Cruel Winter

by Anthony Izzo

  “Maybe.”

  “Yes or no?”

  “Yeah.”

  He tilted the kid’s chin up and looked into his blue eyes.

  “Listen to me. Ronnie, right?” The kid nodded. “There’s someone very dangerous hiding in those tunnels and we have to find him. He killed some people in town. You heard about that on the news, right?”

  “Uh-huh.”

  “We need to find him.”

  “You’re not going to hurt my mom?”

  “I promise we won’t hurt your mom.”

  “As long as you promise.”

  He led them through the maze of corridors and through a room with Foosball tables, a bar, video games, and a projection-screen television. It would be a hell of a room for a party. Too bad it was wasted on someone like Cassie Winter.

  “There.”

  He pointed to a kitchen off the big room and Kempf saw a refrigerator overturned. Cans of Pepsi lay on the floor like wounded soldiers after a battle.

  “That’s the entrance. Get your mag lights out.”

  The three officers produced black steel flashlights and turned them on.

  “Stay close,” Kempf said. “It’s going to be darker than a fat lady’s asshole down there.”

  “What do we do with him?” MacKenzie nodded at Ronnie.

  “Stay in this room. If you hear anyone coming up the tunnel steps, run and hide. If it’s one of us, we’ll yell for you and tell you to come out. Okay?”

  “Got it.”

  He stood with his hands in his pockets, watching them.

  “Did your friend Jack go into the tunnels?”

  “Yep. Him and Emma.”

  Great. They had a bloodthirsty creature loose along with the serial killer. Trying to find them and not shoot themselves or one of the kids was going to be two steps from impossible. If no innocent bystanders (or hostages) got killed it would make the water-into-wine thing look like a parlor trick.

  Paul raised the gun with both hands and aimed for the Wraith’s chest, where he guessed the heart was under that dead skin. It started forward, and he could feel it staring at them, penetrating. Even though it had no eyes, the son of a gun was staring at them. He wondered what it saw.

  “Shoot it, Fussel!”

  He closed his eyes and squeezed the trigger. The metal seemed to bite into the flesh on his finger and the gun boomed like a cannon. It recoiled hard, knocking him back three steps, and Chris caught him before he did a reverse somersault on the marble floor. The shot glanced off the top of the Wraith’s shoulder and exploded into the wall in a puff of plaster. The Wraith jerked back as if someone had shoved it but kept up its steady advance toward Paul and Chris.

  “We have to go out the door,” Paul said.

  “Are you crazy?”

  “You can’t hurt something that’s already dead. Open the door. We’ll look for another way back into the mansion.”

  The Wraith raced ahead.

  Chris backed up, felt for the doorknob, and twisted it. He pulled on the door, knocked it into himself. He turned around and opened it all the way. Snow lashed into the doorway. They could not stay out very long, for they both wore light shirts and no jackets. The cold would eat them for lunch.

  Paul slid through next and slammed the door behind him. They backed down the steps and Chris kept going, smacking into the limousine.

  “What if we hide in here?” Chris patted the roof of the limo.

  “We’d be trapped. Come on.”

  Paul followed the front of the house and Chris came after. They ducked low as if this would keep them out of the wind, but it did no good. The twenty-mile-an-hour winds stabbed and poked at them, shoving them backward. Paul heard a faint thump under the wind, and he knew it was the door opening and closing. The Wraith was outside. He wondered how well it could see, and if it was tracking them right now. He had hoped the snow would provide some cover for them, but if it had no eyes, it probably wouldn’t be affected by the blinding storm.

  Snow crunched behind them.

  “Hurry up!” Paul said.

  He expected to look around and see a pool of blood on the snow where his friend once stood.

  “We can’t just sit here,” Jack said, after a few long minutes.

  “What, then?”

  Jack shone the light on the surrounding walls, hoping to find a door or passageway that Steadman’s workers had cut out of the rock. He felt around with his hand. The walls were smooth and slick, as if they had broken out in a cold sweat.

  “Looking for a door?” Emma said.

