Bitter Cold (13 page)

“Goddammit! You savages! You killed my friends, my brothers!” step after step, he got closer to the black spot in the snow. It seemed to quiver as he approached, almost anticipating the arrival of a meal. “I won’t let you do it to me or my men! Not this time!”

He dropped the rifle and pulled a Smith and Wesson pistol from the holster on his waist. Five rapid shots from his hip impacted in a tight grouping near the center of the inky mass. It moved only in slight tremors along its edges. Finally, he bent to within inches and stopped, pointing his gun straight down. He pulled the trigger. The hammer only clicked. Empty.

“Damn!” his trembling fingers gathered a handful of shells from his belt. He tried to insert one into the pistol, but let them all slip from his grasp. They were gone, lost in the deep snow.

“DAMN!” he knelt to recover his rounds, patting and poking with outstretched fingers.

He reached into the snow and plucked out a bullet, holding it high. “Ah-ha!” he tried to get it into the cylinder, using both shivering hands. The bullet slipped again, landing in the blackened snow. Jeff’s stomach tied in a knot.

One man shouted, “SIR!” but the sergeant had stopped paying attention to them. He simply reached into the spot where the round had landed and snatched it. As he pulled his arm away, he stared at it. The blackness had wrapped around his hand, fingers rotting to charcoal dust.

“You…you…” he looked at his hand. “What the hell did you...what did you do!”

He tried to wield his gun and groaned when, by reflex, he used his ruined hand. The pistol fell from his grip and disappeared into the deep snow. Fuming, he delivered a strong kick to the strange black stain. He lifted his foot. It looked the same as his hand. The thing had acted like acid, breaking down leather, flesh, muscle, bone—instantly.

Missing a foot, he lost his balance. His momentum took him the wrong direction, into the black snow.

That’s when Jeff felt a strangely spiritual sensation, like being torn from one body and placed into another. His point of view shifted suddenly, forcing him to see what the sergeant was seeing, feel what he was feeling. He witnessed his last moments. No slow motion. No life flashing before his eyes. Only terror. Pure terror. The frozen char gnawed past his thighs. It ate into his dick and that’s when the real pain hit him. The sensation was unlike anything he’d ever felt. White-hot, like being branded. Then the pain went away, replaced by another one in his gut. The toxic ooze had broken through his intestinal walls and started to eat at his bowels, his bladder, liver and kidneys, each organ attacked one by one.

EIGHTEEN

APRIL HAD ONE thing in mind—coffee. Lots of it.

She tiptoed to the kitchen, though each step sounded like Geppetto’s workshop. Old floorboards creaking and cracking. Despite the noise from the ancient house, she managed to make it downstairs without rousing either Jeff or Logan. Next mission: get a mug and fill it with hot liquid, preferably caffeinated.

Opening the cupboard, she paused at the sight of the snow falling outside, and the picture perfect scene beyond the back porch. Trees. Tons of them. Evergreens, mostly. Some leafless, anonymous varieties, too. A new corrugated metal barn sat next to an old, sagging wooden one, both behind a thin-wired fence supported by dozens of T-poles. And covering it all was a dense, white curtain. Feet of snow smoothed out the contours, making everything seem so soft, so harmless. It looked as if someone could drop from the sky and it wouldn’t hurt, like landing on a cloud. Beyond a wooden fence sat a well-kept field. It looked like there should have been horses. It just seemed like a place that should’ve had them.

She closed her eyes and remembered her great-grandfather’s farm in Beaver Creek. When it would snow, Grandpa would hitch a wagon to his old mare and she’d haul them through the pastures, whinnying and complaining the whole time. April had a million memories like that when she saw snow. They came flooding back the instant the first flakes came down, leaving her so blissful and carefree.

That all changed at the bottom of Dead Man’s Dump.

Whatever kind of mutated, abhorrent thing had crept from the bowels of the earth, she had no idea how to stop it. But she could tell the world about it. NWP knew. Though they may not have originally created it, they knew, and they were afraid of April. It was a set-up from the very beginning. Maybe they weren’t going to kill her at first. Maybe they were just feeling her out. Then the kid on the motorcycle got his foot eaten off, and that made them panic.

The kid. Dexter. He saw the creature. He had to. It ate his foot. But if NWP was evil enough to want her dead, what were they willing to do to that boy? Murder, she was discovering in the world of corporate corruption, led to more murder.

She found a cordless phone and dialed 411.

“Hello, can you tell me the number to the hospital in Longview, Washington? There are two? Give me both.”

She dialed the first number and the line rang several times. She thought no one would pick up. Finally, a hurried female answered.

“St. John’s Hospital. How can I direct your call?”

