Hunters (30 page)

Jean nodded. "We'll drive until we get
there."

"Then I'm gonna need some coffee." Most of
the stores had closed early because of the storm, but they found an
all-night convenience store and bought a large thermos, which they
had filled with the less than fresh brew. Then they headed east on
120. The only sound for a long time was the swish of the wipers,
the sound of the chains, and the occasional slurping sound as Sam
sipped her coffee.

"What bothers you so much about snow?"
Michael finally said.

It was quiet again, until Chuck said,
"What?"

"The snow. Any other situation, you're not
scared of a damn thing, but the snow's different. I mean, other
people with guns, the police, whatever...it doesn't seem to concern
you. But driving through the snow bothers you."

"Well, I'll tell you, genius, so you don't
have to try and psychoanalyze me. With people, I know what's what.
I know that I'm fast and I shoot pretty good, but most of all I
know that I'll pull the trigger or stick in the knife or swing the
lead pipe when the other guy won't. But with...what, the weather,
nature...snow? Hell, you can't do a thing. If you're caught in it,
you're dead."

"But we're not back in the woods. Not
yet."

"If we
were
, we'd be ready, prepared,
and we'd be all right. But we don't know what we're getting into
here. We don't know what these roads are like, or if they close
them off for days at a time because the cops figure nobody would be
stupid enough to drive on them during a snowstorm. But hey..." He
shrugged. "The boss lady says drive, I drive." He glanced toward
Jean. "Right, boss lady?"

Her head jerked up. She had been sleeping.
"What?"

"Never mind."

Jean looked around her as though she could
actually see something through the waves of white that swirled all
around. "Where are we?"

"We're in the snow," Chuck said. "We're driving
through a fucking snowstorm, and I don't know where we are."

I
t took them over an
hour to drive the twenty miles to Emporium. By then, the snow was
coming down even more heavily than before. A gas station was open,
and they stopped to top the tank and use the rest rooms.

"Can't believe anybody's out on a night like
this," the attendant shouted over the wind as he took the cash.

"Heading home to Coudersport," Chuck said
through the open window.

"Well, good luck. 46 is gonna be awful."

"46? We were thinking of going on 155."

The man laughed. "You gotta be kidding.
That's gonna be blown over by now. You won't even be able to tell
where the road is."

Chuck looked at Jean, "Hear that?"

"Let's go," she said, looking straight ahead
at the snow that had piled up on the windshield.

"I just want to make sure you heard the man."
Chuck turned back to the attendant. "My wife's real anxious to get
back home. Got a funeral to go to."

"You take 155," said the attendant, "and you
might be going to
four
funerals." He gave them a wave and
walked to the safety of the building.

"Thanks for the tip," Chuck yelled after him
as he rolled up the window and started the engine. "We're taking
46," he told the others.

Jean nodded sharply. "All right. But try and
get the speed up."

It was impossible. Route 46, as the attendant
had suspected, was awful indeed. Snow had drifted across the road
much faster than the local township road crews could scrape it off.
They were driving through a sea of whiteness illuminated only by
their two headlights. At one point they were relieved to find
themselves behind a plow, but it turned off in another mile,
leaving them in their featureless limbo.

Several times Chuck nearly ran off the road,
but managed to get back on before getting stuck. They passed
through a few small towns that they had never heard of: Lewis Run,
Colegrove, and Crosby. The signs with the town names were visible
only for an instant before the snow swallowed them up again, and
scarcely a light was visible in any of the villages.

Besides the plow, they saw only two other
vehicles on the road, and could not even tell what they were, even
at the slow speeds they were moving. Their ghostly lights appeared
and vanished so quickly that they seemed more like mirages than
real cars.

"I can't see," Chuck finally said. "I don't
know what I'm driving in, if I'm on the road, or if we've been
going through a field for the last hour."

"We're on the road," Jean said.

"We're going to stop somewhere until
daybreak."

In the back seat, Michael laughed. "Where?
You see any Holiday Inns out here?"

"Smethport's up here a mile or so. Look in
the book, see if there's a motel."

