by Timothy Boyd
The world around him was a frantic commotion that bombarded his senses, totally disorienting him. Even though it was only late afternoon, the winter sun had begun to set, pushing the gray clouds closer toward black. He faintly heard a shout from behind him, but he pressed onward. Hands shaking, he reached his blue fingers out toward the car handle, having difficulty finding a grip. Finally, he succeeded in lifting it and opened the door, climbing inside to the safety of the vehicle.
A burst of emotion upheaved itself from within, startling him into a sob of anguish that blurred his vision. He quickly took a deep breath and wiped the moisture from his face, knowing that if he had any hope of saving Leslie, he had to maintain his composure. There would be time for grief later, if it became necessary.
He retrieved the keys from the overhead visor and started the engine.
* * *
Christine had watched as her partner’s resolve crumbled, and he had hung up his cell phone, dashing out of the file room and out the front door of the station. Her heart leapt after him while her brain told her to remain. She now stood in the station’s main room, deeply conflicted, staring at the opened door through which Jonathan had run.
She knew that by the time they would arrive at the Colter house, the opportunity to catch the Iceman would have long passed, his work there already completed. Her heart ached deeply for her partner and the unbearable loss he would soon be forced to embrace, but the Sheffield address scratched at the edges of her mind, yearning to satiate the itch for answers.
The call had been a power play from the crazed maniac, knowing that the police were getting close to the truth, which made Christine feel even more strongly that heading to the Sheffield house needed to happen sooner rather than later. It gutted her to admit that trekking into the blizzard to save Leslie was only a distraction – one that might provide the killer ample time to get away.
“Brody!” the chief called out, again standing at the threshold of his office at the other end of the room.
She turned, noticing for the first time that all eyes were on her, like they were silently making bets on whether she would go or stay.
“What’s happened?” he asked, a look of sincere concern on his aged face.
She stared into his eyes, wishing she had the answers he wanted to hear. Go or stay, go or stay, go or stay!
After closing her eyes and sighing, making peace with her decision, she looked up at the chief and said, “I think he’s got Colt’s wife.”
He returned her intense gaze, his expression never faltering as his mind processed the new information. After a few seconds, he nodded at her and then turned to another officer. “Scramble a team, and get them over there, now!”
Accepting his action as permission to carry on, she headed to the coat rack, retrieving both hers and Jonathan’s jackets, and she ran out the door into the fray. Attempting to maneuver through the footprints that Jonathan had already created, she quickly followed after him.
“Colt!” she called out, straining to be heard over the cacophony of wind and ice.
He did not turn around, which was not a surprise to her.
“Colt, wait!” She made it to the driver’s side door as he started the engine.
She yanked it open, and he turned, shocked to see her. “What are you doin’?”
“Scoot over,” she ordered.
“Brody, I need to—.”
“You know I’m the better driver. Now scoot over!” she demanded, throwing his coat into his face.
He only hesitated briefly before sliding over, making room for her to hop in.
She did so, slamming the door and immediately turning on the heater. “Put on your coat, you dumbass. Stand out in this shit like that, and you’ll end up frozen before this maniac gets the chance to do it first!” she quipped cynically, putting the truck into reverse.
Jonathan looked at her and took a deep breath. “He’s got Leslie.”
“Not for long,” she attempted to raise his spirits while backing precariously out of the parking lot, turning on the windshield wipers to increase visibility. Deep in her gut, she felt that she had just lied to him, but it was a necessary lie to keep him from cracking. She needed him focused for whatever lay ahead.
Strapping on his seatbelt, he said to her, “Why did you follow me?”
She looked at him and saw the deep pain within his eyes, but she also saw a distance growing between them, and it was the fault of no one but herself. She had let him down today, and she would not let it happen again. “I watch your back; you watch mine. It’s how we do this.”
Putting the vehicle into gear, she took off into the perilous whiteness.
She drove faster than she should have, feeling the tires float dangerously on the slippery surface of the compacted ice underneath. Jonathan quickly dialed a number into his cell phone, fidgeting with nervousness and anxiety. She skidded around a turn, feeling the rear end of the vehicle slide, nearly making her lose control of the SUV.
He furiously pounded his fist against the dashboard, hanging up his phone. “She’s not answerin’ her cell!”
Christine felt her stomach clench, not knowing how she would comfort her partner once the grieving process began. “Well,” she started, searching for something to say. “Just try her again. Maybe she went to the bathroom.”
She watched as cascades of white snow fell from the sky, blanketing the tree branches that created a light canopy over the road. She usually enjoyed watching snowfall; she found it to be relaxing and peaceful, but she had a feeling that after this day was over, her love of winter weather would be soured.
“She’s still not answerin’,” Jonathan panicked, jamming his phone back into his pocket.
Christine was awful at consoling, and she assumed it was one of the many reasons why she had very few friends. She had enough trouble dealing with her own emotions, much less navigating someone else’s path of eggshells.
Suddenly, a splintered crack rang out as the branches above snapped, sending hunks of wood and mounds of snow plummeting to the ground directly in front of the SUV. Grasping the dash in front of him, Jonathan yelled, “Look out!”
