Lost in the Snow

By David Bain

The house suddenly appeared from among the pines at the top of the hill in the phosphorescent night, looming out of the quickly falling snow like some black monolith.

There was a single, very weak light in the window. It illuminated nothing inside or out as Michael and Gene trudged up the long driveway, but at least it offered a goal.

They were a few steps away from the porch when another light came on, this one apparently in a hallway or foyer, illuminating a small, head-high diamond-shaped window on the wooden front door.

The door opened and they could see the dimly backlit silhouette of a woman in a wheelchair.

"Jonathan?" she called in a thin, rather shaky voice. "Peter?"

"No, ma'm," Michael said. "Our names are Michael Cromwell and Gene Hudson. We're really sorry to bother you, but our car skidded off the road down near your driveway. We were trying to find a friend's house for a party--Matt Pearson? Do you know the Pearsons?"

The shadow in the wheelchair shook her head.

"We were hoping we could use your phone. Matt's shouldn't be far from here and they'd probably send some people and have us out pretty quick."

There was a momentary silence from the woman.

"You can't come in here," she finally said. "You are interrupting the dead."

Michael looked at Gene.

"Um, excuse me, ma'm," Michael said. "Did you just say--"

"The dead. Yes. You must leave. Now. Go back to the main road. They don't like to travel there. Go on to the next house or stop another passing vehicle. I've always promised them they wouldn't be seen by anyone but me and I don't want you to make them angry. Now please leave!"

With that she rolled backwards and, reaching out with one long arm, slammed the door shut.

A moment later the light behind the door blinked out. The light in the front window, they could see now, was a from a single small candle, perhaps a votive.

"Well," Michael said. "I guess that's one phone we won't be using."

"What the hell?" Gene said as Michael turned and started back downhill along the long, winding driveway. "What the hell was all that stuff about the dead?"

"All I know is that lady's crazy, I'm cold as hell, and we've got a lot of walking to do. Come on, forget about it."

Gene turned and started walking, but he didn't look at all like he was forgetting about it.

"God, Gene, I can't believe you don't own a freaking cell phone."

"Me? What about you? You don't own one either." There was a barely suppressed quiver in Gene's voice.

"Hell, I don't own anything, dude," Michael said. "I is just a innocent, naive young po' boy, workin' mah way through college."

"Yeah, can't even offer to help pay for gas, I noticed."

Michael was about to defend himself when they both stopped in their tracks.

There was a dimly perceptible human shape coming up the driveway toward them.

Now they heard it crunching--crunching and yet slushily shuffling--toward them through the snow.

"Hello?" Michael said.

As the shadow became somewhat clearer through the iridescent precipitation, they could see it was somewhat hunched, holding its arms at odd, ape-like angles as it lurched toward them.

Gene yelped, a totally unpremeditated, high-pitched bark of fear.

"Jesus, calm down, dude," Michael said. Then, to the advancing figure: "Are you okay, sir?"

The shambling figure might have shook its head, whether in the positive or the negative, Micael couldn't tell.

"I'm sorry sir," Michael continued. "If you're looking for help for your car or something, you won't find it up there. We already tried. That's our car in the ditch at the bottom of the driveway."

The figure growled in response.

It was the feral, low-in-the-throat, rolling growl of an animal.

Gene ran. No yelp this time, but an outright scream as he sprinted headlong for the thick of the firs to the south of the driveway.

Michael stood his ground and yelled after Gene to come back and quit being such a pussy.

But then a pair of rapidly approaching headlights began speeding through the trees on the distant twists of driveway below. They briefly backlit the shambler as they flickered through the pines, and Michael could see the man was covered with blood. It was literally as if the long-haired man--he was in some odd sort of uniform--was doused in a bucket of the stuff.

Now it was Michael's turn to yelp and break into a run.

He was not sure at all that the blood covering the shambler was its own. He didn't think he'd seen any wounds.

And he wasn't completely sure the thing was human.

Its hands had been too big and its face hadn't been quite right. Had there been something canine about its jaw and nose?

And now, as he worked to hit Gene's footprints in the snow to speed his escape, Michael heard the thing coming after him, growling and huffing, its footfalls much faster and sure than his.

