The Ghosts of Winter

by Christopher Coleman

  If Betty reached for the gun, I didn’t see the move, as I hesitated but a breath before striding to the door like a tiger through the jungle. I could hear the screams of “Timothy!” from the top level of the house, however, so tormented in their pitch I thought Betty herself would collapse and die.

  In truth, however, I wasn’t sure the White One was dead, and that doubt was almost certainly a good thing in the moment, as it would keep Betty’s attention on her son and the possibility of his revival. Yet even as I cleared the house and the front yard, and then the road twenty yards away where I began my sprint east in the direction of the river, I waited for a bullet to break the morning air and strike me somewhere in the back.

  18: The Walk

  For the first half-mile of my run, I didn’t feel the cold at all, as my adrenaline was like rocket fuel, propelling my legs and heating my body. But as I reached the edge of the lake’s boundaries, where Lake Sloman finally ended and the dry terrain that separated the lake and the Mississippi tributaries began, my lungs were burning, cold and heavy, as if they’d been loaded with ice water. But the sun was risen now, and the temperature, which seemed a day before to be on the verge of turning bitter, had already warmed slightly, suggesting the sun would heat the earth even more as the day went on. In the early hours of the morning, however, the air still felt on the edge of freezing.

  But I was dry, which was no small victory, and my path toward the lake proved much easier than the day before, as I was no longer on a hiking trail but on a proper road, paved and flat. And though I was once more from land chasing my family on the water, I knew exactly where the boat was headed this time and approximately when it would arrive.

  And as I turned inland toward the spot where I expected the boat to appear, my calculations proved correct. Sunrise Beach was the furthest point east on Lake Sloman, and, unlike the part of the lake where Charlotte and I had bought our cabin, which was remote and secluded, Sunrise Beach was a tourist spot, a place where locals came to swim and boat and party during the summer months. And within twenty minutes of puncturing the temple of the White One in the living room of Betty’s lakeside home, I was lumbering on the sand toward Charlotte and the kids, just as they were guiding the boat onto the beach for the final time. As I ran, tears flowed from my eyes like the river of our pursuit.

  My family, too, hollered at the sight of me, but there was an exhaustion in their outlines now that was palpable, and no doubt an instinctual reaction not to waste their precious energy on emotion.

  Or maybe they just knew I would show.

  We regrouped for only a moment, and since all of us were already overcome with sentiment and fatigue, no words were passed regarding my escape; it was a story that could wait. Instead, we began walking immediately, up the slope of the beach and through the visitor parking lot, and then across the street to where the Lake Sloman Hotel once operated what was likely a thriving business. There were no White Ones to be seen, and I conjured an image of them retreating to holes like reptiles, listlessly disappearing into the earth, the exposure of the air finally chasing them from the landscape. It was only wishful thinking, of course, but I knew Betty was right. She had somehow kept her turned son captive in her cabin for months, generating some refrigerated prison to subdue him. How else, if she wasn’t right, could she have done that?

  Finally, we cleared the far property of the hotel and then reached a tree line which, if I wasn’t mistaken, began a trust of undeveloped land that stretched most of the rest of the way to the tributaries. Between that point and the beginning of the inlets and branches of the Mississippi, it was nothing but wild Arkansas.

  I carried Nelson in my arms to begin the trek, while Ryan carried Newton, each of us following the sun east as we marched, making sure not to stray from that direction, understanding how easily one could become lost in the expanse of trees and land that lay before us.

  As we walked, I thought back to the evening prior, to the dinner and the warmth of the home; and though it had all gone to hell in a matter of hours, I gave a silent ‘thank you’ to Betty for supplying us with the meal and rest that would be critical to seeing us through that day.

  And this, I knew, was the day that mattered. If another sunrise arrived and we hadn’t reached the eastern bank of the Mississippi—or at least weren’t en route to it—we weren’t going to make it at all.

  I estimated we had traveled about a mile when I was finally forced to stop to set Nelson down and rest. My legs and arms burned, as did my back, and I knew there was no way I could make it five more miles. Not unless Charlotte helped and we went a quarter mile at a time; but at that rate, it would take us hours.

  “I can walk,” Nelson said suddenly, his eyes wide and alive, a new spark in his voice.

  I wasn’t going to question him, knowing that doing so would give him the option to retract the offering. If my son could walk, which he said he could, then that’s what I needed him to do. “Okay,” I said, giving him a manly nod. “Just for a while.”

  With Nelson walking, it was still slow-going, but we could at least continue our pace without stopping, and by the third mile or so, we had collectively caught our stride, settling into a march that, though not exactly easy, had guided us through thick areas of woods and open fields, steep hills and marshland. This latter terrain, the marshland, was ground that would have been impassable during any other season, and only the early onset of a cold winter, which had frozen the wet ground over, allowed us a way through.

  And we all felt the cold, especially in our feet. The effort of the walk had kept most of our bodies warm, and we were all sweating, but our hands and toes were cold, and the promise of a warm day suddenly began to fade. The sky was again heavy with clouds.

