Bitter Cold

by J. Joseph Wright

  “Stand up straight, soldier! You’re just doing your duty. Those things down there ain’t human beings. They’re savages. Dogs. Rabid dogs. And you know what you do with rabid dogs, don’t you?”

  Jeff felt Samuelson nod. The sergeant continued.

  “Of course you do!” he turned to address the entire team. “It’s the mission of the US Army to keep peace with the Indians, but only with the ones who keep peace with us. These savages conspired against us. They were the enemy, and we have a duty to destroy the enemy at all costs.”

  The sergeant looked like he wanted to say something else when the strangest noise stopped him, a strident, piercing shriek. The distinct howl sent a shiver through Jeff’s bones. He even saw the officer shudder, but the man disguised his surprise quickly behind a veil of contempt. To him, these people were all expendable, even crying, motherless babies.

  “Take aim!” the sergeant wielded his bayonet, eyeing the canyon floor. The men disobeyed his order. He glanced at them, then spun and looked at Jeff, or Samuelson. “Looks like you’ve got the rest of them to follow your lead,” he snatched the rifle from Jeff’s hands and stepped to the ledge.

  The crying grew louder. The little child’s voice had become hoarse, yet it continued bawling. Confused. Afraid. Alone.

  “If you yellowbellies won’t do it, I will!”

  Jeff was relieved Samuelson turned away as the shot rang out, echoing down the successive valleys. Mercifully, the crying went quiet. All went quiet. Even the wind weakened, paying respect to the dead. The soldiers wiped their eyes, stunned, nothing to say.

  The officer had a smug look on his face. He almost seemed to get joy from it. Jeff had heard of psychic vampires. Not bloodsucking monsters, but worse. These hell spawn got pleasure, even energy from the deaths of others, like they could actually devour souls from the air as they perished. That’s how the officer looked to Jeff, like an unearthly beast, something not human.

  Then the drumbeats started again, and the sergeant aimed his Springfield into the woods, changing direction, undecided where to shoot. The drumming seemed to come from all sides. With nowhere to fire, he lowered the rifle and backed up, dangerously close to the drop-off. He stopped and put his hands to his ears. It didn’t seem to help.

  “What is that!” he looked at his men one by one.

  A muffled noise directed all attention down into the darkened valley. Among the bodies, something trembled. The soldiers watched, horrified, as the elderly man, in his bloodstained blanket, stood straight and proud. The snowfall picked up and became a swirling blizzard. The drumbeat grew faster and louder, on and on and on. The Native elder, visible wounds in his neck, scanned the line of soldiers with a menacing, white-hot stare until he got to the sergeant.

  Then the drumbeat stopped. The wind perished. A shaky, low-pitched voice broke the deafening silence. It sounded at the same time frail, yet powerful. Jeff realized there was no weakness in the old man’s words, only a warning. A terrible, terrible warning.

  In rhythm with the hidden drum, he chanted of a fearsome beast, unleashed due to the hatred and evil that whites had perpetrated against the people of that land. He said that place where he stood was now and forever cursed with this beast, a hideous force that would destroy any living soul unfortunate enough to come near. He said his message was not just a warning, but a promise. He promised if the white man continued to treat the land and its inhabitants with such wicked contempt, then the creature would get hungrier. He said just like the white man consumed, so too would the dark curse consume. He told of a time when the dark curse would devour the world the white man built if they didn’t change their ways.

  The sergeant turned and pointed his gun into the valley at the old man, still standing, arms crossed, silver hair whipping in the wind. Jeff could see the man’s eyes, penetrating the night with their metallic glow.

  The sergeant squinted and clenched his cheeks.

  “Tricks!” he returned to a shooting stance. “You won’t fool me, old man! Medicine men are nothing but con artists!”

  POP!

  The report bounced along the trees, bringing with it a tomblike silence. Jeff didn’t believe what he saw, or didn’t see. Nothing. No bodies. Where there were once several fresh corpses on the steaming ground, now he saw only a shadow in the snow.

