The Biting Cold: A Winter's Horror Tale (2 page)

Onward
to Peebles

It was ten miles to Peebles from Leadburn, on a normal, dry day in a car this could take ten minutes, fifteen if the road was busy. Over-taking opportunities were very few and far between due to its snake-like design and you could be stuck behind a vehicle for the whole journey. Tonight though, there were no cars, no large goods vehicles, nothing at all; just one solitary gritter, with two exhausted passengers. Total darkness behind them, total darkness in front of them except for the flash of yellow from the beacons and the white roof lights that struggled to penetrate the snow flakes. Visibility had been reduced to only about six metres as the snow was now being thrown at them by the increasing winds.

'Can barely see a thing,' Danny said taking another long glug of his juice. The scraper at the front had been down since they left Leadburn; there were no signs of it ever being lifted. The rubber strip on the scraper wouldn't last forever but the snow
was now thick enough that it didn't even reach the asphalt. Peter had slowed to fifteen miles an hour.

'The roof lights don't help, just bounces the light right back at us, but I can't switch them off. That would be really scary,' Peter said.

It was like driving through a thick fog with high beam turned on. They trundled on into the darkness having no idea what lay ahead.

'This is almost pointless. I
t's coming in behind us as quick as we are throwing it away.' Danny was right, it was now blizzard conditions. Every so often they would also hit a deeper area; this was the drifts beginning to blow in off the surrounding fields. They hit those with a smack and the scraper would rise slightly, just grazing over it.

'The secret is to keep going, we stop? We
’re in trouble,' Peter stated. Absolute concentration and power was required. The lorry laboured but the all-wheel drive kept it going steadily as long the snow didn't get any deeper. He was glad of the weight the salt in the back gave him, without it they would have been stuck a while ago; it gave traction to the tyres where there would be none on the soft snow. Danny's head jerked one way then another.

'Did you see that, fuckin' three
of them this time,' Danny rolled his window down and stuck his head out into the driving snow. The cold air didn't so much as sneak into the cab but was welcomed in with a fan-fair and a firework show.

'Shut the window Danny, it's freezing.'

'Did you no' see them? Ran right in front of the lorry.'

'Didn't see a thing, now please close the window. I'm getting icicles on my testicles,' Peter said.

Danny rolled the window up still keeping a look out. Then Peter did see. In the corner of his eye he glimpsed through the driving snow; a figure, just one, running, sprinting at the side of him. When he tried to look directly at it, it disappeared.

'You see them don't you? Am no fuckin' goan crazy,' Danny said sounding extremely pleased. 'There's another.' He pointed in front
of them about three metres away. Peter could see. It wasn't an elf.

'What the fuck are those?' H
e asked Danny, not really expecting an answer.

It ran on all fours in front of them at the same speed
as he was travelling, it faded one way then the other as if dodging something. As it moved it flitted in and out his vision, he couldn't focus directly on it; it was as if he couldn't see it when trying to look directly at it. He tried just to see the road, he didn't look at it at all but he could see it out of the corner of his eyes, they were in his peripheral vision.

The creature was dark, black almost, against the snow it was easy to see but difficult to focus on. It was no larger than a dog but with less hair and its back legs weren't straight
like a dog but bent at the knees; as if it could stand up like a human if it wanted to. It darted one way then the other, then carried off into the field and disappeared out of sight.

'Can you hear that?' Peter asked. Danny nodded, a high pitched wailing, a squealing c
ould be heard all around them. It pierced the cab and his ears, the distractions were too much for Peter. He could no longer concentrate on the job in hand and he slowed the vehicle to a crawl. He tried to floor the accelerator but momentum was lost, it was too late. Visibility was down to only a couple of metres, he didn't know how long he could keep this up - he really didn't want to stop.

