Ice crystals had formed on the vanity mirror. TJ refused to look at it or to think. He grabbed towels from the linen closet and jammed them under the door, pushing with his fingers, filling the gap there, ignoring the fact that there were thinner gaps all around the doorframe.
“Thomas,” his mother said, in the voice of his little girl, and TJ felt his heart seizing in his chest as he ignored her, pressing himself against the door, hoping to narrow the spaces around it.
Supposed to protect them, he thought. Mom. Ella. Gracie. You’re supposed to take care of them. But he’d broken his word to his mother and she’d died as a result, and now the things that had killed her had returned to murder the rest of his family, to drag him into a hell constructed of his inability to love them enough. To be the man he’d always aspired to be.
He slumped against the bathroom wall and stared at the doorknob, watching as ice began to form around it.
Ella fell to her knees on the fuzzy blue throw rug, shaking her head as she stared at Grace, trembling with grief.
“Mrs. Farrelly,” Ella said, staring into the little girl’s old-woman eyes. “Martha. Please, you can’t let this happen.”
Grace stiffened, chin raised. “The storm is dying.”
“Not fast enough,” Ella said. “I don’t care what happens to me, but Grace—”
“We’ll be all right,” the girl replied, and for the first time TJ saw the selfishness in her, saw that in her fear she would say anything.
Ella slapped Grace so hard that it spun her back against the wall of the tub.
“Stop it!” TJ snapped.
The bathroom door began to tremble, and they heard long, icy claws drag along the wood.
Tears ran down Ella’s face as she turned to stare at her husband. “Don’t let this happen.”
TJ squeezed his eyes shut against the scratching noises and the anguish in his wife’s eyes. But even with his eyes closed, he felt the grip of the cold, the temperature still falling. His chest hurt as he inhaled the frigid air and opened his eyes, turning toward his wife and daughter—his “girls,” he called them.
He went and knelt beside Ella, nudging her aside as he reached into the bathtub for Grace, who stared back at him with the fearful, hurt, suspicious eyes of his dead mother.
“Mom,” he said, and Grace allowed herself to be pulled in her father’s embrace … Martha into her son’s.
TJ held her there, wincing at the rattle of the door in its frame, at the scrape of those icy claws on the wood. The gap was small but it had to be enough. Why weren’t they coming through? Were the creatures toying with them? TJ thought they must be and hated them for it.
He breathed in the scent of his daughter’s shampoo and felt her little heart beating against him. A thousand images of his mother crashed together in his head, memories that he cherished but that he had stored away like a much-loved photo album, there to be drawn out when he missed her most.
“Losing you was so hard,” he whispered to his mother. “Blaming myself made it even worse. But the living are the living and the dead are the dead.”
The scraping on the door grew louder and a gust of frigid air blew into the bathroom through the gap between door and frame, and he knew the evil that had come for them had decided to end it.
“TJ,” Ella said, and he heard her crying behind him, needing him.
He tightened his embrace on his daughter, shuddering with a sadness the likes of which he’d never known.
“I’ll always love you, Mom, but I can’t lose my Grace. She’s only eleven. She deserves to have a life. She deserves a chance. The Martha Farrelly I know, the woman who wanted grandkids so badly, she’d never put Grace at risk. I know you’re scared—”
He felt Grace relax in his arms, felt her breath on his cheek as she exhaled, nearly hanging from his neck.
“Daddy?” she whispered.
TJ couldn’t breathe. He jerked back, holding her at arm’s length, staring at his little girl. When he glanced over his shoulder he saw a gossamer shadow moving out through the door, passing through it as if it weren’t there, and he nearly called for her to come back.
“Gracie?” Ella said beside him. “Is it you?”
“Mom,” the girl said, almost impatiently, “I’m cold.”
Ella grabbed hold of her husband and daughter both and dragged them into a family embrace, Grace practically falling out of the tub on top of them.
“Oh, God, thank you,” Ella said.
TJ said a silent prayer of thanks as well, but his was not to God. He thought of all the things that he wished he’d thought to say to his mother and now never would. But he thought perhaps that was for the best.
