Eric Dimbleby - White Out

The Yeti would smile.

“Whores get treated as such. Always been that way, always will be.”

Annie almost burst into tears at this false tableau that her over-tired mind had constructed. She twisted on the throttle a bit harder, though the machine would not respond in equal measures.

Far behind her, she could still hear them approaching, getting a bit closer with every listen. They might not have said those things, or even surfaced those terrible thoughts about her (did they know what she and Tony had been doing just before they arrived? Had the bastards watched their sins?), but one thing was for sure: they wouldn’t let her go.

Annie hummed to herself, trying to remember an old Pretenders song that she kept hearing on the radio, the one about using her hands and her fingers , and using her something else altogether, but that she was going to get her way and make some random fella hers . The song only served to distract her as she pushed past the sign that she recognized at once, which indicated it was one point three miles until Town Hall.

She was thankful that she was lighter than they were. Her pursuers were larger guys, both in the muscular and structural sense. The only place that her smaller frame would benefit her was in a chase situation. Her snowmobile hopped along the surface of the snow once she had a decent amount of momentum. She could feel it grinding beneath her, digging into the fluffier snow and then sliding along the top of the crusty snow.

She couldn’t really tell where she was going. The afternoon darkened after a temporary burst of sunlight that managed to push through the grey clouds that loomed overhead. She continued in the direction that Tony had described, towards the patchier tree lines of Route Fifty-Five, where she usually had her major shopping ventures for home goods, bulk groceries, and household repair projects. They had all the “big box” stores on one main drag, but that didn’t mean there was any reason to stop there. Those places were pointless in this new world. She wasn’t all that sad that they would be out of business forevermore.

The wind gusted, obfuscating the view in front of her, though she knew that she was still on Route Fifty-Five for the time being. In about ten minutes, she’d be turning onto Valley Road, or so she presumed. Up seemed down and down seemed up, but she felt confident that she was moving in the right direction.

The only path she was sure of was the one that took her away from The Shiny Bald One and The Yeti. They hadn’t seen her eyeball to eyeball, but they surely heard her snowmobile racing away. Annie still wasn’t sure she’d killed The Chuckle Machine—so she didn’t fully exclude him from the chasing posse—but she kept it as a high probability in the back of her mind. Sometimes there was something to be said for wishful thinking.

When they found the body of The Chuckle Machine, they would have checked in with The Midget Man before taking to the snowmobiles, so that might have dragged their pursuit out a bit, but only by minutes. Maybe a quick discussion on what they planned to do to her when they caught up to her, and maybe a quick scan around The Purple Cat to make sure she hadn’t set a trap, hiding in the shadows, waiting to kill off the rest of them. It wasn’t the worst idea in the world, but Annie hadn’t the time or confidence to consider such a bold option.

She decreased the throttle so that she could better survey the sound patterns from behind her. The moment the humming din stopped, she heard the sound of two engines. Definitely two—no more, no less. It was barely audible, but they were still in motion for sure. They had hopped back on to their snowmobiles and now they planned to kill her, both for revenge and for sheer delight. They wouldn’t go as easy as they had the night before.

Easy.

That was funny, thought Annie. They hadn’t gone easy at all, but they probably hadn’t gone as far as they could have. She thought they might seek to rectify that if they ever caught up to her.

You know they’re gonna catch you. And even worse, Annie, they might get close to you and then hold back for the right moment, for that golden kill. Then you’ll lead them home, and they’ll get back at all three of you. They’ll want to even out the numbers, kill for kill. They’ll take you in exchange for The Chuckle Machine. And for The Midget Man… who? Christian? Paulie? Or maybe one of them will be the principal and the other will be interest.

Annie pursed her iced-over lips, scraping away the layer of frost that had overtaken her goggles. In the first struggles of getting through the bloated snow, she came across a pair of shiny pink goggles hanging on the steel neck of the handlebars, right above the front headlight. If she didn’t wear it, she’d most likely be blinded by the onslaughts of wind and snow. She was only going five more miles or so, until she was finally home, but a lot of damage could be done in a short window of time. The wind alone was treacherous.

Don’t go home , she told herself again. Keep the fight away from your house, away from Paulie. Turn around, Annie. Confront them. Confront the shit out of them.

She revved on the throttle harder again, putting all of her effort into her cold wrists, taking care not to garner so much velocity that she’d careen out of control and plant her face on the spiky branch of a tree, just like her father had warned her as a child. She could only see the tops of the trees, as most of the trunks were buried deep beneath the accumulation, so she’d thankfully hit the bushy parts near the top. Still, it would probably break every bone in her body or spear her like a bluefish tuna.

Don’t go home, Annie. Take them out before they chase you to the ends of the earth. You know they will. Dogs like these don’t loosen up their jaws so easily.

Mikey’s chest heaved in and out. Even though the machine beneath him was doing all the work, his pinpointed concentration on the bitch’s snowmobile markings was taking all the energy out of him. Marcus told him they’d both need to keep their eyes on the path. If they lost track of her, they might never catch her again, and truth be told, that wouldn’t bother Mikey all that much, as he just wanted to get warm again. It would drive Marcus absolutely bananas though. He might do something crazy if they let the broad get away from them.

It turned out to be an exhausting day over at the Pepper homestead. They’d hauled back a considerable load, cheerfully rejoicing all the way back, feeling like modern day pirates, but without the stumpy wooden legs. But when they found the bodies back at the restaurant, they dropped their load off as quickly as they could manage and took to chasing the lady they’d captured. They couldn’t hear each other over the thrumming grinding of their motors, but every now and then, Mikey could hear Marcus cursing loudly. He couldn’t see his partner’s eyes through the tinted snow goggles, but Mikey pictured the face Marcus was making. Mikey had been the recipient of that timeless expression on countless occasions through the years. The last time had been at the casino for Marcus’ fiftieth birthday party, something that had already irked his punchy side, not wanting to admit how old he was. “Your brain’s nothing more than a shit bucket, throwing cards down like that. You make us look stupid,” Marcus had informed Mikey (always the brunt of their foursome’s scorn) during a seemingly quiet blackjack game, in reference to his inability to count the values of his cards quick enough. Soon after, Marcus’ eyes got wild, like they were known to do by the whole crew… most of whom were dead now, Mikey considered, feeling his heart sink in an inexplicable sadness.