Colder than Hell

by Anthony Neil Smith

  The characters and events portrayed in this book are fictitious. Any similarity to real persons, living or dead, is coincidental and not intended by the author.

  Text copyright © 2013 Anthony Neil Smith

  All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced, or stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise, without express written permission of the publisher.

  Published by 47North

  P.O. Box 400818

  Las Vegas, NV 89140

  eISBN: 9781611091809

  CONTENTS

  CHAPTER ONE

  CHAPTER TWO

  CHAPTER THREE

  CHAPTER FOUR

  CHAPTER FIVE

  CHAPTER SIX

  CHAPTER SEVEN

  CHAPTER EIGHT

  CHAPTER NINE

  CHAPTER TEN

  CHAPTER ELEVEN

  CHAPTER TWELVE

  CHAPTER THIRTEEN

  CHAPTER FOURTEEN

  CHAPTER FIFTEEN

  CHAPTER SIXTEEN

  CHAPTER ONE

  Sherrie was, like, majorly pissed off. It was mid-February during the warmest and least snowy winter the Dakotas had ever seen, and she had an interview for a job in Fargo, another hour away on I-29. So where the hell did this blizzard come from? That’s what she got for not paying attention to the news. She thought maybe she remembered someone saying something about it on the radio between songs, but she was, like, texting, you know? How was someone supposed to pay attention to people talking when…never mind. She had glanced down at a new text from Kate—Good luck, bitch! Holla when ur done!—and when she looked up again, the flakes were already falling. A string of brake lights flashed two by two until she had to hit her own. The snow was heavier, piling up on her windshield. Then the crawling traffic stopped for good.

  That was more than a half hour ago.

  Back at Kate: Im gonna be sooo late. It’s like Destiny for me to stay stuck in Windmyre.

  Her phone battery was down to one bar. Her reception, too. This stretch of interstate was one of the bleakest ever. There were hardly even gas stations unless you were willing to take an exit, drive another ten miles to a barely there town, then find out the gas station is open four hours a day, four days a week. Some sort of religious reason.

  Every year, Sherrie heard about miles of road being frozen, people stuck in cars overnight. She had the emergency kit her dad insisted she carry in the backseat, right under her grandmother’s quilt—not one she quilted herself, no, but one Sherrie knew Grammy had bought at Kmart years ago and pretended she’d made herself “at my mother’s knee.” It was also stained with big splotches of Grammy’s favorite, Grain Belt beer with olive juice. But thankfully Sherrie had filled up before leaving town and the car was great on gas. She should be able to keep the heat on for most of the night, if necessary.

  Kate texted back: One of us! One of us! We are your fate, gurl, Could B worse.

  True that. Sherrie nodded. But it could be a shit-ton better, too. It sucked being a teen mom from a town that small. Like, they were all sluts, all of them, but she was the stupid slut for getting knocked up. And that was even from the girls who had gotten knocked up and were married with two before age twenty—well, they’d planned it that way, so they said. Sherrie was the one who wanted an abortion. That is, until Braden nearly beat her silly for bringing it up. Not going to vacuum out his kid, nuh-uh. She was going to have that baby, and she was going to love it, and he was going to provide for it—you know, buy it diapers and stuff. Not like real child support. He sure as hell didn’t want to get married. That would have crushed his delusions about blowing town as some sort of skateboard star. He fell off six tricks out of ten, and he was scared of heights. Who was he kidding?

  And also—Sherrie rolled her eyes just remembering—Braden had called his daughter “it” until two minutes before she popped out. Then he wanted to name her Felicity, the name of the girl he was hooking up with before Sherrie, but claimed it was the name of an aunt who had died from cancer. As if she didn’t already know.

  There was no way she was going to let Braden fuck up her child’s life by popping in and out, pretending to care one minute, ignoring her texts asking for those diapers he had mentioned the next. So she cut him off. She went to a lawyer. Even her own mother didn’t want that, but Sherrie was tired of Mom’s sermons and Dad’s cold shoulder and the whole town clucking their tongues at everything she ever did. No more. This job in Fargo at the John Deere dealer would give her security, benefits for her and Valerie—yes, named for her best friend’s mother, the only one who had ever been truly kind to her—plus enough of an income to get her own place and consider a few community college classes. Maybe she could be a TV journalist after all.

