White Walker (5 page)

Teddy had told her about the succession of hired
help that took the place of his parents while he was growing up.
The lack of emotional attachment within his family. It was
something he didn’t want to see happen with his own children, when
he got around to having some. Which he figured wouldn’t be for
another few years. Right now he wanted to focus on his career, on
building a reserve to support them in the future when they decided
to have children. It was the main reason she had remained silent
about her condition. She didn’t know how Teddy would respond, and
most importantly she didn’t want to be the proverbial monkey wrench
in his plans.

Yet the fantasy she had built for herself was tinged
by a sense of sorrow, of loss, of some sorrowful act or occurrence
she was not fully aware of. Something remained hidden from her
view, a half forgotten secret that teased with a sensation that was
not fully realized. Something was amiss in her ordered little
fantasy, something she couldn’t quite put her finger on.

As she slipped into the seat at the end of the table
across from Teddy, she understood that what happened in the next
few moments would have a lasting impact on both of their lives.

Teddy took a deep breath. “You know the company has
a policy on fraternization,” he started, and Judy nodded in
agreement, “and we’ve worked hard to keep our relationship under
wraps.”

“Do we have a relationship?” Judy said.

“I’d like to think we do.”

“Do you love me?”

“Of course I do.”

“But you’re about to tell me I will have to
quit.”

“I’m afraid so.”

“Because we’re seeing one another.”

“Well yeah, it’s really the only logical course of
action I can think of.”

Judy smiled. “How about this,” she said as she stood
up, “we quit seeing one another, I go my way, and you go your
way.”

“But I thought you wanted to be together.”

“I do, but I also like this job.”

“But I can’t be your boss and your boyfriend.”

“So I guess you’ll have to settle for being my
boss,” Judy said then turned and walked from the room.

“Wait, that isn’t what I wanted,” Teddy called after
her, but she ignored him as she vanished through the doors leading
back to the main floor.

Reaching the hallway her resolve broke, the tears
she had been holding back flowed freely, and her vision became
blurred as she slipped into the women’s bathroom. Liz was at the
mirror applying makeup when Judy entered. Judy crossed behind her
and vanished into the last stall, closing and locking the door
behind her. Sitting down on the toilet, she let her emotions take
over, allowing the tears to flow freely as she blew her nose on
toilet tissue.

“Are you all right, sweetie?” Liz asked from outside
the stall. “Did you and Teddy have a fight?”

“I’m okay,” Judy said as she struggled to get her
emotions back under control. A feat that was becoming more and more
difficult as her pregnancy progressed. Thankfully the company
provided health insurance and she had used it for her initial
doctor visits. Physically she and the baby would be fine.
Emotionally, at least for her, was another matter.

“Do you want me to get you anything?” Liz said.

“I’m all right. I’ll be out soon.”

“Are you sure?”

“Just let me get myself together here.”

“If you need anything, just shout.”

“I will,” she said as she took a deep breath and
tried to gather her thoughts. She had surprised herself when she
walked out on Teddy. The idea had come to her when she followed him
into the break room. At the time it had really been nothing more
than a
what if.
But when he started talking about their
relationship she realized she had to do something to prove, if only
to herself, if they really had something or if it was just a
passing fancy. A fling that had lasted for a little more than a
year. She was confident that what she felt for Teddy was love.

The door opened and she steeled herself for more
probing questions from Liz, or heaven forbid, Teddy.

The soft sound of footsteps came from the room
beyond the stall door. From somewhere in her past came the
remembered sound of footsteps crunching through the snow. She
didn’t know where the memory came from, but with it came a chilling
fear accompanied by the sound of a dog barking.

The footsteps stopped right in front of the stall
she occupied. On the floor, visible beneath the door, lay a shadow
that filled her with fear.

He has returned
. The thought whispered in her
mind and she cringed as the shadow moved closer, accompanied by
slow, measured, footsteps crunching through the snow. Cold air
filled the stall around her, chilling her flesh, and she hugged
herself to stay warm. It was as if someone had opened a window,
letting a wintry wind into the warm interior of the bathroom.

The shadow got closer as the chill deepened,
bleeding across the floor under the door to the stall, slowly
consuming the light as it drew closer to her feet. She lifted her
feet from the floor, pulling her knees up under her chin as the
shadows spread across the tile like a black stain.

She was only dimly aware of the door opening. Of
footsteps moving crisply across the tiled floor.

“Are you all right?” Liz said, breaking the spell
she had fallen under. The shadows retreated and the chill flowed
away from her. She struggled to catch her breath, not really sure
if what had just happened had been real or the product of all the
stress she had been under lately.

“I’m okay,” she said, trying to disguise the
shakiness in her voice. The footsteps had awakened an old memory
from when she was a child. One she had successfully locked away
from the cold light of reality. Her dog Charlie had become lost one
winter’s morning. He’d been found shortly afterwards, but the
details were fuzzy at best, and try as she might, she couldn’t
recall anything more about what had happened that day.

Teddy followed Judy into the hallway. He had been
totally unprepared for her reaction, and he stopped when she
entered the ladies’ room. Reason overpowered emotion as he decided
to let her have the time and space she needed. He was turning
towards the main room when he caught a glimpse of movement out of
the corner of his eye. He turned back to the rear door leading to
the smoking area. A small wire mesh window set at eye level
revealed a white world of swirling snow. The falling snow, driven
this way and that by a restless wind, parted to reveal a person
standing on the bank opposite the dock. He was dressed in a heavy
leather coat whose hem stopped between the knee and ankle. A filthy
red scarf was wrapped around his neck, covering the lower half of
his face, and a battered leather hat rode low over his forehead.
His eyes were hidden in the deep shadows of the brim.

