Kevin lunged at him and Teddy fled into the dark shadows of the main floor.
From his vantage point, he watched as Kevin stepped into the doorway, silhouetted by the weak light coming through the window in the rear door.
“Where are they?” Kevin shouted as Teddy slowly backed away into the shadowy depths of the main floor.
Kevin walked into the room, throwing aside temporary walls, desks and chairs as he made his way into the shadowy recesses. “They belong to me,” he shouted with rage as he plowed through the center of the room.
Teddy backed into a corner, watching Kevin around the edge of a temporary divider as he staggered past him. From the back of the room came the unmistakable sound of a child crying. Kevin stopped and turned in the direction the sound had come. Another child cried out, or maybe it had been the same one. Teddy didn’t know. His only hope was that Kevin couldn’t hear his heart thundering in his chest.
Monitors crashed to the ground, towers were tumbled over, telephones jangled as they were smashed under Kevin’s feet.
“Where are they?” Kevin shouted, his words echoing through the darkness.
From the back of the room came a faint red glow that steadily grew brighter. From within the glow came the sound of several children sobbing in terror. The red glow became yellow flames that flickered through the shadows. Teddy slowly raised himself up until he could see over the top of the divider. Kevin’s silhouette was backlit by the growing flames dancing against the wall. The sickly sweet smell of roasting flesh filled the room, causing Teddy to gag at its scent. Kevin spun around at the sound and moved towards him. Teddy quickly backpedaled as he tried to get some distance between them. His feet became tangled in the mess on the floor and he fell backwards as Kevin closed the distance between them.
Then he was on him. Kevin’s powerful hands wrapped around his throat as he was lifted from the littered floor. He was raised off his feet as he tried, without success, to dig his fingers in between Kevin’s hands and the flesh of his throat. He struggled to breath as his windpipe was constricted from without, his heartbeat thundering in his ears, the flow of blood to his brain severely restricted.
“Where are they?” Kevin shouted, his eyes glowing with a pale blue light that awakened a bone numbing chill. He had been turned, Teddy realized; Kevin’s soul was lost in the White One’s domain. Cursed to forever wander the frozen wastes.
“Stop it,” A woman shouted from the flames flickering along the back wall. From his vantage point he saw the silhouette of a woman in a long dress against the backdrop of the flames. Around her were smaller shadows, the silhouettes of children huddled about her.
With the image came the burning sensation of flames searing his flesh. On its heels came the understanding that she had done everything in her power to protect those she had been charged with caring for.
Kevin dropped Teddy and turned to confront the woman.
Teddy struggled to his feet, pulling himself up using a desk, coughing and gagging as he sucked in air tinged by the scent of roasting flesh. A sickly sweet odor that he realized wasn’t really all that bad once you became accustomed to it.
As Kevin approached the woman, she stepped forward to meet his advance, the yellow flames around her revealing her face. With the exception of her curly hair. she could have passed as Judy’s twin. Flames rose up behind her. The air around him thickened as smoke formed roiling clouds above his head.
Children cried out in terror as the flames intensified, driving that which inhabited Kevin backwards as his flesh melted away to expose muscles of glacial ice. Flames encircled his body, cutting off his escape, feeding on an unknown source as Kevin melted right before his eyes. Icy muscles sloughing off to expose crystal clear bones as he sank into a pool of water that quickly evaporated, the steam rising into the air to vanish into the black clouds of smoke crowded close to the ceiling.
From the hallway came a faint chattering sound that drew his attention. He felt compelled to follow the noise. To discover its source, torn between finding out the connection between Judy and the shadowy woman who could control the fire, and learning what secrets might be hidden in the shadowy depths of the hallway. The world around him grew darker as his attention was drawn to that chattering sound.
Chapter 14
That strange chattering sound grew even louder as his awareness of his surroundings became more substantial. He felt so cold, yet at the same time he remembered the agony of the imagined fire that seared his flesh as the memory blossomed. With it came an understanding that she had avoided his wrath. She had done her job, and protected her charges, and for that she would be severely punished when the time came.
