Death in the snow

His surroundings looked like pictures he’d seen of a World War I bunker: simple wooden planking for walls, an un-sanded wooden table with a ham radio, and a single chair were the only permanent decorations.

         Bo Nilsson clutched his stomach as it growled. It had been two days since he had hidden in this underground bunker. Toni, one of the oldest men in town, had led him in here when “they” invaded. Toni had talked on the radio for a few minutes before venturing out himself.  He had never returned.

         Bo had called on the radio himself, only to find that the snowstorm turned most of the channels to static. There was one contact he got surprisingly clear. Toni had it written down and labeled under the name Ravencroft, whoever they were. He’d called them multiple times. All they said was that help was coming.

         He couldn’t stand it a minute longer. The air was becoming saturated with his own stench. The walls were closing in on him. He scurried up the steps and threw open the trap door. He was in the middle of the kitchen floor. The room was simple.

         Bo climbed out, easing the trap door closed. He shifted the rug that had been so carefully placed on top. The water in the tap worked and Bo drank his fill, partly out of thirst and partly to ease his hunger.

         There was no food in the house. The cupboards had been stripped bare. In fact the house looked bare. Now that he remembered, there had been a silver urn above the fireplace. An oil painting was missing from one wall. Even the large jar Toni had been collecting change in for thirty years was gone. There was a telephone by the sink. He tried it and found the line dead.

         Bo stepped on something metal and uneven on the floor. It was a revolver, its brass finish  darkened with age. On the side, written in English just behind the trigger, were the words “Enfield 1940” and above that, “Property of the British Army.” It was fully loaded.

         Bo hadn’t been through Rekrutenschule, or “Recruit School,” but his Dad had taught him how to shoot on his Sig 510 rifle, the gun of choice for Swiss Militia Officers.

         Bo slipped on his coat, boots, and holding the pistol solidly ahead of him, proceeded out into the cold.

         It was dark. The streets were covered with a sheet of snow, unplowed or even the walkways cleared of ice. Most of the houses were dark. Bo didn’t know where else to go so he proceeded to his house.

Ahead there was a cry. Bo listened for more, then took off running for the source. He found it-- and wished he hadn’t.

Four of them stood in the middle of the street, caught in a shadow of light spilling from a nearby window. Three were strangers, but the one they held between two of them was the guy who worked down at the baker’s shop. His wasn’t wearing any winter gear, his face exposed for all to see.

The strangers were taking in French, Bo only understanding snippets of it. He could tell from their body language that they were angry with something the baker had done. The stranger in front of the baker grabbed the man by the throat, raising him into the air. He held him there as the baker wiggled like a fish out of water.

Bo raised the pistol, taking dead aim at the back of the strangler. He pulled back the hammer. Now all he had to do was shoot, yes, shoot! But his finger had somehow frozen in place, ignoring the demands of his brain. His hands began to shake, the iron sights bobbing up and down like a fishing boat in a storm. All he had to was squeeze the trigger and the bullet would rip through flesh and blood and the man would die.

The one hoisting the baker now held up his free hand, holding it in the air so its outline was clear in the night. The hand changed, fingers growing longer until they were fine points. Then he chucked the baker into the air with inhuman strength and slashed at him with his claw-hand. The baker fell to the ground, and floundered about clutching his throat as his life blood strained the snow.

And then they descended upon the dying man, and bit, tore and chew as they ate him.

Bo fled, tears streaming down his face for the baker. “This was all wrong” he thought, “I’m only a kid, this shouldn’t be happening.  Get home, get safe, this is all just a bad dream. My little sister Alisa will be there to greet me when I walk through the door, and Dad and Mom.”

His brain was leading him to his destination by an alternate path. His legs running without command. A path away from those people, no, those monsters.

Bo took a corner at full speed; shooting down the back street with the dogs of hell nipping at his heels. He crashed into a large form.

“Hey, where do you think you’re going” it barked. Bo pushed pasted. Strong arms pulled him back. “Listen to me, where do you think you’re going in such a hurry. Hey, who are you? You’re not one of us!”

