Ronald Malfi - Snow

Chris seemed puzzled by the answer. His chubby baby face creased. “What does that mean?”

“Please don’t hurt him.” Kate was trying to see what Chris had in his other hand, the item he’d taken off the altar.

“What would God think about your insolence?” Chris said.

“Do you even know what that word means?” Kate countered, though she knew it was a mistake the moment the words came from her mouth.

Chris bolted to his feet, enraged. “Don’t make fun of me!” he shouted, his voice echoing through the chamber. The gun wavered in his hand. “If it wasn’t for me, you and your friend would have died out there! I saw what was happening! I could have left you to die!”

“I didn’t mean to make fun of you.”

“You did! You…you fucking did!”

Again, Meg recoiled. Kate could almost hear the girl’s heart thudding against the wall of her chest.

“Kneel down,” Chris demanded of Kate. He thrust the gun at her. “Do it!”

Shaking, Kate dropped to her knees. The floor was hard and unforgiving and her whole body suddenly ached.

“Don’t shoot her, Chris,” Meg said, although there was very little compassion in her tone.

The barrel of the gun looked enormous. The longer she stared at it, the more Kate believed she could just reach out and shove her whole fist into the chamber. The thing was suddenly the size of a cannon.

“They persecuted Jesus Christ for all the good He did for people,” Chris said, the gun vibrating in his meaty hand. His face was speckled with sweat. “He tried to save them and they nailed Him to the cross!”

In her horror, Kate caught a whiff of freshly spilled urine, and wondered if the almighty Chris had just wet himself in his excitement.

“He gave his life for the wretched and worthless animals who took His!” Then he pointed the gun at Meg. “Blow out that candle!”

Meg puffed and doused them all in darkness.

Kate pressed her eyes shut and braced herself for the shot. Chris’s heavy respiration seemed to be coming from every angle, every direction, all around her. His Clydesdale footfalls paced all about.

Think of something happy, think of something beautiful, a favorite memory, a happier time, something wonderful that I want to have as my last and final thought before this little son of a bitch drives a bullet through my brain…

Several seconds went by before Kate realized she was still alive. She could hear Chris moving about in front of her where Todd’s body lay supine on the floor. There came a muted ruffling noise, like someone rifling through laundry, followed by a solid thump. Kate’s heart was strumming in her throat.

Then she heard Chris stand. A second later, she could smell his breath—a poisonous concoction of Fritos, beef jerky, and onions—directly in her face. She thought she could smell the oil of the gun, too.

“Please…” Her voice was almost nonexistent.

His lips brushing the side of her face, Chris whispered, “Judge not and ye shall not be judged; condemn not and ye shall not be condemned.”

A dull strike echoed down the nave. Kate felt Chris tense and stand up. Kate opened her eyes and squinted down the dark throat of the church. On either side of the narthex, the bluish stained-glass windows seemed to float like apparitions. At first, Kate could not tell what had made the noise. But then as her eyes acclimated themselves to the gloom, she thought she saw a single palm, all five fingers splayed, pressed against one of the windows.

“They’re out there,” Kate whispered.

Chris must have spotted the hand, too; his respiration increased its tempo again. Under his breath, he muttered, “I told you not to light those candles.”

Meg said nothing. For all Kate knew, the girl had vanished into smoke.

“They know we’re in here,” Kate said.

“Of course they do.” There was unmasked disgust in Chris’s voice. “I should have never opened those doors for you.”

She heard Chris hurry across the narthex. A moment later, the silhouette of his overlarge head appeared before one of the windows as he peered out. “Oh,” he said, his voice almost comically small. “Oh.”

“What is it?” Kate said.

“Outside. There’s a lot of them.”

Somewhere behind Kate, Meg began to whimper.

Quickly, Kate stood. Her whole body groaned in protest. Blindly, she reached out in the dark until her hand fell on one of Meg’s shoulders. The girl did not move beneath her grasp. Kate’s fingers slid down into the collar of the girl’s shirt and worked their way over the twin hubs of Meg’s shoulder blades. There were no lacerations that Kate could feel. Bending down very close to Meg’s ear so that Chris wouldn’t hear, she whispered, “What about your brother?”

“He’s not one of them, either.”

So he’s just your typical sociopath, Kate thought…and was astounded to find that the thought nearly sent her into hysterical laughter. It was all she could do to keep from braying like a donkey.

“There’s…maybe twelve…thirteen…thirteen people just standing out there in the snow,” Chris said, still looking out the window. He sounded completely dazed by the situation. “Maybe they’ve been sent here to help.”

“No,” Kate said. “Everyone in this town is fucked.”

Meg trembled at the word. Kate quickly withdrew her hand from the girl’s shoulder. Careful of her footing, she negotiated around Meg and climbed toward the altar, working mostly by feel and from memory. When she reached it, she ran her hands gingerly over the top of the altar, her fingers trailing over the various implements until she located the flashlight. She slipped the flashlight into the rear waistband of her pants. Then her fingers closed around the plastic bag full of ammo. She winced at the sound the plastic made crinkling between her fingers, certain Chris would spin around and start firing shots at her. But he was too occupied with their new visitors out in the snow to pay her any further mind. Kate slid the bag off the altar and set it down beneath it—someplace she knew she could get to in a hurry, if need be.

Down on the floor, Todd moaned. Much louder this time.

“They’re going to hear him,” Meg cautioned.

Chris hustled back across the narthex, his multiple robes rustling. “I should shut him up for good.”

“It doesn’t matter,” Kate said, sliding back into place beside Meg. “They already know we’re here. What we need to do is wake him up so we can all figure out what to do next.”

“What do you mean?” Chris demanded. “What do you mean, ‘what to do next’? I don’t need him to tell me what to do.”

“That isn’t what I meant. I just think that with the four of us trying to figure this out, we might stand a better—”

“I don’t need him for anything.”

“All right.” She knew better than to keep up the argument.

“They won’t get in here. This is sacred ground.”

“I don’t think that matters to them.”

“You don’t think God matters?” Chris boomed. Behind him, more hands appeared on the stained-glass windows. “You don’t think the Almighty is powerful enough to keep evil at bay? Because that’s what they are—they’re pure evil! Sent to punish us all for our sins! Sent straight from hell to do the devil’s bidding!”

If I rush him in the dark, surprise him and get him off balance, I could probably wrestle that gun away from him, she thought. He’s a chunky son of a bitch but as long as I kept his weight off me, I think I’d actually be able to do it.

She started sweating all over again.

“Kate?” It was Todd’s groggy voice filtering through the shadows. “You there, Kate?”