This week, our little town had a record-setting snowfall. In just over 24 hours, 56cm – 1.8 feet – of snow fell. I’m not sure if they counted the snow that fell before midnight Sunday night, because it had started around 9:30 or so.

It didn’t stop until sometime in the early hours of Tuesday morning.

Article in the Winnipeg Sun (I don’t usually link to the Sun, but the video at CTV News isn’t working).

It brought to mind my short story, The Lion Roared. In honor of the March Lion, here is a free read… and watch out for those kids.

The Lion Roared
by Jodi Lee
© 2008-2013; All Rights Reserved

The clunking noise from behind the firewall of the beat-up ’74 Malibu had become progressively louder for over an hour. No matter how many times Emmy turned the stereo up, it didn’t seem to take too long before the sound over-powered the heavy bass beat.

There was a moment when she thought she could feel the noise right through the gas pedal. Emmy could have sworn the pedal pushed back at her foot. Telling herself it was just nerves from driving through the storm, she kept on, eyes straining in their sockets as though the simple act of bulging out a bit would give them super powers.

That was what she really needed—super powers. Infra-red vision to see through the swirling snow or laser eyes to burn through the harder drifts. Screw that, Emmy thought, I’d super power up a bubble and just float there. Swearing under her breath, she admitted she wasn’t even entirely sure where there was… Brad’s map had been of little help for a city chick.

Emmy tore her focus from the road for just one second to flick her lighter and touch the flame to the tip of the cigarette that had dangled from her lips for a half hour. In that one moment, some kind of dog wandered out onto the road; she saw the red reflection of the animal’s eyes barely in time, and she swerved while hitting the brakes.

She didn’t hit the dog, but there was one final, catastrophic BANG from the motor of the Malibu. After trying several times to restart the vehicle, Emmy gave up, swearing profusely as she spent several minutes digging through her purse, looking for her cell phone. The profanities increased in volume and intensity when she realized the phone wasn’t even in her purse. Leaning back with eyes closed, Emmy tried to calm herself.

Leaving the city had been a bad idea. Brad had insisted she make the five hour trip to his family’s vacation home to meet the parents. Emmy hadn’t realized that driving in the middle of a storm was a bad idea; she drove in all weather in the city and had never had a problem. And at least in the city, if she had an accident, she’d only have to walk a few feet to find help.

She glanced out the window, hoping to see some form of life, despite knowing there hadn’t been any lights along this road for some time. If there was a dog out wandering the roads, there had to be some sort of civilization close. Even a farmer would be a happy sight right now. Emmy turned the lights and ignition off, her watch catching her eye as she did so. The luminous dial showed her she was now an hour late for the dinner… perhaps Brad and his family would come looking for her.

Switching the ignition back to ‘Accessory,’ Emmy switched CDs and settled in for a bit of a wait.

* * *
She woke with a start. Cursing herself for falling asleep, she tried to figure out where the beeping noise was coming from. Emmy could barely move her fingers she was so cold, but rummaged through the trash on the floor until she found the source of the annoying beep.
Her cell phone… only now did she recall plugging it into the outlet on the dash. She pushed the talk button, to be met with whistling static and white noise.

“Hello?” she yelled. “Hello? Anyone there… I need help!”

“Emmy?” Brad’s voice broke through the static and her heartbeat quickened. “Emmy, where are you? You’re late, and we’ve waited dinner on you!”

“Brad, I think I’m lost and I nearly had an accident. I can’t get the car to start again. Can’t you come and get me?”

Static had overtaken the phone again, but she thought she could make out Brad’s voice behind it. It sounded as though he was talking to someone else.

“Did you stick to the map, Emmy?” he asked.

“No Brad, I decided to go exploring in the hills in an area I’ve never been to before, right in the middle of a damn blizzard! What the hell do you think?”

“All right, all right, I’m sorry. What happened?”

Emmy pulled the phone from her ear and looked it. How could he be so stupid? Didn’t I just tell him? “I nearly hit a dog, and after the car stopped, so did the motor. I’ve tried to get it started, but it won’t. I’m getting really cold, Brad.”

“Yeah, when it storms on the first of March, it’s always really cold. There should be an emergency kit in the glove-box though, open it up and light some candles. And there’s a blanket in the back. Can you tell me what the dog looked like?”

Frustrated, Emmy bit back a smart-assed response. First of all, she knew it could be cold in March. Generally, the weather was the same in the city as it was here, only the snow didn’t swirl around as intensely.

“Emmy? You there?” Brad’s voice again.

“Yeah, sorry. Look, there was a lot of snow, all I could see was shaggy fur, pointy ears and red eyes. That could describe pretty much any dog ever born.”

“Nah, there’s only a few that’ll have red eyes when light hits them. They gotta have blue eyes for them to glow red. Only blue eyed dogs around here are the Wilson huskies…you’re about fifteen minutes away, it won’t take us long to come and rescue you. Ok?”

“Yeah… you might want to bring a tow rope though. Are you sure about that eye thing?”

“Yes, Emmy, I am. We’ll have to leave the car there until the storm passes. After that, Dad and I will take the tractor out and get it out.”

Tractor? Emmy thought. Why on earth would they need a tractor at what is supposed to be a vacation home? “All right, just hurry.” She pushed the end button before he could respond.

