Abominable Winter

I was walking back from the general store with a new axe when the snow began coming down harder.

The old axe handle had split in half through the chopping firewood. I'd spent nearly an hour trying to fit the two broken pieces together with nails and leather straps before Dad found me working at it. He took one look, handed me ten dollars, and told me to buy a new axe.

The snow was only ankle-deep along the road then. Soon it would come down hard enough that the mountain pass would close.

The axe cost seven dollars, leaving three in my pocket. I considered spending the change on ammunition, but instead I got a little doll for my sister. The shopkeeper was already preparing to close when I left. He waved from the doorway, then began lowering the metal shutters.

Halfway home, I remembered the sugar. Mom had asked me to bring back another bag. She made a pie every Sunday of the Season, just as her mother had done, and she'd been worrying about running short on supplies. I hurried to the grocer's, bought the sugar, and made it for home as quickly as I could.

By the time I reached the farm, the flakes were thick enough to blur the barn from the house. I dropped off the sugar in the kitchen and returned to the woodpile. My brother was about to start work on the reinforcements on the back door when he saw me struggling with an armload firewood.

“You should've started earlier,” he said.

“I did but then the axe broke.”

He looked at the new axe beside the pile, shook his head, and helped me carry the remaining wood. We made several trips together. By the time the last load was stacked in the cellar, the sun had almost disappeared behind the mountains.

We locked the door and lowered the shutter. Dad was making his final round of the house, testing each latch, shutter and lock. There wasn't a window or door unsecured.

I found my sister and gave her the doll from the general store. She hugged me so hard and thanked me. I remembered what it had been like to be her age, stuck inside while the days seemed to stretch on forever. I hoped the doll would help somewhat with the boredom.

We sat down for supper and my Dad conducted his usual inspection checklist of questions.

“Doors reinforced?” he asked my brother.

“Most of them.”

“Firewood?”

“Cut and stacked in the cellar,” I said.

Mom gave me a grateful look. “And thank you for remembering my sugar.”

My sister chimed in. “I fed the chickens, and the cows, and put fresh hay in the barn.”

“Good girl,” Dad said with a smile.

Mom turned to him. “Did you buy more ammunition?”

Dad's expression changed. “There's still some from last year.”

“Where?”

“In the cellar... Somewhere.”

Mom held his gaze a moment longer than he liked. Then Dad bowed his head, and we joined hands around the table.

“Dear Lord,” he began, “be our guiding light through this dark time. Keep us safe and warm through this Season and please watch over our family, friends and neighbors. Amen.”

We were washing dishes when we heard the church bells in the distance. Letting everyone know in the valley that the Season had begun. A snowman had been sighted.

Once the doors were barred, we had little to do but wait. Mom knitted. Dad read his history book, he read the same one every Season, and I sometimes wondered whether he used it to measure the passing days.

Before bed I went down for another armload of wood. I checked the cellar door to the outside. Last year a snowman had forced it partly open after a drift built up against it. I tested the bar, it didn’t budge, and went back upstairs.

The days fell immediately into a rhythm. Breakfast, chores, reading by the fire, or playing games, lunch, an afternoon nap then supper. I would spend some time with the family before going to bed early.

Dad would go out at noon every day to gather the chicken eggs and milk the cows in the barn. My brother and I would stand guard and be look outs by the back door that faced the barn. The few minutes when he was in the barn were the scariest. When he would emerge from the barn I could feel myself relax before realizing that I still needed to keep on the lookout.

By the third week, we heard the snowmen nearly every day. Their cries carried across the fields. Often they growled or the roars of them fighting with one another would come from the woods nearby. Sometimes heavy footsteps creaked across the porch, or a massive hand thumped against a door or window hard enough to make us jump.

My sister whimpered whenever one came near the house. My brother made it a game to sneak up behind her and growl, she ran crying to Mom. Mom scolded him. Dad laughed, though he tried to hide it. Even the jokes became part of our daily routine.

It was Sunday of the 9th week, and Mom was making blueberry pie. She somehow managed to have a different filling every week, regardless of how long the Season lasted.

We were nearly ready for supper when she asked me to bring up some corn from the cellar.

Dad looked over his book. “We're out of corn.”

Mom stopped stirring and looked over her shoulder. “Out of corn?”

“We won't need it. The weather's turning soon.” he replied

“Can you bring me some rice?” she asked

“We're out of rice, too.” he said softly

She turned around completely and stared at him. Dad lowered the book a little.

“We've plenty of potatoes,” he offered. “Flour. Some beans.”

“Would you bring up the beans, please?” Mom asked me.

