Snow

CHAPTER FOURTEEN

“This was Father Finnick’s stuff,” Meg said, lifting open the priest’s trunk. They were in a small room deep in the rectory, which was attached to the rear of the church. A tiny bed clung to one wall; above it hung an iron crucifix. In the closet, dark slacks and buttoned shirts hung neatly from wire hangers. On a small circular table sat a potted plant in desperate need of water.

“Thank you,” Kate said, kneeling down before the open trunk. It was filled with hand-stitched garments, embroidered stoles with gold trimming, and lavish robes made of a material that looked like silk but felt much heavier. “These are priest’s clothes.”

“I told you that already.”

“What happened to Father Finnick?”

“He changed.”

Kate sifted through the trunk. “Is there anything else? A coat or something?”

“Chris said to take you to the trunk. This is the trunk.”

Kate looked up. Her gaze lingered on Meg. In the glow of the candle she held, the girl looked almost savage. What had Shawna said about checking the shoulders? Could this girl actually be one of those things?

“Could you turn around for me?” Kate asked, trying to sound as innocuous as possible.

Meg’s expression—one of stupid incomprehension—did not falter. She did not turn around, either.

“Remember how Chris tore my shirt off?” Kate pursued. “Remember how he looked at those scratches down my back?”

“You want to see if I have scratches, too,” Meg said. It was not a question. The candle’s flame danced just inches below her chin.

Kate struggled to come up with something soothing and placating with which to respond, but in the end her mind came up blank. She said simply, “Yes.”

“Dad had them.”

“Your father?”

“Straight down his back,” said Meg. “Two long cuts. Like someone…like someone chopped him with an axe…”

“That’s horrible.” One of Kate’s hands advanced the slightest bit, moving to touch the girl and offer some semblance of comfort…but she stopped herself at the last minute.

“He came back to the church,” Meg went on. Her voice was monotone. “He banged on the door for hours. I wanted to let him in, but Chris said it wasn’t our dad anymore.”

“What happened?”

“He went around to the side of the church to try to break the windows,” Meg said. “That’s when Chris went up into the bell tower and dropped a fountain on him.”

“A fountain?”

“One of those marble water fountains at the front of the church,” Meg said. “I forget what they’re called. Chris knows.”

“Chris killed your dad?”

“It wasn’t our dad. Chris said so.”

“But he killed him?”

“He dropped the fountain on him and one of those things came out. The things that turn into snow.”

Despite the chill, a tacky film of perspiration now coated Kate’s face and neck. Resigned, she turned back to the trunk and stared noncommittally at the garments inside. “Isn’t there anything else? Anything at all?”

“This is the trunk,” was all Meg said. She’d taken a single step back; the repositioning of the candlelight caused the shadows to shift.

Kate looked up. A corduroy blazer hung in the closet. She got up and took the blazer down from the hanger. It would be a bit long on her, but she much preferred it over some religious robes.

“No,” Meg said. There was a strictness in her voice that caused an icy finger to prod the base of Kate’s spine. “Chris said to take you to the trunk.”

“And you did. But I don’t want to wear any of that stuff.” She pulled on the blazer.

“No!” Meg threw the candle down and the light blew out, dousing the room in blackness. The girl stomped out of the room. Standing in absolute darkness, Kate listened to her footfalls recede down the hallway.

I need to get Todd and we both need to get the hell out of here, she thought. Suddenly, she found she’d much rather be back at the Pack-N-Go with the others than here in this church with these two strange kids.

Kate hurried back out into the narrow hallway. Ahead of her in the darkness, Meg’s footfalls struck hollowly as she took off. There was another sound, too—a consistent thumping coming from somewhere above her head, like someone rhythmically dropping a fist over and over against the rafters.

“Meg,” she called after the girl, her voice swallowed up by the darkness.

Dragging one hand along the wall, Kate headed back in the direction of the main body of the church, moving strictly by intuition. Without lights, it was like passing through an enclosed maze. Once, she even thumped against one wall.