Who? What? Teddy wondered as he hovered on the fine edge of consciousness. His fingers were numb, the flesh of his arms chilled, and his shoulder blades were resting painfully upon a hard surface. As his awareness of his surroundings grew, he realized that the chattering sound he heard was his own teeth. Then he saw her face with his mind’s eye. No more than a child herself. She had been charged with the care of the children under her guidance
The image faded as the ceiling of the hallway swam into focus above him. Judy’s face came into view, her features twisted with worry, and she pulled her hair back with one hand, pinning it in place behind her ear.
“Are you all right?” she said.
He looked around the room, at the others gathered around him, worry printed on their faces.
“What happened?”
“That’s what we’d like to know. We found you on the dock just staring into the snow like you were spacing out or something,” Cody said. “If we hadn’t of gone out to grab a smoke you’d still be out there freezing your ass off. Me and Kevin got you inside real quick, but…” He faltered, all the bravado, that macho tough man front, dropping away to reveal the insecurity of a young man who had never been properly taught how to care for those around him.
“Where’s Kevin?” Teddy pushed himself up into a sitting position and saw Kevin lying face down on the floor across the hall from him. “What happened?”
“We think he had a heart attack.”
“Yeah, he was the last one to come in,” Cody said. “He was complaining about being cold, then just dropped.”
Teddy recalled the monster from the dream that had not felt like a dream. How it had emerged from within Kevin’s body. Could Kevin have seen the same thing he did?
Let me in. That sweetly sinister voice whispered in his mind. It had found a way in. Just like his Nanny had told him years earlier. The winter spirits of the north could assume the shape of any creature that suited their purpose, man included. It was probably how it had infiltrated the German patrol that vanished that night so long ago.
“What are we going to do?” Andrea said. “The phones are down but the computers are still working. We have to contact someone about Kevin.”
They couldn’t leave Kevin’s body inside. It would be in the building with them then. No telling what would happen, but if his waking dream was any indication it would not end well for any of them.
“Put his body outside, on the dock.”
“What?” Cody said.
“Are you crazy?” Andrea said.
“Why?” Judy said.
“Just do it, trust me.”
“It just doesn’t seem right, man. I mean it’s fucking cold out there,” Cody said.
“He’s not going to know it,” Teddy said as he rolled over and pushed himself up onto his hands and knees. His joints were sore from the cold and it took some effort to move. Judy helped him to his feet, her warm hands standing out in sharp contrast to the deep chill that had invaded his flesh. He had to get Kevin’s body outside, where it belonged. Crossing the hall, he knelt down beside Kevin’s prone figure. As he did, he was overcome with emotion. Until this moment, the knowledge of Kevin’s death had been an abstract thought with no basis in reality. Now, as he knelt beside Kevin’s body, searching for a pulse he knew he wasn’t going to find,
the full impact of what had happened slammed into him.
He had witnessed death up close and personal, viewing it in its many forms. As an EMT he had seen the mangled remains of drunken drivers, had cleaned up after suicides, some not as successful as others. He had seen the old and the young alike passing alone. Over the years he had become intimate with death, acknowledging that it was a natural part of living. Growing immune, he thought, to the emotional impact that one’s passing imparted to those still alive.
But they had been strangers, all of them. Reduced to nothing more than blood, bone, and internal organs subject to the laws of decay. Kevin was different. Not even his parents’ deaths had had the effect on him that Kevin’s passing was having on him now.
Kevin had been emotionally involved in Teddy’s life. He’d taken him under his wing when he first started at the call center. Had shown him the ropes to make sure he was successful in his job. And in that time they had become the best of friends, celebrating one another’s triumphs, and comforting each other in their failures.
