After a few more seconds, the footsteps finally resume, this time with purpose in the stride, confidence, and I suddenly think of the mysterious colonel from back on the exit ramp.
“What do you got, Jones?” I hear another man call. The voice sounds like it’s coming from the dining area. “Anything?”
“Not yet,” the heavy-footed kitchen-searcher answers, whose name I now know is Jones. “But I just walked in so give me a sec.”
“You’re not feasting on crab legs or something, are you Jones?”
“I’m feasting on your mother,” Jones mutters to himself, and then calls, “Yep, you caught me, Abramowitz. Still looking for something to melt this butter though.”
I turn back to the contents of the refrigerator, looking for anything that might be functional as a weapon, and I spot on the shelf, just to my left, a small, twelve-ounce can of chicken broth. I grab it, wrapping my fingers into a tight squeeze around the paper label, relishing the heft of the can. I return my gaze to the kitchen.
The gap created by the beer bottle that sits between the door and the jamb has given me a sliver of visibility, a narrow line of sight to the vicinity of the dishwasher’s station. Jones finally enters my view and, instinctively, I take a step back, maintaining my vision of him. He takes another step and then stops, and I can now just see the backside of him on his right side, including his arm which hangs beside him, his hand gripping the butt end of what I can only assume is a rifle. From my vantage point, I can only see the top of the gun’s butt, but if it isn’t a rifle, it’s a gun of some sort, and certainly one that’s far more deadly than my twelve-ounce can of broth.
Jones takes another step toward the dishwashing station and is now out of my view, but judging by the sound of his boots, he’s about to make his way around the kitchen island to start his journey back toward the doors that swing out to the dining room. It’s a path that will take him past the refrigerator, and even if he doesn’t notice that the door has been propped open, I can’t imagine he won’t want to check inside. I know I would.
“Holy shit!” someone calls in the distance, and I have no doubt the exclamation has come from the lobby.
The gift shop.
“Jones, get out here!” Abramowitz calls.
I hear the bang of the island as Jones makes his turn and rushes toward the kitchen doors, passing by the refrigerator and my watching eyeball by only inches as he flees.
Abramowitz’s call has given me a chance, and, boldly, I push open the steel door of the refrigerator before I even hear the swing of the kitchen doors. I know Jones’ focus is away from the kitchen now and on his partner, but I’ll have little time to waste if I’m going to make it to my boat without being noticed.
I leave the trash bag of food on the floor of the walk-in, deciding that I will need all of my fluidity and stealth to flee the restaurant and reach the boat without being noticed. Besides, it’s a two-trip effort to get the clothes and the food to the boat anyway, so even if I got the food to the door without a sound, I would need to leave it there anyway. Between the food and the clothes, I’m choosing the clothes for now. It may not be the wisest decision, I know, but I can’t imagine feeling the earlier torture of the elements again. And I know the food is still in the refrigerator, so if the armed men don’t take it with them when they leave, I can always come back for it later.
I step outside the kitchen doors and into the dining room, stopping at the bussing station on the opposite side of the bar, listening, trying to gauge where the men are currently.
There’s only silence for the first few seconds, and then, “You think anyone’s still here?” Abramowitz asks, a note of discovery in his voice.
“I’m not sure I even understand what happened here,” Jones replies. “It certainly looks like this thing was killed though.”
I can hear that the voices are coming from up the corridor, and though the men are speaking at a relatively normal volume, it sounds like they’re standing right next to me. As the crow flies, they’re probably fifteen feet away, and the partition between us offers almost no soundproofing. I have to stay quiet, but I can’t wait much longer to get out of here. These men are intrigued by the crime scene for the moment, but they’ll no doubt be moving on any moment.
“What’s not to understand, Jones? You’ve seen what these things can do. I’m guessing this particular joker just mucked with the wrong guy on the wrong day. Some guy who probably didn’t feel like being eaten today.”
