Of course it was Taylor’s fault, but he didn’t have the time to argue about it. Later. They could argue later. Right now, he needed…
He needed to get up to those damn reindeer and those snow shapers because that was the only way any of this could possibly end.
“You have anything with a hook on its end?”
Now Greg glanced at him in confusion. “A hook? Like a fishing rod? I don’t fish.”
“I was thinking…something bigger.” And Taylor gestured with both his hands. “Something that could latch on to a reindeer harness.”
Greg laid the pole against the bench before responding. “And you plan on doing what with a reindeer harness?”
Taylor ignored him and stepped past to examine the paint cans. Spots and smears marked most of them. There was the grey of the bathroom. The pale green of Greg’s bedroom. The dark red of the accents and trim in the kitchen. He hefted that can, small though it was, and found it heavy enough to have more than half left. He shook it once experimentally and then nabbed another of Greg’s screwdrivers from the open drawer of the tool box to shove in his pocket.
“What are you going to do with that?” asked Greg.
“Open the paint. You sure you don’t have a giant hook?”
“Why would I have one?”
He could maybe convince Greg to put one together—there was enough welding equipment dotted about this half of the garage—but that would take too long. The snowmen would have gathered by then, recuperated. The snow shapers would have made more maybe. Many more.
“Keep the blowtorch. Make sure to refill it.” Then he knelt by his duffel and began shuffling his gear, picking out the magazines for his .45 and slipping them into the pockets of his jacket. The 9mm he held out to Greg, who took it reluctantly.
“I only went to the range with you twice.”
“Better than nothing,” said Taylor. He stood, pulling the duffel closer to Greg as he did so. “There’s a few more filled magazines in there for that gun. They don’t do much against snow, but they’re perfect if you see any elves.”
“You think they’ll come in here?”
“No,” said Taylor truthfully, tossing the rope over his shoulder and hefting the paint can again. “I think they plan on letting the snowmen do their dirty work. But I’m not leaving you without a real weapon.” And he gave the zip-tied screwdriver-pole a pointed look. “Make sure to refill the blowtorch. That and keeping this place warm are going to be your best defenses while I’m gone.”
Greg set the gun down on the bench. “When you’re gone? Look, I know you feel guilty about all this, but that doesn’t mean you need to go out there and get yourself killed. We’ll stay as a group. You go out there, we all go. We’ll prepare together and head out. Together.”
“Not this time. You need to stay in here and take care of Mands.” He winked at Mandy as he walked past. “You and her have to spice things up around here, keep things hot. Melt the bastards.”
“And where the hell are you going?”
“To take care of the source of all this snow.”
Chapter Ten
“Like hell you are,” snapped Greg. He stepped over the melting mess on the ground to meet Taylor at the garage door, ignoring the way his feet pulsed in agony.
“I won’t be too long.” Taylor sounded as if he were going to the grocery store—oh, I’m just picking something up. Be right back. You won’t even notice I’m gone. He pointed toward the garage door with the hand holding the paint. “You make sure this closes completely behind me. Going to try and tie the handle down to the ground.”
“There’s a giant, fucking snowman right outside!”
“Thought we weren’t supposed to cuss in front of Mandy.”
Greg grabbed for Taylor’s arm, but Taylor evaded easily, almost dismissively. With a glance at Mandy where she huddled by the heater, her knees pulled up into his shirts, Greg pressed close to Taylor’s side.
“I don’t want to see you killed by those things.” He kept his voice low, just high enough to be heard over the rumbling generator. “Plus, you’re freezing. We need to get warm. We need to stay toge—”
“We need to remove those snow shapers or else there won’t be a we anymore. There will only be an used-to-be, frozen solid in your garage to be found by nosy neighbors in the morning. That’s it. That’s all that will be left of any of us.”
He reached for the garage door, but Greg pressed against it, ignoring the way the snow leaked through the shop towels he’d tied around his feet in a vain attempt to warm them.
“Damn it, Taylor! You can’t go out there!”
