The Winter People

by Jennifer McMahon

  He didn’t need his brother the doctor to tell him that he did not have long. He didn’t want to die up in those godforsaken woods. He wanted to see Sara once more, to tell her how much he loved her, in spite of everything. Above all else, he needed her to know that he had not hurt Gertie. He could not die knowing that Sara believed him guilty of such a thing. So he’d pulled himself up out of the snow and begun the slow descent down the hill.

  As he took each breath, the wound in his left side seared with pain. The bullet had struck him just below his rib cage. Blood soaked through his shirt and heavy woolen coat. He could not stop shivering.

  He was staggering now, his breath ragged as he shuffled his way across the field. The cursed field, where nothing would ever grow. Year after year, he’d plowed, manured, and carefully planted crops that never flourished, despite all his efforts. All the ground produced was stones, broken dinner plates, old tin cups, and, once, that beautiful ring carved from bone.

  He looked at the house coming into view, remembered carrying Sara through the doorway when they were newly married. How in love with her he’d been. Sara, with her wild red hair and sparkling eyes. Sara, who could see the future. He remembered her as a little girl in the schoolyard, telling him, “Martin Shea, you are the one I shall marry.” How he’d handed her that silly glass marble. She still had it in a little box with Gertie’s baby teeth and a silver thimble that had belonged to her mother.

  Flashes of their life together filled his head and heart: the Christmases they’d had; the time they went dancing at the hall over in Barre and the wagon wheel broke on the way home so they had to spend the night in the wagon, huddled together under their coats, happy. There were painful memories, too. The loss of the babies Sara carried inside her. The death of little Charles; how Sara held him in her arms, refusing to let go, refusing to accept that he was gone. And, of course, the loss of their darling Gertie.

  “Sara,” Martin moaned as he passed the barn, feet crunching through the snow. “My Sara.” He fell, and struggled back up to his feet, leaving the white ground smeared with red, like a wounded snow angel. Maybe she’d be there in the doorway, waiting for him with the gun. Maybe that’s what he deserved.

  Almost there, Martin, he told himself.

  Yes, he was almost home. He wanted, more than anything, to go inside, climb the stairs one last time, and get into bed. He wanted Sara to cover him with quilts, to lie beside him, stroke his hair.

  Impossible wishes.

  Tell me a story, he would say. An adventure story—the story of our lives together.

  As he came across the yard, he saw a figure out back, near the little graveyard. The person saw him and slipped behind the old maple tree.

  He moved closer.

  “Hello?” he called weakly. “Sara?”

  But no one was there.

  He must have imagined it.

  Such an imaginative boy he’d been once. A boy with the heart of a hero. A boy who’d been sure great adventures awaited him.

  He heard the front door bang open behind him, and turned to see Sara stumbling down the steps. Sara, his Sara. Ever radiant.

  But something was different. Something was wrong. She moved awkwardly, and her face was stricken with terror.

  Behind her, an old woman came through the doorway. She was holding Martin’s rifle, pushing the barrel into Sara’s back.

  “Sara?” Martin called, turning toward them. “What’s happening? Who is this?”

  Sara lifted her head. “The woman who killed our little girl,” she said. She looked at him with such agony on her face. “Oh, Martin, I’m so sorry,” she said. “For ever thinking it could be you.”

  And I for being sure it was you, he thought.

  He saw the way the wicked old woman’s face twisted into a hideous grin and knew he had to do something. Even if it was his last act here on earth, he had to save his wife. His beautiful Sara. How could he have thought she would hurt Gertie? He’d been wrong. So wrong.

  Using the last of his strength, Martin ran and leapt forward, hands reaching for the gun. But somehow he missed.

  How could he have missed?

  He’d failed Sara again. Probably for the last time.

  The old woman laughed, turned the gun around, and swung it like a club so the butt end hit him right in the chest, right in the place where he was bleeding.

  He dropped to the ground with a howl and tried to catch his breath, tried to move his thoughts beyond the pain that echoed through every inch of his body. Though he tried to get up on his knees, he just melted back down. The old woman lifted the gun and brought it down on his chest again. He felt himself going under, sinking down to someplace dark and warm.

