Йен Райт - The Final Winter

Harry wasn’t sure if he wanted Lucas to shut up or carry on. It was enjoyable to see the drug-dealing weasel so uncomfortable, but Harry didn’t know himself what had happened to the boy’s father; he was unsure if it was a conversation the group of them should be having. Lucas seemed to have a tendency of asking too many personal questions.

Lucas stood up unexpectedly. “A vacation, you say? Well, I hope he returns soon. Anyone for a beer?”

Talk about taking it to the brink, Harry thought, relieved that the conversation had altered course just as it had neared an emotional minefield. It left Harry wondering what exactly had happened to make Damien so defensive about his father. He had a feeling Old Graham knew, but when Harry glanced over at the old man, the pensioner looked away.

Yeah, he knows alright.

Harry’s thinking was interrupted by Steph’s voice coming from behind the bar. She and Lucas she had moved away from the fireplace and entered into the flickering light of the bar’s candles. There was a phlegmy sound of concern in Steph’s voice as she spoke: “I think we have a problem, guys.”

“What?” They all asked in unison.

Steph walked back over to the group and re-entered the light of the fireplace. She had a bottle of beer in her right hand, the top already removed. She turned it upside down.

Nothing happened.

“Jesus, no!” Old Graham cried, throwing his hands up at the sky as he realised what he was seeing. “The bloody beer’s frozen.”

Harry eye’s widened.

Is it really that cold?

“Dude, what are you doing?”

Ben glanced over his shoulder – pointless as he couldn’t see Jerry in the dark anyway – and replied, “What you think I’m doing? I’m opening the door.”

“No way! It’s Night of the Living Dead out there. If someone starts hammering the door, trying to get in – you lock it, tight! Then you board it up with planks and nails.”

Ben didn’t have time for this. He let out a long sigh. “George Romero doesn’t direct your life, Jerry. He made a couple of decent movie’s thirty years ago. Get over it. Besides, do you have any planks and nails, because I don’t! Movies aren’t real!” He heard Jerry wince in the dark – if a wince could in fact produce a sound – and smiled. It was as though his comment had managed to manifest physically and punch his friend on the nose.

The banging continued on the door and a slinking silhouette flittered against the pure white backdrop of the snow outside. Ben reached out for the door handle when something occurred to him. He paused. “Hey, who’s there? Stop your banging, okay?”

Sure enough the banging stopped at his command.

“I said who’s there?”

From behind Ben, Jerry said nervously, “Dude, I swear to God if you let the Lost Boys in here to eat us, I’ll never forgive you. Just remember if it’s a vampire, don’t invite them in.”

Ben shook his head again, certain that his friend had smoked one of his ‘funny fags’ at some point during the last few hours. It was the only explanation for him being so annoying.

“My name’s Jess,” said the person outside. “I work at the supermarket down the path. Please let me in. Please .”

Jerry leapt up and punched the air. “Dude! That’s the girl I was just talking about. The fittie! I swear it must be fate.”

Ben grinned. “Pity we can’t let her in; just in case she’s a zombie or a vampire?”

“Dude, stop fooling. Let her in!”

Ben couldn’t help but laugh as he turned to the door. The girl’s silhouette continued to dance frantically against the snow outside. Ben wondered what on earth had gotten her so worked up.

“Jess,” he said through the glass, “you still there?”

“Yes, let me in.” She sounded frightened.

“The thing is, Jess. The door isn’t locked.”

There was silence, followed by: “Huh?”

“The door isn’t locked – but it opens outwards . You need to pull it towards yourself instead of banging on it.”

After a further moment of silence, the door started to open and cold air flowed in through the slowly widening gap. Illuminated by the crisp moonlight reflecting off the snow, a delicately-featured face appeared in the doorway. It looked embarrassed.

It took almost fifteen minutes for Ben to calm Jess down sufficiently that she managed to introduce herself. Once Ben had let her in and locked the door (she’d insisted on it), the girl had started to catch her breath. The three of them now stood by the entranceway where they could just about make each other out under the moon’s shimmering glow and the green pulse of the fire exit sign.

“You’re lucky,” Ben said, patting her on the back. Her entire body was trembling. Whether it was just the cold, or something else, Ben couldn’t tell. “We were just thinking about getting out of here,” he explained. “You just caught us in time.”

The girl glanced over her shoulder at the door behind her, as though she expected something might burst through at any moment. The wind was picking up outside and flakes of snow were whirling up and settling against the glass.

Ben raised an eyebrow. “What exactly happened to you out there?”

“Yeah,” Jerry added. “Something give you the heebie jeebies, or what?”

Jess giggled, but it was a nervous sound. “I guess you could say something like that, but I’m probably just being silly. Least I hope so.”

“You got us a bit freaked out too,” Ben said. “Banging on the door like that!”

“Sorry. I was just in a panic.”

“Why though?” Ben wanted to get to the point quickly, disconcertingly aware of the fact that they would all have to get out of there soon. It was getting far too cold to hang around any longer.

“Well, I left the supermarket to see if anybody knew why the power had gone off,” Jess told them, “and also to get away from my cow of a manager. She drives me insane, but I just act really happy around her because I know it makes her mad. I call her Kathleen and it drives her craaaaaazeee! With a capital Z.”

Ben got the girl back on track. “Then what happened?”

“Oh right, well, it’s the weirdest thing. I got lost!”

Ben and Jerry spoke in unison: “Lost?”

“Yeah, literally like ten steps out of the doorway. I couldn’t find my way back at all. Every time I changed direction it felt like I was going round in circles. I couldn’t see anything other than snow all around me. That’s when I started to get, you know, a bit scared, so I got my phone out to call someone at the supermarket to come and get me. But my phone was all messed up. I totally freaked and started calling out for help. That’s when I saw it…”

Ben swallowed. He wasn’t sure he wanted to hear what it was the girl saw – especially the bit about how her phone was all messed up the same as his and Jerry’s. The last thing Ben needed was to be freaked right now, but he asked the question anyway. It felt like he needed to. “What did you see?”

Jess shook her head and shrugged, her bleached-blonde hair glinting in the white light coming in from outside. “I… I really don’t know, but it had a face, you know? It was a man, I guess. A tall man.”

“Like Phantasm? Dude!” Jerry left it at that. Sometimes Dude was enough for him.

Ben wasn’t quite so impressed though. “A face? You just bumped into someone in the dark! No big deal.”

Jess nodded. “Maybe – except for the only thing I could make out on this person’s face were his eyes: big, glowy white ones inside of a hood.”