The Winter People (36 page)

Johnny made a
gesture to Mike indicating two arrows, straight ahead.  Mike nodded,
understanding what he wanted.  Mike notched two arrows simultaneously, lit
their fuses, and let them fly straight out in front of them.  At the same time
Johnny fired two arrows so quickly to the right, they could have come off of
one string.  Johnny didn’t wait for the dynamite to explode.  He fired two more
arrows in quick succession in the same direction.

 Mike took the cue
and fired two more of his arrows a little further to the left of the first two
he had fired.  It was then that the first two arrows exploded with muffled
thuds and kicked up clouds of spoiled snow.  The creatures nearest to the
explosions danced to the left but kept coming.  At that moment, Johnny gunned
his snowmobile and lurched forward to where the first two creatures he had shot
had just winked out.  Mike gunned his throttle and followed.

The third and
fourth of the Winter People that Johnny had shot at disappeared in a white hot
flash, just as the second set of explosions went off.  The two creatures that
had managed to sidestep the first two explosions couldn’t sidestep these and
were thrown to the side by the force of the blasts.  One of them, who was in
between the two blasts, stood up and slowly melted away to nothing in the wink
of an eye.  The other stumbled to its feet and started coming after them again.

Fortunately for
Mike and Johnny, the machines got up to speed before the Winter People could
close on them and they squirted through the hole they had made.  Once they were
past them Johnny turned and headed to the South, keeping to the open fields
instead of the trees.  He knew it would take longer, but he also knew it was
their best chance to stay alive.  The creatures hated them now more than ever,
and if they ever got their hands on them…Johnny trembled.

Johnny put himself
low in the seat and kept the throttle floored.  He wanted to put as much
distance between himself and the
others
as he could.  He knew it would
only gain him a half hour at best, but even that would be welcome.  He would
need the time to warm up and get his wits back around him.  Johnny was near to
freezing and fatigue was on the verge of overtaking him.  With all he had been
through in such a short time, and the cold to compound it, Johnny was nearly
spent.  He wondered then how Mike was doing.

***

The explosion
rocked the courthouse.  Dulled by the snow piled up against the outside walls,
it still reverberated through the building.  Glasses and lamps shook with its
force and Sarah could feel tremors through the floor.  Then there was far off
sound of thunks and clangs against the roof or the side of the building.  Sarah
even heard a window or two shatter somewhere upstairs.

“What the hell was
that?”  Tom wondered aloud.

“That was Nick.” 
Sarah replied.

“How do you
know?”  Tom pressed.

“I know.”  Was all
she said.  And she did know.  She could feel him.  He had just blown up the gas
station and had taken a bunch of those bastards with it.  For the first time
since Gary had come back alone she had hope.  Nick was alive.  She knew it.  He
was in a dark and wet place, tumbling.

Nick was fighting
to breath, and Sarah coughed one as if it were her that was taking in the
water.  She could smell the putrid water all around her, and feel its cold seep
into her bones.  There was the disorientation as he tumbled over and around in
the dark.  The wonder when dim light shone on strange objects.  And the pain
when ragged bits cut into his flesh and exposed it to the filth he was floating
in.

Sarah could feel
it all.  Nick was alive, but he was getting weaker.  He was cold and wet, and
he was tumbling.  Then Sarah felt the sudden drop into an abyss.  Nick was
scared, so scared.  And his lungs were burning for air.  A hope.  A light. 
Then demoralization.  Sarah felt it all.  The last thing she felt was a prayer
for her from Nick, and then icy cold.  Sarah snapped out of her fugue to see
Gary and Tom staring at her, concerned.

“Nick’s still
alive,” she said, “but he won’t be for long.”

“What?  How do
you…what are you talking about?”  Tom asked.

“I felt it.” 
Sarah replied, and started to put on her snowsuit.

“I know you want
him to be alive, Sarah,” Tom said, “but don’t be foolish.”

 “He’s alive.” 
She repeated.  “I have to go and help him.”  And she continued to dress in her
winter gear.  Beside her, Gary was also gearing up.

“Sarah?”  Tom
pleaded.  “Gary, what do you think you’re doing?”

“I’m going with
her.  I promised…” was all Gary said and continued to don his winter wear.

