Dead of Winter Collection

by Benjamin Knox

  I nod goodbye.

  Aim.

  Fire.

  I’m a good shot.

  *

  The blast wave hits. The forced temporarily deafening me. The rest is in silence, save for a high, distant whine. It slams me back into the wall, I do my best to wrap myself around Silje in an attempt to protect her. A single image of the explosion sears into my mind before the fire smoke and pain eclipse it; the beast coming apart in a torrent of flame, and Lars on fire.

  The rest is darkness…

  *

  I shake my head. I don’t know how long I’ve been unconscious. It takes me a second to get my bearings—Silje and I are huddled in the corner of a burning, up-turned ruin of a prefab lab. I move my limbs slowly, one at a time, feeling for breaks.

  Battered and bruised, but no permanent damage—I hope.

  I inspect Silje, she is out, but unharmed. A miracle given the fact we were in the same room as a gas canister explosion.

  There is an eerie silence hanging over us, and I can’t tell if my hearing is damaged or not.

  No time to worry about that, I’ve got to get Silje and myself out of this burning wreck. Through the smoke and fire I can make out chunks of ice and stone and frozen body-parts that formed the monster’s arm. The Aurora’s light has fled it, and the frost is melting in the spreading flames. I can see Lars too—or what is left of him—lying in a burning heap. His face and front are a ruin of scorched, pulped flesh, the gorier details of which are thankfully wreathed in flame. His arms are missing from a little below the shoulder, burning stumps. The rest destroyed in the explosion.

  I quickly look away. I don’t want to remember him like that. I want to remember him as the rotund, burly man-bear, tough-as-nails; someone who put the safety of others before himself. I will always be thankful for the short time he and I knew one another. If it wasn’t for him, I’d have been dead many times over by now.

  Now it’s just me and Silje.

  After all the pain and horror, just us.

  I use my rifle butt to bash open the door that is now lying sideways. It hinges open, the door falling downward and slamming against metal.

  I guess I can hear.

  That makes the strange silence settling over the area all the more creepy.

  I scan our surroundings. I’ve lost my flashlight but it doesn’t matter—for the moment the wind has stopped and the shimmering Aurora above casts all the light I need.

  I realise the snow has stopped now too.

  The loss hasn’t hit me let—losing Lars. I’ve seen so many perish, lost so much already. But this…this one hits hard. I can’t let myself feel it, not yet. But when it comes it’s going to tear at me.

  How can they just keep taking from me?

  I’ve almost nothing left.

  I’ll mourn Lars later. I can’t let that emotional tide in now. I have to worry about getting Silje to safety. There’s no more time for my suffering right now.

  Is this what being a mother is like?

  I think it just might be.

  Everything falls away but them, the one you have to look after. For me that’s Silje.

  The mountain looms above us, hooked and cruel. I know where I have to go. It is the only place left to me—and it is in the lion’s mouth.

  The snowcat sits not far away where we left it, a snowdrift having formed in the night against one side. I take one single step towards the vehicle…then I hear it.

  A thunderous hateful roar.

  Anger and rage given form.

  A dark shape slouches out from behind the other side of the camp. Had the wind been up and the snow falling I wouldn’t be able to see it, but in this calm stillness I can see the monster all too well.

  The journal was right, it is some unholy monster from ancient times, that spread fear so deep it formed a cultural dread that has been passed down through generations to become legend.

  Stallo.

  Ice giant.

  Even with an arm and shoulder blasted away the thing is massive. Its legs the thickness of a heavy-set adult man, like Lars. The torso is a knot of ice and stone and so many glowing faces. It is headless yet has spurs, prongs of ice, sprouting away from the neck area all down it’s back, like a sharpened icicle version of a porcupine.

  It still has one massive arm left. The proportions are all wrong, the arm too long, too thick, giving the beast a gorilla-like gait. The clawed hand… fiercely deadly, icy blades over a metre long.

  The giant, the Jotun, is all the way on the other side of the camp. It sees me just as clearly as I see it.

  “Silje,” I whisper, rousing the girl but never taking my eyes off the green spectral ones glaring at us. “Silje, wake up, we need to run.”

  To her credit the girl rouses. Her own experiences having taught her that hesitation means death. I put her down—she is too heavy for me to carry much farther anyway—and hold her hand.

  “We’re going to run okay? To the snowcat. No matter what you hear behind you don’t look.”

  I don’t know if she understands my broken Norwegian and English combo, but she looks back into my eyes with a grim determination that should not be in one so young.

  With that, we run.

  And the beast pursues.

  *

  Run, Kerry, RUN!

  I go as fast as I can through the snow, with little Silje struggling in the higher drifts. I can hear the loping thud-thud-thud of the beast’s heavy footfalls as it picks up speed, gaining on us. I can hear the crunch of snow compacting with each heavy step.

  I won’t look back, it’ll waste too much time.

  Focus on the snowcat.

  It’s not far.

  You can do this.

  Push on!

  I growl and grunt with each stride, tugging free my booted feet from the thick snow. The snowcat is close, Lars had parked it near the now ruined structure, but wading through the new snowfall is tough going.

  And the beast is getting closer still.

