When Winter Comes | Book 6 | Winter Comes Page 7

  19

  Cody Trebeck

  Cody looked at the world through the soft, fuzzy lens of a dream. A tinnitus whine rang in his head. His body ached and hurt and throbbed. Bones and limbs should not have been where they were, but what else could he do? He was lucky to have survived the flight. Lucky to still be alive.

  Lucky…

  As the wendigos reached fever pitch, something soft and warm nuzzled against him. A rough tongue traced his lips and he wondered if Sophie was back, or if her kisses had all been a dream. A bony head nestled into his shoulder as a shadow loomed over him.

  Come. It is time.

  Chikuk crouched beside Cody, a strange vigour in her step that hadn’t been there before. He wondered where this strange woman had come from, if Chikuk was simply a guardian angel watching over him, appearing in his mind when he needed her most. He rose to his feet, struggling against the broken bones and bruised flesh. She was strong, and here she stood.

  Kazu took point in front of them as Chikuk bellowed a command and drew the attention of Tulimaq.

  The giant creature stilled, venom and ferocity in those cavernous eyes. The white slate of bone was now stained with black and grey, and the creature limped as it took a stride towards Chikuk.

  Chikuk spoke without moving her lips, her voice filling Cody’s head and the heads of all those around. It is time to close the gates. Chikuk raised her arms to the sky.

  The edges of the crimson aurora morphed, the vividness of their red light now showing a hint of azure and emerald.

  Your time is up. You have drawn your recruits to your lair, but you will not take them. The edges of your enclosure are drawn once more, and here you shall rest until the next king dies.

  Cody’s brow creased. “The next king?”

  A whisper of a smile met Chikuk’s lips. She nodded towards Tulimaq, to where the remaining Masked Ones stood, one of their number out of place and smaller than the rest.

  20

  Oscar Oslow

  Oscar met the old woman’s gaze, her voice appearing in the folds of his mind. His heart beat at a steady rhythm, a calm washing over him in the presence of his parents, both of them, together at last.

  She summoned him towards her, and Oscar walked, unafraid and unencumbered. The monstrous wendigo watched on, a snarl hiding in the dark pit of its mouth. There was something about the woman, something that made little sense, and yet it made all the sense in the world. She was familiar, appearing as though he had somehow had this dream before, but he could not recall when.

  He stood before the woman, the boy, and their dog. His mother and father flanking him. The old woman looked at him with dark, button eyes and reached out towards him. He didn’t flinch as she removed the bone mask from his head and stared deeply into his eyes. He gasped as his mother and father disappeared, though he could still feel their presence beside him.

  Are you ready, child? she asked, a hand cupping his cheek.

  He nodded.

  You have the strength and heart of a warrior. Our people need a leader that is strong, one who is bold and fearless and can keep the monsters at bay for the longest of time. Can you achieve that goal for us? Delay the hours in which Tulimaq shall rise again?

  He nodded.

  Cody frowned, shaking his head. “Can’t you just kill him? End it all now? You can’t let him escape like this…”

  Chikuk silenced him with a wave of her hand. The world runs in circles. Evil shall rise, and good shall conquer. The sun makes way for the moon. Life is met with death and death is met with life, and so it shall always be. So it has always been.

  Tulimaq panted, his enormous body cresting and falling with each breath, a strange patience in the place where his eyes should have been.

  You will come with me, Chikuk spoke to Oscar. My days are numbered, but I will teach you all that Aklaq had to pass on. It is time, boy. It is time…

  She eased Cody back to the ground, then turned and started back towards the trees. Kazu followed in step, walking dutifully behind.

  Oscar paused, hesitation rising as he scanned the scene and took in the chaos he’d be leaving behind. He looked for Tori, and found her lifeless body a few meters away, limbs bent at odd angles and a puddle of blood pooling beneath her. Nothing could have survived Tulimaq’s crushing fists.

