“Look, guys. If this is some sort of a joke, it’s over now. Stop fooling around.”
“It’s no joke,” McCoy said. “Frank, we need you in on this. Your memory is a valuable asset. All we’re asking you to do is to open your mind to the possibility.”
“That’s right,” John added. “And, no matter what, nothing we say here leaves this room. Is that understood?”
Frank nodded as he slowly began to understand that they were not kidding around with him. This opened the door to two possibilities: either they were telling the truth, or he was presently in the company of a bunch of loons.
“It’ll be helpful to know the spirit’s origin,” McCoy was saying. “But we need to concentrate on finding a way to stop it.”
“You mean you don’t know?” John asked.
McCoy shook his head. “I haven’t the foggiest. An Internet search might bring something up, but I’m not betting on it. I don’t know of any recorded instances where a Yuki-Onna was stopped or destroyed.”
“Then how have people dealt with these things, historically?” Amanda asked.
McCoy shrugged. “They hid and waited for the snow to melt. When the snow goes, the Yuki-Onna goes with it.”
“That’s not going to be an option here,” John said, taking a worried glance at the window. “The storm’s not expected to move out until tomorrow, and the extended forecast is for freezing temperatures for the next several days. That thing could claim a half-dozen more victims before then.”
“I agree,” McCoy said. “We need to find a way to stop the spirit, or at least some way to deter it until the snow melts. There are several things we could try, though I can’t guarantee that any of them will work.”
“Well, decide fast,” John said. “I want to get back out there. No one’s safe as long as that thing is on the loose.”
“Frank, I want you to go to the library,” said McCoy. “Check the records for any women who died in a snowstorm. In particular look for any account of a mother who perished while searching for a child. Go back as far as you can. If you come up empty, I need records of any Japanese immigrants or citizens of Japanese descent who live or have lived in the area.”
Frank whistled. “That’s a lot of ground to cover.”
“That’s why I want you to do it. You’ll have to make fewer notes than anyone else.”
“I’ll do the best I can.”
“Okay,” McCoy said, turning to John. “You take it from here. Pick your deputies and assign patrol routes.”
“Go get Gabe and Lester,” John said to Deidre. “Tell them it’s time to get this show on the road. And Frank? Don’t forget, this conversation stays between us.”
“Yes, sir.”
“All right,” McCoy said as he grabbed his knapsack and headed for the door. “I’m going for Japanese. Who’s with me?”
***
She floated between the trees in the snow-covered woods and thought about the man with the stick. He had interrupted her kill, and that fact alone made him worthy of her attention. But there was something else, as well. Something about the man that she could sense but could not quite identify.
That was the main reason she’d fled when the man appeared. She was not without her defenses, and would normally not retreat from a single human. In truth, she had little to fear from any being, either human or supernatural. But caution was still in her nature, and something about the man’s aura had advised against a frontal attack.
Still, it was only one man, and therefore nothing to make her change her plans. There would be other people about tonight; there always were. And, in the unlikely event that they all stayed indoors, there were other avenues available to her.
She opened her senses, feeling for the tell-tale signs of a human presence. Across the frozen snow she glided, searching for prey, with the nagging feeling that she should be searching for something else, as well.
Chapter Eleven
When Jimmy Radcliffe awoke, he immediately noticed two very important things: it was dark, and it was cold. The first thing really didn’t surprise him, since it had been late afternoon when he’d lain down for a nap. He thought that maybe it was a bit darker than it should have been, but it was nothing to be alarmed about.
The second thing, however, was alarming, because it had been nice and toasty in his trailer before he had fallen asleep. Now, he was shivering under his lone blanket. The sound of the heating system pumping warm air through the ductwork was conspicuously absent.
Cursing silently, Jimmy got out of the bed and looked out the window. Outside, the snow was falling at a much heavier rate than before he’d gone to bed. No light shone anywhere; both the streetlamps and the windows of neighboring houses were dark.
Great. The power was out. He’d thought about the possibility earlier in the day, but he hadn’t let himself get too worked up over it. After all, what could he do? He had no secondary heating system to fire up.
What he did have were neighbors, several of whom employed wood burning stoves and portable kerosene heaters in situations such as this. Basil Denton, who lived two trailers down, had already issued an invitation to come over in the event of a power outage. Jimmy didn’t care much for Basil—the old guy was windier than a bagful of farts—but he supposed he couldn’t afford to be picky on such short notice. And if it was between listening to Basil’s war stories or freezing to death, Jimmy was willing to be all ears for the night. Besides, Basil’s refrigerator was usually well-stocked with beer.
He felt his way to the dresser, opened a drawer, and fished around for a pair of jeans. Finding a pair that didn’t appear to have too many holes in them, he slipped them on and went about hunting for socks.
The worst part was finding his shoes. He couldn’t remember where he’d slipped them off, and he didn’t own a flashlight, so he was reduced to crawling around on the floor until he finally found them. During the adventure, he managed to bump his head on something hard a couple of times, so he was in a foul mood by the time he laced them up and grabbed his coat.
