When Winter Comes | Book 6 | Winter Comes Read online

  Alex turned to the window. Out there, somewhere, the fight would be taking place. With any luck, a fight to end this nightmare and bring peace to the town once more. What would the survival of these kids matter, if everyone and everything else died? Wouldn’t it be the best protection for the children if he actually went to the source of chaos and helped end this thing once and for all?

  He found himself at the curtains with no memory of moving. He peeked between the cloth and looked out at the trees, the gaps between the boughs appearing to have grown, calling him inside, begging him to become a part of their narrative.

  Alex looked back at the kids. The rifle nestled perfectly in his hands. The chill air numbed his wound as he closed the door and staggered outside.

  10

  Tori Asplin

  Something crunched beneath Tori’s feet. The wicked sound of the monstrous unknown belched through the forest. She squinted ahead, a number of dark shapes standing sentinel, their silhouettes cast in a strange red glow.

  Another crunch. She looked down. Bones. Tiny, white bones.

  She positioned the butt of her rifle into the crook of her shoulder and viewed the world through its sights. Her finger twitched on the trigger and, in that moment, memories flooded back of phone screens and scrolling images. Of pop-up hearts and bright blue thumbs. Of showers of praise and comments, royalty statements and advertiser emails. Admirations and adulations of selfies in front of the mirror, shallow comments and rhetorical questions. An audience trapped in her hands. People she would never know or truly care about. Not like the man she had left behind. The phone screen she tapped with her index finger more times than she could count…

  This finger, the one that caressed the trigger, had it ever known how comfortably it would fit here?

  They grew closer, Oscar and Sophie silent as they flanked her. Oscar copied Tori and readied his weapon. Sophie looked uncertain, but she found her resolve eventually. Three untrained soldiers, affected by the crushing storm, united in their final stand.

  Why was it so quiet, now? What was this apprehensive breath in the world? Tori swayed the scope of her rifle among the numerous wendigo heads, prepared for when they would inevitably turn around and run for them. Something shifted beyond the lines of creatures, something that was too difficult to see at first. A great boulder, heaving as if it was attempting to breathe itself to life. Tori’s eyes narrowed as the red pulsing light grew brighter, and in the odd flicker of colour the picture became clear.

  The wendigo were guarding the centre of a clearing, a balding crown in the depth of the forests. Two figures, one barely the size of a young man, and another towering above him, eyes locked together, quiet words exchanged, standing at the far reach of the clearing.

  They drew closer, stopping a short distance from the wendigos, able to see through the breaks in their number. Sophie gasped, shotgun lowering as her eyes grew wide and afraid.

  “It’s him… Oh my God. It’s him…” Her hands shook, knees trembling.

  “Who?”

  “Him… Cody. It’s…” She fought with the shotgun for purchase, and as she lined up a shot, Tori grabbed the barrel and forced it down.

  “Not yet,” Tori said.

  Sophie shook her head, unable to form another clear word amidst the strange, desperate moans coming from her lips.

  Oscar crept forward. Tori did, too. Eyes pinned on the hulking figure above the boy. The man who looked to have neared the end of his final metamorphosis, muscle beginning to wilt, flesh caked in dried blood, hair matted and wild. Karl looked as devilish as they came, even more fearsome than the creatures he now associated himself with, and that was saying something.

  Karl presented something to Cody. Tori almost hurled as chunks of the offering slopped to the floor with a wet thwack. She lined up her rifle, catching Karl’s head in her sights. She couldn’t believe that this was what the night had come to, that she would be contemplating killing her former lover. The man she had envisioned her future with but hours ago. The man who had once promised a future, even if the present had been mirky.

  Yet, somehow, here they were, and Tori knew that if she didn’t act fast, there would be no hope left for the kid.

