Welcome to Part III of the story. Here, the angst begins. Reviews are very much appreciated.

On This Winter's Night With You, Part III

It is cold, thought Owen. It is definitely cold. He had finally managed to scoop the snow out of the crotch of his pants, while trying to ignore Abby's laughter. Of course, he HAD started the snowball fight, so he couldn't be too mad at her for what thought was an underhanded trick at winning.

He looked over at Abby who was sitting passively in the deep snow of the front yard with a grin on her face.

"It's not THAT funny.", he said to her in what he hoped was a stern voice.

"I beg to differ. Funny is in the eye of the beholder", Abby said with an innocent look.

"Oh, is it now?"

"It definitely is."

"Then how come you never find The Three Stooges funny when we watch them?"

"I still don't see how you can find them funny, Owen. How can you find them funny? They're three grown men who apparently do nothing but hit each other on the head with hammers and poke each other in the eyes…and I just answered my own question, didn't I?", Abby said with a sad chuckle.

"Don't forget the pie fights."

"How could I ever forget such an intellectual discourse?", Abby said with a roll of her eyes.

"Too bad they're not on the television tonight."

"Aw, yes it's too bad indeed.", Abby said sarcastically.

"I do know what WAS on tonight though."

"What?"

"Oh…I don't know. A certain seasonal special that has something to do with a talking snowman, a prospector, an elf who wants to be a dentist and a certain red-nosed reindeer…", Owen's voice trailed off as he watched for the expected affect his words had on his girlfriend. He was not disappointed.

As if a switch had been thrown, Abby's eyes absolutely lit up. "Owen…it's on tonight? Are you kidding me?", she squealed gleefully, sounding exactly like the twelve year old she appeared to be.

"Nope, I'm not kidding. It was on tonight."

"What do you mean 'was' on tonight?"

"It was on at 8."

"What time is it now?"

"It's about 10:30.", Owen said calmly after looking at his watch.

"We missed it?", Abby gasped with an unmistakable sound of sadness in her voice.

"Yes, we would have. Except for one thing…"

"What?", she asked anxiously

"Well. Remember when I went inside to use the washroom just before 8?"

"Yeah?"

"I just may have stopped to put a blank tape in the VCR and tape it for us to watch when we finished up out here."

"Owen!", she cried with incalculable excitement. "You didn't?"

"I did.", he said with a smile. "I knew you'd want to watch it again."

Abby was suddenly standing next to him so quickly he would not have believed it if he hadn't seen her use many of her powers in the past. She threw her arms around his neck, stood up on her tiptoes and gave him a passionate kiss.

"Owen, you are simply too good to me. Do you know that?", she asked softly when the kiss broke.

"Aw, come on Abby. It wasn't that much. I like it too though."

"Why do you always sell yourself short?"

"I don't think I am."

"Yes, you are."

"Well, maybe I just think that you're the one who's been good to me. I mean, a year ago, I couldn't have dreamed that this Christmas would be like this. Snowball fights weren't fun back then, you know. They were what you could call one-sided affairs. I'd count myself lucky if I just got nailed with a barrage of regular snowballs."

"Regular snowballs?"

"Yup."

"What other types of snowballs are there?"

"Let's see," Owen said as he pretended to rub his chin as if in deep thought, "With the types of people I knew back in Los Alamos the two big alternatives were when you got a rock as your core then built up snow around it. Not too much snow, mind you; the rock had to be able to hit me on the head, or the face or wherever they happened to be aiming. The other favourite was to just use yellow snow."

"Did you say yellow snow?"

"I did indeed."

"Where would they get yellow snow from?"

"The snow came from the ground. The yellow was, well…", he pointed to his own snow covered crotch.

"Ew! Oh my god, that's disgusting!"

"Yup, some assembly was required."

"Owen, that's horrible.", Abby said with visible disgust on her face.

"I thought so. I'm glad I'm not the only one with that opinion.", Owen said without too much bitterness in his voice.

"Oh Owen, everytime you tell me about what things were like for you back then, it makes me…respect you more."

