The Frozen Man

by Lex Sinclair

  Carlton’s mother had rapped on the door at around 11a.m. in the morning.

  Normally, Carlton was an early riser and would be awake before anyone else, but his mother assumed, as he’d been out all weekend he must have been exhausted and catching up on some missed shut-eye. But when she got no reply around lunch time, she tentatively entered his room and approached his bed.

  When she saw her son’s glazed-over eyes in a petrified stare, bulging out of their sockets, she knew without anyone having to tell her, that her son was dead.

  Not long after, it was officially confirmed by the paramedics, who had taken Carlton’s body to the nearest hospital, hoping to get a pulse, but failed. It wasn’t through lack of endeavour. They just didn’t have a clue what they were up against. He was pronounced dead almost as soon as they carted him out of the house into the ambulance.

  A wave of nausea coursed through Tom as he stood in the cemetery , holding Kate’s clammy hand, knowing whatever it was that had actually caused Carlton’s death had something to do with the corpse in they’d had in their garage and the myth behind what was known as ‘The Frozen Man.’ There was no way of proving this theory of course, but he knew it in his gut. So did Kate and Charles.

  The reverend finished his sermon with a sign of the holy cross. After the mourners placed a single red rose atop the coffin the grieving family members and close friends gradually moved away from the coffin Carlton’s body rested in and climbed back into the hired funeral cars. Once the long line of large vehicles drove slowly away from the place of burial in an assembled line, the crowd begun to disperse and return to their own cars.

  ‘What happens now?’ Tom whispered to Charles, as they walked on the gravel path amidst the other attendees.

  Charles didn’t speak for a moment. He was still intensely upset at Carlton’s sudden death. It was only now standing in the quiet graveyard, heading back to the car did he realise that his friend was gone and never to return. He was in his mid-fifties and had experienced a lot in life. He had attended many of his friends’ funerals, but he never got used to it, especially when someone was so young and the circumstances were so unfathomable.

  Why Carlton? Why did Carlton have to die? Out of the four of us, Carlton had the least to do with the Frozen Man or whatever it’s supposed to be. Carlton had been their peacemaker. Despite being the youngest in their group, at times, he seemed to be by far the most mature. Charles kept expecting the young man to show up anytime soon and ask what the hell was going on. But that wasn’t going to happen.

  Tom could clearly see the old man was having a hard time coming to terms with their friend’s passing. He put an arm around him. ‘Fancy coming for a drink with us?’ he asked. ‘I dunno ‘bout you but I could do with a good, strong drink right about now.’

  Charles met Tom’s eyes and said in a choked voice, ‘I was one of the last people to see him alive.’ Tom didn’t know how to respond to that, so he didn’t.

  Sometimes it’s best not to say anything at all. ‘He was a real nice guy,’ Charles went on. ‘I know we didn’t know him that long, but I’ll always remember how calm he was under extreme circumstances like we found ourselves in, especially as he was so young, and so brave.’

  ‘We’ll all miss him,’ Kate added.

  ‘Come on, how ‘bout that drink I promised you, huh?’

  They got to Tom and Kate’s car. Then Charles said, ‘It should’ve been me who died, not Carlton.’

  ‘Don’t say that,’ Tom said. ‘I mean Carlton wouldn’t have liked you talking like that.’

  ‘It’s true, though.’

  ‘We’re not sure what exactly killed him,’ Kate said.

  ‘I do.’

  Tom could feel a tingling sensation go right the way through him, like an electric current.

  ‘I wasn’t going to bring it up. But I guess now I have no choice,’ Charles said.

  Tom groaned inwardly.

  ‘Well, let’s discuss over a couple of drinks, okay?’ Kate said.

  ‘I need to show you something at my house, first.’

  Tom unlocked his car and got in. ‘Look, Charles, no disrespect - but I’m growing a little tired of these stories you insist on telling us every time we meet.’

  ‘That’s why it’s best I show you, instead,’ he said.

  Tom rested his forehead on the steering wheel. ‘Please, tell me it’s not another book of nonsense?’

