The Winter People (25 page)

Well, I
guess I should be going for now.  Take care of yourself (somehow I know you
always will).  I would just like to say thanks for taking the time from your
daily schedule to share a few memories.  May good fortune remain always on your
side.

            Thinking of You

 Danny

P.S.   
My ankles really got sunburned, now I know why people from New Jersey wear
brown socks with their sandals.....     

Sarah
sat on her sofa with her knees pulled tight against her chest and her arms
wrapped around her legs.  She rested the side of her face on her knees and
stared down at the email on her iPad on the cushion next to her.  Her eyes were
glassy but she didn't cry again, she only stared.  She stared and thought.  She
thought about her life and how it hadn't turned out like she'd expected.  She
thought about her father and how much she missed him.  Then she thought about
her uncle and how much he was like her dad.

She
thought about her mother and sister, and she thought about Nick.  And as if he
knew she was thinking about him, the phone rang just then and it was Nick.  He
thought she might be feeling blue and decided to call.  They talked for a while
and she shared her thoughts with him and the email as well.  He was the only
other person who would know about it.

***

Sarah
was lost somewhere between then and now, but something had intruded on the
then, something from now.  A noise that didn't belong with the memory found its
way there.  It startled her from her retrospective daze but not soon enough to
be cognizable. Then there was a second noise that she did recognize, a scraping
sound on the porch, footfalls.

Her
blood ran cold and she had to swallow hard to keep her heart down.  Her
breathing stopped but her mind was racing a hundred miles an hour.  She finally
took a breath then jerked her head around violently, searching the room wild
eyed.  Her heart was pounding so hard that her chest ached and her temples
throbbed.  Her mouth was incredibly dry and the huge amounts of cold air she
was pulling in through it stung.

Finally,
her eyes fell on the huge fireplace and she stared at it for a calculative
moment.  It explained Clayton she decided, and then moved toward it.  She
crawled quickly into the blackened maw and saw the pool of frozen blood on its
floor.  Behind her she could hear the footsteps nearing the door and her heart
raced even harder, but she wasn't about to take the time to look back.

She
looked up as she was about to scramble up the chimney, and screamed.  The
noises closing in on her were forgotten.  Her adrenaline had been pumping
wildly and what she saw brought her to hysterics.  The naked torso of a man had
been stuffed up the chimney.  It had no arms or head, only tattered flesh where
they had been.

Sarah
backed out of the fireplace on all fours, screaming the entire way.  Her voice
bounced off the stones in the hearth and echoed through her head.  She
scrambled backwards, oblivious to everything around her, until she backed into
something.  Then she felt a hand on her shoulder, gripping her hard and pulling
her up.  It turned her to face it and her panic turned into rage, then
recognition.  She went limp and fell against Nick, weeping.  He held her and she
hung onto him.––

***

Nick
was numb; he couldn't believe his uncle was dead.  He decided that he had to
push that aside and concentrate on the here and now.  He would have time to
grieve for his uncle, and his friends, later.  The first order of business was
survival, and that didn't look too promising where they were.  As much as the
thought terrified him, they would have to go back to Copper Creek.

Mike
stood by the door, somewhat subdued, but kept looking around nervously. His
curiosity had gotten the better of him and he had taken a look up in the
chimney. What he had seen made him want to gag, but he had quelled it.  He then
backed out of the gory hole, ashen and somber.  He glanced sympathetically at
Sarah, then pulled the revolver from his coat pocket and had taken up the
position near the door that he now held.

Sarah
sat next to Nick, red eyed but composed.  She couldn't believe that this was
happening, whatever it was that
was
happening.  There were so many
things running through her mind she couldn't focus on a single one.  Too many
things were happening too fast.  She wanted to say something, anything.  She
needed to make sense out of everything she had seen, but it was all just a
jumbled mess.  Finally, she said the only thing she could.

"Nick,
I'm scared."

"So
am I Sarah.  I think whatever did this is already in town, but there's no where
else to go."

