Tori stared at the snowy blanket of white, a consistent niggle gnawing at her. She was certain that Karl was lingering somewhere nearby, beady eyes watching her from afar. It pained her to think the worst.
In the days before the storm, a smouldering gaze from Karl had earned completely different response from Tori. He could incapacitate her with one of his brooding stares. A simply hungry look would make her weak at the knees. Would make her mouth salivate. Would grease the crease between her legs. His mere presence was an aphrodisiac that had her bending to his every desire, Tori a willing participant, strapped into the rollercoaster of his carnal urges.
Now, that stare just felt wrong. Unfamiliar. Violating.
Her thoughts filled with the last moments before he had left. A lifetime ago, it seemed. The emptiness that painted his eyes as he donned his coat and left her behind, the storm claiming him like an empathetic friend, drawing him into its warm bosom as Tori was left in the doorway, tears turning to icicles.
All had changed on the turn of a dime. The world flipped upside down into a maelstrom of madness. It didn’t matter what life was before, this was life in the present. Survival or death were the only cards to be dealt. Tori only wished she knew how the game would end.
“Okay.” Alex’s voice came from a distance as he opened the door and ushered them inside. Damien snored loudly inside her jacket. She was relieved to ease him down inside the dark church and take the weight off her back.
The scent of damp wood and extinguished candles lingered in the air. Each footstep echoed, a stark declaration of their presence in the house of worship. Alex cautiously investigated the space around them, looking up at the expansive ceiling, a balcony rimming the upper floors to accommodate the congregation that could crowd the place on days of celebration or ritualistic worship.
“Are you a man of God?” Tori asked, removing her jacket and cocooning the boy on the floor. He didn’t flinch, merely snuggled more tightly into the nest while Tori shivered and wrapped her arms once more around her body.
“No. Sometimes I wish I was, but I’ve never subscribed to the notion that there is much out there we don’t know. I believed in science. Science was my God.”
Alex strode on, eyes lingering around the darkened corners of the room. Tori could feel it, too. The threat of the unseen enemy. While the windows were intact and the place appeared vacated, who knew what lay hidden in the shadows.
“Believed?” Tori asked. “Past tense?”
Alex nodded solemnly, a grim expression staining his features. It wasn’t unflattering. “Are you telling me that science can explain those creatures and their magic?”
While Tori deliberated a response, Alex wasn’t waiting for one. He lapped the perimeter of the pews, sticking to the outside of the rows of wooden benches as he examined the stained-glass artwork on the windows. When he reached the pulpit, he took a step towards the altar and poked his head behind a length of heavy black curtains. Satisfied, he continued along to the other side of the building.
Tori, meanwhile, sat on the cold floor beside Damien and ran a hand through his hair. Only a small portion of his skin was on display, and the part that she could see was as white as the snow. Bags that were far too heavy for a boy of his age were painted in a dark shade of blue, and his earlobes had turned an angry shade of crimson.
She pulled the hood tighter around his face, burying all but his eyes and nose.
“How’s he doing?”
Tori shrugged. “I don’t know. How would you be if you’d seen your parents turn into monsters and had two strangers drag you through a blizzard?”
Alex took a seat beside her, Harvey’s rifle laid in his lap, ready to access quickly if he needed to. He narrowed his eyes at Tori. “What happened back there?”
Tori swallowed dryly, her eyes unblinking. “You know what happened.”
Alex recoiled a little, surprised by Tori’s abrupt tone. “Both of them?”
Tori shook her head, not wanting to remember their faces, but hardly having the choice. What else could she have done? Harvey and Sherri were coming for all three of them. They weren’t themselves. In the heat of the moment, her body took over, and the rest was history.
“Tori...?”
Tori stared at the floor. “Harvey is dead.”
“And Sherri?”
“I don’t know. I don’t think so. It’s all a blur. I hope not…”
They fell into a reverent silence, the only disturbance the relentless hush of the storm. The wind screed and the windows rattled, a steady thrum of drumbeats as the snow pelted the ancient glass. Tori put her head in her hands and cried, her body racking with sobs as she let it all out. Every step forward on her journey was a punctuation mark of misery, and she began to wonder when the end of the sentence would come.