  ‘It’s not a book, unfortunately. This is as real as you and me standing here in this quiet graveyard, right now.’

  Kate opened the passenger door but didn’t get in. ‘Charles, it’s too late for us to drive up to your house now, and then drive all the way back. Tom and I are really tired.’

  ‘We can grab ourselves some food - although after what I have to show you you’re not gonna feel like eating - and some booze from a service station store.

  You can stay for the night.’ Tom and Kate regarded one another with different expressions. ‘Also, I don’t like to say this - but I could use the company,’ he said in a strained voice.

  Tom looked despondently at his wife. ‘All right. We’ll stay with you for one night, and you can show us whatever it is you have got to show us. But then I think you ought to, either find a good woman or get a better, more normal hobby... as opposed to these supernatural tales - which I’m not saying are false- because it’s not doing your health any good. Is it?’

  Charles started crying. He covered his bright red face with his hands, his shoulders shuddering up and down.

  ‘Oh, Charles,’ Tom said, and then pulled him close.

  ‘This is not my idea of a hobby, Tom,’ Charles wept.

  Kate gave her husband a murderous stare. He shouldn’t have said anything about Charles getting a woman or a better hobby. It was a stupid thing to say.

  ‘I’m sorry, Charles,’ Tom said. ‘That came out wrong. I didn’t mean it like that... It’s just, I wanna have a more normal friendship with you, and so far everything’s gone from bad to worse.’

  Charles wiped his tears away with the sleeve of his coat and croaked, ‘And it’s my fault everything has turned out the way it has, is it? Thanks a bunch.’

  Kate looked as though she was going to give her husband a black eye if he uttered one more asinine remark.

  An elderly couple walked past and saw Charles weeping. ‘Is he all right?’ she said quietly to Kate, minding her own business. Kate said that he would be fine. Then the elderly lady made a sad, sympathetic face at Charles, who had his back to her before sauntering on again.

  They got Charles to sit in the back seat of the Tom’s car. Tom turned the engine on to generate some heat. Kate sat sideways so she could look at Charles without twisting her neck or torso too much. ‘Tom didn’t mean anything nasty,’ she said, her voice soothing. ‘He was just saying that maybe now we can resume our friendship at a less stressful and worrying level.’

  ‘Yeah, I know. It’s just with Carlton dying the way he did and everything else.

  I’m not enjoying this, though. I promise you that, if nothing else. All I wanted was to be friends with you guys - but not like this, as you said. You were right, though, Tom. I am lonely sometimes. And I got no one to blame but myself.’

  Kate and Tom listened to this old-timer pour his heart out, suddenly realising how lucky they were to have one another. ‘But you’ll know what I mean when I said it should have been me when you see what I’ve got to show you. But you’re gonna wish you hadn’t,’ Charles went on.

  Tom looked at Charles in the rear view mirror. ‘Can’t you just tell us what is you saw?’

  Charles shook head slowly. ‘You wouldn’t believe me - I wouldn’t believe me if it wasn’t right there for me to see as clear as day.’

  ‘All right, all right,’ Tom said, surrendering to the old man’
s wishes.

  ‘You get in your Jeep,’ Kate said, ‘and we’ll follow you back to your place.’

  Charles gripped the door handle and then muttered, ‘I’m sorry for the inconvenience.’

  ‘Don’t be silly,’ Kate said. ‘It’ll be nice to see where you live, anyway.’

  Charles forced a wan smile, and then stepped back outside.

  Tom and Kate watched him amble to his Jeep parked thirty yards away from their car. ‘Do you think he’s crazy, honestly?’ Tom asked.

  ‘I don’t think he’s crazy. I think he needs to be around people he can trust right now, that’s all.’

  ‘Why does it have to be us, though?’

  Kate glared at Tom. ‘Carry on with the wisecracks and I’ll thump you one.’

  Tom sighed.

