Bitter Cold (20 page)

TWENTY-NINE

APRIL GOT READY TO RUN when Jeff opened the door, but it looked exactly as Logan had described. The porch cover and two support posts had been ripped into several broken, jagged pieces and scattered throughout the snow-covered grass. The police 4X4 was missing. No trace left. Most surprising of all was the complete absence of black snow, as if the thing didn’t exist. The only sign of its presence was the grayish, churned-up frost. It had a slightly darker tone to it, and it looked like a dump truck had driven through. Clearly, though, the deadly entity had moved on.

“It did the same thing before,” Logan pointed out. “When it attacked me and Amy, it just stopped and went away.”

“But it was following Sadie then,” Amy’s voice trembled.

“Who’s Sadie?” April asked.

Amy stared at her. “My dog. It ran lured the monster away. We told you this.”

April rubbed her temples. “Sorry. Everything’s going so fast. It’s hard to keep up,” she looked at Jeff’s seared fingers. “We really need to take care of that. Logan? Do you guys have a first aid kit?”

Logan looked at his father.

“In my bathroom. Under the sink,” Jeff directed him. The boy took off up the stairs.

“What are we gonna do?” Amy held herself, staring out at the frozen front yard.

April closed the door and bolted the lock. “We’re going to get out of this—alive. That’s what we’re going to do,” she turned to Jeff. “Where are the keys to your pickup?”

Jeff shivered. “You’re not thinking about going out there, are you?”

“We have to. Look,” she pointed at the windows. A light frost covered the glass on the outside, collecting in the corners, catching the crevices and edges. “There’s snow all over. The windows, the walls, the roof. All over the goddam place. You saw what it did to that Blazer. Ripped it apart.”

Logan sprinted back downstairs, a small white box in his hands.

April got Jeff to the kitchen and used all the burn packs in the first aid kit on his blistered fingers. They weren’t burnt quite as bad as she’d first thought, though they were pretty well-done in places. Despite having absolutely no medical training beyond what she’d seen on
House
, she managed to bandage him up like a pro.

He smiled as she finished wrapping the final finger. “You sure you’re not a doctor?”

She smiled back. “Nope. A journalist. Born to be one. And I’ll tell you, this is the story of the century.”

“Yeah, if we survive to tell it,” Logan watched from the breakfast bar.

April glanced at him and nodded.

“Maybe we
can
get out of here,” Jeff tested his gauzed fingers. Flexing, bending. “Maybe that thing is…distracted with Jenkins right now. We might make it if we hurry.”

April crumpled the bandage wrappers and threw them in the trash. A nervous habit. “Then we’d better hurry.”

“We’re outta here…shit!” he lifted his right hand. The clips for the gauze had come off. The dressing was coming undone.

April corrected it, wrapping the bandage all the way to his wrist, and replacing the spiked metal fasteners. After she finished the second clip, she glanced outside and stopped breathing. Jeff noticed, too.

“SHIT!” he stepped back. April wanted to move away as well, but her legs didn’t oblige. The creature in the snow had taken over Jeff’s entire backyard. The lawn was big, at least two acres big, and black snow concealed everything. Complete dark. Over trees, on the grassy field. It came up to the back porch and inhabited the snow on the steps, the shrubs, the patio table, everywhere.

April was amazed. “It’s bigger.”

Jeff stepped next to her. “It’s…growing.”

Logan ran to the large sliding glass door and flicked the lock.

“Get away from there!” Jeff pulled him toward the center of the kitchen.

The window over the sink crackled. Just like in the Blazer, the darkness began to skulk upward, using the ice crystals as a conduit to the top, to the left, the right—until the entire pane was shrouded in black netting. The glass buckled, then shattered into tiny shards. April threw up her hands, expecting to be showered by the toxic substance. That didn’t happen.

“It can’t get in,” she caught her breath as the dark snow bubbled inside the windowsill.

“It’s double paned. There’s no frost on the inside,” Jeff said. “Not yet, at least.”

