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entire lower
half of his body felt as though a great weight had been lifted from
it and he sighed; tendrils of steam rose from the now-wet corpse at
his feet and, with the urgency of his bladder relieved, his
aggravation with Daryl also receded and he could think clearly
again. Though he hated to admit it, his brother was right: the girl
back at the house was fading fast and wouldn't last much
longer.

    SCENE FOUR
     
     
    The cold bit through the slick vinyl of
Mona's parka and crept through the layers of batting and her
sweatshirt. She and Matt had tried walking for a while with their
arms draped across one another, but the futile attempt at sharing
body heat had been awkward; they tended to fall out of step and had
staggered along the road like a pair of drunkards weaving home from
a bar. Despite the freezing weather which numbed their noses and
lips, both of them had worked up a sweat beneath their clothes as
the grade had grown progressively steeper. The last thing they
needed was for one of them to fall: the loose powder would sneak
its way down into their clothes, melt against their warmer bodies,
and plunge their internal temperature to the point that even the
icy drifts would feel warm in comparison. So they shuffled forward,
shoulder to shoulder instead, each one hunched over in an attempt
to keep the wind from peppering their faces with flurries.
    “ H-humans should r-really consider
hibernation.”
    Mona's teeth chattered as she spoke, infusing
her words with a slight vibrato. She tried to smile but her skin
felt as if it had been pulled like plastic wrap against her skull;
her flushed cheeks stung and the corners of her mouth felt as if
they were about to crack open.
    “ Hang in there, baby. Someone's bound
to come along sooner or later.”
    Matt tried to make his tone sound light
and cheerful, but a fear had gripped his insides with a hand colder
than the frosted guard rails that lines the edge of the hill. He
wasn't exactly scared of dying; he'd come to grips with his own
mortality long ago and harbored no illusions about the frailty of
life. But the thought of Mona lying in a snowbank with blue lips
and ice encrusted eyelashes kept haunting his vision. In her, he'd
found the perfect partner: she was beautiful in her own quirky way
and always made him feel like a nervous schoolboy eagerly awaiting
his first kiss. She was the only person, in fact, who he had ever
truly cared about. Everyone else in the world was simply looking
out for themselves; they would stab you in the back with a smile
and then dance a jig on your grave if given half a chance. They
were devious and self centered and could barely be considered human
at all. But Mona . . . she was like an angel who'd been sent to
help guide him along his chosen path. She touched him in ways he'd
never realized he could be
touched, both literally and figuratively. She was the one person
who knew all of his secrets, every nook and cranny of his mind . .
. and life without her would be unbearable. He'd been down that
road before: it was full of brambles and briars that raked at the
soul, traps and snares . . . but with his woman by his side, those
obstacles bowed like servants to a greater power.
    “ How long do you think it's been,
Matty?”
    “ Nine, ten miles maybe. You tried the
cell lately?”
    She nodded her head, causing the fur-lined
hood of the parka to bounce with the movement.
    “ N-no signal. Not out here in Bumfuck .
. . you sure do know how to plan a honeymoon, babe.”
    He glanced at her to see if she were truly
angry with him, but her eyes twinkled beneath the shadows of her
hood like a pair of jewels.
    “ Only the best for my wife.”
    They walked in silence for a while, listening
to the rhythm of each other breathing and the shuffle of their
footsteps. The snow seemed to muffle everything, to make it sound
as if it wasn't quite real. It was all too easy to imagine that
this was nothing more than a dream: that one of them would wake up
to