Snow Blind Read Free

holler back at Tobywhen he finally heard the shush of skis heading toward him. He listened for a second, frowning, because the sound wasn’t coming from the trail behind; it was moving toward him sideways, through the woods. And then he saw the little beams from skier headlamps, jittering through the big tree trunks.
    He snorted out a plume of frost, irritated that he’d have company on the trail in a few seconds, and unreasonably angry that he was no longer the best, strongest, and fastest skier in the park. Skiing off the trail through unmarked woods with nearly a foot of new snow took a lot of strength and endurance – more than he had – and nothing pissed off Tommy more than being second best.
    He thought about shooting off down the trail while he still had a little head start, then thought about the humiliation of skiers that strong passing him. No way he was going to let that happen. I’m just waiting for a friend to catch up, he’d tell them, standing there casually while they skied away, as if he could have taken them if he really wanted to.
    He side-stepped off the trail to give them space, then watched them come, his own headlamp showing a glimpse of black suits and ski masks moving steadily toward him. They might be strong, but they sure were stupid, he thought, wearing ski masks when they were working up a sweat like that.
    Twenty feet back on the trail, Toby was shoving himself along by the poles, trying to keep his skis in Tommy’s tracks to make the going easier. He didn’t have his ski legs yet this winter, and the trip up the long hill into the woods had left his thighs weak and quivering.
    It surprised him a little when he spotted more than one headlamp through the snow just ahead, especially since he’d been following only one set of tracks. A few feet closer and he could make out Tommy, standing loose and casual off the trail, watching other skiers approach from the woods. He shook his head at the foolhardy souls who’d ventured off the trail at night, dug in with his poles, and gave a last, strong push that sent him gliding toward them. In the middle of his glide, he saw the first skier out of the woods slide in close, raise a gun to Tommy’s head and pull the trigger.
    Toby Myerson kept drifting in and out of a delicious sleep, and each time his eyes fluttered open, the landscape changed, as if someone had pushed fast-forward on a movie.
    Earlier, the big sledding hill across the field had been a rush-hour kiddie freeway, jumbled with the primary colors of a hundred miniature snow-suits, and the air had been sweet with the delightedsqueals of children. Happy music that warmed him from the inside out.
    Toby loved watching the little bodies sailing down the snowy hill, tumbling off saucers and sleds and the occasional toboggan at the bottom. They rolled like balls and then skittered up the slope like colorful insects; so animated and tireless, so very alive. Occasionally he would focus on one child who seemed a little taller and more coordinated than the others, and he would wish with all his heart that the child would cross the stretch of open parkland and walk up to greet him. He was feeling a bit strange at that point, and worried that he might seem intimidating. Youngsters frightened so easily, and if they were frightened, they would run from him, and Toby thought he would just die if that happened, because he had to tell someone about … something … something bad. He just couldn’t remember what it was.
    Things seemed darker when he opened his eyes again. At first he thought the park lights had been turned off, but that couldn’t be it, because when he moved his eyes up to look at them he could still see pinpoints of brightness, as if none of the light could get out of the bulbs. Odd.
    Only a few shadowy stragglers remained on the sledding hill now, and the only sounds he heard were the shouts of the last parents calling their kidsup the hill, home to bed, because the park was