SEASONS MUST CHANGE

 

At this the Father raised his hook,
And snapped a faggot-band;
He plied his work; and Lucy took
The lantern in her hand.

Not blither is the mountain roe:
With many a wanton stroke
Her feet disperse the powdery snow,
That rises up like smoke.

The storm came on before its time:
She wandered up and down;
And many a hill did Lucy climb:
But never reached the town.

 

William Wordsworth “Lucy Gray”

 

Do the dead sing? Do they love?

 

Stephen King “The Reach”

 

 

 

They found Bertha today.

 

Found her in the snow, just a few yards to the North from the Outwards Road. They say she must have taken the right direction, but couldn’t make it before the night fell. And there had been a snowstorm, and well, no-one had really expected them to bring her in alive.

 

Bertha. Poor idiot. Never checked if she had enough gasoline, never had as much as a pocket radio on her. I bet she didn’t even think twice when she understood she was stuck. Just opened the door and went off. Left her car not even looking at the clocks. Man. I’m surprised she stayed alive for as long as she did.

 

I was at the bar tonight when the Snow Patrol guys came back. Was buying another case of Jack, talking to Roy. And the two of them came in, and dude, were they cold. Roy just looked at them and went to make grog. He makes the best grog I’ve ever drunk, and he says he had never done it before the snow came. Well, it’s been a few years, he’s mastered it. He’ll have a lot of time to master it even better.

 

I didn’t talk to the SP guys, but a lot of people did, so I heard a few things. Like, that Bertha was smiling when they found her. All dead and cold and blue, and so frozen that when they started to dig her out and nudged her hand too hard, it broke off. But she was smiling, the smile broad and happy, and as peaceful as they come.

 

That’s what bothers me.

 

They all smile.

---------------

 

“Listen, why do you have to be such an asshole?”

 

“Who, me?” I laugh. “But I’m not even being an asshole yet. I’m just telling you how it is. Do I have enough room? Yes. Do I live away from the town? Yes. Can he use my car? No. Will I shoot his balls off if he tries? Hell yeah. See, plain and easy, and not a single lie. That’s not what assholes do, Jake.”

 

“Well, you could be a little friendlier,” he grumbles. Good ole Jake, still believing in manners. I can see his point. But I’m different.

 

“I guess I could. But my friendliness won’t drive your Snow Patrol superstar back to the town if he needs it.”

 

There’s a little silence on the other end of the line. Then he sighs.

 

“Dean, you’re cynical. You know that?”

 

“Yeah. And I’m thankful it’s so.”

 

“You’re so damn young, why do you need to be so cynical?”

 

I don’t answer to that. Firstly, this is a rhetorical question.

 

Secondly, he knows the answer.

 

He speaks up again in a few moments, and he sounds a little embarrassed.

 

“Alright, I’ll tell him. If he’s okay with that, he’ll be at your place by eight or so in the evening. They’re to deal with Bertha Ramsey’s old man yet.”

 

“Maybe you give me a call, so I know for sure?”

 

“Weather men say there’s going to be another snow storm this night. The lines might go dead.”

 

“Again?”

 

“Again.”

 

Nicer and nicer. Good deal I don’t have to drive out tonight.

 

“Jake?”

 

“Yeah?”

 

“For how long are they going to stay here? The SP’s? I mean, Bertha went missing, we called them, they found her. Shouldn’t they have gone home today?”

 

“I have no idea, Dean,” he sounds tired now. “Who am I? An Alderman in a roadside Town. They are the Snow Patrol. They come and say they’re going to stay, all I can do is try to accommodate them. I’m not supposed to go asking questions.”

 

“Okay.”

 

He’s silent for a while. Then he says:

 

“You’re the bold one here. You ask that guy. He’s their main man, so if someone knows, it’s going to be him.”

 

Then he hangs up.

 

“You bet I will,” I say.

 

And why the hell not?

------

 

It’s almost nine when the knock on the door comes.

 

The snow is going berserk outside the window, whirling, smashing against the glass. I sigh and throw on a coat before opening the door.

 

There’s a figure behind it and in the whirls of snow it doesn’t seem the least bit human – black and red, face hidden in the fur collar, goggles – all I can see above it – staring at me like fish eyes.

 

“Where can I put the car?” he shouts at me, as the wind throws handfuls of snow through my door. “It’ll get buried if I leave it outside!”

 

I don’t know how that’s even possible, but those goggles look somewhat surprised when I slam the door into his face.

 

I hope he has enough sense to get back to his car and wait. Because like hell am I even stepping out without getting properly dressed.

 

When I get out of my house a few minutes later, he gives me a honk. His car is black, with wide red stripes on its sides, and I see it even through the snow. Black and red against the night of milky-white and dark gray. Nights haven’t been black in a long time.

 

I stomp through the snow towards the car, and he opens the door immediately. Heh. I half expected him to keep me waiting. As a pay off for my own door-in-the-face maneuver.

 

It’s warm inside. Well, special transport, of course. The motor is humming cheerfully. The guy is minus his goggles now, so I take off my own glasses. Nothing fancy, plain old shades. But they’re better than nothing.

 

“Hi,” he says. His eyes are grayish-green, with small specks of brown around the pupils. He smiles at me.

 

 “Drive around the house,” I tell him. “There’s a garage. It doesn’t have the heating, but at least it’ll save you a couple hours of snow digging in the morning.”