  The thing moved behind him. The giant, quaking rock. The boulder sprang to life, unfurling from its cocoon, and a creature was birthed into the world that should never have existed. A thing that stood towering over Karl’s shoulders, double his height, twice his width. Sophie sobbed through the hand covering her mouth, Oscar gave a muted squeak of fear, his courage finally leaving him.

  Tori took a deep breath, conviction rising deep within her as she got the beast in her sights and readied her shot. The ripple of anticipation that ran through the ring of wendigos told her all that she needed to know—that this creature was at the top of the food chain. This was the creature that had called its children home.

  The creature lowered its head, drawing closer to the boy. Its mouth was large enough to take out his head in a single bite. There were no eyes, only pits of despair. The white crown that topped its neck was ancient, a grand display of taxidermized artwork, broad, paddle-like antlers winging from its head. It roared in its lost language at the boy, and he dropped to his knees, trousers soaking up the life juice of the corpse at his feet. The boy bent low, hands swimming in the pools of viscera and gore, back heaving excitedly like a hyena wild with frenzied hunger at the prospect of its meal.

  “No.” Tori found her moment. If she didn’t act now, the boy would be gone—if he wasn’t already. How was she to know what the hell was happening? The boy was in their catches. For some reason they had drawn him clear, brought him into their nest, and now they fed him their gory meal. Questions circled Tori’s head: Why him? Why him? But there was no time to find the answers.

  Tori sprinted, broke through into the ring of wendigo, aimed the rifle at the beast and fired.

  11

  Cody Trebeck

  Time stretched like warm taffy. Those twin caves, buried deep into the skull’s sockets, held the universe.

  It was infinite, expansive, history gathered in a melting puddle and swirling in an endless abyss. In those immortal pools of black was love and anger, fear and pain, death and ecstasy, and somewhere in the midst of it all was his parent’s laughter, his mother’s sobs, his father’s coughs and sneezes and snores. Somewhere in the chasm of no return was the creak of mountains and the roar and swell of ocean, salt spray flecked his face, heat roared from the infernal stony lips of the volcano’s tip. The theme tune to Sonic the Hedgehog morphed into his grandmother’s harp playing, the babble of the children in the schoolyard, the ringing of a bell calling them in from play. Car engines thrummed, wind whispered in trees, dogs barked and howled, and cats fucked, rutting like the animals they were to a chorus of angry screeches and mewling. The snow melted as it fell, storms clashed, tectonic plates generated friction as all the elements of the planet fought for their place, expanding and shrinking, breathing in and out, a set of godly lungs that spanned the earth and exhaled into the cosmos.

  Meat touched his lips. Something wet and iron-tasting and cold and…

  His tongue touched the thick liquid, pupils dilated as he wobbled unsteadily on his feet. Tulimaq moved closer, the great bone mask just inches from his face, those eyes drawing him in like black holes as his fear and worry washed away, swirling down the drain until there was nothing left.

  Cody smiled, his father’s smile after six rounds of Kronenberg and a dollop of AC/DC.

  A tear.

  That was sucked away, too.

  The bearded man stroked his erection.

  The wendigo were invisible.

  All that you are is before you. That voice, like the voice of an angel. To submit is to live a life eternal. To taste is to know the answers to life’s questions.

  Cody’s tongue traced his lips.

  Taste the forces of life. Taste what the weak become.

  The words engulfed him, adding its orchestra t
o his lucid dreaming. The words made sense; how could he not have known this all along? That the whispered words in the dark recesses of the house were His, that the language of his worries and fears was merely that of this creature, this infinite god, speaking to him for years in words that didn’t make sense until now. Relief would be kind, relief would be wonderful, to unload the pain and heartache and angst and woe that had befallen Cody since the day his parents had died. He didn’t want to be here. He hated life without them, without some kind of paternal figure to guide him and show him what living was. All that he knew had been stripped bare and there was no one he could blame but himself.