"Hold it a second! My being a punching bag for the Los Alamos bullies makes you respect me."

"Yes. I respect you for the fact that you're still such a good person even after what you went through. So many people would become…", she tried to find the words.

"Twisted?"

"That wasn't what I was going to say, Owen.", Abby said gently as she put her hand on arm.

"No. But it's what I would have said. And it would have been true. I was going down that path, you know. Look where my favourite place to hang out was –in an abandoned room in the basement. I had this…mask…back in my old room. At night, I would put it on, in the dark, and look out the window, holding a knife from the kitchen. I was pretending I was someone else. It was like I was…stalking people. I looked like that guy in those dumb Halloween movies. Abby, I don't think normal people do that."

"Owen…", Abby started to say.

"No, I know it's not normal. And do you remember what I was doing the first night we met? I was stabbing a tree!"

"Owen, I'll grant you that's not the most…normal…thing in the world. But, you were stabbing a tree. You weren't stabbing a person. You were frustrated and you were just venting it all out. That IS a normal thing, even if the way you were doing it was a little unusual."

"Do you mean that?"

"Of course I mean it. Owen, remember that night at the pool?"

"Most vividly."

"I can imagine. But, do you remember what you told me what happened before? You said that you had your knife, but you couldn't use it. Isn't that right?"

"Yeah, that's right. I had the knife, but I just couldn't…"

"I know, Owen. That speaks absolute volumes to me."

"What does it say, that I couldn't even defend myself?"

"No, that you don't have it in you to really hurt someone. That's a good thing Owen. I've known far too many people over the years that could all too easily hurt others. Sometimes, I'll admit, it was to help me. But still, it wasn't a good thing."

"I'd help you Abby. You know that, don't you? If someone was hurting you, or was trying to…I'd stop them. Or, I'd try to, at least.", Owen said softly even as he felt his words were ludicrous. Abby was a vampire with superhuman strength and near indestructibility. Who in the world could she possibly fear save, perhaps, some other vampire? Yeah, that would go well; he thought to himself sarcastically. How would the favourite target of all bullies do trying to go hand-to-hand against a vampire? How long would that fight last? Was there a unit of time small enough to even measure it. But still, he thought, if Abby was in real danger, he would do it for her. If it ever came to it, he'd sacrifice himself so she could escape.

"I know that, Owen. That would be different. I think that even the most peaceful and gentle people will do anything to save someone they care for. My point, and I do have one, is that you're a truly good person. You didn't let what was done to you make become like them. You know that a lot of people who're abused wind up abusers themselves, from what I've read."

"I've heard that too.", Owen replied as he thought to how Kenny –his chief tormentor- had been a victim of his own brother, Jimmy. Of course, both of them were dead now. They'd been literally torn apart by Abby the previous March when the final escalation of their violence had taken place. The apotheosis was to simply hold Owen underwater until he was dead. Abby had saved him and proved to them the old saying that those who live by violence will surely die by violence. Owen only felt a slight bit of guilt at not regretting their deaths. He justified it by logically assuming that since they were willing to kill him, escalation of their violence would surely result in more murders over a period of years. Abby has merely cut that off at the root.

"See? That's what I mean."

"And I proved it just because I taped Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer tonight?", Owen said with a smile as he thought they should shift from the downbeat conversation.

"It's simply icing on the cake, Owen.", Abby said with a smile. "Don't forget what I told you back in Los Alamos. I'm your girlfriend now, so that means…"

"You're always right."

"I'm always right.", Abby finished with a giggle.

"What about when you maintained that you didn't want to watch The A-Team or The Dukes of Hazzard because you thought they'd be dumb?", Owen asked with a raised eyebrow as he knew that Abby never missed an episode of either show and that she even had a poster of John Schneider on the wall of her basement room. "And your adamant position that Knight Rider was too inane for words?"

"I would never have said such a blasphemous thing, Owen. Not about The Dukes, not The A-Team, and certainly not about anything that stars David Hasselhoff.", Abby said with feigned innocence. "And you can't prove it either."

