Dead of Winter Collection

by Benjamin Knox

  Well, if they wanted my attention, they have it.

  I grit my teeth and pull myself to my feet, my climbing axe tight in my fist.

  “Okay, you sons of bitches. You want me, here I am.” My voice echoes back at me, met by tittering, maliciously gleeful laughter.

  If these monsters want to frighten me they’ve failed. I’ve been pushed too far, battered, bruised and pushed to the brink time and time again, and I’m still here. If they want a fight, then they’ll get one.

  Tooth and nail.

  Weapon in hand I stride towards the ancient vault door, past the sickly green light of the sigils and across the threshold. I have the strange sense of being consumed by the mountain—this antechamber the beast’s mouth, the narrow tunnel beyond the doorway its throat.

  I let the darkness swallow me up, suck me down towards the mountain’s black heart.

  Silje, I’m coming for you. Stay strong. Don’t let them break you. Just hold on.

  *

  The tunnels beyond the main chamber are narrow and dark. The only way I can find my way is by touch and the feint, ominous glow of runes—their light the same spectral green energy that comprises the Aurora. Here however it flows along carved channels in the rough stone. Where the antechamber of the barrow was smooth stonework these tunnels have a somewhat natural feel, though no doubt some ancient workman had hewn them wider to allow one to stand upright while traversing them. The stone itself has an ancient cold to it, having not been warm since it was fresh magma aeons ago. No natural light has ever reached these walls. My fear is braced with a sense of solemnity, I tread where few humans have before me—if any. Even though the walls are solid under my fingers I can feel, sense, the weight of the mountain around me like a titanic pressure threatening to crush down and obliterate me entirely.

  There is ice here too, in thin patches on the angled rough surfaces of stone. Any moisture freezing on contact.

  I push onwards, the passage leading at a slight decline. The silence is overwhelming. I can hear my heart pulsing in my chest, the rush of blood in my inner ear. An excruciating absence of stimulus. The isolation, the lack of sensation could drive a person to madness.

  I focus on my wounds.

  They are many and while I’ve ignored the pain, I let it wash over me now. The cold burn on my cheek is particularly bad.

  I accept my pain.

  It will aid me through this crucible.

  Kerry…

  A whisper of my name, so faint I am unsure whether I imagined it or not. No, not a whisper, not a verbal one anyway. Something is calling to me, not with words but with thought.

  Mark?

  I follow a bend as the passage snakes deeper, the seething light, part Aurora, part mist, weaves and roils on the ceiling. The runes here glow with malicious intensity. I am close now.

  A shape coalesces before me, a ghostly figure made of eerie green. A female figure.

  I gasp in recognition, “Brigid!”

  Kerry…

  The heat of fresh tears burn down my cheeks.

  The apparition turns to walk away, farther down the tunnel. I follow.

  “Brigid, I’m so sorry what happened to you…I…there was nothing…I could do…” I say between sobs.

  Brigid stops, seeming to hear me now.

  At our sides new tunnels branch off from this central one. Where they go to I cannot even guess, but the sigils and runes do not burn within them, so I will not chance it. I will follow.

  The ghostly form of Brigid regards me as I approach her, hand out. I know she is immaterial, a wisp of light made to look like a woman I once knew. I can’t be certain it is her spirit and not some trick. I want to believe it is her. I need to tell her how sorry I am.

  I try thinking instead of speaking.

  Brigid, I am so very sorry I couldn’t save you.

  As my hand brushes the coiling light, it breaks apart like smoke, and her features snarl and distort.

  You could have saved me!

  A rush of icy air rushes down the tunnel at me as the spectre shrieks, her face a snarl of hideous intent, her hand s claws that slash and rack at me. My parka opens up spilling thermal lining out in pale clumps. The apparition tears at me in a blind rage, clutching onto my parka so tight that I am forced to unzip it to pull away from the frenzy.

  It is no longer Brigid but a furious shifting cloud of claws and teeth and screaming. The parka shredded and useless on the floor as the ghostly mass dissipates.

