to go fuck himself
, the Voices said.
Tell him to go stick his big fat dick in his big fat ass.

‘Yes. No. Yes,’ Abby said to the guy. The words came out in too much of a jumble. ‘I’m fine.’ She realized she was craning her neck to look up at him. He was so tall it was like looking up at the top of the Observatory. Or the Empire State Building. ‘I’m fine,’ she said again. ‘Nothing the matter with me.’ She was still talking too fast. Too loud. She had to slow it down. She took a deep breath. ‘I’m just walking to my friend’s house,’ she said. There. That was better.

‘Walking? In this? Are you crazy?’

The Voices cackled. They thought that was a good joke. She closed her eyes, determined to ignore them. ‘It’s not far,’ she said. ‘Just over on …’ She thought as hard as she could, and suddenly there it was. The name of the street. ‘Just over on Summer Street.’ Yes. Summer Street. Where she’d gone in the summer. Maybe that was the problem. Maybe you couldn’t get there in winter.

‘Y’know, Summer Street’s a good hike away. Why don’t I give you a ride?’

‘No. No.’ She concentrated on sounding normal. ‘That’s not necessary.’

‘Well, it might not be necessary,’ he said, scratching his head with his free hand, ‘but it’d sure as heck be warmer than you walking all that way. Probably safer, too, on a night like tonight. I wouldn’t forgive myself if somebody froze to death walking, when I could just take ’em over to where they were going in a couple of minutes. What do you say? My truck’s right outside. I left it running.’ He gave her a big toothy grin. ‘To keep it warm,’ he added.

She wasn’t sure why, but she felt herself giving in. This man just didn’t feel dangerous, and the idea of driving to Leanna’s in a warm truck was practically irresistible. She pointed at the half-dozen plastic containers resting in his arm. ‘You eat that stuff?’ she asked.

He blushed. ‘Yeah.’

Yes, it was okay. Death wouldn’t blush. She didn’t think a rapist would either.

‘Actually, I kind of like it.’

Death probably wouldn’t eat Beefaroni either, even though enough of that stuff could probably kill you. Abby let herself relax. The Voices slid back into their box. She followed the tall man to the front of the store.

‘Hey, Esther,’ he said to the woman behind the counter. He dumped the microwave containers in front of her.

‘How you doing, Joe?’ she said, waving a handheld bar code scanner over each. ‘You guys caught that killer yet?’

‘Not yet.’ He looked back at Abby. ‘What’s your name?’ he asked.

‘Abby.’

He waited a few seconds before asking, ‘Don’t you want to know what my name is?’

She shrugged.

‘I’m Joe.’ He held out a hand. She shook it.

It was only when he reached for his wallet to pay for the Beefaroni that she noticed the gun poking out from under his jacket. Her heart started doing its pounding thing again. The woman behind the counter gave him his change and put the containers into a plastic bag.

‘Let’s go,’ he said, smiling again.

She followed numbly. The storm was, if anything, worse than before. As they headed for his truck, she thought that maybe she ought to make a run for it. But, in the end, she decided she’d rather die inside a warm truck than freeze to death out there on Congress Street. That wasn’t being crazy, she told herself. Just smart. He clicked the doors open, and they climbed in. He stowed the bagful of Chef Boyardee behind the seat on top of a pair of snowshoes and what looked like a rolled-up sleeping bag and some other stuff as well. Under it there was an ice ax. He saw her looking at it.

‘I’m on my way up to Katahdin,’ he said. ‘I’ve got a couple of days off, and I’m gonna do a little snowshoeing and some winter camping. Some ice climbing as well. That’s what that ax is for.’

She put the hot chocolate in the cup holder and rested her hands on her lap. If he was going camping in this weather, he was even crazier than she was.

He must have sensed what she was thinking, because he said, ‘No, really. It’s fun, Abby. Least it is if you have the right equipment.’

She didn’t say anything. Just tried to get another peek at the gun. He was putting on his seat belt and she couldn’t see it. Then he waited while she did up her belt. She watched him release the parking brake and turn in his seat so he could see to back up. When he did, there was the gun again, poking out.