I went down and took a few cups of beans from a sack. The sack was almost empty. As always, I stopped to check the cellar door. The bar was secure.

When I returned, Mom put the beans on to cook and set her pie near the boarded kitchen window, where the winter cold still seeped through the shutters.

“Next year,” she said, “two sacks of everything.”

Dad didn’t reply.

We had just sat down for dinner when I heard a faint sound from the side of the house.

Then Mom raised her head.

“Did you hear that” She said

Knock. Knock. Knock.

There was no mistaking it now. Something was knocking at the back door.

Dad rose and went toward the door. Then a voice reached us through the thick door.

“Help me.”

The knocking came faster.

“Please. For God's sake, help me.”

Dad stood very still. “Who …who’s there?”

“ They got in. They got into my house.”

Mom and sister left the kitchen and moved into the living room. My brother and I hung back, watching Dad and the door.

“Please,” the man said. “Let me inside.”

“No,” Dad called. “You have to go and keep your voice down.”

“I won't eat anything. I swear. I won't take any food. Just let me stay until it's over.”

The man kept pounding, I could hear him breathing heavily. It must have been exhausting to reach our farm this far out of town through so much snow.

Dad went to the mantel and took down his rifle.

My brother shouted toward the door, “Leave us alone, or we'll shoot!”

Dad gave my brother a stern look, then raised his voice. “Go away. We’re not going to open the door.”

For a moment the knocking stopped. We heard the stranger shuffle across the porch,

Then came a hard, sharp crack.

He had found the new axe. I had left it beside the woodpile.

“Please! Just let me in!”

Crack.

The fifth or sixth blow splintered the wood. Mom began shouting at him to stop, my sister clapped her hands over her ears and started to cry.

The blows kept coming until a jagged hole opened around the latch.

A hand pushed through the gap and groped for the lock.

“Stop,” Dad said. “or … I'll shoot.”

My brother was behind him, yelling, “Shoot him! Shoot!”

The man was twisting at the knob when the rifle went off.

The man's arm vanished. He cried out so loudly. Dad fired again through the lower part of the door, and the man fell on the other side.

For a moment we could hear nothing but his screams.

“Help me. Please. Help me.”

His voice grew weaker,

“They're here,” he whispered. “There's one here.”

One heavy step. Then another.

The man began begging again, louder now, “Please, let me in. It's here. Please!”

A low growl rose outside, so deep that I felt it on the floorboards. The man made one final chilling scream. Then he went silent.

A wet chomping started outside the door.

Dad kept his rifle trained on the hole. My brother and I stood behind him. Through the splintered opening I saw nothing but white fur. The chewing went on for a long time.

Then the fur shifted, and a face turned toward the gap.

Black, leathery skin. A deep set golden eye surrounded by coarse white hair stared at me.

The first blow to the door shook the house.

Boom.

Boom.

A huge black hand punched into the hole the stranger had chopped. Its fingers closed around the broken timber, and the upper half of the door tore free. The snowman threw it into the yard. It pulled again, wrenching the rest of the door off its fastenings.

There was nothing between us and the snowman now.

It ducked beneath the frame, turning sideways to squeeze its enormous shoulders through. It straightened once inside, its head had to tilt below the ceiling. It stood nearly twice the height of my Dad. It was covered in shaggy ivory fur. Its face and broad hands were black and leathery, the fingers ending in shiny black claws.

Those gold eyes looked from one of us to the next.

My brother whispered something I couldn't understand. Probably a prayer as I found myself praying as well

Dad's rifle trembled. “Stop,” he said, as though the creature might listen. “Or I'll shoot.”

It stepped toward him.

Dad fired. The round hit it but the creature didn’t flinch. He fired again, and again. I saw one shot strike its shoulder and draw blue blood, but it kept coming,

Dad backed away firing as fast as he could work the lever.

“Cellar!” Mom screamed.

We knew the plan. If anything got into the house, we were to get downstairs and bar the inside cellar door.

My sister didn’t listen and instead ran upstairs probably to hide underneath her bed.

Mom cried after her. I could see she was torn between running after my sister or getting the rest of us into the cellar.

When the snowman reached toward him, my Dad screamed and dropped the rifle at the creature's feet and ran towards the cellar door.

My brother lunged toward the rifle but the snowman reached him first. One leathery hand caught him by the back of the neck. There was a sickening crack like a tree branch breaking. The creature lifted him by the neck, he flopped like a rag doll in its hand. The snowman looked at then dropped him on the kitchen table.

The snowman took a step toward me.

I stood frozen, staring at my brother lying on the table amongst dinner surrounded by the plates and silverware he had only set a few minutes ago.

