Bitter Cold (4 page)

SEVEN

“Come on, Dad,” Logan begged. “I wanna go to Dead Man’s Dump! Everyone else is there!”

April knew right away Jeff wanted nothing to do with the boy’s idea.

“What’s wrong with
this
hill?” he asked, scanning the sloping field.

The boy protested. “This hill’s lame! Come on. Please can we go to the Dump?”

“No. Now stop. You know I don’t want you going over there.”

“Actually, he has a point,” April nudged Jeff’s side. The ‘hill,’ as he so liberally called it, seemed nothing more than a hump in the ground. “What’s Dead Man’s Dump, anyway?”

“It’s a box canyon. Over there,” he gestured with his head toward some white-capped fir trees. “Damn near a cliff. It’s dangerous, and kids aren’t supposed to play there!” he yelled that last part so Logan could hear.

“You used to, hypocrite,” his son stared. With a running start, he plopped the Flexible Flyer onto the powder and pushed. After several strides, he threw himself aboard, traveling a total of thirty feet.

“That
is
pretty lame,” joked April. “So tell me. Why’s it called Dead Man’s Dump? Don’t tell me someone actually died there.”

Jeff regarded her up and down. Behind his green eyes, she perceived his mind working overtime. “As a matter of fact, people
did
die. A teenager and a…a boy. My friend. But that was a long time ago, and I don’t like to talk about it.”

“Eddy Mitchell?” Logan reached the top of the hill and prepared for another run. 

“I said I don’t talk about it!”

“Then tell her about that kid in 1890! Daniel Applegate!” Logan made another anemic downhill run on his sled.

“1890?” April sounded intrigued. “Now you
have
to tell me everything. Except about your friend, of course. If you don’t want.”

He cleared his throat. “Tell you everything, huh? Well, in 1890, Daniel Applegate was the son of a big boss for the Pacific Fur Company. Daniel was about, oh, fifteen or so, and he was with his dad at a small fur trapping outpost near here, when he decides to take a walk all by himself one winter night—in weather a lot like this, as a matter of fact.”

“Tell her, Dad,” Logan urged, giving up on the sledding. “Tell her the gross part.”

He flashed an annoyed look. “Let me tell the story. Anyway, so this kid, not much older than Logan, really, goes outside in a snowstorm to take a leak and doesn’t come back.”

“Oh, no!” April covered her mouth.

“Yeah. So of course they go looking for him. Franticly. I mean he’s a boss’s kid, so you can only imagine the panic. They look all night and can’t find him. They fear the worst, and they’re right. When the sun comes up and they get a better look at the forest, they finally find him, or what’s left of him, down there at the bottom of the canyon. His body wasn’t much more than shreds of meat on bone. The only way they knew it was him was by his dad’s gold watch, the chain still as shiny as ever in his blood-soaked coat pocket.”

“Wild,” April’s teeth chattered. “Did they ever find out what happened?”

“They figured it was an animal. Mountain lion or bear.”

“I think it was something else,” Logan raised an eyebrow, his red cheeks becoming redder. “I think it was a monster. There was a curse on Dead Man’s Dump, a hex from something bad that happened there. The boy was killed because of that curse, because he or his dad did something wrong.”

Jeff glared at his son.

“Why do you think that?” she asked Logan.

He glanced at his dad. Jeff rolled his eyes and Logan answered. “There are stories of some kinda massacre. Cowboys and Indians and stuff.”

“Native Americans,” Jeff corrected him. “And besides, it wasn’t cowboys, it was the U.S. Calvary. Those are all just legends, though. This area’s full of old legends like that, most of them are bullshit.”

“Okay, now I’ve
gotta
see this place,” April rubbed her hands. “Come on. Let’s just take a look.”

“Now you?” Jeff crossed his arms. “I’ve got two stubborn kids on my hands, here?”

April laughed. “I’m sorry. I don’t mean to undermine your parental authority. I guess it’s the curious writer in me. How about this? How about you just show me which way it is and I’ll go alone?”

Jeff sighed. “No. We’ll take you.”

“All right!” Logan stepped on the end of the sled, popping up the front and snatching it with quick hands.

After a couple minutes of walking, April discovered she wouldn’t have needed Jeff to escort her to the legendary hill. Shrieks of delight gave away its presence. Jeff pointed her to a break in the trees, a gentle slope which led to an opening cut into the rock. Voices and laughter seemed to come from different directions, throwing her bearings for a loop. When they reached the end of the well-worn trail in the snow, they came to a clearing which seemed to drop into oblivion.

