The Winter People (39 page)

Johnny whispered
at Gary, “do you have a bolt ready to go?’ he asked, never taking his eyes off
it.

“Locked and
loaded,” he replied, “what do you want me to do?”

“When I light my
fuse, let that sucker fly.  Then get your ass back down the stairs.” He said. 
Then he continued, “Tom, light us up.”

Syrhal took a long
stride toward Johnny and his hatred pulsated in his veins.  He took a second
step and the fury began to build.  He felt it in the others as well.  They
crowded in behind him as he moved toward
the one
.  Deeper and deeper the
rage went until his stomach was a tight little knot.  So blinded by his fury
was Syrhal that he never noticed the puny things adding the fire to their
sticks.  Nor did he pay any heed to the sharp pain in his arm, where a steel
rod now protruded.  So focused on his rancor was he, that only the stink of
the
one
filled his nostrils.  The pounding of his own wrath in his ears did not
allow him to hear the cries of alarm from his brethren, or the explosions from
somewhere above.

Johnny had locked
eyes on Syrhal and the two could only focus on each other.  He had let his
arrows fly to the upper reaches of the old hotel even as Gary’s crossbow bolt
hit the behemoth’s arm.  Mike had also let his flaming arrows go to other areas
of the Big Empty, but he was captivated by the beast that was bearing down on
Johnny and Johnny alone.  Johnny stood his ground, dropped his bow, and
retrieved a hand flare from his pocket.  He lit it just as Syrhal launched
himself.

Once he had fired
his bolt, Gary scrambled backwards down the stairs into the coal cellar.  The
outer room was suddenly thrust into panic and confusion and blood lust.  Gary
fell over the acetylene tanks and fell hard onto his butt, but he never took
his eyes off of the scene unfolding above beyond the steel door.  Madness, it
was total madness.  Mike and Johnny had fired their arrows into the upper areas
of the building, which ignited the gasoline soaked rugs and hallways.  Two
explosions rocked the timbers of the old building, and caused great flashes of
bright white light, which in turn ignited other areas of the rooms above.  It was
a cacophony of flames and bright lights, bright lights and flames.  Gary
watched Tom drop the torch, still lit, and scramble back down the stairs into
the cellar as well.  He was followed closely by Mike, who was still holding his
bow.  Only Johnny stood alone at the doorway, between this world and the chaos
beyond.

The torch that Tom
had dropped ignited the old dried floor next to Johnny, but still he held his
ground.  And still the giant beast leapt for him.  Johnny held the lit flare
before him like a talisman and waited for Syrhal to reach him.  All the room
around him had gone berserk but all he could see was Syrhal.  And as Syrhal
reached Johnny, Johnny thrust the flare at his injured arm.  But Syrhal managed
to swat it aside and hit Johnny squarely in the chest sending him sprawling
down the stairs and into the rear wall of the coal cellar.  Syrhal rolled once
then stood bolt upright and took a final step toward his prey.  He grasped
Johnny around the throat and lifted him off the floor, his feet dangling like a
rag doll.  Johnny gripped the monster’s hand to no avail.  He could only watch
as the beast raised one massive arm as if to strike, stretching out his talons.

Hayden remained at
the foot of the coal chute while all the others backed away from Johnny and the
creature as quickly as they could.  To Mike Hayden yelled, “Close that damn
door or they’ll all be in here with us!”

Mike raced up the
stairway and pushed the heavy door closed, then wedged a piece of wood between
the bottom of the door and the floor.  “Done!” he replied, and turned back to
the scene unfolding in their safe room.  Tom and Gary were frozen in fear,
unsure of what to do.  Hayden would not give up his post at the chute, and
Sarah had moved between the thing and Nick.  Johnny continued to struggle in
vain to free himself from the grip of this monster in their midst.  And Mike
was just plain out of answers.

Suddenly the room
gave off a pink glow and Syrhal felt a sharp pain in his back.  He stopped in
mid strike and let Johnny fall to the ground.  Syrhal turned around, confused. 
Standing before him was a tiny female thing holding a flare gun.  Sarah had
fired her last flare at the back of the creature and it buried itself deep
between its shoulder blades.  Even now Syrhal could feel the burning starting
within him.

“That was for
Nick,” Sarah said defiantly, with loathing in her voice.  Then Syrhal simply
ceased to be.

The screams and
shrieks of the
others
echoed in the building and drifted through the
climbing flames, and beneath the steel fire door.  In a panic they ran, they
ran this way and that.  But none of them could escape the inferno.  So close
were the quarters and packed was the building that the flames actually drove
them to the center of the building.  One by one they began to wink out, and in
doing so fed the flames even more.  Even the ones that were not injured, that
had no blood to show, had nowhere to go.  So they only stood there and let the
flames take them.

***

            The heat from the fire
all around them turned their little sanctuary into an oven.  It was only the
fact of the ruined door to the coal chute that allowed them to stay in the
cellar.  It allowed in fresh cold air that countered the heat and smoke coming
from behind the fire door.  For the first time in a long time the group
relaxed.  It was over.  At least the immediate threat was over.  A few of
them
had survived, they still needed to get to civilization, and Nick was in no way
out of danger.

