Frostarc

by Arthur McMahon

  Kozz sat up and buried his face into the cushions, trying to erase the image and settle his stomach.

  “Grandma!” Caleb called as he entered her home. "It's me grandma!" He ran to the telepod-lit hallway as Kozz sat up, shouting “Caleb, no!”

  A short, high-pitched scream pierced Kozz’s heart. The boy let out a few wails, then he stumbled back down the hallway and landed himself on Kozz’s lap.

  “I remember!” Caleb shouted, tears dripping and snot oozing. “I did it. I remember. I did it. I did...” He repeated the phrases until they turned into drooling sobs.

  “You didn’t do anything, Caleb.”

  “No!” the boy cried. “I did it. I killed grandma! I killed her I killed her. I remember! The thing inside me, it made me do it. I fought it, but it was too strong. I watched it make me kill her. It killed my grandma!”

  The boy’s confessions hit Kozz like a smack in the face. That was proof enough to him that this was no disease. A monster had taken over the little boy, the weak child that cried in his lap, and had made him murder his own flesh and blood.

  “It wasn’t you, it was that evil demon that was inside you. Caleb, you have to understand that this isn’t your fault.”

  “But I did it—“

  “No! The demons controlled you. They committed the crime. You fought them, you were brave, and your grandma would be proud of you for trying to protect her. You can't blame yourself.” Kozz held the child and rubbed a warm hand on his back. “Caleb is a brave name. You were very brave to try and fight them off. There was nothing more you could've done.”

  The boy convulsed in his sobs, the pain in his ribs making it difficult to breathe between the wails, and Kozz just held him, giving Caleb something solid to hold on to in the chaos of everything around him until the boy cried himself dry. Kozz waded in the sadness of the moment and processed his thoughts. They had to move forward.

  An hour passed before Caleb was steady enough to go on. Sad thoughts consumed the boy, but his uncontrollable cries had quieted. He mentioned his parents' home and told Kozz that it resided miles east of the town.

  “How far of a walk would it be?” Kozz asked.

  “I’ve only walked it once with my dad when we went on a hunting trip.” Caleb mumbled. His energy had faded. He stared at the ground as he spoke. “Took us like five days but we camped a lot and moved slow when we were hunting the whitecats. Probably be shorter if we went straight there.”

  “With the two of us beaten up like the pair of eggs we are it’ll take a week, I bet.” Caleb huffed at the remark, letting Kozz know that he would have smiled if the situation were different. They limped their way back to Kozz’s destroyed truck. A few days walk out in the frozen wilderness would kill them if they were not fully prepared, but as luck would have it Kozz had stowed emergency supplies in his truck cabin in case the behemoth broke down on the frozen plains. He grabbed a pair of rolled up sleeping bags, a few everlights, and the remaining food storage. Kozz held an assortment of bags on his shoulders, but Caleb insisted that he could carry something and so Kozz strapped the smaller of the sleeping bags and a small bundle of food to the boy’s back. They walked eastward, leaving the rig behind them as Kozz pondered the likelihood that Caleb’s parents were still around. The couple lived out in the country and may have missed the initial catastrophe that struck the town, much like Kozz had.

  Caleb looked pitiful. Kozz had never seen a child so sad. “Hang in there, kid. She loved you, you know that. It wasn't your fault.” Kozz felt a memory stab him in the chest. “It wasn't your fault. It never was.”

  “Yeah,” muttered Caleb. The word oozed out of him like it was sludge. He wanted to believe it, but he did not.

  The duo headed towards the end of town and Kozz scoured the landscape in front of them for any signs of danger, his instincts telling him to search every hole and shadow an enemy could hide in. He now knew that there was not a soul left in the town other than the demon-eyed zombies, and so he kept his senses open to anything that would catch his attention.