  To bed. Into their bed, deep under the covers, with Sara in his arms.

  “Please,” Sara sobbed. “Stop.”

  “Not until I am done,” the old woman snarled. “Not until everything you have is gone.”

  Sara … He tried to speak her name. To tell her it was all right, really. He deserved this. And she, she had deserved better than him. He wanted to say all this to her. To tell her how sorry he was. He managed to lift his head, open his eyes, and saw, coming across the yard, someone else. Someone small, moving forward in a slow, determined shuffle.

  A child. A child with blond hair and a long dress.

  And she was holding an ax. Martin’s own ax. The one he used to split wood and kill chickens. He kept the blade so sharp it could cut paper. He was good at taking care of things, at making them last.

  But you weren’t able to take care of your wife and daughter, were you?

  The child moved forward steadily, coming up just behind the old woman, who had turned the gun back around and aimed it at Sara.

  The child raised the ax high up, her arms outstretched. As she turned, he could see her face clearly in the moonlight.

  It couldn’t be.

  “Gertie?”

  She brought the ax down with all her might, burying it in the back of the old woman’s skull. Blood splattered on the little girl’s face. The gun fell; the old woman went down, and the child was on her, ripping at her clothes and skin.

  Martin closed his eyes, willing it all to end.

  Martin? Martin?” Someone was shaking him, slapping his face. He opened his eyes. He was on his side in the yard, half frozen into the snow, though he no longer felt cold.

  Lucius was looking down at him, his face a mask of horror and disgust. Lucius, always calm and stoic, was actually trembling. His shirt was rumpled and stained with blood. “My God, Martin, what have you done?”

  I’ve hurt myself, Martin tried to say. He knew he was dying. He could see it on Lucius’s face. His chest felt heavy, and his breathing had turned to wet, labored rasps. He coughed, and a light spray of blood shot from his mouth.

  “Sara,” Martin gasped. He reached for his brother’s hand, gripped it tightly. “Promise you’ll take care of my Sara.”

  “It’s a little late for that, brother,” Lucius said, pulling his hand away from Martin’s, his eyes moving over Martin to something behind him.

  Martin heaved himself up and turned to look. The moon was higher now, illuminating the yard with crisp blue clarity.

  He saw a pile of torn, bloody clothes not ten feet from him—Sara’s dress and coat.

  “No,” he whimpered.

  Beside the clothes lay a woman’s body on a bed of bloody snow. It had been stripped of skin—the flesh wet and sparkling, skull gleaming in the moonlight.

  Martin turned away and vomited, the spasms ripping through his open chest.

  Then he saw the gun.

  “How could you do this?” Lucius asked, his voice sputtering. He was crying now. Martin hadn’t seen his brother cry since they were small boys.

  “It wasn’t me,” Martin said. But he picked up the gun and turned it around so that it pointed at the middle of his own chest, his thumb resting awkwardly on the trigger. “It was Gertie.”

  Martin closed his e
yes and pulled the trigger. He felt himself falling into bed at last, warm and safe beside his darling Sara. Gertie was down the hall, singing, her voice as high and light as a sparrow’s. Sara pressed her body against his, and whispered in his ear:

  “Isn’t it good to be home?”

  Ruthie

  “Faster,” Candace barked at them. “Keep up, now. I’m not losing anyone else.”

  They were moving down a narrow passage, Candace in the lead, her headlamp glowing, the gun clenched in her right hand. There was no way to know which direction Katherine had gone, so they had just picked the passageway closest to where she’d been standing when Candace had last seen her.

  “Katherine?” Candace shouted. “Alice?”

  The tunnel seemed to be moving down, deeper into the earth. The air felt thicker, damper. The walls were jagged rock; the ground was uneven. At least they could walk upright. Ruthie concentrated on keeping her breathing as calm and level as she could, counting, “One, two, three,” to herself with each inhalation and exhalation. Step by step, she moved forward, trying not to think about where she was, only what she had to do: keep Fawn safe and try to find Mom.

