For a moment, Warren was too shocked to do anything, to think anything, but then his brain kicked back on: it’ll come after you next. You’ve got to get away. Run.
But he couldn’t run, probably couldn’t even walk. He had another idea.
While the monster rammed a tentacle into Jan’s stomach and pulled out long, dripping loops of her guts, Warren forced himself to his socked feet and shuffled to the snowmobile. He remembered the box of bottles strapped to the back. The snowmobile had crashed in snow and not on concrete or dirt or some other hard surface. There was a chance some of the bottles might have made it through. He’d need only one. He hoped.
As it turned out, there were six bottles left. The bungee cords had come undone and the box lay upright in the snow a few feet away from the snowmobile. Most of the Molotov cocktails had shattered or disappeared, probably thrown out during the crash, but half a dozen of the bad boys were right there in their individual compartments. As was the torch, the twin of the one Jan Young had died holding.
Warren glanced back at the creature and scanned the rest of the surrounding area, looking for more of the monsters, unable to see anything but a few trees and all that swirling white nothing. He took one of the bottles from the box. Although the bottle was intact, some of the liquid (gasoline, from the smell of it) had leaked out. The wick was soaked. He’d have to throw it fast or risk setting himself on fire.
And how exactly do you expect to do that with only one good arm?
He didn’t know, but he’d figure something out.
The creature had dropped Jan’s limbs and was concentrating on digging into her corpse. Its tentacles punched and ripped and scrapped, its clacking fingers audible despite the wind. Blood and bits of flesh flew. Warren expected the creature to take a few big bites of the body (that’s what wild things did with a fresh kill, right?), but it seemed more interested in shredding the remains than eating.
He turned away. If he made it through all this, he thought memories of the massacre would haunt him for the rest of his life.
Whether he watched or not, he could still hear the attack: cracking, splashing, squishing, all backdropped by the wind and falling sleet.
It knows you’re here. It’ll come for you next. Once its bloodlust subsides. If you’re going to do something, you better do it now.
He set the bottle in the snow and pulled the torch from the box. He wrapped his gloved finger around the trigger and pulled, half expecting it to be out of fuel or for the ignitor not to work. A narrow blue flame shot out of the nozzle, and Warren let out the small breath he’d been holding.
He let go of the trigger, knelt by the bottle, and pointed the torch at the wick.
Don’t mess this up. If you miss, you probably won’t get a second chance.
Warren activated the torch again. When the wick caught fire, he dropped the torch, grabbed the bottle, and flung it into the blizzard before it could explode in his hand.
The throw wasn’t perfect, but it was good enough. It exploded just before it hit the creature (or looked like it; maybe it had actually hit one of the tentacles), and the burst of fire engulfed the thing’s head.
It screamed and wrapped its blood-stained limbs around itself, but the explosion had melted away most of its upper body. Even as it tried to pull new snow onto itself, it collapsed, twitching and looking mostly dead.
Finish the job. Bring another bottle over there and blow a crater in its goddam corpse.
Warren considered it but decided to leave it alone. He thought he had surely disabled the creature long enough to escape, and that was all he needed. There was no guaranteeing another burst of fire would kill it anyway, and he might need the other makeshift grenades if he ran across more of the creatures. He turned to the snowmobile and righted it.
He’d driven similar vehicles before, but never one exactly like this, and never one handed. How had Jan started it? He remembered her pulling the start cord. And he remembered
(oh no)
the key. She had attached it to her wrist with some kind of safety strap. More than likely, she’d pulled it loose when they crashed (that was its exact purpose, after all, and the reason the snowmobile hadn’t ended up lost in the woods half a mile away). Which meant before he could go anywhere, he was going to have to go sift through her body parts.
If you’re going to go over there, better bring another bottle.
He took one of them out of the box and slipped it into his hip pocket. Then he found the torch in the snow and wrapped his finger around the trigger. He wasn’t sure how much fuel the thing held or how much Mr. and Mrs. Young might have used already, but he felt better having it. It was no flamethrower (and oh what he would have given for one of those), but it was better than his bare hands.
Hand.
Right. Just the one.
He shuffled toward the pile of ice that had been the creature, trying not to look at the other mess, the colorful bits in the snow. His broken arm had started to ache again, and he thought every last bit of warmth he might once have had had seeped out. Without shoes, his layers of clothing seemed useless; he might as well have been walking through the storm naked.
When he got within reach of the tentacles, he hefted the torch and eyed the creature. The snow continued falling as hard as ever, but nothing else seemed to move.
Maybe that’s what it wants you to think. Maybe it’s just waiting until you get closer before it grabs your leg, pulls you in, and rips you into a dozen gooey pieces.
Didn’t matter. Without the snowmobile, he’d never get away from any other monsters that might be out there. He needed that key.
Shivering, teeth clattering, he turned away from the creature and looked for Jan’s arms.
He found the first one half-buried under one of the monster’s outstretched limbs. He propped the torch up in the snow and dropped to his knees. He had to dig the ice out from around the arm to pull it free, and he hated being so close to the creature’s tentacle. The thing had proved what it could do with those appendages (as biologically impossible as it seemed), and every time Warren thought he saw the thing twitch, he just about screamed.
But he did get the arm free, and although he was sure he saw the creature’s tentacle move at least twice, it didn’t attack. Jan’s arm was covered in icy blood and bent ninety degrees the wrong way at the elbow. He gripped it with his knees, grimacing and holding back the urge to barf, and pulled down the sleeve to check for the strap.
Nothing.
He dropped the arm. Before he hunted down the second one, he buried the first in the snow. It was probably a stupid thing to do, a waste of time—the falling snow would cover it before long anyway—but he didn’t feel right just leaving it there.
He found the second arm not far away. He pulled back the sleeve, sure the key wouldn’t be there, that it was buried in the snow somewhere and he’d never find it.
But it was there, wrapped around her forearm halfway between her wrist and her elbow. He’d barely been able to pull the sleeve back far enough to reveal it.
Okay, you found it. Great job. Now get the hell out of here.
He buried the arm first. As he was patting the last bit of snow in place, something wiggled out from under the creature’s remains.
It was a tendril of ice, about as thick as a thumb. It slithered out of the rubble, raised its head like a cobra, and then slid toward him.