The Winter People

by Bret Tallent

  He gagged uncontrollably for a moment then caught his breath and held it. After an instant he released it in a cleansing sigh. He would ignore them he decided. He would ignore them and concentrate on getting home. Concentrate on reaching Copper Creek. He would ignore what pursued him; ignore his terror and the cold. Ignore the burning pain seeping into his hands and feet. So Hayden pushed on, fighting the machine, the cold, the pain, and the fear.

  ***

  They came upon Hayden's house in a flurry of white. Extremities were numb and not functioning very well and the journey there had exhausted them all. There seemed to be an unspoken agreement and Mike never even questioned Nick's course as they skirted town, it seemed to be the sensible thing to do. Mike pulled his machine up beside Nick and Sarah and let out a heavy sigh that only he was aware of. Regardless of how tense he felt about their safety, it was still good to be somewhere.

  Mike glanced casually at Sarah. She was slumped over, her head hanging forward, leaning heavily on Nick. Then he regarded Nick. Nick was stoic, staring dully at the house before them. Mike turned to stare with him and saw the gaping hole where only this morning stood a front door. His mouth went slack jawed and dry.

  Nick eased out from under Sarah and slid off of the snowmobile onto the porch. Beside him, Mike did the same. Sarah only sat, unsure of what to do. Nick could feel her thoughts, "Don't go in don't go in don't go in..." But he had to see, he had to know. So he crept ahead.

  The anxiety in Mike's throat was gagging him. His joints were stiff and unresponsive, as much from the cold as his sense of dread. Each step towards the door was forced and drawn; he was unable to lift his feet totally from the porch so he just dragged them through the snow. He arrived at the doorway with Nick though, and with Nick, froze at what he saw.

  It was not that anything here had been any worse than the other things they had seen that caused him to vomit. The door had been splintered much the same way, and spattering of blood was nothing new. There was nothing anymore twisted or perverse in the carnage at this house; the same joy had been taken in thrashing the place. The only difference between this house and anything else was he knew them. He knew Barbara.

  Mike's head was still swimming when he heard the screams. He spun around on his knees and saw Sarah standing on the sled runners, her gloved hands pulled up to her mouth. Her torso was twisted and she faced off to the side, off to where Nick had bounded out off the porch into the snow. He had struggled a few feet in the neck deep stuff then had quit moving altogether. Around him, fresh brilliant red against the white, there were spots of blood upon the snow.

  ***

  After a brief rest, Tom had hobbled painfully from room to room gathering up objects that could help him. He had decided that he wasn't about to make a last stand, not out here. His best course was to try to get to town. He only hoped that Lloyd had a snowmobile, that was still here, that ran, that he could get to. A lot to ask, Tom knew, but it was his only hope. Not all that wild either, most people in this part of the country had them, and it didn't appear that Lloyd had been able to leave. At least not alive, he thought, morosely.

  Tom rifled through the pile before him and found what he was looking for. He tossed the items aside and began to strip to his birthday suit. The clothes were a little big for Tom's small wiry frame, but he pulled them on anyway. The long-johns weren't too bad, as they were made to fit tight and stretch. But the sweaters hung on him like bad drapes. "Oh well?” he mumbled, then pulled on the pants he'd found. Several notches on a well cinched belt would keep them from falling off, he figured.

  Then Tom pulled on the bulky one-piece snowsuit he'd found. There wasn't much he could do with it, he realized, but it would keep him warm. He pulled on several pairs of socks, wincing with each tug he gave them, then stuffed his feet into a pair of boots he'd found. The pain then was almost unbearable, but he gritted his teeth and it subsided quickly to a dull throb.

  Tom stood, it was bulky and awkward, but it was warm. He bent down and dug a day pack out of the pile and began stuffing the other items into it: a flashlight, some canned foods, a lighter, the rest of the ibuprophen, and a fifth of Southern Comfort. He paused at the whiskey, licked his lips, then stuffed it into the bag and zipped it up.

  He slung the bag over his shoulder, put on the mittens, goggles, and knit hat he'd found, and shuffled slowly to the door. A slight shove, and the broken hunk of couch he'd propped there earlier, toppled over to the side. "Some barricade.” he huffed, and headed out into the storm.

