Snow (18 page)

“We’ve seen it,” Kate said. “Our friend shot one down in the square. The man died but the thing flew right out of him.”

“If you can set ’em on fire just as they’re vacating a skin-suit, you’re in good shape. That’s the best way to do it.”

“I saw a little girl,” Todd said. He felt Kate look at him. “She had no face.”

Still walking, Tully turned his head so that Todd could make out the man’s sharp profile. He had a nose like a bathtub faucet. “Something about mixin’ them with little kids doesn’t take. Like the kids’ bodies can’t handle it or something. They lose their features. Most of the little kids around Woodson who changed ran off into the woods. They’re all mad now. Down by the fire hall and the sheriff’s station you can hear them rustling around in the trees. They ain’t got no mouths so they can’t make a sound, but you can hear ’em movin’ around, sure as the day is long.”

“Stop it,” Kate said. Her eyes were on her shoes now. “Please. No more about this.”

Tully shrugged, the bottles jangling in the Superman backpack, and lit a cigarette. He didn’t offer one to either of them.

Todd had glimpsed the sheriff’s station from the church bell tower last night: it was a squat, square building made of brick, with very few windows, at the end of a winding, icy road. It sat between the fire hall and a run-down gas station that had probably looked just as run-down before any of this madness had come to the town of Woodson. Partially concealed by black firs, the station was hidden from the main road on three of its four sides, making it a good place to set up camp.

Tully led them to the large double doors—the kind of doors one would find on a gymnasium—that stood beneath an alcove of slatted wood. Metal trash cans stood like guards on either side of the doors; they were empty but reeked of kerosene. There was a shield fixed to the bricks, which read W
OODSON
S
HERIFF’S
D
EPARTMENT
. Tully paused just before the doors and consulted the collection of keys dangling like gypsy charms from his belt. He quickly found the one he was looking for and shoved it in the lock, turned it. Then he looked over his shoulder at Todd and Kate while one hand unzipped his camouflage coat.

“They’re gonna want your shirts off,” he told them. “Sorry, ma’am.”

Inside, the place was as dark and as quiet as the surface of the moon. A tiled hallway stretched off into the distance, the tiles alternately black and white like a checkerboard.
There was a bulletin board on the wall in the entranceway, crammed with papers that fluttered in the wind. Tully shut the doors and wove a heavy chain around the handles. He clamped it shut with a padlock, then pulled off his wool cap. Tight black curls sprouted from his head.

A light came on farther down the hall, from one of the offices. Tully made a whippoorwill noise and the silhouette of a head appeared out of the lighted doorway.

“That’s Brendan,” Tully grumbled, pulling his coat off. The tone of his voice suggested a distasteful attitude toward Brendan.

The man called Brendan exited the room and hustled quickly down the hallway toward them. He carried the light with him in the form of a halogen lantern. Halfway down the hall, Brendan called, “Who you got there, Tully?”

“Mickey Mouse and Donald Duck,” Tully retorted.

“Don’t fuck with me,” said Brendan. “I want to see your shoulders.”

Tully removed his bandolier and unbuttoned his shirt. The grim look he gave Todd and Kate suggested they follow his lead. Todd immediately began tugging off his shirt, while Kate moved a bit more reluctantly.

As Brendan drew closer, Todd could make out his features—pale, gaunt, vaguely studded with beard. His hair was a mop of unruly black coils and his eyes swam behind the lenses of thick glasses. He stopped a few feet in front of Todd and Kate, the lantern held up close to their faces for examination. Brendan licked his lips like a reptile.

“Let’s see,” said Brendan, shifting his gaze to Tully. Tully bared his exposed shoulders, which were loaded with pimples but otherwise normal, then climbed back into his shirt. Brendan turned back to Todd and Kate. “Both of you, too.”

Todd removed his shirt and turned around so that Brendan could examine his back.

“And the lady,” Brendan said, addressing Todd, for some strange reason. For the first time, Todd noticed a revolver poking out of Brendan’s narrow waistband.

“Better do it,” Todd told her.

Kate turned around and lifted her sweater over her head. Brendan held the lantern closer to her, illuminating the cuts and scrapes along her back. He reached out and hesitantly touched a particularly angry cut just below her right shoulder.

“She’s obviously fine,” Todd said, his tone suggesting Brendan remove his hand sooner rather than later.

Brendan’s hand snapped back and he clutched the lantern in both hands. He had a nervous, bouncy quality that made Todd want to strap him to a chair. “Where’d you two come from?” he wanted to know. “Ain’t from town.”

“Their car broke down outside of town last night,” Tully answered for them. “Their friends were killed.”

