Page 27 of Snowman

Panic roared in my chest. My body fought instinctively, jerking and trembling, but I couldn't break free. My lungs were on fire. I screamed into the water, but no sound came, only bubbles that popped and vanished. This is how I die. The thought flickered in my mind while my limbs started weakening. He jerked me up then, suddenly, just as suddenly as he started. My head broke the surface, and I gasped, choking violently as my body heaved for air, water streaming from my nose and mouth. The cold sliced through me, but I couldn't focus on anything more than breathing.

Josh knelt in front of me, still grinning, as if this were a game.

"This is what you get when you scream like a bitch," he said, his voice keen with cruel humor. He sniffled loudly, his thumb still jerking beneath his nose.

I wanted to fight. I wanted to scream. And my body didn't want to listen; my limbs were heavy and numb as my sight swam.

"Do it," I heard Josh say in a low, eager voice. "We'll blame it on the serial killer. They'll believe it."

The words jolted through me like ice. I felt Vic's hands on me, yanking me backward across the snow. My arms were wrenched above my head, my body too weak to resist.

"Vic, do it!" Josh barked.

Vic straddled my arms, the weight of his body pinning me to the ground, pressing me like prey.

"We just want to warm you up," he laughed, the tone twisted and mocking.

I felt the tug at my coat, peeling away into shreds of fabric as his cold and wrong hands moved with precision to touch areas of my skin that created a very real, rather feral burn in places deep inside. A scream built up in my throat, and though I shook from its intensity, still I could not force my voice past a quakedwhisper. My jeans slid, the chill in the winter air outside nibbled with icy morsels at my lower skin.

I squeezed my eyes shut. Darkness. I greeted it. I don't want to watch. I felt myself slipping, falling into a void where the cold couldn't reach me, where their laughter couldn't follow. Just for a moment, I let go. For a moment, I was gone. Today, I had a reason to live. But now, I had another reason to die.

NINE

SNOWMAN

Every step I tookcrunched the snow, gnawing at the promise I'd made to her:I will find you.It was like a scratched record, just a line running in my head. A promise that, at its core, was a blade digging deep with every minute she wasn't here. Taking her away, disappearing together, and escaping all this just lingered in my brain like a far-off dream of a happy ending. But I wasn't entitled to happy endings. People like me did not get to escape quite so easily.

I had walked in circles for what felt like several hours, her trace every time slipping through my fingers. With every blink of my eye, the woods stretched a bit wider, the sun was almost swallowed by the oncoming night. The cold wind whirled through the trees and cut through my sweatshirt, chilling me to my bones.

Then I heard them.

Laughter. Distant, familiar, two voices carried the breeze like a curse. My body froze; my instinct kicked in, and I ducked behind a wide tree.

Josh and Vic.

The same ghosts haunting me two days ago, here they were again. Following. Waiting. Always waiting.

"We finished what we started," the words seemed to ring within my head in Josh's voice, cold and cutting.

I was only a few meters away from my kill kit. I'd buried four of them around these woods, always ready, always prepared, but for now, I just remained hidden, watching.

"Man, she was good," Josh said, shoving Vic as they stumbled along; their laughter was sharp, grating. Josh was the chief of police's son,Jan Johansson's golden boy, or so everybody acted. Wherever he went, trouble trailed behind him and hisdaddywiped it clean: rehab, dead friends, assault charges—all covered, dismissed, forgotten.

Vic had been different,once. A coroner's son, quiet, a kid who never knew better but followed all the rules. And Josh had pulled him down with him deeper and deeper into that hole until the town, too small where everyone knew everybody without knowing a thing at all, was whispering and telling legends only.

Legends likeNøkken, the spirit said to rise from the crimson river, stealing loved ones into the dark. People here believed in those tales. They believed snow brought new beginnings. But I knew better. This town wasn't blessed. It was cursed. And I belonged to it as much as the darkness did.

The papers had taken to calling meSnowmanfor months now. Their headlines screamed'fear,'but all they knew was a smidge of the truth. I killed with no intention of making any snowmen, just buried monsters who came cloaked in plain skin. At one point or another in my life, I had vowed that I wouldn't ever be like him,my father,but I hunted people such as him; peopleshould make sure legends remained in the literature and evil rotted six feet under.

I shifted, and my breath steadied, as Josh and Vic, too stoned to take notice, passed by me. A gut feeling told me to head toward where they'd come from. I followed, my footsteps slow, and cautious, the woods quieting around me as I moved further from them.

Then, suddenly I heard the river.

It was a familiar sound, constant, louder as I approached, but another thing drew my attention.

A coat of red color.

It lay crumpled in the snow near the riverbank.

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