Eventually she felt the space around her expand and she could make out the dimly lighted stained glass radiating with the moon’s glow, and she knew she was in the heart of the church. As her eyes grew accustomed to the dark, the bracketed shape of the altar, like white bone, was visible on the chancel. To her immediate right, rows of pews stretched out like the exposed ribs of some giant fallen carcass.

Someone else was in the church with her; Kate could make out the indefinite shuffling of nervous feet across the dusty floor.

“Is that you, Meg?”

“You’re going to make Chris angry,” Meg called back. The vastness of the church made it sound like she was speaking from every direction at once. “He’ll hit me again.”

“No,” Kate assured her. “No, he won’t.”

“You don’t know!”

“Where is Chris now?”

Almost as if on cue, the thumping sound increased. It was coming from directly behind Kate, as if straight through the wall at her back.

Kate spun around, her hands pawing at the heavy shadows. The movement stirred up cobwebs; they wafted down from the nearby rafters and got tangled in her hair.

A door opened somewhere close. Kate could hear heavy, labored breathing. That same instant, a candle flickered to life, frighteningly close to her. It was Meg, having snuck up beside her in the dark, the candle causing the shadows to swim across her narrow little features. Kate peered at the open doorway to see Chris’s broad shoulders come backward through the opening. He was bent over, dragging something…and Kate felt a sickness knot up in her belly.

It was Todd, unconscious or dead. The thumping sound she’d heard had been Todd’s boots thumping down the belltower stairs.

“What’d you do to him, you son of a bitch?” Kate shouted. Beside her, Meg recoiled.

“He was going to open the windows,” Chris rasped, out of breath. He let go of Todd’s arms and Todd’s body slumped motionless to the floor. “He was trying to let those things inside.”

“That’s bullshit. He wouldn’t do that.”

Chris whirled around on her. In the light of the candle, his piggy eyes gleamed like seabed stones. “Were you there? Do you know?”

Through clenched teeth, Kate said, “Is he dead? Did you kill him?”

“I’m in charge,” said the boy. He still had Todd’s pistol tucked into his belt. The dead priest’s flowing clothes were tight around the boy’s shoulders but too long, so that the hems bunched at his feet and dragged on the floor. “You both have to do what I say.”

“I told you he’d be mad,” Meg muttered at Kate’s elbow.

On the floor, Todd groaned but did not wake up. Relief washed over Kate. She hadn’t realized just how badly her hands were shaking until that moment.

Chris climbed the chancel steps and approached the altar. In the flickering yellow light, Kate could make out a number of implements lined up there—what appeared to be a golden chalice among them. Also recognizable was the plastic bag full of ammunition for the handgun, as well as the flashlight Kate had brought with them. Chris sorted through the implements until he located what he was looking for, then trudged back down the steps and bent down over Todd’s body.

Kate stepped toward him. “You leave him al—”

With surprising speed, Chris turned and had the pistol pointed at her. Kate’s heart froze, as did her advance on the boy. “Don’t come closer. I’ll shoot you. Won’t I, Meg?”

Meg nodded furiously. “He will. He’ll kill you.”

“If it’s meant to be,” Chris said, “then it’s meant to be. It’s all part of God’s plan. Are you religious?”

“I don’t know.”

Chris seemed puzzled by the answer. His chubby baby face creased. “What does that mean?”

“Please don’t hurt him.” Kate was trying to see what Chris had in his other hand, the item he’d taken off the altar.

“What would God think about your insolence?” Chris said.

“Do you even know what that word means?” Kate countered, though she knew it was a mistake the moment the words came from her mouth.

Chris bolted to his feet, enraged. “Don’t make fun of me!” he shouted, his voice echoing through the chamber. The gun wavered in his hand. “If it wasn’t for me, you and your friend would have died out there! I saw what was happening! I could have left you to die!”

“I didn’t mean to make fun of you.”

“You did! You…you fucking did!”

Again, Meg recoiled. Kate could almost hear the girl’s heart thudding against the wall of her chest.

“Kneel down,” Chris demanded of Kate. He thrust the gun at her. “Do it!”

Shaking, Kate dropped to her knees. The floor was hard and unforgiving and her whole body suddenly ached.

