by Matt Hults
Behind him, the thing that was once his friend repeated its message. “Phone for you, sir.”
Ron faced it, finding no hint of compassion.
He pushed to his feet, wiping tears from his face. “Where?” he asked. “There’s no phone in the office?”
“Up front, sir.”
He pushed past the thing, striding down the hall, trying not to dwell on the fact he’d just lost his last tether to the rational world.
Please, God, let her have made it out…
He didn’t look at the swarm of customers as he rounded the corner. Instead, he focused on the black rotary-dial phone mounted beside the notorious sign that outlined the restaurant’s enigmatic rules.
He snatched up the handset, expecting some disgusting slurping noise or something requesting an order of flame-broiled afterbirths.
“Hello?”
“Finally!” Diane’s voice spoke from the receiver. “You’ve had me worried sick for hours!”
Ron’s heart convulsed at the sound of his wife’s words. He almost dropped the handset as his whole body went weak. “Diane!”
“What’s going on up there? I thought you’d be back by now. Do you know how long it took to track down this number—?”
“Diane, listen,” he cut in, unable to suppress his desperate tone. “I need help! Call the police, or—”
Ron fell silent as he saw a fresh batch of customers enter the restaurant. It was the first time he’d seen the doors open since setting foot inside, and his eyes boggled at the warm yellow sunlight glowing outside.
Where he spotted a van sitting in the parking lot.
Cartoon letters announced “We Deliver!” across the vehicle’s side.
Ron licked his lips, thinking fast. Four feet away, a decomposing cashier turned from his register to face him.
“Place an order!” Ron whispered into the phone.
“An order?” his wife echoed. “But I thought—”
“I know, I know,” Ron said. “Just do it. Whatever you want! Please!”
“You know I don’t like the kids eating that stuff.”
“Please!” Ron nearly screamed.
“All right…” his wife answered. “Just bring home some hamburgers, I guess. But no pop! You know how Eric reacts to sugar.”
“Four hamburgers to go!” Ron called to the kitchen, almost laughing. “Right away, ma’am! Thank you for ordering! I love you!”
“Are you sure you’re—”
Ron hung up the phone.
“Let’s go!” he shouted. “I got a VIP order to deliver, pronto!”
He moved through the kitchen, spurring the workers faster, simultaneously searching for keys. Miraculously, he found a set on a pegboard not far from the phone.
“Are we ready?” he called.
Four burgers were passed to the front, boxed for delivery.
He placed the keys on top of the stack, scooped them into his arms.
And turned around to meet the cadaverous face of a young man sporting a mouthful of worms. A glossy tag pinned to his shirt identified him as a “Deliveryman.”
“I’ll get that for you, sir,” he said, taking the boxes.
And before Ron could react, the thing was walking away, vanishing into the throng of inhuman customers.
Ron stared after him, numb. He spun to reach for the phone, but now the wall showed no sign of ever having had one installed.
Thoughts clashed in his mind, from the question of whether or not Wendy had returned to the real world and was even now trying to find help, to the idea that a reanimated corpse was driving cross-country with four boxes of god-knew-what, bound for his family.
In the end, he pushed those mind-shattering contemplations aside.
He’d wait, bide his time. But he had to remain sane.
At the counter, he slipped on an apron, faced the masses waiting to order, and stepped up to a register.
He cleared his throat.
“Next.”
* * *
THROUGH THE VALLEY OF DEATH
This story can be found in the anthology:
BEST NEW VAMPIRE TALES (Vol. 1)
Jacob wiggled his toes inside his loafers, finding that the soft material of the shoes had almost frozen solid. He wondered how long it would be before his flesh did the same.
He hugged himself tighter, drawing his wool dress-coat snug to his body. Though no wind gusted along the narrow mountain road, the thieving winter air had already seeped through his clothing and gone to work at stealing his body heat. If another vehicle didn’t come along soon, he knew the situation would become far worse than a mere inconvenience.
He glanced back and forth as he wiggled his toes again.
To his left the two feet of fresh powder covering the road appeared smooth and unbroken, better resembling a frozen forest stream rather than twin lanes of asphalt. To his right, the only sign of traffic came in the form of the overlapping tire tracks cut through the snow by his own SUV. Hoof prints from the deer that had bound into his path dotted the snow mere inches away from them.
Jacob cursed at the sight, knowing there was nothing he could’ve done to change what had happened. His only solace to having crashed his vehicle, avoiding a collision, was that he’d swerved to the right, toward the cushioning snowdrifts lining the forest, rather than left, where he could’ve smacked head on into the towering wall of granite bordering that side of the road.
He sighed, creating a miniature cloudbank in front of his face.
Across the road, his wounded vehicle sat at an odd angle, nose pointing toward the forest. The Chevy’s rear end canted upward, its undercarriage resting on an old log that had been concealed by snow until the SUV’s front tires crashed over it. Even at a distance he spotted the broken branch that had impaled the fuel tank like a medieval pike, spilling over thirty-five gallons of gasoline. Fumes still haunted the air, lingering around the wreck like a disquieted spirit with nowhere to go.
“Nothing yet?”