Standing up, he stood still for a moment, weaving on his feet as the room spun around him. He slumped against the wall, resting his weight against that solid surface until the dizziness passed. He had to stay strong for the others, now more than ever. He couldn’t let his emotions take over, not yet, there would be time for that later.
“Are you all right?” Judy asked as she slipped her arm around his waist.
“I’ll be okay. Where is everybody?”
Andrea and Cody looked up from Kevin’s body. Cody shrugged.
“Norman’s in the main room,” Andrea said.
“Don’t know where David and Jasmine are, but Liz and Leslie are in the main room too,” Cody said.
Teddy pushed himself off the wall and staggered, with Judy’s help, into the main room. He spotted Norman at his desk, his head down as he studied the screen of his monitor.
“Norman, I need your help,” Teddy said.
Norman looked up, swiveling his head around to gaze at Teddy, who motioned for him to come closer. Norman pushed himself to his feet, carefully rolled his office chair under his desk where it belonged, taking great pains to make sure everything was in order before he left his cubicle. When he finally looked up and met his eyes, Teddy saw the frightened expression on Norman’s face.
When he got close enough, Teddy whispered, “You’ve seen him too?”
With an almost imperceptible nod Norman silently answered Teddy’s question, then looked down at his feet.
It was all the confirmation Teddy needed. They were caught in the middle here, between two forces he couldn’t fully understand. Something that inhabited the storm, be it legend or folklore, and the inhabitants of the flames he’d seen in his dream. But it hadn’t really been a dream. While he was unconscious he had gone somewhere, to a place where the past and the present occupied the same time and space. Be it speculation or the imaginings of an overactive imagination, one nourished by years of reading about those things that should not exist, of viewing movies about the same, he had been preparing himself in a way to accept the notion that these things could possibly exist; his mind was not a closed book, opened as it had been by a lifetime of reading in a genre many frowned upon. Looking around, he realized that for the most part, many of the people he worked with, with a few exceptions, were the same type. They were the type drawn to this kind of work. A little more open-minded. A little more willing to accept the impossible.
“I need your help, Norman,” Teddy said as he reached out and placed his hand on the older man’s shoulder.
“What do you need me to do?” Norman’s reply was barely above a whisper. Teddy noticed that Leslie and Elizabeth had drifted over to eavesdrop on their conversation.
“You might as well come closer so you can hear, everybody needs to know this,” Teddy said, loudly enough for the two women to hear. With a brief glance at one another, the two stepped closer. Teddy wasn’t sure about Leslie. She had only been with the group for a short period of time; there hadn’t been time to get to know her better, but she struck him as someone only concerned with herself. Elizabeth had proven herself to be outspoken, one who believed she knew better than others, a perfectionist unafraid to call someone out on their mistakes. But she had yet to learn humility. That would come in time.
“Kevin had a heart attack in the hallway.”
“Oh my god, is he going to be all right?” Elizabeth said.
Teddy shook his head. “No, I’m afraid he died as a result. The problem is we can’t leave his body inside.”
“Why can’t we just call somebody to come take him. They have people who do that, don’t they?” Leslie said.
“The phones are down, and even if we could get in touch with someone, how are they going to get here in this storm? You saw what it looked like when you came in. It hasn’t gotten any better.”
“I could have stayed home today,” Elizabeth said. “I wouldn’t have to deal with any of this bullshit.”
“Why can’t we leave him inside?” Leslie said.
Norman looked up at her question and Teddy saw it on his face. A look of pure terror. He had the expression of a trapped animal. He knew what was outside, just as well as Teddy knew, and he hated himself for having to make him help move Kevin’s body back on the dock.
“It’s too warm inside,” Teddy lied. There was no sense getting anyone else involved beyond what was absolutely necessary.
“Do I have to?” Norman said, his eyes begging Teddy to give him a way out of this.
“I’m gonna need your help, Norman.”
With a sigh Norman nodded as his shoulders slumped. He looked like the condemned man about to take his final walk.
