Wicked Winters

by Melanie Karsak et al.

  Walt scrolled through them hastily, hoping there were a few clear ones so his boss could make out the damage and needed repairs. But an image in one of the photos caught his eye, and he swiped backward to look again.

  Wiping at the screen in frustration, he peered closer. There was something out of place in one particular photo that wasn’t in the others.

  A giant white blur near the edge of the forest beyond him.

  He zoomed in. It looked like it could just be a cluster of snowflakes obscuring part of the lens.

  But as the image grew larger, the hairs on the back of Walt’s neck stood up.

  The picture wasn’t blurry because of snowflakes, as he’d originally thought.

  No, it was unfocused because a figure was moving rapidly past when he snapped the photo.

  A monstrous form, beastly and gargantuan in its size and shape.

  Walt kept zooming in, beginning to make out the details. Pale fur, gnarled horns…

  The truck rattled under him, and the phone slipped from his fingers. He grabbed the rim of the bucket with both hands to steady himself, preparing to lean over the side, trying to see where the phone fell so he could retrieve it.

  He was about to look over the edge when the cherry picker violently shook. His eyes widened just in time to see a massive hand with razor-sharp claws swinging toward his face, and before he could gasp in protest, his head was flying through the air, an arc of blood in its wake, until it tumbled to the ground, rolling and rolling until it disappeared beneath the truck.

  Chapter One

  “Amber, look! The train’s pulling up!” Nine year-old Cameron “Cam” Danvers called out to his sister, pushing the glasses up on his freckled nose and closing the book he was reading. He rose to his feet from the bench he was sitting on and stood on his tiptoes to peer down the tracks as the train rounded the bend.

  Fourteen year-old Amber looked up from her phone for barely a second, wavy blonde hair falling back from her face, before she slumped her cheek against her hand and buried her face in her phone again.

  Cam sighed and sat back down beside her, flipping open his book once more even though he was already bored from reading it, and soon it would be too dark to see the pages anyways. Besides, he would have plenty of time on the train to finish it. They had a solid five-hour train ride through the mountains until they made it home to their parents’.

  He didn’t have anything else to do anyways. It wasn’t like his sister was going to hang out with him. He missed those days, when they were each other’s best friend. He wondered what happened to the girl who actually wanted to spend time with him. Those days where they’d spend all day playing in their backyard, their imaginations running wild with make-believe adventures, seemed to be over.

  Amber was physically there beside him, but it was almost as if she wasn’t. Since she became a teenager, and his parents bought her a phone, she’d changed. She’d lost interest in being his big sister, in being one of his only friends.

  Snow began to fall, slow at first, then faster and faster.

  He dog-eared the page he was on and stared at the snowflakes as they swirled around and blanketed the ground. Cam was hoping this Christmas, he’d have some time with Amber since she wouldn’t have her friends, her laptop, or much reception at their grandparents’. He wasn’t trying to be greedy; he just wanted his sister all to himself. But as soon as they got there, he was crushed to find out that her phone did in fact work, and true to form, she was glued to it like she always was. She didn’t want to go sledding, she didn’t want to make a snowman, she wasn’t interested in baking Christmas cookies.

  Little by little, Cam was learning to accept this new reality.

  Whether it was his sister or his parents, Cam felt like no one wanted to spend time with him anymore, and while his grandparents tried their best to do fun things with them, Cam did not like the idea of spending Christmas without their parents. It just wasn’t the same without them, and he fervently hoped this would be the first and last time it ever happened.

  Jillian and Peter Danvers both had the misfortune of having to work Christmas this year, each of them high-powered corporate attorneys at the same firm working a complex case that was slated to go before the judge on the second of January. Their grandparents, not wanting the children to miss out on Christmas morning and all the festivities leading up to it, insisted they come out to visit them a few days before Christmas, and then they could take the train back to Piedmont and spend the last vestiges of Christmas Day with their parents. Cam knew his parents felt guilty about missing Christmas with their children, and he tried to be understanding and mature about it. But this type of thing was becoming more and more of a habit now that they were some of the most senior attorneys at the firm, promotions which came with their own sizeable responsibilities and obligations that meant more hours in the office and fewer at home.

  So here the children were, waiting in the near-darkness for a train that would take them back to the city, to a lifestyle that Cam was becoming less and less fond of because he was becoming more and more invisible to everyone around him.

  The train rolled to a stop in front of them, and Cam nudged his sister with his foot then stood and grabbed his superhero-themed duffel bag.

  He studied the bag for a moment, then looked up at Amber. Maybe if he seemed more grown-up, she would want to spend time with him again because she would view him more as an equal rather than a pesky little brother. His heart sank as he ran his fingers over the Marvel characters, deciding he would get rid of the bag when he got home.

  “Which seats did we get?” Amber asked him, finally pocketing her phone as she pulled her bright pink mittens over her hands.

  Cam pulled the tickets from his pocket. “Car seven, seats ten and eleven,” he replied. Seeing that he had her attention, he continued, “Hey, we should explore the other cars once we put our stuff away.”

  Amber seemed less than enthused. “You can. I’ll watch our stuff.”

