The Winter People

by Bret Tallent

  Today would have been a great day for some World of Warcraft, he thought. But no soap, the old man up north had to go and dump his shit on 'em. Yeah, WOW would have been fun, he thought again. Gary had been playing the game since last year and was really getting into it. His mother thought it was a little weird, but she was cool about it. At least it gave him something to do on the weekends and kept him out of trouble, she'd said.

  Gary pursed his lips then it turned into a smile. That was it, he decided, he would finish the cross-bow he'd been working on. Of course his mother didn't know anything about it, she would have pitched a real fit. Gary had been working on the thing since late September and he was nearly done. He hated having to hide it from her, but he knew that she wouldn't allow it. She would say that he was going to end up like one of those guys you read about, the ones who get all fried out on the game and go off killing their family thinking they’re evil trolls or something. It was the only thing Gary had ever hidden from his mother.

  He padded into his room and dragged a bundle out of the back of his closet. Wrapped in an old blanket was his treasure. He opened it up on the floor of his room and admired the objects lying there. There was the stock that he'd carved out of a 2 X 6 with his pocket knife. Beside that was the bow. It was actually a leaf spring from an old Ford. He'd gotten it from the mechanic, Jesse, down at the gas station.

  Gary stared at it fondly and thought back. Jesse had helped him to taper it down on the ends with his acetylene torch. He'd given him pointers on how to do it, and the trigger mechanism as well. He even let Gary hang out there after school and use the grinding wheel to finish it. Jesse was an alright guy, Gary thought. Then he blinked twice and continued his appraisal. Steel cable and cable ties, nuts and bolts, and about two dozen bolts he'd made from dowel rod, it was all there.

  His tongue poked out slightly between clenched teeth, Gary worked on the cross-bow intently. He bolted the bow to the front of the stock, making sure that the notch in the bow lined up with the groove in the top of the stock. Next, he took the cable and looped it through a hole in one end of the bow and secured it with a cable tie. Then he ran it through the hole in the opposite end, pulled it as tight as he could then secured that with a cable tie as well. He cut off the excess cable and tossed it under his bed.

  Gary turned the weapon over in his hands, admiring it. Then he looked past it at the pile of bolts on the blanket, and nodded. On his knees on the floor, he propped the butt of the cross-bow against his chest and pulled on the cable with both hands. Straining as hard as he could, he could only pull back about half way.

  Determined, he stood and slipped the stock between his legs and stood on a portion of the bow on either side. Gary bent down and grabbed the cable with both hands and pulled back with all his might. He pulled it up past the release and eased it down onto the catch. Very gently, he began to release his pressure against the cable then noticed his feet.

  "Please oh please oh please..." he eked out as he released the last of his pressure. Then he removed his hands and the cable sat there. He grabbed the butt and moved his feet quickly away from the bow, and still the cable sat there. Gary picked it up gingerly and shook it from side to side, and still the cable sat there. Then he dropped it onto the blanket on the floor, and nothing happened.

  Warily, he picked it up, held it away from him and pulled the trigger. It was hard and required some force, but it began to move. Finally, he pulled the trigger enough to release the cable, and it snapped away with a jerk and a crack that made him jump. A smile eased onto Gary's face and he nodded slowly. It worked.

  CHAPTER 9

  Johnny's blocky frame filled the frosted window. He rubbed it again with his sleeve so that he could see out. He was despondent, his eyes outlined in red from crying. But they were also hard eyes, hardened by what had happened and by what he now knew. The snow was beginning to lessen and by this afternoon he figured it would stop entirely. Yet the wind had remained, and he knew would do so until they had been satiated.

  He turned his back on the window and closed his eyes. The field stretched out before him, becoming foot hills, and then the mountain. He strained harder and could make out the stand of aspens on the ridge by itself, where only the ghosts walked. It was here he had to go and take Faywah's body. Here his grandfather would be at peace.

