Free Snowblind by Christopher Golden Page B

scared shitless that their jobs might evaporate out from underneath them. Either that or they were already unemployed.
    Doug himself was just barely hanging on.
    The bell above the door jangled and he looked up to see a middle-aged mom headed for the counter with a pair of boys maybe six and eight. The brats stuck their tongues out at each other and raced around their mother, using her legs as a barricade against direct assault. The boys drove her nuts while she tried to order for them and he saw her irritation growing. As she rolled her eyes in frustration she glanced down at them and, despite her pique, gave them a tired smile. It hit him hard, that smile, reminded him far too much of Cherie.
    “Anything else?” the Puerto Rican girl behind the counter asked.
    “Yeah.” The mother sighed. “You can tell me why everyone in this town is so edgy today.”
    “Bad weather,” the girl said.
    “It’s a snowstorm. Probably not much of one,” the mother replied. “Big deal.”
    The counter girl cocked her head as if she were waiting for a punch line too long in coming.
    “Logan, stop that!” the mother snapped.
    Then she lifted a hand to her temple, exhaling with embarrassment. “Sorry. Just one of those days. The guy at the gas station was super rude. Then this lady dropped her purse and I went to help her and she practically barked at me that she could do it herself. And don’t get me started about the way people drive. If it’s gonna turn into an icy mess later, so be it, but right now it’s just a few flakes. I mean, it’s New England, after all. It’s not your first snowstorm.”
    The woman shook her head and that faint, Cherie-like smile returned. At some point her brats had frozen in place just to listen to her.
    “Oh my god, they’ve done it to me, haven’t they? I’ve become one of the angry snow-day people.”
    “It’s okay. We all have those days,” the counter girl said, fixing her baseball cap over her ponytail. “You sure you don’t want something else?”
    “Rum and Coke?” the mother said with a soft laugh.
    “Best I can do is ice cream.”
    “Did she say ice cream?” one of the kids piped up.
    “Hush,” the mother said. Then she fixed her gaze on the counter girl. “Seriously, why are people so edgy today?”
    “Are you not from around here?”
    “Rhode Island, originally. Why?”
    The counter girl gave a nod. “You remember the blizzard ten or twelve years ago? Like a million feet of snow, no school for days?”
    “I guess,” the woman said, grabbing her younger son by the arm and steering him away from the older one. “You guys got hit harder up here than we did, but I watched it on TV. Bad storm, sure, but this is no blizzard. No reason for people to get worked up about it.”
    “I’m with you,” the counter girl said. “But I was only seven when it hit, so I don’t remember it well. Older people in Coventry get antsy every damn winter. A bunch of people died in that blizzard—like eighteen. I guess it just haunts them a little.”
    Doug’s chest hurt and he realized he’d been holding his breath.
    A little? he wanted to say. Haunts them a little?
    But how could this girl with her nose ring and streaks of purple in her hair know that his wife had been one of those eighteen? That he could have stayed home and kept Cherie company in the blizzard but instead had chosen to hang with the guys and ended up drunk with his car in a ditch? That every snowfall reminded him that he hadn’t been there for his wife when she’d needed him most? She couldn’t, obviously … but still he wanted to snap at her.
    The bell over the door rang again and he glanced over to see Franco and Baxter coming in. He sat up straighter, his pulse quickening. He should have been relieved that they’d arrived—he had to be at work in a little more than an hour—but he didn’t think he would ever be happy to see these two.
    He spared a last glance at the stressed-out mom, realizing she