There was the sudden ripping, echoing thunderbolt of a gunshot and a harsh female voice--not that of the lady in the wheelchair--giving a command to stop.

Michael stopped. His hands shot up towards the snow-laden clouds.

"No, you idiot!" The woman shouted. "Not you, you stupid citizen! Run, numb nuts!"

A heavy, solid weight slammed Michael from behind, toppling him, knocking his wind out.

A wickedly quick sharpness ripped stuffing from his thick winter coat in two blindingly fast swipes. It flew around them--white as the snow but thicker--as Michael tried to catch his breath, tried to turn round in the snow from his belly to his back, hoping he could push his attacker off.

The thing was snarling and even whining now, apparently in excitement. Michael thought he could even perhaps make out a single word somewhere deep in the grow-- "Killlll!"

Another deafening gunshot, right above his head, and the weight instantly dropped off.

"Yeah," the woman's voice said from nearby. "'Kill.' The only god-damned word you could say anymore these days."

Michael scrambled around, stuffing from his wasted coat flapping in the wind.

The woman--she was thickly built and large of frame--was wearing a complete winter camo suit, mostly white with woodsy patches of brown and black and muted green. She had a long, puckered scar on her left cheek and frizzy tufts of red hair stuck out from under her similarly patterned hood. She had apparently arrived in a military green Hummer, almost black in the night, idling on the road behind her.

"God," Michael gasped. "Good lord, what was that thing?"

The thing was lying sprawled face-down in the snow, a tidy entry wound in its back. Michael couldn't be sure in the dark, but he believed its uniform--a jumpsuit that covered its body from neck to ankles--had been a sky blue under all the blood.

The woman laughed, a short, sharp bark. "If I told you that, kid, I'd have to kill you. And in this instance that's no joke."

"Was...was it dead?"

"Is it dead? Well, I'm about to make one-hundred percent sure of that."

She strode over through the deepening snow to the body with her gun pointed toward the ground, her obvious intent being to put an extra bullet or two in the thing's brain.

"No," Michael said. "I mean, was it dead? Was it a zombie?"

That bark of a laugh again. "No, kid. That I can tell you. It wasn't a zombie." She barked another laugh. "Now stop asking questions. Things are gonna be rough enough for you as it is."

"What the hell does that mean?"

The woman turned from her task for a second to answer.

Gene chose that instant to emerge from the woods. "Is it safe to come out yet?" he called from the forest's edge, perhaps twenty feet away.

The woman turned yet again, raising the weapon, and had a bead on Gene within an instant.

"Jesus!" Gene exclaimed, lifting his hands, palms-out, above his head.

Michael was about to try to explain who Gene was when he sensed motion from the not-a-zombie thing's clawlike hand. He started to shout but the claw found the woman's ankle before his voice found her ears.

The thing pulled the woman's leg out from under her.

Her pistol flew from her hand as she went down. It landed with a puff of powdery snow directly in front of Michael, whose freezing butt was still planted on the ground.

The woman landed on her back, and now Michael understood he'd been lucky the thing had attacked him from behind.

The woman's throat was partially exposed in her camo outfit and the shambler's claw was at it now, first muffling, then choking her scream.

Michael fumbled with gloved hands through the snow for the gun.

Gene had disappeared again. Apparently he had figured out it wasn't safe to come out yet.

The woman scream turned into a horrendous gargle as the shambler went to work with what was indeed a canine maw.

And then, in one sudden instant, she was silent, the creature's growl, somehow gutterally wrapped around the word "kill", seeming to rise in volume to claim the night.

Michael's hand found the hardness of the gun in the powder of the snow.

He didn't think. He took aim and shot the monster in the head.

There was a spatter of blood on the snow and the thing dropped--for good, Michael hoped--as the sound of the shot echoed off into the distance.

Still not thinking, Michael stood, walked over to the monster's corpse, and put two more bullets into its head.

When he looked up, Gene--pale, wide-eyed, his hair stuck to his brow with fear-sweat--was standing nearby.

