Bloodstream by Tess Gerritsen

Author:Tess Gerritsen [Gerritsen, Tess]
Language: eng
Format: epub, mobi, azw3
Published: 2012-09-18T12:00:07+00:00

13

Warren Emerson’s lungs hurt from the cold. His outdoor thermometer had registered nine degrees this morning, so he had dressed warmly. He was wearing two shirts and a sweater under his jacket, had pulled on a hat and mittens and wound a scarf around and around his neck, but you could not protect against the cold air you breathed in. It seared his throat and made his chest ache, his lungs spasm. He sounded like a locomotive chugging down the road. Wheeze-cough, wheeze-cough. Not even winter yet, he thought, and already the world has turned to ice. The bare trees were encased in it, their branches glittering and crystalline. He had to walk with care on the slick road, deliberately planting each footstep on the speckled ice, where the county trucks had left their spray of sand. It took twice the effort just to stay on his feet, and by the time he reached the edge of town, the muscles in his legs were trembling.

The check-out lady at Cobb and Morong’s General Store raised her head as Warren walked into the store. He smiled at her, as he did each week, always in hope that she would return the greeting. He saw her lips start to tilt up in an automatic welcome, then her eyes focused

on Warren’s face and her smile froze, not quite formed. She looked away.

In silent defeat, Warren turned and reached for a shopping cart.

He followed the same tired routine he always did, his boots shuffling across the creaky floorboards. He stopped in the aisle of canned vegetables and stared at the array of creamed corn and green beans and beets, at the labels with their bright illustrations of summer succulence. Labels lie, he thought. There is no comparison between that can of orange cubes and a carrot pulled fresh and sweet from warm soil. He stood there without reaching for a single item, his thoughts drifting instead to the summer vegetables he had grown and now missed so much. He counted the months until spring, added on the months needed for a new crop to mature. His whole life, it seemed, was spent waiting for winter to pass, or preparing for winter to come. He thought: Enough is enough. I’ve lived too many winters already. I cannot bear to live through another one.

He left his cart where it was standing, and he walked past the eternally unsmiling cashier and out the door.

He stood on the sidewalk outside Cobb and Morong’s and gazed across the road, at the newly frozen lake. Its surface was as bright as a polished mirror, flawlessly silvered, unmarred by even a wisp of snow. Skating ice, he thought, remembering the winters of his childhood, his feet gliding, the delicious scrape, scrape of his blades. Soon there would be children skating out there with their hockey sticks and their bright winter jackets, like confetti blowing across the ice.

But I have had enough of winter I want no more of it.

He breathed in and felt, deep in his lungs, the sting of cold air.

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