The Ghosts of Winter

by Christopher Coleman

  Nelson nodded, blinking back tears, as if he were about to be punished.

  “Mr. Willis!” Lee’s voice, closer than before.

  I stood and picked up the shotgun and rushed into the master bedroom where I stood beside the window and fingered aside the edge of the curtain like a holed-up bank robber. Lee and his friend were again walking toward the cabin, having cut the distance by half. “Hurry with that food, Charlotte!” I yelled toward the kitchen. “Just give me what you have!”

  I ran back through cabin and took the handoff of groceries from Charlotte, and then I was back on the porch, this time holding the shotgun in my right hand, two plastic bags of food in the other. Chips, cereal, four cans of soup among a variety of other things. “I’ve got your food, Lee. I’ll bring out it to you. Right where you stand.”

  “What else you got there?”

  I held the gun high, showing him that it wasn’t my intention to conceal it, and then I laid it on the porch at my feet. Instinctively, I scanned the area for the Corrupted—the White Ones—imbibed now with the eerie sense that the creatures were all around me despite any physical evidence of their presence.

  But Nelson had seen one of them—at least one—there was no doubt in my mind as to the truth of that.

  I walked down the short flight of steps from the porch and onto the gravel driveway, and then I continued with trepidation out to the private road where my unwelcome guests stood.

  “Gotta be more than that,” Lee said. “By the looks of my store, I’d say a whole lot more.”

  I shrugged. “Obviously, others came after we left. And before. We didn’t clean you out. And what we took we paid for. So, you’re making out with my forty bucks and what’s in these bags. You’re in the black as far as our part.”

  I was unarmed, and, given the scenario, there was nothing but faith to keep Lee and the other man from robbing me, killing me, and storming my home to commit whatever other unspeakable deeds rested in their hearts. But disarming myself was a chance I thought worth taking, the only hope I had of negotiating this encounter to an end without violence. What was the alternative, really? Engaging in gun play with the shop owner from down the street? Maybe I would be proven wrong and that was the only way this would end, but that didn’t seem like the viable play to start. Besides, I knew Charlotte was watching, and if I knew her the way I thought I did, she was currently in the kitchen loading the Mossberg Patriot. And if things did go south—if she heard a struggle or, god forbid, gunshots—the one thing I was certain of, especially after her heroics by the gas pumps, was that she wouldn’t hesitate for a second to defend her family, putting her own life at risk, if necessary.

  Lee sucked his teeth and twitched his head left. “Yeah, still though, yours wasn’t a proper transaction, was it? No consent on the part of the retailer, you know?” He grinned, his eyes flashing malice. “You kind of just stole it.”

  I squinted and tightened my lips; I was done with the charade. “What do you want, Lee?”

  He shrugged. “I think the only fair thing would be to throw in something else.” He seemed to sense the tension in me and chuckled heartily. “Relax, Mr. Willis. I wasn’t gonna ask for your wife or daughter or anything like that. Sheesh! That’s a bridge too far.”

  If I had had the shotgun at that moment, I would have raised it and aimed it at Lee’s head.

  Lee nodded toward the Explorer. “So, I was thinking that vehicle there would be fair trading.”

  I glanced quickly at the SUV parked behind me and then turned back to Lee, locking eyes. “I can’t do that.”

  “No? Well what’s to stop me from just taking it?”

  “It’s not a picnic basket, Lee. You’re gonna need the keys. Which are in the cabin. And if I know my wife, she’s got you in the crosshairs of my Mossberg right about now.”

  Lee’s expression remained fixed, but he flinched just slightly, a shudder of the shoulders, and I could see the strain in his neck as he resisted looking toward the house to locate the exact placement of the weapon. In truth, I doubted Charlotte had gotten as far as lining up her kill, but I knew the gun was in her hands and that she was ready to dive into the fray.

  “Your wife got that kind of will, Mr. Willis? To kill a man standing in her driveway?”

  “A man with a rifle on his back and threatening her family? You’re damn right she does.”

