Michael wept instantly, starting with an odd, painful sob before exploding from his lips like a storm. He fell to his knees in the snow, shoulders shaking as he whispered his daughter's name like a mantra.
We carried her heavy body into the cabin, my mind too numb and unable to grasp the possibility of a dead girl coming back to see her Daddy.
"Don't you realize how strange this is? How impossible?"
As I asked the question, a large piece of ice fell from Melissa's open mouth to the floor, shattering into tiny slivers. She spoke, water dripping from her glossy teeth, though her lips never formed the words.
"Daddy, I'm sorry I went swimming without your permission," the child's voice said, all wet and soggy, almost bubbly, as it boomed from still lips.
My skin prickled. It was too surreal, like demonic possession.
Michael sobbed before he was able to speak. "I know, honey. I know."
Melissa began to cry. Her eyes slithered slowly to the left until they locked with mine, the sound of ice being dragged against stone as they moved. She had no pupils—just the dead blackness of space. I moved backwards as if struck, her dark gaze piercing into me with quiet violence.
"That's not Melissa," I whispered, my breath stopping as her eyes stabbed into me again with frightening rage.
Michael hissed—his fists curling up into tightly clenched balls. "She came back to me. God knew how much I needed her and He gave her back to me."
I ignored the sound of the ice breaking as she melted free. "Melissa is dead."
"Don't you think I know that!" He snapped, grabbed my shoulders and pulled me into him, spraying my face with spittle. "I've suffered every fucking day since she died, Richard! Not a day goes by that I don't hear the sound of her laughter! See her running by in the corner of my eye! I see her every night in my sleep! Not a day goes by that I don't feel the loss of her!"
"Listen to yourself, Michael. You just said it. Melissa is dead. You're talking about her in the past tense because you know this. Dead people don't come back."
He fell to his knees before the frozen corpse. I watched, repulsed, as Melissa's eyes crept sluggishly downward.
His voice dropped to a soft whisper. "I prayed every day for her to come back to me…and now she's here. There is no other way to see this except for an act of God."
Her blue-pink fingers wiggled back and forth, water dripping from the edge of her nails. Her eyes darted back to me, daring me to speak against her.
"People don't come back from the dead," I said. "Whatever the hell this thing is, it's not Melissa. Any fool can feel that she's dangerous."
"Fuck you," he hissed, wrapping his arms around her icy corpse, his hot tears falling onto glacial arms with a soft hiss. The little girl giggled, her throat undulating softly under her motionless mouth as if there were insects awakening from within her cold flesh.
Michael flinched when she giggled like that, his body tensing. I think some part of him knew that what he was embracing was just plain wrong, but he was desperate. Hell, if I had been in his place, I would have done the same damn thing.
By the next morning, Melissa had completely thawed out. She moved sluggishly, with a clumsy jerking of her limbs—like she didn't have the ability to walk on her own and someone above was pulling invisible strings in lurching motions. Michael watched her with the guilty gaze of a heroin addict—a man who knew the absolute wickedness of what he was doing, but was unable to stop.
The snow had never really let up, and continued to blanket the world around us. Its usual serene beauty no longer made me feel safe.
She had no memory of anything after she'd died; she remembered only up to the point where she had drowned. At one point, they sang a childhood lullaby; Melissa perched awkwardly on his lap, a line of pinkish drool falling from her slack mouth. Her voice sounded far off, as if she were talking from a long distance away and was using her body as a receptacle. It was one of the most frightening things I have ever witnessed, and to this day, when I see that moment in my mind, I'm gripped by a wave of revulsion unlike anything else I've ever experienced.
Because it was also the first time I noticed she was decomposing.
Melissa's skin was turning slightly gray—no longer the pale white color of the snow she seemed born of. Her eyes, at first filled with moisture, had grown hard and black, not unlike the eyes of a doll. They did not focus on anything, only stared into nowhere, and I was certain that if I touched them, they would feel like coal.
"Her skin is rotting," I said, no longer concerned with treading lightly.