I was just cold, I think to myself, but if I was in the position of these men, I’m sure I would have drawn the same conclusion.
I move back to the rail of the bar and step lightly into the dining room, making sure not to veer into the view of the corridor. I then do a quick-walk beeline for the back door, my heels never touching the floor.
The large shopping bags of clothes sit like Christmas packages on the booth by the door, and as I pass the area, I pick the two bags up like a bandit and then back my way out to the patio in one motion.
The wind hits me like a bomb blast, but the air is nowhere near as cold as I had expected, even taking into account that I’m now wearing several heavy layers of cotton. It’s warmer now, warmer even than it was a few hours ago.
I get my boat into focus and then walk, keeping my eyes straight ahead, fearing that if I look back to the door I’ll somehow draw the men toward me with my mind.
I step past the last of the outdoor dining tables and off the cement patio, and then I push open the gate at the edge of the water that leads to the pier. I now have a direct path to my boat. But after just a few steps onto the weathered wooden planks, a wave of claustrophobia envelops me, and I nearly stumble off the side of the pier to the left. I know for sure I’m trapped at this point, with only freezing water and armed men around me until I reach the boat at the pier’s edge.
But I reach the boat without incident and step inside it quickly, maneuvering to the back and the outboard motor. I find a relatively dry spot to set the plastic shopping bags, and then I stare at the lifeless motor, my heart in my throat as I prepare for the moment of truth.
I pull out the choke and pull the cord, and the motor roars to life like a race car, strong and ready.
And then, as if suddenly smothered by a blanket of clay, it dies.
“No,” I whimper, my throat seizing.
I pull the cord again, but this time there is barely a sputter, the engine sounding now like someone in the final stages of tuberculosis.
“Hey!” a voice calls from somewhere to the left of the restaurant.
I’m not the least bit startled, understanding the eventuality of this moment, and I look up to see from the corner of my eye two men running around the side of the restaurant, coming from the front of the building.
“Stop!”
I pull the cord one last time, hopelessly, knowing that even if it starts I won’t make it out of range of the rifles in time. And even if the soldiers decide not to go so far as to shoot me (and why wouldn’t they?), they no doubt have a boat that can overtake me in seconds.
But the motor just wheezes anyway, keeping consistent with the metaphor of sickness.
There’s a metallic click from the foot of the pier and then, “Put your hands on top of your head! Now! Now or you’re dead in three seconds!”
I look up to see the faces of the two men, but they’re concealed almost entirely by goggles and face wraps. Their dress looks military, tactical, but they don’t match each other and one of the soldiers is at least six inches shorter than the other. I pause for a few seconds longer than the ultimatum time of three seconds, and then I lock my fingers across the back of my head, holding my chin high, never taking my gaze away from the men.
Within seconds, two more men, Jones and Abramowitz, I presume, exit the restaurant and are now running towards the pier. They stop next to the two other soldiers, and all four are now pointing rifles at me, staring down the sights.
“You can put the guns away,
fellas,” I say casually, “I don’t even have a Swiss army knife.”
“Why did you run?” one of the veiled soldiers barks. The voice is feminine, a woman, and she sounds a bit too nervous for my comfort level.
“Because I don’t even have a Swiss army knife.” I chuckle, trying to bring levity to the scene.
“Who’s with you?” another asks. It’s one of the men from inside the restaurant this time, and I know from the Midwest accent it’s Jones.
“It was me who killed that one in the shop,” I reply.
Jones pauses and lets his eyes examine me a moment. “That wasn’t the question.”
“I’m alone. There’s no one with me. I was on the river, my clothes were soaked. I saw this place so I came in to get warm. And I noticed the sign for the gift shop. These bags—” I put the tips of my fingers through one of the straw, hooped handles at the top of one of the bags.
“Get your fucking hands back on your head!” the outside male soldier screams, mimicking the nervousness of his female partner.
