Bitter Cold

by J. Joseph Wright

  The chopper seemed to stop, pausing in midair, stuck to the dark substance like a bug on flypaper. The rotors spun into the ooze, breaking off one by one. The engine smoked, adding to the steam rising from where the creature had already begun to destroy the helicopter’s composite airframe. It appeared as if it could eat anything. Another reason to admire it, though the pain in Strawn’s jaw served as a blunt reminder the thing played no favorites.

  He held on tight as the chopper rolled. Henderson screamed. He didn’t listen. What could the pilot do now? He looked out the front window. Thin, dark capillaries began to form on the frosty windshield, creeping across fast as lightning bolts. Hundreds, probably thousands of them, snaking and branching again and again until the glass was all black. He spun around and saw every window had been covered.

  He looked down. They were probably seventy feet up. A fatal fall if he landed wrong. He’d take his chances. He respected the organism, not enough to become one of its victims, though.

  The chopper slanted hard left, coming to rest on a branch thick with tainted snow. It was the first time Strawn had seen the thing up close. He froze, wide-eyed, staring deep into the blackness. Never, in the darkest of nights, in the emptiest regions of cold, hollow space could he have imagined such a desolate creature.

  “SIR!” Henderson tore him from the captivation. Strawn looked down, saw the creature’s offshoots begin to creep into the cockpit, and kicked at them. His shoes sizzled and smoked, and he felt instant heat on the soles of his feet.

  With a horrendous CRACK! the aircraft dropped ten feet in less than one second, catching on another cluster of branches. The glass behind Strawn shattered, showering jagged shards of dark ice, pelting him like a spray of hydrochloric acid.

  Then the windscreen gave way. All at once, a giant heap covered Henderson. Strawn couldn’t see his pilot under the boiling, bubbling black snow. It reminded him of a simmering pot of meat. His stomach turned at the malodorous melody hitting his nose like a barrage of decay. He would have bent over if he could have. Instead, he had to wretch to the side, clinging to a headrest, his scorched feet hanging in the frigid breeze.

  All around, every one of the windows threatened to implode. He stared past his steaming toes, past the encroaching blackness to the ground below. He spotted a section of snow not touched by the creature. His lungs filled greedily with frigid air. He decided to recapture control of the situation. He was, after all, the boss. No way was he going to let some mindless creature call the shots. He called the shots. He’d had enough. The trial run was a success. It was confirmed. He had a bona fide killer on his hands. Now he needed to contain it, to control it, to teach it who was boss.

  After he got the hell out of that helicopter.

  Releasing his hold, he put his hands to his sides and tucked his chin, toes pointing to the ground. His stomach rose to his chest as the weightless feeling of free-fall took over.

  He was safe now, dropping into a patch of clean, white snow. In the scant two seconds he was in the air, his mind raced with the things he would have to do. A few feet before he landed, he glanced down. Dozens of black lines crisscrossed below him, flooding every inch of the unblemished snow.

  It felt like he splashed into a pool of thick, syrupy lava. It peppered his face, a heat so scorching it felt cold. He reached to find out if his cheeks had holes in them, but his hands had been charred to stubs, bone fragments twitching and protruding in odd angles.

  He opened his mouth. His lungs refused to work. So did his legs when he attempted to kick free from the putrid muck. He felt no pain. Pain would come later, when he got himself out of this goddam mess. He’d do it, too. It had him for now. But he’d get away. He had to. He was the boss.

  The crunch of metal from above seized his awareness. With what was left of his strength, he managed to aim his eyes upward in time to see the helicopter’s bent, battered fuselage falling to earth, tumbling over and over, down the large cedar branches. He breathed his last breath thinking only one thought: Nobody, but nobody fucked with the boss. Nobody.

  The chopper rolled out of the trees and crashed to the ground, crushing Gary Strawn further into the blackness.

  THIRTY-ONE

  JEFF MADE IT EXACTLY three miles on Highway 30 before his pickup was rolling on nothing but bare metal rims. They slid into the guardrail on the last turn to Rainier, a charming hillside town overlooking the Columbia River. He’d originally planned on going straight to the police station. Then he remembered what Jenkins said. Every cop in the county was busy dealing with traffic accidents. On the other end of town, he saw the Jackpot Mobile One Full-Serve and Mini-Mart sign, shining like a beacon. He aimed straight for it, though the Ford now had a mind of its own.

