Oh The Weather Outside Is Frightful

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"Carly, stay close to me."

"Ok Daddy!"

I let go of the beaming little 4-year-old's hand, and her arm swished back to her side, the fluorescent green nylon brushing against itself. I smiled at her short little body, doubled in width by the puffy winter coat that nearly swallowed her. She grinned back, her big, warm brown eyes crinkling at the corners and her button nose wrinkling up in just the same way that her mother's used to. If it weren't for my dark, curly hair, she'd look just like Caroline.

I turned back to the young woman at the register who was smiling fondly at Carly, and I handed her what I hoped was the very last of my Christmas shopping. Around me, the mall complex was bustling and humming with people rushing to this store and that doing exactly what I was. Buying last minute presents.

"She's adorable!" the cashier gushed over the sound of Let It Snow playing for the thousandth time today.

"Thank you." I said as the scanner beeped with each passing bar code. "But don't let her know you think that. She'll use it against you, and next thing you know, you're wrapped around her adorable little finger, buying her toys you swore you wouldn't."

The cashier laughed, one quick quiet chirp, and I glanced down to grin at an empty square of tile.

"I know how that is." she replied. My eyes scanned up, searching for the bright, eye-popping green. "My son's only two, but he's already working his charm on me." I caught a mass of thick brown curls bobbing away from me on the other side of the glass double doors. "It's hard not to fall for it." I turned away from the register, eyes locked on the florescent nylon coat, and slammed into the glass doors, shoving them open. "Sir? You haven't payed your total." The puffy ball of green was gaining distance, and I quickened my pace, my heart beat pounding in time with each step. "Sir! Do you want me t-" The glass doors snapped shut behind me. I could hear my breath over the deafening chatter of the crowd that was now threatening to swallow my daughter.

"Carly!" The brown curls and green puff didn't turn, but only kept drawing further and further away from me. "Carly!!" I began shoving people out of my way in my desperate need to close the distance between me and the curly, brown head in front of me.

"CARLY!!" She stopped. Finally. Her 'oops, I'm in trouble' face turned toward me, and my breath puffed out in relief.

"Hey, watch it!" I continued to push past people, not wanting to waste any time, needing to have her in my arms. Safe.

I bumped shoulders with a man in a red hooded jacket, and the collision knocked me off balance. My line of sight with my precious little puff ball was broken. When I regained my balance, she was gone.

"CARLY!?!" My heart thrummed like a drum beat in my ears, my eyes searching madly through the crowd now chatting in muted voices I could barely hear over the rush of my own blood.

"Daddy?!" I spotted a speck of green smothered by red and broke into a run. People were falling to the side around me, some crashing to the floor, yelling curses and insults at me as I flew past. "DADDY!!" I saw her face, panicked and scared, her arms outstretched for me over the shoulder of a red hooded jacket.

"Carly!!" My feet slammed into the floor, one after the other, people parting like water in my wake. "No!! Stop him!!!"

The red jacket turned and began a rapid descent down the stairs to the mall lobby on the first floor. I raced after him, grabbing the railing with one hand and swinging around, leaping down the steps two and three at time. He was already on the ground, running now, towards the big glass doors that opened up to the outside. I jumped the last five steps, landing hard on my feet, and broke into a sprint after him, ignoring the sudden pain in my ankles. All I could focus on were Carly's screams.

She was getting closer now, her outstretched arms almost within my reach. I stretched a hand out, but couldn't grab hers. The front doors were approaching, and the crowd of people, now stopped and staring, was thinning. I pulled my arm back and forced everything in me to go faster, go faster!

He was at the doors now, one hand out, about to push down the bar. I reached out again, this time my fingers snagging on red fabric. I yanked down and back, choking him with his own hood, and threw my other arm around Carly's waste. Her small hands wrapped around my neck, fingers lacing, pulling herself close to me. I pulled her tighter, but he wouldn't let go, his arm still gripped around her legs.

A fist flew at me, and connected with my jaw sending pain shooting up the side of my face, but my grip on Carly tightened. I refused to let her go. We struggled for a moment, playing tug of war with her legs, until a hand appeared out of nowhere, long thin fingers tipped with neatly manicured and painted nails, and slapped me across my left cheek. I felt sharp nails, curled like claws, dig into my skin, scraping long grooves into my face. I yelled out in pain, one hand clapping to the side of my face, blood already pouring through my fingers.

That was my last mistake.

The man wrenched Carly out of my arms, and a woman with short blonde hair and a puffy black coat with fur on the collar punched me hard between the eyes. I stumbled back, black spots blossoming in my vision, and when they cleared, the man in the red hood was shoving Carly into the backseat of a black car idling just outside the glass doors.

I rushed forward, stumbling a bit, and shoved them open. "CARLY!!" But the woman in the black coat with sharp, painted nails had already climbed into the driver's seat and was pulling away. I chased after them, knowing it was futile, one hand still holding the three deep gashes on the side of my face. "Carly..." My knees hit the asphalt, and I sat there on the edge of the parking lot, staring at the place where their car had been. Beyond the large glass doors of the shopping mall, the crowd who had witnessed, but done nothing was eerily silent. Over the speakers, the music still played.

"But since we've no place to go, let it snow, let it snow, let it snow!"