Jacob turned at the sound of his wife’s voice. Thirty feet away, Kate emerged from a small corpus of pines, carrying Sadie on her back to spare her from having to tromp through the hip-deep drifts on her own. In her puffy pink snowsuit, their daughter looked like a three-year-old astronaut.
“I peed and pooped,” Sadie cheered.
Jacob laughed. “Good job. Just remember that these are special circumstances, though. I don’t want to start finding surprises in the front hedge after we get home.”
He looked to Kate and winked, hoping the comment would soften her look of concern. She formed a weak smile and winked back.
He took Sadie in his arms when Kate walked up beside him, allowing her to brush off the snow that had crusted on her dress pants and in the imitation fur surrounding the tops of her boots.
“It’s been over an hour,” she said, her teeth chattering every few words. “We can’t stay out here much longer. Did you check the car again?”
He frowned. “We could use if for shelter, but we’d probably all start hallucinating within five minutes after sitting down.”
“That bad?”
“Afraid so.” He shifted Sadie in his arms as they crossed the road to the vehicle. Within five feet of the tailgate Kate stopped and waved one hand in front of her nose.
“Ugh,” she said. “You’re right.”
“Pee-ewe,” Sadie agreed.
A hawk shrieked from somewhere along the higher reaches of the cliff behind them, its icy cry accentuating the enormity of the wilderness around them. The sound echoed once in the dead winter silence then faded.
Sadie searched for it, squinting against the cloudless blue overhead.
“So what do you think?” Kate asked.
Jacob shrugged. He kicked the back bumper, knocking loose the crust of dirty snow that had caked on the license plate. “California tags, small family all dressed up like they’ve got money, gas-guzzling SUV … What do I think?”
He put Sadie down and cove
red her ears with his hands.
“Daddy!”
“I think those hillbilly bastards at the gas station screwed us,” he said. “I think they sent us up the wrong road on purpose, knowing we’d get stuck, so I’d end up having to trudge back there and pay a fortune for a tow.”
“Daddy, you’re deafing my head,” Sadie yelled.
Jacob released her. “Sorry, kiddo. Better?”
She nodded and ran over to a snowdrift.
Kate shivered. “If the road was closed we would’ve seen signs, though, right?”
Jacob put his arms around her, pulling her close. “You heard the radio. They were measuring nine-foot snowdrifts along I-80 after yesterday’s storm and that’s just a few miles from here. Remember those mounds we drove around that Sadie said looked like big molehills? One of them might’ve been covering a roadblock for all we know.”
Kate exhaled a fogbank of a sigh and leaned into his chest. “This is crazy,” she whispered. “There’s got to be someone who patrols this area: a local sheriff, DNR, someone. And how long before anybody knows that we’re missing? I told a few people at work we were going to your friend’s wedding, but that was over a month ago, when the invitation came. I didn’t think to mention it again. Hell, we were only supposed to be gone for the day.”
Jacob looked at his watch. “The ceremony won’t start for another two hours, and even once it does I don’t think we’ll be missed. Paul’s a good guy and all, but I doubt he’s counting the minutes until his old college roomy shows up.”
“Shit,” Kate replied. “Suppose no one comes. What do we do once it gets dark? We can’t sleep in the car with those fumes.”
“And we can’t make a fire,” he added. “You tossed out the cigarette lighter when you quit smoking, remember?”
“Hey, for the record, that wasn’t easy.”
Jacob rubbed her back. “And I applaud you, but right now I’m thinking we’ll have to hike back.”
Kate had tucked her head down into the lining of her coat to cover her mouth from the cold. Now she perked up, her rosy red lipstick matching the crimson color of her unprotected cheeks.
“Hike?” she asked. “Montgomery must be over a half hour drive from here.”
“Easily,” Jacob agreed. “But that’s not where we’re going.”
“Where then?”
Jacob tipped his head toward a gap in the tree line.
Kate’s mouth dropped open. “You can’t be serious. Cross country, in these clothes?”
He cringed at the thought of it. “It’ll suck, but I don’t think we’ll be out there too long. Look at that.”
Beyond the gap in the forest a wide valley opened up lower in the woodland, appearing as a huge swath of white surrounded by trees. There, on the other side, a series of angular gray shapes poked over the far treetops.
His wife squinted. “Are those buildings?”
Jacob nodded. “It’s probably Ethridge. That’s the nearest town to Montgomery on the map. If we took the road we’d have to detour around Voyager’s National Forest. Going across this valley, we’ll only have to travel three or four miles.”
Kate tucked her chin back into her coat. “All the experts say you’re supposed to stay with your vehicle if you get stranded.”
Again, Jacob agreed. “True, but we’ve got clear skies and almost no wind, plus five hours of daylight. Being that we’re still in the lowlands, I’m betting we can make the hike in well under that.”
He turned and looked at the tower of rock looming over them. “Besides, I’m not so sure I want to camp out under this monster. The sunlight will have those rocks warming up. All it takes is a few drops of melt-water freezing in the right crack after sundown and—BAM—we’re part of the mountain.”
“The forecast did call for flurries tonight,” Kate said.
“Which might equate to another two or three feet of snow in these parts,” Jacob replied. “If we’re going to go, this could be our best chance to do it.”
