I glanced back. It was closer, closing the distance with every step.
The wind picked up, and I had to close my eyes in the face of the headwind. There were tears in my eyes when I opened them. Totally the wind. My army surplus boots squeaked against the soft snow and crunched against the harder snow as I marched.
I heard a fluttering noise. Turning to look, I saw that one of the flaps of hide were whipping around in the wind. The footsteps, by contrast, were nearly silent. No squeaks, no crunches, no cracks of ice being broken or scuffs of salt and pavement underfoot.
It was close enough for me to hear.
Better now than never. I turned around, drawing out the tire iron.
“Fine!” I roared the words against the wind. I drew the tire iron from my pocket, gripping it with gloved hands. I could feel how cold the metal was. “You want me!?”
It closed the distance. Two feet taller than me, and I was a notch taller than average. The point of the giant bird mask came dangerously close as I swung the tire iron, bending my legs as I swung low, to strike it in the knee.
I had only a moment to register the fact that it wasn’t reacting before it drew a hand out of the layered covering of hides. A mitt of a hand, gray-skinned, with knobby knuckles, and fingernails that were just long enough they were starting to curl, almost rectangular. Dirty, uneven, frayed.
I swung again, a two-handed grip on the iron, aiming for the hand.
I might as well have struck another tire iron, for all it mattered. The weapon bounced off the hand, the hand was knocked back, and then it clawed at my face. I twisted partially away, keeping it from getting my eyes, and felt the pain in my cheek, instead. I backed away, and my scarf stayed. Caught in the ragged ends of the nails.
The wind was cold against my face as I backed up. I started to head back in the direction of the rest stop, but the thing circled around me, moving past me, until it was positioned to cut me off.
My scarf was caught by the wind, flapping mercilessly, until it tore free, disappearing over the dividing line of the highway.
I raised the tire iron again, drawing closer. It, in turn, drew one arm out from beneath the hides. I drew back a step, and it kept the hand out a moment before returning it to shelter.
“Rose,” I spoke, “Hey, Rose. You gotta help me out here.”
The mirror was silent.
I backed away, and it moved, approaching with long strides that covered the distance with surprising speed.
I stopped, and it stopped.
“Don’t want me to go to the rest stop,” I murmured. There was a hitch in my voice. “Don’t want me to go back to the car. Where am I supposed to go? This way?”
I checked the way was clear, then took a step out onto the highway. It reacted, but only barely. Tensing. When I took another step, it followed. Letting me go, but not letting me escape.
“No way,” I said. Taking a step to the side, so I was as off the road as I could get without standing in the snowbank. “I get what you’re after. You want me to get hit by a car or something.”
The thing remained silent. Waiting. The perfectly round eye sockets stared at me.
I swung, aiming for surprise, directing the iron at the skull.
It caught the iron mid-swing. I tried to wrench the weapon free and failed.
Another hand emerged from beneath the hides. I had to let go of the weapon and back away before it could claw at me.
It took a half-step forward to follow. It dropped the tire iron onto the road, where the snow muffled the sound.
Standing still, waiting for this thing to make a move, I could feel my legs getting colder. I wasn’t wearing long johns. Boxer briefs and jeans, leaving my legs as the least covered part of my body. The cold highlighted the tension in my legs, where my earlier pace had stressed muscles I tended to leave unused.
“How does this end, then?” I asked. “We wait out here by the side of the road until I freeze to death?”
I paced, watching how it followed. The knobby, long-fingered hand came out as I drew too close.
There was a hint of hysteria in my voice as I spoke, “Can’t go forward, can’t go back. I won’t go left. Will you let me go right?”
I edged towards the snowbank, to test. A ditch, then fields. The strong wind had blown the worst of the snow away. It wouldn’t be too deep.
I took another step. It moved to follow, though it let me create a bit of distance.
Slowly, I climbed over the snowbank. It continued to let me build up a bit of distance.
I hit the ditch, where some stubborn tall grass stuck up here and there, and hopped over the shallowest part, where the wind had driven snow off of the ice that had frozen in the recess.
The hop hadn’t inspired a sudden attack. Briefly turning my back, too, seemed like it was fairly safe.
That in mind, when I found flat ground under my feet again, I ran.
The field was flat, the ground hard, and the snow only ankle deep. The deep treads of my boots gave me the traction I needed to find my pace. When the spaces filled up with snow, the snow-on-snow traction was still sufficient for me to maintain a good pace.
I slipped, but my other foot was already coming forward. I felt a twang in my back as I used the leg to thrust myself back up to a fully upright position. I wasn’t unfamiliar with the feeling. I’d feel it tomorrow, if I made it that long.
A quick glance back indicated it was following with those same long, steady strides as before. Running was letting me create some distance.
Across the field, away from the highway, away from the car and the rest stop.
I was fully aware of what was going on. I knew it was intentional, and that this was as good a way of having me die in a perfectly plausible manner as keeping me in the middle of the highway, where a car could clip me.
Thing was, I’d never been able to sit still while under stress. I couldn’t bring myself to stand beside the side of the road and get cold.
Fear was taking my breathing and heartbeat up a few notches, which was hurting more than it was helping. There was a frantic note to my breathing as I panted, my legs ached, and my thoughts were a jumble.
“Rose,” I gasped out the name. I fumbled for the mirror, but my hands were frozen. I got a grip on the bar that was supposed to fix the mirror to the ceiling and pulled it out.
“-here.”
Her voice was faint, tiny, and muffled, cutting off as though someone had reached out to muffle her.
Not someone, but something. Fog, again, had clouded the mirror. I wiped it with my glove. I saw only a momentary glimpse of her.
Letting it get damp, then letting it get warm, both were mucking it up. I held it, letting it cool off, and tried to keep it facing down, so snow wouldn’t settle on the surface.
I kept running. I prayed for a side street, a side road, a house. Shelter. Something to indicate I wouldn’t keep running into the wilderness until I could no longer move. The snow got deeper as I approached tree cover, where the wind wasn’t as strong. My pace began to slow, with nothing of import in sight.
I could feel a sick feeling in my gut, a combination of fear, despair, and the exhaustion of running.
I saw a figure up ahead, through the tree cover.
A quick glance back showed me the other one was still following. Closing the gap.
“Hello!” I called out, and I was surprised at how hoarse my voice was, my throat made raw by the heavy breathing of frozen, dry air. “Help me!”
The figure pushed through the cover of branches.