The Snow and The Darkness

by Matthew Warren Wilson

and self-awareness as Colonel Cuddles? Did they know what had just happened to their progenitor? Did they realize, right now, that they were being marked for death?

  Jason thought of how Cuddles had cut the binds that tied his hands. The creature had felt pity for him, or empathy, or something. These little replicas, deformed or not, were the same species. “I can’t,” Jason said. “If you want them dead, you’ll have to do it yourself.”

  The man stood from where he rested on the old woman’s dead thighs. He let out an exasperated grunt of disapproval and stomped across the room to the cage, at first splashing blood like a child in a mud puddle, then leaving bloody footprints on the dirty wooden floor. He bent down and snapped a little latch open, a latch Jason hadn’t even seen. He swung open a section on the front of the cage, leaving an opening about a foot and a half square.

  The man jabbed his hands inside the opening. All three of the creatures squealed and clicked, dodging his grasping fingers. Naturally, the one with no eyes was the first to succumb to the man’s clutches. He snatched it up in both hands and didn’t hesitate to squeeze and twist. It happened fast; there was no reflection, no contemplation, no remorse. He simply crushed the thing in his hands. As its thick blood spilled from a crack in its head and ran through the man’s fingers, Jason wondered how this man, who had seemed so weak just a few short moments ago, was capable of crushing this creature with his bare hands. Perhaps it was very vulnerable. Perhaps it had soft bones.

  When the blind creature stopped twitching, its body just a mass of bloody skin and crunchy pieces, the man dropped it and immediately began grasping for the next one. The two remaining in the cage scrambled around for a few seconds, but the man proved to be quite wily and managed to grab the one that had no teeth. He treated this one the same way he had the blind one, twisting and crushing its little body as it squealed.

  The third creature, the feathered one, took this opportunity to try to escape. It waddled its way through the opening in the cage and plopped out on the wooden floor, then tried to scurry toward the body of the dead woman. The man saw it, however, and it didn’t get far. He raised one of his bare feet and stomped on the thing, crushing its bulbous belly under his heel. The creature mewled, screeched, and then its teeth began to spin. It leaned forward quickly and the man’s toe disappeared inside its churning mouth. More blood spilled on the floor.

  The naked man cried out, dropping the toothless beast as he did so, and began stomping in a frenzy, smashing the creature with his feet. Blood spattered in all directions, both from his severed toe and from the creature’s body. Gooey organs seemed to ooze out between the feathers.

  Jason heard a deep voice in the hallway. “Mama? You okay? What’s with all the fuckin’ racket? I told ya I’s catching a few hours rest, ya can’t even let me sleep in peace?”

  Jason wheeled around, raising the axe. He faced the door, trembling.

  “Mama?”

  Behind Jason, the naked man didn’t seem to hear Cliff’s voice. Or if he did, he simply didn’t care. He continued stomping on the feathered beast, grunting and wheezing and cursing.

  The door swung inward. Cliff stood in the hallway, no longer wearing his flannel shirt. Instead, he wore a t-shirt that used to be white. Now it was a dingy shade of cream, stained yellow under the armpits. He still wore blue jeans, but he only had socks on his feet. His stocking cap was gone, and his wiry black hair puffed out in all directions. When he saw Jason, his eyes widened.

  Then he charged.

  Jason swung the axe, but Cliff was faster and stronger than he’d anticipated. If Rodney had been anything close to Cliff’s equal, Jason couldn’t fathom how Lucy had managed to get the drop on him. As Jason brought the axe down in its deadly arc, Cliff reached up with both hands and grasped the handle in the air. He stepped deftly to the side, allowing the axe to continue its trajectory, then pulled hard, using the axe’s momentum as leverage.

  Jason, terrified of releasing the axe, was pulled forward and past Cliff. Despite his will to keep it, he simply couldn’t maintain his grip on the handle. It was wrenched from his hands, and he stumbled, turning his body as he fell, and crashed shoulder first into the edge of the open door. Pain exploded in his shoulder, reaching its icy tendrils all the way to the tips of his fingers and the center of his back. He landed on the floor in front of the doorway.

  Cliff grinned at him. “Thought ya’d outsmart me, huh?” he said. “Thought ya’d—” He stopped abruptly and turned his head, seeing his mother on the floor. Jason didn’t know how he could’ve missed it when he’d first entered the room, but maybe he’d been too focused on Jason. Cliff whimpered like a kicked dog.

