Frostbitten: The Complete Series (60 page)

CHAPTER ONE HUNDRED AND TEN
A GOOD FRIEND

As prepared as the local hospital tried to be for the inevitable increase in patients, they were immediately overwhelmed—even before the power plant went dead. Mid-day, at a nearby retirement home, the heating system suddenly failed and, within an hour, there were dozens of elderly patients needing immediate attention for frostbite and hypothermia symptoms. It also didn’t help that a number of people were left stranded after unintentionally starting house fires, trying desperately to keep their houses warm. A family of eight was admitted with frost bite and smoke inhalation after they tried to increase the temperature of their home with their old gas oven.

In order to accommodate the influx of patients, the hospital was forced to release everyone listed in stable condition. Among the released was Connor.

Connor was happy to go. Between his inherent altruism and the fact that he didn’t want to hang around the place where his mother had just passed away—being able to leave was a blessing.

Before the storm got too bad, before the power went out and the town was reduced to a panic, Michael helped Connor to his truck, and drove him across Snowbrooke to the Fenner home. 

The Fenner family was one of the few families that invested in a decent generator after the big snowstorm, years before. Both Laura and her son, Michael were happy to have Connor stay with them until he fully recovered.

On the car ride over, Michael explained that it would be good for his mom to have some company around the house—and Michael was happy to have someone to talk hockey with, and maybe in due time, someone to help with some of the many familial chores.

Upon arrival, Laura had already furnished and organized a lovely guest room for Connor. Michael explained to his mom that it would still be a few days before Connor was able to walk comfortably on his own. Laura was just happy to have something to occupy her grieving mind.

“Can I get you anything else?” Michael asked, once Connor was comfortably set up in his temporary new home.

“I think I’m okay—Thank you so much again. You really didn’t need to do this,” Connor said.

“It’s nothing,” the always-modest Michael said.

Connor smiled.

“I’m going to head back to the hospital—try to help out. If you need anything, my mom’s just in the other room.”

“I’m probably just going to sleep,” Connor said.

“Alright.” Michael looked down at his feet. “Connor…”

“Yeah?”

“Your mom—I talked to her right before—Right before she…” Michael still wasn’t able to say it out loud. “She seemed fine—Not in pain, not afraid. She seemed totally normal. But she kept saying things—things that were kind of off. I should have called for the doctor.”

“It’s not your fault.”

“She knew that she was—was leaving. She told me, but I missed the hint. I should have called the doctor.”

“Michael. It isn’t your fault.”

“She wanted you to know that she loved you.”

“I know.”

“She also said to forget whatever it was that she told you before.”

Connor stared at Michael in silence for a moment.

“She said to forget what she said, and to follow your heart. I—I meant to tell you at the hospital, but it didn’t seem like a good time.”

“Thanks, man.”

Michael looked back down at his feet. “I don’t know if this is what you want to hear, but she was happy. She seemed really happy.”

Connor smiled. “Good. I’m glad.”

“I’ll check in on you tonight. I’m going to leave this door open in case you need anything from my mom.”

“I’ll see you later,” Connor said, watching his good friend leave the room.

Michael’s relentless philanthropy was noble—but it was also fuelled by his own selfishness. Deep down inside, he knew that he wasn’t doing it to help Connor, and he wasn’t volunteering at the hospital for the sake of humanity. He was doing it for himself—a means of escaping his grief, a means of escaping his guilt.

Michael trudged through the intensifying snowfall and he fired up his old truck. After giving the engine a moment to heat up, he started towards the  hospital. Even the short drive alone was too much for his grieving mind to handle—so he stopped to pick up a young bundled up couple, headed towards the library. Their power had just gone dead. Before arriving at the library, Michael had managed to pick up another older couple, headed for the same destination.

After dropping everyone off at the library, Michael came upon a poor old-looking man who was walking in no particular direction through the snowy street, as if he was lost. The man was unfamiliar—not a face that Michael had seen around before.

Michael pulled up next to him and then insisted that he give the man a ride to the hospital, or the library. The man politely refused, so Michael offered a ride to his house. The man refused again, but Michael insisted. The old man agreed after telling Michael that his house was far—all the way on the other side of town. The old man was taken aback by Michael’s noble spirit—but Michael was just trying to keep his mind off his fallen father—his lost hero.

