Page 96 of Snowman

EPILOGUE

The Phantom

The world spun. Myeyes fluttered, shutting and opening seconds apart. Their screams echoed in fragments; gurgling, strained, parting with the final goodbye to life. And me? I could still taste the metallic tang of their throats on my tongue.

In thirty seconds, it was over. The spinning stopped, and the car door creaked open. All I could see was snow, the empty road, and the silence hanging in the air.

They were gone.

I clenched my fist, snapping the bone in my finger to get free from the handcuffs. The crack was sharp, just a short pain slice, but I didn't stop. The cold steel slipped from my wrists as I forced them apart, and I jumped out of the car.

The car lay crumpled against the bark of a tree, its front twisted around it. Bodies had been flung out; one of them split clean apart, shredded by the collision. I couldn't stop myself. A laugh ripped from my throat as I turned away and walked on.

I spun once, checking if it was all just a bad dream, then kept moving.

In front of me came a road sign, its letters marking the stretch asD8.I crossed it, my boots crunching on the frosted road, and the forest rose alongside the road.

Familiar. Too familiar.

The snow fell in lazy, thin at first, then thickening as it was closer to the ground. The flakes touched my face as I stepped off the road and into the woods.

Crunch. Crunch. Crunch.

Each step felt familiar, pulling me deeper into the dark. I knew this place.

Eight steps to the thick pine tree. Another ten to the rock with the small, jagged cut running across its surface. I knelt, ignoring the frozen earth against my hands as I dug through the frozen dirt.

There it was—a box, buried just deep enough to stay hidden from everyone, yet shallow enough for me to find.

Inside: a mask, an axe, and a gun. A slip of paper, too, with numbers of a location, a safe house. A place where I could disappear.

I took the mask in my hand. White plastic was cold and stained with dried blood, split into halves: one side white, the other dark red. I didn't flinch. I didn't care. I slipped it on.

It wasn't just a mask. It was a reminder.

I stood slowly, my breath blurring the cold air. The axe was tight in my hand, the gun steadily tucked against my back.

I wasn't Thor Karlsson anymore. That man was gone, a ghost trapped in the past.

I was something else now. A shadow. A ghost. A phantom of what I once was.

And this time, no one could bring me back. No one could make me kneel.

"Every snowflake falls exactly where it's meant to. Even me," I said, my voice lost to the woods as I leaned against the rock.

Memories flashed behind my eyes, like snapshots from an old Polaroid camera. Each image dragged me back to where it all began. Back to the moment I first became who I am now.

The Phantom.

November, 2009

Lana Dahl. The new girl in town.

She always wore tight jeans and a black coat, her hair slicked back into a ponytail that framed her pale face, making it look alive, almost glowing. And those whiskey eyes—God, they made me drunk every time she passed by.

She spent her afternoons outside her house, playing with her younger sister, and building snowmen. But hers were different. She didn't use branches for arms, she'd stick empty gloves in their place. She didn't bother with coal for a smile, either. Instead, she stitched threads into wide grins, like they'd painted their lips with lipstick. And the finishing touch? A pot for a hat.

To someone like me, those snowmen were masterpieces. To someone like her, they were just another game.

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