A shiver wracked him. He crouched, tucking his knees against his chest. His breath clouded in front of him. He was wearing nothing but the longjohns he’d worn to bed so, despite his efforts, he was soon shivering violently. He only had to make it until the dream ended. Maybe there aren’t any of them around, he told himself. It was rare, but sometimes it happened. Beneath his roaring fight-or-flight instincts, a small rational part of his mind wondered how he could be weighing his chances of survival in a dream. Wasn’t the hallmark of a dream not knowing that you were dreaming?
A soft sound came from nearby, like a sigh of wind through leaves. But there were no leaves. The sigh was followed by a soft chirp and a trill. The trill ended in a deep pop—a noise made low in a heavy chest, like a big joint popping out of socket. Christopher gripped the sides of the tree. He clenched his muscles to stop their shaking. The forest was empty enough that he could feel the beast’s presence like a pressure, a weight on the thin air. The huff of wind came again, close enough for Christopher to recognize it this time. It was the hiss of air through long, slit-like nostrils.
Please mommy, help me. Christopher begged mindlessly, beginning to shake. Please help me… don’t let me die…
A single needle fell from an ice-covered branch. It landed with an audible tap.
The beast approached his hiding place, prowling through the ice and trees. The sounds of its footfalls drifted left, then right as though it were uncertain, listing back and forth. Searching. Christopher was afraid to take a peek, but he needed to know where it was. The tree trunks bounced sound around until it was impossible to tell which way anything was coming from. He gripped the rough bark and sneaked one eye around the edge of the tree. He saw nothing between the icicle-covered pines. Rough landscape, cold and lifeless. The huff came again, more clearly this time.
It was behind him.
Christopher flailed around the tree, putting it between himself and the beast. As he did so, he saw it from the corner of his eye. As always, it was the color of new-fallen snow. He cowered against the tree, expecting gory death to rush down upon him with flashing teeth and claws, but it didn’t.
Maybe there was more than one. They could be surrounding him. He’d seen three of them do that to a grizzly bear once, and knew from prints he’d stumbled across that there were more than three of them. Lots more. He’d also seen what little was left of the grizzly when they’d finished with it.
The chill had taken hold of his body. Christopher couldn’t feel his feet, and his hands were responding clumsily. He was going to have to try to sneak away. He couldn’t outrun the beast, but he couldn’t stay either. It was tempting, too tempting to just huddle against the tree and pretend that if he was quiet enough, it might pass him by. They never did that. It would find him. He crept slowly away on his numb limbs and tried to keep the tree as a sight-shield between him and the beast. He’d made it ten feet from the tree, standing in the open, when another huff and a deep pop came from his right.
Caught. There were two of them. The second one was standing on a rock thirty feet away. There was nothing but open air between he and it. He was in plain view. His imagination treated him to a picture of his head, fitting easily between its long jaws. Of it biting down and snapping his skull like an acorn. Christopher’s bowels let go. But it didn’t run towards him with its effortless strength. It stared to the side as if it was unaware of him. It was crouched, claws dug into the rock, bracing itself. Quivers ran through its muscular limbs.
The beast didn’t look like a cat or a dog or a bear or anything else which belonged in our world. It had a solid, compact body from which sprouted four long powerful legs, built for running. Christopher had seen pictures of animals that lived in icy climates, and they all seemed to have thick fur. This beast’s fur was so short and neat that it looked almost sleek, but for a small row of spines rising down the center of its back. Its long, dragon-like skull seemed to mount to its shoulders without a neck, and it had a large lump in the middle of its forehead. Its lower jaw was oversized and full of curving teeth, the two largest at the front. Its upper jaw tapered to a point, from which grew one huge hooked tooth that fit between the lower two like a can opener. It looked like it could bite a log in half. Its small eyes, sunk deep in a heavy brow, were pale blue, with snake-like pupils.
It was hideous and silken at the same time. Clean and white as a young lady’s wedding dress, but its curved teeth protruded in the twilight. Ugliness, beauty, and death all in one.
Despite the fact that he was in plain sight, Christopher didn’t run. The beast was crouched and shivering. He knew what it was doing. Of the dozens of times he’d been in this forest, he’d only seen this twice before, but if he held still, he might have a chance.
Christopher’s stomach heaved as he watched the beast’s muscles twitch under the strain. He’d seen those muscles being used too many times. The beasts didn’t just pounce and kill. They would bite their victims with those huge teeth, tear at them for a minute, perhaps rip an arm loose or bite off a foot, then they would sink their teeth into a leg or arm and run with the victim, dragging them perhaps for miles over the frosty ground, stringing blood all over their white coat. Then they would stop and tear at the victim some more. Then they would bite down and drag them away again. Christopher had never seen the end of it. He didn’t know how long it took the victims to die.