Taylor spun, the paint can swinging wide and his eyes flashing furiously as he slapped his palm against Greg’s chest. “And you can’t actually stop me. Get over to your daughter. Protect her. And I’ll take care of the rest.”
But something in Greg couldn’t let it go, couldn’t let Taylor open the garage door and walk back out into the storm. Because, unlike all those other times when Taylor would slip away, escaping to his apartment or driving off to who-knew-where to do who-knew-what, this time there would be no coming back. Taylor would walk out into the storm and that would be the last Greg would ever see of him.
The back end of that leather jacket. A last flash of those fiery, insistent eyes.
Something released in Taylor’s furious, anxious expression. He leaned forward, brushing a kiss over Greg’s lips. “I brought them here. Let me get rid of them.”
“And if you don’t?”
“I will,” insisted Taylor. “I’ve been doing this for over a decade. This is my life. I’ll remove them. You just stay alive. Leave me a warm place by that heater to come back to.”
Maybe it was the way Taylor said, “come back” or maybe it was the conviction in his voice that he could, and would, survive. Or maybe it was the cold soaking up through the shop towels and soles of Greg’s feet becoming a visceral, painful reminder that Taylor was right, that none of them would survive—Mandy wouldn’t survive—were he not to destroy the elves, but something made Greg relax, stagger out of the way. He stared numbly as Taylor yanked the garage door open a few feet, the snow spilling inward.
“Taylor?”
But Taylor didn’t pause. He didn’t even glance backward. He squinted out through the snow before ducking into the night, the garage door coming back down within inches of the concrete floor.
“I love you,” whispered Greg, too low for anything but the generator to hear. The words bounced around in his mind, fluttering in a chilly snowstorm of their own, the admission squeezing the air from his lungs. The truth of it a pained throbbing in his heart.
Hobbling away, with the fresh, cold air blowing free the gasoline flavor that permeated the garage, Greg scrubbed at his eyes. Exhaustion clawed at him, the garage a chilly replacement for their beds this Christmas Eve.
Was it still Eve? He couldn’t tell how early in the morning it might be—how late in the morning. Daylight felt far away. Though, he doubted daylight would even bring forth relief. The storm continuing until Greg and Taylor and even Mandy…
Something smacked against the garage door, causing him to jump. A light tapping followed, like sticks hopping along the rough slats on the outside. Mandy leapt up, her eyes going wide.
“Is it the elves?” she asked. “Are they coming, Daddy?”
“Stay there and get warm,” he instructed. Then he scrambled into action.
He pulled the useless shop towels off his feet and carried paint can after paint can toward the garage door. Then he dragged over a heavy tool box that was never meant to be moved, the sound of it scraping against the floor to rival the generator’s rumbling.
There he tied handles to string and string to metal hinges, adding as much weight as he could find to keep that door closed, using metal stripping when he ran out of spooled wire and weed whacker string. He wrapped the damp shop towels into balls and shoved them either side of his makeshift exhaust pipe in the window so that
less of the wind would whistle inside. Then he pulled open his catch-all drawer and sifted for a extra key to his SUV.
He thought he’d kept one in here, but maybe he’d used it. Grabbed it one day when he’d been lazy and then just never returned it. The keys and batteries and tape and zip-ties rattled together like some awful turntable, scratching and clanging and falling against one another.
With a shudder, he slumped against the open drawer, staring down at the useless, useless junk.
When Mandy wrapped small arms about his middle and squeezed, he reached deep inside and pulled out a smile. Then picked her up and held her close, her breath hot against his ear, the sweatshirt she wore warm where the heater had continuously blown against her.
“The door is leaking,” she said softly.
She shivered against him, her fear palpable as it turned her little body into a vibration. Like the late nights last year, when she’d woken and snuck into his bed whispering of the elves in her nightmares, of the spearmint forest that she couldn’t escape from.
Greg twisted to look at the garage door, where the snow continued to crumble inside. Those last few inches he hadn’t managed to close again occasionally shuddering as something walked the snow above, pressing it down or packing it tight.
Or attempting to dig.
