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A Case of Frost

Chapter 4: The Burgess Legend

It was snowing when they returned to the car, and snowing heavily when they got to the hospital.

The coroner was a small, balding man with a constant air of nervousness and a rather high-pitched voice. Nevertheless, once he saw the brothers' fake badges, he was more than friendly and helpful. Sam got the impression that the man didn't deal with the FBI often, and that their visit was a very big deal. He almost felt bad for being a fake.

"It's a terrible business," said the coroner solemnly, though his face betrayed his excitement, "This kind of thing never happens around here. I must admit, though, that the cases are just fascinating. A huge change for me. Most of the bodies I see merely died from sickness or old age. It's been years since I got even an accidental death. Safest town around, Burgess is."

The brothers tried to show interest in the man's ramblings.

"Until now," said Dean.

"Well, yes," replied the coroner sheepishly, "Like I said, a huge change."

"We were told that you found some evidence on Mr Greenberg's body that cleared his wife of suspicion," said Sam in an attempt to get them back on track, "Can you tell us what that was?"

The coroner dug through a thick pile of paperwork on his desk for a folder and cleared his throat. "I took samples from the, uh, wounds," he said, "And I found… Well, it explains why the police never found his feet. Here, take a look."

Sam skimmed over the file. "Wait, does that say..?"

"Saliva?" asked Dean, peeking over at the file.

"Taken from the skin of the ankles, as well as the wounds themselves," said the coroner, "Mr Greenberg didn't just have his feet ripped off. They were eaten."

The brothers glanced at each other, and the coroner was too wrapped up in his excitement to notice.

"I don't know about you," said Dean as they left the hospital ten minutes later, "but I'm with the police on this one. Mrs Greenberg doesn't really strike me as the foot-cannibal type."

"Do you think it's weird?" asked Sam, ignoring his brother.

"What, that we have a monster with a disturbing attraction to feet? Hell yeah, I think it's weird."

"Not that," he replied patiently. They arrived back at the car and he climbed into the passenger side.

"The way everyone seems so shocked about what happened. Because 'things like this just don't happen around here.'"

"I dunno, maybe. But name one other place where things like this do happen. The feet thing, that is."

"But it's more than that," Sam pressed, "The coroner said that even accidents are rare here."

"So the town has a good record. That doesn't exactly scream monster activity."

Sam wasn't going to drop it, though. The idea was in his head and it wasn't getting out so easily. "There's a library a few blocks away. I saw it as we were driving in. Let's go check out the public records."

"Are you forgetting that we have a monster problem on our hands?" asked Dean, but he started the car anyway, "Foot snacks, icy beds. Sound familiar at all?"

"I know, I know," said Sam, "I just have a weird feeling about this."

"Fine."

Although the library wasn't far away, it took a while to get there. The snowfall was getting thick, and the roads were slippery with ice. Dean swore repeatedly.

It was with great relief that they entered the warm library building, each brother shivering and shaking snow out of their hair.

"Seriously, this weather can't be normal for this time of year!" huffed Dean.

Sam rolled his eyes and tried to ignore the wet squelching of his shoes as he made his way over to the reference desk. The librarian was as helpful as the coroner had been, gladly showing the brothers to the public record archives and offering to help them in their search. They waved her off politely, and Sam wondered whether everyone in Burgess was so friendly. Having met a few of its citizens now, he felt sorry. This town didn't deserve to have such tragedies plague it.

"So what are we looking for?" asked Dean, staring with distaste down at the huge book of old newspapers that sat in front of him.

"Anything unusual," Sam answered, already turning over the first page of his own album and reading.

"That's very helpful, Mr O-Vague-One."

They spent hours flipping through the pages, but yielded no results. No mysterious deaths or disappearances, or unexplained sightings. Only a small handful of accidental deaths, and a big deal had apparently been made out of those. The town was pretty boring, all things considered.

The librarian returned at five-thirty to tell them that they were closing in half an hour, so it would be a good idea to start returning the books and files to where they belonged. "Did you find what you were looking for?" she added.

Sam shook his head. "Not quite," he said, "But thanks for your help."

"I'm sorry to hear that. What were you after?"

"It's complicated. I'm surprised, though, with such a long history your town hasn't had many notable events."