***

            In the months that
followed the massacre at Copper Creek, Nick had been struggling to recover.  He
had survived the makeshift surgery but had not come away from his near drowning
unscathed.  There was some brain damage after all.  His mind was as sharp as
ever, but he couldn’t get his body to do exactly what he was telling it to do. 
Nick was learning to walk all over again, and had a speech therapist to help
with his communication.  So when he stood by himself for the first time to
recite his wedding vows to Debbie, Sarah and Mike both cried.  It had been an uphill
climb, but Sarah knew he was going to be okay.  She could sense it.  She knew
that he spent much of his time deep in thought, trying to fight the memories
that threatened to invade his soul.  However, Sarah knew that her brother was
strong, and with the help of his new wife, Debbie, he would overcome those as
well.

            Sarah only wished she
could overcome her demons as easily as Nick seemed to be conquering his.  She
had seen and lost too much to forget it, and part of her thought that maybe she
shouldn’t forget it.  Part of her thought that forgetting would diminish what
had happened, diminish the people that died.  She would come to terms with the
loss she had experienced, or at least she hoped to.  It was the evil and the
terror that haunted her the most.  So Sarah did what strong people do and found
a way to deal with that as well.  Once Nick had married, and the pain inside
her had subsided, Sarah began her own therapy of sorts.  Sarah began to let
people in. 

Mike had stayed
with Sarah for a while after they had returned to Albuquerque.  He had hung
around for Nick, in case there was anything he could do.  But, Sarah and Debbie
seemed to have it well in hand.  So Mike stayed for Sarah, and he stayed for
himself.  There didn’t seem to be any point to going back to California, back
to his regular life.  Nothing was regular any more, and there wasn’t really
anyone else who could relate to what he had been through.  So Mike hung around
with Sarah because he didn’t really know what else to do.  After a short while,
Mike felt a spark for Sarah.  Something he hadn’t ever considered before, but
now?  Life seemed too short not to explore it, and Sarah wasn’t saying no.  So
Mike moved back to Albuquerque sooner than he had expected, and was willing to
just take one day at a time and see what happened.  Mike was at peace with his
decision even though he was still having nightmares, but they were fading.  He
couldn’t seem to entirely erase the images from his mind and many a night he woke
up in a cold sweat.  Although, Mike had discovered that he was much more
confident.  He was more confident in his decisions and in his actions.  Before
the ski trip he was painfully shy.  But that didn’t seem to be a problem for
him anymore.  After all, what did he have to lose?

Hayden on the
other hand had lost everything.  He had lost his wife, his friends, his town.  With
the loss of his wife, Hayden felt like he had lost his life as well.  Yet at
the same time Hayden found a strength he never knew he had, and he found a new
purpose.  Hayden made it his goal to rebuild what had been taken from him, to
rebuild Copper Creek.  There were a few survivors, hiding out in various
buildings, or cabins that had been missed.  There were also the few that had
been out of town, and relatives of the ones that had perished.  Hayden decided
that he would be there for them.  He would stay in Copper Creek because that is
where Barbara had always wanted to be, and where she was now buried.  Hayden
would make Copper Creek his town again.  It was what Barbara would have wanted,
and Hayden was not about to let her down again.   Hayden would live the life
she had wanted for the both of them.

Gary was living
too, living with his Aunt in Idaho.  In his Aunt he had found a precious gift,
he had found a part of his own mother.  His Aunt and his mother were so much
alike that Gary often felt as if his mother was still with him.  He could hear
her voice in his Aunt’s every time she called him to dinner, or smell her
perfume sometimes when he went into the bathroom.  Gary was also distancing himself
from the horror he had seen and his memories of his mother were slowly becoming
more pure, less
them
.  Gary also quit playing World of Warcraft; it no
longer held any interest for him.  Gary had seen the real monsters, and Gary
didn’t really want to fight monsters anymore.

However, Johnny
still had demons to fight.  In the hours after the town began to mourn, Johnny
began a new journey.  He knew that several Winter People had escaped their trap
and were even now moving north, back to the ice fields above Canada.  He also
knew that as they travelled they would take lives, trying to replace what
Johnny had deprived them of.  Johnny could not let this happen.  He could not
let his actions lead to the deaths of other people.  So Johnny began a
journey.  He had his choice of any number of snowmobiles in Copper Creek and
picked the one he thought was best.  He packed supplies, fuel, and an injured
pit-bull onto a makeshift sled that he towed behind him and left town just as
authorities were coming in.  He would follow the
others
as long as he
had to.  He would track them down and put an end to what had been started in
the tiny town of Copper Creek.  But Johnny also knew deep down that this would
not be his last journey.

Tom Willis had
also begun a journey of his own.  But it was not a journey as far and as noble
as Johnny’s.  Tom travelled only as far as the closest bar, but then stopped
just short of the nearest bottle.  He had wanted a drink so badly, but then he
couldn’t quite bring himself to do it.  He could not let Lucy down like that. 
Besides, he had found something in himself that had been missing for a long
time.  Something that Lucy had always seen, but he’d been too consumed with
self-loathing to notice.  Tom liked being a doctor.  He felt good helping
others.  So he decided he would do what he could to help out Hayden and Copper
Creek.  They were his patients now.

The Winter the
Stars Fell is a documented event, and truly significant to many peoples so
closely tied to nature.  The tragic events that befell the eighty-seven
settlers of the Donner party as they tried to cross the Rockies in winter, led
to the deaths of many of them.  However, it was the cannibalism that is mostly
remembered from their story.  Winter in the Rocky Mountains is often long and
harsh, and the fact is that many lives are lost or disappear entirely, most
without explanation.  There is also the legend of the People Eaters.  This is
as real to the Ute as any history lesson.  So when I began to write the story
of Copper Creek, it began with a simple question.  What if?