Joe Schreiber: Chasing the dead

Sue looks out at the hillside leading down to the water. Through the dissipating smoke she glimpses the streets, the little houses and narrow storefronts of White's Cove, and eventually she can see the bodies of the children, so many children, sprawled motionless in the snow.

She turns her daughter's head away.

Down by the water, a burning scrap of paper blows across her feet, caught in the wind. Holding Veda close to her chest, Sue leans over and lifts it by the edge that isn't on fire.

It's the map, or what's left of it. She's not sure how it got here, but in light of last night's events, the map's sudden reappearance doesn't seem the least bit surprising or strange. As charred as it is, Sue can barely make out some of the names of the towns. The first odd thing she notices is that there is no more jagged line running across it. She finds Gray Haven and tries to follow the route east but can't find the next town. At the moment she can't even remember what it was called. As the flame inches upward toward the top of the map the town names are consumed one by one, and she doesn't see any that sound like they were on the route. Now she's squinting at it, and as she does, the last of the names-White's Cove-also disappears, just a second or two before the nearby towns that surround it. Spectral images fading along with the memory of the route, vanishing down the pipeline of the night.

The route created the towns, she thinks. They're still here but the route is gone.

Up at the top of the hill she sees the lights of emergency vehicles flashing red and blue against the steadily illuminating sky.