  The sole attendant rocked on his heels and breathed into his fingerless gloves before extracting a petrol nozzle from a Jeep Grand Cherokee. He looked up as the Ford F250 ground its metal wheels up to the station. Jeff pulled into the middle, blocking both lanes.

  “Hey man! You can’t park there, you…whoa! What happened to your tires!” he spilled gasoline on his pants trying to put the nozzle back in its holster.

  Jeff threw open the door and strode right at him, forgetting about the slippery ice. He got in the gas pumper’s face, a boy of probably nineteen or twenty.

  “What’s your name?” he asked. April and Logan jumped out of the truck.

  “Jeff! Wait!” April shouted. “Calm down! Don’t scare him!”

  The kid stared wide-eyed at Jeff.

  “What’s your name!” he took the kid by his coat, gripping and shaking him hard.

  “E-E-Evan,” he stammered.

  April made it across the icy parking lot and got to Jeff’s side. “Hold on, hold on,” she panted. “Jeff, we don’t want to panic anybody.”

  He ignored her. “Evan, we have a problem. A big problem.”

  “Sir?” a voice said from behind. Jeff didn’t need to look. He knew it was the cashier. “Get your hands off him!”

  “It’s okay!” April called to her.

  “It’s not okay!” Jeff shouted before anyone could say anything else, pointing southeast toward Jack Falls Road. “There’s a fucking monster on the loose out there. It’s killing everyone in its path, and we have to do something!”

  He shook the gasoline attendant. The kid’s face went white with shock.

  “Leave him alone!” the cashier got louder. Jeff heard her running toward him. Her footsteps crunched in the crispy powder. “You son of a bitch, stop it!”

  Wap!

  She hit him with a broom, stinging his neck. He didn’t let go of Evan, though. Instead, he swung the boy around, placing him between the woman and himself.

  “What the hell’s your problem, lady!” Jeff hissed. She looked to be in her early sixties, artificiall auburn hair, way too much makeup.

  “What’s my problem? You kidding me, mister? I should call the cops on you!”

  “You mean you haven’t!” he released Evan, shoving him aside. “What’s wrong with you? Goddammit! Somebody call the damned police! Call somebody!”

  “Wha…what’s the matter,” Evan fumbled with his words. “Why are you so freaked out, guy?”

  Jeff caught his breath. He looked at April, then his son. Logan stared down the highway.

  “It’s not coming, Dad,” He looked back at Jeff. “Maybe it stopped.”

  “It didn’t stop!” Amy yelled from inside the Ford. “It’s coming! It’s coming for us all!”

  “What’s coming?” the cashier looked at Jeff with wild eyes. She’d seen her share of hard times. He could tell by her smoky voice and the frown lines around the corners of her mouth. “What’re you talking about?”

  Jeff searched the road. Nothing. Rainier was a ghost town. It wasn’t exactly the liveliest of cities in the first place—a small berg stretching along a lonely rural highway with a residential district on the hill, and a series of historic buildings down next to the river. The winter blizzard had the entire reg
ion in a frozen standstill, everyone in town hunkered down for the duration.

  “Is everything all right?” a man stepped out of the Cherokee. He had on a leather jacket and a tan cowboy hat. His face was nothing but mustache and goatee and dark glasses. Right away, Jeff thought ZZ Top. “I haven’t got my card back yet.”

  “Oh, yeah. Yes sir,” the cashier glared at Jeff, then hurried to the pump and pressed a button on the computer keypad. Casually, Jeff walked over to meet the man.

  “I’m afraid we’re going to have to take your car, mister,” he said, calm as you please.

  The guy looked at him with his whiskered jaws open. At first he grinned, then the corners of his mouth dropped into a scowl as he tilted his head and peered over his sunglasses.

  “I knew it!” the woman hollered in her raspy voice. “It’s a carjacking! I’m callin’ the cops! I’m callin’ the cops!”

  “Call them, goddammit!” Jeff yelled back. “Call them, so maybe they can get off their asses and protect us from that fucking thing!”

  “What thing?” Evan searched the street with Logan.