“Yeah, my name’s April Murray. I work for The Oregon Daily, and I’m writing a story about a child who lost his foot yesterday in a motorcycle accident. Do you know anything about that?”

The operator gasped.
“Yes. Oh, my God, yes. I saw them bring the poor kid in.”

“So he’s there. Is he taking visitors, or is it still too early for that yet?”

A pause. April wasn’t sure if the woman had heard her, so she started to repeat herself, then got cut off before she uttered a syllable.

“Oh, honey. You haven’t heard?”

“What? Heard what?” her guts shriveled. She knew, but asked anyway. “Nothing happened to him, did it?”

“I’m not sure if I should say anything, especially to the press.”

“Ma’am, please. Just tell me what happened.”

“
Well, the boy. The one who lost his foot. He had a seizure. Nobody knows why. He just seized up. Grand mal. A bad one. Went just like that.”

April frowned at the phone. “What do you mean, ‘went just like that?’ He’s okay now, right?”

“
Oh, no, honey. He, uh. He passed away. Yeah, he died.”

“He what!”

“He died last night.”

“But how can that be? He was perfectly healthy, believe me. Even with one foot missing, that kid was a stubborn son of a bitch. How could he just die?”

“Like I said, none of the doctors know why for sure.”

“But people don’t normally die of seizures, do they?”

“It’s uncommon, certainly, but it happens. I’ve been in health care for going on thirty years now, and I’ve seen all kinds of unexplained deaths. Unexplained recoveries, too. So it goes both ways. I guess it evens out in the end, but that still doesn’t make it hurt any less. Especially when it happens to a young one.”

April was speechless. Her mind worked too fast for her mouth to have a chance, so she didn’t even try. Thoughts of a company hit team dominated her mind. Sneaking into Dexter’s room, maybe disguised as a janitor, maybe a nurse’s aide. Maybe a man in a suit walked right into the kid’s room and injected him with a toxin which quickly broke down, killing him without leaving a trace.

The woman on the phone cleared her throat.
“Listen, it was a pleasure, and we at St. Johns Hospital wish you a wonderful day.”

“Wait! Wait!” she heard the woman hang up. Slumping her shoulders, she put the cordless back into its base and tried not to vomit.

She forgot about the coffee. Didn’t need it, anyway. A jolt of energy had her hurrying to her laptop in the den where she found her work still onscreen, ready for her to finish and hit the send button to her editor. Ten to one he wouldn’t print it. The story read more like a horror novel than a piece of journalism. She needed to get it out, though, get the story on record, even if it was destined to sit in her boss’ inbox.

She fell into the office chair. After reading what she’d already written overnight, she got right back to typing. Then a strange noise startled her. It sounded like Jeff was in some sort of trouble. The black snow? A hired gun sent to snuff them out? It didn’t matter. The moment she heard his hysterical cries, she went into autopilot.

Though the house had more twists and turns than a murder mystery, she found him within seconds, lounging in a big, soft recliner, facing a bay window in the living room. His eyes were fluttering, head tossing, arms waving, fists clenching. He struggled to cry out. It looked like he was fighting off an attacker, and the attacker was winning.

She ran and touched his shoulder, afraid to jar him awake. When he didn’t respond, she nudged a little harder, and he shook with a start. His eyes shot open. He sat straight, a blank, still expression on his gaunt face. Then the color began to flow back and he stared at her, still as a stone.

“Good morning,” he sounded calm.

She looked at him quizzically. “Uh, good…good morning. I guess,” she studied him closer. “Are you okay?”

“Sure,” he grinned. She didn’t buy it. “Why wouldn’t I be?”

“Because it looked like you were having a really bad dream.”

“Really? What was I doing?”

“You were having some pretty nasty convulsions. It sounded like you were having a horrible time, whatever you were up to. What were you dreaming about, do you remember?”

Jeff turned his head toward the winter scene outside. He shivered and pulled his arms across his chest. “Brrr. You as cold as I am?” he stood and stretched into a big, howling yawn. “Better get the fire going. It’s freezing in here.”

So he didn’t want to talk about it. Fine. By the looks of it, she probably didn’t want to know, anyway. Though she
was
curious.

“Aren’t you even a little bit concerned?” she asked.

He bunched up a wad of newspaper and threw it in the woodstove. “Concerned about what?”

“About what? Are you serious?”

He placed a handful of kindling on top of the wadded paper. Then he reached into his pocket and produced a silver Zippo. In one motion, he flicked open the top with his thumb and spun the flint wheel, igniting a small flame. “I know that thing’s out there. I know it wants to kill. That’s all it does. But I also know two things about it. One, it only shows up when it snows like this, which around here isn’t often. And, two, it stays down there in that canyon.”