  Come…

  Cody leaned forward his head finding its resting place on the cold surface of the creature’s bony face. Electricity hummed through his system, causing his hairs to stand on end. Blood rushed to his loins and he understood the man frantically masturbating beside him, understood the unbound joy of being set free. There was no greater burden than loss, and he couldn’t carry it any longer. His shoulders ached. His back hurt. He’d lost everything he’d known. His parents. His uncle. His friends. All he had in those moments was Tulimaq.

  And the dog—his own voice, a foreign invader.

  Where was the dog? Where was Kazu?

  The blood coated Cody’s swollen tongue. He swallowed, the strange flavour setting his senses alight. He could feel the liquid like warm whiskey, burning as it descended. A pleasure he’d never get to truly experience. But the blood…

  The blood…

  The blood sprayed his face. The electricity peaked. A thunderclap sounded from the heavens, yet there were no clouds above.

  Tulimaq roared, the force of it knocking Cody onto his ass. His hands slipped in blood. The bearded man yowled, his hands finally leaving his throbbing member as he turned his full attention to something that Cody couldn’t see. An invader? Who was this enemy that had broken into the camp and stolen him from his final destiny?

  The bearded man stretched his arms wide, fingers turned black, bent into claws. A sagging six-pack catching the bloody light, penis like a wizard’s staff as he roared and charged out of sight.

  Cody looked over his shoulder, following his bearded brother as he leapt unnaturally high into the air, his full brunt and weight honed in an arc toward a woman…

  A woman? Cody blinked stupidly, metal coating his throat. A woman with a rifle. The sight aimed at the airborne beast.

  And there, behind her, sprinting into the broken fence of the wendigo, was a girl.

  A girl with a name that Cody couldn’t remember.

  12

  Tori Asplin

  Karl swam through the air in slow motion. Tori lined up the rifle’s sight, tracking his face as he sprang at her, a creature born from what had once been human, but which bore the marks no longer.

  It no longer mattered. None of it did. As her finger tensed on the trigger, her mind followed their journey through time. An alpha male, approaching her in the pub, drink in hand, a grin on his brooding face. Exactly what she needed that night. To experience real, physical attraction, not just the empty words from internet trolls. A sweaty night, roasted in the heat of passion, taken by a man driven by his carnal urges. Hormones mixing like the ingredients in a witch’s bubbling cauldron, setting her senses on fire. Attraction so strong that it panged her stomach. Smiles which told the secrets of her love when she posted them online. Sneaking around in the middle of the night. The thrill of getting caught. The ecstasy of his sex. Dark, mysterious eyes full of wonder, drawing her in from the very start.

  A broken heart.

  Shattered dreams.

  A monster with death scribbled on his face.

  This man was no longer Karl.

  That man was long gone.

  Gone before the storm had begun.

  Nothing more than stains on her bedsheets.

  This creature was a monster. A cog in the machine. A threat to her very existence. He had almost killed her twice already. Had bitten her neck. Had fed her to the bony wolves.

  His body was white, his sagging skin clinging to his wasting figure like dripping honey. The only part of his body not coloured in monochrome was the blazing redness of his cock, an extra appendage that would soon land on her. She didn’t want to think what would happen if it did. The horrors he could unleash.

  So, she didn’t.

  She didn’t think anymore.

  She fired.

  The gun recoiled against her shoulder, a sharp pain throwing her arm back. The bullet ripped through the air, finding the centre of Karl’s face before he could acknowledge its existence. One minute he was there, the next he was no more as shards of bone and slithers of viscera sprayed in all directions. His body jerked, a trout caught on a fishing line pulled taught, trajectory harshly mismanaged. He turned sideways, still coming at her, chest spun to the skies. Black ichor fountained from the wound. Tori dived to the side as the thudding confirmed his landing. Bone snapped. Karl’s body twitched, as though the ghost of his tongue was held to an electric fence.

  Tori gasped, eyes pinned open. The black ooze dribbled into the ground, the reality of the scene enough to shatter what little belief she had left in the world she once knew.

