When Winter Comes | Book 4 | Masks of Bone Read online

  Karl raised an eyebrow in confusion, the knife still gripped in a white-knuckle clench. He glanced down at the calf, surprised to see a woman staring back at him, her mouth agape, her lips painted in blood.

  His blood.

  Another tree toppled. Shrieks rent the night. As the third pine came down and collided with the snow, the visage faded, the jack pine morphing into the body of the Masked One. The skull shattered.

  And that’s when she came.

  3

  Tori Asplin

  The snow encased them both in a frigid cocoon. The visage of Tori’s dream slipped away, the echoing coo of her mother’s song fading into the distance and stopping abruptly as Karl towered over her, leaving little else to see.

  His eyes were dark. There was no humanity left in them. He swayed like a lesser-minded man under a spell of hypnosis. Wherever his mind was, it wasn’t here. Tori envied that. Karl’s spell hadn’t broken, while hers had. For a brief moment her mother had been her saviour, her guardian. For a brief moment she had been home.

  A home that hadn’t existed for years. And now death faced her.

  She always wondered what her final moments would be. She wondered at the possibility of following in her parents’ footsteps and falling victim to illness at an early age. Or possibly developing a fatal drinking addiction and drowning in the bottom of a bottle like her brother-in-law, Donavon. Perhaps she would one day just get lost in the woods, and nature would take care of her, her body opening itself up under the claws and snarls of a predatory beast.

  But never, not once in her lifetime, had she imagined dying like this.

  The wind constantly punctured her skin with icy needles. Her head dizzied. The world rocked and keeled. Karl was on his knees now, staring pitifully into her face as her body refused to react. Fear, exhaustion, lethargy, it all amounted to the same thing. She was frozen. The elements and the world working against her, determined to have her die under the blade of her former lover. One last final bout of penetration to secure the rocky relationship they once had. Rutting in blood and surrounded by supernatural voyeurs.

  Something she could never have written herself.

  She opened her mouth, but no sound escaped. Karl cupped her cheek and stared emptily into her eyes. He tugged at her hair and elicited a pained scream from her lips.

  Tori bit him.

  Karl growled and raised his knife into the air. In the place where his bicep had been, she could see his muscles and tendons trying to work together and aid his effort, as though he had all but forgotten that he was injured. He flinched. Grimaced. A flicker of humanity crossed his eyes, then they darkened again.

  She wanted to scream at him. She wanted to punch him in the chest. She wanted to do more damage. She wanted to run. She wanted to get the fuck out of there.

  And yet, somewhere amidst all of the confusion of her body, she wanted to kiss him. His lips were on their way to turning blue, his body cast in a sickly hue. If this were a movie, all Karl would need would be a princess. A kiss to wake him up and remove the spell. If this were a movie, she could—

  This isn’t a fucking movie.

  Despite it all, she wanted to help him. She let out a small sigh, but the wind tore it away. The Masked Ones stood on the edge of their circle, half lost in the blizzard, but present enough to remind Tori of this fucked up situation she found herself in. To kiss, or not to kiss before her prince stabbed her to death.

  A fitting end to a fairy-tale story.

  Karl dropped his pained arm and held the knife steady. The moment had come, and all Tori could do was bear it. There was no escape. Alex was gone. She was alone, and these creatures would take the town. That’s all there was to it. Life wasn’t a movie. Life was a cyclical current of hopes and misery. An ebbing and flowing of joy and despair. Every day, across the world, the miracle of new life was offset by the inevitability of death. She supposed both were blessings, in their own right.

  When the first shot sounded, Tori couldn’t comprehend what was happening. She looked to the sky, expecting a lightning strike to accompany the thunder. But that wasn’t how storms worked, was it? Lightning came first. So, where had the sound come from?

  Shrieking from behind her. Tori whirled and watched as one of the Masked Ones buckled and folded into nothing more than a pile of bones and tattered flesh. The others in their masks turned as one to the source of the report.