“Don’t shoot her, Chris,” Meg said, although there was very little compassion in her tone.

The barrel of the gun looked enormous. The longer she stared at it, the more Kate believed she could just reach out and shove her whole fist into the chamber. The thing was suddenly the size of a cannon.

“They persecuted Jesus Christ for all the good He did for people,” Chris said, the gun vibrating in his meaty hand. His face was speckled with sweat. “He tried to save them and they nailed Him to the cross!”

In her horror, Kate caught a whiff of freshly spilled urine, and wondered if the almighty Chris had just wet himself in his excitement.

“He gave his life for the wretched and worthless animals who took His!” Then he pointed the gun at Meg. “Blow out that candle!”

Meg puffed and doused them all in darkness.

Kate pressed her eyes shut and braced herself for the shot. Chris’s heavy respiration seemed to be coming from every angle, every direction, all around her. His Clydesdale footfalls paced all about.

Think of something happy, think of something beautiful, a favorite memory, a happier time, something wonderful that I want to have as my last and final thought before this little son of a bitch drives a bullet through my brain…

Several seconds went by before Kate realized she was still alive. She could hear Chris moving about in front of her where Todd’s body lay supine on the floor. There came a muted ruffling noise, like someone rifling through laundry, followed by a solid thump. Kate’s heart was strumming in her throat.

Then she heard Chris stand. A second later, she could smell his breath—a poisonous concoction of Fritos, beef jerky, and onions—directly in her face. She thought she could smell the oil of the gun, too.

“Please…” Her voice was almost nonexistent.

His lips brushing the side of her face, Chris whispered, “Judge not and ye shall not be judged; condemn not and ye shall not be condemned.”

A dull strike echoed down the nave. Kate felt Chris tense and stand up. Kate opened her eyes and squinted down the dark throat of the church. On either side of the narthex, the bluish stained-glass windows seemed to float like apparitions. At first, Kate could not tell what had made the noise. But then as her eyes acclimated themselves to the gloom, she thought she saw a single palm, all five fingers splayed, pressed against one of the windows.

“They’re out there,” Kate whispered.

Chris must have spotted the hand, too; his respiration increased its tempo again. Under his breath, he muttered, “I told you not to light those candles.”

Meg said nothing. For all Kate knew, the girl had vanished into smoke.

“They know we’re in here,” Kate said.

“Of course they do.” There was unmasked disgust in Chris’s voice. “I should have never opened those doors for you.”

She heard Chris hurry across the narthex. A moment later, the silhouette of his overlarge head appeared before one of the windows as he peered out. “Oh,” he said, his voice almost comically small. “Oh.”

“What is it?” Kate said.

“Outside. There’s a lot of them.”

Somewhere behind Kate, Meg began to whimper.

Quickly, Kate stood. Her whole body groaned in protest. Blindly, she reached out in the dark until her hand fell on one of Meg’s shoulders. The girl did not move beneath her grasp. Kate’s fingers slid down into the collar of the girl’s shirt and worked their way over the twin hubs of Meg’s shoulder blades. There were no lacerations that Kate could feel. Bending down very close to Meg’s ear so that Chris wouldn’t hear, she whispered, “What about your brother?”

“He’s not one of them, either.”

So he’s just your typical sociopath, Kate thought…and was astounded to find that the thought nearly sent her into hysterical laughter. It was all she could do to keep from braying like a donkey.

“There’s…maybe twelve…thirteen…thirteen people just standing out there in the snow,” Chris said, still looking out the window. He sounded completely dazed by the situation. “Maybe they’ve been sent here to help.”

“No,” Kate said. “Everyone in this town is fucked.”

Meg trembled at the word. Kate quickly withdrew her hand from the girl’s shoulder. Careful of her footing, she negotiated around Meg and climbed toward the altar, working mostly by feel and from memory. When she reached it, she ran her hands gingerly over the top of the altar, her fingers trailing over the various implements until she located the flashlight. She slipped the flashlight into the rear waistband of her pants. Then her fingers closed around the plastic bag full of ammo. She winced at the sound the plastic made crinkling between her fingers, certain Chris would spin around and start firing shots at her. But he was too occupied with their new visitors out in the snow to pay her any further mind. Kate slid the bag off the altar and set it down beneath it—someplace she knew she could get to in a hurry, if need be.

