“So what?”
“So we fill up this Swiss Miss can and maybe a couple more. The gas might come in handy.”
“Well, you and Emma are kind of walking gas tanks already,” Bode observed. “But yeah, I see where you’re going.”
“I don’t,” Casey said.
She did. “Fire. Bombs.”
“Bombs?” Casey gaped. “You mean, like Molotov cocktails?”
“Well, not exactly,” Eric said. “We don’t have the right bottles.”
“What about the peanut butter?” Emma said. “We could empty the jars.”
“For a Molotov?” Bode made a face. “Might work, but the mouths are really wide and you have to score the glass to get it to blow up right. We don’t have that kind of time anyway.”
“How do you guys know these things?” Casey asked.
“Books,” Eric and Emma said together.
“ ’Nam,” Bode said.
“Gas burns and so does oil.” Eric cocked his head back at the house. “Grab a couple sheets from the beds upstairs, tear some into strips to wind around these chair legs, soak ’em in oil, and then we have torches.”
“But we can’t see the snowmobile,” Bode pointed out. “The same thing you’re worried about with the barn could happen here. Get yourself turned around, might not find your way back.” He paused. “Or it could be like what went down in the truck.”
“The fog swallowing and then taking me somewhere? Possible, but I have a feeling this is the end of the line. Anyway, we know where the snowmobile was.” Eric held up the curtains. “Tie these together, make ourselves a rope, I’m good to go.”
“Not alone, you’re not. I’m coming with you.” When Eric opened his mouth to protest, Emma put up a warning hand. “Don’t even start. We’ve already seen what the fog can throw at us. There’s no telling what could come out of it. You can’t siphon and watch your back at the same time.”
“Emma, the chances of anything bad happening to me are small,” Eric argued. “I’m not trying to leave. I only want another weapon.”
“Which it may not want you to have.”
“You popping off shots in a whiteout—”
“Is a terrible idea,” she finished for him. “Promise, I won’t do that.”
“But I thought you didn’t like guns,” Bode said.
“And I still don’t.” She hefted a chair leg. “Let’s go.”
2
“KEEP TALKING.” ERIC was looping a last knot of lacy curtain around his middle. “It’ll keep me oriented. If I don’t answer, give me a chance to tug or something. If you don’t get anything, then you guys pull us back. Whatever you do”—he gave the knot a final yank—“for God’s sake, don’t let go.”
Bode tightened his grip on the very end of the makeshift rope. “We’re on it.”
“What do you want me to say?” Casey said, paying out lacy curtain from the coils in his hands.
“I don’t care.” Eric shuffled to the first step with Emma, one hand hooked into his waistband, a half step behind. “Sing. Tell jokes. Whatever.”
“La-la-la-la,” Bode droned.
“Something with a beat would be nice,” Eric said.
“Row, row, row your boat …” Bode might be a decent soldier, but his voice made Emma’s brain hurt.
“Oh, that’s much better,” she said.
“MERRILY, MERRILY, MERRILY, MERRILY,” Bode boomed. “Life is but a—”
“Shut up.” Casey’s skin was white as salt. “Just shut the hell up. This isn’t funny.”
“Easy, Case,” Eric said.
“You shut up, too,” Casey said. “If it was Emma, you’d be the same way.”
Despite everything, her neck heated and she was grateful that Eric didn’t look her way. After a small silence, Bode said, “I’m sorry, kid. I was just blowing off some steam.”
“Yeah.” Doubling up on the makeshift rope, Casey set his feet and lifted his chin at Eric. “Go. And be careful.” He looked at Emma. “Don’t let anything happen to him.”
She only nodded, then looked to Eric, who stood to her left, and raised her eyebrows. “Ready?”
“Uh-huh.” Eric’s mouth had set in a determined line. “You stay close.”
“Don’t worry about that.” Her fist tightened around the chair leg. “Any closer, I’ll be on your left.”
At the edge of the porch, Eric hesitated, then put out a gloved hand. Emma watched the fog swirl and then cinch down around Eric’s wrist as if Eric had stuck his hand into a vat of whipped cream. “What’s it feel like?” she asked. “Is it cold?”
“Not really.” Eric’s eyebrows tented in a bemused frown. “Kind of thick, though. Almost … molten.”
“Can’t see your hand from here, man. It’s like it got amputated,” Bode said, passing Emma a flashlight. “I don’t think the light’s going to do you any good. That stuff’s too soupy and the light will scatter. But I’m curious how far you can go before we lose it.”
The answer was about five feet. On the first step, Emma could still look back and see two hazy shadows. By the second step, Casey and Bode had disappeared.
“It’s totally weird.” Casey’s voice was flatter than paper and as insubstantial as mist. “We see the rope, but it looks like it’s holding itself up.”
With Eric’s left hand wrapped tightly around the porch railing, they eased to the third step and then the fourth; at their feet, the fresh-fallen snow humped and sifted. Yet the snow made absolutely no sound at all. The air was still and silent. Eric was right, too; she felt the fog as something turgid, like tepid Jell-O just beginning to set.
Or blood on the verge of clotting. The hairs on her neck prickled; a scrape of fear dragged over her chest. What are you doing? Annoyed, she clamped her jaws until the small muscles complained. Stop it, you nut.
“Guys.” Casey’s voice reached them from what sounded like very far away: “Found it yet?”
“Not yet,” Eric said.
“Eric?” A beat, and then they heard Casey call again: “Eric?”
“I said, not yet!” Eric called.
Bode: “Barely hear you, man. You guys sure you’re still by the house?”