Snowblind by Christopher Golden Read Free Book Online

should stay, a voice said in the back of his mind. A surprisingly clear, sober, nonslurred voice . Don’t be stupid.
    “I … I can’t. Cherie, my wife, she’s expecting me.”
    “You call her,” said the waiter.
    Peng, Doug remembered. His name is Peng. Actually Chinese, unlike most of the other random Asians on the staff. White people don’t know the difference.
    “The phone is not working but you have cell phone, yes?” Peng asked.
    Doug nodded, reaching into his pocket. So drunk that when he did, he felt himself slip off-balance and staggered a step and thought to himself, You are so fuckin’ drunk. But not so drunk that he couldn’t open up his contacts list and call HOME. Only after he’d stared at the screen for what seemed like forever, swaying on his feet, did he understand why the call was not going through.
    No signal.
    He shook his head, mind made up now. Stuffing the phone back into his pocket, swaying a little, he turned to the waiter—what the hell was his name again? He’d just known it.
    “I gotta go,” he said.
    The waiter started to argue but Doug was already headed for the door. He slammed out into the night, rocked by the blizzard, the cold so sharp that it instantly numbed his face. The Mustang was halfway across the lot, next to the post that held up the Jade Panda sign, but the sign was almost entirely obscured. Beneath the dim light cast by the lampposts, the true strength of the blizzard was visible … thick, heavy snow falling at a clip like he’d never seen before.
    Cherie would be waiting for him. She would be worried. In the morning, she would be massively pissed off at him for getting fired, even though he’d done it standing up for her honor. But he couldn’t let her spend the night alone without any way of knowing if he was still alive. They fought like hell and she could be a total bitch at times and she took too many pills and he was worried about that, but she was his wife and he loved her. Couldn’t imagine being with anyone else.
    He had to get home.
    Getting out of the parking lot was a bitch. The Mustang’s tires slewed and spun and he ended up going right over the curb to get into the street, but once he was on the road and moving, he was all right.
    Driving too fast. Way too drunk. In the middle of a blizzard New England would talk about for a decade.
    But all right.
    Until the warmth of the car’s heater began to settle into his bones and the hypnotic swipe of the windshield wipers eased their gentle rhythm into the beat of his heart, and his eyelids began to feel heavy. So heavy.
    Until he came to the end of Monument Street, where the choices were left or right, but the only thing that lay straight ahead was acres of snow-laden trees.
    Doug snapped his eyes open in time to hit the brakes, but the tires found no purchase and the snowbank came up too fast and then he was through it and down the hill and the hood was buckled around a tree and his forehead was bleeding and the windshield was cracked where his skull had struck it.
    He heard a tire spinning as the cold began to seep in, began to settle and accumulate quickly on the glass around him.
    Half conscious, he thought he saw a face out there, beyond the spider-webbing of cracks in the windshield, but he knew he must be imagining it. The only thing outside the ruined Mustang was the storm.
    The engine ticked as it cooled.
    Doug closed his eyes.
     
     
    More than half the city had lost power. Everyone had hunkered down to wait out the blizzard, and that seemed to include the hookers and meth-heads on Copper Hill, the city’s worst neighborhood. Joe Keenan hadn’t received a single call about gunshots or domestic violence tonight, but even if he had, he wasn’t sure he would have been able to respond. The side streets were thick with snow, and if he got stuck in a drift somewhere he’d never hear the end of it.
    Now he cruised along Winchester Street, noting the candlelight glow inside the old Victorians