“Hey,” Ella said, reaching up to caress his cheek, searching his eyes. “It’s gone quiet.”
And so it had.
The only sounds in the bathroom were the hum of the overhead fan and the quiet dripping of water as the ice on the doorknob began to melt.
TWENTY
“Jake. Wake up.”
Inhaling sharply, Jake sat up and found his head amid the clothes hanging in the closet. He gave an amused grunt and shook himself. Isaac shore a flashlight in his eyes and he squinted and turned away.
“I’m awake.”
“Listen,” Isaac said, nudging him. “Do you hear that?”
The boy might not have Isaac’s face, but his voice sounded so genuine, so right, that it made Jake shiver. He wondered if it was just his imagination—twelve years had passed, after all; how could he really remember what Isaac’s voice had sounded like back then? Maybe all ten-year-old boys sounded the same.
“I don’t hear anything,” he said.
But he frowned even as he spoke the words, because maybe he actually did hear something, a thumping noise that was not the sound of the shutter banging against the house. His heart skipped a beat, then began to race. He hadn’t been completely asleep but he had definitely been drifting off, despite that it was hours earlier than he usually went to bed. Now he couldn’t have been more awake. It felt like every cell in his body was on alert.
The sound stopped. He shifted, knocking over some shoes that he’d piled up to get them out of the way and tipping all the contents out of the open Monopoly box at his feet. His head hit the clothes again and some bare hangers jangled.
“Is that…?” Jake asked.
Isaac shook his head. “I don’t think so.”
The muffled sound of voices reached them, impossible to understand but clearly human. The thumping came again and Jake exhaled, realizing how stupid he’d been. He started to get up and Isaac grabbed his arm.
“No!” the boy said.
“Someone’s here. They’re banging at the door.”
“Don’t answer,” Isaac pleaded.
Jake hesitated, but he heard the muffled shouting again and thought whoever was out there didn’t seem likely to give up. A terrible thought occurred to him.
“What if something’s happened to Mom?”
Isaac glanced around the dark closet, forlorn, and then he nodded. “Okay, go. But don’t go outside. And if you see anything weird, shut the door fast.”
Jake smiled. “Promise.”
He took the second flashlight and climbed out of the closet, groaning as he stretched his legs and back. He was only twenty-four but already his body didn’t adapt well to being cramped in a closet for a few hours. Once upon a time he and Ikey could have camped in there for days, eating junk food and telling ghost stories. Now the idea of ghost stories made him nauseous. Fear had lost its entertainment value.
“Stay there,” he told his dead brother, and he shut the closet door.
Clicking on the flashlight, he hurried through the house, realizing just how loud the banging and shouting was. As he hurried to the front door, he recognized one of the voices as Harley’s, and then his other visitor identified himself.
“Jake, this is Joe Keenan, and this is your last chance. If you’re in there, open the door. Otherwise we’ll
have to assume you’re in some kind of trouble and we’re coming in! I’ll give you a count of ten!”
A heavy fist hammered on the door. Harley, he thought.
“Open the damn door, Jake!” his friend shouted.
Outside, Detective Keenan began to count loudly down from ten. As Jake reached for the dead bolt his hand wavered. If something had happened to his mother, he wanted to know, but what if they were there for another reason? Detective Keenan had been instrumental in the search for Zachary Stroud.
“Shit,” Jake whispered to himself.
Harley shouted his name and banged again.
“Seven!” Keenan yelled. “Six! Five!”
Shit, shit, shit, Jake thought, and then he slid back the dead bolt and turned the knob, hauling the door open. They were coming in one way or another; better that they did so without destroying his front door. He stood in his foyer and shone his flashlight in their eyes.
“You sound like you’re about to blast off,” he said, scratching his head and pretending to yawn.
Harley and Keenan looked surprised that he’d opened the door and he saw them straighten up. They’d actually been prepared to break in.
“Where the hell have you been?” Harley demanded.
