Black Frost

by John Conroe

  No more time for play. Shoving the gearshift into drive, I floored the gas and raced out of the parking lot, not bothering to keep the FJ Cruiser on the pavement, but cutting across the dying grass, straight to the road.

  Chapter 17

  The Tinks held on till the Toyota reached twenty-five miles an hour, then blew off. I ignored them, my thoughts centered on the image of Ashley in my parent’s window and the sick feeling in my stomach.

  A white blur streaked from the passenger side of the car, the rough shape of an ice goblin just recognizable as it bounded onto the hood of the SUV, its taloned feet tearing into the steel hood. Apparently, ice goblins weren’t well versed on cars, as it immediately shrieked in pain, its feet bubbling on the steel. Losing its footing it smashed into the windshield, the nightmare skull of teeth and red eyes facing me. Realizing it was right on top of its target, it pulled back its left hand and punched the windsheild, the blow knocking a fist sized hole in the tough safety glass. I fumbled for the rifle while slamming on the brakes to dislodge it. The end result of that maneuver was the rifle falling to the floor and the goblin hanging tight to the car. By luck, my Grandfather’s shotgun also slid forward, the butt almost under my right hand.

  The car had just about stopped, so I didn’t feel bad letting go of the wheel to use both hands grabbing the old over/under shotgun. The horror movie face in the windshield was now tearing the glass with both hands, as the gun spun in my hands. Shoving its face forward through the opening it had torn in the glass, the goblin met the steel barrels of Grandpa’s gun. My thumb pushed the safety off and the bottom barrel fired first as my finger pulled the front trigger. The steel slingshot balls tore out of the short tube at over 1300 feet per second and removed half the goblin’s head. Still it clung to the glass, its remaining red eye shocked at the sudden turn of events. Pulling the second trigger removed the other half of the demonic face, taking the body and eye with it.

  My car was half on the road and half on a front lawn. Flooring the gas and wrestling the wheel to the right brought me back on the road, freezing night air streaming into the open windshield. Ears ringing from the gunshots, I glanced around the village street to see if I had woken the town. I hadn’t really paid much attention to where I was, but now the street was recognizable, Tronten Ave, a wide neighborhood street lined with old Victorian houses and even older maple trees. Lights were coming on here and there, but it was quickly apparent that the town was facing its own troubles. Dark figures, some squat, some tall and lean, slithered through the shadows cast by the leafless limbs of the big trees.

  The elves and goblins gathered around just two houses on the street, but I had lived in this town for all of Ashley’s life, and I knew those two seemingly random homes had young children inside.

  The cold, hard part of me that raged to get to my daughter wanted to ignore the monsters that gathered in the shadows around those homes, arguing inside me that I should just get to my Father’s house as fast as possible. But a different part of my psyche argued right back that Ashley had Bob Moore watching over her, while these families didn’t even know there was a problem.

  I broke the action of the shotgun, letting the extractors pop the empty shells over my shoulder, into the back seat. I dropped two more shells from my jacket pocket into the chambers and closed the breech. Lining both the shotgun and my rifle on the seat next to me, I accelerated the SUV down the road. A green goblin bounded in front of me, clearing half the street in one leap, its oversized jaws hissing at my oncoming car in warning. My car wasn’t impressed, but the goblin was when the reinforced bumper struck its shoulder and knocked it under my knobby offroad tire.

  I highly recommend an FJ Cruiser equipped with BF Goodrich Mud-Terrain T/A KM2 mud tires for running over goblins. The combination of power, weight and tire construction is pretty ideal for crushing blue blooded alien monsters.

  Ignoring the sticky blue paste under my car, I leaned out the driver’s window and unloaded both barrels of the shotgun, tagging one more goblin and a lone Hunter, who paused to glare at me. “Shoot and move, shoot and move”. My Father’s words echoed in my head, heard a hundred times in my youth as he instructed agents. I gassed the car, lurching forward just as spinning darts struck the window and door panel behind me. Gotta love modern power windows with the one touch window drop feature. The passenger window slid obligingly down, making it easy to line up the rifle as I drove to the opposite side of the road where figures had paused in their silent assault of the other house. Leaning sideways, I shot the rifle one-handed, scoring a leg hit on another Hunter, who didn’t grasp modern firearms effectiveness. Letting go of the wheel for a moment, I levered a second shell into the chamber and fired again, hitting nothing, but further alerting my fellow citizens and maybe keeping a few alien heads down. A glance in the rearview mirror showed people coming out of their houses. A fast moving squatty shape flashed in front of one concerned citizen, its arm swipe leaving his stomach open, intestines falling in a clump at his feet.

