Christopher Golden - A Winter of Ghosts

Just a kiss.

When Ren embraced her, she didn'tresist. The four of them huddled together for long seconds, the fog of theirbreath combining into a cloud, their body heat all that was keeping them fromfreezing completely.

Then ice began to crawl andspread on the inside of the kitchen door, just a few feet away from them, andKara knew that they were out of places to run.

Rob Harper raced down thecorridor, windblown snow stinging his face. He had to fight against the cold,which weighed him down. His arms and legs felt like lead, but he forced himselfto run. He had left Yuuka and Mr. Yamato back in the dorm room shared by Wakanaand Mai, protecting the girls and themselves. They were safer there, behindclosed doors. The windows and the door were rattling in their frames but thestorm in the corridor was much worse.

He had seen the smoke-serpentform of the demon Hannya, and its more monstrous, solid form as well. He hadseen a ghost, at least once. His daughter had told him stories of worse things,of blood-drinking monsters and evil spirits and curses. But he had neverimagined anything like this.

How is it possible? hethought. This wasn't just a blizzard gusting in through broken windows, but astorm raging inside the dormitory. The wind barreled through the halls with itsown momentum, churning the air, leaving ice and snow everywhere.

He slipped, barely catchinghimself before his feet could shoot out from under him. Students cowered in thehall. Others poked their heads out of their rooms. Through one open door he sawthat the windows had shattered and a bloody girl sat sheltered by her desk,pulling shards of glass from cuts in her arms.

As he reached the stairs at thecenter of the building he shielded his eyes from the storm and looked around. Karaand her friends had been going to visit Ren. His room was up ahead, in the boys'wing. But even from here Rob could see the shattered door that had blown off ofits frame. It jutted, half-buried, from a snow-drift in the hall.

"Harper-sensei!" a boyshouted to be heard over the wind. "In here!"

Rob looked up to see a familiarface, one of his students, leaning out of an open door. The boy was gesturingfor him to enter the room to get out of the storm in the hall. But Rob barelyregistered the kid, focused on the ruin of the door ahead. He slowed to a walk,struggling against the gusting wind.

"Kara!" he shouted.

"She's not there!" theboy called over the wind.

Rob spun to look at him. "Yousaw her?"

The boy pushed his too-long hairaway from his eyes and pointed back at the stairwell. "They went down!"

One glance at the steps told himthe descent would be treacherous. The arched, cathedral window had shatteredand the wind funneled in from outside, battering the walls, driving sleet andsnow in. He gritted his teeth against the cold as he tore off his jacket. Thecold cut right through his clothes, biting deep, but he forced himself onward. Atthe top of the stairs he threw his jacket over the railing, using it to keephis flesh from touching the metal as he started down.

The soles of his shoes skiddedon the steps but he managed to steady himself on the railing. Broken glasscrunched underfoot as he rounded the corner of the landing and descended to thefirst floor.

"Kara!" he called, andhe listened for a reply.

No one was in the foyer and fora moment hope withered in his heart. Then he glanced down the next flight ofstairs toward the basement and saw a dark figure there, huddled in the cornerof the stairwell. The storm had dusted over any tracks they might have leftbehind, but maybe this kid could tell him something. Rob rushed down to thelanding between the first floor and basement.

"Have you seen — "he began, but then he snapped his mouth shut.

Ice crusted the dead boy's face.The corpse's eyes were open and staring in terror. Something had gone down thesteps past him and frozen him to the spot. It could only be Yuki-Onna. Themoment the impossible storm had begun, he had known that the Woman in White hadcome down from Takigami Mountain, but now he knew that the demon was hunting.

Professor Harper shouted hisdaughter's name again as he rushed down the last few steps. His skin burnedwith the cold and his bones felt brittle, as if they might snap at any moment.

The cafeteria doors hung open,one torn from its hinges but pinned to the wall by the storm. Snow coated thefloor and walls, and drifted in corners. A shape that might have been a bodylay under the layer of white and he tore his gaze away, refusing to believe itcould be his daughter. A dead girl stood frozen solid less than ten feet away. Aboy, alive and terrified, had curled up beneath a cafeteria table. Rob couldhear him whimpering.

On the far side of the room, theWinter Witch stood in front of the thick, wooden door that led into thekitchen. The door was coated in ice and had cracked down the middle, and Robcould hear girls screaming on the other side. Yuki-Onna gestured with her handand a gust of wind swept through the cafeteria and slammed against the door,shoving it open further, widening the crack. The girls were on the other side,trying to keep it closed.

Rob stared at Yuki-Onna. He hadnever seen anything so beautiful. Her kimono and her hair were both of thepurest white. The curve of her neck and the line of her jaw, even at thisangle, were incredibly sensual. She moved with the grandeur of angels, anotherworldly thing, and looking at her stole his breath away.

Then he heard his daughterscream again, and he wanted to kill the witch. Only then did the emptiness ofhis hands occur to him. How could he fight her? He had no weapon to attack her.But he could not allow her to kill Kara.

A metal chair had been blownagainst the wall and upended. Half-covered in snow, its legs thrust upward. Robpicked it up, brushed it off, and rushed at Yuki-Onna, raising the chair overhis head. The snow crunched underfoot as he cocked it back and began to swing.

Yuki-Onna turned and stared athim. With a flick of her wrist the wind gusted and the chair was torn from hisgrasp, clattering onto a table a dozen feet away. Her eyes were totally black. Ifthere had ever been color there, it had been entirely eclipsed. Those gleaming,oil-black eyes stared at him and then the beautiful creature smiled at him,showing a mouthful of tiny, jagged shark's teeth.

"Are you one of the cursed?" the Winter Witch asked, her voice the mournful howl of the storm.

The wind shoved him from behind,lifted him off of his feet, twisted and swirled him over to fall in a heap onhis knees before her. Yuki-Onna bent, studying him with those soulless,eclipsed eyes.

"You feel like one of them,"the witch said, frowning. "But you're not, are you?"

"Leave them alone!" Rob shouted.

Yuki-Onna smiled that dreadfulsmile again. "Oh, I think not," she said. And she lifted Rob off ofthe floor as if he were a child's plaything, pulled him close, and opened herjaws. Those shark teeth darted toward his throat. .

"Dad!" Kara shouted.

The door had split in two. Theyhad been trying to hold it back, knowing that it would be only seconds beforethe storm drove the splintered halves aside and Yuki-Onna swept in. Now Karasaw the demon — vampire, witch, whatever the hell the ice queen truly was- and she acted.

Thrusting her fingers into thecrack in the door, she pulled inward.

"What are you doing?" Sakura shouted.

"Her father! It's.." Miho started, but she could not find the words.

Ren helped Kara, pushing hisfingers into the gap and hauling the door open. Sakura and Miho got out of theway, now that they saw the horror unfolding just outside the door. Kara's handswere numb, with no feeling in her fingers. She could barely move them and onlyknew they were doing what she wanted because she could see them. Her nose wasclogged with ice. Tears had frozen on her cheeks.