Shadows Amongst The Snow

SHADOWS AMO GST THE S OW RYA FITZGERALD

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2

O E

He walked towards the building slowly. The sun watched him and passed behind a cloud.

The shadow stretched across the ground. Each measured step was counted by the crunching of the ice underfoot and his shoes were old and his shoes were battered and his shoes were not at all suited for the crunching of the ice underfoot. One stray thought would cause him to slip and that would be the end and so he stayed upright by flapping his arms. He looked ridiculous, he thought.

Fortunate that no one walks this road anymore, he thought.

“Hello? Hello? Can anybody hear me?”

Useless, he thought. He dropped the handset and left it hanging. It was attached by a fraying cord to a metal box with a slot for coins. The headset thudded against the box and then it was silent.

He pressed a gloved finger against the coin refund mechanism but nothing except dust fell into the small space below.

He stepped backwards and pushed the glass door open with the heel of his foot and as he moved away he looked at the phone and he remembered the body that had been inside the booth and turned to look over his shoulder and saw that the body was right behind him and so he picked it up and dragged it back inside the booth.

A crow cawed somewhere in the distance. It can’t be true, he thought. Life didn’t exist this far out, they said. Nothing could survive, they said, not after had what happened here, they said.

“It can’t be true,” he said.

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He struggled to climb the huge stone steps leading to the library’s doors. He was unsteady on his feet and he stumbled and he fell onto his stomach and he crawled on the slimy ice.

So close, he thought.

He pushed and pulled and reached the top of the stairs and gave a small sigh of relief and then his sigh turned into a cough.

The library doors were set into an alcove and so there was no snow or ice in front of the doors and so he was standing and he was not flapping his arms and he was not falling over. He wiped his hands on his wet jeans and left a smear of blood on them and approached the doors.

He placed his hands on the door handles and he pulled and – He was yanked forwards with surprise. The doors hadn’t moved. He tried again. It was understandable that they might be difficult to open after lying unused for so long, he thought. But they still didn’t open and so he tried again but they still didn’t open.

He dropped to his knees in front of the doors and held onto the brass handles. He didn’t move except to shiver and cry.

What would hurt her more? he thought.

If I came back, empty handed? Or if I didn’t come back at all?

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TWO

The shop was full of dirty mannequins. The sunlight was pale and soon faded beyond them.

They entered silently and one of them pointed into the corner at a pile of coats and they hurried forwards and reached for the coats but the woman who led them held her hand up and they stopped.

“Quiet. Listen.”

They listened.

“I thought I heard something.”

“What?”

“Nothing. My mistake. Best to be careful.”

“Yeah.”

They started to gather the coats and that was how they found her holding her knees to her body and looking at the floor.

“It’s a girl.”

“A girl?”

“You have a name, girl?”

“Don’t get too close. It might be a trap.”

“It’s not a trap.”

“I’m saying it could be a trap.”

“It’s not a trap.”

“Let’s just take the coats and get out of here.”

“What should we do with her?”

“Kill her.”

“No. Leave her here. Cold’ll get her soon enough.”

“Couldn’t we leave her just one coat?”

“Leave her your coat."

“But I only got one!”

“Then don’t leave her your coat.”

At the door the woman who led them paused and put her hand on the door frame and turned and looked at the girl.

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“You want to come with us?”

The girl bit her bottom lip and her eyes grew wide.

“What are you saying Nia?” “Let’s get outta here already!”

The woman called Nia didn’t move.

“You’re waiting for someone. They won’t come back. They’re dead or captured or living somewhere better than here.”

The woman called Nia let her hand fall and turned and walked outside where they were already wearing the coats that they had found.

“Hope. It’s the saddest thing left in the world.”

The coats that they couldn’t wear they put into bags and they started walking.

“He is coming back!”

They stopped and turned around and some of them smirked and some of them frowned but most of them were expressionless.

