FROSTBITE (10 page)

Careful,” I said to the sheriff as we exited the diner.

“There still might be more of them.” Alex nodded and both he and his deputy withdrew their service revolvers. “Okay,” he said, “Let’s move.” We quickly and quietly made it the car without any incidents. Alex opened the doors and Brad, Kevin, and Stephanie clambered into the back seat. Alex, John, and I occupied the front.

“Let’s head up Main and make our way through town and to the hospital,” Alex said, still seeming to be dazed over what he just saw. I didn’t blame him, I was still amazed, and we had been dealing with the slithering nightmares all night long.

I looked out the window as we slowly started to drive along Main Street. Snow covered dark windows of closed stores and shops stared back at me, as if they were humungous eyes, watching us go. Did the worms get anybody else? The thought succeeded in shuddering me far worse than the storm had thus far.

We drove in silence for several moments. On more than one occasion, the car started to spin in one direction or the other, but the sheriff kept it under control. As we neared the end of Main Street, Alex slowly applied the brakes and stopped. “Now what is
this?
” he exclaimed.

Directly in front of us, was an orange Volkswagen laying on its side. Alex put the car in park and stepped outside. Deputy Rogers and I joined him. “Stay here kids,” I said, sticking my head back into the vehicle before closing the door.

“This is Ted Felt’s car,” I said, as we made our way over to the wreck.

“Are you sure?” Alex asked.

“Quite sure,” I responded.

“He must have spun out of control,” John conjectured.

“We have a problem here,” I said, pointing to the ground. A large dark puddle spilled out across the pure white snow. “The crash must have punctured the gas tank.”

“It looks like oil as well,” Alex noted, spotting a separate slick.

“Great,” John said. “We gotta get him out of there in a hurry if he is still inside.”

“Agreed,” I said as I started toward the front of the car. I noticed that the whole driver’s side of the car was caved in, as if a wrecking ball had hit it. I took a quick look around to see what he could have struck.

We were in the middle of the street. On the far side of the street were several parked cars covered in two feet of snow. On our side of the street just beyond Ted’s car, was what I guessed to be a mini-van, also completely concealed.

I walked a little more to my left so I could get a peek inside through the windshield. Only, there wasn’t one. It had shattered to pieces, most likely upon impact. A few yards away there were several footprints where he had apparently exited the car through the broken windshield, followed by a rather large puddle of blood. But that was it; no sign of Ted.

I was about to open my mouth and suddenly stopped. I must have made some kind of groaning noise, because John Rogers appeared behind me and asked, “What’s the matter, Fred?”

It was as if a light had suddenly come on inside my head. I saw all the pieces to the puzzle suddenly drop into place. “Spike,” I mumbled.

“What was that?” John asked.

My mind suddenly went back to the other day when I was searching the woods and the small trees that had mysteriously toppled over, the feeling of dread that I had inexplicably felt. Timmy Stephen’s trophy snowman abruptly shot through my brain as well.

“Fred?”

When Spike was killed, we found our first piece of evidence…his head. The grotesque scene of Harry Meadows’ demise quickly came to mind as well. When Norm and little Alice were taken, there had been nothing left behind, nothing at all, save for the little girl’s glove with a small amount of blood. The worms from the diner weren’t even remotely close to being large enough to make Norm disappear without a trace like that. There would have been plenty of proof that they had been there; lots of blood, body parts or…something.

Lastly, I quickly considered why the other worm had come back into the diner. We didn’t make any noise to warrant it to come back and I doubt that it truly had any rational thought to speak of. It might have come back for another reason altogether however. It very well might be able to sense or smell another of its own kind. It could have been searching…
for its sibling.

“Oh no,” I said, looking up from the wrecked car. “I think mommy is very angry.”

“What?” John asked, perplexed.

“Alex!” I yelled.

“Yeah?” he called, from the other side of the wreckage.

“We have to get out of here…now!”

“What’s the problem?” John Rogers questioned again.

“Listen,” I said, turning toward him. “I have reason to believe…” I stopped short when something started to slowly move behind him. It was what I had earlier presumed to be a mini-van. Time seemed to freeze at that exact moment. I could subconsciously hear Brad Connor’s voice, screaming for us to watch out; at the same time my brain was trying to compute what my eyes were telling it to. The creature had been sitting right next to us, in plain sight the entire time we were standing there, and none of us even gave it a second look.

“John!” I cried, pointing behind him.

He only started to turn around when a horrible grumbling sound filled the air and something erupted from behind him. I caught a glimpse of the familiar circular mouth, except this time the orifice was well over five feet wide and the teeth I spotted had to be every bit of six inches. And then the deputy was simply gone…swallowed whole. I screamed and dove to the other side of the Volkswagen, landing on the frozen ground with a painful thud.

“Fred!” Alex yelled, grabbing my shoulders. “What was that? Where’s John?”

“Gone,” I replied, quickly getting to my feet. “And we are going to be too if we don’t get out of here right away.”

Alex didn’t try to move. I could tell that he was in shock, that his mind was also trying to wrap everything into a neat little package that he could understand. But now was not the time. “Alex!” I said, shaking him.

His eyes zoomed back into focus. “Yeah?”

“We gotta go.”

“Right,” he firmly nodded, apparently recovering quickly form his initial astonishment.

“Come on!” Brad yelled. He was out of the car, standing by the rear driver’s side door. “Let’s go!”

“Get back in the car!” I yelled. He quickly obliged just as the creature came into view from where we were standing behind Ted’s car. It moved slowly toward the police cruiser. “No,” I said.

Suddenly a series of shots rang out. I turned and saw Alex running toward the behemoth, screaming. I saw little red dots appear on the body of the worm as his bullets struck home. Stephanie, Kevin, and Brad were all huddled together on the passenger’s rear seat of the cruiser. “Get away from them!” he cried.

