The Winter People

by Bret Tallent

  That relief was short lived however, as moments later they entered the town of Donner. Its buildings were great mounds in the snow, most of them buried up to their eaves. Here and there Mike could make out the dark line of a rooftop defiant to the white that encompassed it. It was not so much a town Mike noted, as it was more a loose collection of cabins lying vacant in the deep winter snows. Not quite vacant Mike reminded himself, and trembled at the thought.

  Johnny paused only briefly at the edge of the tiny village and surveyed the streets, then continued on to a large lump at the far end of town. Great uneasiness fell upon Mike and he had the distinct feeling of being watched. Through the flurry of snow tossed up by Johnny’s machine, Mike noticed that Johnny seemed to be looking around quite a bit more than he had at any time on the trip here. Mike wondered then what he had gotten himself into.

  Johnny circled the last building in a wide arc, moving slowly. It was one of the largest of the cabins in Donner, and the only one with a second story. The upper story was all that could be seen above snow level and its windows were dark and sinister. Johnny noticed that a door to the upper balcony on the back of the building was gone, torn off or smashed in he surmised. He circled the cabin two more times, gathering up his courage as much as surveying the area. He finally came to a stop in the back by the non-existent door along side the railing of the balcony.

  Mike pulled up beside him and they both just looked at each other for a moment. Mike couldn’t seem to stop shaking, and he knew that it wasn’t just from the cold. Even without knowing what they were there for, this place felt like a dead place. It was frozen, and empty, and dead. Mike trembled then shook it off. He focused on Johnny again and gave him a nod indicating that he was ready to go, as ready as he could be anyway.

  Johnny nodded back and climbed from his snow mobile to the balcony. He leaned over the railing and took Mike’s hand to help him cross the two snowmobiles and climb onto the balcony. As he did so he lost his balance and nearly fell off into the deep snow, but Johnny was able to steady him and get him onto the firm surface. Mike sighed and turned to follow Johnny who had quickly moved into the ruined opening.

  As soon as the two were inside they halted. Between the snow outside, their goggles, and the light from behind them, they were staring into a gaping maw of blackness. Johnny and Mike both removed their goggles and let them hang loosely around their necks, but it did little to help their vision. It was a deep, dark cavern where nightmares were born. And nightmares were waiting for them as well. Of this they were both sure.

  Almost simultaneously they each removed a flare from their pockets and lit them. The flickering light cast a blood red glow to the room, and shadows danced across its surface. The room was a shambles. The furniture was toppled and battered, and there were dark stains on the walls in the shapes of massive handprints that they just knew was blood. Mike had to swallow down his gorge.

  Johnny worked his way through the debris to a door at the far end of the room, and Mike followed. He concentrated on Johnny’s back so he wouldn’t have to look at the room any more than he had too. Even though it was freezing in the room and his breath hung around his head in a frosty fog, Mike was sweating. He couldn’t help but think about Barbara, and Marty, and Taylor, and every one of the poor bastards in this hellhole of a town. He also couldn’t help but think about what was waiting for him beyond the door.

  The door led to a loft with a railing that opened up to the room below. But Mike never made it to the railing. As he came through the door he saw them; bodies, and parts of bodies, all twisted and frozen, and stacked up like cordwood. There were bodies leaning up against the walls, some without heads, and some with nary a mark on them. Some of them he recognized as people he had seen in Copper Creek on the few times they had gone there. But most of them he didn’t know, or couldn’t recognize. He fell to his knees and vomited.

  ***

  Gary ran as hard as he could. Although there was somewhat of a path from the snowmobiles, he still sank into the snow up to his waist on many occasions. It took every bit of strength that Gary had to trudge the fifty feet or so to the garage bay door. With every step that he had to force himself to take, the cold grabbed at him like a thorn bush. He forced huge amounts of arctic air into his lungs and each breath burned more than the last.

