SNOW-MAN WALKIN'
My Uncle Charles and I had just arrived in some town in the desolate isolation of the Arctic Circle. I don't know why we had to move from Chicago to this snowy wasteland. There's nothing here but a school that looked like it was a local store, a small convenience store and a few drab houses.
Our new house was the same as all the others. Grey and boring with a tiny attic at the top.
I took a look at the other houses in our street to see if there was anyone else moving in that would feel my boredom with this place. Luckily there was a family moving in over the road.
"Hey, Uncle Charles, can I go and greet the people moving in over the road?" I asked.
"1, call me Charlie Joey, 2, after you help me bring in these last few boxes and I show you your room." Charlie replied.
"Thanks, by the way, where is my room?"
"In the attic. Sorry but that is the only place."
I started to help haul in the boxes. The attic, that stinks! It isn't even high enough for me to stand up straight! I put my stuff up there and looked out the tiny window which was the only light source except for a small light bulb hanging over my bed. I saw a lot of houses just as before, but something I didn't catch the first look was a snowman, I saw a creepy snowman in the yard my window was pointing at which wasn't over the road but a bit down the street that had a red scarf, an evil grin made with stones and a crooked carrot nose, but the weirdest part was a deep scar across his head! I immediately knew that that snowman was going to freak me out at night because my bed points right at the window so you can see perfectly out of it.
"Alright, you can go over to meet the neighbors now!" Charlie called up the stairs to my room.
I walked back down the stairs and out the door passing Charlie unpacking.
When I walked over the road there was a boy my age sitting on the ground watching the removalists and his parents take the furniture into his house.
"Hey, I'm Joey; I live across the street, what's your name and what brings you to this fabulously boring town?" I asked.
"Ha, I'm Eli. We just moved here from New York, have you seen the snowman, it's freaky." Eli replied with a shiver.
"Yeah, and what's worse is that my window looks straight at it!"
"It's in front of a house someone died in, my dad said he'd tell me the story tonight, want to come?"
"Sure, when do you want me to come?"
"You can come around for dinner if you want."
"Okay, see you then."
I walked home and asked Charlie if I could go to dinner at Eli's house. He agreed as long as I was back before 10 O'clock.
The rest of the day was busy and spent unpacking the rest of our things. At the end of the day I found a poem book in the box of books we had packed. I flicked through and found one that caught my eye; it was called The Snowman Walks.
It said,
Every day, every night,
The snowman sits in pain.
A man dragged to the cold, cold prison,
Creating his permanent stain.
Man murdered in the house,
He will forever guard.
Getting in to reverse it,
Will be infinitely hard.
I don't know what in it caught my eye, maybe the snowman outside my window and what Eli told me about the man who died.
When it was about time to go to Eli's I put on my parka and walked downstairs where Charlie was getting his dinner.
"I think it's about time for dinner at your friends, don't you?" Charlie asked me.
'Okay, I'm off!" I called over my shoulder as I walked out of the house.
It was dark out and snowing. The lights were dimmed in Eli's house as I knocked on the door. Eli's mother answered the door and told me that Eli and his father were in the back room.
I walked to the back of the house and the back room turned out to look just like my lounge room.
"Hey Joey, take a seat," Eli offered pointing at the chair next to his. The chairs were wicker and very comfortable. I sat on a 2 seater with Eli and Eli's father was sitting in a tall backed single seater.
"Hello, I am Dean, Eli's father, I will tell you about the snowman from what I have been told," Eli's father started, "In 1955, a man who went by the name John Jackson lived in what is now called either the Snowman Hut or John Jackson Cabin. Well this man was a heavy gambler and risked 2000 dollars in a game of poker and lost. He ran away and didn't pay. But what he didn't know was that this man was not only his next door neighbour but a sorcerer also. This sorcerer was so angry at John Jackson that he set a curse upon him that him and his cowardly ice cold heart would forever be held inside the cold prison of a snowman he had built in front of his house after his death. So he was forced inside this snowman when he angered another person, this time someone who had escaped a jail, by not paying for his gambling losses and the man murdered him, and the snowman has been there ever since. Some say there is only one way to free him and that is to get his heart out of the snowman. But the only way for the snowman to come to life and to come after you so you can get the heart, because it won't be in the snowman unless he's after you, is to go into his house, the place he has to guard forevermore. Then you must find the heart, locked in an ice prison, frozen in ice. You must bring that to his poker deck to reunite him with what he loves best. Why would you free him? Because he has treasure, the treasure he couldn't give up, the money that he wanted to keep, but if you free him he will be forced to pass it over. That is the story behind the Snowman."
