The Winter People (35 page)

Nick wiped his
eyes and brow with the back of the other hand, dried the palms of both hands
upon his pant legs, and tried again.  This time the bar found purchase between
the concrete and the grate.  He pried it up and pulled the grate aside, its
dull scrape on the floor causing his teeth to clench.  Above him there was a
scraping on the roof that caused his mouth to go dry as well.

Nick lowered
himself, feet first, into the hole.  He risked a glance back at the inflamed
doorway and saw them, waiting.  The orange of the fire reflected off of them,
their eyes glimmering, the light dancing off of their teeth.  There was
anticipation on their faces, longing.  The cries had stopped now and below him,
Nick could hear the sound of running water.  Then there was the dry shriek of
tearing metal and Nick looked up to see the corrugated tin of the roof peeling
away.  Urgency welled up in him and he let go of his grip.

The tin roof came
away just then and four toothy grins filled the opening.  Snow fell into the
garage in large clumps, and so did four ghost-like figures.  They sprang around
the room in wild frustration and finally settled in on the tiny opening in the
floor.  The hated man thing’s stink was all over it and they screamed in
contempt.  Behind the receding wall of flames, the others joined them.

All the while,
unknown to any until it would be too late the flames had worked quietly at the
hoses to the acetylene and oxygen tanks.  Unrestricted, the hoses began to flop
wildly around the room, issuing forth their contents.  The movement caught the
attention of the four figures standing near the drain and they stared at it
dumbfounded for a moment.  Suddenly a realization came over their faces that
quickly turned to fear, then terror, then was erased completely by the
explosion that leveled most of the building.

Nick dropped away
into an abyss, distance immeasurable.  Unprepared for it, he landed in a bone
jarring thud on concrete.  His mouth clacked shut and his knees snapped back
and gave way to his weight and momentum.  Nick rolled backward and down a
fairly steep slope, launching him out into space.  He landed on his back in icy
water and it knocked the wind out of him.

Blind and in a
totally foreign world, he panicked.  He couldn’t seem to get his feet under him
and it was impossible to tell which way was up.  A strong current carried him
along and occasionally he would bounce of a side.  Nick struggled and finally
found air.  He sucked it in and repulsed at its smell, and the taste it left in
his mouth.  But, his panic slowly began to ebb.

It was then that
an explosion above rocked Nick, reverberating painfully in his ears and causing
them to ring.  It echoed through the tunnel and followed him as the current
carried him away.  He felt like flotsam, bounced around by rough seas to be
cast up on some lifeless lump of land.

The flow carried
him along with increasing speed and depth.  Nick struggled to keep his head
above the putrefaction and fight the chill settling into his bones.  The foul
water twisted and dropped, following the confines of the tube.  It bubbled and
seethed, alive with its debris.  Suddenly, Nick was dumped out into an open
room, tumbling over odd shapes and strange textures.

Around him there
was a thin veil of light.  It was barely enough to make out the shadows of the
shapes around him.  He was in some type of building with machinery, its whine
perceptible even above the roar of the water.  It registered then that he was
in some kind of sewage treatment plant, and along with that, registered a
hope.  He had escaped.

“But to what
end?”  His mind asked him as he tumbled over rough cylinders that grabbed at
him and put little gashes in his clothes.  Nick struggled to grab onto
something, anything, but the surfaces were too steep and rough, and his
momentum too swift.  His hands opened up in a myriad of painful gashes and
burned from the vile water touching the wounds.  He’d lost track of how many
times he’d tumbled, and over what, and finally fell into a large vat.

Floating in its
center like a giant spider spewing forth webbing was a large suction pump
circulating the water as chemicals were added.  Nick went under several times
and came up gagging, spitting out the vile water he’d swallowed.  Nick tried to
get to a side and climb out, but numbness had overtaken him.  He was sluggish
and weak.

Then an undertow
grabbed hold of his legs and jerked him under entirely.  It shot him into
another tube, nearly full this time.  This tube was much steeper and he felt
the skin peel off of him in several places as he came in contact with the
walls.  Nick managed one last breath before the current engulfed him, scraping
most of the skin off his chin on the tunnel ceiling as he did so.

Suddenly, he had
the sensation of free falling and the water had grown noticeably colder.  From
behind his eyelids he could see a distant soft glow.  Nick risked it and when
he opened them, his eyes ached from the brightness.  He was in a vast area with
no concept of his surroundings, any top or bottom, depth or width.  There was
only the light.  It was a beautiful light, soft and brilliant at the same time.