  “Yeah. Nothing.”

  He felt the rough wood of the beams holding up the roof. A splinter slipped under his thumb and he pulled it back as if he had been burned. The beams were all that held this section of the tunnel roof up.

  “Come on, Emma.” He shone the light and felt his way along the wall.

  “What if she’s waiting there?”

  “We’ll deal with her.”

  He felt better thinking that here. When they got to the end of the tunnel, he might feel differently.

  “Will you hold my hand?” Emma said.

  He extended his hand and she took it. It sent a tiny wave of prickles up his arm.

  They came to the junction but Cassie was nowhere to be seen. Water dribbled somewhere far off and a slight breeze blew down the tunnels. He strained his ears to listen but heard nothing, only the drip-drip of water.

  “Where do you think she went?” Emma asked.

  “Maybe she went back upstairs.”

  “Which way to the house?”

  “Left, I think.”

  They turned left, Jack shining the light ahead of them.

  “It can’t be too far. Didn’t we turn a couple of times?”

  It was so dark when they had raced down here he had trouble remembering the turns. She had pushed them along like cattle through a chute, and all the walls and corridors looked the same to him.

  “Jack, what’s that? Stop.” Emma tugged on his arm and they stopped.

  “What?”

  “Listen.”

  A low, purring noise came from up ahead. It sounded as if the purr had been combined with the wheeze of an asthmatic. There were clicks, grunts, and whispers.

  “It sounds like a snake,” Emma said.

  “I don’t think there’s any big snakes around here.”

  The noise grew closer, scuttling on the stones. The whispering increased, strange words that sounded like another language.

  “I think we should go back,” Emma said.

  “I think you’re right.”

  They started a retreat down the tunnels.

  Kempf took the lead into the tunnels. He had nearly fallen and broken his neck coming down the concrete steps and MacKenzie had snickered behind him. He advised him to keep quiet unless he wanted to be shitting a Dexter wing tip.

  The temperature dipped, and the cold began to gnaw at his hands, making it hard to hold the shotgun. He wished for a pair of gloves. Why not just wish for a nice set of thermal underwear, too?

  They went a hundred feet into the tunnel and came to a corridor to their right.

  “Let’s try this way,” Kempf said.

  He watched the floor, looking for footprints or marks in the dust that would indicate the passage of another person.

  “Harris and MacKenzie! Take the tunnel we came down and see where it goes. We’ll wait here.”

  Harris, a big blond kid with a full beard, nodded. The two of them crept into the dark and disappeared around the corner.

  “I don’t like this,” Stavros said. Clear snot trickled into his mustache. He wiped it with the back of his hand.

  Kempf said, “The quicker we find him, the quicker we get out of here.”

  Harris and MacKenzie appeared, their breath visible in white plumes.

  “It ends at a wall. Looks like it caved in. There’s a big pile of stone,” Harris said.

  Had the librarian told him about a collapse in the tunnel
s? It seemed to him there was a story about Steadman’s workers dying when the roof fell in on them. That was a hell of a way to go. “Then it’s this way.”

  They reached another junction and had the option of turning right or going straight. How did hospital workers ever find their way around these catacombs without becoming hopelessly lost?

  A hissing sound came from up ahead.

  “What the piss is that?” Harris said.

  “It might be him,” Kempf said. “You two move up.”

  Stavros and Harris flanked him while MacKenzie stayed back.

  “Show us your hands and come out.” That thing with the bandaged face was not coming out with its hands up, even if Kempf had a bullhorn.

  Another hiss came and with it scraping on the sidewalk. Kempf imagined it in the dark, the dirty bandages stuck to pasty skin, the coveralls stained with blood. Most of all the eyes. Black as a coal mine. In the dark, it wouldn’t matter because somehow he knew it could find them. “Come out now!”

  His voice echoed down the hallway, and he hoped the kids had heard his shout.

  Nothing happened for a moment and he said, “Let’s go, there’s nothing here.”