  There was nothing for it. There was nothing left. His mother and father were gone. His auntie was with them somewhere in the void. The boy looked up at him with imploring eyes, refusing to believe that this chaos and destruction would one day begin again, the cyclical loops of nature taking place as the world kept on spinning.

  Chikuk paused. The reds of the aurora melted.

  Oscar followed, a single tear rolling down his cheek.

  Behind him, Tulimaq roared, then strode toward the trees. They parted to allow for his massive mass, creaking as a gully appeared to allow his passing. He stopped by the clearing’s edge, the remaining wendigo slipping into the unnatural darkness as Tulimaq waited patiently, eyes fixed on Cody.

  21

  Alex Goins

  Alex held his breath, waiting for the ‘A-Ha!’ moment. Waiting for the ‘Gotcha!’ Wondering what it was he had seen. Wondering what the colossal beast was waiting for.

  The world was silent. The clearing was almost vacant. Above him, the aurora metamorphosed into the colours he had seen in the brochures and on the internet, months ahead of his departure to the frozen north. Back when he knew what warmth was, and the biggest problems he had had were meeting the deadlines for his agent and publisher and grieving for his fallen sister. Another time. Another place.

  He scanned the clearing, taking in the devastation. Bodies littered the ground, most of them pale with black fingers and toes, some with masks of bone, and two that had once been human. The strange, mangled soup of a woman that he would never get to meet, only an arm and hand with a golden ring remaining amongst the violated pieces of her corpse. The other, a deflated body of a much larger man that somehow felt familiar, though he couldn’t be sure. He couldn’t be sure of anything anymore. His head swam, his tired body breathing a sigh of relief, a whine in his head…

  And a girl.

  A girl screaming words that made no sound, aiming her open mouth at Alex, waving for him to come on over to where Cody had stood…

  Cody.

  Alex ran. Ran as though his life depended on it. Ran over to the boy struggling to sit up, one arm crossing his chest and clamping over his ribs. Alex skidded beside him and threw his arms around him, a flood of tears racking his body at the sight of his nephew. Finally. There. In his arms.

  Sophie joined in the embrace, arms around them both and they wept until their eyes burned and there was no more crying to be done. Wept until Cody groaned with pain and Alex eased him onto his back. He wasn’t sure how he was going to get Cody back home, but he would try. Dear God, he would try.

  “Are you okay?” Alex asked. It was strange to hear his own voice again, sounding as if he had spoken through three panes of glass.

  Sophie nodded. Wiped her tears with the back of her hand.

  The ground rumbled. Alex turned to the forest, towards where the creature stood. His skin bristled. For a blissful moment he had forgotten that the creature was still there.

  “What does it want?” Sophie asked, her voice weak. “Why is it just standing there?”

  “I don’t know,” Alex replied.

  The creature made a sound, then. A low braying as it nudged its head toward Cody.

  Alex’s throat went dry. Cody forced himself to sit up, grunting as his eyes locked onto the beast. Despite his wounds, and the unnatural angle of the bones prodding out beneath his skin like sticks beneath wet tissue paper, he rose to his feet, wobbling where he stood.

  Alex’s heart raced. “Cody? What’s he saying to you? What’s going on?”

  Cody took a staggered step forward. The beast raised its chin approvingly, black ichor dripping from its mask as the aurora shimmered above.
<
br />   Another step.

  “Cody, no.” Alex moved in front of the boy. He reached out to place a hand on his shoulder, until he remembered the broken bones and saw the flecks of blood blossoming through his clothes. Cody’s pupils were dilated, the whites around his eyes losing the battle as the black continued to grow. “Cody…”

  Cody took another step, head meeting Alex’s chest. Alex straightened his back, bracing himself as Cody tried to push forward. The kind was strong, and on the next step, the boy’s head nudged his ruptured shoulder. Alex groaned in pain, tears hot around his eyes. “Cody, stop.”

  Sophie ran behind Cody, wrapping her arms around his waist, head pressed against his back. “No. Stop. Please.”

  Sandwiched between the pair of them, Cody grunted, pushing forward, nudging Alex back inch by inch. The creature growled his approval behind them as they clung to Cody and tried to force him back, to stop him making any more progress towards the beast.

