Snowflake

Sam turned the corner and slammed on the brakes. The car slid along the icy surface, stopping only inches from a child standing in the road. She jammed the shifter into park and popped open the door in one smooth motion then ran to the front of her vehicle.

“Oh my gosh, are you okay?” she asked, her voice shaky, scanning the little girl for bumps or bruises, “Sweetie, what are you doing in the road?”

The girl shrugged.

“Do you live nearby?”

She nodded.

Sam scanned the empty street. Two boys stood on the corner at the far end of the block, watching with their hands stuffed in their pockets before disappearing down a side road.

"You're Madi's mom's friend," the girl stated.

"How do you know that?" she asked.

"She said you were coming today."

Sam was confused. She began to ask again how she could know that when movement drew her attention to the house on her left. The ruffling of a curtain gave the only indication that someone had been watching from the window. Child-sized footprints in the fresh snow led from the porch steps to where the girl now stood.

“Do you live here?” Sam asked, pointing to the stone house with the large porch.

The girl nodded.

“Come on,” said Sam, taking the girl’s cold hand in hers and leading her up to the front door.

She doesn’t even have mittens on, she thought to herself as she knocked on the door. After several attempts, a young woman finally answered.

“Uh, hi, uh…is this your daughter? I almost hit her with my car. She says she lives here.”

The woman studied the girl from the doorway, shaking her head slightly as though engaged in a silent, secret argument.

“Yes, that’s my daughter,” the woman said, finally.

Sam looked at the girl, uncertain, but the child nodded her head at Sam’s unasked question and walked inside. The woman withdrew, closing the door.

“Is everything okay?” asked Sam before she could shut it all the way.

“Oh yes, everything'll be fine,” answered the woman.

The door clicked shut.

Shuddering, only partly due to the cold, Sam hurried back to her car.

She continued toward the end of the block, noticing the boys she had seen earlier in an abandoned lot adding some finishing touches to a snowman. They stopped when she drove by and stared at her until she drove out of sight. Before turning onto Holcomb street she took one last look in her rearview mirror and shook her head in disbelief, the little girl was in the middle of the road again.


Sam found the address she was looking for and pulled into the driveway. Her friend greeted her as she climbed the steps to the porch.

“Careful, they may be icy.”

She climbed the last step, set her bags down then embraced her former college roommate.

“It’s wonderful to see you, Sam, it's been so long,” said her friend.

“Way too long,” Sam agreed. “You look good, Helen.”

“Thank you. Not so bad for thirty-something,” Helen replied with a warm smile. “So do you. Now, let’s get your stuff inside. It’s freezing out!”

Sam set the heavy bags on the hardwood floor. A red-haired girl, just shy of her teenage years, sat on a comfy looking couch on the far side of the room. She looked Sam up and down before returning her attention to the television.

“Madi, come say hello,” said Helen.

The girl glanced at her mother and then back to the TV.

“Madison Nicole!” exclaimed Helen, sounding embarrassed, "don't ignore me when I ask you to do something.”

She rolled her eyes and, with a huff, stomped across the room, coming to a stop next to her mother. Helen's face was flush, but she said nothing, only shook her head. With no little effort, she composed herself.

“Madi, this is Sam,” Helen announced.

Madi studied Sam, no emotion showing on her freckled face.

“Can I go now?” Madi asked without looking up at her mother.

“Why are you being rude? When I told you last week that she was coming, you couldn't wait to meet her."

There was a brief glimpse of sadness in the girl's hazel eyes. It lasted less than a second, but Sam was sure of what she saw before the gaze changed into a glare that made Sam take a small step backward.

“That was last week,” said Madison, coldly.

Helen sighed and dismissed the child with a nod of her head. Madison stormed back across the room, her jaw set stubbornly, refusing to look in Sam's direction. Taking her place once again on the couch, she settled back to watching the TV.

“I‘m sorry,” said Helen, "she hasn’t been herself lately.”

“No worries,” Sam reassured, "kids can be fickle."

“That, they can,” replied Helen, “now let me show you the house!”

Helen gave her former college roommate a brief tour then settled in the kitchen with a pot of coffee.

“Sorry again about Madi. She's been acting odd lately. All the neighborhood kids are. It's like they're waiting for something to happen and runnin' out of patience. You'd think with all of the snow we’ve had the last few days they'd be overjoyed,” Helen said.

“It’s fine. I imagine it must be hard for Madi with her father not here. And you for that matter.”

“I’m over it. It took a while, but it’s been over two years now. Hard to believe Madi will be a teenager in a couple of months. It was harder on her, him leaving. I just don’t understand what's gotten into her lately. Even at the worst of times, she's respectful. Maybe it’s just a bug or somethin' goin' around.”