  I can hear the mouths all across its body howl for my blood, my body, my soul.

  If I think about it too much the fear will take me—I focus instead on the snowcat, only the snowcat. I imagine it’s the relay point in one of my biathlons. I control my breathing and push on. I ignore the swirling chaos in the sky above and the giant looming in behind me, I make it all disappear. It’s just me, Silje and the snowcat.

  Ten metres now.

  Eight.

  The crushing footsteps sound like dropping bowling balls against ice. I can sense how close it is. How near to annihilation we are.

  Five metres.

  Focus, push, keep goin!

  Three.

  Goddamnit, so close.

  Two…

  …

  …one.

  I want to scream, I can feel it on me. Inches away.

  Zero!

  I touch the frosted surface of the vehicle, using our momentum to swing us around the corner .

  There is a rushing behind us and a thundering impact. I feel the air move over my head and tear at my back.

  The giant overshoots.

  It was so damned close but all that weight makes it tough to slow down.

  I waste no time.

  My gloved fingers pull the door open and shove Silje inside then climb in myself. I toss my empty rifle in the back with Silje. Just because it doesn’t have bullets doesn’t make it useless. I can strap a blade to the end to make a spear. Worse comes to worst I can use it as a club.

  “Strap in, sweetie,” I tell Silje, no time to actually check if she does.

  I hit the starter button on the snowcat. It coughs and sputters and refuses to start.

  “Come on!” I yell, slamming a frustrated fist against the dash, then jab the ignition again.

  Nothing.

  A third time does the trick and the vehicle awakes with a growl and a belch of exhaust. The snowcat is on tracks so doesn’t have a steering-wheel as such, instead there are levers. I gip t
hem, pulling with the left, pushing with the right. The treads grind—turning the snowcat to the left. I search through the ice-caked glass for any sign of the ice giant.

  In the calm of night, it’s hard to miss.

  “There you are you bastard,” I growl.

  My panic and fear—and loss—has turned to rage.

  I move the levers to neutral letting the engine idle and warm itself up after a night in the cold.

  There’s nowhere we can go that these…what did the journal call them…revenants won’t find us. This giant, this beast, is just the latest in a series of nightmares brought on by these grotesque and malevolent spirits that inhabit the spectral light.

  They’ve taken and taken and just keep taking. I’ve lost so much to these things. I’ve lost so much of myself too.

  No more.

  No more running.

  No more hiding.

  There is a cause to all of this and I’ll find it, up on that blasted mountain, deep in that barrow. The journal in all its ramblings has taught me that—and all this time I’ve felt like I’ve been drawn here somehow.

  Herded.

  By the dead.

  By visions of Mark.

  You want me here, fine. You got it.

  I slam both levers forward, setting he snowcat at full pace directly at the giant as it turns to get a bead on us. It won’t have time to build up momentum, but I do.

  The engine growls and above that I can make out a higher shrieking. It is only when I glance in the mirror do I notice that it is me. Some primal warcry, all my pain and pent up emotions. All the crap I’ve been through since the Northern Lights spread and the dead began to rise.

  I don’t resist, I let it all flood out.

  I embrace it.

  Every last bit.

  I let it wash over me in an overwhelming tide.

  There are tears streaming over my cheeks and blurring my vision. It doesn’t matter, I keep the snowcat at top speed, pointed at the giant. It gets a few strides in but has yet to really get its weight behind it.

  I brace myself as we collide.

  The windshield shatters as the front of the vehicle caves in. I see the green eyes glare. The snowcat has more momentum and wins out, forcing the giant back, and down.

  Giant talons from its remaining arm rake at me. They tear the remains of the windshield away but remarkably leave me untouched. The beast is being forced down by the grip of the treads. It roars in protest, dragging its claws through the crumpled front of the vehicle, gouging trenches in the hot metal before slipping under.

  The snowcat wobbles and shudders as it climbs the monster under it. I twist the levers instantly, one forward, one back, forcing the snowcat to turn on the spot further grinding the monster of stone, ice and corpses into a spray of chunks.

  I’ve no idea if this will work. If it will be enough to destroy it—or at least render it impossible for it to follow—but I don’t care. We can’t stay here.

  The snowcat is turning wildly, stil grinding the monster with its unrelenting treads. I open the broken cab door and call to Silje. She’s shaken but alright. She slimbs from the rear onto my seat as we ready ourselves.

  “We’ve got to jump,” I shout over the engine.

  Silje looks terrified, but to her credit she nods understanding. She’s one tough, brave little girl.

  We count to three and leap together, getting as far away from the spinning vehicle as possible. Scrambling through the snow I drag Silje away from the scene. The giant isn’t destroyed but I watch and savour the sight of it being slowly ground apart. A quick moment to myself to bask in some revenge. A little justice against a tide of horror.

  Hand in hand, Silje and I turn and begin the long trek up Hunter’s Peak. I know where I have to go, where all this—one way or another—will end.

  The Barrow.

  – 4 –

  THE BARROW

  The trek was long, but at least the storm-winds kept their distance and no snow fell. A small mercy while stranded out here on a mountainside. Silje keeps pace as we trudged through the snow, following the steel markers the scientific team hammered into the mountain. In some sections brightly coloured climbing rope has been threaded through them as a type of makeshift rail to assist in the climb.