Michael ignored me, picked her up, and took her into the bathroom. A few moments later, I followed and watched from the doorway. I could only shake my head and fight the urge to weep. Michael had a tube of ointment and was rubbing it over her festering wounds, desperately trying to stop what he knew was coming.
Melissa just stared at me, her dark mouth like a third eye. Tear tracks glistened down Michael's face as he mumbled, his hands frantically massaging the medicine into her sores.
"It hurts, Daddy," Melissa said, her voice soft and vulnerable—yet more distant than ever.
Michael closed his tear filled eyes. "I know, honey. I'm trying to make it better."
"I'm sorry, Michael," I whispered.
"I don't understand," he said. "Why is God taking her back? She's dying."
Though I tried to hold it back, I gasped—the air fleeing my body as if from a punch. He was rubbing the ointment onto her bare back, the strap of her dress hanging limply to the side. Her spine was sticking through the rotted flesh, yet his fingers rubbed lovingly over the knobs of bone.
"She was never alive," I said, part of me hoping to destroy the abomination before me.
"He's taking her back," he said distantly. His fingers stroked her protruding spine obsessively. "He gave her to me to strengthen my faith, but now He's punishing me for questioning Him."
"If God gave her to you, He's a cruel God."
Michael buried his head into his daughter's chest. "Leave us alone, please."
"I love you, Daddy," Melissa said as I walked away. Her voice was far away and creepy, like a tape player with a low battery.
By the next day, the skin on her cheek had rotted away completely, exposing her cheekbone to the stale cabin air. Maggots could be seen eating the flesh on a wound in her forearm. Melissa could no longer speak, only moan softly in a queer sing-song-like melody. Michael continued to frantically rub her with ointment.
I cried as I watched them, wanting so badly to do something—anything—to stop the pain my friend was feeling, but I was helpless. We both were. By this time I was too far gone to help, too numb. Melissa's face had begun to sink, the outline of her skull beginning to take shape under her decaying skin. It was as if her bones were coming through, her flesh melting away like ice.
Later that night, the wind pounding the walls of the cabin, Michael spoke to me for the last time. "I'm going with her, Richard. I can't bear to lose her again. You've been very good to me. I'll always love you for that."
We embraced. Sometimes I can still feel his warm arms around me, and to this day I wish I had stopped him.
Michael picked up Melissa, who dangled like a rag doll, arms and legs swinging lifelessly as they moved. He did not look back when he opened the door and walked into the brutal wind.
I watched him carry his little girl into the sea of white, his dark clothing stark against the swirling snow, until he disappeared, the whiteness devouring him languidly.
When they found his body several days later, Melissa was not with him. He was leaned against a tree, his arms circled around nothing in a dead embrace.
Not a day has passed that I don't think about what happened to us at the cabin. Part of me often wonders if we both didn't suffer from some bizarre hallucination—or if I had somehow bought into Michael's fantasy of bringing his girl back to life.
I often think of them.
Even outside of sleep, I can still hear
Melissa's laughter with vivid clarity—see Michael weeping over her decomposing body. My dreams have become infected by my experience that winter. I haven't had a good sleep in at least a year.
I dread the upcoming winter.
It seems I am never truly warm—no matter how many sweaters I put on. Often, I wake up in the middle of the night shivering beside my wife, my teeth chattering together.
I have my own little girl now, and I can't help but think of the cabin when I look into her beautiful eyes. Knowing what happened to Melissa has tainted the elegance of my child. She seems so fragile now, her life so fleeting, and it's not hard to imagine myself in Michael's place.
I hope my friend and his daughter have found some peace—wherever they are.
I know I haven't.
The Winnowing
In Grandfather Mountain, it's legal once a year. Most of them complained. Some of them even die. But we give them fair warning. We tell them to get out of town.
Christ, it was only one day out of the year. That gave them three hundred and sixty-four days of freedom. You'd think they would take our recommendation. But there's always a few who ignore the call for The Winnowing.
