Snow Blind Read Free Page A

closing.
    Don’t go. Please don’t go .
    And then Toby realized he was very, very cold. He’d been still for so long, watching the children. Probably hours. My God, what had he been thinking? He had to move, get the blood flowing, get home and warm.
    Funny how the scenery remained exactly the same, no matter how far he went. And the really funny part was that his mind recorded every movement of his legs and arms, and yet he couldn’t feel the snow sliding beneath his feet or the good stretch of his triceps.
    That’s because you’re not moving, Toby .
    Oh, my God.
    There was a brief flutter of heat as his body tried to find some adrenaline to send to his heart, and he concentrated on not blinking, on screaming as loud as he could to the last kid climbing up the hill, omigod he was almost to the top, screaming, screaming, splitting the silence with terror and outrage because now he knew he was dying and he couldn’t move and Why didn’t the kid turn around?
    At the top of the hill, the last child grinned up at his father, and the two of them turned to look out over the empty, absolutely silent park.

2
    Traffic on Theodore Wirth Parkway was an unmitigated disaster – the twelve inches of yesterday’s fresh snow had been churned into treacherous slop before the overworked battalion of snowplows had been able to catch up, and when the temperature had plummeted overnight, the slop froze into icy furrows. Instant bobsled track. Magozzi had stopped counting fender-benders long ago.
    Still two blocks from the park’s main entrance, he’d been sitting in his car at a dead standstill for almost five minutes, watching enviously as throngs of pedestrians waddled cheerfully and unimpeded past the gridlock in their warmest winter garb, heading for the Winter Fest Snowman Sculpting Competition. There were too many to count, all of them braving the wind and cold and traffic just to watch people play in the snow, and amazingly, they all looked happy about it.
    This town was absolutely nuts for winter. Or maybe they were just nuts; Magozzi hadn’t decided. Once there was enough snow on the ground, streets were always blocked off for one thing or another –sled-dog races, cross-country ski marathons, hockey demonstrations, or bikini-clad residents making a big fuss over the idiocy of diving into a frozen lake or river. Every winter sport the world ever thought of had a home base here, and when they ran out of sports, they took art outside.
    Give Minnesotans a block of ice and they’ll harvest twenty thousand more from whatever lake is handy and build a palace. Give them a little snow and you’re likely to find a scale replica of Mount Rushmore or the White House on someone’s front yard. Ice and snow sculpture had been elevated to artistry here, and competitors came from all over the world to participate in any number of winter festivals. Who would have thought that a snowman contest that the department sponsored just for kids would attract this much attention?
    He moved another half-block by inches, past a wooded section of the park, and got his first glimpse of the open field that fronted the boulevard. Like all the drivers before him, he slammed on his brakes and stared out his window in amazement.
    The park opened up here onto a good thirty acres of empty, rolling land that looked a lot like a golf course in summer. Today it looked like a blindingly white battlefield for an invading army of snowmen. Magozzi gaped at what looked like hundreds of them sprouting up every few yards, upand down the hills, staring out at the boulevard with their black lifeless eyes and silly carrot noses.
    When he finally got into the park, he pulled into the first illegal spot he could find, between a Channel Ten satellite van and a NO PARKING AT ANY TIME sign. He grabbed his gloves and a thermos from the passenger seat, and stepped out in time to catch a frigid gust of wind square in the face.
    Hundreds of spectators were milling around the