“Speaking of weird kids, I nearly hit a little girl at the end of the street. She was just standing in the middle of the road,” Sam said.

“The stone house with the big porch?”

“Yep, that’s the one! You know 'em?”

“Uh huh, Madi’s friend Lilly lives there.”

Snippets of conversation drifted into the living room, but Madi paid them no more attention than she paid to the cartoons on the television screen. Her thoughts kept returning to a single question; could she be the one?

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It was still dark outside when Sam awoke, back stiff from sleeping in a strange bed. She yawned as she donned her robe then proceeded down the hallway and into the kitchen.

The clock over the oven indicated it was just past five when Sam put on a pot of coffee and slipped a couple slices of bread into the toaster, taking care not to wake the others. She collected her toast and mug and started to sit at the table when she heard the knob on the front door jiggle then turn. Sam set her breakfast down then clutched at her chest feeling her pounding heartbeat. She hadn't realized she picked up a letter opener from the kitchen counter until she saw it clenched in her fist it with a white-knuckled grip.

She crept toward the door, adrenaline heightening her senses. In the darkened room the door swung open. She steeled herself against the intruder when in walked Madi.

“What are you doing outside this time of the day?” Sam gasped.

Her shoulders slumped in relief. Madison glanced at the letter opener in Sam's hand. Embarrassed, she quickly set it down on a nearby end table.

Madi took her jacket off and hung it neatly on the coat rack then deliberately took her time to smooth invisible wrinkles out of her pajamas. Sam opened her mouth to speak, but Madi cut her off.

“You saw Snowflake,” Madi said matter of factly.

“Who’s Snowflake?” Sam responded, confused.

Her racing heartbeat finally began to slow.

“He’s our friend. Jacob said you saw him yesterday.”

“I still don’t know who you're talking about. Is Snowflake your cat?”

“No. He's a snowman."

“And you named him Snowflake?”

“No, that's what he named himself.”

Sam could detect annoyance in the little girl's tone.

“Ah, did he now?” replied Sam.

“Yep. And he told Jacob you might be the one.”

“The one for what?”

Madi turned on her heels and strode back to the couch. A click of the controller and cartoons once again popped onto the TV screen.

Sam shook her head, confused and frustrated, then returned to the kitchen and to her coffee and toast.

The sounds from the television floated in from the living room as she sipped from her mug. A glance through the window revealed it was still dark outside, but Sam needed to get away from Madi, at least until Helen was up.

She returned to the bedroom and got dressed, found her heavy jacket, scarf, and gloves, and slipped out the back door. The morning air stung her nose. The bitter cold made her want to go back in, but she did not want to be alone with Madi. The girl was unnerving. She obviously did not like her and Sam had no idea why.

Snow crunched underfoot as Sam wandered to the corner of the block and took a right, going back toward the direction where she nearly hit the girl with her car the previous day. She tried to think of ways to break the ice with Madi. She could not understand the indifference that bordered on hostility the little girl had for her.

A piercing shriek cut through the frigid pre-dawn air, tearing her from her thoughts. The sound came from across the street up ahead. She stood frozen, listening for any sound that would pinpoint the location of the scream, but all she heard was the occasional wind gusts blowing through the leafless branches of the trees that lined the street.

Sam crossed the street and continued down the sidewalk, remaining alert as she approached an abandoned house. Just past the building was the empty lot where she had seen the boys and the snowman the day before.

Snowflake

She shook the thought out of her head.

Sam crept up to the corner and peered around into the lot just as someone ran past. It was Lilly.

Lilly was running, covering her face. An angry looking welt streaked across her cheek. Sam called out to her, but she never slowed. She gave chase, but motion out of the corner of her eye pulled her attention to the empty lot. Three boys, in their early teen years by the looks of them, stood in front of the snowman. Sam marched toward the boys.

“You like to hit little girls?” she yelled.

The boys did not answer.

Sam quickened her pace. She was nearly upon them when all three boys glanced up at the snowman in unison then sprinted off toward a gate in the back of the darkened lot.

Sam started to run after them but then decided she really did not know what she would do if she actually caught them. They were only kids after all, and she was an adult.

She reached the spot where the boys stood mere seconds ago. The sun had not yet peeked above the eastern horizon, but it was noticeably lighter than when she left the house. The snowman loomed large in the dark, empty lot. Despite her foul mood, Sam was impressed with the attention to detail the kids gave in making it. The body segments flowed from one into the next like a finely crafted sculpture. Large, novelty sunglasses covered the eyes. A carrot stick nose protruded above a splotchy, red scarf that covered its mouth. The arms were sticks, crooked to look like elbows, the ends splayed out in little wooden fingers.