Alex placed an arm around Tori’s shoulder. It was a comfort that she couldn’t appreciate enough. Despite the increasing reach of the storm’s frosty fingers, Alex remained a bonfire, glowing in the midst of the darkness. His warmth seeped through her top and took the edge off the goosebumps creeping along her flesh. She nestled into him and let the tears fall as they may.
When her tank was depleted and she eventually looked up once more, Alex’s face was sombre.
“We can’t stay here long.”
She could see his trouble in his eyes. She suddenly remembered Alex’s personal quest. “Do you think he’s still at the school?”
“I don’t know. Nothing is certain. If you had asked me an hour ago, I would have said ‘maybe,’ but it looks as though there’s no space in this town that those things can’t penetrate. No ground is sacred here. If Cody is still at the school—and God, I hope he is—then we need to move quicker than this. It’s like the storm is a part of it all, pushing back against our efforts to unite. Trying to keep us separated so they can pick us off, one-by-one.”
Tori offered a smile without humour, the idea of a sentient storm absurd to her.
Alex looked at her in earnest.
“You’re serious?” she asked.
Alex half-shrugged. “We can’t rule it out. If the world is giving you all the signs it has that there are things that exist in the realms beyond our understanding and knowledge, then who are we to rule it out?”
“Alex… It’s just a storm. A blizzard. You don’t get it because you haven’t lived here, but…”
“Look at the signs, Tori.” Alex freed his arm from her and rose to his feet, gesturing to the thick plumes of white gathered on the window ledges. “There was no warning sign for this storm, no one was able to predict it coming. My first week here I was told by the pilot about your weather forecast warnings. It’s the staple of your life here, a core function of your safety. When was the last time a storm crept up on you overnight and completely covered the town? It’s half the reason that I brought the kid with me. I figured we’d be safe. You think I’d bring him to a town where this kind of shit could happen?”
Tori opened her mouth to answer, but Alex continued.
“And those creatures out there… Are you telling me it’s a coincidence that we get buried in snow, and those things choose now to attack your town? It’s like they’re in cahoots. Symbiosis. Without the storm, there are no creatures. Without the creatures, there is no storm.”
Tori placed her hands around Damien’s ears, the boy beginning to shift as Alex’s voice raised. “Stop. You’re scaring me.”
Alex cast a pitiful glance her way, his hand rubbing his forehead as he struggled to process it all. His face softened at Tori’s look of despair. “I’m not trying to scare you, I’m trying to be realistic. All my life I’ve focused my research on the strange and forgotten stories that span to the world’s farthest corners. All my life I’ve investigated stories about situations like this, looking at strange legends and myths of creatures that vanished into the pages of fiction.” He kneeled beside Tori, his eyes desperate as he searched for her to understand. “Tori, I believe you, okay? Everything you�
��ve seen tonight, all that you’ve witnessed first-hand. This isn’t some group psychotic episode that we’re all experiencing. We’re not going to wake up tomorrow to sunshine and rainbows. Those creatures that you saw… I believe you. I just… I didn’t really want to.”
“Why not?” Something heavy knocked against a nearby window. They both whipped their heads in its direction. After a moment of quiet, Alex returned his gaze to Tori.
“Are you aware of the Iñupiat tribe who live out by the frozen coast?”
“The primitive ones?” Tori asked, finding it difficult to imagine finding a way to live that didn’t involve sockets, electricity, and an internet connection. “Of course. Everyone in the town knows of them. They have their borders and we have ours. It was an agreement set up decades ago so they could preserve their way of life. Not that I can understand why they would want to.”
“Last week I went to visit them,” Alex explained. “For research for my book.”
“You’re a writer?”
“I’m an author.”
“What’s the difference?”
Alex fixed Tori with a look.
“Right…” Tori said. “Sorry.”