“Do you have a generator at your house?” Michael asked as he slowly inched down the icy streets.

“No,” the old man said. His voice was hoarse and his bearded face was weathered.

“I don’t think you should stay at your house tonight, sir,” Michael said.

“I’ll be fine.”

“Your family—are they okay?”

“I live alone.”

“You know all the phone lines are dead—it’s probably not safe to be so far from the hospital. What if something happens?”

“I’ll have a fire. I’ll be okay.” The old man spoke quietly and decisively. He spoke with experience—this was something he’d been through time and time again. There was a confidence in his voice, and there was pain in his voice.

Michael trusted the old man knew best for himself. He claimed that he’d lived in Snowbrooke his whole life, so certainly, he’d braved a few storms in his time.

The two men arrived at the given address—a seemingly abandoned warehouse in the middle of Snowbrooke’s old commercial district. Michael looked at the tattered place and realized the man was homeless.

“Are you sure you don’t want to stay at the hospital or the library? I have a generator at my house—you are welcome to stay there.”

“That’s okay,” the man said definitively again. “What’s your name?”

“Michael. Michael Fenner.”

“You’re a good man, Michael Fenner. Never stop being a good man.”

Michael smiled. Much like his conversation with Charlotte, he couldn’t help but feel like he was talking to a dead man. The man spoke with a clarity that was reserved for the dying.

“I was a good man once,” the old man said. “I let that part of me go. I regret it every day.”

“You seem like a good guy,” Michael said.

The old man smiled. “Unfortunately I’m not.”

Michael could see that same dying glitter in the man’s eyes. He was tired. He could see the light at the end of his tunnel.

“I don’t know you, and I’ll never know your life,” Michael said. “But it’s never too late to right a wrong.” The memory of his father’s last minute revelation came to mind.

The old man smiled. “I’d like to believe that. I’ve done some regrettable things, Michael. My kids—My kids have done horrible, awful, terrible things.”

Michael stared at the man for a moment of cold silence.

“And I—I’ve lived with it,” the old man finished. He was tormented by the never-ending loop that plagued his mind. “I wanted to kill them—I should have killed them. Oh, you probably think I’m a lunatic—a crazy old man. You probably think I should be locked away. My kids—My kids are locked away, and that’s for the best. I didn’t kill anyone, Michael—I tried to stay good, like you, but I screwed up. I tried. But I stumbled, and I paid the price. I didn’t even pay the worst price—my wife, my daughter—they paid the real price. My wife had the right idea. She left before it could get any worse,” the old man said. “I didn’t think it could get any worse, but I was wrong. She was right. She was always right. For a long time I pitied her—I pitied her short life. But I still had my life to live—Pity me, Michael! Pity the man who still has his life to live!

“Maybe I did die. Maybe I didn’t keep on living. Sometimes I think that I am dead—That this is Hell. I tried once to imagine Hell, but I could imagine nothing. I could just open my eyes.

“I did everything right with my kids. I swear that I did. I did it all, and then I did more. But still, they punished me. Punished me for trying to be a good father. It’s no wonder, Michael, that I’m no longer a good man. Can you blame me? Of course you can’t—you probably don’t blame anyone. You’re a good man. Good men don’t blame—I never used to blame anyone. But my kids, Michael—the things I wish I would have done to them before—before...”

The old man stopped talking and he looked down at his feet. “It’s too late for me. They’ll remember me as a bad man. That isn’t so bad, I suppose… I’ll remember me as a bad man, too. Now that—I can’t imagine anything worse than that. That is certainly Hell. You’re a good man, Michael. I’m not a good man.”

“A good man forgives,” Michael said, quoting the advice his late-father gave him just a week before. “I’m not a good man.”

The old man looked up into Michael’s eyes.

“What’s your name?” Michael asked.

“It doesn’t matter much, does it?” The old man was silent. “Sometimes I’m not even so sure.” He forced a smile and then opened the truck door. “Good bye, Michael.”

