Chapter Thirty Three

Grey-haired Lester Gupty checked the doors and windows of his two-story home for the tenth time that night. The normally calm husband and father was dressed as warmly as possible in the coldness of his home. The electricity kept flickering on and off, making it hard to heat his house. His wife Lauren and their two children, Tricia and Tad, were in the master bedroom, huddled together on the bed. Tricia was terrified from the nightmares she'd been having the last several days. Tad hadn't dreamed of anything, but his older sister's nervousness had affected him too. Quinn Morgendorffer's disappearance with her friends at the start of this incredible storm had really told on the children. That's all it was, Lester told himself, their natural concern for another human being.

Lester nervously hefted the small hammer he had started carrying around on his frequent checks of the house. It was the closest thing to a weapon he had in his home, other than a few knives in the kitchen. Those were too easy to hurt yourself with, he had told himself. Still he couldn't explain to himself why he had pushed furniture up against every door to the outside. He checked the kitchen again. Every pot and pan was filled with water, and he and Lauren had started to ration the food available. The water was still running, and there was plenty of snow outside, but the stories his grandparents had told him of their experiences in Poland under Nazi occupation warned him to be careful.

Lester shook his head, remembering his trip to talk to his neighbors about the possibility of sharing their food, or even moving into some of the better built homes. Most of them hadn't even answered their doors, and Lester honestly hoped that they were all right. Several other had been openly suspicious of his motives, but had bluntly refused, some holding baseball bats or fireplace pokers. One man had even held his rifle in plain sight. Lester had nervously half expected a bullet in the back, all the way back home. What was happening? These were the same people who got together for cookouts and the weekends!

It was this strange storm, that's all it was he told himself. People were getting that thing he had read about, that cabin fever depression. Like people got in the old days, before television and cars. He had sometimes thought of those time, thinking that it would be wonderful, just the family together for three months, not seeing anybody else while the family enjoyed the closeness.

The glass on the window of the back door shivered, the frost-covered pane catching the dim light in the house eerily.

The wind sighed, the crystals of snow flashing as they blew past his home. Lester stared outside, entranced by their cold beauty. All he could see was the snow, swirling into strange shapes that it held for a few seconds before it collapsed. Was this what a winter had been like before the world had been covered with cities and highways? This part of North America had once been covered with thick forests, and great empty plains. Tad had once found an arrowhead in the yard, and they looked it up in the dictionary, finding out about the tribes which had once lived here.

What had their lives been like, during these long, cold, winters? With thin clothing made out of animal skins, using only a flimsy bow and flint headed arrows to feed their family, the constant search for food? Lester wondered just how bad things might get here. Surely, the storm would stop, and the roads would be cleared!

The tone of the wind changed outside, becoming a soft hissing, like the breath of a great beast. Lester stiffened, staring at the back door, suddenly aware of how flimsy it was. Great Beast? Why had he thought that? Sure, there were woods and mountains outside Lawndale, but nothing dangerous! Rabbits, crows, a few deer! No mountain lions or wildcats, no bears! They lived in a suburb! It was just this storm, that's all it was!

Great Beast? Why was that phrase thundering in his mind like it was? There were no beasts here! Still, Lester couldn't keep his gaze off the trembling panel of glass in the back door. What were those manlike things that were supposed to live in the Rocky Mountains? Yeti? No, those were from the Himalayas. This was a Native American word. Oh, yes. Sasquatch. But that was all superstition, fraud, people wearing suits to impress tourists, wasn't it?

Wasn't it?

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Lauren trembled, but refused to say anything. They were all awake, lying fully dressed under the covers in the master bedroom. Tricia whimpered as she was cuddled next to her mother. Tad was restless, and kept sliding out from under the covers to peek out the second story window, gazing out into the blowing snow. His gloved hands constantly ran up and down the polished wood of his baseball bat, seeking reassurance and comfort.

The battery powered radio crackled quietly next to the bed, easy listening music leaking through, a sign that the outside world was still there. Lauren held tightly to her daughter. Tricia kept drifting off to sleep, but was afraid to. She kept murmuring, "Quinn? Is that you? Please go away! I can't help you now! You scare me! I'm so sorry, but go away! You're so old now, please, I liked you, don't hurt me, don't hurt me!"

Lauren was completely confused. Why had the children's former sitter become a monster in her daughters dreams? Tad stared down at his sister, confused as well.

"Mom, why is she talking like that? Quinn never hurt either one of us when she took care of us, she just talked on the phone all the time, or did her homework."

"I don't know, Tad, I don't know. She's been really worried about Quinn ever since this storm started. Maybe it's that winter depression people get when they can't go outside, or see other people."

"But why did she say Quinn was so old now? Quinn wasn't that old, just eighteen or so, I think."

