Bone Snow

by David Haynes

  “Please! Leo!” Ookami shouted again.

  “I need you to help me,” she said.

  “Why don’t you two take that someplace else! Michael’s trying to rest,” Alison shouted.

  “Back off!” Kim barked, then told Leo “I need to bring Ookami in and I need you to help me do it.”

  “So the court can give him a slap on the wrist and tell him to be a good boy? No way. He can take his chances down there, with her.”

  “I can’t let that happen, Leo. I need him.”

  “You need him?”

  She took a deep breath and pulled him farther away from prying ears. “I lied to you. I told you I was a beat cop but I’m not.”

  He frowned. “What the hell are you then?”

  She paused before answering. “I’m with the Bureau.”

  “The FBI?” he hissed. “What?”

  She glanced at Alison. “You’ve heard of people-trafficking?”

  He nodded.

  She raised her eyebrows but said nothing.

  “That’s going on here, on this block?”

  She bit her lower lip. “And around.”

  “This is crazy,” he said. But in reality, it was no stranger than the rest of the night. In fact, it had a basis in the normal world. “And Ookami? He’s the boss?”

  She shook her head. “I don’t think so.”

  “So why do you want him so badly?”

  He screamed at the door, hammering on it with his fists. Kim looked that way. “Because he’ll tell me the name of his boss.”

  “And you think he’ll tell you?”

  “I want to try,” she replied.

  “And if he does, you’ll give him protection, you’ll give him a new life someplace hot and sunny with a check from the government every month to keep him in designer clothes.” He shook his head. “Jesus Christ.”

  “There are hundreds of girls out there, Leo. Young girls, not much older than Michelle, and that bastard is helping to bring them in from all over the world. He’s putting them in brothels, filling them up to the eyes with heroin and crack, and then selling them off to the highest bidder. These girls don’t know what hit them. Girls from all over Asia, Leo. Think about that, would you?”

  He rubbed his eyes again. The lids weighed a hundred pounds each.

  “We get Ookami, we can put an end to it. Here at least. This is my best shot, Leo. My only shot.”

  Ookami shrieked again. “She’s coming! Open the door you motherfuckers!”

  Leo closed his eyes, took a deep breath and walked slowly down the stairs. He wanted to kill Ookami, more than anything else in the world. He turned the key and swallowed his hatred for the man. There was more at stake here but the desire remained. It would always be there.

  Ookami almost fell into the stairwell, knocking Leo backward. He was past him, running up the stairs before he could say anything. Leo peered around the door. The snow had drifted up against the walls, the shelving and the door itself. The powdery bones skittered onto the concrete on his feet and danced.

  A pale luminescence came from the direction of the store itself. There was still a kerosene lamp burning but it wasn’t that. It came from the woman and her child. It moved slowly about the store, casting strange shadows up the walls and ceiling. It was like the half-light just before night took over from dusk. It was eerie.

  The light came closer, throwing a dagger of gray light across the storeroom. The wind came with it, blowing in powerful gusts as she made her way back to the storeroom.

  Her long black hair curled around the threshold like a coiled snake, wrapping itself around the shelf struts. Then she rounded the corner, hovering above the snow, the blanket trailing behind her. She was the young girl again, vulnerable and innocent; cradling the child, holding it close to keep it warm. She gazed at him with eyes that seemed full of tears and anguish.

  “My baby,” she said. “Help us.” She lifted the baby in her arms. He wanted to help. Despite everything he’d seen, he wanted to take the baby, hold it and take her to his chest. He wanted to take her from the cold wilderness that surrounded her.

  He reached out, his hands shaking. She drew closer. The wind swirled and gusted about her, whistling through the fallen shelves. Snow fell in a haze of static about her, melting into her hair and skin, glistening and sparkling.

  “No!” a voice shrieked in his ear. He was dragged backward, off his feet onto the floor. Snow blew across his feet, covering his shoes, the powdery bones working their way between his laces and socks, scratching at the skin on the soles of his feet.

  “Move!” It was Kim. She grabbed him in the armpits and hauled him back again, but he was too heavy.

