The pounding on the front door woke him up.
He sat up, dazed, staring groggily at the images on the TV screen. Christ, he thought. What time is it? The assault on the door continued, each thud reverberating in the house like a mortar shell. He groped for the light switch, sideswiping his glass and knocking it to the floor. The light from the floor lamp arced brilliantly for a moment and then exploded like a firecracker.
"Jesus!"
Momentarily blinded, he squeezed his eyes shut and tried to roll off the couch. His shin barked the coffee table. He opened his eyes and saw only the strobe-like after effects of the spent filament. He rubbed his shin, feeling the knot begin to swell. The light from the television glared at him, the swarming figures on the screen slowly coming into focus. The pounding came again, harder now and more insistent.
He couldn't help himself.
"Who the fuck is it?" Maybe his voice would scare them away.
He stood up and edged around the coffee table, pausing long enough to pick up his glass. He approached the front door warily, his vision still filled with weird after-images of the light bulb going super nova, reds and greens that swam in front of his eyes and then darted away when he tried to focus on them. The dregs of candy on the counter reminded him that it had been almost two hours since anyone had come to the door yelling, "Trick or Treat!"
Was this some teenager's idea of a prank? The hell with it, he thought, yanking the door open.
"Well, it took you long enough!"
The woman in front of him wore a long, green coat with a hood thrown up to protect against the cold. Her breath formed a billowy plume and the strands of hair poking out from under the hood were frozen and twisted into what looked like a garland of twigs or a bad attempt at a punk haircut. His first thought – he remembered this very clearly later – was that the Blair Witch had come to life. But that was wrong, he knew, the combination of too much drink, too little food and a lifetime spent watching too many horror movies.
Besides, he knew that voice.
"Jesus, Susan!" he managed. "Did you forget your car keys?" But that was wrong, too, he realized as soon as he'd said it. His thoughts were like the damnable colors still swirling in front of his eyes, slipping and sliding away from him like greased pigs. He forced himself to concentrate. Susan had taken the new car; he knew that. She had volunteered to help staff the Haunted House at the old Frontier Cabin, just as she did every Halloween, leaving him to hand out the candy to the trick or treaters.
He looked past her to the circular driveway in front of their house. Empty. And –
Oh, fuck.
Covered in snow. Snow! He had forgotten all about the forecast. He shivered then, not just from the chill he suddenly felt deep in his bones. It had rained the better part of the day and the forecast called for an early-season cold front to swoop down from the Great Lakes and if the timing was right (the local weather-person, a young blonde with gleaming teeth and a tits-a-poppin' wardrobe, had sounded positively gleeful at the possibility) the local area might get a dusting of snow for the holiday.
A dusting? No, he thought, more like a blanket, or maybe an eiderdown. And the roads, slick and wet from all the rain, freezing as the temperature fell. Oh, my God. He looked at Susan again. The snow-covered porch light doused her with shadows. Was that a bruise on her cheek? And what was that smear across her forehead?
"Susan, what happened?"
She hugged herself with her coat. "I had an accident."
"An accident? What kind of an accident?"
She shook her head at him irritably. "Do we have to discuss it here on the porch? I'm cold!"
"What? Oh, of course not." He held the door open wide for her. "Get in here before you catch your death."
"I'm past that, I'm afraid." She hurried inside.
He guided her into the kitchen and switched on the overhead light, now glad for its brilliance. He slipped her sodden coat off and draped it over the back of one of the dining chairs. The brandy bottle was right there on the counter and without thinking he grabbed it, pouring her a tumbler. Ordinarily, Susan didn't much care for alcohol but right now he wasn't going to give her a choice.
She stared at it for a moment, an odd expression on her face. When the booze hit her throat she coughed and sputtered but the color bloomed almost immediately on her cheeks and she smiled handing him back the glass. "It's been a long time," she murmured.
"Now," he set the glass gently on the counter. "Tell me what happened."
"Well, I was on Burdick Hill road, " she began, staring at the floor, her wet hair curling in ringlets around her cheeks as it dried. "And, I don't know, all I can think of is I must have hit a patch of ice. I lost control of the car."
He nodded. Burdick Hill was one of the most dangerous roads in the county and not just in winter. If you weren't dodging deer, you were trying to navigate a steep grade on black ice. On top of that, the state had designated it as a "secondary" road and so the plow only came by half as often and usually gave it just a lick and a promise when it did. Of course, this being the first storm of the season, it was most likely the plow hadn't come by at all.
Wait a minute. Burdick Hill was almost two miles from here and it couldn't be more than 20 degrees out there. "Susan, did you --?"
"Brian, I think I hit something." She lifted her head and stared at him, the color of her eyes a deep violet under the kitchen light. "I don't know what it was, it could have been a deer, but I saw it move out of the corner of my eye just as I lost control." She grabbed his arms, the touch of her hands like a freezer burn. "Brian, the car skidded right for it – I tried to turn the wheel but it didn't help. I hit it, Brian, I know I did!"