  His heart felt like it nearly seized. That shadow. He knew what it was. Nobody else did, though. And since he hadn’t the power to tell anyone, none of them would know until it was too late.

  “Where’d they go?” the sergeant pushed past his men, through a cluster of trees growing from the cliffside. Jeff knew the spot well. It was the same hill the kids used for their sledding run, the only way in or out of the canyon, really, without ropes and harnesses. When the officer made it ten yards down, he stopped and scanned the trees, the crevices, the boulders big enough to hide a person. Apparently satisfied, he refocused on the mysterious dark area ahead of him, at the far edge of the narrow valley, where the bodies of the slain had been before they’d disappeared.

  He took an arrogant step forward. “I know this is a trick!” he kept his gun pointed. “Seen this in Wyoming. Didn’t hornswoggle me none then, and won’t now!”

  He raised the gun stalk to his shoulder and fired into the blackness. It reflected away, with no visible effect. The officer ejected the cartridge, reloaded, aimed, and shot again, this time on the move, advancing toward the target. The second bullet had the same result as the first. Nothing.

  “Goddammit! You savages! You killed my friends, my brothers!” step after step, he got closer to the black spot in the snow. It seemed to quiver as he approached, almost anticipating the arrival of a meal. “I won’t let you do it to me or my men! Not this time!”

  He dropped the rifle and pulled a Smith and Wesson pistol from the holster on his waist. Five rapid shots from his hip impacted in a tight grouping near the center of the inky mass. It moved only in slight tremors along its edges. Finally, he bent to within inches and stopped, pointing his gun straight down. He pulled the trigger. The hammer only clicked. Empty.

  “Damn!” his trembling fingers gathered a handful of shells from his belt. He tried to insert one into the pistol, but let them all slip from his grasp. They were gone, lost in the deep snow.

  “DAMN!” he knelt to recover his rounds, patting and poking with outstretched fingers.

  He reached into the snow and plucked out a bullet, holding it high. “Ah-ha!” he tried to get it into the cylinder, using both shivering hands. The bullet slipped again, landing in the blackened snow. Jeff’s stomach tied in a knot.

  One man shouted, “SIR!” but the sergeant had stopped paying attention to them. He simply reached into the spot where the round had landed and snatched it. As he pulled his arm away, he stared at it. The blackness had wrapped around his hand, fingers rotting to charcoal dust.

  “You…you…” he looked at his hand. “What the hell did you...what did you do!”

  He tried to wield his gun and groaned when, by reflex, he used his ruined hand. The pistol fell from his grip and disappeared into the deep snow. Fuming, he delivered a strong kick to the strange black stain. He lifted his foot. It looked the same as his hand. The thing had acted like acid, breaking down leather, flesh, muscle, bone—instantly.

  Missing a foot, he lost his balance. His momentum took him the wrong direction, into the black snow.

  That’s when Jeff felt a strangely spiritual sensation, like being torn from one body and placed into another. His point of view shifted suddenly, forcing him to see what the sergeant was seeing, feel what he was feeling. He witnessed his last moments. No slow motion. No life flashing before his eyes. Only terror. Pure terror. The frozen char gnawed past his thighs. It ate into his dick and that’s when the real pain hit him. The sensation was unlike anything he’d ever felt. White-hot, like being branded. Then the pain went away, replaced by another one in his gut. The toxic ooze had broken through his intestinal walls and started to eat at his bo
wels, his bladder, liver and kidneys, each organ attacked one by one.

  His lungs became as heavy as concrete. His breathing got harder and harder until he barely managed to wheeze in and out enough air to keep conscious. Fluid backed up in his throat. He coughed, spitting up mouthfuls of acrid, gritty liquid. Blood, bile, maybe even some of his own urine—the mix came up a few times until he could no longer vomit. His throat was gone. The blackness ate it away, now reaching his neck, his chin. He had nothing left but a disembodied head. His eyes darted about, then blinked and flittered down to watch the decisive act of the savage creature. It didn’t hesitate, covering his lips, invading his nasal passages. Then, like a splash of water, the dark, mucky substance washed over his eyes, leaving him in oblivion.

