B-Movie Reels (26 page)

Eric’s head vibrated as James’s voice faded and flitted until there was silence. The head rocked back and forth, and he thought the extremity would levitate, but instead it erupted, exploding like a grenade of blood and gray matter. He closed his eyes and opened them back up in time to catch a mandible strike the wall and shatter.
 

Ned retreated from the house and back into the street, seeking out the truck.
 

He stopped moving, stopped breathing, when they came up over the street. James’s warning came true. A mass of old people ambled down the hill in a mob-sized group. It was a strange sight—humorous in a different setting. They were armed with guns, knives, flaming torches, and some were carrying severed arms, legs and heads and shaking them up in the air, roaring and threatening like a pack of savages. They wore sweaters, knitted Afghans, one-piece silk robes, and hospital gowns. Their faces were bent in wicked smiles. Their eyes were large, scanning the horizon for victims. The group materialized out of nowhere as James had explained, as if projected.
 

He piled into his truck against his brother’s wishes. The truck roared to life as he pumped the gas, but as he made his escape, a string of gunshots were issued in his direction. The shots burst through the air with the loudness of cheap fireworks. Some of them were aiming .22 rifles, and as he observed it happening through the side rearview mirror, they shot it off, as they did the back windshield.
 

“Goddamn it! SHIT!”

He feared they’d shoot out a tire and he’d have a blow out, but he evaded the attackers as he cruised faster, reaching fifty, and capping out at sixty miles an hour, out-speeding them against their snail’s pace. He caught them again through the rear view mirror as they broke into the houses. They were dragging out bodies into the street and unloading bullets into them or using cleavers and sharp edges to hack up their corpses into pieces. Their childish, giddy laughter knotted up his midsection with an ulcerous pang.
 

Those people are out of their minds.

He steered through town and sped by Wayne’s deli and passed Walter Smalls’ mechanic and gas station. The lights were on and two bodies were lying dead inside.
 

Is everyone dead in this town?

The walls inside the gas station were frozen over and so were the gas pumps. The layer of ice was inches thick, solid and crystalline. He was beginning to believe what James told him was the truth. Somehow, images were turned into real life and those images were murdering the people in Anderson Mills. The old folks weren’t anybody who lived here locally. The closest hospice was in Green County, perhaps fifty or more miles from Anderson Mills. It wasn’t humanly possible for the group to clear that much distance on foot, and there was also the problem of where they collected those weapons.
 

He clutched the steering wheel so hard his knuckles turned white. What bothered him now the most was Andy’s safety. James confessed that he was in danger, and yet he demanded he reach the house first and destroy the images. He could never forgive himself if Andy died because of him.
 

But what about everyone else that’s in danger? Is anyone else alive?
 

A worse thought popped into his head.
What if I can’t reach the house in time?
 

The sight of the talking corpses and the group of armed old folks were just the beginning. James mentioned flying vampires, a man that could freeze things—the ice at Walter’s station explained that, plus the added chill to the air— and the locusts. The more he thought on it, the more he grew afraid. He was one man against them. The best he could do was avoid them and reach the house alive.
 

He steered the vehicle into the mouth of the woods. The darkness became so deep, the headlights barely made a difference. He did his best to stick to the road and slowed down to thirty miles an hour.
 

“You’re doing fine,” he encouraged himself. “Find Andy at the Jennings’ house and then go to James’s house, and it’ll be over. Burn the fucking thing down. Easy. Piece of cake.”

The back tires spun, losing their traction, and he shot to the left, speeding in an arc, and careened head on into a set of maple trees. The front was flattened, the crunch so loud and powerful the car shut down. He suffered whiplash and a good jolt after the wreckage settled. The hiss of the radiator and the odor of gas urged him to act quickly. Ned grabbed the axe and the drum of gasoline in the seat and hobbled out. His feet connected with the road, and he slipped after the third step. He landed on his shoulder, the part of him that took the impact. “Goddamn it.”

The road was slick in ice inches deep; it was like staring into a lake of glass. The surrounding trees were frostbitten, the leaves brittle and the bark solid as concrete. His breath was visible as he breathed in panicky successions.
 

“
Shraaaaaaaaaaaaaaahhhhhh!
”

The infernal cry echoed closer, his body going rigid at the sound. The trees clotted the sky, obscuring his lookout abilities, but he knew the source was near. He ducked through two oak trees and retreated to the lake, moving in a streak. The Jennings’ house was easy to find. He’d follow the perimeter of the lake until he came upon the open space of land that led up a hill and eventually to Jimmy’s property; it was cleared out by burning many trees down two years ago. The blackened stumps would serve as the guideposts to his brother’s house. He’d save Andy and have the boy help him burn his house down. It was the best plan he could muster in his position.

Periodically, he glanced up to check for the two red specks. He wasn’t sure what they were—vampires was a vague term, especially when they were flying so high in the air. The downhill grade changed his creep into a forced sprint. He tripped over a slick patch of ground and faltered onto the lake. He didn’t make a splash and instead struck a layer of solid ice. Ned viewed the magnificent sight. It was like Anderson Mills in mid-December, the trees ravaged by frost. The landscape shimmered with an icy coating, everything shrink-wrapped.
 

The thunderous splitting of a tree resounded. The trunk was at least four stories tall, and he watched it fork down the middle and snap. The trunk timbered into the water and broke through the frozen surface. Ice fragments shot up and rained on the surface with the ringing of chimes. Ned stayed anchored in place, awaiting anything else to happen. The air was growing colder. The chill drew goose bumps, and he was shivering with alarming intensity. How much longer he’d be able to withstand the cold, he wasn’t sure.
 

