Walking Alone Read online

  A large blob of snow flew up and hit him square in the face.

  April screamed. More snow flew upward from the road, attaching itself instantly to Hal’s head. Still screaming, April reached over and yanked him toward her as she rolled up the window. Clawing the freezing substance from her husband’s head, she threw handful after handful of it onto the floor of the car.

  “…couldn’t…breathe…” Hal gulped in air, wheezing and coughing as he tried to speak. His red face slowly paled into normalcy as the cold dissipated. He threw the last bits of snow off his forehead, wiped the melted water from his cheeks and looked at April. “How the hell could that happen?”

  She shook her head silently, her eyes still wide with shock.

  “There was a snowman down there, crouched right next to the door. And he…jumped up at me.”

  “Hal!” She suddenly grabbed his arm and pulled him to her, pointing at the floor of the car, where individual hand-sized scoops of snow were gently quivering. Three of the small mounds moved closer together.

  Hal smashed his shoe down on the frozen white substance, crushing it, grinding it into the floor mat, where it melted, metamorphosing into a small puddle of water that trickled out from under his foot. He continued grinding his shoe until all of the snow was liquid.

  “Let’s get out of here,” April said. “Let’s go.”

  Hal nodded, put the car into Drive. He had half-feared that the engine would stall, as in some B-movie, stranding them in the field of snowmen. But the car took off, tires sliding for a second on the icy asphalt before gaining traction. They drove out of the meadow and into the comparative safety of the forest.

  Moments later, they passed a farmhouse. “We could’ve gone there if we had to,” Hal said. “If worst came to worst.”

  April said nothing. She stared out the passenger window, periodically glancing back out the rear windshield to make sure…what? That they weren’t being followed?

  Hal sped up.

  They passed another hitchhiking snowman by the side of the road, this one without a face. Hal was tempted to run into it with the car, to swerve and smash the little bastard all to hell, but he was afraid that the car might get stuck in the high drift and passed by without doing a thing.

  Ten minutes later, they saw the truck.

  Hal slowed to a stop. The truck had jackknifed on the slippery road and was lying cattycorner across the highway on its side. It was a semi—a Kenworth—and had apparently been carrying some sort of livestock. Warm blood, steaming in the cold winter air, was draining out from under the side of the downed vehicle in multiple rivulets.

  “Jesus,” Hal breathed.

  “Don’t stop!” April cried, latching onto his arm. “Keep going! Don’t stop!”

  He pointed at the overturned truck. “I can’t. The road’s blocked.”

  “Then go around it!”

  “I can’t. We’d get stopped in the snow.” He inched the car forward, looking all the while for signs of life near the truck. Suddenly, he braked, cutting the engine. “Look.”

  A hand was frantically waving from around the side of the semi.

  Hal unbuckled his seatbelt.

  “No!” April cried. “Don’t!”

  “He’s in trouble. I have to help.”

  “He’s not signaling for help,” April said. “He’s waving us away. It’s too late for him, and he knows it. He’s warning us to leave.”

  The driver staggered out from behind the truck. The upper half of his body was covered in white, but the snow seemed to have retained some semblance of a shape. The top tapered to a modified point, and two red plastic eyes glared downward.

  The man was being devoured by the snow.

  Hal stared in shock. The truck driver was waving them away, he realized, and he continued waving even as his body fell to the ground.

  Hal put the car into Reverse.

  The pile of snow atop the driver looked up, red eyes jerking instantly toward them.

  “Go!” April yelled. “Go!”

  He floored the gas pedal, but although the engine was racing, the car would not move. Their tires spun impotently on the ice. Hal hit the gear shift and rammed the transmission into Low. They started to move forward, and he shifted immediately into Reverse. The car began moving backward, gaining speed.

  A large glob of snow smacked into the rear windshield, covering the glass and blocking Hal’s view. He snapped his gaze forward and saw the red-eyed snowman moving quickly toward the car, scuttling low over the icy asphalt.

  “Ram it!” April screamed.

