Hellifax (7 page)

Scott stopped.

He shifted into drive and turned around without having to engage the onboard sensors.

The wipers worked hard to clear the windshield, but he knew the blizzard was actually getting stronger. Some parts of the Maritimes experienced upward of one hundred and fifty kilometer winds, strong enough to rip a person off their feet or tear the tops off houses.

Snaking his way ahead, he turned off the road and drove through a gap of cars, heading south on the side of the blanketed roadway. The tires handled things beautifully, keeping him moving forward without getting stuck. The overturned transport came into view, then he was past it. More cars rose out of the white gloom, frozen in place, and he maneuvered around them, getting back onto the 101.

The clock said 10:12. That bothered Scott. The blowing snow, reduced visibility, and abandoned cars were all playing with him. He wanted nothing better than to get a little closer to the city before finding a place to hunker down and wait things out. Another gust of wind splashed his windshield, hard enough to startle him and sending a clear message to stop thinking
shit
. Best to get off the road
now
, while he possessed the control to do so.

Grimacing, Scott elected to do just that.

The Durango crawled through the storm, passing under overpasses that didn’t offer much shelter from the weather pelting the SUV’s metal hide. He soon realized that his opportunity to get out of the storm quickly had already passed, and he was committed to riding down the deep throat of highway. One of the overpasses had a sign that said Halifax, with an arrow pointing to the right. An almost ethereal exit materialized out of the storm, marking the way.

Beside it and swaying with the wind stood a skeletal figure, draped in rags that blew furiously about its person. Hair and cloth flapped around its head, masking its face, but Scott got close enough to see a frosty, lipless smile leering at him before it drifted past the passenger window and slipped out of view. He glanced over his shoulder, expecting the thing to reach out and smash the side of the vehicle, but it did not.

Then it was gone, swallowed up by the storm.

And he was on the exit for Halifax.

The Durango crept down the 102 and headed deeper into the storm. Scott thought he saw the tips of roofs to his left, through searing sheets of blowing snow, but there was no clear way to get the vehicle over galvanized steel guardrails, so he continued driving. The trees vanished at points and the snow ripped across the highway so fiercely that he simply stopped and gawked at the blizzard’s fury.
Like a carwash
, Scott thought, peering out at it. He lowered the window on his side and stuck his head out, squinting against the blast of air and sting of ice and not seeing any farther than five feet in front of him. There was no way to get his bearings.

Then he saw it on his left—a grey, waist-high wall separating the opposing lane from the one he was in. Keeping his window down, Scott eased the Durango over until he could have touched the wall if he stuck out his arm, creeping along it as if it were a safety rope guiding him forward. Cars and other motor vehicles still littered the highway, and these he drove by as best as he could, leaving the guidance of the wall when he had to. The outline of a large building rose up on the left, and he realized it was a hotel.

A hotel!

It was close, and certainly tempting, but it wouldn’t do. Large buildings like hotels could potentially hold a nest of deadheads, and cleaning it out would be long and dangerous. The smaller houses were his best bet.

He drove on.

By 11:34, a row of houses appeared on his right with their backs against the wind. A low wire fence was the only thing barring him from them, so he drove the Durango through it, cringing upon the contact and bouncing in his seat. The tires spun in the deepening snow, but he smashed through it. The Durango struggled as it pulled around cars half-buried in drifts. The GPS informed him that he was on School Avenue.

Hunched over the steering wheel, Scott slowly drove by houses, knowing full well that if the snow got too deep, he would spin his tires and become trapped. Worse, he was driving up an incline, and he knew he risked hearing the whine of tires losing traction. Even as he thought it, a red two-story house rose up out of the blizzard. With a gasp, Scott aimed the Durango at the closed garage attached to the house’s side. He pulled into the driveway, stopped, and popped open the driver’s door. Getting out, he put on his helmet with the lightning bolts decorating it. The wind whipped around him, spearing him through the layer of black and yellow Nomex and the extra layer of sweaters underneath. Bracing himself against the wind, he moved to the rear door of the SUV, opened it, and pulled out the aluminum bat. The sound-suppressed Ruger was already in his right boot, but he didn’t want to use that unless absolutely necessary. Ammunition for the weapon was limited. Hefting the bat with one hand, he struggled to close the Durango’s door with the other.
Cold
. It was so cold that his hands, protected by Nomex gloves, already began to feel chilled.