  He felt the woman’s spell leaving him, the bony tendrils withdrawing from his mind. He used the wall to stand,

  “The door!” Kim yelled. “Close the door!”

  He reached out, pushing the heavy door with cold and trembling hands. A wispy frond of bone snow curled around his wrist. He could hear her voice.

  “My baby…help us.”

  Kim kicked the door, slamming it, then reached over his shoulder and turned the key.

  “Move it!” she shouted, grabbing his arm. “Upstairs.”

  He glanced over his shoulder as he climbed. A thin strip of the terrible bone snow crept under the gap between door and floor. It was alive and, in his head, he heard not only her cries for help but also the tortured screams of the men whose bones they were. Kenta screamed loudest of all.

  3

  Ookami stood near the bed, just about as far away from the stairs as he could. “I thought you were going to leave me out there!”

  Leo walked toward him. “Believe me, I thought about it.”

  Ookami was still holding his gun. He raised it, pointing it at Leo. “Come any closer and I’ll blow your head off.”

  “I don’t think so.” Leo didn’t even check his stride. “You’re out.”

  Ookami smiled, throwing the worthless gun on the bed. “But this never runs dry.” He pulled the enormous knife from beneath his jacket and held it to the lamp. It shone gold. “Want to try your luck?”

  He did. Just the sight of the man made his blood boil. He didn’t care if he had a knife or a loaded gun, he wanted to beat the shit out of him.

  “Leo!” Kim warned. “Relax.”

  Relax? That was a joke. He stopped and looked at her, feeling the last vestiges of her leaving his body.

  “Thanks,” he said. “I couldn’t move. I was…I was…” He didn’t know how to finish.

  “She’s coming,” Michael said.

  “We know,” Leo replied, not looking at him. “Actually, she’s here,” he added. He turned to Ookami. “If we get out of here, I’m going to make sure you spend the rest of your life behind bars.”

  Ookami was still smiling. “I don’t think so, Leo. When we leave, I’m going to walk out of here, have a nice cup of coffee down the street, maybe eat a pastry, and then I’m going home to sleep in my beautiful apartment, with my beautiful wife.”

  He marched over to the window and looked down. “How far down?”

  “You’re not going anywhere,” Kim said, joining Ookami at the window. “You jump out there and if you’re lucky you’ll break your neck.”

  “And if I’m unlucky?”

  “You’ll break both your legs, freeze your ass off in excruciating pain for the rest of the night and be there for the cops to pick up in the morning.”

  He sneered at her. Leo’s preference was for the first option. He’d even help him climb out of the window.

  “She’s coming!” Michael said again.

  They ignored him this time. He was like a stuck record.

  “Yuki-onna!” he cried. “Snow Hag!”

  Leo turned his head. Michael’s voice sounded strange. It was deep and resonating, bouncing off the walls, rising above the violent thrashing of the storm outside. He let loose a terrible laugh; loud, crackling, painful to the ears. His head was swollen beyond belie
f, bulging at the temples and cheeks. His eyes were as black as coals, recessed deep into his puffy skull. He looked almost inhuman.

  The first word, the Japanese, was indecipherable but there was no confusion about what the other words meant. She was anything but a hag when offering up the baby and asking for help, but after…when she fed, the word hag was utterly fitting.

  “Yuki-onna,” Ookami whispered.

  “Yuki-onna.” Michael turned his head to the stairwell and pointed his finger. “She comes.” He laughed again.

  “What the hell?” Kim said. “How does he know what’s downstairs? He’s been unconscious for the last four hours.”

  “What is it?” Alison sat up. “What does it mean? I don’t understand...”

  “Bullshit!” Ookami shouted. “It’s made-up bullshit.”

  Alison looked confused, exposed, just as she did when Michael was knocked down by the car. Leo didn’t know how to answer.

  “Bullshit? Is that what you call what she did to Kenta?” Kim said. “That wasn’t bullshit you arrogant piece of shit, that was…”

  “Go on then!” he interrupted. “I’m all ears, tell me what the fuck that was because bullshit is the best I’ve got.”

