Photo by Vincent Guth on Unsplash
‘When the nights draw in and the first snow settles you should lock your doors and board your windows. The cold of the long winter isn’t the only thing trying to creep into your home.’
Of course, I thought it was nonsense, an old wives tale to keep the children inside. The old woman gave me a shrewd look with her rheumy grey eyes. She could tell I didn’t believe her. She pursed her lips as I handed over the money and collected the tins of soup from the shop counter.
‘Thank you Ms Treya,’ I said and nodded to her as I opened the door.
The bell jingled on my way out, it wasn’t quite loud enough to mask her muttering; ‘Won’t last the winter.’
I stepped out into cold afternoon. Already the sun was setting, turning the sky a glorious shade of orange. In the deep shadows of the town the ground still glittered with frost that had never melted. It was busy as people gathered supplies and readied their homes. A tall bank of fluffy white clouds on the horizon forewarned us of the coming snow. Once it fell the land would be covered until the melt in the spring. People here didn’t venture out during the winter. When the sun sets for the last time they closed their doors and they remained closed until the spring. They believed the dark was filled with monsters and that winter belonged to them.
I didn’t believe in such superstitions. I was a man of science, and it just so happened that the winter here in the far north was the best time to study astrological phenomenon. Perhaps it had been a mistake telling Ms Treya that the soup was to warm me while I was outside. I should have said that, like everyone else, it was my supply for the winter so I wouldn’t have to leave the house. My intentions to leave the house, and even the confines of the village, were deeply frowned upon. Strangers weren’t exactly welcomed here, especially not strangers who refused to believe in their superstitions.
I ignored the glares I received as I made my way back to my house on the edge of the village. It was a humble affair that looked no different to any other house out here. The only difference was the tent outside with a telescope set up just outside it. I was so focused on my own research, it never occurred to me to consider the fears of my neighbours. I suppose I just assumed that a village such as this, that has remained in virtual isolation from the rest of the world, has retained some backward, pagan ways that have been eradicated by logical thought in the rest of the world. That was as far as my interest went. I didn’t care for the scowls or whispered insults. As long as it didn’t disrupt my research it didn’t matter what they thought.
As the sun set, the village fell silent. It was as if time had stopped. The streets were empty, no light seeped from between shutters, not even a wisp of smoke curled from the chimneys. Someone had once told me that they don’t burn wood during the long night because the smoke can attract them, whatever they are. I was taking no such chance on superstition. My fire blazed in the hearth as I waited for the snow to fall and for the clouds to pass. A week passed without incident, the snow fell in torrents. I had to keep going outside to shake it off the tent and my equipment, in hindsight I should have waited to set up when the snowfall had finished. I wasn’t sure I could manage the fiddly parts of the instruments though with my gloves on and my fingers would quickly freeze in these temperatures.I kept the path clear with a shovel which seemed to be an hourly business. And I waited.
I gazed out of my window at the darkness outside. It was as if someone had laid a blanket over the world and only I was peeking out. When the snow finally stopped I stepped out into the freezing night, or it might have been day. It was difficult to tell. Stars twinkled above me in such clarity that I had never seen before. I gasped aloud at the beauty of it. It was like a black cloth studded with diamonds. I quickly went to my telescope, all thoughts of the neighbours forgotten. With a pencil I scribbled down clumsy notes that I hoped would be legible, although I thought it would be impossible to forget this. I had never seen our universe so clearly. Not a single light polluted my gaze, not a whisper disrupted my theorising. Except for - I heard something. Not quite the sound of a boot crunching through snow but something lighter. Like a whisper stirring the loose snow on the surface. I looked up from my telescope. The world around me was lit in silver and blue from the moon above. After a moment of staring into the shadows I decided it was nothing, just a breath of wind and the superstitions of an isolated people getting to my head. I knew I was rationalising as I put my eyes back to the telescope and thought that there wasn’t any wind. The air was still.
‘Arthur.’
I jumped and spun around, almost knocking my equipment into the snow. The whisper set the hairs on the back of my neck crawling. I stared into the deep shadows beside my house. With bated breath I waited. My heart thudding against my chest felt loud enough to disturb the snow.
‘Stop it! Your superstitions are nonsense. Leave me in peace to my work!’ I called out. My voice seemed obscenely loud as it echoed back to me in the still air. The neighbours were going too far trying to discourage me. They could hibernate if they wanted to, they could believe in silly children’s tales, but they shouldn’t be playing tricks on a man of science just trying to get on with his work.
After a few more tense moments of silence, I went back to my work, my heart was still pounding though, and I cursed myself for it. Getting scared over such tales was ridiculous.
‘Arthur.’
The whisper was much closer this time and I leapt back, tripped on my tent pole and fell into the snow. As I sat up I felt my blood run cold, and it had nothing to do with the ice that had snuck its way into my layers.
She stood before me in the same white dress she wore on our wedding day, as beautiful as she was then. There was no sign of the grey wastage the plague brought to her in her final weeks. Her golden hair floated behind her in an unfelt breeze. She reached a hand out towards me, her pale skin apparently not feeling the biting cold of the long night. I stared at her. It was impossible. She was impossible. I was there when she died. I pleaded with the undertaker to bury her, but it wasn’t permitted. She had the plague so she had to be cremated so as to not contaminate the ground. Yet here she stood, perfect in every way. Except for her eyes. There was something off about them. I gazed into them and the longer I looked, it seemed like they weren’t there. I wasn’t staring into the crystal blue of my wife’s irises, but the hollow shells of something else. Then I would blink and there were her eyes again.
