Tom and Snow

            Tom had just left a party and was driving down a dark road all by himself.  Red snow swam in flurries through the sky in front of his windshield.  The peaceful purity of winter was long gone.  Growing up in New Hampshire, there was nothing novel or beautiful about snow anymore.  His mind was filled with the recent horrors that had just passed.  The screams.  The darkness.  The rush as he left the hall, unsure of what he did; unsure of anything. 
            He stopped the car by the side of the road.  The beams from the headlights shone vibrantly through the diamond dust.  Tom breathed slowly in his seat behind the wheel, calmly opened the door, and stepped out.  He strode around the side of the car, tracing the metal with his gloved hand, stopping slowly at the rear.  Pulling out a key from his pocket, he cautiously unlocked the trunk, tugging on the latch and opening it.  The wide eyes stared at him, full of bewilderment and anxiety.  He quickly shut the trunk and turned away.  With his bent back to the car he clawed at his eyes and forehead.  Crap!  He looked back and quickly averted his gaze.  Crap! Crap! Crap!  This is real. Tom looked up at the black sky, and down at the white snow.  Sinking to his knees, he looked up at his red hands and back down at the red snow. 
            The car rode down the icy New Hampshire road silently.  No shadow followed.  Tom was completely alone.  He drove through the blizzard, snow piling up on either side of the road.   Schwip Schwip.  The sound of the windshield wipers was his only company.  Schwip Schwip.
            When he was sure no one had followed him, Tom swerved off the road, flying past trees, on a hidden mountain trail.  He drove his car up to a small log cabin.  Glancing both ways, he exited his car. 
            “Stop it!  What are you doing to her?!  Tom!”
            He remembered. 
            As he walked to the trunk of the car, he pulled out the key again.  Glancing around him, checking twice in each direction, he opened the trunk.  The bewildered eyes stared at him, following his movements, his eyes; tracing his face with their questioning gaze.  He pressed one finger to his lips, winked, and shut the trunk. 
            Locking the car as he walked away, Tom hurried to the cabin.  Pushing open the long unused door, he crept into the darkened lodge.  A flame illuminated the room.  Tom used his lighter to ignite his grandfather’s old oil lamp, kept safe and dry on the mantle by the door.  The room was small, but cozy.  Warm browns melted away from the long shadows cast by the lamp.  The soft light rug soaked in the wet snow from Tom’s boots.  He moved into the room, placing the lamp on a table near the center, now rummaging through papers and oddities in a desk against the opposite wall.  Every drawer was open bar one.  The desk was fully disheveled before Tom came to the last drawer.  He opened it, smiled for a moment, and closed it. 
            Leaving the corner of the room in an unkempt state, Tom forsook the small warmth of the cabin for the heavy blowing winds outside.  He unlocked the car and removed the owner of the eyes from the trunk.  Snow melted as it fell on her body, as he carried her away into the dark warmth looming before them. 

            In the morning, amid the tall evergreens covered with glistening white snow, a wispy stream of smoke flowed up to the sky.  A knock on the door.  An answer.
            “Good morning officers.  How may I help you?”
            “We’re working on a missing persons case.  Have you seen this woman before?”  A photo was flashed before Tom’s eyes.
            “I’m sorry officers.  I don’t believe I have,” the officer looked around Tom, at the steam rising from below another door in the cabin. “Now if you’ll excuse me, I’m cooking breakfast for my girlfriend.”
            The officer hesitated.  He looked suspiciously at Tom, at the room, again at Tom.  As he turned away, Tom closed his eyes, exhaling in relief, shutting the door.  He walked to the steaming door at the other end of the cabin.  The steam fled out, dissipating further in the apartment. 
            “Who was that?”  He brushed the heavy, wet locks out of her face as her eyes stared straight at him.
            “Don’t worry.  They won’t find you,” kissing her forehead, he turned away, scanning the clean tile bathroom as it turned red.

            The officer walked next to the tire tracks, left by Tom’s nighttime flight through the woods.  Finding the road again, and his own car, he leaned into the open window. 
            “That her?”
            “No doubt in my mind she’s in there.”
            He slid in the driver’s seat, taking a cup of hot coffee from his partner.  The calm wind blew by the open windows of the car.  The only sound breaking the silence was the occasional garbled talk of the radio reports. 
            “So what’s the course of action?”
            “Can’t break in there.  Won’t work.  I guarantee he’s got her heavily guarded.”
            The partner looked at the officer.
            “In this weather?  No.  We’d die before getting our hands on her.”

            The morning faded into the afternoon.  She sat in a heavy green armchair surrounded by the warm, brown hard-oak cabin walls.  Hugging her bare knees with her arms sleeved in an oversized argyle sweater, she stared into the burning fireplace opposite her.  Every couple of minutes she would extend her arm and move the coals with the poker. 
            “Why don’t you eat something?”
            She shuffled the coals.
            “I made eggs and sausages.”
            She wouldn’t move.  Tom sat on the arm of the chair with a plate and a fork. 
            “Get away from me,” anger rose in his eyes at her flat remark.  He grabbed her arm; she turned and glared at him for a moment, then turned back to the fire.  He loosened his grip on her arm.
            “I’m sorry.”    
            “Why did you tell those men I’m your girlfriend?”
            “Would you rather I told them about last night?” she stole her eyes to the side as she thought over his threat. 
            She exchanged the poker for the plate of eggs.  Tom replaced the poker at the grate by the fireplace and left the room.  In a corner of the window the policeman’s white car could be seen, but neither Tom, nor his companion, noticed it. 

