Ice and snow blew against the cardboard, a thousand tiny drumbeats. Warren doubted the cardboard would hold up for long, but a little while was better than nothing. He was pretty sure he had some plywood in the garage. In the morning, if the cardboard was showing a lot of wear and tear, he’d go out and cut a wooden replacement.
He applied one last layer of duct-tape, smoothed it down, and dropped the rest of the roll on the strips of cardboard he’d cut off. Pain crept up his back, starting just above his butt and ending beneath his ears. Part of him wanted to twist and try to stretch the muscles, but he knew if he did that he might throw out his back, and this would be the worst time for that to happen. He had to be there for Tess, ready to re-bandage her wounds if need be, ready to hold her if the pain got worse.
It won’t. Quit thinking the worst.
It probably wouldn’t, but it might.
Either way, he was no good to her with a ruined back, lying in bed like some bedridden old geezer, so he kept himself as straight as possible, didn’t do any unnecessary twisting or stretching, left the cardboard scraps and the watery mess of snow and ice that had blown inside right where they were. Cleanup would have to wait for later.
In the living room, he found Tess hunched over the fire with the poker in one hand and a piece of wood in the other. Bub sat on the floor beside her, his tail wagging, his tongue lolling from the side of his mouth.
“I know this probably isn’t what you want to hear right now,” Tess said. “But this is the last piece of wood.”
The wood. Crap.
Warren sighed, drooped. “I forgot,” he said. Just thinking about going back outside zapped the last of his energy. He imagined the freezing wind blowing more ice and snow against him, trying to blow its cold air right through him.
“I could get it,” Tess said.
“I’m sure you could, but there’s no way I’m going to let you.”
“I don’t mind. I—”
He put up a hand and shook his head. “You’re hurt. You need to save your energy.”
“I know, but you’ve already been out there twice now.” She pushed the last log into the fire and positioned it with the poker.
“It’s okay,” he said. “One more trip won’t kill me.”
“It won’t grant you eternal life either.”
He laughed and gave her a quick kiss on the lips. “You stay here and keep warm. If I’m going out into that mess again, I’m going to need you to warm me up when I get back.”
She pulled him close and gave him her own kiss, this one longer and much wetter than his had been.
“Maybe I will,” she said, her eyes narrow, coquettish.
He laughed again. “Aren’t you in pain?”
“Just a little. And nowhere that counts.” She took his hand and guided it up her inner thigh.
“You perv,” he said. But he gave her a squeeze and smiled at her surprised yelp before he took his hand back.
He found his snow gear strewn across the floor by the front door and pulled it on. It was cold and damp and nasty feeling.
“This isn’t exactly high up on my list of favorite days ever,” he said.
“Mine either.”
He told her again to stay put, stay warm, and then he left the house through the back door, thinking of warm, moist places and trying to carry the thought with him through the chilling wind.
8
On the southern side of the house, Warren had buried a yardstick in the snow to measure the accumulation. He hadn’t been around to see it in over a day, and he wasn’t here now, but as the sun slipped behind the mountains (not that anyone could have seen this happening through the blizzard, of course), a fresh batch of snow blew in and covered the 24" mark.
An outdoor thermometer hung from a nearby tree, angled so you could see it from the house. The storm had covered it with uneven layers of ice, but the dial was still barely readable. If you’d looked closely right then, and for long enough, you could have seen the needle slide past the -10 degree mark (not labeled, but there all the same, a thick, black line between the 0 and the -20) and toward the negative teens.
In the branches above the thermometer, a cloud of snow lifted into the air and wafted away from the tree, floating improbably against the wind. Chunks of ice slid across the branches and the trunk, melting, re-solidifying, forming long, serpentine tendrils. Some of these appendages wrapped around one another, braiding together, melding into larger, thicker structures. One of these larger tendrils pulled away from the tree, wavered for a second, and then whipped out and knocked the thermostat from the tree. The instrument fell to the snow below, sent up a puff of white powder. Two small tendrils slithered down the tree after it. They fell on the dial like predators on injured prey. One of the things lifted into the air and slammed back down into the thermostat’s face, cracking the plastic and burrowing into the space beneath. Several more tendrils dropped out of the tree and joined the first two in their attack.
When they had all but pulverized the thermostat and most of the pieces of plastic had disappeared beneath the ongoing snowfall, the tendrils slid back up the tree and merged together. A mess of protrusions formed at the end of this new grouping, like a dozen jointless fingers. They clacked against one another, snapped and clicked and cracked. The tentacle curled up on itself, sprang into the air, and grabbed hold of a branch higher up the tree. It curled around this branch and stayed there for a long time. When another tendril slid out the branch to join them, the larger tentacle grabbed it and crushed it into a dozen little bits.
These shards of ice fell to the snow below, writhed there for a moment, and then stilled.
The tentacle above wrapped itself back around the branch.
And waited.
9
Warren managed to bring two loads of wood from the shed to the house without throwing out his back. The first load wasn’t so bad, but by the time he dragged the sled across the yard for the second time and transferred the firewood into the house, every muscle in his body seemed to be aching. He couldn’t remember the last time he’d been this sore. He guessed it was possible he’d never been this sore.
It just about made him wish he’d shelled out the money for a gas-powered furnace or a backup generator. They had the gas stove and the hot water heater and kept a decent supply of firewood, and he’d always thought that would be enough for emergency situations. He guessed it was. As long as you were willing to do plenty of work.
He left the sled in the snow drift by the back door, shut himself inside the house, and leaned against the wall until his body went from aching to merely throbbing.
“That you?”
Tess’s voice sounded a mile away, and Warren realized he was still wearing his hat. He took it off and hung it from a series of hooks mounted beside the back door.
“Who else would it be?” he called back.
Except, of course, he knew exactly who she might think he was: the stranger she was convinced was out there in the blizzard, stalking them, toying with them.
“It’s me,” he said.
He took off his boots and his snowsuit, shivering the whole time, rubbing at his body. His breath plumed out from between his lips and floated toward the ceiling.
He eyed the pile of wood he’d carried in. It would be enough for tonight and tomorrow, and maybe even tomorrow night, depending on how well it burned, but then he’d have to go for some more.
Maybe it will have stopped snowing by then. Or at least stopped blizzarding.
He could only hope.
He picked up two of the larger logs and carried them into the living room. He found Tess arranging blankets on a mattress in the middle of the floor.