Frostbitten: The Complete Series (61 page)

CHAPTER ONE HUNDRED AND TWELVE
LOOKING FOR REDEMPTION

Tarun stood in a silent shock. He turned towards Peter, who remained still on the small iron cot. He turned back to the brawny men.

“Please don’t do this,” Tarun begged. “Please don’t.”

The men ignored the desperate pleas. Tarun scanned his dark surroundings for some kind of escape. Perhaps, he thought, if he was fast enough and agile enough, he could slip past the angry prisoners. He could make a run for the exit—but the chances seemed slim, given the girth of the men.

“P—Peter?” Tarun said. “What—What do I do?”

Peter looked up at Tarun. “I don’t know,” Peter said.

“There!” the bald man said as he finally paired the proper key with the cell door. He pushed the heavy iron door open, and the man stepped into the cell. His friends were quick to step close together, closing off any possible route of escape.

The small-headed, brawny leader looked down at Peter. “Get out of here,” he said.

Peter kept his eyes on the cracked cement floor. “Nah,” Peter said.

“What do you mean,
nah
? Get the fuck out of here.”

Peter didn’t respond.

“I ain’t asking! I’m telling you to get the fuck out!” the bald prisoner screamed.

Peter continued to sit in an undisturbed silence.

“Fucking retard,” the bald man muttered. “Fine, sit here and watch. Whatever gets you off—I don’t care.”

The bald man stepped past Peter towards the cold, shivering Tarun.

“Don’t touch him,” Peter said without looking up.

“Shut your retard mouth,” the angry inmate replied.

“Don’t even try to touch him. I ain’t gonna let you touch him.”

“What? You got a soft spot for Sand Niggers or somethin’?”

Peter slowly looked up and stared at the bald prisoner, seemingly expressionless—unphased by the tattooed man’s inherently violent nature.

Ignoring Peter Riley’s threats, the brawny man stepped closer and swiftly grabbed onto Tarun’s arm, pulling him in close. Tarun let out a sharp cry of pain as the man clamped his brawny hand around Tarun’s arm.

“Let go of me!” Tarun yelled.

With his free hand, the man reached up and grabbed Tarun by the throat. “There isn’t an ounce of fight in you,” he laughed. “You’re one pathetic Sand Nigger. You couldn’t hurt me if my fucking arms were tied around my back.”

“I have no interest in hurting you,” Tarun said.

“Well that’s a shame, cause I’m very interested in hurting you.”

Peter stood up and grabbed the bald man by the arm, pulling him away from Tarun.

“What is your fucking retard problem!?” the bald man yelled.

Peter stared into the bald man’s eyes.

The agitated inmate began to laugh. He turned back to his dumb brawny friends. “Apparently Sand Niggers and retards are a match made in heaven.”

Peter quickly reached forward, grabbing the bald man by his steel-wool beard. He spun his face around, and then with his other hand, he grabbed the bald man from the upper-jaw. The attack was incredibly fast, hauntingly accurate. Peter managed to gauge his thumbs into the bald man’s mouth, and he began to push his jaw apart.

The bald man desperately grabbed onto Peter’s wrists in an attempt to pry his face free, but Peter’s strength was inhuman. It was as though Peter felt no pain.

Before the idle friends could react, Peter snapped the brawny, small-headed man’s thick jaw. The man dropped to the floor.

The other three inmates stood in a cold, silent shock for a moment after witnessing the gruesome attack. Peter looked up at them. One of them revealed a shiv in his hand. Peter looked back at Tarun in the dark cell.

The three brawny inmates stepped past the gate, and spread out—ready to remove Peter from the equation. Their weathered, bearded and scarred faces were invisible in the windowless cement prison. Only the glimmering of their jaded eyes, the glisten of their rotting teeth, and the shine of the metal blade was visible amidst the darkness.

One of the three men fell to the floor and was pulled back, out of the small cell and into resonant darkness. The other two stopped and looked back.

“What was that?” one of the brawny men said.

A loud, spine-tingling
scream
pierced the blackened silence.