When he opened the front door and stepped outside, the wind nearly took his breath. Jimmy had been on the planet nearly twenty-one years, and he had never before encountered a winter storm this intense. It looked like the friggin’ North Pole. Had he seen a reindeer prancing across his front lawn, he wouldn’t have been in the least surprised.
At least it was only a fifty yard walk to Basil’s place. He considered running, but he was afraid he’d trip in the deep snow and go sprawling. Then he’d have wet clothes, and he’d have to go back inside, find another set in the dark, and change. No, better to take it slow and arrive at Basil’s relatively dry.
Jimmy had just passed the corner of his trailer when he noticed someone standing in the darkness of his back yard. At first, he thought it was Carol, the middle-aged woman whose trailer sat between Jimmy’s and Basil’s. But Carol’s hair was short and curly, and he definitely saw long hair blowing in the wind.
Maybe it was Carol’s daughter, Kelli. But Kelli had gone to her father’s place in Tennessee for the holidays, hadn’t she? He was sure he’d heard Carol mention it earlier in the week. But if it wasn’t Kelli, then who was it?
Jimmy’s curiosity finally got the better of him. Deviating from the path to Basil’s trailer, he trudged into the back yard. The woman didn’t move; she simply stood there and watched him as he approached. And the closer Jimmy got, the more he liked what he saw.
The chick was hot. Jimmy was so enthralled by her beauty that it never dawned on him to wonder what the woman might be doing out in a snowstorm, dressed only in a white robe. The control of his body had passed from his big head to his little head, and the fact that the robe looked super sexy on her was enough. She had milky white skin and long black hair. With a steadily-growing thrill, Jimmy realized she was Asian.
Jimmy had sampled all of the varieties of women available to him in Shallow Springs, but he had never been with an Asian girl, simply because there weren’t
any around to be with. Thus, he’d often dreamt about sharing a bed with one. It had become a mild obsession with him. He often frequented various sites on the Internet which featured Asian women, and he enjoyed those visits. But as pleasurable as it was to look at the women on the computer screen, it wasn’t the same as porking them in real life.
As far as Jimmy was concerned, Christmas had come a few weeks early.
“Hey,” he said as he walked up to the woman. “Never seen you before. You new here?”
The woman said nothing. She merely smiled at him. Jimmy noticed that she was wearing a shade of sexy blue lipstick. He studied the curves under her white robe with approval. Despite the storm, it was shaping up to be a pretty good night, after all.
Except that the power was out. It was freezing in his trailer, and he sure couldn’t drag the girl to Basil’s. Jimmy cursed his luck. He finally had a super-nice Asian woman handed to him on a silver platter, and he had nowhere to take her. Funny, how life sometimes gave you a blessing and a curse at the same time.
Well, they obviously wouldn’t be able to spend the night at his place, unless the power miraculously came back on. But he had a couple of extra blankets in the closet. If he could just lure this delicious morsel to his bed, he could realize his dream before being forced to seek refuge elsewhere for the night.
“You look cold,” he told the woman, although she showed no signs that she even noticed the frigid weather. “Come inside. The power’s out, but I’ve got a blanket you can wrap up in. We’ll talk. Get to know each other. I’m Jimmy, by the way.”
Normally Jimmy wouldn’t have been so bold, but the woman’s sly smile urged him on. He could think of nothing more than getting her into his bed and peeling that robe away from her supple body. He studied her face, the curve of her lips, the way her eyes bored into his. His breath caught in his throat as he saw those delicate lips purse, as if awaiting his own to merge with them in a passionate kiss. He leaned in, eyes closed, expecting what he thought would be the most gratifying kiss he’d ever experienced.
When it came, it certainly blew him away.
***
Basil Denton opened his door and looked out into the frozen night. He thought he’d heard something, but with the wind howling like it was, he couldn’t be certain. In the snowy darkness, nothing moved.
Basil shut and locked the door. He couldn’t afford to stand there like an idiot with the door open, letting out precious heat. He had enough kerosene to last him through the next day, but if the power wasn’t back on by then, he’d be making a trip to the Quickee Mart. At his age, that would be a major undertaking.
Basil shuffled back over to his worn recliner and plopped heavily into it. The snow was really coming down out there. He hadn’t seen anything like it since he’d been stationed overseas during his youth, and those were memories he’d rather not dredge up. Those had been the happiest days of his life, but also the most painful. He often marveled that life would give a man everything he’d ever wanted and then take it all away in one fell swoop.
But he didn’t want to go down that road tonight, especially since there was no television and no one around to keep him company. He had expected the Radcliffe boy to be knocking at his door by now, but there’d been no sign of the kid. Maybe he’d made other arrangements. Basil hoped so, because Jimmy was about as dumb as a stump. Basil didn’t think the kid had enough sense to get in out of the rain, much less a full-blown blizzard.
Well, it wasn’t Basil’s problem; he’d made the offer. He couldn’t force Jimmy to join him. But he would have been grateful for the company.
Now, he would be alone with his own personal demons, and they weren’t very good company. He only hoped that sleep might find him before his memories did.
Memories of a snowstorm long passed, and of the loss of his lover and only child.
