She felt heat on her knuckles and guessed she’d burned the skin there, too, but that was nothing compared to what happened to the monster: the wood burned its way down the thing’s throat. The creature’s body distorted the light, refracted it in a way that made its head look like some kind of misshapen disco ball. Tess watched the flame slide down into the monster’s innards, sure the melting water would put it out soon enough but hoping it would do plenty of damage to the creature first.
The tentacles around her squeezed harder for a second, and Tess was sure they were going to crack her ribs. Or worse. Maybe snap her right in half. But when it seemed like the pressure couldn’t get any worse without killing her, it finally let up. Just barely at first, but then some more.
The creature chomped its teeth together, made a series of wheezing sounds that might have been gags. As if it were trying to hack the piece of wood back out.
When the tentacles loosened enough, Tess pulled free and backed across the kitchen, still holding the tongs.
The chunk of firewood had stopped halfway down the thing’s body. If it had any kind of anatomy, maybe that was its stomach. Regardless, you could see the wood in there, a dark spec within the semi-opaque layers. Wood, but no flames. The fire had gone out.
Parts of the creature had caved in, cratered and cracked. It ran its tentacles and its icicle fingers across these depressions the way a person might finger fresh wounds. It hissed, and although it looked wounded, it was far from dead. She expected it to lunge at her, to wrap its limbs around her body and squeeze her to a pulp. Instead, it turned, stuck its head through the window, used its tentacles to push off the floor and the counters (snapping one cabinet door right off its hinges in the process) and wiggled its way back out into the blizzard.
Tess gaped, not sure what had happened, why the thing hadn’t retaliated.
Maybe it’s hurt worse than you thought. Or maybe it went out for reinforcements.
Didn’t matter. Whatever the thing was doing, and for whatever reason, she needed to take the opportunity to regroup.
In the hallway, Bub continued struggling with the other creature. She heard the two of them in there, hissing and barking and bumping into the walls. And she heard the first creature in the bedroom, still battering the door. She couldn’t believe it hadn’t gotten into the rest of the house yet. Maybe their doors were tougher than she thought.
Forget about that. Save Bub. It’s not too late.
The half of the log the creature hadn’t swallowed lay on the kitchen floor in a pool of water. It wasn’t going to do her any good, but there was still another log crackling in the fireplace.
She hurried into the living room, swinging the tongs at her side. The chunk of wood on the fireplace grate wasn’t much of a log anymore. It had burned down to the size of a softball and was really more of a coal. But it
was
bright red, and the little creature in the back hall wasn’t the behemoth its partner had been. This would be enough. It
had
to be enough.
She poked the tongs into the fireplace and gripped the piece of wood, careful not to squeeze it too hard, afraid she might break it into a dozen worthless pieces if she did. The wood smoked, but it was already losing some of its color.
Hurry!
She ran through the living room, through the kitchen, into the hall.
She found Bub on the floor in a puddle of gore. The creature stood over him, blood running out of its mouth and pinkening as it ran down the beast’s wet body. Tufts of yellow fur poked out from between its teeth. It had a pair of tendrils wrapped around Bub’s neck, and the dog’s tongue lolled.
“No!” She jumped at the monster, aiming the tongs and fiery coal at its head. It started to move, to dodge, but it was too late. Tess pressed the wood into the side of its head and held it there until the thing let go of Bub and backed down the hall.
Not that there was anywhere for it to go. It backed up to the door and crouched there, flailing its limbs, trying to knock the tongs out of Tess’s hands as she advanced on it again. Most of the side of its head had melted away. Even with its mouth closed, you could see into its maw, see those pointed rows of blood-stained teeth.
The wood seemed to have lost most of its heat, but she jammed it against the thing again anyway. The creature screamed and wrapped its tentacles around the tongs and as far up Tess’s arms as it could reach, but although the snaking tendrils were freezing cold, there didn’t seem to be much strength in them. Tess grabbed one, broke it off, and flung it at the monster.
