Karen Winters's Arc

Chapter 2 of 3

Karen held the phone against the window and waited for a bar that didn't come. The screen dimmed. She pressed the button and it lit again. No signal. No service. She set the phone in the cup holder and put her hands on the wheel to stop them shaking. Then the car moved. Not forward. Sideways. A small push against the driver's side, like something big had leaned on the fender. The sedan rocked once and settled. Karen held her breath. The wipers scraped. Snow slid off the windshield in a sheet and she saw nothing past the hood but white. Something thumped near the rear tire. Slow. Heavy. Then a scrape along the door, low, at the level of her hip. She turned her head toward the sound. The window was fogged. She wiped it with her sleeve and only made it worse. A shape passed the passenger side. Tall. Upright. It moved wrong for a person, and wrong for a bear. She thought of Devon first, which made no sense — Devon was three hours away at school. But she wanted him in the seat beside her so badly her chest hurt. He would have said something plain. He would have said, Lock the doors, Karen. He would have said it once and then done it himself. She hit the lock button. The clunk was loud in the cab. The shape came back around the front. It stopped in the wedge of light between her headlights and the snow. Karen leaned forward. She saw the antlers first. Then the skull. Then the ribs under skin pulled tight as canvas. It stood on legs that bent the wrong way at the knee. One eye caught the headlight and threw it back yellow. The jaw hung open. Long teeth. It was looking at her through the windshield. Karen made a sound she didn't recognize. Her hand went to the gear shift on its own. She threw the car into reverse and stamped the gas. The tires screamed in the rut. The sedan didn't move. She threw it into drive. Same scream. Same nothing. The thing outside tilted its head. She let go of the wheel and scrambled across the console into the passenger seat, then into the back. She pulled the wine box over her lap like it would help. Her good boots kicked the door. She yanked the charger cable out of the dash and held it in her fist for no reason she could name. The thing walked around the hood. She heard its claws tick on the metal. It passed her window without looking in this time, as if it already knew she was there and had decided when to come back. Karen pressed herself flat against the back seat and did not move. The engine idled. The heat blew. Outside, the snow kept falling, and the shape kept circling.