“Then there’s not much time,” she said.

Jeff snatched a keychain from a metal hook and hurried into the garage. “I park the truck in the pole barn,” he pressed a button on the wall—the automatic opener. “It looks like that thing’s in the back. We can go out this way.”

He stood and waited as the large, metal door lifted open by itself, the electric motor humming. April noticed shadows, dark areas shifting and crawling toward Jeff.

“Jeff! Look out!”

The door kept rising, bringing with it small clumps of black snow. Pieces dropped in front of his feet, mixing with the flakes floating in from the blizzard outside.

Jeff rushed to the wall and grabbed a shop broom with his bandaged hand. He began sweeping hard. It looked like he was trying to clean up wet sand. As he pushed, the broom head broke off into the black ooze. He nearly fell, but caught himself with the broomstick.

When the garage door reached the top, April’s jaw nearly came unhinged. The black snow had surrounded the house, extending in all directions. She blinked and blinked, trying to take in the sheer scale.

“It’s a
lot
fuckin’ bigger!” Logan screamed.

Jeff gave him a stern look. “Get back in the house!” he tossed what was left of the broom into the dark pool. “Back down in the basement, everybody!”

“What now?” April swallowed her fear.

“The only thing we can do. Wait,” he pulled the emergency release and the garage door came down fast on its tracks, crashing to the floor, trapping a section of dark snow inside. April covered her nose at the immediate aroma. In that enclosed area, the disgusting odor became unbearable.

“Shouldn’t we do something about that?” she sneered at the blackness, bubbling and popping on the floor.

“I’ve got an idea,” he rushed to a metal cabinet and pulled open a large drawer. Inside, he found a thin, gray and black canister with one end shaped similar to a gun.

“What’s that?” she asked.

“A blowtorch. I use ‘em all the time,” he turned a knob and flicked a trigger with his index finger.
Whoosh!
a blue flame shot from the nozzle.

“What are you, a handyman?”

He chuckled under his breath. “Yeah, something like that. When I can get the work.”

He adjusted the knob until the flame intensified, then pointed it at the concrete, sweeping wide and walking forward. April couldn’t believe it. The black snow melted into puddles of murky water. It didn’t churn or bubble or show any signs of life at all. Harmless.

“It’s working!” she declared.

“I think it is,” he focused the torch on a thick, dark clump. It liquefied on contact, steaming and flattening, joining the rest of the melted puddle. The remaining black snow reacted to the attack by retreating from the blowtorch. Cut off by the garage door, it had nowhere to go. He kept the flame blazing, melting it into lifeless liquid.

Someone in the basement screamed. April raced into the kitchen, then downstairs. She heard the cry again and didn’t know if it was Logan or Amy. It didn’t matter. When she reached the bottom floor, both kids were in terror, and she quickly found out why. Every window was covered in black. Some had been broken. She could tell right away they didn’t have double panes like the kitchen windows, and blackness crept around the jagged shards of glass. Bits of dark snow were sizzling into the leather couch and eating a hole into a throw rug. The kids huddled together in the small kitchenette, shouting. Before April could say anything, Jeff bounded down the stairs, running into her. He clutched her waist and yelled at the children.

“What?”

Logan pointed at the steaming clusters of stained snow on the couch.

“Shit!” Jeff hit them with the torch. The snow melted, but the couch caught fire. “Shit!” he took a small blanket from the loveseat and smothered the flames.

“Dad! Look!” Logan called his attention to some black clumps blistering the throw rug. Jeff shot that with the blowtorch and then snuffed out the fire again. Then he checked the damaged windows near the ceiling and stood on the couch to torch the broken glass. The contaminated snow melted, but as soon as he dissolved one layer, another layer formed, reinforced by the constant snowfall.

Crash!

Small pieces of glass from another shattered window fell onto the ceramic tile flooring, transporting more bits of dark snow. Jeff climbed down to hit them with the flame.

April knew he wouldn’t be able to keep it up for long. “Jeff! Let’s go!”