Pointing himself in the direction of the house, he strained forward into the strength of the wind. Snow rose to just below his knees the closer he got to the front door. The door was locked, but Scott put the bat through one corner of its window. A moment later, he unlocked the door, pushed it open, and shambled inside. Once out of the cold, he closed the door with a gasp.

Outside, the blizzard howled at his escape.

Scott lifted the visor and took a firmer grip on his bat. The front door led to a short hallway that opened up into a carpeted living room, while a stairway leading up to the second floor lay to his left. Pictures of tropical destinations and warm beaches speckled eggshell-white walls. Old, but comfortable furniture filled the living room, and one cozy-looking sofa tempted him to collapse onto it.

Scott hated the next part, but it was the fastest way to clear a house. He rapped the bat on the banister of the stairs, the sound of metal rattling on wood momentarily blotting out the raging blizzard outside.

“Hey,” he called out. “Anyone home? Anyone there? Hey?”

Snow rasped against the window and door, and a blast of wind blew in through the hole he’d smashed in the glass pane. He’d have to fix it later.

“I said
hey!
Anyone in here? Mind if I stay for a while? Huh?”

Nothing.

He slipped through the living room, bat at the ready, into the adjoining dining room area, where a tall glass cabinet displayed fine china. The kitchen was full, complete with a single square table tucked into one corner, which struck Scott as very homey. Another door led to the backyard, buried in snow. A short hall led to a small washroom and shower and another door that opened up to a respectable garage, filled with all manner of tools. Fixing the front door’s broken window pane once again entered his mind.

The wind made the house creak, as if it were trying to swallow it whole. Scott considered the upstairs. He closed the door to the garage and returned to the steps. There didn’t seem to be a basement, and that suited him fine. Resting one gloved hand on the railing, he climbed the stairs to the second level. The steps groaned under his weight, but Scott didn’t slow down until he reached the top.

“Hey. Not going to hurt anyone, okay?”

He didn’t know why that came out of him, but it just did. He looked into the red and white bedroom that had likely belonged to a teenage girl. Boy-band posters tacked to the wall and stuffed animals lay everywhere, the largest a brown teddy bear that sat just inside the doorway. Scott stroked the animal’s head once.

He left the bedroom and went into the main bathroom. The air, while not as frigid as it was outside, was still cold to breathe. He took his time inspecting the blue bathtub and shower, the matching tiles, and a countertop littered with curling irons, half-squished rolls of ancient toothpaste, and other toiletries. The sight of a toilet with a full roll of pink toilet paper fixed on a wall dispenser made him smile. He ignored the two mirrors, not wanting to see himself. Another door lay at the end of the bathroom, next to the toilet, and Scott opened it.

The master bedroom.

Whoever he was, he had placed a pillow over his wife’s head where she lay in bed, just before he had shot her. He’d covered the shredded foam stuffing, black matter, and bone fragments with a much too thin white towel. Scott guessed the husband had probably planted the pillow over his wife’s face so he didn’t have to look at her as he pulled the trigger.

Then the guy had gone to the foot of the bed and sat down in an easy chair that matched the blue bed blankets. He’d apparently tucked the end of a long-barreled shotgun under his chin and squeezed the trigger, taking the top of his head off like a spent firecracker—the cheap kind with ribbons in it. Unfortunately for Scott, whoever the dead man was hadn’t felt the need to cover himself with a towel, and a gruesome black pattern stained the wall above the corpse’s ruined head. Scott let his breath out in a hiss that was both sad and relieved. He stared at the body for a bit, noting the withered flesh of the hands and the melancholy grimace left by the shotgun’s blast.

“Sorry,” he let out and sighed again. He didn’t blame either one of the people in the room. Many times he felt like taking the very same flight out. Still might, but not until he finished what he set out to do.

“I hope you don’t mind,” he said, in a low, respectful voice. “Storm’s pretty bad out there. I’d like to stay here for a while.”

