Snow Read online

  "Ah," snarled Robert. "The penny drops. Lots of pennies, in fact!" Angela took out her phone, turned it on, ready to ring the authorities. Robert didn't look in the least bit concerned. "Go ahead. You won't get any signal out here." She checked the bars at the top of the screen - nothing. She switched it off and slowly slid it back into her jeans pocket.

  "So…" Angela said, her usual bravado deserting her, "what's the plan? Just murder me and leave me out here?"

  It had been said as a joke, but now she could see in his eyes that yes, that actually was the plan. "People go missing around here all the time and are never found," said Robert. "You know, when it's better weather and there are actually people around. Old mining country, you see. Lots of places for a person to get lost, to be hidden. But hey," his gaze lowered then, to her chest, "what's the rush? We have some time." So that was it - now there was no possibility of getting caught, of being reported, he was dropping all pretence and was about to do what he'd wanted to do for so long. Angela shuddered as he licked his lips - and she made a lunge for the door. Anything was better than what was about to happen, even freezing to death out there in this godforsaken place.

  It was locked… from the inside anyway. Probably had been since they'd set off, like she was going to jump from it like they do in the movies. Maybe if she'd thought that-

  Christ, was this really happening?

  She tried the other one, but it was the same result. While she'd been fumbling with the handle, Robert had turned back around and clambered out - his door, at least, was unlocked. He moved up the car and undid the back door on his side, the one she'd just tried, then loomed inside. Angela backed away from him, but already his hands were clawing at her jeans. She kicked out, managed to shove him backwards with one booted foot - enough to buy her some time, anyway.

  Angela scrambled through the gap between the front two seats, dropping heavily into the passenger side diagonally across from Robert. She reached out for the handle of this one, and almost let out a wail of joy when she found out that was unlocked, too. Shoving it open, she hauled the rest of her body across the seat and flopped out onto the white ground below. Robert was quick for a man of his size, though, and already he was making his way around the back of the car to meet her.

  She was up and barrelling into him before he could take hold. It was only then that Angela saw what he had in his hand; the gun already half-raised. That was what caused her to flee more than anything, not that the thought of what Robert had attempted to do wasn't bad enough - but the idea that he might just shoot her and do that anyway, afterwards, was infinitely worse.

  Angela skidded and almost fell over with her first few steps, but she righted herself and then really got going. Sprinting as the snow globe was shaken, the world turning upside down - her world.

  Then the bang. The red-hot feeling in her shoulder. The pain. Losing her coat. And the knee… the rather satisfying knee to parts Robert definitely wouldn't be using for a while on her.

  More running, pressing her hand to the bullet-hole - not easy to do when your body is swaying from side to side. Indeed, she wasn't doing a very good job of either: the running or the stemming of the blood.

  So here she was. Dead whatever happened. From her injury or from the cold, especially now that her coat was gone. How long could you last out here in the snow without that? Which would kill her first? Blood-loss or the elements?

  Or Robert? Don't forget Robert…

  Hardly likely, since he was the architect of all this, the reason she was "dead". No, not him: Ruth. The brains of the outfit, remember? The brains behind all this… Angela could imagine the conversation, perhaps over breakfast that morning: "Don't forget to pick up some milk when you're out and about. Oh, and if you have a mo, would you mind just offing your niece and leaving her body out in the frozen wastelands? Thanks ever so!" Complete and utter bitch! She wished now she'd told her dad to get as far away from her as possible. To run…