  The other vicious denizens of Fairie scattered into the dark, disappearing like smoke. Keep moving, get to Ashley! That’s all I could concentrate on. The fastest path home popped up in my head as part of me prioritized at computer fast speeds. Turning onto Masters Street, another wide, tree lined road, I sped up.

  My thoughts centered on Ashley, I didn’t realize I was driving past the Yelos household till I was almost on it. The two story brick home where Tom and his wife, Tina, raised Lindsey and her little brother has a wide, mahogany porch which currently was dripping with two elven Hunters and at least four green squatty goblins. The lights upstairs were on, and I could make out Tom’s brawny silhouette in the center second floor window, struggling with a goblin. A sparking green hulk, splashed with blue fluid, was pinned to the lawn by the thick shaft of the spear I had lent Tom.

  The memory of Greer explaining that both Ashley and Lindsey had Talent, flashed through my mind.

  The choice was automatic, my actions immediate. Whipping the wheel sideways, I drove up on the lawn, just missing Tom’s pickup, slipped the gearshift to neutral, and bailed from the still moving car, which rolled to a stop in Tina’s garden bed. Shooting and levering as my feet hit the ground, I put a heavy bullet through the blonde head of one hunter, then a second round through a goblin’s chest as it leaped from the porch roof in my direction. The second hunter spun to me and threw a dart which snagged my Carhart jacket but failed to stick my still moving body. I fired twice at him, but he jumped from the roof to the ancient cedar tree that grew at the corner of the house. I fired the last three shots at two of the remaining goblins, scoring a grazing shoulder wound on one, but missing the second, which jinked and jumped with a wicked speed that just wasn’t fair. Dropping the empty rifle, I immediately transitioned to my Sig, another set of muscle memories pounded into me by Dad.

  My pistol was still at waist level when I started to fire at the monster that was almost on me. Dad calls it a ‘speed rock’ when you draw, lean back and fire from the hip at an attacker who is so close you can touch him with your other hand. I got off two shots before the bundle of scaled muscle slammed into me. Since I was already moving backwards a step, the goblin’s momentum knocked me away from him as we both hit the ground, its claws scrabbling at the cold earth. Ground fighting skills kicked in and my left hiking boot reflexively shoved against its chest as the wounded hell-ape fought to get at me, its claws sinking into my calf. The Sig was still in my hand, so I poked the muzzle into the spike toothed maw that snapped at me and fired five fast shots, which ended the disagreement.

  Standing up painfully on my torn leg, I looked up at the porch roof. The goblin Tom had been fighting with was lying on the shingles, sparking green motes and bleeding blue goo. The head and shoulders of the carcass were oddly misshaped, flattened somehow. I met Tom’s gaze and we gave each other a nod that said we were basically okay. He backed into the room and a moment later the dark form of a wooden dresser was shoved in front of th
e broken window, effectively blocking it.

  I dropped the partial magazine from my Sig, replacing it with a fresh one from my belt. Then I picked up the Winchester and started to thumb cartridges into it. Dad says the problem with my rifle and most shotguns is that while they shoot effective rounds (meaning fight stopping), they require too much manipulation, as in slow, time intensive reloading. I could see his point. My handgun was fully reloaded in two seconds, but the rifle took the better part of a minute to get nine rounds into. Slinging the reloaded rifle over my shoulder, I went to the truck, put it in park and grabbed the shotgun from the front seat. Reloading it, I walked over to the pinned goblin, pulled Shaka Zulu from its decaying chest and continued to the front door. Tom opened it about the time I reached the top step, a single blue spattered fifteen pound dumbbell in his right hand. Tom is old school, his weights are all cast iron, a fact that had just served him well.

