Ronald Malfi - Snow

The town square sat in a bowl ridged with trees. Bruce led them through the trees, past the bare branches of deciduous flora to where the evergreens clotted together for better concealment. On their hands and knees, the three men crawled beneath the trees and through the prickling swats of bristly, cold branches. The smell of sap was very strong. They paused only when they’d reached the end of the copse, each of the men pulling aside bristling bows to peer down into the town square.

“Oh,” said Todd, “you gotta be kidding me.”

There were perhaps thirty townspeople gathered in the center of the town square, and perhaps another dozen or so lingering in the shaded alleyways between some storefronts. They all affected the same slump-shouldered, loose-limbed stance, their faces, from what Todd could make out at this distance, a mask of catatonic nonattendance. Despite the skin-suits, there was nothing remotely human about their appearance. That empty, vacuous glaze over their upturned faces made them look like wax dummies.

“What are they doing?” asked Brendan.

“They look like they’re…listening,” Todd said. He pointed at the glowing crater carved into the clouds, the crater’s epicenter a storm of electrical current and brilliant, dazzling lights. “Like they’re getting subliminal instructions from that thing in the sky.”

“Like they’re getting something,” Bruce muttered.

Todd could see the Pack-N-Go across the square, its front windows busted out, the interior dark. The icy sidewalk in front of the store was littered with arrowheads of triangular glass as well as boxes of cereal, packets of Ramen noodles, burst soda bottles, and fluttery rolls of paper towels.

“How the hell are we supposed to get into the Pack-N-Go, then back out again without those things seeing us?” Brendan said. He was drumming his fingers against his knees—a nervous habit.

“Maybe they’re in a trance,” Todd suggested. “Maybe it won’t be as hard as it looks.”

“You willing to bet your life on it?” Bruce jerked his chin farther up the square, where the main street led back up an incline and through the town. It was the direction Todd and the others had come last night as they walked into the square, looking for signs of life. Now, a grayish slurry of snow slowly rotated like a tornado in slow motion. At first glance, it appeared camouflaged by the snowfall itself…but on closer scrutiny, Todd could make out the subtle density to it and the distinction of its shape—the funnel of twisting snowflakes trapped in a vacuum that never touched the ground. It was large enough to block the entire street—the street that led out of town.

This is insane, Todd thought. This is a nightmare. I should just curl up in a ball and sit here until I wake up.

Something akin to a giggle bubbled up from deep within Brendan. Both Todd and Bruce looked at him, matching expressions of puzzlement on their faces. Brendan’s fingers continued to drum restlessly on his knees. “You know,” he said, a grin tugging at one corner of his mouth, “I think I’ve got a plan.”

“Okay,” Kate said, shaking the bottle of aspirin, “this should help with the headache, sweetheart.” She froze in the doorway. “Where’s Charlie?”

“He went to find me my medicine,” Cody intoned, not lifting her head from the pillow.

Kate glared at Molly, who feigned interest in her book. “Why’d you let him go?”

Molly sneered and refolded her legs beneath her. “I’m not that boy’s mother.”

Fuming, Kate dropped to her knees before Cody’s cot. She popped the cap on the aspirin and shook a bunch of tablets into her palm. Then she read the directions on the bottle, realizing she’d never in her life administered medication to a child.

“How old are you, sweetie?”

“Eight and three-quarters,” Cody said.

Kate poured all but one tablet back into the bottle. “This will make you feel better,” she told the girl.

Still cradling the water bottle like a baby doll, Cody raised her head off the pillow. Her hair was damp with sweat and her face looked as red and as hot as a smoked ham.

Kate put the aspirin in Cody’s mouth. At her back, she could feel Molly’s eyes boring into her. “You have to swallow it whole,” Kate told her. “No chewing.”

The girl nodded. She drank from the water bottle and grimaced as the pill went down.

Kate stood and set the aspirin bottle down on the desk next to the collection of liquor bottles. The shotgun still leaned against the desk. “You shouldn’t have let Charlie go,” she said to Molly. Then, without another word, Kate snatched up the shotgun and one of the halogen lamps, and hurried out of the room.

“It just came to me,” Brendan said. He was talking fast, moving his hands a lot. “But I’m gonna need help. Like, Bruce, man—we can do this.”

“Do what?” Bruce asked, skeptical.

Ignoring him, Brendan leaned over and grabbed a fistful of Todd’s sweater. “You just sneak on down there, get as close to the Pack-N-Go as you can without actually setting foot into the square where those things can see you. Just sit tight and wait for the distraction.”

“What distraction?” Todd asked.

Still chuckling like a madman, Brendan sprang to his feet and pushed through the trees.

Todd and Bruce exchanged a look. “Just be careful,” Bruce said before rising and following Brendan through the trees.

Todd turned back to face the square. That spiraling aperture of light was slowly revolving, carving away the brownish, dirty-looking clouds as it turned. Looking at it caused something uncomfortable to turn over in Todd’s stomach. He blew into his gloved hands for warmth. Suddenly, his fingers felt numb, useless.

Then he was up and hustling through the pine boughs. The crust of snow crunched beneath his heavy boots while he toed fallen pinecones out of his way. When he finally came out of the trees, he was facing the rear of the shops along the town square, which sat maybe twenty yards ahead of him and at the bottom of a slight decline. Todd counted the number of shops over from the alleyway until he was certain he was looking at the back of the Pack-N-Go. Whatever Brendan had planned, he’d said for Todd to get as close as possible to the Pack-N-Go. Todd meant to do just that.

He crouched in the snow, adjusting the gear at his belt. The butane torch was at his right hip beside the handheld radio, the handgun wedged into the rear of his waistband. He had the shotgun’s strap slung around his chest, restricting his breathing.

He could sneak down there and cut through the alley between the two closest buildings…

An icy wind chilled his bones and froze tears to the sides of his face. Taking a deep breath, he poised himself…then ran down the slope and ditched into the alley. The butt of the shotgun scraped against the bricks—a sound like the grinding gears of a garbage compactor. He had the pistol in his hand now, though he couldn’t remember drawing it. He held his breath as he scaled the brick alley wall. Snow funneled through the narrow brick canyon; the sky directly above was the color of rotting vegetation.

He paused at the mouth of the alley, hiding in the shadows, his left shoulder against the wall for stability. The pistol weighed a thousand pounds in his hand. Across the darkening town square, he could see a number of Tully’s skin-suits staged around the bronze horse statue at the square’s center. They all had their heads craned up at the eyelet in the sky, their skin cast with an ungodly hue, their eyes black orbs in the pasty dough of their skulls.

What have you got planned, Brendan? Just what exactly am I waiting for?

Hunkering down into the dirty snow of the alley, Todd waited for a sign. For several moments, his heartbeat was all he could hear, somehow amplified in the freight train roar of the wind tunneling down between the buildings.