Chapter Twelve
Tiffany trembled as she held onto Sandi's shaking body. Sandi was desperately trying to crawl away, but didn't even seem to have the strength to sit up in bed. The formerly elegant brown haired leader of the Fashion Club was nothing but skin and bones. The skin was tightly pulled across her cheeks. Ominously, Sandi's lower belly had swelled grotesquely, reminding Tiffany not of pregnancy, but of children starving to death overseas.
Quinn meanwhile was in full lawyer mode, her fear and anger coming out in her intense questioning of Stacy.
"No more of this Stacy! This isn't some stupid game! How do you know that's Japanese?! Don't you understand what's going on here?! If Sandi doesn't get some help soon, she might die! Just look at her!"
Stacy raged back. " I already know, Quinn! Do you think I planned any of this? Sandi is my friend too! You're the one who was giving Sandi directions! If it's anyone's fault we're here, it's yours, not mine!"
"That's got nothing to do with any of this!"
"It doesn't? Maybe this is all some plan of yours! Poor lost Quinn, sole survivor of the ill-fated last trip of the Fashion Club!"
"Do you hear yourself, Stacy? That's just crazy! This isn't some TV movie! This is real! We're lost! We could all die! Our parents must be worried sick about us! Remember your Mom and Dad, Stacy? How come you aren't thinking of them right now!"
"I am thinking of my parents! I want to go home, and none of this is my fault! You're getting just like your sister, twisting everything that everybody says! Is that what being smart does to you?!"
"Stacy, this isn't about who's fault it is! Something's happening to you and Sandi, and it's killing her! It's not killing you, is it? What's all this Japanese stuff?"
"I don't know! I'm having some weird dreams, okay? I don't know what they mean! But they make me feel special! I'm not hurting anybody!"
"Stacy, we're all getting hurt! Just look around you! We are starving to death here! We're eating snow! We're always shivering, its always so cold in here! You know shivering burns calories!"
"It's not because of me! I don't want to be here any more than you do. I just had some freaky dreams, okay? They made me feel beautiful! I'm smarter now, I know that, but I'll never be as beautiful and smart as you or Jodie no matter how hard I study! It was just nice to feel beautiful for once, like the Snow Lady!" Stacy gasped, covering her mouth, but it was too late.
"Stacy, who's the Snow Lady? What are you talking about?"
"It's just a dream, okay? A stupid dream! I don't want to talk about it! Now just leave me alone!"
"We can't! Something's happening to us, and we have to work together! Something supernatural is doing things to Sandi and you. We can't leave, and we can't get any help. We are totally alone!"
Quinn and Stacy glared at each other across the bed until a weak hoarse voice seized their attention.
"I, I always thought of you as beautiful, Stacy, " Sandi said, holding onto Tiffany for support.
"Sandi?"
"The first time I saw you, I thought to myself, "That Stacy Rowe is so beautiful, such a sweetheart." You've always been the nicest of us, even when Quinn and I were fighting like cats. You've held us all together, kept us going, even when you were so sick of the rest of us, you couldn't stand it. In spite of everything, you were always the heart of the Fashion Club. You're very beautiful, Stacy, and not just because of your looks, it's because of who you are!"
Sandi collapsed back against Tiffany, shaking from her outburst, tears running down her wasted face. Stacy and Quinn stared at each other, white faced, then walked over to Sandi and Tiffany, sitting down on either side of them. They all just looked at the floor for several minutes, then sniffing started. The four girls, tired, hungry, and afraid, all just started to cry.
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Daria Morgendorffer, on the other hand, was seriously thinking about murder. She was jammed in the back of her mothers SUV with Sandi's eleven year old brothers, Sam and Chris, who kept wrestling with each other. "You're stupid!" "No, you're stupid!" She and Quinn had often argued and schemed against each other, but this was ridiculous. Would they have been like this if Quinn had been a boy? Daria shuddered at the thought of a male Quinn, unable to picture anything other than the supremely obnoxious Upchuck as a brother!
Tiffany and Stacy's mothers sniffled in the back seat, wiping their eyes continually. Her mother Helen had picked up the other mothers in her 4WD SUV. Her dad, Jake, had stayed at home to man the home front. Traffic in Lawndale was restricted to four wheel drive vehicles, though the interstate highways were still closed. Linda Griffin sat tensely in the front seat, tightlipped, other than a curt thanks to Helen for the ride. They were on their way to the Lawndale City Hall, where the mayor was giving a press conference on the blizzard emergency.
Daria had really wanted to stay home, but her dad's weak heart and tendency to start rambling about old problems under stress had picked her for the job of support for her mother. Quinn's disappearance had hit her parents sharply, as had Daria's first six months in college, a fact Daria hadn't fully realized until her return the night before. Neither Jake or Helen had gotten any sleep at all.
Daria's own sleep had been filled with vague nightmares, unremembered except for one she had had just before Helen had gently knocked on her door in the morning. She had been laying on her friend Jane's bed reading, while Jane, caught up in an artistic inspiration, painted feverishly. Her models had been Quinn and her friends, Sandi, Stacy, and Tiffany, all standing in stiff poses. The only things moving were their eyes, frantically searching the room, until all eight of them settled on Daria. Daria had squirmed under their pleading gaze.
Jane raised her dripping paintbrush with a extravagant flourish, and said, "Tiffany!" To Daria's shock, Tiffany's figure had collapsed into a swirl of ashes, her clothes and shoes laying empty on the bare wooden floor. Jane's door had banged open, and a quiet sob echoed up the stairs.