  Jason ventured a glance at the dead woman, and saw what Cliff was seeing. It wasn’t just the fact that the woman was lying in a pool of blood, multiple gashes leaking brownish-red goop, and her shoulder nearly severed from her neck. That would’ve been bad enough on its own, but now the naked man was crouched over the woman’s face. He appeared to be masturbating.

  That was too much for Cliff, apparently. He turned away from Jason and charged the man, swinging the axe across the front of his body as if it were a sword. It caught the man in the chest and embedded deep in his flesh. It jolted his whole body, but the blade did not tear free, so as Cliff pulled the axe back toward himself, he also pulled the naked man with it. Jason was shocked to see that the blow had not killed the man instantly. Instead, he stroked himself feverishly, as if he hadn’t even noticed.

  Cliff roared, wrenching the axe handle back and forth until the blade finally loosened and then retracted from the man’s chest. When it did, a river of blood flowed from the wound, dousing the man’s chest, stomach, and groin. He stumbled slightly, and his movements seemed to slow down, but his hand continued pumping up and down, up and down.

  Cliff had lost control. He was roaring and cursing. He kicked out with one foot, pushing the naked man over. The man landed on top of the dead woman, still pumping away, and this only served to enrage Cliff further. He turned to the side, pulled the axe up in a backswing, and then swung as if he were driving a golf ball, burying the blade in the naked man’s groin. It reached almost to his navel.

  That, finally, stopped the masturbation, but the man was still not dead. Cliff wrenched the axe free once again, then swung it in a mighty wood-chopper’s chop, completely decapitating the man. There was now so much blood in the room that the wood floor was hardly visible. The stink of it touched Jason’s nostrils, but it didn’t faze him. It was astonishing how quickly he’d adapted to the horrors he’d seen.

  But he was still standing in the doorway, mesmerized by the scene that had just occurred. Why hadn’t he turned and run when he’d had the chance? He no longer had a weapon. Cliff had proved that even with a weapon, Jason was no match for him, so what did Jason think he was going to accomplish with just his bare hands? He’d been stupid. It was time to run.

  But he had to go back and get Valerie. He couldn’t leave her here, even if trying to rescue her meant sacrificing his own life. So he would run back to the barn. That was the plan. Hopefully he would make it with enough time.

  From the corner of his eye he saw the football-sized eggs resting in the transparent liquid. He knew intuitively that these were more of the creatures, incubating in whatever vile concoction Cliff’s mother had dreamed up. But in Jason’s head, eggs weren’t the same as actual, living creatures, and without thinking he worked his fingers under the edge of the flat pan. Cliff turned in his direction, ready to finish what he’d started before he was interrupted, and Jason upturned the pan with all the strength he still had in him. It sailed toward Cliff. Cliff brought one hand up, deflecting the pan itself, but he was immediately covered in the transparent juice, and one of the eggs hit him squarely on the temple, cracking open and leaking runny, off-white slime down the side of his face. Another egg flew past him and smashed into the wall, the shell shattering. A grayish-yellow smear ran down the wall.

  The third egg hit Cliff’s
midsection and fell to the floor in front of him. It cracked but didn’t shatter. And then Jason saw the sickly, twig-thin arms poking through the shell, waving around aimlessly. Clearly this egg had been further along in its gestation period.

  Cliff didn’t seem concerned about the eggs. But he did stop short and look down at himself, wet with the viscous fluid from the pan. He seemed to slowly realize what was actually coating his arms and face, and he stumbled back a few steps.

  Jason took that opportunity to turn and flee the room. He raced down the hall, and as he reached the top of the stairs he could hear Cliff shouting.

  “Oh fuck! Oh fuck! You’re fuckin’ dead!”

  There were sounds of thrashing about, but Jason didn’t stick around to see what was happening. He leaped down the stairs, three at a time, but his feet barely touched the steps. When he stepped into the living room he hesitated for a split second, then charged back the way he’d come, to the back of the house. He knew the front door would’ve been faster, but he had to make the decision instantly, and he didn’t want to get to the front door only to find it locked and him without a key. So he charged through the kitchen, through the mudroom, and yanked the door open. It slammed into the