Snowblind

by Christopher Golden

  “Thank you,” Jake replied. “Meanwhile, I’m getting another beer.”

  He went back into the kitchen and fetched a Corona from the fridge, cutting himself a slice of the lime that he’d left out on the granite counter. Even just a room away from Harley, the house seemed to reassert the abandoned sort of quiet that had compelled him to buy it in the first place. Now, more than two years after he’d moved in, the rambling old farmhouse still needed almost as much fixing up as it had when he’d taken possession. The only room that he’d managed to get into pretty much the condition he’d envisioned was the kitchen, but even here there was the matter of the old window and the dead radiator beneath it. Both had to come out, but he was putting it off until he could afford to replace all the windows. Until then it would remain a house of winter drafts and half-renovated rooms, a work in progress. But Jake figured that he himself was a work in progress, so maybe it really was the perfect home for him after all.

  Jake squeezed lime into the neck of the Corona bottle and left the twisted slice on the counter, heading back to the family room.

  Family room, he thought. Why did he keep referring to the space that way? He wasn’t in any rush to have a family. Not that he wanted to be alone forever, but he liked the solitary quality of his life out here on the outskirts of Coventry. Still, he supposed it had been too long since he’d had company other than Harley or the few friends he still kept in touch with from high school. Work had sort of consumed him. Harley had underestimated at three jobs. Jake also sold his photos online for everything from calendars to book covers to greeting cards. He still couldn’t ask a lot for such uses, but the more popular his work became, the higher he could push his asking price.

  “What do you think?” he asked as he rejoined Harley. “You up for a movie? I was thinking L.A. Confidential, ’cause you said you hadn’t seen it. That’s a gem, man. Russell Crowe, Kevin Spacey, Guy Pearce, Kim Basinger … but it seems like it’s practically forgotten.”

  Harley had moved to the big easy chair at one end of the coffee table. He’d closed the portfolio and sat sipping his beer, head cocked, gazing out the window at the snow falling. The storm had warmed a little, so the flakes that hit the glass made a wet ticking noise. Not quite sleet, but getting there.

  “Sorry, man. I’ve got an early shift. Probably going to be a mess in the morning with downed lines and such. Soon as I finish this beer I should head home.”

  “Says Officer Drink-’n’-Drive.”

  “I had three beers in three friggin’ hours.”

  “I know,” Jake said. “It’s pitiful how you nurse those things. Big guy like you.”

  Harley chuckled, the sound a deep rumble in his chest, as Jake sat down on the sofa and took a long swig of his Corona. His gaze wandered to the window and he found himself staring at the frame and sash and sill, hating how dry the wood was and vowing to repaint in the spring if he couldn’t afford to replace them altogether. The wind gusted outside and the resulting draft made him shiver, as if the storm had reached right into the house and traced its fingers along the back of his neck. There were half-a-dozen blankets scattered around the family room thanks to that draft. Most of the time he found it just a part of the house’s charm, but not in a storm.

  Not with the snow falling outside.

  “You never answered my question,” Harley said.

  Jake didn’t pretend that he hadn’t heard or didn’t understand the reference.

  “You’ve had three girlfriends since I’ve known you,” Jake said. “It seems easy for you, jumping in and out of relationships like that. You start one up, get all intense, and then it falls apart for one reason or another.”

  Harley shrugged. “You find out things about each other or you just realize you don’t like the woman as much as you thought. Or she doesn’t like you. That’s the way it goes, man. Trial and error.”

  Jake nodded. “I guess. But it seems effortless for you. For me … I don’t know, it’s just too much damn work. Yeah, it’s nice to have someone. Have things to look forward to. And I’m gonna go out on a limb and say I like sex. Sex makes me the kind of happy that I usually only manage to be in dreams.”

  As soon as the words were out of his mouth he glanced at Harley, thinking his friend would mock him, but Harley’s intelligent eyes were wide and thoughtful.

  “Anyway,” Jake went on, “I had a couple of long-term girlfriends in high school and maybe three relationships since.”