Like three years ago, when a bunch of them grouped together with the serious misconception that they had strength in numbers. The sounds of their screams could still be heard in the musty darkness of town's alleys.
This year, it looked as if the pickings would be sparse. They had learned their lessons well.
As always, we had kept indoors all night, blinds closed. It was unfair to watch them leave, but I remember hearing their hurried shouts and the loud rumbles of their engines as they evacuated the town for a safer haven. Most of them used this opportunity for their annual summer vacation. So we weren't really putting them out.
Although they were loud, their noise didn't bother me. I couldn't sleep anyway. I just lay awake planning and promising myself that this year, I wouldn't come in second. This year I'd finally become Mayor.
Somewhere between retreating engines and the harried commands of some of my neighbors, I fell asleep. I arose with the sunrise at six. It was one of those breezy, clear summer days that promised grand adventure.
I had been on the streets for an hour. I'd already checked three likely prospects, but their Winnowing cards had granted their safety. This kind of hunting was for the initiate, however. I was just killing time, hoping to score a few freebies, until my great plan went into effect.
The shouts came from my left.
One, two then three voices rose in a howl as they gave chase. They whooped and swung their spiked Louisville Sluggers in great arcs over their heads, as they closed on the retreating figure. Like children playing a game of hide and seek, they ran and hopped and swung their clubs above their heads.
Their target scuttled down the sidewalk like a beetle on speed—remembering how he was supposed to move, distant memories of running and primal genetic residuals of the prey. His elbows pumped high, begging for extra purchase, hoping to make up for the inherent weakness of his legs.
The hunters' laughter echoed against the empty storefronts as they easily surrounded their prey. He swung his fists wildly, slicing air. His insults, if solid, could have surely wounded the Winnowers, but alas, as Jim, the barber swung his club in a backhand swing driving the spike snugly into the left ear, it was all semantics. The others joined in, but they were too late. The score was all Jim's. I caught Jim's eye, and gave him a respectful nod. He smiled happily, thinking his score mattered and moved with the pack farther down the street.
I had no worries from Jim.
He was a mere initiate.
A man with no plan.
The Winnowing had begun fifteen years ago as an economic measure to relieve the city's coffers of the tremendous financial strain that their kind caused. At first, it was scoffed at. Even when it was passed, few believed its tenets. But when the new Mayor was elected the next year with twenty-four winnows recorded and not threat of prosecution, people suddenly took notice.
The hydraulic squeal of a bus made me turn and smile. It pulled to a stop in front of my store, Grandfather Mountain Travel and Tours.
My great plan had arrived.
The door shooshed open and a wiry young man skipped down the steps, stretching his arms, flexing his legs.
"Are you Mr. Lopez?" he asked, eyeing the bat I was trying to hide behind my leg.
I smiled wide. "Why don't you go over to the grill across the street and have yourself some breakfast. Tell Peg it's on me. Order whatever you want."
His eyes brightened. "Thanks, Mister."
I watched him stroll across the street and disappear into the dark confines of the grill. I took a deep breath and mounted the stairs, the hairs on my arms standing up in concert with goose bumps of anticipation.
I stood on the yellow line you weren't supposed to cross and eyed the eighty passengers I had arranged to come into town for my Super Discount Appalachian Weekend Getaway. One hundred and sixty eager eyes stared expectantly from eighty creased, lined faces. Their excitement belied their over-the-hill bodies.
I had promised them in my brochure that even with their seventy plus years of life, they had never experienced a weekend like this one. I hefted my bat, admiring the seven spikes piercing the strong ash, determined to fulfill my promise.
Killin' Lenny
"Sam, somethin' is seriously fucked and I need you here…now," Lenny said, his breath shooting into the telephone in stabbing thrusts. His voice sounded odd—almost like it was coming out of two mouths at once.
Sam sighed and stared down at the cat that was winding its way around his leg. He looked back up at his reflection in the mirror, frowning at the way his curly black hair was sticking out in wooly tufts. "No way, man. I'm dead tired here. I just got off a ten hour shift and I have to get up early. I need to take a shower, Lenny."
