Chapter Twenty Eight

Jane crawled on her belly toward the front door. Choking smoke swirled above her, while the crackle of the flames devouring her families old wood-framed home filled her ears. She suddenly heard a pitiful meow.

Damn it, the cats!

Zachary and Taylor, her families two scruffy looking pets, were huddled under a chair, crouched in terror. The two mangy ex-strays eyes were wide, their tails lashing the air. Bulbs in an overhead light fixture shattered, showering Jane with small pieces of glass, as she grabbed at the cats, rising to her knees, and shuffling rapidly the last few feet to the door. The cats were squirming in her grip, the scared animals clawing and biting at her. Jane was choking on the smoke, her eyes running with tears from the smoke, and banged unseen into the door. She dropped one of the cats, and fumbled for the latch on the old lock. It resisted her fumbling hand for a moment, before it clicked open. Zachary clawed frantically at the door before Jane, coughing, was able to open it wide enough to let him out. She threw Taylor out the door after him, automatically grabbing her light jacket from the coat-rack by the door before crawling outside after the cats.

Her lungs were still filled with smoke, and she couldn't stop coughing, which got worse when the cold wind bit into her sweating body. Jane started to shiver violently, and suddenly started to gag, unable to breathe, She coughed and coughed, unable to even stand up for a precious few minutes. Looking around through the wildly gusting snow, she crawled on her hands and knees over to the snow-covered mound which marked her brother Trent's old car. Racked by another bout of coughing, she painfully pulled her jacket on over her thin shoulders, zipping it up with difficulty.

She fumbled at the door handle. For a minute her heart almost stopped when the door wouldn't open, then it came away from the frame with a loud pop. A sudden crash came from the burning house, and she took an involuntary look back at it. The open door and windows framed the inferno inside. The smoke was completely lost in the blowing snow. The old wooden house had gone up like a matchstick. The hiss of the snow as it melted in the flames sounded like a den of snakes. With a loud sob, she crawled into the car, the tears from her eyes not only falling from the smoke.

Crying, she grabbed the key which, as usual, the careless Trent had left in the ignition, and clicked it. The dash lights flickered, and the engine made a dull whirring noise. Her heart seemed to freeze in her chest. She turned the key again, frantically pumping the gas pedal. This time, the engine was completely silent. She stared at the dim dash lights for what seemed like forever. Her fists were clenched tightly on the worn steering wheel.

She glanced wildly around her, then slammed the door open, keeping her footing in the thick powdery snow with difficulty, and grimly slogged down the street. Daria's house was three blocks away, the phones weren't working, and she doubted that she could get any of her neighbors to even open their doors on a night like this, let alone give her a ride. Behind her, fire and ice clashed as the two elements destroyed her home. Jane had never felt so alone.

The freezing wind lashed at the struggling teenager. Jane, an avid runner, was barely able to walk through the howling blizzard. Only by focusing on Daria's image was she able to keep on going.

If I run into one of those ghosts now, it's going to be all over real fast, she thought grimly. I won't even be able to see any of them in this!

But she still struggled ahead, only her superb runner's physique allowing her to move forward. Soon, even that wasn't enough, and she had slowed to almost a crawl, when a light behind her illuminated the driving snow. She turned and gaped at the two circles of light slowly approaching her. The small car slowed down as she slipped and slid in front of it, banging on the hood. She grabbed at the passenger side door, but it was locked. She screamed, knowing what she must look like to the driver, but then the door opened, and she gratefully climbed in, pulling the door shut behind her.

A gasp from the driver of the car was followed by an ominous click.

"You! You were with that Morgendorfer woman!"

Turning in shock, Jane found herself staring into the barrel of a pistol. It almost touched her face in the small car. It was being held in the shaking hands of Walter Smit's, mayor of Lawndale.