  She searched through her purse. First, the candy bar. She would need something to tide her over. Next, the phone charger—except it wasn’t there. No, no, no, she was sure she had put it in there before she left. She dumped everything into the passenger seat. It wasn’t hidden among the lip gloss and the concealer and receipts from Hardee’s.

  Better call ahead, then, while she still had the juice. It rang and rang, and then a woman answered.

  “Yeah, like, I’m Sherrie, and I’m supposed to have an interview today, but I’ve hit some bad snow that stopped all the traffic. I’m not sure how long—”

  “You didn’t leave early enough?”

  Rolled her eyes. “I’m stuck right now, out on the interstate.”

  “Really, you should have thought ahead.”

  “Well, I’m sorry, I thought I’d be fine. I’m sitting in a whole line of cars buried in snow. Can we reschedule? That’s all I’m asking.”

  “Listen, I wouldn’t worry if I were you. We’ve already seen plenty of good applicants. If you can’t make it, just be safe and turn around when you can.”

  Oh. My. God. That. Whore. “No, please, listen.”

  “I’ve got another call. Should I just mark through your name? Okay? And done. Mm-hm. Bye, now.”

  “Wait, wait—”

  But the line was dead, and Sherrie swore once she got out of this, she’d pick up Kate and they would whip this chick’s ass, they sure as hell would.

  No, that was Small Town Sherrie talking, not New Beginnings Sherrie. New Sherrie thought, like, isn’t this illegal? They can’t do that. She should sic her lawyer on the bitch. How much would he charge to send a threatening letter? She thought about giving him a call but remembered the low battery. Maybe not even enough juice left to tell Kate about it.

  Nothing else to do but go back home, search for more jobs, deal with her mom and Braden another week, all the time plotting a way out. But still, she couldn’t shake the sick feeling in her stomach. She’d never been stranded like this, all alone. She wasn’t even able to see the cars in front of her anymore.

  Her phone buzzed. A text from Mom. Are u there yet? Val is sick throwing up fever. Can U come home?

  Of course Val was sick. Sherrie had told Mom that this morning when she left the baby with her. And of course Mom wasn’t listening, as usual. Too busy thinking of different reasons Sherrie should stay where she was instead of jetting off to the big city. No idea why, since it seemed all Mom wanted Sherrie around for was to have an audience for her sermons. When was the last time she had said, “I love you”? And “God loves you but doesn’t love your sin” didn’t count.

  Sherrie tried to text back, but the phone chimed and ran its shut-down animation halfway through. “No no no no! Fuck!” A blank screen. When was the last time she’d seen this screen absolutely blank? Right out of the box? She tossed the phone onto the passenger seat and tried not to panic. Without the ding
ing text notices, the wind was louder, and she could even hear the snowflakes as they blew into her window.

  Nothing to do but sit and wait. She tried the radio, but she was on that shitty stretch of I-29 where all the stations were fuzzy. The only CDs she had were Adele’s 21, which she’d played so much it wasn’t even music anymore, just noise, and a Nickelback that really only worked for her on weekends. No reason to rock out all alone in the snow. So she settled for a weather report on an AM oldies station, the droning voice a comfort as she pulled her parka tighter, ramped up the heat, and closed her eyes.

  The crunching snow woke her. She blinked. Yes, the car was still running, and the radio was playing a soft-rock seventies hit, maybe. The kind of stuff her mother used to like before going all Jesus on her. She spun the volume down, rested her head against the glass. Her mouth was dry, the heater going full blast. Better check the gas gauge—already down to a quarter tank. How long had she dozed? The windshield was completely caked with snow and ice, as were all the side windows. So strange, bathed by blue light but blind to the world outside. Like a frozen cavewoman.