The girl was standing in the doorway and she had tears in her eyes and she was holding a piece of paper in one hand. “He’s gotta come back ‘cuz he told me he would an’ he’s my brother an’ he promised an’ he’s one of the good guys so he don’t lie an’ he never ever even tried to make me sad! He said don’t talk to no one but you’re mean an’ ugly an’ wrong!”

The woman called Nia grinned and shook her head and took a step forwards and the girl ran back inside the dark shop interior.

They turned and started to walk again and left the woman called Nia on the threshold of the shop.

“Just forget about the kid.”

He was leaning in an alcove smoking a cigarette and he blew the smoke towards her and threw the butt into the snow.

“She called me mean.”

“And she called you ugly.”

“And ugly. And wrong.”

“Just forget about the kid.”

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She hesitated and he grabbed her wrist and pulled her close to him and spoke into her ear. “I said, forget about her.”

“I got three coats.”

“Yeah. You do.”

“She’s got none now.”

“Yeah.”

“Yeah.”

She relaxed her body and he let go of her wrist and they turned and caught up with their group.

An hour later when they were fucking to keep warm he strangled her and took her coats.

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8

THREE

He set off at midnight with the moon barely a sliver. It was dangerous to travel at night but he was stealing and he didn’t want to get caught. With three new coats and the last of their food he knew they would kill even him.

Before he left he found a man nearby and broke his neck and dragged him into the bedroom and placed him on the bed on top of the woman. He lit a cigarette and inhaled deeply and dropped the cigarette onto the bed and walked out into the darkness.

His boots made walking easier and he moved quickly through the town. In the centre of the town was a clock-tower and its hands were frozen in place at 6:37. He leaned against the clocktower and lit a cigarette with the lighter that had caused him so much trouble.

He knew the town well and was sure that it would be deserted and that everyone left would be dead and he listened to the silence.

The snow here reached the second story of the nearby houses and he wrapped a coat around his fist and punched a window but it was double glazed and frozen and he only cracked the ice.

“Shit,” he said. He climbed up onto the roof of the house and looked down the street for an open window. They were all shut but he saw one house where the roof had caved in and so he made his way towards it.

“I have a gun,” he said.

No one replied.

He sat with his legs dangling through the hole in the roof and lit a cigarette and inhaled the smoke and breathed it out and looked through the gap into the loft of the house. He drew the 9

shape of a man in the snow with his finger next to him and then jumped through into the loft. There wasn’t much here and he kicked the heavy boxes of photo albums and looked for spiders.

The collapsed roof had broken through the floor and he could see a stairway below him.

He dropped through the gap and walked down the stairs and found that the house had a basement and he broke the padlock and went into the basement and saw the boxes and smiled. They were stacked in front of a freezer and some of the boxes were marked “food” and some of the boxes were marked “throw away”. He opened up the boxes marked “food” and they were filled with cans and tins and packets of instant noodles and he closed those boxes and opened the other boxes.

There was a box filled with folders and paper and photocopies and handouts and worksheets and essays. There was a box that had fliers and take away menus filled to the top. There was a box with childhood books and old toys and magazines and video tapes. There was a box with children’s clothes inside and he placed this box to one side.

He put all of the food in his bags and went upstairs to the bedrooms and brought all the cold mattresses and duvets and pillows into the basement and went back again and brought down all the clothes from the wardrobes. He put one mattress in the corner and leant the others against the wall so that the first was partially hidden and piled all the clothes and duvets and pillows on top of the first mattress and got underneath the pile and went to sleep.

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FOUR

Five figures wearing ski masks and dressed in white robes with white hoods climbed through the hole in the roof and silently made their way through the house and checked each room in turn. When they arrived at the basement they saw that the padlock had been broken and opened the door and crept inside.

They moved the mattresses aside and pulled the clothes and duvets away and the man lying there stirred but did not wake and so there was little resistance when one of the hooded figures injected him.

They consulted a piece of paper and picked up the clothes and mattresses and duvets and pillows and returned them to their rightful place in the bedrooms of the house. They returned to the basement and consulted a different piece of paper and returned the food to the boxes and moved the boxes back in front of the freezer.

“We shall not take that which is not ours,” they said.