  “Cody, please,” Sophie begged. “Don’t… We need you… I need you… please.”

  Alex looked down his chin at Cody, not recognising the boy that doggedly pushed forward. His nose was wrinkled, mouth turned into a pained sneer, eyes dark. With each step his strength only grew as they made it to the centre of the clearing. Far away, somewhere in the forest, a flock of birds took flight, signalling the receding path of the wendigo as they disturbed any animals brave enough to have borne witness to the night’s showdown.

  “Cody!” Sophie screamed the words, now. Hands slipping as Cody wriggled from her grip, growing ever more frenzied with each step, as if just the proximity to the creature gave him power. Alex peeled his lips back, moving behind Cody as he wrapped his arm around the boy’s throat.

  Cody gasped. Growled. Grunted. Protested. Flecks of spit flew from his lips, and still they moved forward. Still Sophie’s feet skidded, and Alex gritted against the pain as he forced both arms into play, ignoring the hot white lightning bolts that shot through his shoulder. The creature smiled—if, indeed, you could call it that. It waited with an impossible patience, as if it could stand there for eons and still be satisfied.

  Alex met the great beast’s eyes, Cody only fifteen feet away, losing himself in the monster’s shadow. He dug his feet into the dirt, pulled hard enough to knock Cody onto his ass, then laughed. “You can’t have him. No matter how hard you try, he stays with us. He stays with me.” The tears blurred his vision. Cody fell still in his arms, cradled in Alex’s straddle as he stared up at the creature. “Go. Be gone. Your time is up.”

  Cody’s chest rose and fell with heavy breaths, his head lowered to the floor. Sophie whimpered behind them, her fight given up as she sobbed and quivered in the great beast’s presence. The creature’s nostrils flared, great gusts of warm, stale air wafting towards them.

  And then it was gone.

  They could hear the creature lumbering for some distance, the ground trembling with each step. Alex clung to Cody, arms clawing at his chest as he buried his face into his neck, dried his tears on the boy’s coat. Cody was silent, and so too was Alex. There was nothing left to be said. It was over.

  It was all over.

  Or, so Alex thought.

  “Cody!” Sophie screamed, her voice slicing through this strange new silence as Cody ripped away from Alex’s clutches, stumbling and using his arms and legs to run away towards the pines, all-fours like some kind of animal as he disappeared into the darkness. Alex reached forward, collapsing onto one arm, the world turned sideways as Cody’s shape was claimed by the forest. He shouted until he was hoarse, his agony joined by Sophie’s as they lay by the forest’s edge, knowing already that to chase Cody would be pointless. They were in there, all of them, and this was the way of things. This was the way of the wendigo.

  Cody was just another soldier for their number…

  Alex wasn’t sure how long he and Sophie lay there in the blood-soaked dirt, surrounded by the dismembered limbs of wendigo and human alike, but soon the sky began to break. Above them, the aurora was fading. In the distance, the ever-pervading whites and greys of the storm were subsiding and the first rays of dawn pinked the horizon, melting peaches back into the world.

  Alex shuffled closer to Sophie, wrapping his arms around her, struggling to comprehend the weight that compressed his heart. Listened for footsteps, as though Cody was playing an inappropriate prank and would soon be back with them.

  Silence screamed its passing of time.

  “Let’s get you out of here,” Alex said at last as Sophie shivered violently in his arms. For the first time that night, he knew it wasn’t because of the cold. They rose, Alex grimacing as he supported Sophie and walked in the heavy silence across the clearing, eyes grown numb to the dead littered around him. But, as they made it to the other side of the clearing, Alex stopped, noticing the crumpled shape lying a short distance away.

  His heart broke, then. What little glue that bound the fractured remains of his beating organ together dissipated. Light danced off the wet marbles of her lifeless eyes. Blue had already begun to claim the soft, warm pinks of her lips. Tori’s twisted body, broken and discarded, looked more like a doll’s, discarded and tossed from this world. Lifeless and empty.