  “You people need to just calm down,” the old man reached for his belt. “Just relax. Nobody’s going to do anything.”

  “Mister, make a false move and I’ll take your head off,” Jeff gripped the man’s coat. He raised his fist above his head, ready to deliver a knockout punch.

  The man put his hands in the air. “Okay, okay. I was just going for my wallet. I have some cash. Not much, but you can have it. Just don’t take my wheels. Have a heart.”

  Jeff kept his grip on the man’s coat. “Listen. We’re not stealing it. You’re coming with us,” he looked at Evan. “Everybody’s coming with us.”

  “What?” Evan laughed. “What is this? A hostage situation? Why the hell should I come with you? You don’t even have a gun or anything! What the hell kind of kidnapper are you, anyway?”

  “I’m not taking anyone hostage!” Jeff lost his temper. “I’m saving your fucking lives! Now, everybody! Get in the Jeep!”

  Evan backed off, waving his hands. “What the hell, man? What the hell? I’m not going anywhere with you, you crazy fucker!”

  “You have to, Evan,” Amy stepped out of Jeff’s Ford.

  “Amy Mitchell?” he blinked. “What happened to you? All of you? You look terrible.”

  “It was the black snow,” she gave him a blank stare. “It’s gonna kill us all.”

  “Black snow?” the Jeep owner asked. “What the hell’s that?”

  April spoke up. “It’s a moving, crawling, eating machine. It uses the snow like a parasite uses a host, turning every bit of whiteness into complete blackness. It eats by capturing its victims, then dissolves them like acid.”

  Amy whimpered. Logan placed his arm around her. “That’s enough,” he told April.

  “That’s just about the most bat-shit crazy story I’ve ever heard,” Evan smiled. “You guys’re totally high, aren’t you? You’ve all been smoking the crack pipe up there in the hills, and now you’re geekin’ hard, right? I get it.”

  “No,” Jeff kept his grip on the older guy’s coat. “She’s right. There is some kind of creature out there, and it’s killing people. It killed Tommy Jenkins.”

  Evan’s eyes widened. “Tom Jenkins? The cop? He’s dead? What’s going on? What happened? Did you kill him?”

  Logan said, “The monster did. Right in front of us.”

  “Look, buddy,” the bearded man cleared his throat. “I don’t know what’s going on here, but I’m just passing through town. Whatever local feuds you guys have going, I don’t want any part of it.”

  “Aren’t you listening?” Jeff shook him. “Don’t you understand! There’s a fucking monster out there, and it’s going to kill all of us if we don’t go—Now!”

  “Monster. Man, get real…”

  Jeff forced the guy to turn and face his pickup. “Look at those tires. Does that look normal to you, huh? Does it? Those used to be thirty-eight inch Rock Crushers, and now look at them. They’re melted like I’ve been driving on fucking molten rock!”

  The man straightened his hat and cleared his throat when Jeff finally let him go. “Son, that doesn’t prove anything. Those tires could’ve been ruined in all kinds of ways.”

  “Are you kidding me?” Jeff moved like he was going to grab him again. The man stepped away. “Look at them. That rubber was brand new this morning. The lettering on the sidewalls are still as white and clean as the day I bought ‘em.”

  Evan stepped through the snow, making his way to Jeff’s truck. He stooped next to the front tire and cocked his head. His wrinkled brows lowered over his eyes. “Hey. He’s right. This rubber looks like it’s been eaten away by something. Like acid or something,” he touched it and jerked his hand away, shaking his fingers and hopping on his tiptoes. “Owwww! What is that shit, man!”

  Jeff held up his hands, showing off his own injuries. The blood-stained bandages were hanging on, barely. “Same shit that did this. You wanna see?” he turned to the bearded man, pushing his wounded fingers closer. “How about you? You wanna see what it can do?” he gestured to Highway 30. “It’s down there. And it’s coming this way.”

  “We’re telling the truth,” April came closer to the older man. “Listen. I just met Jeff yesterday, but I’d trust him with my life. You can trust him, too,” she glanced at Evan. He had two fingers in his mouth, frowning. “You all can trust him. He’s telling the absolute, God’s honest truth.”