“Be careful,” Jeff looked back to make sure Logan obeyed him. “Stay next to me, and don’t wander too close to the edge over there,” he pointed out the dangerous spots.

“Whoa!” April’s mouth hung open when she saw it. “I’d pictured a decent-sized hill, even from your description of a miniature canyon, but not this!”

Dead Man’s Dump looked like a hole punched straight into the earth. The walls were vertical in most places, with several less steep slopes interspersed along the perimeter, providing children a thrilling, albeit perilous sledding experience.

“I can see why you’d be a little concerned,” she told Jeff.

“It’s really not that bad,” Logan said. “You just gotta stay away from the really steep parts.”

“Yeah, well you’re staying away from every part,” snapped Jeff. “We’re only here to show April. I don’t want you going down there.”

EIGHT

They stood near a large rock overlooking one of the main sledding runs populated by three boys and a girl, each a little older than Logan. Jeff had never seen the others before, but he recognized the girl. She was a neighbor, Doug and Carrie Mitchell’s kid. Two boys shared an inner tube, chasing it for several yards before hopping on at the same time. Hoots and hollers on their speedy journey to the canyon floor, sailing into a pile of powder, disappearing into whiteness. They both jumped to their feet, pure elation on each boy’s face.

Logan panted. “Oh, man! That looked awesome!” he tugged his dad’s arm. “Come on, Dad. You can go with me if you think I can’t do it alone. Please, I just wanna go!”

“You know what?” he glanced at April, then at Logan. “Go ahead.”

Logan’s mouth dropped. “What? Really?”

“Yeah. What the hell. Looks like fun. Just be careful.”

“Sweet! Thanks, Dad! Hey, April! You gotta watch this! This is gonna be epic!” he high-stepped to the end of the line.

Jeff took off his ski glove and dug his fingers into his eyes. “What have I done?” he asked himself out loud.

“It’ll be okay,” April patted his back. “Look, it seems safe enough,” she pointed at the girl, riding an orange disc, squealing all the way down.

He shook his head. What
had
he been thinking? There were no monsters at the bottom of the gulch. Just snow. And lots of it. Still, he couldn’t shake the memory. Eddy Mitchell. His best friend. Jeff was six and Eddy was five. He went everywhere with that kid. The two were inseparable. So when his friend died that day at the bottom of Dead Man’s Dump—half-eaten and frozen stiff—it took a piece of Jeff, and he never got it back. Something killed Eddy. Something mean, nasty, hungry.

Eddy had found some matches inside an abandoned shelter built by homeless drifters. The dilapidated shed went up like kindling, and he was inside. Jeff got him out. It felt like a hole had been seared into his lungs, but he got Eddy out. Then Eddy tripped and fell on a peculiar patch of dirty snow. Instantly he was charred, cooked alive. Jeff knew something ate him. But not with teeth. People tried to tell him it was the fire, that Eddy had been burned to death. He didn’t believe it, though he didn’t say a word.

“Looks like Logan’s next,” April roused him from his disturbing daydream. “Don’t you want to watch?”

He hurried to the best vantage point along the small crater’s ridge, clutching a solid fir tree to keep from slipping. Logan searched and found him, waving, smiling wide. Jeff flashed a thumbs-up. Logan nodded, laying down the sled. He covered his face with his ski mask and bent to hold the sled with both hands. Then he ran. He pushed and pushed for at least ten strong paces and hopped on, allowing gravity to do the rest.

Jeff stopped breathing and tuned his ear to seek out and select only his son’s voice among the cavalcade of shouts and laughter. Hearing Logan over the rest of the kids was easy. His triumphant cry skipped across the cavern walls, dominating all sound for the few seconds his turn lasted.

As Logan sped toward the end of his sled run, Jeff’s pulse became irregular. He noticed something in the top corner of his vision. Darkness. Shade from a tree? He couldn’t take his eyes away from Logan, but a strange feeling came over him about that shadow. So dark.

Logan vanished into an untouched area of deep snow, leaving behind two thin trails made by the sled’s sharp blades. Jeff felt like running, overcome by the sudden urge to help his son. He knew Logan would get mad, though. Who needed a domineering father hovering around, ruining all the fun? So he didn’t move, until April startled him.

“What
is
that?” she pointed toward the same area where he’d noticed the oddity. “It looks dark. Really dark.”

She was right. He
did
see it. The shadow looked like almost any other cast by the innumerable trees lining the canyon, only a bit darker than the rest. Now that he looked directly at it, studied it in detail, he observed something else.