"What
do you think it is?” she asked quietly, her voice a squeak.

"I
don't know.  But whatever it is, its smart.” he thought a moment, then added,
"And vicious."

"We need
to get back and find Hayden.” Mike piped in from across the room.  "I
don't think we should stay here too much longer, I don't think it's safe."

"If
Hayden makes it back.” Nick mumbled under his breath, but nodded.

"Who's
Hayden?” Sarah asked.

Mike
continued, "He's the sheriff of Copper Creek; this is his gun.” holding it
up, "He went out on a snowmobile earlier today to see some people or
something.  We need to find him.” he reiterated.

''Mike's
right, we need to leave, and Copper Creek is our best chance.''  Nick agreed.

"Why
don't we just snowmobile out of here?” Sarah offered.

"I'm
almost frozen as it is.  No, no I don't think we could make it.", Nick
replied.

Sarah
looked at his breath hanging heavy around them and nodded.  She'd nearly
forgotten how cold it was.  With her attention brought back to it, she noticed
that her feet were numb and she was shivering uncontrollably.  It was cold,
that was true, but there was something out there far worse than the cold.

A
gust of arctic wind buffeted the lodge just then and threw tiny particles of
snow against the building.  They bounced off the glass with a ticking sound
that was quickly lost in the shrieking wind.  There was something else there as
well, in that wind.  It was a cry that was a part of it, yet separate at the
same time.  It was unearthly and caused the hair to stand on end on each of
them. 
They
were coming.

Nick
stood up quickly and pulled Sarah up with him, "We have to leave here,
now!"  He didn't need to explain further, they all felt it.  They were
coming.  Whatever
they
were?  Again the wind pelted the lodge,
closer.  The wind was closer somehow and it filled Nick with terror.

There
was a mad scramble as the three gathered up what they had removed, and headed
out into the storm.  The wind pushed back at them, trying to hold them there as
best it could.  Joints, stiffened from the cold, impeded them.  They were
sluggish, even in their fear, and trudging through the deep snow was a
tremendous effort.

Nick
jumped on Sarah's machine and after prodding it a little, it grumbled to life.
Mike's machine roared next to him and Nick looked over.  Mike was struggling to
see through the blowing snow, struggling to see if anything was closing in on
them.  Then Nick felt Sarah climb on behind him and wrap her arms around his
waist.

Without
any hesitation, Nick punched the throttle and felt gravity tug at him as the
snowmobile launched.  Sarah's grip tightened then and very nearly squeezed the
wind out of him.  There were angry shrieks all around them, a thunderous cry
that reverberated through his head.  Beneath his mask, Nick's nose started to
bleed.  He could feel its warm progress down his lip, but he ignored it.

Behind
him he heard the scream of the second snowmobile then saw its skis pull up
beside him.  Behind the goggles, Mike's eyes were opened wide.  He leaned
forward over the handlebars and shot up over the rift in front of him.  The
snowmobile felt light, then weightless for a moment before it came down hard on
the frozen, blanketed earth.  It jarred him, but his grip never wavered from
the throttle.

The
howling wind had gone in through his ears and bounced around inside his head. 
Its sound chilled him to the bone and his skin crawled beneath his clothes. 
But this wasn't what had panicked Mike.  He thought he'd felt them, actually
felt a hand on his back.  It was as if something had grabbed at him as they
were leaving.  It was just his nerves, he was sure, but it spooked him never
the less.

Nick
was at full throttle as well, but the added weight held him back.  As Mike blew
by in a flurry of snow, Nick glanced over.  Through the white cloud thrown up
by Mike's machine, Nick saw something on Mike's back.  Through the dark nylon
of his ski coat, the white fill material oozed out of four long gashes in the
fabric, from shoulder to kidney.  Nick swallowed hard then and leaned forward
as far as he could.  He was staying on this machine.

