Freeze

11

Warren’s first thought was that he needed to clean himself off before he left. No time to take a shower, but he could at least towel off most of the blood. He pushed himself off the mattress, bundled up the sheets and the comforter to keep the blood from soaking through, not thinking about it, just doing it because it seemed like the only thing to do. And then he walked naked through the living room and toward the bathroom at the end of the hall.

Tess followed him. “What are you going to do?”

He didn’t answer, not because he was purposefully ignoring her but because he wasn’t sure what to say, wasn’t sure what he was going to do.

Bub followed them out of the living room but stopped only a few feet into the hallway, sat down, and whimpered.

Warren decided to ignore him for now, stepped into the bathroom, and reached for the light switch, forgetting about the blackout, forgetting about everything except the blood geysering out of Tess’s mouth. He flipped the switch half a dozen times before he remembered and shook his head.

This is no time to go senile. Tess needs you to think straight. Pay attention.

He clenched his jaw and remembered the box of candles.

“Don’t light a candle,” Tess said from behind him. “You don’t want to see this.”

And, of course, he didn’t want to see it, but he needed to see it. He swept his hand across the counter until he found the box of tapers and matches. He lit one, and when he saw the

(slaughterhouse, bloodbath, crime scene)

mess that had once been their ordinary bathroom, he almost choked on a sob. Bloody streaks ran down the sides of the toilet. A wad of toilet paper floated in the toilet, watered down and pink instead of red but still undeniably horrific. Smears of blood covered the area around the toilet and the floor between there and the doorway. He guessed there were probably some in the hallway, too, although he hadn’t noticed them. There were a few splashes of blood all the way back to the hamper and even the shower curtain beyond.

“Jesus, Tess. This is…” He was thinking, This is very, very bad, but he couldn’t say that. For her sake. For his own. So he said, “This is going to be okay.” He turned to her, grabbed her shoulder with his free hand. “Okay?”

She nodded. By the glow of the candle light, she looked worse than before. The darkish bags beneath her eyes had become bottomless chasms; the streaks of blood on her face and body looked darker, thicker, more fatal.

Don’t think like that.

Except how the hell else was he supposed to think? His wife was coughing out blood; she’d lost what seemed like a bucketful. In the bathroom. In the living room. All over him and herself.

She stood there in the flickering light, looking into his face, looking a little faint and a lot worried.

“Come on,” Warren said. He’d decided cleaning off the blood had been a stupid thing to worry about. “Let’s go get your clothes on. You must be freezing.”

As if him saying it had made it true, she began to shiver. She wrapped her arms around her quivering breasts and shut her mouth when her teeth chattered.

Warren lowered the candle and ushered Tess back down the hall. Bub got up before they reached him and led them into the living room, limping. He looked back at them once and wagged his tail a single time, to the side and back to center, as if asking if everything was okay.

“It’s okay,” Warren said and thought he’d been saying that a lot lately. He guessed that’s what you did when bad things happened: assure your loved ones everything would be okay until either it were or it weren’t. “It’s going to be fine.”

He brought Tess to the bare mattress and grabbed her clothes from the floor. They had a few splatters of blood on them, and he guessed they’d have to throw them away when this was all over, but they were fine for wearing, for keeping warm.

“Here,” he said and handed her her undergarments. “Turn around; I’ll help you.”

She shook her head. “I can do it.” She stepped into her panties and slipped her bra straps over her shoulders.

“So what are you going to do?” She reached around to hook her bra. She struggled for a minute, sighed and ripped the bra off.

Warren reached down to pick it off the floor and help her back into it, but she told him to leave it be and give her her shirt.

“I can go braless. I don’t feel like something squeezing me around the chest. Makes me feel coughy.”

He handed her the shirt and waited until she’d pulled it over her head.

“I think there’s only one thing I can do,” he said. “I’ve got to go for help.”

“Go how?” She took her pants, a stretchy pair of pajama bottoms, and pulled them on.

He circled the mattress, found his own clothes, and started dressing.

“The Young place is only about three miles down the mountain.” He tugged his shirt over his head. “If they’re home and their phone is working, I’ll call for help.”

“You’re going to walk?”

He raised his eyebrows and tried to smile. “I don’t think I have a whole lot of options.”

“What if they’re not home? Or their phone isn’t working? Or they don’t answer the door?”

“You think they’d leave me out in the cold?”

She shrugged. “We barely know them.”

“They’ll let me in,” he said. “And if they don’t…”

“What?”

He buttoned his pants and sighed. “I don’t know, but I’ll figure out something. If they’re not home, I’ll break down the damn door.”

“Three miles is a long walk on a nice day,” she said. “It’ll take you hours in this storm.”

He nodded. “At least. It’s still dark out there, too. It won’t be easy going.”

A pair of tears dripped down the sides of her face, and he wished he hadn’t said that last part.

She said, “Don’t do it. You’ll freeze to death. I’ll be fine. Promise. You don’t need to go, okay?”

“I won’t freeze. I’ve got enough warm clothes to keep me cozy in the worst blizzard you could ever imagine.”

“I don’t think I could imagine one worse than this.”

He couldn’t argue with that.

“I have to go. Okay? You’re coughing out blood and need help. This is the only option left.”

She tried one more time: “Even if you get there, and they let you in, and their phone is working, no one is going to send an ambulance or a helicopter in this weather.”

“If they won’t send help, I’ll borrow the Youngs’ car and come back up here for you myself.”

“But—” She pressed her palm against her chest, and Warren hurried around the mattress. She held out a hand, stopping him halfway there, clutched her chest for another second, and then said, “I’m okay. It’s nothing.”

He rubbed her shoulder and kissed her lacerated face. “I don’t know how or when or who or what,” he said, “but I will find a way to help you.”

Or die trying, he thought but wouldn’t say.

He put on the rest of his clothes, grabbed the flashlight from the mantle, and went into the bedroom for another layer of clothing. Tess didn’t follow him this time, and when he came back, she’d added another log to the fire and plopped down in one of the chairs. Bub lay at her feet. When he saw Warren, he gave him a worried look and then laid his head on Tess’s foot. Warren didn’t think he was going to have much trouble getting the dog to stay put when he left this time.

“It’s going to take me a while to get down there,” Warren said.

“I know.”

“This is going to sound all kinds of motherly, but try to relax while I’m gone, okay? Stay close to the fire and try not to move much.”

She gave him an exasperated look.

“Hey, I said it was going to sound motherly. But I’m serious. Whatever’s going on in there, I don’t want it to get any worse.” He went over to her, kneeled on the floor by Bub’s head, and took her hands. “I’m not gonna say anything like ‘I’ll be back before you know it’ but I promise I will go as fast as I can.”

“Only as fast as is safe,” she said and squeezed his hands. “Promise?”

He did.

He brought three armloads of firewood from the back hall, his back muscles aching the whole time, before putting on his final layers of outerwear and lacing up his boots. He knew the flashlight wouldn’t do a lot of good out in the blizzard, but he put it in his pocket anyway.

Before he left, he kneeled on the floor beside Tess again. She kissed him once on the forehead and once more on the lips.

“Take care of her,” he told Bub. The dog looked up at him, wagged his tail, and pressed himself more firmly against Tess’s legs.

Warren kissed Tess’s hand, but neither of them said another word. He took the flashlight out of his pocket, turned it on, opened the door, and stepped into the storm.