Freeze by Daniel Pyle

moist over his mouth and nose, and his eyelashes were already collecting snow and ice. He had tried using the flashlight, but it was worthless. The reflected light disoriented him. He could see more clearly without it. It was night, but not completely dark; ambient light reflected off the ground, the falling snow, and the white sky. He still couldn’t see much more than a few yards ahead of himself, but he wasn’t totally blind. If he could stay close enough to it, he thought he’d be able to follow their fence down the long private drive to the road beyond, but once he reached that, he wondered how he’d ever be able to find the Young place.
    You won’t. This is suicide. When this is all over, they’ll find you frozen to death less than half a mile from the house. Count on it.
    No. He wouldn’t give in to that kind of thinking. The Youngs had a big metal mailbox at the head of their driveway; he’d passed it plenty of times driving into town. If he followed the tree line down the side of the road, he’d find the mailbox and go from there. He might not see the thing until he was a few feet away, but he would find it. Probably.
    Maybe.
    From a distance, the snow-covered fence was barely distinguishable from the rest of the landscape, but once Warren found it, it was easy enough to follow. He took a few shuffling steps through the snow, looked up to be sure he hadn’t wandered off in the wrong direction, and then took a few more steps. Repeat and repeat again. It was slow going, but the wind was blowing at his back, which was lucky. He wasn’t sure he’d have had the energy to walk through the snow drifts and into the storm.
    How long would it take him to get to the end of the drive? He wasn’t sure. It was about a mile long. On a nice day, he might have been able to walk the distance in fifteen or twenty minutes. Tonight, he guessed he’d be lucky to make it there in an hour. He considered counting his steps, but he wasn’t sure how many steps there were in a mile, and trying to count would only discourage him. Not to mention that, in this case, a step was more of a shuffling, irregular lurch. Instead, he decided to lower his head and just keep on keeping on.
    What about frostbite? You think you’re going to make it through this without having to sacrifice a few fingers or toes?
    He wasn’t so worried about his fingers—his gloves were keeping his hands surprisingly toasty—but he guessed his toes probably were in some danger. His boots weren’t lined or waterproof. Maybe he should have worn a few extra pairs of socks, but even that might not have been good enough. He had to admit there was a chance he’d lose some toes, but if that was the price for keeping his wife alive, he’d pay it. Gladly.
    His back twinged, and he stopped for a second to try to massage it through his layers of clothing. Throwing his back out earlier might have been inconvenient, but now it would be deadly. He didn’t want to stop any longer than he had to, but he promised himself he wouldn’t push his back to the breaking point. He twisted from side to side; his muscles burned and throbbed. He stretched forward and backward and then sideways again. Although his back was still sore (and likely would be for the next few days or weeks), it no longer felt like it was going to go out on him.
    He shuffled forward a few more steps and looked up at the mound of snow that was the fence.
    Something sped through the snow beyond.
    What the hell was that?
    He stopped and squinted. It had looked like something biggish, almost human sized, but that couldn’t be, could it? He was sure he’d just imagined it; or maybe he’d seen a clump of ice on one of his eyelashes and thought it was something farther in the distance. Whatever the case, the movement didn’t come again. He stared at the empty space beyond the fence for another second, then lowered his head and moved on.
    You’re not even out of pissing distance of the house and this storm is