  Without my parka I’m going to get cold, dangerously cold, quickly. Gloves and a thermal shirt are no match for the deep chill within the mountain.

  Shaken by the attack, I press on, following the spectral lights.

  *

  A parade of ghosts leers at me from the branching tunnels. All those who have perished as I have survived. They do not say anything. Some grimace, some merely look on passively, yet they all regard my passage by. They are all from the Lodge, Brennen is there. I think I see a smile on his face but I cannot be sure. Then there is the Doc, stiff and bird-like even in death. None attempt any interaction with me and for that I am grateful. Brigid’s attack has me rattled. I didn’t think it could affect me so deeply, but it has. A hollow ache sits in my chest.

  Guilt.

  For those who have passed, for those I have failed. And for the little girl I fear I shall fail.

  At the end of the procession is the green wisp-like form of Lars and I can’t keep it in anymore, I weep openly—my sobs echoing down the dark tunnels, through the bowels of the mountain.

  I ache, my entire body exhausted, my mind cradled in repeated shock. I am so tired. But this isn’t any mere sleep I crave, but a deeper, more final slumber.

  Lars stands in the same corridor as I do, at the end where it opens up to an intense green glow.

  Come Kerry, you’re almost there.

  Almost there.

  Almost…at the end.

  *

  An honour guard awaits me as I enter the chamber. Each holds an ancient weapon upright at their chest. The figures themselves are withered, mummified by the cold over centuries—however it is easy for me to see the warriors they once were. Iron studs and ringmail adorn many. Others have their chests bare, the skin pulled tight over bone, and dark whirls of large tattoos decorate once vital flesh. Though withered I can discern both male and female forms. Looks like these warriors regarded skill over gender. I can’t help but approve.

  They are ancient Norwegian Vikings animated by green fire. It ripples and dances from their eye sockets.

  As the chamber opens up from the gloom of the tunnel the floor becomes a set of wide stairs upon which the Viking dead stand in twin rows. I walk down the steps between the rows observing the undead with a historical interest. So well preserved by the cold of the barrow many of these corpses still have hair.

  Though ghoulish and fierce, I don’t fear them. Instead there is a serene majesty about them. I know that they aren’t here to harm me. This is ceremony.

  The chamber itself is vaulted and high, and looks to be roughly circular. Oddly, the image of a hollow space made by a bullet comes to mind. While the chamber is a good fifty metres wide and perhaps double that in height, the basic upright bullet shape is accurate.

  Green light fills this rough-hewn cavern, emanating from the centre of the floor, where the stairs cease. A wide circular well carved from the stone of the mountain writhes with the spectral energy. It floods out of the well in a whirling tornado of emerald fire—and within that fire, hideous faces, some skull-like, some all too human, others grotesque beyond imagining.

  As I reach the base of the stairs I am afforded a view down part of the well and find that a narrow set of stairs runs along the shaft, weaving downwards, with enough space for the column of green energy to rise in the middle.

  Above me the chamber is set with thick streams of ice and permafrost, intricately carved. The contrast between the dark rough walls of the chamber and the delicate design of th
e web of ice above is stark. The walls themselves have huge titanic sculptures, behemoth humanoid figures that hold the ceiling aloft.

  It is then that I see the bones, undoubtedly human, set within the ice.

  Kerry…

  While it is that same psychic whisper I’ve heard before, this time it sounds physically present and I turn my attention form the chamber’s features to look in the direction of the voice.

  Mark stands there, as though he’d been there patiently all along, though I know he wasn’t there when I first entered.

  He approaches me slowly, carefully, his frost covered form and icy talons no longer fill me with dread. I can see the man behind the warped frost and burning green eyes. The husband that was taken from me.

  “Where’s Silje?” I demand, taking a single step back.

  She is safe.

  “Define safe,” I snarl.

  She will not be harmed.

  I don’t believe him. She could be one of those things, those revenants by now.

