She tried again. “Beth, it’s me, Clare. Please answer me.”
Clare shivered as the static played around her unrelentingly. The longer she sat still, the more the cold seeped into her, making her muscles stiff and her body tired. At last, Clare forced herself to stand before she froze. She placed the radio, still turned on, onto the car’s roof. Its tuneless static song played over her as she stared up and down the path.
Banksy Forest Road wasn’t a major highway, but it connected two small towns. The council was always prompt about clearing it after a snowstorm. If the towns had been hit by the same sort of erratic weather that had assaulted Winterbourne Hall, the snowploughs were probably busy elsewhere. Still, it seemed strange that no effort had been made to clear the path. The snow was pristine. There were no mounds of it on either side of the road to indicate the ploughs had moved through. There were no tyre tracks from brave—or brazen—citizens who had forded the road in their lifted trucks. No footprints. No sled tracks. Nothing.
Clare turned in a circle. She wasn’t having any trouble breathing, but the oxygen didn’t seem to be reaching her limbs. She felt cruelly, horribly isolated. The radio continued to play static behind her. She snatched it down and swivelled the dials, moving through other channels. The radio was capable of picking up commercial stations as well as other amateur broadcasters. She moved steadily, winding through every number. They all played static. Every single one of them.
Clare turned off the radio and tucked it inside her coat. She leaned forwards, her gloved hands braced on the car as she gasped desperately and tried not to fall apart.
There has to be an explanation for this. Something normal and laughably mundane. Something simple. Because I need simple. I don’t think I can deal with complicated anymore today.
The memories tangled over each other, too confusing and jumbled to focus on. Clare shook her head as noises and images assaulted her. It was too much, too fast. She staggered around the car’s side, towards the passenger’s door, looking for somewhere to sit down.
Then she saw the damage inside. The door had been left open. The dashboard was remarkably intact. The car had been designed to protect the driver in case of a crash, and it had done a good job.
Clumps of snow littered the floor and the passenger’s seat. Clare’s mobile was no longer in the front. She guessed it must have gone flying during the impact and was probably lost somewhere in the back, between the travel cases or under the seats.
Blood had been splashed across the front of the car. Specks of it had sprayed over the dashboard, the steering wheel, and the ceiling. Gluts of it had soaked into the driver’s seat and dribbled onto the floor. It was old and dry. It still smelled but not as badly as Clare thought it might have. Instead of being red, it had turned a grotesque black-brown shade.
And there were three lines gouged into the side of the seat. Clare reached out to feel them, but she hesitated before touching the marks. They looked like the swipe of a claw, like something a bear or a wolf might make. Banksy Forest didn’t have any animals that large, though. The worst it had were foxes, and they shied away from humans.
Clare pressed her gloved hand over her mouth as the memories, lost and tangled for so long, slid together into one clear image.
Chapter Twenty-Four
Clare stretched then exhaled as her back popped. Standing in front of her coffee maker was one of her favourite parts of the day. It was right next to the window overlooking her garden, and for the two minutes it took the water to boil and percolate, she didn’t have to think or do anything except enjoy the view.
Winter had technically started, but the day was still warm enough that she only needed a light jacket. The deciduous trees in her garden had all finished shedding their leaves, and their dead branches stretched into the sky.
“Sunday,” she mumbled and rubbed her sleeve over her eyes. Sunday was the best day of the week, no contest. Weekdays were spent working so that she could afford to enjoy her Sundays. Saturdays were for everything else she’d neglected during the week. Errands. Shopping. Cleaning. Visiting friends who were overdue for catch-ups. Sunday was for relaxing.
The coffee was ready. She took the mug out and inhaled. It was sharp but not too strong. She saved the really strong stuff for Mondays, when she needed energy. She didn’t mind waking up slowly on Sundays.
Clare made her way into the small study. The space wasn’t really big enough to be called a full room, but it was the most comfortable space in her house. She’d positioned a beanbag opposite the full-length window to take advantage of the view over her garden. Clare flopped into the cushioned seat and reached for the thriller novel that waited on the little table beside her. She held her coffee close to her chest, where it acted as a miniature heater, as she opened the hardback to the bookmark.
Her phone buzzed. Clare pressed her lips together, looking mournfully at her novel, then placed the coffee to one side and rolled out of the seat. It was always tempting to ignore phone calls on Sundays, but she never did. The only people who had her personal phone number were very close friends and family. If they were calling at eight in the morning on a weekend, chances were it was important.
Unless it’s a telemarketer. Oh boy, for their sake, it had better not be.
She brushed loose hair out of her face as she picked up the phone. “Hello?”
“Clare?” Beth often sounded stressed, depending on how difficult her work was being and whether anything had broken or gone wrong. But she sounded unusually strained that morning. “Clare, are you okay?”
“Of course I am.” Clare rested her hip on the kitchen bench so that she could stare out the window. “What’s wrong?”
Beth took a sharp, tight breath. “You haven’t turned on the TV this morning, have you?”
“No. It’s a Sunday.” Clare grinned. “And Sunday is for reading.”
“Not today, sweetheart. Turn the TV on.”
Bethany hadn’t called her sweetheart in years, not since Clare had fallen out of a tree as a teen and ended up in the emergency ward with a broken arm.
A sense of uncertainty caught up to her. She crossed into the cramped living room and began searching for a remote control amongst the cushions. Beth took another sharp breath and said, “I think maybe you should come and stay with me for a couple of days. Just in case.”
“Why? What’s happening?”
“I don’t know.” She sounded like she had started to cry. “No one knows. But… but…”
Clare gave up trying to find the remote. She jumped over the chair to press the button on the TV then crouched down in preparation to change the channel. She didn’t need to. Even though that station was supposed to be playing kids’ shows at that time in the morning, news coverage was splashed across the screen. Still holding the phone to her ear, Clare backed up until she could slide onto the couch.
The emblem in the corner of the screen identified it as a news stream from another station. The anchors sat pin straight, their faces holding no sign of amusement or lightheartedness. Clare knew the expression. It was the one they wore during serious segments like terrorist attacks, natural disasters, or war.
The man was speaking. Clare’s TV wasn’t large enough for her to be certain, but she thought she saw a bead of sweat on his forehead. “… in Denmark. We have also been advised that now large parts of Quebec have gone dark. Our own reporter, Greg Harrelson, is currently uncontactable. We are going to re-air the last footage we received from him. But we would like to caution viewers that what you are about to see may be distressing. Viewer discretion is advised.”