The Frozen Man

by Lex Sinclair

  ‘He said we have a week to decide what we’re gonna do,’ Tom said, blinking back tears which stung his eyes.

  ‘I think I need to have a lie down,’ she said in a soft, strained voice.

  Tom kissed her on her brow, helped her to get up the stairs and into the bedroom. He held her hand in his, and gazed deeply into her brown eyes, seeing they were red and moist. She closed them over. A tear rolled down her cheek onto the pillow. In that moment Tom thought his wife’s eyes were the only physical aspect that hadn’t changed at all from the day he first laid eyes on her, and fell head-over-heels in love.

  ***

  The setting sun slanted through the windows flooding the living room with a light of pure gold. Tom gazed impassively at the TV, which wasn’t on, numb.

  He waited for his wife to wake up and come downstairs, if she ever did. He wouldn’t blame her if she stayed in bed for the remainder of the day.

  What the hell are we going to do? His face was hot and flushed.

  What had taken place earlier didn’t seem real now, as the sun slipped beneath the horizon for yet another day, painting the sky a pink-purple canvas. This time next week they had to have a decision for the Frozen Man. It came down to whose body they should surrender. But, although the body, in religious terms, was only the shell, in this case the body meant the person’s life, too. Whoever they chose to give up wouldn’t even be permitted a proper burial service.

  Instead they would be wiped off the face of the earth, with only a missing persons’ file to acknowledge their sudden, inexplicable absence.

  Tom needed to get up and pace the room, maybe even go for a long stroll outside, but he didn’t trust his rubbery legs to carry him as far as the kitchen in his weary state. His eyes swam with tears - afraid that whatever they chose to do in the end would be the wrong choice, as there was no right choice. He knew how much he and Kate had wanted a baby. Now they had their chance - only he might not be around to see him or her being born, grow up and achieve great things that would make him a proud parent. If on the other hand they got rid of the child; instinctively he knew Kate would never be the same again. The overwhelming melancholy this time would be too much for her to cope with, even with his undying support and love.

  It was purely a no win situation, which is precisely what the Frozen Man had contrived. His body being burned would not go unpunished. Charles was dead.

  Carlton, Derek, Rhian, the unfortunate camper who had been decapitated, and now either himself or his unborn child would be next on its victims’ list.

  This should have been a day to take pleasure in; a time when they should be celebrating like any other husband and wife, who were about to have a child; not paralysed with unbearable anguish.

  He got up out of his seat, gingerly, and made his way into the kitchen.

  Opening the refrigerator door, Tom welcomed the cold vapour that cooled his hot cheeks and took out a can of beer. He pressed the chilled can against his forehead and cheeks. Then he opened it and drained half the contents in one gulp. He leaned against the worktop, pondering on what he and Kate ought to do, and subsequently what would transpire when the Frozen Man returned to take what it deemed was rightfully his.

  ***

  Kate woke with a start. She looked around the room, realising she’d fallen into a deep sleep. She glanced at the digital alarm clock - 7:08p.m.

  She lay there for few extra minutes. Then she swung her feet off the bed and onto the floor. Had she dreamed what Tom told her, about the Frozen Man coming to visit him while she had been out shopping? she wondered.

  Darkness had descended, and only the dim pools of light from the streetlamps made it possible for Kate to see where she walked. She opened the bedroom door and stepped out onto the landing. The dark and the quiet unnerved her. She headed downstairs, into the living room and saw her husband on the sofa with a beer in his lap, his head lolled to one side, fast asleep as she had been. Kate found it odd that they both should have fallen to sleep hours before their usual bedtime. Perhaps their bodies couldn’t cope with another hellish bout of anxiety and hit the snooze-button temporarily.

  She flicked the light switch and was momentarily blinded by the sudden light.

  Tom’s eyes blinked first. Then he winced when he opened them, squinting against the glow.

  Kate slumped onto the sofa beside him. ‘Tom,’ she said, in a shaky voice, ‘was it a dream?’

  Tom was still coming to when she asked the question. However, he’d heard her clearly. He shook his head. ‘No, Kate. I’m afraid not.’

  She sighed. ‘What’re we gonna do?’

  Tom took a sip of his beer, which was no longer cold, and shrugged, surprised he hadn’t spilled it in his sleep.

  ‘Is it actually going to be here a week from now and take either you or our baby?’

  Tom turned away from her before nodding. ‘Yeah. It meant everything it said, Kate.’

  ‘What if we refuse?’

  ‘Then it’ll take either me or the baby without our consent. But it might hurt you, if you refuse to cooperate.’

  Kate bit her bottom lip, fighting the urge to burst into a new batch of tears.

  ‘But you apologised for what you did. You told it you only did because you were afraid it was going to kill you in the first place.’

  ‘It doesn’t matter, hon. It doesn’t see it that way. And I guess if it was you who had been thrown into a fire, you’d probably feel the same way it does. I dunno any more. My head is thumping. I’m so confused I don’t know what to think.’

  Kate rubbed the fatigue out of her haggard face as best she could. ‘What do you think we ought to do?’