This was going to be the last weekend with him. He’d been getting on her nerves for some time, but his nonchalance and flippancy on the phone just now sealed it. Emmy had a tickle at the back of her neck that usually signified trouble… she’d passed it off as the storm and her situation. Now she thought it was signaling the end of her relationship.

She searched the glove-box for the kit Brad had mentioned, but couldn’t find it. There wasn’t a blanket in the back either, so Emmy wrapped her arms around herself and tucked her chin to her chest. If they don’t get here soon, she thought, all they’ll find is a frozen corpse.

* * *
Emmy wasn’t sure how much time had passed. She had fallen asleep again, and now the battery had worn down—it was not only dark but silent as well. Looking outside of the car, she saw that the storm had lessened quite a bit; she could see a light only a few yards from where she sat shivering. Without over-thinking it, she grabbed her purse and cell phone, and left the car. Since it was Brad’s crappy vehicle, she left the keys in it. If someone came along and wanted to steal it, she no longer cared.

Outside the snow was deep but loose, so it wasn’t too hard to walk through. The stars were beginning to peek through the remainders of the cloud cover, and the wind had stilled entirely. The silence, as declared so often, was deafening.

Emmy found the driveway to the nearest house by noting the difference in the way the snow was piling up on it. There was only the one outdoor light for the entire house, and as she drew nearer, she saw it ran on a large battery attached to it—an emergency light like those at the college she and Brad attended.

Knocking on the door, Emmy prayed someone was home. She stood shivering and puffing clouds of vapor from her mouth. She knocked again, and waited—still there was no answer. Finally, Emmy decided to try the door herself, and found it unlocked. Blessing her luck, she walked into her new shelter.

* * *
There were faces pressed to the window, staring at her.

Emmy could feel their eyes on her, even as she roused herself from a dreamless sleep.

There were three; they couldn’t have been any more than ten years old, any of them. They had their hands cupped around their eyes, noses pressed firmly against the frigid glass. Emmy couldn’t place what bothered her most—that they just stood there staring at her, or that they were completely silent, motionless. She stretched her legs as she pulled herself into a sitting position on the dusty old couch. She waved to the children at the window.

They didn’t wave back, they didn’t move. Frustrated, tired and hungry, Emmy didn’t feel like dealing with the local smart-ass children; she flipped her middle finger at them on her way past the window.

She rustled through the nearly empty cupboards, discovering tins of food she didn’t or couldn’t recognize, the wrappers had been torn off most of them. After a pretty thorough search of the drawers, she finally found something that could be used to open a can. She could at least eat something, even if it was condensed soup, without water or heat. What she found in the first can made her retch.

A piece of finger.

Her appetite completely doused, she took another look at the crap in the can she’d opened. She looked closely, then poked the pink bits floating in a sea of red sauce, and realization dawned. The can was full of cocktail weenies. She laughed.

Emmy ate them with her fingers, even though she was no longer hungry. She walked through to the living room again, and was startled to see that the children still stood at the window. She grabbed her purse with sauce-stained fingers, carrying it into the kitchen where she sat at the table and tried to raise a signal on her phone.

Absolutely no bars showed in either of the battery power or the signal symbols. Great, she thought to herself, he gets me out here in the middle of nowhere, with no service, no people except those pod children at the window, and I have no way to find him. A few, silent tears escaped her tightly shut eyes. Fifteen minutes to get to me, yeah right. We are so over, Brad.

It was getting dark again. Emmy had chanced another look into the living room; the pod children were still pressed to the window. She was exhausted, but there was no way she was going to try and sleep on that couch, with those things watching her. No way in hell.

She’d made the rounds of the cabin—and it was a cabin, not a real house as far as she was concerned—checking the other rooms; mostly she was doing this so she wouldn’t want find herself suddenly confronted by some insane country bumpkin with a gun. After securing the locks on the only door, she moved upstairs, into one of the tiny bedrooms. Emmy had discovered that the beds both smelled of mold and rot, but the one in her chosen room was a lot better than the others.
She closed the door tight, pushed a chair under the doorknob, and stretched out on the bed. She didn’t cover up, in fact she didn’t open the bed up at all, only lay down on the covers. I used my jacket as a blanket last night, I can do the same tonight.
It wasn’t long before Emmy’s eyes began to close and she sighed, slipping into a half-sleep state.

* * *
Somewhere in the dark Emmy could hear thumping, clanking and banging, occasionally interspersed with colorful language she herself was known to use. She knew she’d locked the door, and was sure the noise she was hearing was all in her imagination.

The laughter of several children floated up to her from somewhere beneath her. Emmy’s eyes snapped open, and she was now fully awake. A male and female voice joined those of the children, she thought she recognized them. She was almost certain she’d talked to that voice, the woman’s voice, on the phone before. She was almost positive the woman was Brad’s sister.

She rose slowly, almost silently slipping to the door and pulling it open. Emmy cringed when the hinges protested with what really sounded like a young girl screaming. She quietly made her way down the stairs and at the door to the kitchen she stopped, and though she tried to call out, her throat closed and she felt as though she would be sick. Hysteria caused her body to shake uncontrollably. The children from the window smiled at her from their places at the little table, the woman stood near the old fashioned cook-stove, and the man was building the fire inside it.

When they turned around, Emmy saw they were missing their faces.

---

Want to read the rest of The Lion Roared? I’ve got my short story collection, Into a Long Ago Future, available for $0.99 in digital downloads at Smashwords until March 7th (2014).

Into a Long Ago Future – Code LG57N

Until next week, <3 JL