  CHAPTER 42

  Paul and Chris turned the corner around the mansion’s front wall. Paul’s arms were pink and his cheeks stung. His shirt grew more sodden with each step, as did his shoes and pant legs. If they didn’t get out of this storm in a hurry, they were dead.

  “Maybe we lost it in the snow,” Chris said.

  “I don’t think so.”

  Paul saw a set of windows up ahead. They extended up the first story of the mansion, three of them in a row. They could break those windows and climb inside. “Head for the windows. We can shoot them out if we have to.”

  Chris nodded, his arms crossed in front of him. His nose shone red from the cold.

  Paul risked a look over his shoulder and saw nothing but blowing snow. He hadn’t heard any footsteps in the last few moments. Maybe they did lose the Wraith. Perhaps the snow confused it, and it was wandering off to the wooded part of the estate.

  The snow lessened and through the break he saw the far corner of the mansion. The wind still blew hard and fast, but with small gaps in between the gusts. The break lasted a moment, but it was all they needed. Paul looked to his right and saw it speeding toward them. It must have taken a wrong turn, thinking they went farther away from the house and toward the woods. The black eyes looked like two pinpricks in a piece of paper.

  “Chris, hurry up! It’s coming!”

  Ronnie considered staying in the great room for about a second after the police went into the tunnels. If the detective said they wouldn’t hurt his mom, he believed them. After all, she hadn’t done anything wrong, and he was sure the cops would go home and they could get back to their sleepover. He decided to go look for Paul and Chris. They were probably lost, wandering along hallways.

  He had made a sweep of the mansion, including his own room, the study, billiard room, sunroom, and a dozen others. But no sign of Chris and Paul. He reached the front foyer and noticed the draft dancing over his bare arms. The front door was open, and the wind blew hard enough to rattle the oak door on its hinges. Chris and Paul had gone outside, but why?

  He turned and saw John’s body and knew why. Somebody had killed him, and he thought about the red stuff on his mom’s face, but then dismissed the thought. His mother wasn’t capable of something like that. Blood dripped from the hole in John’s ruined throat, and Ronnie fought the urge to throw up. Instead, he cried, great sobs that racked his chest. Now he had lost two fathers. What a fucking life it was.

  He wiped the tears away with the back of his hand. What if the same person who killed John was after Chris and Paul? He ran off toward the west wing of the house and entered the study. Ronnie had already looked for them in this room, but the big windows looked over the expanse of the estate and if they were outside, he might see them.

  A few charred logs rested in the fireplace, and the room smelled like smoke. It was dim and he bumped his knee on an end table, cursing the rest of the way across the room. He moved the plum drape aside, looked out, and saw white. A look out the left pane revealed nothing but more snow, and there was nothing straight ahead. He peered out to his right and saw nothing. No, wait. A flash of blue. Paul had on a blue T-shirt, didn’t he?

  Paul came into view, then Chris. They lumbered through the deep snow, both with their heads down and trying to mow through the snow. Paul looked to his right every few seconds.

  Ronnie banged on the window with his palm, but Paul didn’t hear him. He pounded ahead through the snow.

  “Paul! Paul!” He slapped his palms against the glass. They would never hear him.

  This called for more drastic measures. He searched the room and picked up an end table and hauled it over to the window. He set the table down and flung the drape aside. Ronnie picked the table up. He charged forward and thrust it away from his chest as if he were passing a basketball. It smashed through the pane and teetered on the sill. He kicked it three times in rapid succession, forcing it out the window. Careful to avoid the jagged shards, he poked his head out the window. Paul looked up at him as if he had two heads sprouting from his neck.

  Chris came up behind him.

  “Kick the glass out!” Paul said. “There’s someone after us!”

  Ronnie didn’t wait for an explanation. He kicked at the shards and they tumbled onto the snow.

  “I’ll boost you up,” Chris said.

  Paul handed the gun to Ronnie.

  “Cool,” Ronnie said.

  Paul grabbed the windowsill and Chris bear-hugged his legs and lifted him the rest of the way inside. Ronnie and Paul urged Chris on, and he pulled himself halfway up before it grabbed him from behind.

