Blizzard of Souls Read online

  “Yes,” the young mother said, looking to her child.

  “This is the place I dreamed about,” he whispered.

  “The place you dreamed about?” Richard sneered. “Then this just absolutely has to be the place, doesn’t it?”

  “Leave him alone,” the woman with Leather Jacket said.

  The boy’s mother pulled him behind her, but couldn’t bring herself to look Richard in the eyes. There was something physically intimidating about him, and if there was one trait she had been conditioned to recognize after choosing the wrong man over and over, it was the subtle glimmer in his eyes that signified that he was accustomed to getting his way, whether by wit or by force.

  “Wait for me!” the blonde hollered from fifty yards down the highway. “Oh please, God! Wait for me!”

  Garrett turned and lumbered back down the asphalt toward her, allowing her to throw her arm over his thick neck so he could bear the majority of her weight.

  “Give me a break,” Richard groaned, striking off through the gateway and into the desert.

  He heard the hesitant footsteps on the gravel behind him cross from the shoulder onto the sand. Without turning around, he allowed a smile to creep across his lips.

  “Cattle,” he whispered, picking up his pace and knowing full well that they would do the same.

  V

  Mormon Tears

  AN ENDLESS SHEET OF ICE STRETCHED BEFORE HER, HIDDEN BENEATH several feet of snow. The wind rose with a howl, blowing the enormous flakes falling from the sky sideways, raising clouds of powder from the ground. At the furthest reaches of Jill’s vision, she could see the hint of the flames burning on the distant island, a faint aura of light winking menacingly at her through the blizzard. She could smell the smoke even from so far away, knowing that it wasn’t just the scent of burning wood, but of cooking flesh and boiling blood cracking through charcoaled bone. It was the surreal stench of hope’s last rites.

  Jill turned around and faced the sheer wall of stone behind her, now stained black by the smoke rising up from the caves. A dike of snow stood between her and their cavernous lair, long sharpened spears poking from the packed mound like a porcupine’s quills. It extended as far as she could see in either direction, following the course of the bank before extending out onto the lake to encompass stretches of open black water warmed by the pyres burning so far under the beach that only the tips of the flames chased the gray smoke into the air.

  Thin white clouds of breath floated from behind the snow embankment where she knew the others were hiding, waiting for their opportunity, but praying it would never come. Their fear was palpable, even though she couldn’t see them.

  She spun at the sound of a high-pitched hiss like steam from an industrial vat. A tide of blackness appeared across the lake, rolling toward where she stood on the frozen shore. Screams pierced the night all around her and she added her voice to the hysterical cries—

  “Jesus! Is she okay?” a voice she didn’t recognize said. Jill’s eyelids snapped open to reveal a guy about her age, looking down at her through wide blue eyes. The bridge of his nose bent slightly to the left, knobbed as though it had been broken fairly recently. She knew she’d never seen him before, but everything about him was familiar, right down to his short dark hair.

  It wasn’t until that moment that she realized she was screaming.

  “Are you all right?” he asked, and looked to her right. “What’s her name?”

  “Jill,” April said, taking Jill by the shoulder and leaning right into her face. Jill recoiled at the scent of April’s morning breath.

  “Talk to me, Jill,” the guy said. “Are you okay?”

  She couldn’t tear her stare from his face. It wasn’t as though it merely looked familiar. It was as though she already knew him intimately. Details slowly came into focus around his face. An enormous fire burned behind him, the smoke channeling out through the open cave mouth. April was huddled against her, the blanket they shared stretched to its limits to cover Darren on the other side of April. Both looked terrified as they watched her, unable to blink.

  “Was it another dream?” April asked.

  Oh God, please don’t let it be another dream.

  I can’t handle this. Make it stop!

  I hope she’s all right.

  What the hell’s wrong with that girl?