Her heart jumped into her throat as her reflexes ramped into overdrive. She swerved around the roadblock, pumping the brakes. As she yanked the wheel back in the other direction, the truck did not respond, and it continued sliding toward the side of the road. Tapping the brakes faster now, she tried desperately to get the vehicle to respond to her actions, but it did not.
The SUV slipped off the road and came to rest in a shallow ditch filled with snow. Christine pressed the accelerator, but the car didn’t budge. Flipping into reverse, she tried again, but the wheels spun freely, buried within the slick snow.
They were stuck.
* * *
Rita Mayes brushed away the annoying strand of blonde hair that didn’t ever seem to stay behind her ear. She considered her own reflection in the medicine cabinet mirror on her bathroom wall, bathed in unflattering fluorescent light. She looked pale and exhausted. Truth-be-told, even though it wasn’t yet dinnertime, she was ready for bed; it had been a draining day.
Everything was such a whirlwind that when she thought back on the events, she could only clearly remember about half of it. The stress was wearing on her deeply, and she rubbed her temples, begging for relief from her lingering headache.
Opening the cabinet, she retrieved a bottle of ibuprofen and swallowed two pills, chasing them with a large glass of ice water.
She shivered.
Not realizing before now that it was chilly in her home, she retrieved a simple striped cardigan from the bedroom, sliding her arms into it and cinching it in front of her. Her house was old and drafty with creaky wooden floors, and she was aware of the poor insulation, but the current temperature seemed odd to her. Checking the thermostat in the hallway, she saw that it was fifty-two degrees in her home. She reached her hand up to the ceiling vent, feeling warm air push out into the house.
; Huh, she thought to herself. The heater isn’t keeping up. She assumed it was the raging storm outside and decided to stoke the fire in the living room.
As she ventured through the house and made it to the entry foyer, she noticed that her front door was wide open. She stopped and cocked her head, furrowing her brow in confusion. She thought that she had shut it earlier when she had returned home, but perhaps not. She pushed the door closed, giving a few extra heaves for good measure to make sure it latched this time. She turned to head toward the fireplace in the adjoining living room, but then she noticed something odd about the floor at the base of the front door.
A thin layer of ice covered it.
She knelt down, slowly reaching out her fingers, lightly touching it. It was cold and wet, as ice ought to be. She followed the trail to the stairs that led up to a guest room and the attic. She searched the ceiling for a leak of some kind that could explain the icy pavement.
Just when she was about to make her way upstairs to investigate further, she heard a voice that said, “You’ve caused quite a few problems for me today, Rita. And that makes me very angry.”
* * *
“Shit!” Christine cursed, forcing the SUV from drive into reverse and back again, trying to break the tires free from their snow trap. She pounded the steering wheel with the palms of both hands, furious that she was so stupid as to get the vehicle stuck, knowing that every second they spent in the ditch was another second that they weren’t trying to save Leslie.
“Can you get it out?” Jonathan asked frantically, unnerving her.
She didn’t answer but continued to try to rock the truck back and forth, hoping it would break free, but she wasn’t hopeful.
“Brody?!”
“I’m trying, Colt!” she snapped too harshly, frustrated with herself and the situation.
Jonathan flung open the passenger door and jumped out to examine the back tires.
“What are you doing? Get back in the truck!”
He kicked the tires upon seeing how badly they were recessed into the snowy earth. A look of desperation filled his face. “Brody, I’m sorry. I gotta go.” And he shut the door, taking off down the road on foot.
“Colt!” she yelled after him. He walked down the road, eerily illuminated by the headlights of the vehicle. “Shit!” she screamed loudly, damning whatever supernatural being was responsible for the events of the day.
She zipped up her coat and jumped out of the truck, removing her gun from its holster and following after Jonathan. She had made a choice when she left the station to pursue him; she would not change her mind now.
Her legs quickly grew tired from walking through the thick layer of snow as her face was bombarded with tiny pellets of annoyance, the wind fighting against them. “Colt, wait up!” she called out to him, but he was definitely on a mission, and he charged ahead, clearing a path that she tried to follow. The house wasn’t far, but even with that ray of hope, she wasn’t sure they would have the endurance to make it. If they kept this up, she knew neither of them would survive the night.
Jonathan turned the corner ahead, continuing the slog through the uncooperative precipitation, one arm held up to shield his face. He pushed harder than his body was capable, and Christine could see the strain consuming him.
She tried to pick up her pace to catch him. “Colt, please wait up!” She was close enough now that she knew he could hear her, even over the wind. “Colt!” She was growing agitated at his persistence. The muscles in her legs burned with a fire that failed to warm her. “Colt!”
Jonathan spun on her, a blazing wrath consuming his eyes. “What?!” he screamed.
She halted, rendered speechless by his sudden fury.
“What, Brody?!” he growled again.
“I…” Her mind rested on the words, but she no longer was sure she could utter them.
“Say it!”