"Can't admit that you're wrong, huh?", Owen laughed as they walked up the porch steps to the house.

"Do you want another handful of snow down your underwear again?", Abby asked with a sarcastic laugh.

The hot water definitely felt good, thought Owen. He was standing under the shower, allowing the hot water and steam to restore his body to a more normal temperature. He and Abby had been outside in the cold for almost five hours, from starting on the first strand of lights to the conclusion of their latest snowball fight. He sighed to himself. Just once that winter, he'd like to win one. Of course, as far as he was concerned, spending time with Abby was enough of a victory. Time and again he actually pinched himself to be sure everything with Abby wasn't a dream.

A year ago, just having a friend was pretty much a forlorn hope, let alone a girlfriend. But now, things had definitely changed. He idly wondered what some of the people who knew him (he couldn't think of anyone as a friend since nobody ever cared to be his friend at any time) in Los Alamos would think if they saw him and Abby together. He figured –or, actually, rather hoped- they would be amazed and envious that someone like Owen could have such a pretty and intelligent girlfriend. He couldn't imagine what they would say to the fact that he and Abby made love quite regularly. He couldn't help but smile at how jaws would drop at that bit of news. Of course, he was fully aware that part of their relationship really came to pass due to the fact Abby was a vampire. If Abby had not been a vampire, he was absolutely certain that things would not have progressed much pass the kissing stage yet. He did know that adults talked all the time about how kids these days were having sex at younger and younger ages. In fact, Owen would have been the first to agree that they might have been too young to do what they'd been doing, if Abby had been a regular girl. However, Abby was not a normal girl. She was a vampire. She simply wasn't going to age anywhere past where she currently was. To hold off due to that was truly pointless. As well, the risks associated with sex simply didn't apply either to them.

Owen wondered if grown-ups, aside from his grandfather, could understand what he and Abby had together. It wasn't conventional. It wasn't, well, anything other than perfect for the two of them. It was the perfect congruence of circumstances along with the two individuals that had resulted in a truly perfect matching. Owen privately felt most adults would have been envious of what he and Abby had together.

Adults, Owen thought as he reached for the shampoo. He always wondered what it would be like to be an adult. He had imagined himself as tall, strong, able to do anything he wanted. At least, that was what he'd wanted before. Now, he wasn't so desirous of that at all. To grow up meant to leave Abby behind. Owen was no fool. He knew that his relationship with Abby simply could not stay as it was if he allowed time to carry him forward to adulthood. But time spared nobody…except, it seemed, vampires. It was something Owen had thought about more and more as the months passed. There were really two choices for him. He could grow up and eventually realize that the magical relationship he had now with Abby was over. Or, he could ask her to transform him into a vampire so he would remain as eternally unchanging as she was and they could truly stay together forever.

It was an immense decision, to be sure. To have a natural life and be able to enjoy sunlight, real food, being a part of the moving of humanity. Or, the other choice was to remain frozen in time and live eternally in darkness. For Owen, the choice he wanted was surprisingly easy to arrive at. He wanted the eternity in darkness. He wanted the eternity with Abby. He'd mentioned it to her once. She had seemed not terribly surprised. She simply smiled at told him that they had plenty of time to discuss that, and that he had to really think about the implications of what he wanted. He had thought about it, and was still thinking about it. His decision hadn't changed though. He wanted to join Abby completely, as a vampire.

As Owen ran these thoughts through his head as he pondered potential futures, he looked through the clear shower curtain and saw the bathroom door open. Abby slipped in and shut the door quickly, before the cooler air of the hallway could rob the warm bathroom of its heat. She was dressed only in an oversized shirt that she tended to wear when the two of them lounged around late at night to watch television. She smiled at Owen as she noticed he was looking at her.

"Can I come in?", she asked with a smile.

"Hmmm.", Owen said with a grin. "Is there something stopping you? Is there something in the way.", he asked over the sound of the running water. It had become a running joke between them that they would stress the need for an invitation. As they both lived there, there was nothing blocking either of them from anywhere.

