Page 5 of A Beastly Christmas Cheerful
“Sure,” I say and then laugh. “For a guy who writes super-scary books, everyone seems to like him.”
“He can be a little prickly, but we’re wearing him down.”
“But he’s not scary?”
She pauses for way too long, thinking it over. “You know, he’s just Mr. Jacobs. That’s the only way I can describe him.”
“Did he kill you in a book yet?” I ask, and Molly throws back her head and laughs.
“Not yet, but maybe the next one.” She takes the two popcorn balls I snagged, putting them into a bag for me. “These are on the house since you’re doing us a favor by taking them up to him.” Molly grabs the boxes a young woman carries out from the back and then hands me a to-go cup. “And this is for the road. Hot chocolate with extra marshmallows.”
“I should pay,” I tell her as I reach into my purse. I’m overwhelmed with how nice everyone is being to me.
“Nope,” Molly says and shakes her head. “Just come back and see me, and bring Mr. Jacobs with you.”
All I can do is nod as I step back with my bag and drink because this is all really strange. “Well, thanks,” I manage to say before I turn around and head back out to the sidewalk.
When I get outside, I see the snow is really coming down. The drive here took a few hours, so I should probably hurry if I want to try and make it back before the storm really hits.
“I got you locked and loaded,” Tilly says and pats the trunk of the car. Then I look in the back seat and see a bunch of stuff there too.
"He wants all this stuff?" I ask, trying to get a better look. Holy Christmas balls, I know I would. "Is that a giant inflatable reindeer?"
"That it is. The nose lights up too."
"Badass." I smile, and a giant snowflake hits me in the eye. "I should probably get going." When I look at the sky, I see the sun has now fully set, and the town's holiday lights are making the flakes glow.
Tilly hands me my keys and says goodbye before I hop back into the car. I make sure I have the address plugged into the GPS before I take a small sip of the hot chocolate. I moan at the flavor and how warm it is. It’s not as good as the hot chocolate I make, but it’s close.
"Let's do this," I tell my dancing snowman in the passenger seat.
Pulling back out onto the main road, I drive right to the edge of town. I have to take a sharp left that leads up a hill and circles around. The farther up I go, the more the road narrows. The trees have started to close in around me, and I realize this road goes straight to Mr. Jacobs' house.
The snow is coming down so heavily I have to turn my windshield wipers on faster. The only light is coming from my headlights now, and the trees are so thick they block out the moon. I squint ahead, trying to see if there’s a house in the distance, but there’s nothing. Instead, a deer with two babies darts out in front of me, and I let out a scream. I stomp on my brakes, but I’m too close and have to swerve.
When I jerk the wheel to avoid hitting them, I end up slamming myself into a tree instead. The last thing I see is the dancing snowman beside me before everything goes dark.
Chapter Four
MARLEY
It’s dark by the time I finish chopping wood and stacking it on the covered porch. I’m not sure why I had the bright idea to do it so late in the day, but now that I’m done, I feel better. Which tells me it was probably anxiety induced.
Any time I have to be around people, especially new people, I get anxious and have to do something physical to work it off. I used to run, but in these mountains, that can be dangerous. Now I stick with manual labor. It’s left me with a lot of muscle, but I’m the heaviest I’ve ever been. I’m sure it makes me all the scarier for people in town. I probably look like some kind of bigfoot with a beer belly.
I imagine what that would look like and tuck it away for a book idea later. Christmas horror story with a murderous yeti? That might be fun.
I’ve just closed the shed when I hear something down the road. It sounds like metal scraping, then it’s silent. It’s an odd sound in the quiet woods. Suddenly, the mama deer I like to feed comes racing by with her two babies hot on her heels. The three of them look like they’ve been spooked, and I remember the visitor.
“Shit.” I take off down the driveway, hoping that whatever idiot drove up this mountain is still alive. I do not want to deal with a dead body right now.
The vehicle is closer than I thought it would be, but I guess it’s hard for sound to travel in this snowstorm. It’s coming down so heavily that if I didn’t know my way back home by heart, I could easily get lost out here.
Hazard lights are flashing on and off, but the outside of the vehicle doesn’t seem to be too bad. The driver must have swerved off the road to avoid the deer and hit a tree on the far side where I can’t see.
I wrench open the door. It’s too dark to see inside, and the person in the driver's seat is slumped over.
“Hey, are you okay?” I ask, trying to pull the person closer. They don’t respond, so I reach for their face so I can check to make sure they are breathing.