  A rustling erupted from somewhere in the forest on the back side of the cabin, the quick sound of leaves and branches being disturbed; the noise was followed by the scampering sound of feet pattering onto the grass of the overgrown land. On any day in a previous week of my life, I would have assumed a deer and her fawns had emerged, perhaps even a full herd, traipsing through the tree line until they reached the idyllic clearing in which the cabin sat. But this was a different day, as would all the days be thereafter; the encounter with the White Ones at the service station had changed my way of thinking forever.

  Lee seemed not to notice the sound, nor my reaction to it, which was slight, the lift and tilt of my chin, a leaning of my ear toward the noise. Instead, he took a step toward me, his hands still clutched in front of him by his waist, his shoulders tucked and tight, making no play for the gun strapped across his shoulders. He closed the distance between us to less than eight feet and stopped. “The offer is this,” he said. “You get me the keys, and we’ll be on the way. No trouble for you or your family.”

  “Sorry, Lee, can’t bend on that. That would leave us with no transportation. This far out in the country—and with cold weather coming soon and you taking most of the food—I’d say that’s plenty of trouble.”

  Lee said nothing as he continued to stare unblinking into my eyes, the unspoken promise of harm glistening in his irises. He clenched his hands tighter, and I could see the internal struggle playing out in the tension of his fingers. But I had confidence in Charlotte; if Lee made a move to unstrap his weapon—or if he instructed his partner to make the move instead, revealing some hidden sidearm, perhaps—I prayed the rifle was now loaded and stable on the window sill, ready to fire. She was no sniper, but she didn’t need to be. The sound of the report and the lead missiles whistling through the still air would be enough to send the intruders scampering, if, that was, the bullets didn’t end up in their torsos or bellies or centers of their foreheads.

  The conflict was bubbling now, threatening to spill over into action, but all there was to say had been said. So, without a word, I turned my back on Lee and began walking toward the cabin. It was the oldest rule of negotiating: you had to be prepared to walk away from the bargaining table.

  As I strode toward the house, I could feel the muscles in my back begin to twitch, anticipating the click of the round from Lee’s rifle and the order to ‘Hold it right there.’ Perhaps he would even fire a warning shot over my shoulder. Or into it.

  But at four or five paces into my retreat, there remained only silence behind me, and when I reached the halfway point between Lee and the first step leading up to the porch, I felt real hope in my survival, that the situation had diffused enough to end without violence.

  “Come on,” I heard Lee grumble. And then, toward me, the shout of “Asshole!”

  I closed my eyes and let out a slow breath. It had been a bluff, and my decision to call it was the right one. They were leaving. The owner of Drew’s wasn’t prepared to kill me for a car and a few bags of groceries. At least not at that moment. Desperation had a way of reconfiguring a man’s will though, and there was no guarantee that Lee wouldn’t return one day—perhaps one day soon—this time hungry and ready to kill for much less than a Ford Explorer. But if that time ever arrived, I would be prepared, and if I got even the hint of a threat from him or his friend again, there would be no words passed before the bullets started sailing.

  But there would be no next time. I knew it the moment my foot touched the first of the stone steps leading up to the cabin porch.

  I saw the thing move out of the corner of my eye, ju
st as I had seen the trio of White Ones back at the store, in my periphery. Except this time only one was visible, and unlike the distant band that had been bounding down the interstate a day earlier, this one was only thirty yards or so to my left, an immediate threat. It disappeared for a split second, blending in with a group of white Adirondack chairs that formed a circle near the garden shed. But it was visible again almost immediately, its body pale and faded, like that of a day-old corpse, diseased and ruined, so stark against the bucolic green backdrop of the grassy yard.

  I resisted the urge to stop, or to turn my head in full, in part because I didn’t want to draw the distorted beast toward me, but also because I feared any sudden movement or change of pace might alter the stable dynamic between Lee and me. Any hesitation or flinch could trigger him, encourage him to re-think the wise choice he’d already made, deciding instead that a violent play for my vehicle was a worthwhile risk after all.

