Snowfall, Patrick S. [the beginning after the end read novel .txt] 📗

2:21 a.m

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The woman waited for death on that winter’s night, standing alone in a snowstorm so loud and violent that it seemed capable of swallowing the earth in a matter of minutes. Her left arm was broken in two places, and her right hand drizzled blood from the stumps of two severed fingers. On her face were several inflamed, red rashes.

The train’s approach was marked by the ground-rattling thunder of its engines, a low whine of metal wheels against metal rails, and a spotlight that carved ahead into a vortex of snow. This was a cargo train, and without internal lights, it was possible to imagine that it had long ago lost its conductor and would steam ahead until it crashed or ran out of fuel.

The woman on the tracks felt a shiver of anticipation. She had been waiting over ten minutes. Despite the bitter cold and the storm’s relentless drive, she wore only a thin pair of white shorts and a white, long-sleeved shirt, although both were so stained with blood that even the snow could not wash it away.

A warning blast of the train's horn indicated that there was

still someone in control, and he had only now seen this frail lady standing in the way.

As the train loomed in front of her, closer, closer, there arose a tortured shriek as the driver applied the brakes in a futile effort to stop before impact. Sparks showered up from the wheels and were quickly swept away on the winds.

The woman on the tracks raised both arms over her head. Shifted her heels to ensure a secure stance.

The blinding light found her—

—a howl of wind and horns and metal assaulted her—

—and then the train slammed through her. For an instant, the snow turned red, and splattered chunks of flesh coated a wide circle around the tracks.

The storm raged on.


2:00 a.m.

Stumbling through knee-high, dead weeds, the woman in white began to feel the effects of her blood loss. Everything around her seemed wavy, shimmering, and it was becoming difficult to stay upright. The only good thing was that her wounds had stopped hurting, and that wasn’t really good at all, because some part of her understood that not

feeling a broken arm and severed fingers was much worse than gritting through the pain. But she was half-numb from the snow and wind anyway, and at this point it didn’t matter much if she retained the use of her limbs or not.

She was crying, though she could not remember why. It was difficult to remember anything: she didn’t know her name, how she got out here in the borrow ditch, or why there was a part of her that wanted to scream in anguish. There seemed to be a black hole in her thoughts that suctioned away all of who she was and all she knew. Worse, there were scenes of murder in her mind. Images of corpses, eviscerated bodies, and blood. So much blood.

The woman didn’t know she had been walking with a destination in mind until she saw the humping gravel of the train tracks ahead. Squinting against the flurries, holding the dripping half-stump of her right hand up to shield her face, she let out a cry of satisfaction.

She was here—wherever here

was.

The countryside was an abyss, every snowflake a falling star, and the black hole in her mind was what drove her to the tracks, as if by losing her memories she had gained a sixth sense that tugged her along with all the force of gravity. Here at the train tracks she would fulfill a task that she must complete, even though she couldn’t remember why it was so important.

She stumbled up the gravel embankment.


1:14 a.m.

Courtnie Eller had only been hiding in the dark closet for five minutes, but it felt like hours. Her heart was pounding hard, fast, and the resultant throbbing in her neck was a constant reminder of the danger waiting beyond the closet doors.

She was being hunted.

The snow outside, which had been falling all night, made no noise against the roof or windows, but she knew it was still out there: it had to be, or else the threat would be gone.

She heard footsteps above, descending the staircase. Because the closet in which she hunkered was embedded below the stairwell, it sounded eerily like a man walking across her grave. Biting her lip, she clutched the doorknob and prayed that he wouldn’t search the house further.

Even as she struggled to keep quiet, Courtnie had to blink rapidly and bite her lip harder to concentrate. The effect of the snow had begun to reach her, and every few seconds her mind would go blank. So far, a quick shake of her head was enough to clear the confusion, but her condition would deteriorate long before she was safe.

She couldn’t hear footsteps anymore, but she was not so stupid as to believe the man had left. His noisy boots would have echoed far into the house had he continued across the hardwood.

He was standing still. Waiting for her to make a mistake.

She shook her head again and breathed as shallowly as possible.

The snow, in addition to being the instrument of death, seemed to cloak the night with its peaceful fall, as if the tainted flakes cast every insect and animal into hypnosis. Such a profound silence should have served Courtnie well, because it would amplify every move the man made and give her plenty of time to react; but instead, it alarmed her. Without any background noise, she would be given no chance to take the initiative. She was stuck in the closet, helpless.