  He shifted the car into First and sped forward, tires squealing. The front bumper cut the snowman in half. Red plastic eyes popped out of the frozen head.

  Hal backed up. The top half of the snowman was on the car’s hood, and the eyeless form seemed to be wiggling toward the windshield. He slammed on the brakes, spinning the car around, and the pile of snow flew off. Putting the car into Low once again, he floored the pedal and the tires caught. They took off the way they had come.

  ****

  The snowmen were blocking the road.

  All of them.

  ****

  Hal stopped the car. The meadow, on both sides, was clear, because all of the snowmen, hundreds of them, were lined up in solid formation across a section of the road, facing them.

  “Go!” April cried. “Ram them!”

  Hal shook his head. The snowmen were packed too closely together. If the car rammed into them, it would be like hitting a wall of ice. The front rows of snowmen might be taken out, but the front of the car would be smashed and the vehicle permanently damaged. They’d never make it through.

  April closed her eyes. “We’ll wait here, then. In the car. Someone’s bound to come eventually. We can’t be the only people on this road.”

  Hal said nothing. Beneath April’s panicked panting and his own labored breath, he could hear low slurping noises coming from the bottom of the car. He turned toward his side window. Outside, snow started creeping up the glass.

  “Oh, God,” April moaned, “they’re going to bury us in here.”

  The army of snowmen began shuffling up the road toward them.

  Hal hit the window glass with his palm, trying to shake the snow loose. It did no good. The icy substance continued its measured growth over the car. For the first time, fear—real fear—sounded in his voice. “I can’t believe this is happening.”

  “I can,” April said.

  Her voice was low, even, determined, and he turned to look at her. “What does that mean?”

  “It happened before,” she said, and she seemed to be talking more to herself than to him. “They turned on us. We didn’t understand what was going on.”

  “What?”

  Her eyes focused on him. “We did make a snowman that was alive. Several of them. And we taught them to walk, and we…” Her voice trailed off.

  “And you what?”

  “They turned on us. They turned on us for some reason. They surrounded us and started closing in.” Her eyes shifted quickly from Hal to the snowmen and then back again. “We had to give them something to keep them away from us. A sacrifice.”

  He couldn’t believe what he was hearing.

  “We gave them a kitten. And they let us go.”

  Hal didn’t know why he believed her, but he did. “What are you saying? You’re not suggesting…?”

  She opened the door. A patch of snow fell on her, quivering, and she shoved it off. She leaned over and kissed him. “Get out of here.”

  “No!”

  But she had already stepped out of the car and was slamming the door. “Goodbye,” April said. “I love you.” She started running across the meadow. As one, the army of snowmen turned toward her and began moving. The snow slunk off the windows of the car and flowed over the road in an almost liquid stream.

  She’s too fast for them, Hal thought. She’ll get away.

  But other snowmen emerged from the trees at the far en
d of the meadow and began closing in on her. She was trapped, he realized. She could not escape them. But he did not drive away. Instead, he watched, leaning on the horn, hoping the noise would distract them or alert someone. He prayed out loud for God to save her.

  The snowmen moved faster as they drew upon her, and he saw them fling themselves forward, knocking her down.

  The last thing he saw, before they engulfed her entirely, was her long slender hand, reaching upward, heavenward, sunlight glinting for a second off her diamond wedding ring.

  And then she was gone.

  It felt as though the inside of his body had been suddenly scooped out, leaving him hollow. A barely mixed amalgam of rage, fear and uncontrollable grief rushed in to fill the emptiness. He had no time to sit and wallow in his feelings, however. April had wanted him to get the hell out of here, had given her life so he could do just that, and before they could return, he took off, his vision blurred with tears.

  He did not even realize he was screaming until his throat started to hurt.

  It was afternoon when he finally pulled into the outskirts of Flagstaff. Clouds had come up—a dark gray ceiling that uniformly covered the sky—and a light sprinkle of snow was falling. He pulled into a Shell station. “I need the police,” he told the attendant.

  “Anything the matter?”