  Charles started to pull away from the kerb and slowly drove down the narrow road to the entrance. Tom followed, keeping him in sight. Whatever the old man wanted to show them, it’d better be good, he thought. The last thing he needed on top of everything else was to waste another perfectly good weekend having his ear bent by more ludicrous supernatural stories. He and Kate were doing their utmost to get on with a quiet, pleasant, mundane life. They didn’t need this old fart calling them every couple of weeks with more myths, regardless of whether or not they were true.

  ***

  Forty-five minutes later the Jeep and the Vauxhall came to a halt in a Texaco service station. Both Charles and Tom used this opportunity to fill their tanks up. Kate went inside the convenience store, and strolled down the aisles with a shopping basket, picking up items she and Tom required if they would be sleeping at Charles’s cottage.

  She’d already got two cheap toothbrushes, toothpaste and some microwave meals, a girl’s magazine for herself, a football magazine for Tom, in case he - and more than likely would - get bored; plus a newspaper for Charles in the basket. Kate also picked up a 4pint bottle of full-fat milk, a bunch of bananas, some chocolate and a few packets of crisps for all of them.

  Tom waited outside, watching incessant sheets of rain fall from the grey-wall skies overhead. Kate would be paying for the fuel on her credit card as well as the basket of groceries. I could be in the house right now watching football, or doing something remotely interesting. Anything except doing this.

  Charles paid for his fuel separately. Then he assisted Kate with the shopping bags in advance to getting behind the wheel again and exiting the service station onto the main road, on his normal route home.

  15

  Dusk crept upon them just as they brought the vehicles to a halt in the front yard of the moss-coated, stone built cottage. The moody grey sky clouded what was left of the diminishing daylight. But at least it they had reached their destination before dark.

  Kate gaped at the cottage in unequivocal envy. Living on a newly-constructed housing estate where every home on the block was identical, apart from the interior decorations, she never gave it much consideration about the people who lived in the rural regions of the country, high up in the mountains all year round in old low-ceilinged stone buildings, like the one standing before her. ‘It’s beautiful,’ she marvelled.

  Tom didn’t show the same amazement as his wife, however, you’d have to be either an idiot, or just plain narrow-minded not to agree with what she said. It was indeed beautiful. This cottage had to be over a hundred of years old, and was still sturdy in spite of its small, compact size. ‘Guess this wasn’t such a bad idea after all, eh?’ he said. It wouldn’t have mattered what the old man’s home looked like (within reason), but the cottage they now gaped at made their stay worth while.

  He could put up with another bunch of eerie supernatural stories for one more night if that was what Charles had planned, just to say they spent a night in an old-fashioned cottage in North Wales. A lot of people where they resided would have called this a weekend break.

  Charles got out of the Jeep and walked over to his friends’ car. Tom opened the door and got out. Kate did the same. ‘C’mon, let’s get these bags and go inside where it’s warmer. I’ll show you what you’d better see a little later.’

  Kate opened the back door of the Vauxhall and lifted one of the shopping bags off the back seat and handed it to Tom.

  Charles made his way to the entrance, stepped inside, leaving the door wide open for Kate and Tom to follow. When they locked their car and entered the cottage, Charles closed the front door behind them, flicked the light switch on and carried the shopping bags under the stone archway into the kitchen area. ‘I don’t know about you,’ he called out, ‘but I’m bloody starving.’

  Tom and Kate roamed the cosy room with their eyes, astonished at the cavernous hearth, similar to the one in The Travellers Pub where they’d listened to his scary story and got acquainted with one another at the beginning of the year - which seemed like a thousand years ago now.

  ‘I’ll put the kettle on, shall I?’ Charles said.

  They both said yes in unison, and then continued staring at the inviting living room where the old man spent the majority of his time. The house smelled stale. It smelled of liquor, fried foods, sweat and some stinky medicine odour like Vicks or TCP. They saw the massive 42inch widescreen TV, the numerous books scattered here there and everywhere; on the bookshelf, under the bed, a couple more stacked on the floor.

  Being alone must give you a lot of time to read and watch TV, Tom thought. It was then, as he glimpsed Charles’s home, did he realise how hard it must be for one to live alone for almost all his life. He felt sincere sympathy for the old man. Tom would go mad if he lived here with nothing to do except watch TV, read and gaze out the window, no matter how scenic the view was on a glorious day.