Neither corpse answered. The wind rocked the house once more, making its frame groan. He felt he should say a few words, but the need passed.

“Thank you,” was all he said, closing both doors to the master bedroom as gently as he could. He didn’t bother taking the weapon on the floor beside the dead man, feeling it wouldn’t be right. Scott had his weapons and felt he was intruding enough by staying in the dead couple’s well-kept home.

Deeming the house clear, he returned to the garage and rooted around until he found a hammer, nails, and a couple of wooden planks that he sawed short. He returned to the front door and nailed a thick blanket taken from a full linen closet over the broken glass. He nailed a few planks into place, reducing the wind coming into the house to an asthmatic wheeze. He pounded one last cut of thick wood into the floor, flush against the door and bracing it firmly.

Having done that, Scott went to the garage and opened its heavy outer door. Moments later, he squeezed the Durango inside and sealed the bay behind it. There were two oval windows in the outer door’s surface, frosted over, but Scott didn’t need to look outside. He’d already spent the morning staring at that white shit.

It was getting on into afternoon, and his stomach rumbled. Lunch lay in the back of the Durango and, feeling secure, he went and got it. Gus had given him a hodge-podge of canned and preserved food, all in three cardboard boxes. He opened up the one box he’d already started on and studied the gleaming grey tops. There was a little bit of everything in there, and while he’d been in Windsor, Scott found he liked reaching in and taking out a can without looking at the label.

This time, it was Irish stew. He sighed in relief. He knew there was soup in there as well, but he didn’t want any. He needed something with a little more sustenance. A feeling of weariness hit him, and he pinched the bridge of his nose as if that one gesture could fight off exhaustion.
Sleep would be very good right now
, he thought, but not until he refilled his stomach. He gathered up the can opener—just in case there wasn’t one inside—a four liter jug of water, a paperback copy of Jason E. Thummel’s
The Spear of Destiny
, and trudged back inside.

The second upstairs bedroom became his kitchen and dining room because it faced the road and the livid might of the storm. He sat at a desk opposite the bed and ate the stew, listening to his own chewing and the wind intensifying outside. Time drifted. The sound of the spoon scraping against the empty can brought him back, and he felt the lump of cold lunch in his stomach. Ice rasped against the window, and Scott blinked bleary-eyed at the world outside. Only the dead would be out in such a blizzard. There might have been a joke in there somewhere, but he was too tired to extract it. The bed beckoned.

But he didn’t want to relax just yet.

He made one last round of the house, checking the doors and windows on the ground level and weighing the idea of boarding them up. He decided to leave them for another time and climbed the stairway back to the bedroom. After placing his bat against the bed and the Ruger on the nightstand, he allowed himself the pleasure of taking off his boots and flexing his sock-covered toes. The Nomex coat followed, then the pants and the padded hockey vest. He kept his blue jeans and sweaters on. A nearby linen closet had a number of thick blankets, and they all went on top of the bed.

Crawling underneath the lot, Scott shifted about until he was comfortable on his back. He turned his head and saw the big brown teddy bear studying him with black crystal eyes.

“You’re on guard now,” he whispered, feeling the tension of the morning slip away. “Lemme know if anything… if anything goes on, ’kay?”

The bear didn’t answer.

“All right, be that way,” Scott muttered, closing his eyes.

And that was that.

The blizzard stayed overhead for two days, straining to take the roof off the house at times and beating the windows as if they were taut drum skins. It swallowed up the road outside in blustery huffs, buried the cars, and prevented Scott from seeing anything beyond the lane out front, worrying him that the end had finally come, a perfect storm heralding in a late Ice Age. Stranded as he was, he made the best of the time with what he had: finishing the paperback and starting
Dark Passage
by Griffin Hayes, playing Texas Hold ’Em with the teddy bear––who cheated, as far as he could tell––sleeping, and keeping guard at the upstairs window. At the end of the first day, he didn’t have any fear of the dead coming inside, because the winter storm continued to pummel everything outside. The house allowed him to lower his guard, and if he didn’t think about the two corpses in the master bedroom, things weren’t that bad.