Snow (27 page)

Nineteen miles west of Bicklerville, a thirty-eight-year-old woman named Tracy Murphy stood beneath the lighted awning of a gas station, pumping fuel into her Mercedes while surveying the stars that hung low over the distant trees. Somewhat jumpy from the strange stories that had been on the news the past two days, Tracy now doubted her decision to drive from her folks’ place in Iowa back home to Nebraska. She’d originally planned to stay with her parents until New Year’s Day, but she should have known better—Cliff and Joan Murphy fought like two feral cats tied up together in a sack. Had it not been for the snowstorm, the drive would not have been a difficult one at all. But the roads hadn’t been plowed and Chuck’s goddamn Mercedes kept overheating. Last night, as her eyelids had drooped lower and lower, she’d had no choice but to take refuge in a shitty roadside motel where the sheets stank of dirty feet and a bloated tampon floated in the toilet like detritus from a barge. And with all that weird shit on the radio about people disappearing from neighboring towns…well, the thought was unsettling, to say the least.

A rust-colored pickup truck pulled into the gas station and shuddered to a stop beside one of the pumps. Tracy could make out two slumped shapes in the cab, one larger than the other. No one got out of the pickup right away; as Tracy
watched, the two figures remained inside, although she did not think they were talking. It looked like they were both staring straight ahead out the windshield at the highway as it wound off into the distant pines.

Eventually, a man climbed out. He wore a checkered flannel jacket and a grim expression. Several days’ growth shadowed the line of his jaw. The man cast an uneasy glance at Tracy, his skin looking sallow and almost dull green beneath the recessed fluorescent lighting up in the awning. Tracy felt a cold twinge at the base of her spine. Quickly, she turned away from the man and silently willed the fucking pump to go faster.

She heard the man’s footsteps approaching. Waiting for the man’s reflection to appear behind her in the smoked window of the Mercedes, she balled her fist around her keys, the ignition key jutting straight out between her index and middle fingers. She’d jab him right in the eye if he laid a hand on her…

But he moved right past her and into the store.

Relief washed over Tracy. When the pump clicked, she replaced the nozzle and screwed the gas cap back on. She looked back up and into the convenience store. The man stood looking at bags of junk food in one of the aisles, his back toward her. Tracy could make out unusual slashes in the fabric of his jacket, directly over the shoulder blades.

Something felt wrong. Tracy turned around and could more clearly see the second figure in the cab of the pickup truck: a young child in a pink ski jacket, the fur-trimmed hood up, covering the child’s face.

Something isn’t right about this,
Tracy thought. The kid just stared straight ahead through the windshield of the pickup, the child’s profile hidden behind the hood. The hood itself looked smeared with what Tracy thought might be grease or motor oil.

Tracy approached the pickup truck. Stories of kidnappings filled her head. Years ago, she’d gone to elementary school with a little girl who’d been swiped from the schoolyard. No one had ever found her again. The girl’s name had been Lizzie and everyone used to call her Lizzie the Lizard because she had terrible eczema. Now, approaching the pickup, Tracy wondered what had become of Lizzie the Lizard…

Tracy stopped beside the pickup’s passenger door. Standing so close that her breath blossomed on the window, she reached out and tapped on the glass. Inside, the child did not flinch. The greasy substance on the child’s hood looked as if it could be blood.

“Can I help you with something?” came a voice from behind her.

Tracy jumped and spun around. The man in the checkered flannel jacket stood staring at her, a box of Band-Aids in one hand. “No, I’m sorry,” she stammered. Thinking on her feet, she said, “I thought I recognized your…” But she didn’t know if the child was a boy or a girl. She took a guess, based on the color of the child’s coat. “Your daughter,” she finished.

The man just chewed at his lower lip, his eyes roving over her.

“Is she okay?” Tracy said. The child had not turned once to look in her direction.

“Emily’s shy,” said the man.

“Is she hurt?”

“What do you mean?”

Tracy pointed to the box of Band-Aids.

“No,” said the man. “These are for later.”

Tracy’s heart was suddenly zipping through her chest. She looked down and saw that her hands were trembling. Quickly, she stuffed them into the pockets of her coat.

“Excuse me,” the man said, moving around her and around
the front of the car until he climbed up into the cab. Tracy took a few steps backward, just as the pickup’s gears squealed and the truck began to ease forward.

Just before it left, heading back out onto the road, Tracy thought she saw the child in the passenger seat turn and place a palm flat against the window. Tracy tried to make out the girl’s face but found it was impossible: the fluorescent lighting erased her features and threw glare on the window.

As the truck pulled out onto the road, Tracy recited the license plate to herself over and over again. Her goddamn cell phone had died—yet another luckless addition to this already lousy trip—but she would call the police when she got home later that night. She’d give them a description of the man and tell them what the girl was wearing, too, and how it looked like there was blood on the hood of her coat. About the Band-Aids, too, because that was just…well, that was just fucking weird.

She climbed inside the Mercedes with all the good intentions in the world, but by the time Tracy Murphy made it back home to Nebraska, she had forgotten all about the strange man, the box of Band-Aids, and the peculiar little girl whose face she had not seen.

You hold this book in your hands because a number of people have enabled it to come to pass. Undying gratitude goes to Brian Keene, Greg F. Gifune, Shane Ryan Staley, John Lawson, Jennifer Barnes, and Robert Dunbar for their support, advice, and willingness to put their well-respected names on the line to give a guy like me a hand.

My gratitude also goes to Don D’Auria and the rest of the folks at Dorchester, who led this book out of the forest and into the light of day.

Heartfelt thanks to my family for their unyielding support and to my wife, Debra, who has never allowed me to sell my soul and be something I wasn’t meant to be.

And lastly, thanks to you for following me on this journey. Now bundle up. It’s getting cold out there…