Michael watched the man walk into the snowy blizzard towards the old warehouse. After a moment, the man was gone—as if he ceased to exist. As far as Michael knew for sure, the nameless, mysterious old man never did exist. He was a ghost, a fever dream, a sleep-deprived hallucination, a blip on the continuum that formed space and time into one—an encounter with his own old self; A preposterous notion reserved for some science-fiction fantasy, sure—but the message was the same.

Michael turned the wheel of his car sharply to the left and began his journey back towards the center of town, towards the hospital. Before he even got a block away from the old man’s warehouse, he caught a glimpse of a familiar sight—

For a brief second, the wind died down and the heavy snowfall subsided. Carefully snuggled against the back of a warehouse, down a dark and quiet alleyway was an old, rusty 1969 Ford Mustang, Mach One. It had less than an inch of fresh snow accumulated on top of it, as if it was just recently parked. The tire tracks, which turned off of the street and led up to the old muscle car weren’t even fully filled in yet.

His curiosity was irresistible.
Why would Kane’s car be tucked away in Snowbrooke’s old warehouse district?
It was an area of town that had become reserved for the homeless—people who wanted to live undisturbed—people who didn’t want to be found.

Michael left his vehicle idling on the snowy street side. From the bed of his truck, he retrieved a cold iron crowbar. He walked up to the old Mustang, looking around to make sure no one was watching. The thick snowfall had returned to its aggressive state, reducing visibility to a mere few feet. Michael wiped the frost from the car’s window and peeked inside. There was still dried blood stains on the seats and the dashboard.

Walking around back, Michael jammed the end of the crowbar into the trunk, and then forced it open. All of Kane’s belongings were stashed inside—boxes of newspaper clippings, vials of vampire teeth, the crosses and holy water, the old occult books, and all of Kane’s strange deadly weapons.

The evidence was damning.

CHAPTER ONE HUNDRED AND ELEVEN
RUMBLE IN THE JUNGLE

Nothing could have prepared Tarun for his first night in prison.

The criminals from in and around Snowbrooke were of obviously low priority that cruel night. With the approaching blizzard, the souls locked away in the penitentiary weren’t even an afterthought in townspeople’s minds. Even the employees of the prison didn’t care about the inmates.

As the power went out across town, only the unprepared homes and businesses stayed dark. Places like the library and the hospital were only without power for mere seconds before their generators kicked in. The prison had a generator—one large enough to power the entire facility. In its day, it had served the jail well—lasting over thirty years.

But as all of the generators around town began to boot up, one did not—the generator at the penitentiary failed to start up. After nearly half a century, the generator had powered its final winter storm. 

The guards were flustered. All of the communication systems were down, and the prison’s warden had the night off—no one could reach him. Every minute without power, the prison became colder and colder. The inmates became angrier and angrier, shouting out for the guards to do something—anything. But there was nothing the guards could do. They bundled themselves up in their thick winter coats, but there were no winter coats for the convicted.

The imprisoned were left with their cheap cot blankets and thin orange jumpsuits.

Tarun held his thin blanket tight to his body. Where he was from, the weather didn’t drop below freezing, never mind a whopping forty degrees below freezing. All of the hairs stood straight up on his skin as he desperately tried to control his shivering. His lips were ivory and blue.

It was an unfamiliar sight throughout that old dark prison hall—some cellmates were even huddled together in a desperate attempt to stay warm.

A guard wearing a white parka, heavy boots and warm gloves walked through the prison with a flashlight—the only source of light in the entire complex. Inmates yelled at him to let them out—pleading for their life as the temperatures continued to drop lower and lower.

“Everybody just calm down!” he called out. “We’re working on a solution. One of our guys is working on fixing that generator.”

One of the inmates reached desperately through the bars towards the guard. “Please,” he begged. “Just give us matches to make a fire—Paper and matched, that’s all we’re asking for.”

“I can’t do that,” the guard explained. “That’s a liability.”

“Fuck your liability!” the guard shouted back. “If we all die tonight, isn’t that a liability?”

The guard turned back to the crowd of freezing prisoners, trapped in their tiny frigid cells, like bags of frozen carrots in the supermarket’s frozen-foods isle. “The power plant will be up and running before the morning. Just try your best to hold out until then.”