  ‘I don’t know. I don’t know what to do.’ He threw his arms up in the air in agitation. ‘There’s no right answer to this one, that’s for sure.’ Tom’s countenance was pale and void of expression, as if what he was about to say meant nothing to him. ‘I guess I don’t mind if I give myself to him, providing you and the baby are kept out of harms way.’

  Kate shook her head back and forth. ‘I can’t do this,’ she choked. ‘I can’t do this any more. It’s impossible!’

  He could see she was becoming fretful and put his arm around her. They stayed like that for the rest of the night, sitting on the sofa in the living room, in the dark, holding one another, doing their utmost not to panic.

  ***

  Tom stood at the living room and watched the sunrise. He didn’t think he’d ever actually watched something so amazing in all his life, captivated by nature’s sheer beauty. It could be the last sunrise I ever watch, he thought.

  As he watched the sun rising over the horizon, getting bigger, growing brighter, he wondered whether or not there actually was a god, and if there was such a thing as life after death. If he knew for certain that death wasn’t the end, then maybe he could make his final decision with a strong heart, without sorrow and regret and above all... fear. If God did exist, he needed all the strength he could get from Him to guide him into the light.

  Behind Tom, Kate stirred and slowly came to. She saw him standing by the living room window staring outside at the rising sun.

  ‘Kate, I’m in work all week. We’ve got a decision to make, and I want make it today rather than at the last minute. What d’you wanna do?’

  She hadn’t expected him to ask the question so soon in the day. In fact she’d hoped they could try and forget about the Frozen Man’s unexpected visit yesterday until it got closer to the time. But that was only because she dreaded making the awful, heartbreaking decision.

  ‘I don’t think it’s my choice, Tom. I think it’s yours,’ she said.

  ‘Kate, can you really live with yourself if you decide to hand over our baby to him? I don’t think you or I could do that... not if we’re being realistic. And, after all, it was me and Charles who threw t
he body into the fire, not you or our baby.’

  Kate sat upright and took a sip of vodka from the drinking cabinet.

  ‘Pour me a brandy while your there, would you?’ Tom asked, seeing where she was standing.

  Kate reluctantly opened the bottle of brandy, got Tom’s glass which had been left next to her vodka and poured him a drink. She crossed the room and handed him his drink, then said, ‘Do you have any idea what will happen to you if you give yourself up? I mean if you decide to give yourself over.’

  Tom shook his head.

  ‘Then maybe you should think about what you’re saying more carefully,’ she said.

  Tom turned around and faced her. ‘You ready to hand our child over when he comes to collect, Kate? I don’t think you are.’

  Kate averted her gaze to the window. ‘I’m not sure if I’m ready to part with you or the baby, Tom. I’m not sure if I could live without you. I know that sounds a little extreme, and maybe in time I would learn to live with such a loss... but I’d never truly recover.’

  Tom put his glass down on the window sill. ‘You’re not supposed to, Kate.

  None of us are. That’s why it killed Carlton, Charles, and all the others. It wants bitter sweet revenge. It’ll allow you to live, I presume, as long as you are suffering.’

  They both fell silent for a while.

  ‘I gotta die sometime,’ Tom said. ‘Might as well be for a good cause, don’t you think?’

  Kate contorted her face. ‘How do you know, though that it’ll kill you for sure?

  And if it’s as powerful as you said, and that book Charles read to us say’s it is, then maybe it’ll keep your soul for an eternity. How do you know it won’t go against it’s word about not harming me or the baby once you have gone, huh?’

  Tom nodded. ‘I thought of that, Kate. But I believe it’s a man - or whatever it is - of it’s word. All it wants a younger, fresher body, so it can continue to walk the earth... It’s just my body, not my heart.’ He took her hand in his and pressed it against the left hand side of his chest where she could feel his love for her beat rhythmically.

  ‘Maybe if we tell him it can have the baby. But when the time comes we can do a runner?’ Kate was grabbing at straws, and Tom knew it - so did she.

  ‘No matter where we go, Kate, it’ll find us. You’ve got to remember he’s not a man, not a human, anyway.’

  Kate didn’t know what to say. In less than a week, either her baby or her beloved husband would be gone for good, and there wasn’t anything she or anyone could do to prevent it from occurring.

  ‘I want you to do me a favour, though?’ Tom asked.

  ‘Just name it.’

  ‘Tomorrow, or one day in the week when you go to the hospital, I want you to ask what sex our baby is. I know we originally agreed to not wanting to know until the baby was born - but I’m not going to be around for that. But at least I’ll know whether my only child was a boy or a girl. Could you do that for me?’

  ‘Of course... If you’d like, when I find out, we can give him or her a name?’

  Tom smiled plaintively. ‘I’d like that very much. Thank you.’

  Kate put her glass down next to his on the window sill and hugged him close.

  ‘Are you sure this is the right thing to do?’

  ‘I’m as sure as I’ll ever be,’ Tom said, his voice breaking.

  ‘Maybe you should phone in sick tomorrow and say you’ll be off work for the rest of the week. It won’t matter.’

  ‘Yeah, going to work is kinda’ the last thing on my mind right now,’ he said.

