What follows is an excerpt from a forthcoming horror novella entitled
Snowfall. I hope you enjoy. Feel free to leave feedback.
Snowfall
By Aaron Gudmunson
Which is the wind that brings the cold?
The North Wind, Freddy, and all the snow;
And the sheep will scamper into the fold
When the North begins to blow.
-- Edmund Clarence Stedman, "What the Winds Bring"
They
came with the snow, or else they brought it with them. No one's clear on that point yet. It doesn't matter. They're here and so are we. None of us are going anywhere. Fourteen inches of snow, according to Shane,
and no sign of it letting up.
I guess it snowed like this back in
1978 or '79. I dunno, I wasn't even born
yet. You would've told me a year ago
snowfall like this was possible, I would've called you a liar to your
face.
But the snow is the least of our
worries. It's what lives in the snow
that scares me. Mr. Albright says it's
some kind of new species, but he can't know that because he hasn't seen
them. I have. So has the prof. I guess Liz did too, way out in the field,
but it ducked into a snow bank before she could snap a picture with her damn
useless camera phone.
Wait. Let me start from the beginning.
On Tuesday, the sun burned sharp and
bright. Middle of December, thirty
degrees, ground not yet frozen. Everyone
was skeptical when the National Weather Service declared a winter storm
advisory. I was off work that day and
had a bunch of errands to run downtown, Christmas shopping and the like. I kept eyeing the skies after hearing the
weather report and when I called Melanie, I told her I thought it was
bunk.
"No way is it gonna snow
today," I told her.
"You never know," she
replied in that holier-than-thou tone she knows irks the living hell out of
me. God, I would give my right hand to
hear her voice now.
"Weatherman's the only job you
can have and be wrong everyday," I grumbled.
Melanie laughed. "Just don't forget to bring home
butter. Real butter, not that Country
Crock gunk. I'm making cookies for the
Gallagher's Christmas party."
"Shit. Forgot about that. Do I need to get them something?"
"Never fear, love. I picked up a token present."
"God love ya, Mel." We said good-bye, then I went into the
hardware store to buy a new hammer to replace the one I busted last month. I was pretty sure Mel got me one for
Christmas, but she didn't know to get the right kind. It's the thought that counts, but not when it
comes to my tools.
Arch's Market was busy, packed with
business pros looking for a turkey sub and housewives picking up a rotisserie
chicken and half a pound of red potato salad.
I considered a bee-line to the butter, one and done, out the door, but
decided last second on a quick detour through Arch's liquor department. I glanced over the bottles of wine and
selected a Merlot with a picture of some pink flower on it; I've never been a
big connoisseur of the stuff. Then, with
a quick about-face, I yanked open the beer cooler and grabbed a six-pack of
Amstel. Beer, on the other hand, I
connoisseur just fine.
I bustled through the checkout with a clear
intention of going straight home. I
really did. Unfortunately, the route
home took me right past McGavin's (I could have taken Seventh over to Highland,
which was the most direct route). But driving
by McGavin's, all the way out on Red Pointe Road, had become a habit with
me. I wanted to see who was there.
"If I don't see any car I know,
I'll go right home," I said aloud, trying to convince myself. But right there, first slot, was Shane Dodd's
F-150. Of course it was. We had the day off.
I wheeled my Tahoe in beside him and
sat for a second looking through the windshield. Then I killed the engine and got out.
Herb McGavin had opened the bar in
1996, over the ruins of another tap of which I can't quite recall the
name. I was just a kid then. The place was damn near perfect in every way
a bar should be: dim, smoke-mirrored, old-timey brass register, country-western
on the juke. And, of course, good
booze. I loved it. And over the past couple years, Herb and his
wife Darla and I had become buddies. All
his employees knew my name.
At the door, I turned and scanned
the road, pretending to be watching the weather. Both road and sky were gray and empty. The field beyond, which grew corn in warmer
months, grew nothing now but the remains of the season's first snowfall. The gravel lot, at this hour on a Friday,
held only two other vehicles; Shane's and Herb's. In the next few hours, it would fill up quick:
payday.
On a whim, I stood on tiptoe and
plucked down an icicle from the awning over the door and pitched it toward the
road. It flung end over end and stuck
point-down in a snow bank on the far side.
With a self-satisfied smile, I opened the door and stepped inside.
#
"Benjamin
Clary, ladies and gentlemen! The
Drinkmaster hisself has arrived!" Shane announced to no one as I copped
the stool beside his. "Old lady let
you out to play?" he asked, tipping his bottle of Budweiser to his
lips. He shook his head and laughed
before I could reply. "Hell no she
ain't. I know Melanie."
"Out Christmas shopping. Just stopped in for one or two," I said
lamely. Who was I fooling? Certainly not Shane, who just laughed and
shook his head again.
