Free Snow Day: a Novella by Dan Maurer

the shadow of a hulking man. He wasn’t following us, though, just watching. In one hand, he held a shovel. He gripped it high on its neck near the blade and just watched.
    I turned and ran.



8
    I RAN AS HARD AS I COULD THROUGH THE DARKNESS, my knees pumping high, my green, yellow-toed boots pistoning into the high snow as I crossed the yard that adjoined the lot with the abandoned house. I didn’t think. I just ran. I needed to get away – away from the empty house, away from ol’ George, away from the accident on Woodlawn Avenue.
    Without warning, I felt something scrape my face and jerk hard across my right shoulder. It nearly pulled me off my feet; I stumbled and thrashed. It jangled like metal and I was tangled in it. I realized in an instant it was chains descending from above, attached to a wooden seat. I had just run into a child’s swing set.
    As I frantically wrestled with the swing, a dog in the next yard over started barking. I froze and listened, hearing the scrape and rattle of another metal chain unraveling. It let out a faint ping sound as it pulled tight against a metal pole. Though I could see almost nothing in the dark, I could hear it. The dog was big. It alternately barked and growled and panted as it paced along the fence that enclosed its yard, all the time straining at the end of its long leash.
    The muffled voice of the animal’s master called from inside his house: “Shut up!” But the dog only barked louder and grew more frenzied.
    I twisted and turned until free from the swing, but just then a light in the rear of the dog owner’s house flickered to life, seeping out to cast a soft glow that barely reached me in the yard next door. Quickly, I dropped to the ground and lay still in the snow, holding my breath, trying my best to act invisible. With one hand I reached up and grabbed the swing to still its motion.
    The back door swung open and the distant sound of Eclipse from Pink Floyd’s Dark Side of the Moon wafted out into the night air. A shaft of light spilled out and bathed the yard next door, and to a lesser extent my hiding place just beyond. I could see the dog now, through the chain link fence that separated its yard from the one where I now lay hidden in the snow. It was a German Shepherd, as big as I had surmised, and chained to a pole that once held a clothes line.
    A man’s shadow appeared in the doorway. He had a long-necked bottle in his hand.
    “Friggin’ dog. I said shut the hell up!”
    The shadow brought the bottle up behind his right ear and heaved it at the Shepherd. It missed the dog and shattered against the pole.
    The door slammed shut, the man was gone, and the dog stopped its barking. A few seconds later, the light winked out and I was cloaked in darkness again. The dog, sufficiently chastised, now only panted and whined as it paced back and forth behind the fence. It knew I was still here, but knew better than to piss off her master again.
    I slowly got up from the snow and quietly made my way out of the yard, along the side of the house and down the driveway to the sidewalk where I stood, alone. Tommy was nowhere in sight.
    I found myself standing on East Glendale, not far from where it met Broad and then turned into West Glendale. I peered up the street in the direction of home. The dark, snow-covered lane was illuminated by occasional splashes of broken light thrown by tree-crowded street lamps. I was looking uphill and the combination of shadows and the rise of the hill hid any sight of my house. Only then did I realize how far I had ridden the Grandville. Home was nearly a quarter mile away.
    There was no one on the street. No one followed me, not yet anyway, and there was no sign of Tommy. He couldn’t have taken East Glendale in either direction or I would have seen him. He must have crossed the street to cut through more backyards and make his way to Columbia Avenue. That’s what I would have done; better to put more distance between us and ol’