  Kim looked at Leo and then back at Ookami. “I…I…”

  “That’s what I thought. You can’t explain that.” He walked over to the bed, standing beside Alison. “Nobody can.”

  “What are you talking about?” Alison looked at each of them in turn. “Nobody’s making any sense around here.” She kissed Michael’s hideous cheek. “He’s trying to rest and you’re disturbing him. Why don’t you all go back downstairs and leave us be?” She waved a dismissive hand. “And take that kid with you.”

  Kim flew at her then, launching herself onto the bed before Alison could reach for the gun. She grabbed the neck of her jumper and pulled her off the pillows.

  “You self-absorbed bitch! You’ve got no idea what we’ve been dealing with down there! You’ve sat up here all night, not offering to help or do anything for yourself. I think it’s you who ought to go downstairs. Take a look for yourself. There’s someone down there I think you’d get along with very well!”

  Kim grabbed the gun. “And I’m taking this for safe keeping.”

  Alison was clearly shocked by the attack but she wasn’t beaten. She brought a hand up and slapped Kim on the cheek, and then with the other hand raked her nails across the other side of Kim’s face.

  Kim threw Alison back on the pillow and punched her hard in the stomach. The woman grunted, exhaling a long stream of wind and then gasped for air, her eyes bulging.

  “Bitch,” Kim said and climbed down. A spidery trail of blood welled on her cheek.

  Ookami watched them with a smirk on his face. Downstairs, the door rattled in its frame. It was followed by a fistful of gravel smashing into the door. Leo knew what that gravel was. The bone snow.

  “Yuki-onna!” Michael repeated. A strange smile passed over his face. “She has come. At last.”

  Ookami whistled and swirled his finger beside his temple. “Crazy fuck. It’s a fairy tale to scare kids!”

  “You know what he’s talking about?” Leo asked.

  “Of course, it’s a story the old ones told us all as kids. Like I said, bullshit.”

  “Talk,” said Kim.

  “You want a scary bedtime story, Officer Knowles?”

  “Just tell us what she is!” Leo yelled.

  “Yuki-onna means snow hag. Supposedly a cursed woman who lived in the mountains in Japan. She fed off men by freezing them with her hands and then consuming their souls. The end. Good story, huh?”

  “Well, what the hell does she want with my store?” Leo shouted. “And who paid her fare to get here?”

  Ookami laughed and shook his head. “It’s bullshit, I told you. A story to scare kids. That’s all.”

  “And those bullets of yours, the ones that passed right through her? They’re imaginary too?” Leo asked. “You were scared to death down there. Just like the rest of us.”

  Ookami just smiled and shook his head. The composure he’d shown all night had slipped for a while, but now it was returning.

  “I think maybe she’s come for you, Ookami,” said Kim, “come to put an end to your plans. I should have listened to Leo and let her take you.”

  “She hasn’t come for me. I’m no demon,” he said calmly.

  Leo didn’t know what to do or say. None of this could be explained in any rational way. The bone snow, the bullets, the wind, the way she consumed Kenta. None of it made sense.

  He knew with certainty that Chris was in the basement somewhere, in the same condition as Kenta and Sota. He didn’t deserve that. He was a good man, just trying to make his way. He didn’t deserve to die like that. Unlike Kenta. He deserved everything he got and worse. What about Michelle? Was she down there too? The woman hadn’t killed her, Kenta had, but did that mean anything? Her body had been left down there and now was she too drained, left as nothing more than broken twigs on the forest floor? He hung his head. What now? Would the door hold her back? If she had come for Ookami, then why shouldn’t they let her have what she wanted?

  He walked over to Kim. “You think that door will keep her out?”

  She shrugged. “I have no idea. Maybe. I hope so.”

  “She’s getting stronger. When I took her in, she could barely move. When she was in the basement she just sat there, stayed in that corner until…until she killed Sota and since then…”

  “Chris? He’s down there too, isn’t he?”

  He nodded. “Every time she feeds, she gets stronger.”