The librarian bristled at that. "I wouldn't say that's entirely true. Just because we aren't riddled with tragedy, it hardly means that we aren't noteworthy. Did you read about our founder, Thadeus Burgess? Some interesting stories right there. His statue is in the main park. Or what about the part where we were voted safest town in the state? There's a reason so many families live here. And, of course, we are well-known for our amazing winters."

"Yeah, about that," said Sam, "Is it normal for winter to arrive so early? It looks like a you're about to get a blizzard out there, and it's not even December yet."

"We always get snow around this time of year," said the librarian, "The kids love it, and the out-of-towners will start coming in soon. The lake is a popular tourist destination."

"What's so special about the lake?"

"Didn't you know?" She seemed surprised. "It's quite famous around these parts. For as long as the town has been established, back to the time of Thadeus himself, the lake has remained frozen. No-one has ever seen it thawed out."

Sam exchanged a surprised look with his brother. That definitely qualified as weird. He also couldn't help but feel rather smug. "There wasn't anything in the old papers about that," he said.

The librarian shrugged her thin shoulders, unable to give an explanation.

"Does anyone know why the lake's that way?" asked Dean.

"Something to do with the bacteria?" the librarian suggested, in a way that made it clear that she had no idea, "I'm sure there's a scientific explanation for it. Of course, a few legends have sprung up over it throughout the years."

"Legends?" Sam's interest was most certainly piqued now. He shot Dean a look, as if to say, 'I told you so.'

"They keep people entertained," she explained, "The one I heard the most when I was young was that back in the middle of winter in the early eighteenth, perhaps late seventeenth, century, a couple of kids drowned there. Or maybe they froze to death. It changes with whoever tells the story. Basically, they died there. And the story goes that the ghosts of the dead children keep the lake frozen all year round, to save other kids from sharing the same fate. Some people extend the story, to say that the ghosts protect the town, and that's why we're so safe. A couple of guardian angels, if you will."

Now they were getting somewhere, thought Sam. He quickly thanked the librarian once more, and he and Dean braced themselves for the biting cold that would be waiting for them outside. It didn't disappoint.

It was dark already, and snowing as steadily as ever. The brothers drove carefully, squinting through the mess of snow and darkness. They found a diner near where their motel was, and once Dean saw that they did indeed serve burgers he deemed it an adequate place to have dinner. It was then that they discussed what the librarian had told them.

"Do you think it's connected?" asked Dean around a mouthful of his Big Burgess Burger.

"I don't know. If whatever's killing these people is the kids from the legend, then why did they just start now? They would've been around for over three hundred years."

"I dunno, man. Am I expected to understand how ghosts think? Maybe all that time sent them crazy."
Sam considered it. "But if they really did spend all that time protecting people? I mean, they can't be all bad, right?"

"I say that we pay a visit to that lake, see if we can turn up any EMF activity," said Dean. Then he glanced out the diner windows, at the heavy snow that was still falling, and amended, "Tomorrow."

Back at the motel, Sam sat on his bed with his laptop on his knee. He had already Googled 'children drowning in Burgess' and it had turned up a surprising number of results. After a bit of digging, it even turned up some relevant results.

"Hey, listen to this," he called over to his brother, who had just come out of the bathroom, "A journal entry from Jonathan Bennett, 1892. It's the earliest record of the legend I can find."

"What's it say?" asked Dean with a damp towel over his head.

"Um, okay, check this out - the Overland children, a brother and sister, drowned in the lake in the early seventeen-hundreds, no exact date known. Their bodies were never found. That'll make things difficult if we need to burn their bones. Bennett says that the legend started out as a warning by parents for other children, 'be careful at the lake or you'll end up like those Overland kids', even though the lake never thawed. The legend later went that the spirits of the children haunted the town, but they were never sighted. Apparently they were especially protective of kids. He says that they are neutral around most adults, but… Oh, look here. If children are threatened by adults, the spirits take vengeance."

"You think that's what we're looking at here? Maybe Greenberg and Jones weren't the dads of the year that they were made out to be."

"It would explain why Mark felt so guilty," agreed Sam, "When he blamed himself for making the monster angry."