  Another gunshot struck another creature. The bullet tore through what remained of the stomach and left a hole in its wake. The creature stood, unmarred for a moment, before a follow-up shot broke the supporting spinal column and the creature met the same end. The bone mask of the polar bear nesting on top of the brittle pile of bones.

  Karl roared as the next shot found the remainder of his arm. Tori yelped, the bullet passing so close to her face that she felt the bullet’s ripple the air in its wake. Blood splattered her face and entered her mouth. It was thick and tasted of iron. She spat it out reflexively, her body already rejecting whatever poison had been in Karl’s veins.

  Karl bowed forward, staring at his bloody stump with curiosity. He showed no sign of pain at the loss of his limb, merely examining the wound like a child staring at the spatchcocked form of a frog in a biology class.

  A figure came into view. Tori could just about make out the stranger to their midst as they came through the snow. The figure came from behind Karl, walking with a gait that was human, yet decorated with a skull that was unlike her brethren. While the creatures sported skulls from animals, Tori was almost certain that this skull was an amalgamation of human and animal. In the figure’s hands was a rifle, a scope fitted to the top, but they didn’t use that scope to improve their aim. They were too close for that. Somehow this stranger had approached without their knowledge, and now they were…

  What? What were they doing?

  Another pull of the trigger and the creature nearest to the figure gave a shrill banshee cry. The bullet shattered the bone mask, momentarily revealing the shrivelled, rotten head of the creature beneath before it exploded like a ripe fruit beneath the flat of a hammer.

  The woman—for Tori could now make her out, her lean body and womanly curves—ran ahead, eliciting a stir among the remaining Masked Ones. Karl turned at her approach and received the butt end of the rifle in his face as the woman extended a hand to Tori. “Get up. Now. Come.”

  For a moment, Tori remained still. Another development in an obscene situation. She was almost certain she had prepared herself for death, but she hadn’t prepared herself to be saved. The story had been written. Tori had been ready to close the book.

  Who was this mystery writer who wished to add more chapters?

  “Now!” the woman screamed and, in that moment, Tori thought she recognised something in that tone. A flashback to years gone by and memories locked safely in the vaults of the past. It was enough to earn her attention. Tori grabbed the offered wrist and rose to her feet. She wobbled unsteadily, the latent effects of her concussion doing its best to drag her back to the ground. The woman steadied her, wrapped Tori’s arm around her shoulder and let off two shots in quick succession. The creatures were rattled, but they did not attack. They passively watched on, allowing the women behind the mask to perform her act. Maybe in the show’s interval they would get involved, but at this point the theatre seemed too great to discard, even if it had wiped out half their number.

  They walked backwards, the woman kicking Karl’s hand away as it reached for Tori’s ankle. Bile rose in Tori’s throat as they passed over one of the piles of bone. Vomit dribbled from between her lips, stained her jacket. The woman tugged at her, and Tori submitted to her direction. Each step was a battle through the snow, but soon the creatures were out of sight. Soon the creatures were gone.

  Or, at least, Tori hoped. She cast a look back, and still the wendigos stood on the edge of her vision, Karl on his knees between them. The only sign of recognition of the events which had just taken place were the eyes
which trailed them into the storm.

  Tori felt as though those eyes were marking her. She felt them on her body long after they were gone.

  “Let’s get you somewhere safe,” the woman said, the gun now strapped across her shoulder.

  Tori shook her head, fighting back tears. “Nowhere is safe. It’s over. It’s all gone. Every bit of it.”

  “No, Tori. It’s not.”

  Tori stopped in her tracks, fighting against the woman, now. The mention of Tori’s name surprised her and brought back the flooding of memories she had experienced in the heat of the battle. She narrowed her eyes. “Naomi?”

  The woman reached to the muzzle of the human skull and raised it above her eye-line. Naomi Oslow looked haggard, her eyes were weary, her lips thin and pressed into a white line.