"Dude!" Gene said in an awed tone, as if the word were a profound assessment of their situation and what had happened. Then he gesticulated with great emphasis at the two dead bodies. "Dude!" he said again.

"Dude yourself," Michael said, and looked up at the house. "That crazy lady had better let us in this time." He started walking with a determined stride. Gene followed.

This time a light turned on in the main window. The woman in the wheelchair opened the door before they were halfway there.

"Come in! Come in!" she called. "I saw the whole thing! I don't believe it but I saw it! Come in! Hurry!"

Michael and Gene ran to the porch, where the heavy smell of some sort of spicy incense hit them.

"Come in!" she said, rolling backward to give them access. "Shut the door!"

Gene did.

"Tell me, what was that thing! What--"

"I don't know, but we need to call someone," Michael said.

"The phone doesn't work," the woman said. "I tried to call the authorities when I saw what happened. The storm most likely."

"Dude, the Army or whatever the hell is probably gonna come any minute," Gene said. "That chick with the gun probably called backup or whatever."

"That's true," the woman said, and furrowed her brow, obviously considering something. "Are they dead?" she asked. "I mean, are you sure they're dead? No longer of this earth?"

"They're dead all right," Michael said. "I guess from here we'll just wait. We're better off--"

The woman whipped around in her wheelchair faster than either Michael or Gene would have thought possible and headed into her front room, toward the candle.

The candle was sitting on a short TV tray, at a height for easy access from the woman's seated position.

On another adjacent tray was a ouija board.

"Fresh spirits," the woman muttered. "Never so fresh, not even the day my innocents were lost."

"What...what are you doing?" Michael asked as the woman aligned herself behind the ouija board.

"The snow," the woman said distractedly. "I see the spirits better--their outlines--in the snow, especially Peter and Jonathan's. They were innocents, my husband and son, lost in the snow, a sudden blizzard. They were...they were hunting. They come back to me when I call them. That's why I thought you were them, and that's why I wanted you to leave earlier. Now, I must do this immediately! You can help or you can wait by yourselves, I don't care, but never have I had an opportunity to reach spirits so fresh. Souls who might remember departing the body, spirits I can speak with as they leave the skin of this earth."

"You use one of those things alone?" Gene said. "I heard you were always supposed to use, like, a buddy system. In case of possession or something like that. In case things get too weird."

Michael shot him a befuddled look.

"I'm experienced, believe me," the woman said.

"I can't believe this," Michael said. "There are two dead people--or a dead woman and a dead thing--out there!"

"Exactly!" the woman said.

"This isn't a Halloween party!" Michael raged on. "There could be more of those things! We need to secure the house!"

The woman let out an angry, exasperated sigh. "The house is secure--I'm a wheelchair-bound single woman living alone outside a town where I'm thought of as the local boogieman, so believe me, it's always secure! And the number and nature of the beast or beasts is one of the first questions I'm planning on asking the spirits--if I'm not rotting in my own damned grave by the time you let me go to work! Now, if you please, either join me at the board or sit down, shut up and wait for your blessed authorities to arrive!"

Gene shrugged and made to sit down with the woman.

"What the hell are you doing?" Michael said.

"Dude, if the house is secure, then we've got to try this. Maybe she'll get some important info."

Michael shook his head. "I can't fucking believe this," he said. "I'll tell you how we get info. You and me use our eyes! We set up posts and keep a watch!"

The woman rolled her own eyes in exasperation, then suddenly spoke in a voice loud enough to make both Gene and Michael jump.

"Jonathan!" she said. "Are there enemies about the house?"

She'd had one hand lightly on the planchette and one hand resting in her lap. The hand in her lap remained still, but the planchette flew to the "NO" spot on the ouija board. It did not slide or glide there; it flew with a surreal, blinding speed.

"Peter!" she said. "Are the spirits of the two newly deceased near us?"

The planchette flew to "YES".

"And they are not our enemies?"

ONE WAS. NOT NOW.

"The woman was a friend?"

YES.

"Ask the woman her name, Peter."

SGT MCMANUS JULIE, the planchette answered, hitting the letters in rapid fire order.

