Dead of Winter

by Gerri Brightwell

  “This’s gonna take forever. I gotta get back to town.”

  “Won’t fucking take forever, not in this cold.” Something tugs at his parka. There’s the buzz of the zip being undone, then a swell of cold against his body.

  “Let’s just get it over with, Marty.”

  “Put his fucking wallet in his pocket. He had an accident, no traces. Get that into your fucked-up head, will ya?”

  Something’s shoved into his parka pocket, then the door slaps closed. Hands fumble against the door, then something scrapes over the wood, securing it Fisher realizes. The first guy bangs hard against the door, like you would with a truck that’s ready to go, shouts, “Don’t go catching cold in there, you fucker,” and laughs. Boots crunch away over the snow, and before long a distant door thuds shut.

  Fisher waits. He stands perfectly still, as though someone might be watching. His ribs hurt, and his belly, his head, his jaw, but worst of all is the cut on his thigh. Already the blood on his longjohns has frozen and it pulls at the wound like it’s drawing in the cold and letting it course through him. He’s supposed to freeze to death out here, and for it to look like some dumb-ass accident. He concentrates and lets his hearing slink out of him like feelers, exploring the air, checking it for the slightest sound, because he’s not going to get caught out twice. But it’s cold. Already his hands are losing feeling.

  Fuck freezing to death, he thinks, fuck standing here like a fucking cow waiting for the fucking bolt through its brain. He bends forward and works his numb hands apart, using his butt as leverage, biting his teeth together against the sting of the tape over his wrists, and pulling and pulling until that tape is slipping over his skin, up over the mound where his left thumb starts, pulling so hard he’s caught in a cocoon of his own heat inside the mask.

  Then the tape comes loose and he lets out a laugh because his stiff arms, tied for so long, are rising up of their own accord like he’s thanking the good Lord for saving him, and what a heady feeling that is. He lets them float up, up, then catches himself and swings them down, swinging them over and over until the blood’s forced toward the lumps of flesh that are his hands, and even if it doesn’t help much, at least his arms feel like part of him again.

  He hears voices. Not close, not yet, and his poor hands scrabble at the ski mask, his fingers as cold and useless as a dead man’s. Not frostbitten, not that bad, but he claws at the mask, bunching it up as best he can when he can’t feel what he’s doing until the raw air slides up over his face and he blinks in the sudden light.

  They’ve shut him into an outhouse, for fuck’s sake. At least it’s too cold to stink. He tucks his hands inside his sleeves and breathes down the twin tubes of the cuffs to warm them, then he fumbles for the zip-pull on his parka. Four tries before he manages to zip it up to his chin.

  He puts his eye to the crack between the frame and the door. Those voices are clearer, closer, and a car door slams shut. He shifts his head, but all he can see is a house, three pickups parked in front of it, and the minivan with its ridiculous smiling bear logo and someone walking toward it. A guy in khaki who pauses to press his fingers against his nose and blow it clean onto the snow. That slanted way of standing, that way of resettling his hat. With a start, Fisher recognizes him: Lyle. Ada’s nephew. That lazy voice saying Want me to help? when they were going to take Fisher outside. Lyle’s voice. No wonder he couldn’t help Ada at the hardware store this morning. He was too busy with these guys.

  Lyle climbs into the minivan and a moment later its brake lights flash on, then its white reversing lights. It whines backward across the snow and out of sight, and Fisher shoves his face against the cold wood, breathing hard. Shit. Is he off to find Bree in the cab? No wonder they picked Lyle to look for her; he met her once or twice when he first moved to town. Maybe he’d recognize her if he found her. Christ, that was Lyle saying Bree was as good as dead. Fisher tells himself Lyle was just screwing with him, he’s that kind of shit-for-brains. But that’s not all there is to it. There’s always been something off-balance about Lyle, not just that he’s done time, but the way he has with Ada of smiling and being Mr Charming when any fool can see something crouched in his eyes, something calculating and dangerous.

