Freeze

She wished she had a lighter or a match, something to light a small fire. But she had nothing.

You did what you could. More than most people probably could have managed. If that is Warren out there, hope he finds you, and hope he brought some kind of help.

She wrapped her arms around their dog and did.

21

It’s funny what you think about when you’re snowmobiling through a blizzard with a broken arm, frozen blood (only some of it your own) on your clothes, and a pack of hellish ice creatures on your tail. As he drove up the long private road leading to their house, Warren remembered the first time he’d seen Tess, the summer dress that had clung to her in a way that seemed almost risque at the time, the daisy pinned in her hair that might or might not have been real. Warren had never found out, had never asked. In his mind, it had been real; she’d picked it that morning while walking along the riverbank.

He’d always liked that image, real or not, and held on to it now as he approached the house.

He thought he’d found their driveway twice before he actually did. The first time, he’d turned the snowmobile into a clearing in the woods and then turned right back around. No harm, no foul. But the second time he’d almost driven down a steep embankment and narrowly avoided a crash that almost certainly would have killed him.

After that, he’d been doubly careful. When he thought he’d found the driveway for real, he eased onto it a few feet at a time, giving the snowmobile short bursts of gas, waiting until he saw bits of their fence poking up through the snow before accepting that he’d made the right turn.

The trip back up the mountain hadn’t taken as long as the trip down, of course, but the wind and ice blowing against his face made it seem much more tortuous. The snowmobile had a short windshield, and Warren tried to drive with most of his head hidden behind it, but the thing was covered in ice, opaque, and he ended up having to keep most of his face above it in order to see where he was going. In the places where he could still feel it, his face stung and throbbed. Plus, steering one handed had left the muscles and joints in his good arm aching, burning.

When he saw the GMC buried in the snow ahead, he barely believed it. He hadn’t thought he would make it back.

He drove toward the front door, watching for more monsters. When he got close enough, he let go of the throttle and let the snowmobile coast to a stop. Except it wasn’t exactly a coast. The front of the machine hit a drift near the front door and came to a sudden halt, throwing Warren into the handle bars and the small windshield. He hit the safety glass with the top of his head and sat there for a long time, dazed.

Shake it off. Unless you’re dead, you need to keep moving and find Tess.

He pulled the key out of the ignition, transferred the torch and the sloshing bottles from the box on the back of the snowmobile to his pockets, pausing once when his vision blurred and a bout of dizziness almost overtook him, and then shuffled to the front door. When he opened it, snow cascaded through the threshold and he went in after.

“Tess!”

It was dark inside, and cold. The fire had gone out, and, of course, there was still no power. There was also no answer from his wife.

“TESS! BUB!”

Nothing.

His throat closed and his stomach churned. He tried to breathe and couldn’t.

You’re too late.

No. It couldn’t be. They were in the kitchen getting something to eat, or moving firewood from the back hall to the living room, or maybe in the bathroom. They couldn’t hear him, that was all.

You know that’s not true. Tess wouldn’t let the fire go out.

He massaged his throat until he worked out the lump and screamed for Tess again.

Still nothing.

He stepped farther into the room, tracking snow, not caring.

Something crashed at the bedroom-end of the house.

“Tess?”

He moved through the living room and into the dark hallway. There was some ambient light in the house, but he could still barely see where he was going. Of course, he’d just spent who knew how long driving face first into a blizzard. He’d be surprised if he was ever able to see properly again.

He took off his glove, pulled the torch out of his pocket, and wrapped his finger around the trigger. Just in case.

In the hallway, despite the gloom, it was easy enough to see the shredded remains of the bedroom door. He stepped over and around the mess and walked through the bedroom doorway with the torch held out in front of himself.

The bedroom was empty, but something had demolished the window. The ragged hole in the wall where it had been let in billowing snow and gusts of cold air. A slick of ice covered the floor from the hole to the bed. The fireplace poker lay on the floor closer to Warren.

What happened?

As he turned out of the bedroom, something else crashed. Not in the house this time. Outside.

The snowmobile.

He ran through the house, back to the front door. He hadn’t closed it, probably couldn’t have even if he’d remembered to. Beyond the doorway, two of the monsters circled the vehicle’s ruined remains. One of them held the handlebars in its tentacles. The other was busy ripping apart the treads.

Shit. There goes your escape plan.

Warren backed away from the door as quietly as possible. The creatures either hadn’t sensed him there or were too busy destroying the snowmobile to care. Either way, he wasn’t going to stay and see how long the destruction kept them occupied.

Something moved in the kitchen. A rasping, slithering sound. He turned away from the front door, tightened his grip on the torch, and moved across the living room.

He approached the kitchen and saw a square of icy cardboard on the floor. He supposed it was the same piece he’d taped to the broken window earlier. He heard the wind and snow blowing into the kitchen. The same sound he’d heard in the bedroom, the same sound he’d been hearing for days now in some form or another.

He considered throwing a flaming bottle into the room, a sort of preemptive strike, but what if the sound hadn’t come from a creature? What if it had been Tess or Bub making the noise? Or what if it had been a creature, but Tess and Bub where in there with it?

Too risky. He’d have to go in first, or at least poke his head around the corner, see what he could see.

But before he could, an icy tentacle popped through the doorway and curled around the frame. Warren didn’t hesitate to trigger the torch and attack. The fine blue flame etched a line in the limb, and the creature in the kitchen withdrew it.

Score one for you.

He screamed his best war cry and rushed in with his finger still squeezing the torch’s trigger.

He didn’t see the next tentacle until it was too late. It hit the torch and knocked it out of his hand. The blue cylinder flipped up into the air and landed on the floor by the stove. The creature wrapped its tentacle around Warren’s arm, dragged him the rest of the way into the kitchen.

The monster was huge. Bigger than any of the others he’d seen. Its head brushed the ceiling. If it had slid forward, it would have destroyed the room’s only light fixture (not that that would have made any kind of difference right then).

Warren tried to pull his arm out of the thing’s grasp, but it held on tight. He’d managed to stay on his feet, but the floor was iced over and he couldn’t get any traction; the creature pulled him easily along.

As he moved, he couldn’t stop thinking about Jan Young coming apart at the joints, about her blood—and her husband’s—about the body parts littering the snow. Here, now, the creature opened its mouth and ran its bluish tongue across its rows of teeth. It slid him in an arc across the floor, toward itself but also toward the stove and the torch, either not realizing it was moving him within reach of his only weapon or not caring.