Bitter Cold (21 page)

“I only have three,” Jeff reached the garage door, then faced the three of them. “Okay,” he cranked on the torch fuel.

In one giant shift, the whole garage tilted, groaning like a yawn from the underworld. April’s already racing heart beat even faster. Support posts leaned and fractured. She shuddered at the sound, thinking it would be the last thing she would hear before tons and tons of building material came down on top of her.

Amy screamed. “It’s trying to crush us, just like before! Just like before!”

“Light your torches! Hurry!” Jeff directed.

April had no trouble with hers after watching Jeff. Logan got his working, too. Blue flames blazing, they waited as Jeff pushed up on the garage door, exposing them to the freezing outside air.

Immediately, Jeff threw heat on the black snow and some of it melted, leaving a small trail in the bare concrete. He pointed to a steel building several yards away.

“Over there! Let’s go!” he held the torch against the ground, distributing the flame left to right, pushing the black snow away inches at a time. April saw the creature try to circle behind him. She bent down and blasted her gas burner, repelling and melting it at the same time. It cackled a high squeal, crying in pain, she guessed. Good. The damned thing deserved it. If only they had a gigantic torch that could cremate every bit of it.

“Come on, Logan!” April noticed him hesitating. He looked at her over his shoulder, then shed his reluctance with a heavy breath, pushing Amy in front of him.

“Go!” he ordered. She reluctantly stepped into the melted muck. It didn’t look pretty, but it had no power to harm her. Fresh flakes were falling, though, filling the sky with flurries, and depositing new pathways for the deadly being to get to them if they weren’t careful.

They grouped back-to-back, edging toward the metal barn. Despite her numb fingers, her shaking hands, and her eyes filling with tears, April kept the torch low, moving in a deliberate, sweeping motion. All three torch-bearers worked together, creeping along, making slow, steady progress onto the paved driveway.

Jeff took one cautious step after the other. It attracted April to him even more, witnessing his calm, steady approach at handling their escape. He was showing his true nature—a man who solved problems and fixed things. It didn’t escape her that he was using one of the tools of his trade to save their lives.

The dark ooze joined together and reformed behind them, taking back the snow it had abandoned. It surged forward with them, pushing closer where the ground was still frozen. Jeff sped up his pace, jabbing at the blackness in front of him. He looked at April.

“You doin’ all right?”

“Yeah!” she was breathless.

“How about you?” he asked Logan.

“I’m-I’m okay.”

“Good,” Jeff nodded. “Almost there.”

He turned and tripped on something. Arms twisting, foot kicking at air, he teetered over, inches from dipping his elbow into the toxic frost. Without a thought, April snatched his foot, pulling him toward her. Luckily it worked. With her help, he made it back onto his feet.

“Thanks,” he breathed hard. She nodded, then took the lead.

She saw the creature’s mind working, measuring their movements almost more carefully than they were. She could tell it was trying to figure out their destination, already sending tentacles to overtake the garage where the truck waited. As they reached the Ford, the corrugated metal structure reverberated, walls and roof shaking in separate directions. When they got to bare concrete, they dropped their torches and ran for it.

Amy jumped in the backseat of the Supercab and laid her head down. Logan slid next to her. April got in and reached to help Jeff climb up. He looked at her and patted his chest, then his pants, then chest again.

“What’s the matter?” she asked.

He stiffened his bandaged hands into a fist, blood soaking through the gauze. “My
keys!
”

The roof buckled, making a low, groaning sound. Then the aluminum sheared open, letting a steady black waterfall pour onto the floor a few feet away.

“Dad, start the truck,” Logan’s voice was firm.

Jeff patted his pockets again. “I, uh…I don’t know where my uh…”

Flowing from the ceiling, the dark snow began to collect on the floor near the truck’s rear bumper.

“Dad. Start the truck, now,” Logan feigned patience. Amy squirmed in the seat, her look of shock making April even more nervous. They were all stunned into a dumbfounded silence. All except Logan. “Dad?”

Jeff stared into space, mouth wide, eyes bulging as he gave himself an increasingly obsessive pat-down. He mumbled. “I lost my—I lost my keys. I can’t find my keys,” he looked at April again. “Did I give them to you?”

“No,” she croaked, then cleared her throat. “You seriously don’t have them?”