An odd sensation crept over her. She could feel the snowman's gaze upon her as if studying her like some new species of bug. She shook it off and scolded herself for being foolish. The feeling drained away. She took one last look around the lot then returned to her friend's house.

Helen was awake and sitting at the kitchen table when Sam walked in. The warmth of the house was stifling compared to the coldness of the air outside.

“I was wondering where you were, Madi said you went out,” said Helen warmly.

“Good morning,” replied Sam, “I decided to go for a walk to help wake up.

“It's cold out there, did it help?!”

“It did.”

"Something wrong? You look like you've seen the devil himself."

"I'm fine," Sam said, deciding not to tell Helen about Madi being outside in the early morning hours.

The girl already hated her so why add more fuel to the fire? She thought.

Helen made breakfast. Madi joined them long enough to scarf down some eggs and toast, taking occasional glances at Sam out of the corner of her eye, before returning to her spot on the couch. As the women cleaned up, there was a knock at the door. Madison answered it, and after a brief conversation she closed the door and went to her room.

“Who was that?” Helen shouted inquisitively.

“Jacob,” came Madi’s muffled reply from the other side of her bedroom door.

Sam looked at her friend, speaking in a hushed tone.

“He is not a good kid,” Sam said, then proceeded to tell her the story of what she encountered that morning.

“Oh dear, Jacob's always been such a good kid. You sure it was him?”

“I didn't catch any names, I just saw three boys this morning, and one of them hit Lilly hard enough to leave a welt. If I saw Jacob, I'd know if he was one of 'em.”

Madi came out of her room dressed in a sweater and pants. She grabbed her boots and her jacket from the coat rack and slipped them on.

“Where're you goin'?” asked Helen.

“Outside,” Madi replied.

Helen paused a moment, reflecting on Sam’s story, “Stay in the yard. I need you close by today. Sam's only here for a few days, so we have things we want to do in town.

“Okay.”

Madi walked outside, closing the door behind her. Helen watched from the window as her daughter took a seat on the bottom step of the porch, then went back to cleaning the kitchen.

A short time later, they gathered Madi up from where she still sat on the bottom of the stairs and drove into town to enjoy the day.

It was dark by the time they returned home.

“I’ll get the oven going,” said Helen, hanging up her coat.

“Okay, I will start on the potatoes,” replied Sam.

Dinner was ready about an hour later.

“Madi, come get ready to eat!” hollered Helen but got no response.

“Madi!”

Again, no response.

Helen stormed into the living room. The television was on, but Madi was not on the couch. She was not in her bedroom or the bathroom either. She noticed her daughter's jacket missing from the coat rack.

Sam heard her friend calling for Madi from the front porch. Helen came back in a couple of minutes later looking equal parts worried and furious.

“I'm goin' to try Jacob’s house,” Helen said as she put on her coat. “Would you mind waiting here in case she comes home before I get back?”

“Of course,” Sam replied.

Helen walked out into the cold dark night, closing the door behind her.

Sam gazed out the window, searching for any sign of Madi in the darkness. After a few minutes, she put her coat on and went out to the front porch to wait. A short time later, Madi rounded the corner, crying.

“Madi!” Sam called, relief in her voice, “what’s wrong?”

Madi came to the bottom of the steps and stopped.

“Those boys are mean! They kept hitting me and wouldn’t let me go!”

Sam was furious.

“Where are they?” she demanded.

"With Snowflake.”

“Stay here. Your mother's worried sick about you.”

“I wanna go with you. I wanna see you tell those mean boys off!”

Sam reluctantly gave in.

“Okay, but stay close to me. Are you sure they're still there?”

Madi nodded.

They walked toward the street corner. Madi looked up at Sam and held her hand out. Surprised, Sam clasped it in her own.

“I’m sorry I haven’t been nice,” said Madi.

“Oh, sweetheart, it's okay, I understand how hard it can be meeting strangers,” Sam said with a warm smile, joy blooming inside her.

“It’s not that,” said Madi, “I haven't been very nice because I won’t get to see you anymore, so I don't want us to be friends, and then I never get to see you again.”

"Sweetheart, I promise you will see me again. I will try to visit at least twice a year from now on.”

Madi's brown eyes locked onto hers, mixed expressions of worry and determination displayed within them.

“Look,” said Sam, “let’s talk about all this later. For now, we’ll take care of these boys. When I am done with ‘em, they won’t bother you anymore.”