Nick floated
toward it, his lungs aching from their denial of air.  Out of necessity he
forced his limbs to move and propelled himself toward the light.  He swam up to
it to embrace it, and welcome it.  But the light at the end of his tunnel was
his grave marker.  He thumped against the ice that covered the surface; that
covered him.  He wanted to laugh.

Nick’s mind swam
in the irony of it for only a moment then everything started to get dim.  The
light above, his thoughts, his awareness, the burning in his lungs, everything
dimmed.  His last cognizant thought was a prayer for Sarah.  In the end, Nick
never knew which took him first, the cold or the lack of oxygen.  He didn’t
much care either. 

Mike pulled
himself up off the floor and staggered over to Johnny.  Neither one spoke.  The
situation was so obscene, so absurd, that no words would do.  Johnny gave Mike
a commiserate nod then turned away.  He turned to peer over the railing and
held his flare out to light the scene.  Mike moved up beside him and did the
same.

It’s not that it
was any less gruesome downstairs than up, or that there were fewer bodies. 
There were in fact more.  It’s just that Mike’s mind couldn’t process any
more.  He had been overloaded to the point of numbness.  Mike could just stare
blankly at the carnage below and he was thankful for it.  So was Johnny, he
needed him.

As Mike and Johnny
surveyed the room below, they recognized a familiar shape lying across the
remnants of a couch.  It was Barbara.  She did not seem to be mutilated, as the
blood in her house had led them to believe.  Instead, she just appeared to be
sleeping.  Mike realized that it must have been someone else and not Barbara. 
A glimmer of hope crossed his face.

Mike raced past
Johnny down the stairs toward her, his heart pounding.  He climbed over and
around the frozen remains of much of Copper Creek, oblivious to them all.  He
was totally focused on Barbara.  In the back of his mind he knew he was being
foolish but he couldn’t help himself.  There she was, and she needed him.

Johnny still stood
on the stairs and followed Mike’s progress with his eyes.  But in his mind he
heard the pleas from all around him.

“Help us Johnny,
we need you.”  The voices pleaded.  “Help us Johnny, It’s so cold.  It’s so
cold and dark here Johnny.  Don’t leave us again Johnny.  There are more now,
many more.  And we all need you.  Don’t let them take us Johnny.  Please?”

“I will.”  He
replied under his breath.

“Johnny!”  Mike
called out.  “I’m going to take Barbara back to Hayden.  I can’t leave her
here.”  He said with tears in his eyes.  He didn’t wait for a reply but instead
lifted her body to his right shoulder.  Mike dropped his flare as he did so and
it landed in the middle of a tangled mound of corpses.  Mike only barely
noticed, as he was intent on his cargo and getting her up the stairs.

But Johnny
noticed.  He saw it fall near the faces of Dave Burke and Vivian Bryce.  He saw
the looks of horror and surprise frozen on them.  He saw the frosty white of
their eyes, clouded by the cold.  Then he saw the light start to dim and he
realized the flare was going out.  So Johnny grabbed another from his pocket
and lit it off the first before it died out.  He tossed the spent flare over
the railing and turned to provide light for Mike to climb the stairs with his
load.

“Get her strapped
to your snowmobile.”  He said to Mike as he came up the stairs, struggling with
Barbara’s weight.  “I’ll take care of this,” motioning to the cabin with his
head.  “And hurry, they’re coming and we don’t have much time.”  He finished.

Even as Mike
passed him Johnny took the bow from his shoulder and a kerosene tipped arrow
from the quiver on his back.  Johnny lit the arrow on the flare and pulled it
back on the bowstring.  The acrid scent of the burning kerosene filled his
nostrils and Johnny breathed deeply of it.  It felt clean to him.  Johnny let
the arrow fly and it pierced the drapes on the far wall and embedded in the
wall between the front door and the living room.

The drapes lit
instantly and the fire lapped its way up the wall.  Bits of the burning drapes
floated and flitted around the room catching furniture on fire as it landed. 
There was so much wood in the rustic cabin that the lower level was ablaze in a
matter of minutes and the heat forced Johnny back.  He backed away from the
growing blaze toward the door, the smoke stinging his lungs.  But Johnny didn’t
mind, it was a cleansing thing.

