Dead of Winter Collection

by Benjamin Knox

  Even those I found inside ignored me or were behaving in a strange manner I find difficult to articulate. If I didn't know any better I'd say they were all under the influence of hallucinogens.

  I believe this may be some mass passive-aggressive protest at what is perceived as my domineering manner.

  I couldn't find Erikson either. After drilling into us the dangers of going anywhere alone, it irked me that he was absent. Myself, Finnly and Aimsberg – my assistants – are questioning whether to return up the mountain to the barrow where we've been sleeping. We're concerned by our companions behaviour and Erikson's absence. Though if it is a childish protest as I suspect, my presence will only goad them on.

  I'll discuss it with my assistants and we'll make a decision.

  No date on entry

  [the writing here is hurried and difficult to read]

  The whispering again.

  It's coming from deeper within the cave, beyond the broken seal, carried on the frigid air oozing out from within.

  I can barely make out the words but they are there, distant; speaking in an ancient tongue.

  Old words:

  Jabme-Akka

  Jotun

  Stallo

  Hel

  A mix of Sami and Norse. But there is more, overlapping in a rippling tide scratching at my consciousness. I am beginning to understand. The Old Norse Myths inscribed upon the walls, the ancient Sami superstitions – they all talk about the same thing, the same evil.

  My assistants Finnly and Aimsberg have fled, presumably back to base camp. I am loathe to follow them. After my last trip, I have heard screams drift up to me on the wind from below. Sometimes in the weakening light I stand at the edge of the shelf of rock and ice and cast my view down over the jagged slopes of the mountain to where I know the base camp must be, obscured by snow flurries and distance.

  I dare not look upwards to the crooked fang that is the mountain's peak. Above it writhes an unnatural light. This is no ordinary Aurora. It is not the conflict of the sun's radiation meeting the Earth's magnetic field, such a phenomena I have witnessed many times. This...this...is something else. There is a cruel intelligence at work. I swear I can see shapes, hideous shapes in that spectral light. I will not look at it. It makes my skull itch from the inside. I do not feel myself when I gaze at it.

  Hence I spend my time inside the barrow.

  That too however has its horrors.

  The whispers.

  The voices from beyond the narrow gap opened by the broken seal. My team and I should have catalogued everything in the main barrow by now and ventured farther inside already, but recent events have delayed us.

  I can raise no one on the walkie, and when I do receive a transmission it is often terrible, screams and ranting – those same words that are whispered to me in the dark now screamed by maddened, hate-filled voices. Voices I know. Voices of sane men and women only a few days ago.

  I keep telling myself it's all illusion, it must be some environmental factor coupled with the isolation and what seems to be an onset of an early winter. It can't be what it seems to be…

  Legends aren't real.

  There is no such thing as stallo, or the Nordic version Jotun – the ice giants of old. This place isn't haunted, it is not cursed.

  I wish I could write that with more certainty. Never has my scientific mind been so at odds with what is around me.

  It is late, very late now but I am too frightened to sleep. I worry one of the others will hike up to the barrow with malign intent. I'm not sure how long I can endure this place though. It gets into your bones, the cold, the eerie presence – like the shadows are not merely empty darkness but populated with quiet watchful things. I can't stay here indefinitely as I am almost out of rations. My hand will soon be forced. If I want to eat I'll have to descend the mountain and brave the camp.

  [Here many of the pages have been removed and the rest are torn and blood smeared]

  –- my God!

  Camp in ruins

  Eating eachother

  --They pulled Finnly apart. He was screaming the entire time--

  Green eyes, they have green eyes!

  I think it is Erikson who is stalking us; myself and Aimsberg. Something is wrong with all of them, but Erikson is the worst. He's gone completely mad.

  We've barricaded ourselves in the lab structure. The place is a mess. I think someone was murdered here from the amount of blood present. Aimsberg believes she can sneak to the radio room and find the satellite phone, so we can call for help.

  --The sky is alive. The snow a sickly green, reflecting the Aurora. Whirls of it form twisters, roiling pillars of eerie green vapour—with screaming mouths and reaching claws --

  --Aimsberg, she's been gone for hours

  I don't think she's coming back...

  --light running low. The wind is howling my name outside. It's only a matter of time before they find me.

  I've never been so terrified.

  Too frightened to move in case they hear me. All I can do is write. It's the only thing I have to keep my mind occupied.

  --It's just me and these maniacs on a mountain in the middle of nowhere--

  --with the translations--

  --understand now. The Vikings were guardians. We let it out. We did.

  I did.

  This is my fault--

  --The Sami called her Jabme-Akka, the old woman of the dead. To the Norse she was Hel, Queen of Helhiem, the Nordic underworld. We let her out and the spirits of the long dead with her--

  --I think I understand now. They’re dead, but they don’t stay that way! The light, the Aurora drives you mad, drives you to kill. But it doesn’t end there. The murdered rise up again. I’ve seen it with my own eyes, watched as the spectral light weaves into them filling them with an animate malevolence.

  Aimsberg called them zombies, but I don’t think that’s right. Myth tells of creatures like this, of human corpses invaded and controlled by ancient and malicious spirits:

  They called them Revenants.