  EIGHTEEN

  APRIL HAD ONE thing in mind—coffee. Lots of it.

  She tiptoed to the kitchen, though each step sounded like Geppetto’s workshop. Old floorboards creaking and cracking. Despite the noise from the ancient house, she managed to make it downstairs without rousing either Jeff or Logan. Next mission: get a mug and fill it with hot liquid, preferably caffeinated.

  Opening the cupboard, she paused at the sight of the snow falling outside, and the picture perfect scene beyond the back porch. Trees. Tons of them. Evergreens, mostly. Some leafless, anonymous varieties, too. A new corrugated metal barn sat next to an old, sagging wooden one, both behind a thin-wired fence supported by dozens of T-poles. And covering it all was a dense, white curtain. Feet of snow smoothed out the contours, making everything seem so soft, so harmless. It looked as if someone could drop from the sky and it wouldn’t hurt, like landing on a cloud. Beyond a wooden fence sat a well-kept field. It looked like there should have been horses. It just seemed like a place that should’ve had them.

  She closed her eyes and remembered her great-grandfather’s farm in Beaver Creek. When it would snow, Grandpa would hitch a wagon to his old mare and she’d haul them through the pastures, whinnying and complaining the whole time. April had a million memories like that when she saw snow. They came flooding back the instant the first flakes came down, leaving her so blissful and carefree.

  That all changed at the bottom of Dead Man’s Dump.

  Whatever kind of mutated, abhorrent thing had crept from the bowels of the earth, she had no idea how to stop it. But she could tell the world about it. NWP knew. Though they may not have originally created it, they knew, and they were afraid of April. It was a set-up from the very beginning. Maybe they weren’t going to kill her at first. Maybe they were just feeling her out. Then the kid on the motorcycle got his foot eaten off, and that made them panic.

  The kid. Dexter. He saw the creature. He had to. It ate his foot. But if NWP was evil enough to want her dead, what were they willing to do to that boy? Murder, she was discovering in the world of corporate corruption, led to more murder.

  She found a cordless phone and dialed 411.

  “Hello, can you tell me the number to the hospital in Longview, Washington? There are two? Give me both.”

  She dialed the first number and the line rang several times. She thought no one would pick up. Finally, a hurried female answered.

  “St. John’s Hospital. How can I direct your call?”

  “Yeah, my name’s April Murray. I work for The Oregon Daily, and I’m writing a story about a child who lost his foot yesterday in a motorcycle accident. Do you know anything about that?”

  The operator gasped. “Yes. Oh, my God, yes. I saw them bring the poor kid in.”

  “So he’s there. Is he taking visitors, or is it still too early for that yet?”

  A pause. April wasn’t sure if the woman had heard her, so she started to repeat herself, then got cut off before she uttered a syllable.

  “Oh, honey. You haven’t heard?”

  “What? Heard what?” her guts shriveled. She knew, but asked anyway. “Nothing happened to him, did it?”

  “I’m not sure if I should say anything, especially to the press.”

  “Ma’am, please. Just tell me what happened.”

  “Well, the boy. The one who lost his foot. He had a seizure. Nobody knows why. He just seized up. Grand mal. A bad one. Went just like that.”

  April frowned at the phone. “What do you mean, ‘went just like that?’ He’s okay now, right?”

  “Oh, no, honey. He, uh. He passed away. Yeah, he died.”

  “He what!”

  “He died last night.”

  “But how can that be? He was perfectly healthy, believe me. Even with one foot missing, that kid was a stubborn son of a bitch. How could he just die?”

  “Like I said, none of the doctors know why for sure.”

  “But people don’t normally die of seizures, do they?”

  “It’s uncommon, certainly, but it happens. I’ve been in health care for going on thirty years now, and I’ve seen all kinds of unexplained deaths. Unexplained recoveries, too. So it goes both ways. I guess it evens out in the end, but that still doesn’t make it hurt any less. Especially when it happens to a young one.”

