Man of Ice
"They say he killed his wife, say she froze to death.
Could've happened to anyone.
It did…"
He licked his lips, feeling the flaking skin crawl under his tongue, chapped with the cold and red from biting. It was cold. Always wintry in there, in the cellar. Nobody went in there. Nobody knew. Except for one. .. That one… the one who took everything away…
The one who made him do the things he did.
'It was all for the love, baby, because you loved him…that bastard…'
He laughed a guttural growl.
That would be easy to fix in no time. He chortled again, a throaty murmur coming out from his quivering lips.
"No time at all…"
They say he's like ice. Frozen eyes, frozen voice, frozen blood… they say he's frigid. The children in our town say he can't hear.
Doesn't talk.
Doesn't care.
Doesn't live.
Live like others should.
They say his family died.
Froze to death, ten years ago. His daughter had been six years old…
They say he found their bodies in the river. Found 'em stiff and bloated. Blue and green with the early mornin' cold. Bruised with the bite of wind.
Some of the children, they say, he killed 'em. They say the love of his life had the child of another. (His baby girl, all blue eyes and smiles)
They say he keeps her ghost locked up tight in his closet.
Some say he cut out her heart.
Cut it out like a pretty little cookie, and frosted it in the cellar. (Gingerbread…maybe Peppermint)
Late night horrors, we call 'em. Children's tales…
They call him the Ice Man.
The adults hush the children and their stories. They shake their fingers. Whisper "No, no…that's not true at all…"
Then, they see him.
(Frozen Skin, Frozen Lips, Frozen Thoughts)
And wonder if it's true.
"Have Happy Holidays! Goodnight!"
One weary cheerful voice, stringing the thinning air like a needle…A bell on the door rang, a silent tinkling whisper; an echo of the last customer in the late night flurry.
A flash of red braid, and a forced cheerful smile, she furiously wiped a cup, elbow swinging in a wide flurried arc.
A picture of a woman sat on the counter to her right. A single white flower (Lily) was perched in a crystal cup next to the red cherry wood frame. It clung to the clear glass in a limp spinach green arch, a stark ugly contrast to the blonde and blue eyed picture. Another girl leaned over the counter as she twisted her tediously lengthy black hair idly, wasting time until the other one finally snapped the bolt to the door, signaling the end of a long hard day.
In her rush to clean a spot on the counter, a half empty bowl clattered to the floor, the stained glass so thick that it just made a dull thump, rolling in a trail of broth before resting at the feet of a wobbly stool. The girl with red hair mumbled and then cursed flagrantly under her breath, before stooping over to wipe the congealed puddle with a ratty plaid dishrag. Her voice was short and stuffy, pausing in between breaths with a wet sniff. A perfect time to get sick—not.
"You know, I'd like to think that because it's Christmas, I'd at the least get to take a day off, y'know what I mean Mary?"
The girl, now abandoning her hair, concentrated on the buffed edges of her plain nails, inspecting each bump and hangnail with a jaded disregard. Her voice was low and smooth, chirping with the country drawl of a small town girl. The worn blue linen swept across her gray tights, settling just below her swinging knees.
"I understand how you feel Ann, but your Father did say he had a task set at this present day, correct?" She threw the rag to the floor; eyes inked in a bright blue feral glare. "Who the hell makes plans away from family on Christmas?!"
Tossing an olive in her mouth, Mary chewed silently, thinking before swallowing.
"Your Father, obviously…"
The redhead sat on the counter, now fuming with bright apple red cheeks. Her eyes were like her mothers. Arched…but not blonde…She looked like her Daddy, all burning fire. "It's the tenth anniversary of my Mother's Death for holy's sake…He can find some time to spare… He's obviously forgotten..."
A gust of wind howled against the window. Mary stretched her arm and in one lengthy yawn, flicked her wrist towards the door.
"Shall we go look for him then? Or wait here?"
Secretly, she chanted in her head. 'I really do not want to go outside…let him come home…let him come home…" It was cold and dark outside.