"Does the one who appeared to be a creature have a name?"

RALF?, the ouija board returned. JULIE SAYS.

"What would the creature say?"

The planchette stayed at rest.

"Ask Ralf exactly what sort of creature he was in life, Peter."

KILL, the planchette answered.

"What does that mean, Peter?"

HE SAYS HE WAS A KILL.

"Ask Julie what Ralf was, Peter."

SHE WON'T SAY MOM, the planchette spelled out.

She sighed and looked up. Michael was now sitting nearby as well, rapt eyes fixed on the board, all thoughts of keeping posts forgotten.

"Lend me your hands on the planchette, boys," she said. "Lend me your energy." The boys did as she asked, Michael tucking the gun in the back of his belt and promptly forgetting about it.

"Please tell us about yourself, Ralf."

KILL.

"Can you say anything but that inappropriate word?"

Nothing. Snow skirled against the picture window next to them.

"She told Michael, when we were out there, that 'kill' was all it could say anymore," Gene told the woman.

She considered this a moment. "Alright," she said. "Julie McManus, please tell us about Ralf."

NO.

"You must tell us, Julie McManus."

NO.

"You must!"

The planchette skittered around the board, refusing to come to rest, finally settling abruptly on NO.

"You must, Julie McManus!"

The planchette flew repeatedly to the NO.

"Julie McManus, I demand it!"

"Oh, shit, no," Gene said. "No, stop asking her that. I don't know what ghosts can or can't do, or how much you can control them, but out there she said if she told us what that bastard was she'd have to--"

The planchette spelled out GOVT EXPT GONE WRNG.

"Government experiment gone wrong. This is bullshit, lady," Michael said, trying to sound incredulous but managing only to sound scared. "We've got to do--"

The woman sucked in a sudden, terrified breath, her eyes going wide.

A heartbeat of silence.

"Jonathan," she whispered. "Jonathan, has a door been opened?"

YES SUDDEN.

"Quickly, Jonathan! Where is Julie?"

IN THE SNOW.

"And Ralf?"

COMING.

Barely audible: "Are they...?"

The planchette, lightning-fast: STRONG ENEMIES SUDDEN YES HERE HIDE NOW.

She was already rolling.

"With me!" she said. "Move!"

Gene scrambled after her.

But Michael didn't move--found he couldn't move--as the other two sped past him, already gone from the room. He only looked out at the wintry night, a hot, oily feeling building in his stomach.

For a moment the snow streamed silently against the glass of the large picture window. It was strangely soothing and hypnotic, looking like a galaxy of silver stars carried on a cosmic wind.

Then Michael could make out a face in the mesmerizing white, a face made solely of snowflakes. It seemed to take up the entire picture window--it was a large face, a female face, and now he could make out a puckered scar on the left cheek.

An instant before the window burst, the face opened what was suddenly a razor-toothed maw with fanglike canines.

The glass exploded inward with a crash and a phenomenal spray of sharp, crystalline shards. Michael's face was suddenly a starburst of whitehot pain. Wind and snow howled into the room--or was that a canine howl?

And now, although half-blind, Michael finally found it within his power to run, to lurch off in the direction he'd heard the woman and his friend go.

Behind him, in the front room, there was a cacophony of destruction as a roaring wind--at least he prayed it was only the wind roaring--hurled and smashed the furniture and fixtures, everything from the TV tray and lamps to chairs and couches, against the walls.

Michael found himself barreling almost blindly down a hallway, hearing Gene's voice calling, "In here! In here!"

Blood was running into his eyes as he fled; he had no idea how bad the flying glass might have cut him.

Through the red, he caught a glimpse of Gene wearing a horrified expression on his face waiting with an open door at the end of the hall. Gene was screaming that they were right behind him--"the faces, God, their giant faces!"--as Michael dove for the doorway.

Michael heard the door slam shut behind him--then something large buffeted against it.

"The bureau! Move it against the door!" the woman ordred, her voice a shrill mix of command and desperation.

"Dude, come on! Help!" Gene pleaded.

"I can't see!" Michael replied. "Jesus, all this blood!"

"The bureau! Now!" the woman shouted.

