33. The Babysitter (D1)

__ Maggie May had a hard time dragging R. Lee Munson's lifeless corpse to the tree on higher ground. It was dark and wet and the sleeting snow was starting to become more razor sharp and frigidly cold.
__ Her teeth chattered incessantly, but Maggie knew if she kept moving, kept push-, pull-, dragging R. Lee's heavy body up the slight incline, the exertion would warm her up. It was working a little bit, but the freeze was just too much and she had to keep stopping to rub her hands together and stomping her feet.
__ "It's okay, Mr. M-Munson. D-Doug will be here soon and then we'll all be okay."
__ Maggie couldn't take the cold much longer. She didn't know much about frostbite or other things that happened to you when you were freezing, but she knew enough to know it hurt real bad, your fingers and toes turned black and fell off and you died.
__ Glancing at Munson's body, then to Clye Morrow's frozen corpse, she compared their clothes to her own. Either man's suit jacket might be enough to wrap around her twice. That would keep her warm. Mr. Munson's, she mused, was probably still fairly warm from his body heat and it wasn't as caked with ice and snow as Mr. Morrow's, but she couldn't do that to her friend.
__ Mr. Munson would need his jacket when he woke up. He'd be very cold.
__ Maggie crouched over the other man's body and worked at peeling him out of his suit jacket. the material seemed hard like paper because of the snow and frozen mud and crackled when she pulled it away from him. His body beneath the suit was as cold and hard as plastic when she poked it. His glazed eyes had collected little cups of snow but still stared skyward.
__ After she wrapped the cold hard fabric around her shoulders, she sat next to Mr. Munson under the tree and held his hand. Every once in awhile she squeezed it and rubbed it and said, "It'll b-be okay, Mr. M. D-D-Doug-g's c-coming."

__ Legad, who was once called Todd, could not believe his luck. He couldn't wait to eventually meet his master face to face and give himself over for reward and the bliss of careless enslavement.
__ But for now, this was his slave. This was the songbird flown away to avoid him, now back to the roost. Back to the master.
__ The woman was more beautiful than he remembered. Despite the bizarre freeze coming down from the bizarre night, she was dressed in an over sized tee with a sailboat on it and a pair of baggy shorts. Her untied sneakers made splashes in the wet snow as she mindlessly flailed toward him, glancing over her shoulder repeatedly at a pursuer Legad could not see.
__ Slamming on the brakes, Legad gripped the wheel hard and howled. The road was too icy under the fresh coat of summer snow and now the dead guy's heavy wheels were sliding and rotating toward her.
__ She kept coming and noticed too late that her own momentum and the momentum of the car were going to collide.
__ "Noooo!" Legad cried, envisioning the crunch and thump of her body breaking in half over the hood, denying him his prize. "Nooooooo!"

__ Doug sat in the passenger seat of the Datsun staring at the snow coming down through the open driver's door. He hadn't moved accept to lean toward the open door to accommodate the angle of the car's dip toward the ditch.
__ Ardy had bolted from the car and ran out into the street, into the darkness of the single lane road cutting Palley's Woods in half. Doug had no idea why.
__ The last thing he remembered was approaching the police officer and reaching for his wallet. Next thing he knew, he was sitting in the passenger seat of his own car as it listed toward a ditch on the side of the road, watching as Ardy ran out into the storm--.
__ Toward a pair of speeding headlights.
__ "Ardy!"
__ Doug's first impulse, to bolt up the angled seat and through the door that was already open, only brought him to a halt as the center console gearshift jammed his knee. The crack of the gearshift harmonized with his shout of pain and covered the shushing roar of the sliding tires and the sickening crunch as Ardy was hit by the car. But he sensed the hit without hearing it.
__ "Ardy! No!"
__ The pain in his knee gone, Doug pushed against his own door but it wouldn't budge. The styrofoam shriek between the metal parts told him his door was rapidly freezing.
__ "No, no, no, no, no...." Crack! the door finally gave as he shouldered into it with all his weight. Doug slipped and fell between the door and the car, and was momentarily pinned as the car door jammed against something unforgiving. His mind realized the sick angle and he remembered from somewhere that Ardy had pulled over angling the Datsun into a ditch. The narrow cleft in the earth didn't allow for the door to open all the way and Doug's momentum only landed him in the precarious and painful position on his side with the door pinning him.
__ "Ardy!" he cried, but only heard shuffling of snow under loose footfalls and the sound of something being dragged through the slush. A car door opened, then slammed shut. "Ardy! Ardy, answer me!"
__ Even as another car door slammed -- Did somebody pick her up and put her in their car? Are they taking her to the hospital? -- Doug squirmed and inched his way out of the Datsun and into the ditch. His palms broke through thin layers of ice and splashed in shallow freezing water. Sharp reeds frozen by the sudden winter flash storm cut at his legs, back, and arms.
__ The car that hit Ardy was now releasing plumes of steam from its exhaust, kicking up fans of loose snow, and making a whirring sound like a tortured banshee as its tires found purchase on the sleeted pavement. By the time Doug had limped to the edge of the road, waving his hands for the hit-and-run-Samaritan to stop, the car was already roaring past.
__ Through the shattered portions of the windshield on the passenger side, Doug noticed Ardy slumped over, her head lolling on the shoulder of -- wait. Is that the kid that took a shot at me earlier? The one who killed Munson with the shotgun!? ... It is.
__ But there was nothing Doug could do but watch as the car sped away, its red tail lights fading into the blackness churning with snow.
__ Laughter, cold and hollow as if it were coming from a tiny recording within a tin can, found Doug's ear and spun him on a heel.
__ There, leaning against the car, was the Alterling. The creature resembled a human in shape but no light, not even the reflection of the Datsun's headlights bouncing back off the snow, were enough to give this shadow form.
__ But Doug knew what it was. He had been held in its arms before, pinned by its teeth, poked by its bony finger.
__ The laugh told Doug he had just played an unwitting role in a grander scheme.
__ Having seen and felt hell with his own soul already, Doug was sobered against the creature and knew how its deceptions worked.
__ The Alterling pushed off from the car and stood up straight facing Doug. It hissed, "Your girl isss dead now, ssso you die."
__ "No," Doug defied, "You can't frighten me or get me to deal with you. I won't give you the grace."
__ He didn't know where the words came from, nor was he even sure what they meant, but they seemed to have an effect. The creature cringed as if hurt, and turned and started to walk into the woods.
__ It glanced once more at Doug and smiled crookedly. "You don't have the power to offer grace." It hissed the last word as it turned and vanished.

__ Deep within Palley's Woods, Maggie gave up trying to stay warm against Mr. Munson's cold corpse. She lay with her head on his shoulder, snow powdering her tiny weak frame. A body that had taken on the stillness of her partner.
__ She no longer felt the cold, only tired.
__ Very, very tired.