 

He nods and does as I say. Doesn’t talk to me anymore. I kind of like him. I like it that he heeded my warnings and brought his own car, I like it that he didn’t take offense, I like it that he doesn’t chatter. It’s good. I’m rarely wrong with my hunches. Maybe he won’t be as much of a pain in the ass as I figured.

 

We stomp back from the garage, clutching each other, the wind and the snow in our faces, blinding us, pushing us back, almost threatening to knock us right down. By the time we make it to the door, we’re all covered in white and frozen together so inseparably we might as well be Siamese twins. It takes us a couple of minutes of relative warmth indoors to unclench our fingers and fall apart.

 

One ice-breaking experience, if you excuse my little wordplay.  

 

“What a mess,” he says quietly, taking off his goggles. He then proceeds to get rid of his parka and specifies, “Snowy, windy, ball-freezing mess.”

 

I smirk. “If a Snow Patrol officer says so… take off that stuff. I’ll give you something dry.”

 

When I come back with a pair of old jeans and a shirt, he’s in his boxers, apparently pondering if he should take off the socks as well. He’s tall. Muscular. There are a few odd scars on his side. Maybe I’m staring, because he looks up at me, his hair in his eyes. His hair is chestnut color and not exactly long, but it isn’t a crew cut, either. Comfortably short, I’d say. I figure, he’s in his early thirties.

 

“Take these off, too,” I tell him. “I think I can find another pair.”

 

He takes the clothes, unfolds them and than casts a curious glance at me when he thinks I’m not looking. I know why he’s curious. Neither the jeans nor the shirt are my size. They are his size. Made for a taller, stockier man.

 

Let him look all he wants, I don’t give a shit.

 

“Thanks,” he says with a sigh. “These all need washing, anyway. It’s been three long, hard days, really.”

 

Three days looking for Bertha. A royal waste of time. Maybe it makes me an asshole, thinking like this… should hold back from speaking up when Sean Ramsey’s around.

 

“And no thanks, either,” I say, still thinking of Sean. “I bet the guy threatened to sue you because you didn’t bring her back alive, rosy-cheeked and with an extra hundred bucks in her pocket.”

 

For a moment he looks shocked. And then he bursts out laughing. Yeah. I like him.

 

“Shit, you sure know him,” he says with a little chuckle. “Hard on my nerves, he sure was. He actually did say he’d sue us. Because of her hand.”

 

“It broke off.”

 

“Yeah. I don’t know what he expected us to find… or to do. Glue it back on?”

 

“He’s taking it badly,” I tell him. “He must have kept on hoping. Bertha pulled it off a couple of times, getting out of the car and making it home in the storm. Because God loves fools and all. And Bertha was all he had. Their kid went missing back when the first winter hit.”

 

His laughter breaks off just as if someone turned off the sound. He stares. I shrug.

 

“I’ll go look for some socks for you.”

-------------

 

Some say that looking at the fire is an atavism. That it is that piece of a caveman that’s left in us. As in, cavemen could sit for hours and just stare into the fire. Because they thought it was alive and it mesmerized them.

 

I don’t know, I think they just didn’t have enough things to do on their list.

 

We, on the other hand, don’t have anything left to do.

 

People used to do a lot of things in the evenings like this one. I remember. Before the snow came, back when I had a family, – I wasn’t too young to remember, I was a teen. We used to browse the Internet for hours, chatting with people who were millions of miles away. We used to listen to music. We used to watch TV. Lots of channels – music channels, science channels, movie channels, soap opera channels…

 

Back then, we couldn’t know that weather channels were the most important ones.

 

Now there’s just one thing that keeps us from doing it all. All of this takes up a lot of electricity. To keep a TV or a computer running, to give voice to large speakers – power, power, power. No-one quite remembers when we had a day without at least one power outage. And now most stations are shot down. What little power is left is used for one main thing: heating. And what we call phones now are basically enhanced radio transmitters, and if you are chatting with someone over them there’s always the danger that someone else is trying to break through, having emergency news or begging for help… and you are blocking up the air.

 

So we could as well be cavemen.

 

Well, I do have a small TV, it even picks up a few big city waves every now and then. And my house has independent power supply – it runs on a generator that’s in the basement. But I’m used to using up as little power as possible, and like hell I’m bending my ways just for him.

 

So we just sit there and stare at the fire. It’s ten p.m., a little too early to turn in. He has tried to read some papers by the fire light, but he apparently isn’t used to it. So he’s just sitting in the chair and sipping my Jack. Just because I’m not showing off for guests doesn’t mean I’m not generous.

 

His name is Theodore, he has told me. And that’s Theo, not Ted. I told him mine was Dean. “As in, James Dean?” he asked. “As in, Dean Koontz,” I answered. He was impressed. He probably thinks I’m not the kind to even know who that is. Heh. I read his books when I was twelve. But I’m not discussing it with him.

 

“What are you doing, Dean?”

 

I thought he’d break the silence. A team worker, not used to being alone.

 

“Fixing a coffee-grinder,” I show him the mechanic mess in my hands.

 

He squints. “Do you even see what you’re doing?”

 

“There is enough light. I always do small stuff like that in the evenings. See, we’re not exactly busy here after dark.”

 

He nods and watches my hands for a while. Then he casually asks, “You live alone here?”

 

“Yes.”

 

He waits for me to continue. Maybe he thinks I’ll have the need to explain why I had a shirt for him in the house. But I don’t feel any need. In a while his silence becomes confused.

 

Maybe it’s my turn to ask a question.

