“Play.” What was she thinking? She gives her finger a long, stupid stare. What was she doing? “Come play,” she says, slowly. “Come—”
“Lizzie!” Her mother’s hand lashes out and smacks the phone from Lizzie’s hand. The cell flies against the dash, then tumbles to the foot well, but the voice still seeps from the speaker: “Come plaaay, Blood of My Bloood, come plaaay …”
“That’s enough. Shut that thing up,” her mother grates. When Lizzie doesn’t move, her mother’s palm flicks, quick as a whip. The slap is crisp and loud as the snap of an icicle. “Damn it, Lizzie, do what I say! Hang up now while there’s still
RIMA
Soother of the Dead
“TIME,” TONY SAID.
“Already?” Rima was practically worshipping the heater. The air dribbling from the vents wasn’t exactly toasty, but better than nothing.
“Sorry. That was fifteen minutes.” Tony turned off the Camry’s engine, and the fan cut out. “I’ll crank her up again in an hour.”
“Something to live for.” Rima tucked her hands under her arms again as another stutter-flash of lightning burst high above. She jumped, but the crow prancing on the hood didn’t flinch. That thing was seriously creeping her out, and she didn’t understand either. Yeah, there was the woman who’d died in Tony’s Camry, but her whisper was very weak and nearly gone. Lily’s body was in the van. Could it be Taylor’s death-whisper in her parka? That would be a first. Once Rima wore something—started soothing that death-whisper—the crows eventually went away.
She gasped as a cannon-roll of thunder boomed loud enough to make the car shimmy. Taylor’s death-whisper reacted, squirming over Rima’s arms. Easy, honey, Rima thought. Easy, we’re all scared. “What keeps doing that?” she asked.
Casey’s voice drifted up from the backseat: “Thunder-snow.” He’d been so quiet back there, Rima had almost forgotten about him. A relief, actually: Casey was one nasty kid. “It’s just a thunderstorm with snow instead of rain.”
“Oh.” She watched as Casey went back to reading one of Tony’s old comics by flashlight. On the lurid cover, two kids ran from some guy wearing these severed heads strung together like an ammunition belt. Rima looked away with a shudder. Read something like that and you’d guarantee nightmares for a week.
“Cold?” Tony made a move to peel out of his parka. “You can take my sweater.”
“No, don’t be crazy. I’m okay.” A lie, but she wasn’t going to take his clothes. Besides, who knew if he was the original owner? She eyed the crow. Was that because of something Tony had? Or Casey? Both?
“At least take the gloves. They’re spares.” Tony tugged a pair of brown woolen mittens from his pocket. When she still hesitated, he said, “I just bought them new a couple weeks ago.”
They were probably fine, then. She tugged on the mittens, waited a second, felt nothing except wool, and then slid her hands beneath her thighs with a sigh of relief. They could be stuck in that car for a very long time—and that made her think of something. She didn’t want to suggest it, but they had to be practical. “You know, if they don’t find anything, or we have to stay here awhile, we should check out the van. There might be food.”
“Are you volunteering?” Casey asked.
She didn’t want to go. “Sure. My idea, after all.”
“You’ll freeze before you make it five feet,” Tony said, and sighed. “It’s okay. I’ll go. I should, anyway. I’ve got a shovel in the trunk, and we need to keep the tailpipe clear.”
“You shouldn’t be out there alone.”
“Oh gee, I wonder who should go with him,” Casey put in.
“No one’s asking you,” Tony said.
“Yeah, right.” Casey gave him the hairy eyeball. “Whatever. Give me a chance to clear the snowmobile. You want to unlock the doors?”
“Sure, sorry.” Tony stabbed at the control, and the locks thunked. Bullying open the door, Casey pushed his way out of the car on a raft of bitter wind and without a backward glance.
Tony looked over at Rima. “Is it my imagination, or is Casey getting even meaner?”
“It’s not your imagination,” she said, turtling into hunched shoulders. The outside air hacked at her face like switchblades.
“Rima, jeez,” Tony said, and then he was tugging off his scarf to twine around her neck. “Take this. My mom made it. I’ve got a hat and … Hey.” He gave her an odd look. “Rima, are you all right?”
“Yes.” Her voice sounded very tiny in her ears. The death-whisper in that scarf was very strong, swelling in her chest and boiling over in a red tide. She blurted, “I’m sorry about your mom.”
Shock flooded his face. “What?” he said. “What?”
“She knew you were scared.” A sudden tingle ran through her fingers, and before she knew what she was doing, she’d peeled off a mitten and laced her fingers around Tony’s wrist. At her touch, she heard him suck in a quick, astonished breath; felt the sting of his surprise and the keener, glassy edge of his grief. “But it didn’t matter. She loved you, Tony.”
“My … my mom …” His face was whiter than bone. “How do you …?”
“It’s kind of a long story,” she said, surprised that Tony was someone she wouldn’t mind telling. “How about we talk when we’re someplace safe?”
She would remember this moment later. By then, it would be abundantly clear that no place in this valley was truly safe. Unfortunately, she wasn’t a mind reader, only a soother of the dead.
“That better be a promise,” Tony said.
“It is. Be careful.” She released him, but she felt their connection draw itself in an invisible strand, like a spider spinning silk. “I mean it.”
“I know. You stay warm,” he said, and then he backed out of the car and was swallowed by the storm.
TONY
Maybe God’s Just a Kid
1
THEY WORKED BY flashlight, having set three flameless flares Eric had found in the Ski-Doo’s cargo bin at equally spaced intervals along the road. The flares had a weird kind of bulb Tony had never heard of—LED?—but gave off a lot of light, maybe even more than flares you lit with strikers. A good thing Eric was prepared, too. Of the two measly flares Tony had dug out of the Camry’s trunk, one was useless, the paper corroded and the powder inside dribbling out, which Eric said was probably magnesium and explosive when exposed to water. That had spooked him so bad, Tony didn’t dare strike the second flare and, instead, just tucked it in a coat pocket. Probably just as well; with all that spilled gas from the van—and how much had that thing held, anyway?—strike a match or light a flare, and they might end up barbecued.