Tom turned back to
Sarah, “Where, where are you going?”

“He blew up the
gas station.”  She replied.  “He blew it up then ended up in a drain.  He’s in
the drain and tumbling over stuff.  I saw something that looked like a spider.”

“Damn!  That
sounds like the treatment plant.”  Gary said excited.  Tom looked at him
dumbfounded.  “I worked there over the summer for some extra cash.”  Gary
explained, and then proceeded to put on his goggles.

“He’s under the
ice.”  Sarah continued.  “He came out in a big void of water under the ice. 
He’s drowning.  I have to go to him.”  She demanded.

Tom tried to get
his mind around this, “Okay Sarah, let’s say that he is drowning at the
treatment plant.”

“That sounds like
one of the big holding ponds that the water dumps into for final processing.” 
Gary interjected, now donning his gloves.

Annoyed with
Gary’s acceptance of her delusion, Tom continued.  “Sarah, if he’s drowning its
already too late.  You’ll just go out there and get killed by those things.” 
He tried to dissuade her.

Angry, Sarah
defended, “I watch the Discovery channel!  I know about near drowning!  You’re
not dead until you’re warm and dead!  Isn’t that right doctor?”

Tom bit his lip. 
“Yes, that is right,” he admitted, “but that’s only if you can get the victim
to the proper care.  We don’t have anything we would need for something like
that.  And even if by some miracle we did revive him, after so long under water
he would most likely have severe brain damage.”

Sarah had finished
dressing for the cold, as had Gary, and headed for the garage.  The last thing
she did as she left the offices was grab the two flare guns and a box of
flares.  As she and Gary walked down the hall to the garage, she handed a flare
gun to him and a handful of flares.  Tom followed along protesting the whole
way.

“I have to go,”
Sarah said flatly, “he’s my brother.”

Finally, Tom
acquiesced.  He couldn’t stop her.  “When you find him you’ll need to start CPR
right away.  And don’t stop until you get him here.”  Tom offered.  “And don’t
bother to warm him.  We’ll take care of that here.  The CPR is the most
critical thing for your brother.”

Gary paused at the
workbench in the garage to grab a coil of rope and an ax.  “We might need
these.”  He suggested.  “We should just take one snowmobile so one of us can
give CPR to Nick.  Johnny’s has that thing behind it that he brought Hayden and
Roscoe in on, that should work.”

“Good idea Gary.” 
Sarah replied.  “You drive, and I’ll take care of Nick.”

Sarah and Gary
stood side by side with the flare guns held before them as Tom opened the big
door.  They climbed the mound of snow to Johnny’s machine and Sarah stood watch
as Gary checked the gas tank then started it.  It grumbled to life almost
instantly, and Gary was mildly surprised given the cold.  Sarah climbed on
behind him and wrapped one arm around his waist.  In the other hand she held
the flare gun.  Gary had his tucked inside his coat pocket.  Gary felt giddy
warmth in his stomach when Sarah gave him a squeeze letting him know she was
ready.

Even as the big
door was closing, Gary hit the throttle and they eased forward, headed for the
treatment plant.  It was late in the afternoon and with the cloud cover and
snow, it felt like twilight outside.  Before them they could see the surreal
orange glow of the gas station as it burned, reflected off the low lying
clouds.  Gary pointed the machine in that direction, down the main street toward
the other end of town.  He pushed the throttle as far as it would go, not only
for Nick, but also for what else might be on the street with them.

As they moved down
Rte. 14, Sarah looked about anxiously.  She searched the buildings and side
streets for movement, or worse.  But there was nothing there.  The town was
eerily deserted, both from human and inhuman life.  She half expected to be set
upon by the
others
as soon as they exited the garage, but nothing
happened.  Then she was sure they would be chasing them as they came down the
street.  And still nothing.  She wasn’t sure what made her more nervous,
confronting a demon of white, or the nothingness they were now in.

Sarah kept her
vigil up, searching the buildings and streets as they went by until at last the
town gave way to a fenced in cluster of squat square buildings and flat areas. 
These flat areas were the ponds, she knew.  And as Gary pulled up to open a
gate large enough to drive a car through, she pointed to the first pond past
the last building.  Gary nodded and eased the snowmobile in that direction.

