The Frozen Man

by Lex Sinclair

  No one spoke for couple more minutes. Then Tom broke the silence. ‘Why don’t you show us now, seen as though we’re sitting here discussing it? Get it over with, if nothing else.’

  Charles got up off the floor and said, ‘Okay. I’m ready when you are.’

  As they stepped outside again the wind had picked up since earlier, stinging their faces like a keen razor blade. ‘Jesus’ Tom cried. ‘Is it always freezing up here in the mountains?’

  ‘More often than not,’ Charles said, loud enough so he could be heard over the howling gusts.

  The powerful wind whipped Kate’s blonde hair out of her face. Their jackets flapped frantically as they followed Charles around the narrow concrete path towards the back yard. On the brink of the hill Tom could see the first pines on the edges of the deep forest. Stacked against the rear stone wall of the cottage were a pile of logs, chopped up for kindling. Tom suspected the old man had to do a lot of chopping so he could have heat on the cold winter nights, like this one.

  Charles opened the padlock on the shed door, pulled the back the bolt (careful not catch his fingers like last time), retrieved his torch, which he’d put on the ground next to his feet while he used both hands to unlock the shed, and shone the beam on the filthy, cobwebbed door. He glanced over his shoulder into the full force of the wind and shouted, ‘Brace yourselves - what you’re about to see isn’t pretty.’

  Kate and Tom regarded each other, nervously. Then Charles opened the creaking timber door - but as he did the wind swept it out of his numbing grasp and flung it backwards, knocking him over and slamming the door violently against the side wall.

  As Tom stooped down to help the old man up he halted. His mouth fell open.

  His eyes caught sight of the hideous creature sprawled out on the shed floor with a garden fork protruding from its crispy abdomen. Kate shrieked, although the noise was instantly drowned out by the much higher pitched wailing blustery weather.

  ‘God in heaven,’ Tom gasped.

  The old man battled himself upright again, against the awesome wind and shone his torch light into the shed so his friends could see the putrid cadaver in all its gruesome glory.

  Tom required Charles and Kate’s assistance to get off the ground as the wind continued to play a tuneless song in the night. ‘What the hell is it?’ he yelled Charles gestured for them to enter the shed with him, but Kate stood steadfast, refusing. Her face had lost all its colour. The old man saw this, and decided it would be best if they went back inside. They locked the shed up and returned to the cottage. In a daze, Tom carried some logs for the fire. Once they were inside, and the front door was locked, they sat down and waited for the fire to warm up.

  ‘One hell of a night out there,’ Charles said, in a hoarse voice.

  ‘What is it?’ Tom asked, for the second time, a little calmer now.

  Charles rubbed the palms of his hands together to generate some warmth.

  ‘Your guess is as good as mine,’ he said.

  ‘How did it get there?’ Kate wanted to know, trembling not from the icy-cold wind, but from the icy cold trepidation rattling in the marrow of her bones.

  Charles told them what happened the night he’d been confronted with the twisted, grey, brittle monstrosity - and how he finally managed to kill it.

  ‘Fuck,’ Tom exclaimed.

  ‘I was so scared,’ Charles went on, ‘I couldn’t eat, sleep, drink, or even think straight. I thought I had lost my mind. And, I guess, for a short while at least, I did.’

  ‘Bloody hell.’ Tom couldn’t stop himself from cursing, shocked.

  ‘Just thinking about it and staring at it just then, gives me the creeps.’

  ‘Christ! I don’t blame you,’ Tom said. ‘And that thing came after you, you said?’

  ‘Oh, yeah... I found the tailgate of my Jeep hanging open - at first I thought I’d left it open by mistake, but then I actually saw it in the light of the purple vapour glowing.

  ‘This is some scary, Freddy Kruger shit, going on here,’ Tom said, shaking his head.

  ‘It’s the body from our garage, isn’t it?’ Kate said, quivering all over.

  Tom went to her and wrapped his arms around her. He lowered her to the rug in front of the crackling fire.