  That’s what they are. Hateful and ancient things moving the dead like puppets--

  --like I'm losing it. Am seeing things. They know I'm here, they call my name on the winds--

  --I can hear them scratching at the door!--

  If anyone finds this, tell my wife--

  [The remains of the journal are missing]

  – 3 –

  JOTUN

  I'm back on the field of bones.

  Kerry.

  His voice in my mind again.

  I see him in the distance. Mark. What was once Mark, my husband; now covered in icy prongs, claws and most noticeably intricate antlers. He glistens in the spectral fire above. The Aurora no longer weaves and dances as it used to, now it has spread over the entire blanket of night like an inferno.

  The light feels wrong. I always think it makes anything it touches sickly.

  The bones at my feet are dry and crisp it is so cold. A patina of ice so clear it looks like glass covers them. Skulls leer at me from among them, little emerald flames burning in their hollow sockets.

  Ahead of me the hooked shape of Hunter's Peak rises ominous and oppressive. Mark stands upon a rise at the mountain's foot.

  Come... Kerry...

  A flurry of snowflakes and he is gone.

  Farther up the mountain?

  I become aware of a presence behind me accompanied by the slight hollow clatter of bones.

  I turn...

  The bones have risen, standing to attention, as far as I can see. A sea of bones assembled together into hideous configurations. Skulls – some of the figures have more than one – each grinning and icy and shiny while burning with green fire.

  They are waiting for me.

  To do what?

  I turn back to the looming mountain. Mark will have answers, why else would he have spared me at the Lodge? Why else would he lead me here?

  My own guilt manifesting?

  Mark
can’t be real.

  But I have the frost burns where he touched me to prove otherwise. Whatever he wants of me is on that mountain. I have no choice but to follow.

  I take a step and an army of the dead takes one with me.

  *

  The world rocks back and forth. I am thrown awake by the motion. A thunderous BAM as something collides with the wall. It isn't the world that's moving, but the lab we're in.

  Lars is awake, Silje held tight, both looking around for the direction of the attack.

  BAM!

  The rickety metal room shakes again. Whatever hit it did so with enough force to dent the wall. A huge bulge as the metal warps.

  “What the hell is it?” Lars calls out.

  “I don't know,” I reply finding my weapons, ready for anything. Ready for a last stand.

  The grogginess of sleep shattered and forgotten in a fresh tide of adrenaline. Whatever it is that's trying to break in, it's bigger than the revenants. For a moment I wonder if a group could be working in tandem to overturn the lab – but the sheer force of the impact suggests something big, and solid.

  Is someone ramming us with the snowcat?

  BAM!

  The wall buckles in further, this time diagonal rents appear—slashes through the corrugated metal wall.

  The lab tilts for a heart-stopping moment, then rights itself, slamming back down.

  Silje screams, terrified.

  I want to scream too, but I don't have that luxury, I need to figure a way to fight back – or at least a safe way to flee.

  Lars has his axe ready.

  There's nothing we can do. Either they'll break in, or they won't.

  I risk moving closer to the tears in the metal, to peer through, hoping to catch a glimpse of our attacker. I am rewarded with a blur of motion heading directly at me through the whirling snowfall.

  It's huge!

  I barely get a chance to gasp and flinch away before the juggernaut hits again. The force of the impact throws me back against the far wall. The lab tilts again, lists for a moment.

  Oh shit! “We're going over!”

  My shout is lost as the lab tumbles back, turning the far wall into our new floor in a cascade of scientific equipment, furniture and papers.

  My breath is knocked from my lungs as a stool lands on me.

  “Lars? Silje? You okay?”

  “Ja,” Lars, gruff tone comes from beneath a pile of books. He and Silje slide under the table unit attached to the far wall. “A little knocked about but we're fine.”

  Before I can reply the 'ceiling' buckles under the weight of something climbing atop it. Snowflakes find their way between the gashes in the metal – and there is that faint eerie green from the sky above, blocked out now by the bulk of the thing above us.

  The next thing I know the metal is squealing as thick sets of icicles are pushed through the torn slots that begin to tug the holes wider.

  I recall the slashes in the tent walls.

  The huge sharpened icicles rend the metal apart, gouging the slashes into one gaping hole above us. Backlit by the whirling Aurora the creature is huge! Easily the same size as the snowcat.

  I gasp in fright and swallow hard as I count not a single set, but dozens of glowing, glowering eyes—pouring hate and green vapour down at me.

  The reflected light shows me that the thing is glossy, covered in permafrost.

  Talons like sword-blades plunge downward, impaling the ‘floor’ causing the entire structure to shudder with the impact.

  Instantly, frost begins to spread from where the ice-talons are embedded, stretching out in glistening delicate lines. It would be wondrous, beautiful, if it wasn’t so terrifying. This is no normal frost but some preternatural cold spreading from this nightmarish creature. A deep elemental cold.

  I back up and see Lars across from me pull Silje away. We’re now at opposite ends of the trailer-like structure. I can hear the scraping of claws and the rasping of hideous cries—is it more of the dead, or the furious malevolent storm winds? I can’t tell which.