“I stayed with them overnight, managed to speak to some of the tribespeople. Their customs and way of life are a world away from what we’ve learned in the modern world. It’s more than just hunting with their bare hands and braving the elements. It’s seeing the world through a lens that the rest of the planet seems to have forgotten. The Northern Lights, for example.”
Tori scoffed. “The Aurora?”
“Yes.”
“Let me guess, they spoke of the spirits of their ancestors and how they ride the lights at night in the form of their animal brethren?”
Alex furrowed his brow. Damien’s eyelids fluttered as he let out a soft cough. “It’s more than that. It’s not just the dancing lights, it’s the legends and folklore that they hold onto, that they refuse to let go. There was a fear among the tribe, an unease that even I could pick up on, even though I didn’t speak the language. You could feel it in the air. It’s the same unease that has pervaded the air ever since I discovered that Cody was missing.”
“What is it?” Her curiosity was piqued. Although she had spent most of her life ignoring the primitive tribe that lived a few miles out into the wilderness, she couldn’t help but feel drawn to them somehow. They were an ever-present force, even managing to take the lead role in some of her nightmares as a child. Fears of the wild ones coming into town and snatching her from her crib, forcing her to obey by the old ways and learn the crafts of the ancient tribe.
Another knock from outside the church. Alex turned his head, ears pricked for further disturbance. To Tori it didn’t sound anything like the knocks she had experienced at her home when the creatures had come. Rather, it sounded more like debris thrown by the wind.
After a moment, Alex continued. “They told me a story one night—Pana and Meriwa, the couple who granted us shelter. As we sat inside their igloo, stew cooking over a modest fire, they told me of their monsters, of the creatures who governed their kind, and the horrors that were taught to their children, the sole aim to prepare and protect them from the bad things that creep from the cracks in the world’s plains.”
Alex fixed his gaze on Tori, no hint of deception in those bright eyes. “Among the line-up of myths and legends they spoke of the wendigo. A creature who roamed the frozen tundra, ever hungry for food. As they regaled their stories, there was no hiding the glint of fear in their eyes. They truly believed. This creature was no joke to them.”
Tori ran a hand through her hair. “A wendigo? I don’t understand.”
Alex stared at the window as he spoke, his eyes growing vacant. “The wendigo was a legend of old, a tale of an Inuit tribe struck by a particularly harsh winter. Food was scarce, hunger ravaged the tribes, and in the end, as their own kind fell like flies, they turned to the only food source nature had granted them.”
Tori gasped, a coating of bile lining her throat as she foresaw where the story was heading.
“The first to feed sated their hunger… for a short while, at least. While a large portion of the tribes held out hope for cleaner food, meat not marred by corruption, those who had feasted on the flesh of their brethren soon found that the hunger could not be abated for long. Something bred inside them, cultured into an aching hunger that ate away at their own bodies. Members of their tribe went missing, found in the woods days later and torn to shreds. Those who were caught were banished by the tribes, but even as they continued their attack, their bodies ate away at itself until all that was left was skin and bones. Rib cages like xylophones. Hips like worn cotton stretched across bone. Stick-thin arms that should have less strength in them than a toddler, but with the ability to grip their victims and pull them in with ease.” He turned back to Tori. “Sound familiar?”
It did. Tori could picture the creature so clearly. The strange, stick thin man-thing which had perched on her windowsill. Its arms like bracken, spread wide like a bat with no wings. A devilish desire for food in its dark eyes as it came for Stanley and devoured him from the inside out.
“Wendigo…” Tori whispered, the word tasting like mould on her tongue. “I can’t believe this is where we are. I want to pinch myself and wake up.”
“Me too,” Alex agreed. “I don’t think that’s an option right now.” He paused, looking ready to say something else, unsure if he should.
“What is it?”
“There’s more. I just don’t know what it is, entirely. When I was with the Iñupiats, there was something else going on. Something secretive that they refused to discuss. My interpreter, Roark, he told me that the tribes would often allow visitors to grant a hello and well wishes to the village chieftains. However, when I pressed to see if it was possible to gain an audience with them, I was denied.”