'I hate, hate, and hate the dark…' (She'd always been afraid that it might eat her up like the big bad wolf and a batch of muffins, hot and delicious)
But Ann was buttoning her coat, and knotting her threadbare yellow scarf, staring expectantly at her friend.
'I guess I have no choice…'
So Mary sighed, and shrugged into her own jacket, gazing longingly at the dying fire in the hearth. They didn't lock the door behind them, and among the occasional skipping chatter between them, their shadows melted into the snow.
The picture remained on the counter. And the woman would remain frozen in the frame.
Some say he tried to kill himself. Stuck himself in the lake. Tried to die from hypothermia.
Say he wanted to go like his wife. Go out with a bang.
Some say it wasn't an accident.
And some say she had the baby before she died.
Some say the baby is a ghost (all blue eyes and smiles like his love) and waits to kill him until he least expects it.
And some say he killed his baby girl too. Throttled her, stuck her in the freezer, and took her outside under the winter stars.
Let 'er melt under the silver sun.
Some say his wife and her baby were lost in a blizzard.
Some say she took the baby away, gave her little girl (All blue eyes and laughter, his little baby girl) gave 'er away to her papa.
(Her real Papa…)
Some say she left with the baby, and then he killed her later, waiting in the winter until he could see her pale lips and bright blue eyes twitch under the water, tinted silver and blue with the burning cold of the river water. He left the baby, left her alone under a sparse twig of mistletoe.
Left her for her Papa…
(Daddy's little girl, all alone.)
Smiling like her Momma.
The children crowd around a fire. They're Twelve, Eleven, and Ten. Black, Blonde and Red, two boys, three girls. Whispering, whispering. Secrets about the ice-man.
One girl—twelve— cloaked in orange pajamas and her mother's ratty yellow scarf, whispers quietly, breathing frozen clouds into the biting winter air.
"They call 'im Mister Freeze… The Ice Man. They say that he killed his wife. Let her drown in a frozen lake. They say, he ties her heart around his neck."
The adults, they hear. "Shush, don't say those things, they're not true."
But when they see his hand clutch a string around his neck, they wonder.
Are They?
Winter in the country after Eight P.M. was cold, frigid, even. The burning snow needled into one's skin like sharp nails, pounding into the head like a mindless fog. An older man, Forty-five years old, crow's feet at the eyes, and dulling red hair that contrasted vividly against the snow, slumped against the wind. The weary bags below his eyes and the withdrawn lips and cheeks were the only fact that he was aging. But he'd had a good life. A flash of blonde, a glimmer of blue, aquamarine…A beautiful woman…
He thought of his daughter, and then with one trembling hand, knocked on the door that hadn't opened for so long.
The door opened.
A mouth widened in a flurried apology. A murmured excuse.
But the air just billowed from his lips in a cloud… and he walked inside.
'…Carrie…'
They'd been married for a few years. Childhood friends, they say. They grew up together. Ended up living in each other's arms…
There was always something about the city. She'd gaze at the glossy pictures in awe, and he'd grunt.
'Can't see the stars' he'd say, 'can't see the moon' he'd protest, 'can't see the truth through all that pollution…' he'd murmur.
And she'd blink, placing one slender finger to his lips.
"Shush love…shush. It's beautiful…"
Over dinner (Wine, fresh and tangy. Chocolate cake.) She smiled.
"There's a new man moved here…" another uninterested grunt. Swallow. Chew. Think.
"Says he's from the city. Not used to the boonies all the way out here… Makes me wonder what it's like… Not being used to the country…"
Another bite. His eyes, wolfish and piercing. "He's no good Carrie. City Folk like that don't know us; don't know the earth like we do. He's no good…"Repeat. And again…
She just smiled, laughed a pitiful tinkling chuckle. She visited him the next day.
And the next…
He stayed home. Repeat.
'He's no good… Those city goers, all of them wolves in sheep's clothing. Beasts the lot of 'em"
She'd smiled."Shush my love, shush…"
Beauty fell for the Beast.
And the Prince didn't know what to do.
"So where do you think he went off to? The creek perhaps?"