Tears fell from his face to the frozen needles. The beast was still looking away from him. A slit formed at the bottom of the round lump in its brow. The beast forced itself to hold still, and the slit grew wider, revealing something slick and wet and bright orange. The beast opened it slowly and kept wincing as if even the grey twilight was too much light for it. It took a full minute to completely open.
It was a third eye, huge and orange as hellfire. When the eye was fully open, the beast shuddered from its flared nostrils to the tip of its thin, whip-like tail. Its orange eye stared into the forest. The beast trilled, a painfully sharp, bird-like call which made Christopher shrink. With a scrape of claws on rock, the beast was gone, its muscular legs flinging it away into the trees. Behind him, Christopher heard the other beast trill in response and fling itself after its companion.
Christopher fell to his knees, then to his side. The urine soaking his long johns had turned to ice. Gradually, though, he realized that the weight of their presence was truly gone. There were no more beasts around. After several more minutes, Christopher pulled himself over to the rock on which it had been standing. He climbed it and took a look around. The forest was a puzzle of shadows and icicles, but there was no sign of life. No sign of anything.
Christopher huddled in the miserable cold and waited for the dream to end. Minutes passed. Eventually he began to feel tired. He wanted to sleep. His grandfather had told him that was a bad sign. Christopher climbed down off the rock and forced himself to start walking. Either move or freeze, his grandfather had said. Of course, his grandfather had been telling him what to do if he ever got lost outside on a snowy day. Not this. No one knew about this.
Christopher trudged through the trees, but the dream showed no signs of ending. The only sound was his own bare feet, crunching the frozen needles. He stubbed his toe on a rock, but he only knew he’d done so because it tripped him. He’d lost all feeling below his ankles. He put one foot in front of the other until he no longer knew he was doing it. He must have chosen the wrong way. It felt like the forest was getting even colder. The ice crusts thickened on the branches. Stretched down into icicles, but he kept going. He had to. It was more than just staying warm now, more than just motion. He needed to travel. He needed to go somewhere.
Maybe it took a mile, maybe it took ten, but eventually the forest began to look familiar. He’d been to this part of the wood before, in other dreams. As the familiarity grew stronger, so did the feeling of destination—there was a particular place he had to go. It was here, in this part of the forest. It was hard to find, nigh impossible, if yo
u didn’t know what you were looking for. The cold was beginning to affect his mind, but he knew he had to find the place.
Keep moving. I have to.
The trees were still grey, but their trunks were thicker, and the icicles from their branches continued to lengthen the deeper he went. He made his aching body keep moving, and the temperature kept dropping. As the trees thickened and the rocks jutted higher, even the twilight began to fade.
The forest began to blur before his eyes. Presently, he realized he wasn’t standing up; he was lying down. A soft weight pressed over him. It was the weight of blankets, but they were colder than a slab of slate.
Christopher awoke, groggy, heart hammering. He wasn’t in the grey forest. He was in his grandparents’ little farm house. Outside the house there were no grey trees or ice, just hilly Appalachian farm land in the night. It wasn’t cold, it was warm outside. Neither was there any three-eyed white-furred death to pursue him, only the simple wooden walls of his bedroom.
The moon poured through the window over his bed, painting the edges of his furniture and the wooden floor in soft moonlight. Three of his mother’s drawings hung over his bed. Two of his grandmother’s needlepoints (birds and squirrels) hung by the door, and a Coca-Cola sign and a John-Deere advertisement with a ripped corner hung on the opposite wall. Knee-high stacks of newspapers lined the baseboards all the way around the room. A cracked glass fish sat in the windowsill, glowing a dull orange in the moonlight. My bedroom. It was a dream. Just a dream. I’m not going to die.
It was a moderate spring night, but Christopher’s body ached badly with cold. He pushed the covers back and they made a strange crackling sound. He stumbled out of bed. His legs and arms were stiff and so unresponsive that he fell against his chest of drawers.
Slumped there in the moonlight, he stared at his hands and feet. They were blue with cold, and the warm air was making them sting as they awoke. Every time Christopher dreamed about the grey forest, he awoke feeling cold. He’d always told himself it was his imagination, but this time, he’d stayed in the dream longer than before—much longer—and now it was undeniable.
Under the window, his blankets lay in a heap where he’d flung them back when he stumbled out of bed. They had crackled because they were stiffer than he was. And they were glittering. Christopher stared, wide-eyed. In the moonlight and the warm spring air, his blankets sparkled with frost.
They were frozen from the inside out.
About the
Author
Despite the grim nature of this particular book, Daniel is actually a pretty happy person. He believes that things worth having often come through tremendous struggle, that fictional stories tell the purest truth, and that monkeys are terrifying.
Or at least, that’s what his editor believes. And his editor is writing this info page, because Daniel is also the world’s worst procrastinator.
So when you find yourself waiting for the next book in one of Dan’s series, who do you have to thank for the fact that they’re actually going to be printed?
That’s right. Me.
Hope you’ve enjoyed the read.
All the best,
The Syntax Soviet
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See you in Skyline!
Ironclad Page 75