Chapter Nineteen
Linda Griffin sat quietly in her study at home, the door closed. Mementoes of her life and career were arranged neatly on the polished wood. Her wedding to Tom, pictures of Sandi, Chris and Sam. A picture of Rosalyn Carter and Linda, posing after her interview with the former first lady. The crowning achievement of her professional life. A half empty bottle of Scotch was placed precisely in the center of the gleaming desk top. She toyed with the empty shot glass in her hand, watching the cut glass sparkle in the dim light. Carefully placing the glass down with her trembling hands, Linda unlocked one of the drawers on her desk, and digging through some concealing paperwork, pulled out a framed picture of two brown haired college-aged girls, sitting in a dorm room and making faces at the camera. One of the girls was a younger Linda, the other girl very plain, with a small mole on her left cheek.
-
1970 Middleton College
Patty Wells hummed along with the music on the radio as she brushed her shoulder length hair. Linda looked up from her textbook at her roommate and said, "Your date last night must have been good."
"Oh, Linda, it was great! Tom Griffin is the sweetest and smartest guy, and you've just got to meet him! He's the best dancer! And he's so thoughtful!"
"Not that skinny, redheaded beanpole?"
"Linda! You really need to get out more. You hardly date at all! You spend all your time studying or student activities!"
"Patty, your social life during college isn't going to help you get a good job. Your major and transcripts will do that. How are we women going to break the glass ceiling and take our rightful place in the world?"
"Wow, Linda, you're such a square! You always compete with everybody, and you never have any fun! Come on, let's go to the dance tonight, together! I'll even let you dance with Tom!"
-
1971 Middleton College
"That Tom Griffin is such a jerk! He's stood me up for the last time!"
"Patty, I'm sorry for you, I really am, but I've got to study for this test."
"Linda, my life is ruined! You could show some sympathy!"
"Patty, look, relationships are like everything else in life. There are winners and losers, and this time you lost."
"That's the most cold blooded way of looking at life I've ever heard!"
Linda shrugged, "Don't blame me if life is rough, Patty. It's a dog eat dog world, and you have to fight for anything you want."
Patty broke into tears and ran out of the room.
-
Current Day
And I did win, too, didn't I, Patty Wells? You didn't know until our graduation that I was the reason Tom stopped seeing you, that he was marrying me. Tom was cute, going places, and he is a great dancer, who lets me help him make the decisions he doesn't always have the sense to make himself! Plain little Patty Wells. You were always so weak, so clueless I went thru Hell in high school, ignored by all the popular kids, considered a square by all the outcasts. Just because I liked to read and was shy! Well, I showed them! I interviewed the former first lady of the United States, Rosalyn Carter! If I hadn't gotten pregnant with Sandi, I would have been national!
Linda ignored the tiny nagging whisper in the back of her head as she always had.
But my career was already going downhill, wasn't it? The station management thought I was too shallow, too . . . abrasive. Jimmy Carter was already out of office, Rosalyn was yesterdays news. I wanted a baby as much as Tom did. Sandi was the cutest little thing, too, wasn't she? But I got nervous in being out of the spotlight, and I went into business management, thinking at least I'd still have a connection to national news. You fought your way to being the Vice President of Marketing at KSBC. But you've held that job for six years now without advancement. No matter what I do, the owner always talks about possible cutbacks, and the advertisers always whine about how much they have to spend, and want to spend even less. So I worked harder and harder, thinking all the time I and Tom were good parents, That first Sandi, and then Chris and Sam, had everything a child could ask for. Sandi always seemed so well behaved, so elegant. But then I found out that she was failing her classes, that about the only college she could get into was Middleton! She's weak, she doesn't have the guts I had, the drive to win! She's had life way too easy. Why didn't I pay closer attention to her? Now she's going to embarrass me by . . . dying?
She buried her face in her handsher shoulders shaking.
-
Helen's hug lasted a long minute. She seemed to almost melt into her daughters shoulders. Daria was increasingly becoming aware of the toll being taken on her strong, in charge lawyer mother. Daria could feel her trembling. Daria half supported her mother into the living room, where she sat her trembling mother on the couch. Going into the kitchen to get her a drink of water, Daria was surprised to see her dad, Jake, sitting at the kitchen table, pouring over maps. "Daria!" he said. "Glad you're back!"
