Bitter Cold

by J. Joseph Wright

  “Whoa!” April’s mouth hung open when she saw it. “I’d pictured a decent-sized hill, even from your description of a miniature canyon, but not this!”

  Dead Man’s Dump looked like a hole punched straight into the earth. The walls were vertical in most places, with several less steep slopes interspersed along the perimeter, providing children a thrilling, albeit perilous sledding experience.

  “I can see why you’d be a little concerned,” she told Jeff.

  “It’s really not that bad,” Logan said. “You just gotta stay away from the really steep parts.”

  “Yeah, well you’re staying away from every part,” snapped Jeff. “We’re only here to show April. I don’t want you going down there.”

  “Awww!”

  EIGHT

  They stood near a large rock overlooking one of the main sledding runs populated by three boys and a girl, each a little older than Logan. Jeff had never seen the others before, but he recognized the girl. She was a neighbor, Doug and Carrie Mitchell’s kid. Two boys shared an inner tube, chasing it for several yards before hopping on at the same time. Hoots and hollers on their speedy journey to the canyon floor, sailing into a pile of powder, disappearing into whiteness. They both jumped to their feet, pure elation on each boy’s face.

  Logan panted. “Oh, man! That looked awesome!” he tugged his dad’s arm. “Come on, Dad. You can go with me if you think I can’t do it alone. Please, I just wanna go!”

  “You know what?” he glanced at April, then at Logan. “Go ahead.”

  Logan’s mouth dropped. “What? Really?”

  “Yeah. What the hell. Looks like fun. Just be careful.”

  “Sweet! Thanks, Dad! Hey, April! You gotta watch this! This is gonna be epic!” he high-stepped to the end of the line.

  Jeff took off his ski glove and dug his fingers into his eyes. “What have I done?” he asked himself out loud.

  “It’ll be okay,” April patted his back. “Look, it seems safe enough,” she pointed at the girl, riding an orange disc, squealing all the way down.

  He shook his head. What had he been thinking? There were no monsters at the bottom of the gulch. Just snow. And lots of it. Still, he couldn’t shake the memory. Eddy Mitchell. His best friend. Jeff was six and Eddy was five. He went everywhere with that kid. The two were inseparable. So when his friend died that day at the bottom of Dead Man’s Dump—half-eaten and frozen stiff—it took a piece of Jeff, and he never got it back. Something killed Eddy. Something mean, nasty, hungry.

  Eddy had found some matches inside an abandoned shelter built by homeless drifters. The dilapidated shed went up like kindling, and he was inside. Jeff got him out. It felt like a hole had been seared into his lungs, but he got Eddy out. Then Eddy tripped and fell on a peculiar patch of dirty snow. Instantly he was charred, cooked alive. Jeff knew something ate him. But not with teeth. People tried to tell him it was the fire, that Eddy had been burned to death. He didn’t believe it, though he didn’t say a word.

  “Looks like Logan’s next,” April roused him from his disturbing daydream. “Don’t you want to watch?”

  He hurried to the best vantage point along the small crater’s ridge, clutching a solid fir tree to keep from slipping. Logan searched and found him, waving, smiling wide. Jeff flashed a thumbs-up. Logan nodded, laying down the sled. He covered his face with his ski mask and bent to hold the sled with both hands. Then he ran. He pushed and pushed for at least ten strong paces and hopped on, allowing gravity to do the rest.

  Jeff stopped breathing and tuned his ear to seek out and select only his son’s voice among the cavalcade of shouts and laughter. Hearing Logan over the rest of the kids was easy. His triumphant cry skipped across the cavern walls, dominating all sound for the few seconds his turn lasted.

  As Logan sped toward the end of his sled run, Jeff’s pulse became irregular. He noticed something in the top corner of his vision. Darkness. Shade from a tree? He couldn’t take his eyes away from Logan, but a strange feeling came over him about that shadow. So dark.

  Logan vanished into an untouched area of deep snow, leaving behind two thin trails made by the sled’s sharp blades. Jeff felt like running, overcome by the sudden urge to help his son. He knew Logan would get mad, though. Who needed a domineering father hovering around, ruining all the fun? So he didn’t move, until April startled him.

  “What is that?” she pointed toward the same area where he’d noticed the oddity. “It looks dark. Really dark.”