 

“How come you wound up here, Theo? When all of your people are in town.”

 

He gives a little laugh, and I hear relief in it.

 

“I was the last one left. I had to do all the official business, like talking to Sean Ramsey, filling out the papers for the coroner. And I saw to it that all my men had somewhere to live. And then...”

 

“It’s the shoemaker’s son who always walks barefoot,” I drawl.

 

“Ha, yes. Got them all accommodated and found out I was the homeless one.” He grins. “You guys are uptight on morals here. A family has a young daughter in the house, they don’t want a Snow Patrolman there. I guess I could’ve talked somebody in if you hadn’t agreed… but you did agree.”

 

“Jake said I wouldn’t?”

 

“He said it was possible.”

 

I remain silent for a while, giving the coffee grinder a few test turns. Then I tell him, “It’s not about the morals. It’s just that there’ve been… precedents.”

 

His jaw line suddenly becomes a little tensed.

 

“Precedents?..”

 

I nod. Let him ask Jake if he wants to know. The coffee grinder is as good as new by now, so I look up from it and ask him the main question:

 

“What are you guys even going to do here for so long?”

 

And he becomes all fake. In a moment. It’s almost funny how his whole face becomes different without changing its expression a bit. I wonder if he knows that I can feel it. His voice is unnaturally cheerful as he says, “Dean, but how do I know? We’re like an army, we live by orders. If we have an order to stay here for a while, what can we do?”

 

I nod again. I didn’t think he’d tell me.

 

That’s okay. I have a lot of time ahead of me to try again.

----------------

 

Theo’s not there in the morning, and his car isn’t in the garage. He must be a busy man. That’s a good thing, too, because I’m all undone this morning. I had a weird dream this night. Not exactly a nightmare, but there was Ritchey in it. Any dream with Ritchey in it isn’t a good dream. I’m never okay in the morning after having a Ritchey dream.

 

Theo didn’t touch anything in the kitchen, and it makes me a little curious – is he used to going off without breakfast? I couldn’t, even if I’m having a bad hangover or something like this – I can’t do without breakfast. Supper, anytime. But not breakfast.

 

Maybe, you can’t exactly call it breakfast at ten minutes to midday, though.

 

Who cares.

 

The weather is beautiful. As if there hadn’t been any storm this night, as if we’d just imagined the roaring wind, the biting cold, the blinding snow dust. There isn’t a cloud in the azure blue sky – it’s bright as if a child painted it in a coloring book. The snow shimmers softly in the sun. Such a pre-Christmas day. I’d appreciate it much more, weren’t it the middle of August.

 

I’m hardly finished with my toast and coffee when there comes the roar of motor from the driveway. It’s not my lodger, though. His car’s roar could make you deaf on a quiet day like this.

 

It’s Holly. I recognize her car when I look out the window. It looks as out of place as usual. When everyone went buying Land Cruisers a few years back, she optioned to upgrade her small Volkswagen. It still looks petite and ladylike, but it has better heating than most jeeps and she’s got good rubber. And the car is light. It can slide over the snow where most Land Cruisers just fall through and get stuck.

 

I come out to meet her. She smiles at me as she gets out of her carlet.

 

“How’s it going, Dean?”

 

“Oh, better than some other days,” I tell her. “Quite fine, in fact. I’d love to hear the same about you, but do you ever bring your pretty self over here for me to look at when you don’t have anything broken? I don’t think so.”

 

Holly laughs.

 

“You little slut, I’m a married woman!”

 

The good ole morning humor. She knows full well what my compliments are worth.

 

“What’s up, Hol?”

 

“The heater broke. The old one, with open spirals. And just when the wind broke the window, too. Randy’s mending it up, but we’ll have to sleep in overcoats tonight if I don’t get this one fixed.”

 

“Let’s take it inside.”

 

We take the big box out of her trunk and into my living room. She remains silent while I open the box and examine the old monster. These old ones are the best – they heat up larger spaces and there’s nothing made of glass in them. The new ones, with glass tubes, have smaller spirals and keep cracking or exploding because of temperature differences.

 

“Two spirals broke.”

 

“I know. I can see it.”

 

“That’ll need soldering,” I muse aloud. “I’ll have to turn the power on…”

 

“I know,” she repeats and suddenly adds, “I brought you eggs. I knew it’d be expensive.”

 

I look up to have a good stare at her.

 

“Brought me eggs?”

 

“Yeah.”

 

“You shouldn’t have,” I tell her quietly. “It’s not that much. You know I use my own…”

 

“Yeah, I do,” she cuts me short. “And I know you’re a nice kid, I’ve always said that. But I know my dues, too. You fix that thing, I’ll take those eggs to your kitchen.”

 

Eggs are so damn costly. Roy’s wife keeps chicken in her basement, the only place in town where you can get them. She spends a royal amount of power for setting the right lighting and temperature, so it’s only fair that they cost so much. That’s a bit too much for fixing a broken heater. But there’s no use arguing. I shake my head and get down to work. She fumbles around in the kitchen – she’s one of the few people who can do it and I won’t mind. In a few minutes she comes back, sits down into an armchair and watches me for a while. Then she speaks up.

 

“I hear the Snow Patrol main man is staying here at your place.”

 

I tense a little. Holly has got a lot against Snow Patrol. If I were her, I would, too.

 

“He is. He’s out now.”

 

“Is he any trouble?”

 

“No… at least not yet.”

 

“You tell me if he is. You just let me know.”

