Paul Curtin - Gray Snow

“Why?” Michael asked.

“You just left the shotgun sitting around?”

“Is that a problem?”

“Is that a problem? Do either of you understand the risk we’re taking here?”

“Risk?” Elise said. “The guy could barely lift his arm to shake my hand.”

“I’m pretty sure Aidan could take him,” Michael said.

She closed her eyes. If only Michael could keep his trap shut.

“You don’t get it,” Sean said.

“Sean, please,” Elise said, “it’s just one night. To help the man along.”

“It’d be more merciful to just kill him now.”

“Wow, Sean,” Michael said. “Even for you that’s low.”

His jaw muscles pulsed and protruded in his cheeks, telling them, “You don’t get it,” before throwing his coat off and walking into the living room.

Michael started to speak, but she put a hand up and silenced him. “I’ll deal with it.”

They joined Sean and Travers. Sean hung out near the back wall, the shotgun next to him, while Travers leaned over the fireplace. The fire roared around the outline of his silhouetted body and cast a dark shadow along the floor and walls. The moisture from his clothes began dripping in murky, watery droplets. She watched a bead sink into the towel on the floor. Travers was right: she would never get all that gray out.

Andrew and Aidan emerged from the kitchen, the younger one clasping a bowl of hot soup. He walked with a cautious gait, trying not to spill a drop. Travers turned his head. Aidan—the sweet little boy, kindhearted and gentle—extended the bowl with a smile. “And food too,” the man said. “I feel like I’ve hit the jackpot here.”

Travers cradled the bowl and set it down on the stone. He pulled his scarf down from his face and started devouring the soup. The expression on Aidan’s face changed from goodhearted to horror. He stepped back into Andrew’s legs, Andrew’s eyes lifting up toward Elise, his chest rising. Sean perked up. She stepped towards Aidan, her eyes locked onto Travers as the fire crackled in front of him. She walked through his shadow and then back into the light.

Travers hunched over his bowl, slurping down soup by the spoonful. “Travers,” she said. He turned his head up toward her. “Oh my goodness,” Elise said, putting a hand on her chest.

His nose and lips were blackened with frost bite and his right nostril was missing. His cheeks were chaffed so badly they appeared raw and bleeding. He shied his face away from her. “I’m sorry,” he said.

She forced her hand back to her side even though it felt much more comfortable on her chest. “It’s okay,” Elise said. “It’s okay. I’m the one who should be sorry.”

“I didn’t warn you.”

“What happened to you?” Aidan said.

She blushed. “You shouldn’t have to,” she said and turned to Andrew. “Maybe we should take Aidan upstairs. Let our guest settle in. It’s time for bed anyway.”

“What happened to your face?” Aidan said.

“Aidan,” Elise said, “go upstairs. Come on, now.”

“But, Mom—”

“But, nothing. Go.”

Andrew grabbed Aidan’s shoulders and led the reluctant boy toward the stairs. As they made their way up, Kelly came down hugging a stack of clothes. Despite his deformity, she smiled at him and placed the items on the stone hearth. “I’m Kelly,” she said.

“Travers,” he said with a gleam in his eyes. “Pleased to meet you.”

Kelly pulled back toward Michael, and Molly appeared. “The generator is going, but it’ll take a little—oh.” She stopped.

“This is Travers, Molly,” Elise said and looked down at him. “My daughter.” She said to Molly, “Would you mind going upstairs and helping Andrew put Aidan to bed?” Sean straightened his back. “Just for a little while,” she said, watching him in her peripheral.

Molly nodded and shot up the stairs, but not before glancing a few more times at their guest. When she disappeared, Travers hung his head low. “I don’t mean to scare nobody.”

“You’re fine. Do you want to get changed? We have a mudroom behind the kitchen.”

“Changing might be a hassle.”

He gripped the edges of his gloves and pulled them off, slowly, his face contorted. He gasped when they came off. Elise covered her mouth. His hands were blue and speckled with wounds where frozen patches of skin had torn away from removing his gloves. They were spotted with a dead blackness from the tips of his fingers to his palm. Half his fingers were missing.

She swallowed. “Kelly, can you please go down into the reserves and get one of the first aid kits?”

“The reserves?” Travers said.

“None of your business,” Sean said.

Kelly went to the basement. Travers removed his other glove like the first and then extended both mangled hands toward the burning fire. “This is real nice of you folks,” he said. “Real nice.”

BY MIDNIGHT, TRAVERS was dressed, showered, and covered in a thick blanket. He didn’t stray from the fire for long, as if walking away would extinguish it, and the chill would come after him again. His appearance had transformed. No longer concealed under layers, they could see the disaster had not been good to him. His skin stretched taut against his emaciated bones—his body skinnier than anyone she had ever seen before. His face had creases reserved for people a decade older. The cartilage at the top of his ears was gone, having been victim to the cold, and spots of skin on his face were permanently blackened.

Elise sat down near him. “Are you sure we can’t do anything about your hands?”

“I lost my fingers a long while ago, ma’am. You can’t bring ‘em back.”

Michael tossed another log onto the fire. Within a few minutes it was roaring. Sean sat in a chair at the back of the room, silent. His eyes showed all the signs of exhaustion, but there was an awareness there too, a penetrating stare that made her uneasy. The firelight reflected in everyone’s eyes, but the same glow made her husband look menacing. Like he was a tight, fraying cable on a bridge, moments away from snapping.

With the kids upstairs and Andrew in the spare bedroom, the adults hung around the fire, watching Travers suck down another bowl of soup and stare at the flames. Kelly rested her head on Michael’s shoulder.

Travers set the soup down and faced everyone. “This is the most unexpected welcome,” he said. “Warms my heart. Really does. I haven’t been in front of a fire for weeks.”

Sean shifted. Elise said, “You don’t have to thank us.”

“I will anyway. I don’t expect this kind of hospitality anymore.”

“Why do you say that?” Michael asked.

“Because it don’t exist, that’s why. You’re the first real person I’ve seen in probably two months. And the last person I seen wasn’t so friendly.”

“What happened?”

“Almost got shot. Man just up and fired at me for no damn reason.”

Elise asked, “Where?”

“It’s everywhere, ma’am. Nobody’s taking care of one another no more. Have y’all been here since the eruption?” Everyone nodded except for Sean, who stared Travers down, his brow furrowed and his chin lowered. “It’s something out there now. Something you don’t want to know.”

“What is?” Elise whispered.

“It’s a funny thing. People. They all wanna act like they’re all in it together—like they care. Until the storms hit and topple the—what’s the word—facade.” He smiled. “That’s how it started at first: people helping out, trying to help. Coming together. A few bad eggs tried to loot stores and things like that, but it was mostly people trying to take care of one another. But people got limits, I found. People wanted to help at first, but then the ash didn’t stop. Everyone thought it would stop after a while.”