"You're not going to invite me?", Abby asked as she looked down at the floor and seemingly studied her own bare feet.

"What if I don't?", Owen said playfully.

Abby didn't say a word. She simply reached over to the sink, wrapped her hand around the hot water tap and gave it a quick twist. Owen inhaled sharply as the water in the shower suddenly turned cold and then went hot again as Abby shut the sink tap off. She looked up at him with an arched eyebrow and a smile.

"Do you want me to flush the toilet now?"

The shower curtain shot open a foot –enough to let her slip through yet still keep the water from going over the bathroom floor. "You can come in.", Owen said with a smile. These games they played were always fun for them. Of course, when it was Abby who was in the shower first, his threats of running the hot water or flushing the toilet really had no weight since Abby –if alone- simply used cold water anyways. (Her reasoning was that it didn't bother her in the slightest so why not save the hot water for other uses?) He usually just had to give a pleading look before Abby turned the hot water knob to warm up her shower and invited Owen to join her.

Now, though, Abby just smiled as their game concluded for another day…and a new game began. She lifted the shirt over her head and hung it on the clothing hook on the door, where Owen's robe and pajamas now hung. Owen smiled and felt a familiar sensation of warmth which came to him whenever he saw Abby naked. In his eyes, she was the most beautiful person in the world and he considered it no less than a miracle that someone so smart and beautiful was in love with *him*. With a graceful move she stepped over the rim of the old-fashioned bathtub and joined Owen in the shower.

"Thank you for the invitation.", she purred as Owen shut the shower curtain behind her.

"Anytime.", he said as he gave her a kiss.

Abby stepped back under the water spray as she let it wet her hair down. She looked over at Owen who was pouring some shampoo into his hand and began to work it into his hair. She looked his nude body up and down and smiled at him.

"What?", he said as he noticed her checking him out. Needless to say, he did the same with her, but he still enjoyed the attention.

"It's just that I can't get over how you've changed from how you looked at the pool back in March. You looked so thin back then. Now, you look so strong."

"Thanks. Well, you spend almost nine months breaking rocks into gravel with a sledgehammer, things like that happen, I guess.", Owen said with a confidant tone that hid the great surge of pride he felt at her words.

To pay back Oscar for his allowing them to stay, the two of them had more or less taken over most of the physical work that came with running the ranch. Abby's superhuman strength and made it possible for the two of them alone to succeed in that undertaking. Owen had taken it upon himself to do many of the jobs that were tough, but could be done without Abby's great power. One of them had been a particularly long and tough job. Grandpa Oscar had been wanting, for several years now, to lay some fresh gravel on the driveways of the ranch. There was a huge pile of stones behind the barn that had been pulled out of the fields and paddocks over the generations. They figured that all it would take was to pound the stones into gravel and then lay it along the rough spots, thus saving the cost of having gravel brought in. It was an uncomplicated job to be sure, but not an easy or a short one.

Abby had offered to do most of it, but Owen felt that he should do it the lion's share. He was so insistent that Abby relented. Starting the first week after their arrival , as soon as Owen had recovered from his cold, they'd begun loading wheelbarrows with rocks and hauling them around the barn to the garage. At first, Owen could barely move the wheelbarrow with a couple of rocks in it. But, as he got used to it, he found himself loading the wheelbarrow with more and more and his speed in doing so increased as well. Once a good working pile was built up, he began to pound them with a sledgehammer. It was tedious and relentless work, but Owen stuck to it. The first few weeks of doing so, his hands were covered in blisters and Abby practically had to carry him up to his room at the end of the night –to maximize time with Abby, night was when most of the work was done- he was so tired. But, Owen had refused to give up. The pile of rocks slowly but surely began to shrink as the corresponding pile of gravel grew. For Owen, the funniest thing was that the once heavy sledgehammer was beginning to feel lighter. When the time came to replenish the stone pile, Owen found it was a cinch to load his wheelbarrow up completely and could even hum a song by Wham! as he wheeled it to his workplace. There, he would begin again the pounding. Abby's part of the job was to actually spread the new gravel down. With her obsessive-compulsive eye for detail that made her love puzzles so much, it was the perfect job for her as she could sense just how much gravel needed to go where.