  ‘I think so.’

  ‘It must be, ‘Tom said. ‘The way you described it, it has to be.’

  ‘How did it get into your Jeep, though? That’s what I’d like to know.’

  The two men stared at Kate. In her froze-to-the-core state, she seemed to be asking all the pertinent questions.

  ‘When Carlton and I stayed over that night, it must’ve got out of the garage somehow, and got in the back... without our knowledge.’

  ‘And it stayed hidden in the back all the way home?’ Tom said, evidently freaked out by the fact.

  ‘It must’ve,’ Charles said, shrugging. ‘I didn’t notice its presence, and neither did Carlton. He would’ve said something.’

  ‘This is unreal,’ Tom said.

  Gradually, the three of them began to feel the heat from the fire de-icing their frozen cheeks. Charles went to the kitchen and poured them all a glass of gin and tonic. They gulped it down in one go.

  ‘What’re you gonna do about it?’ Tom asked when he put the glass down.

  Charles shook his head. ‘I don’t know. Any ideas?’

  ‘Is it actually dead?’

  ‘Far as I know, yes.’

  Tom gazed at the crackling fire, then back at the old man. ‘We ought to burn it...’

  ***

  The relentless hurricane wind blew madly, arguing with the living room window.

  ‘Are you sure that’s the best thing we should do?’ Charles asked, not liking the prospect of hauling the decaying body of the creature into his home one iota.

  Tom shrugged. ‘Why not? Ashes to ashes, dust to dust, as they say. Good riddance. Maybe then we can return to living our normal lives once again. When it’s been cremated, then it will be over and we can all have a bit of peace... at long last.’

  ‘Yeah, but what about all the tales of what happened to the people who killed and hid the corpses of these creatures?’

  Tom turned and walked to the window. ‘It’s already dead, Charles. You made certain of that by sticking a garden fork through it.’

  ‘Yeah. I know.’

  Whad’ya gonna do? Leave it in the shed for ever? That’s not such a good idea.

  For all we know, it could get up and start walking around here again, chasing after you when you least expect it. I don’t think you wanna risk that happening again. Do you?’

  ‘No, of course not.’ The blood curdled at the thought of that thing chasing him again in the old man’s arteries.

  Tom moved away from the window and faced the old man. ‘Look, Charles.

  When people die they are either buried or cremated. Right? All we’ll be doing is cremating a dead body. There’s no harm in that, is there?’

  ‘I guess not,’ he said, not sounding at all convincing.

  ‘Charles, this thing - whatever the hell it is - has done nothing but give us a load of grief ever since we stumbled across it in the woods. Am I right?’

  ‘Yeah.’ That much he was sure of.

  ‘Then let’s do this thing and be done with it. Whad’ya say?’

  Charles raised his head and looked Tom directly in the eyes, and said, ‘If you think that’s what’s best - then we should do it.’

  ‘My man!’ Tom exclaimed, grinning at him. Charles didn’t reciprocate the expression.

  ‘I’ve got a bad feeling about this,’ Kate blurted.

  Tom and Charles faced her.

  ‘What’re you talkin’ about?’ Tom said, clearly displeased and irritated with her for saying that, jus
t when he had finally persuaded Charles to do what he suggested.

  ‘This is wrong. This whole thing is wrong,’ she said. ‘It came after Charles for a reason. I think we ought to leave it be. We’ve done enough damage already.’

  Tom gritted his teeth. ‘Kate, please. I think I know what I’m talking about here. You even said so yourself. Both you and Charles have agreed that last time you made a mistake and that I was right all along. Did you or did you not?’

  Kate nodded. ‘Yes, I did say that. But now you’re being the hasty one, Tom.’

  Tom closed his eyes and brought his hands together like he might be praying.

  Perhaps he was. ‘Kate, do me a favour and stay out of this, please.’

  ‘If we do this, we’re gonna suffer the way Carlton suffered.’

  ‘SHUT UP! Tom yelled.

  Charles felt his heart lurch.

