Dead Frost

by Adam Millard

  Kelly couldn't see, but she could hear, and apart from her own panicked breaths there was no other sound.

  Her mother had been taken by the elements during the night; she was colder than the air, colder even than the snow still falling outside.

  Kelly closed her eyes and sobbed.

  She chose to stay.

  *

  The roof was silent, apart from a dwindling breeze which still had the propensity to howl whenever it could. The snowfall during the night had been ridiculous, more than usually fell in an entire winter. At the far side of the roof, buried beneath a white blanket apart from his head, was Henry Colburn. He had died with his eyes open, which now stared out over the rooftop, still searching for signs of the returning chopper. Tiny icicles had formed on his eyebrows and ears, and just below his nose was a thin block of ice, the result of not shaving the previous morning. As he stared out, lifelessly, surveying the skies for a helicopter that would never appear, the snow began to gradually slow.

  And then, as if by magic, it stopped completely.

  October 2011 – January 2012

  www.adammillard.co.uk

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