Blizzard of Souls

by Michael McBride

  “Jill,” a voice whispered, followed by a string of words in a tongue she couldn’t understand. They sounded like no language she’d ever heard before, and yet at the same time somehow familiar.

  She hadn’t realized she’d closed her eyes until they opened and she was sitting on the ground with her back against a stalagmite, staring up at the highest level of the pueblo. The others were still gathered around the fire, which was now easily twice as tall as when she’d seen it last, divvying up the remainder of the Spaghetti-O’s. She felt disoriented as though she’d fallen asleep, but she couldn’t possibly have allowed her lids to close for more than a couple of minutes.

  There was something about the third story of the structure that wouldn’t allow her to steal her gaze away for even a second. It was no more than a single cube stacked atop the others, a lone room at the pinnacle of the non-symmetrical building. Rising to her feet, she shuffled over to the pile of spears and took one in her right hand, her legs guiding her to the ladder leaning against the pueblo. She climbed upward, reaching the first roof and finding another ladder to her right, which she used to reach the roof of the second level, where she stood and stared at the windowless walls. There were no entrances of any kind, the two walls terminating against the cave to either side where they met with the rock, the seams crumbled away over time.

  “How are you supposed to—?” Jill started, but realized what she needed to do. Setting down the pike, she grabbed the top rung of the ladder she’d just used and pulled it all the way up. After a moment of fighting with its weight, she leaned it against the wall.

  Taking the pole in her hand again, she climbed upward until she reached the roof and stepped off. There was no large square stone as she had expected, but rather a flat surface marred by only a single mound of the adobe-like substance. She raised the spear and pointed the sharpened end at the edge of the mound. With a grunt, she rammed the tip into the roof, which cracked away to reveal the edge of the square rock. Again and again she jammed the spear until she’d freed all four sides, scraping away the remainder of the mud and straw until she could force the tip under one side of the rock. Using the staff as a lever, she pulled down on it until the rock slid back just enough to release a stale breath of dust from the hole. Casting the stick aside, she sat down and braced her feet against the edge of the stone and pushed as hard as she could. It slid away with a loud scraping sound until it was nearly halfway across the opening. Scooting closer, she struggled to straighten her legs, nearly screaming with the strain, until the rock slid past the far edge of the hatch.

  Rolling onto all fours, she scurried toward it, holding her breath to try to keep from breathing the dust. She began to cough so hard that she had to pull her shirt up over her mouth and nose, but lowered her head through the hole regardless. The darkness beneath was so thick it looked like the room was filled with oil.

  “I need light,” she gasped, ducking back out and looking over her shoulder. There was a burning branch wedged into a fissure in the cavern wall a level down. Hurrying down the ladder, she exhumed it and nearly extinguished the flame in her hurry to again ascend the ladder, scrabbling to the edge of the square entryway and lowering the fire through.

  The torchlight was nearly consumed by the thick cloud of dust and strands of cobwebs that filled the room, but she was able to make out a vaguely human shape on the floor directly beneath her. Jill looked back to the others, but they were still down below reveling in the massive amounts of heat produced by the coal.

  Lying on her stomach, she tossed the burning branch down into the room, off to the right so as not to land on the outline of the person. As soon as it hit the ground, the light drew contrast along the contours of the shape. Skeletal legs crossed Indian-style terminated in bony feet, the lap the unmistakable heart shape of a bare pelvis. The skull slumped forward onto an exposed ribcage while two limp arms hung to the sides, hands resting on their backs so that the fingers curled up toward her. The ground was black with liquefied skin and tissue.

  “Jesus,” she whispered, pursing her lips against the ungodly stench that rose from the corpse.

  Closing her eyes, she took a deep breath and maneuvered herself until her legs dangled down through the ceiling. She dropped down into the room with a furious cracking sound of the deteriorating floor beneath. Fortunately, it was built upon rows of logs the size of telephone poles or she could have fallen right through to her death. She needed to be more careful.

  Lifting the torch, she stamped out a small section of the floor that had begun to burn and inspected the skeleton. The hollow eye sockets were filled with spider webs and the decayed carcasses of their former inhabitants. Whether induced by the firelight or not, the entire body took on a manila cast. All of the teeth were intact, though the mandible had fallen away and rested in its lap. Some of the ribs had broken over time as the cartilage decomposed and the body slumped forward. The walls were bare, with the exception of the wall to her right, which served as the front of the structure. It had been carved away from within in jagged sections that could only have been clawed by fingers.

  Kneeling, she looked first into the expressionless face, and then to the ground in front of it. Chunks of colored chalk littered the floor in the deep accumulation of dust. She blew gently across the ground, scattering the dust, which rose into the air with a fresh swell of putrescence that made her retch. Lowering the torch until it illuminated the drawing, she marveled at the intricacy. It had obviously been drawn by the same person who had done the cave wall. There was the image of a hand extending a finger to touch another hand, though the second was skinless, merely a collection of bones.

  Jill raised her eyes to look into the long dead face, momentarily sensing a sentience like unseen eyes looking back at her.