I swallow once and begin to nod, my hands returning to the top of my head. “You’re right. I’m sorry. I was just going to show you that I came here for clothes. I was freezing. All I have with me are clothes.
“Clothes didn’t kill that ghost in the gift shop,” Abramowitz says. “How’d you manage to do that with no weapon?”
The knives. I now realize those might have been a good thing to bring along, though in the position I am currently, they may have gotten me killed. “I did have a weapon inside—a couple of knives from the kitchen. But I don’t have them anymore. I left them.”
The four soldiers continue to stare at me for a couple of beats, and then the soldier who originally ordered me to freeze orders me to exit the boat and walk back towards them.
I come slowly, my hands still on my head, and as I walk past the group and towards the restaurant, I notice there is something a little different about these four. They certainly have the weaponry of soldiers, and the demeanor and movements as well, I suppose, but they’re not dressed uniformly, and they lack some of the discipline and nomenclature of enlisted soldiers. From this proximity, they no longer invoke the images of the colonel who tried to murder me and my group back at the exit ramp.
My back is now to the soldiers, and one of them, I’m not sure which, taps the back of my head with the muzzle, encouraging me toward the door of the Clam Bake.
“Who are you?” I ask, knowing a question like this has the potential to be rewarded with the butt-end of the rifle finding its way to my skull.
“You don’t fucking ask—” the woman starts—and I know it’s her now who has me at the end of her gun—but she’s cut off mid-threat.
“We’re gonna hold off on the introductions on our end for a few more moments,” Abramowitz explains. “Why don’t you tell us who you are first. Once we’re inside.”
The woman leads me into the middle of the dining room to a table by the window, and then motions for me to take the seat next to the window that faces the bar. “This is lovely,” I comment. “Did you reserve this?”
Abramowitz grins at the joke and then sits down at the seat facing me. The other three soldiers position themselves at various seats around the dining room, making sure that all entrances and exits are covered. “Now, let’s get acquainted. Who are you and what do you know?”
“Name’s Dominic. I’m an English professor. I know a lot about the Romantic poets. Coleridge. Byron. I know a bit about the Neo-classicists as well, but the thrust—”
“That’s very funny, Dominic,” Abramowitz interrupts, and then his grin wanes by half. “What do you know about this?” He motions toward the window, and the bleak landscape of the world outside. “How did you end up here?”
I have no reason to hold back on my story—at least not on the bulk of it—so I don’t. I’m surrounded by four semi-automatic rifles, each of which has an index finger only millimeters from the trigger, and nothing I say now is going to make the situation worse. Besides, if these people wanted me dead, that deed would have been carried out by now.
I start with the first moments of the blast and the weeks at the campus with Naia. I include the details of my infidelity, not seeing any point in being discreet, especially since the events in my foyer with my wife are part of the tale. I tell them about my escape with Naia to the diner—and her subsequent death—and then our decision to leave, eventually ending up in my neighborhood where I discovered the thing that was formerly Sharon.
I omit the chapter about Stella and Terry’s confession in the diner and their initial involvement in the experiment that led to this apparent apocalypse. And the part about Terry’s connection with the colonel on the exit ramp also doesn’t make its way in. These are large parts of the overall story, of course, but they’re also chapters that, given the quasi-military appearances of the men and woman before me, could be connected to this particular group. My instinct is that they don’t know much more about what happened than I do, but it could all just be an act to get me to spill everything.
“So we left Warren and headed north,” I continue, “and drove until we got to the Maripo River Bridge. But as I guess you know, it’s blocked.” I look around the room now, studying the faces, trying to see if they actually do know that. I get only blank stares. “So that’s when I came up with the plan to charter that lovely traitor of a boat right out there.”
I point out to the pier and the dead Sea Nymph, and a wave of despair suddenly hits me like a right cross. Danielle. Tom. Stella and James. It’s been hours now since I left them. If they weren’t able to get the cruiser started, unless they found an armory of ammo on board, they wouldn’t have been able to hold the crabs off for this long. And more ammo didn’t seem likely. That boat was more of a pleasure cruiser, one for millionaire weekend guys; it wasn’t made for the sort of guy who would be packing major firepower.
