Freeze

“Come on,” Warren said. He’d decided cleaning off the blood had been a stupid thing to worry about. “Let’s go get your clothes on. You must be freezing.”

As if him saying it had made it true, she began to shiver. She wrapped her arms around her quivering breasts and shut her mouth when her teeth chattered.

Warren lowered the candle and ushered Tess back down the hall. Bub got up before they reached him and led them into the living room, limping. He looked back at them once and wagged his tail a single time, to the side and back to center, as if asking if everything was okay.

“It’s okay,” Warren said and thought he’d been saying that a lot lately. He guessed that’s what you did when bad things happened: assure your loved ones everything would be okay until either it were or it weren’t. “It’s going to be fine.”

He brought Tess to the bare mattress and grabbed her clothes from the floor. They had a few splatters of blood on them, and he guessed they’d have to throw them away when this was all over, but they were fine for wearing, for keeping warm.

“Here,” he said and handed her her undergarments. “Turn around; I’ll help you.”

She shook her head. “I can do it.” She stepped into her panties and slipped her bra straps over her shoulders.

“So what are you going to do?” She reached around to hook her bra. She struggled for a minute, sighed and ripped the bra off.

Warren reached down to pick it off the floor and help her back into it, but she told him to leave it be and give her her shirt.

“I can go braless. I don’t feel like something squeezing me around the chest. Makes me feel coughy.”

He handed her the shirt and waited until she’d pulled it over her head.

“I think there’s only one thing I can do,” he said. “I’ve got to go for help.”

“Go how?” She took her pants, a stretchy pair of pajama bottoms, and pulled them on.

He circled the mattress, found his own clothes, and started dressing.

“The Young place is only about three miles down the mountain.” He tugged his shirt over his head. “If they’re home and their phone is working, I’ll call for help.”

“You’re going to walk?”

He raised his eyebrows and tried to smile. “I don’t think I have a whole lot of options.”

“What if they’re not home? Or their phone isn’t working? Or they don’t answer the door?”

“You think they’d leave me out in the cold?”

She shrugged. “We barely know them.”

“They’ll let me in,” he said. “And if they don’t…”

“What?”

He buttoned his pants and sighed. “I don’t know, but I’ll figure out something. If they’re not home, I’ll break down the damn door.”

“Three miles is a long walk on a nice day,” she said. “It’ll take you hours in this storm.”

He nodded. “At least. It’s still dark out there, too. It won’t be easy going.”

A pair of tears dripped down the sides of her face, and he wished he hadn’t said that last part.

She said, “Don’t do it. You’ll freeze to death. I’ll be fine. Promise. You don’t need to go, okay?”

“I won’t freeze. I’ve got enough warm clothes to keep me cozy in the worst blizzard you could ever imagine.”

“I don’t think I could imagine one worse than this.”

He couldn’t argue with that.

“I have to go. Okay? You’re coughing out blood and need help. This is the only option left.”

She tried one more time: “Even if you get there, and they let you in, and their phone is working, no one is going to send an ambulance or a helicopter in this weather.”

“If they won’t send help, I’ll borrow the Youngs’ car and come back up here for you myself.”

“But—” She pressed her palm against her chest, and Warren hurried around the mattress. She held out a hand, stopping him halfway there, clutched her chest for another second, and then said, “I’m okay. It’s nothing.”

He rubbed her shoulder and kissed her lacerated face. “I don’t know how or when or who or what,” he said, “but I will find a way to help you.”

Or die trying, he thought but wouldn’t say.

He put on the rest of his clothes, grabbed the flashlight from the mantle, and went into the bedroom for another layer of clothing. Tess didn’t follow him this time, and when he came back, she’d added another log to the fire and plopped down in one of the chairs. Bub lay at her feet. When he saw Warren, he gave him a worried look and then laid his head on Tess’s foot. Warren didn’t think he was going to have much trouble getting the dog to stay put when he left this time.

“It’s going to take me a while to get down there,” Warren said.

“I know.”

“This is going to sound all kinds of motherly, but try to relax while I’m gone, okay? Stay close to the fire and try not to move much.”

She gave him an exasperated look.

“Hey, I said it was going to sound motherly. But I’m serious. Whatever’s going on in there, I don’t want it to get any worse.” He went over to her, kneeled on the floor by Bub’s head, and took her hands. “I’m not gonna say anything like ‘I’ll be back before you know it’ but I promise I will go as fast as I can.”

“Only as fast as is safe,” she said and squeezed his hands. “Promise?”

He did.

He brought three armloads of firewood from the back hall, his back muscles aching the whole time, before putting on his final layers of outerwear and lacing up his boots. He knew the flashlight wouldn’t do a lot of good out in the blizzard, but he put it in his pocket anyway.

Before he left, he kneeled on the floor beside Tess again. She kissed him once on the forehead and once more on the lips.

“Take care of her,” he told Bub. The dog looked up at him, wagged his tail, and pressed himself more firmly against Tess’s legs.

Warren kissed Tess’s hand, but neither of them said another word. He took the flashlight out of his pocket, turned it on, opened the door, and stepped into the storm.

12

One of the mostly formed things lay in the truck’s bed, which was now just a depression in a pile of snow and no longer really part of the vehicle. The monster writhed and bucked as its limbs formed themselves from the surrounding snow.

If you’d been there to see it, you could have watched Warren exit the house and trudge right past the monstrosity. Until he had passed, the creature lay still. You might have expected it to get up and attack, but maybe it wasn’t ready for that yet, wasn’t developed enough. For whatever reason, it let Warren go.

When it was alone again, the creature continued its slithering formation. After the last coil of ice had slid into place, the thing lifted its head and looked down at the man’s tracks. You could see them there, running alongside the snow-covered truck, already disappearing in the ever-falling snow.

The thing looked toward the house and then at the tracks again. Back toward the house. Tracks. House. It cocked its head and flicked a frozen tongue over its teeth. It slid out of its depression, rolling across the snow, picking up bulk as it moved. Curls of ice formed ahead of it, melded with it as it rolled and slithered across them; the tendrils curled around its many appendages, froze into place.

When it reached the bottom of the mound that had once been a truck, it stopped moving and basked in the blizzard’s swirling winds. It stared at the house for a long time before making a gurgling noise that sounded almost, but not quite, like insane laughter.