  ‘We are gonna do this thing, like it or not,’ Tom said.

  Neither Charles nor Kate dare argue with him, not with the frightening rage boiling behind his ferocious glare.

  ‘How are we gonna go about this?’ Charles asked.

  ‘Me and you are gonna go outside, pull that fork outta that thing, then haul it in here and dump it on the fire, so it can burn in Hell... where it belongs.’

  In spite of the warmth coming from the fire Charles felt the hairs on his arms and neck stand to attention, as if cold fingers snaked up his spine. ‘Shouldn’t we leave it till morning?’ he said, doing his best to hide his trepidation.

  ‘No.’ Tom was beginning to lose his patience with them both. His decision was final. Tonight would be the night they were going to do what Tom said, and when he said it. There would be no discussing it or stalling his plan.

  ‘God help us,’ Kate muttered.

  Yeah, that’s exactly how I felt when you forced me to drive home with that thing in the boot of my car all the way home, Tom thought, and very nearly told her.

  Kate got up from in front of the hearth and sat on the edge of Charles’s bed.

  Tom strode towards the front door. Charles hesitantly followed. The old man glanced at Kate, brow furrowed in deeply-etched ageing lines, expressing his concern which mirrored her emotions.

  The fierce wind met them with gale force as they stepped back outside. This time, however, Tom led the way. He hunched as he moved forward against the powerful gusts, throwing scattered leaves and dirt in their faces. The wind whipped Tom’s hair, sweeping it around wildly into a tangle. For the second time that evening, Charles unlocked the padlock and opened the shed door, which he managed to grip firmly, holding it in his grasp without letting the wind snatch away from him this time.

  Tom was visibly in a temper. And in this temper he did not hesitate. He seized the twisted, grey brittle, monstrosity under the lifeless arms and dragged it out of the shed, dropping it on the path. Then he planted his right foot firmly on its chest, gripped the garden fork around the handle tightly with pale knuckled fingers and with all his might pulled, until eventually the prongs slowly started to become extracted from the abdomen. Then on the last hefty pull, the wooden handle whacked him right on the nose, causing tears to swim in his eyes, impeding his vision temporarily. He staggered backwards, not expecting the fork to come out so abruptly and toppled over.

  ‘TOM!’ Charles bellowed over the shrill wind.

  Tom fingered his nostrils and saw he was bleeding. He sat up and raised his hand, signalling to the old man that he was all right. He half-expected the gruesome cadaver to open its eyes and get up off the ground and come after him, like in the horror films he’d seen.

  Charles picked up the garden fork and tossed it into the shed, then slammed the door shut and locked it up again. Because they were high up in the mountains there were no streetlamps anywhere in the near vicinity, therefore it was pitch black outside, almost. Tom could scarcely make out the shape. When he’d touched the body in the shed and dragged it outside, where they were now, he thought for a split second its crispy flesh would crumble and be blown away into the howling night.

  Charles hunkered down beside him, holding out his hand to help him up (the way Tom had assisted him when he had fallen over earlier). Tom waved him off. He could cope. He wasn’t hurt (well, maybe a little), more stunned by the impact of his own strength than anything else. The beam from the torch was the only light they had. It wasn’t much but it made finding things in the dark - like dead bodies - a lot easier. Tom wiped his nose with the back of his hand and felt the sticky wetness of his blood and snot - but other than that minor setback he was fine.

  He took hold of the hideous creature once more and hoisted it up, slinging it over his shoulder like he was carrying a drunken mate home from the pub late at night - which he’d done on his stag-night a few years ago. Then he carted the body back to the cottage.

  ***

  Kate hadn’t moved from the edge of the bed, except to push her back against the stone wall, eyes wide, gawking at the door, waiting for the moment the two men burst in, bringing the sounds of the moaning wind and the horrid thing she had seen lying on the floor in the shed. Now that the body wasn’t encased in a massive ice-cube - which she melted - any more and frozen solid, plus the fact that it’d still been walking around trying to kill Charles even after its death, sent icy chills through her body, making her to shudder involuntarily.