  Either way we are trapped.

  The frost continues to spread, fine tendrils linking up as the freezing force expands to cover the entire central area, stretching up the walls.

  A burst of orange—

  Lars has the gas burner and has turned it up high, aiming the flame at the patch of encroaching frost. Silje clutches him tight, arms wrapped around his neck, legs gripping his thick torso. The supernatural ice melted at the direct touch of the flame but seems to resist it otherwise.

  If we don’t do something now, right now, this monster is going to freeze us solid.

  I pull my rifle to me—only that single shot left, I’ve got to make it count. The small calibre of my rifle won’t damage the dense ice and frozen flesh of the beast.

  Think, Kerry, think!

  Leering faces push down at the hole above us emerald fury burning wild from wide eyes and screaming mouths.

  It’s Lars who moves first, placing a reluctant Silje atop a fallen counter and hefting his Viking axe in one hand and the flickering gas canister in the other—launching himself over the frost.

  “Lars no!” but I barely get it out and he’s running across it. My gaze wrapt, I cannot look away no matter the outcome. The ice crystals spread over his boots with every step. Lars is yelling, his booming voice filling the night air, eclipsing the shrieking dead.

  As he bellows, he tosses the gas canister ahead of him making sure to grip his axe with both hands. The canister hits the talons with a hissing as the flame sizzles against the frozen monster, then brings his full force to bear with a brutal double-handed axe swing.

  The heavy blade cleaves through two of the thick tines. The reaction is instantaneous; the creature withdraws its wounded arm back through the gaping hole above.

  “Get ready, I think I pissed it off!” Lars grins at me. He looks manic, wild. The structure shakes as the beast slams into it, rocking it. New slashes appear on the wall near me. Then the sword-like ice blades pierce the wall jutting out in a blind attempt to stab at us.

  Silje is crying, abandoned in the corner.

  The frost on Lars’ boots is thick and heavy but cracking with each movement he makes. The flickering glow of the gas flame battles to compete with the sinister glow from the roiling Aurora filled sky. Snow is still falling through the open gap.

  Lars looks around, using his ears more than his eyes to track the beast. The monster is enraged, stalking around our flimsy shelter—no doubt trying to decide where to attack next.

  “Kerry,” he says, never taking his eyes off that hole, “I’ve got an idea, but you’re not going to like—”

  The massive claws return through the hole, this time the beast’s entire arm pushes through to the shoulder. It’s bulk forcing the ragged edges to bend inward. The arm with its giant ice blades gropes around the interior. Lars was close to the opening too.

  The thick limb is encrusted with ice and snow, constructed from a mishmash of human body-parts, stone and ice. Human skulls leer with glowing eyes and mouths from the surface of the giant’s limb—some of these must be the camp’s scientists. I catch the brief glint of a golden swastika pin under ice too.

  Lars cries out in pain but I can make out his motions as he swings his axe, again and again, breaking away chunks of ice. But the creature does worse. I can see fresh steaming blood by the gas light. Lars’ blood.

  “SILJE, RUN!” he roars as he latches onto the monstrous arm hacking—blood dampening his beard now.

  To her credit Silje uses her fear to motivate herself and bolts from her perch along the side of the structure towards me. I dash in towards the fray to snatch her up.

  The faces across the arm howl and scream at me.

  With Silje relatively out of harm’s way, I watch as a battered and bloodied Lars leaves his axe embedded in the icy flesh and ducks to the floor. His winter jacket is dark and slick with gore—his own.

  I have my rifle up, �
�Lars, get away from it.”

  Silje is clutching at me in sheer terror, face pressed into my jacket, I can feel her shudder with each terrified sob.

  “No!” he cries back, the gas canister firmly in his grasp. “I get this up close, and you shoot. Got it!”

  His fierce tone presses for no argument.

  “No, Lars. You can’t!”

  The talons rake at him drawing more blood, but Lars uses the motion, pushing past the pain, to get atop the limb and climb it. Dark bloody smears appear where he touches the icy monster. His clothes so oversaturated with his blood. Using his legs to grip the girth of the limb Lars jams the gas can overhead into the crook where the torso meets the arm, the canister’s flame sizzling the surface and causing yet more hate filled protest from the skull faces that dapple it.

  “Now!”

  I balk, I can’t do it. I won’t do it. Not to Lars. We were going to escape all this madness together. All three of us.

  “Damn it Kerry, Please!”

  I look at him. The big old bear of a man is fading. I can see from the agony in those pale eyes of his that he can barely keep on. Even so horrendously wounded he fights on—for us, for me.

  “Kerry,” he gasps through bloody lips, “shoot.”

  One bullet left.

  It’s not much, but it is all I have.

  One shot.

  Gotta make it count.

  I wipe the tears from my eyes and take aim. The limb is thrashing with rage, claws slashing randomly, writhing trying to dislodge the crazy Norwegian man clutched tight like a fearsome tick.

  I stare into Lars’ eyes one more time. I can see he’s done. He just wants his life to have meant something. Saving us, at least for now, is that something.