They Came With The Snow Box Set {Books 1-2]

by Coleman, Christopher

  “They couldn’t have...” Stella begins, but then cuts herself off, seemingly coming to the same conclusions I just did.

  The five of us—Stella, Tom, James, Pam, and I—stand staring at the ceiling in wonder, waiting to see what happens next, waiting to see who comes through the door that leads from the landing section of the hangar. Sydney remains on the floor, looking catatonic with fear.

  And then, because of the distraction of the mechanical roof and the sound of the landing helicopter, no one notices when the crab from the penalty box comes barreling down the walkway and out into the main area of the hangar.

  The crab smashes into James first, grabbing him by the neck and pulling him to the ground. He scuffles with it for a moment, and then pushes the beast aside. “Shoot it!” he yells.

  Tom doesn’t hesitate. He swivels the rifle toward the crab, just to the left to make sure he doesn’t hit James, and pops off three rounds.

  The crab doesn’t look like it’s been hit—there’s no blood or sounds of agony—and it bounds away down the corridor of offices where it was caged only minutes ago.

  “It’s inside,” Stella whines. “It can’t be loose inside.” The growing sound of the helicopter landing next door nearly drowns her out, but I can hear the fear in her voice, the hysteria. She backs away into the penalty box and shuts the door in front of her, staring out the window for just a moment before turning and running for safety at the far spoke of the wheel where I was hiding earlier. Once there, she presses her back against the glass and watches us in distress.

  And she makes no notice of the crabs behind her.

  The flare and gunshots and screaming, along with, I suppose, the noise of the helicopter, have worked the crabs in the rink into a lather, and they begin to cluster behind the glass where Stella is standing. They’re silent creatures anyway, but even if they had the roars of lions, she wouldn’t have heard them over the sound of the descending helicopter. And in her petrified state, fixed as she is on the free-ranging creature somewhere in the hangar, Stella also doesn’t notice when they begin to form a ladder and start scaling the wall.

  “Look at that,” Pam says, her tone the curiosity of someone who’s witnessed a lot of behavior from these creatures and is now seeing something new and intriguing.

  But it’s not new to me. I’ve seen this scaling technique a few times now. It’s an attack.

  I scream for Stella to move, but she can’t hear me. Not even close. And when I make a move to open the door to the box, Tom holds me back, his arms strong and secure like a father’s as he brings me into his chest. And it isn’t hate for Stella that’s precipitated this reaction, it’s a desire to protect me.

  One of the crabs is already at the top of the wall and about to scale over. Even if she noticed them now, it would be too late.

  The first crab grabs Stella by the face, digging its fingers into her eye sockets as it pulls up. The next one over the wall drops to the ground of the box and grips Stella at her waist, thrusting its mouth into her belly. I can see the scream, but I can’t hear it, and I turn away before she’s torn apart completely.

  “Let’s go, Dom,” Tom says. “That door there, let’s see if we can get through it.”

  But before we get halfway to the interior door, it opens from the other side, and through it walk two pilots, their hands on their heads, frowning. Behind them are Smalley and Jones.

  “You guys ready to go?” Smalley asks.

  I grab Sydney by the back of the shirt and lift her up, and she instinctively begins to run with the rest of the pack as we all head toward this new, open door to freedom. I look back one last time for posterity, just to imprint the lasting image of the nightmare that occurred in the D&W building. I’ve no doubt my testimony will be required someday, perhaps in the halls of Congress.

  I take one more mental photograph, and as I turn back to the door that leads to the copter pad, I catch a glimpse of someone running.

  It’s the colonel.

  “Wait!” he screams, the despair in his voice palpable.

  I blink a few times, not quite sure I’m seeing the vision correctly.

  “Wait,” he repeats. “God no, wait!”

  This isn’t the cool, unburdened colonel from earlier, who was only mildly irritated by his captivity. But perhaps he realizes he’ll be stranded here in this desolate world, and that has him spooked.

  So I decide I will wait. We’ll fly the colonel back to the world as a prisoner to be judged and court-martialed, and if the crimes he’s committed are high enough, I’ll be sure to be a witness to his execution.

  But that’s already been settled.

  Before the colonel can make another plea, the mutant crab gallops out from the corridors and leaps onto his back, plunging its teeth into the top of the colonel’s neck. He wasn’t afraid of being left, he was afraid of the creature that was chasing him.

  I watch for only a moment, registering yet another death into the registry of my memory, and then I follow the rest of my party through the door and out to the helicopter.

  Chapter 15

  Within moments, we’re back in the air, and as we lift above the hangar, I can see that the RV is no longer parked in front of the entrance to the D&W building.

  Spence. He must have dodged the crabs and made it to the vehicle, and it was his lucky day when he found the keys inside.

  As we fly over the cordoned-off area of Warren County, it’s clear that there’s more ground than snow now.

  The melting is in full swing.

  Many of the crabs, creatures that were once secretive and apprehensive, now run about the landscape as if rabid, fighting amongst each other, tearing at inanimate parts of the world in search of relief of the pain that the melting has brought.

  And their relief will come.

  In addition to the crabs roaming mad, there are the scattered corpses of others. The ones who fought their demise and lost. They’re nothing more than charred outlines on the ground, and I remember the sight of Abramowitz in the receiving room of Gray’s Grocery.

  I don’t know the whereabouts of Danielle.

  She was alive when Tom and James last saw her, having escaped from Stella and the colonel only minutes into their capture. That doesn’t surprise me, and my only hope now is that she survives until the melting is complete.

  But survival won’t be easy. The environment outside is a painting of insanity.

  But Danielle is a survivor, and I hold on to hope that I’ll see her again.

  We fly a few miles farther, over the tanks and barriers that surround the blasted areas of the two counties, until we finally leave Maripo County for good. And as I look out the side of the helicopter and down into a foreign world of green normalcy, I begin to cry.

  Dear Reader,

  I hope you enjoyed the They Came with the Snow Series. The series will continue with book three scheduled for release in 2019.

  If you’re a fan of horror-inspired fairy tales, check out my Gretel Series. In Gretel, the first book, there is an ancient evil in the Back Country, dormant for centuries but now hungry and lurking.

  When it sets its sights on an unsuspecting mother one routine morning along an isolated stretch of highway, a quiet farming family is suddenly thrust into a world of unspeakable terror, and a young girl must learn to be a hero.

  Start reading Gretel today.

  If ancient sea monsters are more to your liking, you might enjoy my The Sighting series.

  To stay in touch with me, subscribe to my newsletter.

 

 

 
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