  The cashier threw open the glass double doors, striding out of Jackpot MiniMart with her chest out. “The police are on their way,” she said. “As soon as the county guys’re done helping out with a big accident down toward St. Helens,” she gave Jeff a suspicious look. “Funny, too. They say they can’t get ahold of the city cop, Jenkins. You know anything about that?”

  “I told you,” Jeff wrung his hands, torturing himself with the pain. “That thing killed him!”

  “Swallowed him whole,” Amy trembled in Logan’s arms. “Like it did my mom and dad.”

  “It killed your parents?” Evan asked. Logan glared at him.

  “Don’t tell me you believe this crap, Evan,” the cashier chastised him. “These people are crazy. You know that, right?”

  “I don’t know, Kathy,” he held up his scorched fingers. “Look at this. The stuff on the guy’s tire did this. I’ve never seen anything like it.”

  “All right! Everybody get the fuck back!” the bearded man whipped a .38 Special from his coat. Jeff raised his hands, moving away one step at a time. “That’s right! Get AWAY!” the man trained his gun on Jeff. “You psycho cocksucker! You stand the fuck back! I’m gonna get in my car, and I’m gonna get the hell out of this jerkwater town. Fuckin’ small towns. Why the hell didn’t I stay on I-5, anyway? Get BACK!” he prodded, inching toward his Cherokee.

  “Dad!” Logan screamed.

  “Not a good time, Logan!”

  “Dad! It’s coming!”

  Jeff forgot all about being held at gunpoint. Seeing the rapid movement in the shadows on the outskirts of town made his blood ice over. The highway paralleled a steep slope and turned sharply just past the city limit. Framed by tall, thick evergreens, it was shielded from the sun and was known as a dark place, even on the brightest of summer days. In the dead of winter, it was especially dim. When the black snow came around the bend, though, it created a new level of gloom. Shadows on top of shadows. Rolling, churning blackness as high as a semi-trailer. It looked to Jeff like an avalanche. His whole body shuddered.

  April pointed to the road where white snow was rapidly turning black. “Look! It’s right there! The black snow’s right there! Do you believe us now?”

  “Miss, I don’t really care,” the man waved his revolver at her, not bothering to look. “You’re all deranged in this town. Now, I have a delivery to make. And I’ll be goddamned if I’m gonna miss it.”

  “But look!” she became insistent. “Just look, goddam you! C
an’t you see it? How blind are you?”

  The man kept his eyes on Jeff. “Oh, no! I’m not falling for that bullshit! I turn my attention from this maniac for one second, and he’s gonna try something. No way, man,” he inched toward his vehicle. “Nice try, though,” he reached the driver’s door and opened it.

  “Sir!” Kathy yelled. “What about the police? Don’t you wanna press charges?”

  He yelled while still glaring at Jeff. “No. No cops. I’m in a hurry, and this weather’s already slowed me down enough as it is. Then this asshole tries this shit!” he slid into the seat. “I’m not sticking around for this shit. Later!”

  Behind his son, Jeff saw darkness spreading to the streets, climbing over fences, inundating front yards, scaling frozen, snow-covered downspouts up onto icy gutters, then scattering over rooftops. Parked cars looked like they were painted with coal. Trees turned to silhouettes. Houses became black paper cutouts against a somber gray sky.

  The man started his Jeep and threw it into gear. “Crazy son of a bitch!” he gave Jeff one last look before spinning rubber into the icy street. To Jeff’s horror, he turned right, toward the heart of the blackness.

  Jeff sprinted to cut him off, slipping on the thick frost more than once.

  “No! Not that way! Don’t go that way!”

  “Get outta my way!” the man accelerated. “I mean it!”

  Jeff put his hands on the Jeep’s hood. It pushed him backward on the slick pavement. “Turn around! That way’s not safe!”

  “I warned you, you stupid bastard!”

  Sadie barked wildly. Amy shrieked. Logan’s voice cracked.

  “Dad! Look out!”

  The man reached his hand out the open window. Jeff looked in time to catch the glint of metal from the revolver’s barrel. Pop! Jeff rolled to the side, letting the Cherokee pass.

  Within a second, both Logan and April each took an arm, helping him to his feet.

  “Are you hit?” she patted and poked him until apparently satisfied there were no bullet holes.