  “Is this for me?” she whispered, lowering her gaze to its hand. Slowly, she reached toward it until her fingertip touched the pointed tip of the corpse’s finger.

  A blinding white light grew from the eyes of the skull and Jill had just time to open her mouth in surprise before being drawn into it. The light peeled back to reveal a blizzard so oppressive she could barely see the dark shapes trudging through the deep snow ahead of her. Like a poorly spliced film, the next image was of a group of people in the cavern holding their torches aloft. They were clad in animal skins: the hairy hides of both brown and black bears, the shorter fur of elk and deer, and even one with the shaggy mane of a bison hanging down his back. Then the furs were gone and dark-skinned men and women in tanned brown leather slaved to build the pueblo, while a lone woman with long black hair drew on the wall beside the burgeoning structure. Another disorienting cut in the continuity and the pueblo was complete. As was the mural on the wall. Several older men with wrinkles like melting wax gesture towards the drawing. And while Jill couldn’t understand their words, the fear in their voices was unmistakable. The woman stood in front of them, tears streaming down her face, her abdomen swollen by pregnancy. A wrinkled man, hobbled by time, extended a knobby finger toward her and touched her belly. All of the onlookers were somber, burdened by the weight of the monumental decision they shared. And again she was inside the room, watching the stone slide over the hole again to seal her inside the darkness of the tomb. There was a flash of brightness and she saw a torrent of snowflakes. Men and women walking through the knee-deep snow until they could walk no more, collapsing into the accumulation, unable to rise. She heard screaming and her fingers exploded with pain, nails ripping from the cuticles, blood rushing from the rent skin as she tried to claw her way through to help them, watching them die in her mind before slumping to the floor of the room to the tune of sobbing.

  Jill gasped and fell onto her rear end, panting as she apparently hadn’t been breathing.

  Her eyes shot to the skeleton. The skull leaned forward and broke free from the cervical spine, hitting the ground with the crack of sutures breaking. It rolled away from the legs and came to rest in the middle of the drawing.

  Ji
ll lifted it carefully and was about to try balancing it on top of the vertebrae again when she noticed that something about the drawing was different. Someone had smeared a finger through the chalk to write the words Blizzard of Souls. Perching the head atop the shoulders, she looked at her hands. The tip of her right index finger was covered with colored powder.

  There was a scream above her.

  Jill looked up and saw a great white falcon perched on the edge of the opening with blinding white eyes that looked remarkably familiar.

  VI

  Salt Lake City

  GRAY HAD BEEN HELPING COMB THE KITCHEN FOR FOOD AND HAD JUST SET out a wholesale-sized bag of peanuts when Garrett had walked into the restaurant. He didn’t know the man well enough to read his expression, but he could tell by the way the man shoved through the crowd as though with a purpose, eyes darting from one side of the room to the other, that he was looking for something far more imperative than a handful of pretzels. At first he thought that maybe he was the object of the search. He knew it wouldn’t be long before their self-anointed ruler called on him, but when Garrett stopped beside the mother and child with whom he’d traveled, talking to them only briefly before escorting both back into the lobby, he could tell that something strange, something that none of the rest of them were meant to see, was transpiring. It wasn’t the culmination of a string of logical thoughts that led to that conclusion, but a gut instinct as powerful as any he’d ever experienced. It felt like someone had reached inside of him, curled their fingers through coils of his bowels and started to twist.

  “Load up your pockets for me, Care,” he whispered into his wife’s ear. “I’ll be back in a few.”

  “Don’t do anything stupid,” she said, taking him by the arm with a genuine look of concern in her eyes. Could she feel that something was amiss as well?

  He turned to face her and allowed a cocky smile. “Me?”

  “I know that look, Gray. What are you sniffing out?”

  “Just following a hunch.”

  “Keep your head down and your nose clean, you hear?”

  “Don’t I always?” he said through the wavering smirk.

  She rolled her eyes. It was the first time he had truly seen the real Carrie through the fugue that had settled over her. Maybe she was going to come out of it after all.

  He turned without another word and passed through the dining area and into the lobby just in time to see the door to the stairwell close to the right. Turning the knob without a sound, he opened it and ascended into the shadows. Footsteps echoed hollowly above him like thunder. Using them to disguise his own, he pulled himself upward by the railing, carefully planting his feet to keep from betraying his advance. Rounding the first landing, he continued on until he reached the next. A door closed above him, the only remaining sound his harsh breathing. When he finally made it to the top floor, he pressed his ear to the cold metal door, but he couldn’t hear a thing. Holding his breath, he twisted the knob and opened the door just far enough to see into the hallway.

  Soft voices trailed from his right where he could see a dim glow from what appeared to be a pair of flashlights pointed around the corner where the hall terminated and bent to the left. Slipping through the gap, he closed the door softly behind and eased down the corridor until he was nearly to the end, pressing his back against the door of one of the rooms.

  “…why I need you all right here beside me,” Richard said. “I won’t pretend that in this situation we’re all equal. We need to clearly identify our strengths in order to best utilize them for not just our survival, but our future prosperity.”