"Here." Gene's voice. Something soft, a rag or old shirt maybe, was thrust into his hand. "If we don't keep whatever the hell those things out there--"

The door exploded inward.

Michael was pierced in a dozen places by flying splinters.

Gene and the woman were screaming.

Small, solid objects started pelting Michael in the head and he crouched without thinking.

"Get thee back to thy realm, spirits!" the woman now commanded, but her voice was quavering and reedy. "Get thee off the skin of this earth!"

The wind roared in what might have been a laugh and the woman's cry became a high-pitched, strangled scream.

Despite the piercing pain throughout his crouched body, Michael managed to get the rag to his forehead and wipe enough blood away to allow him to see. They were in what had once been a bedroom. It was now filled with junk--knick-knacks, boxes of old shoes and clothes, kids' toys--all of it currently flying through the air in a localized tornado.

Gene had somehow been knocked to the floor but was spinning in the wind there. Blood streamed in the air as he spun. Michael had just an instant to see that one small but sharp piece of wood had lodged in Gene's cheek, sticking out like a small knife blade.

And then came the snow, a veritable streaming blizzard.

Hurricane-driven snow came pouring in through the door and wrapping itself around the woman in the wheelchair. It was swirling so fast about her that Michael could only catch glimpses of the face from which those horrible gargling, choking sounds were coming.

Michael suddenly intuited that she was being force-fed the white stuff--about a ton of it.

Gene had managed to climb to his knees now, staggering on them against the wind.

Michael grabbed him and pulled him toward the door, his face turning to ice, snow already thick in his hair.

"No!" Gene shouted above the snowy din, his stuck cheek ripping even more as he did. "We've got to help her!"

Gene pulled free of Michael's grasp and went toward the woman.

He was instantly lost in a blanket of white.

Michael would later tell himself that he hesitated, but he didn't. He bolted, fighting a gale in the wind tunnel of the hallway, the snow stinging him like ten-thousand hurled needles.

He finally broke through into the front room and saw through the coursing snow as gale whipped at him that outside the shattered window and blown-away door the driveway was illuminated by more than just the Hummer lights. There was also a fast, steady pounding sound that seemed to reverberate in his body, double-time to his racing heart.

But that was not what made him stop running as he reached the foyer.

Rushing across the brightly-lit spectral white light of the driveway and lawn were two flying figures apparently made of wind and shifting snowflakes.

One was the size of a boy of perhaps thirteen and one was a large man.

They were hurtling at him.

Michael dimly heard Gene screaming incoherently now his voice ringing clear despite that surreal heart-flutter whickering pounding in his brain.

The two flying figures flew past him and with their passage Michael swore he felt a heat--a heat more rage than actual temperature.

He dared a look back over his shoulder.

The woman, still wheelchair-bound, was floating on warring winds halfway between the floor and ceiling where the hallway met the front room. Gene, now silent, was being flung in a whirlwind circle around her like a rag doll, blood streaming from his mouth. Four snow-defined figures--a boy, a man, a fat, scarified naked woman and a dog-faced monster--battled in the air around them.

They were all surreally large, snow-fattened.

And were they growing in size, occupying more and more of the rushing snow as they fought?

"No," Michael said. "No."

The light outside shifted then, and Michael turned and realized what the whickering was.

A helicopter. Very close to the level of the roof of the house.

With a spotlight.

The backup for Julie McManus.

Michael forced his way through blizzards both natural and supernatural to the driveway and waved his arms at the chopper.

A rope ladder was dropped for him.

When he was halfway up, he allowed himself a look down at the house.

In that glance, windows on all four sides of the house exploded outward.

He scurried the rest of the way up, fighting the helicopter's wind as well as Mother Nature's. Thank God there were no snow-driven ghosts up here.

He was helped into the helicopter by a man wearing a uniform similar to McManus's and a thin, sallow-faced guy who was dressed up like a businessman.

"What the hell's going on down there?" the businessman asked, looking both shocked and concerned.

"Monsters!" Michael exclaimed. "Ghosts! Ouija!"

The man furrowed his brow and frowned.