"Dad? What are you doing?"
"Just looking at these maps, kiddo. Map reading is one good thing I got out of that miserable military school my old man, damn his black heart! Locked me away in!"
Jake's fists clenched on the table, crumpling the edges of the map. He breathed heavily, staring at the tabletop. Daria held her breath, afraid that Jake was going to have another heart attack, He visibly calmed himself down, slowing his breathing.
"Sorry, kiddo! Just . . . have to focus . . . on Quinn, doctor said . . . control your breathing . . . you and your mother need the old Jakester now . . . " He gulped. "I...have to be strong, for you and your mother."
Daria looked at her father's fight for self control with mingled respect and pity, and restraining herself from making a smart quip, filled a glass with water, and took it back to Helen.
-Stacy had stood outside the closed door after closing it behind her for a long time, trembling.
I don't want to die out here. Like I told Tiffany, I want to go to college, I want to date, I want to get married to somebody really nice who loves me. But the Snow Lady did something to me, gave me something. I'm not really sure any more what I am. I feel so strange, so strong and weak at the same time. I almost feel like I can fly, if I only knew how!
But the others! Sandi's dying, I can see that. Quinn and Tiffany are starving to death. It's almost funny, I can remember all the times when Tiffany would say "Does this make me look fat?" But we've all lost so much weight! We look like we've got anorexia. God knows that we've all been on some strange diets. But I can't pretend anymore, we're all dying, and I might be able to help save the others at least.
Stacy resolutely started to walk away from the cabin, not questioning the direction she took. Her shoes seemed to skim above the snowdrifts, barely denting the surface. With each step she took, a strange glow grew, outlining the leafless branches of the surrounding trees, seeming to come out of the blowing snow itself. The branches looked like bare skeletal hands, feebly twitching. Stacy held her head high, not looking aside. She could feel something growing inside her, her body changing in a thousand ways. The scent of cherry blossoms filled the chill air in an ironic contrast.
The howling storm outside the grove almost seemed to welcome her. Stacy found it harder and harder to remember her purpose, her thoughts of home, of her starving friends almost forgotten. Slowly, another thought grew in her mind. She was the snow and cold, born in spirit to take the lives of those who surrendered to her freezing breath. She lived for the deaths of men, such foolish men, who succumbed to her icy beauty. She took the lives of all she touched, but the death of men was her true, most important reason.
Stacy's mind reeled under this elemental onslaught, this almost primal hate. She also felt despair, the sorrow of a mother, eternally weeping for her dying child, woven into a dense web of emotion. Her steps never faltered though, and she wasn't surprised to see an opening in the high drifts surrounding the grove, that she took without hesitation.
The Snow Lady drifted in the wind above the massive drifts, staring at the approaching girl. Her long black hair flowed in the wind, framing her pale, delicate face. Her eyes were deep pools of darkness without light, her ruby red lips quirked in a cruel, yet sad, smile. The fine silk of her kimono flowed like clouds, revealing here a tiny nipple, there the curve of an ivory hip. Stacy gazed almost enraptured at the teasingly revealed beauty. The Snow Lady was a seducer as well as spirit, in her tormented soul lust was a partner to a cold and lonely death.
The thought of death stirred Stacy's memory of her suffering friends. "Please, if I become as you are, can I help my friends?"
Feelings of doubt flowed from the beautiful figure, images of sorrow and loss over long years crushed Stacy to her knees. She saw thousands of men and women dying in the snow, starving children crying. She saw men tempted beyond reason, throwing away their lives chasing the beautiful coldness standing before her. A brief flash of the beginning, a young woman in tattered, rich clothing fleeing a burning home into a howling storm, cradling her child in her arms . . .
The flow of images ceased abruptly, like the slamming of a door. Stacy knew that the Snow Lady hadn't meant to share the last image, that it was the deepest part of her soul. Stacy suddenly knew that the Snow Lady wasn't a part of Nature, like Mother Earth from a cartoon, but an undead spirit, a . . . demon? Was that what she had been dreaming about, trying to bargain with? Feeling the coldness that filled her body and mind, Stacy realized she had made a drastic mistake. The Snow Lady drifted closer to her across the icy crystals glinting in the eerie light. Her icy cold hands cupped Stacy's face almost lovingly as their lips met. Stacy's body trembled, her every nerve ending pulsing with an almost electric cold fire and shook in an unholy ecstacy as her living soul was ripped from her body. The scent of cherry blossoms becoming an overpowering wave.