BAM!

Another large section of the metal sliced open, letting in even more of the black secretion.

“Dad!’ Logan raised his voice. “Start the truck!”

“I can’t!” Jeff clenched his trembling, bandaged, bloodied fists. “I, I lost my…” he shivered, his face turning red, fuming at his own mistake. “I can’t believe I don’t have my keys…WHERE THE FUCK ARE MY KEYS!”

April searched her memory.

“Think,” she told him. “You had them earlier. I know that. I saw you take them from the kitchen.”

“Yeah,” he looked into the distance again. “I had them,” he studied his injured palm. “They were in my hand. Goddammit! I must have dropped them,” he turned his attention to the ground outside. His eyes got big again. “There!”

In the driveway, ten or fifteen feet away, a patch of melted snow still lingered, untouched by the monster. There she saw a small glint of metal. She recognized the chain, a distinctive, silver oval medallion with the word
Ford
inscribed in blue.

Jeff jumped from his truck and ran to the barn door, to the edge of the black snow, stepping his foot close without touching it. April got out and hurried to him.

“Wait!” she held his arm. “You’re not actually thinking about jumping, are you? That’s crazy!”

“I’ve got to do something. Without those keys, we don’t get outta here alive. None of us do.”

“That’s a one way trip,” she trembled, still clutching him.

“Yeah,” he looked her in the eyes. “At least you guys would make it.”

At that moment, she knew she’d let him kiss her. He seemed to know it, too, but the roof was caving in on them. A thick beam plunged toward the truck, hitting it with dense
Thump!
At the same time, a shower of black snow sprayed the windshield and hood, spilling and sizzling down the fenders. Both Amy and Logan screamed. Jeff took April by the upper arms and moved her back.

“NO!” she threw herself into him. “I’ll do it! I don’t have any children! Let me do it!”

“Now who’s crazy?” he faked a laugh.

More lumber fell, taking down a whole section of rafters. The roof appeared seconds from collapse, though it wouldn’t have mattered either way. The creature was finding paths in through the ruptures and cracks.

“I’m not letting you,” she insisted. “You can’t!”

He held her tighter. “April, we both know I have to. I’m the only one who can even come close to making it.”

A loud, low creaking sound hit the pit of her stomach, reverberating in the ground. The whole building leaned to the right. Then, in a quick jolt, it leaned even more, prompting the kids inside the truck to scream bloody murder.

Jeff crouched and took a deep breath, but stopped at the sound of a barking dog. April had to look twice. It was a German Shepard, hiding under an old tractor, growling and barking at the black snow.

Amy jumped from the truck.

“Sadie!”

The dog looked at her owner and whined. Then, in one great leap, she made it to the melted snow patch. She scooped the keys into her mouth and, again in one giant jump, soared over the blackness, skidding to a landing on the pole barn’s concrete floor.

“Sadie!” Amy hugged her dog. She got Sadie to let go of the keys and handed them to Jeff.

“Thanks,” he looked stunned. The roof shook. More black snow fell from the ceiling. Jeff jumped into action, getting in the truck. “Let’s go! Come on! Come on!”

The Ford thundered through the warped garage door, bending back the steel. The shriek of metal on metal paled in comparison to the crunching and grinding noises coming from the tires as they sped across the blackness. April saw steam rising as the creature consumed the rubber. Her stomach tied in a knot. What if it completely dissolved the tires?

She held her breath until the truck got near the main road, the dark frost rolling and bubbling. Jeff downshifted and stepped on the gas pedal. The truck rocked. The kids moaned. The dog yelped.

Ping!

Thick chunks hit the truck’s wheel wells, slamming the undercarriage.

Ping!-Ping!

“Eat rubber, you dirty son of a bitch!” Jeff’s face turned red. In seconds, they were speeding down Jack Falls Road, heading toward Highway 30.

“Good thing I have Rock Crushers on this thing,” he steered his pickup with precision in the icy conditions. “They’ve got real aggressive tread.”

Her stomach loosened as the blackness along the road gave way to white, normal snow. She relaxed her shoulders, allowing herself a moment to breathe and gather her thoughts. Then she turned to the kids in the back.

“Is anybody hurt?” she smiled, trying to instill a little confidence. It wasn’t working.

