Page 16 of Snowman

The snow clung to my boots, slowing me, but I pushed forward, my breaths coming in ragged gasps. The trees blurred around me as my legs pumped harder, my focus narrowing to one thing:escape.

"Hey! Slow down!" one of them said, carrying the tone of his voice laughing. "We're only trying to talk."

My chest was burning, my vision swimming as the cold air sliced into my lungs. But I didn't stop. I couldn't stop.

Then it happened.

I was jogging along when my foot caught on some unseen branch buried in the snow. The world slewed violently as I went tumbling forward, arms flapping. I hit hard, the shock of impact rocking every bone in my body.

The snow was like ice against my cheek, and for a moment, the only sound was my breathing. Behind me, their steps crunched closer. My gut skidded with panic, paralyzing. I tried to push myself up, but my legs just felt heavy, useless. The branch I'd carried lay inches away, but it might as well have been miles.

"Where do you think you're going?" one of them said, mocking, laughing.

But then, the laughter was gone, replaced only by the sound of their feet as they closed the space between us. They lunged after me, then came to a sudden stop. They stood fixed, faces slack with surprise as if the very air around them had crystallized with cold.

Something was wrong.

I heaved myself up, using my shaking arms, to brush away stray tufts of blonde hair from my face. My breaths huffed out in short, panicked hitches, misting the chilled air. Slowly, I peeled my gaze upward and froze.

A few meters in front, something was standing—a snowman, so out of place against the silent woods. But it was different, wrong. Vic reached forward and yanked on my arm, pulling me to my feet. His face was white, his hands hard.

"Let me go!" I shouted, pushing him away. The force sent him stumbling back, but I couldn't stop staring at the snowman.

Because on top of its round, snow-packed body wasn't snowman's head of ice and buttons.

It was a human head.

I screamed, the sound tearing out of me before I could even think. My legs buckled, and I fell backward into the snow, scrambling to get away from it. Vic tripped when I pushed him, landing hard beside me. Both of us crawled away, our hands sinking into the icy ground as we retreated in shared fear.

Behind the snowman, the woods were silent and oppressive. But I could only see two great balls of snow stacked on top of oneanother, and atop those, the head of a woman, severed from her body. Her hair was braided and neatly combed, although strands were stuck with snow. Her eyes were wide open and glassy, staring at nothing. Her lips were pursed in deep purple, and an eerie stillness was frozen on her face.

The second ball of snow was streaked with the jarring red against the white, like some sort of bloody scarf. The snowman's stick arms reached out, jagged branches that seemed to claw at the air. Coal buttons were arranged on its body with chilling precision, as though someone had made it with sick care.

I squeezed my palms over my eyes, willing the horrific image to disappear. My heartbeat roared in my ears, drowning out everything but the sharp inhale of my breaths.

Josh finally broke the silence, his hand shaking as he dialed the numbers on his phone. With every click, the phone seemed to echo through the stillness. "D-d-dad," he stuttered, voice shaking. "We... we found Sigrid."

Sigrid Halvorsen, the missing woman. I felt the bile rise in my throat as reality crystallized around me. She wasn't only missing. She was here. And she was dead.

Her frozen, lifeless eyes stood silent, guarding the woods, hauntingly empty. It felt as though she was watching us, mocking us, daring us to look away.But I couldn't.

SIX

BREE

Sirens wailed in theair, their shrill cries mingling with the sharp pulses of blue and red lights dancing across the ground that was heavy with snow. I sat frozen, my body stiff beneath the gray blanket somebody had laid over my shoulders. Outside, the world was moving like a silent movie, shades of people in white nylon suits, the black body bag being zipped up carefully, yellow tape cordoning off trees, and shouting warnings in thick black letters:DO NOT CROSS.

But I was not in a position to move, not even if I wanted to.

I looked down at my wrists, instinctively pulling my sleeves over the faint scars marked into my skin. They were reminders of the time when I had thought that I had long since died. That part of me now felt like it was resurfacing and breathing its way back into my chest.

A woman patted my shoulder, her voice muffled and far away. I couldn't make out the words. My eyes didn't leave the mencarrying the body away, and I was horrified to find myself wondering if they'd found the rest. All I had seen was the head. My gaze strayed back to the plastic tape, the jarring unnatural yellow slicing through the cold white expanse of the woods.

I heard Josh and Vic talking to the police nearby. Their voices were fragments, pieces of a puzzle that refused to come together. Then, around this chaos, I caught a voice. My stomach clenched, and I scanned the faces around me, my eyes locking with the hope of recognition. But nothing matched. Only strangers.

Until, out of a sudden turn, a man stood before me. The calmness of his face was there, but something in his eyes seemed like an unending weight, never to be light or relieved. His hand had rested gently on my shoulder; his lips moved and spoke words I couldn't hear. He felt so unreal, like a ghost attached to my mind.

"Hey," he said, snapping his fingers in front of me. The sharp sound cut through the fog in my head. "Are you okay?"

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