  “Her baby is never satisfied,” Ookami said. “They’re both always hungry.” He made a noise like Hannibal Lecter at the prison bars to Agent Starling and then laughed again. “She won’t stop until she has what she wants,” he added.

  “She’s going to get it soon enough,” Leo replied. “I’ll make sure of that.”

  “I told you, she doesn’t want me. Oh, she’ll take me if she can but it’s not me she really wants.”

  “Enlighten us,” said Kim. “Who is it she wants?”

  “The demon.” He smiled. “The devil.”

  “Take a look around, do you see him here?” said Leo. “Is he hiding in the closet, maybe he’s in the bathroom? Can you see him Ookami, because I sure as hell can’t.”

  Ookami winked at him. “Maybe it’s you? You got something you want to tell us, Leo?” He gave Leo a hard stare. The man was crazy. Maybe it was fear. Everyone reacted to being scared differently. Or maybe this was his real character, the calm, controlled businessman a simple façade.

  The rattling of the door was getting more urgent, as if the wind were picking up speed, gathering itself for a push. Leo walked to the top of the stairs and shone his cell down in to the darkness. Bone snow was building up at the foot of the stairs, reaching up onto the first step. In his mind he saw her standing behind the door, her mouth hinged back, great clouds of snow spewing from her mouth, spattering the door with the remains of hundreds, thousands of men. They had to do something. If they didn’t, they would just be waiting for the inevitable.

  “Maybe I’ll go let her in and then she can choose who she wants for herself. How about that?” He was bluffing, of course, but trying to get under Ookami’s skin was the only thing he could think of doing. At least the only thing that wasn’t just sitting here waiting for her to bust the door open.

  “Be my guest,” he said. “You want to take that chance, though? Really?”

  He turned to Kim. “I don’t know what to do,” he said. “I feel helpless.”

  “Hopeless, you mean. And I’m sure it’s not the first time either.” Ookami edged around the bed until he was beside Michael. “Like when I shot that kid. You tried to do something then too, you tried to stop me but you were too slow.”

  Leo slammed his jaws together, the jarring rattle of his teeth echoing in his head. He stared at Kim, trying to hold it together. One
more word and he would explode, and there was nothing anyone could say to stop him.

  Kim jerked her head around. “No!” she shouted, pulling her Glock.

  Ookami lifted the knife above his head with both hands and shouted something in Japanese. He was going to kill Michael.

  4

  Even before Kim reacted, Alison threw herself on top of her husband. The blade went deep into her back, close to her shoulder blade, and stayed there. She screamed. Gunfire filled the room, the sound bouncing off the exposed brick. Kim’s shot had missed.

  She fired again but Ookami ducked down, grabbing Alison and hauling her off the bed. He pulled her to his chest and turned her around to face Kim. The blade had not come through her body. She blinked her eyes rapidly, uncomprehending.

  Kim held her stance, the firearm pointing at Ookami.

  “Not unless you want to kill her too,” he said. He stepped forward, away from Michael’s near-comatose form. He hadn’t moved when Ookami grabbed his wife, not even when she screamed.

  “What the hell are you doing?” Leo shouted.

  “Put Alison down,” Kim said, her voice calm.

  “Why? So you can shoot me? I don’t think so.”

  “You’ve stabbed her! She needs help,” yelled Leo. “For Christ’s sake, don’t make everything worse than it already is!”

  “Worse? How can it be any worse? Take a look around, Leo. There’s a crazy-ass bitch waiting to chow down on you downstairs. I’m trying to do us all a favor!”

  “By killing Alison?”

  Ookami pulled Alison upright. She was slumping forward, her eyes rolling in her head. “I could care less about her.”

  “Michael?”

  He nodded.

  “What the hell for?” Leo shouted again. There were some terrible creaking sounds coming from downstairs, from the door. He could feel cold air tickling the back of his neck.

  “It’s the only reason I’m here,” he replied. “It may come as a surprise, Leo, but we didn’t come for the coffee and warm welcome. We came to finish a job we started.”

  It took a second for Leo to comprehend. “You were driving that car? The one that hit him?”