  The White One knuckled a few paces forward until it was at the furthest edges of my vision, making me all but blind to it. But I could see that its focus was elsewhere, away from me and the cabin (and even if it had been on me, I was close enough to the door that I could easily have made it inside if it attacked); rather, it was fanning out, toward the road.

  I continued at my steady pace up to the porch and then stood at the front door, and with my hand on the knob (which I turned and tested, ensuring it was unlocked), I finally rotated back toward the driveway to witness the scene as it began to play out.

  The White One was moving at a trot toward Lee and his friend, a slow, unhurried amble, stalking the men, instinctively knowing that any rapid dash would alert its prey. The men were now several yards down the road, almost at the bend where the mammoth maple tree stood, their backs to the approaching menace, unaware.

  I hesitated for a beat, my inner demon dominating my decision-making in that moment, knowing that the future threat of hungry men could be abolished in an instant. But soon my humanity kicked in, prompting me to call, “Lee!”

  Lee didn’t turn; instead, he held up the middle finger of his free hand—the one not holding the bag of groceries—and continued walking.

  “Lee, watch out!”

  He finally stopped and slumped his shoulders, bowing his head in exasperation, as if I had distracted him from some important pursuit upon which he was concentrating. The friend kept walking, both men still unaware of the attacking mutant which was now seconds from pouncing.

  My alert was too late; the White One was far too close now to give Lee time to turn, recognize the danger, unstrap his rifle, and make a shot.

  “Run!” I yelled. “Run!”

  Lee finally turned, immediately spotting the predator which was now only yards away as it launched its attack, rabid and loathing in its veracity. Lee made an impotent grunting sound as he fumbled his hands to his back, searching for his rifle, and I squeezed my eyes shut and bowed my head, unable to watch the kill that was now imminent, rueful that I hadn’t given the men a better chance at survival.

  And then a thought occurred to me, and I opened my eyes and focused my sights on the shotgun at my feet.

  I stooped down and grabbed the gun, and, knowing I had no shot from that distance on the porch, I dashed down the steps, away from the cabin, and then aimed the gun in the air, preparing to fire off a warning shot.

  “David, stop!”

  Unconsciously, I obeyed the command, which had banged through the air in a frantic, hushed tone, and I turned back to the door, where Charlotte stood at the threshold, the rifle in her hands, low by her waist.

  “Look,” she whispered, nodding to her left.

  I followed her nod with my eyes, and there, less than fifteen feet to my right, I could see six or seven more of the monsters flowing past a ten-foot crape myrtle that anchored the cabin on the north. They were in full gallop mode, on all fours like attacking chimpanzees, their eyes wide and dead, yet all the while focused.

  I turned back to the creature attacking from the South, at just the moment it collapsed down onto Lee, smothering him before his screams could fully emerge from his throat. The shrieks from the second man, however, could be heard for several moments as he sprinted down the driveway in a desperate attempt to find sanctuary, though they faded gradually as he turned the bend and disappeared. Within seconds, however, they echoed loudly once more, and this time the terror of the calls were laced with pain. And though I couldn’t see the group of monsters when they finally reached him, I could hear the gurgling horror in his throat, followed by a wet squishing noise that could only have been his intestines being ripped from his ribcage.

  6: The Siege

  By early evening, they were everywhere. The cabin was under siege.

  A half-dozen of the monsters had positioned themselves less than twenty feet from the front of the cabin, and though it was difficult to distinguish one White One from the other, so lacking were they in color and form, I could only assume the six out front were the group that had claimed Lee’s friend on the road. On the backside of the house, four others had gathered, and with the sides of the cabin having only one window each, and thus a more restricted view, I made the educated guess that the Corrupted had gathered there as well.

  I assumed it was the smell that had kept them there, but in truth, I had no idea. Perhaps it was intelligence, recognition, a residue of sentience from their previous existence that enabled them to identify the structure rising before them, understanding the cabin was a place where people lived and thus contained a food source.