By June, he'd noticed just how much his upper body had grown from the work, especially his shoulders and arms. Abby and his grandfather both commented on how different he looked. A timely growth spurt had resulted in enough added height that Abby now had to stand on her tiptoes to kiss him when they stood before each other.

The work continued throughout the summer and into the autumn. By the time it was finally done, just before the first snow arrived, the old pile of stones had visibly shrunk, Owen's upper body had visibly grown and Grandpa Oscar was visibly pleased with his much, much smoother driveway.

Now that it was winter, Owen's physical labours had shifted over to splitting wood for the fireplace. He was regularly out by the wood pile, working with either an axe or a maul and wedge.

Owen liked his new upper body. It was no lie to say that Abby liked it just as much.

"You look hot, you know.", Abby said with a pleased smile as she looked at her lover, as she traced her finger over his chest.

"You're pretty hot yourself.", Owen replied as he poured some more Head & Shoulder's shampoo into his hand and began to work it into Abby's hair.

"I try."

"You succeed", Owen laughed.

"You know, before I moved to Los Alamos, and met you, I really didn't shower that much."

"Yeah, I kind of guessed that when we first met."

"I'm laughing on the inside.", Abby said in a deadpan tone as she rolled her eyes.

"Don't hurt yourself. I always wondered why you didn't."

"I don't know. I guess…I didn't think of myself as needing to. It's a human thing. And, like I've told you, before I met you, I didn't think of myself as that. I thought of myself as, well, nothing.", Abby said. Her exposition on her past was turned into a gasp as Owen began to lather her back with the bar of Zest soap.

"You're not nothing to me, Abby", Owen murmured as he began to work his way down her back as Abby shivered under his hands. He finished soaping up her back and worked his hands around to her front. He lathered her stomach, while sliding his hands up towards her breasts.

"I'm getting that impression.", Abby gasped. She turned around and wrapped her arms around Owen's neck. "I'll say this. If I'd had you around like this, I definitely would have showered more often."

"I'll do anything to promote good hygiene.", Owen smiled as he leaned down slightly and kissed her. Abby responded hungrily. She lowered herself to the tub floor, pulling Owen down with her as they gave in to their passion and began to make love under the gently flowing hot water.

Sometime later, after finally finishing in the shower, Owen and Abby sat together on the living room couch, watching their pre-recorded show. Owen was half-watching the Rankin-Bass presentation, the rest of his attention was focused on Abby. She was sitting next to him, staring at the television with a look of absolute wonderment on her face. So far as Owen could tell, she hadn't blinked her eyes one single time since they settled down on the couch and began to watch Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer. Abby seemed to completely love every Christmas special that aired. She had told him that she'd never watched any of them before this year. So far, Rudolph was, by far, her favourite. Owen had to admit it had always been his particular favourite as well. The runner-up for that title was A Charlie Brown Christmas.

Abby had even made the suggestion that they try and find a Charlie Brown style of tree. Owen and his grandfather outvoted her on that particular issue though. During a commercial, Owen got up and flicked on the Christmas tree lights. The darkened room was immediately lit up with a glean of multi-coloured bulbs.

"The perfect touch.", Abby said as he sat back down on the couch.

"I thought so."

"It's hypnotic to me. I think I could stare at it all night."

"You never had a Christmas tree before?"

"Not like this. Sometimes Thomas, especially in the first years, would get a small tree to put up. That kind of got dropped as the years went on.", Abby said quietly. She still harboured deep regrets over what she did to Thomas' life and his eventual death. Like Owen's memories of being bullied, it was a bad part of her past that she knew she'd eventually have to make peace with.

"What about before…When you were still living in Virginia, I mean?", Owen asked in a reference to her human life in what was then Colonial Virginia.