  Run, like she was attempting to do now, getting more and more lost out here. Going deeper and deeper into the woods, the branches of the trees no longer bare - heavy not with leaves, but with whiteness. Her head was spinning; was that down to the blood she'd shed? Probably. Keep going, just keep going - try not to think about that. You need to get away and- Angela rounded one of the trees and suddenly he was there, right in front of her, as if he'd teleported ahead and simply been waiting for her to catch up. Or perhaps he just knew the area much better; had he done this kind of thing before at Ruth's behest? He was red-faced - a mixture of anger and exertion - and puffing, however, so she had at least made the chase difficult for him. But he still had the gun in his hand, which was for the moment by his side. "You… you little…" He seemed to be struggling to find the right word to describe her, so in the end just gave up. "Where do you think you're going to go? There's nowhere to go!" Robert was waving the gun around, using it to illustrate his point. Then he stepped towards Angela and levelled the firearm at her. There was no chance of postponing things now, he wasn't interested anymore apparently - and for that small mercy she was grateful (maybe it was the fact she was covered in blood, damaged goods; maybe it was because it was freezing out here; or maybe she'd done him more damage down there than even she'd imagined, and that thought gave her some comfort). No, he just wanted to get this over and done with…

  But Angela still wasn't ready to give up. She began backing away; for each step he took, she took two - as if she might be able to outrun a bullet. It had already been proven that she couldn't.

  "Look, just stop," said Robert wearily. "Stand still."

  She shook her head, wasn't going to give him the satisfaction of being a sitting duck. No, as with the chase, she was going to make it as difficult as possible for him. Robert scrunched up his face, stretched out his gun arm and held it steady with his other hand.

  Then he fired.

  Just as Angela ducked sideways behind the nearest tree. There was no heat, no pain, so he must have missed. Wood splintered next to her ear as Robert let off another shot at the tree this time, but it was doing a decent job of shielding her - for now. She heard footsteps, the crunching of snow; he was on the move again.

  Angela threw herself sideways once more, away from the sound, but then Robert came round the tree and she bumped straight into him. It wasn't enough to knock her over, but it pushed her back a few steps. The backhander that he then delivered did the rest and suddenly she was on the ground, blood pouring from her shoulder after she'd let it go, and from a split lip. It did little to help with her mounting wooziness.

  Raising her head, she spat out redness onto the ground and stared at the pattern it made for a moment. Then Robert was towering over her, gun pointed at her again.

  No! Angela said to herself. Not yet. And she began to crawl backwards, shuffling away as quickly as she could - which admittedly wasn't very fast at all - while Robert just watched.

  "You're a fighter, I'll give you that. But do me a favour, would you?" Angela didn't stop crawling - in fact she flipped over onto her stomach; she certainly didn't answer him. "Just fucking die already!" Robert finished, and even though she had her back to him she knew he was aiming, was about to pull the trigger one final time.

  Then the world turned upside down again; the snow globe was being shaken. Actually, the world turned upside down a number of times - though not before there was a loud cracking sound and Angela felt the ground underneath her give way. She had no idea whether Robert had fired, didn't really care, because all that was so far away from her now and getting further by the second. She was aware of the sensation of falling, but felt detached from it - from herself even. The thought crossed her mind that maybe she was dead, maybe he had killed her and this was what it felt like. But weren't you supposed to float upwards, float over your body and then ascend to whatever afterlife you believed in? If she was falling then it didn't bode well; it meant she was going in the opposite direction, going down… Ah well, she thought deliriously, at least
it'll be warmer. Yet Angela couldn't think what she'd done that had been so wrong in her life; she'd made mistakes, sure, but nothing wicked, nothing evil. Wasn't that kind of place usually reserved for people like Ruth and Robert?

  Even as she rolled his name around in her head, she saw him above her - leaning over the hole she must have dropped through. Old mining territory, he'd said back in the car - that must be it. She'd dropped through ground that had been destabilised by years of being eaten away. And now she was falling away, falling so far she felt as if she was being eaten now by the earth, rolling over and over, banging against this side and that. She plummeted for what seemed like forever, until she could no longer see Robert's face at the opening she'd created.