  I tighten my grip on my climbing axe, just in case. It might not be very effective but it’s the only weapon I’ve got.

  There is no need for that, he indicates my axe. You, Kerry, are here for a reason, a most honoured opportunity.

  “You’ve been toying with me this whole time, driving me here, murdering those around me. Terrorising me, for what?” I scream at him. I hadn’t meant to, I wanted to play this cool, but I can’t. All my emotions are flooding to the surface. With all the violence and panic I’ve not had time to process, or emotionally vent. My fear and anger bubble out, and here I am shouting at a monster pretending to be my husband, deep in the lair of the dead.

  I helped when I could, but there was no guarantee you’d make it. I hoped, but in the end you persevered. You’re so strong Kerry. Stronger than I think you ever fully realised, but I’ve always seen it in you. That reserve of inner strength. It’s one of the things that drew me to you in the first place.

  “Stop it! Stop pretending to be my husband. You’re not Mark! I watched him die,” I’m sobbing openly again, “Watched you monsters strip the flesh away. My husband is dead. You’re just some trick, an imitation!”

  My vision blurs with hot tears, my shouts echoing through the chamber.

  No, Kerry, it’s me. We were fighting before we went to that cabin. It seems silly and forever ago, before all this, he spreads those razor ice-talons of his indicating the dead, both as spirits and walking corpses, about us.

  It was the stress of working together and being a married couple. We went to Iceland for our honeymoon even though your parents wanted to book us a place in Malta. You drive better than me, though I never admitted it. I know you slept with your first coach and were worried that it’d end badly with me, but I convinced you it wouldn’t. I remember when you got the hiccups on the third target during the winter biathlon in Canada. They caused you to miss the bull’s-eye. You got less points, but still managed to come in third. We laughed about it afterwards.

  “No! You’re not him!”

  I know it was hard watching me die, but it is me. I’m here now.

  “As a monster!”

  He regards his icy form. I’ve transformed. I’m still Mark, but I’m also more. Everything that was me is still here. I’ve been chosen, we have been chosen. We can be together again, this time forever.

  “What? Y-y-you want me to become like you? No, never!”

  He steps forward and I raise my axe.

  Kerry, this is going to happen with or without us. So why shouldn’t it be us. Do you want that night at the cabin to be the end, the last we were ever together? Or do you want more? I do. I want you with me, Kerry. I still see you as you were when we first met in London. God you took my breath away, and while we had our ups and downs, you still do. I love you Kerry, I want to be with you.

  “For what? If you want me as a monster, why haven’t you just killed me and let these hateful spirits possess my body?”

  That would just make you a puppet, for them. I want you to accept the gift I was given. To keep your consciousness in your own body. To be an avatar to powers beyond anything humankind has witnessed.

  “Spit it out,” I say, calmer now. “Let me hear your offer, but know my answer won’t change.”

  By now you know of Jabme-Akka and Bieggagallis—as the Sami called them—the Old Woman of the Dead and the Man of Storms. She, cursed to be childless forever, has the dead as her children in the nether-realm where such spirits reside. They, like her, crave life. But she was not always hateful and cruel. She was once a powerful and vital spirit-god; beautiful and strong, the spirit of bounty then, back when humankind was still young and shared the continent with the Neanderthals.

  And in her youth she loved. Her beloved was the Spirit of the Winter Winds. But their love was short lived, for the other spirit-gods had formed a hierarchy, as humans began to become more ordered. And like any hierarchy there were those that ruled. The Norse later referred to this king as Odin. This spirit-king imposed positions upon his ilk. But in their love the two spirits rebelled, and fled across the earth. In their travels they consummated and became pregnant. But the rule of the spirit-king could not be challenged, eventually they were found, hunted and punished. The Spirit of Winter Winds was cast to the very north of the world and imprisoned in ice. In his rage he became not only the Spirit of Winter Winds but the Man of Storms. But the fate of the spirit of bounty was far crueller. She was cursed never to bear a child, made barren by the vicious will of the spirit-king. Then as a final insult, she was tasked to guard over the underworld—what the Norse would call Helheim, and she Hel.