"Back then? We didn't have Christmas trees back then. Nobody did."

"Really?"

"Really. You see Owen, decorating a tree at Christmas began in what's now Germany. The first time it was done in this country was by Hessian soldiers who were here fighting in the Revolutionary War. Even then, it didn't catch on much yet. As for me, well, I'd been a vampire for almost fifteen years by that time –the story is that it was a Hessian prisoner who put up a tree at the Noden-Reed House in Windsor Locks, Connecticut in 1777- so it really didn't have any impact on me. Trees really caught on when Queen Victoria married Prince Albert, who was German. That made Christmas trees popular in England. An illustration was done of Victoria and Albert with their children, around a Christmas tree in 1848. It was copied into Godey's Lady's Book here in 1850, and it just took off. By 1870, everyone was doing it.", Abby explained. She noticed Owen staring at her. "What's wrong, Owen?"

"You're just…so smart."

"No. I've just had more time to read a lot more books.", Abby replied with a laugh.

"Shame you can't go on one of those quiz shows. You'd clean up."

"I should go on that Late Night with David Letterman show, where he does those 'stupid human tricks'. I bet I could take first prize.", she giggled.

"You would. It's a shame they record it in the middle of the day."

"Definitely too bad"

As the show ended, Owen shut down the tape while Abby looked through the TV Guide for something else to watch. Owen turned to her.

"Abby"

"Yeah?"

"I was wondering about something."

"What?"

"How long, do you think, would it take you to fly the two of us to Alberta from here?"

"Alberta?"

"Yeah."

"I don't know. It depends on where in Alberta."

"I was thinking of someplace just over the border."

"It would take maybe a couple of hours, I think."

"So, we could go there and back in one night?"

"If it's just over the border, that would be no problem. Of course, it depends how long we're there before starting back."

"I was thinking of maybe fifteen minutes, maybe twenty."

"If that's all, then if we left here right after dark we could probably be back by midnight; 1am at the latest. Do you mind if I ask why you want to go there?"

"I was thinking of my mother."

"Your mother?"

"Yeah, I was thinking that I could try to phone her from a payphone there. I thought I'd just call her and tell her that I'm alive, I'm safe and…", he smiled at Abby "and I'm happy. If I couldn't get through, I could mail her a letter from there."

"That is sweet of you. But, why all the way to Alberta for that?"

"In case they're looking for me and they try to trace the call back. They'll think I'm up in Canada and they probably wouldn't think to keep looking hard down here. The same goes if I have to send a letter. It would have a Canadian stamp and postmark."

"And you think I'm smart? Owen, you really amaze me.", Abby said with pride.

"So, we can do it then?"

"Sure we can."

"When should we go?"

"It depends on the weather. It's supposed to snow the next few nights with a lot of wind. It wouldn't affect me that much, but you would need some calmer weather. How about Tuesday night?"

"That sounds good. We'll do it then. Maybe we could even look around up there and see if there's some good deals to get Grandpa something."

"It can't hurt to look. Now, let's see if there's something good to watch tonight. Oh, on channel 5 is A Christmas Carol with Alistair Sim.", Abby showed Owen the listing.

"Best version ever.", Owen agreed as he changed the channel.

"Someone should make a different type of Christmas movie someday."

"Like what?"

"I don't know; maybe something with some action in. The A-Team Meets Santa Claus, or something.", Abby said with a smile at the thought.

"Nah, that's too cliché. Oh, how about this? A cop goes to his wife's office Christmas party when crooks take over the place, but he escapes and starts picking them off one by one."

"That would never work as a movie."

"Yeah, I guess you're right.", Owen sighed as Abby snuggled up against him contentedly as they settled down to watch the movie.

It was two days later. Owen was bustling around the house in the late afternoon. He looked out the window both to see what the weather was like and to see how close the sun was to setting. Comparing his watch with the sky, he judged it would about a half-hour until Abby got up. Not that the sky was telling him much that day. It was grey and snow was starting to fall. It was coming down fairly heavily, but wasn't being whipped around by a heavy wind that made blizzards in the Rockies so fierce. His grandfather had gone to town and mentioned he was dropping by Joe Lawton's on the way back. With Abby still asleep in the basement, Owen had the house to himself.

