The man hurried down the street, more panicky with each step. It was happening – he had to get home. He had seen the pictures all day long.

The first time was on the bus. The boy across the aisle had glanced up at him with fervor in his eyes as he scribbled on a piece of paper. The child moved his arm so the man could see what he was drawing. His blood ran cold as he saw a picture of a snowman, one eye blatantly missing.

He was still shaken up when he got to work, ready to punch the time clock. Waiting his turn in line, he glanced at the bulletin board, and felt his stomach lurch. Tacked to the board was what could have been a photocopy of the drawing on the bus.

“Isn’t that cute?” Myra said. “Jill’s granddaughter drew it, and she decided to share it with us.”

The man punched the clock and went to his line at the factory. By this time, he was starting to sweat. He was beginning to calm down until he found the Post-it note stuck to the conveyor belt. There were no words; just a child’s drawing of a one-eyed snowman. The man felt a tic starting in his right eyelid.

When lunchtime came, the man sat down at a table. Charlie sat across from him and opened a paper sack. Charlie grinned and turned the bag around.

“What about this, huh? My kid drew that.”

The man looked around the room. Couldn’t they see? He got up from the table and walked into the men’s room. Strewn on the floor were three identical drawings of the snowman. Each bore a signature. “By Annie”; “By Carol”; “By Dylan”. The man felt like he was going to smother. He had to get out of there; go home and warn them.

He rushed out of the bathroom, just as a supervisor came walking down the hall. “I’m sick…” he mumbled. He didn’t wait to see what the woman said. He kept running to the employee exit.

Every time he looked up he saw it. A poster tacked to a tree; graffiti painted on the side of a building two feet off the ground; a drawing scrawled in the corner of a “Lost Cat” sign.

He ran past the bus stop and kept going. “Home… home…” he repeated to himself as he gasped for breath. He fell once and came face to face with a drawing on the sidewalk. The chalk snowman’s eye mocked him.

Finally home, the man burst inside. “You’re home early,” said his startled wife.

“Daddy, Daddy!” the little boy said as he ran up to him. “Look what I drew for you!”

Stunned, the man looked at the paper in his son’s small hand. “Noooooo!” he screamed. To the shock of his wife and child, he shredded the paper. Then he heard the knock at the door and realized that it was too late.