Jane returned to her painting, humming quietly, as she carefully painted the next figure. Daria was terrified of who it might be, but wasn't able to get up and look over her best friend's shoulder. Jane frowned with intense concentration, then with a quiet satisfaction said, 'Quinn!" Daria stared numbly as her little sisters still form gradually faded away, becoming transparent, until she turned into a sculpture of crystal clear ice. Her eyes still stared at Daria in mute appeal.
Daria tried to get up, clear her throat, anything to stop Jane, but she was petrified. Jane seemed to become a madwoman, painting feverishly, her brush anointing the canvas in precise strokes. To Daria's shock, Jane seemed to change under her eyes, her black hair becoming longer, flowing down her back. Jane stretched, looked down at her canvas, and said, again in quiet satisfaction, "Sandi!" Daria's unwilling eyes were drawn to the girl who had been at the same time her sister's closest friend and greatest enemy. Sandi's eyes seemed filled with resignation, as her body slowly shriveled up, becoming nothing more than skin stretched over bone, still locked in her pose, a frozen mummy.
Jane now focused intensely on her almost completed picture, her breath whistling through her bared teeth. Daria bit her lip, ground her nails into her palm, anything to stop Jane, but was still helpless. Jane slowed, breathing harshly, as she carefully finished her work. She stood up, staring down at the unseen picture, her still wet brush clenched in her hand, paint dripping off the bristles onto the floor.
The room temperature dropped, becoming freezing. Daria's breath puffed out in front of her in a thick fog. The quiet auburn haired girl did not want to know the picture was finished, but still couldn't move, as Jane dropped her brush to the floor, and grabbing the easel, turned the picture around. Daria's eyes took in the already seen forms of Tiffany, Quinn, and Sandi, before they took in the transformed Stacy Rowe. The still wet paint on the canvas showed a blurry image of the quiet, shy, pigtailed girl, fading into white at the edges.
A gust of wind filled the room, blowing out the windows, the curtains tearing in the blast. Stacy's figure abruptly exploded, her face expanding until it faded into the storm. A shriek of joy filled Daria's ears, becoming a cry of pain and betrayal.
Daria had started awake, Stacy's shriek still in her ears, as the Morgendorffer house shuddered in the still raging storm.
After that Daria had been very glad to get out of her bed. She had showered to feel more alert, and dressed warmly, in a green sweater and black slacks. Breakfast had been nothing but a slice of toast, followed by a big mug of coffee.
She sipped it as she stared out the kitchen window into the snow filled backyard. The drifting snow would blow into strange, almost disturbing shapes, before reforming. Daria's dream was still fresh in her mind, causing her to shudder.
No reason to get too analytical about things, she thought. I'm worried about Quinn and her friends, so of course I would be dreaming about them. Of course, this storm filled my mind with all these images, of ice and wind. And I'm certainly used to Jane drawing satirical pictures of people, so my subconscious threw her into the mix!
"Daria!" Helen's voice broke into Daria's reverie. "Will you please settle those two down! Linda, will you tell your sons to behave themselves? Driving in this snow is bad enough, and we really have to focus!"
The two boys had wilted under their mothers white faced glare. Linda's cold glance had chilled Daria to the bone. There was no tears in her eyes, just a cold blank fury. Even Mrs Rowe and Mrs Blum-Deckler in the back seat had shrank from Linda's glare.
What is wrong with Linda? Daria thought. She's not acting upset over Sandi missing, she's acting furious, like it was a snub or something! What is going on in that family? Linda seems really wired. I could understand her being upset, but why angry? What little I know about her is that she's very competitive with Mom, almost like Quinn and Sandi were back in high school. Mom always felt Linda was putting her down all the time. Sandi always came across as a stuck up snob, though from what Quinn has said, she seems to be trying to escape from that image.
As Helen pulled into the parking lot of the Lawndale City Hall, where the Police Department was located, Daria saw a bustle of activity. A snowplow had just finished scraping the lot, and was heading out to the street. Snow seemed to fall as fast as it was cleared away. The police cars were being outfitted with snow chains, because otherwise they weren't able to handle the city streets at all. Several news vans were parked in the lot as well.
The reporters zeroed in on the new arrivals the minute they walked in the door, though the KSBC reporter avoided Linda. Helen was well known locally, from her high profile corporate cases. "Mrs Morgendorffer! How do you feel about the lack of progress in the search for your daughter?" "Mrs. Morgendorffer, do you blame the city's slow response to act in this emergency on the current administration?"
Another reporter, braver (or more foolhardy), tried to nail Linda, only to shrink from the sheer fury in her face. Sam and Chris shrank behind Daria, maintaining a very conspicuous silence. The lobby grew silent, with everybody staring at Linda Griffin's tense form. Fists clenched, breath whistled raggedly through her bared teeth. Nobody dared to make a sound.
Daria seemed to be looking down on herself as she walked over to Linda Griffin. Her hands down at her sides, she stood in front of the older woman.
"Mrs. Griffin?"
Linda turned her almost blind gaze to Daria.
"Mrs. Griffin, why don't you come with me for just a minute, to, to freshen up, all right?"
Daria held out her hand. She gasped as Linda's hand closed on it in a crushing embrace, but turned, and led the older woman to the ladies room. A blonde woman, standing in front of the mirror adjusting her make up, looked at the two as they walked in. One look at Linda's and Daria's faces made her grab her purse and gingerly ease out of the room.