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It strode over the snow-covered hills, the paltry trees. The storm of the cold one didn't bother it at all. The gaunt scarecrow figure easily broke off the tops of trees in it's passing, laughing once again at its strength and power. A small deer bounded across its path, and with a bound it was upon it! The deer ran frantically, bounding gracefully through the thick snow, but the massive beast slammed through it, easily catching the fleeing animal. The doe's spine snapped like a twig, its soft brown eyes quivered in pain. It's massive clawed hand's tore into the soft belly of the animal, ripping loose the animal's organs, shoveling them into its mouth. Blood spattered the white snow, ran down the beast's bare flesh. It howled in delight at the kill, for it was raw, unrestrained hunger.

It didn't think as men thought, though it could speak with them, and had, in the dim past. It was as much of the land around it as the earth and sky. It reared its skeletal frame to its full height and roared in mockery at the sky, at those Old Ones whose power had once imprisoned it deep in the living earth. The deers blood and flesh was sweet, but it knew that which was sweeter. Deep inside the monster she had become, Quinn Louise Morgendorffer, age eighteen, screamed in horror and revulsion at what she had just done.

And what she knew she was going to do.

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Tricia cowered inside the nightmare landscape deep inside her mind. A dark forest, all grays and blacks. The plants were all dead and dry, the ground under her feet was powdery. Bird's perched on the branches above her, but they were dead too, their eyes shrunken down to tiny hard knots, their withered feet clasped on the dead wood. Small animals peered out at her from holes and from under rocks, their fur shrunken down to their bones. The very air tasted dead. It was so dry and metallic.

There wasn't any sun or moon in the sky, the light just seemed to come from nowhere. Tricia knew something was looking for her, something very bad. She stumbled through the dry brush, the twigs breaking off as she stumbled through it, her bare feet rasing small clouds of dust. As she ran, her nightgown kept catching on the branches, almost as it they were snatching at her, trying to drag her down.

Slowly, an irregular loud hissing sounded around her, almost like breathing, getting slowly louder and louder. It filled the dead woods, making it hard for Tricia to think. The air changed, but not for the better. It stank, of dead and rotting things, of fresh blood. Tricia ran faster, frantic to get away from whatever was making that horrible noise, that bad smell. She finally stumbled into a clearing, and came to a halt, sinking to her knees, her bare feet burning, like the dry dust had cracked them open. She moaned quietly, rocking back and forth in pain, until she heard a quiet whisper.

"Help . . . me."

Tricia looked up. A large tree was in front of her, filling the center of the clearing. It was as dead as the rest of the forest. Withered things hung from each of the massive branches, ropes of dried hide holding them by the neck, as they swing, in a grisly unconscious parody of a Christmas tree.

Tricia saw small things, like rabbits, hung next to larger, manlike things, that must have been bears. Her mind slowly recognized the majority of the dangling things on the tree were people. Most of these had long black hair still attached to their cracked skin, dressed in leather clothing, like the books they had looked into that one time they had found that arrowhead. A few were dressed in tattered cloth, with heavy leather boots. Their eyes were shrunken like that of the animals in the forest, the hard jewels glinting at her.

A flash of color attracted her. One of the dangling corpses was wearing bright red casuals, with stained, but still stylish white slacks. Long brown hair flowed down just past its shoulders, though it was streaked with white. Its hands bleed, the bright blood dripping onto the leaves under the tree. Tricia could see the white bone showing through the fingertips. The crotch of its slacks was also stained with blood, and it ran down her thighs as well.

"Help . . . us, please . . . "

The hoarse whisper came again, begging. Tricia did not want to see the face of the hanging thing. She never wanted to see it, ever. But the rope creaked as the dangling body turned, ever so slowly. Tricia covered her face with her hands, this must be a nightmare, it had to be a nightmare!

"Tricia, you have to look."

"No, no, I don't."

"It's coming for you, Tricia, you can't escape it, any more than we could. Fire and ice, and endless hunger. Quinn is gone, now, and I'm alone now, always alone."

"You, you're not Quinn?"

"No, she's coming for you, but she's left me here, alone forever. It told me, it told me, that Death would see with my eyes, and speak with my lips. I wasn't a very nice person, you know. She asked me, if I dared bargain with the forgotten dead. I gave her my soul, they always want your soul, did you know that?"

"Who, who are you?"

"Didn't you like, hear me, Tricia? I'm Death, now, only Death. I'm going to crack open the world. I'm going to kill everybody, and nobody will laugh at me anymore, because I won't be here. I'm like, the door, y'know? I'm the door to Hell, only it's not what people think. It's all frozen, dead and frozen. Stacy is dead and buried, like, but I can still hear her scream. Tiffany's just dead, she'll kill you, but not you, little Tricia Gup-ty, not you. You're for Quinn, beautiful Quinn, lovely Quinn. Quinn will take you, and keep you, forever and ever."