  ***

  Bud Boscoe had never considered himself an irrational man or someone prone to being easily frightened. But Bud Boscoe was scared. Something terrible had happened here. Something terrible was going to happen again. He could feel it. All Bud knew was that they had to get out of this place, and soon. He would much rather take his chances on the blinding snowstorm at fifty below than to fight whatever hell-born creature had done what had been done to the ranger station, be it human or not.

  And somewhere in the pit of Bud's gut, he suspected that it wasn't very human. He knew it was irrational, but he just couldn't believe that a man, or group of men, could have done this. Bud also didn't believe that Clayton could be so terrified of some psycho. There was something very unnatural about the whole scene they had stumbled on to, something evil. And Bud felt that whatever it was, it was also cunning and incredibly strong.

  The front door of the station had been pushed in by a large blow and not shattered as if chopped by an axe or other tool. The rooms had been demolished, heavy furniture torn apart as if it were balsa wood. The radio was scrap, their only link to the outside, or help. And now Bud remembered the tires on both the trucks, shredded and useless. Whatever had done this was well aware of their weaknesses. Bud was suddenly all the more determined that they should leave there as quickly as possible.

  He surveyed the wreckage of the rooms. The half of the dining table that was left was fairly solid and would make a relatively nice sled he decided. He laid it top side down on the floor, pretty much covering the pool of dried blood that stained the hardwood. Behind him was a blackened trail that led to the doorway, bedaubed and diffuse, to disappear in the snow beyond. He ignored it and worked intensely on the sled he was fashioning.

  Bud sifted through the remnants of the radio and came away with a side piece of its shell. He attached it to one end of the table on its new bottom, with nails that he'd retrieved from the kitchen utility drawer. The eight or so inches of the stiff metal that protruded from the end of the wood, he bent upward in a slight arc, forming a plow of sorts. The whole thing resembled a mutant toboggan, which was his intention.

  Next, he attached a rope from his snowmobile to the fractured leg braces that stood ragged and angular from the sled's horizontal surface. He firmly attached three sets of rope in all. One at the back of his creation, one set near the middle and the last at the front of it, forming the tow rope. He tied and then anchored everything with nails. Sarah only monitored him from a distance. The surface he chose to work on nauseated her.

  Finally satisfied with the transmutation Bud slowly stood and took several deep breaths, exhaling heavy sighs. Sarah watched him, concerned. He looked very tired today and she still remembered the way she had come out and found him at the cabin. He had said it was nothing but she sensed otherwise. She had let it go back then but now she was regretting her decision. Sarah wished they were still in the warmth of the cabin, ignorant of all of this.

  Bud looked up then and caught her staring at him. He gave her a smile, "I'm okay hun, I just needed a break. Why don't you pour us some of that hot chocolate you brought, and I'll finish this up?"

  "Are you sure you're okay?" Sarah's concern was deep. She couldn't stand losing her uncle as she had lost her father.

  "Yeah, but I sure could use a cup of that stuff . . . with a shot of schnapps if you don't mind?" He winked at her then and gave a disarming smile that Sarah had always found charming. It had lightened her heart to see that smile and she returned it with one of her own.

  "Coming right up!” she said, more enthusiastically than she felt. Then she turned and headed for the kitchen to find two cups. She returned t
o find that her uncle had already carried, or dragged, Clayton out of the bedroom and laid him atop several blankets he had spread out on the makeshift sled.

  "You should have called me! I would have helped you with that!” she scolded.

  "I may be old, but I'm not dead.” Bud replied, cocking his head to look up at her.

  "Not yet." Sarah thought to herself, and then blurted out, "Oh! You're just a stubborn, pig-headed . . .” clenching her teeth she took a quick hard breath. Shaking her head she handed him a cup of the aromatic liquid. "Here!"

  Bud took it from her and gave her that smile again. "Thanks.", He replied. They both stood there a moment and said nothing, sipping from their cups. Sarah wasn't really angry with her uncle, just worried. She resigned herself to the fact that he was going to do as he damned well pleased, no matter how much everyone else protested. In fact, she couldn't imagine him any other way. It made her smile to think about him and how much like her dad he really was.

