Chills, page 18
“Over here!”
“We need help!”
Their voices faded with distance as they ran, leaving Meg behind to watch them go. She didn’t have the strength or will to go after them. She was content that they, at least, were going to survive this night.
Her vision began to dim, and the world moved with hallucinatory slowness as the snowplow’s lights got brighter…and brighter…and then stopped. The rumbling that was shaking the ground stopped, and then, miraculously, Meg saw Jared followed by Bessie and Ashley scramble up and over the snowbank to the stopped truck.
Meg smiled to herself, knowing that her aunt, niece, and new friend were safe. Tilting her head back so the full force of the storm winds tore at her face, she looked up at the snow streaking past the nearest streetlight. Cupping her gloved hands to her mouth, she shouted into the night, “All right! You win! Come and get me!”
~ 37 ~
Did we make it? was Meg’s first thought when she began to regain consciousness.
She was warm—too warm, in fact. Sweat was breaking out across her face, and lines of perspiration were running down her sides inside her jacket and sweater. Her skin felt like it was on fire, and through her closed eyelids, she saw a gauzy glow of light. She knew she could be imagining all of this, and she wondered if, in fact, she was lying face down in the snow while slowly freezing to death.
But then the light grew stronger, a warm, mellow glow that didn’t hurt her eyes when she opened them to narrow slits and looked around. She braced herself, expecting to see the ghoulish face of Alan and her two other friends leering at her, grinning with hideous delight now that they had her in their clutches. She was stunned to see Jared’s face close to hers. His head and shoulders were covered with snow that was rapidly melting. She was sitting on his lap with her arms wrapped around his neck. Her face was so close to his she could feel his breath on her skin.
As her vision cleared even more, she saw that Bessie and Ashley were sitting next to her. They were snow-covered, too, and they were hugging. It looked as though Ashley was asleep like a baby in her mother’s arms.
After another moment or two more, Meg realized they were crammed into the cab of a huge truck, which was rumbling as it moved down the street. The cab was filled with a harsh grating sound. It took Meg a few moments to realize it was the sound of the metal plow on the asphalt.
The snowplow, she thought as her memory cleared. She remembered watching the three of them chasing after the snowplow across the parking lot.
Along with the grating, rattling sound of metal plow scraping against asphalt, there were also faint strains of rock music coming from the dashboard radio. The song that was playing was “I Cheat the Hangman,” by the Doobie Brothers.
Meg sat up and looked around in disbelief. A tiny corner of her mind whispered that this, too, was an illusion. It was another hallucination she was having before she died of exposure in the snow.
She raised one hand and, using her teeth, pulled off the glove. For a long time, she simply stared at her pale, thin fingers as she flexed them, amazed that they worked at all. She found it reassuring that they stung from the cold.
Maybe I’m not dead after all, she thought as a tight smile played at the corners of her mouth.
“Are we alive?” she asked, her voice creaking with the effort.
Jared snapped to and looked her in the eyes. He smiled broadly, his teeth gleaming like porcelain in the dashboard lights.
“Barely,” he said, his voice ragged from yelling.
Meg shifted her gaze out the side window and saw that the snow was still coming down hard. It streaked past the window in wide, horizontal lines. The rattling scrape of the plow on the road set her teeth on edge, but she didn’t care. The closer she came to full consciousness, the better that sound became because it meant she was really alive.
“They didn’t get me,” she whispered.
“No, they didn’t,” Jared replied.
“You folks’r lucky I seen you,” the snowplow driver said. He was staring straight ahead, both hands planted firmly on the steering wheel. “Snowin’ a bitch, ain’t it?”
Bessie stirred and started to say something, no doubt a warning for him to watch his language with her daughter present, but she apparently thought better of it and turned to stare straight ahead.
“Ain’t seen it bad as this since last winter.”