  Hal tried to remain calm. “My wife is missing. I just need to know how to get to the police station.”

  “Turn left at the third stoplight, just past the curve, then go on for a block or so. Can’t miss it.”

  He followed the directions, pulled up in front of the police station and got out of the car. On the steps of the building, a young boy, no more than ten, was scooping up a handful of snow and attempting to fashion it into a snowball. Hal grabbed the boy’s arm. “Drop it,” he ordered. “Drop it and get out of here you little son of a bitch.”

  The boy, eyes wide with fear, let the snow fall from his hand. Hal released his arm and the kid took off.

  He ground the lump of snow beneath his heel and walked into the police station.

  CHILDREN’S HOSPITAL

  (1985)

  “So, what are you? A hemo, a homo or a Haitian?” Armstrong, leaning on one arm in the bed next to him, grinned hugely as he tapped a cigarette against the bed’s metal side rail. His earring, a silver Maltese cross, dangled freely, catching the rays of the early morning sun streaming through the hospital window.

  Toby looked at the older boy, and his heart started to pound. “What?” he said. His voice sounded high, thin, nervous.

  “Howja get it?”

  “Leukemia?”

  “AIDS.” Armstrong lit the cigarette and rolled onto his back. He tossed the match on the recently waxed tile floor. “Don’t give me that leukemia crap.”

  “That’s what I have!” He looked fearfully at Armstrong, expecting some sort of retaliation for his outburst, but the older boy simply blew cigarette smoke into the air, ignoring him.

  “Jimmy Goldstein, little kid two beds down, he had AIDS, too,” Armstrong said. “That was about a week or two before you got here. They took him off to a special ward or clinic or something. Looked like a goddamn skel when he left.”

  Toby looked instinctively down the ward where Armstrong had gestured. Jimmy Goldstein’s old bed was empty, as were all the other beds in the room. He glanced back toward the smoking figure in the bed next to him. “Why did you stay here? Weren’t you afraid of getting AIDS?”

  Armstrong smiled. “I didn’t give a shit. I figured I’d take my chances.” He blew out smoke. “That’s why I’m still here with you, fag boy.”

  “I’m not gay!” Toby said.

  The nurse walked in, a short overweight black woman with thick muscular arms. She frowned as her eyes scanned the room, and she strode purposefully over to Armstrong’s bed, grabbing the cigarette out of his hand. “How many times do I have to tell you?” she said harshly. “No smoking in here!” She dropped the cigarette into a white plastic sanitary bag. “I don’t know how you get those cancer sticks in here anyway.”

  “Good fairy brings ’em to me,” Armstrong said. “Same fairy that gave twinkle toes AIDS over there.” He nodded toward Toby.

  “I don’t have AIDS!”

  “That’s right,” the nurse said. “He has leukemia.” She glared at Armstrong. “If you can’t manage to get along with anyone else, we’ll just have to put you in a room by yourself.”

  Armstrong grinned. “That’s all I ever wanted.”

  The nurse shook her head. “You’re impossible.”

  An orderly wheeled in another boy, this one about Toby’s age. His skin was pale, and there was a white bandage wrapped around his head. His arms were rail-thin and anemic looking. Toby tried to smile at the boy, and the boy nodded tiredly back.

  “This is Bill,” the nurse said. “Bill Ives. He’s going to be here for a couple of days under observation.” She stared hard at Armstrong. “You try to be civil.”

  “I’ll try.”

  The orderly lifted the new boy off the gurney and placed him carefully on the bed next to Toby’s. Toby watched the boy’s face as the nurse explained ward rules and regulations to him. His face was drawn, weak-looking, as though he had neither strength nor spirit left.

  The nurse finished her memorized speech, then turned toward Toby. “You be nice to Bill, you hear? He’s only going to be here for a couple of days. You try to make him feel at home.”

  “I will,” Toby promised.

  “What’s the matter with him?” Armstrong asked. He leaned over the railing of his bed, grinning. “We got another pansy in our midst?”

