Bitter Cold (15 page)

“Everything was all fucked up. I mean royally. Their towels were all over the place, the candles were burned out and floating in the water—it looked like all hell had broken loose. Dad would never leave it looking like that. He’d never leave the top off the hot tub, especially when it’s this cold. I can hear him yelling at me to put the damned thing back on. He’s always getting on me about that shit.”

“So that’s it? The top was off the hot tub? And that makes you think some weird snow creature attacked your parents? Don’t you see how strange that sounds?”

She glared at him. “You wouldn’t say that if you saw what I saw. GOD! I need a damned cigarette!”

“What did you see?”

“I don’t wanna talk about it,” she held her forehead with one hand. “I just-I just wanna find my mom and dad, that’s all,” she looked up again, returning to her inspection of their surroundings.

He stared at her.

She glanced at him. “Listen, if you’re gonna just stand there, then get the hell outta here. I can do this on my own.”

He shook his head. “No, I’m not gonna leave you. It’s dangerous out here.”

“So now you think there’s something out here?”

“I don’t know. Do you? Really?”

She gave him a look. Even with her face puffy and red, she still held influence over him. “I didn’t want to say this before, with all my friends around, but I saw it. It looked like a black pool creeping around in the snow. I saw it when it attacked Dexter. I saw your dad run down here and get you. He saved you, and he probably saved Dexter, too. I saw the whole thing. Nobody else saw it, none of the other kids, I mean. I guess I was just standing in the right spot, or nobody else was looking—I don’t know. Why didn’t you see it?”

Logan scratched his head over his stocking cap. “Good question. I-I don’t know why,” he confessed. “Everything went so fast. My dad was embarrassing me. I guess I just wasn’t paying attention.”

“Well, I was,” her gaze shot through him. “I was the only one paying attention, besides your dad and his girlfriend, that is. And I’m telling you, something was down here.”

“And you think it got your parents?”

“I don’t know,” she cupped her hands around her mouth. “Mom! Dad!”

Logan watched her call out again, then again. He felt empty at the sound of her scratchy, mournful voice. Her desperation chipped at his defenses until he became completely hers. It didn’t matter if he still wasn’t convinced the monster in the snow existed. What mattered was he felt more for Amy than he’d ever felt for anyone. That was why he joined her, calling for her parents.

“Mrs. Mitchell! Mr. Mitchell!” he started walking down the canyon floor, searching behind trees, rocky embankments, hollows in the cliff. The canyon only went so far until it became too narrow and nearly impassable. He saw nothing but pristine snow, mounds and mounds of it, making individual features of the landscape unrecognizable. It looked like a scene from a Christmas movie, a picture on the cover of a calendar, a perfect winter wonderland. It should have been a kid paradise.

He didn’t want to go too far, especially since Amy wasn’t following. All alone, he suddenly felt an uncomfortable twinge. His ears started to burn and the hair on his forearms stood straight. The whole effect gave him the feeling of being watched, or worse, stalked. He rotated on his heel and hurried back, using his existing tracks as a guide. When he got to Amy, he was out of breath.

“They’re not down here. Let’s go.”

She blinked fast, spinning one full circle, eyes on the canyon. “But-but I think they’re here somewhere. I saw tracks.”

He shivered. “I don’t see anything.”

She stared at him. “Do you think that thing might be at my house?”

He shrugged. “Let’s go find out.”

Together they hurried up the steep ascent, panting a trail of vapor from labored breaths. The slick frost made it treacherous. Amy fell twice, Logan once. They each stopped to help the other get up, then started again.

“There they are!” she pointed at a narrow gap in the rocks at the top of Dead Man’s Dump. “Those are its tracks!”

Logan caught his breath and looked at the strange markings. A flattened line, and it didn’t look like it had been flattened from above, but from below, as if the snow had collapsed under its own weight. Then he looked closer and realized something else, something even stranger. It wasn’t like normal snow. It looked greyish, dirty, crushed and melted and refrozen.

“What made this?” he stooped and made a snowball. It felt so cold it was hot, even through his gloves. He let go and it shattered on the frozen ground like a piece of glass.