The image of my group suffering instils a renewed sense of urgency in me. “I got separated from my group. I had to leave them on the river. But they’re expecting me to come back. I have to get to them. I have to help them.” My voice is pleading, desperate.
“How did you get separated, Dominic?” It’s Abramowitz again, his tone nonchalant, indifferent of my desperation.
“We...I...saw another boat, one I thought we could trade up to, I guess. Listen, we don’t have much time. We need to go now. If you’re still interested in my life story, I’ll tell you the rest on the way, but I need to go after them.”
“And how do you plan to do that?” the woman soldier asks. “Your boat ain’t startin.’ And even if it was,” she scoffs and shakes her head, “if I was you, I wouldn’t get in that thing if it was in a damn swimming pool.”
“Wait. You mean you don’t have a boat?”
She smirks and shakes her head.
“How did you..?” But I already know the answer. These soldiers haven’t come from the Warren County side of the river. They didn’t spot me from the water during some river patrol. They were already here.
“Got us a big ass RV though,” she adds, and then smiles proudly at the laughing reaction of her partner.
I can hardly breathe now. The news that my river voyage has come to an end is debilitating, and a piece of me accepts that I’ll never see my former group again. This doesn’t mean they’re dead, of course, not necessarily, not if they got the boat started. But I face the reality that this separation is bound to be permanent.
“We were hoping,” I start, and my voice sounds distant in my ears. But I hold Abramowitz’s stare tightly. “We thought that maybe, since they blocked the bridge off, that the blast and the aftermath had all been contained just to our side.”
Abramowitz drops his eyes from mine. I look over to the aggressive male soldier and see that the residue of his smile, created by his female partner’s joke—fades in a flash.
“How far does it go?” I ask him.
“Damned if we know for sure, bro,” he says, hi
s voice as defeated as mine. “We’re not exactly getting the nightly news broadcasts over here either.” He frowns and shakes his head slowly. “But we know where the edges of the cordon are. And we see them damn ghosts everywhere now.”
Ghosts. It was the word James used back at the pier, and it’s a more appropriate term in every way. The whiteness of them. The way they blend in silently with their surroundings. The fact that they’ve replaced their former bodies with a malevolent new force. Not like crabs at all. Except when they move.
“You all are soldiers, right?”
There’s silence amongst them and then Jones speaks up. “That’s right.”
The heads of the other three soldiers snap up in unison towards Jones, their collective eyes nearly popping from their sockets.
Abramowitz seems to will Jones’ eyes to his. “Don’t speak again, Jones. You understand me?”
“Or what, Abramowitz? What are you going to do? Shoot me? Have me court martialed? What’s the point of keeping secrets anymore?”
Abramowitz is seething now, and the two other soldiers seem ready to pounce if the command is given.
The thick coating of tension hovers in the dining room like poison gas, and I know if it comes to a head, it could be both Jones and me lying in a pool of our own blood on the carpet, a smoking bullet hole in the middle of our foreheads.
“I don’t care what you know,” I say pre-emptively. “I mean, that’s not exactly true, I guess. I want to know what happened, of course, to the world, but first I need to get back to trying to save my friends. I put them in the danger they’re in now, so it’s my responsibility to get them out. I at least need to try. Please, just let me go so I can find another boat. What threat am I to you? Who am I going to tell?”
“Let’s help him, Bram,” Jones says, calmly now, the hint of pleading in his voice.
Abramowitz holds Jones’ eyes until he drops them to the floor, shaking his head in disappointment. “That’s not going to happen, professor. Even if my friend here is correct and the end of the world is at hand, we’re sticking together until we find out what you know.”
They Came With The Snow Box Set {Books 1-2] Page 12