  They started to climb the steps of the train once the other passengers disembarked.

  Frustrated with himself for offering such a lame suggestion, Cam frowned. They would have done that before. But cool kids had better things to do than explore trains. Then his expression brightened when he remembered what his grandma had packed away for them. “Are you hungry? Grandma made us some awesome snacks. She put a ton of those cookies in there for us.”

  She trudged ahead of him, carefully making her way past the many rows of seats until she found theirs. After she tossed her bag into the compartment above their heads, helping him do the same with his bag, she slouched into the worn seat and pulled out her phone once more. “You can have mine. I ate way too many this weekend. I don’t want to get fat.”

  Cam felt the tears burn in his eyes. He pulled out his asthma inhaler and sprayed the inhaler while taking a deep breath. He knew he shouldn’t be upset over this, but deep down, he wondered if he and Amber would ever have a reason to hang out again, or if the next three years before she left for college would go by, and they would be no more than ghosts living in the same house.

  Chapter Two

  Amber unlocked her phone, subconsciously needing to check her newsfeed for the second time in the last ten minutes. It was almost as though her fingertips automatically knew where to tap on the screen, opening those notoriously familiar apps, like muscle memory. She was bored, and the urge to mindlessly entertain herself on social media was too tempting to resist.

  For the next twenty minutes, she scrolled through her phone robotically, her eyes glazed over as she scanned past the photos of her friends. She saw countless pictures of her girlfriends sharing photos of their Christmas celebrations, smiling brightly, their outfits stylish, their hair perfectly sleek and straight.

  She ran her fingers through her hair self-consciously, trying to detangle the knots that had ensnared themselves in her blonde locks, so that she would be photo ready.

  Smile. Look like you’re hav
ing fun.

  Milliseconds before she snapped the selfie, Cam popped into the photo with her, opening his mouth wide and making a ridiculously silly face.

  As she compulsively went back to check it, she groaned.

  “Ugh, Cam. You ruined it.”

  He leaned in to look at it with her. “Keep it! I like it!”

  She rolled her eyes. “No, I’m not posting this. I’m cropping you out.” His face fell, and he suddenly looked like the saddest kid in the world.

  He turned away from her and looked out the window again.

  She saw this and paused before finalizing the cropped version of the picture. And then, as if she changed her mind, reverted the photo back to the version with her brother still in it and started to upload the picture to her profile. Amber waited impatiently while the blue download bar moved incrementally then stopped moving altogether.

  She chewed on the inside of her cheek in frustration, knowing as long as they were in the mountains suffering through this snowstorm, the photo would never load.

  Her friends would have all of these phenomenal pictures where they looked happy and were having fun, and she was stuck for the next five hours on a train.

  Amber leaned back in her seat, resting her head against the shabby material. She knew her frustration was absurd and misplaced. Why was she so obsessed to see what her friends were doing every minute of every day? Seeing what they wore, what they did, what they ate? Why did any of it matter?

  The train lurched slightly as it slithered along the tracks like a giant silver serpent, and Amber turned to Cam. His face was inches from the glass as he stared out the window, captivated by the snow as it blew over the train.

  Her stomach growled, and he looked up at her. He reached into his backpack and pulled out one of their grandmother’s freshly baked cookies, offering it up to her.

  “Cookie?” he asked.

  She smiled and took it from him. “Thanks.”

  “Want to get some real food? There’s a food car a few cars down.”

  His blue eyes were big and hopeful, and even though Amber didn’t feel like getting up and was still annoyed that her picture never loaded, she knew her brother needed more than just sugar in his system.

  “Yeah, I guess.”

  His face lit up like a firefly at this.

  She shouldered her pink purse and got up. Cam led the way, happily swinging between the seats every so often and looking back at her with a huge smile on his face. She hadn’t seen him this excited in a long time.

  “Try it!” he exclaimed. “It’s fun!”

  She pushed her hair behind her ear and looked around quickly in embarrassment. “Not a chance.”

  But even though she was way too grown-up to do the same thing, seeing him so happy forced her lips to curve upward.

  Chapter Three

  The dining car was lined on both sides with small two- and four-person tables covered in red and green polyester tablecloths and adorned with fake holly berries in little glass vases.

  There were big windows that allowed passengers to see more of the outdoors while they ate, but since it was now dark outside, thin panels of lights running along the ceiling illuminated the car.

  Only two people were there, a young cashier standing behind the counter and a man in his mid-thirties with curly, unruly brown hair, thin lips, and glasses sitting low on the bridge of his nose. He was avidly chatting with the cashier who didn’t really seem to be following what he was saying, but still nodded politely all the same.

  Cam ran up to the counter and began browsing the sandwiches and snacks on display.

  “I want a pretzel with nacho cheese dipping sauce.”

  Her stomach growled again. “I think I’ll have one of those pizzas,” she replied. “We should get some Sour Patch Kids, too.”

  Cam smiled. Some of his favorite memories were the nights he and Amber spent alone, where their parents would leave them money for a pizza, and they’d walk to the nearest gas station and pick up all the candy they could buy with what the leftover change from the pizza.