  “But?” Harley asked.

  Jake tried to find the words. Glancing around the room, he spotted the boxes of new hardwood flooring in the corner and something clicked in him.

  “This house,” he started. “You’ve been in most of the rooms and I’m sure you’ve seen the pattern. The stairs are new but the railing needs replacing. The back bedroom has half a new floor. The bathroom down here has all new fixtures but the tile for the floor is in boxes.”

  “I’ve been meaning to talk to you about that. It’s kind of weird having to stand on broken-down cardboard boxes while I piss.”

  Jake raised a hand. “There you go. I like the project, y’know. I bought this place so I could work on it, but why can’t I finish anything?”

  “Maybe—”

  “Rhetorical question. I know why.”

  “And?” Harley asked, draining the last of his beer.

  “I think I love the idea of the house more than I love the house. When it’s all fixed up—when it’s what I imagine it’s supposed to be—what happens then?”

  Harley leaned forward in the creaking chair, set his empty Sam Adams bottle on the coffee table, and pointed at him.

  “You’re saying that’s why your relationships don’t work? You can’t be bothered to work at making them better because you’re worried they’ll disappoint you in the end?”

  Jake sipped his beer, mulling it over.

  “It sounds shitty when you say it like that, but yeah. I guess that’s what I’m saying.”

  “That’s pitiful,” Harley said.

  Jake laughed out loud. “Asshole.”

  There was one girl Jake had felt different about, but they’d been closer to best friends than boyfriend and girlfriend. Really, Miri Ristani was the only person he had ever felt understood him after Isaac died. They had understood each other, really. After all, they had been together that night, and Miri’s father had been among those who had gone missing in the blizzard and turned up dead days later when the snow started to melt. He and Miri had both lost people they loved to the storm. And when Jake talked about the figures that Isaac had seen out in the snow, the hands that had dragged Isaac out the window—dragged him to his death—Miri had really seemed to believe him.

  At least back then she had. They’d been kids, of course, and the older they’d gotten, the less either one of them felt comfortable talking concretely about that night and the more they were both willing to just nod and go along when people talked about the many tragic accidents that storm had caused.

  Jake had stopped talking about what he’d seen. Part of him had even stopped believing the evidence of his own eyes … but he had never really forgotten, and sometimes he dreamed that he stood at an open window watching terrible, slender, icy figures dancing in the falling snow. In his nightmares they knew he was watching—he felt it—and he waited as if frozen for the moment they would turn and look his way.

  Miri had understood, even after they had stopped talking about it. But she had left Coventry soon after her high school graduation five years earlier and never looked back. Never even sent him a letter. Jake missed her, but even if she showed up on his doorstep with a six-pack and threw herself on his mercy, he didn’t think he could forgive her.

  He and Harley had become good friends, but Jake wasn’t ready to talk to him about Isaac … or about Miri.

  Harley stood. “All right. I’m done psychoanalyzing you for tonight,” he said in a terrible German accent. “At our next session, we will discuss your resentment toward your pa
rents.”

  “Can’t wait,” Jake said, rising to see him out.

  They said their good nights, Harley promising a rain check on L.A. Confidential. They had bonded over a mutual love of movies, good food, and New England Patriots football. Jake hated the boozy, frat-house-swagger mentality that a lot of football fans had. He was happy to have a friend who would have a few beers and yell at the TV with him while they watched the game, but didn’t need to get drunk and bump chests at every touchdown. In the year or so that they’d been hanging out together, Harley had fast become one of his closest friends. He felt comfortable with the guy, and that was uncommon for him.

  As Harley went out to his car, using an arm to wipe thick, wet snow from his windshield, Jake stood in the open door and watched the storm churn and eddy across his property. The trees were heavily burdened but they still bent with the wind. With the snow turning to sleet there wouldn’t be much more accumulation but the roads would be frozen and treacherous tonight, and tomorrow’s commute would be a total mess.