Jake scowled at him. “Sleeping. In my house. The house of an idiot who did not buy a generator after the last two times he lost power. Not a lot else to do in the middle of a blizzard … except, I guess, for going around hammering on people’s doors when you should be home. What is with you guys? It’s kinda late, don’t you think?”
Detective Keenan visibly shifted gears, going from friend to cop in half a second. “Can we come in?”
Jake shrugged and stepped out of the way to admit them. “Of course. Sorry, still half asleep.”
As they entered, he glanced out the door, searching the snow-streaked darkness for inhuman things.
“What are you looking for?” Detective Keenan asked. “We’re alone.”
Jake’s heart skipped. He hadn’t thought about it, but that was a good sign. They’d come without the cavalry.
“Just wondering how you got here. Did you park out on the street?”
“Not like we could get into your driveway,” Harley said. “Even getting up your street wasn’t easy. If the plow doesn’t come by soon—”
“If the plow comes by soon, your car is probably going to get demolished,” Jake said. He gestured toward the living room and they followed his lead. “Wish I could offer you guys some coffee. I might have some beers, but—”
“We’re good,” Detective Keenan said wearily.
Jake could barely breathe as he picked up a matchbook from the coffee table and lit two candles he’d left there earlier, in preparation for the storm. There were also two empty mugs on the table, left from when he’d made hot chocolate earlier for himself and Isaac, and he saw Keenan eyeing the mugs. You didn’t have to be a detective to count to two.
From the moment Jake had let them in, Harley had been watching him with open curiosity, not quite accusatory but definitely suspicious. He hated to have his friends look at him that way, but the idea of trying to explain the truth to them seemed absurd.
“So, I assume you guys didn’t pay me a visit just because you were bored.”
The sarcasm didn’t earn even a smile, and that was when he knew he was in real trouble. These guys weren’t going to content themselves with asking him; they were going to want to search. Of course they were. He’d been stupid not to realize it right away. If they didn’t have strong suspicions, they would never have come all the way out to his house in the middle of a blizzard.
“We didn’t,” Detective Keenan said, sitting forward on the sofa and studying him, trying to look casual but ready for whatever Jake might do.
This is really happening, Jake thought.
“Last time I was out here, you wouldn’t let me in,” Harley said. “The shades were all down. Most of ’em are still down. I had the idea you had a woman here, maybe a new girlfriend or something.”
Detective Keenan looked pointedly at the two mugs on the coffee table. Jake faked a smile and he knew they saw its falseness. Both cops stiffened a little, sensing his panic. He knew it, but he could not get the thin, fake smile off his face.
He struggled to think of some way to get rid of them. If they wanted to arrest him, to take Isaac away, they could do that, but only if they waited until the storm had passed. The idea of Isaac out there in the blizzard with the ice men hunting for him … Jake couldn’t let that happen.
“I know I must’ve looked like a wild man that day,” Jake said. “But I’ve been having trouble sleeping. That’s why I had the shades down. I didn’t fall asleep till dawn. I hadn’t even been up long when you—”
“Bullshit,” Harley interrupted.
Jake almost expected Detective Keenan to protest. He was the detective; he was the one who should have been asking the questions. But Keenan just watched.
“It’s not bullshit,” Jake said, allowing himself to look irritated. “Seriously, what the hell’s going on with you guys? Why are you here?”
“Pokémon,” Detective Keenan said.
Jake flinched. “What?”
“You had Pokémon cards in your hand,” Harley said. “Spread out, the way you would if you were playing, so don’t tell me you were getting ready to sell them on eBay or some shit. You’ve got about five seconds to explain yourself, Jake. Convince me you’re not some kind of…”
Harley glanced away, shaking his head, not wanting to speak the words.
Jake hated it. At twenty-four, he was old enough to know that the older people got, the harder it was to make close friends, and he and Harley had been close.
“Harl,” he said, ignoring Keenan. “I swear to God, it’s not what you think.”
Detective Keenan stood up, staring at him, a little spark of hatred in each eye. “Tell me right now, kid. Is Zachary Stroud in this house?”
Jake stared back, thinking of trying for Keenan’s gun and knowing how ridiculous an idea it was.