  Bud walked over and sat his empty cup down upon the hearth and moved quickly back to the sled and the catatonic man lying on it. He wrapped the blankets around Clayton and tied him to the sled with the lengths of rope he had attached earlier. When he was through, Clayton looked like a little papoose strapped to his mother's back. Sarah smiled at the image in spite of the situation. Testing the rope one final time, Bud was satisfied with their strength and turned to Sarah.

  "Well Sarah, are you ready?" He stood between Sarah and the sled with his hands on his hips and his legs slightly apart. The typical Superman pose from the comics she thought. And in a way, he was her hero. He was the Superman between her and Clayton, between her and the storm, between her and whatever waited beyond the door. At that moment, Sarah loved and needed her uncle more than she ever had.

  "Yeah Uncle Bud, just let me gather up our stuff." She turned, grabbed Bud's cup from the mantle and disappeared into the kitchen. A few moments later she reappeared with her back pack, "Ready." She tried to sound enthusiastic but her voice reeked of trepidation. They both bundled up in their snow gear and each grabbed a rope of the sled. Clayton only twitched nervously, his eyes darting rapidly from side to side.

  The two of them towed the heavy load across the hardwood floor, followed by grunts and creaks and reluctant scraping of wood on wood. At the doorway, they paused while Bud removed the barricade they had blocked the door with then continued. The wind whipped in the opening and assaulted them instantly. In response to this, Clayton let out a whimper lost in the wail of the current.

  The sled itself would not fit through the opening horizontally so Bud and Sarah had to turn it up on one side. The table top itself was heavy enough, but with Clayton's added weight it was nearly impossible to maneuver it. After a considerable struggle the two managed to balance it on one side. Clayton was firmly attached with the ropes an didn't budge, he just hung there on his side like so much beef, his eyes never stopping with their continual search.

  They pulled it through the doorway and let it fall with a soft thud into the fluff piled up against the portal. Snow blew out around the sled's base and was whisked away by gusts of frigid air. On the snow the sled moved more easily but the deep powder stifled Bud and Sarah's progress so that it was about the same as inside. They pulled Clayton over to Bud's snowmobile and Bud attached the rope to the railing around the back of his machine.

  Almost as an after thought, Bud reached into the back of his snowmobile and retrieved the two flare guns. He handed one to Sarah and she took it without protest or query. She quickly stuffed it into her coat pocket and moved over to her snowmobile. Bud pocketed his flare gun as well and climbed onto his Polaris. He looked at Sarah and nodded, she nodded back and they started their machines.

  They wind picked up then, Bud could feel its force increase. Suddenly, the wind was all around him in shrieks of wild anger. It seemed incredibly loud for a moment, incredibly close. It seemed to Bud that it had just passed in one ear and out the other. He glanced at Sarah and saw her holding her gloved hands over her own ears. At that moment he became very afraid. He gunned his engine and felt the machine lurch forward, protesting slightly about the additional weight.

  The wind yelled at them again, closer still. Bud knew they would be leaving not a moment too soon. He turned once again to look at Sarah. Her eyes were wild things, even from behind her goggles, and he knew that she felt it also. Bud looked back at Clayton and saw him trembling and shaking uncontrollably beneath the blankets, and somehow, Bud didn't think it was because of the cold. With that last glance they began to move forward, and even the deafening roar of the two machines couldn't drown out the cries of the wind entirely.

  Just sit right back and you'll hear the tale, the tale of a fateful trip......

  ***

  Hayden poured the last of the coffee into his cup, grounds and all. He slurped a deep swallow to ease its heat then continued. "So as soon as Mike gets done we can go over to my place. I think I can sweet talk Barb into fixing us some breakfast." he smiled at that just then, but Nick had missed it. He sat across from Hayden in one of the chairs Mike had been sleeping on, now repositioned in front of the huge oak desk. Nick sat there nodding acknowledgement but wasn't really paying attention.