Ann peered around a darkened corner, cursing as the bark from a tree scraped against her already numbing cheek. "Damn…" She rubbed her face with one mitten, licking her lips anxiously. Mary shivered from the shadows, edging closer and closer.
"Maybe we should just go home and wait?" 'Please, please… I'm so afraid… It'll eat me up like a piece of chocolate…'
Ann's angered screech answered Mary's question and in a tongue-tied silence, the two trudged through the snow, and down a mountain path. One hundred feet away, a kerosene lamp flickered in the breathless silence of an apology.
They passed the window.
Mary's skin quivered.
"Isn't that you know…his house?"
Ann shrugged, carelessly glancing at the flickering light before wildly kicking a drift of snow, sending a cloud of white dust into the wind.
"S'pose so…" she grinned evilly, her teeth gleaming in the dark, "why? 'Fraid the big bad wife ghost will come out and drown you in a frozen river?"
"N-no… We should continue looking for your father…" A pause. "Ann?"
"We don't need to look…"
Both gaped at the door with widened eyes at the people talking in front of the window. Ann's father, Doug, with red fox hair that could light a pitch black room, and Gotz, a man the size of a bear, and a voice rarely heard.
Doug seemed to be sweating; a slimy sheen on his grizzled upper lip, Gotz towered over him. Both speaking, maybe yelling…
Ann couldn't hear over the chalkboard screech of the wind.
So she turned away, a flash of a memory flickering in her mind.
"Mary? We forgot to lock the door…"
Mary nodded, thrusting her trembling gloved hands under folded arms, her lips stuttering with numbness as she held herself tighter.
'Away from the dark, away from the dark…'
"We should go lock it…r-right?"
Ann snuck another glance at the window.
'He used to be Momma's friend, not Papa's though…'
"Yeah…"
She bit her lip and ignored the shadows speaking in the glass.
Some say he's sick.
Sick in the head.
Zany. Insane. His mind flew with the birds.
They say he's delusional. That he never had a wife. Never loved. Never felt pain.
Pain in his heart.
Because the one he loved betrayed him…
They say he died before. Saw the big black gates of hell. Came back home running on all fours.
Never was the same, that poor old man.
Most of the time, those people are wrong.
Others though, they whisper in the dark about him.
About how he married the love of his life. How she fell for another, gave birth to his child. Left him.
All he wanted was for her to be happy.
He let her go (oh his beautiful baby girl)
She had the most beautiful eyes, his lover, his wife (His baby girl, so charming …)
Then, he'd seen her, six years later, happy. Oh she was beautiful, his baby girl. Braided hair and brilliant sapphire eyes, which shone for miles... His beautiful girl…
His angel.
But his lover, his wife. She wanted forgiveness. Wanted an absolution.
And she disappeared.
Some say she killed herself.
Some say he did it to her with a stomach bursting with grief and jealousy.
Some say she just faded. Ran for her life…or what was left of it.
Adults whisper, murmur. Gossip.
"That man, he's not good…not good at all…"
Some of the children say, "That couldn't be true."
The mothers, they cluck their tongues like mother hens, shaking their fingers like the ticking hands of a clock, "But it is, sweetheart, but it is…"
They take another glimpse. His eyes, downtrodden. Cheeks sunken. The memories thick and suspended in his breath.
Or is it?
He'd opened the door, expected something. Anything…
Clearly he hadn't expected the worst. Because it was standing in front of him, soaking wet and shivering in the cold claws of the mid-winter blizzard. He opened his mouth.
'Apologize now…apologize for what you've done…'
But all that came out was empty air, filled with the memory of whispers long ago. He let him in, closed the door.
Latched it…
He stood in front of the window with both arms crossed, covered with a dark green wool sweater. His eyebrow twitched. Nobody noticed. His voice monotonous, and dripping with a gruff condescension.
"Doug..." He almost growled, restraining his voice to the low trodden tone it had always been, "What brings you here…?"
"The past, Gotz, the past… And what you did to my Carrie…" Doug licked his lips. They felt dry and numb."…you think after all this time I'd just up and forget?"