 

I look up to meet her stare. Painful. She is calm, she is smart, she isn’t a hysterical type. Not the one to go into blind rage. But she wants payback. Oh how she wants it.

 

“Hol. Don’t you think I could handle it myself, should anything go wrong?”

 

“I do,” she nods. “But wouldn’t you let me join in the fun?”

 

I don’t reply to that. I go on with the heater. I don’t know what to say to her. I never knew.

 

Theo comes back when I’m almost done. Holly says hi to him, very suave. I don’t do any introducing. Holly doesn’t need that. And if Theo needs that, it’s his problem. In a few minutes I help Holly pack the heater away and carry it over to her car.

 

“Just let me know,” she repeats before driving off. I watch her car zooming away into the white for a while. Then I return into the house.

 

Theo is warming his hands over the fireplace.

 

“She is weird,” he says. “Why did she look at me like this? As if I ate her last piece of bread or something.”

 

“It was Holly Mark,” I tell him.

 

His jaw tenses once again. So he has asked Jake about ‘precedents’. I thought he would.

 

“It’s true, isn’t it?” Íe hides his hands in the pockets of his jeans. I wonder if they roll into fists in there. “What the Alderman says. It really did happen, didn’t it?”

 

I shrug and go to the bathroom to wash my hands. He follows me. Like he really needs my confirmation. I give an exhausted sigh.

 

“Why d’you think Jake would lie to you? Of course it happened. Shit happens, you know, that’s the world we live in.”

 

Holly used to have a sixteen-year-old daughter. Now she’s child-free. All thanks to a certain Snow Patrol squad. Jenny Mark went missing a couple years ago. And there was a storm that night. And her walkie-talkie wasn’t answering. So they called Snow Patrol, and they came, and they brought Jenny back dead a day later. The problem was, there surfaced some witness that, in fact, Jenny had been alive when they’d found her.

 

“Reeds is in the City Council now,” he says, and he sounds stunned. “No-one in the City has heard of anything like that.”

 

“No-one ever accused Reeds of anything,” I say, turning back and pushing past him back into the living room. He trails behind me like an attention-starved dog. He wants to know.

 

“He was in charge,” he insists. “He should’ve answered! If the Marks had written an appeal…”

 

“They had,” I cross the living room and go to the kitchen, and he is still following me. I sigh again, sit down on a kitchen stool and face him. “Listen. Their little girl goes missing. They call Snow Patrol. Snow Patrol guys come, look for the girl, find her in her boyfriend’s hut outside the town, knock the boyfriend out, fuck the girl senseless and leave her naked in the snow for the night, so that it looks like she just froze to death all on her own. Then they dress her up and bring her to them. Does it sound nice to you? Then the boyfriend shows up and shoots one of them. Then they shoot the boyfriend. Then Reeds – who is kind of staying out of it – pops up all bright and cheery, promises that his men will stand before the City Council and issues an official apology. Does it sound nicer now? To them, it didn’t. They did write an appeal. Only I don’t know if it ever made it to the City. Because it had to travel there with the very same Snow Patrol unit.”

 

I was in town when they brought Jenny back. And I was in the medical room fixing the lights when Doctor Thompson was examining the body. It didn’t look nice to me at all. And when the SP’s shot down Derrick Kinney, I also was in town. I saw Reeds bring his apologies. If you ask me, it was he who had come up with the idea of such good fun in the first place. He was never sorry, not one bit. And he left in a real hurry. Big surprise. If they’d stayed another night, Randy Mark and his friends would’ve made some really nice forcemeat out of them.

 

“It’s unspeakable,” Theo says, his eyes still wide. “His boys were never exactly everybody’s favorites, but to think that he…”

 

“Okay, now you know why you have to stay with me instead of some nice in-town family with a giggly big-titted daughter. Holly brought eggs. Fancy an omelet?”

 

“Eggs?” He is so easily distracted. “Oh wow. What do you do for ladies that they bring you such gifts?”

 

I smirk.

 

“I fix things.”

 

“Like heaters.”

 

“Like heaters. If you don’t want an omelet, I’ll have one by myself.”

 

“Hey, I never said no!”

 

“It took you too long to say yes,” I point out. But I do make him one. I said I liked him, right?

 

After the meal I go to my room to read. Theo goes to his room – Ritchey’s room. I don’t know what he’s going to do. I have a little date with Mister Jack London and his “Three Hearts”. Some say London isn’t a good writer. Some say he isn’t even a good storyteller. But no-one can deny his books the atmosphere. “White Fang” and “The Call of the Wild” are cold books, I bet that even back then, when no-one in Middle America knew shit about the real cold, they could feel it when they were reading them.

 

“Three Hearts” is heat. Tropical heat, blazing, heavy sun, sand and sweat. Something I haven’t seen in quite a while. An atmosphere I’d love a drink of.

 

As I’m reading, outside the window it begins to snow again. I fail to notice it for a while, but when the wind joins the snow and starts howling – louder and louder, rattling the glass as it blows by – I look up from the book. Wait. It shouldn’t be so. It absolutely shouldn’t be so.

 

I walk to the door, look out into the corridor and yell, “Theo!”

 

“Yep?” comes from his room. He sounds sleepy.

 

“You talked to the weathermen while in town?”

 

“Yep.”

 

“Did they say there was going to be another storm tonight?”

 

“Yep.”

 

What the fuck? Three days in a row? I don’t remember anything of the kind. And I remember all the years of snow that have been. All seven of them.