Heather Mead sat in the bentwood rocker,
rocking slowly, and waiting for her brother to speak.  She pulled the worn and
tattered afghan around her shoulders and held it up beneath her chin.  She
watched him pace back and forth in front of the glowing hearth and lowered her
eyes every time he turned and could see her face.  It was not that she was
afraid of him, or ashamed, but it was a learned response from years of living
with Clayton.

Heather was the opposite of her brother in
every respect.  Where she was timid and nervous, Jesse was strong and
confident.  She needed others while he was completely independent.  She was
petite and he was a bull.  Her hair was a dirty blonde to his jet black, and
her eyes a pale hazel to his steel blue.  To see them side by side you would
never guess that they were even remotely related.

Jesse stared at his sister; her complexion
was wan, even against the dingy white of the afghan.  She looked sickly to
him.  Part of it was contempt for her weakness, he was sure.  But beyond that,
she seemed ill.  Her face was drawn and narrow and it would have been colorless
except for the bruises, compliments of that lower life form she was married
to.  Her eyes were hollow images of what they had once been, darkened orbs in a
sorrowful mask.

Her eyes used to be as ice, Jesse thought,
a long time ago, back before Clayton had pulled the life out of them.  She was
so pretty, he remembered.  Not gorgeous, but pretty in a simple and naive way. 
"Cute as a button!” he'd heard remarked more than once.  And why on earth
she ever ended up with him?  Jesse shook his head.

It
made him sad to see her this way.  Sad because he knew the person she had once
been, the girl that was his sister.  And then it made him angry.  Angry that
she could let this happen to her, that she had allowed it.  A Jenkins!?  He was
mad at her, and then he was mad at himself.  He should’ve killed that
sonovabitch years ago.  Hell, he should’ve killed him a dozen times since then,
for every time he had to take Heather to the hospital in Steamboat.  But, she
had always talked him out of it.

For
reasons that he could no more fathom than the reason the good Lord had taken
both their parents, she protected the man.  She stood by him, lied for him, and
stayed with him.  Every once in a while, after a particularly bad beating, she
would come to Jesse and say she was leaving him.  But then a few hours later,
after some of the pain and fear had subsided, she always changed her mind.  It
was pathetic.

So
now he was really having trouble believing it would be any different, even with
the news she had just brought him, although she did have a suitcase this time. 
But, a leopard couldn't change its spots, could it?  If life had taught him
nothing else, it had taught him that.  Oh, she might stay away for a while, a
week or maybe two.  But eventually, she would find her way back to that slug.

Jesse
had considered everything but it came down to one thing, one little item, she
was
his sister.  And whatever else there was, that was all that mattered. 
Jesse pushed the sleeves back up over his elbows then crossed his arms on his
thick chest.  His skin was dark and nearly lost in the blue plaid of his
flannel shirt.  He stood there, legs slightly apart, head tilted to the right,
waiting.

Finally,
the soft creak of the rocker stopped and Heather looked up at him.  Her eyes
were red and puffy and a single tear found its way out and ran down one cheek.  Jesse
cleared his throat, cleared the emotion that was trying to well up inside him. 
He didn't look directly at her, but diverted his eyes slowly, inconspicuously. 
He wanted to be hard, but he loved his sister too much and to look into her
eyes would just about kill him.

His
voice broke the silence, raspy and low, "You sure you're pregnant?"

Heather
only nodded.

"And
you ain't gonna go runnin' back to that ass-wipe?” he continued.

"I
told you Jesse, he ain't gonna touch my baby."  Heather's voice was a
quiver but there was determination in it.  Something Jesse had not seen in her
in a long, long time.

"It's
just that I've heard this story before Heather.  How many times over the last
five years?"

She
only stared at the fire.

"You're
my sister Heather", he continued, "and I promised to take care of you
after mom and dad died.  I know I haven't done too good a job of it, but you
ain't been much help either.  But this is the last time, if you leave Clayton
now it's for good."