“You know what made this. I told you. Your dad told you. When are you gonna get it through your head? Something’s going on here, something horrible. My mom and dad are missing, goddammit!”

TWENTY

THE BACK PORCH at the Mitchell residence looked like a war zone—a terracotta planter broken into pieces and dirt strewn all over, an outdoor chaise lounge crushed and toppled onto its side, a jumble of footprints and strange grey tracks in the snow.

“What happened here?” he asked.

“Come on,” she took his hand.

“Wait a minute,” his instincts were humming. He thought Amy could hear his heart thumping, it felt so loud. Something really bad happened on that deck. “This doesn’t look good at all.”

“You think that doesn’t look good…” she pushed past him.

“Wait!” he tried to stop her, but she strode through the mangled snow toward the gazebo. She pointed. “Look.”

The hot tub was a mess—drips of wax along the sides, half and fully-melted candles strewn asunder, two champagne glasses and a beer bottle floating upside down in brownish water.

“No way is this your dad’s hot tub.”

“Exactly. My dad would never allow his precious spa to look like this. Ever. Something’s wrong, Logan. I know it.”

“It looks like a lot of shit went down right here,” his vision followed the dirty snow trail as it traveled toward the house, then doubled back and retraced its tracks down the steps to the large lawn where it made a beeline for a stand of evergreens. “Look. It goes down there, come on.”

He started toward the stairs and she grabbed his arm. She was strong, he thought, for a girl—or a boy.

“Just be careful,” her reddened eyes searched his.

He said, “You stay here. I’ll go take a look.”

She glanced over the edge of the deck, peering into the growing gale. The clouds were beginning to thicken, the sky becoming darker. “No. I’m coming with you. I feel safer. Now that you’re here.”

Her praise allowed him the courage to lead her down the steps, keeping single-minded on the sweeping marks in the snow, following them to the edge of the lawn into a thick treeline. The branches hung low, creating a dense wall of white and green, frozen pine needles and large bows plunging to meet the snowy ground. It made an enclosed canopy, and the tracks went right underneath.

Three steps from where the trail disappeared, he stopped, thinking twice.

“I’m not gonna crawl under there if something might eat me,” he told her.

She stood behind him. “I don’t blame you. I just wanna know what happened to…” she paused, staring down. Logan spotted what she was looking at, on the ground just under a branch. It looked rounded, charred in places, moist and fleshy in others. He couldn’t, or wouldn’t believe it. No way. Amy gasped, hurling her hands over her mouth and backing away. Then she stopped, took a determined breath, and went forward again. She crouched and reached for the thing half-buried in greyish snow.

He wanted to hold her back, knowing what she’d find. He could tell. It was obvious. She probably knew it, too, but seemed driven to make certain.

Without a word, she held it in her glove so they both could get a better look. Flaps of stringy, rubbery stuff fell off, landing on the frozen ground with a
Plop!
She looked down at the globs, then up at Logan. Then she turned the object over, exposing something that visibly shocked her. She let out a deafening howl and dropped the object in the snow.

He stared at the bloody thing. He’d never been that friendly with Amy’s dad, Doug Mitchell, but he knew those eyes anywhere. Staring. Blood red where the whites should have been. The blue parts were as blue as ever. Logan staggered back. Despite the grisly discovery, she wanted to stay.

“No! NO! Daddy! What happened to my daddy! Let me go! I’ve got to go help my daddy!”

“You can’t! Amy, you can’t help him!” then he lowered his voice. “I’m sorry. But there’s nothing we can do. He’s…he’s…”

He stammered, watching as black snow crept from under the tree, encircled the severed head, and started to pick clean the last remnants of flesh. Then a tiny, shadowy pinstripe extended in a straight line at Amy’s feet. Logan didn’t think. He had to get her away. He grabbed her hand and hurried to the staircase.

Logan’s curiosity got the best of him when they reached the deck. He couldn’t help but look back. Tendrils of blackness flowed toward them, poking onto the steps, up the railing, to the main floor. More thin projections ascended the sides of the staircase, infecting the snow with a vile, churning, bubbling murkiness. Wherever the thing went, it devoured the frost. And it looked exactly like snow, like it was becoming the very frozen crystals, only it turned all whiteness to black. It seemed alive, fizzing and splattering. It reminded him of the mudpots at Yellowstone. A big pool of sputtering, boiling sludge. Instead of hot, it was icy and deadly—and slithering their direction.