  This was a lot different from the last time they had taken a corpse with them and brought into a home though, she thought. Now, Kate couldn’t bear to even look at it, let alone have it in the same room as her. The sight of the dead body itself freaked her out big time. But the tale of how it escaped their loft and hid itself in the back of the Jeep all the way here, to the cottage, then very nearly killed Charles, was too much for her to absorb and contemplate all at once.

  Tom’s original plan in the forest when they first saw it hanging up over a branch in the sweet, smelling pine tree had been accurate - but his new idea of burning the body wasn’t such a good one. Her intuition told her that this was a bad idea, not just because her nerves were in tatters, but for another reason only her sub-conscious seemed aware of.

  The antique clock and the crackling fire sounded much louder now that she was alone. This was how Charles must feel every single night. Kate was glad she thought about something else other than corpses trying to kill people, when unexpectedly the timber door burst open. She yelped.

  The screaming winds sounded like distressed phantoms crying out their disapproval of this ungodly act they were about to commit. Kate pushed her back harder against the unyielding wall, as though she hoped by doing so the wall would retreat from what she now witnessed.

  Tom entered carrying the ghastly, inexplicable thing, dropping it on the floor with a thud. Kate noticed blood trickling out of his nose. They gazed at each other for a second as Charles pushed the front closed and drew the bolts shut.

  Both men were out of breath. Kate’s respiration quickened as if she’d just been outside with them, too. All three of them gawked at the creature lying facedown on the carpet.

  ‘Are you sure about this?’ Charles wheezed.

  Tom placed his hands on his hips and said, ‘We’re doing ourselves... and everyone else... a favour... if we do this. This thing,’ he pointed to the creature on the floor, ‘is clearly not human, or anything remotely human... It tried to kill you... I think it’s a good idea, don’t you?’

  Even though his instincts screamed an unequivocal NO! at him, Charles nodded agreement. There was no doubt that whatever that occupied the space on his living room floor was extremely dangerous. How could he be sure that the garden fork had killed it, for good? It had still been alive after God knew how many years of rotting and being frozen inside a block of ice the size of a coffin, there was no way of knowing for certain. At least if they burned it to its last embers they’d be sure it was dead, once a
nd for all. If they cremated it then they’d be safe and out of harms way, like Tom said, Charles told himself.

  Charles glimpsed Kate on his bed, knees hugging her chest, shaking. From where he stood, Charles could see where the steel prongs had pierced the creature. Just by staring at its ghastly form, he remembered everything about that harrowing night.

  Tom saw the fire burning with fervour, as though it anticipated licking the brittle flesh with its wild, fervent tongues of flames. He was about to bend down again and pick the monstrosity up when Kate cried out, ‘Check its eyes!’

  Tom and Charles instantly turned their heads in her direction.

  ‘What?’ Tom said.

  ‘Check... its eyes,’ she said, her voice tremulous.

  Tom stared at the cadaver, but Charles continued to gaze at Kate, who in her panic looked like a captured little girl with her knees folded up to her chest on his bed.

  ‘What for?’

  ‘I think she’s right,’ Charles said.

  Tom straightened his back and exhaled. ‘What the fuck are you two talkin’ about?’

  ‘Its eyes, remember?’ Charles faced him. ‘The only thing I said that really terrified me more than anything else, was its eyes - it was the only part of the body that looked like it could be human... alive!’

  Tom’s patience was running short by the second. ‘What difference does it make if I check its eyes, huh?’

  ‘Just check it,’ Charles said.

  Tom scowled at him. He didn’t like the old man’s firm tone one bit. He pointed his index finger at Charles and snarled. He was about to bark something at him when Kate bawled, ‘Just check!’

  ‘You two are trying to stop this. Or doing whatever you can to stall me.

  Why?’ He moved his head back and forth, wanting one of them to answer him.

  Charles said, earnestly, ‘We’re not. We just think we should see if it has human-like eyes.’