The little blonde girl cowered in the exact center of her bed, buried under the thick pale blue comforter and blankets. Eleven-year-old Tricia Gupty could hear the wind shaking the wooden walls of her parent's house. The hiss of the snow outside sounded like the low murmur of voices. The pale light reflecting off the snow shone through the thin curtains that shrouded the wide windows of her bedroom. She wished she still shared a bedroom with her brother, Tad, but she was too big for that, now. Still, even nine-year-old Tad's company would be better than being alone in this dark.

Her parents had told her that she was a big girl, and the dark was just dark, and the snow was just snow. Modern, enlightened people like her parents, and their children, needed to embrace correct ways of thinking, to only see the best things in people, that things like fear was wrong. If you weren't afraid of things, they couldn't hurt you.

Tricia tried hard to live up to her parent's ideals, but away from them, it was hard. The world didn't seem as rosy as her parents said it was. Still, Tricia and Tad weren't dumb. They could see things for themselves. They had learned a lot from Daria and her friend Jane, the one and only time they had been allowed to take care of them! Still, her sister Quinn, their regular sitter, was nice, too, even if she spent a lot of time on the phone talking to her girlfriends. Quinn had become more attentive, though, doing her homework, and making an honest effort with them. They really enjoyed a lot of the stories she had told them about Daria!

Tricia had heard that Quinn and her friends were all gone, lost in the snowstorm. She wondered if that made Daria sad. She would be sad if her mom and dad, or Tad got lost or hurt. Her parents hadn't wanted her to know, but she had found out anyway, and told Tad, too. Her parents had been very unhappy she had done that, but had admitted to them that Quinn and her friends were missing, and that it was okay to worry about them. Their mom had even let them call Quinn's house and talk to her mother. Mrs. Morgendorffer had sounded really tired and sad, even though she was nice, thanking them, and telling them that Quinn had always told her they were the best of her sitting jobs.

Had Quinn and her friends just gotten lost in the snow, or had a bad car accident? Tricia knew a bit more about the real world than her parents thought she did. She was very curious about everything her parents tried to shield her from. She had met Stacy Rowe, too, and seen the other two girls, once, Sandi and Tiffany, when they had driven up to her house, and talked with Quinn.

Tiffany seemed well, unfocused. Sandi was very cold and bossy. Quinn later said that's just the way they were, and that Sandi had become nicer.

Tad had told her that he had talked to a friend of his, who had told him that people said Sandi was crazy, and had driven off a cliff with her friends. Sandi hadn't seemed crazy, but how did you tell if a person was crazy, anyway? Wouldn't Quinn have been able to tell if Sandi was crazy? Tricia was so confused! She wished she could talk to Daria about all this. Daria was really smart. Quinn said she was in college now, far away in Boston. Was she going to wear a lab coat and do experiments? But she hadn't even seen Daria since she had sat them that one time.

This storm was strange, too. Telephones weren't working very well anymore, and the electricity kept going out, because the wet snow broke the lines. The poor electric company people kept fixing them, but then new ones broke.

Tricia's worried parents kept her bedroom door open, too. The little girl had already woken up her brother and parents twice with her screams from her nightmares. She didn't tell them what the nightmare was though. The sound of the wind would change to a sinister hissing, almost like a labored breathing. She would hear a whisper from her window.

"Tricia, it's me, it's Quinn, I'm so cold, Tricia, please let me in."

When the little girl climbed out from under her covers, and peered outside through the curtains, she saw Quinn there, down on the snow-covered lawn. Her favorite sitter was crouching there naked, her glorious mane of red hair matted, her body all twisted, her eyes bulged out strangely. Her face was covered with blood. She would hold something to her mouth and casually gnaw on it. That was where Tricia always woke up.

Quinn was eating a human hand.

Sandi lay on the hard wooden floor, only semiconscious. She saw the ghosts slowly moving in against her mom and dad, Sam and Chris. She saw deeply into her mother, saw all her sins, her stealing her father from his true love, Patti Wells. Her continual harping on the one thing in her life, the interview with Rosalyn Carter.

Her father's fault's were also revealed, his passiveness, his timidity. He knew Sandi had been abused, but had said nothing at all to anybody. Why? He loved her, Sandi was sure of that, but her mother loved her too, didn't she?