“Alex,” I exclaimed and started after him. The worm rammed the parked car, rocking it badly. Even from where I was, I could hear the kids screaming. The sheriff stopped a few feet away and emptied his clip into the creature. He then quickly reached into his belt, produced another clip and hammered it home.

Alex was about to continue his barrage of bullets when the creature, with unrealistic speed, whipped its back end around and smashed into him, sending him soaring through the air. He landed not far from me and I quickly hurried over. “Alex?”

His face was bloody and when he tried to talk, I could tell he must have broken most of his ribs. “The kids…” he gasped. I looked up and saw that the worm was now turning toward us. In a few seconds we would be gone too.

“You have to get up!” I shouted, tugging on my fallen friend.

“I can’t,” he gurgled. “Forget me-save the kids!”

I looked helplessly at Alex and then up at the creature. Then something caught my eye in the snow a few yards away. I looked at the object and then over at Ted’s wrecked car. “Stay quiet and don’t move,” I whispered to him.

Then, I stood up and ran over to the gun that Alex had dropped, scooped it up, and shouted as loudly as I possibly could. “Hey!” The creature stopped its ascent toward the sheriff. I then started stomping my feet. “Over here!” The worm stayed still for a moment, as if not sure which target it preferred. I reached the overturned vehicle and started kicking it with as much force as I could muster. The pain from my earlier injury seemed to temporarily disappear amongst my adrenaline. “Over here ugly!”

With a loud moan the worm finally decided that I sounded like better prey, and started toward me, picking up speed with every second. The snow parted as it charged ahead and it appeared to me as what a large shark might look like shooting across the ocean’s surface.

It was coming right at me, just like I wanted it to. “Come on!” I yelled as I ducked behind the Volkswagen. A split second later, it lunged off the ground and clamped the wrecked car in its massive mouth. The impact knocked me clear off my feet. It chewed fiercely on the car, making its way quickly to me. I managed to struggle to my knees and I raised Alex’s gun and carefully aimed at the huge puddles of gasoline and oil that ran down from the car to the ground.

Just as I was about to pull the trigger, the pain in my chest flared up, causing such agony that I almost dropped the revolver. The worm was almost past the car. With all the strength in my entire being, I raised the weapon up again, aimed and fired. The blast was deafening and I vaguely remember seeing the entire front half of the mother worm explode, along with what was left of Ted’s orange Volkswagen.

The impact of the explosion threw me twenty feet or so back, right into the parking lot of the local deli. I wasn’t sure but I felt like I was burning, so I rolled about in the snow the best that I could.

The last thing I remembered before blacking out was Alex Jones kneeling over me, holding his side in obvious pain, trying to shout my name with minimal success.

My eyes fluttered open periodically. I saw glimpses of doctors, nurses and other people whom I assumed were medical professionals. Then I saw darkness again. I didn’t know how much time had passed, but then I spotted a vague shape floating around in a dim light. It cleared and there was Alex Jones, looking out my hospital room’s window.

I opened my mouth to speak, found I couldn’t, and tried once more. I don’t think any words came out, but I had made enough noise to get Alex’s attention. He turned, saw that I was awake, and hurried over to my bed. He winced with each step that he took. “Fred,” he smiled. “You’re awake.” I nodded.

“You just missed the Connor boys,” he said, running a hand alongside his face. “They came to see you.” I tried to speak, and it was then that I realized that I was hooked up to many different hoses, some of which were in my nose and down my throat. “You did it.”

I must have looked perplexed because he explained further. “The worm is dead. You were right...about everything.” He paused for a moment, visibly choking up. “You…you saved my life, Fred. Heck, you saved all of our lives.”

I tried to speak again, but only succeeded in gurgling and then coughing. “Don’t try and talk Fred,” Alex said. “It must have been a family that lived deep in the mountains. Brad Connor has explained to me in excruciating detail the history of the Mongolian Death Worm.” I must have smiled because he smiled in return.

“Stephanie Adams is fine too,” Alex continued. “She may need some therapy though. Her grandfather is looking after her.” I tried to raise my arm up. I was slightly successful; I saw that my right arm was deeply discolored and had hoses going through it as well. “The explosion,” Alex explained, clearly upset. “The explosion…did some damage to you. They are also running…some other tests.”

I must have really been on fire when I hit the ground. He reached out and held my hand. “Thank you,” he said. “You would have made my father proud. I know because you sure made his son proud.”

I tried to speak one more time. “It’s…it’s okay,” I croaked, giving his hand the mightiest squeeze I could. “You…have made me proud.”

“Thanks,” he said, tears swelling in his eyes. “I need to use the restroom, I’ll be right back.”

I nodded and watched him go. “It’s okay,” I said again, but this time it was directed at myself. I was old enough to know my body and I knew beyond a shadow of a doubt that on top of the damage caused by the explosion, I had also suffered a massive heart attack. “It’s okay,” I said again and smiled.

My breath was slowing down to a trickle, but that was fine. Because when I looked up at the hospital room’s ceiling, I didn’t see fixtures or anything else manmade, no sir. I saw a beach, and I instantly knew that it was in California. There were two wooden lounge chairs set up; however one of them was already occupied.

The figure that was seated in the chair on the left stood up and as they started walking toward me, an extremely bright light followed them. Then I recognized her. It was my dearest Sarah. Not like she was when she died, but rather when she was young and we were first married. Her fragrance shined so brightly, I may have tried to squint.

“Hello darling,” she smiled, raising her hand toward me. “It’s time. It’s finally time.”

I smiled, reached out and took her hand. From somewhere far away, I heard my name being called. Then I heard that same someone screaming for a doctor, but it was okay. I was with my beloved…and I was home.

The End