Herb stepped over, wiping his hands on a dish towel
that might've been clean yesterday or the day before. "What can I getcha, Benny?" Herb
asked. He was playing barkeep now while
it was slow. Once the place got good and
jumping, he'd leave that menial task to Liz or Dale (maybe both, if the place
got really crazy) while he vanished into his upstairs office to count the loot
rolling in.
I ordered a Bud and stared up at the plasma TV
above the bar. The news was playing
footage of a train derailment in downstate Cass County. Heavy snow was falling on the rescue workers
who were diligently digging in the rubble.
"Shit, it is gonna snow here today," Herb
said, also watching the screen.
"Naw. Cass
County's a hundred miles south of here," I said.
"Seventy-five, southwest," Shane
corrected. "If it's snowing there
now, we've got maybe half an hour before we start seeing the white stuff. And it looks like a helluva a lot of the
white stuff, too."
I still didn't buy it, which was based more on wishful
thinking than actual meteorological evidence, because when I checked the plate
glass window at the front of the bar the sky had taken on a steelier cast. Maybe Mel and Shane were right. Maybe we were in for a winter storm. In the hours to come, I would curse my idiocy
in talking myself out of heading home early.
Shane and I made idle talk about the bitch of working
winter construction, though we were happy to have work at all. A lot of the guys had been laid off already,
but the boss had kept us on because Shane and I are worth our salt. Half those other guys, they talk more than
they swing a hammer like they should be TV announcers or some shit
instead.
The door yawned open, bringing with it a breath of icy
air, and a middle-age guy with longish gray hair stepped in. A pair of silver specs hung low on his
biggish nose and two days' worth of stubble clung to his cheeks. Probably a professor from the community
college over in Somerville. He wore an
L.L. Bean windbreaker and khakis with honest-to-God penny loafers on his
tootsies. Apparently Professor Stick-Up-The-Rump
also didn't suspect enough snow to warrant wearing galoshes. Either that, or he wasn't planning on going
anywhere anytime soon. My initial
assessment that this guy was a college professor would prove true, but my
initial assessment that he was a total loser douchebag would prove wrong. In the next hours, the prof would become my
best friend.
He took a stool at the end of the bar and ordered a
draft. Herb poured Old Style into a
frosted mug and slid it down the bar with a practiced flick of the wrist. He was always showing off like that.
The guy caught it just as deftly, lifted the glass
high, and said, "Bravo."
Shane leaned over and whispered, "Shit, Benny,
look at the fairy who just fluttered in."
I laughed and clinked bottles with my friend. It was the last time we'd laugh together
before Shane was dead.
Herb changed the channel to the
Bulls-Heat game which had just tipped off.
"You takin bets today, Herbert?" Shane called.
"Call it quick afore someone
scores," Herb replied.
"Ten on Miami. Paper says they give up six-and-a-half."
"I'll take that action,"
Herb said, then looked at me.
"Benny?"
I shook my head. "Mel'd be pissed if she knew I was here,
but she'd go absolutely nuclear if she found out I'd been betting."
"Pussy-whipped," Shane
said to no one in particular, cocking a thumb at me.
"Fuck off."
"Shouldn't you be headed home,
lover-boy? Eventually your lady's gonna
figure out where you're at."
"I got time for another
round."
"Or two?"
"Or two," I concurred. Melanie was pre-occupied with holiday plans
and honestly wanted some time to herself to plan them. That worked out well for me. Of course, she would be wanting the butter
I'd purchased at Arch's for baking the cookies, but there was still time. That's what I kept telling myself.
The door opened again and in came
Liz and Dale together. They were
laughing. Liz was five and a half feet
of brunette beauty, slim waist, full blouse, ass round and firm like two
hemispheres of a broken globe. Her eyes
sparkled like emeralds and her teeth were white as the snow Shane insisted was
coming. In other words, hot.
Dale stood a foot taller than his
co-barkeep, a wall of muscle and stubble.
He was nice enough to his patrons until they got a bit rowdier than Herb
liked, at which point he would show them the door…often by force. Definitely not a guy to fuck with. The fact that he and Liz were fucking was
apparent to everyone but Herb, who discouraged intimate relationships among his
employees. (He'd confessed this to me
one late night while just he and I occupied the bar, doing shot after shot of
Jose Cuervo chased with Amstels. The
reason being that he'd met Darla the same way, while they worked together, and
he knew the kind of trouble work relationships could cause. "Benny ole boy," he'd said,
clapping me jovially on the shoulder, "I ever catch my people diddling on
my dime, I'll fire the whole damn crew.")
I eyed Liz as Dale took her coat and
hung it up on the rack beside the door.
He said something to her and she giggled, her eyes wide and dewy as
flower petals on a fine May morning. How
Herb couldn't see the facts of their relationship was beyond me.
"Ben! Shane!
What are you boys doing here so early on a workday?" Liz called as
she spotted us.
"That's the problem,
gorgeous. No work in the winter for
hammer-swingin dicks like us," Shane replied. "Sucks ass."