Mike strapped Barbara’s
lifeless form to the back of his snowmobile with tie down straps from the cargo
area.  As he cinched them tight, the wind began to change.  It picked up in
ferocity and volume, and in it he believed he heard hatred.  It screeched and
howled, and protested his every move.  Mike knew that
they
were coming,
he could feel it.  And when Johnny put his hand on Mike’s back, Mike very
nearly jumped out of his skin.

“We need to go,
now.”  Johnny said above the wind’s wail.

“Don’t wait for
me,” Mike replied, “I’ll be right behind you.”  And even as Mike pulled away
from the cabin-tomb, the flames leapt at him from the ruined doorway.  Mike
followed Johnny back the way they had come, to roughly the center of town. 
Again he pulled up beside Johnny and stopped.  Johnny leaned close to Mike so
he could be heard above the wind and the snowmobile’s engines.

“Keep your engine
running,” he advised Mike, “we are going to be leaving in a hurry.  They’re
coming for us now.  I’ll try to keep them off of us while you torch the town. 
Open up the buildings first with the dynamite then send a fire arrow to start
them up.  Use a flare to ignite them.  And if you see any of
them
coming
for you, use a fire arrow on it.”

Mike nodded and
reached for a flare from his pocket.  He lit it and wedged it in his
handlebars.  Then Mike wedged a quiver of arrows on each side of the cowling. 
He took the bow from over his shoulder, notched a dynamite arrow, and lit the
fuse.  As he pulled the arrow back against the string he began to tremble. 
Fear washed over him and he couldn’t seem to hold the bow still.  He finally
pointed it in the general direction of a cabin and let it fly.

The arrow fell
short of the cabin and buried itself deep in the snow.  “Fuck!” was all he said
then he grabbed another one.  A moment later the snow erupted in a huge cloud
that was whipped into a frenzy by the wind, and partially obscured Mike’s
vision.  The report from the explosive rang on Mike’s eardrums but was muffled
by the snow and the wind.  “I’ve got to do better than that.” He chided
himself.  He didn’t have that many of the dynamite arrows, and it was a lot
harder to shoot them with his gloves on than he realized.

Mike notched the
second arrow and lit it.  This time he had settled down somewhat and his aim improved. 
The arrow sank into the wall just below the roof of the cabin directly in front
of him and Mike watched intently as the fuse sparkled down into the stick of
explosive.  Mike instinctively turned away with the flash of the explosion, and
after its report turned back to see bits of wood and other debris littering the
pristine white of the snow.  It looked like a bomb crater, scorched and
lifeless, but Mike knew it was just the cabin below the snow line.  As he
looked closer, he could see bodies in the ruin and he had to look away.  He
wouldn’t think about that he decided.

Mike grabbed a
kerosene soaked arrow and notched it in the bow.  When he touched it to the
flare it lit up brightly for a moment then decreased to a steady burn.  Black
soot drifted off the burning rag like tainted snowflakes, carried off in the
wind.  Mike launched it at the ruined building before him and it disappeared
into the dark hole in the snow.  As he watched, an orange-red glow started to
fill the hole then Mike saw flames starting to peek out over the sides. 
Satisfied, Mike reached for a dynamite arrow.

Johnny was setting
up his arrows and a flare much as Mike had done when he hear the first
explosion.  He knew that Mike had missed, even without “seeing” it, because of
the sound.  He knew that Mike was scared, but hell, he was too.  But he also
knew they had to do this.  He only hoped Mike could pull it together, and keep
it together, until they were done.  And as if in answer, Johnny heard the
second explosion and he smiled under his facemask.

Johnny notched a
fire arrow in his bow, and waited.  He closed his eyes and let his mind scan
the streets.  That’s when Johnny saw them emerging from the trees along the
path they had taken to get here.  There were four of them, and they were
closing quickly.  Johnny had to wait until they were close enough that they
couldn’t sidestep the arrows.  It would be close.

Boom!  Another
cabin had been destroyed.

The four Winter
People moved quickly and deliberately toward Johnny, unafraid of the two puny
humans.  Johnny ignited his arrow and let it fly, and just as quickly notched a
second, lit it and let it go as well.  By the time he had let the fourth arrow
sail, the first one had hit its mark, and so had the second.  The lead creature
and the one to his left flashed out in a brilliant white and were gone.  But
the other two sidestepped so quickly that the arrows meant for them buried
themselves harmlessly in the snow between them.

Boom!

