Tag Archives: blizzard

March 2, 2012 · 12:00 pm

Snowed In, Part Four

David sniffed the air, scrunching his nose up when the acrid aroma of smoke drifted into his nostrils on the tail end of Miss Walker’s perfume. “I do. Maybe you ought to stay here—I will go and see what it is.” Skirting around her, he grabbed the doorknob, but her hand on his shoulder stopped him.

“I want to go with you. Please don’t leave me alone here.”

He hesitated, the door ajar. The thick smell of smoke hung heavier in the air now. If McCullough comes to kill me and finds her here… “Very well. But stay behind me.” She was so quiet that his only assurance of her position as they moved toward the source of the smoke was when her hand brushed against his back. The kitchen…I’m not entirely surprised. Of all places there was likely to be a fire, the kitchen made the most sense. He lifted his ascot over his nose and mouth to filter the air. “Cover your face,” he advised Miss Walker over his shoulder. David pushed the kitchen door open. A plume of smoke, black as ink, billowed into the corridor. Coughing, he pressed on.

David’s eyes teared, stinging as the smoke hit his face. He couldn’t see two feet in front of him, but stopped when he stubbed his toe. Slowly crouching, he blinked quickly as the air cleared.

“What is it, David?” Miss Walker’s voice strained from behind him.

“I think…it’s McCullough!” There was no one else in the house who had a beard. “I’m going to pull him out of the room.” Even if he is a killer, he doesn’t deserve this. David hoisted McCullough’s shoulders off of the ground and began to drag him. The man was larger than he was, but as dead weight, the task felt nearly impossible. “Can you get his feet?” He couldn’t see Miss Walker but presumed that she was on her way to McCullough’s ankles. He didn’t realize she wasn’t helping until he heard her scream. McCullough’s head thudded to the floor and David vaulted over his chest. “What happened?” he hacked out.

“Mrs. Harrison! She’s…she’s…” Miss Walker was clinging to his shirt now, clawing at his chest and shoulders until he wrapped his arms around her.

“She’s what?”

“She’s dead,” Miss Walker sobbed.

“Are you sure?” David pulled back and tried to see through the smoke. That was when he noticed that it didn’t smell like normal smoke—Mrs. Harrison was burning. “She’s on fire, we’ve got to help her.” He turned, swapping places with Miss Walker.

“We can’t do anything for her now. Let us tend to McCullough.” Miss Walker stepped backward, her hands closing around one of David’s, small in his own. She led him from the room, his feet shuffling along the floor.

David crouched, taking hold of McCullough’s collar, continuing to drag him out of the room. Once free of the kitchen, he leaned back against the wall for a moment. “I think we need to get outside.”

“Can you carry him?” Miss Walker looked from McCullough’s face, eyes closed and cheeks stained with soot.

Shaking his head, David knelt beside the man. “I thought he was a murderer.”

“Maybe he is,” Miss Walker offered.

“So…” He furrowed his brow. “So what are you saying?”

Her gentle hand lighted upon his shoulder. “David…if you cannot carry him out, we should get out ourselves. Better that two of us live than all of us die.”

“What? We can’t…I won’t…” David shrugged her hand away and placed his hand on McCullough’s chest, right over his heart. He’d seen a man restart another’s heart once, and braced his arms before pumping. The smoke continued filling the air around them and soon he couldn’t even see the man before him. He kept at it, until he felt McCullough’s body jolt beneath his hands.

“It’s her! She’s the killer!” he coughed out, scrambling to stand but faltering.

“Take it easy. Who?”

McCullough snatched David’s collar and pulled him close. “Miss Walker. She tried to kill me.”

No, he thought. But the snap of Miss Walker cocking a gun behind his head. Wide eyed, David turned, falling to sit on the floor. “You can’t be a killer. I love you.”

He’d never heard anything so loud as a gun before, but when the crack rent through the air, he thought, that’s it, I’m dead. It wasn’t until he felt a warm, wet and sticky substance oozing around his hand that he realized McCullough was the one who was dead. He blinked, recoiling his hand and pulling it to his chest, cradling it as though his arm was broken.

“Come with me, David.” Miss Walker’s hand pierced velvety wall of smoke.

He stared at it. Fire roared as it burst through the door separating them from the kitchen. He reached up and grasped her hand, letting her pull him to his feet. David ran, keeping Miss Walker ahead of him, out of the house. The stark white world of the blizzard blinded him. He clamped his eyelids shut. “This can’t be…you killed them. Did Mr. Barrow ever really escape?”