  A face with glowing eyes flashed in a second story window. Kozz had seen it. “Run, Caleb.” His voice was firm, but not harsh. “Run to the tree and hide behind it.” Caleb looked ahead and saw the tree Kozz was pointing towards. A large pine stood at the end of the street, guiding tourists to their destination like a welcoming beacon of vacation and relaxation. The tree was the only one in the entire town. Planted long ago, it had been well tended by the townspeople. The pine had become the image of Edgetown, a monument that could be seen from miles away on the flat ice fields.

  Caleb hesitated at the sudden command, but he saw Kozz’s silver eyes staring at him through the darkness and understood the sternness in his voice. Caleb started to run, but a woman burst through the front door of one of the houses and sprinted straight towards the boy and Caleb froze in place. He pulled out the knife Kozz had given him and held it out, fully extended in the direction of the blood-covered woman. She clawed at the air as she ran towards him. Caleb heard Kozz’s voice in his head, telling him again to run, but his muscles had seized up and he could not make them move. The woman’s voice mixed with something deeper and grittier and together they screamed as she launched herself at the child.

  KABLAM!

  The woman’s shoulder exploded in a flurry of flesh. She fell to the ground and grabbed Caleb’s leg, her blood staining the white snow she sank into. The boy stood still with his knife extended and the woman pulled his leg out from under him.

  KABLAM!

  The woman howled into the snow as light spilled out of her body. Kozz walked over and pried Caleb’s leg free from her dying grip, only then seeing the face of his victim. “Oh God,” sighed Kozz, “Linda.” The number of friends he had killed was increasing. I had no other choice. She was going to kill the boy.

  “Kozz, behind you!” Caleb pulled on Kozz’s coat and pointed down the street back towards the truck. Three more demons were bounding through the snow.

  “Run Caleb! To the tree!” Caleb did not stall this time. He went straight for the tree as Kozz turned around and found Red in the air, eyeing her targets. Aim true, Kozz. Take your time. His eyes followed the barrel, landing square on the foremost threat. He saw the straight line that had forged between Red and the young man who charged down the street. If Kozz waited a second more, that line would be gone.

  KABLAM!

  All that was left of the young man's throat were a few slivers of clinging flesh. He did not scream, but his wounds poured blood and light like a waterfall. Next up was an older man with frostbitten fingertips. Is Caleb alright? Did he make it to the tree?

  KABLAM!

  The man fell. His knee had been shot through, the bone blasted to splinters. Kozz went to fire once more.

  Click.

  “Damn!” Kozz had not reloaded. “It’s been too long. I must be way out of practice to forget this kind of shit.” The third charging demon was a bulbous woman who was now upon Kozz. She tackled him and landed a solid head butt on his forehead that put him in a momentary daze. The glow in her eyes brightened with ferocity as she pummeled him with her fists, drool dripping and slinging all over Kozz as she gnashed her teeth and bit at him. He held her back with his forearm and landed a blow to her jaw. Blood mixed with drool as he hit her again and then a stinging pain shot up Kozz’s leg.

  The frostbitten man had crawled his way to Kozz, leaving a bloody path in the snow. The demon sank his teeth into Kozz’s calf. He kicked at the glowing eyes with his other leg and landed a solid strike on the man’s balding head, knocking him back and sending a swell of pain through Kozz’s sprained ankle. Another direct hit with his good foot cracked the man’s neck and Kozz heard him scream his death to the world.

  The woman’s weight crushed Kozz and made it difficult for him to breathe. She attacked with her fists, landing blow after blow on Kozz’s hardened face. He caught one of her punches with his right hand and bent her arm back further than it was meant to go, disloc
ating it with a pop. The woman shrieked in pain and bent forward to bite at his throat. Kozz tried to buck her off, but her weight was too much. As she went in for the kill, he grabbed her other arm and snapped it over her back, then he pulled at it hard and she rolled off of him with the flow of pain.

  Kozz stood up and kicked her onto her stomach. He jumped on her back with both knees landing firm on her backbone, then he grabbed her head and twisted it.

  The woman’s body flopped around like a blubber-filled fish. She bellowed into the night, eyes and mouth shooting shafts of light into the darkness. When she died all was silent again.