"Trust me. Once you see what I did, you won't regret comin' over here."
"What did you do? I don't want to play games here, man."
Lenny tried to speak, but his voice broke up in a brief sob before he managed to get it under control. "Remember when I told you I was gonna kill myself?"
"Yeah…you tryin' to tell me you want me to talk you out of killin' yourself again?" Sam asked, pushing the cat away with his boot. "Because if you are, this conversation ain't happenin', man. I'm tired of it. At this point, I'm so tired I don't care if you put the end of a barrel in your mouth and pull the trigger. In fact, I will applaud your ass on the way to bed. Now, if you don't mind, I need to get some sleep."
"I did pull the trigger, Sam. That's what's fucked up. I am dead...but I ain't either."
"I swear to god, if this is some kind of joke I am going to kill you myself, you won't need suicide."
"Just come, please."
Sam hung up the phone and closed his eyes, imagining himself lying in his bed, the pillow wrapped around his head like sleep inducing headphones. Sometimes Lenny was a pain in the ass, but most of the time he rather enjoyed his eccentric friend. At least when he wasn't tired enough to fall asleep where he stood.
Ten minutes later, he pulled into Lenny's driveway, yawning tiredly as he mumbled hateful things. The house was unlit, the windows staring out into the dark lawn ominously. Lenny's odd statement drifted through his head as he walked to the front door.
I am dead…but I ain't either.
Sam pushed the doorbell, imagining that it was the button to a bomb.
"Come in, Sammy!" Lenny said from far back in the house, probably the kitchen.
He hated when anyone called him Sammy and opened the door in annoyance. As soon as he stepped inside, a smell wafted into his nose—a thick deathly smell, a mix of iron, burned flesh, and gunpowder.
"I'm in the kitchen," Lenny said, his voice still sounding oddly hollow, almost like his head was in some sort of echo chamber. "Best ready yourself, it ain't pretty, man."
The puddle of blood was the first thing Sam noticed—it ha
d trailed out from the kitchen and was already congealing on the gray living room carpet. The surreal sight of so much blood sent Sam reeling, a gasp of astonishment jumping from his lips as he peered around the corner and into the well-lit kitchen.
Lenny was sitting at the table calmly—his back straight in the bloody chaos around him—two large bullet holes in his head.
Droplets of blood were splashed about the kitchen so badly it looked like a horror movie set that had gone into violent overkill—bullet holes, flowery splatters, and crimson streaks snaking on the surrounding walls. Blood pooled so thickly on the floor that you could not even see the white linoleum underneath. The gun sat on the kitchen table innocently, like it had never hurt a person in its life.
"What...the...fuck," Sam whispered, his voice rising with every word, his tongue hitting the last consonant sharply, like a hiss. "Lenny, what the hell did you do?"
He shook his head, red swollen eyes glittering with desperation. "I don't know. It doesn't even hurt. It just itches a little."
Lenny pointed at the holes in his forehead. Sam could actually seethe splattered wall through the wound and he shivered.
"Why did you do this, Lenny? I don't understand."
Lenny sighed. "I can't take it anymore, man. Ever since Beth left me last year, I haven't felt the same. You know this. When I lost my job, that was just it for me. I have nothin' to live for. I just want to die. I may act in good humor around you, but when the night comes, I'm in agony. Everything I do is a major fuck up." He chuckled bitterly, the deep wounds glistening in the fluorescent light. "It seems I can't even kill myself right."
Sam studied the kitchen, his mind telling him to flee, his legs shaking underneath him where he stood. "There is no way you can be alive, Lenny. No way you can be talkin' to me. Look at all that blood, man. No one can lose all that blood and stay alive. No one."
Lenny frowned, his skin stretching deeply on his clammy face. A line of blood dripped from his forehead and across his eye. "I don't think my heart is beatin' anymore—and I'm not breathin'. When I realized this I got scared, man. What the hell am I gonna do? You gotta help me."
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