Ronald Malfi - Snow

CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX

In her urgency, Kate had ushered Charlie and Cody into the sally port. She opened the back door on one of the cruisers and instructed the children to get inside. They were both trembling, with Cody clinging to her brother and whimpering audibly, and although Kate’s heart went out to them, she knew she couldn’t afford to slow down.

Before slamming the door shut, Kate bent down and peered inside. Both siblings were clutching each other and trembling with fear. Tears had carved clean slicks down their grimy faces. “No matter what you two hear,” she told them, “you both stay in here and don’t come out until I come get you. Do you understand?”

They both nodded.

Kate left them.

In the basement, Molly was petrified. She refused to leave her cot, having unconsciously barricaded herself with pillows and paperback novels. Kate had little hope that down feathers and John Grisham would be enough to keep those things at bay, if any actually happened to get in here.

“What happened to those things outside?” Molly wanted to know.

Kate set her shotgun against one wall and began stuffing extra clothes into a plastic bag to take back to the kids. “I don’t know,” she said. “They took off.”

Molly was inconsolable. “Took off? What the fuck does that mean? Where’d they go?”

“I don’t know!” Kate’s own temper was incontrollable; she felt it burst through her from the wellspring of her fury. “There was some kind of explosion down the road. It must have scared them off.”

“What explosion?” Molly pulled a pillow into her lap. Her eyes looked sloppy in their sockets. “My God, what if something happened to them?”

Kate knotted the bag of clothing, then tossed it on her cot. She went straight to the desk and began rummaging through its drawers for a lighter, a book of matches—anything that would catch fire. Blessedly, she located a Zippo with the Marines insignia on the side, and she silently thanked a God that she wasn’t so sure she believed in at the moment. She slipped the lighter into her pocket.

“What if they’re dead?” Molly wouldn’t shut the fuck up.

Kate reeled around to her. “Listen—if those things do come back here, I don’t think it’s a good idea that you stay down here.”

“It’s safe down here.”

“No,” Kate said. “It’s not. There’s only one door. If they come to it, where are you gonna go?”

“Are they inside?”

“No.” But she wondered. “I don’t think so. Not yet.”

“Oh, my God…”

“I took the kids to the sally port—it’s where they keep the cars—”

“The cars don’t work, ” Molly moaned. She wasn’t listening anymore.

“It’s safer there. They’re hiding in the cars. I think you should go there, too. If anything gets inside, there’s more than one way out from the sally port. Plus, it’s made of concrete, like a garage.” She drummed her knuckles against the drywall. “Not like this Sheetrock shit.”

“You’re talking too fast.”

Kate squatted down in front of the woman. “Molly, I think you should come with me to the sally port. Do you understand?”

But Molly was shaking her head. “Fuck you. I’m not going anywhere.”

For one instant, Kate considered snatching her by the hair and dragging her upstairs. Had the woman not been pregnant, she might have done just that. But despite her terror, Molly had fight enough left in her; dragging her up the stairs might prove dangerous, even lethal, for one or both of them.

Smirking, Kate stood. “No,” she said. “Fuck you.”

Back upstairs, she gathered some food from the commissary—bags of pretzels and potato chips, a six-pack of Mountain Dew, granola bars, an uneaten Italian sub wrapped in tinfoil in the fridge—and, burdened with the halogen lamp, bag of clothes, and the shotgun by its strap over one shoulder, she carried the stuff back to the sally port.

She expected the kids to still be whimpering in the backseat of the cruiser, but when she opened the door she was startled to find them sitting stock still, their heads slightly cocked in the direction of the open door.

“Jesus,” Kate said, dumping the food and clothes into the foot well. She reached out and grabbed the collar of Charlie’s shirt, pulled him toward her. “Come here.” Slipping a hand down his collar, she felt around the smooth flesh of his shoulder blades.

“Stop it,” he whined. “Your hand’s cold.”

“I’m sorry.” She withdrew her hand, uncomfortable.

“We’re just tired,” Charlie said. Eerily, he sounded much older than he was.

“Here,” Kate said, opening the bag and pulling out the various articles of clothes. “I grabbed whatever was there. Put these on and stay warm. It’s cold in here. Just keep warm, okay?” She looked over to Cody. “How’s your headache?”

“Hurts.”

“Okay, okay. Todd and the others will be back soon, okay?”

“And then what?” Charlie said.

Kate did not have an answer for him. “And here,” she continued, filling their laps with the junk food and sodas. “Eat if you’re hungry, but don’t get sick.” She slipped back out of the car.

“Where are you going?” Cody said.

“I need to go back out into the hall, sweetheart. I need to check things out.”

“With the gun?” Cody sounded so small.

Kate nodded. “Yeah. With the gun.” She looked at Charlie. “Keep your sister warm.”

In the hall, she went around to every window she could find, peering out. The pebbled glass made it difficult to see what exactly was going on out there. At the double doors, she checked and rechecked the lock on the inside of the doors, even though she hadn’t unlocked it since Todd and the others left.

Get the fuck back here, Todd.

Nonetheless, she managed to drag one of the secretary desks out into the foyer and prop it up in front of the door. It might not stop the possessed townspeople from breaking in but it might slow them down. Enough to take a few down and then reload the shotgun, anyway.

She hoped.

Returning to the darkened storage room, she began looking around for things with which to board up the windows. There were more than enough wooden crates and the slats seemed sturdy enough; it was locating a hammer and nails that proved difficult. Eventually, though, she found some in a tool chest under an old poker table. Quickly, she set to work prying apart the crates, working like a demon and sweating through the layers of her clothes.

She stopped only when she felt a cold breeze at her back.

Holding the hammer up by her face as a weapon, she spun around and faced the darkness. Only stacked boxes caroused in the shadows, leaning into one another like deteriorating architecture. She bent and groped for the shotgun that she’d set on the floor, walking her fingers across its girth before snatching it up and propping the hilt beneath her right armpit.

I’m just scared and jumpy. I’m alone. There’s no one here.

But was she? Was she alone?

One of those things had been trying to come in through that pipe, she recalled. Had Charlie not seen it…had I not plugged it up…

She went to the wall to see if the oil rag was still jammed into the mouth of the exposed pipe. It was.

But there could be more.

The thought caused goose bumps to break out along her arms.

Frantically, she searched all the walls, and even moved heavy boxes out of the way to make sure there weren’t any more exposed pipes. Satisfied that there weren’t—and exhausted from the exercise—she paused to give herself a few moments to catch her breath.