  He could hear the cry of the wind too. It was a living thing that cast delight at his torment. It pelted him with tiny bits of snow that stung even through his clothes. It pushed at him with invisible hands, and tried to take the very breath from his mouth. Then Gary noticed something strange. The wind was getting closer. It was louder, and it was angrier, and it was getting closer.

  Fear catapulted Gary through the snow. He pulled himself along with the backpacks, throwing them out before him and then pulling the rest of his body up to them. He struggled and fought and kicked his way to the door. Gary slid down the little ramp they had made for the snowmobiles and banged on the metal door with his feet. He kicked it as hard as he could and did not stop until the door began to rise.

  As soon as the door had cleared enough of the snow, Gary slid down the ramp into the garage. “Close the door!” he screamed above angry shrieks that followed him.

  “Where’s Nick?” Sarah asked, her finger poised over the down button.

  “He’ll be here in a minute, but something’s after me! Close the door!” Gary replied.

  Even as the door began to lower Gary scrambled away from it, expecting something to grab after him. But nothing happened. Gary stopped near Sarah and looked back, but there was nothing there. He listened intently, but all he heard was the wind. His panic ebbed and heart slowed, and he took a long, deep breath. He looked up to Sarah and she was looking down at him with tears welling in her eyes.

  “Where’s Nick?” she asked again.

  “We had to separate.” Gary explained, “He should be along any minute.”

  Sarah paused for a long moment and stared off at nothing, then said, “No, he won’t.”

  ***

  Nick stood cataleptic, waiting for a sign. He searched the mist created by the low lying clouds and blowing snow for movement. He stared until there was a dull ache behind his eyes. The dull ache grew into a rhythmic throbbing at his temples, but still there was no motion.

  Drifting snow eddied and curled, giving a strange semblance of life to inanimate objects. Soon, there were no inanimate objects, only the blowing snow. Drifts reached up to the roof tops, melding with them to form large rolling hills. Trees became spires, inhospitable crags from another time and place. Suddenly the land was foreign to him, it was alien. From somewhere deep inside a small terrified voice told Nick that this was their world and he was an unwelcome intruder.

  Terror struck cold in Nick’s heart. It pierced it like an icicle that’s dropped from an eave and buried itself deep in the soft snow below. He wanted to scream but the wind pulled the very sound from his mouth. He tried to think but his brain was in turmoil, a tiny vessel caught in a storm. All he could do was run. Without thinking, and for all he was worth, he ran.

  The world flashed by him in a dizzying swirl of white. The soft crust of snow gave way to his weight on several occasions, forcing him to sink to his knees or groin and topple over forward. Just as quickly though, Nick would pull himself up and continue on. He would struggle out of the mire of hoarfrost and scramble forward.

  Before long his extremities were numb and his lungs burned from the cold air he forced into them. His goggles had fogged over and the world was a fuzzy white. Each breath came harder and shorter than the previous one, each step a little closer. No longer did he hold his hands out before him, reaching for the unknown. They now hung lifelessly at his side.

  Nick was to the point of exhaustion when he saw the glow. It was strange and unearthly and emanated from the surface before him. Nick fell towards it, his strength depleted. He sank several feet in the luminescent snow and the glow became brighter. It enveloped him but there was no warmth in i
t. It was as cold and harsh as the rest of this world. A wave of despair swept over him.

  However, Nick was not afforded the luxury of despair. He was catapulted from it by the deafening cry of the others. So loud and close was the cry that the pain in his ears caused them to bleed once more. Nick jerked his head around to look over his shoulder and felt a warm moist breeze dance across his cheek. It caused his goggles to completely fog over and the breath to catch in his throat.

  In that brief second, as the world had gone preternaturally silent, Nick knew that he was about to die. Suddenly, that silence was shattered by a creak, moan and pop. Nick felt the snow give way beneath him and he tumbled downward, rolling backward into the light. He was facing upward and caught the blurred glimpse of a huge gnarled hand following him downward. It stretched out towards his chest in a grasping motion, its long nails catching only his parka, leaving long gashes in the Gortex.