            Fully dressed, Tom lay flat on his back in the bedroom of the cabin.  He closed his eyes.  
            “Stop it!  What are you doing to her?! Tom!”
            A woman, Tom’s mother, backed away as blood spilt across the floor.  Her eyes grew wide before she ran to the next room to call her husband.  In that moment, Tom lifted his bleeding, unconscious sister from the ground. 
            “They’re gone,” he whispered.
            She opened her eyes for a quick moment as she replied: “Thank you.”
            He opened his eyes.  All the light had faded, and the calm early evening stars glittered through his window.  He bolted up and ran to the next room, gasping, but to false insecurities.  She still sat in the same heavy armchair, undisturbed.  Relieved only momentarily, he noticed how eerie the room had become.  Everything was undisturbed.  Her position hadn’t changed.  The half-eaten plate of eggs still lay on the arm of the chair.  The poker was still by the grate.  The only difference was the fire had burnt out, leaving the room chilled, and she no longer stared ahead of her, but now leaned her head on her shoulder, resting her eyes. 
            “Clara?” the name was barely audible as it escaped his lips.
            He inched closer to her, glancing cautiously around the room, noticing now that the windows and door, although shut, had not been locked.  He placed his hand on her shoulder, looking in every dark corner of the room, but she awakened. 
            “Tom?  Are you alright?” she looked up at him with her unalarmed eyes.  “It seems the fire burnt out.  Will you start another, Tom?”
            He looked down at her and smiled gently, “No.  I think this is enough.  We can move on now.  Let’s get you out of here.”
            She smiled wide and reached her arms up to him.  He lifted her, and as her arms wrapped around him, she kissed his cheek, “Thank you for saving me, Tom.”
            Tom closed his eyes and smiled back, “Of course.  I wasn’t about to let my baby sister go to prison for a crime she hadn’t committed.”
            Clara’s eyes twinkled for a moment, then she let go of Tom and stepped onto the wooden cabin floors.  She stepped away from him and turned to the next room.  Looking back, still smiling, she asked, “let me borrow more of your clothes?  Mine are still covered with that fake blood.”
            He smiled at her.  Several minutes later she emerged, fully dressed and carrying a sack of bloody garments and a slab of stone.  They stealthily left the cabin, checking all directions before moving forward.  Leaving the car where it was parked, the two siblings snuck away into the white New Hampshire woods, one carrying a sack and slab, the other a shovel and two small tools. 
            Hearing a rustle behind them, Tom stopped, “Did you hear that?”
            “Hear what?”
            Tom looked at his alarmed sister, “nothing.  Just a squirrel, perhaps.”
            “Hey, Tom, did you bring the chisel from grandpa’s desk?”
            “Don’t worry.  Everything will be taken care of.  Just pick a place to rest in peace and the whole affair will be behind us.”

            The shadow of a slim woman stood by as a man dug a large hole in the ground.  Their faces were obscured in the dark night, but their business was clear. 
            “What are they up to, partner?”
            “Shhh!  You’ll give us away,” the officer hushed his partner.  “I’d bet ten to one they’re burying someone out there.”
            “But who?”
            “That’s the real question.  The last man she took was found in the Boston harbor two weeks ago.  She was in trial from then until now.”

            Clara leaned close to Tom as he finished digging the grave, “Tom, do you think this will fool them?”
            “I don’t know.  Very least it’ll buy you enough time to make it to Europe, or maybe Canada.”
            “Can I have your jacket to remember you when I leave?”
            Tom smiled, curiously at her, as he handed her the jacket, “and where will I be going, missy?  I can’t go home now, you know.”
            “I know,” a cruel look passed over her eyes.  She patted his back, and he swooped and fell across the grave.  Kneeling down, she removed the syringe from his spine. 

            “Look!  The man is gone now!”
            The officers could see the silhouette of the woman filling the grave with the shovel.  She placed a stone slab at the head, and shined a flashlight thrice at the officers.
            “She’s ready for us!” 
            “About time!  I was near tired of waiting now.”
            The officers headed over to her, throwing down their metallic badges. 
            “Are we leaving now, boss?”
            Clara looked at the two
            “Do you have the money, boss?”
            “It’s stowed away.  I have enough to get us to Canada.  We’ll return for the rest once they stop looking for us.”
            “What about this fella?”
            “No worries.  This mystery won’t be solved unless they exhume the body.”
            She folded his jacket as she read over the chiseled inscription:

            R.I.P.
            Clara Jones
            Beloved sister
            1985-2012

            “I’m sorry, Tom.  Mom and dad were right.  You always were the better one.”
            The three walked away, leaving a soft trail of shoeprints in the snow behind them.  There, laying on her headstone, was his jacket.