Chapter Three
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???? ???? made it back to the house at quarter past two, Vanessa tried ringing the police. She gave it five tries before calling it quits. Frostford's lines had been wiped by a strong gale in the afternoon, and Scarlet almost noticed it: the signal tower rattling vehemently like some mystery animal in a magic box. Later down the line she would recall this, though she refrained from speaking about it. Abigail was sitting on the living room sofa whilst she petted Darla, still wiping away the tears Peter Jackson had given her, nodding off to sleep sometime after quarter to three. When she woke up, Vanessa suggested that she watch SpongeBob—the time would fly—but she shook her head wearily and went back to sleep.

And Scarlet felt worried. Worried that the phone lines wouldn't come back for another long while—that she, Vanessa and Abigail would be stuck on Robert Avenue with nothing more to do other than chat and frolic. Though, Vanessa was more laid back about the whole thing; she asked Abigail where her mother lived, and she responded with Archer's Creek. That wasn't for eighty miles or so, built around Northwood Bay. It'd take maybe seven days to travel that far, especially through knee-high snow and the early beginnings of a lockdown. Though Scarlet hadn't heard any news about a lockdown, so to speak.

And later, when Scarlet admitted that the snow wasn't letting up, her mother said an odd thing. "We may need to head there—to Archer's Creek."

They were in the living room, whilst Abigail was sleeping upstairs in the guestroom, as she had been doing for the past few days. She'd also taken to using Tommy's toothbrushes, which he never got a chance to use, what with the whole cancer thing. It seemed as though guns weren't the only possessions of his that Vanessa opted to keep—there was a whole line of hair products and dental goodies. And that was funny to Scarlet; the man didn't even have any hair to pomade, and hardly went around flashing a toothy, white grin like some Elvis Presley impersonator. Greased-out and happy.

Scarlet looked at her mother admiringly. "But—but we can't . . . You said that wasn't for eighty-five miles. The car won't even last that long in this weather."

"Well, she can't stay here," Vanessa said. "We're pretty much empty on food, and the pipes froze up no less than an hour ago. But no worries, I stored up large ten-litre bottles before it happened. Did I forget to tell you that?"

"That the pipes froze? You did forget!" Scarlet's voice, tired. "Always forgetting . . ."

Vanessa's mouth cracked open into a smile. "It's not that I forget things," she said, "it's that I have a selective memory. You know, your father wasn't—"

"Wasn't much different," Scarlet finished, standing up straight (though up straight—in her eyes—meant a forward-head posture). "Yeah, I know, Mom." She sighed quietly as her back slumped against the living room sofa; she could see the snow painting the windows in a white overcoat, at times blowing off to reveal what was visible on the outside. But Scarlet couldn't see anything to make note of. No cars or black figures, apart from the mountain—where Peter Jackson probably took care of his wife. That, or he was one greedy bastard. Scarlet's initial idea was that he had made that up to justify robbery, but if that were the case, why would he talk to her in the first place? Was he bored; did he miss the company of a woman who could talk back to him? Maybe. And maybe his wife wasn't giving him all that much up north.

Vanessa's eyes sharpened. "It doesn't matter; we can't wait around while a young girl is away from her mother. We can't keep her forever, Scarlet." It was said with such heat. "Do you understand at least that much?" She crossed her arms firmly.

Sighing, Scarlet said, "I think so . . ."

"You think so?" Her eyes, piercing.

"I understand!" Scarlet said, louder. She had no choice but to discipline her voice from trembling. "I just have no idea how we're gonna get to Archie's Creek or whatever the fu—heck it's called."

"Archer's," corrected Vanessa. "It's called Archer's Creek, resides round a bay called Northwood. A giant frozen lake sits in the middle of it with gorgeous woods not too far off from it. Your father and I used to go there every once in a while as a holiday trip. He'd also go hunting there—a special type of deer came out round then: a pie-ball or something, it was called. Can't remember the name, but it had these lovely white spots that went well with the snowy atmosphere." As she talked, her voice returned to its once calm state.