  The Christians would later misinterpret this with their own “Hell”.

  For Jabme-Akka’s Hel is not hot, but cold and withering. There is no light there, no warmth. The spirits there are trapped away, alone and lost in that nightmarish oblivion.

  So in her prison Jabme-Akka drew those spirits to her bosom in place of the child that had been taken from her, and plotted, waiting for the Twilight of the Gods, then she and her great love could be reunited again.

  And they can be, though neither has a physical form.

  So we were chosen when the gates to her realm on earth were reopened—as the Aurora flooded out, with spirits of the dead, to rides the skies. We were chosen for our love. In my moment of death I was asked…and I said yes. I am the earthly avatar for the Man of Storms, consort to Jabme-Akka, Mother of the Dead.

  And you Kerry, can be her avatar.

  Our love for one another reminds them of their own.

  “For what price?” I ask.

  To usher in the Twilight of the Gods, to bring Ragnarok.

  “That’s the bloody end of the world, Mark!”

  He doesn’t answer. Instead he leads me around the well, where hidden behind the coloum of seething green spirits, stands little Silje.

  “Silje!” I shout and move to run towards her, but Mark has his talons on my arm before I can take a step. The sharp ice doesn’t cut me, he’s being gentle, but the preternatural cold burns and numbs my skin where he touches, leaving frosted welts.

  The one thing you and I spoke about doing before our trip—you thought maybe we should start trying after the next Winter Olympics—is the same thing Jabme-Akka and Bieggagallis have desired for aeons. A child of their own.

  Silje can be that child.

  “No! That’s sick!”

  Is it? Mark rears on me, green fire roiling in his sockets. She’ll be heiress to a new world. A world without hunger and war and despair. Look at our world, look what people have done to it. That’s no place to raise a family. We can remake the world as we see fit.

  “Filled with the dead!”

  Think about it, we three, together, as a family, forever.

  “And if I say no? What happens to Silje?”

  If you decline the offer, then none of us are of use to them. They’ll find another pair of lovers.

  “So we die…”

 
Mark nods.

  “Did it occur to you that that might be better than the end of the world?” I ask.

  Truthfully. No. The idea of you and me together again, free of the stresses that lead to our fights. To raise a family. I didn’t even hesitate. To me, that’s worth any price.

  I’m stunned. Not at Mark’s reasoning but at the fact that I now believe it really is him in there, under all that ice. And the fact that some of what he says makes sense. I look over at Silje, entranced by the lights before her. All I want is to protect that little girl. But which would be the greater mercy, an early death, or an eternity with those that would love her? Yet at the price of the rest of humankind.

  My heart aches with the weight of the choice. I fall to my knees, hands to my face in a silly attempt to hold back the flood of emotions. The conflict within me.

  “You can’t put the fate of the human race on my shoulders, it’s too much.”

  Their fate isn’t on your shoulders Kerry, Mark kneels beside me. Their fate is sealed. It will happen regardless of what you decide here, now. Humankind as it exists now is over. What you need to decide is whether we three will be together. That is your only choice. The only ones you can save are in this chamber.

  Jabme-Akka was once the spirit of nature and bounty, and once her revenge is had, once the other spirit-gods fall and the world is swept clean by a Final Winter, I believe she will be the spirit of bounty once more.

  His hand is on my shoulder, stroking my hair. It hurts but I don’t shrug him off. I can hear the tiny strands of hair freeze and break.

  Mark stands me up and looks into my eyes, he brushes at a tear affectionately, only to have it freeze to my face, the skin cracking slightly. He pulls back so as not to hurt me any further.

  As much as the pain makes me wince, his gesture warms me. It fills my heart that until now had been so full of fear and desperation.

  This is the end of the road, Kerry. You need to decide. Will you choose us, will you choose love?