“Oh my God!” April noticed it, too. “It moved! Jeff, did you see that? That shadow, or whatever it is—it moved! Toward the children!”

Jeff sprinted downhill, coming close to tripping over a boy on a plastic sled. The kid veered hard right and ditched it, rolling on his side.

“Logan!” his son hadn’t yet resurfaced from the frozen mound, further filling Jeff with dread. Hurrying down the slippery slope, he kept his eyes on the dark spot as it mingled with the actual shadows, camouflaging itself in the recesses. It had no shape, no defined borders. It seemed essentially to
be
the snow, only instead of pristine white, it had no color, reflected no light. Total blackness.

And it was headed toward his boy.

“Logan Keller! Get up this instant!”

“What’s the problem?” Logan arose from the snow bank, clods of white clinging to his jacket, the black stain closing in.

“Jeff! It’s going after him!” April screamed, her footsteps heavy behind him. He didn’t look back, nor did he look at the thing in the snow anymore. He only cared about Logan. Get to Logan. Save Logan. When he finally reached his son and plucked him from the nearly waist-high drift, he felt a small sense of relief. Logan seemed fine. Irritated, but fine.

“Dad! C’mon!” he grumbled. Jeff threw him over a shoulder. “Not in front of all the other kids.”

Jeff didn’t have time for a response. The blackness was creeping closer. He hurried backward three steps, then turned when he felt he was about to trip over his own feet. Running up the hill seemed a good plan, though he only managed a quarter of the way. Out of breath and energy, he turned and examined the snow for the shadowy anomaly.

April caught up with him. “Tell me I’m not crazy! You
did
see that thing, right?”

“You saw me panic and grab my kid, didn’t you?” Jeff dropped Logan to his feet. “Where’d it go?”

“I don’t—I don’t see it anywhere,” she scanned left to right to left. “It disappeared.”

“What was it, Dad?” fear carved deep lines across Logan’s face. “You’re scaring me.”

“We’re putting an end to this right now. April, take Logan,” he looked downhill. Two boys and the Mitchell girl, hanging around, shooting the breeze. No care in the world.

“Hey!” he hustled toward them. “Let’s go! Everybody out of Dead Man’s Dump! Now!”

“What?” one boy tossed up his hands. “You can’t tell me what to do!”

“Sue me,” Jeff took him by the jacket, then grabbed the girl’s hand.

“Screw this, dude!” she shouted, but Jeff would have none of it. He marched the kids up the steep incline, tossing his glance over his shoulder every couple of steps. Though the thing in the snow seemed to have gone, he wasn’t in the mood to take any chances.

At the top, the kids took their disappointment out on Jeff, hurling insults and threats. One boy tried to sneak by with a sled. He caught the kid’s arm and stood in the middle of the path, blocking anyone from passing.

“Listen, guys. You gotta believe me. It’s not safe down there.”

All groans and rolling eyes, the kids were jaded, long ago desensitized by the thousands of violent acts in movies and video games they’d witnessed in their young lives already.

“You guys should listen to Jeff,” April broke in. “He’s right. Something’s down there. It might be toxic. It might even be radioactive.”

That piqued Jeff’s interest. “What?” he asked. “Radioactive? How?”

She pointed down the canyon. “The geology of this ravine, it leads like a natural highway straight to the nuclear plant, to the spent fuel rods. It’s part of a fault system that ties the nuclear plant to Dead Man’s Dump. If my hunch is correct, and if that earthquake caused a leak, then it might have seeped in this direction. This whole area could be contaminated.”

All four kids shook their heads and laughed, including Logan.

“You think that’s what it is?” Jeff ignored the insults.

“Like I said. It’s a hunch. But it might explain what we saw.”

“What’d you see, Dad?” Logan asked.

Jeff took a breath to answer, but stopped himself, holding the air in his lungs, hearing a familiar sound. It made him sick to his stomach. The kids heard it, too. Logan looked like he wanted to throw up. He knew. They all did. The sound got closer. Buzzing, rapping, snapping.

A motorcycle.

The two-stroke engine roared—a series of quick, sharp eruptions—taunting anyone in earshot with its bone-rattling symphony of spark plugs and cylinders. As Jeff had expected, and dreaded, he saw Dexter ride into view. The hoodlum locked eyes with Jeff and sped past, throttle cranked, bike screaming. He had to keep both of his feet extended like a tripod to stay upright on the frozen ground, though he seemed to be handling the conditions well. He looked perfectly at home, a lit Marlboro hanging from the corner of his mouth.