The scraper smacked hard into a drift a metre high, with no real speed or real momentum, there was n
o way he would make it through. Peter just gripped the steering wheel and hoped he could at least stay on the road. The lorry's back end shifted slightly as the scraper hit the wall of snow, but Peter's experience allowed him to right the slip before he lost it completely.

Four miles out from Peebles, Peter si
ghed hard as the lorry came to rest, the scraper had bounced up off the drift and it was now sitting on the deep snow just above the bottom of the windscreen. He was thankful he had not stalled the lorry. The last thing he needed was the engine not to start up again and them to freeze to death.

'Guess we're fucked now,' Danny said.

Peter took a deep breath, switched off the beacons and said, 'Pretty much.'

First Attack

Peter pulled the hand set from i
ts cradle again and called base. 'Echo Six to Echo base.' The trigger clicked. Silence. 'Echo Six to Echo base.' Nothing again.

'What are you doing?' Danny asked.

'Calling in, we need a JCB up here to dig us out. Unless you want to wait till it melts,' Peter replied. 'Try your phone, might be lucky and get a signal.'

Danny unlocked his phone and the bright screen lit up his side of the cab in a light blue hue. Danny shook his head,
and then shoved the phone into his pocket.

The engines thunder was all that
could be heard, a calming rumble that comforted Peter in a time of desperation. Outside, the snow didn't let up and the drift that Peter hit was getting larger and larger. Peter turned the heater dial down a notch, the cab was stifling.

'What? We just han
g aboot till a JCB comes all the way from the depot?' Danny asked. Their main depot was sixteen miles away, on a good day a JCB would take about forty minutes; in this weather? Who knows how long?

'There is a machine in Peni
cuik, half an hour and it would be here, so calm down.'

They sat in almost silence for ten minutes then Peter tried base again, still nothing. The orange tinted sky was heavy with snow and it just kept coming. The other drivers sometimes called the flakes,
'Pennies from Heaven' due to the over-time they could get, Peter didn't. This was a necessity, certainly not something to be happy about, 'Needs must'. He would rather be with his wife all day, every day but he needed the money. 

'What if I dig us out,'
Danny said. He looked terrified and Peter really didn't want him to go outside, but it might be an option. If he could clear the ever growing drift and some of the rear end, the lorry may get traction again and pull away. If they could keep momentum he had enough salt in the back to help batter through, he hoped.

'I don't know Danny, what about those things?' Peter said really concerned.

'I'll have a fuckin' shovel in my hand,' Danny said pulling on his jacket and smiling, but without any real conviction.

'
I'll keep trying base, need to report in anyway.'

Danny cleared his throat, shivered slightly, opened the door and jumped down from the steps. Peter lost sight of him as he walked to the side to get a shovel. A few minutes later he was standing at the scra
per waving the shovel and grinning like a horror story clown. Peter gave him the thumbs up and tried calling base again. Nothing. The wind and snow battered Danny as he dug. He was unconcerned where the snow landed as he threw it once that way, then the other. Peter felt guilty, calling base was an excuse not to go out in the blizzard.

Through the big flakes he could see the heavy sky pushing, crushing down on them. To Peter and Danny this was the only place on earth. It didn't matter about home, it didn't
even matter about Mary, it didn't matter about the other gritters; possibly stuck on other routes. It didn't matter about the police back at Leadburn or the stuck cars wanting the road clear so they could get home. It was just him and Danny with a load of salt, a couple of shovels, a working heater and creatures in the snow that didn't look the friendliest. 'Focus on the job in hand not the job in plan' his dad used to say.

Shit
, he thought,
I better give him a hand
.

Pet
er slipped his jacket on, pulled the hood up over his head and zipped it up to his chin. The blowing wind caused a little resistance on the door as he opened it and he felt the winter chill bite at his face immediately. He jumped onto the snow; it was up to his knees and he feared digging wasn't enough unless it stopped snowing. He took careful, large strides towards the rear to get the other shovel. He pulled it from the cradle that attached it to the vehicle’s body and headed back to the front. A squeal pierced the night and he felt it through his body; like polystyrene rubbed on a black board. He hurried to Danny.