  Tori didn’t know whether to laugh or cry. “I don’t… What is… Is that the skull from…”

  Naomi lowered the skull over her eyes once more and grabbed her sister. “No time for that now. Let’s get you out of this storm. We can discuss all of this when we’re away from those vile creatures.”

  As if to illustrate her point, the sound of Karl’s pained cries carried on the wind. Finally, after all that had happened, his dream had shattered, and reality had caught up with him.

  4

  Alex Goins

  The white was endless.

  Sky bled into ground, ground bled into sky. The oppressive white stung his eyes. It turned his mind to mush. He wasn’t sure if he was going forwards or backwards. He wasn’t sure if he was simply walking directly into a white and endless pit. Every step burned, but the storm soon sorted that with a chilly blast of menace. Damien stilled in his cocoon, and Alex wondered if he was still breathing. Past blurred into present into future, no defining features of which to speak of.

  The town had faded some time ago. The last of the ghostly houses were absorbed by the storm, and then there was no more… anything.

  At first, he thought that they may have just hit a brief recess in the houses lining the streets, a large gap of white between streets. Now he was certain they had breached the town limits and Denridge had been left far behind. The idea of turning and heading back irked him, was something he couldn’t stomach. It took all that he had to keep moving forward. Like an automated machine burning low on gas, if he stopped, he knew he was done for.

  He couldn’t feel his eyelids anymore. He hardly blinked. Ice crusted his corneas and blurred his vision. The storm threw miniature daggers at his flesh, but he couldn’t feel that anymore. Somehow, despite it all, his skin was warm.

  And he knew that wasn’t a good sign.

  In his studies of frostbite—for Alex rarely set off to a new climate without doing his research—Alex had read pages and seen images of every stage of the disease. He was smart to the ways of the body, knew that every part of his biological makeup was currently preoccupied with keeping his skin warm, to protecting his extremities from permanently damaging themselves in the cold. It was a clever system, but that didn’t make it efficient. Soon the warmth would retreat to his vital organs. His skin would blacken, and the outer epidermal layers would rot. His nose and ears would be the first to go. His cheeks would blush with grey like a necrotic Santa Claus. All too soon, there would be no coming back from this. Snow burned. Wasn’t that the biggest oxymoron of all?

  Alex’s heart spiked his chest. In the distance he saw shapes of things he knew couldn’t be possible. He saw Tori, smiling and waving, beckoning him forward. He saw Tom and Kathrin standing side-by-side, their bodies intact and healthy. Strange patterns whirled around them, spraying them with the iridescent colours of the aurora, before it had been tainted. Greens and blues and oranges and purples. No reds. Nothing akin to the bleeding stain the aurora had been earlier that night. This was wholesome magic, the forgotten gods casting their spell and playing with his fragile mind.

  Alex was parched. His throat was scratchy and dry. He placed one foot in front of the other until he had nothing else to give. After an undetermined amount of time, just as it seemed that he would soon reach the ghosts of his past, he collapsed in the snow.

  The powder was damp, and that was something. Flurries entered his mouth and took their time melting on his tongue. He sipped from their body, but it wasn’t enough. It would never be enough. The machine had broken down. The gas had run out. Even the boy wiggling beneath his stomach was not enough of a motivation to climb back up and finish the journey.

  He was done. Alex had failed. He had failed his agent. He had failed his publisher. He had failed his book. He had failed his sister and brother-in law. He had failed Tori.

  But, more than all of that, he had failed Cody.

  He lay there, the snow building up on top of him. It claimed him greedily, burying the evidence of his existence with eager shovels. In just minutes he would be buried. No Viking funeral, no cremation, no fanfare about it all. Alex would be gone. The kid gone with him.

  If only Damien would stop struggling.

  It was uncomfortable, each movement an additional pain to Alex’s dying body. Eventually, he rolled to the side and allowed Damien to exit. The boy birthed himself like a mole gaining entry from the earth. Dark hair came first, then a rosy-cheeked face, a parasite drawing on Alex’s remaining warmth and leaving nothing in return.