Down on the floor, Todd moaned. Much louder this time.

“They’re going to hear him,” Meg cautioned.

Chris hustled back across the narthex, his multiple robes rustling. “I should shut him up for good.”

“It doesn’t matter,” Kate said, sliding back into place beside Meg. “They already know we’re here. What we need to do is wake him up so we can all figure out what to do next.”

“What do you mean?” Chris demanded. “What do you mean, ‘what to do next’? I don’t need him to tell me what to do.”

“That isn’t what I meant. I just think that with the four of us trying to figure this out, we might stand a better—”

“I don’t need him for anything.”

“All right.” She knew better than to keep up the argument.

“They won’t get in here. This is sacred ground.”

“I don’t think that matters to them.”

“You don’t think God matters?” Chris boomed. Behind him, more hands appeared on the stained-glass windows. “You don’t think the Almighty is powerful enough to keep evil at bay? Because that’s what they are—they’re pure evil! Sent to punish us all for our sins! Sent straight from hell to do the devil’s bidding!”

If I rush him in the dark, surprise him and get him off balance, I could probably wrestle that gun away from him, she thought. He’s a chunky son of a bitch but as long as I kept his weight off me, I think I’d actually be able to do it.

She started sweating all over again.

“Kate?” It was Todd’s groggy voice filtering through the shadows. “You there, Kate?”

“I’m right here,” she called to him.

“Stop it,” Chris said. But there was little strength left in his voice now.

“What’s…what’s going on?” Todd continued.

“We’re at Judgment Day,” Chris said. “This is the End of Times.”

“I can’t move,” Todd said. His voice sounded more lucid now. “I’m tied up to something. Kate?”

Like starfish clinging to the underside of a boat, countless hands now papered the windows.

“They’re going to get in, Chris,” Kate said, her voice level. She desperately wanted to sound logical and calm at that moment. She also deliberately spoke Chris’s name in hopes that whatever memory had been temporarily knocked from Todd would return to him the moment he heard the boy’s name. “We need to untie Todd so he can help us keep them away.”

“I told you,” Chris retorted. “They won’t be able to get in here.”

“I’m scared,” Meg said, startling Kate, who had forgotten that the girl had been standing right next to her.

“Don’t listen to these people,” Chris told Meg. “They’re on the side of evil. That’s clear to me now. They want to coax us into battle when there is no need. God will protect us, Meg. Just like Mom and Dad have always taught us—God will see us through this.”

Sensing her opportunity, Kate sprang down off the pulpit and landed on Chris’s chest in a clumsy but effective tackle. They both dropped to the floor, Kate on top of the boy, and she heard the distinct sound of the gun clattering to the tiles. Shit! Nonetheless, she straddled him and sought out his neck with her hands. He sent his big fists swinging, connecting over and over again with the sides of her head. Sparks flew beneath her eyelids. One punch rushed up to meet her nose and tears exploded from her eyes. Beneath her, Chris bucked like a hog being tied. He shouted to his sister in throaty lamentations.

“Stop it!” Meg screamed from the pulpit. “Stop it! You’re hurting him!”

Kate’s fingers closed around the boy’s throat. Chris’s spittle flecked her face as his thick-fingered hands attempted to loosen her grasp on him.

Distantly, Kate was aware of a looming presence…and she was reminded in that instant of being a young girl out on the softball field, and how cool it had been when airliners would pass overhead, their shadows like the shadows of a giant bird bulleting across the outfield…

Kate let go of Chris’s throat and rolled off him just in time to glimpse a dark, wavering shape floating just beyond the panels of stained glass in the ceiling high above the altar. Then, a second later, something came crashing through the windows, sending a shower of jagged spearheads raining down on them all. Kate blocked her eyes with one arm but still managed to see a figure, undeniably human, fall through the shattered windows and plummet like a sack of potatoes to the altar. The figure struck the altar with a bone-crunching din and nearly buckled in half at the force of the landing. A cone of moonlight poured in through the ceiling, spotlighting the altar and the twisted, mangled corpse that lay folded over the top of it.