For the first time since she had met Jonathan, she was afraid of him. “I don’t…”
“Say it, Brody!”
Shame welled within her eyes.
“Say it!” he raged now.
“Calm down, Colt,” she begged, lifting one hand toward him.
In a flash, he raised his gun, pointing it at her chest. “I want you to frikkin’ say it!”
“Whoa! Take it easy!”
“Say it!”
“She’s already dead!”
The wind howled through the evening, like a wail of grief that filled the empty space between the two partners. Jonathan stared at Christine, images of his wife Leslie floating through his consciousness. He relaxed his grip on the gun and slowly lowered it, biting his bottom lip to divert his immense emotional pain.
“I’m sorry, Colt,” she said sincerely, fighting to keep her composure. “If that maniac was actually at your house when he called you…” she hesitated before finishing, “then she’s already dead.”
His lip quivered, and tears finally released from his eyes with thick sobs of anguish. “She could a’ been abducted.”
Christine looked at him with pity, but she nodded. “Maybe.”
She slowly closed the gap between the two of them and awkwardly placed a consoling hand on his shoulder. She nearly lost her balance when he lunged forward and fell into her arms, crying into the shoulder of her coat, his arms clutched tightly around her.
She held him until his emotions ran dry, the wind forming a frigid cocoon around them.
Eventually, he pulled away from her and wiped his face on his sleeve, taking a deep breath to calm himself. He cocked his gun and looked at her as if nothing had happened, his face matted with redness. “We’re wastin’ time.”
Glad to be done with the emotional outburst, she nodded, admiring the man’s persistence. “Then let’s go,” she added, raising her own gun.
They continued down the street a few hundred feet until they reached the incline of the driveway that led up through the trees to the Colter House. Instead of taking the path, they edged off to the side and used the trees as leverage to pull themselves up the steep hill. The house rested on a beautiful cliff that overlooked Penobscot Bay, but in this moment, with the remaining daylight beginning to disappear beyond the horizon, making it more difficult to see through the hilly forest, Christine wished they all could live in the middle of the Great Plains or somewhere equally as flat.
She watched as her partner deftly pulled himself up toward the house, his mission stronger than ever. She was not a religious woman, but she silently prayed to a higher power that Leslie was safe and warm inside the house, and the phone call had all been a bluff.
The Colter House resembled a modern log cabin, made mostly of wood. It was beautiful and quaint, the windows warmly illuminated from the inside but completely fogged over. A light stone chimney stretched into the sky, a thin stream of black smoke escaping into the air, indicating a fire had recently gone out.
As they finally breached the top of the hill where the ground leveled out, Jonathan began calling out to his wife, and they ran across the front yard and up the steps of the front porch.
And then they came to a halt.
Seeping out from under the front door was a slick pool of ice that covered the brown welcome mat and crept up the door, spreading out across the façade of the house. Christine quickly made her way down the length of the porch, noting that a frozen layer covered nearly the entirety of the front of the building, including the fogged up windows.
Jonathan pounded a fist on the frost, hollering his wife’s name once more. The blockade was strong and thick. He dashed down the steps and began to circle around toward the back.
“Colt, wait!” Christine called out.
He stopped and turned to face her.
“Going to the back isn’t smart in this weather. One wrong step, and you’ll slip down the cliff and end up in the bay!”
He held up his hands, frustrated by the time they were wasting. “What options do I have, Brody?”
She thought for a minute and
realized he was right. There weren’t many options. They would either need to break through the ice or carefully circle around through the hilly backyard, hoping they didn’t slip and fall to their deaths.
And she certainly didn’t feel like dying today.
The Dead of Winter
VI
Jonathan stood in the thick layer of snow that protruded up to the base of his knees. As the wind whipped furiously around them, he could almost feel the accumulation rising higher up his legs while staring at Christine, waiting to hear her better idea to gain entrance into the house. As the seconds passed, it was growing more difficult to make out her features, the sunlight ever setting in the distance. Soon, it would be nighttime, and the snowfall would have grown to such outrageous heights that any thought of catching a killer would have to wait until morning, or possibly late afternoon tomorrow.
Christine looked at her partner, seeing the yearning for expediency in his pained expression as she thought of one stupid idea after another to attempt to break the coating of ice on the front of the house. In an act of desperation, she leaned back and raised her leg sideways, kicking the slick mass with the full force her legs would allow. A sharp pain wracked a nerve in her foot, shooting excruciating agony through her leg and up her back.
The ice did not so much as crack.
Cursing herself and shaking her leg out, limping around in circles to keep her blood flowing, she angrily aimed her gun at the ice wall and fired a round that ricocheted off into the distance. Only a small chunk broke free, falling to the wooden deck. She knew it would take more bullets to get through than she had available.
Before she had time to come up with another foolish plan, Jonathan grew restless and continued down the side of the house, headed toward the back. He treaded as carefully as he could manage, but his focus remained on the visage of his radiant wife, hoping she had somehow managed to escape the house; although he wasn’t sure to where she would go in this blizzard. He mentally kicked himself for not checking around for footprints first.