  April was speechless. Her mind worked too fast for her mouth to have a chance, so she didn’t even try. Thoughts of a company hit team dominated her mind. Sneaking into Dexter’s room, maybe disguised as a janitor, maybe a nurse’s aide. Maybe a man in a suit walked right into the kid’s room and injected him with a toxin which quickly broke down, killing him without leaving a trace.

  The woman on the phone cleared her throat. “Listen, it was a pleasure, and we at St. Johns Hospital wish you a wonderful day.”

  “Wait! Wait!” she heard the woman hang up. Slumping her shoulders, she put the cordless back into its base and tried not to vomit.

  She forgot about the coffee. Didn’t need it, anyway. A jolt of energy had her hurrying to her laptop in the den where she found her work still onscreen, ready for her to finish and hit the send button to her editor. Ten to one he wouldn’t print it. The story read more like a horror novel than a piece of journalism. She needed to get it out, though, get the story on record, even if it was destined to sit in her boss’ inbox.

  She fell into the office chair. After reading what she’d already written overnight, she got right back to typing. Then a strange noise startled her. It sounded like Jeff was in some sort of trouble. The black snow? A hired gun sent to snuff them out? It didn’t matter. The moment she heard his hysterical cries, she went into autopilot.

  Though the house had more twists and turns than a murder mystery, she found him within seconds, lounging in a big, soft recliner, facing a bay window in the living room. His eyes were fluttering, head tossing, arms waving, fists clenching. He struggled to cry out. It looked like he was fighting off an attacker, and the attacker was winning.

  She ran and touched his shoulder, afraid to jar him awake. When he didn’t respond, she nudged a little harder, and he shook with a start. His eyes shot open. He sat straight, a blank, still expression on his gaunt face. Then the color began to flow back and he stared at her, still as a stone.

  “Good morning,” he sounded calm.

  She looked at him quizzically. “Uh, good…good morning. I guess,” she studied him closer. “Are you okay?”

  “Sure,” he grinned. She didn’t buy it. “Why wouldn’t I be?”

  “Because it looked like you were having a really bad dream.”

  “Really? What was I doing?”

  “You were having some pretty nasty convulsions. It sounded like you were having a horrible time, whatever you were up to. What were you dreaming about, do you remember?”

  Jeff turned his head toward the winter scene outside. He shivered and pulled his arms across his chest. “Brrr. You as cold as I am?” he stood and stretched into a big, howling yawn. “Better get the fire going. It’s freezing in here.”

  So he didn’t want to talk about it. Fine. By the looks of it, she probably didn’t want to know, anyway. Though she was curious.

  “Aren’t you even a little bit concerned?” she asked.r />
  He bunched up a wad of newspaper and threw it in the woodstove. “Concerned about what?”

  “About what? Are you serious?”

  He placed a handful of kindling on top of the wadded paper. Then he reached into his pocket and produced a silver Zippo. In one motion, he flicked open the top with his thumb and spun the flint wheel, igniting a small flame. “I know that thing’s out there. I know it wants to kill. That’s all it does. But I also know two things about it. One, it only shows up when it snows like this, which around here isn’t often. And, two, it stays down there in that canyon.”

  April stepped closer. “Isn’t that enough? I mean, people have been hurt by this thing. People have died. What does it take for you to get the hell out of here?”

  He reached and lit the newspaper, then flipped the lighter closed. They both watched the paper go up, taking with it the popping, orange-hot cedar strips he’d used as starter. “This place is my home,” he tossed a larger chunk of maple onto the growing fire. “The only home I’ve ever known. My parents divorced when I was really young, and since then I lived mostly with my grandparents. Anyway, I’ve got no other place to go. No. I won’t let that thing run me outta here. We just have to be careful. Take precautions.”

  April searched his eyes. “Do you really believe that? You said it yourself. That thing used to be different. It couldn’t move like it can now. How do you know it won’t come up here?”

  Jeff looked away. “How do you know that nuclear plant had something to do with this?”

  “I just do, crazy and cliché as it sounds.”

  “What if I told you I know what it is?” he stared at the crackling stove.

  “You do?”

  “I think so,” for the first time that morning he looked straight at her. “But you’re gonna think I’m crazy.”