  Trudging through the deep snows would have been hard enough on his best day, but with his feet the way they were, Tom could barely move. Ever so slowly, he inched his way down the steps of the deck and around the base of the house, searching for his savior. There had to be a garage, or a storage area, or something. There had to.

  But there wasn't. Tom had circled the entire place and had found nothing. There was a small area, beneath the deck, but there was little there. Some firewood and a gas grill. Tom had found a gas can near the edge of the storage area, half buried in a large drift there, but no snowmobile. His spirits sank.

  He climbed back in under the deck to protect himself from the relentless wind that hounded him. He had to think. There had to be something he could do? That's when Tom noticed the bit of nylon cord on the ground protruding from beneath the large drift that held the gas can. Tom stared at it. Hope inched its way into his heart. A little at first, then it filled it completely. It could be a false hope, he knew, but he couldn't help it.

  He knelt down and tugged on the cord. A tiny avalanche of snow fell from the drift as the cord tugged on something beneath it. Tom pulled harder and more snow fell away, revealing the corner of a canvass tarp. Excitement began to fill Tom. He yanked up wildly on the cord and more snow was tossed off of the green tarp, and beneath it he caught a glint of chrome. His heart did a tap dance in his chest and his face exploded in a smile.

  He stood and jerked the tarp upward and to the side. He had found his savior, a savior in the form of an old Ski-Doo. It was a weather beaten dirty red color with rust pitted chrome accessories and an old foam seat with half the vinyl missing, but nothing could have looked lovelier to Tom just then. He only hoped that it still ran.

  Tom picked up the gas can and shook it, it was half full, a good sign. He pulled the cap from the Ski-doo's tank and peered in, it was nearly empty. Tom sighed. He shrugged and poured in the gas from the can. Its clarity was tinted a purplish blue, its smell pleasant to him. He shook every last drop from the can then tossed it aside and replaced the tank's cap.

  "Here goes nothing.” he muttered, and yanked on the starter cord.

  The machine wheezed and coughed and fell silent. He thumbed the throttle and tried it again. It sputtered and spit this time, then fell silent once more. Tom searched for a choke, found it, pulled it, and tried again. Sputter, hack, and wheeze. Again. Cough, sputter, sputter, and cough. Again, and again, and again the same thing. For nearly ten minutes Tom played with controls and yanked on the rope, but it just wouldn't start.

  "Damn.", he said softly, resigned, and sat down hard on the rotting seat.

  He didn't know how long he sat there, but he was tired and sore and cold. He needed to do something soon, but none of his prospects seemed very inviting. He could try to walk, and probably die some fifty yards from the cabin. Or, he could stay here and probably die waiting to be rescued. Lastly, he could stay here and die like his wife, he thought cynically. Deep inside, he knew that whatever had killed his wife, and these people, would eventually find him. He liked that prospect least of all.

  So Tom stood up and tried the starter rope again. Sput, sput, sput, sputter, cough. He pulled again, no throttle this time. Grumble, grumble, sputter, and cough. The third pull, it grumbled alive. It coughed out blue smoke and shook with the non-rhythmic grumbling it was doing, but it was running. Tom smiled a relieved smile and straddled the thing. He would let it idle for a moment, and then he was headed for town.
<
br />   Tom reached down and scooped up the day pack. As he did the so, the clink of the whiskey bottle on the food cans enticed him. Just one for the cold, he thought, one for the road. He unzipped the pack and reached inside. There he felt the reassuring form of the bottle. Surely one little nip wouldn't hurt? But it would, he knew. It would kill him. As surely as if he put a gun to his own head and squeezed the trigger. It was the last thing he needed.

  He pulled his hand from the pack and zipped it back up, then put his arms through the shoulder straps. Beneath him, the Ski-Doo had settled down and was idling somewhat smoother. It wasn't great, but Tom figured it could get him to town. If there was enough gas, that was.

  Tom squeezed down on the throttle and the machine reluctantly obliged. In a cloud of blue smoke, he jerked slowly away from Lloyd Sander's place, out across the snow. If he didn't get lost, or run out of gas, or have the machine die on him, he just might make it into town. He just might make it to the sheriff.