"Spare me the life story," Scarlet coolly said, her tone laced with a savagely pettish undercurrent. "How do you plan to get there?" she asked once more. "As I said, the car won't make it that far."

Vanessa chuckled, the wrinkles on her face bunching up like ocean waves. Then the exultation was replaced by a patch of seriousness. "Well, I plan to ask Rachel for some help. She and Terrence have a much stronger vehicle, designed for long distances and, yes, piles upon piles of snow. It even has a heat-pump built into it to keep it from frosting in the winter. And above else, it's an eight-seater. Abigail should get home within the week with much comfort. And considering what Rachel saw today, I doubt she'd say no. She's a helpful woman, Scarlet, even if she doesn't seem like it."

Scarlet exchanged a moment of silence with Vanessa. Then she sighed again. "When are we leaving?"

"This time tomorrow," Vanessa answered quickly, the sternness swooping back like a boomerang. "One o'clock in the afternoon, thereabouts; probably a little earlier. I might head out to ask them first."

The windows creaked at the force of a strong gust. Scarlet thought if it blew any harder it would shatter the glass, then people could pop in and steal anything they wanted, just as Peter Jackson had done. It was just that easy when you had a gun at your buckle. Everything was. The world knew that.

For the rest of the day, Scarlet satisfied her hunger by eating an apple. Abigail had a ham-and-cheese sandwich and Vanessa ate nothing—only made tea from one of the big water bottles. Though she was running low on sugar, too, which Scarlet believed would make the tea process pointless. She loved sweet things, all things sugar; she'd grown up eating so much candy that she ended up with two cavities by the age of eleven. And while they were white enough now, back then she had a deep concern that they'd turn homelessly brown. Then she would have been a laughing stock—The Girl Who Lost Her Teeth at Sixteen. She believed if she didn't brush she'd end up on an episode of Freakish Living.

And despite there being no TV to watch the said show (the TV signal went out randomly), the time flew by, for Scarlet at least. She spent it in the living room with Abigail (she usually came downstairs around 3:00 P.M.), thinking and listening to a playlist of songs she had stored on her phone. She was sure glad that Mr Jackson didn't take her phone as he did with the others, but a part of her thought that he should have. After all, what would it matter to him? He just shot a man dead in broad daylight because his wife was ill. There was so much shit going on in the world all of this seemed like a bad dream, one that she would try desperately to escape. But it wasn't—she knew that with unease.

She wondered about this in the evening. The earth and sky had swapped places by then, and Scarlet could see a wide and open sprawl of stars. The Milky Way cut through the middle like an uninvited friend, but she didn't mind. It was fascinating to see. A long time ago her father said Sagittarius was supposed to pop out around the wintertime, particularly during something called the 'solstice'. Whatever that meant.

It took a while for someone to come knocking at the door, a bit too long of a while. Scarlet turned off her music and hurried to open it. Her mother was upstairs in the shower at the time, and Abigail was fast asleep.

"Anyone home?" a masculine voice called from the other side, muffled.

Still freaked out by the day, Scarlet stopped dead in her tracks. She was dressed in the same sweater she had worn when Mr Adams was shot. Turning back, she tiptoed towards her widow and peeked outside, hoping to catch sight of somebody. She could, but it was difficult to make out what he looked like in the darkness. Ignoring this, she sighed and went back to the door.

Her hand was just about to touch the knob before the man started coughing. It was a familiar sound. He spoke again: "Look, I know you're in there; your light is on," the man said. "I just need help with my car; it broke down and I was wondering if you could call someone. My phone ain't workin'." He coughed again, nasty and phlegmy.

Scarlet peeked through the peephole and saw a man on the other side—well, a rough outline of one, covered in a fine dusting of snow. He seemed to be wearing a mask and all black, which unnerved Scarlet. "What's your name?" she asked, her countenance in a state of worry. She pressed her body against the door. "I can't just let anyone in, you know; not after a man got shot. Also, our phones aren't working either—the whole town's out by the looks of it."