"No."

"
Damn
you, Jeannie! We find Craig at
this tower, you think we're gonna be able to drive back in there?
After this storm—assuming that it even stops? Bullshit! We're
either gonna have to walk or get snowmobiles, and we can't do
either one in the middle of the fucking
night!
"

"He's probably right, Jean," Michael said.
"Craig's there tonight, he's going to be there tomorrow."

"Bet your ass he is," Chuck said. "He's not
gonna waltz out of there during
this
. Besides, I gotta get
some rest. Driving in this stuff makes you nuts—I get
hypnotized
, for crissake."

"Just keep driving."

"No," Chuck said softly, then again, louder,
"
No
." He gently depressed the brakes, stopped the car, and
turned off the engine, then the lights. The blackness was nearly
palpable.

"What the hell are you
doing?
" Jean
said.

"You wanta keep going, somebody else can
drive. I'm done."

"Turn on the lights, my God, somebody could
hit
us!"

"Fat chance. Besides, it'd put me out of my
misery. It's somebody else's turn to drive."

"I couldn't in this stuff," Michael said. "My
night vision's bad. I'd run us off the road."

Sam's voice came from the back seat for the
first time in hours. "And like I'm gonna work the pedals with this
leg?"

"Looks like that leaves you, Jeannie," Chuck
said. "You wanta drive in this shit?"

"All right," she said after a long silence.
"We'll stop."

"Dandy." Chuck started the engine, turned on
the lights, and began to drive. "Now will you
please
look in
the book and see if there's someplace we can hole up till
dawn?"

Jean sighed heavily, pulled out the AAA book,
and flicked on the map light. After a minute or so, she said,
"There's nothing in Smethport, but there's a motel in Port
Allegany."

"How far's that?" Chuck asked.

"Once we get to East Smethport," she said,
looking at the map, "another ten miles."

"Holy jumpin'
shit!
That's another
hour."

"The road might be better," Jean said. "We
get Route 6 at Smethport."

"Oh goodie. Turn the fucking radio on again."
They had turned it off many miles before, unable to get anything
but static in the storm and the mountains. "I gotta have something
to keep me awake." But there was still no reception, and the white
noise provided only a somnolent soundtrack to the dizzying
whirlpool of pelting flakes.

"Talk to me then," Chuck said. "Keep me
goin'."

"Hell, let's sing," Sam suggested.

So Sam and Chuck sang, while Jean and Michael
merely listened. They sang everything from Madonna to "You Are My
Sunshine" to nine inch nails to songs from
The Phantom of the
Opera
. It wasn't pretty, but it kept everyone awake.

Route 6 had been plowed more often than 46,
but driving was still hypnotic and hazardous, and they were all
glad to arrive in Port Allegany. The motel was filled with stranded
hunters, but the sleepy desk clerk said there was one room
available with two twin single beds, and they took it. Jean and Sam
slept in the beds, and the desk clerk was able to find a folding
cot which Chuck claimed, while Michael settled for the chair
cushions on the floor. They thought about asking for a wake-up
call, but Michael said he would be awake most of the night anyway,
and would wake the others at first light.

After they changed Sam's bandages, they lay
in their clothes on top of the covers. Michael Brewster, as he had
feared, had found it difficult to go to sleep, balancing on the
narrow pillows. When he finally gave up his efforts and lay on the
carpet, he fell asleep quickly, and did not dream.

Jean Catlett thought about the next day, and
what it would bring. She fell asleep thinking about Ned Craig,
seeing him hanging from a rope from the steel tower she could as
yet only imagine.

Chuck Marriner fell asleep almost instantly,
and dreamed about a tower, about it falling amidst flames, while he
laughed and laughed.

Samantha Rogers slept quickly as well, despite the
throbbing in her leg. She dreamed about Los Angeles in the
sunshine. And outside, it continued to snow, and the wind blew the
flakes so that they buried cars and covered roads and hid feeble
lights.