Meg screamed.

Kate quickly scrambled to her hands and knees and pitched forward, pawing for the handgun. Its blue steel practically glowed in the moonlight. Gripping the gun by the hilt, Kate then swung around and hurried over to Todd, who sat half-cocked against a pew, staring up with stark disbelief at the wound in the ceiling.

“Where are you tied?” she said, nearly knocking her forehead against his ear as she slid into him.

“My hands.” But he wasn’t looking at her; he was staring numbly at the ceiling. His face was a network of small cuts and bleeding lacerations from the shower of glass.

Kate reached behind him and found that Chris had tied Todd’s hands around the front leg of the pew. Quickly she felt out the knot and managed to dig her fingernails between the sections of rope, prying them apart.

“Oh, fuck,” Todd said, his voice sounding like it was sticking to his throat. “That’s Nan.”

Kate paused in her work just long enough to look back up at the altar. Had Todd not said anything she would have never recognized poor Nan Wilkinson, owing to the stage of her mutilation, but once she locked eyes on Nan’s face—the frozen grimace of fear and pain, the bulging, milked-over eyes, the skin pulled taut like the flesh of a balloon—she couldn’t not see her.

“Oh, Christ,” Kate whispered breathlessly into Todd’s ear. “Oh…Christ, Todd…”

“Untie me.”

She quickly went back to work with the rope. Peripherally, she saw Chris scoot away from her in the darkness, possibly looking for sanctuary behind one of the pews. Up on the pulpit, a pinpoint of light sparked through the darkness: Meg’s lighter. The flame shook and wavered until the girl was able once again to light the candle. This time, her brother did not yell at her to blow it out.

Meg approached the altar and the mangled corpse that lay across it. One bloodied arm jutted out at an unnatural angle. Meg moved with the lethargy of a somnambulist while the candle’s flame jittered in her hand. Above the girl’s head, it began to snow through the opening in the roof.

Kate finally got the rope untied. Todd pulled his hands into his lap and rubbed his wrists before climbing to his feet. He was staring up at the snow coming through the roof. “We need to get out of here. Fast.”

Kate rushed up to the altar and snatched the bag of ammo from beneath it. As she stood, she locked eyes again with Nan Wilkinson’s corpse. Ice clung to the woman’s silvery hair and her skin looked cold and brittle, like porcelain.

“Come with me,” Kate said, grabbing Meg by the wrist. The motion caused Meg to drop the candle.

“My brother,” Meg said.

“We all need to get out of here.”

The hands against the windows began banging on the glass—all of them in unison, like some orchestrated percussive beat. Kate pulled Meg down off the altar just as the snow above their heads began to solidify and come together. At the center of the blustery mass was a tendril of silver light, like light spilling out of a keyhole.

“Here!” Kate shouted, tossing Todd the handgun. Dragging Meg by the wrist, she ran toward the farthest wall. Meg was as lifeless as a rag doll in her grasp.

Chris began whimpering from behind one of the pews.

Todd press-checked the nine-millimeter, then took several steps backward. The mass of snow rotating above the altar seemed to darken and take on form, like a shadow. Watching it, Kate found herself hoping that Chris had been right—that perhaps this was sanctified land and no evil would dare cross its threshold. But as the swirling mass of snow and light above the altar became thicker and more prominent, she knew that was not the case.

They were going to die.

The carpet beneath the altar suddenly went up in a blaze of white flame: Meg’s dropped candle. A second later and Nan’s outstretched arm went up, too, filling the nave with a dark black smoke and the acrid, gunpowdery reek of burning flesh. As the black smoke rose up out of the hole in the roof, it commingled with the twirling mass of living snow hovering just above the altar. Briefly, like a sheet draped over a mannequin, the smoke brought the creature into frightening relief—the human-shaped head with the distended jowls and the hollow pits for eyes; the thin stalk of its neck; the heart-shaped scurf of its upper chest…

Todd fired two, three shots at it. The rounds passed right through the cloud of smoke, carving funnels in their wake. Meg clamped hands to her ears while her brother shouted something unintelligible, the fear in his voice undeniable now.