  She stopped. She'd hit an incline, although Angela didn't realise it at first, not till she began to slide down it. But she was grateful for the fact, because if she had just hit - literally - rock bottom, it would have smashed every bone in her body. She was still heading downwards, sliding at first, before tumbling over a few times as she went. It felt a little like she was in a laundry chute, heading to the basement to join the rest of the dirty linen; to be collected and then-

  Suddenly, the ride was over and she was pitched forwards, where she rolled over several more times before skidding to a halt. The ground was lumpy, uncomfortable, and she blinked once or twice before gazing around her. There was a dim light coming from somewhere, and as her eyes adjusted she could see the snow again, flakes of it - well, that's what it looked like at any rate. The result of the globe being turned upside down… Except they weren't moving - weren't falling. They were fixed and twinkling. It was this that was providing what little light there was.

  Enough to see what she'd landed in. Not laundry at all but… Bones. Lots and lots of bones.

  And it was at that point Angela finally lost her grasp on consciousness.

  *

  Red on white.

  That's what she was seeing. Crimson blooming, no - staining the whiteness. Her blood through the T-shirt as the bullet did its worst. Then all she could see was the red, everywhere - until Angela pulled back and noticed that it was no longer blood. It was a rose opening, each petal slowly unfurling as it sprang up - sprouting out of the snow-covered ground. How it could have survived, she didn't have a clue. But it had - indeed, it was thriving.

  She was pulling away again, like a camera zoom in reverse - pulling out so far she could see herself in the frosty wilds. Stumbling, clutching at her arm, leaving the trail of blood behind her. Except Angela saw the spilled redness on the ground from above; the spirit leaving its body again? Could see what that crimson was saying, for it wasn't just a random pattern - it had formed two words:

  "Wake" and "Up", with an exclamation mark just to emphasise this. It was what she needed to do, she knew that. She was still in danger, only now she didn't know exactly what from. At least Robert had a face, an understandable motivation. Angela needed to rouse herself, figure out what exactly she was dealing with.

  But she didn't.

  She remained unconscious until she felt teeth biting into her. Then she sat up with a scream that would have woken the dead.

  Her breathing was coming in short gasps, and she was finding it harder and harder to get oxygen than she ever had when she was running through the trees. Something scuttled away from her; something that had been clamped to her hand just moments before, and when she held this out in front of her, she could just about make out the indentations on her palm.

  Teeth-marks.

  So, what, some kind of animal? A dog maybe? But down here? Some sort of wild dog perhaps? A wolf? Did they shelter underground in winter?

  Maybe in caves, but… And there was no growling. She screwed up her eyes but could see no more sign of it, though she felt like it wasn't that far away. Felt like it was waiting. Waiting and watching her.

  The scream had scared it off, but if it was hungry enough, if it was trying to eat her - like the earth had been when she fell, swallowing her whole - then it would soon be back. For now, though, she sat every still - not only because she didn't want to draw undue attention to herself, but also because she was still feeling quite dizzy; could also feel the blood still oozing from the wound at her shoulder. There she sat…amongst the bones… Other animals who had fallen foul of this creature down here? Been dragged under the ground to this… what? Nest? Pit? The more she stared, the more she could see that there were much larger bones scattered amongst the smaller ones; Angela almost let out a yelp when she spotted what was left of a human arm. And yes, there: ribcages, a leg, still with some of the meat hanging off it, though to all intents and purposes pretty much picked clean, it had to be said.

  Angela allowed herself a whispered: "Shit!"

  Not that far away from her, she could also see the remains of a hand - which had more or less kept its shape in spite of the fact a lot of the flesh was gone. She held up her own hand and looked again at the bite-marks. Swallowed dryly.

  People go missing around here all the time.

  But how could she see these remains anyway? Where was the light even coming from? It was only now that she remembered the snow that had been frozen in time; that refused to fall. Sparkling all around her, something set into the walls of this place.

  Angela took them in now, too. Trying to work out what they were - eyes flitting from one to the other and-

  One set blinked. She almost screamed again, but instead made a fist out of that bitten hand and put it to her mouth. The eyes blinked again; white, and surely sightless? Belonging to something she couldn't see yet. Another set not too far away from the first also closed, then opened again.