 

My reading is ruined. I close the door and sit in the armchair by the window. I can feel the cold it breathes off. It doesn’t bite, kept away by the thick glass, by the stone walls, by the heating that runs around the house. But it’s there. Probing the shield. Waiting. I touch the glass unthinkingly.

 

And see movement out there.

 

I jump to my feet, lean to the window, stare. Yeah, there it is. I don’t know how I can see it, because it is white – the figure in white, in the midst of the white snowy wind… but I do. And it’s not stomping through the snow, fighting against the wind, bulking and awkward, like most of us.

 

The movement is light. Gracious. It looks like a dance.

 

Someone out there, dancing in the beginning snow storm. Someone wearing white. Someone tall, lean and lithe. And very fast. I catch a glimpse of the dancer far away right ahead of me – and then I see the movement with the corner of my left eye.

 

And then right in front of my window.

 

For a moment I think I see the face. Eyes wide open and icy blue, pale colorless skin, lips curved into a little smile, childishly happy. A man? A woman? A child?

 

And then it disappears, into the snow, into the wind, and through the howls and blows and hissing of the storm – impossible! – I hear a far-off silvery laughter. It’s faint, as if coming from a distance… it’s fading… fading…

 

Gone.

 

I shake up. I must’ve forgotten to breathe, because now I feel as if I’ve been choked, my breathing greedy and heavy. My first coherent thought is to rush to Theo and tell him there’s someone out there in the storm, someone who probably needs help…

 

And then I think twice.

 

Someone out there in the snowstorm? Wearing white, even though it was established years ago that white clothes, totally invisible against the snow, are basically your death ticket. Dancing in the wind. And laughing.

 

The more I think of it, the less I believe myself.

 

Was it a hallucination? Feeling under the weather, maybe… Did I even see that? And fuck, if there’s someone that crazy out there, to hell with them, they are against the law of survival anyway.

 

But as I sit back in the armchair, I can’t but feel a little uncomfortable.

 

Maybe because what I saw – what I think I didn’t see – seems familiar to me. Like I’ve seen it before. Such a deja vue feeling.

 

Like something I saw in a very recent dream that I don’t quite remember.

-----------

 

Next morning I get up early and Theo gets up late – which is the same ten a.m., and so we even manage to have breakfast together before he is suddenly called up to town.

 

“Gary Laughlin,” Theo says as he puts the phone down. “Didn’t come home yesterday’s evening. You know that one?”

 

I nod and try to conceal my relief. I’ve been waiting for the news of someone missing, feeling a little off… but if there’s one man who doesn’t look like my yesterday’s vision, it’s Gary. He’s short and stocky, grumpy and bandy-legged, and his face is always red. Gary’s a wino. Not the worst of them, I am kind of sorry for him… but it wasn’t him I saw yesterday, so I have nothing to do with his case.

 

Makes me feel a little better.

 

Theo drives off, and then Sally Hutchison brings over a water cauldron with a hole in its bottom – no exquisite work needed, but Sally doesn’t have a man, and she can’t do it herself – she’s a librarian, not used to handiwork. And after that there comes Ned Comfrey with a broken ‘hot-plate’ mini-cooker. And then there comes the call from the Townhall. They somehow managed to fuck up their only computer. Well done. But I don’t mind a little ride while the weather is still nice.

 

I don’t see Jake in the Townhall. But I see a couple of Theo’s men wearing their black-and-red Snow Patrol uniform. They are in the reception room, playing cards, and they nod me hello when I pass by. They seem okay. Nice enough. At least they don’t set off my bastardometer immediately, like Reeds’ boys did. They must be here for coordination or something, because there’s a small radio transmitting set standing between them on the small table next to the pack of cards.

 

Someone has disconnected about everything you could disconnect from the computer’s power block. Lena, the secretary, is bawling her eyes out, and it takes me full ten minutes to understand from her wailings that it was the CD-rom that initially shut off, and she tried her best to reconnect it. The best proof that the road to hell is paved with good intentions. “Stop crying,” I tell her. “No-one’s dead yet, not even this iron wreck you’ve tried to help out of its misery.”  She did mess a few things up other than connection, but it’s all fixable.

 

I’m almost done when I hear hurried steps outside the door. When I pass by the reception room on my way out, the two SP’s aren’t there. Is Theo back then?

 

I go out to the parking lot, and he is there, he and his team, carrying a body covered with a tarpaulin sheet out of the black-and-red mini-van. So they did find Gary.

 

Theo sees me and motions to me to come closer.

 

“Just wanted to tell you,” he says. “There’s another storm coming. We were just a bit ahead of it on our way home. You sure your car is going to make it? If you wait a bit, we could give you a lift and a tow.”

 

“My car’s seen worse. But thanks. Is it Gary?”

 

“Have no idea. We found a man, so we brought him here. Maybe you tell me?”

 

He uncovers his find’s face and I take a look.

 

“Yeah,” I say in a moment. “That’s him alright. See you later, then.”

 

Gary’s eyes are dead under the rime-covered eyelashes, staring right through me. His lips are bluish.

 

And he is smiling.

 

It bothers me. It disturbs me. I walk back to my car and try to reason with myself. Gary was a ruin, anyway. He didn’t even like living. He had been like that ever since he lost his daughter in that wild storm three years ago, when all the water pipes in town cracked open because of the frosts. So maybe it’s the best for him, really.

 

And I shouldn’t care, anyway.