  “Um, Candace, maybe we shouldn’t be calling out to them like that,” Ruthie suggested. “You know, just in case there’s someone else down here. Someone whose attention we might not want to attract?”

  Candace turned back and looked at Ruthie. “Who’s in charge here?” she snapped.

  Ruthie reached into her jacket pocket, wrapped her fingers around the grip of the gun.

  “You doing okay?” she asked Fawn.

  Her little sister nodded up at her, but her face looked flushed in the dim light. Ruthie put a hand to her forehead—Fawn was burning up again. Shit. Ruthie hadn’t brought any Tylenol. What happened to a kid if a fever got too high? Convulsions—brain damage, maybe.

  She had to get Fawn out of here; she never should have brought her in the first place. She needed to get her home, give her some medicine, put her to bed, get a friend to come watch her; then she’d make Buzz come back into the cave with her to search for her mother.

  “Mimi says this is a bad place,” Fawn said, her eyes glassy and dazed-looking. “She says not all of us will make it out of here.”

  Ruthie leaned down and looked in her sister’s eyes. “We’re going to get out of here, Fawn. I promise. Soon.”

  “Shh!” Candace hissed; she stopped suddenly, her left hand raised in the air in a hold-on-now gesture. They stopped behind her, listening.

  “Did you hear that? Footsteps! Up ahead. Come on!” Candace moved quickly. Ruthie took Fawn’s hand and began to follow Candace, clicking on her own flashlight so she could see the way. She and Fawn came upon a narrow opening in the rock wall that led off to the right. Candace had followed the main tunnel and was far ahead of them now, her light bouncing off the walls. Gripping Fawn’s hot hand tightly, Ruthie pulled her sister into the side tunnel. She had to bend over to fit.

  “Hurry,” she whispered as she ducked into the passageway, towing Fawn along behind her.

  “Where are we going?” Fawn asked. “I thought we were all going to stay together.”

  “I’m not sure that’s such a good idea,” Ruthie said. “That lady’s got a few loose screws.”

  “Huh?”

  “Never mind, just stick close, ’kay? I’m going to get us out of this place. Caves can have more than one entrance, right?”

  “I guess,” Fawn said; then she whispered something Ruthie couldn’t quite make out to Mimi.

  The tunnel was tall enough for Ruthie to stay upright, but the opening narrowed until she could barely squeeze through. She struggled out of her coat, abandoning it on the cave floor. Now she was wriggling along sideways, her belly and butt scraping painfully against the rock walls, the gun in her right hand, behind her, carefully pointed downward; she clutched the flashlight in her left hand, extended ahead of her, to illuminate the way. Her back was slick with sweat. She forced herself to keep moving, keep breathing.

  “How are you doing back there, Little Deer?” Ruthie asked, unable to turn to look at her sister.

  “Fine,” Fawn said.

  “You just stay right behind me,” Ruthie said.

  “Uh-huh.”

  As they slowly edged forward, something seemed to change: the tunnel was widening, and the darkness—was it changing? Ruthie flipped off her flashlight. There was definitely light coming from up ahead. Had they somehow circled back to the main room they’d entered with all the lamps lit? Ruthie’s heart leapt—were they that close to freedom?

  “Shh,” Ruthie said, reaching around to slide the flashlight into her back pocket. They crept forward slowly, on tiptoes, the walls getting brighter, the tunnel widening further as they moved. The tunnel ended up ahead, opening into a cavern that was most definitely not the room they’d been in before. Ruthie pressed her back against the wall of the tunnel and pulled Fawn beside her, putting a finger to her lips. Fawn nodded. Ruthie put up her hand to indicate, You stay here. Fawn nodded again, eyes huge and lemurlike. With the gun clasped firmly in her right hand, Ruthie edged forward to peek into the room.

  The chamber was triangle-shaped, smaller than the one they’d first entered, with a lower ceiling. There was a table, with an oil lamp burning. At the table, a single chair. In the chair, a woman sat with her back to them. Ruthie recognized her shape, her hair, the well-worn gray sweater. She wanted to call out, but she sensed danger close by. Something about the scene in front of her didn’t feel right—it felt like a trap. “Stay here,” she whispered to Fawn, pressing her sister against the wall. “If anything goes wrong, you run like hell.”