  Fisher’s so tense his shoulders ache, but the cab doesn’t come rolling back past him and down the driveway. No, across the thin air rumbles the sound of its engine, then the creak and slap of vehicle doors. When finally he catches the cab’s engine being put into gear again his heart seizes and his mouth goes slack. He crams his eye against the crack and watches it lumber back into view, then pull up beside the pickups once more.

  The cab’s engine’s still running and from it exhaust balloons onto the air. There’s Lyle, half in the cab and half out, like he’s trying to make up his mind about something. Fisher wills him to get the fuck out, not to go after Bree, not yet. And, like a miracle, Lyle hunches his shoulders and heads into the house. Soon after another couple of guys follow, one of them with his voice spitting and curling, complaining about something by the sound of it, though Fisher can’t make out what.

  Soon all’s still again. Fisher swings his head about and huffs on his hands. He needs to get out of here, but he’s never seen an outhouse like this: built out of two-by-fours and fully framed, for crap’s sake. Who the hell wastes good lumber on a hut to shit in? He backs up, never mind that there’s no room in here and the bench of the toilet seat digs in against his shins, then he launches himself at the door. It rattles but doesn’t give. Did he expect it to? No, he’d hoped, that’s all.

  His shoulder aches where bone mashed against wood. He brings his eye back to the bright crack between the door and its frame. There’s the house, a dark log thing with two windows facing his way, and smoke from its chimney twisting into the dying light. There’s the shit-brown Barf Mobile parked between a couple of silvery pickups, like a manatee between sharks. Lyle’s left it running, letting it warm up, or going to fetch something before he takes off. But that means the keys are in the ignition. All Fisher needs is to get to it. He lets his eye track down the crack to where it darkens. A latch of some kind to hold the door shut in the wind. He remembers the scrape of something against wood; something propped against it too, then. A shovel maybe, or an ax.

  He looks about him, as though there’s something he’s missed that would help him get out of here. The baby blue expanded polystyrene of the toilet seat. Two rolls of toilet paper stacked on top of each other. An air-freshener with its white plastic bars over a frozen yellow gel, which of course smells of nothing at all in this cold. And that’s it.

  If this were a movie, he’d come up with some way of using this stuff to escape. He’d be cleverer, he’d be faster, he’d be better than this Mike Fisher trapped in an outhouse. And he wouldn’t be freezing to death. But as he breathes on his hands and looks about him, he doesn’t get any smart ideas. I’m gonna die, he thinks, like the stupid fuck I am. Maybe I can wait for someone to take a crap, but what then? Stab them with the air-freshener? Gag them with toilet paper? Besides, that house doesn’t look like the sort of place that doesn’t have plumbing. So what the hell is this outhouse for? Then he remembers: those voices. Those other doors shutting. There’s more to this place than he’s seen. Cabins, most likely, and not far away, because who wants to walk far to take a dump? He gets up on the bench and tries to find a hole to peer through in the wall. But there’s nothing more than tiny cracks and a crescent-shaped vent in the side wall, too high up to be of any use.

  He lets himself down onto the bench and rests his head on his arms. The wound in his thigh is pulsing horribly, his guts and ribs and head, all radiating pain like it’s a contamination he’ll never rid himself of. What is he but a broken man? He would cry, but he doesn’t even have that left in him.

  A trill of sound. A phone ringing in his pocket. Grisby’s. The guys didn’t find it.

  His hands are so cold he fumbles,
nearly drops it, claws at the cover to open it then holds the freezing plastic to his ear. Too late. It cuts off in mid-ring. Fisher sags for a moment, but hell, that doesn’t matter, does it? He has a phone. He breathes on his fingers. He thinks: who to call? Not Grisby. Not Jan. Ada, he thinks. Because when she hears that Lyle’s out here, messing around with these militia guys and that he just blew her off this morning, she’s going to be mad as hell. Madder than she is at him for ditching her in the hardware store.

  He’s so cold his fingers miss the numbers on the screen. He has to try four times, then there’s Ada’s harsh voice saying, “Alaska Travel-Inn, how can we help you?”

  “Ada,” and he’s half-whispering, as though someone’s going to hear him, “it’s me. Mike.”

  “You think you can do that to me? I waited half an hour, even had them page you.”