“Not yet,” Amy answered. “But what does it matter? That thing’s gonna get us sooner or later.”

Logan stared out the rear window. “She’s right,” he was out of breath. “It’s following us!” he turned around. “Dad? Did you hear me? That thing’s coming!”

Jeff’s eyes alternated between the rearview mirror and the country road ahead. He hit the accelerator harder. “I can see, Logan! You don’t have to tell me—I can see!”

April peered out the back and flushed white-hot with fear. The blackness had indeed begun to follow, but it wasn’t just that. It was how the thing moved that surprised her. It would have been fascinating to watch had it not been real. It rolled like water, fluid in the way it overtook the snow with its desolate lack of color or light. Gasping for air, she put her hand over her mouth to stop herself from screaming.

She lost sight of the immense, dark stain when the Ford rounded a curve. She knew the blackness would devour the happy, bright winter scene and transform it into a nightmare landscape. Shuddering from head to toe, she looked at Jeff. He stared at the road, eyes narrow and not blinking.

Pop!

She flinched at something speeding from the front. She only had time to fall in her seat and look up when she heard another
Pop!

She saw that one. A small hole exploded through the windshield, sending glass slivers flying in a wisp of dust. A puff of foam padding from Jeff’s headrest exploded next to his ear.

“What the fuck!” he flinched, whipping the wheel. The truck careened in the middle of the icy road. He corrected his mistake but went too far, sliding the Ford toward the opposite ditch. Another try and he managed to straighten the pickup. It kept them on the road, though they were still sliding.

The dog wailed. Amy screeched. April shot her sights straight up and found it—a black aircraft, skulking in the treetops. Strawn’s helicopter was permanently etched in her mind. She could see him, hanging out the open hatch, pointing a sniper rifle.

Jeff’s jaw fell open as he stared up. Then he cranked the wheel. April tensed her body, bracing for a crash into a large maple. By some kind of miracle, the Ford fishtailed and swung wide, missing the thick tree trunk, and spinning out on the ice. They came to rest on a rocky turnaround near a forest of pencil-thin red alders. April couldn’t breathe yet. The helicopter was still hovering above them.

Then, the other problem.

“Mr. Keller!” Amy started the panicked cries.

“Dad!” Logan joined her.

Sadie went wild.

THIRTY

“DAMMIT!” STRAWN PULLED his eye away from the scope. “Hold this fucking bird still, you dumb son of a bitch!”

Henderson had been keeping the chopper motionless. Strawn just needed someone else to blame. It couldn’t have been his own fault he missed twice.

He looked through the scope again and watched the panic in the driver’s eyes, struggling to keep the pickup on the road. A third shot proved impossible. The truck sped directly under them. Strawn lost sight of it for a moment, then tried to readjust, and found he needed more clearance.

“Closer! Get closer!”

Henderson broke his silence. “I can’t go any lower. I’m skimming the trees, now!”

Strawn glared at him. “Do it!”

Henderson frowned, swallowed hard, then peered over the sides, easing on the stick, inching the helicopter down.

Strawn spun in the bench seat and slid to the other side, repositioning his aim. The Ford had skidded to a stop. It took him less than a second to find his first victim, the driver, probably the kids’ father. Strawn whispered a quick goodbye and readied to squeeze the trigger.

“SIR! INCOMING!”

He twisted and dropped the gun when he saw nothing but blackness. The sheer size of the creature alone put a shudder down his spine. A dark flash flood, as tall as the trees, crested around the bend. It splashed toward them, flowing downhill like rapids, rolling higher and higher, faster and faster, invading every speck of whiteness.

Strawn was first elated. The beautiful creation had billion-dollar potential written all over it. But, after watching how quickly it climbed the snowbound evergreens, he felt a twinge of panic, though he tried to swallow it away. He breathed heavy and clenched his stomach. The fear persisted. The creature was moving fast. Its momentum and mass forced itself onto the clean, white snow, covering the needled branches up to the very tops of the tallest firs.

“Up! Go up!” he clutched his chest. “Get this goddam thing higher!”

Henderson stared as the dark monster ascended toward them. It got so close, Strawn heard the rushing sound even over the helicopter.

“Just get us out of here! Move! Move!”