The graveyard scene played over and over in Sandi's mind, and she struggled to understand it. What had she agreed to? What had the ghost meant by her words? Stacy had replaced the Snow Woman in her grave, freeing her to wander the earth once more. She was having the Snow Woman's child, as she had said. But what was going on with Quinn? Why had she murdered Tiffany, and in such a gruesome way?

The sound of Quinn's transformation came dimly to Sandi's ears. The raw screams had become strangling choking, the slow sound of tearing flesh and bone still sounded, but far more deliberately. The word that Sandi had said floated in her mind. Slowly, memories that had never been hers came into view, like bubbles from deep under a stagnant swamp.

Wen-di-go.

Sandi fumbled with the word through the haze of anguish and physical pain that was her world. A very old word. It had been used by Native Americans centuries before the arrival of the white men. A meaning slowly grew, a definition of something as old as the world itself.

"The Evil Spirit that devours Mankind."

It had another name as well.

"The Spirit of the Lonely Places."

Brief flashes appeared in Sandi's mind. The Snow Woman living in the cabin as mortal, happy, pregnant. She was so full of hope. A smiling man at her side, a proud father to be. What had happened to them? What had gone so horribly wrong?

A ripple of pain across her body wiped everything else. Every muscle in her back and stomach twisted in agony. Sandi's hands scraped painfully against the floor, her broken nails long since worn to a nub. She bit into her lip, her teeth cutting deeply. Her breath hissed out through her clenched teeth, blowing out the bloody foam onto the pale skin of her white face.

The chill weight that had tormented her for so long seemed to shift, move in her body. Her muscles all tightened at once, wringing a loud scream from Sandi. Wave after wave of cramps started sweeping her withered body. Sandi's bony arms and legs thrashed in pain. Sandi screamed again and again, her shrill cries mixing with the groaning and whimpering coming from the pulsing pile of wet flesh which was all that could be seen of Quinn.

I didn't mean for anything like this to happen! How is this supposed to make mom love me? This isn't fair! I never deserved this! I'm the one mom hurt! Why me?

Sandi's thought was broken by another loud groan from Quinn. Sandi turned her head, looking at the girl she considered her best friend. Quinn didn't look like anything that had ever been remotely human. Sandi's vision wasn't too good anymore, even after more than two weeks in the dim cabin, but she saw something that looked like wet bone. Bits and pieces of color from the raw flesh glistened, reds and blues.

Something crawled out of the pile, slowly, clawing at the floor. Sandi could barely recognize it as Quinn's hand, swollen and misshapen. She stared at it in shock, and then shame. Quinn's small hand, once so elegant, with flawless nails and soft skin

Quinn! She's my best friend! Sure, we schemed against each other all the time, but we still liked each other. What have I done to her? This is mom's fault, my fault! Look at her! Look at Tiffany! She's dead! Stacy's gone too! She's buried alive outside! And it's all our fault, Mom and me!

At least I'm still alive, but look at them!

That's why I'm still alive, isn't it? That's it! She promised that mom would remember her love for me. But what about my friends?

The Snow Woman's last words came back to her.

Anything you have? Do we ever have anything, than the companionship of others?

Sandi eyes looked at Quinn again.

No! I never wanted to sacrifice her! Not any of them! What have I done? What has our fighting done to the only three people who ever came close to understanding me!

Sandi started to slowly push herself along the floor on her back. She was very weak. Her arms had little strength left in them. She had to stop, panting for long minutes at a time. Even with the ice cold burden in her womb, she was soon sweating, her skin cool and clammy. But she kept on, until finally, she pushed up close to Quinn. While she laid there, breathing heavily, she slowly reached out and took Quinn's misshapen hand in hers, squeezing it tightly.

Her words a weak whisper, she said, ."Quinn? I don't know if you can hear me anymore. But I'm sorry. I know it's not much, but I'm here with you, I'm here with you."

Quinn's hand squeezed gently back.