Suddenly, the man’s boots were clanging on the floor, rattling the flimsy walls around her. She almost gasped before realizing that she couldn’t tell what direction he was running. The closet took the sounds and whirled them around her, disguising intent.

The closet door was thrown out of her hands. It exploded inward, catching her off guard, slamming her back against the wall.

He stood just outside. His long hair was as greasy as ever, and the rashes on the underside of his eyes had grown worse just in the short time she’d been hiding.

She was only five-three, a petite twenty-six year old, and this man was at least six-three. Although he wore a white T-shirt and boxer shorts—his sleepwear—he could not look more menacing if he’d grown fangs and started howling at the moon.

Then he was coming for her, his big hands slapping into the darkness. Courtnie hunkered back, trying to dodge his blows, but then he lunged forward, blocking her escape.

No time for thinking. Act. Now.

She leapt forward, screaming, and jumped onto his chest like a rabid dog—and, like a dog, she bit and clawed and tore, hoping to startle him into making a mistake or at least tripping over his feet. But he was too large, too infected, and he calmly reached up and seized the back of her neck. Jerked.

The next thing she knew, she was lying on the ground, sparkling white dots implanted in her vision.

The man was turned. Searching for something.

She tried to breathe, but he’d knocked the air from her.

He turned around and the sneer on his face was as feral as that of a lion. He held a golf club in his right hand, and without hesitating, slammed it down on Courtnie’s outstretched left arm.

The sounds of her screams were as painful as the blow itself, but the man wasn’t done. With both hands on the club, he hit her arm again, this time just above her wrist, and the crack

of bone made her screams disappear: she was still screaming, but her vocal chords had either burst or she had entered a realm of pain so intense that no human could hear her cries.

The man went for a third blow. Out of instinct, Courtnie rolled to one side. The golf club bounced off the hardwood inches away.

Her left arm twisted across her back, and she could feel

the broken bone cutting through her flesh. She had to close her eyes to fight delirium. She didn’t dare look at the wound.

The infected man threw the golf club aside. Courtnie felt his sweaty hands on her legs, and then she was being dragged through her own house. Her left arm bounced over the floor, and each jolt was like fire underneath her skin.

There was a time when she must have blacked out, because when she came to she was lying atop the dining room table, staring at the ceiling. For a time, her name eluded her. The storm was affecting her now, and shaking her head didn’t help this time. Her name...her name...it was...

She couldn’t remember. It was blacked out in her mind.

The man came from the kitchen with a butcher’s knife in his hand. He intended to either kill her or eat her.

The pain from her broken arm was still there, but it was overshadowed now by an urge to make this man pay for all he’d done. A hundred pictures of his body in various stages of mutilation flowed from a dark river in her mind, and each one sparked within her a pleasure most akin to sexual climax. The knife in his eye sockets, in his ears, slicing off his genitals, cutting each of his toes one at a time. A bottle of Clorox bleach stuffed down his throat. Shards of glass scalping that greasy hair away. Hot needles jammed up his nose, into his brain, burning away whatever intelligence was not already taken by the storm.

She gasped, heaved, overcome by the immediacy of her emotions. The storm was reaching her now, turning her into one of the mindless killing machines she’d hoped to never become. And her name. Damn it, it still eluded her!

She was so lost in her thoughts, torn between the rational and the murderous, that she didn’t pay attention to the intruder until she felt a grinding sensation in her right hand. She opened her eyes, glanced over, and saw the man hunkered over, sawing away at her fingers with the serrated knife.

“Courtnie

!” she screamed, and with the recollection of her name came the pain. Mind-altering, numbing pain. She tore her hand away and vomited when she saw that two fingers were left behind. Blood poured in horrible amounts from stumps that were like incessant lightning strikes to her flesh.

She fell off the table, hit her broken arm, but strangely didn’t feel the blow.

Without looking behind her, she crawled to the kitchen with a trail of blood and tears streaking behind her. The man was close. He wasn’t injured, and would catch her soon.

Her knee scraped over something hard. Looking down, she saw that in his haste, the man had let the wooden rack of knives fall to the floor.

He was behind her. No time to think.

She clutched the handle of a random knife with the remaining digits of her right hand, and when the man grabbed her shoulder, flipped her over, she jabbed up and stabbed him in the crotch.

His eyes widened. He screamed. But she was overcome with that primal rage again, and without conscious