Snow Read online

  PAUL KANE

  SNOW

  Stormblade Productions

  First published in 2016 by

  Stormblade Productions http://www.Stormbladeproductions.com http://www.facebook.com/Stormblade-Productions

  Copyright © 2016 Stormblade Productions

  The moral right of Paul Kane to be identified as the author of this work has been asserted in accordance with the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act, 1988.

  All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopy, recording or any information storage and retrieval system, without permission in writing from the publisher.

  A CIP catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library

  Ebook Edition

  This book is a work of fiction. Names, characters, businesses, organisations,

  places and events are either the product of the author's imagination or are used

  fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, events or locales is entirely

  coincidental.

  Praise for Paul Kane

  "Kane's writing has a style and elegance, he's a first rate storyteller."

  (Clive Barker - Bestselling author of The Hellbound Heart, Abarat and The Scarlet Gospels)

  "Paul Kane's lean, stripped-back prose is a tool that's very much fit for purpose. He knows how to make you want to avoid the shadows and the cracks in the pavement."

  (Mike Carey - Bestselling author of the Felix Castor series of novels and The Girl With All The Gifts)

  "It seems there is no risk, no high-stakes gamble, he fears to take…Kane's foot never gets even close to the brake pedal."

  (Peter Straub - Bestselling author of Ghost Story, Mr X, Lost Boy Lost Girl, In the Night Room and Black House, with Stephen King)

  "Kane finds the everyday horrors buried within us, rips them out and serves them up in these deliciously dark tales."

  (Kelley Armstrong - Bestselling author of Bitten, Haunted, Broken, Waking the Witch, Spell Bound, Thirteen and Sea Shadows)

  "He stands out as one of the better writers I've read."

  (Eternal Night )

  "Wonderfully dark and satisfying."

  (Dark Side Magazine)

  "Kane is best when taking risks with his bizarre flights of imagination."

  (SFX Magazine)

  Introduction

  I've always been fascinated with fairy tales, from being told them and reading them as a child, to coming across the various twists there have been of these over the years - my favourites have included Neil Gaiman's, and the movie A Company of Wolves. And the darker the better, which is why when I eventually came across the original Grimm tales I was delighted to discover how much more gruesome they were compared to the sanitised versions that have become more well-known over the years.

  So, after I began writing fiction, it was only a matter of time before I started to produce my own. In fact, 2015-16 marks the tenth anniversary of my first effort in that department: a modern, horror take on Goldilocks called "Who's Been…" which was published alongside my novella Signs of Life - long before Hollywood's most recent love affair with fairy tales took hold, with movies like Jack the Giant Slayer and Hansel & Gretel: Witch Hunters, and before TV series like Grimm and Once Upon A Time became so popular. This gave me a taste for it, which is why when I was asked to do something for Skullvine's novella range in 2007, I came up with RED, a no holds barred horror version of Little Red Riding Hood with a shape-shifting wolf. It was so well received that it sold out of its print run and became something of a collector's item - it was even optioned for film, with an award-winning screenplay written that took things even further. Imagine my delight when Paul Fry of SST Publications wanted not only to publish my sequel novel, Blood RED, but also reprint the original novella with it (plus extras for the limited edition, including an extract from the film script and my character sketches).

  But the story doesn't end there, and definitely not happily ever after - at least not for the residents of Middletown in the short novel Sleeper(s) which came out through Crystal Lake in 2013. My version of Sleeping Beauty, this was described by one producer in the States as "Inception meets the Andromeda Strain" which I think pretty much sums up my angle, as I threw alien invasion into the mix as well. Needless to say I thoroughly enjoyed working on all of these tales, so much so that when Neil Buchanan reviewed my collection from Alchemy Press - Monsters - for the Stormblade site and I saw that they published novelettes, I suggested this project to him and was overjoyed at his enthusiastic response. Like the others, which you can track down yourself if you like this one, it's a very different version of the Snow White you know - or think you know. All the elements are there, they've just been given a little…tweak.

  So, without any further ado, allow me to present the latest in what has become a very interesting and rewarding series. Allow me to introduce you to my Snow - and I promise, you'll never look at her in the same way again.

  Paul Kane

  Derbyshire, December 2015

  For the Brothers Grimm, without whom…

  The landscape was like a snow globe.

  A world turned upside down and shaken, the flakes falling like frozen tears. Like her tears as she ran. Tears from the pain, tears from the anger and disappointment - mainly in herself.

  Everything was white, apart from the drops of red on snow-covered grass. A trail of them, blood escaping from her wounded shoulder, in spite of the fact she was trying to stem it - arm across and covering it with her hand, squeezing even though the agony was excruciating. She couldn't leave any traces, nothing for him to find. To… follow. If he caught up with her, he'd finish what he'd started back there at the Jag. Back when he'd shot her.

  Angela looked over her shoulder, breath coming out as a stream of mist. She couldn't see any sign of him, but then she had doubled him up with that knee to the groin. The last she'd seen of Robert, he'd been bent over, rolling around in the snow, also with tears in his eyes. It had been pure instinct, when he'd grabbed her from behind - grabbed her coat, forcing her to shrug it off.