  He opened the door and I handed him both the spear and Grandpa’s shotgun. Then I dug all the remaining steel filled shotshells out of my coat pocket.

  “Stay inside, keep out of sight, shoot anything that tries to get in. They’re after Lindsey. They’re also highly allergic to steel and iron,” I explained.

  He looked at the spear in his hand and then looked up, realization dawning in his eyes. “You knew! When you gave me this spear, you knew!” he accused.

  I shook my head. “I suspected, so I needed to give you something to defend your family with.”

  “You could have explained your suspicions!”

  “Yeah right! Hey Tom, I think elves, fairies and goblins are coming for our kids..use this spear to fight them off. That would have been believable,” I said with a sarcastic snort.

  He thought about that, then nodded reluctantly. “Yeah, I guess that wouldn’t have gone over well.”

  “I have to go…they want Ashley most of all,” I said, than continued when his eyes questioned me. “She’s with Dad, but there’s a whole mess of them headed his way. Stay safe, I think Dad called some government types to get help on its way, but I have to go!”

  Inside the house I could see Lindsey and her mother holding each other, eyes wide with fear. I nodded to them both, holding Lindsey’s eye for a moment before turning to leave.

  “Remember, anything iron is lethal to them, but they are fast as hell!”

  We both paused as the sound of a police siren cut through the air, then Tom closed and bolted his door.

  Then I climbed back into the FJ Cruiser and left.

  ***

  I was turning onto Grove Street, when a loud thumping got my attention. It took a second for the deep bass sound to register but then I realized it was a helicopter, coming fast over the village. Glancing up through the foliage I just caught the shape of a military chopper flashing by overhead, hauling ass for the center of the village. If the government responded quickly enough, it could save the town, but I somehow didn’t think they would be of much use to my family.

  As I approached my parents’ part of town, I started to see more movement in the surrounding streets. Shadows and slinking shapes, all slipping deeper into the cold, dark night. I glimpsed a squat gobin, the broken body of what might have been Mrs. Steeker’s tabby cat in its clawed hand. It stopped to stare at me and I noted with a start that it was neither green or white, but instead striped with black and red. The yellow eyes were the same though and after meeting my gaze, it vanished into the gloom.

  Lights were on all over now and as I turned from Grove to Cottage Street, I spotted a police car, lights flashing, in the driveway of a house further down the street. Shots rang out and I saw a figure with a light and a gun stumble backwards, pursued by a goblin shape. The officer kept firing at the goblin, but never saw the tall lean silhouette that stepped out the dark and slashed a gleaming silver edge at his head. The officer’s outline changed shape, a round object flying off his shoulders and the suddenly shorter body falling to the ground.

  My path took me the other direction and I accelerated an urgent need in the pit of my stomach. Mom and Dad lived one street over and as I turned the final corner I saw their house lit up by Dad’s security lights. For a moment I felt a flash of relief, but then I started to see details and my heart fell to my feet.

  The front picture window was smashed and several lumps on the lawn appeared to be sparking green light. Inside the house was mostly dark, but what light there was flickered intermittently. A long lean shape rose to its feet on the front porch as I drove straight up. My headlights illuminated a huge black canine, easily seven feet long, its body hairless, but gleaming black, its eyes yellow. Huge jaws lined with shearing teeth held the limp dead form of my Father’s Doberman, Max, and the front door behind it appeared to be missing.

  Chapter 18

  The giant black dog growled as I slid out of the car, like some oversized, furless Irish Wolfhound that had been dipped in coal tar. Around its neck was a thick leathery collar that was striped in red and black, and tipped with black thorns. The hell hound lowered its head, still holding Max in its jaws, ears back. I shot it. Twice in the head and once in the chest for good measure, the iron tipped .44’s penetrating the length of its body, blasting blue ichor across my parents white porch.

  Jumping past the shuddering body I clicked on the light fixed under the barrel of the rifle, as the flickering lights left the interior shadowy and disorienting like a strobe light at a dance club.