The prison erupted with angry screaming and shouting as they watched the guard walk back down the hallway, and out of the cell chamber. As the door closed behind him, the prisoners were one again rendered blind in the lightless void of the frozen prison.

Tarun looked around for anything he could use to warm his freezing body up. Peter looked up at him, seemingly unaffected by the whole ordeal. He didn’t even have his blanket wrapped around his body. “Put on your blanket,” Tarun said. “You need to move around—get your blood flowing. You’re going to freeze to death.”

Peter smiled casually. “I’m fine.”

Tarun was deeply confused by the scarred man. Even the most hardened criminals were crippled by the unbearable cold. Peter just didn’t seem to care.

“Are you numb? If your skin goes numb, your tissue will start to die.”

“I’m okay,” Peter said. “I ain’t numb.”

“Everybody shut the fuck up!” one of the nearby prisoners yelled.

The room of rowdy inmates quickly became silent at the order. The sound of yelling and screaming was faintly audible from across the prison.

“What is that?” someone asked.

Bang!

A reverberating gun-blast echoed through the facility. All of the inmates were completely silent as the sounds intensified.

“That a gunshot?” someone asked.

“Sounded like a twelve-gauge shotgun,” one of the more violence-savvy men said. “An older Remington maybe.”

Bang! Bang!

Another series of loud blasts reverberated down the old cement walls.

After a moment of silence, the iron door separating the cell floor with the rest of the facility swung open. A tall, awkwardly shaped man, covered from his small head to his thick legs in tattoos, ran into the room. He looked like a bottle of Orange Crush soda in his prison outfit, which was spattered with blood. In his hand was a security-issued shotgun—an older twelve-gauge Remington model, as a matter of fact. The man was little more than a silhouette. The only source of light was far behind him: a flickering, blaze of a fire in the distance.

Everyone looked towards the man in complete silence. His long, dark shadow stretched the length of the black cell-room floor.

“Yo!” the called out. “Frank! Frankie Sorrento! You in here?” the armed prisoner yelled out.

“Hey! I’m here!” one of the inmates in the cell next to Tarun yelled, stepping up to the bars and waving his arms out. The armed, Orange Crush bottle of a man ran quickly to the cell and started to fumble with the key ring. The whole prison erupted—everyone wanted out.

“Hey man,” Frank said. “What the fuck’s goin’ on?”

“Everything just opened, man!” the bloody inmate replied. “The power went out, and it all just opened up. Everyone’s getting out, brother—we’re all out. They’ll never catch all of us.”

Finally, the man found the correct key and managed to release his friend. The prison became even louder as everyone desperately pleaded to get out. Once he had his friend freed, the man tossed the key ring into a random cell. “There! Let’s get out of here.”

Cell by cell, the prisoners frantically fumbled with the key ring, setting themselves free.

Tarun turned towards Peter. “We’re getting out!” Tarun said with excitement. “C’mon, we’re getting out!”

Peter looked up at Tarun. “Where we goin’?” he asked.

Tarun became silent as he considered his options, of which, there were none. Not only did Tarun have nowhere to go, but it was suicide to run out into that blizzard, miles and miles from anything.

“You!” a deep voice called out. “You! Sand Nigger!”

Tarun looked over towards his cell door. A thick, small-headed, brawny man was staring directly at him, standing next to three other small-headed, brawny men. The man’s little bald head was covered in racially offensive tattoos, and his dense beard looked like rusted steel wool. In his hand was the key ring.

“Hey!” Tarun said, noticing they keys. “Let us out.”

“Yeah,” the man laughed. “I’m gonna open this door, but I ain’t gonna let you out.”

Tarun’s heart sank into his stomach. Tarun couldn’t handle one small-headed brawny man—never mind four of them.

Tarun stood silently for a moment. “Excuse me?” he asked.

“My brother just got that job at the school—you killed him,” the tattooed man yelled.

Tarun’s eyes became wide. “I—I didn’t kill anyone,” Tarun said.

The tattoo-headed man began to test out the various keys on the ring in Tarun’s cell door.

“Really,” Tarun said in a panic. “I didn’t kill your brother. I didn’t kill anyone.”

“I’m going to pound your fucking face into the cement until your skull is flat,” the man said, working his way through the various keys.