“It’s okay, sweetie. Taylor tied the outside down. And those cans and that tool box over there are going to make it harder for them to lift it up. I looked pretty silly pushing the tool box, didn’t I?” He tried to chuckle, but the noise came out like a wheeze.
Mandy lifted her head from his shoulder, some of her hair fizzing into the air with the static electricity brought from sitting so close to the dryness of the heater.
“I meant the other door,” she whispered.
“The other door…”
The SUV sat parked on the far side of the garage. Parked by the door into the mudroom that led into the kitchen. It made it easier, being that close, to climb right out, head right in. Groceries able to be carried right inside whether rain or shine…or snow.
Carefully, he stepped to his right, his feet twinging. His gaze passed over the windshield, slid across the front fender to the stairs leading up to the door.
A viscous liquid leaked out from the crack. White, like the snow, yet stained a vibrant, happy red in stripes. Like a peppermint wheel. The liquid tracked a gooey path down the staircase, like frosting pouring down a cake, only to bead and dry in attractive droplets.
But this frosting did not stop. It reached the next step and poured across it as well, sifting in all directions. Concrete covered smoothly, melted sugar spinning such that the color swirled. Fleur-de-lis, concentric circles, wavy echoes. Like an elf decorating cookies.
“What is it? Is it elf blood?” asked Mandy, her head turned so that she was almost pressing her cheek against Greg’s.
“I don’t think so.”
He couldn’t smell it over the gasoline, but he suspected it would be permeating the air with a sickly sweetness, like Mandy’s breath after Halloween, like the inside of that long-destroyed gingerbread house.
“Fetch me one of the buckets,” said Greg, setting Mandy down. “From over in the corner.”
She pattered off, her too-big socks slapping against the concrete.
Something smashed against the garage door, startling them both. The snow jumped, the strings shook, one attached to a further away paint can tensing as the door pressed and rattled.
“Daddy!” Mandy came racing back sans bucket. “I need my jump rope!”
She threw herself into his arms. He carried her quickly to the back of the garage, to the corner where he could tuck her between the bench and his other huge standing tool box. There he put her down, running his hands along her face, continually pulling off her arms as she tried to lock them about his neck, her breaths coming harder and harder, sobs beginning to overtake her senses.
“No, sweetie. You need to stay here. Daddy’s going to take care of it, okay? You have to stay here.”
He pulled her arms down again and pressed them to her sides, then moved away quickly, fetching a bucket and the broom. Mandy tucked herself further back, the hose from the nail gun pressing against her head as she pulled into a ball, knees in his shirts, tears slipping down her squinched face.
The garage door rattled, jerking at the tool box, tugging at the paint cans, causing Greg’s heart to leap every time. He took the broom and brushed snow into the bucket from a distance in an attempt to keep his feet out of the clumped snow. Then he hefted the bucket around toward the stairs where the strength of the peppermint made his eyes water and his head spin.
The strands in the broom clogged up quickly as he made a vain attempt to mop the liquid up. The bristles tugged and hardened, the liquid where he swept the brush turning stiff. Like hard candy. But the rest of the flowing liquid didn’t stop, continuing to pour from under the door, dribble over the dried hunks he’d managed to glob into tacky balls and hole-ridden piles.
When he went to pull the broom free, it remained stuck fast, as if the tacky liquid had fastened on, forming a hard coating. He jerked and yanked, but all he managed was to strip bristles from the broom as the liquid continued its advance, pouring over the choppy mess he’d made, filling in the gaps and crevices with fresh frosting—or, whatever this peppermint lava flow might be.
Above his head, the door creaked.
He’d known they were here. He remembered their pointed ears, their sharp features, their garish clothing. Yet still, when the door whined its way open and an elf appeared from the dark of his own house, her curled, powdered shoes stepping easily on the tacky substance, Greg froze. He froze long enough for the elf to lower what looked like a candy cane the size of a gun, that barrel pointing toward him, its end sparking and smoking in explicit warning.