The stranger’s presence sent a shiver down Teddy’s
spine before his natural desire to protect others kicked in and he
pushed his way through the door. The wind tore at his shirt,
causing his tie to whip around his throat as he crossed to the edge
of the dock to search for that lonely figure.

“Anybody out here?” he shouted, the words ripped
away by the restless wind. But the person he’d seen, or thought
he’d seen, was gone.

He was about to go back inside when he was overcome
with the sensation of being watched. The shifting sheets of falling
snow parted, likes the curtains on a stage, to reveal someone
standing on the hill across from the dock.

Byelii,
the name whispered through his mind,
rising from the dark recesses of his childhood memories. As a child
he had been cared for one summer by an ancient Slavic woman who was
as wide as she was tall. Teddy never learned what her real age was,
but it was a fair bet that she was on the other side of seventy,
yet even with her massive girth she was light on her feet and
entertained him, if it could be called that, with antique tales of
the old country.

She had grown up during the German invasion, in a
little village that escaped most of the atrocities that had
occurred along the eastern front. Of little military significance,
the advancing armies of the Third Reich had bypassed her village.
It helped that they had hung a warning at the edge of their little
village, a simple sign that to the advancing German armies meant
the plague was present. If there were anything the Germans feared
more than a Russian bullet, it was disease, especially a disease as
devastating as the plague.

Other villages had tried the same thing with varying
degrees of success. Depending on their location, the warning
resulted in either the village being burned to the ground while the
inhabitants were trapped in their homes, or being bypassed entirely
and left to die at its own leisurely pace.

One day, his Nanny told him, the Germans had camped
outside the village. That night her grandmother had prayed in some
forgotten language to an ancient entity she could only translate as
meaning White One. That same night a fierce winter storm accosted
the village, which was strange as spring had already established a
foothold. A steady wind screamed down from the north, carrying with
it the cold artic air of the vast northern plains.

The following morning the Germans were gone. Their
tents, bedding, weapons, and even half-eaten food still in metal
mess kits, was all that remained. It was as if they had simply laid
down their possessions and walked off. No one in the village knew
what had happened; there was wild speculation, but no reason for
their disappearance was ever uncovered. Her grandmother had
remained silent throughout the day, a knowing smile on her face,
and when she asked her later that evening what happened to the
German soldiers, her grandmother had simply said the White One had
led them away.

The memory faded and Teddy was once more on the dock
as he gazed into the swirling snow, trying to catch sight of
whoever was out there. It never once crossed his mind to take care
of himself first. Ever since he had been a child he’d had this
natural desire to protect those around him, strangers included. He
had tried out several times to join the local fire department but
he just didn’t have the physical ability to do the job, forcing him
to settle for being an EMT. He’d been blessed with a very skinny
frame. Wiry is what his aunt once called it.

Then he saw him, standing on the bank directly
across from him. One moment he wasn’t there, and the next he
appeared as if he had stepped out from between the sheets of
shifting snow. They watched one another across the intervening
space and Teddy realized that the stranger was smiling at him,
nodding in recognition of the memory his presence had stirred.

Was he the White One his nanny had spoken of?

As if in answer he felt the presence of that
creature all around him. It was of the storm that was even now
battering at the walls of the building. Its voice the shriek of
that wintry wind that swirled around him like the waters of a
whirlpool, threatening to drag him down into the black depths of an
eternally frozen world. Its touch was the caress of frozen
snowflakes that clung to the warm flesh of his cheeks, melting into
tiny pools of water that froze on contact with the wintry air.

Suddenly he was a part of the storm, swirling across
the frozen landscape like a wild thing un-caged as a strange
exhilaration gripped him. He was impervious and nothing could stand
in his way. He was an irresistible force of nature unleashed upon
an unsuspecting world.

Everything stopped. The wind ceased it restless
casting about. The snow, still falling in sheets, dropped straight
to the ground in a vertical path.

May I come in?
a sinister voice whispered in
his mind and Teddy realized how alone he truly was. Nipping at the
heels of that realization came the fear of what this stranger
represented.

The White One led them astray.
The voice of
his nanny whispered in soft counterpoint to this creature’s simple
request.

Would he lead them astray?
The question
filled him with remorse.

Of course,
came the answer unbidden from the
black depths that surrounded him.

Time ground to a halt as the two men gazed across
the intervening space at one another. One a leader of sorts, the
other a taker of souls. Teddy had what the other wanted and with
that realization came the terrified cries of a group of children.
The cold was driven away by the memory of a raging fire that seared
his flesh and served to break the spell the stranger had placed
upon him.

Teddy staggered back as the wind howled in his ears
and as it did he heard a forlorn voice crying out with rage at his
refusal to permit it access.

Kevin was becoming quite annoyed with the customer
he had on the line. Her company had purchased the latest smart
phone and she had been tasked with setting the phones up to access
the company’s servers, which contained any number of closely
guarded national defense secrets. As soon as she began describing
her problem, Kevin understood what the real issue was. She didn’t
possess the capacity to operate a phone that was smarter than her.
With a sigh, he settled into what he knew was going to be a long
procedure as he took her step by step through the process of
properly setting up the phone to securely access the company’s
servers. Apparently someone who thought they knew what they were
doing had tried to do it for her, and it was all screwed up. But it
wasn’t that person’s fault, hell no, there was definitely something
wrong with the phones.

He was in the middle of explaining how to open the
settings screen when the phones went dead. There was no brief
sputter to warn him of what was about to happen. One moment the
airhead, as he had come to calling her privately, was describing
what she was seeing, and then she was gone. Replaced by the faint
hiss of a dead line.