  She was right. He did see it. The shadow looked like almost any other cast by the innumerable trees lining the canyon, only a bit darker than the rest. Now that he looked directly at it, studied it in detail, he observed something else.

  “Oh my God!” April noticed it, too. “It moved! Jeff, did you see that? That shadow, or whatever it is—it moved! Toward the children!”

  Jeff sprinted downhill, coming close to tripping over a boy on a plastic sled. The kid veered hard right and ditched it, rolling on his side.

  “Logan!” his son hadn’t yet resurfaced from the frozen mound, further filling Jeff with dread. Hurrying down the slippery slope, he kept his eyes on the dark spot as it mingled with the actual shadows, camouflaging itself in the recesses. It had no shape, no defined borders. It seemed essentially to be the snow, only instead of pristine white, it had no color, reflected no light. Total blackness.

  And it was headed toward his boy.

  “Logan Keller! Get up this instant!”

  “What’s the problem?” Logan arose from the snow bank, clods of white clinging to his jacket, the black stain closing in.

  “Jeff! It’s going after him!” April screamed, her footsteps heavy behind him. He didn’t look back, nor did he look at the thing in the snow anymore. He only cared about Logan. Get to Logan. Save Logan. When he finally reached his son and plucked him from the nearly waist-high drift, he felt a small sense of relief. Logan seemed fine. Irritated, but fine.

  “Dad! C’mon!” he grumbled. Jeff threw him over a shoulder. “Not in front of all the other kids.”

  Jeff didn’t have time for a response. The blackness was creeping closer. He hurried backward three steps, then turned when he felt he was about to trip over his own feet. Running up the hill seemed a good plan, though he only managed a quarter of the way. Out of breath and energy, he turned and examined the snow for the shadowy anomaly.

  April caught up with him. “Tell me I’m not crazy! You did see that thing, right?”

  “You saw me panic and grab my kid, didn’t you?” Jeff dropped Logan to his feet. “Where’d it go?”

  “I don’t—I don’t see it anywhere,” she scanned left to right to left. “It disappeared.”

  “What was it, Dad?” fear carved deep lines across Logan’s face. “You’re scaring me.”

  “We’re putting an end to this right now. April, take Logan,” he looked downhill. Two boys and the Mitchell girl, hanging around, shooting the breeze. No care in the world.

  “Hey!” he hustled toward them. “Let’s go! Everybody out of Dead Man’s Dump! Now!”

  “What?” one boy tossed up his hands. “You can’t tell me what to do!”

  “Sue me,” Jeff took him by the jacket, then grabbed the girl’s hand.

  “Screw this, dude!” she shouted, but Jeff would have none of it. He marched the kids up the steep incline, tossing his glance over his shoulder every couple of steps. Though the thing in the snow seemed to have gone, he wasn’t in the mood to take any chances.

  At the top, the kids took their disappointment out on Jeff, hurling insults and threats. One boy tried to sneak by with a sled. He caught the kid’s arm and stood in the middle of the path, blocking anyone from passing.

  “Listen, guys. You gotta believe me. It’s not safe down there.”

  All groans and rolling eyes, the kids were jaded, long ago desensitized by the thousands of violent acts in movies and video games they’d witnessed in their young lives already.

  “You gu
ys should listen to Jeff,” April broke in. “He’s right. Something’s down there. It might be toxic. It might even be radioactive.”

  That piqued Jeff’s interest. “What?” he asked. “Radioactive? How?”

  She pointed down the canyon. “The geology of this ravine, it leads like a natural highway straight to the nuclear plant, to the spent fuel rods. It’s part of a fault system that ties the nuclear plant to Dead Man’s Dump. If my hunch is correct, and if that earthquake caused a leak, then it might have seeped in this direction. This whole area could be contaminated.”

  All four kids shook their heads and laughed, including Logan.

  “You think that’s what it is?” Jeff ignored the insults.

  “Like I said. It’s a hunch. But it might explain what we saw.”

  “What’d you see, Dad?” Logan asked.

  Jeff took a breath to answer, but stopped himself, holding the air in his lungs, hearing a familiar sound. It made him sick to his stomach. The kids heard it, too. Logan looked like he wanted to throw up. He knew. They all did. The sound got closer. Buzzing, rapping, snapping.

