He moved forward cautiously, feeling a little ridiculous, his head bent low, almost in a crouch. He had to watch for ends of branches and needles that seemed to poke at his eyes of their own free will. It was slow going; he kept switching his focus from the branches to the ground and back again while trying to remain aware of where the edge of the front yard was; the last thing he needed to do was get lost and have to be led out when safety was mere feet away. Or worse, wander off into the deeper woods and get really lost when night closed in.

After several minutes of searching laterally, during which he moved twenty or thirty feet, he realized how pointless it really was. Nobody could move about in these woods without a chain saw, at least not around here. The trees were as squat and thick as linebackers on a pro football team, spaced within a few feet of each other. How they could survive that way was a mystery. The snow around their roots was much thinner, and in some spots he could see bare ground with its coating of brown needles. What snow remained was smooth and unmarked.

He decided to work his way inward, hoping it would thin out and he could move about easier. He tried to keep his mind focused on the ground ahead of him and the poking needles, not wanting to think about what he would do if he did find something.

Or worse, find someone, the Chuckie Howard voice said inside his head. What are you going to do if that happens, Davey boy? Pull off your mitten and slap him to death?

A few feet more and the woods thinned out, while the snow got progressively deeper. He saw the sky above him now in little pieces of blue, but the sun was too far down in the sky to penetrate through to the ground. It was colder in here, and he shivered, pulling his jacket inward and zipping it up halfway. Now that he could see better and move about more or less freely, he decided to try to circle the house, or at least the lawn. If anything was there he would find it, and if not then he would at least be certain he had searched the area completely, and that would make Jessie (and you, you chickenshit, the Chuckie voice reminded him) feel better.