In a spurt of irrational thought Bo slammed the cocked pistol into the form’s chest, shooting until it released its grip. Then he continued to run, and run and run and run until he was behind the door of his own house.

He clutched his chest as his heart jack hammered against his ribcage. He stumbled into the living room. It was cold and empty. Here too it had been stripped of anything of material value. 

Bo searched the rest of the house. His sibling’s rooms were empty. He called their names only to be met with a void of silence. His parent’s room was trashed. He moved on. He found his dad’s thick winter coat. He would never leave the house without. 

Bo fell to his knees. Had that same thing happened to his family that happened to the baker? Were they devoured alive? Was anyone he knew, cared and loved left alive? Or was he the only survivor of this massacre?

Bo wiped away the tears and said a prayer for his family, dead or alive.

He couldn’t stay there forever. Those “things” might have seen him when he fled. He had to get out of there. The thought of being eaten as he gasped out his last breath was too much. Get out of town, fast, alive, away from the gates of death.

A meal of peanut butter on crackers was all he could scrounge. Like Toni’s house, his had been emptied of food.

He found the riding gear where it had been hung up last. He fit the helmet firmly onto his head, adjusted the thick gloves so they fit snuggly. He grabbed the keys to his dad’s snow mobile from the hook in the living room and was out the door.



It was easy to get out of town, too easy and he should have known that. They had been lying in wait. Now Bo cranked down hard on the throttle of his snowmobile, tearing across the snow and spitting it out like a wood chipper working overtime. His snow mobile’s engine was wining as he sought inevitable destruction through even more speed. Better that I die from being like this than eaten he thought.

Then the snow mobile dipped and in a flash he was catapulted cross the white landscape, not even registering the large dark shapes that he whizzed as trees. He missed them all. He cursed his luck. Why could he just die?

He landed, inadvertently rolling into a ball. He finally stopped with a jacket full of snow.

He was alive. Curse the fates. He could hear his pursuers slowing down. He felt the heavy weight of the pistol in his pocket. At least he could take one of them with him.

He got to his feet. Nothing hurt, at least right now. He would probably feel it in hell, but not right now. He push on, one foot in front of the other. He heard his pursuers closing in. Wait for it, Wait for it. One of them on the snow mobiles ventured too close. Bo turned and fired. The man on the snow mobile tumbled from his machine and it rammed itself into a tree. A lucky shot.

Now the second gunned his ride and charged. Bo tried to dodge but his legs wound move. Bo raised his gun at the charging bull and fired. He missed. The snow mobile crashed into him. His legs vanished out from underneath him. He was flying over the mobile. He crashed into the snow. He tried to get up but his legs didn’t seem to work right.

He heard someone talking in French. He was answer by another voice. But he had shot the only other person out here. Could that guy still be alive?

Bo figured he had one more bullet left. He would surprise them.

One of his pursuers rolled him over. Bo raised his gun but it was kicked out of his hand by the second guy.

That was the guy he shot. He could see the dark stain on the guys right breast where the bullet hit.

“Your dinner now,” announced the one on Bo’s left in perfect Swedish, his mouth drooling uncontrollably as if he had lost all control.

“You monster” Bo got out through gritted teeth.

John-Paul shrugged his shoulder. “At least we know what we are,… and what you’re about to become.”

But Bo wasn’t paying any more attention to them.  Directly above him he could see his sister Alisa. She was in a summer dress, he face a rosy smile, he long hair tossed by a faint breeze.

“Come on Bo” she said, “Let’s go. Family’s waiting.” She held out her hand.

Bo reached out his right hand, the only one that seemed to work. “Alisa” he said to her, “I brought help. Wait for me, we’ll be together soon.” He closed his eyes. He held that image of Alisa in his mind. Of that day they had gone to the beach. He remembered the smell of the warm salty air. He let it heat pass in him, creeping through every crevasse of his body, washing away the cold of melting snow under his jacket.

As if given an unspoken command the monster descended upon Bo.