Never Fear (13 page)

“
What does it say?”
Emerett said into his radio.

“
Peace on Earth and good
will toward men. God bless and Merry Christmas.”

A FAMILY CHRISTMAS
TERROR

CHAPTER
4

“
Holy crap!” Jack
said.

“
Yeah, that story should
have come with razor blades,” Nick muttered under his breath. “Any
more doughnuts?”

“
I could use a shot of
brandy in my coffee.” Dan raised his mug to his wife.

“
Way ahead of you,
sweetheart.”

Nick looked sheepish. “I don’t suppose
you’d spare a shot for your favorite son?”

“
Oh brother,” Nancy
said.

Judy gave her younger son an uneasy
look.

“
C’mon, Mom,” Nick
entreated.

Dan said, “Why not? Nobody’s going
anywhere today. Drinks are on the house!” He waved his hand with a
flourish.

“
There’s the Irish in ya,”
Grandpa said to Dan.

“
Are you imbibing as
well?”

“
Have I ever said
no?”

“
Not that I can recall.”
He cleared his throat. “I think I would like to try my voice on the
next story.” Grandpa handed him the book just as Judy came back,
brandy bottle in hand. She laced everyone’s coffee but Nancy’s, who
had put her hand over her mug.

“
I don’t really like
brandy. Give mine to Nick,” Nancy said. “Do we have any cherry
vodka?”

“
Alright! Merry Christmas,
sis!” Nick raised his mug to her.

“
I hope you aren’t like
this at college,” Judy admonished.

“
Of course not,” Nick was
quick to assure. “I’m only nineteen, besides.”

“
Uh huh.” Judy’s
skepticism was apparent.

“
So, Dad, what’s your
story called?” Jack broke the awkwardness.

“
Uh, it’s called,
The Night Is Freezing Fast
. Oh, I know this author. This should be good.”

THE NIGHT IS FREEZING
FAST

THOMAS F.
MONTELEONE

“
Oh damn!” cried Grandma
from the kitchen. “I’ve run right out of shortnin’ for my
cake!”

“
Are you
sure?
”
asked
Grandpa. When his wife cussed, she usually was very sure. He eased
the Dubuque newspaper down from his face and peeked at her through
the kitchen door.

“’
Course I’m sure! And if
you want a nice dessert for after Christmas dinner, you’ll get into
town and get me more shortnin’!
”

“
What’s
‘shortnin’?”
asked Alan, ten years old and
always asking questions at what always seemed like the wrong
moment.

“
But it’s a blizzard goin’
on out there!
”
said Grandpa. “And it’s Christmas Eve to boot.”

“
What’s
‘shortnin’?
”
asked Alan.

“
Rolf, if you know what’s
good for you, you’ll get into that town and get me my
shortnin
”
Grandma
used her tone of voice Alan had learned long ago meant no
foolishness.

Grandpa must have noticed
it too because he said, “Oh, all right.
”

Alan watched him drop the newspaper
and shuffle across the room to the foyer closet where he pulled out
some snow boots, a beat-up flapdoodle corduroy hat, and a Mackinaw
jacket of red and black plaid. He turned and looked wistfully at
Alan, who was sitting on the rug watching the Baltimore Ravens play
the Kansas City Chiefs on TV.

“
Want to take a ride,
Alan?
”

“
Into
town?
”

“
Yep. ‘Fraid
so.”

“
In the
blizzard?
”

Grandpa sighed, stole a
look toward the kitchen. “Yep.
”

“
Okay. It sounds like
fun... we don’t get snowstorms like this in
L.A.!
”

“
Fun?” said Grandpa,
smiling.
“
Oh
yeah, it’ll be great fun. Come on, get your outerwear on, and let’s
get a move on.
”

Alan ran to the closet and pulled on
the heavy, rubber-coated boots, a knit watch cap, and scarf. Then
he shook into the down parka his mom had ordered from the L. L.
Bean mail order place. His first encounter with cold weather had
been a great adventure, a great difference in his life.

“
Forty-two years with that
woman and I don’t know how she…
”

“
What’s shortnin’,
Grandpa?
”

The gray-haired man had just closed
the door to the mud porch behind them. He was muttering as he faced
into the stinging slap of the December wind, the bite of the
ice-hard snowflakes attacking his cheeks. There would be roof-high
drifts by morning if it kept up like this, he was
thinking.

“
What? Oh... well,
shortening is butter or oleo, or even cooking oil, I think.
Whatever it is, it’s for making cakes.” Grandpa stepped down to the
path he’d shoveled toward the garage. It was already starting to
fill in and would need some new digging out pretty soon.

“
Why do they call it that?
Why don’t they just call it butter, or margarine?” Alan had already
lost interest in the question, even as he asked it. The hypnotic
effect of the snow was captivating him.
”
Do you get storms like this all
the time, Grandpa?
”

“‘
Bout once a month this
bad.
”
Grandpa
reached the garage door, threw it up along its spring-loaded
tracks. He shook his head and shivered from the wind-chill.
“
And to think your mom
and dad are cruising the Caribbean! Hard to believe, isn’t
it?
”

“
I’d rather be
here,
”
said Alan,
shaking his head. He smiled, obviously immune to the shrieking cold
and the missile-like flakes.
“
This is going to be the first real
Christmas I ever had!
”

“
Why? Because it’s a white
one? Grandpa chuckled as he walked to the door of the 4-wheel drive
Cherokee and slowly climbed in.