His words sent a spike through Meg. She leaned forward to study him more carefully. She was thinking there was something about this man that didn’t seem quite right. He was huge, for one thing, and his bulk seemed squeezed behind the steering wheel. He was wearing a winter coat, but it was unbuttoned in front. His beard-stubbled jowls and forehead glistened with sweat in the overheated cab. When he shot a quick glance at her, Meg saw a strange light in his eyes and began to wonder if he was really there…or if he might, after all, be an illusion.
She was dying to ask a few questions that might help her put the pieces together, but before she could, she saw his face suddenly react to something on the road ahead. She looked up just in time to see three dark figures standing on the side of the road ahead of them. They were almost lost in the thick snowfall.
“Friends of yours?” the plow driver asked, his voice curiously flat. The flashing emergency lights lit up his face with a ghastly glow, carving deep, dark lines into the folds of his flesh.
Meg wanted to scream, but her throat closed off. Terrified, she stared straight ahead as the figures resolved more clearly. They looked like…
“Don’t stop,” Jared said as his grip on Meg’s arm tightened.
The plow driver glanced at them, looking like he was about to say something, but before he did, the three figures swooped up into the air. Blowing snow and night all but obscured them as they rose higher and then with a heart-stopping speed came flying toward the snowplow.
There was a loud thump that sounded like someone had kicked an empty oil drum, and the three faces were plastered against the windshield. Their eyes glowed with a wicked blue glaze, and their mouths hung open, exposing their teeth. The noise of the plow on the road was so loud Meg couldn’t tell if the figures outside were making any sounds.
Bessie let lose a chirping squeal at the same time that Jared shouted, “What the fuck?” while Meg clutched Jared all the tighter, pressing her face hard against his shoulder. She braced herself, waiting for the windshield to explode inward, showering them with glass fragments, but then she sensed as much as saw the three shadows slip over and around the snowplow before disappearing into the darkness of their wake.
“What in the dickens was that?” the plow driver asked, but nobody had an answer. It struck Meg as strange, how his voice still was so flat…emotionless.
“Just keep driving,” Jared said, “and whatever you do, don’t stop…for them or anything.”
“This ain’t a taxi, you know, young fella,” the driver said. “I got a job to do keeping these roads clear.
“I was, ah, hoping you’d be willing to take us to my place,” Bessie said after a moment.
“Can’t say as I can do that,” the driver replied, still staring straight ahead into the blinding blizzard.
“Why not?” Bessie asked. There was an edge in her voice, but whether of panic or despair, Meg couldn’t tell. She straightened up and looked at the snowplow driver again, thinking again than there was something really peculiar about him…something she couldn’t quite put her finger on.
“Can’t take yah home if I don’t know where you live,” the driver finally said. A small smile lifted the corners of his mouth. When he glanced at them again, Meg saw a friendly twinkle in his eyes, but his expression still looked curiously flat. Still, she didn’t feel any more secure because she knew they were still out there—Alan, Sally, and Richard—and they were still waiting for her.
Meg tried to tell herself to relax when she sensed something moving behind or beside her. When she turned to the side window, Alan’s face loomed out of the darkness and pressed against the glass. Behind him, drifting in the air as though carried along by the storm winds, were Sally and Richard. They both had their arms extended as though to catch or embrace Meg, but Alan was scratching at the window like someone who was trapped beneath a sheet of ice and was trying to claw his way free. His blackened and cracked fingernails clicked on the glass. His face was distorted by a horrid grin, and when his lips moved, even though she knew it would have been impossible to hear him, a voice in her head shrieked, “You’ll never get away from us, Meg.”
Fainter voices whispered, “… Never get away…”
Jared turned and looked at the face in the window. Smiling cruelly, he slowly raised his middle finger and jabbed it at Alan.
“Fuck you,” he whispered.
In a flash, Alan and the others disappeared into the darkness again, swirling and tumbling away like wind-blown leaves.