Heather
looked up at Jesse and there were tears running down both cheeks now.  "I
can't go back Jesse,” she managed, barely above a whisper, "he won't let
me keep the baby.  And even if he does, he'll probably end up killing it, or
worse."  Heather looked back down, unable to look her brother in the face
any longer.

She
continued, "It's my baby and I'm going to have it.  And I swear that no
one's gonna do to it like's been done to me."  There was strength in her
voice but Jesse couldn't help but feel incredulous.  Heather looked up then and
saw the look on his face and it angered her momentarily.

She
needed to explain it to him, make him understand.  There was so much more to it
than just her being weak.  Jesse didn't remember, or didn't want to remember,
how it was.  That's the funny thing when people die; we all make them out to be
saints.  We only remember the good things, or embellish them.  The rotten
things they did or their bad sides are lost somewhere in the fog of grief. 
Jesse didn't remember how it was between their parents and her.

Her
own father had beaten her as many times as Clayton ever had, and Jesse didn't
know it, but he had come into her room as well.  Come into her room and done as
he pleased on those nights when their mother was visiting away for the
evening.  It made her feel so dirty, so ashamed.  But, that was all she had
ever known as love, and didn't she deserve it?

Her
mother had let him do it too.  She didn't help him any, but she sure didn't do
anything to stop it.  All she could do was to tell her what a worthless brat
she was.  After a while, Heather began to believe it.  She had shown her
parents only heartache and they had done so much for her.  She was nothing but
a burden to them, but they loved her anyway because she was their child.  And
why else would they treat their own child that way, unless she deserved it.

Jesse's
view was clouded though, and their parents had done no wrong, could do no
wrong.  Heather wanted to tell him so much, tell him everything, but she
couldn't. Jesse wouldn't believe it anyway.  After they had died, Jesse's grief
turned into a sick love for them, a consecrated love.  To him, they were
perfect.

But
Heather had come to hate them.  She hated them for what they had done to her,
for what they had made her.  She hated them just as she loathed Clayton.  There
wasn't a day that went by that she didn't wish Clayton was dead, and yet a part
of her wanted to stay with him.  Again, she blamed her parents.  She hated the
pain and fear and indignity, but that was all she knew as love.

Heather
wanted so badly to tell Jesse all of this, but she couldn't.  She couldn't put
it into words, not all of it.  It was all a confusing mass in her mind that she
was just barely aware of.  It was just a part of her, something she had come to
accept as normal.  It was all buried deep in her subconscious somewhere, it had
become her id.  So what finally came out was a distortion of the truth.

"It's
my baby Jesse, and I'm going to keep it.  It's never going to know Clayton,
Jesse.  It's never going to see the inside of an emergency room by his or
anybody else’s hand.  I need this baby Jesse, more than it needs me.  I need it
to give me the life I've never known.  But more than that, I want it.  I want it
more than anything I've ever wanted before.  I want something I can love Jesse,
something that can love me.  I want to know that I'm not a failure."

"You're
not a failure.” he tried, not very convincingly, the words catching in his
throat.  Jesse put a huge rough hand on her tiny delicate ones and squeezed
them gently. "And I love you.” he finished.  He had never heard his sister
sound like this, with this conviction.  Could it be true?  Could this be the
catalyst to bring Heather to her senses?  If it was, then Jesse would do all he
could to help.

Heather
squeezed his hand back, "I'm scared Jesse.  I'm scared that Clayton will
do something to the baby.  When you're not around, who knows what he might
do?"  Her hands were trembling and there was a pleading on her face. 
Jesse had to look away again.

"I'll
handle Clayton.” he stated, matter of factly.  "He won't touch you or the
baby, I promise."

And
that's when Jesse decided it; he was going to kill Clayton Mead.  He had no
parents and no living relatives except for his sister.  He had never married,
which was fine with him.  If you didn't depend on someone, they couldn't hurt
you.  And Jesse had vowed never to be hurt again, the way he had when his
parents died.  But he wasn't about to let that bastard take his only other kin.