  ***

  Gary had no idea how long he had stayed there. But the pain and stiffness in his joints finally forced him down off the stack of old chairs. He'd been frozen there silently since he'd seen the thing, and he was sure it had left some time ago. This couldn't be happening, he kept telling himself. It wasn't real. But it was, and he knew it. It was worse than any dungeon he had ever explored, and it was no fantasy.

  He tried to get hold of himself, to be rational and calm. But it wasn't working. There was nothing to be rational and calm about. Something had just gone very wrong, something bad. Evil had gone amok in Copper Creek. He'd felt earlier, but didn't know what it was. He didn't know what it was now either, but he knew that it was real.

  Gary climbed the stairs two at a time, his stiff joints bolting in pain with each step. He ignored it and went on, driven by his panic and fear. He reached the top and paused. He wanted to run; he didn't want to see what was out there. It would be horrible; he knew it would be horrible. He'd seen enough of Ray to know that much. He should just turn and run, get away from here as fast as he could.

  But he couldn't. He had to know. He had to know about his mother. He had to be sure. So Gary pushed the door open and stepped through. He found himself in the back of a pantry of sorts, shelves lined the walls on either side and there was a door before him. It was half opened and a dim light from the room beyond cast a sullen glow on the cans of chile and fruit topping that lined the walls.

  Cautiously, Gary stepped forward and peeked out around the opened door. The pale light of the overcast day through the large plate-glass windows of the store front was all he had to see by; all of the overheads had been smashed. Somehow, Gary was just as pleased. He didn't really want to see it in vivid Technicolor. He could tell that the place had been ripped apart, and that was enough for him. But even so, the blood was such a contrast to everything else, it stuck out boldly to him.

  He swallowed hard to keep his breakfast down and inched his way through the debris. Gary waded out into the center of the room, sidestepping blood as much as he could, and feeling his stomach churn each time he couldn't. He looked around nervously, not really sure if he wanted to find anything. Not really sure that he would recognize what he found. A tremor coursed through him then and he bit his lower lip.

  After several deep breaths, Gary looked around more intently, he did need to know. Several feet away, he found his answer. Gary knelt down beside a pile of rubble and flicked away the broken shards of florescent tubes that covered the piece of blood stained cloth. He tugged on it and freed it from the pile. It was half of his mother's uniform, ripped down the middle, her name tag still pinned to the pocket.

  "No!” he screamed, "No fucking way!", and then closed his eyes tight trying to fight back the tears. It didn't help. But his cry would be cut short anyway by something else. By something that was coming, something evil. That same eerie feeling he'd felt before snapped his eyes back open in a wild flash, and he sucked in a breath to hold his heart down in his throat.

  Gary leapt over the carnage in the diner to land behind the end of the long counter, placing it between him and the front door. His heart raged a wild pace in his chest and his breathing tried to match it. It was very near, he could feel it. The panic inside him was trying like hell to get out, but Gary fought it back. He bit his lower lip, "Think, damn it, think.” he mumbled to himself.

  But the panic wouldn't let his mind work. It made him cower like an animal. It would make him sit there like a rabbit until it was upon him, and then he would dash out foolishly in blind fear. So Gary fought it back, buried it somewhere deep inside. His panic wasn't going to win, not this time anyway. With that he had a new resolve, and an idea.

  Gary crept on all fours back toward the pantry, the scrap of his mother's clothes still clutched tightly in his right hand. He looked down at it dumbly for a moment and paused. Again tears tried to well up in him, and again something else fought them back. This time, it was the sound of someone tapping on the front window. It was a slow tapping that moved along the front towards the door.

  Gary swallowed hard and pulled himself quickly into the pantry. He listened intently as the tapping noise passed the door and disappeared at the other end of the diner. He let out a sigh and quickly moved through door to the basement. He shuffled down the stairs and when he hit the bottom there was a loud crash from above. It startled Gary and he went sprawling onto the basement floor. He rolled to a stop by the stacks of newspapers, sucked in a breath and bit his lower lip.

  Creak.

  Creak.