April stepped closer. “Isn’t that enough? I mean, people have been hurt by this thing. People have died. What does it take for you to get the hell out of here?”

He reached and lit the newspaper, then flipped the lighter closed. They both watched the paper go up, taking with it the popping, orange-hot cedar strips he’d used as starter. “This place is my home,” he tossed a larger chunk of maple onto the growing fire. “The only home I’ve ever known. My parents divorced when I was really young, and since then I lived mostly with my grandparents. Anyway, I’ve got no other place to go. No. I won’t let that thing run me outta here. We just have to be careful. Take precautions.”

April searched his eyes. “Do you really believe that? You said it yourself. That thing used to be different. It couldn’t move like it can now. How do you know it won’t come up here?”

Jeff looked away. “How do you know that nuclear plant had something to do with this?”

“I just do, crazy and cliché as it sounds.”

“What if I told you I know what it is?” he stared at the crackling stove.

“You do?”

“I think so,” for the first time that morning he looked straight at her. “But you’re gonna think I’m crazy.”

“No, no,” she assured him. “I won’t.”

“You’re a journalist. You deal with facts, not feelings or, say, visions.”

She smiled. “Believe me. I need to keep an open mind to survive as a journalist.”

“You’ve never seen anything like this, have you?”

“Never,” she laughed, then turned serious. “These visions of yours. Tell me about them.”

He sat back and sighed. “Man, I can’t believe I’m saying this. Okay. Here it goes…I think I’ve seen how this thing started out. A long time ago.”

“Like when you were a kid?”

“No. I’m talking about back in the eighteen hundreds. At least I think it was. I’m not sure. I’m no history expert.”

“What are you talking about?”

“I saw how it happened. Why it happened,” he watched the bright burning embers. The fire was scorching hot, causing a slight
tick-tick
of the metal as the stove expanded.

“Well,” she raised her eyebrows. “Tell me.”

“It’s sad. It really is. I-I don’t even know if I believe it myself. I thought my mind was making it all up. But it was so vivid.”

“What, Jeff? What?”

A lone tear snaked down his cheek. Then came another as his eyes filled. “We, we shot…we shot them. In the canyon. Lined ‘em up like pigs at the slaughter. Killed them all. Even the…” he lowered his head, sobbing.

She waited, allowing him to regain at least a little of his composure. “What, Jeff? Tell me. Whatever it is, however painful, you should talk about it.”

He sniffled. “Even the baby. We killed the baby. Or
he
did. I wanted to save it, but I couldn’t. I couldn’t move because it wasn’t really me,” he put his head in his hands. “I don’t know what’s going on. Tell me what’s going on!”

“Is that what you were dreaming about? Killing babies? What the hell, Jeff?”

He looked up from his hands. Hurt. Disheveled. All of the sudden she felt horrible.

“I’m sorry,” she said. “I didn’t mean it. We’re all a little stressed out, aren’t we?”

Jeff ignored the question. “It had to be some kind of vision of the past.”

He raised his somber gaze and let it settle on the snowfall outside. April placed her hands on his shoulders. He yielded to her touch, lowering his head again and sighing.

“There’s been so much death around this place,” he said almost too softly for her to hear. “So much death.”

She stroked the back of his head, not knowing what to say.

“It’s a curse,” he said. “A spirit from the bowels of hell brought up to take revenge on anyone who comes into that canyon. It wants to kill, just like we killed the natives who lived here.”

“Greedy bastards,” she said. “That’s what it boils down to. Greed. When the United States came through here and conquered the Natives, it was all about greed. We screwed them over, ripped apart their families, forced them off their land, destroyed their culture. And for what? For greed. That’s what happened with the nuclear industry, too. Greedy men profiting from an unsafe and unreliable technology. Faking the science, covering up the accidents. All in the name of the almighty dollar. It’s ironic how the two evils converged here at this point, at your Dead Man’s Dump. It’s like a focal point. If your dream, or vision, or whatever is true, then that would explain a lot. Why not a curse? I’ve heard of that kind of thing before. Most of the time they turn out to be bullshit, but there’s always that one case out of a hundred that goes unexplained. This looks like one of them. The truly tragic thing is that the nuclear plant had to be built literally right next door. Like it was destiny or something. Like our greed drove some sort of gear of fate that sent us toward our own destruction.”

Jeff straightened. She felt his shoulders stiffen. “That’s what
he
said.”

“Who?”

“The old man, the one who placed the curse. He said it would spread with our greed, and when the time came, it would use our greed to destroy us all.”

“It looks like that time has come.”

A distant thumping caught their attention. They both leaned toward the window and peered at the sky. It was hard to spot, but April saw a helicopter hovering a few hundred feet up.