  Alex collapsed beside her. Kissed her lips. Tried to breathe life back into her lungs.

  But the world was finished with her, too.

  22

  Alice Bowman

  She pressed her face against the glass, her breath fogging her view, masking the woman from sight.

  It was her. She could recognize that woman anywhere. As Damien snored soundly behind her, she fixed her gaze on the old lady, rubbing her hand along the glass to gain a moment of clarity before her breath fogged up the glass again. It was her. The lady from her dreams.

  Alice’s dreams had been her usual concoction of play, colour, and sweet treats as she shifted beneath her duvet. In this particular rendition, her mother had gifted her a brand-new toy, a spinning top, and it spun neatly before her, the vibrant images of stars and moons and swirls turned blurry and into snow. Alice had been laughing, clapping her hands and begging the top to spin faster when the woman had appeared on the cusp of her vision.

  Her mother had melted from sight, replaced only with the kind and wrinkled face of the old woman, kneeling beside her, smile touching her ears. You must go, my little sweetheart.

  Alice raised an eyebrow. The top kept spinning.

  Soon the monsters will come, the woman explained, lips unmoving. A dog appearing at her side and licking Alice’s face eagerly. Alice giggled as the woman spoke. This will not make sense to you, but you must leave now. Happiness lives on the other side of what you don’t know.

  Alice pushed the dog away, her own smile beaming. “Is Mummy coming, too? And Daddy?”

  The woman’s smile never faltered. She didn’t offer a reply. Instead, she reached out and held Alice’s hand. Her touch was warm, yet commanding. Alice laughed as the dog took step beside her, tongue hanging out his mouth as he panted. The world was colourful, the world was bright. Stars wheeled above. Somewhere in the distance the front door closed downstairs and she had heard her father’s heavy boots trailing upstairs. The woman paused, smiling down on her, a face as bright as the sun. A moment later and someone screamed, the dream turning the sound into strange music as Alice trod down stairs made of snow found her boots and coat. There were other figures around, but they kept their distance, looking like withered trees in her mind.

  The way ahead will be cold and dark, but Kazu will guide you.

  Alice stepped outside of her house, eyes opening fully into a world of white. The dog led the way, a step in front of her as the woman stayed where she was.

  “You’re not coming with me?” Alice asked, spitting snow from her infant lips.

  You will find the way, the woman replied. You will find the way, and I will find my way back to you. There is nothing more for you here. Life takes many paths. This is now yours. Follow the man, and he will lead
you to me. I will come for you soon.

  Alice had thought often about the old lady, even as the dog guided her to the abandoned house in the middle of nowhere and found her a place to hide. Even as the older boy invaded her private hideout and held the darkened glare in his eye. Even as Alex led Alice and the others out into the snow and found the kind lady’s house. At every turn she thought about her.

  And there she was. Alice waved a hand on the glass to clear the fog. The woman waved a hand back, that same knowing smile still on her face, an older boy, one she recognized, standing beside her. Kazu by her feet.

  Come. It is time.

  Alice slid the door open and met the cold. She cast a glance back at Damien, glad to find him still asleep. She grinned, her heart lightening for the first time that night, though she didn’t understand why. All that she knew was things were going to be okay.

  In the end, everything would be okay.

  Epilogue

  Rain hurled itself against the floor to ceiling windows. The sky outside was grey, the buttery glow of streetlights melting into dreary orbs as dark shapes flitted past the glass.

  The smell of dust and paper filled the air. Warmth pulsed towards them from a roaring fire built into the grand stone facade. A table, piled high with books, framed the man, hunched over, scribbling a signature with black pen onto the fresh virgin pages of each copy.

  The storm didn’t assuage the line. Men, women, and children flocked from all over the country to catch a glimpse and get their two-minutes of contact time. Toddlers grew bored, wriggled in their parents’ arms. A solitary security guard stood nearby, coiled wires looping into his ears as he monitored the queues and ensured that people didn’t outstay their time at the table.