He reached him and Danny was still shovelling, but more ferociously than ever.

'Did you hear that? We need to fuckin' move,' he urged. Peter simply nodded and started shifting snow from around the wheels and the scraper. The wailing returned and sounded closer, much closer.

'Think we should get back in the cab Danny,' Peter said with an air of panic in his trembling voice.

Danny shook his head, 'No, need to get away from them.'

They both froze. There was breathing, grunting and panting about ten metres in front of them and to the sides of them. Peter spun three sixty degrees trying to pinpoint its exact location,
their
exact location.

'Danny, m
ove slowly into the cab, please,' Peter said.

'I have a shovel, I want out of here.' Danny lifted th
e shovel and held it like a bat, ready to swing. 'We fight or die Pete, those things are not fuckin' about.'

Peter thought for a moment about doing the same
, stand and fight. He was too old and slow for fighting, he wouldn't last a minute. He backed off slightly towards the cab door. A deep growl vibrated in his chest like a low frequency bass. The black shapes appeared directly in front of them. Three of the creatures stood straight up this time, just as he guessed they could. As long as he didn't look directly at them, he could see them.

The middle one of the three made a lunge for
Danny; he swung the shovel from shoulder height and hit the creature across the face with a 'thwack'. The creature squealed in pain and flew backward. 'C'mon then fuckers, come and get some,' Danny screamed at them, moving the shovel from side to side in front of him. 'Who's next?'

Peter's heart pounded and he shook uncontrollabl
y from the sudden burst of adrenalin and the terror he clearly felt. He grabbed at the door handle and within seconds he was sitting high in the cab above Danny watching the nightmare unfold. The creature Danny had hit stood up again, Peter could see its face lit up by the roof lights. A large gash opened up the left side of its face, something oozed from the wound; thicker than blood and much darker in colour. It turned its head toward the other two who hadn't even moved. Peter saw the long snout that protruded from its terrible face like a dogs. Its jaws moved as if it was talking to the others, communicating in a language very alien to him. Danny stood still and watched. They could be hurt, they bled so they could be killed, Danny might be right, fighting may be the best option.

Peter was about to jump back out the cab when all three creatures loped toward Danny, Peter's hand froze on the door handle. Within seconds they were on Danny, no mercy. They tore and bit their way through his flesh, Danny's screa
ming stopped after only a few seconds. Peter watched as Danny's life was ripped from him in bloody chunks. The three dragged what was left of the body back into the darkness away from the roof lights and Peter only heard the wailing again. By the scraper, a dark patch was left in the snow, it looked black in the darkness but Peter knew what it was. His stomach lurched and he moved his head to the side and threw up over Danny's seat.

Minutes passed with
no more creatures, the snow had stopped blowing so hard and Peter could swear he could see clouds again. Delicate flakes still fell but it seemed as it was at last easing off. The roof lights were able to penetrate further into the dark and visibility was getting better; or worse. As the snow became translucent he could see more than he wanted to see.

Danny lay off the road to the left, he was in pieces. A
creature hunched over the body, the one Danny wounded. It had the shovel in its grasp. It stood up and swung it at Danny's neck and took his head off in a couple of hacks. The creature grabbed at Danny's hair and tugged. The head came away from his torso with ease and the creature turned to look at Peter. Its jaws wouldn't allow for a huge grin but Peter thought it was trying to smile. Its teeth glistened with blood; its face smeared in the red stuff, its body was strong and naked. It stood in the snow without a shiver. It turned now and walked toward Peter, Danny's head grasped in one hand. When it was about ten feet away it lifted the trophy above its head and in one flowing motion threw the head at the windscreen, it smashed inward. Peter ducked down to protect himself as much as possible as the glass shards rained down on the inside of the cab. Danny's head came to rest on his seat, on top of the vomit.