"Snow!" Michael explained. "Splinters! Wheelchairs!"

The man nodded, brow still tight. "There, there, son," he said, and patted Michael on the shoulder. "You're safe now."

Then the entire house below them collapsed with a resounding, echoing crash, raising a tremendous cloud of smoky dust.

Or was it snow, a great billowing rush of demon-filled snow frothing angrily up at the rising helicopter?

Michael's eyes fluttered and he let blessed oblivion flow over him.

When he came to, he was lying on a bed.

And were those the bars of a cage?

Yes, there were bars between himself and the industrial green walls.

But if he was in jail, there sure were a lot of people in the cell with him.

The businessman guy from the helicopter, for instance.

And two guys in those uniforms, each with a machine gun.

And a thick, stocky bald guy in jeans and a multi-colored Bill Cosby-style sweater.

And a nurse, preparing a syringe.

Good, good.

There was a lot of pain. It was nice of these people to give him something for the pain.

He groggily turned his head toward the businessman.

"Did...did you find Gene?" he managed.

"Gene's here, Michael," the businessman said.

Michael looked around, coming to a bit more.

"Where? I don't see him."

"Bruno?" the man said, nodding toward the large bald man in the comforting Cosby sweater.

"Your friend Gene is here, but I doubt you can see him," the big guy said with a warm smile. "There are three others as well. Jonathan, Peter and Mathilde."

"Could you let Gene in? I'd like to see him."

"You don't understand," the businessman said. "They're here, but only Bruno can see them. He's been talking with them, too. And he doesn't need a ouija board."

Michael felt the blood run out of his face. "They're...dead?"

"Yes," Bruno said, and then his warm smile faded. "Michael, Gene wants to know why you didn't help."

"I...uh...I--wait, who's Mathilde? The woman from the house?"

"Yes. She's just standing there, wringing her hands," Bruno replied. "She can stand and walk again now, after a fashion, Michael. She says it's okay that you didn't help. There was nothing you could do about Julie or Ralf."

"They'd been trained for the eventuality you brought about," the businessman said. "To follow orders even after death--should they have the opportunity to linger on this plane, that is. We all have some so-called 'paranormal' ability here and we work at honing it, even in experiment subjects like Ralf--especially with them, in fact. Things would have gone much easier for you and Gene if you hadn't fucked with them, Michael, asking questions."

"As for Mathilde," Bruno said, "she says she's sorry for you, but happy to be back with her Jonathan and Peter."

"Oh, Jesus," Michael said, looking with a dawning horror at the syringe. "Oh Christ, no! You're going to kill me, aren't you?"

The businessman smiled. "No, Michael. To the rest of the world you will have been lost in the snow. But don't worry. If we have anything to say about it--and we do--you won't be seeing Gene or any of the others anytime soon. You will, however, be getting much more familiar with what Ralf's condition was here on earth--at least something akin to it. It'll be a slow, painful process--physical, chemical and psychological--but we'll get you through."

That's when Michael noticed some of the pain pulsing through his body was coming from the tight straps holding him fast to the bed.

"Look at it this way," the businessman continued as Michael began to struggle, too terrified for the instant to speak. "If you have any psychic ability whatsoever, we'll help you find it, hone it, amplify it. You'll learn such secrets, Michael!"

And now it was Bruno's turn again, the warm smile back in place as Michael gave in to his restraints and started wimpering. "But rest assured, Michael," Bruno said, "like Ralf will a short time from now, you'll move on into the final world completely without blame. Hey, I know! Think of it this way, Mike--you came to us as an innocent, lost in the snow, which washes away all sin. You faded away into pure white. And when it comes time for you to leave us, you'll be even more innocent, washed clean not only of sin, but also of identity, washed clean even of your own free will. Everyone, including we sinners here around you now, will remember you as innocent. Almost like a baby."

Bruno's smile was positively beatific.

Michael renewed his fight against his restraints and caught a glimpse of a familiar color from the corner of his eye.

He craned his neck out, then started screaming when he realized he was wearing a sky blue jumpsuit.

The businessman nodded again.

Silent and grinning, the nurse came forward with the syringe.