***
Andrea held the door open while Teddy, Norman, and Cody carried Kevin’s body out into the raging storm. A cold wind whistled down the short hallway, stirring the papers attached to the bulletin board, setting them to fluttering with a crinkling sound. As Norman, who held Kevin’s feet in his hands, passed through the door, Andrea pulled it closed, cutting off the wind. She stood on her tiptoes as she gazed out the small window to watch as the three men carefully laid out Kevin’s body.
“Shouldn’t we cover him?” Cody said.
Teddy shook his head. “We don’t have anything to cover him with.”
Norman stood at Kevin’s feet, gazing into the sheets of falling snow with a hundred yard stare.
“Norman!” Teddy said, stepping around the prone body to stand at Norman’s side. His gaze was drawn to the swirling sheets of falling snow and beneath the steady voice of the wind he heard the slow and steady crunch of approaching footsteps coming from somewhere in the distance. It wasn’t possible to hear these steps, but the day had already proven that impossible was but a frame of mind.
“Let’s get back inside,” Teddy said as he turned to retreat across the dock. Cody followed but Norman remained rooted in place, staring into the storm, his face drawn into a mask of fear.
Chapter 15
Norman moaned in his throat when the stranger appeared atop the small rise across from the dock. It was like watching a stage show with the actor stepping out from behind the curtain.
I know what you did, Norman, a sweetly sinister voice whispered in his mind. Admit to your faults and I may let you live.
“Leave me alone,” Norman shouted into the storm. “I never did nothing, besides, it was an accident. I didn’t do it on purpose.”
Teddy and Cody exchanged concerned looks tinged with a touch of terror. Neither of them could see anything. Only the endlessly falling sheets of snow that danced and swirled, driven this way and that by a restless wind.
Jimmy tells me different, that voice whispered in Norman’s mind.
“No,” Norman moaned as the images from that day infused his thoughts. The sun rode across a cloudless blue sky as a young, overweight Norman wound his way through the scrub of second growth known locally as Coopers Woods. It was a place the neighborh
ood kids viewed as a vast wilderness that in fact only covered an area the size of a football field. Following him was his best friend, Jimmy, a small boy with a pasty complexion and a weak constitution that forced him to live most of his life indoors. Today was a rare treat for Jimmy. His latest doctor’s visit had gone well and the signs were good that the cancer was in remission. As a reward for his bravery at the doctor’s office, his mother had agreed to let Jimmy accompany Norman to the nearby public park to watch the older kids play football.
Before they left she had warned them to stay away from Coopers Woods, making Norman promise to take the long way around. There had been reports of older teens using the old pump house as a hangout where they smoked, did drugs, drank and who knew what else.
At the bottom of the hill, the path went right past the pump house, but Norman was confident that as early as it was no one would be around. As they got closer, they heard voices coming from within the low concrete structure that resembled a bunker better suited for some forgotten battlefield than the middle of a growing housing development.
“I thought you said no one would be around?” Jimmy said.
“They shouldn’t be, but if we’re real quiet we should be able to sneak by.”
“I don’t know, my mom said not to come this way and you promised.”
“Do you want to go back?” Norman said.
Jimmy looked from the pump house to the trail snaking back up the hill behind them. “Do you think we can sneak by?”
Norman nodded and moved forward with Jimmy close behind him. Bent over at the waist, they slowly worked their way around to the side of the pump house. This close, Norman recognized the two voices coming from within the crumbling structure. One was Todd, who lived two houses down from him. By himself he wasn’t too bad. He was actually somewhat of a friend to Norman that is when Pete wasn’t around.
Pete lived two streets over with his parents in a rundown apartment building. It was all they could afford, as Pete’s dad was a drunk who spent everything he had on beer, whiskey, and cigarettes. Pete’s mom worked two jobs to keep food on the table, coming home only to sleep and take a shower before her next shift. That left Pete at his father’s mercy. Many times Pete would be found sleeping in somebody’s back yard.
White Walker Page 6