  But we continued on without complaint, and when we put behind us what must have been another mile or so, the world suddenly opened up once more, and now on the horizon, as well as all along my periphery, I could see only the flat earth and the white of the sky; for a moment, it seemed we were advancing toward the edge of the planet.

  It was the river ahead—or at least a tributary of it. We had made it. Finally.

  “I can hear it,” Emerson said. “I can hear the water.” There was no glee in her voice, simply a statement of fact. We were all too tired for elation.

  “What do we do when we get there?” Ryan asked. “What if there’s no boat?”

  There would be a boat. Just as I knew the boat I’d released at the pier of Betty’s house would drift back toward the bank. In that case, the modified rowboat with the dead outboard motor had been directed back to us, guided by something beyond what I could categorize in the moment, a thing I would never understand, perhaps. The Hand of God. The pull of the Universe. Some power that had witnessed us do our part to survive and was now obligated to reciprocate.

  But it wouldn’t be luck or ethereal forces that would provide us with the boat this time. There were homes along the tributaries that fronted the western banks of the Mississippi, small houses that had once—before The Fall—been occupied by river folk who fished and gigged and lived under the constant backdrop of flooding upon the arrival of each new spring. They made their livings along the banks, and in this part of the country, everyone had a boat.

  And it was only another fifty yards or so, as we walked past the old homes and down to the water, when a long row of ramshackle boat houses appeared before us. In minutes, we were at the tributary edge, looking down the bank at a dozen boat houses in either direction.

  “Looks like we’ll get our pick of the litter,” I said, my voice disbelieving, astonished.

  “I don’t think we should give it much thought,” Charlotte replied, her pragmatism centering and necessary. “Pushing our luck and such. Let’s just find one we can start and steer and then get the hell on the way.” She was shivering as she spoke now, and the chattering of her teeth directed me to the condition of the children, all of whom had eyes that were aware and hopeful, though they too were descending
into chill. I considered going back to one of the houses to scavenge another layer of clothing, perhaps find food for the remainder of the journey; but we were close now, and we hadn’t seen a White One anywhere along the way. As Charlotte said, such a play would have been pushing our luck.

  The first boathouse in the long row to the left was empty, as was the second, but the third was loaded with a fishing boat that looked far too new to belong in such a dwelling. It appeared to be made of aluminum, flat-bottomed, a fishing boat with an outboard motor attached, and despite my believing there wasn’t a Corrupted’s chance in Hell that the motor would start, after attaching the fuse hose and pulling the choke, on the third pull of the starter, the engine fired. In minutes, we were outside the structure and navigating the narrow tributary, praying it would lead us to the Old Man.

  For the first several miles, however, the waters took us north, and then west, opposite the direction we needed to go. But soon the rivulet took a drastic turn again to the north—and finally east—and we were back on track, heading toward the direction of the Safe Region.

  We all kept our eyes on the banks as we rode, an anxious silence now consuming the open confines of the boat, all of us quietly anticipating an army of white beasts to suddenly appear from behind the tall reeds and grasses that sprouted everywhere along the shoreline. But aside from the occasional splash from a flailing perch, the day was quiet, empty, the cold having slowed everything in the post-breach world to a crawl. Perhaps my image of the monsters hibernating hadn’t been far off after all.

  Charlotte and the kids huddled closely in the front of the boat, with Charlotte at the helm, kneeling forward, watching restively, like the iconic image of George Washington crossing the Delaware. But there was no enemy we were attempting to engage, only the salvation that we all prayed existed on the opposite side of the largest river in North America.

  “Dad, look!” It was Emerson, and at the sound of her voice, I lifted my head to see her pointing to her left. She turned back to me. “Do you see it?”

  I released the tiller and stood in the boat, allowing the craft to drift as I craned my neck forward, staring across a wide stretch of land that divided the tributary and the object of Emerson’s attention. “I see it,” I said just above a whisper.

  “Is that the river?” Charlotte asked.

  “It’s gotta be,” Emerson answered correctly. “Look how wide it is. I can barely see to the other side.”

  “How do we get to it?” Charlotte asked. “Why is there no water passage?

  Everyone turned to me now, awaiting the answer. I lowered my gaze from the river, which had captivated me momentarily, and then focused on the answer to the question, looking at the locked land around us. “I guess we can’t,” I said.

  “What? Can’t? How...how can that be?”

  “I...I don’t know. Not all of these tributaries flow directly into the river at all times of the year. There’s basin flooding and...it doesn’t matter. We’ll just pull up to the bank here and drag the boat across.”

  “Jesus, David, look at the distance. That has to be a half-mile away.”

  I couldn’t help but smile. “Charlotte, I appreciate your pessimism. It’s been useful during a lot of this. But we made it! That’s the Mississippi! We can see it! Now we only have to get to it.”

  19: The Trap

  The makeup of the boat’s material and its flat bottom made the job of dragging it across the land as simple as it could have been given the circumstances, and after trading off with Charlotte and Emerson at about the halfway mark, I couldn’t help but run ahead to see what awaited us in terms of a launch point. We just needed to get the boat in the water without destroying the motor or getting soaking wet. Once we were loaded and off, I had no doubt we could make it.

