Chill Factor

“But shouldn’t he have known better than to go hiking with a storm moving in?”

Scott wondered about that, too. He was an experienced hiker as well and had read Tierney’s articles on the regional trails. He’d grown up exploring and camping in the mountain forests, first with the Boy Scouts, then alone. As much as he enjoyed exploring Cleary Peak, which could be hostile terrain even on a good day, he certainly wouldn’t have wanted to be on it this afternoon when the weather turned bad.

“Even if they find Cal Hawkins, I don’t think anybody can drive up Mountain Laurel Road tonight,” he remarked.

“Neither do I, but they wouldn’t have listened to me. If anyone is more stubborn than your father, it’s Dutch Burton. Can I get you anything? A cup of hot chocolate?”

“No thanks, Mom. I’m going to work awhile on those applications like I promised Dad. Then I’m turning in.”

“Okay. Good night. Sleep tight.”

“Don’t forget to lock up and set the alarm before you go to bed,” he told her on her way out.

She smiled at him. “I won’t forget. Wes has reminded me often enough to keep the doors and windows locked, especially since Millicent disappeared. But I don’t worry about a break-in.”

Why would you? thought Scott. A loaded pistol was kept in the nightstand drawer beside her bed. He wasn’t supposed to know about it, but he did. He’d discovered it when he was in sixth grade and had sneaked into his parents’ bedroom looking for rubbers with which to impress his friends. He’d been much more awed by the revolver in the drawer than he had been by the tube of spermicidal lubricant.

“It doesn’t look like Millicent or the others were taken by force,” she continued. “Whoever the culprit is, he’s someone the women know, or at least recognize and consider harmless. They seem to go with him willingly.”

“Well, anyway, be careful, Mom.”

She blew him a kiss. “I promise.”

Once the door was shut, Scott turned the volume back up on his sound system and set the built-in sleep timer to turn it off twenty minutes later. Then he bundled up in outerwear for his covert excursion.

His bedroom window opened soundlessly because he kept all the sliding parts oiled. In a flash, he was outside, closing the window again. He didn’t want his mom to feel a cold draft and come to investigate its source.

The frigid air stung his eyes and made his nose drip. He hunched his shoulders against the blowing precipitation and dug his gloved hands into his coat pockets. Keeping to the unlighted areas of the yard, he set off on foot.

Sometimes, particularly following one of his old man’s lectures on how he was goofing off, when in fact he’d busted his balls to do everything he’d been told, he simply had to escape his house.

Of course nothing he did was ever enough to suit his dad. No blue ribbon was blue enough, no silver trophy shiny enough for Wes Hamer’s kid. If he won an Olympic gold medal, his dad would want to know why he hadn’t won two.

Seeing a pair of headlights approaching and fearing it might be Dutch Burton’s Bronco, he dodged behind a hedge and waited for the vehicle to pass. Going no more than ten miles an hour, it seemed to take forever to reach Scott, whose legs were growing stiff with cold.

But his caution was unnecessary. It wasn’t the Bronco that crept past. He began walking again, the collar of his coat flipped up against his cheeks, his cap pulled down low so he wouldn’t be recognized by anyone who happened to be watching the storm from his front window.

People in this town loved to talk. If someone spotted him out tonight and later mentioned it to his dad, he would be in a world of hurt. What if he slipped on the ice and damaged something? His old man would stroke out. But only after killing him first.

Lost in that thought—or perhaps fearing it so badly he made it happen—he slipped on the icy sidewalk. His feet went airborne and he came down hard, landing flat on his butt. His tailbone felt like it had been jammed up against the ceiling of his skull. The fall jarred his teeth, causing him to bite his tongue.

He gave himself several moments to recover from the impact before he even tried to stand. After a few somewhat comical attempts to regain his footing on the slippery surface, he succeeded. He hobbled over to a picket fence and leaned against it.

“Jesus,” he whispered shakily as he imagined what his dad would have done if he’d limped home dragging a shattered ankle or broken tibia.

See, Dad, it was like this. I sneaked out of the house. While walking the streets of town, I fell down on the ice. You should have heard the sound that bone made when it snapped. Like a couple of two-by-fours being clapped together. Sigh. Guess I won’t be going out for the Crimson Tide of Alabama after all. They’ll have to win the NCAA football championship without me.

As he moved along the sidewalk, staying close to the fence, he shuddered to think of the H-bomb effect a mistake like that would have on his life. He would be paying for it until the day they buried him, when his dad would be leaning over his open casket saying, What the fuck were you thinking, Scott? There would be no end to Wes’s ranting and raving. Only an end to his grand ambitions for Scott.

He glanced back at the icy patch that had caused him to fall. He’d come within a hairsbreadth of disaster. It was damn lucky that he hadn’t broken his neck.

Or was it unlucky?

Without any forewarning, the thought popped out of Scott’s subconscious and stopped him dead in his tracks. Where had such a mutinous thought come from? he wondered.

It was the kind of thought that, just for thinking it, you got struck down by lightning. He’d done some things lately that would be considered worthy of damnation by any moral code or religion on the planet. But he hadn’t really feared a fiery eternity until now, and all because he had entertained, if only for a millisecond, that traitorous thought. But who can be condemned for what he’s thinking? And who’s to know?

It was several moments before Scott continued on his way.