There appeared to be nothing on television of any interest to him, so he looked about for something to read. His eyes fell on a copy of TIME Magazine. The Lawton's granddaughter had been selling subscriptions to magazines, so his grandfather had taken out subscriptions to that and Sports Illustrated (he was anxious to read the prognostications of the upcoming NFL playoffs). It was from this week and Owen hadn't read it yet. This seemed as good a time as any.

Owen sat down in the easy chair and flicked on the reading lamp as he opened the cover and scanned the table of contents. His eyes shot open as they fell on an article "Los Alamos Massacre: Nine Months Later". His hands were shaking as he debated whether or not to read it. He decided that it would torment him more not to read it, so he flipped to the page and began to read it. After forty-five seconds, his grip on the magazine tightened so much his knuckles went white. He read on. A minute later, Owen dropped the magazine across the arm of the chair and stumbled across the room.

He shambled to the door and mindlessly stepped into his boots and pulled his coat on. In the same zombie-like shuffle he opened the side door and stepped out, not bothering to close the inner door, leaving only the storm door to slam shut.

Once outside, he walked without any seeming purpose. He staggered away from the house in the gathering darkness. A few more steps took him into the forest pathway. He didn't see or hear the door to the root cellar open and Abby emerge. She never thought to look across towards the woods. She was only puzzled at the fact that Owen hadn't been there when she woke up. She wasn't alarmed, as there were some days when he was simply caught up in doing something and wasn't able to make it downstairs in time for her awakening. However, she didn't think that there was any big job to do around the place that day. She heard the motor of Grandpa Oscar's pickup approach to the house and turn off. That could be the reason, she thought. She knew that sometimes, during the day, Oscar would take Owen on a drive through the backroads just so Owen could see some different scenery once in a while. They would bring a camera and that summer and fall had taken some beautiful landscape pictures. Abby had at least two of the pictures adorning the wall of her room, in between the posters of John Schneider and David Hasselhoff.

As Abby stepped in through the side door, she heard someone come in the front door.

"Hi, you two!", she called out.

"What're you talking about, Abby?", Oscar called from the hallway as he removed his coat.

"Owen wasn't there when I got up. I thought he was with you."

"He's not with me. I was visiting the Lawton's after coming from town."

"That's strange.", Abby said as she turned her attention through the house. She couldn't sense Owen anywhere in it. There was no sound of his heartbeat, nor was there his scent within the house. Then, she remembered something.

"Grandpa, when I came in just now, the side door was open."

"It was?"

"Yes. The storm door was shut but the inner door was still open."

"Well, where would Owen go and why would he leave the door open?", Oscar asked as he felt worry begin to gather within him.

"I don't know. Did anything happen this afternoon?"

"Not a thing. I left just after 1pm and everything was fine.", Oscar said. He then noticed something in the living room. "The reading lamp is on."

"Yeah, it is.", Abby said as the two of them walked into the living room. She reached down to the chair's arm and picked up the discarded magazine. "Owen must have been reading this."

"It looks like it."

Abby flipped open the cover and the article on Los Alamos caught her eye.

"Grandpa, there's something in here about what happened in Los Alamos back in March!"

"So there is! I'll bet that has something to do with this. Let's see what the article has to say."

Abby flipped the pages to the article in question as she and Oscar began to scan it.

"Let's see here, oh look at this, 'An unexpected result in the wake of the pool tragedy involved the estranged parents of missing boy Owen…' oh, my God!", Abby gasped.

"Christ almighty!", Oscar moaned as he read the article for himself.

"Oh God, Owen must have read this and then…", her voice trailed off as she mentally put the pieces of the devastating article together with the door left open and Owen now missing. She looked back from the snowy darkness outside to recheck the article in question. "Grandpa, we have to find Owen. And, we have to do it now."