  “What are you doing?” Damien asked, writhing free and pushing himself to his feet. “Why have we stopped?” In seconds he was forced to wrap his arms around his chest. His teeth chattered.

  Alex found no answer.

  “Come on…” Damien urged. “Get up. Please… I don’t want to die.”

  Alex tried to close his eyes, found that he couldn’t. “We all die someday. You can’t fight the inevitable.”

  A pitiful sound escaped Damien’s throat. He tore his eyes from Alex and scanned around them, teeth clapping with the cold. He paused, fixing on something in the distance.

  Alex raised his head and opened his jacket. “Kid, just climb inside. Get comfortable. We can make this as easy as possible. I promise. It won’t hurt a bit.”

  Guilt twisted Alex’s stomach. Wasn’t that what you were meant to do with children? Lie? Tell them that they had everything special to offer the world and that life would be easy? Fill their head with hope and ambitions until the day they head out into the world by themselves and all their dreams shatter under the unbearable weight of it all? Why stop now. Lie until you’re blue in the face.

  Or black.

  Damien ignored Alex, a hand raising to shield his eyes.

  “Damien?”

  Damien didn’t answer. Instead he pointed.

  “Kid… Come on…”

  “There.”

  “Don’t make it harder than it has to be—”

  Just look!” Damien cried.

  Alex sighed, his lungs feeling as though they’d shrunk and frozen to a third of their capacity. He fought to push himself off the ground. When he looked in Damien’s direction, he couldn’t believe what he saw.

  There, in the distance, the faint outline of the school loomed over them like a titan arising from the depths. Their shape was almost indistinct, but they were there. The school’s cluster of buildings. A little way ahead.

  Somewhere safe.

  Somewhere warm?

  Alex sat upright, his body protesting. It took longer than he’d ever expected to push himself to his feet but, somehow, he managed it. He leaned on the kid as they both stared at the school.

  “We made it,” Damien breathed.

  Alex’s jaw clenched. He pictured Cody somewhere inside, remembered the wendigos and their haunting attacks on the town. “Not yet, we’re not… Not yet.”

  Alex wasn’t precious about their ay inside. When they reached the fence bordering the school’s perimeter, he found that a hole had already been cut to allow entry.

  His heart lifted. If the hole was here, that might mean that he was on the right path.

  Damien followed ahead, now draped i
n Alex’s jacket. Alex could barely feel his limbs as it was, what did it matter if his internal body temperature dropped a few extra degrees?

  They found their way to the nearest door, a large padlock clasped around a chain. Alex tried the handle, knowing it would do nothing. He groaned and shivered before stepping back and spotting a nearby window, glass thick and covered in a frozen layer of condensation.

  The bullet tore through the glass with ease. The report was swallowed by the storm.

  Damien held his hands over his ears, eyes clamped shut. Alex borrowed the jacket and used it to dust off the remaining glass fragments around the window’s edge, then heaved himself inside. He returned to the window, leaned out, and offered Damien a hand. It was only then that he noticed a shard lodged in the center of his palm. Thick, dark blood was the only indicator. There was no pain.

  Lifting the boy the final distance was a struggle but, somehow, they managed. For a moment, they both waited and collected their breath, revelling in the stale classroom air. Alex couldn’t believe the impact that being out of the storm had on him. The temperature was no different, but they were shielded from the wind and the snow. That in itself was a victory.

  “Are we safe, now?” Damien asked, his voice timid and broken.

  Alex plucked the shard of glass from his hand with little problem. His nerves were frozen. He tried to flex his fingers. The tips of each digit were blue, despite having been inside his gloves. He focused on just moving his thumb. After a minute of experimentation and thawing, he managed it. He rubbed his hands together, wiped the stain of blood on his trousers, then turned his attention to the classroom door.

  “Are we safe?” Damien repeated.

  Alex tested the handle, unsurprised to find that it was locked. “I honestly don’t know. I don’t have any answers for you.”