When the coal stopped smoking, she pulled back the tongs, let the chunk of cooled wood drop to the floor, and swung the empty tongs. They thunked into the creature’s head, and a long fissure opened up in the ice, running from the impact point to the middle of its mouth, breaking its head almost in two.
The thing reached up for the tongs again but couldn’t seem to find them. Its limbs curled, whipped, and waved from one side to the other, searching, reaching, finding nothing.
Tess lifted the tongs over her shoulder and swung them into the monster again. The tongs hit the creature right in the split running down its face. If she’d been chopping wood, it would have been the perfect swing. And really, she guessed this was basically the same concept. The tool thunked into the thing’s wound, widening the gap, pushing the two halves of its head farther apart. Before the monster could pull free or try to tug the tongs out of her hands, Tess gripped the handles and jerked them apart. The end of the tongs spread, the creature shrieked and shuddered. A long, wet cracking sound came from somewhere in the vicinity of the thing’s neck (or where’s its neck would have been if it’d had one), and then one half of its head broke clean off. The chunk of ice slapped against the wall, broke in half again, and fell. The creature let out a wet, guttural sound, something almost like a burp, and toppled to the floor.
Tess didn’t wait to see if it was still alive; she grabbed the other half of its head with the tongs, squeezed the handles, twisted, and decapitated the little son of a bitch. Then she smashed the remaining torso and tentacles into slush.
From the other end of the house came the loudest cracking sound yet. A thump followed, then a series of scrapes and a triumphant-sounding roar.
Tess dropped to her knees beside Bub.
His eyes were closed, his fur covered in blood. She slid her hand under his head and cupped the side of his neck, feeling for a pulse, not sure if that even worked for a dog. She felt nothing.
“I’m sorry,” she said. “I’m so sorry.” And then she was crying. Tears ran down her cheeks and into her mouth, hot and salty. Snot dripped over her upper lip and from there to the floor. She wiped her face with her arm and cried harder still.
Quit it! Get out of here now and mourn later, or stay here and die beside him.
She wiped her face again and took a few long, gasping breaths.
Where was she supposed to go?
She heard the monster sliding through the house, heard the taps and bangs she guessed were its tentacles hitting the floor and the hallway walls. She thought the fire might keep it at bay, at least for a while, but then remembered there was no fire. Not anymore.
You’ve got to go. Go, go, GO!
She pulled her hand out from under Bub, still crying. She guessed she had two options left: stay here and fight the thing with nothing but the tongs and her bare hands (which wasn’t an option at all if she wanted to live past the next five minutes; she’d been lucky so far, but she was no kind of monster slayer) or go out into the storm. Out with no warm clothes. Out to where the larger kitchen monster had fled, to where there might be dozens more of the things. Out to almost certain death.
It’s certain either way, and you know it. That bedroom monster has cut you off from the rest of the house. You can’t go around it, and you can’t stay here and fight it. Going out into the storm is a sucky option, but it’s the
only
option.
She stood up and reached for the door.
And Bub moved.
No, you imagined that.
She wiped more tears from her eyes and looked again.
Bub’s back leg flinched, and he opened his eye.
Tess huffed out a sound: half laugh and half disbelieving sob. She dropped back to her knees and ran her hand down Bub’s side, trying to avoid his wounds. He lifted his head an inch or two off the floor, whined, and then lowered his face back into the pool of blood beneath him. Tess thought he’d died for real that time, that those few movements had been his last, his death throes, but then she noticed his side. It moved up and down. Shallowly but surely.
Help him. You have to try to help him.
The sounds coming from the other end of the house had gotten louder, and Tess thought the creature had made it out of the hallway and into the living room. It didn’t seem to be moving very quickly, definitely wasn’t rushing the way you expected nightmares to do, but the house wasn’t huge, and it would get here soon enough.
She slid both hands under Bub’s side, trying not to think about the blood oozing between her fingers.
“Come on,” she said. “You’ve got to get up. We have to go.”