The crunch of ice reverberated around the lake. Trees creaked and protested as more ice enclosed the bark. Fog swirled to obscure the area, the lake’s border impossible to locate.
 

How the hell am I supposed to make it now?

He clutched the axe and gas can tighter, thinking he was living in a strange dream. This didn’t happen anywhere, not even in the Arctic. The cold didn’t have the ability to cause trees to break from the inside out.
 

The surface of the lake was too slick to run, so he ambled on at a crawl’s pace.
 

“He’s close,” a meek voice called out to him. “The air, can’t you feel him? It’s so cold.”

He scrutinized the area and located nothing. The voice had no face. No position. “Where are you?”

The end of his shoe touched something soft. He reached down and felt bare skin. Naked flesh. “My God, you don’t have any clothes on?”

“The man who makes everything cold,” the woman’s said, “took them from me. I escaped him. He…he…he tried to
ka
-
ka
-kill me.”

Ned made out two eyes, the wet orbs gazing up at him. It reminded him of a dog’s eyes reflecting the night. He wasn’t sure where he’d touched her, perhaps her leg or shoulder, but she was frigid cold. She had to be suffering from hypothermia.

“You have to pick me up,” she whispered. “I know the way out of here. It’s too cold for me to move. Don’t leave me, please. I’ll, I’ll freeze to death.”

He placed the axe and gasoline jug on the ice. She was helpless. He couldn’t leave an innocent person to freeze to death. He nervously traced with his hands to find her legs and back. “Of course I won’t leave you. What’s your name?”

A short pause, then, “Julie.”

He hadn’t touched a naked woman since his wife, Angie. They had a habit of bathing together after sex, and they’d caress each other in the tub for an hour. Once the water grew cold, they’d drain it and fill it back with warm water. The idea of a warm bath drew new aches in his flesh. He couldn’t imagine what Julie was going through and kept the memory to himself.
 

He unbuttoned his long-sleeved shirt and wrapped it over her shoulders. He still couldn’t see any definition of her body.
 

“I’m going to carry you, okay? Forgive me if I touch you anywhere—you know what I mean. I can’t see, honest.”

He jumped with a start at the soft purr in her voice. “
I don’t care where you touch me
.”

A lance of heat crawled up his spine and burst into pin-pricks at his neck. He blushed and was grateful it was dark. The shirt covered her back and carried down across the small of her back. He was able to clutch under her rear and both shoulders to pick her up. The extra weight anchored him down, and he didn’t slip along the icy surface. His stride was short and labored.
 

“Who is this person you’re talking about who makes everything cold?” he asked through gritted teeth. “Did they hurt you?”

“He tried to touch me,” she said, her fingers clutching hard onto his shoulders, the nails drawing blood. He kept wincing, and she wouldn’t take the hint. “The brute ripped my clothes off and tried to make love to me. His kisses were ice, and you could only imagine what it felt like when he put his hands on me.”

He didn’t want to hear the graphic details, but allowed her to speak her mind anyway.
 

“It’s so dark and foggy down here.” She nuzzled her head against his face. “I’m glad you found me. Keep going straight, you’re almost there.”

“Where are we going? I can’t see a damn thing.”

“There’s a dock yards out from us.”
 

The sight of a fishing dock relieved him, knowing he was making progress toward his destination. The wooden planks were frosted over and the undersides dripping. The chill in the air tapered off enough that the relief was instant. The moon cut through the thinned out fog, and he finally distinguished the details of the woman. The stranger couldn’t have been older than twenty-five. She reminded him of Angie when she graduated from high school: fair, milky skin without freckles, a hundred pound body frame, with blue eye shadow and black mascara. The woman was beautiful, and he did his best—and failed—not to focus on her pear-shaped breasts. And then he looked down at her lap and the orange bush that trailed up to her navel. The toes were clean, the nails painted ruby. Her legs were shaved and reflecting the glassy surface of the ice.
 

He forced himself to make eye contact, trying to be casual. “Are you from here?”

Julie shook her head. “I’m on vacation. I was separated from my friends. We drove from Iowa to party here. The beer stays cold in the lake during the summer, we heard.”

“A little too cold now, wouldn’t you think?”

They were closing in on the dock, and she didn’t respond to his dumb comment. It didn’t matter once he distinguished the strange shapes along the planks. He moved faster, the fear of his life compelling him on. The woman gasped in shock at the sights. Bodies were strewn along the wood. Every corpse was the same, each wounded by jagged punctures at their necks and chests. The corpses were familiar townsfolk. Gary Steinman’s pot belly had been cut open and his sternum eaten through. Gertrude Adams’ chest had deflated and was replaced by upturned skin; her heart had been removed. He counted seven bodies each undressed and bared to view.
 

“What in hell has taken over this place?”

The woman shifted out of his hold, and Ned let her stand up even though he wasn’t sure how she could tolerate walking on the ice with bare feet. She stood erect in her nakedness, proud. She gazed at the dock in admiration.
 

“Is there something wrong with what you see?”
 

“Excuse me?”

His eyes shifted from the dock back to her. She extended her hand and urged him to her with her pointer finger. “Come here now.”

He completed two steps, knowing something wasn’t right. “What’s wrong with you? You’re freezing cold, aren’t you? And these people, they’ve been brutally murdered. Isn’t it obvious what’s wrong?”

She wasn’t shivering or bothered by the extreme cold. And making that connection, he was about to call her out on it when her body changed. The white flesh hardened into plated black scales and wings sprouted from her back seven feet long from each end. Cartilage and bone were defined along the leathery wings, the purple veins thick as snakes and slithering the same. Bone audibly tore through her fingertips and toes and claws glinted with the refraction of steel.
 

The two eyes lit up a blazing red.

He shouldn’t have left the axe behind.