  “The doctors aren’t sure what’s wrong,” the nurse replied evenly. “He’s here for observation.”

  Armstrong shook his head and sighed sympathetically, leaning back on his pillow. “Will this plague never end?”

  “That’s enough from you!” The nurse turned toward Toby. “If he bothers either of you, you tell me.”

  Toby nodded, glancing toward Armstrong, afraid to answer her verbally because of how the other boy might react. The orderly wheeled the now empty gurney out of the room, and the nurse followed, shooting one last harsh glance at Armstrong.

  Armstrong sat up. He ran a hand through his spiked hair and pulled a cigarette from under his pillow, lighting it. “So, what are you here for?”

  Bill smiled feebly. “I don’t know. I think it really might be AIDS.”

  Armstrong looked interested. “You serious?”

  The boy shrugged. “I had a burst appendix a few months ago, and they had to give me blood transfusions. That was before they were really testing for AIDS. Then I came down with this a few weeks ago. My doctor doesn’t seem to know what it is. They’ve been giving me tests up the wazoo for the past two days…” His voice trailed off.

  Armstrong puffed on his cigarette, letting the smoke out through his nose. “What makes you think it’s AIDS?”

  “That’s what my dad thinks it is. The doctors don’t want to admit it—they don’t want a malpractice suit—but my dad says that’s why they’re giving me so many tests. They’re afraid they screwed up.”

  Toby looked at the frail boy. “Aren’t you scared?”

  He smiled slightly and shook his head. “Not really.”

  “It’s not catching is it?”

  Armstrong laughed. “Not unless you—”

  “No,” Bill said quietly, cutting Armstrong off. “Don’t worry. You won’t get it.” He looked toward Armstrong, and the older boy suddenly stopped laughing. He licked his lips nervously, puffing on his cigarette.

  Bill smiled.

  ****

  Curfew was at ten. The lights in the ward were shut off, as was the TV. “Hey!” Armstrong said loudly as the room was thrown into darkness. “I was watching a movie here!”

  Standing in the doorway, the nurse looked at him. “Everything goes off at ten. Those are the rules. You should know that by now.”

  “But I was w
atching a movie! How the hell am I supposed to find out what happens?”

  She glared, pointing her index finger at him. “You watch your mouth, young man.”

  “You can’t tell me what to do.”

  The nurse smiled. “No, but I can turn the TV off at nine instead of ten.”

  Armstrong shut up.

  The nurse left, closing the door behind her, and Toby stared up toward the ceiling, thinking. With the heavy shades shut and the lights off, the ward was completely dark. In the bed next to him, Bill slept silently. The boy had slept through most of the day, looking small and thin and pitiful, and Toby had felt sorry for him. Bill seemed really sick, and Toby wondered whether he would live or not.

  “Kid!”

  Toby stiffened and lay there completely unmoving, trying to keep silent, hardly daring to breathe. “Kid!” Armstrong whispered again. “Toby!”

  Toby closed his eyes, pretending to sleep just in case Armstrong could see him in the dark.

  “Shit.” Armstrong rolled over on his bed and Toby heard the crinkle of hospital sheets.

  “I’m here.”

  The voice came from the bed next to him, Bill’s bed, and this time it was Armstrong who was silent. There was something strange in that whispered voice, something scary, and Toby kept his eyes closed. He forced his breathing to become regular, his chest rising and falling in an even sleep rhythm for the benefit of whomever might be watching.

  “I’m here, Armstrong.”

  Armstrong remained silent, pretending to be asleep, and Toby knew that the older boy was afraid.

  Afraid of what?

  There was the soft sound of sheets slipping to the floor. Small feet, light feet, padded past the foot of Toby’s bed. He shut his eyes tighter.

  “No.”

  Armstrong’s voice was muffled. There was the sound of fighting, thrashing around on silent sheets. Toby heard a finger punching the button to call the nurse.

  Click click click click click.

  “No.”

  It was the last word Armstrong said.

  Then there was silence.

  The ward was still silent when Toby really fell asleep.