  She'd turned, still a little in shock from the damage he'd caused - the only reason he'd caught up in the first place when she'd begun to run away from him - and wham! It was a move she'd had to use a fair few times at university, to get rid of the slimeballs who wouldn't take no for an answer.

  "But…but you're so beautiful. I only want a kiss." Yeah, and the rest - but here, let me introduce your privates to a different kind of sensation. Men were all the same, she'd come to realise that; none of them could be trusted, especially where she was concerned. When they realised who she was; when they recognised her. Life wasn't a Disney movie and there were no Prince Charmings around to sweep you off your feet. Only letches, who'd look at her a certain way, undressing her with their eyes.

  So beautiful…

  The way Robert did sometimes - though he'd look away when she caught him. Robert; her Uncle Robert. The person who was now trying to kill her.

  He wasn't her real uncle, of course - not that it made his leering any more palatable - just her relative by marriage. Her father's marriage to that bitch of a woman: her stepmother, Ruth.

  Angela paused a moment, staggered sideways and leaned against a tree. She gritted her teeth as she looked down at her shoulder; took her hand away for a moment and hissed when she saw the blood staining the sleeve of her white tee-shirt, traced the spots of crimson to the snow-covered ground below.

  Red on white, red on white.

  She remembered something then her dad had said to her, when he was still alive - about the time her mother had broken the news to him that she was pregnant. It had been winter then, too, and they'd been walking thro
ugh the park. In spite of the cold, there had been a single red rose blooming nearby. "That's how I knew what you'd look like," he used to say, nodding at her ruby lips, the washed out nature of her skin. Red on white… It was how she'd got her nickname, that ashen complexion - Victorian Pallor, some called it - a contrast to her raven hair.

  Angela stared at her namesake, covering everything in sight: the grass; the trees. Covering her tracks as well, which was good. Covering the blood. Her real name had been chosen because she'd been their little angel, a gift from Heaven after they'd been told they couldn't have children. Maybe they shouldn't have, Angela often thought; then her mum wouldn't have died having her, and her dad would still be-

  Snap out of it, she told herself. Focus! Or you'll be an angel for real when Robert catches up with you.

  She clamped her hand over the exit wound again, shoved herself off the tree. Angela thought about calling out, as she had when she'd first started running - just before that bullet had struck her. But there was nobody around to hear, they were in the middle of nowhere. It was the reason she'd been brought out here in the first place.

  That's what had first tipped her off, when there was simply too much time between buildings as she gazed out at the landscape, as pretty as it was. That they were getting further and further away from civilisation, going up into the mountain regions.

  "This isn't the way to the house," she'd said then.

  "Thought we'd go the scenic route," Robert had replied, but his voice had sounded strange. Preoccupied.

  It was then that she'd started to berate herself, realised that she should never have gotten into that car with him. But how could she have known what would happen? She was on a break from Uni, so Robert had picked her up, the same as always - parked down that quiet side street near campus - and she'd be delivered back home where no doubt she'd be virtually held captive, just like she had been growing up. "To keep you safe," Ruth had always maintained, "out of the public eye." To keep an eye on her, more like. "It's what your father would have wanted," she'd conclude with.

  The hell it was. Her father would have wanted her to be happy, that's all. And she'd been anything but, longing to see the outside world. But then they'd never know what her dad would have wanted, given that they couldn't ask him - given that he'd passed away not long after marrying Ruth. There'd been rumours, naturally, but nothing proven, and Angela hadn't heard any of them until she'd started at college, such had been her sheltered childhood. Then she'd heard - in fact she'd sought them out, dug even deeper into the story… A little too deep; and the truth really hurt. Angela was studying English, but she was also working on the Uni newspaper in her spare time, only small scale and under a pseudonym. It was something she'd signed up for as soon as she'd arrived.

  She'd always been inquisitive, and this just fuelled her passions. It wasn't long before Angela found herself looking into her own family history, though, having been denied it for so long living with Ruth; spotting things that simply didn't add up, didn't tally with what her stepmother had told her - although the woman had been equally good at covering her own tracks. Ruth's background, for example, hadn't been the privileged one she'd been led to believe. Oh, her family had started out with money, but they'd lost it when Ruth's own father had been caught trying to screw the tax man out of hundreds of thousands. He'd committed suicide in jail and the family had been left destitute. Ruth and Robert (that always sounded like some kind of sitcom to Angela; not so funny now, though, was it?) had ended up living in a one-bedroom flea-bitten flat, their mother turning tricks to get by and eventually getting stabbed by a client. That left Ruth to look after her little brother - although the older they grew, the more it became the other way around. Even now, he was both bodyguard as well as chauffeur.

  Ruth had always been the brains of the outfit, however, anyone could see that. She was the one who'd taken charge, taken up where her mother had left off according to Angela's research - and when she'd made enough to get them out of that hole, Ruth had manoeuvred herself into the beds of some quite influential people, probably blackmailing a few along the way. She had made a bit of a name for herself in the business world, and looked set for great things until there had been a hostile takeover of her company by a rival - something that had seen her lose most of her money yet again.

