Frostbitten: The Complete Series

by Bera, Ilia

  “What? I had that job for a while—remember? At the shoe store on Arbutus.”

  “Yeah—And what happened?”

  “I couldn’t stand it—It was mind-numbingly boring.”

  “But you say that about everything.”

  “No I don’t.”

  “When you took that art class?”

  “What? That was boring. It wasn’t for me.”

  “That hiking group?”

  “They did the same three trails over and over—after a month there was nothing left to see.”

  “Well, what do you like to do?” Eric asked.

  “I don’t know.”

  “Anything in the world—If you could do anything, what would you do?”

  “I don’t know.”

  “You like movies—why don’t you look into being a movie reviewer or maybe a filmmaker?”

  “I don’t really like movies, they’re just… There. They’re something to do.”

  Eric sighed. “There must be something you enjoy. Video games? Porn? Anything?”

  Andrew thought. “I mean, I liked travelling—I want to go travelling again.”

  “Okay, so start planning that.”

  “I don’t have the money, and my parents won’t pay for it anymore.”

  “So figure out how much you need, and get a job.”

  “I would need a lot—It would take me years to make enough to do what I want to do.”

  “But Andrew—That’s what people do—That’s just life. People have to work for the things that they want. If everything were just free and easy, then the things wouldn’t be worth doing.”

  “But I tried that job, and I couldn’t do it. Everyday was like slamming my head against a wall. Besides, Penelope is still going around on dad’s dollar.”

  “Your sister held down a job for a year when I was with her.”

  “That’s because dad stopped giving her money when you got married.”

  “What?” Lucy, Eric’s lady friend chimed in.

  “He stopped giving me money for no reason,” Andrew said.

  “He stopped giving you money because you’re an adult, and adult’s don’t get allowance.”

  “It’s not fair—he’s a millionaire, doing nothing with his money.”

  Eric sighed as he tried to think of a solution.

  “Maybe you just need a girlfriend,” Eric’s date suggested..

  “Yeah—There you go. Girls are the biggest time-sink of all time. Why don’t you just get a girlfriend?”

  “Okay. I’ll just make a stop at the Girlfriend Store on my way home and pick one up.”

  Eric laughed. “Well you would need to ask a girl out—is there someone you like?”

  Andrew thought about it. “I don’t know.”

  “I don’t know means yes,” Lucy said with a smile.

  “Tell me about her,” Eric insisted.

  “I don’t know—I barely know her. She just—she just seems like a normal person.”

  “Well you will barely know every girl until you go on a few dates,” Eric said.

  “I don’t know. I don’t think I’m her type to be honest.”

  “Girls don’t have types. Girls just like guys who are confident with themselves,” Lucy said. “Like Eric.”

  “Thanks babe,” Eric said, giving Lucy a peck on the cheek. “Who is this girl? Do I know her?” Eric asked Andrew.

  Andrew was silent for a moment.

  “Is she in your class?”

  “Yeah.”

  Eric thought for a moment, and then the light in his brain went off. “Oh, Andrew—Her? I don’t know, dude. That’s not the kind of girl that I’m talking about.”

  “What do you mean?” Andrew asked.

  “She’s not—how can I put this—The girlfriend type of girl.”

  “Why?”

  “She’s got issues—Daddy issues, emotional issues. Girls like that are ticking time bombs.”

  “She’s actually a pretty cool, down-to-earth girl.”

  “Andrew—she went home with a guy that she met at a bar on a weekday.”

  “I met you at the bar and I went home with you!” Lucy said, offended by the statement.

  “That’s different, babe. You’re special.”

  Lucy’s anger turned suddenly into flattery. “Aw—Thanks, babe.”

  “All I’m saying is—she’ll end up hurting you. I hate to say it, but she’s kind of—kind of a slut.”

  “I think that, if you talked to her, you would think otherwise.”

  “I talked to her. She was flirting with me the moment she walked into the bar. Then, she was flirting with that jock kid in your class, and then she went home with that British kid—three guys within a one hour window.”

  Andrew thought about it as he looked down at the ground. He knew that there was more to Brittany than what was on the surface, but he didn’t know how to justify it.

  At the same time, Eric was right—Brittany showed interest in every single guy in that bar...

  Every single guy except for Andrew.

  “Or maybe the girlfriend thing isn’t the solution—maybe we just need to find you a different hobby,” Eric said, recognizing Andrew’s sour reaction to the subject.

  “Yeah,” Andrew said with a tone of defeat.

  “One of my buddies is really into curling. Maybe curling could be your thing?”

  “Maybe.”

  CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE

  THE WILKINSON HOUSE

  The icy midnight winds were strong enough to pierce the thick metal doors of the ’69 Mustang, as Kane sat in the driver’s seat. With a laptop computer made from various second-hand parts on his lap, Kane searched through the regional police database. He’d hacked into a wireless signal from a nearby family home.

  During his short stint in juvy, Kane acquired a number of skills. Hacking was one of many useful skills he picked up from other delinquents in the correctional facility.

  It wasn’t hard for him to find information about Hanna, her father and the mysterious homicide case that plagued the old home.