"I think we need to go have another chat with that kid," said Dean. He turned the tv off and rolled over on his stomach, his face pressed into the mattress. "Tomorrow."

They didn't get a whole lot of sleep that night. Outside, the wind howled and swirled around the motel, rattling the windows violently. Sam had been right about the blizzard. At about three in the morning, though, the wind and snow subsided. It was as sudden as the build-up had been gradual, and had the brothers been awake enough to look outside, they would have seen that thick piles of snow layered the ground.

The snow day was well and truly prepared.

Jack allowed the wind to calm down, and stopped the snowfall as soon as he was satisfied that the local school would be closed for a couple of days at least. He grinned as he looked out over the results of a hard day's work. Yes, that would cheer Mark up.

He spent the rest of the night patrolling the suburbs, twirling his staff and skipping on powerlines. When the golden threads of dreamsand appeared overhead, he smiled and nudged some towards Mark's window. Lord knew the boy needed sweet dreams.

It was only one or two hours later that the scream alerted him.

Straightening in alarm, Jack strained his ears for the source of the noise. It was faint, even in the silence that had followed Jack's blizzard. But… there it was. He rode the wind over to the correct street, and then it was easy to find the right house. The screams grew louder, and more choked.

The window was locked. Jack looked in and felt sick at the sight. The screaming woman was on the floor, scratching at the carpet and struggling against something that was pulling her under the bed. Jack couldn't make out what the something was. But he could smell the blood from outside, rusty and metallic and sickening. He tried pulling the window open, scraping at the glass. Nothing.

Desperate, he flew over to the next window. A child's room. He rapped loudly, and eventually the girl inside woke up. His heart froze over at seeing who it was. Not poor Sarah. She was such a sweet girl, and had been best friends with Cupcake since the two were in pre-school.

Sarah rushed over and opened the window. "Jack Frost? What are you doing here?"

He was already inside and running for her door. "Sarah, go next door now. Wake your neighbours, tell them to call the police, or an ambulance, and stay there."

"Jack, what?" She sounded confused, and scared.

"Go!"

She promptly did as she was told, although with tear-filled eyes. Jack wished he had time to comfort her, but he was already bursting into her parents' room.

Sarah's mother couldn't see him, and the man in the bed was still fast asleep. The woman was still screaming and struggling, but Jack could see that she was becoming weak and her efforts were dying down. He pointed his staff under the bed and shot a blast of ice at whatever was under there. A yelp filled the air, and then silence. The woman stopped struggling.

Jack crouched down low so that he could see under the bed, his eyes sharp as they peered into the darkness. There was nothing there. He supposed that it had fled somehow after he'd hit it. Sighing, he turned back to the woman. There was no doubt that she would need medical attention, although there wasn't much he could offer until an ambulance got there. When he saw her, though, he stopped.

She was still. She was silent. Her eyes, glassy with terrified tears, were open wide and unseeing. Her nails still dug into the carpet, even though her hands were slack. Blood spread out around her legs, soaking into the floor.

Jack heard a small cry and it took a second to realise that he had made the noise. Feeling suddenly exhausted, he backed into the wall by the bedroom door and sank down to the floor. He thought that he didn't have any strength left in his entire body, but he somehow was gripping his staff tightly in both hands. He almost felt cold, and he hadn't felt cold in over three hundred years. He wanted to look anywhere but at the dead woman in front of him, but he couldn't tear his eyes away.

It didn't take long for the ambulance and police to get there. Their arrival woke the woman's husband. The tortured cry that the man let out on discovering what had happened to his wife chilled Jack to the bone. Jack stayed by the wall, invisible, and watched the police work until the sun started rising.

Sarah, he thought numbly. The single name in his mind pulled him away from the crime scene and out of the house. The light was on in the neighbour's kitchen. Looking inside, he saw Sarah sitting at the table, a mug of hot chocolate untouched in front of her. As Jack watched, the old woman who lived there wrapped the girl up in a tight hug, and Sarah cried into her shoulder. Jack left before she caught sight of him. The frost spirals on the window was the only sign that he had been there.

A/N: I think you all get the idea now - reviews and critique welcome! I love reading your feedback about as much as actually writing this story. And I love writing this a lot!

Thanks so much for reading!