28. A Shadow of Frost (D1)

__ Somewhere between Todd's bloodbath and Munson's interview with Maggie the odd little psychic girl, Doug and Ardy were still miles away and trying to find access to Palley's Woods.
__ "What's this now?" Doug squinted through the rain dotted windshield at the blinking blue and red dots in the distance. "I hope that's not on Henderson."
__ "What?" Ardy looked up from where she had been studying her hands in her lap. She had been daydreaming about Doug's kiss, his tenderness, his boyish fear with the solid iron bar of bravery packed inside, his cute geekiness. She wished all this was over so they could just talk and hold hands and go on a date to the movies, or maybe go to church together on Sunday.
__ But then, she mused, in some weird way it's as if all this horrific nightmarish stuff was concocted to bring them together so they would fall in love.
__ Doug braked and coasted to the soft shoulder of the two-lane. "Crap. It is Henderson."
__ Several blocks ahead lay Henderson Avenue. It was a long lane through a short suburb on the far north side of town and probably the best chance for reaching Palley's Woods the long way. Another bridge had washed out preventing them from making it to Munson via the short cut on the north side.
__ Ardy wasn't as familiar with this side of Covert. "What does that mean?"
__ Doug sighed, "It means we're trapped on this side of the river. It means we can't get to Munson on the other side." He sighed again and turned up the heat in the car. "It means we're trapped in Covert."
__ Leaning forward, studying the waves of blue and red light ahead of them, Ardy said, "Go forward. Maybe it's not a bridge. Maybe it's just an accident we can go around." She patted his arm to encourage him but also because she couldn't stand not touching him, feeling that he was close to her. Despite the warmth in her heart, Ardy shivered.
__ "You okay? I turned up the heat." Doug put the car in gear and steered back onto the rainslicked blacktop.
__ Ardy didn't answer. Instead she looked at the heater dial and locked on the little white notch turned to the broadest band of red. "What's wrong with the world?" She grabbed the window crank and rolled down the window. The rain that misted in was frosty, the air a sudden bite that smelled like snow.
__ She quickly rolled it back up. "Oh, my God."
__ "I know," Doug said, craning his head and studying the midnight sky. "It'll be noon in an hour or so and it's as black as if the sky was covered with a blanket."
__ "And why is it getting so cold?"
__ "I don't know, love. I don't know."
__ She smiled, suddenly and inexplicably unconscious of the darkness, the cold, and the fact she had died and come back the night before. She only heard one word, spoken by him.
__ Then she remembered the last time she felt such warmth in her heart. It was when she was on the Other Side and feeling the flow of love from all the people around her, the distant light growing warmer. She no longer feared or wondered about death. But she did fear dying without getting to know Douglas Testerbird.
__ The Datsun coasted to a stop as the tempest of blue and red machinegunned around them. A silhouette of a hulking drill instructor came toward them from the harsh light. The smokey hat identified the man as a state policeman well before Doug rolled down his window to speak to him.
__ "What's going on, officer?"
__ The cop's breath came out in a puff of steam. His teeth chattered. It was August. He wasn't expecting to need his winter uniform coat. "Y-You're kidding, right?"
__ Doug shrugged it off as the cop leaned down to glimpse Ardy in the passenger seat.
__ Doug said, "I know. Weird night -- I mean day."
__ The officer's expression twisted slightly. "May I ask where you folks were headed this morning?"
__ Doug didn't glance at Ardy. That would belie a mystery that might lead to interrogation. Instead he looked forward at the single-squad road block. "Out of town. We were on our way through to Indianapolis when the storm hit last night."
__ "Where you folks from?" The cop tilted his face to peer into the back seat. "No luggage?"
__ "We're from Morton. Just a day trip." Doug said, trying to put his own face in front of the officer's. "Is the bridge to 41 out... sir?"
__ The officer stepped back and straightened up. "Can you explain where you got those bruises, sir? And the lady?"
__ Doug glanced at Ardy. She wasn't bruised. She wasn't marked at all. She was beautiful. A little haggard maybe, weary and tired, but beautiful. As for himself, he wanted to say he had been bashed by a crystal ball, almost blown away by a shotgun, and generally beat up by circumstances since adding the extra dash of cologne before leaving home last night.
__ Ardy sensed something wasn't going right. There was a problem with this picture.
__ The cop said, "Sir, I'm going to have to ask you to step out of the car."
__ That's when Ardy turned her gaze forward and her eyes lit upon the silvery glint of a snowflake on the windshield. Then everything went black-red-blue-white-black-red-blue-black-blue-black... black.