The creature swooped down and glided just above the pulpit, its near-formless arms trailing behind it like the tentacles of a giant squid. Its belly licked the flames, causing the massive thing to shriek in agony and pull up toward the ceiling. Kate felt the wind of its movement against her face.

“Burn it!” Meg screamed beside her, clutching onto Kate’s forearm with both her hands. “Burn it!”

Indeed, the creature’s scaly flank glowed as red as embers in a bonfire as it pulled rotations above their heads. Charred bits of scurf fluttered to the altar like confetti.

Just as one of the windows shattered behind her, Kate lunged forward and pulled one of the wall sconces from its seating. Charging up to the altar, she plunged the sconce into the flames, the heat from the growing inferno stinging her eyes and causing sweat to pop out of her pores.

“Kate!” Todd yelled at her. “Get down, Kate!”

Meg wailed and curled up in one corner. Directly above Meg’s head, one of the townspeople was attempting to climb in through the shattered window.

Proffering the flaming torch above her head, Kate stepped down off the altar and joined Todd, who was holding the pistol in both hands now, a look of utter perplexity on his face. Blood streaked his white skin—cheeks, forehead, neck, and chin.

Kate waved the torch and the creature pixilated into dust. Snow rained down from the rafters while more poured in through the opening in the roof.

Farther down the narthex, more windows imploded as fists were driven through the glass. Ghoulish shapes shimmied up over the sill and dropped down into the church.

“There’s a side door!” Todd shouted, pointing clear across the pulpit.

“Okay!” Kate shouted. It felt like the building was getting ready to shake apart. She turned to Meg and called for the girl but Meg wouldn’t move; she’d drawn her legs up into a fetal position and simply sat, rocking back and forth in the corner.

“Come on,” Todd said, grabbing Kate’s arm.

Kate pulled her arm loose. “Wait!” She ran to Meg and pulled her to her feet. Meg stumbled but followed. Kate shouted for Chris, too…and the boy popped up behind one of the pews, his flesh prickled with sweat and his priestly garb hanging off him like quilts. He hurried toward them just as something—something big—moved behind him in the shadows. The darkness seemed to separate from itself just as a white curl of powder engulfed Chris, bringing him screaming to the floor.

“Chris!” Meg shouted, and it took all of Kate’s strength to hang on to the girl.

Chris attempted to stand…but just as he got his feet under himself, something partially transparent and shaped like the blade of a hunting knife (only much, much bigger) speared out of the mist and plunged straight into Chris’s right shoulder.

Chris’s eyes bulged. His mouth dropped open and, a moment later, a black string of blood oozed out. He staggered and would have fallen, had he not been speared to the thing behind him.

A second curled talon appeared, this one the size of a school bus fender and about as solid as a strip of film projected onto a cloud of smoke. It sprung forward, reminding Kate of nature specials she’d seen as a kid, where scorpions jabbed their poison-tipped tails into the backs of spiders. The talon pierced Chris’s left shoulder, making the boy’s head roll loosely on his neck. Blood continued to spill from his agape mouth, staining the holy vestments he wore.

Meg buried her face in Kate’s chest.

Later on, Kate would recall Shawna Dupree’s words when thinking back on this event—about these things wearing people like puppets—because that was exactly what appeared to be happening. The darkened shape behind Chris seemed to loom up over him as it slid its bladed arms farther into Chris’s back. As it did so, Chris’s body jerked and squirmed, like a sock being fitted with an oversized foot. The cloud shape then seemed to fade into Chris’s back, as if sucked through a black hole, and as the last vestige of the creature withdrew into him, Chris’s eyes flipped open and his neck cocked at an angle in a mockery of life.

Everything went deathly silent. In the shadows behind Chris, Kate could make out the crenellated silhouettes of the townspeople inside the church while others paused halfway through the broken windows. They were surrounded.