He lifted his palm, hesitation choking the air. "No… I would never be able to forget…"
Doug snorted before tossing his chin in the direction of the window, a slight sheen of sweat moistening below his eyes. "I'm surprised that the alcohol didn't eat away the remaining bits of your sanity…" he smirked, "not that it was sane in the first place, mind you."
Gotz braced himself, fists clenching at his sides.
"Look Doug, I stopped, and maybe it was a minute too late, but I stopped…" he sucked in a dry breath, feeling the smoke from the fireplace waft into his lungs, "you got both ends of the deal in the end…"
Doug coughed, before unlocking the door. The lamp flickered from the draft. Looking over his shoulder, his eyes dark cobalt slits in a pale mass of sweaty skin, he coughed once more.
"You're lucky I didn't report you when I first found out, Gotz. You're a lucky one, you are…"
He slammed the door shut as he left, inching through the waves of snow as if he'd been wading through the ocean.
Gotz fell to the nearest chair, burying his face in his hands.
You're a lucky one, you are…
"No…no I'm not…"
He glanced at a picture of a sixteen year old girl with sunset sin red hair nestled safely on the hearth, and felt warmth spread through his chest. It had been taken from her most recent birthday. Her eyes shone as she clutched a familiar picture of a blonde woman to her chest.
As long as she was okay, his little girl, grown up. As long as she was smiling like her mother.
There was a chance…
He smiled, hands gripping the sides of his sweater. Thinking of revenge…how it would feel. How it felt.
'There always is…'
Some say he'd married her. (He couldn't have children…)
She said she didn't care—would never care. (But she did, oh, she did.)
She'd been fickle, jealous of subway trains and the shimmering glitterati draped across the city streets. Of the dresses and the splendor. And then that man had come along, all city talk, and city diner food.
He'd started an inn, made meals, a bar… Late night jazz.
She'd fallen in love again—but she was inconsistent.
She'd left (But he'd been drinking… so much, drowning in amber he was, drowning like the sand in the ocean…) And when she'd told him she was pregnant—he couldn't have children—the whiskey had been so strong, so venomous.
He'd struck her. And she left with the daughter that would never be his.
The angel—his baby, his blue eyed angel… The one who would grow up with a family…with a family he was supposed to be a part of.
But things,
"They never happen like that…"
He walked all the way back home, noticing the door still open. The girl's must have forgotten to lock the door. They must have been tired. And they were asleep, asleep in their little beds. His daughter, the one he created. He remembered clearly.
Her lithe body sneaking into his room, her blonde hair like the sun against the indigo sky, her eyes bright like stars… Blue and brilliant… He'd loved her. She'd loved him.
And when she found out about the baby…she'd left her husband—those stupid country folk—that dolt of a husband, and then she'd married him. The town had been too small then. A few families scattered here and there… Nothing big…
His daughter had the perfect red hair, his hair, and her mother's oceanic c eyes, flecked with silver shards. Ann. If only she'd had blonde hair, she'd be her mother.
But she didn't, so she wasn't.
They'd lived in peace for six years. Six years of watching his daughter grow, watching his wife fall deeper and deeper into shame. She'd gone out to apologize. Express regret to the one she'd left. (She still loved him… The man she'd left in the first place.)
'Those countrymen…' he'd thought.
His daughter had just turned six a few weeks ago, and he'd stayed home with her, listening listlessly to the radio perched on the windowsill. There was a blizzard, the wind like knives, the cold like glistening teeth, biting through anything.
She'd gone back.
She'd still loved him.
She'd take his daughter with her when she left for her old lover.
He'd sipped his tea, watched the storm grow fiercer.
So he'd waited until when she came back. Only draped in a thin cloak, she'd first pounded on the locked door and then saw his silhouette in the window. Nobody was out in the storm, all opting to stay home for a silent Christmas night. So, who would know?
She'd been hammering with tiny fists against the window, her frantic eyes whirling in a glazed azure. He whispered through the glass, at her blue lips, now barely moving.
"Sweetie...it's cold outside..."