  She swallowed and tried to hold it together. Another go at the phone. Maybe there was just a tiny bit of reserve left in the battery. But she couldn’t even get the screen to blink at her.

  A shadow passed by outside. Sherrie could barely make out the shape, but it had to be a person. It passed from the passenger side around the front until it was darkening her window. She held her breath and listened closely.

  When the knock came on the glass, she shrieked. It was like a horror movie, right? But really, it was more likely a police officer or a fireman or someone like that. Another knock. The snow and ice fell off the window in chunks, but more snow covered it right back up. Another knock.

  “Okay, okay, okay, hold on.” Sherrie tried to roll the window down, but it wouldn’t go. Frozen. She flicked the lever back and forth, back and forth, and the window would come down a little more each time, but not enough. “It won’t go. I’m sorry.”

  A hand, no glove, smeared away the slush, picked at the hard bits around the seal. Wait, was that blood streaked across the glass? If it was, it disappeared as the snow struck it. The person outside looked like a man. Like a cop. He had a cop jacket and hat. Maybe he was here to evacuate her. Or maybe they’d cleared the road ahead and it was time to move on. Not like it would matter—her next move was a U-turn toward home, with no new job, no freedom.

  She rolled down her window and had to squint her eyes nearly shut to avoid the snow needles. But through her blinking and eyelashes, she could tell this was not a cop at all, regardless of the jacket and hat. Underneath was a prison jumpsuit. The man was bald, it seemed, and he wore wire-rimmed glasses. His lenses—and hell, his whole face—were smeared with blood. And he was laughing, too, in a dopey, like, pretty-high way. Weird, right? Before she could get the window up again, the man thrust both of his hands inside and grabbed her around the throat. She screamed as best she could. How could anyone not hear her? They were right there in the next lane, ahead and behind. How could they ignore her shouts? The man began to pull her through the open window like she didn’t weigh anything. She grabbed the steering wheel, but he was too strong. Once she was halfway out, he took his hands from her throat. Up close, he wasn’t as scary. A goofy smile, but blood on his teeth. His eyes were cloudy, and it looked like steam was coming off him. She stopped screaming, but not because she really wanted to. Goddamn, this was a nightmare, but it was, like, a fun nightmare. She giggled again.

  The man went in for a kiss, bloody lips and teeth and all. And Sherrie let it happen, the whole time realizing she should fight this. She should, I don’t know, like, struggle or yell Rape! or anything but let him keep on—

  But he needed her. She knew that. And soon, she knew what she had to do. She needed others. She just…needed them.

  On the ground, the fake cop gone, Sherrie stood, wiped the blood off her mouth with the back of her hand and walked off into the snow, looking for someplace warm where she could be around other people. There was an echo in her head: I need you, I need you, I need you…

  Sneakers caked with snow. Not good for walking around in this weather, which made him regret losing that pair of boots even more. Not what he wanted to be out in this anyway, but after the driver of the truck had been shot, what could he do? His ax swung beside him, lazily because he wasn’t sure these people were evil. They were something, but Matt Cahill hadn’t figured out what yet. He followed more tracks to this car, still running, the driver’s window down. Signs of a struggle, a little blood. It must not have been too long ago, since the snow in the driver’s seat was only a dusting. Another near miss. Another steaming, laughing zombie.

  The young guy following along, jeans and a T-shirt, with a bass guitar strapped onto his back, shouted from a few car lengths down, “You find them?”

  “Come on.” He waved the kid toward him and shivered in his light Windbreaker. Hands turning blue, nose going numb, though his sinuses were thick and burning. At least staying cold seemed to stave off the laughing. He drank from a nearly frozen bottle of water, choked it down. Shit. Which trail to follow now? He played “Eenie Meenie” in his head because if he’d flipped a coin, it would be long gone. He picked the one that looked like it had been made by the driver of the car rather than by the attacker. Maybe he could catch up before this person was too far gone, so that he could build enough of a crew to face the madman a second time.

  He hunched his shoulders and headed into the wind, thinking, I was colder than this when I was dead. This is nothing.