"Red. Red Caulfield. My friends call me Reddy; I, uh, live a ways up by Avolyn Road. A man got shot dead there, ma'am. He was laying there in the snow for God knows how long. Have you heard about him?" Another cough.

Scarlet gibbered ever so slightly before saying, "Yeh-yeah. I have. What of him?"

"Oh, it's nothing; I just wanted to let you know. The main reason I'm here is because my car broke down; I dunno if you can see it through that peephole, there behind me." He pointed behind him at what appeared to be a pickup truck smothered in darkness. "She normally don't go out in the winter, but hell, this weather bites somethin' fierce."

Scarlet nodded to herself, almost feeling sympathy for the man. "But why are you out this late, in the middle of a snowstorm? And how do you stop at a cul-de-sac? Are you visiting someone?"

The man paused a couple seconds before coughing again. "Well, yeah—somethin' like that. It's hard to explain."

"So why don't you ask whoever you're visiting, Mr Caulfield? Can't you ask them instead? You have to see how this looks," Scarlet said. Her heart thumped as she spoke.

"As I said," the man began, a bit impatient: "it's hard to explain. Listen, it's all right—you can trust me, ma'am. Just need help with my car, is all. I never had a problem like this before—but sometimes a man's engine freezes up and he can't go nowhere. Do you know what that is, ma'am, an engine? Is there a man in the house?" His tone dispensed an aura of unfiltered anger.

"What's that supposed to mean?" Scarlet asked, annoyed. "Why don't you just leave this place before you get yourself in a lot of trouble; I can see you wearing that mask. And I highly doubt you're trying to protect yourself from the virus. Considering you've been coughing for the last few minutes."

The man stared at the peephole for a moment—a long moment that felt like something out of a horror movie—before slamming his arms against the door, saying, "Open up, ma'am!" This time he was vociferous.

"Please leave before—" Scarlet began, her fingers shaking.

"Before what? Before you call the police?" The man laughed, and then coughed again. "Let me in, wouldja? I don't bite—not unless you want me to." His words had the impact of a freight train—with a thousand or so vehicles stacked together. He started hacking now.

"Sir, please leave!" Scarlet said, though her voice made no sense of the word 'command'. It was soft and childish as it always had been—younger than she was by at least five years. She wiped a bead of sweat from her forehead before saying, "I'm not alone; you'll be in a lot of trouble if you don't get out of here!"

"What is it with you women?" the man asked, now sounding more like a drunken sailor. "You nag and nag about how a nice fella wouldn't want you and as soon as a nice fella comes round you turn a cold shoulder. I'm sick of you bitches! Can't even help a man stuck out on the road!" He banged on the door—hard, enough to bring Abigail back to wakefulness.

Abigail asked, "Who is it?"

And Scarlet mouthed the words No one, shushing her with a forefinger. It was a gesture her father used to abuse—back when Scarlet was a kid and Tommy loved watching action TV shows for hours on end. Any noise was met by a whistle and a finger to the mouth—his own, of course. But staying quiet was difficult for Scarlet—staying quiet for too long was pretty much the same as getting locked in a cage. She needed to express herself more than the average child, mostly because she'd been diagnosed with ADHD at the age of seven when a teacher suffered the same issue Tommy had. Too much damn noise! As she grew older this became less of a problem, or so she believed. Scarlet had stuck with this idea more than she could admit in her waking hours. But it was still strange to think about—how she hated loud noises yet had been a sound-dispenser herself. Vanessa mentioned this after Tommy's death, and how did she respond? By singing in her room to some of her favourite songs till the moon rose above the horizon and shone like a wound in the sky.

And although singing was one of her favourite pastimes, listening to sick men from the space of her house wasn't. Scarlet supposed this man had the virus, and that the so-called unpredictable behaviour was blatant sexism and toxic masculinity; she didn't hate men or anything—she actually loved them very much—but it was people like this that gave the sex a bad name.

"You think you're better than me?!" Reddy yelled. "Ain't nobody better than Red Caulfield—not even some stuck-up whore from Frostford!" A bang. The door shook and creaked and, by God, it almost splintered.