  People had always written Kane off as stupid and useless—destined for a life behind bars, or behind the counter at the local McDonald’s. What no one realized was that Kane was a genius. He had an incredibly unique ability—the ability to look at life objectively.

  When Kane looked at a computer screen—when most people would see flashy icons and pictures—Kane would see the coding that ran the machine. When he looked at a car, he would see all of its parts and mechanisms.

  It was no different on a larger scale. He could see the inner workings of society as a whole. He could look at a room full of people, and know exactly whom he could manipulate. He knew which laws could be twisted in his favour. He understood money, and the way it moved through banks, traders, investments and back again—Kane watched society as if it was an anthill made of glass.

  With very little effort, Kane managed to pull up the file on the Wilkinson case. There, he conveniently found Hanna’s address and her police history.

  Varoom!

  He fired up his old Mustang and made his way towards the filed address. He drove slowly, with the headlights of his black car turned off. He stared out the window, taking note of the house numbers as they rose—getting closer to Hanna’s address.

  Then, he came to a stop.

  Out of his driver’s side window was Hanna’s old, decrepit house. Kane had to double check the address, as the rundown house looked as if no one had lived there for over a decade.

  But the address matched the file.

  Kane scrolled through the police file again, pulling up a picture of the house.

  Kane was indeed at the correct house. However, the house in the police photo was in better condition. In the pictures, it looked like a happy family home. There were no plywood boards on the windows, and the lawn was vibrantly green and nicely kept, with flowers and little lawn ornaments scattered about.

  In one of the windows you could
see the pink walls of a little girl’s room, with window-decals spelling the name “Hanna”. Everything about the house seemed happy.

  Kane clicked through the police photos. The photos moved inside of the home.

  The house’s living room was pleasant—cosy looking, although you could tell that the residents didn’t have a lot of money. The furniture was dated, but it was clean and organized. There were family photos on the walls of Hanna and her father, as well as older photos of Hanna’s father with his late-wife—a beautiful Russian-looking woman.

  The house wasn’t put together by an interior decorator by any means—none of the furniture matched, and everything looked like it was picked up from the local redirectory. But the home still looked homey.

  Kane flicked through to the next photo—the hallway outside of the master bedroom. Like the living room before it, the hall was lined with happy family photos—in mismatched frames. Down the hall, the bedroom door was open and a hard, cold light was pouring through it.

  There was something evil through that door—something that lingered in those photos.

  The pictures took a stark turn from there. In the master bedroom was blood—lots of blood. The first picture just caught the edge of a corpse—a bloody, mangled corpse.

  The bed was soaked through with dark venous blood, and the walls were spattered with harsh arterial blood. Blankets had been aggressively pulled off of the bed, and lamps were smashed against the cold ground.

  The next photo was of the deceased man on the floor. His jaw had been nearly ripped from his face and his throat had been cut long and deep.

  You could practically smell the decaying corpse through the photos.

  Kane quickly closed the file, exiting the gruesome scene. He took a deep breath and looked back at the threatening old house.

  He buttoned up his pea coat and stepped out into the cold winter night, placing his feet down firmly in the thick, cold snow. He walked around to his trunk and then, cautiously looking around, Kane stuffed a number of stakes into the inside of his jacket. He put a jar of holy water in his front pocket, and he picked up a fancy-looking crossbow-rifle hybrid.

  He pulled back the clip of the speciality weapon, ensuring it was loaded, and then he concealed it under his arm as he closed the trunk.

  He began to walk towards the house. He looked around himself as he approached the door. He took a breath as a cold breeze stung his exposed skin.

  Carefully, he pushed the old broken door open, eliciting a loud creak from the hinge and a loud groan from the rotting foundation.

  The inside of the house was dark—nearly black.

  Kane reached into his pocket and pulled out a small led flashlight. He turned it on, lighting up the whole entryway. Cautiously, he scanned the initial area.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX

  A GHOSTLY PRESENCE

  He stepped into the cold, evil house. A powerfully cold sensation shivered down his spine as the house growled another threatening groan. The house was tainted with dread.

  Kane felt nervous, as if someone—or something was watching him. The way the cold wind crept through the decrepit house sounded almost like a faint whispering sort of noise.

  The nervous vampire hunter began to walk through the aged house, scanning every wall with his flashlight. The thick dust on the floor and walls suggested that no one was home—no one had been home in ages. Kane looked down at the ground. His shoes left an impression in the dense layer of dust—but there were no other footprints.

  Vampires don’t leave footprints. They don’t have reflections either. They avoid deep snow, and they avoid mirrors, knowing that they’ll give up their identity if they aren’t very careful. Kane noticed right away that, in class, Hanna sat on the far end of the room, away from the windows. She was always careful to walk in the footprints of others through the snowy streets. She was a prime suspect as far as Kane was concerned.

  Kane approached a closed door—the door to Hanna’s bedroom. On the old door, dust sat on a set of colourful letters, spelling “Hanna” with hearts at the beginning and end. On the other end of the door was faint music.