  After they placed their orders with the cashier, Cam wandered the rest of the car while Amber waited for their food at a table.

  The train wasn’t moving quickly, and Amber watched the scenery pass by, admiring how it looked like everything was coated in a thick blanket of snow, how the giant evergreen trees seemed more majestic with their branches dipped in white.

  But she wanted to admire everything from the safe, warm confines of the train. The forest beyond the trees looked bone-chilling, unwelcoming… haunting… a never-ending ocean of snow that could easily swallow up two kids.

  Something large and pale darted through the pines, running parallel to the train. She jerked back in surprise. Whatever it was had been gigantic and impossibly fast. Pressing her hands to the window, she tried to find it once more.

  “The seismic activity in that area had been unprecedented. We’d never seen anything like it before. And so I flew down from Utah last week, trying to figure out what was caused it,” Amber vaguely registered the stranger saying to the cashier, but she couldn’t tear her eyes away from the forest.

  “‘Seismic activity?’” her brother piped up, his voice laced with interest.

  “Yes, seismic…” The man looked down, remembering he was speaking to a child. He then leaned forward and lifted his hands, holding them side by side. “We live on these plates that, over the span of millions of years, move around like this,” he explained, shifting his hands back and forth.

  Cam seemed eager to hear more, which was unusual for the scientist. He was accustomed to people’s eyes glazing over whenever he talked about his job. So even though he was talking to a kid, the thought of someone actually being interested in what he did for a living reinvigorated the excitement he had for his job. “You see, sometimes the plates want to move, but they can’t because they’re pressed against each other.” The man squeezed his middle finger and thumb together. “Once the pressure releases,” he told the boy, suddenly snapping his fingers, “that’s the perfect storm for an earthquake.”

  After a second of quiet contemplation, Cam asked, “So, is that what you were doing here, studying earthquakes?”

  “Well, my young friend, that’s funny you’d ask. All of our equipment is telling us there has been earthquake-like activity in and around these mountain towns, but there are no fault lines. So it’s like having a snap with no fingers.”

  “But you didn’t find anything?” Cam inquired.

  “Ultimately, no,” the man responded dejectedly. It was a bitter reminder that he’d spent many sleepless hours and months of painstaking research leading up to his trip trying to solve a scientific mystery that, at the current juncture, seemed to have no answer.

  “Maybe it wasn’t something natural. Maybe it was something you haven’t seen before. From another world. Monsters.”

  Monsters.

  Amber thought about what she had seen in the trees. A polar bear perhaps? How silly for her to think it was anything else.

  Then she whirled around in her chair. “Cam, come here. Don’t talk to strangers.”

  “Thanks for telling me about your earthquakes,” Cam said to the man with a wave, before making his way back to his sister.

  “Thanks for listening,” the man answered in earnest.

  When Cam noticed Amber’s eyes were fixated on something unseen outside, his gaze shifted from her to the window and back to her again. “What are you looking at?”

  Amber struggled to decipher what she’d seen. “I… I don’t know. I thought I saw something.” She shook her head. “It was probably nothing.”

  The train suddenly slowed and came to an unexpected stop.

  Everyone in the dining car looked at one another. Amber twisted in her seat, her blonde waves tumbling over her shoulder.

  The doors slid open, and the conductor appeared. Both siblings instinctively rose to their feet.

  “Please stay in your seat,�
� the conductor told them, gesturing with his hands for them to sit back down.

  “What’s going on?” Cam asked. “Why did we stop?”

  The conductor seemed annoyed with him and gave a subtle eyeroll. “Stay in your seats. There’s an obstruction on the tracks, but don’t worry. We have people currently working out there to clear the issue. What we need from everyone is to stay put for now.”

  Once the conductor had moved on to the next car, Cam turned to Amber impishly, the opportunity for an adventure together too overwhelming to resist. “Let’s go see what it is!”

  Amber looked down at him. “Are you crazy? It’s freezing cold out there. And you heard what that guy said. We’re supposed to stay in our seats.”

  Cam’s shoulders slumped, but he didn’t seem entirely deterred.

  “Hey, your food is ready,” the cashier called out to them.

  Amber mustered her best scolding glare for Cam, then began to walk over to the counter, the aroma of pizza and pretzels wafting to her nostrils. She opened her purse and pulled out her wallet, fishing through the bills until she found a twenty. She handed it to the cashier and waited for her change, pulling a pepperoni off the pizza and popping it into her mouth.

  She licked her fingers quickly when he came back with the change and hastily tossed the coins into her purse. “Thanks.”

  Grabbing the tray with both hands, she turned and looked up.

  Her brother was nowhere to be found.

  Eyes widening in alarm, she held her breath. “Cam?”

  The scientist looked at her once, then gestured outside.

  Throwing the tray down on the table, Amber broke into a run.

  “Cameron!”

  Chapter Four

  Amber ran halfway through the next car heading to the front of the locomotive and noticed that the door between the two cars was still ajar.

  She jolted forward and practically threw herself through the open door. When she stepped out of the train, Cam was standing in the snow, his back to her, unmoving as the snow blew around him.