Chapter Twelve
Despite his adamant stance that he did not believe in the supernatural, Frank nonetheless found the library to be a creepy place at night. Of course, the fact that the power was out didn’t help matters; he was having to use a flashlight to find his way around inside the dark building. Luckily, there was an emergency generator. Unluckily, it did not start automatically, and since the library had been closed when the electricity went out, there had been no one there to turn it on.
That meant it was left up to Frank to find the mechanical room and start the generator. It would do him little good to look for what he needed without first turning the power on. These days, most of the information was stored either on a computer or microfilm, and he needed power to access either.
After several wrong turns and dead ends, he finally found the room he was looking for. The old ginny hadn’t been particularly well maintained, and it took him a few tries to get it started. It finally coughed and spat to life, then settled into a rough but steady roar.
With the lights back on, the building was easier to navigate, if no less spooky. Frank chastised himself as he made his way back to the reference section. He was acting like a frightened kid. He’d let McCoy and the others spook him, and now he was jumping at shadows.
He was still struggling to come to grips with the conversation in Sheriff Talbot’s office. Had it just been McCoy, Frank would have dismissed such talk out of hand. But the sheriff and Deidre had been pretty convincing. If it was all some kind of sick joke—and if it was, the timing was as bad as the taste—Frank couldn’t understand why they’d made him the butt of it. He’d done nothing to deserve it.
On the other hand, it was possible that they were being as truthful as they seemed. In that case, Frank had been brought into the inner circle and charged with the task of keeping their secret. That thought both filled him with pride and chilled him to his core.
If what they’d told him was true, he would be forced to re-evaluate his entire system of beliefs. He’d always been one to scoff at the supernatural, seeing anyone who believed in such nonsense as uneducated and superstitious. But while McCoy might be a bit of a flake, Sheriff Talbot had always come across as intelligent and down-to-earth. And Deidre, bless her heart, had all the imagination of a turnip.
Though it was risky, Frank had to assume that they were telling him the truth. If they weren’t, it would come out in the wash sooner or later, and he could decide what to do about it then. For now, though, he would operate under the assumption that ghosts and fairies were real, as difficult as that might be to do.
The reference section was adjacent to the media room, which featured a couple of computers and a microfilm viewer. Frank wasn’t exactly sure where to begin, but he figured he’d start with the most recent stuff. Though it was unlikely he would find anything in the past ten or twenty years—he would have remembered hearing about it—he needed to be thorough.
Settling down in front of one of the computers, Frank readied himself for a long night.
***
Amanda steadied herself against the dashboard as the SUV’s rear end lost traction and slid. Almost immediately, it found its footing and straightened out. She relaxed and gave McCoy a warning look.
“What?” he asked. “I got this.”
“That’s what I’m afraid of. Remember, this isn’t Boo. You don’t want to wreck this one.”
“I wouldn’t want to wreck Boo, either.”
“With Boo, you’d never be able to tell it. Besides, this is government property.”
“John wouldn’t have let me drive it if he didn’t trust me. You should follow his lead.”
“John doesn’t know you like I do. If he did, we’d be on a moped right now.”
“That would actually be kind of cool.”
Their patrol area encompassed the eastern end of town. John was covering the northern sector, while the two male deputies patrolled to the west and south. Deidre was stationed in the town itself, since the spirit had shown no compunction about attacking people there.
This area was comprised mainly of private residences and small trailer parks whic
h, in recent years, had taken on the grand euphemism of mobile home subdivisions. McCoy considered it to be akin to calling a duck a swan, but no one besides real estate agents used the fancy name, anyway.
Though the lights were still out, the warm glow of candles or fires could be seen illuminating the windows of many homes. Smoke from chimneys or stovepipes mingled with the falling flakes until it was dispersed by the blowing wind.
Even given the circumstances, it was hard to dismiss the raw beauty of the winter landscape. The lack of artificial lighting only added to the rustic appeal of a small town nestled under a winter blanket of white. Of course, both McCoy and Amanda knew that the quiet serenity was merely an illusion, that something dark and powerful lurked just beneath the surface of the picturesque image.
“Over there,” Amanda said suddenly. “Something’s going on.” She pointed to a small row of trailers to their right. Several people were milling about, clearly agitated.
McCoy eased on the brakes and pulled into the small trailer park. A woman in her forties with blonde hair came running up to meet them.
“It’s Jimmy Radcliffe!” she yelled as McCoy put the SUV in park and opened the door. “Sweet Jesus, it’s Jimmy!”
“Where?” McCoy asked, hopping out of the vehicle.
“Around back, behind my trailer! Oh, dear God! He’s blue! I think he’s dead!” She turned and took off at a run, with McCoy and Amanda following closely behind. They rounded the corner of one of the trailers to find several residents standing around what looked to be a store window mannequin. The mannequin’s exposed skin was colored a sickly shade of blue.
“Out of the way!” the blonde woman yelled. “The police are here! Out of the way!”
“Actually, we’re not the police,” McCoy said, but his voice was lost as everyone began talking at once. In addition to the blonde, there was a couple who looked to be in their thirties and an old man who looked as if he should be inside in the bed. McCoy shouted for everyone to calm down, but they continued to cluck like a bunch of chickens which had discovered a fox just outside the henhouse.
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