  Enter Angela's father. Angela's rich father.

  Lonely and vulnerable after being on his own for seven long years - on his own apart from his daughter, that was. He hadn't stood a chance once Ruth had set her sights on him, used those same tactics she had with the men who'd paid her for sex; not that he'd known about her origins back then - he couldn't have done. Angela remembered when she'd first been introduced to Ruth, how nice she'd been even to her, how sweet. Getting her onside, knowing that without Angela's approval she would never get that man up the aisle. Even though she was jealous, Angela could see how happy Ruth made her father - and that's all she wanted for him, too.

  "How would you feel about Ruth being your new mummy?" he'd asked her one day, after dating the woman for several months.

  Angela had thought about it for a few moments, thought about how Ruth always made time for her, played with her, took her to see movies and bought her ice cream. Thought that if she had to have a new mum, had to share her father with anyone, then it was probably better it be someone like Ruth than somebody really horrible.

  "I'd like that," she'd told him and he'd smiled so much, hugged her to him and said she'd just made him the happiest person in the world. That had made Angela happy as well.

  If only she'd known…

  They'd married, with Angela as the proud bridesmaid - she'd even been able to pick the pretty maroon dress she would wear - and they'd lived together as a family for a short time. A very short time. It wasn't long after that Angela's father had collapsed in his study: just dropped stone dead; not even an autopsy had been able to uncover the cause. He'd only had a medical the month before that had picked up nothing, for goodness sakes! Angela had cried non-stop for a week when she'd been told, but she hadn't seen Ruth cry once - not even at the funeral. It wasn't long after that Robert moved in, and Angela was palmed off onto various nannies - though never allowed to set foot outside of the grounds of the house. She hardly saw Ruth then, too busy running things at her father's company. If that had been her endgame though, the money, the business, then why look after Angela at all? It wasn't until she started checking into things that the girl realised it had been a stipulation of her late father's will, as was letting her attend university when she was old enough (up until that time, tutors had been hired to school her from home).

  There were other things Angela discovered as well, like how Ruth's business rival had ended up the same way as her dad eventually; collapsing in mysterious circumstances in his hotel room on holiday. Just a coincidence, or something more? Definitely more, thought Angela, when she read about a handful of other cases just like it - those who had stood in Ruth's way. One, a member of the board of directors of her father's company who'd been opposed to the massive job cuts her stepmother had demanded. Died while driving, running his car off the road. The cause of his slumping over the wheel: unknown. Ruth? Ruthless, more like…

  Stuff was going on with the company behind the scenes too, shady deals that were not even remotely legal, cash shifted around and invested in companies that were fronts for other things; culminating in a grand plan she'd only learned of recently to float shares on the open market. That would make Ruth one of the richest women in the world - and see her father turning in his grave. But it was all hearsay; there was no evidence to substantiate any of it. Angela's hands were tied, so she'd just have to continue playing nice until something concrete cropped up she could use.

  Only Ruth wasn't as patient as her, it seemed. In hindsight, she should have seen it coming, but Angela assumed not even her cold-hearted cow of a stepmother was capable of something like this. Giving her brother orders to take her out into the wilderness and put a bull
et into her brain. Her mistake. Her stupid mistake. Shouldn't have got into the car… but then that would have aroused suspicion in itself, wouldn't it? Better that than what was about to happen; what she was beginning to suspect would happen.

  "Look, what's all this about?" Angela had asked feebly, as they'd parked up on the outskirts of what looked like a wood. Already the snow was beginning to fall, but it would be coming down hard very soon.

  Robert had turned around in the driver's seat, leaning an arm across, and stared at her. "Oh, I think you know full well what this is about, young lady." He didn't say it in that disapproving way some adults do; when Robert said the words, he sounded creepy as all hell. She took him in now, the disgusting fleshiness of him; his jowly face, fat from years of living off her father's hard work. The tiny, darting eyes, and that receding hairline - one of those men who was going bald in spite of the fact he was only in his thirties. "Your little…investigation."

  "I don't know what you're talking about," she'd replied, but her voice had cracked halfway through the sentence. "Let me just speak to Ruth because- "

  "Ruth has fucking had it up to here with you," Robert had said, raising his hand to his forehead as if giving a weird salute. "What? Did you think that we weren't keeping tabs on you at your little school? Do you really think we're that stupid?"

  Angela was tempted to say, "Well, you maybe," but it didn't seem the time nor the place to be facetious.

  "And did you really think she was about to share all that money she's about to come into with you?"

  "With me?" Angela had asked, genuinely confused. "I don't want the-"

  "It's in the fucking will, brat!" Robert had snarled. "Just like the rest of it… You get half of any profits from the company when you turn twenty-one."

  That was only a few weeks away; she was planning on spending it alone in her dorm room, watching her favourite movies (it was preferable to hanging out in those sleazy clubs her freeloading "mates" loved so much - what a disappointment the outside world had turned out to be). Angela had had no idea… But yes, that would explain it. That would explain everything. It would definitely explain this.