  More than one of the animals? A male and female, then? No, a family - for a couple more sets blinked at that precise moment. Angela fought to control her breathing once more, but it wasn't easy. She counted five sets now, and risked a movement. Risked reaching downwards with her only hand that was working properly, to fish the mobile phone out of her pocket. If she could just shed a little light on the situation… It was always worse, not being able to see what was in front of you. Imagining the worst. Even if these were animals, dogs, maybe she could calm them down somehow? Throw them a fucking bone - there were plenty around here to choose from.

  But what if they aren't animals? a little voice said in the back of her mind.

  What then?

  Still better to know, wasn't it? Her hand carried on snaking down slowly, reaching towards her pocket. Wasn't as easy as it had been in the car; oh, it was easy enough to shove her fingers inside - not so easy to pull out the phone, which was wedged in there tight. The thought occurred to her, as she was doing this, and another set of eyes opened up out there in the half-light, that the phone might well be broken. Angela had taken a hell of a tumble to reach her destination, such as it was - but she tried to comfort herself by saying that it had been through a lot worse and survived: dropped on the pavement at least a dozen times; had drinks spilled on it by prats at Uni; even fell into her cornflakes once. Thing was like a tank.

  Nevertheless, until she had it in her hands, until she switched it on- Yes! Angela had it, fingertips brushing against the top then pinching together to try and snag the thing, like some kind of seaside amusement where the prize kept slipping out of the grabber's grasp. Nearly there, nearly there… Got it! Angela pulled it far enough out so that she could get a hold of the small, slippery square properly, freeing it from its confines (if only she could do the same for herself). But what had she won? Let's see, let's see.

  Angela brought the mobile up, flicking it on even as yet another set of eyes blinked in the distance - but as long as they stayed there… What she'd won was a working phone she saw (the grand prize) as her eyes flicked downwards. There were still no bars on the top, but then if there was no reception above ground, she shouldn't really have expected any deep down in its depths.

  What there was available to her was the torch app, which she flipped up and turned on. Nothing happened. So, i
t wasn't a completely fully-functioning piece of tech…

  The eyes were moving. All of them. Getting bigger, getting closer.

  Angela swallowed again. No light, no way of seeing what was coming for her. No way of defending herself, either, because if these things were so used to the dim lighting down here, she'd considered maybe using that torch as a weapon.

  She stared at the menu, the picture a photo of her favourite statue, snapped out on a stroll in town: a figure of indeterminate sex reaching upwards, striving to get to the clouds (or the surface, she thought absently… pretty appropriate really).

  Snapped… photo…

  The button for the camera app was staring right at her, set to auto. Angela nudged it on with her thumb. The eyes were getting bigger, fuller, blinking again almost, but not quite in unison. Seven sets, seven pairs. She pressed the round button on the screen and took a picture. The flash lit up the scene around her momentarily, affording her a glimpse of what was ahead. What had clearly done this to those people in the pit: a preview of what was in store for her, too, more than likely.

  Angela saw a glimpse of the beasts and thought she was going mad. No dogs, definitely not dogs. Not even animals really, but human in shape - if not in nature. They were not that big, about the size of chimps she estimated, but their skin was as pale as their eyes. It was slick, that flesh, and lumpy, knotted - but the way they were moving showed that this extended to their bones as well; they were disjointed things straight out of a painting of Hell, thought Angela. Straight out of something from Dante's Inferno, the creatures that populated those Circles he'd been taken on a tour of by Virgil (they'd studied this poem in her first semester).

  They also recoiled at the flash, showing their teeth - tiny and razor-sharp by the looks of things - and while she was taking in their faces, their completely bald heads, veins pulsing at the temples, she saw that they had no noses to speak of, just little slits. Their ears were pointed, jutting out awkwardly from the sides of their heads. It was only now that they made a sound as well, not the growl or bark of a wolf as she'd imagined, but a throaty, phlegmy gurgle of protest. The eyes glowed pink in the glare from the camera, then everything went dark again.