“Logan! What are you doing! Come on!” Amy led him to the house. She stopped and he ran into her. Then he righted himself, realizing the darkness had already made it ahead of them, and now blocked the door as if it knew that’s where they wanted to go.

A familiar sound made them both react, they turned at the same time, and Amy bent, throwing apart her hands.

“Sadie!”

It was the Mitchell’s family dog, an old German Shepard. She had the habit of constantly roaming the neighborhood, sleeping in whoever’s driveway she pleased. “Sadie, come here!”

The hound stayed put, inside the hot tub gazebo, standing on dry wood a half foot behind the snowline. She tilted her head at Amy and barked some more.

Logan tugged her arm, forcing her into the small enclosure. Sadie whined and licked Amy’s hand as she took off her glove. She knelt to pet her, and Sadie’s large, pink tongue lathered her cheek.

“Good girl,” she nuzzled against her dog’s blonde and brown and black mane. “Good girl.”

Logan wanted to feel the same relief as it appeared Amy felt. They weren’t safe yet. Not by a long shot. They had just enough room to stand together in the narrow covered area. Backs pressed against the tub, they stared as the black snow converged on them, creating a solid pool around the gazebo, trapping them inside.

He tried to catch his breath. “I can’t believe it! It’s real! You guys weren’t lying!”

“Yeah, well, ‘I told you so,’ isn’t going to help right now, so I won’t say it!” Amy tried to stand in front of her dog. Sadie slipped past, to the periphery of the covered area, where the creature couldn’t seem to go. There she let out a series of howls, snarling and snapping at the pernicious being.

“I didn’t think it could be possible,” he said. “I thought there had to be some explanation.”

She pointed at the bubbling monster covering nearly the whole deck. “Look around you. There’s your explanation! That thing, whatever the hell it is, got my mom and dad! I know it did. It ate that fucking kid’s foot, and it liked what it tasted so much it came up here and fucking ate my parents! Now it wants to eat us! We’re fucked!”

He studied the thing’s movements. “Look at it. It can’t come in here, where there’s bare wood. Look over there,” he pointed to another covered area on the porch where the floor was clear and dry. “Look at that spot where there’s no snow. It’s not black there. Look out there, what do you see?”

“I see a fucking monster!”

Sadie barked nonstop.

Logan fought to be heard. “You’re right! It’s a monster! And it’s everywhere–but is it? Look at it,” he got her to examine closer. “Look where there’s no snow. You don’t see it going there. I think it’s because it can only go where there’s snow,” he pointed at the floor inside the gazebo. “That’s why it can’t come in here. And that’s why I think we might be safe. As long as we stay in here, I don’t think it can get us.”

She stood up, frowning. “If you think it’s so safe in here, then what happened to my parents? They were in here, too. And now they’re not. Why weren’t they safe?”

Logan puzzled on that one. “I don’t know. Maybe it caught them when they were getting out.”

Amy breathed hard. A single tear developed in her eye. Then she broke down. “Oh my god! It did. It got them. My parents! Mommy…DADDY!” she fell against the hot tub, sobbing. Logan noticed her feet, sliding out into the black snow, into the jaws of the monster. With his boot, he swept her legs to the side. She dropped to the floor, sobbing into her hands. Sadie stopped wailing and tilted her head, then nudged Amy’s side with her long snout, whining.

Logan took a ragged breath. He was lucky. She was lucky. No mistaking it. That thing had death on its mind. It smelled like death. Heavy, overwhelming, a thick invasive stink getting worse with each sniff. He felt his gut turn.

Amy kept her head down, rocking back and forth, hugging her knees. He wished that could work. If it did, he’d do it, too. But nothing could wish away the hard truth all around them. The shadowy creature covered virtually every inch of the back porch, inundating everywhere the snow reached.

He noticed a few tiny bits of ice on the wood gazebo floor, a trace or two they’d treaded in on their shoes. A slender stream of blackness, thin as a vein, reached the clump of snow closest to the edge. The creature was trying to get in! Logan felt a current of adrenaline. On instinct, he swept with his glove, pushing the snow remnants into the blackness. It absorbed the white chunks in seconds.