__ Todd Namer knew the roads would be impassible because of the rain. He also knew -- somehow -- that he couldn't wait in the parlor for Ardelene to return. She wasn't coming home. He knew... he somehow knew she was out there somewhere in the dark day. She was with that guy and they were trapped.
__ He didn't know how he knew, he just knew.
__ It was a knowledge that came with power, with the power that grew inside him and coursed through his arteries like burning kerosene.
__ He had finished cleaning up the parlor and decided it was time to leave. He would follow his new wolf-like senses through the dark until he found her.
__ Todd dressed in his jeans and sneakers, but left his shirt off. He enjoyed the feel of his rock hard abs, the taut fierceness of his muscular chest and arms. He wasn't like this yesterday. Yesterday he had a bit of a pouch and was pale and somewhat scrawny-limbed. Cold frosty air was swirling in through the broken front door, but Todd only felt comfortable.
__ "Must be the vitamins," he laughed. He tucked the .22 into the back of his jeans and carried the .357 at his right side. He left through the front door, kicking it completely off its hinges with a flying scream.
__ Landing on his feet outside, Todd surveyed Route 9. The rain was mixing a bit with tiny snowflakes, sleet. The sky was still midnight black. A pinpoint of warmth in the direction of far off Palley's Woods called to him.
__ Todd took a deep breath of the day-night and sprinted into the frost-starched cornfield toward Palley's Woods.
__ And destiny.

__ Ardy wasn't inside herself anymore. She had expected to wake inside Doug's mind, perhaps experience the fear and anger being imposed by the state policeman as he ordered Doug out of the car.
__ Instead, Ardy was inside the officer's head. And this is what was whirring by in a mad dash of insanity: What the hell is wrong with these people? Don't they see what's going on? There are creatures out here and they're probably part of it. I should shoot them now. Nobody on the radio. No way out of town. That guy in the car over there, torn to pieces. What did that to him? Creatures. There was a creature in the frost, all black and formed like a man -- Oh, Christ -- don't think about it. It'll come get you. What if this guy is one of them. I should shoot him. I should shoot him because he probably hurt that woman. He got bruised by her fists as she fought off his attacks in the darkness. Poor girl. Oh, God, what if he transforms into that black frost thing and attacks her while I'm here. I should just shoot him. I should kill him now. I have to defend her. Myself.
__ The cop, whose name was Frederick Duffy ("Sly" to his drinking buddies because of his weak resemblance to a certain Rambo film star), had Doug walk around behind the Datsun and open the trunk. He was reaching for his sidearm.
__ Oh, God, Ardy, wake up! Get up! Get out of this psycho's brain and yell! Scream! Wake up!
__ "Just nice and easy, pal," Duffy told Doug. He was waiting for just the right moment, for a window of opportunity when Doug would have to take his eyes away for at least four seconds, enough time for Duffy to draw his revolver and squeeze off three quick shots in his back.
__ Doug must have sensed something was completely wrong with the cop because, while he obeyed every order just as slowly as it was given, he never once took his eyes away from the officer.
__ Ardy swam in the mental sea of paranoia looking for a way to get out. The only image that played itself over and over in Frederick Duffy's mind was the willowy black creature that skulked along the roadside, retreating from the twisted wreckage of the car in front of his patrol prowler. Whatever it was, it was real -- or so Duffy's mind believed it was real -- and it was inhuman. And evil.
__ Duffy didn't have the luxury of having seen this day unfold through a series of murders, resurrections, visions, and signs. All he knew was that he was a cop who went on duty one night, it started raining, the sun never came up, and now it's getting very cold and creatures are causing cars to wreck.
__ And the radio in the police car didn't work.
__ That was a random thought that seemed to be the anchor to this long string of links in Officer Duffy's mind. The cop felt alone. He was Charlton Heston in The Omega Man. The world was crumbling and no one would answer his calls for help.
__ Naturally, he reasoned, anyone he sees now cannot be human.
__ Doug only knew something was wrong, very wrong, and that his actions -- or inactions -- would have a very severe bearing on whether he could keep Ardy and himself alive in the next few moments. His eyes were locked on the cop's eyes. The cop's eyes were drilling into Doug's eyes.
__ Neither man noticed the tall, slim creature, like a marionette coated in shining black oil, rise up behind Doug. The rain was swallowed up by its body and snowflakes that touched its smooth skin melted into the oily surface with an infinitesimal tisking sound.
__ Ardy, whose attentions and senses were those of Officer Duffy now, didn't see the thing either.
__ And she didn't see it when the thing stepped into Doug, forming his shape and sliding into him like a shadow chased into hiding by the sun.
__ She only saw Doug's expression suddenly change.
__ She heard him hurl of stream of obscenities at the cop.
__ Then she saw him charge.
__ Back in her own body, Ardy jolted awake by gunfire.
__ And screamed.