“What the fuck!?” a brawny tattooed inmate yelled as he clenched his glistening shiv tightly. He frantically scanned the dark prison, unable to locate his lost friend. He looked back towards Peter.

The man fell to the floor. Something grabbed onto his ankle. He began to scream and he slid back, into the same black void his friend was pulled into.

The remaining brawny man’s eyes were wide. He cautiously kept his eye on the cell door as he backed slowly into the cement corner of the little room. A ping echoed through the empty prison as he dropped his weapon and raised his arms in surrender.

He was too afraid to make a sudden move—he was too afraid to blink. So petrified, the man forgot to blink.

A figure walked into the cell from the black abyss—a short, hooded figure with a slender build. Tarun, Peter and the quivering inmate stared motionlessly at the mysterious aggressor.

“Tarun—Come with me.”

It was a woman—not just any woman, but a familiar woman. Tarun recognized the voice—he knew exactly whose voice it was, but he couldn’t believe it.

“Let’s go,” the voice said again.

“M—Megan?” Tarun said.

“I don’t have time to explain—I need to get you out of here. The police will be here soon.” Despite the dark, Tarun could make out her face—it was Megan. There was a glimmer in her eye—a deep red glimmer.

“W—What—”

“—Come on,” Megan said, grabbing Tarun by the hand.

Tarun looked back at Peter. “Wait,” he said.

Megan stopped and turned back to Tarun. “What?”

“Peter—Come on. Come with us,” Tarun said.

Peter was silent for a moment as he thought about it. “There’s no point,” he said. “They’ll just catch me, bring me back here.”

“There going to give you The Chair,” Tarun said.

“I’ve been waiting years for that chair. I deserve that chair.”

“No one deserves to be put to death,” Tarun said.

Peter stared at Tarun in a cold silence. “I do. They say I’m evil. It’s true. They ain’t wrong about that.”

“Tarun, come on,” Megan insisted, tugging on his arm.

The surviving aggressor was still standing motionlessly in the corner of the cell—overwhelmed by a combination of fear and confusion.

“You’re not evil, Peter. You’re anything but evil. You’re a great person.”

“I ain’t never done nothin’ great.”

“You saved my life,” Tarun said. “That was the greatest thing anyone’s ever done for me.”

“Tarun—Let’s go. He wants to stay,” Megan insisted again.

“Good bye, Tarun, the Indian from India,” Peter smiled.

There was no changing his mind. Tarun turned and followed Megan out of the prison. At the end of the hallway, siphoning through the front gate were all of the facilities prisoners—desperately trying to force their way into freedom.

Megan knew another route. She took Tarun by the hand and led him through a maze of corridors. At the end of the maze was a back door that had been broken open with force. The back door led out to the desolate staff parking lot where an idling truck conveniently awaited the arrival of Megan and Tarun. Without looking back, they hopped into the vehicle and sped away.

CHAPTER ONE HUNDRED AND THIRTEEN
WORDS OF WARNING

Michael was overwhelmed with an strange, intense sensation in his body. It was a physical feeling, the same way pain, euphoria, cold, and heat are all physical—but this particular feeling was none of those. This feeling was totally foreign and completely unignorable—like an itch begging desperately to be scratched. Every moment Michael didn’t act, the sensation grew stronger. He knew that there was something he needed to do—that some strange force was screaming at him to do something, but he didn’t know what that
something
was.

An unlikely face wouldn’t leave the forefront of Michael’s mind: her cute laugh and her candid smile refused to be ignored as they became clearer and clearer.

Michael pulled his truck over to the side of the road and he took a deep breath, gathering his composure. Given all the circumstances—given all of the grieving over his late father, the freak and violent snowstorm, the discovery of Kane’s secret arsenal—
why was the image of Brittany teasing his mind?

He didn’t know why—No matter how hard he tried to make sense of it, he simply couldn’t. But that strange sensation—that elusive itch that couldn’t be scratched seemed to coincide. It was as if his soul was telling him to go to Brittany—to warn her, or perhaps to protect her.