He pulled the
snowmobile alongside the pond and killed the engine.  Gary tested the ice that
covered the pond gingerly at first, then with his full weight.  It was strong. 
This was both good and bad.  Good for them to walk on, bad for them to chop
through.  Gary took the rope and ax and followed Sarah out onto the ice.  They
stopped halfway out to the center and off to the right side.

“Here.”  Sarah
said, pointing to the ice. 

And that’s where
Gary started chopping with the ax.  With each blow he landed, it reverberated
and traveled back up the handle to his hands.  After a short while, his hands
were numb and he was exhausted from the workout in the cold.  He handed the ax
to Sarah and took out his flare gun to stand watch.  After a while, Sarah
handed the ax back to Gary.

They continued
like this for several minutes until Gary started to see water.  “Now what,” he
thought, “it’s not like we can dive in there after him?”  As Sarah widened the
hole, Gary thought feverishly.  What could they do?  And that’s when he ran to
the closest building.  Hanging from hooks on the side of the building were large
debris nets.  He had used it to remove trash and animals that had fallen into
the pond in the summer and hadn’t been able to get out.  Gary plucked the net
off the wall and returned to Sarah just as she finished with the hole.

Sarah saw Gary
holding the net and understood.  It looked like the nets on the end of a long
pole that she had seen around the pool back home, only larger and much stronger. 
Sarah put a hand on the pole and directed it for Gary.  Within a few short
moments Gary felt something.  He recognized the feeling as he remembered
pulling a sheep out of this pond last summer.  How the sheep had ever worked
its way into the fenced in pond they never knew, but Gary had to get it out. 
He had also puked right after he had dragged it to shore.

Gary traced the
outline of the body on the bottom of the pond until he found what he believed
was the head.  Then Gary bit his lip.  Not a body.  Not a body.  Not a body he
told himself.  He glanced over at Sarah; half afraid that she had heard what he
was thinking.  If she did know, she wasn’t showing it.  Gary sighed and focused
on the task.  It was Nick.  He was trying to save Nick.

So Gary worked the
net over Nick’s head and started to haul him up.  He was so heavy it took the
two of them pulling together to get him to the surface.  He’d nearly slipped
out of the net on several occasions, but Gary’s experience and quick reflexes
kept him snagged.  Finally, Nick’s head came to the surface.  Gary put all of
his weight onto the long pole to keep Nick at the surface, and Sarah reached
down and grabbed onto the hood of his coat.

Gary released the
debris net and helped Sarah to drag Nick’s lifeless shape out of the hole and
onto the ice.  It took everything the two could do to manage the dead weight,
and Gary had nearly fallen in to the water himself.  But they finally had
managed to lay Nick on his back fully on the ice.  His clothes were tattered
and parts of his exposed flesh shown through in several places.  Nick was a
pale blue and his eyes were vacant orbs in his head.  As the diminishing snow
began to stick to him, they loaded Nick onto the litter attached to the back of
the machine.

Sarah climbed on
the litter with her brother and began the CPR motions, although the flex of the
litter made the chest compressions useless.  But she did not stop.  Two breaths
and thirty compressions, two and thirty, two and thirty she continued.  Even as
the snowmobile lurched forward she continued.  Her face freezing in the biting
cold and wind, she continued.  With her eyes tearing as much from the wind as
from what she was doing, she continued.  She wouldn’t stop.

Sarah’s arms ached
and she was light headed from the breathing, but she continued.  And when the
big garage door worked its way open, Gary and Tom literally had to pull Sarah
off her brother so they could get him to the offices.  They laid Nick across
one of the office desks they had cleared off and Sarah finally allowed Gary to
assist her with the CPR.  Gary took over compressions while she breathed for
her brother, one breath and five compressions, and so they went as Tom looked
Nick over.

During compressions,
Tom managed to get Nicks clothes off of him so that he was clad only in his
soggy underwear.  There were gashes and abrasions all over Nick’s body. 
Fortunately, none of them was bleeding right now.  Next he laid blankets all
over Nick and took the two space heaters from Hayden and placed them on either
side of Nick.  Tom knew that Hayden was at least alive, and would probably come
around without too much trouble.  But Nick was in bad shape.