“Yes,” Miss Walker answered with surprising honesty. “Though whether or not he made it through the storm…well, that’s God’s work, not mine.” David couldn’t believe she was talking about God, a woman who stole the lives of others.

“And you were happy to let us think McCullough or even Mr. Barrow…that either of them was responsible.” He frowned, stepping back from her, plowing a path through the snow.  “Why did you do it?”

She held the six-shooter in one hand, relaxed at her side. “This isn’t one of your stories, tied up in a neat bow at the end.  Does it really matter why I killed them?  I did it, and my telling you why won’t change your opinion of the matter.  There is the weakness of your stories, David.  You don’t allow your reader to walk away thinking.”  She paused to sigh.  “Are you coming with me or not, David? We could be happy together.”

David shook his head. “I won’t turn you in,” he offered, “but I can’t come with you.” She raised the gun, but there wasn’t time to argue. He didn’t even hear the gunshot.  He didn’t feel it, either.  He fell, cushioned by the hip-deep snow. Smoke no longer burned his eyes. He felt neither the cold nor the heat.

The End

Author’s note: Thank you for reading my first piece of serialized fiction!  Of course it needs editing, but you can look forward to the edited copy…it will either be sold separately, in an anthology, or both.  Stay tuned!  Next week will start a new story!

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February 24, 2012 · 12:00 pm

Snowed In, Part Three

David spent the next hour pacing his room, typewriter and the promise of a story for Miss Walker forgotten. I’ve known Mr. Barrow for three years now, I think I would have spotted if he was a killer. Thinking back on those years, he cataloged what he knew of the man. Mr. Barrow often woke early, ate breakfast early and left for work early. He worked long hours, often not returning until nine or ten at night, when the rest of the house was turning in. On weekends, he talked about the stories he had in the works, with a knowing smile and a secretive whisper. David only saw him lose his temper once in the last three years, when another journalist scooped his story. Even then, he didn’t think Mr. Barrow capable of murder, and he couldn’t imagine Tommy trying to pull a fast one on Mr. Barrow.

Yes, Tommy was a headstrong boy, David assessed. But even Miss Walker, who was ever gentle in her criticisms, claimed that Tommy’s strongest skills did not include the written word. That Mr. Barrow would murder anyone, least of all Tommy, was an impossibility in David’s estimation. Tommy did not take his own life, he thought, repeating the words in his head like a puzzled mantra.

David left his room again and went to the common room down the hall. The only sounds emanating from the room was the rustling of newspaper and the wind, but the wind was present everywhere today. “McCullough,” he greeted, attempting a non-committal sort of friendly tone, though he worried his voice sounded a little too high not to come across as nervous. Clearing his throat, he added, “Just the fellow I was hoping to see.”

McCullough looked up from the paper, which stretched suspended between his scrubbed-clean hands. Did they move Tommy? Or was he scrubbing them clean from something else? David wished he’d bothered to notice when he saw him earlier in the stairwell. When he said nothing, David moved into the room and hovered near one of the two sofas before ultimately deciding it was best to remain standing. He rested his arm upon the mantlepiece. “What were you up to after breakfast,” he asked curiously. “I mean, did you see anything odd, or, did Tommy seem strange?”

McCullough laughed, throwing his head back. “You want to know if I thought Tommy seemed strange? All of you seem strange—I only just arrived here, after all.”

David felt his face heat up. He’s trying to make me look like a fool. “Very well, I can see that…but did you see him, at any rate?”

“So you’re playing detective now, are you? Yes, I saw him. I was sitting here, looking for job postings—as I’m doing now—and saw him walk by toward the stairs. I presumed he was going up to his room.”

Frowning, David pressed on. “Did you speak to him, or vice versa?” He decided to ignore McCullough’s snide remark about playing detective. I need to pick my battles, he determined, and finding out about Tommy was more important.

“No, we didn’t speak. Look, I’ll say it plain: I didn’t kill the lad. Maybe you did.” McCullough lifted the newspaper again; his face disappeared behind its pages.

David bristled. His back straightened and he felt his shoulders tense like a giant was pressing them together with its vice-hands. “I did no such thing.” Walking from the room, he decided McCullough must have killed Tommy, and was now trying to turn the tables around on him. I have to warn Miss Walker. But Miss Walker wasn’t in her room, or, if she was, she didn’t answer when David knocked five minutes later. He checked Tommy’s room too. He even went to his room to look outside, hoping she’d not decided to brave the weather in hopes of finding Mr. Barrow or the police.

The snow swirled so fast that he might as well have been staring at a white wall. He caught sight of a flake or two, but only for a second before it flitted back into the flock of weather. Pressing his nose to the cold glass, David squinted his eyes in an effort to see better, but with no success. He turned from the window with a sigh and jumped several inches into the air when he saw her standing in his doorway. “Miss—Miss Walker.”