“Mighty strange doings tonight,” the plow driver said flatly. He kept looking straight ahead, his demeanor saying the exact opposite—that he knew and accepted everything that was happening as if it was completely normal.
They drove on is silence for a long time, the only sounds the scraping of the plow on the road and the faint strains of music coming from the radio. The song playing now was Meat Loaf’s “Objects in the Rear View Mirror May Appear Closer Than They Are.” When that song was over, Meg chuckled to herself, remembering how everyone in the store had argued constantly about what music to play. There was no argument now, not even when the new song, one she had never liked, started. It was “And When I Die,” by Blood, Sweat & Tears.
She settled comfortably onto Jared’s lap, feeling secure in his embrace as the truck bumped along the road. The drive seemed to be taking much longer than it should have, but she lost any sense of time and let herself drift. Before she knew it, the sound of the plow and the soft music had lulled her to sleep.
~ 38 ~
The storm had passed by, and the sky was brightening to a soft, sooty gray with faint streaks of yellow. The truck rumbled as it idled on the street in front of Bessie’s apartment building. Meg let out a small cry as she sat suddenly bolt upright and looked around, dazed. When she realized she was still sitting in Jared’s lap, she would have gotten up and moved away except there wasn’t enough room in the snowplow’s cab.
She realized everyone else was asleep. Bessie and Ashley were curled together, hugging as they slept. Jared’s head was tossed back against the truck seat. His mouth was open, and he was taking short, snorting gasps of air as he slept. His hand was resting lightly on her upper thigh. She decided she wasn’t going to move it.
The truck continued to idle and the heater was running at full blast. The cab was like a sauna, and Meg had the sudden fear that they had all been the victims of carbon monoxide poisoning. That’s what had put them to sleep. She let out a surprised grunt when she looked over at the driver’s side and saw that the seat was empty.
“Hey,” she said, softly so she wouldn’t startle anyone.
Jared’s eyelids fluttered and then slid open. He grinned sleepily at her, and then drew his hand away from her leg when he realized where it was.
“What the—? Where are we?”
“Back at Bessie’s place,” Meg said, squinting as she gazed at the apartment building in the early-morning light. Everything since she wasn’t sure when had taken on the cast of a dream. A tingle of panic ran through her when she wondered if even this might be a dream. She pinched herself on the back of the hand to make sure she was awake now, but even when she felt the sting of the pinch, she didn’t quite trust it.
“When’d we get here?” Jared asked, glancing over at the driver’s empty seat. “Where’s the driver?”
Meg shrugged as best she could in the cramped quarters. Then she reached out and touched Bessie on the shoulder.
“Hey,” she whispered, giving her a gentle shake.
At first, Bessie didn’t respond. She grunted and smacked her lips as she slept. Meg’s fear spiked when she thought her aunt and cousin might have already succumbed to the carbon monoxide. She shook Bessie a bit harder and tried not to shout when she said, “Come on, sleepyheads. Time to wake up.”
Ashley was the first to stir. Her eyes slid open, and she stared straight ahead for several seconds as she struggled to figure out where she was and how she had gotten her. When she licked her lips, her mouth made a loud smacking sound.
“What the heck…” she mumbled, and then she groaned when she stretched her arms above her head, her hands thumping against the cab’s roof. “Is it morning already?”
“Umm,” Bessie said. She didn’t open her eyes, but Meg was relieved to see and hear her take a deep breath. “Can it get a little hotter in here, do you think? I’m just wondering.”
“We’re back at your place,” Meg said, relieved to see her aunt’s eyes snap open and look back at her.
“How’d we get here?” she asked, shifting uncomfortably beneath Ashley’s weight.
“The snowplow guy drove us here, but he… I don’t know where he is now.”
“Jesus, let’s get the hell out of here,” Jared said as he fumbled for the door handle beside him. Everyone maneuvered around on the seat until they could get out of the cab. When Jared opened the door, the cold blast of winter air washed over them, but Meg found it refreshing after being in the heated cab for…
How long?