  The hand closed on nothing and up above, in the other world, there was a hateful cry. Behind him, Nick heard the tinkle of glass on concrete and then the muffled thud of his own body striking it. It forced the air from him and rocked his head back painfully, cracking it loudly on the floor. But nothing had sounded quite so sweet to Nick; he was in his world again.

  The cold light from the fluorescents in the ceiling bathed Nick as he lay on the floor of the gas station across the street from the Diner. He reveled in the comfort of things known to him and sucked in several deep breaths to regain control of himself. Above him he could hear the frustrated wails of the others and it made him smile slightly.

  Nick tried to stand just then and fell back to the floor, his legs useless rubber things. He struggled to all fours and the world swam around his head in disjointed images. Oil additives danced with souvenir key rings of “Colorful Colorado”, and bright pennants promising the lowest prices around on Goodyear snow tires floated by. Suddenly, Nick’s head racked with pain.

  He managed to get to his knees and sat back on his heels, swaying unsteadily from side to side. Nick pulled the glove from his right hand and slipped it under the hood of his parka. He felt the back of his head and felt the lump already forming there. Then he felt something warm and sticky on his fingers.

  Nick pushed back his hood and shoved the goggles up on top of his head. He jerked his face mask down around his neck and took several deep breaths. Each breath cleared his head a little more, but caused a wave of nausea to pass over him with each one. After a moment or two he stood cautiously, bracing himself against the glass counter.

  Nick saw his reflection then in the glass and let out a disbelieving laugh. His eyes were wide orbs set deep in their sockets, his face ashen. There was blood smeared around his mouth where it had run down from his nose and more blood was drying in his ears and on his neck. His hair sat flat against his forehead and stuck erratically on the sides in twisted mattes. To Nick, he looked like some drug crazed vampire after a wild night on the town.

  As Nick stared at himself in the glass he caught a movement of white behind him. Whirling in fear, Nick saw it again. Soft clumps of snow were falling through the opening in the top of the window that he had made, and beyond that was the sound of the others. They were coming. Nick jerked his head from side to side and surveyed the room. A door to the left, a mountain of snow behind it he surmised, and a door to the right that led into the garage.

  In an instant, Nick launched himself away from the counter and bounded toward the garage door. Within moments he was through it and did another quick survey. To his right was a large rolling tool chest nearly as tall as he was. He stumbled to it and gave it a pull but it didn’t move. He braced himself and pulled with all that he had and managed to move it only a foot before his strength gave out and he began to feel weak kneed again.

  A thousand thoughts raced through Nick’s mind, none of them very good. He rubbed his chin, contemplating, and surveyed the garage a second time. There wasn’t much there that would be of any great help, he thought. There was a work bench with an odd tool or car part on it, an old Buick up on the lift above the floor drain, an arc welder, and an acetylene torch.

  Behind him, Nick heard a tinkle of glass and the soft thud of snow on the tile floor. He turned and peered through the window of the door that connected the two rooms and saw a snowman forming out of the mound on the floor. In that moment several other blobs of snow issued forth through the hole he himself had come through only minutes ago. They plopped onto the tile and also began to rise.

  Panic swelled up in Nick’s chest, they would be on him in an instant. The instinct for survival took over his actions and gave him a renewed strength. He lunged towards the torch and quickly threw the coils of its hoses off of the tanks. After checking the tank valves, he adjusted the gas flow at the nozzle and ignited it with a striker from the tank rack.

  A yellow flame burst out spewing black soot before it that drifted lazily downward like soiled snowflakes. Nick tried to adjust the flame, intensify it, and it blew out with loud pop. As the torch winked out, the glass in the door window exploded into the garage, followed by a gnarled hand. Nick fumbled with the striker plate and almost dropped everything in his panic. After a quivering eternity he managed to wrap his thumb and forefinger around the control knob. He reduced the oxygen flow a little and reignited the torch. The flame was a blinding blue and hissed with intensity.