“To the dead thief, nothing belongs,” they said.

“Those who take shall thus provide,” they said.

“Praise be to the Immortal Provider,” they said They gathered up the coats and food that the man had brought with him and two of the hooded figures carried the man’s corpse with them back to the clock-tower.

It was 6:37.

Inside the clock-tower they unlocked a door and pushed it open and inside were shelves filled with food and clothes and pillows and packs of batteries and lighters and books and they put the food and clothes that they had acquired inside and closed the door and locked it with a key and then put the key in a safe.

Four blindfolded people turned the dial one after another and the safe was covered with a cloth and the blindfolds were removed.

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“Praise be to the Immortal Provider.”

“Praise be.”

“Dinner is provided, sister. I am here to relieve you of your post.

Praise be.” At the top of the clock-tower a man shook hands with a woman and sat on a folding deck-chair watching the town with a pair of binoculars and a map unfolded on his knees.

The woman walked down a narrow stair case and outside into the snow and stopped outside the church facing the clock-tower and knocked on the front door.

“Identification and password.”

“Keele, Lisa. Password 74832.”

The door opened slowly and the woman walked through and two men patted her down and checked her with a metal detector before letting her continue into the church proper. “Praise be,” she said to them. “Praise be,” they replied.

The pews did not face the pulpit but instead had been arranged around tables so that it resembled a cafeteria and there were about twenty people sat eating. The woman sat at a table on her own and a hooded figure brought over a tray upon which food had been arranged and the woman looked at the food and then looked up to the figure and smiled and said “Praise be to the Immortal Provider.” “Praise be,” she replied.

They survived on the food that they took from those who entered the town and on the flesh of those who did not leave.

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FIVE

He sat on the floor and paced around the room and leaned against the wall and waiting for her and tapping his fingers against his temple. She was late. She was never late.

He wondered if they’d escorted her from her post to his chamber. He was sure she’d have tried to hide from them but even if she had how long could it last?

“You cannot see him.”

“He killed my wife, man!”

“You cannot see him.”

The door opened and a young woman walked out and she averted her eyes from the struggling man pinned against the wall and before she had walked far she heard a gasp and she turned around and the large man was on the floor bleeding and clutching his side and struggling to breathe and the other man was already dead with his throat slashed.

She tried to scream but a hand grabbed her throat and choked the voice from her.

“Can I trust you to keep quiet?”

Her eyes could not lie.

He yanked her against the wall and knocked her unconscious and then bent down and cut out her tongue.

“What have you done with Lisa?”

The old man stopped writing and put his pencil down and turned his head to look at the man who had interrupted him.

“Sister Keele refused to perform her duties and I’m afraid we cannot allow dissent. It would set a dangerous precedent and greatly displease the Immortal Provider. Those who work against Him are a danger to us and our continued survival.”

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He looked up into the corner of the room and nodded and the doors opened and six hooded figures shot the young man in the back and he fell to the floor and let go of the knife and the last thing he saw was the old man stamping on his head.

He woke up.

It was all a dream, he thought.

He would look to his right, and she’d be laying there.

“He said we were exempt, since we’re married. That was the only reason he wanted to see me.”

“Did you tell him our decision?”

“I did. He said it was up to us. He seemed to understand. I really couldn’t forgive myself for bringing a child into this world.”

“That’s great news, honey.”

Then he felt himself move and looked down and saw that his hands had been tied behind his back and that he was being paraded naked through the town and his back was sore from the stun guns and his head was throbbing.

He heard a groan and looked to his left and screamed in anger and began to cry. Lisa was being escorted alongside him and she was also tied and naked and she had harsh red whip marks on her back and was barely conscious.

“Let go of her! Leave her alone! Take me instead!”

His voice became drowned in the jeers and shouts from the people watching from the clock-tower and the church and the street. They shook their heads and their fists and those that were not shouting were muttering and all of them expressed their disappointment in the couple. They were taken to different parts of the town and tied to railings and left there to die.

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SIX

The first thing he noticed about the bodies was that they were all dressed the same and all of them had been shot between the eyes of their ski masks.