The night seemed to have lasted forever, but now that it was over, it seemed not to have been real.
As Meg swung her legs around and, with Jared’s help, stepped down onto the snow-covered ground, an amazing sense of relief swept over her. The events of the nights—even the mundane ones, like eating donuts and drinking coffee in the backroom, not to mention what else had happened—had the cast of a long, intricate dream.
How much of that actually happened? she wondered as she tilted her head back and took a deep breath of fresh air. She knew that, once they got inside Bessie’s apartment and had a chance to talk about it and pull it all together, they would figure it all out.
Or maybe not.
Are Kimberly and Tyson and Phil really dead? she wondered.
Did the roof really collapse from the weight of the snow and had she really been buried in it?
And that trek through the mall parking lot… Had that really happened?
None of it seemed possible…or real.
She knew they would have to call the authorities and report what happened. No doubt, they’d have to go back to the store and maybe the police station to fill them in on what had happened or what they thought happened. Right now, it was all too much for Meg to comprehend, and she could tell by the shell-shocked expressions on Bessie’s, Jared’s, and Ashley’s faces that they didn’t have any better idea about what they had been through last night, either.
With the truck’s engine still idling and spewing exhaust from the pipes, they piled out on the snow-covered street. The snowbanks were piled high, and—so far, anyway—no one had gotten out early to start cleaning things up.
“So what do we do?” Meg asked, shivering in the early-morning cold. There was no sign of the snowplow driver anywhere.
“We get some damned coffee inside us, and then we’ll take it a step at a time,” Bessie said. She turned to Jared and added, “You come on up, too. Things’ll make a lot more sense once we get some caffeine in us.”
“Amen to that,” Jared said
Meg nodded her agreement, but for some reason—she wasn’t sure why—she walked out into the street and around the side of the truck to the driver’s door. Somehow, she wasn’t surprised when she saw that there weren’t any tracks in the snow and no indication where or which direction the driver might have gone. If he had left a while ago, maybe if there was some mechanical problem with the plow, the wind might have erased his footprints, but if he’d had any kind of trouble, wouldn’t he have used the truck CB radio or his cell phone to call for help? No one would be out on a night like the one they’d just gotten through without some way to communicate if they needed help.
“You coming?” Jared called to her. His voice carried in the cold, still morning air. It was hard to believe such an intense storm could come and pass so suddenly. If it weren’t for the three or more feet of fresh snow, Meg wouldn’t have believed it.
“Yeah,” Meg called back, but still, she didn’t move. She was perplexed by the lack of any indication that the driver had been there. Even the snow that was plastered against the side of the truck and packed up against the door was unbroken.
With a sigh that came out a thick plume of mist, Meg finally turned and made her way through the snow to where the others were waiting. She was out of breath from the sudden exertion, and as she trudged up the stairs to Bessie’s apartment with the rest of them, all she could think was how much she wanted to take a long, warm shower and then sleep.
But she suspected that wasn’t going to be the case.
~ 39 ~
A sense of total unreality swept over Meg when she walked into Aunt Bessie’s apartment. The dishes she had washed last evening were stacked up in the drainer, and everything was exactly as they had left it. But in the early-morning light, the feeling that this had all been a dream overwhelmed her. She felt like a ghost who was returning to an old, familiar place so she could haunt it for eternity. Sounds and smells in the apartment all seemed strangely magnified.
“I’m guessing y’all want coffee,” Bessie said as she walked over to the counter and picked up the carafe, and then went to the sink and began filling it with water.
“You betcha,” Jared said as he flopped down into one of the chairs at the kitchen table.
“I’m beat,” Ashley said. “I’m going to bed.”
She made eye contact with her mother, and Meg could tell there were unspoken words passing between the two of them. It made her wish she had such a bond with her own mother, but that was and had always been out of the question.
“If you wanna talk,” Bessie said, “I ain’t going anywhere.”