 

It begins to snow before I even make it out of the city. But the wind is not so bad, and I’m already halfway home when the storm really strikes. Big deal. I flick on the big headlights, turn on the heating and switch the motor to the All-Terrain mode. It works. Slowly but surely, I’m making my way. I take the left turn from the Outwards Road…

 

And I see a shade in the headlights.

 

I hit the brake pedal. The car gives a scream and shudders to a halt. I stare at the road.

 

There’s no-one there.

 

And then something moves outside my right-hand car window.

 

I exhale slowly. And just as slowly turn my head to the right.

 

It’s there. It, because I still don’t see if that’s a she or a he. It’s right there, and it’s not dancing. It’s standing there, in the distance, too far for me to see its face through the falling snow, but its pose is curiosity itself, its torso leaning forth a little, its head tilted to the left.

 

“What the hell,” I whisper. “What the fuck?”

 

I suddenly realize I’m afraid. I press down the accelerator, and the motor gives a wild roar. I speed away as fast as I can… but I can’t help glancing into the back-view mirror as I do so.

 

The figure is standing right in the middle of the road, quickly becoming smaller and smaller. It’s watching me run.

 

I can’t see its face, but I know it’s laughing.

----------------

 

Yesterday, before going to the Townhall, I bought a week’s worth of the Town Newspaper issues, and I’m reading the third of them by the fire when Theo bursts in.

 

“Phhha!” he says, shaking up like a huge dog. “Listen, give me a hand. I brought food.”

 

I put the newspaper down and arch an eyebrow, looking at him.

 

“Food?”

 

“In the next week we probably won’t be able to get out of the house much,” he says impatiently. “Come on, help me, and I’ll tell you!”

 

I sigh and go to get dressed.

 

He didn’t bring just food, though. He’s brought enough food to feed his whole squad to death.

 

“What the fuck is going on?” I pant as we carry another sack into the house. There are three more left. And three cases of beer in the trunk. “Are we going to open a shop together or something? Why haven’t I been told, then?”

 

“Was having a snack in the Alderman’s office today,” he breathes out, putting the sack on the floor and straightening up. “And right in the middle of lunch, the radio suddenly went live. Not from the city, either. From Oregon. All the fucking way from a City in Oregon.” By the time he finishes that phrase, all that’s left in his car is the last case of beer, and there’s a rather ugly heap of stuff on my carpet.

 

“Yeah? So what’s up in Oregon?” I let him handle the beer case himself. He’s a bigger guy than me, and I don’t drink much beer anyway.

 

He goes back to the car to put it into the garage. Before opening the door he pauses and turns to look at me.

 

“They asked for help. It was an open broadcast. For everyone who hears, you know? They said that a snowstorm had hit them eight days ago. It had been bad, they said, really bad wind and low temperatures… and it had stayed there for seven days before moving off.”

 

He gets into the car and drives around the house to the garage, and I just stand there with my mouth open.

 

“Seven days?” I ask when we’re both safely back in the house and he’s making himself coffee. “Seven fucking days? Never stopping?”

 

“It did calm down a few times,” Theo says. His eyes are grave. Serious. “Quite a few guys thought it meant the storm was going to end, so they drove off to do their business. Only it wasn’t going to end, Dean. It only calmed down for an hour or so. And then it went even wilder. They found one car flipped over. They said it wasn’t because the driver hit something, you know, the usual road accident stuff. They said it was the wind that flipped it over. And it took off a few roofs as well.”

 

I feel as if I’ve been hit by a stun gun, but even in a state like this, I immediately think of Holly. Holly and her incredibly light upgraded Volkswagen.

 

“Theo… you’re not going to say it’s coming our way?”

 

“I’d hate to.” Theo sighs. “It’s the weathermen who say so. They say there’s a huge cyclone coming from Oregon. And they think it’s the same one. They’ve already issued a storm warning. Old Jake has sent his people to tell the townsfolk. Is your roof good enough, Dean?”

 

“Yes.” It’s a tough house for any storm. Ritchey had it redone. Ritchey knew a lot about snowstorms. He had spent five years living in Alaska, so he knew how to deal with cold. “Theo, you shouldn’t have bought all that stuff. I have supplies.”

 

“Wow. Ready for everything, are we?”

 

“I was taught to live this way. It has proved to be useful.”

 

He looks at me for a while, apparently wanting to ask, who taught me. And knowing better than to do so. Finally he stirs and says, “I’ve been staying here, eating your food. I don’t want to be a burden. I hate to. That’s for the two of us. And if there’s something left, call it my thanks for the welcome.”

 

“Okay.”

 

My casual agreement startles him. Did he think I was going to argue some more? That would be dumb of me, really. He brought the kind of food that doesn’t go bad for a long time, and it never hurts to have some more of it. If he can afford it, I’m not going to complain.

 

“Let’s do something with this thanks of yours,” I tell him. “Because I have other plans for my carpet, to be frank with you.”

 

I spend the rest of the day getting the house ready for the storm. Checking if the window panes are good. Preparing the lids for the windows – the glass is thick, that bullet-proof kind they call ‘armor glass’, but it can crack, too, if the wind finds its weak point, so I’ll have to be able to shut off the cold as quickly as possible. Shutting off the attic – it’s cold out there, I use it as cold storage at times.

 

When I climb to the attic, I’m a little surprised to see all the mess there. Shit, I forgot. I had been going to do a little cleaning before the SP’s came. To get rid of the useless stuff, to bring the useful stuff down into the house. So that only the could-be-useful-later stuff would stay up there.