  “Ada, look, I’ve—”

  “I don’t know what you’re up to, but it’s going to bite you in the butt. You get that? Because I’m going to make sure it does.”

  “Ada, I’ve been kidnapped. Some guys are trying to kill me.”

  “If they don’t kill you, I will.”

  “This is for real. Lyle’s part of—”

  “Nothing with you’s for real. You get yourself down here by six to help me unload or I’m gonna be wondering why you’ve got Brian’s bag in your closet when he’s taken off and a dead cop’s been found at his place. You get that? Because I am for real.” And she hangs up.

  He cradles the phone in his hand. If he wants to live, he should call the cops. Who else is going to come get him? He could call Reggie: hell, Reggie must be wondering what’s happened to him, he took off to pick up a fare and didn’t call in again. If things are busy Reggie’ll be mad at him too, but not as mad as Ada.

  He’s about to call when he realizes: he doesn’t know where he is. No GPS on Grisby’s phone. It’s a cheap piece of crap. What’s he going to say? That he’s locked into an outhouse at a place not far off the Lewis Highway? Who could find him in time?

  Then it has to be Jan, he decides. Wouldn’t she have some clue who these guys are, and where they’re holding him? He calls her number. It goes straight to voicemail, and he says, “Jan! Christ, I don’t know how to explain this. Brian’s militia-nut friends are looking for Bree. OK? This isn’t a joke, they’re deadly fucking serious. You’ve got to do something: find her before they do. Call the cops. OK? And while you’re at it, they’ve shut me into an outhouse at a place off the Lewis Highway, three or four miles out of town, I guess. They’ve left me to freeze to death. I could use some help too,” and stupidly he laughs. “Sorry, Jan. They’re serious and I’m starting to lose it. And Jan? Watch your back. These guys don’t mess around. They’re pissed as hell about something.”

  The cut in his leg’s seeping. A trickle runs down his thigh, a warm slide that’s soon cold. He should stay still or it won’t close up. Fuck that, he tells himself, if he stays still, he’ll freeze to death. He tucks his hands behind his neck in the warmth of his hood and jumps up and down, just a little at first with his boots barely clearing the ground, getting his blood moving, never mind that the cut burns and his head’s soupy from being hit, and his ribs are so bruised each impact makes him grunt. He thinks. He has to think. The crack between the door and the frame’s bright with the last of the daylight and he keeps his eyes on it as he jumps.

  Then something falls. A light thud like snow frozen onto a branch coming loose. A roll of toilet paper toppled by his jumping. He’s about to kick it to one side when he realizes: this could be his salvation.

  It’s no easy matter to push the cardboard tube out when he can scarcely feel his hands. He wraps the toilet paper around them for warmth then lays the roll down and stamps it flat with his boots.

  His breath billows out as he picks up the crushed tube and forces it into the gap between door and frame. The corner slips in, bends, sticks. The tube’s still too thick. He catches a strange half-swallowed sigh, the sound of his own disappointment, like he’s already leaving himself behind. He stares at the tube, then brings it to his mouth and bites down along the edges, a couple of inches on each side. He pushes it up against the crack again and shoves the end through.

  The fit’s so tight it’s hard to move the tube up the crack, and harder still because his fingers are wrapped like a mummy’s in toilet paper. The cardboard scrapes along toward the latch, then the end pushes through the crack tips down. It’s caught. The latch: it’s too heavy. He leans his head against the wood. Gonna die, he thinks, and he isn’t afraid, just disappointed. He yanks out the cardboard tube and sits down again. Somewhere out there Bree is lonely and frightened, and now he can’t help her. Fucking Grisby, he thinks. He stirred this up. First thing this morning he took off to sell Brian’s guns when only a fool could be so stupid.

  Outside a raven calls, tock-tock, like one piece of hollow wood hitting another. Fisher says, “Yeah yeah.”

  Soon he’ll see Lyle leave to hunt for Bree, and when Lyle’s gone he’ll have nothing to do but freeze to death. In a few hours those other guys’ll be back. They’ll turn the wooden latch that held him in here and drag what’s left of him out across the snow. Between them, they’ll heave him into the bed of one of those pickups, and cover him with a tarp, and take him away to dump him. He’ll just be one of the stupid fucks who tried to walk somewhere in this killing cold, and Lyle will find Bree, because really, what chance is there that Jan will do anything, even if she believes his message?