Logan watched the line where the creature couldn’t pass. It undulated like a wave on the beach, rippling and cresting, but getting nowhere on the dry wood. He found more areas that hadn’t been covered in snow. Under an old, unattached carport, several dozen square feet were untouched by the weather. Dry gravel, a riding mower, and several lawn implements—shovels, rakes, hoes. No snow, no monster. That confirmed it. The thing, for whatever reason, couldn’t survive without snow.

That discovery warmed him, protected him from the piercing gusts and the debilitating fear, but that one, tiny comfort proved fleeting.

He heard scratching. At first, he thought it might have been the dog, though she was sitting still, her head cocked as if she were hearing it, too. Then Sadie stood on all fours, sniffing at the wall. Logan squeezed past her. He had to investigate. The windows were tinted and fogged over, which made it close to impossible to see out. Cupping his hands against the glass, he pressed close.

SMASH!

He flew back against the spa. He couldn’t tell if his spine had been crushed. He was too distracted by Amy’s screams and Sadie’s howls. He checked for shards of glass in his hair, on his clothes, then realized the window hadn’t actually broken. Something hit it, though. Hard. Outside, he spotted it, where snow had accumulated on a table placed close to the gazebo. It let the black ooze climb to the window and give them a polite knock, asking to be let in.

“Stand back,” he told Amy, realizing the stupidity of his command. They had precious little space in the tiny shack. She obeyed the best she could, though, pressing herself against the far wall, pulling her dog with her.

SLAM!

The window behind her rattled hard. Shrieking, she crawled up the steps to the spa. She managed to blame it, breathlessly, on Logan.

“What the hell! I thought you said it could only go where there was snow!”

He tried to help her to her feet, but she preferred to sit on a step. “There must be some snow on the side of the Gazebo.”

She got up and surveyed the darkened windows. “It’s gonna kill us!”

The dog seemed to understand her master, and added a terrible yowl.

“Calm down!” Logan took a breath and lowered his voice. “We can’t panic. Just trust me. That thing can’t move without snow. And there’s no snow inside here, so it shouldn’t—”

She interrupted. “What do you mean it shouldn’t? I don’t want to hear that crap! I wanna know what it’s gonna do!”

“I don’t know what it’s gonna do, okay!” he glared at her.

Sadie, excited by their excitement, ramped up her barking.

Logan fell silent, watching as the blackness, in pointed threads, climbed to the top of a recycling container buried in deep snow. From there, the fibrous being fused together in a solid mass and reached a frozen downspout with just enough snow to let it send slender probes up and along the gutter.

Amy grabbed him. “What’s it doing? Logan, tell me!”

He wrapped an arm around her shoulder. “Don’t worry. It can’t get us.”

She watched with him as the blackness reached near the rim of the roof, just above the gazebo. It splashed over the gutter and dangled on top of them, swinging in the arctic wind.

“Oh my God!” she howled louder than her dog. “It’s gonna get us—oh my God!”

Logan shook her solidly. “Get ahold of yourself! It can’t go where there’s no snow!”

“But there’s snow on top of this gazebo, you idiot!”

“Yeah, but look,” he pointed. “Look at your house. It’s only on top of it, it’s not going inside. Don’t worry. As long as it doesn’t get in here, we’re fine.”

While the long, black strand repelled toward the gazebo, doubts began to surface in his mind. Then the strand became thicker. The trickle became a dense stream, falling on top of their little shack.

The roof cracked. Wood broke loose. A large crossbeam came away from one of its brackets and swung down, missing Amy’s head narrowly before crashing against the spa. Logan realized the creature was trying to tear the place apart.

Another beam buckled. A thick section of lumber snapped in half like a toothpick, scattering splinters into their faces. The whole building tilted left with a deep moan. Amy screamed. He held onto her, staring at the ceiling with his head on a swivel, watching as the roof split open. A crack in the wood formed, tiny at first, a small pinprick which became a gash, growing and growing. The supports began to bow downward as the cedar shake shingles crunched, yielding to the pressure.