by Ron Ripley
Clark glanced over to the child, who had straightened up. Its face was pale, the features elfin and fine, the eyes wide and light blue. Clark couldn’t tell if the child was a boy or a girl, its long, dark brown hair ragged and unkempt. A thick, dark gray, woolen blanket was wrapped around it. From the fabric’s depths, a pale, thin hand clutched the blanket closed.
Clark opened his mouth, to ask what the creature was, to see if the child had come with it, but he couldn’t.
The air was stolen from his lungs, his mouth robbed of his words as he realized he could see through the child. He caught a faint glimmer of the stovetop through the child’s face. A sharp, piercing scream exploded in to the silence of the kitchen, dropping Clark to his knees. He clamped his hands over his ears.
A second later, his own scream joined the first as a cold and brutal hand grabbed his neck from behind, and started to squeeze.
Chapter 5: Driving
Over his lifetime, Shane had gotten used to many things, and he had eventually taken them for granted. One such item was the ability to drink coffee and drive a car at the same time.
When he had first driven as a teenager, it would have been impossible. He would have lived in fear of an accident with another vehicle, or of making a mess in the car itself. By the time he had reached forty-two, he could smoke a cigarette, negotiate the perils of traffic, drink his coffee, and curse roundly at other drivers.
Those days, Shane thought, looking down at the cup of coffee in the console, are long gone and far away now.
He hadn’t mastered the art of driving the car with the remnants of his left hand, which would have left him with the opportunity to hold his drink with his right.
At least I can still smoke, Shane thought. He tapped the head of the cigarette into the ashtray, put the cigarette back into his mouth, and waited for the light to turn green. In a few minutes, he was following traffic down the ramp onto Route Three, and leaving Nashua behind him.
Nashua, Berkley Street, Courtney. He shook his head. Leaving it all behind for a while.
Part of him wanted to leave it all for good. If he didn’t get some sleep and figure out how to make his world better, Shane knew he might have to.
He had no desire to die in his own house.
With a sigh, he pushed those thoughts out of his mind and headed north. The comforting sound of traffic, the monotony of it, and the complete lack of pressure allowed him to relax. He blinked, yawned, and felt sleep trying to steal over him.
Better find a place soon, he told himself.
Shane forced his eyes to stay open, and soon, a little distance past Boscawen, New Hampshire, he saw a sign.
Lake Nutaq, he read, nodding to himself. Another road sign after that informed Shane about the presence of a gas station, a McDonalds, and hotels. Shane signaled right and turned off the highway. The exit curved to the right, hooked back on itself towards the left, and in a short distance, Shane was at a blinking red light. An arrow pointed to the right and indicated the presence of the aforementioned hotels.
As he turned towards them, snowflakes began to fall. They struck the windshield and melted almost the instant they landed. Within a few minutes, they increased, and Shane had to turn on the windshield wipers. The sky had darkened, and Shane pulled into the first parking lot he saw.
It was for a Motel 6, and as he neared the front doors, he saw a sign that read, ‘CLOSED! Thanks for a Great Season!’
“Damn,” he muttered. He shifted into ‘park,’ turned on the radio and searched the channels until he found a news station.
“—change in the forecast,” a man’s voice said. “We know there wasn’t supposed to be any snow until this evening, but we’ve had a cold front move down from Canada, right through the green mountains and it’s slamming into New Hampshire now. It’s looking like we could get those eight to twelve inches over the next four to six hours. Then there’s the possibility the storm could spin around and come back at us once it hits the Atlantic. We are definitely looking at a Nor’easter.”
Shane turned off the radio and looked at it, shaking his head. He shifted his gaze to the snow as it piled up on his windshield, melting slowly.
No time to get back to Nashua, he thought, turning on the wipers. The world beyond the car was smothered in snow, near whiteout conditions. I’ll die out here.
He shifted into ‘drive’ and eased his way through the storm, pausing at the edge of the parking lot before turning onto the main road. Shane continued to creep along, eyes scanning either side for a house, or a business that had lights on.
Nothing, he thought, anger building up. All the crap I’ve been through, and I’m going to die on the side of the road in a snowstorm. Nice.
A sign loomed up out of the snow by a side street.
Preston Road Cabins.
Shane hesitated, then turned down the small road. If he had to break into a cabin, he could report it afterward, suffer the consequences, but at least be alive to do so.
The first of the cabins appeared on the left, and through the snow, Shane could see the shadows of others. He pulled up and then backed into the small driveway on the side of the structure. Grabbing his bag off the passenger seat, Shane turned the engine off and stepped out into the cold. The air was much colder than it had been down in Nashua, and each snowflake felt like ants biting into his face and head.
The sound of his boots on the porch was muffled by the snowfall. The door, not surprisingly, was locked. Shane twisted the knob, put his shoulder to the door, and popped the lock. He stumbled in, turned around, and slammed the door closed in an effort to keep out as much of the cold as possible. With the lock broken, he glanced around, saw a nearby side table, and dragged it over, using it to keep the door in place.
Shane stepped back and examined the small cabin, noticing the warmth of the room. From somewhere, an electric heater hummed, fighting the cold. He looked with disdain at the modern décor and the pretentious art, but then he chuckled and dropped his bag to the floor.