“Oh. Shoot.” Brendan’s voice wavered. “I’m Brendan Parker.”

Todd and Kate introduced themselves.

“Where are the others?” Tully asked Brendan as he continued down the hallway. Todd and Kate followed, while Brendan skirted ahead of them to keep up with Tully.

“Bruce is still fucking with those laptops,” Brendan said, “and Molly and the kids are downstairs in the basement. Did you find out what that fire was last night?”

“The church burned down,” Tully said.

“St. John’s? No shit? Damn.” Brendan eyeballed the Superman backpack still flung over Tully’s shoulder. “What’d you get?”

“Make yourself useful and get these two some warm clothes,” Tully said, ignoring the question. “And give me the lantern.”

“You got it,” Brendan said, handing over the lantern to
Tully. Brendan nearly collided with Kate as he spun away and took off down the corridor.

“Jumpy little beanpole,” Todd commented.

Tully offered something that approximated a chuckle. “A week ago I wouldn’t have said two words to that squirmy little weasel.”

“Do you smell something?” Kate muttered to Todd.

“Yes. Smells like…”

“Hot dogs,” Kate finished. Grinned.

They walked past a large room filled with desks and empty holding cells. Todd could see that the windows had been boarded up and all cracks and creases secured with industrial gaffers tape. Tully kept moving, not stopping until he came to a second set of doors bathed in shadow at the end of the hall. Again, he produced a new key and unlocked the deadbolt. A resounding
clang!
echoed through the corridor.

The door was opened and Tully maneuvered himself down a narrow flight of stairs. Calling back over his shoulder, he said, “Watch out. Handrail’s gone.” Then Tully sank down into the murky depths of the stairwell, like a man wading out into the middle of a lake.

Todd went next, Kate’s hand suddenly appearing on his right shoulder. Beneath him, the stairwell swayed and creaked and threatened to collapse under his feet. He wondered just how far down they were going. All of a sudden, he was overly aware of the handgun at the small of his back. If this were some sort of trap, he’d have to be ready. For Kate’s sake, if not his own.

His shoes touched down on warped floorboards. Behind him, Kate almost stumbled but squeezed his shoulder for support before falling on him. Todd reached out and grabbed one of her hands.

“Thank you.”

He couldn’t see her face but she sounded extremely relieved.

Illuminated by the halogen lamp, Tully’s bright orange face hovered in the darkness before them like a harvest moon. “Hold this,” Tully said, handing Todd the lamp.

Bit by bit, the basement of the sheriff’s headquarters took on appearance: slatted wooden bookshelves drooping at angles over wood-paneled walls; a potbellied stove in the center of the room, around which someone had set a bunch of folding chairs; rows upon rows of rifles standing in a large shelving unit. There were unlit Chinese lanterns on bits of wire hanging from the exposed ceiling rafters, and a card table was erected in one corner, playing cards scattered on it. Toward the far end of the room, an enormous hulking furnace stood—dark and defunct.

Tully’s eyes looked like rat’s eyes in the lamplight. “Listen,” he grumbled. “You two wait here. Molly and the kids are still a bit jumpy. Let me tell them you’re here before you storm in on them. Otherwise, you’re liable to get your heads blown to bits.”

“Waiting here sounds like a good idea, yeah,” Kate agreed.

Tully clumped toward the back of the room, where he knocked against a section of wall. Todd could hear faint murmuring coming from behind it. Then there was a sound like someone uncorking a bottle of champagne and the section of wall cracked open on a set of hinges. White light spilled out, briefly spotlighting Tully before he slipped into the room and shut the door behind him.

With only the lamplight between them, Todd and Kate stepped closer together.

“What if he’s another psychopath, like that kid at the church?” Kate whispered. “What if being trapped like rats in this town all week has turned all the survivors into raving lunatics?”

“What other choice do we have?” he countered.

Behind the wall, someone’s voice rose up in what sounded like concern. It sounded like a woman’s voice. How many had Tully said were with him? Six, including Tully himself? Todd couldn’t remember. Then Tully’s head popped back out of the opening and he motioned Todd and Kate inside.

A woman with a very pregnant belly sat on a cot with a bottle of water in her lap. She looked to be in her early thirties, but the exhaustion and fear that had plagued her over the past week had multiplied her age so that she looked old enough to remember the Kennedy administration. Reddishbrown hair curtained her face, and Todd could make out the vague hint of large, staring dark eyes. Her shoes were off, her feet clad in layers of socks.

Two kids curled together in another corner, an ancient-looking board game with wooden pieces laid out between them. They looked to be twins of the opposite sex, roughly around the ages of nine or ten. Their faces looked slim and sallow, with chapped lips splitting from the cold, but they were wearing so many layers of clothing they looked like two plump cherubs.