He didn’t respond. Crazed, he darted from one broken window to the next.

“Dad!” Logan tried to get a response. “Get away! It’ll kill you!”

Jeff paid no attention. As he swept across the wall with the torch, he clipped a piece of paper, a crayon drawing of a forest scene with a snowcapped mountain surrounded by trees. It caught fire and the flames reached a nearby shelf. It went up fast.

April pulled Jeff toward the stairs. He fought her, trying to grab the blanket he’d used earlier, but this time Logan joined in. Amy did, too. All three of them had to carry him as he cried out, “No! I’ve gotta put out the fire!”

“We have to save ourselves!” April shouted into his face. He stopped struggling and looked at her, then at his kid. Then, still carrying his blowtorch, he took the lead sprinting upstairs.

The walls shook. From overhead came a dreadful sound. It started subtly, then avalanched into awful crackling and splintering. It seemed an earthquake was threatening to bring the entire house down. White dust cascaded from the ceiling above the staircase. Picture frames banged against walls. The light fixture over the stairs swayed and lost a piece of glass. It came down at them, missing Logan by inches and smashing against the wood floor.

Jeff stopped, forcing the rest of them to pause with him. He looked downstairs, almost as if he wanted to go back.

“What’s happening!” April screamed over the crashing and rumbling.

“I don’t know!” knees bent, he put his free hand over his head and continued up. In the kitchen, black snow had begun to work its way up in narrow stems on the windows, thousands of them, filling the view with veins of darkness. The cellar below was becoming an inferno, and the roof above sounded like it wanted to plummet onto their heads.

“My house!” Jeff moaned as the entire structure rocked on its footprint. The children screamed, huddling with April. She pulled them both under a doorframe while the walls crumbled and the ceiling splintered.

Then a deafening clap of thunder hit the house. April found herself on her hands and knees. It was too dark to see, so she felt and found the kids. As the dust settled, she got back to her feet, though she had to crouch—the ceiling was only a few inches above her head.

 Twisted two-by-fours, crumbled drywall, bricks and jagged bits of plywood. And dust. Thick dust all over. It looked like the roof, the attic and second floor had condensed into a splintered stack only a few feet tall. At the top of the pile, drizzling like chocolate syrup, black snow fell onto the staircase, the railing, down the walls.

Desperate for an escape, Jeff led everyone to the living room. The bay windows were clear of frost, clear of the blackness. The view had become a scene of grisly proportions. The creature was everywhere—in the trees, along the fences, covering the rock retaining wall which surrounded the property. So complete was the thing’s proliferation, April scarcely found the smallest bit of white in an otherwise complete curtain of darkness. The others noticed it, too. For a brief moment, they stood there, captivated by the malicious creature’s enormity.

“We’re gonna…” Amy broke down. She barely got the words out. “We’re gonna die!”

“No we’re not!” Jeff insisted. “This way!”

As he led them to the kitchen, the collapsed floors settled, hurtling down several feet in a second. Cracks in the walls became large gaps, and the ceiling buckled a few more inches. Everyone dropped to hands and knees. The rumbling tore at April’s eardrums, drowning out any sound. Jeff pushed them into the garage, the only place left.

Logan stumbled ahead of his father. When he got to the heart of the large, musty space, he stopped and stared at the big metal doors. “Dad? What are we gonna do? That creature is everywhere out there.”

“Kid, you were right,” he searched inside the large metal drawer. “That thing can only go where there’s snow,” he stood, displaying two more blowtorches beside the one he already had. “We’re gonna burn our way out.”

April heard glass shattering in the kitchen, the family room, the hall. Then another explosion rocked the house. Clothes and sporting gear in the rafters shifted loose. Several lifejackets fell, along with some fishing poles. April had to move fast to avoid being hit by a reel. Jeff crouched and blocked a life vest with his elbow.

He handed a torch to April, then one to his son. “Oh, sure! Don’t give me one!” Amy shouted.