“No, it's alright,” I tell her, then tap one with my axe, “see, frozen. They can't hurt you.”
The door to the garage is only a few meters away.
No sweat.
Other than the lone figure, none of the fresh horde from the cities have made it around here yet. They must be focused on the South side of the lodge for the moment.
The night is strangely clear; no clouds, no snowfall, Just a blanket of white reflecting the chaos above.
Kerry.
I look up.
The pale figure is closer yet still too far for me to make out any real detail.
Silje tugs my hand and I return to making our way slowly between the dense collection of the frozen dead.
Kerry.
Damn it! What is that!.
The pale figure is closer still: I can see now that he is naked and as pale as the snow; his fingers long...no not long, but tipped with icicle claws. There is ice at the shoulders and head too, branching off in the way frost will grow, ice crystals but larger. They form a crown...wait not a crown...
My guts go cold.
...woven horns, antlers, made of ice.
Cracking all around me.
Silje is saying something but I can't hear her, I can't turn, all I can do is look at this man – bathe in his presence.
I feel it in my bones. I know this man.
I blink and he is closer still, just down the slope from me now.
Mark!
It can't be but it is. His pale bloodless body delicately traced with ice patterns, glassy talons and antlers. The ice covers his face like a glass sculpture of the man he used to be, yet beneath I can make out the ruin, the skull stripped of flesh.
This is not my husband.
Kerry.
My name on the wind again.
I do not know what he wants but for the time being I know he means me no harm. The world about me calm and soundless, save for the icy wind from the north. A soothing lullaby.
I could just stop here...
...I could just lay down...
Why struggle against the inevitable?
Everything and everyone I held dear is gone. The dead hound us constantly. We've no proof that anyone is alive in the cities. From the numbers of the dead that swarmed up from the road it is hard to believe that there is.
It'd be so easy to just give up.
No!
I won't!
Yes, it would be easy. But there are others. Lars and Silje, they're counting on me. I can hear shouting distant and dreamlike as I resist. I look away from the icy thing that has taken my husband's form. Silje is now in Lars's arms at the service entrance to the garage, fear on their faces. Warm light spills out from inside the garage, behind them the snowcat purrs ready to take us away.
They are calling to me but I can't make out the words.
Then I realise...
...the frozen dead are free!
While in my trance they had broken out from their prisons – lent strength by the presence of their King, perhaps. Their King?
How do I know that?
The dead do not attack me though, they just watch. Broken weatherworn corpses, eyes burning with green fire. A sinister entourage.
I spin back to their King and he is right in front of me, glistening and regal. I can feel the cold radiating off of him. Frost forms on my parka and exposed face. My hot breath plumbing against his duel visage. He reaches for me, his icy talons grip about my wrist as I try to run. The cold burns. I can only shriek as his touch freezes through the cloth of my parka sleeve to sear into the skin beneath.
I tug in a vain attempt to free myself. His strength is preternatural. Unyielding.
With his other claw he reaches as though a lover to caress my cheek but stops as two fingertips draw frost-burns across the warm flesh.
He hesitates.
I do not.
Twisting my arm I slip it free of his loosening grasp, some of my skin tearing away, frozen to his hand with the extreme cold.
Blood flows and I'm screaming but I can't hear myself.
The dead around me watch impassively.
Mark, their King, does not advance. Instead merely watches as I stumble, bleeding, to the doorway.
A second later, Lars slams the door shut and I collapse.
Epilogue
I awake to the gentle rocking and pleasant hum of the snowcat. I'm in the back seat with what supplies Lars was able to salvage. It's not much. Lars is driving and Silje sits in the passenger seat. Rin, her bear has been placed on the dash, like a lookout, guiding the way.
They haven't noticed I'm awake yet.
I don't want them to.
Silje is talking with Lars, who is being patient and attentive. I see a smile on his bearded face, a rare sight. Good, they seem to be getting along. Poor Silje, she needs a friend now more than ever.
I glance over the dash, a hooked mountain looms directly ahead of us. Hunter's Peak.
We've made good time.
With any luck we'll find the scientific team.
If they can't give us answers at least they can give us shelter.
I lay my head back against the side window, ready to drift off again … but there he is once more. Mark standing amidst the flurries alone in the near distance watching us rumble by. Observing our progress.
I can't tell if he's a figment or not.
I close my eyes …
… for just...
… a moment...
...just...
...a...
...moment...
DEAD OF WINTER
III
– 1 –
GÖTTERDÄMMERUNG
Winter 1944, Norway
Dr Grueber pushed on into the darkness, lamp held high to get a better view of the stone carvings.
Marvellous, absolutely marvellous!
Behind him the fierce Norwegian winter bit at him from the entrance. His remaining men skittish and half frozen from the trek. Let the others fight the Allies, he would change the world with these discoveries. Hitler had his scientists building Wunderwaffe, but science was more than just rockets and nuclear energy. At the very bleeding edge of science magic was revealed; the inner workings of the universe. After all what is magic but science to the ignorant?
This place was not supposed to exist. It contradicted many ancient beliefs and practices, yet here it was; a Barrow on the mountainside.
