Ronald Malfi - Snow

“It’s not the snowdrifts I’m afraid of,” Todd said.

“My plan is to cut straight through the trees here, bypassing the road. It’s a straighter shot but it’ll get a bit dicey going through the woods. It slopes down to a small stream that we’ll have to cross, then climb up the embankment on the other side. From there we’ll have no choice other than to cut straight through Vermont Street and over onto Fairmont. That’s when we’ll be the most visible.”

Bruce traced his finger up the map toward the center of town.

“Crossing Fairmont will bring us up to the back end of the shops in the square. Most of them are connected but there are narrow alleyways between some of them. That’s our ticket into the square itself—take one of those alleys down to the street on the other side. We’ll come out roughly about here”—Bruce pointed—“and the Pack-N-Go is three or four shops down this way to the left.”

“Three,” said Brendan. “Three shops down.”

“What’s this thing look like, in case we wind up having to search for it?”

“It’s in a black nylon carrying case,” Todd said. “Pretty standard. It’s got a tag with my name and address on it.”

“All right,” Bruce said. “We’ll establish rendezvous points as we go. In the event any of us get separated, we backtrack to the last rendezvous point and wait for the others. And if all hell breaks loose and we’ve got the computer…well, let’s just remember what our goal is here. Priority one is to get that laptop back here to the station. That means it’s a priority over your life”—he pointed to Todd—“and your life”—he pointed to Brendan—“and my life. We’ve got two kids downstairs who need to grow up.”

“And an unborn baby,” seconded Brendan.

Bruce nodded. “Right.” He rolled up the map and handed it to Todd. “You take it in case you get lost and turned around. Brendan and I grew up here; we can find our way back blindfolded.”

Todd folded the map and tucked it into the pocket of the police coat Bruce had given him. “Good idea.”

“And these,” Bruce added, sliding two walkie-talkies across the desk. “We’ve only got two batteries that still have any juice, and they’re both about half full, so we can’t waste ’em. And whatever is blocking your cell phone signal, Todd, it’s also interfering with the handhelds, although not as strongly, since we’re down here on the ground. The frequencies stay pretty low, geographically speaking.”

Todd picked one up. It was about the size and weight of a brick.

“You take one,” Bruce said to Todd, “since you’ll be the one who’ll probably get hands-on with the laptop. If we’re not in earshot when you grab the computer, give us a chirp on the handheld and let us know we need to beat a retreat.”

“Sounds good,” Todd said, clipping the handheld to his belt.

“All right,” Bruce said. He was piling a few extra articles of clothing into a backpack. “Are we ready?”

Both Todd and Brendan said, “Yes.”

Outside, the world was silent. The sky radiated with a sickly green hue and the low-hanging clouds looked like brownish chunks of clay. There was no breeze; the bare branches of the nearby trees remained motionless, climbing up into the false-looking atmosphere like countless medieval spires. Kate, Molly, and the two kids stood by the double doors as the men waded out into the snow. Before leaving, Bruce handed Kate one of two keys that unlocked the front doors. “The minute we start walking, Kate, you lock this door behind us,” he told her. “And when we get back here, you demand we show you our shoulders.”

“Roger,” Kate said, nodding. Bruce had also shown her where the shotguns and shotgun shells were kept in case of an emergency. He’d shown her how to load and charge the weapon.

Brendan and Molly hugged. Bruce tousled the kids’ hair. From the doorway, Kate smiled at Todd. He winked at her and said, “Don’t look so disconsolate,” and Kate laughed and covered her mouth with one hand as tears welled up in her eyes.

They left.

CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE

By the time they reached the entrance of the woods, a light snow had begun to fall. The three men cast wary glances toward the heavens and held their breath, each one wondering if they were about to be attacked. But the snow just fell, covering their tracks and powdering their clothes.

Their gear weighed them down. Walking along the culvert from the sheriff’s station down to the main road hadn’t been too difficult, but by the time they reached the edge of the woods, they were sweating and breathing heavily. Todd’s muscles ached and the wound on his injured leg throbbed with a dullness that was almost nauseating. They paused only once, leaning against trees while Bruce distributed cigarettes to each of them. They smoked and kept their eyes peeled for movement in the road above. They saw nothing, saw no one.

The climb down into the woods was steeper than Todd would have imagined. Bruce untangled a length of rope from his belt and tied one end around the bole of a sturdy tree. “We’ll go down like mountain climbers rappelling down the face of a cliff,” Bruce said.

Brendan went first, inching his way backward down the steep and icy decline, a flag of vapor smoldering from his lips. As cautious as he was, it took him a good seven or eight minutes to reach level ground. Exhausted, he collapsed against a tree to catch his breath.

Todd went next, descending in a similar fashion. Hand over hand, he fed the rope up and out while his booted feet were careful not to trip over each other. Halfway down, his heel struck a partially buried tree stump and he lost his grip on the rope. He fell backward but managed to spin halfway around in the air, so that he struck the sloping ground on his right side. The wind was knocked out of him as he started sliding toward the valley floor. Below, Brendan scrambled to his feet and stood like the goalie of an ice hockey team, his legs far apart and bent at the hips, as if to catch Todd on his way down. Luckily, though, Todd managed to snag a tree root and arrest his descent. His breath whistling from his throat and his nose running into his mouth, he glanced up at Bruce, who stood peering over the precipice seemingly a million miles above him, and smiled weakly.

Bruce must have seen the smile, because he raised a hand in return.

At the bottom of the incline, Todd approached Brendan while making sure all his gear was still secured to himself. Brendan clapped him on the back, his cheeks aflame from the cold. As Todd watched Bruce begin his descent, tears streamed from the corners of his eyes and froze midway down his cheeks.

When Bruce finally joined them on level ground, the sheriff’s deputy was panting like a bloodhound. The top of his head had gone a bright crimson.

They continued into the heart of the woods, crunching through previously undisturbed snow. “Have you noticed?” Brendan said at one point. “Not a single squirrel or bird, not even a deer. Listen.” They all stopped to listen. “Everything is totally quiet. I mean, I don’t think I’ve ever heard anything this quiet before.”

“Maybe they got to the animals first,” Todd suggested. The thought troubled him in ways he couldn’t quite understand—herds of zombielike deer galloping along a snowy countryside, attacking their brethren in fitful rages, impaling other animals and possibly people with their antlers.

“Haven’t seen any animals,” Bruce said as they continued through the woods. “Maybe they sensed this all coming and they skedaddled before the shit hit the fan. Like how farm animals always know when a tornado’s approaching.”

For some reason, that thought didn’t make Todd feel any better.