  “Hey!” he called. “Watch it driving home, okay?”

  Harley had opened the car door and now he paused before climbing in, bathed in the yellow light inside the big old Buick.

  “Don’t worry, Mom. I’ll be careful.”

  The massive policeman folded himself into the front seat and yanked the door shut. A moment later the Buick’s engine growled to life and Harley began to back out of the driveway. The headlights washed over the house and yard, illuminating the tree line at the edge of the property for a few brief moments.

  In among the trees stood a human silhouette, a small man or a child lost in the storm. A dark outline, immobile, watching his house.

  “What the hell?” Jake said, taking a step out onto his front stoop before he realized he had only socks on his feet.

  Wetness soaked through the cloth and he stepped back inside the open door, taking his eyes off the silhouette for a brief moment. When he glanced back up, Harley’s taillights were vanishing up the road and the woods were too dark for him to tell the difference between one tree trunk and another, or discern whether the silhouette he’d seen had been a person at all, or just a trick of the shadows.

  In spite of the wet snow that whipped at his face and arms and dampened his clothes, he stood inside the open door and squinted into the storm, watching the trees for some hint of motion that could not be explained by the urgings of the wind.

  Giving up at last, the chill sinking deeply into his bones, he turned to go back inside. A gust blew against the door and for just a moment he thought he might have heard a voice on the wind, saying his name.

  He froze there with the door three inches from closed, his hand unmoving on the knob.

  Then he laughed softly and shook his head.

  Over the years he had often thought that one day he would be able to endure a snowstorm without being haunted by the memory of his brother’s death. He still hoped that would be the case, but it was clear that the day hadn’t yet arrived. The storm seemed to resist as he closed the door, shutting it out. The dead bolt made a heavy, satisfying thunk as he turned the lock, and Jake found that he liked that sound.

  He liked it very much.

  SEVEN

  In the gun safe on the top shelf of Doug Manning’s closet, snug beside his Glock 19 and two small ammunition boxes, there lay a key ring. Each of the seven keys bore a set of initials written in black Sharpie marker, indicating the name of the person whose front door could be opened by that key. Whenever a customer at Harpwell’s Garage had been foolish enough to leave his house key on the ring while his vehicle was being worked on overnight, Doug took the key to Jameson Hardware after hours and had a duplicate made. He had copied a dozen keys so far, and he, Franco, and Baxter had already used five of them to gain entry to houses and steal whatever valuables they could lay their hands on.

  After the job was finished he would always stop and toss the duplicate key down a storm drain, so the keys that could tie him directly to crimes already committed were gone. The remaining seven—certainly enough that he would not have to make any new ones for a while—sat in the gun safe, calling to him. Each one was a crime yet to be committed, a betrayal of the faith he’d once had in himself. Just having them in the house, storing them next to his gun, turned his mood black and put his teeth on edge.

  I’m not a bad guy, he thought. But he could not escape the truth, that the gun and the keys made him feel nearly as sinister by their mere presence as did the knowledge of his crimes.

  I’m not a bad guy.

  Doug lay on his bed fully clothed, the room bathed in the blue light from his flatscreen television. According to the onscreen guide, this channel was meant to be showing a mixed-martial-arts tournament but instead he’d turned it on to find a celebrity poker game. None of the so-called celebrities interested him but he had left it on because he had never been very good at poker and thought he might learn something. Instead he found himself barely able to pay attention. His thoughts were drawn to that top shelf in the closet. He could practically feel the key ring in there, as if it gave off some unpleasant vibration.

  Every day he tried to forget about those keys and every night he could think of little else. Yes, he had thrown away the ones they had used, but eventually the burglary investigations would crisscross at Harpwell’s Garage. Unless every cop in Coventry was painfully stupid, they would figure out how the burglars were getting in without forced entry and start putting two and two together, tracking places where all the rich assholes could have had their keys stolen or copied. Doug had been careful to establish alibis for three out of the five robberies so far, but none of them would stand up to close scrutiny. He’d also taken four of the twelve total keys during shifts when he wasn’t working—wasn’t even supposed to be there. He’d gone in to pick up his pay and hung around shooting the shit with some of the other mechanics … been smart about it.