Three hours later, he'd unlocked the door. Saw her crumpled against the wall, eyes half opened, mouth drooping, lips green and blue.
He'd smiled.
Taken her feather light body in his arms… "You've lost some weight, sweetheart…on a diet again? It couldn't be healthy…"
The cellar, his own private freezer, cold all year long. He'd draped her on a chair inside, among sawdust and boxes. He'd chuckled, and stopped, hearing the faint cry of his daughter. "Oh…time to feed the baby. Sleep well…honey…"
She'd still had the wedding ring on her finger. After ten years, she'd stayed in the same half lidded position, her hands crossed on her legs. The burnished ring of silver, gleaming in the blue mist of ice. He smiled.
"Good morning, sweetheart…" his cheek twitched, "Sleep well?"
He knew he'd let her die. His Carrie…
His angel… Mother of the only thing that mattered…
Some people say he let her die. His wife, that is.
That,
Is true…
Mary was afraid of the dark, frightened of the murky fingers creeping along her spine and into her midnight raven hair. She'd always been afraid of the dusk since she'd been a child. Afraid of those fingers…placid as the moon…dark as the black coat of midnight. A perfect contrast…
A perfect fear.
Ann was the brave one. Always traipsing through anything and anyone. She never trembled, never quaked.
But when Ann saw the front door swinging wildly on its hinges, her arms began to shiver. She shook it off. 'Silly girl, the wind probably blew it open…'
Mary ran inside with a relieved cry, and seeing the fire on the hearth stoked and brimming with light, she beamed at Ann.
"I'm going to go upstairs to get dressed for bed…it's freezing in here…" Ann nodded, still looking. She kicked the door shut, twisting around only enough to put the bolt in its hold.
"I'll be up in a moment… I'm going to find Dad…"
"Okay, see you upstairs."
There was muffled whispering, coming from the door of the cellar.
Shaking her head, and feeling the painful prickle of warmth spreading through her fingertips, she walked closer. As long as she'd known, that cellar had been unusable, neither her Father nor anyone else had been able to get into it. He'd said that it locked from the inside, for certain purposes.
It remained glacial all year long, that much she knew… But the door was open…wide open. Someone was in.
A blue dusty mist blew into the heating room, curling in on itself as it eventually disappeared into other spirals. She craned her head, lips rounded into a tight frown.
"Dearest-I don't think-oh-sweetheart-I'm flattered-but-you left-this was just payment-
Forgive me…"
There were snippets, little fragments of a deluded conversation. She heard a man laugh and tilted her head partially into the room. Her stomach flew in spinning erratic circles as she pressed one hand to her chest, fingers curling into the coarse fabric of her jacket. It was below freezing in that room. She could feel the bite of the cold seeping through her skin.
He stood there in a black suit, standing and chatting with the corpse of a woman she only saw on film.
Blonde hair, down to the waist, glazed blue eyes—like hers—a ring on one finger, mouth open.
Her heart stopped. 'Daddy? Momma?'
And with one breath—
She closed the door.
They say she was murdered. Not by her first love, though some of them say that too, but her second.
A child sits, asks a question. "Could it really be true?"
A mother purrs gently, patting her daughters head. "No sweetie, no it couldn't. Not in this town…"
She looks out the window, watching the snow fall against the film of glass and feeling the warmth of the child against her chest.
But it could.
End
A/N
And she's back again, this time with depressing winter shadows trailing at her feet. This is an example of my writing after three months of the most terrible case of writers block I think i've ever had. Whew.
Glad to get that phase overwith. Now I'm better than ever, and full to the brim with Angst/Suspence/Romance/and Horror. Mmmm. Yummy.
Anyway, I might make this into a sort of Mini-Series. I might not. It all depends. You know me, I say something and it won't be done for another ten years. I always thought that Doug seemed a bit too...happy. And that Gotz and his Wife's "Dying in a Winter Wonderland" was always kind of fishy. So Doug makes people think Gotz killed his wife, when Doug did it.
I always thought that man to be a bit deranged,
Until next time,
-
TMoh