Bub turned his head toward her, but he didn’t try to get to his feet. Or at least it didn’t
seem
like he was trying. Tess guessed it was a miracle he was alive at all. She could hardly expect him to jump to his feet and run circles around her. She tried lifting him, but he was a big dog and she’d already used up most of her energy.
“Please! Help me out here.” She lifted again and let out an exasperated groan.
Something crashed in the living room; it might have been the sound of a chair falling over.
Try again. You can do it. You
have
to do it. It’s either that or leave him here and let that thing tear him apart.
She wondered if maybe that would be more merciful. Attempting to move him might cause him agonizing pain. The monster would kill him, no doubt about that, but it would probably be quick about it.
You’re not seriously considering that. Leaving him here to die? You really think you could live with yourself?
No, she knew she couldn’t.
She tried to lift him one more time, strained until she was afraid she’d pop a blood vessel or throw out her back. She got him partway up, but he was practically deadweight
(don’t think that)
and didn’t do a thing to help. She lowered him back to the ground, changed position, wrapping her arms around his torso from above, and tried dragging him.
This worked better. She was able to move him anyway. And the blood on the floor lubricated the process, which simultaneously disturbed and relieved her.
From the sound of it, the monster had made it to the kitchen doorway. More wood cracked, and ice tinkled; she imagined the thing pushing its way through the threshold, grinning its wet, toothy grin.
She’d pulled Bub to the door. She let go of him just long enough to reach around and twist the doorknob. As soon as she’d opened the door, the wind blew it in. The knob hit her on the hip hard enough to spin her halfway around, and for a second she’d was afraid she’d slip in the blood and fall over Bub, but she kept her balance. The door pushed the half-melted pile of slush that had been the small creature against the wall, and freezing wind and clouds of icy snow blew in through the doorway. Tess gasped. On some level, she had realized it would be colder outside than in, but she hadn’t been expecting the sudden blast, the unbelievable coldness.
She leaned down, wrapped her arms back around Bub, and pulled him into the blizzard.
19
The first thing Warren thought when he opened his eyes was that someone had found his scarf and wrapped it back around his neck. He lay on his back, his face exposed to the falling snow and ice, freezing. He reached up with his good arm to touch the scarf and found something cold and sticky instead. He held his glove in front of himself, blinking away snow. A mess of red frost stuck to the glove’s fingers.
What the hell?
He reached for the object again and pulled it off his neck. It came unstuck like a huge bandaid, and Warren had to look at it for a long time before he realized what he was seeing. It was the hair that gave it away, the little black curls growing out of the thing from one end to the other. In the center was a bald patch, and in the center of that, a long, white scar.
It was a flap of skin. Ripped right off someone’s leg. Complete with a scarred knee.
Warren screamed and tried to throw the strip of flesh away, but it clung to his glove and swung back into his face. The already-freezing inner tissue hit him across the mouth, stuck there. He pulled it away again, turned his head, spat into the snow, and gagged.
Instead of trying to throw the skin a second time, he lowered it to the snow, held it down with his leg, and pulled his glove free.
He touched his broken arm through the snowsuit but felt almost no pain. He didn’t know whether to enjoy the momentary lack of agony or worry about it. He settled on not thinking about it either way and lifted his head to see where he was.
In the trees ahead, barely visible in the snow, one of the ice creatures had Jan Young wrapped in a tentacle as thick as a fence post, squeezing her arms against her sides. From where Warren lay, it was hard to see what was happening, but it looked like one of her hands was free and that she was trying to pull the blue plumber’s torch out of her pocket.
Between her and Warren, spread across the snow in streaks and piles of cooling meat lay what Warren could only assume had once been Rick Young. Intestines and other, unrecognizable innards littered the ground. Torn bits of clothing blew in the wind. A single boot stood in the center of the mess, a stub of a leg poking out of it and pointing to the sky.
The snowmobile lay on its side to Warren’s right. It looked dented in a few places and plenty scratched but not ruined.