Don’t judge, he told himself. Just be glad you found a place to weather out the storm.
Shane unzipped his coat and shrugged it off. He hung it on a peg by the door and wandered around the cabin. In the kitchen, he found some canned soups and the tap ran.
Well, Shane thought, at least I won’t starve.
He made his way into the bedroom, found blankets in the closet, and a shelf of Jack Reacher novels.
And I won’t be bored to death, he thought, nodding. He grabbed a book and went back into the main room. The electric heater, set against the right wall, continued to warm the room. Shane brought his bag, the blankets, and the book over to the heater, and turned an overstuffed chair around to face it.
He sat down, draped one of the blankets over his legs, and picked up the book. A pair of windows flanked the heater, which was designed to look like a stylized antique wood stove. It had smooth lines, too much chrome, and it stood out of place between the curtainless windows.
Beyond the glass, the snow came down in small flakes, thousands of them obscuring the world beyond. The shape of another cabin, perhaps twenty or thirty feet away, was all Shane could see.
He looked at the snow for another minute, then he shook his head and opened up the book.
Before he could get beyond the opening sentence, a scream caught his attention.
The sound sent a blade of fear through his stomach. For nearly a minute, the screaming continued, and in it, Shane could hear fury and rage.
His heart pounded, the pulsing of his blood audible in his ears once the screaming ended. Shane looked down, the book shaking in his trembling hands. He closed it, set the volume on his lap, and looked outside.
Only snow greeted him.
Laughter rang out from the storm, a sound racing through the snow to ricochet off hidden trees and unseen cabins. Voices joined the laughter, speaking in a tongue Shane didn’t recognize.
He listened, though, tilting his ear towards the sound. And as he
focused on the words, he understood them.
“We’ve another one,” a male voice called out.
“We shall see what he is made of,” others said, chanting the words.
“And if he is strong?” the male voice asked.
“We shall eat from his flesh,” the others responded.
Shane closed his eyes, dropped his chin to his chest, and wondered what he had wandered into.
Chapter 6: Surrounded by Darkness
Clark couldn’t see.
He was in complete darkness.
His arms were numb, pain throbbing in his shoulders.
A voice spoke suddenly, and Clark jerked away.
Laughter from many throats filled the air.
“Who are you?” Clark asked, wheezing, his breathing difficult. “What did I do?”
More laughter answered his questions. Low moans and strange, piercing shrieks served as a backdrop to Clark’s new and painful world.
A cold hand reached out and touched his face.
Clark screamed, jerking his head away. Those around him guffawed. His nose detected the sharp, copper smell of blood.
“Please,” Clark begged, “please let me go.”
Something harsh and cold struck him in the chest, breaking a rib and forcing a scream out of him.
“Oh God,” Clark moaned, “what did I do?”
Someone grabbed his jaw and pulled it down as he shrieked. The cold was unbearable, the pain spiking as fingers colder than ice reached into his mouth, took hold of his tongue, and ripped it out.
Blood exploded from the wound, and his head was jerked backward. Clark gagged and choked, trying to breathe. His head was shoved forward, and he vomited, the act accompanied by the laughter of his unseen tormentors.
When he had expelled all of the blood he had swallowed, along with his breakfast, Clark gasped for breath. He couldn’t think, and when he tried to talk, the pain was excruciating.
Fingers pinched his nose and began to squeeze. As the cartilage broke, Clark screamed again, and darkness swept over him.
Excruciating pain, blazing into life from his groin, slammed Clark back into consciousness. Light flickered, waxed and waned until he could see. As blood filled his mouth and spilled past his lips, Clark realized he was still in the kitchen of the clubhouse.
The child he had seen was gone. In its place were four men. They were Indians, sitting on their heels. Paint adorned their faces, beaded chest-plates hung down from their necks, and their hair was shaved down to the skin while long, black scalp locks descended in thick tails. Dyed leather and feathers were woven into the hair.
The men smiled at Clark, the effect both gruesome and terrifying. It was worsened when he realized that they weren’t quite there. He could see through them, as he had the child, yet as they smiled, their shapes thickened.
A voice spoke from Clark’s left, a question from the sound of it.
The men nodded, and the speaker came around to stand in front of Clark. He recognized it as the dark shadow he had seen when he had entered the kitchen. Except now, the shadow had more definition.
It was a man, tall and clad in a bearskin cloak that reached from his shoulders to brush against the kitchen floor. Long, loose black hair hung down to the man’s breast. Teeth, both human and animal, were woven into the strands and clacked as the man moved.
Clark could not see his tormentor’s face since it was hidden by a large wooden mask, painted red and in a twisted mockery of a man’s visage. The long, exaggerated nose was broken, bent at a harsh angle to the left. Through the carved eyes, Clark could see a glint, while a wooden tongue protruded from thick lips and pointed to the right. More hair fell from the mask’s top, joining that of the wearer.
Hands slipped free from the cloak. They were large and thick, scarred and brutal in appearance.
And Clark knew he stood before the one who had tortured him.