They now picked up
their pace and were moving at a blinding speed toward Johnny.  He shot another
arrow and nailed the third creature in the chest only fifty feet away. 
Scrambling, Johnny notched another arrow and was barely able to get it away as
the fourth creature leapt at him.  The heat of it winking out just a few feet
in front of Johnny singed his hands and his face beneath the facemask.  But
Johnny only blinked it away, as he saw two more creatures moving along the tree
line to the South.

Boom!

Then Johnny saw
five more of the unholy beasts moving along the tree line to the North.  Things
were getting real bad, real fast.  Mike still had to destroy six or seven more
cabins, and Johnny knew it.

Boom!

But, he was
getting faster at it Johnny admitted and let a fire arrow sail at the nearest
creature.  Left, left, right, left, right, left, left the arrows flew, all but
the last one hitting its mark.  “Damn.”  Johnny muttered to himself and grabbed
another arrow.  He was running out.  He only had a handful left.

Boom!

Johnny took out
the last of the five only yards from him and sighed with relief.  But there was
little time for sighing, as three more Winter People emerged from the trees at
the far end of town.  They sprinted toward Mike in a haphazard course, making
them difficult to target.  They were also putting Mike between themselves and
Johnny so he couldn’t have a clear shot.

Boom!

Mike didn’t see
them, Johnny realized and panic welled up in him.  Johnny took aim over Mike’s
back as he bent down to get another arrow, and let another fire arrow fly.  Mike
saw the arrow fly over his head and turned to his right in time to see the
first of three creatures flash out of existence.  He notched his fire arrow,
lit it, and took aim at one of the remaining two monsters.  The creature didn’t
need to sidestep it as it was a complete miss, and Mike cursed himself.  So
Mike did the only thing he could think of, he ducked down on his seat and let
Johnny take care of them.

As soon as Johnny
finished with the two remaining creatures heading for Mike, he turned on his
machine to face the four others that were approaching from the other end of
town.  They were using the buildings that remained as shelter while they moved
upon them.  Johnny let the fear that had worked its way into him seep out and
focused on the creatures.  He closed his eyes and lit an arrow.  He waited
patiently for a moment, and then let the arrow fly.

It struck the
creature squarely in the chest as it rounded the corner of a cabin. 

Boom!

Johnny did not
open his eyes.  He bent down quickly and reloaded his bow.  He let another
arrow fly and it hit the second creature in the eye as it peeked around a
corner.

Boom!

Johnny would not
let himself be distracted by what Mike was doing.  He had let his gift take
over and lead him.  Something he should have done before, but was either
unwilling, or unable to do it.  Now, he saw that it was the only way.  He
loaded another arrow and paused.  This creature was not as brave as its
brethren, and there was less cover for it as Mike was making an inferno of the
town of Donner Colorado.

Boom!

And in the flash
of the dynamite, the creature lunged as fast as it could toward Johnny and
Mike.  But Johnny was ready for it.  He dipped the arrow tip to the flare,
ignited it, and let it sail.  Without missing a beat, Johnny pulled another
flare from his pocket, lit it, and wedged it into his handlebars next the dying
remnants of the first flare.  Behind him, he knew that Mike had done the same. 
There was a brief lull in the wind just then, a moment of indecision.  The
pause was peaceful to Johnny.  He was lost in his gift.

Boom!

The explosion not
only splintered the framing of a cabin, it splintered the peace that Johnny had
for that brief moment.  That’s when he saw them.  Not two, or three, or five,
but fifteen or twenty of them.  From all sides they came, and Johnny suddenly
felt trapped.  He had a wall of fire behind him, and a wall of perverse hatred
before him.  And only three arrows left.

Boom!  The last
cabin was leveled to ruin and Mike quickly followed that arrow with a fire
arrow.  The entire town was ablaze and Mike was sweating beneath his clothing
from the heat.  He was almost giddy from the destruction he had wrought, but
then remembered why he had done it.  As Mike turned to regard Johnny, he saw
the movement at the edge of his vision.  Wisps of snow moved manlike among the
trees and in the open field all around them.

Mike was a piss
poor shot, he knew, he could barely hit the buildings he had fired at.  So what
he saw now dropped his mood like a lead weight.  He was useless with the fire
arrows at these types of targets he decided and reached down and handed the
four or five he had left over to Johnny.  Johnny looked at him confused for a
moment then took the arrows.  In return, Johnny handed him his entire quiver of
dynamite arrows, which he had not used.  Mike was happy about that, as he
didn’t think he would need to be as accurate with them.