Halfway to the hospital, Michael turned his car around, towards Brittany’s house. He didn’t know her exact address, but he knew that she lived across from Connor’s house—a house he’d visited a number of times as a kid.

Six miles of blizzarding Snowbrooke streets, and Michael was out front of Connor’s home. He pulled the truck to the curb, and scanned the row of dark houses across the street. Seemingly abandoned, all of the houses possessed no signs of life. Michael’s only vague clue was a set of quickly filling footsteps down the walkway of one particular house, which had a dim flickering light creeping out from a slit in a window.

Michael wasted no time—he stepped out from his truck and he hurried through the worsening blizzard towards the dark home. A sharp chill burned his exposed skin.

Knock! Knock! Knock!

Michael stood with his arms tight to his body, waiting optimistically for a response. After a dozen seconds of silence, Michael knocked again. The door opened and, as luck, Fate, magic or whatever ideology you subscribe to would have it, Brittany emerged in the doorway.

“Michael?” she asked, holding the door opened, partially.

“Hey—Do you have a second?” Michael asked. His nose was already dark red and frost was quickly building up on his beard of stubble.

Brittany poked her head out into the black whiteout, scanning the desolate street. “What are you doing here?”

“It’s important. Can I come in?”

Brittany was reluctant for obvious reasons. But she’d spent the past few days rearranging her home and hiding the most damning of evidence. She’d begun sorting through her things—packing for a hopeful move across the country to the little-known, professed fantasy Megan called “Nightfall”.

“Brittany?” Michael prodded.

“Uh—Sure,” Brittany said, opening her door wide as she stepped aside.

The walls of the foyer had been freshly covered in white paint. The whole room was thoroughly empty, except for a bucket and an old mop. The entire house smelled overwhelmingly of bleach and lemon Pledge. The windows were still boarded up, and the room was dark—lit only by a flickering fireplace a room, a number of doorways over.

Brittany shut the front door firmly behind Michael. “Come this way—you’re freezing,” she said.

Michael pushed his hood from his head and followed Brittany into the living room. Void of any artwork or furniture, the living room was also covered with a fresh coat of that same white paint. Michael scanned the room. “Renovations?”

“Yeah—I guess so,” Brittany said.

“You guess so?”

Brittany smiled. “It’s more like…
Early
Spring Cleaning.” She walked towards the fireplace and took a seat at the house’s apparently sole piece of furnishing: a soft fur rug.

“You’re house is beautiful,” Michael said. “Are your parents home?”

“No, they’re out,” Brittany said. “Going on… fifteen years, now.”

“You live here alone?”

“Yeah. Have since I was a kid.”

“Wow. Well, you’ve taken good care of it,” Michael said, pulling off his gloves. He kneeled down in front of the wood-burning fireplace and reached his rigid blue and ivory fingers forwards.

“Why are you here, Michael? How did you know where I lived?”

Michael looked up at Brittany. “Connor mentioned that you lived here—Sorry if I’m intruding.”

“You aren’t intruding, but you shouldn’t be out—Last I heard, the hospital is already over capacity. If anything happened…”

“I needed to see you,” Michael said. “That guy—in your class—the one with the old car.”

“Kane,” Brittany said.

“He’s the killer. Not that Tarun kid—It’s Kane.”

Brittany looked deep into Michael’s eyes for a moment in silence. “How do you know that?”

Michael described the contents of Kane’s trunk—drawing connections between the so-called “ritualistic, vampire-like” murders and the occult, vampire relics in Kane’s possession. He described Kane’s strange behaviour at the bar. “I knew there was something off with him,” Michael finished. “It couldn’t be more obvious.”

“So then, go to the police. Why did you come here?” Brittany asked.

“The police are busy—besides, the town would go crazy if the police admitted they were wrong about Tarun—the police would rather just sweep it under the rug.”

“You’re probably right,” Brittany said. “But Michael—”

“Yeah?”

“Why are you here?” Brittany asked again.