The man raised his arms up, extending them out to either side, palms facing the ceiling.
Again, the man asked a question, and the laughter of the others filled the room.
The masked man nodded his approval. He stepped forward, and as Clark tried to jerk his head away, the man took hold of his throat.
The pain was immediate and intense, Clark’s scream a little more than a gurgle. A single thumb was placed beneath his chin, and the masked man forced Clark’s head up.
Clark tried to swallow as much of the blood from the root of his tongue as he could.
But there was too much, and soon he was gasping, coughing, sputtering. The gathered men laughed as Clark slowly drowned in his own blood.
Chapter 7: Stillness
Shane sat in silence, rubbing at the scars on his head as he thought about his current situation. Beyond the windows, the snow still fell. The cabin beyond remained obscured for the most part, and the hum of the electric heater filled the room.
Shane stretched and wondered if he had heard people, or if he had suffered from a hallucination. It was a possibility, considering how little he had been sleeping.
Plus I was seeing things in my own house, Shane reminded himself. He stood up and looked around for a clock, since he had left his phone at home.
He went into the kitchen and found a small digital clock on the countertop.
Four in the afternoon, he read, and shook his head. Shane looked out the window of the back door and could make out pine trees.
As he turned away, he stopped.
Something moved.
He looked back out the door.
A shadow. Nothing more. The barest hint of a shape. Small, and half-hidden by trees and snow.
Then it moved again, darting to the left and vanishing.
Shane shook his head. He reached for the doorknob, his hand hesitating a few inches from it.
That was a kid, he thought. Then he followed up his statement with, It couldn’t be. Not in this storm.
What if it is? he asked himself. What if there’s a kid out there?
Shane shook his head. You know there isn’t. There can’t be.
The back door’s window had curtains tied up and out of the way. With a shaking hand, Shane undid the knots, let the fabric fall, and made sure he couldn’t see out the window anymore.
Either you’re losing it, Shane thought, turning to the cabinets, or there’s something out there. Neither one of those sound like a good idea right now.
He took out a can of minestrone soup, found a can opener in one of the drawers and a pot under the sink. In a few minutes, he had the soup made and he carried the whole pan with a hot pad out into the main room. He went back to the chair, sat down on the floor, and began to eat.
Focusing on the act of feeding himself, Shane thought only about the soup. Mechanically, he moved the spoon from the pan to his mouth and repeated the process until he had finished all of it. The soup was warm in his stomach, and it felt good. He set the pan down on the floor and got back into the chair. Once more, he wrapped himself in the blanket and stared at the stove. The heat it sent into the room comforted him, but there was an itch at the base of his neck. Shane could feel something wasn’t right, a strangeness in the air that he could notice on the edge of his senses.
Beyond the walls of the cabin, the wind picked up and Shane was thankful for the small, sound structure.
“Why are you here?” a small voice whispered, destroying Shane’s sense of peace and safety.
Chapter 8: Perfect Weather for Sledding
Matt Rushford raced through the snow, bent over the handles of his new snowmobile, its engine screaming. The beam of his headlight refracted in the heavy snowfall as he raced through the snow. Even through all of his gear, the cold bit at him, the chill driven in by the speed of snowmobile’s powerful chassis.
Behind him, Matt could hear his brother’s snowmobile, the headlight flashing and flickering around him.
Matt grinned beneath the protection of his neoprene mask and revved the engine. He took off, aiming for the side of the r
oad. Soon the plows would be out, and he and Mark would need to find another place to sled.
Through the haze of the storm, Matt saw the sign for Preston Road.
The chain’s down, Matt realized, and he pulled over, coming to a sharp stop.
Mark came up beside him, and the two of them turned off the snowmobiles’ engines.
“Are you serious?” Mark asked, straightening up and looking at him. Mark, in spite of being younger than Matt by three years, was taller and free of the ravages of acne.
Neither of which Matt appreciated.
“I’ve never seen the chain down in the offseason,” Matt said. “Think Clark screwed up?”
“Naw, not him,” Mark answered after a moment. “Probably Danny. He’s half spun on meth most days. Anyway, what do you think?”
Matt chuckled. “I think we should go in there. Can you imagine? We’d be able to tear up and down the road, then we could just cut across Lake Nutaq. Ice is thick enough to bear the weight.”
“Yeah,” Mark said, nodding. “Even if it isn’t, hell, we could skip over any wet spots.”
“With the new sleds?” Matt said. “Definitely.”
“Awesome,” Mark said, and the brothers fired up the snowmobiles.
Matt got ready, and then blue lights flashed and danced. A powerful spotlight shined on the brothers and Matt groaned. He leaned back and shut the engine off. A glance over at Mark showed his brother had done the same.
A police pick-up truck pulled up behind them, and Rowan Little got out.
“What in the hell are you boys doing out?” Rowan asked, his hard voice cutting through the storm.
“Trying out the new sleds, Rowan,” Matt replied.
The officer pulled his hat down lower, the harsh, angular lines of his face jagged in the glare of the pick-up’s headlights. He frowned and shook his head.
“Boys,” he said in a voice that brokered no sass, “your mother would kill me if I didn’t send you back home now.”