"So you decided to come drink
your abbreviated paychecks away?
Here?" Dale asked, taking his place behind the bar. He tucked a clean dish towel into his back
pocket, which would slowly become saturated with draft dregs and cocktail
leavings as the night wore on; it was a staple of his attire that I would
eventually use to stop blood flowing from his severed femoral artery.
"Actually, I should get
going," I said, knowing someone would stop me and that I would let
them. Ah, the trappings of alcoholism.
Dale held up a hand. "And leave half that Bud behind? That's alcohol abuse."
"I chug this, I'm gone," I
insisted. "Melanie's going to kill
me if I miss the damn Gallagher's Christmas party tonight."
Liz sidled up to Dale behind the
bar, their hips bumping. "You still
with her?" she asked.
Shane clapped me on the
shoulder. "You kiddin? Benny-boy's always gonna be with Mel. They're like buggy whips and buggies."
"Aw.
That's so cute," Liz said.
Her voice carried an edge of something I couldn't decipher. My pulse quickened.
"Yeah, those crazy kids been
together since high school, what, eight years now?" Shane said.
"Something like that," I
mumbled. I wanted to change the subject,
so I said, "Hey, I bought a new hammer today. Dude, you should see it."
"Day off work and guy can't stop
talking shop," Shane said to the staff of McGavin's, who chuckled
obligingly. He loved an audience.
"You wanna see it or what? I could use a smoke."
"Bring it back with you. I'm just getting comfy," Shane said,
eyeing Liz who'd just turned around to start the opening count of her
till. He took another sip of beer. "Oh, and give that piece of shit of
yours a good kick in the tailpipe for me."
Shane piously followed the Word of Ford; I was devoutly Chevy.
I went out to my Tahoe and looked at
the sky. It was still gray and overcast,
but not a single snowflake graced the air.
It would take more than Shane's amateur meteorological read and live
footage from Cass County to change my mind about impending snow. I glanced across the road and noted the
icicle I'd tossed still stood there like a glass monument in a vast white
desert. It glowed red in the last light
of day.
I smoked, then opened the Tahoe's
passenger door. On the seat were two
bags, one from Arch's and one from Ace. I
thought of the butter butted up against the beer in the first one. The butter Mel needed to finish her damned
Gallagher Christmas cookies. She'd be
calling soon if I didn't get my ass home.
I grabbed the second bag, felt the weight of the tool
inside. It never diminished, the feel of
a hammer in a practiced hand. I'd been
slinging one since high school and probably would the rest of my life. I was fine with that. I'd even gotten over the way some people
looked down their noses at people like Shane and me, manual laborers languishing
at the bottom of their pyramid. Doctors,
lawyers, CEOs. I built their houses and
fine-dining restaurants. I built the
schools their snot-nosed kids attended.
I built their office buildings and country clubs. Basically, I built their lives.
I took the hammer inside and laid it
on the bar in front of Shane. He looked
away from the Bulls game and his eyes widened.
"Holy Jeezly Christopher, Benny.
This fucker's a TiBone." He
hefted it, bringing it to head-level and swinging it in a controlled arc. "Eighteen ounce?"
"Fifteen," I replied,
pleased with Shane's awe.
"Contoured handle, ergonomic grip.
Solid titanium. Best hammer
Stiletto makes."
"Shit, this is the nicest-ass
hammer I ever fingered."
"I thought so too. Early Christmas present to myself. I deserve it."
"If this didn't dry up your
holiday bonus, I'll shit a nickel."
"Got it with room to
spare. You should snag one."
"Gonna have to now. Can't have the guys thinking you're better'n
me."
We laughed and drank and watched the
game. The hammer sat between our bottles
on the bar.
#
More
people filed in as afternoon drew on toward evening. Guys from the forge, mostly, still wearing
their work boots and a layer of sweat, but also a few from the plastic factory out
on Route 23. I spotted Dennis Goodin, my
postal carrier, slip in and grab a corner booth with a female companion. If we were lucky, we'd be treated to a few
sorority sweethearts from the university twenty miles west. Not the community college in Sommerville;
those were all commuter students who came from towns like Murdoch and
Hogan. But every once in a while the odd
carload of hotties would make the trip from the university to do a little
Friday night line dancing. They'd come
in wearing pink cowgirl hats and nylon plaid shirts and blue jeans tight enough
to show off their assets.
I knew I should be heading
home. I knew that Melanie would be showering
now, getting ready for the party. If she
wasn't already dressed and waiting for me. I checked my cell for missed calls,
but there were none. I should call
her, I thought.
But then Derrick Rose executed a
reverse two-handed dunk to take the lead and I screamed along with the rest of
the bar.
Outside, the sun was sinking toward
the horizon and the first flakes of snow began to fall.
Copyright © 2012 by Aaron Gudmunson. All rights reserved.