  There was no time to ponder her actions, however, as fetid air pulsed in her direction from the colossal creature rising to its full stature. The small kid paled in comparison, his head trailing the monster’s as it began its descent. A creature of biblical proportions, an intelligence lost in the dark wells of its eye sockets. It stood at least three times the height of the kid, and as it turned its gaze to Tori, she withered. A chamber of screams entered her mind and she threw herself to the ground, hands clasped to her ears, the rifle forgotten, the wendigos forgotten, all that she knew in this world existed in a tunnel of piercing shrieks.

  The ground shook as it lumbered towards her. Someone cried a boy’s name. Another gun fired.

  All Tori could see was darkness as blood trickled from her eardrums.

  13

  Sophie Pearce

  The thing was monstrous, and Cody was nothing more than its toy. A plaything standing before it, tracking its movements as it grew. Sophie was only vaguely aware of Tori’s fight, her own personal battle with the demon that sprang from the ground, because Cody was alive. He was alive.

  And he was in trouble.

  Sophie was slower to advance than Tori, the shotgun leveled at her eyes. There was something dark on Cody’s lips, and his eyes were fixated on the beast. How the hell were three nobodies from the back end of nowhere meant to destroy something that shouldn’t exist? A monster that had hibernated and chosen its time to claim the world around it?

  The monster roared. Sophie braced herself against the sudden gust, laced with mildew and mould and flecks of saliva that stung as it hit her skin. The shotgun was heavy in her trembling hands. The creature brought a long-fingered hand to its chest, its intention to bat Cody away and discard its toy now that something new had caught its attention. A small hole now oozing a dark liquid from its mask in the place where Tori had shot.

  Sophie screamed as she pulled the trigger. Pellets erupted from the barrel, missing her mark, but still finding their way into the creature’s body. One in the shoulder, another in the chest. The creature flinched, but stood firm, arms stretching to the sky as it raised its head to the aurora and gave a raucous howl. An unnatural sound. Warped and bent by the leanings of time. The sound of buildings collapsing and predators dying.

  Though it was still very much alive.

  “Cody!” Sophie cried, firing another round at the creature’s stomach. Two more holes, asymmetrical, dribbling ichor. Out of the corner of her eye she could make out Tori bent low to the ground, hunched over and inactive.

  What the fuck was going on?

  “Cody!”

  He turned as if summoned from a dream. Slow and sticky. His eyes, half-closed, found her, but there was no recognition. Nothing whatsoever in those beautiful blue eyes.<
br />
  “Cody…” Quieter now. Tears salting her lips. “Cody… It’s me…”

  Cody vomited. Blood and chunks of nothing spewed onto the ground. He doubled over, body heaving from the force of it.

  And that was when the creature kicked.

  14

  Oscar Oslow

  Cold, strong hands gripped Oscar’s shoulder and pulled him back. Long black fingers digging into his flesh.

  He shrugged them away, tried to fight them back. He had stayed back a beat, covering Tori and Sophie, rifle poised and ready to help them. They had both run away, and as he tried to catch up, the creatures caught him in their web. For a blissful moment he had thought he was free to enter the circle, but the wendigos soon offered their resistance and shattered that hope entirely.

  “Get off me!” he grunted, hitting their fingers with the barrel of the gun. He pulled and pulled, but they only gripped tighter, fingers piercing his jacket and burying into his skin like hooks as a bearded creature attacked Auntie Tori and she blasted him away, as Sophie called out to the boy and fired his father’s shotgun.

  It was Oscar’s turn to shine. He couldn’t let this happen. But, fuck, did this hurt.

  He groaned, turning his head as he chomped into a set of fingers on his shoulder. Something shrieked. They withdrew. He tasted dust on his tongue, the finger yielding into nothing beneath his bite. Deflating like a peach rotted from the inside, deceptively whole from the outside, hissing air and yielding beneath his touch. What the hell were they made of?