  “Who the fuck is that?” Ronnie said. He had never seen anyone so creepy.

  Chris pulled, but the bandaged man grabbed his leg. Paul and Ronnie each gripped an arm and pulled, Ronnie propping his leg against the inside wall for leverage. Chris’s hold started to slip, and the nail on his index finger tore clean off, like a bottle cap popping. “Ah, that fucking hurts!”

  We can’t win this one, Ronnie thought.

  He grabbed the gun off the windowsill and pointed it at the guy’s head.

  Ronnie squinted, stuck out his tongue in concentration, and squeezed the trigger. The shot exploded into the guy’s jaw, ripping off bandages in blackened strips. Ronnie fell backward. The guy backed up and let go of Chris, who wormed his way inside the room, scrambling over the windowsill. The man drifted back into the snow. The smell of gunpowder and scorched flesh hung in the air.

  “Holy shit, my ears are ringing,” Paul said.

  “Thanks, you guys,” Chris said.

  “Who is that?” Ronnie said.

  “The thing that killed all those people,” Paul said. “Let’s go before it gets in here.”

  “Where?” Chris said.

  “The tunnels,” Chris said. “We have to help Jack and Emma.”

  “We’ve got four shots left if we need them. Lead on, Ron,” Paul said.

  Ronnie liked the idea of being the leader, like Lee Marvin in The Big Red One, taking his troops through North Africa and Sicily. “Follow me, boys.”

  He took off with Chris and Paul behind him.

  Kempf stepped forward. The hair on his neck started to prickle. Someone watching, getting close.

  That someone lunged out of the gloom and grabbed hold of Harris. His shotgun boomed in the tunnels, knocking pebbles loose from the ceiling. The thing was grayish white and fast. So fast it pulled Harris into the darkness within seconds. It was as if he got sucked into a black hole, and before the others even got a shot off. What the hell could move that fast? Kempf saw enough of it to know it wasn’t the Wraith, but if not the Wraith, then what? He shone his light ahead, but there was only blackness. Clicking noises reverberated down the length of the tunnel. Underneath it were Harris’s whimpers. Jesus, God,
don’t let me hear that.

  A moment later a shriek like a fire whistle came, a scream so high in pitch it sounded like a woman’s. It lasted a moment longer, then trailed off, but he knew he would hear that scream in his nightmares for years. No person should make a sound like that.

  He looked at Stavros and MacKenzie, both of them staring as if they had just seen a nine-foot clown appear from the tunnel.

  “What was that, Kempf?” Stavros said.

  “How in the name of Christ am I supposed to know?”

  “We need backup. Hell, let’s call the fucking SWAT team in here,” Stavros said.

  “We can’t leave Harris down here,” Kempf said. Although judging from that scream, Harris was probably beyond help.

  “MacKenzie, go back and radio for help. We’ll go look for Harris and whatever the hell took him.”

  “Yeah, good idea.” MacKenzie nodded. He wore his black hair slicked back with gel or mousse or some crap. “Go! It’s you and me, Stavros. Look sharp.”

  This operation was going along just swimmingly. One of his officers was dead and he had a civilian in the house with his throat chewed out. What really disturbed him was the thing that leaped out of the darkness and snatched Harris up as if he were made of paper and feathers. There was something else to deal with besides the Wraith, something he had not planned on. Swimmingly, all right.

  They moved ahead, past the corridor to the right.

  Paul, Chris, and Ronnie booked through the house. On the way to the great room, Paul picked up a phone and got what he expected: dead silence. Picking up the phone was worth a long shot, though, and he had thought maybe he could dial 911 and get someone here to save them.

  They reached the tunnel entrance and Paul realized they didn’t have a flashlight. The tunnel was far too dark to travel without light.

  “I’ll get a flashlight from my room,” Ronnie said.

  “You can’t go by yourself,” Chris said. “Not with that thing running around.”

  “Come with me then,” Ronnie said.