  ‘Tea or coffee?’ Charles called out.

  ‘We’ll both have whatever you’re having,’ Tom said.

  Charles came back into the living room. ‘You can sit down. You don’t have to wait to be told.’

  There was only the recliner chair positioned in front of the massive TV screen and his bed. However, there was a faded green carpet and a fluffy brown rug in front of the hearth. ‘It may not look like much but sitting on the floor is quite comfortable. I’ll get some pillows,’ Charles said.

  Tom gave Kate a funny look. She narrowed her eyes at him for being so ungrateful.

  ‘So, what did you want to show us?’ Tom asked.

  Kate sat down on the recliner chair. She did intend on letting her husband sit on it, but now that he’d asked the question abruptly, which caused Charles to cry earlier, Tom didn’t deserve the relaxing chair.

  ‘It’s in the shed,’ Charles muttered. ‘I’ll show you later. Why don’t we get ourselves something warm to drink and a have bite to eat first? Whad’ya say?’

  ‘Good idea,’ Kate said, before Tom could reply.

  Tom watched as Charles headed back into the kitchen prior to sitting on the green rug and facing his wife. ‘If what he wanted to show us was so damn important, why is he avoiding showing it to us now?’ he whispered.

  ‘He just said he would,’ Kate snapped, and bared her teeth.

  Tom thought it wise to shut his mouth before Kate shut it for him.

  Not long after food was served, they ate their microwave meals in the living room area in front of the TV. When Charles had finished he put his utensils down and sipped his steaming mug of tea. The more Tom deliberated about it the more he came to the conclusion that there wasn’t anything for himself and Kate to see, after all. It was all made up, just so the old man could enjoy their company, because like Charles had said, he was lonely. Meanwhile Kate was a slow eater. She chewed on a thin slice of beef, taking her sweet time, enjoying her stay in the cottage.

  ‘Why don’t you tell us what’s in the shed?’ Tom blurted.

  Charles looked at him for a moment, afraid. Kate glared at Tom, her eyes huge in
their sockets - again. But this time he didn’t care.

  ‘As I said earlier... it’ll be better if I showed you,’ Charles said, clearly understanding why Tom persisted. ‘You don’t believe me, do you?’

  Tom wasn’t expecting Charles to read his thoughts. ‘It’s not that... it’s just, usually you’re so keen to show us weird things, and now all of a sudden you seem to be very reluctant. It’s not like you. No offence.’

  Charles didn’t answer for a couple of seconds. Then said, ‘You’re right. But that’s due to a couple of reasons. One: a very good friend of mine - ours - has mysteriously passed away, with no definite explanation, other than the paranormal, and I’m mortified. Two: I’m exhausted from the driving, from the sleepless nights and I’m starving hungry. Also, the thing I want or need to show you is rather terrifying if I do say so myself - and I’m dreading revealing it to you both. I hope that answers your question.’ With that said Charles struggled to his feet and carried the empty microwave dinner trays back to the kitchen.

  Kate scowled at her husband. ‘You idiot,’ she said under her breath.

  Tom didn’t like to admit it, but he felt like an idiot, too.

  Kate took her time to finish her meal and drink her tea. They watched TV, nobody knowing what to say to break the tension in the room. Why did he have to keep asking the same bloody question, pushing Charles, after all he’s done for us? What a tosspot!

  ‘Charles, I’m sorry,’ Tom said. ‘I shouldn’t have kept on about whatever it is you must show us. It’s just I wanted to get it out of the way as soon as possible, that’s all.’

  Charles nodded, showing Tom he had no hard feelings. ‘It’s not just the two reasons I gave you, Tom. I haven’t looked at it myself for almost three weeks now, not since the night it came after me,’ his voice seemed to break (not like he was about to cry again, just struggling to find the right words). ‘I had one hell of a nasty shock that night, as you’ll soon see for yourselves. And the other reason why I said it would be best to show you is ‘cause I cannot describe precisely what it is, myself.’