“They live above,” Max said. He pointed to the extra level over the motel. The hood of his parka muffled his words. Vera looked up into a furious whiteness, icy pecks on her cheeks. Her eyes were tearing from sheer cold. He was talking about the owners. Their apartment had its main entrance through the motel office, but Max said there was a wooden staircase that angled down the back of the building, like a fire escape. If the office wasn’t safe, they could go up the stairs, ring the bell, if there was one, and see if anyone was hurt.
Or dead, Vera thought.
It was the witch house in Chicago all over again.
She didn’t want to think what an ax could do to a human body.
“Oh, damn it.” Max had reached the stairs. They were clogged with snow and ice. The steps were buried. Only the red painted pickets of the staircase were visible. At the top of the stairs was a storm door, and behind that, a wooden door with a frosty window. Both were shut tight. Snow drifted as high as the handles.
“I can make it up,” she said.
“Are you sure?”
“Only one way to find out.”
Vera plunged her boots into the knee-deep snow and began to climb. She could feel the hard ice underneath the layer of fresh powder, its surface sleek as steel. The soles of her boots were
leather and treadless. She gripped the rail with her bare hands. She was climbing sideways, with her butt braced against the siding of the outer wall. After three steps, her skin stung. She looked up. Another twenty steps at least. The wind thrust under her jacket. She tucked her chin and concentrated on the next step.
Then another.
The staircase swayed beneath her weight. Me plus all this snow, she thought. She could see she wasn’t imagining it. The structure pulled away from the building a few inches and slammed back again. She watched the gap open and close as she shifted her balance. Her bottom smacked the wall. It felt like walking across an old rickety bridge. Step. Only this bridge angled upward. Step. A toboggan chute, that’s what it reminded her of. Step. She heard Max calling up to her and turned to catch what he was saying.
“You’re doing great!” He waved her on.
She lifted a hand from the rail to wave back. Her ankle bent as her boot glided frictionless under the drift. Body rushing forward. No. Grab something. The railing knocked the breath out of her. A horrible sensation of toppling head over heels into the alleyway— she reeled back and hit the wall. Hard. Stars as her skull made contact. The staircase swayed. She pitched forward again. Staying low. Her face mashed into freezing darkness. On her knees, she immediately sensed wetness seeping through her jeans. The cold felt much worse. Snow filled her eye sockets, her mouth. Lifting her head, it was hard to tell the snow from the air. A sudden panic of suffocation overtook her. Grit in her mouth. Burning cold wedged between her teeth. She tried spitting. Blinded. Ice pressed on her eyelids. She scratched the whiteness away. Her face and fingers were numb. She might be mauling herself without feeling it. But when she blinked, the world came back to her.
Grayer. Dimmed.
To her left, open space.
To her right, the motel wall towered.
She was still on the stairs at least.
She had hit her nose. Dark marbles of blood dotted the snow.
No pain, though. Not yet. She wasn’t warm enough for pain. She widened her stance and continued to walk.
Step after step.
At last, the door. No bell.
She made a fist and knocked.
It sounded quiet in the storm.
She knocked, louder this time.
Her hands, red as crabs, poked out of her sleeves.
She kicked at the snow mounded against the storm door. She’d kick the door in if she had to. She wasn’t going back down the way she’d come. With the heel of her hand she pounded on the storm door’s glass.
“Anybody in there?” she yelled.
The wind was so loud she didn’t hear the inner door open. Her gaze aimed at the foot of the storm door—the target of her kicks.
She didn’t see the face appear behind the glass.
When she did look up, she saw herself—her reflection—bending. The door bulged out at her. Ice broke around it. Dropping like scales. The metal door swinging at her, and a man behind it, reaching for her—
She tried stepping back. Her boots flew out. The railing hit her and, having no choice but momentum, she teetered backward. She was falling.
Max shouted.
Arms groped for her.
Rough hands squeezing, gripping, hauled her in.
As the door sprang shut behind her, her confusion compounded and she heard Max’s voice cut off as if he’d been unplugged.