  “Hey, where are you going!”

  I put up a finger as I ran, indicating I would just be a moment, feeling the eagerness of a seven-year-old bounding down the staircase on Christmas morning.

  And then, as if the earth beneath me had suddenly turned to molasses, my feet stuck to the ground at the sight ahead of me. My knees buckled, nearly sending me face down to the dirt, but I didn’t fall, and as I looked ahead to the cluster of White Ones that stood all along the riverbank like seagulls on an island of beached fish, the only noise I could make was a panicked cough that erupted from my lungs like a dying engine.

  There were dozens of them, crouched and crablike in their usual postures, yet a bit more desultory, as if they were lost in the desert of some far-off land. Finally, I turned back toward Charlotte and the kids, who were moving with alacrity now, equally anxious to get to the river. But before I could wave them down, to signal them not to take another step, Emerson saw them.

  And she screamed.

  I turned back to the White Ones, each of which now had turned their heads in our direction, their black eyes like giant olives, glistening and hungry. The first one lurched forward from behind a pack of others, bouncing through them like a hungry runt for the teat. It had the usual elegance of movement as I’d come to know, but not the same vitality. The cold. As Betty had said, it was the only thing keeping us alive.

  Soon the rest of the sixty or so White Ones began to move toward us, some faster than others, though all of them appearing diminished at least slightly. I turned and ran back toward my family, and when I reached them, I took the boat from Charlotte and Emerson and then turned and began dragging it back to the tributary. In a moment, Charlotte was beside me, her hands on the gunwale, double-timing it with me to the water.

  “Hurry!” Emerson shouted. “They’re coming!”

  I turned back to measure the distance, how much time we had. We were still probably three hundred yards from the tributary, and at the rate we were going, we weren’t going to make it.

  But it didn’t matter.

  “David!”

  It was Charlotte, and as I turned my head back in the direction we were running, I looked up. And there, ahead of us, now on the banks of the tributary, was another set of White Ones—perhaps ten—staring directly at us. We were trapped.

  20: The Snow

  “Dad? What are we going to do?”

  It was Ryan, and his tone was confused, as if not quite understanding how I could have led us to the position in which we found ourselves.

  The creatures on the riverside of us had begun to fan out to either side, and eventually the bodies joined with the others on the tributary side so that we were surrounded entirely. There was nowhere to run.

  Slowly, the circle began to close in on us as the White Ones instinctively moved forward, each of them keeping their eyes directed straight ahead, never distracted by their thoughts or the external world around them. Animals. Predators. They were only yards away now, and there was little else for us to do. I considered making a run toward the perimeter, which might have caused them all to collapse on me, thus giving Charlotte and the kids a chance at escape. But the move was such a long shot as to be absurd, and it would only shorten the time I had left with my family.

  Another few steps and I could almost touch them, and at that moment, finally, after threatening the ground below for so long, huge flakes of snow began to fall from the sky.

  “Daddy!” Emerson cried, “I don’t want to die!”

  My heart was broken, and I pulled my daughter in close to me, teardrops falling to her auburn hair. “We’re going to make it as hard as possible,” I answered. “Quick, under the boat.”

  “What?”

  “Just do it. Everyone, tuck down into as tight a ball as possible.”

  Without delay, Charlotte, Emerson, Ryan, and Nelson ducked down, and as they did, Newton jumped from Ryan’s arms and dashed toward the riverside group of monsters, easily dodging their shins and feet as he passed them and headed toward the river.

  “Newton,” Nelson cried, beginning the chase for his pet, but I caught him before he got a step.

  “He’ll be okay. Get down.”

  Nelson obe
yed, and seconds later, I was standing above my wife and three children—all of whom were now lying on the ground in constricted spheres—holding the boat balanced on its port side. Finally, I knelt and lowered the boat with me, giving us one last chance as I covered us from the beasts all around us. But before the world went dark—perhaps for the final time in the lives of the Willis family—through the sliver between the gunwale and the ground, I saw one of the White Ones drop to the ground. And I could tell from the plummet that it was not an action of attack, but rather one of trauma, pain. I couldn’t hold the weight of the boat for long, but it was enough time to see the fallen monster squirming seizure-like on the ground.

  And then another one fell.

  I released my grip on the gunwale so that we were all beneath the boat now, with only a ribbon of light at the borders shining in, giving us enough brightness to see the looks on each other’s faces. We shifted our eyes wildly as we listened to the silent footfalls of the Corrupted turn to panicked scurrying, and we all shrieked in unison when the first of the creatures toppled on the bottom hull of the boat, creating a thunderclap in the hiding space below.

  Chaos ensued in the world outside, though none of us knew exactly what it looked like. I thought of Betty, of the cold, and of the artificial mechanism she’d developed to keep Timothy captive. It was like poison, I thought, the condition of cold without the chemicals, and the woman on the lake had discovered a way to keep her son just cold enough to keep him controlled.

  But now came a different kind of cold, one born of the atmosphere, and with it the fruit of snow, deadly to the monsters that had emerged in a similar setting six months earlier.