  Food. The White Ones were living beings, which meant they had to eat to stay alive; but it was still unclear to me whether food—at least as far as humans were the source of it—was their main motivation. Even during the attack at Drew’s, and the aggression they had shown during that encounter, I never got the impression that hunger was the force driving them to kill. It felt like something closer to anger. Even hate.

  “What are we going to do?” Emerson asked.

  “They’ll leave,” I said. “Eventually they’ll leave.”

  “How do you know that?”

  I paused, taking on a calmer demeanor than I’d shown only moments earlier, which itself was rather unagitated. “Because they’re here. They traveled from the cordon, which is hundreds of miles away and would take several days of walking. They’re nomadic. They must be. We just have to wait them out. We still have plenty of food, and they can’t stay forever.”

  “Does that mean we can’t go to the lake anymore?” Nelson asked.

  I looked at Charlotte and sighed. There was heartbreak in her expression, stricken by the innocence of her five-year-old’s question. “No, Nelson,” I answered. “Not for a few days.”

  “It’s going to be too cold to swim pretty soon. That’s what mom said.”

  I looked at Charlotte again and frowned, giving her the slightest of nods, this time a quiet fact passing between us, recognizing that fall—and ultimately winter—would change everything about our scenario. We were still several weeks away from cold weather—at least I prayed that were true—but even if we made it out of our current dilemma, we needed to prepare for the long haul. The cabin was sufficient—a miracle really, remote and fortified, just as I had always envisioned it would be when the end of days arrived—but without supplies, food and fuel (the former of which we had sacrificed much of during the exchange with Lee), it was no better than a tent in the woods. In either case, death would find us. There was a fireplace and wood to burn, essentials we would need for both heat and cooking; but food itself would always be an issue, and once we burned through what was in the pantry and refrigerator (the latter of which wouldn’t last long without electricity), desperation would reign.

  Our hope was in Sprague. There was a proper grocery store there, as well as a Wal mart, and though it was unlikely I would have the pick of the litter in terms of food, I just needed to find sustenance, enough to get us through another month or two. After that, I didn’t know what
the plan would be, but by then, either the government would have gotten the threat under control, or we would be doomed anyway.

  The truth was, we could wait the White Ones out for a day or two longer, but after that, I would have to get going.

  “Can I talk to you?” I nodded to Charlotte to join me out of earshot, and we walked together to our bedroom. I closed the door and said, “We only have enough food now for a couple of weeks; after that, we’re going to be in real trouble. I need to get to Sprague by tomorrow. And even then it might be too late. I’m sure we’re not the only ones trying to find supplies. But if I don’t get there in the next twenty-four hours, it’ll be pointless.”

  “Still going with this Sprague plan, huh? Have you seen outside? How do you plan on getting out of here?”

  “I don’t know. I’m hoping they’ll leave like I said, but if not, I need to figure something out. We need to find out how many there are. Exactly how many.”

  “And what are you going to do with that information?”

  “It’s going to give us a number. Let us know how many rounds we’re going to need if they don’t leave.”

  Charlotte’s eyes blossomed. “Now you want to go to war with them?”

  “Want to? No, Charlotte, I don’t want to ever even see one of those things again as long as I live. But if they’re not gone by tomorrow, we’re going to have to get rid of them ourselves.”

  “You said yourself we have enough supplies to last us...what...a month, right? That’s what you said.”

  “That was before we lost a quarter of our food in the exchange with Lee. And I also said that we need to stock up in case we’re here longer. Look, we can’t wait until nighttime. Once it gets dark, they’ll be invisible, and we won’t get a good count. So, let’s find out how many we’re talking about total. That means we need to know how many are on the north side. The ones in the back and on the south are far enough away that we can outrun them, so the ones in the front and to the north are going to be the issue. If there are only a couple, hopefully we can fire off enough rounds to get clear and we won’t even need to shoot at them. Maybe they’ll be scared by the reports.”