  Something was moving across the floor above, something heavy. With each step it took, the floor would moan in protest. Slowly it worked its way around the room toward the pantry door. At this point, Gary wasted no time. He grabbed his cross-bow and bolts and scrambled into the furnace. After being in the light above, the basement was considerably darker, and the inside of the furnace was pitch black. But slowly, Gary's eyes were adjusting.

  He heard the door at the top of the stairs slam open just as he pulled back the bow string. Slowly, something inched its way down the steps, the old timbers creaking with its progress. Gary reached down quietly to get a bolt and panic hit him. He couldn't find the bag. He'd brought them in, he knew he had. But he thought they were right....no, maybe. Damn! Then his panic flared again. Something was scraping along the outside of the furnace, like a fingernail on a chalk board.

  The sound caused Gary's mouth to go dry and he froze. He stood there, half hunched over, staring at the faint outline of the door as the sound moved towards it. Long white bony things inched around the edge of the door, and then Gary realized that they were claws. Terror gripped him again, harder, and he quit breathing altogether. Suddenly, in an instant, and a brief squeal of rusted metal, the door disappeared.

  Before him lurked a shadowy man form, hulking and deformed. Gary didn't move, he couldn't, and he didn't know what to do. But the thing just stood there, staring at him. Then it moved its head to look around the tiny area, and then back at Gary. It stood there for what seemed an impossible amount of time, and then it just left. It crept back up the stairs and was gone.

  Gary's fear ebbed towards puzzlement. Had it seen him? No, it mustn't have. The other one had looked right at him as well and had done nothing either. They must not be able to see well in the dark, Gary surmised. In fact, they're practically bat-fucking-blind. Gary's heart skipped a beat and a smile eased onto his face. He knew a weakness. It wasn't much, but it was something. Now, he just had to do something with it.

  The sheriff, he had to get to the sheriff and tell him what had happened, and what he had found out. With a purpose and clarity of thought, Gary knelt down and felt around until he found his bolts. He pulled one from the bag and loaded the cross-bow. Then he climbed out of the furnace and retrieved his snow shoes. Somehow, he had to make it to the courthouse, he had to get help. It never even occurred to him that the sheriff might already be dead, or there might be no help.

  It wouldn't have matter
ed anyway; it was the only thing he could do. So Gary climbed up the chute to the outside world, dragging along with him one of the old chairs. As stealthily as he could, he emerged from the hole and into the storm. Luck was with him as the alley was clear. Gary shoved the chair up beside the fence and scurried up and over the obstacle. Once over the fence, he rested on top of the huge drift there and donned his snow shoes. Then he headed back the way he had come, trying his best to skirt the town and use whatever cover he could find.

  ***

  For the first time in his young life, Mike was unsure of what to do. It had always been so easy; you set yourself a goal and do what you needed to obtain it. That's how he had always been, that's how it always worked. But now what the hell was he supposed to do? Getting Nick up out of the snow was easy, he did it almost instinctually. But what next? The goal was easy, survive. It was the means that escaped him. There was just no logical way to proceed. Hell, there was nothing logical about this at all.

  He always knew that the decisions he made would affect his life, but not like this. This was an all or none, live or die decision. Who was he to make those kinds of choices? But as he looked down at Sarah, cradling a dazed and semi-conscious Nick, he knew who he was. Right or wrong, bad or good, there was simply no one else. Sarah was looking to him for help, and Nick needed his help. He would just have to do what he could, and that was all he could do. To do nothing would be worse than doing something wrong; at least he would have tried.

  Finally, Mike decided upon a course, right or wrong. Gently, he placed a hand on Sarah's shoulder, "Wait right here, I'm gonna check out the rest of the house and be right back. Then we're getting out of here."

  "Where are we going to go?” Sarah pleaded.

  "I don't know yet.” he said flatly then turned and left her in the kitchen with Nick.

  The rest of the house looked pretty much like the entry way except that there wasn't any blood anywhere else. Again, Mike thought of Barbara, and his heart sank. He could picture it in his mind, all too easily, and he shook his head to erase it. It was not a picture he wanted to see. So he groped on through the house, trying to focus his mind on something else, like where they were going to go.