“I was resting. I figured it was you knocking on my door because McCullough’s in the common room and says it wasn’t him.”

“Are you alright,” David crossed his room toward her, welcoming her in from the doorway. “Please, sit.” He pulled his desk chair into the middle of the room and gently guided her into the seat.

“After what happened with Tommy…I went back to my room for awhile. I was starting to doze off. I…can’t believe you just found him like that.” She looked down at her hands, folded neatly in her lap.

“I wish I hadn’t.” David lowered himself onto the edge of his bed. “Miss Walker, I think McCullough was responsible for Tommy’s death.”

“I know,” she answered instantly, eyes darting up to meet his gaze from across the room. “You defended Mr. Barrow so vehemently.”

“But you think it could have been him?”

She shrugged. “I don’t know. How well do we really know people?” Miss Walker sniffed at the air. “Do you smell burning?”

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February 17, 2012 · 12:00 pm

Snowed In, Part Two

Mr. Barrow was the next to the room.  “What’s going on?”  He heaved in great gasps of air.  “Heard you scream.”

David nodded toward Tommy’s prone body in the center of the room.  “That’s what’s going on,” he answered quietly.  I didn’t realize I screamed, he closed his eyes again.  “Who could have done this?”

“I think the boy may have done it himself.  Always moping about,” Mr. Barrow frowned and stepped tentatively into the room.

“Is he holding a knife or anything like that,” David followed, peering around Mr. Barrow’s shoulder.  His heart beat so hard that he felt as though his ribs were a large drum, carrying the force of each beat.

“Nothing.  I don’t see anything around either.”  Mr. Barrow knelt down and looked over Tommy.  “Which means—“

“He didn’t do this to himself,” David finished.

“I’m going to go and fetch the police,” Mr. Barrow stood and eyed the storm outside warily.

David was shaking his head.  “You can’t go out in this.  Have you gone mad?”

“We can’t just leave him here.”  Mr. Barrow stuffed his hands in his pockets and David felt as though he was being stared down by his father.

Pointing at the expanse of swirling white on the other side of the glass, he repeated, “I think you’ve lost your mind, Barrow.”

“If he didn’t kill himself that means someone else did.  Someone in the building.”  Starting toward the door, he added, “Were I you, I would go back to my room and lock the door until I can get the police here.”

“But you’re not me.  You’re going out into that storm.  I’ll bet you it’s that stranger, McCullough.  The rest of us have lived here in peace until now.  When did he arrive?”  Mr. Barrow only shook his head and left the room.  David turned back to Tommy’s corpse.  He wanted to do something, but if Mr. Barrow did manage to get to the police and get them here, he knew that he shouldn’t move the body.  Probably can’t even clean up the blood, he groaned—his desk was going to be a mess.  He reached down and slid Tommy’s eyelids shut.  “That’s all I can do for you right now.”   A cold swell of dizziness took him over, which he attributed to guilt over secretly criticizing the boy.

David left the room, intending to return to his own and at least move his desk out of the way.  Footsteps in the stairwell stopped him.  He stopped breathing, trapping the remaining air in his lungs.  A beat of perspiration trailed slowly down his forehead, tickling him, before dripping into the corner of his eye.  Blinking it away, he finally let out the breath when he saw it was Mrs. Harrison.  “I don’t think you should go up there.  Tommy—he’s been killed.”  Her reaction wasn’t what he hoped.  She paled and hastened her way up the steps, brushing past him and into Tommy’s room.

David turned and followed her back upstairs, kneeling beside where she’d either sat down or collapsed.  Sobs wracked her frame, so he placed his arm around her shoulders.  “Mr. Barrow’s gone to fetch the police, though I told him he was mad to go out in this weather.”

“At least he’s done something to help,” she turned her gaze to David, and he recoiled.  There was fire in her eyes, and it beckoned him, reaching for him to consume his life.  He stood and left the room without another word, leaving Mrs. Harrison to cry over the boy’s body.  That McCullough and Miss Walker were on their way down from their rooms was no surprise, with all the noise.  “Best to leave them be,” he warned.  “Tommy is…well, Tommy is dead.  Mrs. Harrison is pretty shaken up.”

Miss Walker’s hand shot up to cover her mouth, which hung agape in the wake of the news.  McCullough glanced at her and then continued forward.  “You can’t just leave that woman to grieve alone,” he admonished.