  The raven again. Tock-tock. Soon it’ll fly away. It’ll take off from its perch high in a tree and spread its dark wings, circling over the house and this small wooden hut, then it’ll tilt itself and flap off across the hillside, away from the wood smoke coming from the chimney, away from the car engine left grumbling into the quiet, away from the outhouse where Fisher will be freezing to death beneath a slanted roof of corrugated plastic. He looks up. The roof. So low over the bench seat that he could stand and easily reach it. Not much wind in these parts, he thinks. Not much need to nail down a roof too hard, and besides, those nails will have shrunk a little in the cold. He heaves himself up on the seat, never mind that the wound in his leg rips with pain. He lifts his arms high then shoves at the roof with all his might.

  32

  IT’S JUST TOO damn easy, that’s what Fisher thinks as he eases the cab out across the snow, steering it clumsily with his frozen hands, down the driveway so fast it bounces and the wheel jerks, nearly out of his hands. He forces himself to brake. The whole time his eyes are tugged back to the mirror because someone—surely—is going to come after him. The road’s narrow and turns sharp left. Snow sprays into the air as the right fender cuts into the bank and he can’t think, can’t tell where he is.

  He drives downhill, always downhill, and too fast. He sends the cab lurching around a beaten-up car climbing the road toward him, sees the panic on the face of the old guy driving. Then just past a stand of birches there’s the scarlet eye of a stop sign, and beyond it, like a miracle, the highway back to town.

  Here are the things Fisher discovers about suddenly being free from death: that his thoughts are scattered like a bomb’s gone off in their midst, that he’s more afraid now than he was before, and that—where’s the thrill of having survived?—his hands throb horribly where the cold’s scorched them. In fact, where doesn’t he hurt? There’s his thigh, his ribs, his jaw, plus his head, inside and out.

  As he belts along the highway, he runs a hand over his scalp and touches the swollen mass where the broom hit him, as though he can soothe away the pain. An old pain really, considering what else he’s just been through, and he’s surprised by how it still hurts. Of course he can’t think: everywhere he aches is a reminder of what just happened and nearly happened, and what will happen if Lyle and his militia buddies catch up with him again.

  Three times he reaches out for the cab’s radio, sees as his
hand gropes empty air those wires hanging loose like the roots of an upended plant. He thinks: I’ve got to hide. He thinks: I’ve got to find Bree. He thinks: how the fuck am I going to do that?

  He’s gone miles before the minivan’s warm enough for his hands to really thaw. Eventually the feeling that his blood’s boiling through his skin gives way to a more insistent ache deep in his bones. He holds on tight to the steering wheel and doesn’t slow down. He can’t. He’s so scared that he’s sitting hunched low, and every vehicle that overtakes him makes him jerk his head for a look at the driver. A blonde in a sleek red coupe smoking a cigarette. An old guy with a hat pulled down to his eyes. Not Lyle, then. Not that guy with the strange egg face either.

  Soon he’s so close to town the route’s marked by the glare of streetlights, and the late afternoon traffic surges toward him with lights ablaze. The sun’s fallen away below the hills and is dragging in darkness behind it. At least the night will hide him, but hell, he’s driving a minivan with a bear painted on it. How inconspicuous is that?

  He needs to get across town and pick up his car. He switches lanes, brakes, is about to rush an orange light when the phone in his pocket rings. Grisby’s phone.

  He holds it to his ear. “Yes?”

  “You come—yes? Right now.” A woman’s voice, hushed as though she’s afraid. The foreign woman from Grisby’s apartment.

  “What’s happened? Christ! Is it Grisby? Did he make it back?”

  “You come . . . please.”

  Fisher shifts his fingers on the phone. “Not now. I can’t. I have to find my daughter.”

  “Daughter?”

  “My daughter.”

  Her words barely make it through the phone. They’re little more than disturbances on the air, but he’s sure he hears, “Bree-yan, yes? You come,” and she hangs up.