“How would Prince Charming know it was me? That I was Snow White?”
Ms. Fernley knelt down. Emily could see her face in front of hers. Ms. Fernley smiled. “Charming will know who you are, honey.”
“Not without my dress on.” Emily felt trapped. The door was locked.
“Honey, your dress is ruined. You can’t wear a ruined dress.”
Emily raised her voice. “It’s not ruined. There are no tears.”
“Honey, you’ve got stains all over it. Stains that will never come out. I’m sorry, but we’ll have to throw it out.”
Throw it out? But she was Snow White! He was Prince Charming! They were supposed to live happily ever after. Changing clothes would change everything. Couldn’t Ms. Fernley see that?
Her mother would let her keep the dress on. “I want my mommy!”
“Honey, your mom is in Heaven, remember?”
Oh, right. Heaven. “Then you take me there.”
Ms. Fernley shook her head. “Your mother is gone, honey. No one can go to Heaven without God’s blessing.”
“Why?”
“Because you can only go to Heaven when you die.”
“Why?”
“No one knows why.”
It was clear Emily could not persuade Ms. Fernley to allow her to wear the dress. The room seemed smaller, but the locked door looked so far away.
She made a break for it. She took some time to unlock the door, and then she burst through into the room where everyone else was. One door was on her left, and one was on her right. Both had tables in front of them. She ran under the table in front of the left door, but there was no knob to turn. She tried pushing on the door, but it wouldn’t budge.
Prince Charming said a word that her daddy had said never to say.
She should have climbed on top of the table. Instead, rough hands grabbed onto her legs. She tried to squirm away, but she couldn’t. Then she saw it was Charming that held her.
“Help, Charming! The Wicked Queen wants to take off my dress! Don’t let her do that!”
“Enough!” Charming said, releasing her. “You’re not Snow White, and I’m not Prince Charming. Your parents and your brother are dead, or zombies, or whatever the <bad word> they are!”
Emily realized he was right. He wasn’t Charming at all. He was the Huntsman, and he wanted to kill her.
“Mr. Chen!” Emily screamed as she ran toward Jize. “The Huntsman and the Wicked Queen are after me! Protect me!”
Startled, Jize just stood where he was while Emily hugged his legs. As luck would have it, Jize had seen Snow White with his grandchildren last Christmas.
Christmas. Though born a Buddhist, Jize’s family had converted to Catholicism when they moved to Manhattan. What will Christmas be like?
“Don’t worry, Emily,” Jize said, “no one will hurt you. I promise.”
“But the Huntsman—”
“Remember the Huntsman doesn’t kill Snow White. He is too kind-hearted to carry it out.”
Emily turned her head in a shocked Vin’s direction. “You’re right. He doesn’t kill her.”
“That’s right. He doesn’t kill her. You’re not really Snow White, are you?”
Emily stood there for a few seconds, eyeing Vin, and then Janice. Jize could not recall seeing a person as sad as Janice looked right now. Emily turned her head and looked up at him.
“I . . . I don’t know.” She clung to him tight and sobbed.
“Yes, you do. You know you are not Snow White. Mr. Scoggins is not Prince Charming. He is not the Huntsman, either. And Ms. Fernley is not the Wicked Queen.”
She continued to cry, but Jize felt her grip on him loosen.
“We need help,” Jize said to them all. “We need help with Emily. We should canvass the town and search for survivors.”
Vin shook his head. “Not a good idea, Chen. We don’t want to advertise our location and lack of defenses.”
“Lack of defenses?” Janice said. “We have two shotguns and several handguns.”
“We are only five adults and a child. Two of us are injured. It’s bad enough taking care of a little girl. Whoever we find is likely to either rob us or be a burden.”
“I don’t know how to use this gun,” Janice countered. “Am I a burden, too?”
Vin scowled. “Right now, yes. Hopefully, I can train you to use the gun.”
“Y’all are forgetting the county jail across the street.” The sheriff’s voice was weak, yet he still spoke with an air of authority. “We do not know what happened to those inmates. I, for one, don’t want to find out. Best we stay put for now.”
“Isn’t this kind of talk going to frighten the girl more?” Vin asked.
“Vin is right,” Jize said. “We should all give Emily a hug.”
“Someone ate my brother’s head,” Emily said.
Chapter Nineteen
Day One
Throughout the night, Marty and the others left the doors to the supermarket unlocked to keep looters from breaking the glass. Better to lose some supplies, and feed someone desperate, than to expose everyone to a snowstorm.
Marty knew they were in a vulnerable situation. It was odd hoping few survived—less chance of attack for such a rich target as a whole grocery store worth of food. No one heard a word from any loved ones—further evidence of few survivors.
They each took a turn on watch during the night. Marty lent Alexander his watch because Alexander’s smart watch had already lost its charge.
Emily seemed to have come to terms with the fact that she wasn’t Snow White. She now wore pink sweats. Every once in a while, she still called Vin “Charming.” But sometimes she referred to him as “Mr. Scoggins.” That night, Emily woke everyone up with a nightmare, though with no recollection of it.
Lucky for them, the store had stocked up on snow shovels and a sand/salt mix, to prepare for the freak late-August storm.
Marty grew up in the county, and he couldn’t recall one time it snowed in August. Maybe the forecast might be a false alarm. Weather in the Colorado Rockies was hard to predict.
But the wet snow started falling in mid-afternoon with the bulk of the precipitation occurring