“Hey,” said the Chris-thing. “Hey, Meg. Come on. Come here.”

Meg would not look at it. Kate hugged her tighter.

“Come on, Meg. Sis. Come on, little sister.” The Christhing shuffled forward, its steps as awkward as a toddler’s. He had the same empty look in his eyes as Eddie Clement had had when they picked him up on the side of the road. “Hey, now…”

“Fuck this,” Todd said, and kicked through the doors at the other end of the church. Freezing air filled the church. For a second, it seemed the torch in Kate’s hand would be extinguished, but the flame was strong and held on. Todd marshaled through the door and Kate followed, Meg still clinging to her.

Behind them, the Chris-thing screamed—a sound like a passing locomotive.

Todd staggered in the snow. His shoulders appeared to slouch. From over his shoulder, Kate saw what had deterred him: scattered around the grounds of the church were twenty or so townspeople, each one staring them down with dark, soulless eyes. Todd raised the gun, pointed it at one of them.

Directly above them, the sky looked like a volcanic eruption. Lightning flashed horizontally from cloud to cloud. There was no moon.

Todd grabbed Kate’s arm. “Use the fire if they get too close.” He pulled her through the snow while Kate, in turn, pulled Meg. The townspeople began closing in on them. Todd let a few rounds rip from the handgun but that didn’t seem to deter any of them, except for the one or two that went down from the force of the bullet. When clutching hands got too close, Kate singed them with the torch. One of the townspeople howled…and suddenly dropped to the snow like someone shucking off an old housedress. Something semitransparent and hulking flitted off into the night.

The church grounds sloped downward to Pascal Street. There were a number of dead vehicles staggered at intervals down the street and two tipped over on their sides in a nearby ravine. Todd led the charge, panting and out of breath by the time they reached the street. Kate nearly slammed into his back and managed to hold on to the torch before it tipped out of her hands and clattered down into the frozen culvert.

Kate chanced a look behind her.

The church was a black smear at the top of the hill. Thick smoke billowed up through the rent in the roof and melded with the low-clinging clouds. The lower windows were alive with firelight as the interior of the church burned. The townspeople still stood on the snowy slope, staring down at them. Strangely, none had pursued.

Something’s wrong here, Kate had time to think. Something is very, very wrong…

Though he was still breathing hard, Todd straightened up and began moving farther down the road. “Come on. We can’t stop now.”

Kate lifted the torch above her head and gripped Meg’s hand. It felt limp and lifeless; the girl was no doubt shocked into immobility by what she’d just witnessed happen to her brother. Kate tugged her through the icy streets, close on Todd’s heels.

“Where are we going?” Kate called to him. Before Todd could answer, she looked over at Meg. “Where do you think we should go? Where would be safe?”

The girl only stared at her without expression. She was still in shock.

“When I was up in the bell tower,” Todd said, “I saw a fire hall and a police station up this road. I don’t know the condition they’re in but we need to—”

A mound of snow burst up from the ground along the shoulder, showering the night in white crystals. A lion’s roar shook Kate to the marrow of her bones and she nearly dropped the torch. The snow rose up and towered over them, three stories high, undulating like the segmented body of a worm. A blade of ice protruded from it and reared up—

Kate charged forward and drove the torch into the wall of snow. She had expected the flame to immediately extinguish upon impact, but instead the snow solidified and turned the color of a catfish. Kate could make out the vague suggestion of a rib cage and, beneath the translucent scurf, the throb of a white light at the center of the being. The flame ignited its flesh and the creature emitted a bone-numbing shriek that shook the tops of the nearby pines. Then it folded in on itself and scattered in a cloud of sparkling mist across the snowy ground.

Todd could only stare at the space where the creature had been just a moment ago. It looked like he was holding his breath.

Kate put a hand on his shoulder. “It’s okay,” she said, though she thought her voice sounded too nervous and uncertain. “We’re okay.”

“Right,” he said, nodding without really hearing her. “Right…”

She pushed him forward. “I’m right behind you,” she told him.