  Kate could scarcely believe that Tom had offered his own life for the sake of their unborn child. She was lost for words. Words would never describe the mixture of emotions she felt right now. Instead she just buried her head against Tom’s chest and listened to the beat of his loving heart.

  ***

  Sunday came and went faster than any other Sunday he could ever recall. Or was it just his imagination making him believe it had gone extra fast? He couldn’t be sure of anything any more. All he hoped was that his decision would be the right one. That’s all that mattered now. Nothing else.

  On Monday morning, Kate informed him her scan would be on Tuesday. He agreed to go along with her, and this time ask whether or not it was a boy or a girl.

  Prior to the Frozen Man entering his home on Saturday and turning his world upside down, if Tom had a choice, he would have liked to have had a boy - but now it didn’t really seem all that important what sex the baby was, as long as the child was healthy and lived their life to the fullest he really didn’t care. He hadn’t thought of a name. It hadn’t even crossed his mind until this week. The final week of his life.

  Tom thought if he ever knew he would have only a week to live, or know the day of his death, he would be horror-stricken. Yet an inexplicable calmness overcame him. He kept assuring himself that on the day when the Frozen Man came and took his life away from him, he would feel very different - and perhaps he would. Nevertheless, for some reason his conscience doubted it.

  Maybe that was verification he needed to know in his heart, that he had made the right decision, after all.

  31

  Tom lay in bed, his eyes wide open, as he stroked Kate’s long, blonde hair, knowing that tonight would be his last with his wife. Friday had come around so fast it was almost as if time had deliberately increased its speed, purposely against him, too.

  Contemplating about how time flew by reminded him of when he was a young boy and he was called to come inside by his mum. He’d been out in the garden playing football with his dad until dusk. He got quite upset and complained that it surely couldn’t have been time for a bath and bed, already. However, when he looked up at the clock on the kitchen wall he was surprised that his mum wasn’t lying. It was late in fact. His mum had said to him then, “Man’s greatest enemy is time, Tom.” Then she’d gone upstairs and drew him a hot bath.

  Tomorrow the Frozen Man would arrive to take him into the unknown. Tom feared the unknown; just like any other man who lived on earth. He’d asked God to give him strength to see this through to its bitter end, and give him all the strength he would need to be courageous when the time came to stand up against the evil force, when the time was upon him. Tom could only hope God would do that much for him, at least.

  He checked the digital alarm clock - 1:05a.m. It seemed as if only twenty minutes had passed since he’d retired to bed with Kate and talked her into sleep.

  But that was over two hours ago. He closed his eyes. He wasn’t tired. He just wanted to close them over and imagine what his son would look like when he started growing up and became the man he would be for the rest of his life.

  Their son would be named, Tom - after his father - who had made the ultimate sacrifice many men in the world wars had made before him; to give up his life for the future generations.

  Kate had assured him that she would make absolute certain people remembered him. She wouldn’t be able to tell the truth about the Frozen Man, as no one would believe her. They would think she was stark-raving mad.

  However, she would tell people that an evil man had come to their home and gave Tom an ultimatum - either she and the baby die or him. It wasn’t altogether true, yet it wasn’t altogether false, either.

  Kate had been adamant that if he was going to die for a good cause, then people had a right to know what he’d done for the greater good. What he would do tomorrow would be remembered out of respect by others, who would admire his courage and dignity, and make them be a better person by learning from Tom’s example. Yet Tom didn’t believe he was courageous; he just believed that what he was doing would be the only moral thing he could do in this unbearable situation.

  A tear escaped his left eye and streamed down his face. He smiled with great joy, watching K
ate push his young, jovial son, to and fro on a swing, without anything to fear from the Frozen Man or anyone else ever again.

  He slept for three and a half hours before snapping awake, assuming for a few short seconds that he’d slept much longer. He didn’t want to sleep any more even if he could. There would no logic in doing so. When the Frozen Man arrived to take his body, he would have plenty of time for sleep - but not yet... not yet.

  Tom went downstairs and read a few passages from the Holy Bible on the bookshelf. He’d never read any of it since his childhood. He’d been given the Bible as a present from his headmaster on his last day of school, who read a passage from the book. But he and his school-friends didn’t understand it. They were too young. Yet now the scripture enchanted him; comforted him.

  When he’d been on his way home with a group of friends on the last day of school, a lot the boys’ had set light to their books with their lighters and hurled them in a waste barrel; but for reasons unknown to him, Tom had refused to do what they had done, even though he endured a lot of ribbing for doing so afterwards. Now he was glad that he hadn’t burned it or thrown it away.

  The timer on the video recorder read 6:02a.m. Tom had no idea when the Frozen Man would arrive, so he ascended the stairs and gently woke his wife.

  He saw that she’d been crying in her slumber. Before he headed back upstairs, though, Tom prayed to God to help Kate cope with the consequences of his actions. And for the first time in his life, Tom had faith that God would do just that. Unlike the Frozen Man, God didn’t break His promises, Tom thought.

  ‘Hi,’ he said to his wife. The word made him recall the first time they had met and he’d said, ‘Hi,’ to her. If he hadn’t had the courage to approach Kate all those years ago they would’ve never have spoken, they would’ve never have fallen in love and been husband and wife.