-
Tiffany sat huddled between a strangely quiet Sandi, and a moaning Quinn who was trapped in the depths of nightmare. She hadn't seen Stacy in hours. She glanced at her watch, the time and date blurring to her unsteady eyes. Waves of heat, cold, and nausea washed over her shivering, gaunt body. The watch hung loosely on her bony wrist, and she stared at it for long moments, trying to remember why the time was important.
Glancing at Sandi, she shuddered violently. The brown haired former leader of the Fashion Club had lost even more flesh than the other three. Sandi's formerly rich hair was dry, falling out in patches, with streaks of white. Other than a strained gasping from between Sandi's clenched teeth, the only movement Tiffany could see was from Sandi's belly, now swollen to an enormous size. Tiffany tried to look away, but was afraid to. What looked like clawing hands seemed to make an impression on the straining flesh, visible now that Sandi's blouse could no longer be buttoned over it. Suddenly all movement stopped. Tiffany stared at Sandi, and then choked down a shriek. Slowly, a small face appeared, pressing through the wall of Sandi's stomach. It was the face of a child, eyes and mouth closed.
As Tiffany shrank back against Quinn, she was terrified that the small face would open it's eyes and look at her. She shook Quinn, afraid to say anything at all, but the redhead didn't wake up, trapped in her own nightmare. Tiffany closed her eyes, clasping her hands together, crying softly. She heard the old wooden bed creak, the unsteady steps of something walking over to her. She felt dry, chapped lips, icy cold, touch her thin neck, a rough tongue rasped across her skin. She knew without seeing when the jaws gapped open wide, and only screamed when Sandi's teeth sank deeply into her flesh like an unholy kiss.
-
Tiffany's shriek ripped Quinn out of her nightmare. Quinn struggled awake, her tired mind and aching body not making sense of the sounds she was hearing, the shrill cries. Her eyes were blurry, but she dimly made out Tiffany laying on the floor, whimpering. Sandi held her down, gnawing on her neck, like a dog chewing a bone. Blood pooled on the floor under the two girls.
Quinn stumbled over to them, weakly pulling on Sandi's shoulders. "Sandi, wake up! Snap out of this! You're hurting Tiffany!" Quinn cowered back as Sandi stopped her attack on Tiffany and turned to stare at her. Sandi's emotionless face was like a mask, her eyes milky orbs, filled with drifting black shadows. Blood ran down her face, dripping on her jacket. They stared at each other for a long minute. Sandi's eyes suddenly flooded with a reddish tint, and her face still a blank mask, opened her mouth wide, her blood-covered teeth in plain view. Her impossibly long tongue snaked out of her mouth, and quite deliberately, licked Tiffany's blood off her chin. Quinn fell backwards as Sandi lunged at her. Quinn threw up her hands in a weak attempt to hold her off, then screamed as Sandi's teeth sank into her flesh, gnawing at Quinn's hand like a dog with a bone. Sandi crouched over Quinn, mindlessly chewing, Quinn feebly trying to push her away with her injured hand, until there was a sudden loud CRACK, and Sandi collapsed on top of Quinn.
Quinn hysterically pushed Sandi's limp body off of her, only to see a sobbing Tiffany standing over both of them, a broken axe-handle in her hands. Tiffany sank to her knees, her face white. Quinn crawled over to the other girl, choking at the wounds on her slender neck. Reaching under her own jacket, Quinn tore off a piece of her blouse, and tightly held it against Tiffany's wounds, trying to stop the flow of blood. It was all she knew how to do, and she knew it wasn't enough. The slick feel of Tiffany's hot, gushing blood was terrifying, and the metallic smell of it filled the cabin's musty air.
She looked frantically at the fallen Sandi, seeing the gash in the back of her head from Tiffany's blow. Sandi was motionless, and Quinn couldn't see if she was breathing or not. Tiffany's eyes were glassy, her skin felt cold. Is she in shock? Quinn thought. What should I do? What can I do? Where the Hell is Stacy? I'm sorry, God, I didn't mean it like that! Please don't get mad at me! Oh, Sandi! What happened to you? Why did you attack Tiffany? Oh my God, did Tiffany just kill her? What am I going to do!