David looked up at Miss Walker and as she followed McCullough, so did he.  He wasn’t going to leave two women in the care of that man.  Not when he suspected him of having killed Tommy.  Once all of them were in the room, David hung back in the corner.  McCullough won’t try anything with so many of us in here, he decided.  But if he did, what would I do about it?  David had been in one fight in his life and he lost.  He spared surreptitious glances around the room, cataloging the items he might be able to use as a weapon if McCullough did try to hurt anyone else.  His search revealed nothing.

“Do you think Mr. Barrow did it,” McCullough intoned.  “I overheard you say he went for the police, but what if he just left?  Escaped?”

David shook his head.  “No, Mr. Barrow would never kill anyone.”

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February 10, 2012 · 12:00 pm

Snowed In, Part One

 

“Tell her, David,” a faint whisper resonated in his ear, rousing David Rice from sleep. Rubbing the sand from his eyes, he searched the room for the owner of the voice. The corners were dimly lit from a streetlamp outside, but nothing seemed out of place. His room in the boarding house was sparse, containing only a writing desk, a typewriter, his bed and a wardrobe overstuffed so that the doors hung ajar, a single sleeve peeking through the crack as though an invisible man was climbing out.

A glance toward the single window revealed that the pouring rain changed into snow. “Maybe that’s what woke me,” he muttered to no one. The room was empty. Must have dreamed it. But who is her? What am I meant to say? Shaking his head to clear it, he dropped back onto his pillow and closed his eyes.

By sun up, the snowdrift climbed up the window pane. Padding over to the glass, David peered out. Wind drove the snow down and around in circles so that he saw only white. Shrugging, he pulled on a pair of trousers that spent the night draped over his desk chair, revealing threadbare upholstery. He released a shirt from his wardrobe and added an ascot, tying it while his gaze searched the room for his waistcoat, which hung faithfully on the wall, along with his bowler hat. Dressed as well as he ever bothered, David left his room and descended the steps in the corridor.

“Good morning, Mrs. Harrison. Breakfast smells good today.”

“It’s just toast, Mr. Rice. We’re saving what we can, what with the snow.”

David nodded and sat in the only remaining seat around the scrubbed-wood table, which was busy with other boarders. David knew almost all of them. Mr. Barrow, a man with a bulbous nose, was a journalist who reported for The New York Times. Tommy Smith pushed toasted bread into his already-stuffed mouth. He never combed his hair, but David didn’t much care. Miss Walker, a woman of nineteen, attended the normal school down the street. They often talked at length about her plans to become a teacher. Even snowed in, her hair was impeccable—pulled back into a tight bun at the back of her head. For a moment, he watched her eat, slowly and deliberately.

Then there was the stranger. Hunched over a cup of black coffee, the tawny-haired man was balding on top of his head. His eyebrows were bushy and his face clean shaven. His shoulders rolled forward, hands clasped protectively about the mug. David couldn’t see his eyes, but they seemed lost in the coffee.

“What’s your name? I’m David Rice.”

The stranger looked up, and David wished he hadn’t. The man’s eyes were cold—the color of steel. “McCullough,” he answered with a brogue.

“And what do you do, Mr. McCullough?” David bit off the corner of a piece of buttered toast and accepted his own cup of coffee from Mrs. Harrison.

“Any paying job.” McCullough delivered his reply as though shooting each word from a pistol.

“Ah.” Breakfast passed without further discussion, save to mention the unrelenting snow outside. Tommy was the first to leave the table, and did so without a word. David disliked the teen for his brooding nature, however he said nothing of it. “I’m working on a new story,” he told Miss Walker. “Perhaps you will read through it for me when it’s finished.”

“If you like, Mr. Rice, I would be happy to.” Her smile blinded him in contrast to the dark kitchen.

“Right, well, I best get back to it then, hm?” He stood, bumping his knee on the table. Muttering an apology, David hurried from the room. The next hour was spent glancing alternately between the blank page rolled into his typewriter and his pocket watch. I should write, he protested the weight of his eyelids, but felt them close as his chin dipped forward to rest on his chest, cushioned on his ascot.

A wet drop fell on his cheek. David reached up to swipe at it—the slimy liquid was warm. Opening his eyes, he brought his finger to his nose. Copper. No, blood. Looking up, he frowned at the deep red line oozing the stuff between the floorboards above. Tommy’s room. David’s heart sped up. He pushed back from his desk, knocking his chair onto the floor. He scrambled across his room. Wrenched the door open. He climbed the steps two—or three when he could—at a time. Throwing his weight into Tommy’s room, he called out to the boy even as he saw him lying there. Wide eyes staring out at the blizzard. David turned away for a moment when he saw the ragged gash across the lad’s neck.

 

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