  The voices swirled around in her head, fighting for dominance, chasing out her every conscious thought. None of their lips moved, yet she could still hear them, their voices assaulting her from all sides. She wanted to clap her hands over her ears to make the ruckus stop, but she couldn’t, she couldn’t, she could—

  She’s beautiful…

  The torrent of words stopped and her mind cleared, leaving her focused on the boy’s blue eyes.

  “Thank you,” she whispered.

  He smiled. “Must have been a nasty nightmare. You were screaming to wake the dead.” He cringed at his choice of words. “So you think you’re going to be okay now?”

  “Yeah,” she said, blushing. “I feel like a complete idiot.”

  “No worries,” he said through a smirk that tipped up to the right. “Given the circumstances, I’d imagine you’re entitled.”

  “Jill has dreams,” April said.

  “What a coincidence. So do I.”

  Jill smiled and he realized how close his face was to hers and withdrew, plopping onto his rear end in front of her. The firelight flooded his face, revealing a purplish-blue mash of bruises around his eyes.

  “Oh, my gosh,” Jill gasped.

  “I get that reaction a lot.”

  “I mean, your eyes… What happened?”

  “They look worse than they feel.”

  “Jill can see the future in her dreams,” April interrupted. “She’s the only reason that we’re still alive.”

  “Interesting,” he said, again with that almost cocky grin. “What am I going to do next?”

  “I don’t know,” Jill said sheepishly.

  “Good. Neither do I. That’s half the fun of life.” He extended his right hand across her covered lap. “I’m Mare.”

  “Like a female horse?” Jill asked. She winced at how stupid that must have sounded.

  He chuckled. “Yeah…like a female horse.”

  “Sorry, I’m—”

  “No wait! Let me guess… Jill, right?”

  “You already knew that, silly. I was going to say that I’m usually not so dense.”

  “I knew that.”

  “What are you, psychic?”

  “I’ve been known to see glimpses of the future.”

  “Oh, yeah? And what do you see?”

  He finally released her hand. He’d been so wrapped up in her eyes and what she was saying that he hadn’t noticed when the shake had stopped and he was just sitting there holding her hand.

  “I see an amazing girl—”

  ”Come on, Jill,” April said, tossing off the blanket and climbing to her feet. “Let’s get something to eat.”

  “But I…” Jill started, but April already had her by the hand and was hauling her up.

  “Excuse us, Mary—”

  “It’s Mare.”

  “—but we’d better get some of those beans before they’re all gone.”

  “Absolutely,” he said, rising and taking a step back. He gestured with his right arm to usher them past. “It’s been a pleasure meeting you.”

  “Don’t mind April,” Jill whispered as she passed. “She’s a bear in the mornings.”

  The guy with April passed between them, giving Mare a look that could have dropped a stag from twenty yards.

  “Mare,” he said, offering his hand to the other guy.

  “Darren,” the other guy said, shaking his hand a bit too hard.

  The other guy who’d been leaning up against Darren on the ground didn’t stand. He just rolled over onto his side in the newly vacated space, wrapped the blanket around his shoulders, and closed his eyes again. He looke
d awful. His face was pale and pocked with crusted blood like freckles.

  Mare looked back at Jill, standing in the short line by where an older man in a fur-lined hunting jacket ladled out beans from a soot-stained aluminum bucket. There was definitely something special about her. Nothing he could clearly identify, but he was drawn to her like a moth to a flame.

  His sister turned from the front of the line and headed outside with a steaming plate of beans. He’d already seen her wolf down a mounded plate earlier before disappearing outside with that weird albino kid. Following her through the smoke, he stood in the mouth of the cave and watched her walking down the beach toward that same boy. He was about to go after her when movement from the right drew his attention.

  There was a channel in the steep stone face of the mountain of rock, carved smooth by eons of water flow as the Great Salt Lake retreated from the ocean. The walls to either side had to be a hundred feet tall, creating a bottleneck of smooth white sand, the only entrance to their haven. Several figures appeared, treading cautiously out onto the beach. The man in the lead wore a suit jacket with a red and blue tie around his head, while a larger man flanked him to the right in an army surplus jacket. A man in a leather jacket and a dark-haired woman trailed half a dozen paces behind.