“
Sure,
”
said Alan.
“
Haven’t you ever heard that
song?
”

Grandpa
smiled.
”
Oh, I
think I’ve heard it a time or two…
”

“
Well, that’s what I mean.
It never seems like Christmas in L.A.
even
when it is Christmas!
”
Alan jumped into the Jeep and slammed the door.
“
Boy, Grandpa, it’s
really coming down, now…”

As his grandfather backed the vehicle
from the garage, swung it around and churned down the long driveway
toward Route 14A, Alan looked out across the flat landscape of the
farm and the other farms in the distance. There was a gentle roll
to the treeless land, but it was lost in the wall of the
storm.

In fact, Alan couldn’t tell where the
snowy land stopped and the white of the sky began. When the
Cherokee lurched forward out onto the main road, it looked like
they were constantly driving smack into a white sheet of paper, a
white nothingness.

It was scary, thought Alan. Just as
scary as driving into a pitch-black night.

“
Oh, she picked a fine
time to run out of something for that danged cake! Look at it,
Alan. It’s a regular white-out, is what it is.
”

Alan nodded. “Jeezoowhiz,
how do you know where you’re going, Grandpa?
”
The first twinges of fear were
creeping into his mind.

Grandpa harrumphed.
“
Been on this road a
million times, boy! Lived here all my life! I’m not about to get
lost. But my God, it’s cold out here! Hope this heater gets going
pretty soon.
”

They drove on in silence except for
the crunch of the tires on the packed snow and thunk-thunk of the
wiper blades trying to move off the hard new flakes that filled the
sky. The heater still pumped chilly air into the cab and Alan’s
breath was almost freezing as it came out of his mouth.

He imagined they were explorers on a
faraway planet an alien world of ice and eternally freezing winds.
It was an instantaneous, catapulting adventure of the type only
possible in the minds of imaginative ten-year-olds. There were
creatures out in the blizzard great white hulking things. Pale,
reptilian, evil-eyed things. Alan squinted through the windshield,
ready in his gun turret if one turned on them. He would blast it
with his laser cannons…

“
What in
heck?
”
muttered
Grandpa.

Abruptly, Alan was out of his fantasy
world as he stared past the flicking windshield wipers. There was a
dark shape standing in the center of the white nothingness. As the
Cherokee advanced along the invisible road, drawing closer to the
contrasted object, it became clearer, more distinct.

It was a man. He was standing by what
must be the roadside, waving a gloved hand at Grandpa.

Braking easily, Grandpa stopped the
Jeep and hit the button that lowered the side window a bit. The
blizzard rushed, slicing through Alan’s clothes like a cold knife
as he looked the man standing in the storm. “Where you headed?”
cried Grandpa over the wind. “I’m going as far as town…”

“
That’ll
do,
”
said the
stranger.

Alan caught a quick glimpse of him as
he pushed into the back seat. He was wearing a thin coat that
seemed to hang on him like a scarecrow’s rags. He had a black scarf
wrapped tight around his neck and a dark blue ski mask that covered
his face under a floppy-brimmed old hat. Alan didn’t like that not
being able to see the stranger’s face.

“
Cold as hell out
there!
”
said the
man as he smacked his gloved hands together. He laughed to himself,
then:
“
Now
there’s a funny expression for you, ain’t it? Cold as Hell.’ Don’t
make much sense does it? But people still say it, don’t
they?”

“
I guess they
do,
”
said Grandpa
as he slipped the Jeep into gear and started off again. Alan looked
at the old man, who looked like an older version of his father, and
thought he saw an expression of concern, if not apprehension,
forming on the lined face.

“
It’s not so funny,
though.
”
said the
stranger, his voice lowering a bit.
“
Everybody figures Hell to be this
hot place, but it don’t have to be, you know?
”

“
Never really thought
about it much,
”
said Grandpa, playing with the heater controls. It was so
cold, it just didn’t seem to want to work.

Alan shivered, uncertain whether or
not it was from the lack of heat, the words, or the voice of the
stranger.

“
Matter of fact, it makes
more sense to think of Hell as full of all kinds of different pain.
I mean, fire is so outrageous, don’t you think? Now, cold ...
something as cold as that wind out there could be so ...subtle but
be just as bad, right? The man in the back seat chuckled softly
beneath the cover of the ski mask.

Grandpa cleared his throat and faked a
cough. “I don’t think I’ve really thought much about that either,”
he said as he appeared to be concentrating on the snow-covered road
ahead. Alan looked at his grandfather’s face and could see the
unsteadiness in the old man’s eyes. It was the look of fear, slowly
building.

“
Maybe you should
…
”
said the
stranger.

“
Why?
”
said Alan.
“
What do you
mean?
”

“
Well, it stands to reason
that a demon would be comfortable in any kind of element as long as
it’s harsh, as long as it’s cruel.
”

Alan tried to clear his throat and
failed. Something was stuck down there, even when he
swallowed.

The stranger chuckled
again. “Course, I’m getting off the track we were talking about
figures of speech, weren’t we?
”

“
You’re the one doing all
the talking, mister,” said Grandpa.

The stranger nodded.
“Actually, a more appropriate expression would be ‘cold as the
grave’…
”

“
I
t’s not this cold under the ground,
”
said Alan defensively.

“
Now, how would you
know?
”
asked the
stranger slowly.
“
You’ve never been in the grave ... not yet,
anyway.
”