  The front door was torn from its hinges, thrown sideways against the hallway closet door. Blue blood was spattered everywhere, the various clumps showing how many of the Hunt it had taken to get past Bob Moore. I found his Remington short barreled shotgun, his house gun as he called it, lying on the living room floor, underneath a floor lamp. The slide was back, the gun empty, the sidesaddle ammo holder exhausted as well. Then I found my mother, in the kitchen, where she must have made a last stand to protect the back door. Her .38 was lying near the broken door, fallen where she had likely thrown it against the first Fae through the door. Mom, herself, was backed up against the stove, her favorite chef’s knife clutched in one hand, a line of blue viscous fluid staining the steel blade. The angle of her neck and the bloody handprint on the side of her face told me the cause of her death but the angry grimace on her face told me how she had died. That and the sparking pile of goo in front of her. She was beyond my help, but I paused to close her eyes and lower her to a flatter, more natural position, before continuing my careful progress into the house. Fairies, elves and goblins had been unbelievable, but my mother being dead was unreal, despite the proof I had left in the kitchen behind me.

  My father was in the dining room, his legs trapped under the wreckage of Mom’s beloved harvest table. Something had broken the stout table in the middle and it had in turn crushed my Father’s legs. His favorite .45 was still in his grip, the slide locked back on an empty chamber. Empty magazines, fat brass cartridge cases and the blue goo outline of at least four lean bodies indicated the price he had made the Hunt pay for admission to his party.

  A bloody spike protruded from his stomach and his left arm was severed just below the elbow, most likely when he had used it to block a blade stroke. I moved closer, crouching, and his eyes suddenly opened, flickering with effort.

  “Dad?” I asked, shocked he was still alive, sudden hope flaring in my chest.

  “Ian,” his voice just a whisper. “Ash….they’ve got Ash,”

  I dropped the rifle and looked around for something to bind his arm with, but his right hand dropped the empty pistol and clutched at my sleeve.

  “Dad, it’s okay, I’m here, you’ve got to calm down,” I tried to assure him. Instead, he coughed up blood in a foamy spray and gasped out one more thing.

  “Ready riggg…”, then died, in my arms, along with a big portion of my heart. I sat for a moment, holding my father, crying for my mother, wanting my daughter back, till I heard a sound. Just a little sound, a tone really. The barest beginnings of a whine. Gently laying my
father back down, I shined the light from the rifle around the corner of the dining room, the beam coming to rest on the wreckage of the grandfather clock at the entry way to the family room. A brown paw was poking out from under the detached face of the ancient clock.

  Pulling aside the broken wood and gears, I found Charm breathing weakly, her muzzle stained blue. I cleared the space around her and checked her over, her tail beating in short, feeble strokes against the floor.

  “Easy girl, it’s okay.”

  She whined again, stronger this time, her brown eyes looking guilty and sad.

  “We’ll get her back, Charm,” I told the dog as well as myself, suddenly reenergized by the little canine’s fierce will to live. Her breathing improved and her motions got stronger as I checked her over for wounds. There didn’t seem to be any, which led me to believe she had been knocked unconscious when she had been thrown through the clock. After getting her some water, I left her for a moment to head into the basement to Dad’s man cave. In contrast to the rest of the house, the finished basement was pristine, ready to receive company, while the upstairs was destroyed. Dad’s gun safe was unlocked, but I ignored it for the smaller gun cabinet next to it. Punching in my and Ashley’s birth years triggered the lock and the door swung open to give me a look at what Dad called his ‘ready rig’. Studying it with wide eyes, I whistled in appreciation. The attack must have come very suddenly, catching my father with just his .45 and regular house shotgun. If he had gotten hold of this, the fight might have gone differently.

  Inside the cabinet, hanging from an ingenious rack was the best equipped assault rig I’d ever seen. Professional warfighter quality body armor in an olive drab assault vest. Attached to the front of the vest at chest height was a kydex holster at a cross angle that held a Glock 21 .45 with additional thirteen round mags in the four pouches right under it. Three flashbang grenades were hung on the right side next to multiple magazine pouches. The flashbangs, likely a leftover from Dad’s career, had duct tape wrapped around them, which in turn was studded with small iron nails, making an improvised elf grenade. A kydex sheath strapped upside down on the right chest held a handmade bowie of D2 steel that I had crafted for Dad one winter break between college semesters under Grandpa’s watchful eye. Nine inches of incredibly tough, razor sharp steel.