  The route itself is winding—choosing the easiest way rather than the most direct. A wise decision given the treacherous nature of climbing during winter.

  I lose track of time and can only guess at how long we’ve been moving up the gnarled side of Hunter’s Peak. If I had to guess, I’d say hours. The hypnotic effect of the roiling Aurora doesn’t help. The flowing green light fills the sky and reflects off the ice and snow. The shifting of that light is soothing in a strange frightening way. But I’ve seen what staring at it does to people. I won’t risk that. Not with Silje relying on me.

  We’re all each other has left in the world.

  Right now I’m too exhausted to think about any of that—I just need to keep going, head down, one foot in front of the other, up the mountain.

  Towards answers.

  Towards the barrow.

  I can’t help but feel there is a presence watching us, eagerly. It is no accident, no quirk of the weather, that the storm-winds have ceased and an eerie silent stillness has settled over the mountain. It is deliberate. But why? What possible reason would anyone—or thing—have to aid us. The lack of icy blasting gusts, or the spectral assault that often comes with the green light, have all made escaping the Jotun and climbing up the mountain all the easier.

  A familiar whisper in my head:

  Kerry.

  I have my answer.

  Off standing proud and straight-backed farther up the mountain is a figure. I can’t make out the details but I don’t need to. The icy antlers confirm my suspicions.

  Mark.

  Or the thing that claims to be my dead husband.

  He’s up there, waiting for me, guiding me. Like he did at the Lodge. I didn’t know it at the time, but that’s what I think he was doing, in a warped way. Helping…or luring?

  These revenants are more than just brutal, they are sinister, and fiendishly cruel. This is most likely a twisted, sick game. Another torment designed to break my will, to force me to succumb to the controlling malevolence within the Aurora.

  With the weather so clear and still I can see all the way back down to the undulating snowscape below—and the winding serpentine trail of hundreds, no, thousands of the dead. They’ve finally caught up with me after the massacre at the lodge. Other than the occasional snowmobile the horde have trudged on foot, abandoning the large vehicles they fled the city in.

  Even from this distance I can see they don’t move right, they shuffle and slouch. There’s no mistaking them for the living. Still the sheer number of them takes my breath away. It’s as though every dead body and murdered soul has made their way here, a sort of zombie Mecca.

  Once again I doubt my sanity, traipsing up this cursed mountain, seeking out the source of all this death.

  What other choice do I have?

  Besides, I have to know.

  My only concern is not for myself, but Silje. She is struggling with the climb, her small frame not equipped to deal with such physical labours. The girl is weeping silently to herself. No doubt feeling the loss that cuts at my own heart. Lars—another good man fallen victim to this undead scourge.

  I can’t let myself feel this, not now. There’s still the rest of the climb, and while the weather is holding, it might not stay this way. If the howling winter winds return too soon, revenants be damned, Silje and I will freeze to death on this mountainside.

  In the end, I don’t know how long we climbed, with every glance upwards, Mark was there, leading us on but keeping his distance.

  We pull ourselves panting and exhausted over the threshold of the tiny gap in the whiteness. This unassuming slash in the mountainside is an entrance.

  As we slouch through and collapse to the stone floor the wi
nd begins to rise. I force my tired limbs to push myself back up, enough to peer outside and witness the the tumbling wall of wind, fury and snow screaming across the distant landscape below, eclipsing the marching revenant army, then the mountain itself in a wintery tide. The return of the storm-winds rushes up the mountain, to scream and shriek and tear with icy fingers. The physical force knocks me back down and the blast wave hits the mouth of the barrow. Once more the night is howling.

  *

  I awaken cold and stiff from lying on the stone floor of the barrow. For a moment I panic, we’re inside a crypt, with no light! Then my eyes adjust, and I can see the emerald light coiled in arcane runes and sigils along the archway of an ancient stone doorway. It yawns open with a beckoning darkness, leading deeper into the mountain itself.

  I reach over to rouse Silje and find only cold stone. Adrenaline screams through my viens as I reach out in th gloom, searching with my hands for her little form.

  “Silje!” I call out, hoping against hope that the girl has merely awoken before me and is hiding in some corner I can’t make out.

  Silje

  Silje

  Silje

  Silje

  Silje

  Mocking whispers echo and taunt me from the beyond that opening, from deep within the abyssal darkness beyond.

  My gut clenches and my heart sinks.

  Oh God, they’ve got Silje.

  The disembodied voices seem sneer and snarl at me, daring me to venture farther. For now the emerald light of the glowing runes that frame the opening are weak and offer little clarity to the space around me. What I can discern is the width of the stone chamber and the recesses set in the wall. Here and there scientific equipment lies broken and ice-caked.

  These monsters have stolen Silje right from beside me, yet another cruel display of power. It would have been just as easy to slaughter us in our sleep, in fact it might have been a mercy.

  They have her and it’s my fault. I was supposed to keep her safe. It’s why Lars sacrificed himself. Now that poor traumatised girl is in the clutches of demonic intelligences.