  The cops would consider him, of course, but they wouldn’t be sure. It helped that he had no criminal record. Once they started sniffing around, though, his little life of crime would come to a screeching halt. Doug had told Franco and Baxter that from the beginning.

  The keys, though … they could trip him up. If the cops got a warrant and found that key ring, they might not be able to connect them to previous thefts but it probably wouldn’t take them long to identify them as copies of house keys of Harpwell’s customers. There had to be a better place to hide them but try as he might, he couldn’t think of anywhere he could be certain they would remain hidden. A safe deposit box might work, but it would be damn inconvenient and someone was bound to notice him going in and out of the bank. If he stuck them in a jar and buried it in the yard, he would still have to dig them up every time he needed a key.

  The keys were a problem.

  How the hell did you get into this? he asked himself.

  His head hurt, but not nearly as much as his back. He lay in bed, propped on a pillow, barely even seeing the so-called celebrities as they announced what charities they were playing poker for—as if they didn’t really need the money themselves. A vein in his temple throbbed in time with his pulsing awareness of the key ring and how fucking stupid he’d been to get involved with Baxter and Franco. With work scarce and money even scarcer, he had persuaded himself that he was far cleverer than he actually was. Desperation, he had found, could be very convincing.

  As for the crimes themselves, Doug waffled between guilt and a cynical sort of pride. The pride always made him feel even guiltier. The people he’d robbed might be rich and some of them might even be assholes, but he hadn’t been raised to take things that didn’t belong to him. Most people dropping off a car for service at Harpwell’s left only their car keys, but some customers—usually men—would hand over the keys and then go jump into another vehicle with their wives or girlfriends, knowing that the spouse or partner or roommate had her own set and, after all, it was only for a night or two. For some reason these guys pissed him
off, not because what they’d done was stupid but because of the carefree arrogance of their stupidity. In a way, stealing from them was doing them a favor, teaching them a valuable lesson.

  The keys practically screamed at him from inside the metal box up in the closet. Wasn’t he just as stupid as those rich guys, having the damn things in his house?

  “Fuck!”

  He jumped up from the bed, turned toward the closet, and immediately staggered and groaned as pain lanced through his back and neck. Swearing profusely under his breath, he leaned against the wall. The pain ran like an electrical current across his shoulders and down the musculature of his back and he ground his teeth together, acutely aware—as he was anytime the pain seized him—of how alone he was. There had been women in his life in the past twelve years and he had genuinely cared for some of them. But none of them had eclipsed Cherie. From the day they’d met, he had always felt that she was too good for him. He had defined himself—who he was and what he was capable of—by his reflection in her eyes. If he could be half the man she wanted to believe he was, that would have been enough.

  Now it just didn’t seem to matter much anymore. Who did he have to worry about disappointing? No one. All he had was his pain and his guilt and the pills that made them go away.

  The pill bottle sat waiting on his nightstand, as it always did. The original injury dated back years, to a fall he’d taken at the garage. Over time he had reinjured it so that he no longer seemed to have a single day without pain … without pills. It had gotten so bad that local doctors wouldn’t even prescribe for him anymore and he had to go out of town. Lately, Franco had been hooking him up. Half the money he had gotten from the burglaries had gone to pills, but what choice did he have? He had to have something to dull the pain.

  Dry swallowing two pills, he recapped the bottle and just stood for a second, letting the muscles in his neck relax a little. When he found he could breathe without pain, he walked gingerly over to his closet and looked at the rectangular gray gun safe that sat on the top shelf among piles of loosely folded T-shirts. The keys were just adding to his anxiety, which only tensed him up and made his back pain worse. One way or another, he had to get the keys out of his house. Now that he’d decided upon the task, it seemed important to do it immediately, snow or no snow.