  A man and a woman emerged from the back door of the camper parked to his left, nervously eyeing the newcomers, the man doing a poor job of hiding the shotgun behind his back.

  Mare headed toward the strangers, preparing to offer his hand and an introduction, but he was interrupted by pained wails from behind them. He sprinted past the new arrivals to where one woman helped another hobble across the sand, a young boy at their heels. Ducking under the injured woman’s other arm, he helped guide them out into the open and urged them along the face of the mountain to the edge of the cloud of smoke funneling out of the cave.

  “Let’s get you off those feet,” Mare said, helping the other woman lower her to the ground. Everything from her soles clear over the tops of her feet was covered with a coating of blood-induced mud, while there were still patches from which thin cactus needles stood, broken nearly to her skin from where someone had unsuccessfully tried to pry them out.

  “Is she going to be all right?” the little boy asked, unable to look away from the bottoms of her feet where fresh blood eroded the mud.

  “Of course she’ll be okay,” he said, only to be contradicted by the woman’s scream. “We just need her to stay off of those feet for a while so they can start to heal.”

  “And maybe sew her lips shut,” the man with the tie around his head mumbled as he followed his nose toward the beans, the man in the military-issue olive jacket a half pace behind his right hip.

  Mare looked at the woman, but apparently she hadn’t heard the man’s remark over her sobbing. “What’s your name?” he asked, trying to distract her from the pain.

  “Lindsay,” she said through bared teeth. “Lindsay Lechner.”

  “I can handle this from here,” Adam said from behind him, patting Mare on the shoulder.

  “Ah…our resident doctor. You’re in good hands now, Miss Lechner.” Mare turned to the boy. “You hungry?”

  The boy nodded emphatically.

  “How ’bout we get you and your mom something to eat?”

  “That would be wonderful,” the boy’s mother said.

  Mare walked around Adam, who was already pouring water from a canteen onto Lindsay’s feet to assess the extent of her wounds.

  “I’m Mare,” he said, stooping and offering his hand to the child. “What’s your name?”

  “Jake.”

  “Nice to meet you, Jake,” he said, shaking the boy’s hand with mock formality.

  “I’m Susan,” the boy’s mother said, offering her hand while trying to discretely pull her child behind her back with the other.

  “And there’s your sister,” Jake said, pointing down the shoreline.

  Mare turned at the sound of footsteps in the sand behind him to see Missy and Phoenix.

  “How did you—?” Mare started, whirling back to face Jake, but he was already scampering off with his mother toward the fire.

  VI

  RAY KNEW HE WASN’T SLEEPING, BUT HE CERTAINLY WASN’T AWAKE EITHER. He existed between where he could only focus alternately on the roaring flames in front of him and the insides of his eyelids in a realm where he only experienced pain. His body was numbed to it, whether from the intense cold to which he’d been exposed the night before or because his flesh was simply shutting down, he couldn’t be sure. The unadulterated agony that speared him was so intensely emotional that he would have traded it for the most excruciating physical torture in a heartbeat. His entire world had been stripped away from him in a single day. First his mother had been killed in the atomic detonation of New York City, and then he had been forced to watch the love of his life be torn apart by reptilian shadows.

  “Tina,” he whispered, blood seeping from his weather-cracked lips, battling against the vision of her decapitated head bouncing off the wall beside him to alight in a puddle of her blood.