  CHAPTER TWO

  Meanwhile…

  Jimmy had to admit that it had been fun back when they’d started this band a couple of years ago, but after too many close calls with the big time, leaving them broken and frustrated every time, and all those shitty bars and high school dances, not to mention the birthday parties where the parents told them to keep it down and the kids were too busy texting to care, he was done in. Jimmy was done playing bass with The Vasectomies. He’d already applied to community college—he was going to be a mortician like his uncle Clark. Good money, and it was a field where there would always be demand. Everybody dies, after all. The next step was to tell the band. Just not yet. A handful of gigs left before he would have the money to pay his tuition.

  So here they were again, crammed into Lamar’s minivan, five guys and all their equipment, Jimmy squeezed between Dick Vader, the drummer, and their Swedish import guitar player, Sven. He’d been closer to them, literally, than to his last few girlfriends. The air was thick with farts and beer breath and the singer’s cigarillo smoke.

  “Jesus, can we crack a window?”

  “Shut up!” Dick Vader, sleeping, sort of. “Sleeping.”

  The driver—Lamar, keyboards—whined, “It’ll suck the heat out. And it’s, like, blowing sideways.”

  Isaac blew smoke toward him. “How about now? You like that?”

  Cough. “Whatever.”

  They say personal animosity sometimes makes for great music. But Jimmy knew that when it came to a mediocre cover band whose originals sounded eight years out of date halfway through writing them, being dicks to each other didn’t help at all. It was a reflex now, almost like each one of them was trying to see how much it would take to make the others quit the band.

  “Fuck this.” Jimmy climbed over the middle bench onto the back one, stacked high with guitar cases and drums and cymbals. He stretched his arm past the bass drum to the back window, opened it, and leaned close to get some fresh air. A few deep breaths later, he thought about how nice it would be working with the dead. How they wouldn’t try to step on his every last nerve like some sort of mental Twister game. Like, he’d even once been best friends with Dick Vader, who’d told the band if they didn’t give Jimmy a shot, he was out. They ended up dumping their much worse bass player, Isaac’s brother. But lately, with Dick drunk most hours of the day, sleeping the others, and fucking any high
school girl with raccoon-eyed makeup in between, Jimmy had felt like all the fun was gone and he had missed that point where he was supposed to either (A) be a huge star or (B) grow up.

  A few more gigs, and it was B.

  Another breath of less-gaseous air, freezing, hurting his sinuses. He wondered if Isaac had rolled a joint into his cigarillo or if they had always smelled that bad. Then there was that noise. A crack, an echo. Was that a gunshot? Jimmy rubbed the ice off the window with his sleeve and was able to make out someone walking around out there between the cars. A cop? Sure looked like a cop, but he was weaving. Drunk or high or wounded…something. He had his pistol out and was just waving at random, firing, mostly over the tops of cars or into the air. But it looked as if some of his shots had slammed into the cars. Jimmy thought there were muffled screams, but it was hard to tell over the sounds of idling engines and the shitty demo of new songs Isaac had slipped into the CD player. Just Isaac, a badly tuned guitar, and a synth drum track.

  “Hold up, guys, look at this.”

  They couldn’t hear him over the minor chords and emo angst bullshit. The cop was only a couple of cars back.

  Jimmy cranked his head around, shook Dick awake. “Hey! There’s a cop shooting out there. He’s going to shoot us! Get down!”

  Lamar finally turned the sound off. “What are you—wait, what…what did we do?”

  The cop must have heard, because he was now coming straight for the van, a goofy, wasted grin on his face. Lamar waved his hand in front of his face, clearing Isaac’s smoke. “Would you, like, get rid of that? Are you trying to get us arrested?”

  “Just be cool.” Isaac didn’t even try to stub it out or toss it or anything. “Just tobacco. I’m serious. You think I’m stupid?”

  “He’s shooting cars, man!”

  “Chill, all right? Just fucking chill!”

  Lamar gasped. Jimmy looked over to find the cop right at the driver’s window, brushing off the snow. Then the cop pressed his nose and tapped the barrel of his pistol against the glass.