  He thrust it at the door just as the rest of the arm came through the ruined opening. There was a squeal of pain and surprise from the other room and the arm retreated in a blur of fire. The pungent scent of burning hair filled Nick’s nostrils and a moment later there was a brilliant flash in the other room, then chilled silence. Nick strained to hear but the only sound was the hiss of the torch. Another moment passed, then two, and then a death cry shattered the quiet.

  It filled his veins with ice water and somewhere beneath his clothing his leg had grown warm and wet. Nick tried to swallow but couldn’t. They wanted him. Not just to kill something, anything, they wanted him. Beyond hatred or contempt, beyond the pain, the ferocity, Nick heard vengeance. He heard it and it frightened him more than he thought anything could.

  It was not a threat. It wasn’t even a strong desire or a wish. It was simple fact. They were going to have him. Whatever it took, however long it took, he would be theirs. And when he was, God have pity on him. Nick’s mouth turned to sand and he had to remind himself to breath.

  Then suddenly the door rattled on its hinges, startling Nick and causing him to hold the torch out before him. Something hit it again and this time it was accompanied by several grunts and snarls. They’re going to get tired of this and charge me, Nick thought, waltz right in here and rip me a new asshole.

  Wham! The door rattled again and it made Nick tense up all over. Uncertain, he scanned the garage again and his eyes focused on the floor drain. His stare was calculating, his look determined. A thin ray of hope had presented itself to Nick and he was reaching out for it. A two square foot iron grate covered the drain. It was too small for them to fit through, but just large enough for him.

  Wham! The doorframe began to splinter.

  The problem was getting to it. As soon as he gave up his vantage point they would be upon him, he was sure. He needed two things, a diversion, and a crowbar. Nick searched the workbench again and there was a crowbar sitting right on top. Then his eyes were drawn down, drawn by something red and low and sitting beneath the bench. A gas can.

  Nick had little choice. He had to move soon while he still held some advantage. He only prayed that the can had some gas in it. Cautiously he moved forward, holding the torch toward the door as he did so. He crossed to the bench, his eyes never leaving the door, and kicked the can. To Nick’s surprise it was full. He reached down, fumbled for the cap, and removed it. Nick pushed the can with his foot to the far end of the tool chest, near the door.

  Wham! Wham! The door burst inward and landed flatly on the concrete floor. Nick kicked the can just then, dowsing the fallen door. The redd
ish liquid ran into the doorway and the strangely attractive fumes attacked his nostrils. Nick kicked it again and sent it into the other room with a metallic thud.

  In one motion, Nick tossed the torch into the puddle and jumped for the crowbar. There was a loud “Whoof!” behind him as the gasoline caught and the air became thin as the flames sucked hungrily at it. Then the can exploded in a roar and Nick saw his shadow darken on the far wall. He felt a brief push on his back as the force from the blast sent him forward toward the drain. Mixed in with it all were the cries.

  The tall man fell to his knees and stabbed at the grate with the crowbar. The bar clanked dully on the grate as his hands trembled and his eyes wouldn’t quite come into focus. Nick noticed then that his shadow was becoming less pronounced and behind him the ululation intensified. The heat of the fire and his own fear caused him to sweat; stinging his eyes and making his hands slip inside his gloves.

  Nick threw the gloves off and attacked the grate again. The bar crashed to the concrete with all of Nick’s weight behind it, his knuckles testing the strength of the concrete. Nick let out a brief scream and uttered some obscenities to himself. He pulled up one hand into a tight fist and turned it to look at his knuckles. The ragged flesh was just turning from white to red as the blood began to free flow.

  Nick wiped his eyes and brow with the back of the other hand, dried the palms of both hands upon his pant legs, and tried again. This time the bar found purchase between the concrete and the grate. He pried it up and pulled the grate aside, its dull scrape on the floor causing his teeth to clench. Above him there was a scraping on the roof that caused his mouth to go dry as well.