  A motorcycle.

  The two-stroke engine roared—a series of quick, sharp eruptions—taunting anyone in earshot with its bone-rattling symphony of spark plugs and cylinders. As Jeff had expected, and dreaded, he saw Dexter ride into view. The hoodlum locked eyes with Jeff and sped past, throttle cranked, bike screaming. He had to keep both of his feet extended like a tripod to stay upright on the frozen ground, though he seemed to be handling the conditions well. He looked perfectly at home, a lit Marlboro hanging from the corner of his mouth.

  He angled his body and stiffened his leg, letting the throttle spin the bike one hundred and eighty degrees. Now facing Jeff, Dexter punched it, racing into a power slide, spraying him with a shower of frozen jewels.

  “If it isn’t my favorite asshole,” Dexter sneered at Logan. “You gotta have your daddy around to protect you, little turd?”

  “Listen,” Jeff put up his hands. “We don’t want any trouble. We were leaving, anyway.”

  “Leaving?” Dexter barked. “You can’t leave now! I just got here. Now the fun can start!”

  He revved up his Kawasaki and threw it into another cookie, tossing a white tail in the breeze. He leaned right, steering for the kids. They scattered as he skidded into another icy cloud.

  “Amy Mitchell!” he snorted. “Whatcha doin’ with these losers?”

  “Leave us alone, Dexter!” she stood in front of her friends.

  “Leave us alone, Dexter!” he mimicked her with a whiny pitch. He gave the bike more gas and it thundered with power. He stared at the boys, sucking the last drag off his cigarette, and flicking it aside. After he put the bike in gear, he released the hand clutch, letting the back wheel break loose violently. He barely managed to stay upright as he bee-lined straight at the group.

  “Stop!” Jeff commanded. The kid went even faster, then veered left, steering toward the top of the hill. There he stopped, flipped the finger, and descended into the heart of Dead Man’s Dump.

  Jeff hurried after him. He lost sight of Dexter altogether, even after reaching a decent vantage point, capturing a good portion of the distinctive canyon. The rapping of Dexter’s motorcycle trailed off into the narrow, wintry white gorge. Jeff studied the valley floor, looking for anything even the slightest bit out of place—a shadow cast in the wrong direction, a bit of shade just a little too perfectly black.

  Nothing.

  “Do you see it?” he asked April.

  April stared, frowning. “I don’t see anything. Not anymore. I’m not even sure what I saw in the first place.”

  “I know I saw something and I know this place isn’t safe!”

  He started down. A bitter blast slapped his cheeks. It didn’t bother him. His face had lost all feeling a half-hour ago. Before he made it only a few feet, movement near the east wall of the miniature canyon distracted him. He turned, face flushing with heat, sights fixed on the darkened spot in the snow. Pure black against pure white, and the black was winning. Everywhere it touched, darkness invaded the pristine powder, turning it the color of midnight. It looked rather small, only a few feet across. What it lacked in size, it more than made up for in speed. It darted toward Dexter as he tore circles into the frozen ground with his knobby tires.

  Jeff yelled, demanding he leave the canyon. Dexter pretended not to hear. Then Jeff shouted at him even louder and Dexter stopped his motorcycle and looked up, flipping him off with both hands. Jeff’s pulse raced when a slender appendage, like an eel, stretched from the mass of blackness and reached for Dexter’s Converse All-Star.

  “Move! Move! Get out of there!”

  April joined him. “Get away, kid! Lift your feet! It’s gonna get you!”

  “Fuck the both of you!” he glared at them.

  Jeff ripped down the hill faster than if he’d used Rossingal’s, keeping fixed on the dark entity. It moved so swiftly, yet so measured, surrounding and absorbing the snow and latching onto the boy’s foot.

  Looking bored, Dexter tried to pick up his leg. It wouldn’t budge. He grumbled and tried again. His eyes widened while he pulled and twisted. The once smug smile disappeared, replaced by an innocent grimace. He had the look of an animal heading to slaughter.

  He shot his stare to the ground and shifted his weight, attempting a step. The blackness held firm. He stopped struggling. Eyes darting wildly in every direction, he opened his mouth, issuing a silent scream. A heavy breath. Another one, heavier. His jaw fell wider. Then he shrieked for real, filling the valley with the sound of dread.