Tully pointed at each one as he made the introductions. “That’s Molly Sanderson. The boy here is Charlie Dobbins and that’s his sister, Cody.”

“Hi,” Todd said, feeling like a circus performer, the way Molly and the kids stared at him. “My name’s Todd Curry. I’m from New York.”

“And I’m Kate Jansen.”

“New York’s far away,” the boy—Charlie—said.

“Are you married?” Cody wanted to know.

“Yes, New York’s far away,” Todd said, “and no, we’re not married.”

Cody pointed at them. “You’re holding hands.”

Self-consciously, Todd and Kate released each other. “We’re just good friends,” Kate said.

“Did you check their backs, Tully?” Molly wanted to know. She had pulled her hair back to reveal a heart-shaped face with delicate features. She looked terribly mournful.

“Of course.” Tully set the backpack down on a rickety old desk and the two kids stood up. The room itself was small and cramped, a few cots pushed up against a brick wall. There were a desk and a rolling cart stacked high with blankets, as well as a few towers of paperback novels piled high in one corner. The ceiling was a concavity of exposed joists networked with cables and wires.

“What’d you bring us?” Cody asked, both she and her brother sidling up beside the desk in anticipation of what was inside the Superman backpack.

“This stuff here’s for us grown-ups,” Tully told them, taking out the liquor bottles and setting them on the desk one at a time.

“Is that beer?” Cody wanted to know. Decidedly the more inquisitive of the two children, she pressed her nose against one of the bottle’s labels.

“Not exactly,” Tully said.

“Then what is it?”

“Medication,” he said—another suspiciously dry Tully joke. “Hooch.”

“Hooch,” Cody parroted, pleased with the word.

“What about us?” Charlie said. His jaw was set firmly as he looked up at Tully. “Don’t we get something?”

“Sure do.” Tully reached into his coat pocket and produced two giant Snickers bars, which he held up in a V. The kids cheered and Tully dispensed the candy like a backwoods Santa Claus.

From her cot, Molly Sanderson was still scrutinizing Todd and Kate with uncertainty. “Have they met Bruce yet?” she asked Tully.

“Not yet.”

“You should take them to meet Bruce.”

“They’re fine, Molly.” For the first time, Tully grinned at Todd and Kate. His teeth were atrocious and the grin came across more as a grimace, as if he’d been sucking on lemons. “Ain’t you?”

“Fine as paint,” said Kate.

“Although I suppose I should take you to meet Bruce,” Tully said, pausing to examine the way he’d set up the bottles on the desk. He picked one up, sniffed at the label, then set it down to select another.

Todd asked who Bruce was.

“Big Bruce the Moose. After Joe bit it, he took over.”

“And who’s Joe?” Kate said.

Tully unscrewed the bottle of bourbon and chugged it while the kids watched. A stream of gingery liquid trickled down the corner of his mouth. “I keep forgetting you two don’t know nobody,” he said after he’d wiped his mouth on his sleeve. He set the bottle back on the desk and the two kids stared at it as if in amazement. “Joe Farnsworth. He was the sheriff up until two days ago.”

“What happened two days ago?” Kate said. Todd gave her a sideways glance that suggested he had a pretty good guess.

“Don’t talk about it in here, Tully,” Molly said, before Tully could open his mouth. “You feel like telling your horrible stories, you go on upstairs.”

“Good idea,” Tully said, turning toward the door and taking the bottle of bourbon with him. He nodded for Todd and Kate to follow him, then turned to the kids. “You two don’t eat all them candy bars in one sitting, you hear? Save some for later.”

Back upstairs in the hallway, Todd and Kate followed Tully and his bottle of hooch while Tully explained what had happened to Sheriff Farnsworth.

“We were trying to get a signal out through the airwaves,”
Tully said. “Course, the phone lines are dead and the electricity’s out, so we figured we might be able to rig some sort of broadcast antenna to the roof of the fire hall next door. The fire hall’s taller than the station, so it made sense to go next door. Joe and Bruce—Bruce was one of Joe’s deputies, see—they thought they could rig up their handheld radios to the antenna somehow. The plan was to try to reach Bicklerville, which is the nearest town, about sixty miles west.

“I volunteered to go up on the roof and set up the antenna but Joe trumped me. He said he was still the sheriff and he was going to do it. And he did—he got up there and got it set up.” Tully took another swig of the bourbon, then said, “They came out of nowhere and took him right off the roof.”

Todd imagined what it must have looked like, watching the man being carried off into the night by one of those things. The thought caused him to think back to Nan Wilkinson, who’d come crashing down through the stained-glass windows in the roof of the church.