After a long moment, the feeble voice added regretfully, "you'll just wish you were dead."

"You're Sandi! Sandi Griffin!"

The dangling body had completed its revolution. Tears of blood ran down the frozen face. Sandi's body was ripped open from chest to crotch, with her bloody organs showing, still frozen in place.

"I'm sorry you have to see me like this, Tricia. I don't think I ever took care of you, but Quinn always said you and your brother were the nicest kids she ever took care of."

"What happened to you!" Tricia screamed.

"I gave myself away, Tricia. My mother and brothers hated me, despised me. I slept with the dead, and I gave the only thing I really had away. I lost my friends, I lost my mom, my brothers liked to hurt me all the time."

"Why didn't you tell somebody!"

"Who cared? I was the witch, the big bad witch. Your brother called me that, you know. Quinn was better than I was, Stacy was better than I was, nobody liked me!"

Her voice rose in a wail.

"She promised me my mother would love me! She promised me!"

"Who promised you?"

"The Snow Lady, Stacy's Snow Lady, she brought the snow, the ghosts, they're all so hungry, so cold, they need our warmth. Poor Quinn, the Snow Lady killed her dad, and her mom. I really liked her mom, Helen was such a nice person, and I always wished . . . "

Sandi's voice trailed off.

"Go home, Tricia, go home. You don't belong here. This place is dead, like me and Stacy, like Tiffany. Poor, poor Quinn, she won't ever die, she can't die, no matter what."

"I, I don't understand, what do you mean, Quinn can't die, doesn't everybody die?"

A ghastly smile cracked the skin on Sandi's face.

"But Quinn's almost a god, Tricia, almost a . . . god. She's hunger and rage. She's a living spirit of Death. The gods punished her people a long time ago. They buried them alive."

"Isn't, isn't there only one god?"

"You're pretty smart for such a little girl, Tricia. Quinn said that Daria was smart, too, when they were kids. Poor Daria. I can still hear her screams. She's out there, now, where I was, floating alone, everybody is screaming and shouting all around you, and you can never touch anybody. Never again. Jane's trying to find her, she's such a great friend. I never had a friend like that, not even Quinn."

"Please, I just want to go home! I don't want to be here!"

The other bodies around Sandi start rustling, moving slightly. A faint whispering slowly grew louder and louder. Small whirlwinds stirred the ashy ground around Tricia, the ground trembled, stopped, then trembled again.

"They know you're here, talking to me, and they don't like it! Go home, Tricia! Save yourself!"

"Who's coming! Who's coming!"

"The Terrible People! They hunted us like we were animals! The Giants, the Titans! Some of them were good, but the others hated us! That's why there's all those stories about man eating giants!"

"How, how do you know all this?"

The ghastly smile returned to Sandi's face.

"You mean, when I wasn't really that smart? I'm dead, now, Tricia, I'm dead. We know things, we can find things out, even when we're like this. But I'm special, y'know, special."

"Special?"

"Body, mind, and soul, Tricia, body, mind, and soul. That's me, that's Sandi Griffin, ex-President of the Fashion Club! The Kami have my body, the Snow Lady has my soul, and the Great Beast has my mind! I can still feel it all, and it hurts so bad!"

Sandi's sentence ended in a scream, and she fell silent.

"Isn't, isn't there any way I can help you?"

"Please, please leave, Tricia, please go away. Its not only the giants that have a taste for kids. The dead hunger, too. I can smell you, almost taste you, your life, it wouldn't be enough, it would never be enough, but it would keep me warm for just a little while. Run away, Tricia, go home to your brother, your parents, they're the only ones you'll ever have."

Without looking behind her, Tricia stood up and started backing away from the tree, not taking her eyes off Sandi's hanging body. A final, faint, whisper her followed her as she turned and ran away.

"Just, when you do see Quinn, would you tell her, that she was my best friend, that Tiffany, Stacy and her were the only things that helped me hold together? And, that I loved them, all?"

Dimly, worlds away, Tricia heard the sound of a man screaming in such horrible fear and pain, that she didn't recognize the voice at first. Then she screamed herself, as the earth ruptured

directly in front of her. A stench filled the air, as a gigantic hand forced itself from the ashy soil, reaching for her, but it was all rotting, with huge pieces of flesh oozing off of it. It groped blindly for her, Tricia screamed and screamed, and felt herself being slapped violently. Her world twisted, and she fell and fell.

"Tricia, wake up!"

Tricia screamed in fear, staring at her mothers frantic face, her cheek stinging. Her brother stood at the door. The sound of breaking wood ripped through the air. The whole house shook. And her fathers screaming abruptly stopped.