  CHAPTER FIVE

  The Ranch

  Heart pounding and aching,— Kozz struggled to stay conscious. He numbed his bloody face with wet snow and wiped it clean, then heaved his mass from the ground and gathered the bags of supplies that had fallen from his body. Madness. I’ve got enough of their blood and saliva on me to pass on any disease. I’ve got no chance if that’s how it spreads. Kozz walked down the street and checked behind the tree, finding Caleb crouched in hiding.

  “I’m sorry I didn’t help you.” Caleb was carving a stick figure into the tree.

  “You listened well. Best you hide and be safe from the danger.”

  “But you almost died! I saw. I could have got them with the knife.” He pulled the knife away from the tree and looked at the blade. “I’m a hunter. I know how to use it, my mom and dad taught me. I was just surprised by that first lady. I could have helped you.”

  “Caleb is a brave name,” said Kozz, “but I wouldn’t have let you help. You need to be safe. You need to be away from the danger. I can’t risk you getting hurt.”

  “But Kozz.”

  “No Caleb!” Kozz noticed that his voice was getting loud and he turned away from Caleb. “I’ll do the fighting. You hide. If I lose you like I lost Jake…. You just listen to me and run when I say to. I’ll protect you until we find your parents.” He turned back and punched the tree, and then he punched it again. Caleb was scared. Kozz saw the boy’s brown eyes well up and so he put his anger aside and tried to warm his frigid presence.

  The lone eastward road continued across the flat ice of the high plains until it led down into a valley that separated two stretches of rolling hills. Kozz thought it might be best to stay off the main road, avoiding any houses that might contain more trouble. They trekked through the snow to the hills on the southern side of the road. Daylight had breached the horizon and from the tops of the highest hills Kozz could see the green forests to the south. The approaching day weighed heavy on the shoulders of the two exhausted and injured wanderers.

  They never ventured too far from the road, always keeping it in their sights. Along the roadway there were many abandoned vehicles covered in snowfall. Some were buried deep under days or weeks of powder, but several seemed as if they had been abandoned recently. Kozz did not think it was worth the risk to try to find an operable vehicle amongst the junk. It was too dangerous.

  Before they rested Kozz wanted to be as far from Edgetown as possible. He did not know how bad the trouble was everywhere else, but he knew that town was a hell hole. The sun began to set and the air became colder at about the time when Caleb was no longer able to hold himself up. Kozz decided to find a spot to rest for the night and they stumbled upon a small shack that looked as if it had been abandoned for years. It stood beside a large rock formation. The roof was missing many of its wooden shingles, and the siding was cracking in several places. Ice had crusted the door shut and Kozz slammed his body into it several times before it opened.

  Inside was a single room with some dilapidated furniture and a haphazard stone fireplace that was pieced together by unprofessional hands. Outside Caleb slowly gathered fallen shingles, pieces of siding, and wooden molding, but a of couple armfuls was all his aching chest would allow him to carry. Kozz broke down the worn furniture and then started a fire, rehydrating a package of powdered beans to go with their meal bars. The shack did not hold the heat well and the breeze blew through the old walls with ease. As long as they stayed close to the fire they could keep away the stinging chill of the frosty night air.

  “Kozz,” said Caleb with his legs wrapped in his sleeping bag and his hands holding a can of warm beans, “where did you get your gun?”

  “My pops gave her to me before he died.”

  “How did he die?”

  “Him and my mother were in an accident when I was only a little older than you. I don’t know exactly what happened, no one ever told me. Red, she’s all I have left to remember them by. She’s an antique though, you don’t see many like her around these days with all those laser shooters that look like kid toys.”

  “My dad has old guns like that one too, but he never uses most of them. They just hang on the wall above our fireplace. He likes them a lot.”

  “Well when we get to your house your dad and I might just have something in common to talk about.”

  “Yeah. Maybe you guys will be friends.”

  “Yeah. Maybe.”