  Fawn gave a panicked nod.

  Ruthie crept into the room, eyes darting around, looking for anything hiding in the shadows. There was nothing. No other furniture, no signs of life. One other passageway led out of the chamber, like a dark mouth on the other side. It was possible that there could be someone, something, hiding in the shadows there, watching.

  “Mom?” Ruthie called, moving forward, gun raised as she kept one eye on the dark passageway.

  Her mother didn’t turn around. Didn’t speak. Ruthie held her breath as she approached. Her mother appeared to be twitching, wriggling, having some sort of seizure there in the chair. She reminded Ruthie of a woman being tugged at by invisible strings.

  Ruthie froze, suddenly afraid that maybe this wasn’t her mother at all—that she would turn her head at any moment and have the gray face of an alien or some hideous, pale underground monster.

  “Mom?” she said again, her voice shaky and hesitant now. She forced herself to keep walking, on rubbery legs, first one step, then another.

  It was only when she got close that Ruthie understood: her mother was tied to the chair and had a scarf gagging her mouth. Her hair was disheveled, her clothes were rumpled and filthy, but her eyes were alert, and she looked uninjured.

  “Mom!” Ruthie exclaimed. “Hang on, I’ll get you out of this.” She set the gun down on the table and went to work untying the scarf.

  “Who did this to you?” she asked once the scarf was off. “How’d you get here?” Ruthie began to work on the rough hemp rope that bound her mother to the chair.

  “Shh,” her mother hissed in a warning voice. “We’ve got to be quiet. And we’ve got to get out of here. Now.”

  “Mommy,” Fawn cried, leaping out of the shadows and throwing her small arms around her mother, burying her face in her chest.

  Mom’s face was tight with worry. She looked at Ruthie and said, “You shouldn’t have brought her here.”

  “I know—it’s complicated,” Ruthie said.

  “Never mind,” Mom said. “Just untie me. We’ve got to get out of here.”

  Ruthie was getting nowhere trying to untie the complicated knots in the thick rope. She grabbed the small Boy Scout knife she’d shoved into her pack and began sawing at the rope with the dull blade.

  “Hurry,” her mother whispered urgently.
“I think she’s coming back.”

  “Who?” Ruthie asked.

  Ruthie listened. Yes, there were footsteps coming down the tunnel they’d just passed through. Someone was moving in their direction.

  “Ruthie,” Mom said, her face twisted in panic, “never mind me. You’ve got to take your sister and go. Follow the other passage, and run. Now!”

  “No,” Ruthie said flatly, “we’re not leaving you. I wriggled into this pit of hell to find you; I’m not leaving you behind now.”

  Through the fear, she saw something else in her mother’s face—something softer. Pride, Ruthie realized.

  Ruthie stopped working on the rope and grabbed the gun, holding it in both hands like she’d seen in movies, pointing it at the passageway behind her mother’s back, even though her arms shook. The footsteps were now louder, closer, and they could hear someone breathing hard and heavy.

  “The gun won’t help,” her mom said quietly, sounding almost resigned to whatever fate they faced. Fawn was at her feet now; she’d picked up the little knife and was cutting desperately at the rope.

  Ruthie didn’t have time to ask why the gun wouldn’t help.

  A figure burst into the room—a blur of movement with a clatter of footsteps and heavy breathing. Ruthie took a deep breath and was about to squeeze the trigger when she recognized the runner.

  “Katherine!” Ruthie said, lowering the gun. Katherine’s hands were bloody; her face was sweaty and panicked. “What happened?”

  “Something’s coming,” Katherine panted, terrified.

  Something, Ruthie thought. She said, Something.

  Fawn sawed through the last fibers of the rope.

  “Come on,” Ruthie’s mother said, as she shook off the ropes and stood up. “I know a way out.”

  From somewhere close by—it was impossible to tell from which direction—they heard a scream.

  Candace, Ruthie thought. Something’s got Candace.