Sam gave Madi a reassuring smile.

Madi forced the gesture in return.

They rounded the corner and crossed the street to the side where the empty lot was located.

They reached the abandoned building. Sam steeled her nerves, again not knowing what she was going to do, they were just children after all.

She walked into the open lot to find it empty, except for Snowflake.

“They must have left,” said Sam.

Madi shook her head, “they’re here somewhere.”

Madi let go of Sam’s hand and sprinted ahead. Sam hesitated a moment before giving chase. She caught up with the girl in the center of the lot then studied her surroundings while she caught her breath. A street light in one corner cast odd shadows that surrounded the perimeter of the fence, but it was difficult to make out what it was in the darkness.

“I’m sorry,” said Madi.

“For what, honey,” she asked absently.

White plumes of breath puffed from her mouth as she scanned the area for any sign of the boys.

“I really want to like you, but I have to do this.”

“Do what,” Sam asked only partly listening.

A sudden searing-hot pain erupted in her leg. She screamed as she dropped to the ground, grabbing at the handle of the letter opener that jutted out from the back of her knee.

Madi was on her immediately, covering her mouth with her tiny, cold hands trying to muffle the sound. Sam knocked her hands away. She tried to pull the letter opener out but couldn't, the pain was unbearable. Madi pressed both hands over Sam's mouth again, pushing her head down into the snow with all her weight.

“I waited for my mother to leave and then went and got you. It was just like Snowflake said,” the girl explained to Sam, seeming to ignore the struggle they were entangled in.

The shadowed figures revealed themselves to be the neighborhood kids. They sprinted toward her, encircling her.

There's so many of them!

She pushed Madi away again and sat up. Putting her good leg beneath her, she attempted to stand, but the wave of children crashed into her, slamming her down onto the frozen ground.

The combined weight of them was too much for her. She struggled and flailed, but they pinned her arms and legs, sending another wave of agony through her body as they sat on her ruined knee. One of the boys she saw earlier approached with a rag. He tried to shove it in her mouth, but she clenched her teeth. He nodded at another of the boys who squatted next to her and reached for the letter opener. Her eyes widened, anticipating the pain. Still, she refused the rag.

The boy nodded again, and pain exploded in, first one knee as he yanked the opener free, then in the other as he drove the blade behind her kneecap.

She could not contain the scream that wanted to escape her lungs, and as she opened her mouth, the boy crammed the dirty rag in, muffling the sound.

“She won’t be running now,” said one of the boys.

"Keep her quiet," urged another unseen child.

Tears streamed down Sam’s face. Madi looked at her, a comforting smile spread across her freckled cheeks.

“Sorry, but Snowflake says you're the one,” Madi said with a slight shrug.

Sam tried to convince herself that she was having a nightmare, but she knew the pain felt too real to be a dream.

“She don’t understand,” said another of the boys.

He leaned over, his face mere inches from hers, filling her nostrils with sour breath.

“What are you doing, Jacob?” asked another of the children.

Jacob waived him off. He stared down at Sam, excitement lighting up his green eyes.

“We gotta do this. Snowflake says you've got a good heart. He needs it so he can come all the way alive.”

Fear burned like acid through her veins as she began to comprehend their intent. She thrashed with all her might, ignoring the pain, but it was no use. The children were smaller than she, but there were too many of them pressing down on her, rendering her immobile.

“Hold her tight,” Jacob ordered, pulling a wood-handled hunting knife from a sheath hanging from his belt.

He looked down at Sam, a mirthless grin rested on his face.

"Don't worry, I've been practicin'. No different than guttin' a deer."

He raised the thick blade over his head with both hands, then thrust it into her chest, just below the sternum. Sam's back arched, her body writhed with the intensity of the pain. He worked the knife like a saw along the edge of her rib cage, ordering the others to hold her steady.
His tongue protruded from the corner of his mouth while he concentrated on his gruesome task.

Blood gushed from the rough incision, streaming onto the white snow beneath her, turning it red. The warm, metallic taste of it flooded into her mouth and out her nose. Her body convulsed violently.

“Hold her tight I said,” Jacob commanded, setting the knife on the ground then thrusting his hand into the wound.

He felt his way under the rib cage and up into the chest cavity. He grasped her still beating heart. A couple tugs and the organ tore free. He held it up over his head triumphantly. The children erupted with cheer.

Turning to Snowflake, he ceremoniously placed the heart into the dug out chest cavity, then secured it into place with fistfuls of snow.

The children's joyous shouts of laughter filled Sam's ears as her life drained away.