T
hirty miles
northeast of Port Allegany as the crow flies, but nearly double
that by roads, Ned Craig woke once again. He thought he had heard
someone scream or howl, but it had only been the wind.

The blackness inside the narrow bedroom was
the deepest he had ever known. No trace of starshine or moonshine
came through the single window, and the square of glass was as
black as the wall that surrounded it. If he lifted his head and
concentrated very hard, he thought he could just make out a slice
of muddy, Halloween orange beneath the door to the main room, the
light of burning embers that escaped through the joints of the wood
stove. But then again, maybe it was his imagination.

Megan's deep, regular breathing told him that
she was sound asleep. They had had a lovely evening, playing music
and singing old songs, and had then turned out the lights and gone
into the bedroom, shutting out a disappointed Pinchot, who whined
for all of thirty seconds before Ned and Megan heard his huge body
plop itself down in front of the wood stove. Then they had made
love by the light of a single candle, and fallen asleep to the
howling of the wind.

Now the same howling that had sung them to
sleep had awakened Ned, and he could not get back to sleep. He
slowly pushed himself out of the bed, hoping that the springs would
not squeak and betray him. Maybe he would have a glass of water or
a cup of herb tea. His robe was over the foot of the bed, and he
pulled it on and shuffled carefully, arms extended, toward what he
recalled was the direction of the door.

Yes, he could feel the rough surface of the
boards, and in another second he found the knob, which he turned
stealthily. It had been well lubricated, and made no sound as the
latch slid back. Ever so gently he pulled it inward...

And it smashed into him, pushed hard from the
other side, so that he stumbled backward, hit the foot of the bed,
and fell onto Megan, who woke, gasping and twisting under him. Then
something huge and heavy was on Ned, and his heart trip-hammered in
his chest as he struggled with it. He felt the coarse fur and the
wet tongue on his cheek at the same time.

"
Pinchot!
" he said with a mixture of
relief and anger, and a not totally sane laugh.

"Ned?" Megan said breathlessly. "Oh my God,
the
dog
..."

"
Damn
it, Pinchot, you scared the hell
out of me!" Ned said, fumbling for the lamp on top of the shelves
by the bed. But before he could find it, Megan flicked on the
flashlight, and the beam caught the big dog grinning, his forepaws
and head over the foot of the bed.

Megan laughed. "Oh, don't you look so happy
to get in here! Were you lonely?"

Knowing that he was being addressed, the dog
wagged his tail furiously and seemed to nod, as rivulets of drool
cascaded onto the blanket. "I was getting up for some tea," Ned
said. "Couldn't get back to sleep."

"So you get the rest of the household up
too?" Megan said sleepily, yawning and stretching so that the
covers fell back, exposing her small, high breasts.

Ned eyed her in mock appreciation. "Care to
join me, miss?"

Megan snorted and pulled the covers back up,
then smiled. "Sure, why not? How about some Sleepytime?"

They turned on the lights in the main room,
and then Ned switched on the outside light and looked out one of
the front windows. "Still coming down," he said to Megan, who was
putting water on to boil. The Blazer's tires are slooowly
disappearing."

"Hope you don't mind," Megan said.

Ned came up behind her and put his arms
around her waist. "There's nobody I'd rather be stranded with. I
thought today was great, and tomorrow will be even better. Besides,
there's a phone here. We get desperate, we just call in and someone
will come and rescue us in, oh, two or three weeks."

Megan turned around and looked at him. She
wasn't smiling. "If we called," she said, "seriously, how long
would it take for somebody to get out here?"

He shrugged. He really didn't know. "A few
hours, maybe. Why, you bored with me already?" He kissed her,
wanting her to forget everything that had happened in the past few
days, to forget why they were there.

But he knew she wouldn't any more than he
would. They were there because some crazy people had committed mass
murders and wanted to kill Ned too. They were hiding from people
who wanted to murder them, it was that simple.

They had their tea and went back to bed,
shutting out the unrepentant Pinchot. In the darkness, they lay
side by side, listening to the wind and the snow pattering against
the window. Even after a long time, Ned knew that Megan was still
awake.