Paul Curtin - Gray Snow

Everyone except Sean uttered an ‘Amen’ and started devouring the chunky stew. It tasted a bit like pizza sauce mixed with something vaguely like beef, but sustenance was sustenance. “What have you guys been up to today?” Elise asked Molly.

“We’re almost done with a jigsaw puzzle upstairs,” she said, slurping.

“Oh, I didn’t know you guys were working on that,” Kelly said. “I would’ve liked to help.”

“We’ll probably do it over again. There’s only, like, five puzzles in the house.”

Everyone chuckled but Sean. He carried a scowl on his face while shoveling spoonful after spoonful into his mouth. The conversation continued, but Sean sat on the stone hearth, disconnected from everything. Each passing moment seemed to fuel an anger deep inside, each bite he took more forceful than the last, his teeth gnashing together and gritting. His cheek muscles pulsed under his skin and he exhaled strained, quick breaths from his nose.

Michael stopped and set his bowl down. Kelly glanced up at him as if to ask what he was doing. He said nothing. Soon she caught on and turned her head. She stopped eating too.

Sean was like a volcano before an eruption—the crust was cracking, and steam was hissing from beneath the rock. At any moment it would reach maximum pressure, and the fireworks would start. Michael always knew someone would snap eventually—it had almost been him a few times. The nonstop cold, being isolated in one spot, seeing the same people day in and day out, eating crappy food—all of it attacked his sanity. Everyone felt it. Sean just seemed to have reached the precipice first.

“Hey, Sean,” Michael said in a calm tone.

It seemed to pull him out of himself. Molly stopped talking, and everyone’s attention shifted to Sean.

“What?”

“You okay? You don’t look too good.”

Sean stared down at his bowl. The hair on Michael’s arms stood up. “I’m tired of you asking me that,” Sean said.

“I’m just concerned.”

“Cut the bullshit.”

Elise perked up.

“Sean,” Michael said.

“I’m tired of no one being straight with me,” Sean said. “I’m tired of people looking me in the eye and telling me lies .”

Elise said, “Okay, this stops right now.”

“No,” Sean said, “I want Mike to tell me why he suddenly cares so much about my wellbeing.”

Michael said, “Because you look like you’re about to snap.”

“Snap from what?”

“Come on.”

“No, tell me.”

Elise stood up in front of Sean. “All right, this stops right now,” she said.

For a moment he looked like he would jump forward and slug her, his face a storm of fury, but that anger fell away and he bowed his head. “I’m sorry,” he whispered. “I don’t know what’s going on with me.”

The room held quiet. “Let’s get you a sleeping pill and go to bed,” Elise said, putting one arm around him as if she would carry him.

“I don’t know how much longer I can do this,” Sean said. “I don’t know how much longer I can take this.”

“Let’s just get some sleep, okay?” she whispered to him.

Michael watched the scene, and his heart dropped in his chest. He held Kelly closer to himself.

“I’m sorry,” Sean said as he and his wife turned toward the stairs.

A booming knock resounded from the front door, like something had smacked into it from the outside. But that was crazy. Nobody was outside. Nobody.

Everyone froze.

The wind hissed across the outside walls. The wood in the fireplace crackled. Michael’s first instinct was something had fallen over and hit the house, but it sounded too light and too specific of a noise.

Sean stepped away from Elise, reaching around the back of his belt. Michael held his breath. There was nothing out there. There couldn’t be. It was a wasteland outside. And they were in the middle of Appalachia. Boarding up the windows had been a silly precaution. Nothing was outside.

A loud knock echoed three more times, and the vibrations carried into his chest.

THE KNOCK SNAPPED him back into reality. He had been lingering in a hallucinatory dream. But it was gone the moment the knock resounded through the door. The world fell into sharp focus.

Every cell of his body tensed. His eyes fixed onto the door with the five wooden boards nailed into the frame. It wouldn’t open if someone tried to force themselves inside. This was why he had taken precautions. Why he had prepared.

He reached around his belt and felt the steel and polymer handle of his gun. Rubbed his thumb along the strike-pin indicator on the back—ready to go with one in the pipe.

Elise squeezed his arm so hard it almost constricted his blood flow. Her sharp nails dug into his skin. Sean barely felt it.

Three more knocks resonated from the door.

Boom.

Boom.

Boom.

Each a second or two after the other, laborious, strained. He blinked each time. A neighbor would tap with their knuckles in quick succession. This was a pounding from the side of someone’s fist, the walls vibrating with the blows.

Everyone remained silent. He listened for a crackling of snow outside—but all he could hear was his obtuse breathing.

“Daddy, what’s happening?” Aidan’s small voice said.

Sean whipped around and pressed his index finger to his lips, bringing his hand down after a moment, making eye contact with each person, telling them to keep their mouths shut.

It was just an animal, he thought. A bear or something. He punched holes in his wishful thinking. How was any animal surviving in the conditions outside, with nothing to eat or drink but tainted snow? The only thing that could survive was a person—a person with enough tenacity to live in that desolate land.

He signaled for them to lower themselves. The drapes were enough to hide them if the person tried to look inside, but this person might start shooting the walls. Disasters made people desperate, and desperate people showed their true nature when pressed.

The group, in little increments, sank to the floor. Elise stood with him, and Michael got on one knee as if he was readying himself to spring into action. Sean made eye contact with him and pointed to the shotgun leaning against the wall, motioning for him to take his time. As Michael moved, Sean turned his gaze to Kelly and pointed at his axe gleaming in the fire’s light.

She looked confused. He extended his hand out and motioned it toward himself as if to say, Bring it to me. The door reverberated again with a thunderous boom. Kelly, moving toward the axe, stopped and looked back at Sean. He encouraged her without a word to keep going.

“Please, help me,” someone’s muted voice cried outside.

A man. He had a deep and gnarled voice that cracked midsentence. It didn’t sound like one of his neighbors—not that it mattered. Even the people living down the road would get nothing from him. Kelly grabbed the axe and crept back. She passed it along until Sean had it. He handed it to Elise.

“What am I supposed to do with this?” she whispered so softly the sound almost didn’t exist.

He made a cutting motion across his throat, almost growling at her to stop. The stranger might not know they were there. They had to stay quiet, and then he would go away.

But reality hit him, hard and cold. He put himself in the man’s shoes, saw his logic. The man was desperate, so he would try to find water first. If he came across a home, he would assume the house was empty. He wouldn’t try to knock. He would break in and try to take what he needed.