"Why hasn't anyone gone into the house?" I ask.
"Because the snowman will walk, and it won't want to give up that money!" Dean replies.
Dean grabs a coffee from his wife who had just walked in the room and thanked her, so when he was I said under my breath to Eli, "Let's go there!"
"Sure, I'm looking forward to seeing if the legend is true, when do you want to go?" Eli replied
"Tonight, the darkness will be excellent cover so no one else knows what were doing."
"But there is no one here! Only you're family, mine and about 6 other people!"
"Still, we will go tonight, I can't wait 'till morning."
"Okay, how are we going to get out of the house?"
"Say we are just going for a walk."
"Okay, let's hope it works."
Eli's dad turned back to us and Eli asked, "Dad, can we go for a walk?"
"Sure son, just be careful. Bye!" Dean replied as we ran out the door.
We walked silently up to the house and the snowman.
"It looks even more eerie up close!" I said with a shiver.
We were both shaking as we walked up to the door of the old house and I reached out. I had just grabbed the knob when we heard a rustle behind us, we spun around expecting to see an evil snowman hunting us, but there was nothing. The snowman was still standing in its spot with its creepy grin and its scar right along its head.
"Must've just been a stray cat or something, ha, gave us quite a scare." Eli said, but I saw he was shivering as well.
I turned the door knob and pushed the door open. When I did we were hit in the face with a strong nearly unbearable stench. That was from not being cleaned for 50 years.
I walked into the house and the minute we were both out of the doorway it slammed shut, and a lock clicked. Then a maniacal laugh rang through the house.
"What happened?" I exclaimed with my eyes bulging from fear.
"I don't know, Joey, how are we going to get out?"
"Free the snowman." I said firmly, I had my mind set on doing that one thing, and no amount of creepy or scary sounds or things would keep me from doing it.
I walked through the room taking a look around. There was nothing but an old mattress slumped against the wall. That was probably the least furnished part of the house; the next room had a table surrounded by chairs and, a poker deck right in the middle of it.
"It was true!" I whispered in awe. The story was true, that means that the snowman is after us and we can't get out until we free him!
"Look for the heart!" I said and we quickly scrambled around lifting things and pushing things around to find the heart.
"Can't we just feel for it, it should be in a cold place and be cold since its ice?" Eli suggested.
"No, this place is freezing, everything feels like ice." I said with another shiver. Then I turned around and saw the most horrifying sight of my life, an eight foot snowman was standing there staring at me with its coal black eyes, which were coal, its crooked carrot nose and its freaky scar.
"Run!" I bellowed sprinting from the room with Eli just behind me. We sprinted through the house up into the attic. I slammed the trap door shut and looked around.
"The ice, it has to be here, if not were dead, that snowman doesn't look to happy!" I said frantically searching with Eli on the other side of the room opening some boxes.
After about a minute the snowman was hitting the trap door and we still hadn't found the heart.
"I found it!" Eli yells triumphantly.
I rush over and grab the ice block; I had worked out a plan. I was to swing down of the window with a long rope I had found and crash through a downstairs window, roll over to the table and put the heart on there. Now only if it were that simple.
I leaped out the window and swung down heading straight for a wall! I pushed the rope and hit the window painfully. I sent glass scattering everywhere and attracted unwanted attention, the snowman rushed over and grabbed me by the shoulders, and threw me against the wall and still held on! I dropped the heart in pain.
"Wanted my treasure then, didn't you!" The snowman said in a deep psychotic voice.
My heart skipped a beat when I saw Eli sneaking up behind the snowman.
"Yeah, I was, I didn't think a stupid snowman would get in my way!" I said with more confidence than I felt.
The snowman roared right in my face as Eli chucked the heart on to the table. And then the snowman started to melt! It melts down screaming and left a suitcase in the puddle it now was.
I picked up the suitcase and opened it, inside was thousands upon thousands of dollars!
"Woah, we're rich!" We yell.
Then I trip into what was the stove and it comes alight!
We run outside and the house burns down, with all our money.
"Well, easy come easy go!" I exclaimed and we both started laughing, but then I stopped when I thought, no one will believe us about the snowman! Then I saw a camera on the ground that had a note on it.
I picked it up and read aloud, "Picture of snowman walking inside, from Charlie"
"Thanks Charlie" I said looking up.
THE END