“It’s not what you think, Joe.”
“Jesus Christ!” Keenan said, sneering as he spun around, glancing around the living room. “The whole city’s been looking for the boy and he’s right here? Everyone’s given him up for dead!”
Keenan paused, then stormed over to Jake, one hand on his gun. “Is he alive, Jake? Tell me the boy’s alive?”
“He’s alive,” Jake said. “But he’s not Zachary Stroud.”
Detective Keenan jerked his head, gesturing to Harley.
“Officer Talbot, search the house. Find the boy.”
Harley looked like he wanted to spit in Jake’s face. He opened his mouth to speak and then thought better of it, turning to leave the living room.
“Listen to me, Harley. You can’t take him out of here! It’s not safe, you understand? The ice men are going to take him back. If you take him out into the storm they’ll come for him, and they’ll probably kill you while they’re at it!”
As if he hadn’t spoken, Harley stormed from the room. Moments later Jake heard doors slamming open and closed, then heavy footfalls on the stairs. The wind still gusted hard, rocking the house and making the beams creak, and snow whipped at the windows, but Harley Talbot’s footsteps were the loudest sound that Jake had ever heard.
His heart breaking, he looked at Detective Keenan.
“Please, Joe, you’ve gotta listen.”
Keenan’s upper lip curled in disgust. “Don’t even talk to me.”
Upstairs, Isaac began to scream. They heard Harley’s voice, too, trying to reassure the boy, but the sounds of struggle continued and got closer.
“What the hell?” Detective Keenan muttered.
When Harley reappeared, he had Isaac over one shoulder.
“Jesus, Harley, put the kid down!” Keenan shouted.
Harley complied, but the second that Isaac’s feet were on the ground he started punching the massive cop, screaming at h
im.
“Damm it!” Harley snapped.
He knelt and tried to put his arms around Isaac to restrain him. The boy grabbed his right arm with both hands and bit him hard. Harley swore and gave him a little shove and Isaac fell on his butt on the hardwood planking, then scrambled to his feet and rushed through the living room.
“Zack, listen,” Detective Keenan said, crouching to try to intercept the boy. “We’re here to help you. I know you’re in…”
The boy dodged around him and threw his arms around Jake.
“Don’t let them take me, Jake. Please don’t let them. I can’t go out in the snow.”
“I know, I know,” Jake said, kneeling down to take the boy in his arms. Cupping the back of Isaac’s head in one hand, he clutched the boy to him and looked over his shoulder at Harley and Detective Keenan.
“I tried to tell you. This isn’t what you think.”
“Then what the hell is it?” Harley demanded.
“The kid’s in shock,” Detective Keenan said. “After the accident, he’d have to be. I don’t know if you did anything to him or if you’ve just got some bizarre idea that you’re helping him, but—”
“You’re not listening!” Jake snapped.
Isaac had calmed enough to turn to face the officers. Jake stayed on his knees beside him, the Schapiro brothers united.
“Okay,” Detective Keenan said, frowning as he tried to make sense of their closeness. “What is it, then?”
“Twelve years ago, Joe … there were demons in that storm.”
“Demons,” Harley echoed, a terrible sadness in his voice. Pity in his eyes.
“I saw them with my own eyes. They came right through the screen of my bedroom window and dragged my little brother, Isaac, out into the snow. The screen didn’t give way … they pulled him out.”
“I remember hearing about this back then,” Keenan said. “But you’re a grown man now. You can’t possibly—”
“It’s true,” Isaac said quietly, his voice full of such pain that the others in the room could not help but stare at him. He lowered his gaze, scuffing his foot, fearful but not surrendering. “They took us all, everybody who died that night, and they’ve kept us ever since … till a few days ago. We got away, but they know we’re here and they’re out there now, in the blizzard, hunting for us. I’m sorry for the boy whose body I’m in. He hit his head and when he got out of the car his parents were drowning and he tried to save them. He went into the river and dove under the water and tried to smash the window but he was too little and then he was choking and swallowing the water and he was going to drown when I went inside of him.”
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