Professionals, he thought.

He hurried.

He was holding his key but he realised how redundant it was and so he threw it as far from him as possible and climbed onto the roof and dropped through into the loft.

“Mum? Dad?” No one replied.

He looked around and saw that the loft was empty and kicked the wall and climbed down into the hallway and went straight to his bedroom. They had taken everything. It was the same for the rest of the bedrooms. He sat on the stairs with his head in his hands and breathed into his hands to try to warm them and realised he was wearing gloves and rubbed his eyes and walked down the stairs.

The last room he checked was the basement and they had even taken his old toys and folders and all the food he had brought home with him when he had finished with his girlfriend.

I miss her, he thought.

He went back outside and looked at the bodies. They were all people he knew but none of them were his parents and he moved through the town and looked at every body and he realised that they were all men and his eyes became sore and he had to stop and he started to cry. He knew he wasn’t safe and so he abandoned his search and went back to his basement and covered himself with his coat and tried to keep warm and tried to sleep in the house that had been long empty.

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It was luck that saved his life.

As he was climbing out of the loft and into the roof he fell and hurt his back and he heard the boots outside and they were getting close and he couldn’t move.

There was a strange sound and the boots stopped.

“I’m about to do the final sweep, sir.”

Something he couldn’t understand and then static.

“Yes, sir.”

The boots moved away and he could breathe again.

He had always been curious and it had always gotten him into trouble.

I’ve got no one left, he thought.

So what’s the point in struggling to stay alive anyway? he thought.

He left the house and followed the boot prints and hid against walls and it made him feel important. He saw them just ahead.

They were uniformed and each carried a number of guns and his mouth went dry and he realised he was terrified and he realised that he didn’t want to die.

They were busy looking at a map and didn’t see him and so he slowly crept backwards into the shadows until he was sure he was out of earshot and he started to run.

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SEVE

They marched through the snow and killed and stole from anyone they came across. There were six men and five women and one of the men was impotent but he was their commander so the men and women paired off and the commander got whatever he wanted whenever he wanted it.

One man scouted ahead and the commander walked behind him facing forwards and one man looked to the left and one man looked to the right and two men walked backwards whilst the women carried the supplies. Every few hours they stopped to rest and swapped guns for supplies and one of the men stayed in place so that there were always six people in formation.

“Once we have found a suitable location we will settle and start to fortify it. When we are secure, we will begin to rebuild our world. It won’t be easy. It won’t be quick. There is hard work in store for everyone – and I mean everyone. But I believe that we have the resources, both physical and mental, to fulfil this task.”

The commander remembered speaking these words months ago and they haunted him. Since then they had lost three men and three women with them but food was scarce and something had to be done. They could just about manage with eleven people but if it came to it they could always carry on with less.

They marched through the snow and the sun dipped behind a cloud and everything was bathed in shadow. They walked past bodies that had frozen and soon they were in front of a large building and they tried the doors but they were locked. The commander motioned with his hand and one of the men pointed a shotgun at the door. One of the women tugged his shoulder and pointed at a broken window and he lowered the gun and 17

jerked his head in the direction of the window and the commander nodded.

They knocked the rest of the glass out of the window and climbed through. Inside there were rows and rows of books and the commander signalled to his soldiers and they moved silently through the library knocking the books into bags. Once they had swept through the entire library they returned to the front door with their bags full of books.

“Move out, soldiers.”

As they walked to the next town they passed a body that had not yet frozen and they thought it was a corpse until it coughed.

“Sir?” “Kill him.”

One of the men that were guarding the rear turned the body over with his foot. He was holding a book in bloodied hands with small pieces of glass stuck in them and the man bent down to take the book but he couldn’t prise it out of his hands. He took his combat knife out and stabbed the man in the throat and took the book and joined the other soldiers.

“One more for the kindling, sir.”

“Good work. Keep moving.”

The blood from his throat dribbled down onto the snow. As the soldiers marched on the sun passed from behind the clouds and everything was light again.

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