Without realising it I was standing up, reaching towards her. What I would give to feel the touch of her soft skin again, to feel her breath against my cheek and hear her words as we lay together under the stars. I tore off my gloves, ignoring the numbing cold of the air and stretched my fingers out towards hers.
Bang.
The shot echoed through the night. There was no splatter of crimson blood as I expected instead she vanished in a puff of icy mist. I gaped around, searching for where she had gone. Ms Treya stood on her doorstep holding the still-smoking shotgun in her hands.
‘I said you wouldn’t survive the winter. Now get inside!’ she snapped.
I turned towards my house, still feeling numb after seeing my long-dead wife stood before me.
‘No! In here, they’ll look for you there now.’ she hissed. Like a man in a dream I trudged through the snow towards Ms Treya’s home. She disappeared inside. On the doorstep I paused and glanced across the frozen land once more. There was no sign of my wife. Ms Treya reappeared and blocked the doorway. ‘Did you look into its eyes?’ she asked. I hesitated. ‘Did you look into its eyes?’ she hissed.
‘No!’ I replied. Ms Treya scowled at me for a moment before moving aside. I stepped inside and Ms Treya closed and bolted the door behind me. She cursed me before vanishing into the darkness of her home.The only warmth was coming from some kind of gas fire in the room next to the hall, it gave off a dim bluish light that took my eyes a moment to adjust to. Here her children were huddled around the dark fire, wrapped in blankets and staring with wide, fearful eyes at me. Ms Treya propped the shotgun against the doorway and climbed back into her blankets. I took off my boots, my outer coat and my one remaining glove. I wasn’t sure I remembered taking off the other one.
‘Stay away from the windows. Stay quiet. You can have those blankets.’ she instructed, pointing to a pile of folded blankets in the far corner of the room. I nodded my thanks and crossed to the blankets, huddling into them.
‘Mumma, won’t they find us?’ whispered one of the children. Ms Treya shook her head and pressed her finger to her lips. After several long minutes of silence and with the warmth seeping into my bones, I fell into a fitful sleep. My wife visited me in my dreams, she was searching for me. Lost and lonely, she called out to me.
‘Arthur?’ her voice was weak, lost in the ice. I turned over, hugging the blankets closer to me. ‘Arthur?’
I jolted awake. That wasn’t in my dream. The room was quiet, Ms Treya and her children were sleeping soundly. Only the quiet hiss of the gas fire let me know that time itself hadn’t stopped. I stood up, careful not to make a sound and crossed to the window. The shutters were bolted shut.
‘Arthur?’ my wife’s voice called again, just outside.
I checked back on Ms Treya, she was still sleeping. I tiptoed in my socks to the front door and slowly slid the bolt across. My wife must be so scared, so cold and alone out there on the ice. I undid the bolt. One of the children muttered in their sleep. I lifted the latch and opened the door. There was no one outside. With one last glance over my shoulder, I stepped out into the cold. At once the ice and snow bit into my shoeless feet and crept its way inside my clothes. I closed the door quietly behind me.
‘Arthur?’ It came from behind the house. Ignoring the burning of the snow, I made my way around into the shadow of the house. It was so dark I could barely make out my wife where she stood in her wedding dress. She smiled as she saw me. Her hollow eyes bored into me. I blinked and the smile reached her blue eyes. I didn’t hesitate this time. I ran through the snow and grabbed a hold of her outstretched hands. The shock of cold was sudden, like being plunged into icy water, somehow colder than the air or snow. I looked down at my hands were we touched. Her skin wasn’t soft like I remembered, it was cold, so cold. And my skin blackened where we touched as if the life was draining out of me. I tried to pull away. Frozen, I couldn’t move.
When I looked up, my wife was gone and instead I was staring into the hollow eye sockets of a monster. There was nothing in those eyes. Her skin had slaked away leaving only icy rawhide stretched over jagged bones. The pain was unbearable. I tried to scream, only a whisper escaped. The blackness spread up my limbs, killing me as it went. Inside Ms Treya and her children still slept soundly, safe from their superstitions. The darkness reached my core and the last of my life was sapped from me. I collapsed into the snow, the ice becoming one with my bones. It was so cold. So very cold. What I would give to just feel the warmth of someone’s touch again. To feel the warmth of their life seep through my frozen bones. I stared with hollow eyes through the eternal darkness in search of someone to hold.
I'm Katy, but go by K H Simmons officially. I write a lot of sci-fi, dark fantasy and dystopian fiction. If you're here for sparkly vampires, you're in the wrong place ;)
I frequently post short stories on my Facebook page, as well as work on full length novels. If you want more short stories like the above - check out my anthology Death, Demons & Dystopia available on Amazon/Kindle. https://www.amazon.com/dp/B07YN5DY98
When I'm not writing, I can usually be found cuddling dogs, reading, at the gym or playing video games.
