What about Frank? And Janice—how would she going to get his house if he didn’t sign the papers over to her? Who would look over the rest stops? Who would?
His knees felt weak. He fell to his side into the snow.
Jolie cried in front of him. Tears streamed down her face. She was saying something that looked close to “I’m sorry,” but Walter couldn’t hear to make sure.
The snow felt cold on his face as he lay there in the snow. The snow around him hungrily sucked up his blood. He felt so cold, but that would last only for a little while longer. Then there would be peace.
All of his life didn’t flash in front of him, but one moment did.
He and Beth were taking the kids sledding at the same hill that Annabelle and Jack would die on years later.
Beth was in a good mood, and Walter had gone two weeks without drinking, so his spirits for once looked almost good. He was able to fit all four of them on one of the larger sleds, and they all went down it together.
Of course, when they got to the bottom of the hill, gravity took the wheel, and they all crashed into the snow.
But no one was hurt. All of them laughed, and for that brief stint of time, Walter thought he would be able to get a handle on his life. He saw a future full of life and merriment. He hadn’t smoked or drank for quite some time, and he thought at that moment that he might never partake in those sort of actions again. They all laughed, and the future was bright.
It was a good thought, and considering it was going to be Walter’s last, he took it willingly. He’d made a lot of mistakes in his life, lived in an empty home, satisfying his desires without the wherewithal to stop. But none of that mattered now. As he felt the coming cold, the dimming lights, he felt peace for once in quite a long while.
“I’m sorry,” Matt said.
Walter’s body was picked up with orange light and thrown over to the other side of the rest stop. His body was latched to Danni’s.
Yellow and red light filled his vision, and things grew dark.
****
Walter awoke with a jump.
He was at the rest stop, as he remembered. But he wasn’t dead.
His clothes were still damp and sticky from the blood that had come out of his chest, but he found no holes. He felt great, in fact.
Red and yellow light moved under the surface of his skin.
Becca was over him. To their right was Danni’s head, her open eyes glazed upward at the clouds above them.
“What?” Walter started, before doubling over.
He threw up, something he hadn’t done since his last bender thirty years prior. Only instead of smelling like alcohol and mucus, his current throw up tasted like aluminum and copper.
Red and yellow lights drifted here and there around the small pool of blood, steaming in the cold night.
His body felt great. He felt as though he could lift a truck with his bare hands or bend steel beams.
Matt and Jolie were still over by where they were before, as though the field was still active. Matt was slowly levitating back into a standing potion.
“What did he do?” Walter said.
“He made Danni’s NaU go into you?” Rebecca said. “I tried to stop it, but he made it impossible.”
“Why would he?”
“They told you, Walter, they didn’t want anyone else dying from this.”
The rest stop looked lighter than it should have been, and Walter thought he could make out every detail around him, every individual snowflake.
“Why did you do it?” Rebecca said.
“Huh?”
“Why did you go in front of Jolie’s blasts?”
“Because maybe I don’t want anyone else to die right now, either.”
He tried to stand, but his vision turned black, and he found himself kneeling in the snow again.
“Don’t exert yourself too much,” Rebecca said. “It takes a while for the NaU to give you full control again.”
He had a headache, one of which he would usually have associated with a late-night bender. His mouth felt dry and the back of his throat burned.
Matt levitated toward them.
“I didn’t want to have to do that,” he said, “but you gave me no choice. I’m sorry about this, Walter, I really am. It seems like now you understand how we feel. You won’t start to feel the degeneration for some time, but you’ll feel it all the same.”
“He wouldn’t have ever been in this situation,” Rebecca said, “if you had let me go.”
“True,” Matt said.
Jolie flew up next to him.
“I’m sorry, Walter,” she said, “I never meant to do that to you. I didn’t want to have to kill anyone else.”
“Well, what’s going to happen now, then?” he said. “You’ve doomed one more to your fate. What is it that you’re all planning?”
“We still need Becca’s NaU,” Matt said, “And now you have it as well. Please, Becca, let it happen. I don’t want to have to bury anyone else tonight.”
“Their deaths are not my fault. Danni attacked me.”
Rebecca drew her blades.
“Let me and Walter go,” she said, “and then you won’t have anything to worry about. You two can enjoy yourself. Go home. Jolie, I’m sure your parents are worried sick about you. And Matt, go home. When I’m done out in Canada, I will come back to you, I promise.”
“By the time you come back,” Matt said, “me, Jolie, and our child might be dead, and that’s even if you come back at all. Don’t expect me to be so confident that you’re going to be jumping at the gills to come back to your murdering brother and the woman who killed your mother.”
“Look,” Walter started, before darkness came over his eyes, and he felt dizzy again.
“And look what you made me do!” Matt said. The snow around