He angled his body and stiffened his leg, letting the throttle spin the bike one hundred and eighty degrees. Now facing Jeff, Dexter punched it, racing into a power slide, spraying him with a shower of frozen jewels.

“If it isn’t my favorite asshole,” Dexter sneered at Logan. “You gotta have your daddy around to protect you, little turd?”

“Listen,” Jeff put up his hands. “We don’t want any trouble. We were leaving, anyway.”

“Leaving?” Dexter barked. “You can’t leave now! I just got here. Now the fun can start!”

He revved up his Kawasaki and threw it into another cookie, tossing a white tail in the breeze. He leaned right, steering for the kids. They scattered as he skidded into another icy cloud.

“Amy Mitchell!” he snorted. “Whatcha doin’ with these losers?”

“Leave us alone, Dexter!” she stood in front of her friends.

“
Leave us alone, Dexter!
” he mimicked her with a whiny pitch. He gave the bike more gas and it thundered with power. He stared at the boys, sucking the last drag off his cigarette, and flicking it aside. After he put the bike in gear, he released the hand clutch, letting the back wheel break loose violently. He barely managed to stay upright as he bee-lined straight at the group.

“Stop!” Jeff commanded. The kid went even faster, then veered left, steering toward the top of the hill. There he stopped, flipped the finger, and descended into the heart of Dead Man’s Dump.

Jeff hurried after him. He lost sight of Dexter altogether, even after reaching a decent vantage point, capturing a good portion of the distinctive canyon. The rapping of Dexter’s motorcycle trailed off into the narrow, wintry white gorge. Jeff studied the valley floor, looking for anything even the slightest bit out of place—a shadow cast in the wrong direction, a bit of shade just a little too perfectly black.

Nothing.

“Do you see it?” he asked April.

April stared, frowning. “I don’t see anything. Not anymore. I’m not even sure what I saw in the first place.”

“I know I saw something and I know this place isn’t safe!”

He started down. A bitter blast slapped his cheeks. It didn’t bother him. His face had lost all feeling a half-hour ago. Before he made it only a few feet, movement near the east wall of the miniature canyon distracted him. He turned, face flushing with heat, sights fixed on the darkened spot in the snow. Pure black against pure white, and the black was winning. Everywhere it touched, darkness invaded the pristine powder, turning it the color of midnight. It looked rather small, only a few feet across. What it lacked in size, it more than made up for in speed. It darted toward Dexter as he tore circles into the frozen ground with his knobby tires.

Jeff yelled, demanding he leave the canyon. Dexter pretended not to hear. Then Jeff shouted at him even louder and Dexter stopped his motorcycle and looked up, flipping him off with both hands. Jeff’s pulse raced when a slender appendage, like an eel, stretched from the mass of blackness and reached for Dexter’s Converse All-Star.

“Move! Move! Get out of there!”

April joined him. “Get away, kid! Lift your feet! It’s gonna get you!”

“Fuck the both of you!” he glared at them.

Jeff ripped down the hill faster than if he’d used Rossingal’s, keeping fixed on the dark entity. It moved so swiftly, yet so measured, surrounding and absorbing the snow and latching onto the boy’s foot.

Looking bored, Dexter tried to pick up his leg. It wouldn’t budge. He grumbled and tried again. His eyes widened while he pulled and twisted. The once smug smile disappeared, replaced by an innocent grimace. He had the look of an animal heading to slaughter.

He shot his stare to the ground and shifted his weight, attempting a step. The blackness held firm. He stopped struggling. Eyes darting wildly in every direction, he opened his mouth, issuing a silent scream. A heavy breath. Another one, heavier. His jaw fell wider. Then he shrieked for real, filling the valley with the sound of dread.

As Jeff sprinted, he heard April screaming behind him. Finally, he caught up with Dexter. The boy teetered and fell to the frost, his bike toppling on its side. Jeff hooked his hands under the kid’s shoulders, yanking him away from the black stain. Dexter’s anguished wail sent a shiver down Jeff’s spine.

“My foot! My foot! Sonuvabitch! My fuckin’ foot!”

Jeff couldn’t trust his own vision. He blinked and rattled his head hard, trying to shock himself into sense. No way could it be real. Dexter’s foot had come off clean at the ankle, his scruffy old shoe sinking into the blackness. Jeff caught a quick sniff of the decaying ooze. His body convulsed automatically, and he tasted bile in the back of his throat. The dark entity engulfed the shoe, tearing it apart greedily to get to the bloody, severed foot inside. It sizzled and popped against the dead flesh, searing the meat, and then sinew, and then bone, liquefying, digesting, consuming.