Michael stared at Brittany in silence. After a couple of seconds, his face started to turn red. “I—I was just making sure you were okay,” he said. “I just wanted to let you know to stay away from him.” Michael awkwardly sprung to his feet. “You should stay with a friend until Kane is dealt with. It’s not a good idea to be alone. Let me take you to a friend’s house. I could take you to my place—it’s safe there, and my mom would be happy to set up a room. I—I mean, only if you don’t have anywhere else to go. I’m only living with my mom temporarily, while I’m training—That Hanna girl! Where does she live? Maybe you can stay with her and her family. I’ll take you over to her house. C’mon.”

Brittany couldn’t help but laugh at the rambling hunk.

“You can stay here. I can stay here with you—as a friend, you know? Just for the night. I mean, unless that would make you uncomfortable. Where does Hanna live? I’ll drive you to her house—”

“Michael,” Brittany interrupted.

“Yeah?”

“I think I’m going to stay here. I’ll be okay here.”

“Right—Sure. Just, be careful, you know?”

“You’re welcome to stay with me. I don’t have a bed or a couch you can sleep on, unfortunately, but I can get you a blanket. This rug is nice and soft.”

Michael’s face was dark red with awkward, shy embarrassment. He smiled as he stood like a plank of wood.

“Sit down,” Brittany laughed.

Michael lowered himself to the ground. “I just wanted to make sure you were okay,” he said.

“I’m okay.”

“Good, good.”

Brittany leaned forward and tossed another thick dry log onto the fire.

“Can I ask you something?” Michael asked.

“What?”

“Is it… Still complicated?”

Brittany looked over at Michael and smiled. “It’s less complicated.”

Michael stared into Brittany’s eyes. Before he could react, Brittany lips were pressed firmly against Michael’s. Slow to process the advance, his body became suddenly tense and frozen.

Brittany leaned back, her face quickly turning red. “I—I’m sorry,” she apologized. “I didn’t—I didn’t mean—”

Michael reached his hand around the back of Brittany’s head, silencing her stuttering ramble. He looked into her beautiful eyes for a moment, and then down to her soft lips. With a muscular hand gently on the side of her head, Michael leaned in. This time, the kiss was mutual.

Brittany shuffled her body closer to Michael’s. Michael shuffled his body closer to Brittany’s. The athletic hunk wrapped his free arm around the dark-skinned beauty. She could feel his hard muscles bulging against her soft skin as she melted deeper and deeper into his toned body.

Michael slowly lowered Brittany down to the warm rug. In their embrace, the two became intimate silhouettes in the dancing firelight.

The crackle of the dry logs provided the metronome to the confident roar of the cozy flames.

Michael was a gentle lover, a passionate lover, a confident lover. He carefully slid his hand down to Brittany’s neck, supporting her head comfortably as the two assumed a new position on the soft floor below.

An unforgiving blizzard, a violent prison break, an overrun hospital, and a killer on the prowl—nothing could overpower their passion, nothing could distract from their mutual lust.

With her soft gentle hands, Brittany slid Michael’s shirt up, over his head slowly, gliding her fingers along the hard bulges and deep rivets of his toned body. Michael’s newly exposed skin thawed quickly in the heat of the warm fireplace.

There is something magic about the glow of the perfect fire—the power of its soft radiance to reveal uncover and amplify any beauty.

Settled securely on the soft fur rug, Michael sunk his hard body down, turning two silhouettes into one.

Snap! Crack!

The fresh log was engulfed, and the fire burned bright and warm, tall and confident.

Brittany gently grazed her teeth across Michael’s lower lip. A surge of warm elation—she gently pushed the ripped boy back.

“Michael—” Brittany said.

“Yeah?”

Brittany stared into his eyes as a gut-wrenching guilt began to eat away inside of her.

“What is it?” Michael asked.

“I—I don’t know that I can do this,” Brittany said.

Michael’s eyes glazed over. “What? Why?” he asked. “I mean—Sure—I didn’t mean to make you uncomfortable.” Michael quickly rolled off of Brittany and sat up, his face becoming red again.

“I’m comfortably—very comfortable—It isn’t that. It’s just that—” Brittany started.

Michael listened eagerly for her reasoning.

“Michael—I’m not who you think I am.”

“Who are you?”