Grueber had done many unsavoury things to find this ancient place. The Sami shamans said it was cursed. Strange how even the most resolute will break under just the right pressure. Putting a man's family on their knees with guns to their heads was an effective lubricant. Most men would turn on their beliefs, and so did the shaman. He'd had them shot anyway, but he'd gotten the information he'd needed.
That had lead Grueber to the hot springs and the pictographs within the caves, which led here; to a Viking barrow on the slopes of Hunter's Peak.
Already he could make out carvings and parts of the Old Norse runic alphabet on the stone. The narrow entrance opened up into a chamber – much wider than it was long. It was fashioned after a ship, as many barrows were, though this one was carved from stone rather than built of wood.
This place must have been of great import to have required such stonecraft.
In the main chamber Grueber's light didn't reach very far, and the dry air was stale. He brought a handkerchief to his mouth as he explored the bas-reliefs upon the wall.
Truly it was has he had hoped, depictions of Götterdämmerung, the fabled Twilight of the Gods. The final battle when the gods would fall and the Fimblwinter – the Final Winter – would begin.
“Bring more light!” he ordered.
The men under his command obeyed though it was clear they were unnerved by this place. More lanterns were stuck, pushing back ancient shadows that danced at the new light, making the carvings and bas-reliefs eerie to behold. His pin caught the light. A circular swastika, the sign of the Thule Society of wh
ich he was a member.
It was only natural that Grueber's own fascination with the occult had drawn him to that order within the SS. Their forbidden library was vast, and together, with the blessing of the Fuhrer, they sought out ancient, hidden, knowledge to wield.
A soldier cried out, falling to the floor and scrambling away in fright. Dr Grueber merely grinned at what had so terrified the fool, an emaciated skeletal corpse set in a recess of the wall. The body dressed in leather armour with iron fixtures and was bound in a standing position. Moving his lantern Grueber noticed more of the guardian warriors set about the wide chamber.
“Fool, this is a tomb, did you not expect to see corpses,” Grueber chastised the man.
While the warriors were withered, they were a menacing sight Grueber had to admit, with their helms and weapons. Runes above and along the sides of each recess told the story of the warrior within. In his quest for this place Grueber had familiarised himself with the Runic alphabet and the Old Norse language. He could read the names of the men and women, warriors all, who were interred here; Skald, Kjertel, Astrid; he could read all about their heroics if he chose. In truth Grueber did not care about ancient warriors, he was far more concerned with what they were placed here to guard. What was so special that almost all trace of this place had been destroyed and the entrance hidden in the ice and rocks of this Godforsaken mountain?
The soldiers struck more lamps, slowly filling the chamber with weak light. The entrance they uncovered whistling and moaning with the icy winds behind them.
Grueber tugged his coat collar closer around his neck, fending off the chill as he approached the sealed stone that lead further, deeper, into the barrow and the mountain itself. At his instruction the lower ranking men attempted to pry open the vault-like doorway, some using their knives, others shovels or a crowbar. They groaned and sweated and strained but could not open it.
All the while Grueber watched with a fierce hunger. A hunger for the forbidden knowledge that lay within this tomb.
There, amidst the markings and runes, a type of keystone marked with distorted runes, there is Isa, the rune for ice, Nauthiz in this context suggests self-preservation, Ansuz, an ill omen, and final Thurisaz the great thorn. Each aligned with the other to send a single message. A warning.
Of course, those ancients would seek to frighten away those who would desecrate their holy place.
Oh yes, Grueber would desecrate, but not for blind malice but for knowledge—for dark secrets hidden from the world of men for an age.
Without warning his men he drew his luger and fired. Three sharp shots echoed in the chamber until the keystone fell broken to the icy floor.
“There, now try,” he commanded.
The keystone had acted as a lock of sorts, without it the dozen soldiers were able, with back breaking effort, to slide open the entrance a few inches.
As the gap widened old air hissed out, frigid and stale. Several of the men gasped and fell back in shock only to receive further verbal abuse from Grueber who brought a lamp to the opening.
The gap was merely four or five inches wide and the weak light he cast inside showed only a narrow cave tunnel of angular rock and ice…and there…in the deep darkness, where is light could not reach…something…
Grueber dosed his lamp and looked again.
There! What is that.
A faint glow, like when one rubbed their eyes. Except this was green. A type of Saint Elmo’s fire perhaps? Grueber considered then dismissed.
The doctor was about to have his men attack the door one more when the glow intensified, growning closer.
In spite of himself Grueber stepped back away from the narrow gap.
Eerie, spectral vapour poured from the vertical opening like thick mist. He ignored the cries and shouts of his men as they scrambled back. This time Grueber stood his ground watching the glowing whisps of light stream from out, to wind and weave…
…as thought a living thing…
…into their chamber. And within those spectral coils shapes formed, hideous forms, faces and claws reaching out only to collapse and lose their shaped then shift into some other horror.