  As Jeff sprinted, he heard April screaming behind him. Finally, he caught up with Dexter. The boy teetered and fell to the frost, his bike toppling on its side. Jeff hooked his hands under the kid’s shoulders, yanking him away from the black stain. Dexter’s anguished wail sent a shiver down Jeff’s spine.

  “My foot! My foot! Sonuvabitch! My fuckin’ foot!”

  Jeff couldn’t trust his own vision. He blinked and rattled his head hard, trying to shock himself into sense. No way could it be real. Dexter’s foot had come off clean at the ankle, his scruffy old shoe sinking into the blackness. Jeff caught a quick sniff of the decaying ooze. His body convulsed automatically, and he tasted bile in the back of his throat. The dark entity engulfed the shoe, tearing it apart greedily to get to the bloody, severed foot inside. It sizzled and popped against the dead flesh, searing the meat, and then sinew, and then bone, liquefying, digesting, consuming.

  Dexter’s face went pale. His mouth hung open, but he uttered not a sound. He lay in the snow, jaw gaping like a fish. Jeff elevated the boy’s injured leg. He started to take off his jacket, thinking he could use it as a tourniquet, but then realized something odd. No blood. There was no blood when there should have been pints of the stuff. Severing an appendage like that meant cutting a major artery. And that meant a gushing geyser. He overcame his revulsion and examined the wound. The cut not only looked clean, it also seemed cauterized.

  “Jeff! Watch out!” April warned.

  Over his shoulder, he saw the black snow coming toward them. It seemed larger, now, the closer it got.

  “Get those kids outta here!” he yelled to her, dragging the traumatized boy uphill. The dark creature slowed at the Kawasaki, probing anywhere it could reach. Jeff’s lungs felt on the verge of collapse. His arms were on fire. Still, he pulled Dexter all the way to the top of Dead Man’s Dump.

  He turned to see if the monster was following them. The blizzard picked up. Swirls of flakes surged in the updraft, shrouding the valley below. He wasn’t about to take a chance, so he ordered everyone out of the woods.

  NINE

  “Let me get this straight,” Officer Thomas Jenkins squinted up and down at Jeff. April didn’t like the cop’s attitude already. “You’re saying some kind of animal in the snow bit that kid’s foot off?”

  Two emergency medical technicians lifted Dexter’s gurney into the back of the
ambulance. It had taken them nearly an hour to get there from Longview, only ten miles away.

  “Not an animal,” Jeff adjusted his Mariners cap. “But something. Some kind of…creature.”

  “A creature?” the cop leered. “What’re we talkin’ here, Jeff? Some kind of alien or something?”

  April announced, “It wasn’t an alien. But it wasn’t anything science has ever seen. Tell me, Officer, have you heard of any other cases like this? Strange occurrences, sightings of dark, amorphous creatures, or weird, unexplained injuries, even deaths?”

  Jenkins’s forehead wrinkled under his hat. He looked down and noticed the recorder in April’s hands.

  “She’s a reporter,” Jeff said. “Works for The Oregon Daily. April Murray, Tommy Jenkins”

  She shook his hand. “I’m interested in whether or not you’ve had any cases like this before. Any at all. Especially since the Trojan tower implosion.”

  “Murray,” Jenkins repeated. “That’s right. You’re the one feeding a bunch of hysteria about some non-existent radiation leak caused by the earthquake. You know, you should be ashamed of yourself. You people in the media. You’re all alike. Always trying to create hype so you can make more money.”

  “I’m trying to get to the truth,” April returned fire. “What if there was a leak? The plant is right there. Three hundred and eighty tons of spent nuclear fuel, just sitting there. Wouldn’t you want to know if it’s safe? Wouldn’t you want to know if it’s set something loose into the environment that’s harming kids?”

  Jenkins bristled. “Lady, there’s nothing creeping around in the snow down there. You said the kid was riding a motorcycle. He must have slipped and got his ankle caught in the chain. I’ve seen it happen. When I was a kid, my best friend lost three fingers working on his dirt bike. Dexter was pulling all kinds of stunts, right? Sounds like he’s lucky he only lost a foot.”