  His mind was elsewhere. His thoughts were torn between Sarah and Debbie, and Taylor and Mo. He was concerned about his sister, missed Debbie, and was just plain scared about the rest. Nick had always had an active imagination and it was running overtime right now. He was in fact, having a difficult time convincing himself that he was just being silly. There was nothing silly about it. What had happened was not a bear. Nor anything else natural as far as Nick was concerned.

  He couldn't explain his feelings but they were there and that's all Nick needed. Call it intuition, a premonition, or what ever you wanted. The fact was that he knew deep down inside that he was about to have a nightmare like no other he'd had before. It was going to be a nightmare with the sickening horror of reality, the stench of terrible actuality to it. Slight tremors passed quickly through him and he could feel tiny bumps rise on his arms beneath his flannel shirt. Just as quickly, the wave subsided and he regained control of himself.

  "What then, Hayden? After we eat? I need to let my sister and uncle know what's happened." Nick placed his empty cup on the tray then leaned back in his chair.

  "I know Nick. They're probably worried sick by now. But there's little we can do.", he glanced at his watch, "It doesn't look like Johnny's going to make it this morning, so after we get some hot food in us, I'll drive you two back out and get a hold of the state boys."

  "Back out where?" Mike visibly startled them both as he came through the door, his hair wet and combed flat against his head. He was smiling and had a lightness to his step.

  Hayden thought amused, "You're definitely a long, hot shower person." Mike walked over to the two and pulled up the other chair beside Nick. He leaned over the desk to peer into the empty pot and exaggerated a scowl.

  "Thanks a lot you two." he grumbled half heartedly then stretched out into the chair next to Nick.

  "Back out to Bud's place." Hayden continued, "We need to let 'em know what's going on, and that you two are okay. And, I'd feel a lot better if we got them into town until this thing is over." He added, "I know there's not much to do here but watch the paint peel, but I think we need to stay close until this storm lets up. The road out will be shut down until the plow gets through, and even after it gets through, I wouldn't advise traveling in this."

  Both men nodded in agreement with Hayden. Much as Nick liked his car, he didn't think it would get far in this weather either. Just then the wind shrieked loudly outside the window and caused the three men to jump and turn simultaneously. The window was a frosted white blur as cold as death. The three of them just stood there a moment in breathless anticipation, expecting more. But nothing more came and they all exhaled heavy sighs, almost in unison. It was an eerie wind, at least that much they all agreed upon.

  Yet, Hayden
was much more worried about the situation than he was letting on. Somehow, the bear story didn't sit quite right. He had a churning feeling in his stomach that something far worse than a bear was at play here. He knew his gut instinct was irrational, but he had always paid it heed before. Hayden was scared and he didn't know why, and this was what probably unsettled him the most.

  Something had happened to Johnny. He was sure of it. It just wasn't like him not to show up like this. And one way or another, Hayden knew that he would have to pay a visit to the Kaostiwas. Not that Johnny could tell him anything that would help. Hell, he probably knew less than Hayden. But, he had said that he would be here this morning and he wasn't. Hayden was worried.

  Mike studied Hayden. He had seen that look before, on his father. Most recently when he was going in for what he had told the family was just a physical. It turned out that his father had suffered a mild heart attack. He was worried about it all along, worried to death. He didn't want to upset the family so he'd said nothing. Mike's father had worn a mask to hide his concerns from them. It was the same mask that Hayden was wearing now.

  He cast a glance at Nick and saw that he was studying Hayden as well. Nick had seen the mask also, Mike was sure of it. Something had them all on edge, something more than the simple explanation he'd eagerly accepted last night. It was something evil and it had settled in around them, nestled up to them like an affectionate cat. Suddenly, Mike knew that it was going to get worse before it got better, for them all.

  "Well, let's get going!” Hayden's booming voice broke the uneasy silence. "Bundle up good; it looks like a bitch out there boys!" He was already moving toward the outer office where they'd hung there coats the night before. Behind him, Hayden could hear their motion to follow him. The three of them bundled up and headed for the door.