Kate eyed him. “Aren’t you supposed to order me to stay put while you go act brave?”
He pulled her close again, pressing their cheeks together until their combine warmth chased the cold from their skin. “Leave my little heater behind? Hell, no.”
Kate laughed, her breath tickling his neck. He held her in silence, not needing to speak to relay his dread of what lay ahead if something went wrong. The world seemed to shrink to a pinpoint, and the only thing left was his love for his family.
“It’s just a few miles,” he said. “We’ll be fine.”
Kate nodded, her gaze flicking to where Sadie was drawing squiggles on a tablet of unbroken snow.
“Hey, kiddo,” Jacob called. “Want to go for a walk?”
“Do I get a piggyback ride?”
“Sure thing.”
She ran over and he lifted her onto his shoulders.
“I’m taller than you, Momma,” their daughter declared from her perch. “I’ll beat you.”
“Momma goes first,” Jacob corrected. “Her boots are warmer than Daddy’s shoes. Plus, we can walk in her footsteps so I don’t accidentally trip on something hidden in the snow. You wouldn’t want to fall from way up there, right?”
“Uh-uh,” Sadie answered.
Kate leaned in and gave each of them a kiss. “Follow the leader,” she said.
Turning away, she stepped over the first drift bordering the roadside. Her leg sank up to her thigh in the powder, but she pressed on, moving into the forest, toward the valley below.
Jacob followed.
* * *
The first fifteen minutes passed in silence.
The ground sloped steadily downward from the road, dotted by huge boulders that jutted from the snow like colossal stumps of half buried bones. Even Sadie, with her insatiable hunger for new information, fell quiet while they navigated the terrain. The sound of their footfalls became the only noise in the snow-muffled stillness.
Jacob tried to ignore the various discomforts already encroaching upon his awareness as he marched. His cheeks burned. His feet ached. The bridge of his nose felt like a wedge of cold steel had been inserted under the skin. He had hoped that the snow wouldn’t be as abundant here in the forest, but the powerful mountain winds had managed to deposit a minimum shin-deep layering throughout the area.
They trudged onward.
Roughly sixty yards from the road they came to a vast grouping of tall pines. Each tree had to be well over a hundred feet tall, with the space between the ground and their lowermost branches a fifth of that distance.
The world grew darker.
Sadie’s grip tightened on Jacob’s shoulders.
Under the boughs of the evergreens the forest became a black and white realm of heaped snow and deep shadows. What little light did make it to the ground burned in bright pools around them.
When they first started off, Jacob’s main concern had been the snow and the cold, but now his mind conjured images of winter-starved bobcats and man-eating grizzly bears.
He glanced around, reevaluating the splendor of the forest.
The tall trunks of the encompassing trees appeared black in the shadows, their bark jagged and horribly knotted. Jacob grimaced when he passed under them, happy to get back into the light.
Ahead, a wide deadfall blocked their path, and Kate paused to consider her options.
Here, broken branches and more rocks gave the snow-covered ground the appearance of a mangled corpse shrouded by a white coroner’s sheet. The fresh scent of pine, which had filled his lungs with each breath since entering the woods, now smelled like something meant to disguise a more sinister odor.
Jacob shook the thought off and hurried to follow Kate when she turned right and resumed her trek.
The trees, the darkness, the strange shapes concealed by the snow … the whole area seemed to exude a malevolence Jacob wasn’t accustomed to, certainly not it connection with nature. He couldn’t say what gave him such an unwholesome impression,
but, rational or not, the feeling persisted.
He suddenly wondered if he’d made the right choice.
A branch snapped.
It sounded off to the left, and Jacob pivoted to look. A flash of darkness merged with the deeper shadows under the trees.
He stopped walking.
“Hello?” he started to say, but stopped short when another twig cracked to his right. This time Kate came to a halt.
“What was that?” she asked.
Jacob held up a hand to silence her and continued to listen.
They’d come to another cathedral of pines, but the staggered ramparts of smaller saplings surrounding them limited his sight to only a few yards.
“Probably the deer that ran us off the road,” he said.
The snow had thinned out a bit under the larger trees, and Jacob used the opportunity to walk alongside his wife when they started moving again.
“Not long and we’ll be sucking down hot coco at the nearest restaurant,” he said to break the uneasy hush. “How’s that sound?”
“Yum,” Sadie cheered. “With mushmellows, too?”
“As many as you can eat.”
Jacob noticed Kate give the area behind them one last appraisal before joining in. “I just hope we don’t all end up with pneumonia.”
He smiled at her. “Did you hear the one about the doctor whose patient died of bronchitis?”
She regarded him with one eyebrow raised in suspicion.
“He said he knew the guy was a goner because of the coffin.”
Kate rolled her eyes but grinned.
“Get it? Coughing. Coffin.”
“Very clever, dear.”
Sadie leaned over his shoulder. “What’s bronto-po-cysus?”
Jacob looked up at her. “It’s like a really bad col—”
But his reply tapered off when he spotted what loomed overhead.
He stopped walking.
Kate continued several steps before turning and tracing his line of sight. She gasped.