“That’s not so unusual, is it? People of high positions have lots to attend to.”
“It’s more than that.” Alex chewed his lip. “It was as though they were actively pushing me away from the request. After Roark raised this, they grew colder, more hostile. While they allowed us to stay the night, we were ushered away the next morning, with no chance to seek further counsel or even apologize.”
“What are you saying?” Tori asked.
Alex sighed. “I’m saying they were hiding something. I don’t know what, but something wasn’t right about it. At the time I put it down to a clashing of cultures, but now… Now, I’m not so sure.”
A thud against the window. This time Tori caught it out of the corner of her eye. A dark object thrown against the glass, its wings spread wide as it collided and fell from sight. A delicate spray of blood stained the window.
Alex nodded down at Damien. “Take him behind the pulpit, tuck yourself away.” He adjusted the rifle and trained it towards the window. When Tori didn’t move, he added, “Now.”
Tori obeyed, her body slow to wake up and function. Sitting down had drained what remaining energy she had, and the cold was once more biting at her skin. Alex stalked away as she picked Damien up, finding a nesting place in the cut out behind the pulpit. Damien groaned, eyes struggling to open. “Mum?”
Tori settled him on her lap and placed a finger over her lips. “Not now, Damien. We have to be quiet right now. Can you do that for me?”
Damien frowned, but nodded his acceptance. Tori was glad to see some kind of movement from him. For a while, she wondered whether he had entered some kind of frost-induced coma. She patted her side and felt the reassuring butt of her rifle. She brought it into sight, to a comfortable position where she could shoot, if necessary. She looked up, eyes locking onto the intricate decorations of the church. Painting the walls around her were cut-outs of the Lord and Saviour, Jesus Christ. Ornaments and pictures of the man that so many of the world looked up to as a beacon of hope. His gentle face watched over them, his hands pinned to the far reaches of the crucifix with thick and bloody nails.<
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She wondered if any place was sacred from the creatures that hunted, and if there was even the slightest hint of truth behind Christ’s legend. If that was the case, she silently communicated with the inanimate objects, pleading her case that now would be the time for the saviour to perform one of his miraculous interventions.
She didn’t hold out for hope.
3
Karl Bowman
The snow embraced Karl with affectionate arms, swirling around his body in dizzying motes and eddies. Though he wore his typical jacket for such temperatures, his forehead was slick with sweat behind the bone mask, his breath coming in short bursts as his insides warmed and it all became too much to bear.
His nostrils flared as he sought her scent. His mouth hadn’t stopped salivating since he had left the house, and he was almost certain he could detect her somewhere on the wind. A tantalising sample of her flesh. If only the storm would relent a little, maybe he could speed up his journey through the snow and claim her.
Sate the hunger.
The town was beyond recognition. Karl had been in storms and blizzards before, but nothing like this. Nothing that had overtaken so quickly and was determined to blanket everything until all that was left was white. He passed houses with citizens tucked away inside that he might once have called neighbours, but never friends. As he passed by the church, he fancied that he might have detected Alice’s scent, but as quickly as it had come, it was gone.
And where were the others who were supposedly aiding his purpose? Where were the sentinels and the Masked One who had cast him into this condition? Stirred up the famished frenzy in his hollow stomach and made him yearn for that which the world was currently denying him? Where was he?
Nowhere, and everywhere, all at once.
Every sense was heightened. On the wind came the screams and cries of the townsfolk, melting under the thawing hand of his new brethren. Every drop of snow tickled his nerve endings and sent currents of electricity running through his system. His ability to smell their blood drove him crazy, he could still taste the lingering tang of iron and copper on his tongue. Where the storm had once limited his vision, he could now see further, just able to make out the silhouettes of figures running for their lives. Some were the meal, and others were the bait. He knew that now, of course. Could understand more of the ecosystem which the Masked One had blessed him with. They were all connected, somehow. A single purpose to destroy, eat, and recruit as the storm wore on and granted them the cover they so desperately needed.
When Winter Comes | Book 3 | Black Ice Kills Page 2