  Kane grabbed the handle gently, and then took a breath. Then, with his weapon drawn, he swiftly pushed the door open.

  The old door pushed a plume of dust up into the air. Kane held his gun tight, ready to fire. As the dust settled, the room revealed itself to be empty—there was nothing but an old mattress and an old radio.

  The radio had been left on, but was covered in dust as if no one had touched it in ages.

  Kane’s heart was pounding against his chest as he tried to compose his breath. Suddenly, something cold touched his shoulder. He rapidly turned back into the hallway with his gun readied.

  He was alone.

  That powerful sense of dread was quickly intensifying. It was evident that something bad happened in that house—something horrible.

  Another gust of cold win blew against the old house, eliciting another eerie whisper through the loose foundations.

  Afraid, Kane continued his way down the hallway, finding himself in the living room—the same room from that happy family photo. Now, the room was cold and dark. The big picture window was boarded up with plywood, and the rug had become patchy and stained with mould, broken beer bottles and moisture. The furniture was gone, and so were the pictures that had previously hung on the wall. The room was deathly silent and uninviting.

  The house continued to moan and groan in the silent Snowbrooke night.

  Kane looked around. The house had no basement, and there was only one more place to investigate—the attic.

  Kane made his way towards the attic ladder. Another cold sensation grasped Kane’s shoulder, forcing him to spin around. The grasp was frighteningly human, the way it curled around the curve of his shoulders. As the invisible hand pulled away, Kane could feel sharp fingernails glide across his skin.

  Still, Kane was alone. All of Kane’s muscles and bones were tense. His breathing rate was rapidly increasing along with his heart rate.

  He turned slowly back to the ladder.

  Bang! Bang! Bang!

  A swift thumping noise rattled the house, startling Kane.

  Kane spun around to the direction of the sound—it was coming from the front door. He stared at the door for a moment as his body overcame the initial shock.

  Bang! Bang! Bang!

  Through a crack in the boarded up front window, Kane could see the shadow of a human standing and waiting. Someone was there.

  With all of the windows boarded up, the front door was the only escape from the old small house. Kane looked around. He needed to hide.

  Next to the front door was an old closet—an unlikely place for anyone to look.

  Kane quietly made his way towards the closet, carefully hiding his weapon inside of his jacket. Just before he reached the intended hiding spot, the door swung open. Kane froze—caught. All the blood flowed out of his face as a sharp breeze fell upon him.

  Standing in the doorway was Connor, in his thick winter coat. Connor froze and his expression dropped as he saw Kane standing in the house. There was a moment of tense silence between the two men. Connor was afraid of what Kane was going to do—or what he had already done.

  “H—Hey,” Kane said.

  “What are you doing here?” Connor asked, keeping his guard about him.

  “I was dropping off Hanna’s copy of A Tale of Two Cities. She let me borrow it after class,” Kane lied. He faked a convincing laugh. “Believe it or not I’ve already lost mine.”

  “Where’s Hanna? Is Hanna home?”

  “No. She’s not here.”

  Connor stared at Kane with intense suspicion.

  “I’m not sure where she is—so I just left the book on the table inside.”

  Connor continued to stare at Kane, trying to see through his façade.

  “I would have left it in the mail box, but the mailbox is broken, and I didn’t want the book to get wet from the snow—Are y
ou okay, man?”

  “Where did you get Hanna’s address? How did you know where she lived?”

  “She gave it to me. I promised I would bring the book back tonight.”

  “You just let yourself in?”

  “I knocked, like you—but no one answered.”

  “You can’t just walk into someone’s house, Kane.”

  “Look who’s talking,” Kane said.

  Connor didn’t have a response. He too was guilty for letting himself in.

  “Why are you here?”

  Connor thought for a moment. He wasn’t as good at lying as Kane was. “I just wanted to check up on her. I had a really bad feeling about her.”

  “You shouldn’t be out this late—you know there’s a lunatic running around.”

  “I know,” Connor said. “That’s why I worry.”

  “Well, good on you for keeping an eye out. I need to get going. Don’t stay out too late, hey?” Kane said as he walked past Connor, who was left standing in the desolate doorway of the haunting house.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-SEVEN

  A LONG WAY FROM INDIA

  Where Hanna was that night, Kane never figured out. He drove around town, looking for any sign of her—but he found nothing.

  Finally, when the people of Snowbrooke began to rise for their morning jobs, Kane threw in the towel and made his way back home to rest.

  As he drove back to his little rented apartment across town, the radio announced that the homicide death toll rose yet again overnight, bringing the number of apparent vampire victims to twelve.

  Kane slammed his dashboard with his fist, cutting his knuckle. Every night that Kane came up short, someone else died—and he couldn’t help but feel like it was his fault. He’d taken on a responsibility, and wasn’t fulfilling expectations.

  But his eyes were heavy and his mind was waning. He needed to get some sleep. He was still human, after all.

  Kane’s apartment was small—a cheap little rental on the far end of town. There were only six units in the little building, and they were all empty—all except for two: Kane’s and that of the little Indian landlord who owned the building. During the day, the whole apartment smelled like curry—amazingly delectable curry.