  A bitter coldness radiated from the rock floor. Even with the hooded pullover and the blanket, he was helpless against it. Darren and the girls were gone—when had they left?—leaving him alone on the hard ground in a cave hundreds of miles from his home in Eugene and the only life he had ever known. He couldn’t close his eyes for fear of seeing Tina being dragged back into the stall of that restaurant’s bathroom, hear her terrified screams as she was butchered in front of him, nor could he stand to leave them open to see the looks on the dirty faces of the other survivors while they pretended not to see him, like he was some sort of leper. Studying him from the corners of their eyes, but looking away as soon as he caught their stares. He needed to get out of there, out of his own head. It felt as though the walls were closing in and all of the air was being sucked out. He couldn’t breathe…couldn’t…breathe…

  Before he made a conscious decision to stand, he was on his feet, swaying against his equilibrium. He could feel the weight of all their eyes upon him, boring through his flesh and burrowing into his marrow. Staggering forward, a woman gasped at the sight of the blood gushing out of his nostrils, but he shouldered through her, nearly clobbering her young son. All he could focus on was the gray sky outside of that suffocating cavern, but as soon as he passed through the smoke, which smelled only faintly of brown sugar and smoked bacon, he nearly stumbled into a group of people. Eyes flashed in his direction. Mouths opened to expel a cacophonous roar of voices. He had to get away from them. From everyone. He almost threw himself to the ground in his hurry to retreat, storming through the smoke and back into the cave where he was only met by more staring eyes and incomprehensible words. Ray opened his mouth to scream—

  A cold hand touched his and the world came back into focus. He lowered his stare to the tiny fingers holding his, following the slender arm to the shoulder and then into the face of the young boy. Ray’s eyes locked onto the child’s, a shade of blue richer than the deepest arctic ocean.

  “You won’t find what you’re looking for out there,” the boy said in a voice so small Ray could hardly hear it. “You have to look deep inside.” The sound of that last word lingered long after the child closed his mouth and broke eye contact. Ray followed the boy’s gaze until he saw where it was focused. There was a black maw in the wall, an earthen doorway leading deeper into the mountain and a darkness as thick as tar.

  “She’s waiting for you in there,” the boy whispered, but by the time Ray whirled to face him again, the child stood at the front of the line while the old man with the furry ring around his hood heaped a generous portion of steaming beans onto his plate.

  Ray wiped the blood from his lips and chin with the back of his hand and walked to the mouth of the stone monolith, dusty, cold breath drifting into his face. Staring into the pitch black, his legs moved of their own accord, guiding him away from the fire, only now a distant flickering memory o
n the granite walls to either side of the corridor.

  Raising his arms in front of him, he pressed deeper and deeper into the ebony heart of the rock colossus. The sound of voices faded to nothingness, replaced by the occasional drip of condensation from the darkness above and the gentle echo of his scuffing feet. It grew warmer with each step, the air thickening with humidity.

  “Ray,” a voice whispered from all around him at once.

  “Tina?” He turned in a circle, though he couldn’t pry anything from the darkness. He stopped and held his breath so as not to obscure even the slightest sound.

  Plip.

  A warm breeze caressed his cheek and he smelled her sweet breath.

  Ploop.

  His heart thumped far too loudly in his ears, his staled breath fighting to escape.

  “Ray,” the voice whispered again, drawing out the word.

  “Tina!” he shouted, sprinting ahead, not caring if he slammed into a stone wall or tripped and broke every bone in his body. He had to scream to be heard over the thunder of his footfalls ricocheting back at him in the close confines. “Tina!”

  His left shoulder scraped the wall, tearing through his sweatshirt to abrade the skin beneath, channeling him to the right. Banging into the wall over and over, smearing his lifeblood onto the rock, the tunnel eventually straightened out and he was able to run unimpeded through the blackness again.

  “Tina! Where are you?” he bellowed, only this time his words sounded hollow, the echo distant and repeating into oblivion.

  Slowing, he doubled over and clasped his hands on his thighs, sucking for air.

  “Please,” he whimpered, falling to his knees. “Please don’t leave me here…alone.”

  “You’ll never be alone,” the voice whispered. He felt a warm sensation pass over his lips.

  “I can’t go on like this. Not without you…”

  “You must be strong now, Ray. They will need your strength.”

  “Tina, please… I just want to be with you…”