Jesse
felt like he should say something more to his sister, but the truth was he
didn't know what to say.  It was almost with relief that he turned toward the
sound at the door.  It was a light sound that broke the awkward moment of silence. 
So light that it was nearly lost in the wind that danced around the eaves and
sang its sad song to the windows. It was a light sound, but Jesse had heard it.

Heather
had heard it too.  Her head turned as did Jesse's, towards the front door,
searching for a shadow…Looking for the outline of a man…Looking for the outline
of Clayton.  Fear swept over her and a single tremor racked her body.  She
swallowed hard then and let out a heavy sigh.  You’re just jumpy, she chided
herself.

But
there was a sound and it came again, louder, more insistent.  Something was
scratching at the door, scratching as if to be let in.  It was long and slow
and deliberate, and caused gooseflesh to rise on Jesse's arms.  He took a
tentative step towards the door and concentrated his hearing upon the sound. 
Then it stopped.  He listened hard but there was only the wail of the wind.

Jesse
looked as his sister, then back at the door, bewildered.  A second later he
jumped.  Someone started tapping on the stained glass, tapping with a metal rod
or something.  Then the clawing returned.  Suddenly, Jesse was angry.  This
wasn't the least bit funny.  He stormed the fifteen feet or so to the front
door, his footfalls heavy thuds on the hardwood floor.  He stopped in front of
the door and spoke, his voice a booming threat.

"Whoever
the hell's out there better be gone before I open this door!” he yelled to the
stained glass.  Heather winced as he said it, winced at the tone, but watched
him as he grabbed the door knob.  "If this is you Clayton, I'm gonna pound
you, you....."

But Jesse never
finished his threat.  At that instant the stained glass burst inward, carrying
with it splintered pieces of the door from between the panes.  A huge white
blur followed the shards through the hole and wrapped around Jesse's head. 
Jesse managed only a grunt as he was pulled through the tiny hole into the
blizzard beyond, bits of his clothes and some flesh left hanging on the rough
edges of the porthole.

In
that moment, as Heather watched her brother sucked out the hole in the door,
there was no sound at all.  There was only the pounding of her own heart in her
ears. Then she broke the silence and screamed, covering her face with her
hands.  But her scream paled beside the cry she heard from beyond the door. 
The terrifying agonized scream of her brother echoed through the house for a
second, and then stopped suddenly.  It was replaced with snarls and grunts and
howls, all gleeful, all a part of the wind.

Terror
rose up in Heather's throat and her eyes became as full moons.  She jumped up
from the rocker, holding the afghan tight, and ran.  She ran in a blind panic
towards the back of the house, towards the kitchen door.  In the room she had
just left she heard a thunderous crash,
the front door
, registered somewhere
in her mind but was lost in the horrific confusion there.

She
fumbled for the kitchen door knob with a quivering hand while the other still
held the afghan tight around her neck.  She turned the knob and the door flew
inward, knocking her back a step.  Wind and snow blew in the opening and
assaulted her, stinging her face and eyes.  The cold of the outside was an
awakening slap and she was grateful for it.  In an instant she considered her
options then decided upon a course.

Heather
plowed into the drift that had leaned up against the doorway, and headed out
into the storm.  She was tiny and frail but her fear carried her like an
Amazon.  She ran through the deep snow, heart pounding, legs aching, hands and
feet quickly growing numb.  Her eyes ran and every breath was very nearly
sucked away from her by the brutal wind, and still she ran.  She ran to the
only place she could, the safest place she could think of, she ran to Hayden's
house.

***

The
room was awash in an ethereal orange glow and smelled of apple and cinnamon. 
Since she was unable to go to work today, Vivian Brice had decided to make the
most of the day and do some baking.  She knew that Hayden wouldn't expect her
in, not in this weather.  He wouldn't really need her either, he seldom did,
but he always did his best to make her feel useful.