Bitter Cold by J. Joseph Wright Page A

Wincing and whimpering, he plowed his hands into the ravenous creature and did a pushup. The thing reeled him in, pulling him closer and sucking him down with a greedy Glug! He slumped to his chest, then disappeared, becoming nothing more than a lump in the dark snow.
    “McCullah!” Armstrong pushed forward. As he drew near, his face wrinkled, his eyes narrowed. He stopped twenty feet from his slain coworker and let his jaw fall open. His stare flashed to April. She shook her head. Still looking at her, he called once more for McCullah. Nothing but churning, bubbling, steaming. The creature was digesting its meal.
    Armstrong stepped back. His foot dragged and he fell to the wintry forest floor.
    The creature seemed to stop chewing and churning. Several slender offshoots from its shapeless mass moved toward Armstrong as he sat on his ass. He squinted, noticing the shadowy appendages.
    “What is that!” he kicked backward, attempting to keep ahead of the things probing in his direction. “What the hell is it!”
    At the sound of his voice, the monster decided to commit its whole bulk to chasing Armstrong. The creature moved swiftly, rolling over small, snowy humps and rocky protrusions, gliding like a spectral pool of water rolling downhill. Only it rolled up, pursuing the man as he climbed, hand over hand, in the deep powder.
    “NO!” he screamed at the top of his lungs. A shriek from hell. “Get it away from me! Get it away!”

    He kicked and scratched up toward the Neon, the blackness trailing close. April didn’t wait to find out if it caught him. She couldn’t stand the thought of watching yet another gruesome death.

THIRTEEN

    JEFF RAPPED ON THE HEAVY redwood door, The Mitchells carved in fancy calligraphy, along with a forest setting complete with mountains, rows of evergreens, and the obligatory bull elk bugling to the wilderness.
    “They’re not home,” Logan rolled his eyes. “Now can we go?”
    “Stop it,” he snapped. “I’m getting the word out, no matter what.”
    “It’s freaking cold!”
    “Shhh!” Jeff put his head to the door. “I thought I heard something.”
    He listened. Faint creaking. Floorboards shifting. He narrowed his eyes and focused all his senses on finding the source of the sound, but it died away.
    He knocked again, so hard the door shook, not a small feat given its size and solid construction. For good measure, he pressed the lighted button, though he didn’t hear a doorbell.
    Logan yawned. “I told you. Nobody’s home.”
    “Yes they are,” Jeff grew more annoyed. “Smoke’s coming from the chimney, look,” he pointed to the roof. “That means they’re here. Doug Mitchell never has a fire burning unless he’s here.”
    “Their car’s gone,” Logan gestured to the driveway. A fresh set of tracks cut up and out to the road.
    “That doesn’t mean anything. Somebody’s home. I know it. But I don’t know why the hell nobody’s answering. It’s making me nervous.”
    “Why, Dad? What are you so freaked out for?”
    He peered through the narrow window next to the door. “Logan, I’m not kidding around. I saw something out there. Something scary as hell. April saw it, and you can bet your ass Dexter saw it, too. Damned thing took his foot off. Whether you want to believe it or not, I’m going down this whole damned street and I’m warning everybody to keep their kids the hell away from that place or—”
    A quick scream stopped him. His mind flashed with images of darkness and death. The smell of Dexter’s burning flesh lingered in his nostrils, reminding him of the menacing predator in the ice.
    “Did you hear that?” he traversed the wraparound deck, peering down the large house’s east side.
    “Hear what?”
    “Shhh!”
    He turned his ear toward the backyard, letting his sight dart about the covered area. Searching the wicker rockers and the empty flower planters, his thoughts went back to the black snow. He couldn’t help it. He just had a