“Magnificent,” Grueber gasped as a coil stretched by him. There was a sound accompanying it too, a type of whispering. A multitude of whispers. All in another tongue, an ancient language he could not place. Grueber reached out to touch the light only to have it twist out of his reach, a snarling maw formed to hiss at him that swirled into talons that slashed at him.
Pain made Grueber retreat and inspect his arm. The claws of that smoky green light had torn his coat, through his uniform to rack the flesh. The wound was not deep but the suddenness, and the shock of such an ethereal thing having physical force had more of an impact that the pain ever could.
Grueber’s eyes gleaming in the strange sickly glow. He had found his secret, his forbidden treasure.
The light seeped further into the chamber finding the Viking dead and entangling them in glowing tendrils—pouring into the ancient dried flesh. Like a waterfall in reverse the mist-like light poured upwards into empty eye-sockets and mouths.
Some of the soldiers had begun to pray, many holding the talismans of luck they brought onto the battlefield.
Then, like something out of a nightmare, the Viking dead began to move—jerky at first as dried flesh cracked.
This was too much for some of the men as they turned to make a break for the entrance and flee into the harsh night beyond. The emerald mist, as Grueber thought of it, had other ideas and rushed in a torrent across the ceiling and walls to block the exit.
The fleeing soldiers fell to their knees in fear. All but one, who had barrelled on in utter panic regardless. He the mist seized within its glowing grasp and lifted him bodily into the air where screaming mouths and claws forms to tear at his body.
Hot blood flowed from him in steaming rills. The soldier screamed and screamed, batting at the ethereal attack. Eventually the mist swarmed him and cast him to the icy stone with a sickening crack.
Grueber stared on in mounting terror at the body of the soldier, his back twisted at an impossible angle. Dead. But not for long, for in the fallen soldier’s eyes a deep and sinister light began to shine. Then in shuddering motions, accompanied by sickening wet sounds, the dead soldier rose up—like a puppet on strings.
Shouts and cries echoed in the chamber followed by a deafening roar as someone fired their automatic rifle.
Dr Grueber was paralysed. Too much was happening to absorb at once. His risen marionette soldier was now attacking his compatriots, tearing at them with his bare hands. Grueber spun to see further horror as his men unleashed a thunderous hail of bullets at the advancing Viking corpses. Withered things that should not be able to move hefted axes and rusted swords and hacked at the living with a furious supernatural rage. They did not even seem to notice the bullet wound that riddled their bodies.
Men cried out to flee, but the dead had surrounded them.
Still the emerald mist gushed from the cave opening, an endless torrent of nightmarish terrors.
They were doomed, Grueber knew it, he could feel it. In his bones.
A stick-grenade fell beside him—some fool had twisted it and activated it before being torn apart by these undead Norse monstrosities.
He had a split second to react and he did, leaping away from the live grenade as it blew.
The explosion wracked the cave. The shockwave deafening Grueber instantly and blasting him across the tight confines with bone-rattling force to crash into the stone door that he had opened. His bones broke on impact, his skull smacking the doorway leaving bright scarlet smear. Yet consciousness lingered in him still.
The blast of the grenade had burst his ear-drums but he could feel the vibrations of the snow on the mountain rushing, raining down. The blast had caused an avalanche, sealing them all inside this tomb.
Grueber smiled. He had been right, ill prepared but right. The agony he was in was of no consequen
ce, shock was numbing him now. As his vision faded Grueber could see deeper inside the tunnel opening, watching the steam of green light. He knew the grenade had taken his legs and riddled him with shrapnel, his awkward landing had done the rest. He was dying.
But as he had witnessed here, death was not the end.
– 2 –
HUNTER'S PEAK
One bullet left.
It's not enough but it is all I have. Sure I have the climbing axe but that isn't ideal. I'd rather not get that close to the undead. Not that bullets are much better. Other than hacking them up or burning them we've not found a way to put them down permanently.
Just one bullet.
I'll have to make it count.
We roll along in the snowcat, the mountain looming before us like a titanic fang, black against the writhing green of the night sky. The Aurora Borealis covers the sky, the night swathed in eerie sickly green. The vivid emerald roils with unnatural life. Faces form to leer down at us, only to dissolve apart and reform.
This is the most intense I've seen it since all this madness began. I think Lars is right, I think we're close to the source; to whatever is causing all this.
Silje is sleeping in the passenger seat, her bear Rin held tight. Poor girl. She's seen enough horror to last several lifetimes, but she’s brave. Braver than I'd have been at her age.
Hunter's Peak now dominates the view forward.
“I think I see the camp,” Lars says over the rumble of the vehicle.
I peer through the frost encrusted windshield, staring into the night trying to discern something, anything, from the dark mass of shapes. I can't make it out, but I trust Lars. If he says we're close, we're close.
I get ready.
I make sure my one bullet is loaded.
*
A rust coloured sludge erupts from the shattered skull to ooze out the empty eye sockets, mouth, and betweens broken fragments of bone as I bring my crampon back down on the prone dead-thing.
The spiked steel, usually designed to fit over a boot to aid mountain climbing in frozen environments, makes a mess of human flesh, albeit dead half-frozen flesh.
Dead of Winter Collection Page 9