Henderson gripped the cyclic and pulled hard. The chopper’s front end angled up sharply, throwing Strawn against the backrest. His teeth hit a metal bar, and something cracked and came loose. That he ignored. He had a perfect view out the back through a pair of skylights.

He watched with glossy eyes as the tail rotor brushed against the treetops. The propwash stirred up some black snow. Minuscule particles filtered through the atmosphere, sending a misty spray in Strawn’s direction. He flinched when it hit his sensitive cheeks. It stung his frozen skin and started to eat through his coat. He yelled and reeled back, colliding with Henderson in the front seat. Henderson pitched forward and forced the chopper into a diagonal dive. The whole tail boom went into the trees, sweeping through the thick branches and crowns laden in blackness.

The chopper seemed to stop, pausing in midair, stuck to the dark substance like a bug on flypaper. The rotors spun into the ooze, breaking off one by one. The engine smoked, adding to the steam rising from where the creature had already begun to destroy the helicopter’s composite airframe. It appeared as if it could eat anything. Another reason to admire it, though the pain in Strawn’s jaw served as a blunt reminder the thing played no favorites.

He held on tight as the chopper rolled. Henderson screamed. He didn’t listen. What could the pilot do now? He looked out the front window. Thin, dark capillaries began to form on the frosty windshield, creeping across fast as lightning bolts. Hundreds, probably thousands of them, snaking and branching again and again until the glass was all black. He spun around and saw every window had been covered.

He looked down. They were probably seventy feet up. A fatal fall if he landed wrong. He’d take his chances. He respected the organism, not enough to become one of its victims, though.

The chopper slanted hard left, coming to rest on a branch thick with tainted snow. It was the first time Strawn had seen the thing up close. He froze, wide-eyed, staring deep into the blackness. Never, in the darkest of nights, in the emptiest regions of cold, hollow space could he have imagined such a desolate creature.

“SIR!” Henderson tore him from the captivation. Strawn looked down, saw the creature’s offshoots begin to creep into the cockpit, and kicked at them. His shoes sizzled and smoked, and he felt instant heat on the soles of his feet.

With a horrendous
CRACK!
the aircraft dropped ten feet in less than one second, catching on another cluster of branches. The glass behind Strawn shattered, showering jagged shards of dark ice, pelting him like a spray of hydrochloric acid.

Then the windscreen gave way. All at once, a giant heap covered Henderson. Strawn couldn’t see his pilot under the boiling, bubbling black snow. It reminded him of a simmering pot of meat. His stomach turned at the malodorous melody hitting his nose like a barrage of decay. He would have bent over if he could have. Instead, he had to wretch to the side, clinging to a headrest, his scorched feet hanging in the frigid breeze.

All around, every one of the windows threatened to implode. He stared past his steaming toes, past the encroaching blackness to the ground below. He spotted a section of snow not touched by the creature. His lungs filled greedily with frigid air. He decided to recapture control of the situation. He was, after all, the boss. No way was he going to let some mindless creature call the shots.
He
called the shots. He’d had enough. The trial run was a success. It was confirmed. He had a bona fide killer on his hands. Now he needed to contain it, to control it, to teach it who was boss.

After he got the hell out of that helicopter.

Releasing his hold, he put his hands to his sides and tucked his chin, toes pointing to the ground. His stomach rose to his chest as the weightless feeling of free-fall took over.

He was safe now, dropping into a patch of clean, white snow. In the scant two seconds he was in the air, his mind raced with the things he would have to do. A few feet before he landed, he glanced down. Dozens of black lines crisscrossed below him, flooding every inch of the unblemished snow.

It felt like he splashed into a pool of thick, syrupy lava. It peppered his face, a heat so scorching it felt cold. He reached to find out if his cheeks had holes in them, but his hands had been charred to stubs, bone fragments twitching and protruding in odd angles.

He opened his mouth. His lungs refused to work. So did his legs when he attempted to kick free from the putrid muck. He felt no pain. Pain would come later, when he got himself out of this goddam mess. He’d do it, too. It had him for now. But he’d get away. He had to. He was the boss.

The crunch of metal from above seized his awareness. With what was left of his strength, he managed to aim his eyes upward in time to see the helicopter’s bent, battered fuselage falling to earth, tumbling over and over, down the large cedar branches. He breathed his last breath thinking only one thought:
Nobody, but nobody fucked with the boss. Nobody.