 

“Need help?” Theo calls from his room.

 

“Oh… yes!” I tell him. “Could you bring down a few boxes? We won’t have much to do, at least I’ll sort out this trash.”

 

“Of course!”

 

He’s so eager to be useful I almost feel sorry on seeing his face when he finds out that my idea of ‘a few’ is actually ten.

 

And a couple of bags, too.

-------------------

 

Waiting for the storm is almost worse than the storm itself. It doesn’t come this evening – in fact, that’s the first quiet evening that we’ve had in a while. It doesn’t come the next morning and it doesn’t come the next afternoon.

 

“I’ll be only glad if it was false alarm,” Theo says, helping me pack away the garbage. We’ve gone through three of the attic boxes so far and if I wasn’t quite convinced that the attic needed cleaning before, I am hundred percent convinced now. “I’ll be only glad if nothing happens. If only we could know for sure…”

 

“If wishes were fishes…” I drawl in a sing-song voice. “Good thing you guys aren’t on your way home now, huh?”

 

Once again he tenses a bit. I wish he stopped playing the game he’s not good at and told me the thing already. But he’s stubborn. Oh well, he’s not the only stubborn one here.

 

“Yes,” he says. “Incredible luck.”

 

No shit, baby.

 

I’ve turned on the radio and it’s now playing surf rock. One of the City waves. There’s some dude out there who’s obviously bonkers, because he does nothing all day, just broadcasts hour after hour of old surf rock and sca-punk songs, and every two hours yells something like “Whoo, yet another song to make you feel all hot!” He misses summer, too.

 

Every now and then a local broadcast breaks through a Beach Boys or NOFX masterpiece of choice to tell us to “stay close to your living quarters and be aware of the coming danger”, and then proceeds to give advice on how to react if the storm comes. This last thing is redundant – most people who made it through seven years of winter know the rules by heart. But hell, at least everyone is forewarned.

 

We open the fourth box, and it’s full of old broken things. An old telephone, an old radio, an old printer. A photo camera. A CD-player. Theo whistles.

 

“Lookit,” he says. “A whole treasure chest here! Why do you keep it? Oh, let me guess – you think you can fix them all?”

 

“I can fix them.”

 

He gives a chuckle.

 

“You never lose faith in yourself, do you, Dean?”

 

“It’s not faith. It’s knowledge.”

 

I hope my voice hasn’t changed. Theo stares at me, but he has been doing that for a while now, when he thinks I don’t see. He probably thinks I’m weird, he told me yesterday I had weird eyes. Yellow. I told him they used to be brown. I don’t look into mirrors much nowadays.

 

I so hope my voice doesn’t change, because oh hell, it hurts. I forgot about these, too? How could I forget? Theo called it a treasure chest… but it’s not how it used to be called.

 

Ritchey used to call it the Toy Chest. He picked up every broken thing that caught his eye and he put them all in this box because he hoped that one day I could put them right. He kept saying that one day when we had enough time on our hands he was going to put me to test. I actually did fix a few things from the Toy Chest. The radio that’s playing “Surfin’ USA” now. The alarm clock in my bedroom. And some others.

 

And then it all ceased to matter.

 

I bite my lip. I can fix them all. But there are things that are and things that are not worth your time. I could fix the CD-player, but it’s nothing without batteries. And wasting batteries on CD-players…

 

I toss it aside.

 

“Hey, what are you doing?” Theo picks it up. “It’s a fine one! If you can fix it…”

 

“What am I going to do with it? Take the batteries out of my flashlight and put it into it so it could suck them dry in half an hour?”

 

He looks a little awkward. I sigh. It still hurts, but I know what I should do.

 

“I’ll leave the things that are worth the effort. Something I’ll bother fixing. And the others will have to go.”

 

I don’t need a toy chest anymore. Unfortunately, I had to grow up.

 

We go through the Toy Chest. I put the good ones aside and toss the bad ones to Theo, who groans and grieves, but puts them into another garbage bag. He only protests once, when I throw away a pencil-box with built-in little electronic keyboard.

 

“Wait. It doesn’t need batteries, does it?”

 

“No.” I shrug. “And I don’t need it.”

 

“Yeah? But you need this cuckoo clock?”

 

“It’s for Jake’s granddaughter,” I explain. “She’s always said she wants one, but they don’t make them anymore.”

 

He stares at his feet. I sigh.

 

“This thing… It runs on photocells – either you’re going to freeze it to death in the sun outdoors, and then it won’t work anyway; or you’re going to turn on the light just for it to get loaded. You know, it’s even costlier than batteries, come to think of it. Plus its problem is that the chip is fucked up, and I was never too good with chips. I can do it, but it’ll take one hell of a lot of time. All for nothing.”

 

He doesn’t answer for a while, twisting the pencil-box in his hands. Then he says very quietly, “Will you fix it if I pay you to do so?”

 

I shoot him a surprised look.

 

“Why?”

 

“My daughter had one like this,” he answers in a very calm voice. “It even played the same tunes.” He shows the little menu printed on the other side of the pencil-box. “Five tunes. Cancan, Greensleeves, Besame Mucho, Yesterday… and Happy Birthday To You.”

 

I don’t ask questions. I just wait. If he doesn’t want to tell, that’s fine. But if he tells, I’ll listen.

 

“She caught cold in the second year of snow,” he says finally. “Pneumonia. And the doctors didn’t diagnose her right at once, kept saying it was a simple cold. And then it was too late. She was only six, and she had never been a very strong child.”