"Stop!" Scarlet said.

Abigail started crying no more than a couple seconds later, and a voice called from upstairs, "What the fuck is goin' on down there?" It was Vanessa, her voice floated down like an echo, one caused by a boulder drop in a canyon.

Scarlet looked back towards the staircase expecting to see her mother standing there, dressed in a nightgown or evening sweater, but was disheartened when she didn't. "There's some asshole at the door!"

BANG! The blow to the door made Scarlet tumble backwards—not out of force, but out of fear.

"Who you talkin' to? That your husband?" Red asked, still in a rage.

Scarlet lay silent before standing up and saying, "Ye-yes!" with all the energy and belief she could muster. "Now leave before you end up like—" She looked back at Abigail and saw her crying.

Like Johnathon Adams, she wanted to say. "Before you end up dead!"

She thought that would do the trick and leave him running in his boots, but the man laughed and started coughing again.

"You women," he managed, "are all the same. Lyin', cheatin', good-for-nothin' whores!" He spat at the door, a deep, phlegmy one.

And to Scarlet's relief—and also to her surprise—the man walked away, his feet crunching through the snow, returning to his truck. She smiled triumphantly, as if she had just dodged a bullet—literally. Who knew if this psycho was carrying a Glock 19 like the man at the market, and who knew if he was going to pop a bullet in her head and leave Vanessa wondering what to do.

She'd probably kill herself, Scarlet thought tearfully.

And perhaps she would—all if this man just shot Scarlet between the eyes.

Grief does that to a person. Grief does a lot of things.

But what happened exactly? She still didn't have the slightest of ideas, thought maybe this man went mad with the virus and was looking for a woman to satisfy his desires. Scarlet knew all about the cataclysmically horny men in their late thirties looking for women—and maybe that was a symptom of this virus, an undocumented one at that: cataclysmically horny men in their late thirties wearing masks and coughing as if an additional forty years had been tugging on their lungs. Scarlet let out a laugh at the idea, even though it was still frightening to ponder.

Vanessa came down about a minute, a white robe barely wrapped around her body, skin glistening, her hair still wet from the shower. But that wasn't what caught Scarlet off-guard—no, it was the gun she held in her hand that struck her as odd. "Why do you have a gun, Mom?"

Vanessa walked up alongside her and peeked out the window, closing the floral curtains afterwards. "Is he gone? Did he do anything? Did he have a weapon?!" Her voice was panicked, as if she had just witnessed yet another murder scene unfold—this time with gallons of blood splattered across an open street.

By now, Abigail had stopped crying and lay on the leather sofa not saying a word. Scarlet looked at her before saying, "No, he just . . . left. Just a minute ago," she said.

Vanessa scoffed and peeked out the window again, tipping the curtains to the side and letting a wave of darkness split through the glass. "What did he want?"

"I'm not sure," said Scarlet. "He just—I—"

Not waiting for an answer, she shut the curtains noisily, making Scarlet jump as if she'd been struck with a lacerating whip. "This is just another reason to head north!" Vanessa said, her voice in-tuned with a mixture of bitter disdain and warranted sadness. "Disgusting people! They'll wipe us out faster than any disease ever would! First the man down at the market and now some bastard comes banging on my door, looking for what?"

"Mom," said Scarlet, "what do you have a gun for?"

Vanessa's eyes sharpened, a line building across her brow. "Isn't it obvious? To shoot the piece of shit, of course! He's just lucky I took my damn time getting it!"

"Mom, we can't just shoot people. It's not right. Dad wouldn—"

"Don't say what your father would and wouldn't do!" Vanessa shouted. "Not in my house! I told you, we're heading out tomorrow and going to Archer's Creek; it'll be a long drive, so bring whatever you need, and don't complain about what I do with Tommy's—your father's guns."

Had Scarlet been more outspoken or maybe a little bit less emotional she would have said something to combat Vanessa's statement, would have told her that guns weren't the answer, that violence never solved anything but a few broken hearts. But she didn't. She kept her mouth shut and got on with it. With life.

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