throwing open the door and hopping down into the snow.
Passing through his own headlights, he cupped his hands to either side of his face and peered through the passenger window of the 3000 GT. A series of red lights glowed from the dashboard within. There was what appeared to be a briefcase on the floorboards in front of the passenger seat, a pack of smokes and a pair of empty bottle atop it. But there was no one up there, or lying down in what passed for the back seat of the car.
Steering his gaze from the vehicle, he looked towards the side of the building, noting the small door to the side where all of the employees had exited earlier. With a nod back to Harry, he lowered his head and squinted his eyes against the wet flakes that pounded him along the fierce wind as he jogged across the matted snow along the walkway towards the door. Gripping the knob tightly in his right hand, he yanked on it, his shoulder nearly popping out of the socket with his more than adequate force, but the door wouldn’t budge. Turning the knob in the opposite direction, he tried again, this time with a little more subtlety, but it was locked.
Harry rolled down the window of the car and leaned his head out, cringing momentarily as the frigid air nipped at his bare face.
“Locked?” he called over the wind.
“Yeah,” Scott responded, jogging back over to the car, stopping just shy of the open window.
“What do you think?”
“He’s got to be here somewhere.”
“And you checked the car?”
“Nothing.”
“The back seat?”
“You couldn’t squeeze an adult back there if you tried.”
“Do you think he ditched us then?”
“The thought crossed my mind, but he wouldn’t have left his car, especially with it running.”
“Did you try the doors?”
“No,” Scott said, looking back towards Shane’s car. “But I guess I’d better.”
Turning, he could hear the whir of the raising window behind him as he loped around the front of the car and onto the curb, hopping back down on the other side of the car and standing at the driver’s side door. Giving one last look to Harry, he grabbed the handle and opened the door.
A wall of heat rushed towards him from the inside of the vehicle as he stared within. The windows were completely fogged now, making it nearly impossible to see out of the vehicle. Grabbing the headrest of the driver’s seat and using it as leverage, he leaned into the car, not sure of exactly what he was looking for. It was always possible that Shane was so doped up that he had forgotten his car and had just ridden of with the brunette. That wouldn’t be completely unlike the Shane that he had once known.
Shaking his head, as he saw nothing that would be of any help whatsoever, he pushed himself back to his feet. The fingers on his right hand innocently rubbed his damp palm as he stared down at it, innocently wondering what would have caused it to become wet. The thin patch of fluid on the tough skin of his palm was much darker than he had expected to see, figuring that it had just dampened from the falling snow.
Leaning back under the roof of the car, he inspected the seat, but the dark cushioning just blended into the darkness of the car. The dim rays of the overhead light did little more than just swell into a light globe around the bulb. Reaching towards it, he flipped the switch next to the light, turning it off before finding the third position that made it brighter. Looking back down at the seat, he could see it this time. Large splotches of red that nearly covered the entire seat, sloppy handprints of the dark fluid dripping from the leather steering wheel.
“Harry!” he shouted, slamming his the back of his head against the rim of the door before finally pulling his head out.
Harry just stared at him through the front window of the car.
“Harry!” he shouted again, this time flailing his arms.
Scott could hear the dim hum of the window as Harry rolled it down from the inside, so he shouted once again.
“Harry!”
The whirring of the window ceased as the door popped open and Harry clambered out of the vehicle, jogging over to where Scott still stood by the open door of the car.
“Jesus,” Harry muttered, slipping past Scott to get a look into the car.
Scott scanned the white ground, the only light from his headlights as it crept beneath the 3000 GT, dully passing through the tinted windows, but there was nothing. Walking away from the car, he had gone a good ten feet before finally finding what he was looking for.
There was a matted portion of snow that almost looked like a snow angel, the arms and legs floundering in the packed snow. There were droplets of red throughout the impression, and surrounding it on the pristine snow. Following the red trails, he headed straight towards the tall chain link fence, following the metal ringed surface towards the top. A coiled roll of barbed wire looped through the top rungs of the fence, the sharp points of the metal spikes glistening in the night.
Tattered shreds of clothing hung from the wire where the body had been raked across the jagged barbed wire.
Shedding his jacket, Scott jumped, throwing it over the barbed wire atop the fence and began it climb. Scaling it as quickly as he could, he threw his right leg over his jacket, using it as a shield between his privates and the sharp metal as he climbed over, hopping down to the frozen earth beyond.
He could hear the rattle of the fence as Harry hit it full tilt, climbing up and over just as Scott had done. Glancing back over his shoulder as he dashed across the snow covered field into the foothills, he made sure that Harry was over the fence. Hitting the first grove of pines, the ground beneath his churning legs rising more steeply with each successive step, he wove between the densely packed trunks. Darkness closed in from all around him as whatever dim light pierced the heavily cloud infested night sky was blocked by the thick mat of needles above his head.
There was nothing to go by; no red spotted ground or a channel carved into the crusted snow from the dragging of a body, just the ghost of a voice in the back of his head that urged him on. His legs burned as the cold night air rattled icily in his lungs. Frantically scanning from one side to the other, his eyes tried in vein to peel back the darkness enough to make out even the most vague outline of his vanished friend.
“Scott!” he could hear Harry’s muffled voice cry from somewhere behind him, but he didn’t have the time to stop, or enough wind in his heaving chest to respond.
He knew that if he had any hopes of ever seeing Shane alive again, he had to find him right now as he had seen first hand the speed with which Matt was capable of killing. Somewhere, deep down, he already knew that he was too late.
Throwing his hands in front of his face, he burst through a mass of scrub oak, the barren branches covered with a thick shield of ice. His clothing snagged on the sharp extensions, raking his forearms as he hurdled the clusters of thin trunks, nearly falling flat on his face in the pristine snow of the clearing beyond.
The wind whistled loudly all around him as he stopped in the center of the field. Yucca plants broke the snow covered plain, their long, green points standing high above the ground as the wind tossed the powder into swirling clouds all around. Branches rattled together, the sound of bark raking against bark the only other sound that he could discern from the night.
His heart rose into his chest, a damp layer of cold sweat matting his creased forehead. Each quick breath shuddered past his lips, the frozen air in his quivering chest turning to mist as it burst into the night.
The shrubbery rustled behind him as it parted as Harry suddenly appeared. He was wheezing loudly, barely more than stumbling through the deep snow. Doubling over, he placed his hands on his knees as he stood next to Scott, coughing. He stared down at the ground sucking in as much as possible as quickly as he could, before finally looking up, scanning the line of trees at the other side of the field.
“Where…?” Harry huffed, pausing just long enough for a couple of deep breaths. “Where did they go?”
“I’m not sure.”
Scott focused intently on the darkness all around, all of his senses poised taut as he searched for some clue as to where they had gone.
“We have to keep moving,” Harry said, finally able to stand fully erect, his shoulders still