 

Silent minutes follow, one after the other. Then I tell him, “I’ll fix this thing for you. You don’t need to pay. It’s… my thanks for your thanks.”

 

He smiles. It’s a good smile, a little sad, a little pensive… thankful.

 

“Okay. Let’s continue, then, or you won’t even have the time to get down to it while I’m here.”

 

We finish with the Toy Chest, Pandora’s box that held a portion of pain for both of us. And when we open the fifth box, Theo suddenly starts sneezing. There are clothes in the box, male and female, and they smell of dust, naphthalene and moisture. The smell is so strong I almost sneeze, too.

 

“You allergic?”

 

He tries to answer, but another sneeze cuts him short.

 

“Listen, I can handle it myself. You don’t have to…”

 

“No,” Theo manages. “I’ll help.”

 

About five minutes later he breaks into a wild sneezing fit and becomes so red in the face it makes me afraid he’s going to have a stroke.

 

“You know what, get the fuck out of here. I don’t want to sort it out with your squad if you die here over a box of old knickers. I’ll look through these and air the room. And then you’ll come back. A deal?”

 

“Yeah.” He gets up, rather shaky. “You are right… Talking about my squad, I need to check on them. Told them to stay indoors, but boys are boys…”

 

He wanders off to his room, giving an occasional sneeze every few seconds. I sigh and go back to the clothes. Mine, Ritchey’s and those of Ritchey’s boyfriend and sister. Somehow they’re not as bad as the Toy Chest. Most of them are ruined, but some are still alright for wearing at home. They need washing and ironing… but as I’ve already mentioned to Theo, we’re not going to have much to do in these next few days if the weathermen were right.

 

It doesn’t take much time. But the whole room now stinks of naphthalene. I cautiously roll the window down a bit – it’s not snowing, so it shouldn’t do much damage. In five minutes it gets too cold, even though I’ve put on an old coat, just in case. The smell has cleared off, more or less, so I close the window. It’s still chilly. I glance at the remaining boxes. Then I drag my armchair closer to the fire. Boxes can wait. I’ll just warm up a bit…

 

Maybe it’s the warmth, crawling into every little corner of my body, relaxing me. Maybe it’s the fire – it is mesmerizing, after all. Or maybe it’s those few swigs of Jack I took to get warmer. Either way, I doze off.

 

And it’s rustling of paper that wakes me up

 

I yawn and stretch.

 

And open my eyes to see Theo sitting on the floor and thumbing through a photoalbum.

 

“What do you think you’re doing?!” I yell before jumping out of the armchair and knocking the album out of his hands.

 

He shrinks back, astonished by my outrage. I stand over him, hands on hips, glaring at him, trying to calm down. He sighs and gives me a guilty smile.

 

“It just was in the box,” he says. “Right on top of everything else, too. I’m sorry…”

 

“Why didn’t you wake me up in the first place?” I demand.

 

His smile grows a bit wider.

 

“I didn’t have the heart to,” he says. “I thought there was no need to… and you looked so… cozy.”

 

The little pause makes me a bit wary. It sounds… off. As if he wanted to say something else instead of ‘cozy’.

 

Maybe something I wouldn’t want to hear.

 

Maybe something I would.

 

“Don’t you dare mess with my things,” I tell him, feeling somehow drained. Empty. “Don’t you dare even touch anything without my permission. That clear?”

 

He nods.

 

“Really, I’m sorry. I was just…”

 

“Being nosy,” I cut him short.

 

He smirks. “Well, yes. And hell, I didn’t even get to see anything interesting yet…”

 

I give him another glare and inform him, “To me, my parents are a rather interesting thing. Because I find it harder and harder to remember them alive, you know?”

 

That shuts him up. Goody-two-shoes. If I were him, I’d so tell me not to play drama queen. I’d so tell me I’m not the only one who has lost someone dear to him. I’d so point out that if you don’t want people to see your private things, you don’t leave those things lying around in your living room. But I’m not him. Thankfully.

 

I go to pick up the album. A few photos have fallen out of it and are lying on the carpet. I pick them up, too, and stick them between pages without looking.

 

“Here’s yet another one,” Theo says behind my back.

 

I turn around, and he hands me a photo. I hesitantly take it from him.

 

“Is it you in the pic?” he asks cautiously.

 

“It is.”

 

It is me. In the whole of my fifteen-year-old glory. Such a kid. An anarchy t-shirt, messed-up black hair, California tan. And a California smile. Big wide eyes and enough teeth to put the best dental scan to shame. Goes really weird with all the black eyeliner, too. I was into Greenday back then, I think.

 

The fifteen-year-old me is wearing a warm leather jacket. The first winter hadn’t hit yet, but it was already getting colder than was normal for West Coast. Judging by my smile it didn’t bother me much.

 

“I didn’t really have to ask.” Theo’s voice is soft. “You haven’t changed one bit. Only your hair is long now.”

 

If he really thinks so, he’s much more of an idiot than I thought.

 

I put the photo back in the album and sigh.

 

“Alright. You were wrong, I was wrong, let’s cut it here. I think it’s high time to have a bite.”

 

“Yeah. Umm, you sure these windows are going to take it? They are rattling.”

 

“They always rattle,” I reply automatically, and then it registers with me and I turn to look at the windows.

 

There’s snow and wind. And no light whatsoever. And the glass really is rattling. Louder than usual.

 

The storm has begun.

 

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