At a particularly loud pop, Greg found himself instinctually reacting, throwing the entire snow-filled bucket at the elf. It hit with a splatter, the elf wind-milling her arms, the sparking candy cane pointing high as it shot off like a roman candle, a whistling, crackling sound rending through the enclosed space.
As the crackle turned into an explosion and an echoing bang! erupted through the garage, the elf grasped the doorframe. Greg ducked. The bucket bounced off the staircase to roll away, grinding hard candy against the concrete. The spent candy cane tumbled to the staircase to be sucked into the tacky liquid.
Behind him, Mandy cried out.
Spinning, Greg called to her, searching the other end of the garage for her wild black mane of hair, but only catching sight of the blackened char from the shooting candy candle. He stepped in that direction to find Mandy, check if she was all right, only to be brought up short by a sudden movement out of the corner of his eye, followed by the broom handle pitching forward into the side of his head.
The handle smacked him right in the temple, sending him staggering against his SUV. For a moment, the room spun, and the frailest edge of the liquid reached his bare foot, the sugar hot to the touch. He jerked his foot away, gasping.
The elf made a cackling sound, her voice tinny and high-pitched. “Where is dear Taylor? Is he not here with you?”
The elf perched on top of the broom’s base, little feet finding purchase against the hardened candy bristles as she pulled a fresh candy candle from her thick bandolier, powdered sugar raining off her in all directions. Like snow. Settling against the tacky candy still spreading beneath her like an encroaching roll of lava prepared to claim all it touched.
Greg grasped for anything at hand, the side mirror of his SUV showing the garage door as it banged and pounded, shuddering under a barrage of snowmen fists. But there was nothing, nothing but his car and that tacky substance, and that candy cane knockoff of a roman candle that now sputtered with flame, sparking and prepared to launch. He grit his teeth and rose one arm, ducking that he might be able to deflect this one.
Then something hit the elf in her thin shoulder. Something small and sharp and
fast. The elf’s arm jerked and her eyes flashed angrily as she smacked a hand against sudden, blossoming sugar-blood that glowed a sparkling red-brown as it began to leak between her fingers. She lifted her head with a sneer, baring her teeth like an animal.
With a twist of her body the broom handle went smacking down the hood of the car toward the floor, the elf gliding along the wooden shaft. Then another sharp projectile hit the elf, causing her to jerk backward and step off the safety of the broom. Then another sliced through her shoulder, near the sugary mess leaking down her arm. A third through her stomach.
One pinged off the metal of the SUV. Another buried deep into the door. Then one hit the concrete steps and instead of bouncing lay claimed by the sticky sugary wave.
Nails! Those were nails hitting the elf.
Greg straightened and ducked around the side mirror to see over the hood. There was Mandy, her eyes squinted almost all the way closed as she hugged the nail gun to her chest with both arms and squeezed the trigger with multiple little fingers. Behind her, the hose attached to the compressor ran in curling loops back toward the work bench.
There should have been a safety stopping those nails from flinging through the air. Yet there Mandy stood, his sweatshirt flowing about her like a wide nightgown, shooting those nails into a hissing elf.
“You leave my Daddy alone!” shouted Mandy, the buzz of the generator making her voice shriller.
The elf toppled backward against the staircase, her body riddled with oozing wounds where the nails had embedded. She squirmed against the churning staircase, the candy beginning to harden, sucking at her wiggling figure.
There came a whistle as the lit candy cane candle shot off, straight up against the garage roof, where it exploded. Greg ducked and Mandy yelled something unintelligible, the nails ceasing their endless barrage. Bits of still-glowing ash and peppermint rained down from a blackened scorch mark above their heads.
From the doorway’s darkness, Greg saw movement, another elf perhaps, or a snow angel with frosted wings. He didn’t wait to verify; he merely gripped the broom and swung the pole back up, over the elf’s body, hit the open door so it swung shut and then bent forward, wedging the handle of the broom against the closed door. The bristle-end of the broom didn’t so much as budge, too lodged into the ocean of tacky hard candy.
Rise of the Snowmen Page 10