  It was difficult for both of them to sleep that night. Kozz had nightmares full of twisted faces screaming in the night. He kept seeing his wife and son walking like zombies with that demonic white glow in their eyes and woke up many times sweaty and angry. Every time he woke he heard Caleb’s whimpers as the boy suffered through his own terrors. Kozz thought of waking Caleb to shake him out of the bad dreams, but decided to let him rest knowing that falling asleep with a cracked rib was difficult enough to do once a night.

  The morning brought soreness and strain, but the morning was warmer than the last, making the trek ahead seem less daunting in their minds. The valley made a slow curve to the south where the wanderers soon found themselves facing a horizon of trees.

  “That’s where my house is,” said Caleb, ”right before you get to the woods.”

  As the hours passed Kozz learned that Caleb was staying in Edgetown with his grandma while he was going to school, seeing his parents several times a week and living with them during the off times of the year. The child cried as he spoke about his grandma, whom he loved and looked up to.

  "How are you holding up, kid?"

  "Fine, I guess."

  "Don't say that. You can't be fine. She was someone you loved very much."

  "What in the world happened anyway? What happened to me and all the others? What's going on? I wish I could just go back in time when it was all normal!" Caleb's face scrunched as he gritted his teeth and kicked at the snow as hard as he could. He winced at the pain in his chest. "Why did I do what I did to grandma!”

  "I wish I could answer those questions for you, kid." Kozz put a hand on the back of Caleb’s head. "Don't blame yourself, and calm down before you go and make that snapped twig of yours worse."

  They later sat down for a midday break and built a small fire out of some brush that survived despite the snow. They settled in a small depression within one of the hills that was almost like a cave, resting on a patch of bare dirt and rock that had been left alone by the snow.

  “So, um, you had a son?” Caleb remembered that the last time Kozz had mentioned his son he had become angry. He was afraid to ask, but he wanted to know.

  “Yes.” Kozz had been poking at the fire and stopped when he heard the question.

  “What was he like?

  Kozz stared into the small, dancing flames for a long time before speaking. “Jake was smart, funny, full of love. He was sad when he had to stay home from school. He always helped his mother make dinner and loved to eat everything he made. He wanted to be an airship captain when he grew up, just like he thought daddy was. He loved airships, built models of them that hung from his bedroom ceiling. There was this one time that he….” Kozz choked on his words and put his head down, hiding his watering eyes from Caleb. “He was a good kid.”

  “What happened to him?”

  “Those are some difficult memories for me, Caleb. They hurt too much. Maybe another time.”


  Kozz stomped out the fire and he took his medication with the last of the melted snow water, then he put the pill bottle back into his bag and pulled out a cigar. Not many left. He lit it up and breathed in its heat, burning the sorrow out of his body and staying down wind of Caleb as they walked up the next hill.

  Kozz spotted a person walking along the road, but the body staggered in an abnormal way, limping as if it were injured. The person looked into each abandoned vehicle it passed. Kozz and Caleb were too far away to see its eyes, but it was obvious that the person was not moving the right way, as if it did not know how to operate its body. Together they decided it would be best to not approach the person. They left the body to wander the valley road as they continued along their hill-strewn path.

  “Kozz, I sometimes think I remember things,” said Caleb as they walked.

  “You don’t have to think about what that demon made you do.”

  “No, like…like I remember when it first happened. Something was talking to me in my head, but I couldn’t understand it. I think I remember it pushing me, bullying me. I told it to go away and tried to push back, but it was stronger. And sometimes I see flashes, like memories of being able to see through my eyes when I wasn’t in control. It’s really weird.”

  “What did the voice sound like?”

  “I don’t know. It just made no sense.” Caleb pondered his thoughts. “The last things I really remember is that the telepod was telling everybody to stay inside because there was a bad infection going around. School was closed for a few days and the police had caught a couple of people that had the sickness and they locked them up. I was with my grandma and then my head started to feel funny and then I woke up with you pointing your gun in my face.”

  “Do you remember what the date was when you were inside your grandma’s house?”

  “Like, the eighth or ninth.”

  “That’s not even two weeks ago. It really hasn’t been that long at all.”