  Gray slid along the wall until he was at the very edge and dropped to one knee. Keeping his back firmly against the wall, he peered around the corner. Richard and Garrett both held long broad flashlights that they must have found in emergency roadside kits, while the military guy listened beside the mother and child.

  “But why do you need us?” the woman asked.

  Richard smiled. “Your son has a special gift, Susan. We need to both use it to our advantage for the good of all, and protect him from those who would exploit him.”

  “He’s just a little boy.”

  “With precognitive abilities that could mean the difference between life and death for all of us.”

  “I can’t allow you to use him. He’s a kid, for God’s sake.”

  “All I’m suggesting is that you and Jake stay by my side. In the grand scheme of things, he is far more important than I. Take the room next to mine. Think of your son. I can’t imagine that there’s a safer place to be right now, can you?”

  “No,” Susan whispered, looking at the other men.

  “Good,” Richard said, clapping his hands. “And Sergeant Peckham…as Chief of Security, your first task will be to acquire a room for these two.”

  Peckham stepped forward and rattled the handle on the door. Without the key card for the electronic lock, there was no way it was going to open, and even then, without electricity, it would be futile. He looked at Richard, who simply nodded. Raising his right boot, Peckham kicked the door as hard as he could. The lock gave way with a loud crack, taking a chunk of the trim with it, the doorknob slamming into the drywall behind.

  “Don’t worry,” Richard said. “I’ll have someone get right on that lock.” He gestured for them to enter. Their eyes never left his as they crossed the threshold. “Why don’t you two try to get some rest? You’re both excused from this afternoon’s work.”

  “We can help just like everyone else.”

  “Societal standing does come with certain perks, dear,” Richard said, pulling their door closed. “Take whichever rooms you guys want. Just make sure you leave me the corner suite next to theirs.”

  “Sure thing,” Peckham said, walking down the hall to the next available room on the right and kicking through the door. He ducked inside to explore his new home.

  Garrett waited until Peckham was out of sight and escorted Richard to his suite, kicking the door in himself. The two stepped inside and closed the door.

  Gray darted across the hallway and pressed himself into the corner.

  “The mother isn’t going to let us get too close to him,” a voice whispered from inside the room.

  “Well, she isn’t going to have to now, is she?”

  “She hasn’t let him out of her sight for a minute this entire time.”

  “It doesn’t matter. We need him. Not her. He’s the key to our survival.”

  “His visions anyway.”

  The voice was silenced by a slap.

  “My visions.”

  There was a moment of silence. Gray held his breath to listen.

  “Why don’t you go get something to eat with the others?”

  “Richard…”

  “It’s okay, Garrett. I’m the one who should be sorry. You’re my number one. I need you more than all of the others combined.”

  “My fault, Richard. I shouldn’t have said anything.”

  “Tell you what… After you get some food, I want you to make this kid your only priority. Bring him as much food as he can eat and anything he wants to drink. Make sure he doesn’t have any reason to leave the room.”

  “What about the mother?”

  “Treat her like a queen. Just make sure that they both stay in that room.”

  “And what if they won’t?”

  “Make sure that they do. Understand?”

  “I think so…”

  “Good.” There was a long pause. “We only need the boy.”

  Gray struggled to breathe. Were they saying what he thought they were? The door beside him opened without warning. Pressing himself into the corner, he prayed that the shadows would conceal him.

  Garrett and Richard walked down the hallway away from him without looking back. Opening the door to the stairwell, they stepped inside silently. As soon as Gray heard the booming of their tread echoing from the other side of the closed door, he allowed his stale breath to rush out.
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br />   He should never have followed them upstairs. He could have been downstairs with his wife and a bowl of peanuts. Instead, he was hiding in the darkness on the third floor trying to talk himself out of doing what he knew he had to do. They had given themselves over to a power-hungry madman, and they were going to die if he didn’t do something about it. The feeling was so intense it caused him to shiver.

  He needed to get Carrie out of there. They could head back to the Great Salt Lake with the others or maybe just keep on driving. Maybe find a hut on a beach somewhere tropical and—

  A small face appeared to his right, peeking out at him from the second door down. Gray couldn’t see the eyes in the darkness, but he could feel their stare.

  He couldn’t leave them here. Might as well bury them himself.

  “It’s okay,” the boy whispered. “We’ll be fine.”

  They wouldn’t be though, and Gray knew it.

  VII

  Mormon Tears

  PHOENIX SAT AROUND THE FIRE WITH THE OTHERS. THEY HAD ALREADY unloaded the contents of the rooms, leaving only the front chamber filled with coal, which had already proven to last far longer than any amount of wood and burned hotter to boot. Their brief break had been well earned, but now they had to begin preparations for what was to come. They were quickly running out of time.

  He looked at Adam through the smoldering flames. As did all of the rest.

  “The first thing we need to do is secure our perimeter,” Adam said. “The way I see it, there are two direct points of access. The first is through the passage in the mountain; the other is from across the lake. I think we ought to make the passage our priority. Does everyone else agree?”

  “How do you propose doing it? I mean, how are we supposed to block off an entire corridor large enough to drive through?” Darren asked.