I turned and looked at it when it was just an arms distance away.

Then smash. A dish bounced off its head and shattered on the ground. Get away from him my Mom screamed. She threw another of my grandma’s prized china plates.

The snowman charged her. It slammed into her. My mom and the snowman collide with Dad. They all tumbled through the cellar doorway and down the stairs. The old stairs gave way beneath their combined weight.

I ran to the cellar door and stopped at the top of the stairwell. In the dim cellar light, I could see Mom crumpled underneath the stairs. Dad was on his feet, backing toward the cellar door to the outside.

The snowman rose among the wrecked stairs and approached him. Slowly, almost without urgency. It knew it had him trapped.

Dad began screaming. He threw his whole weight against the door again and again.

The creature grabbed him by his shoulders like a partner about to teach a child a lesson. It open it maw and bit down on his head. My dad's screams cut off abruptly.

I wanted to turn away. I couldn't. The crunching was an awful sound and I remember it well.

It dropped what was left of my Dad and looked up at me.

I stepped back. It scrambled up the ruined staircase faster than something so big should have been able to, claws tearing at the broken steps. The wood kept giving way beneath its weight. Its arms stretched toward me, The white fur of its chin stained red with blood.

A scream sounded behind me.

My Sister.

She had come back down from her room. Her voice finally broke whatever had held me still.

I ran to her. Together we fled upstairs and locked ourselves in her bedroom.

For a few moments we heard only the creature below, roaring as it fought to make it up the broken stairs. Then a second roar answered it. All the ruckus must have attracted another.

There were two snowmen in the house now.

“We have to get out,” my sister said.

The bedroom door was locked, but that wouldn't stop them for long. The window had been shuttered and boarded up. I dragged a chair beneath it, unlocked and opened the inner shutter, and began kicking at the boards.

Heavy footsteps thundered up the stairs, it sounded like a horse was galloping towards us.

The bedroom door shuddered under an impact. My sister screamed. I kicked again, and one board tore away. Then another.

“Go!” I shouted.

I helped her squeeze through the narrow opening onto the snow covered porch roof. Behind us the bedroom door began to split. The frame groaned, then leaned away from the wall.

I tried to follow, but my shoulders wouldn't fit.

My sister was pulling at it from outside, crying as she worked. I kicked with everything I had. Behind me came a tremendous crack. The door and part of its frame tore loose and hung crooked from the wall.

Two snowmen stood in the opening.

I screamed. Their answer was a roar so loud that my own cry died in my throat and my eyes started to water.

I kicked the board free and threw myself at the window. As I dragged my last leg through, a claw raked the back of my calf. Pain shot down to my heel.

My sister grabbed my sleeve and pulled me forward. Snow lay so deep on the porch roof that it nearly reached her waist. We struggled through it to the far edge, then dropped into the drift below. We ran as fast we could away from the house.

We couldn't go back inside. The neighboring farms were too far away, and nobody would open their defenses at night, especially after hearing all the roars and screams from our farm.

Toward the tree line I could make out another snowman. It moved as casually as if it were taking an evening walk. I could have sworn it sensed me staring, because it turned its head and looked straight back.

my sister pointed. “The barn.”

I didn't argue. We ran.

With every step my injured calf sent a shock of pain up my leg. We reached the barn, the barn door hadn’t been completely secure. Dad must have forgotten to lock it.

I looked back toward the house right before shutting the barn door. The two snowmen were just emerging from the house. The one I'd seen by the trees had crossed the field fast and was almost to us.

I slammed the door closed and secured the metal shutters.

I collapsed on the barn floor, trying to catch our breath. We had no coats, no boots. We were both freezing. My sister and I huddled on a bed of hay next to one of the cows.

The chickens watched us curiously.

I found a dirty rag near the stalls and bound my calf. The cut hurt horribly and would leave a scar, but it wasn't as deep as I'd feared.

For the next several weeks, the barn became our new home. We slept in the hayloft and ate the eggs from the chickens. The barn was We wrapped ourselves in blankets meant for horses.

Outside, the snowmen still wandered the property.

At last the weather began to change. The snow stopped and the icicles began to melt. One morning, sunlight broke through the clouds. The snowmen would be retreating back up the mountains.

Then, faintly across the valley, we heard the church bells ringing from town.

The all-clear.

My sister looked at me. We had both grown thin and filthy, and my leg still throbbing was red and hot to the touch. My sister helped me to my feet, I opened the barn, and stepped out into the pale midday sun.

We paused and searched the fields for any last snowmen.

Then we began to walk toward the house.