Snowmaggedon, Page 2

are hundreds of them in the snow, and those creatures are what comes out of them when they hatch.”

  “Oh, my…”

  “Mommy!”

  Tisa bent down and picked up the small girl that had been clinging to her leg. “It’s okay, Nile, everything’s alright. You remember Uncle Winston and Uncle Clive, don’t you?”

  She nodded, sticking a thumb in her mouth.

  “They’re here to help.”

  “You make scary monsters go way?” Tisa’s daughter asked.

  Despite my better judgment, I nodded.

  “And, just how do you intend to do that, Winston?” Clive asked.

  “There’s got to be a way to get rid of them. They must have some weakness. Everything has a weakness!” I replied. “We just have to find it.”

  “Okay, but what kind of weakness can a…a snowsquatch have?” Tisa asked.

  “Snowsquatch?”

  She shrugged. “It’s what Nile calls them.”

  “Okay. Well, fire should…”

  “Fire works on the little ones, but not the big ones.” Tisa interjected. “It’s all over the scanner. The police are having success using fire on the ‘babies’, but it’s like the big ones are made of rock or something, they’re don’t melt.”

  “So, we really only have to worry about the four big ones.” I mused.

  Tisa nodded. “But, how are we supposed to kill snowsquatches?”

  “What did Dr. Pierce say, Clive? Something about them liking noise, wasn’t it?”

  Clive nodded. “That would explain how they got so big so fast.”

  “What do you mean?” I asked curiously.

  “The noise. Remember? Everything was on in the lab when we got there.”

  “That’s right! We could barely hear ourselves think. But, could that really be the reason they grew so fast?”

  “The only way to know for sure would be to test the theory. Maybe, if we could trap a small one…”

  “There’s no time for that, Tisa. People are dying out there.”

  “Well, have you got a better idea?” she asked.

  “If we could get one on its own… lure it someplace quiet… maybe, just maybe, we might be able to kill it.”

  Clive refilled his coffee cup. “How are you going to lure it?”

  “They’re supposed to like noise. Maybe they’re attracted to it. If we had something that made a lot of noise…”

  “There’s a portable stereo in the back. You could carry it in the jeep.” Tisa suggested.

  “I think that should work but, where do we lure the creature to?”

  “It has to be someplace quiet… really quiet.”

  “What about the old abandoned airport? Those hangers have got to be big enough to trap one of those things, and that side of town is practically deserted.” Tisa pointed out.

  “That’s right! Ever since they built the new highway, hardly anyone goes over to that side of town, unless they’re just passing through or lost.” Clive said agreeably.

  “Alright. Tisa, you stay here and try to raise the army, or the National Guard.”

  “Okay, I’m on it. Good luck, you guys.”

  At The Abandoned Hanger

  It was surprisingly easy to entice one of the creatures, and lure it to the old abandoned hanger. Once there, away from all the noise of the town, it seemed to start shrinking, and its color began to fade from slate grey to a dingy white.

  “I think it’s working.” Clive whispered. He and I were sitting in the jeep, blocking the only open doorway.

  I nodded my head in response, never taking my eyes off of the snowsquatch as it rushed around, beating on the hanger walls and belting out its piercing cry. Oddly enough, none of the noise it made seemed to help it. Without the outside noises, it seemed to be totally ineffective.

  An hour passed, and still we sat, watching the creature struggling to overcome its fate. By now, it was very soft, and ghostly white.

  “How do we know if it’s been long enough?” I asked, just as Clive began to open the car door. “What are you doing?” I whispered fiercely.

  “Relax, I have an idea.” Once he was free of the jeep, he reached down and grabbed an old wrench from the hanger floor. Using all of his strength, he hurled the wrench at the creature, hitting it just above the elbow, causing a forearm to fall onto the floor with a slushy plop. “Oh, yeah… it’s working.” He whispered back, grinning mischievously.

  As soon as Clive was back in the jeep, I gunned the engine.

  “What are you doing?” he cried, holding on for dear life.

  “Now, I have an idea!” I said, and punched the gas pedal. We sped forward, and hit the snowsquatch at forty-five miles an hour, sending pieces of him flying into the walls.

  “Yeah! Right on, Winston! Do you think the others will be that easy to kill?”

  “I don’t know.” I replied honestly.

  The answer to his question was, of course, no. While we were able to kill one more in this manner, the other two proved more challenging…

  The 7-7 Diner

  “That’s two down!” Tisa cheered, as she passed out cups of coffee and plates of food to the many refugees she had welcomed into the diner.

  “Yeah, but that still leaves two.” I reminded her.

  “Don’t worry, hon, you’ll mop the floor with those suckers, just like you did with those other two.” She said confidently.

  She may have sounded confident, but I wasn’t so sure.

  “Were you able to reach the army?” I asked.

  “No, but I’ll keep trying.” She promised.

  “Thanks, Tisa.” Once she had moved on to the next table, I turned my attention to Clive. “I think we should wait until tomorrow to go out again. It’ll be dark soon, and…”

  “Say no more, buddy. I don’t want to be caught with them after dark, either.”

  Monday

  December 19, 2011

  We set out early the next morning, but after several hours of searching, still hadn’t found the other two creatures.

  “Where do you think they’ve gone?” Clive asked.

  I shrugged my shoulders, keeping my eyes trained on the area around us.

  “You don’t think they’ve learned to avoid us, do you? Or, maybe they morphed into something different, like in that movie.”

  “I sure hope not. Let’s head over to Royale Street. That’s where they’ve been spotted the most.” I suggested, turning the car in that direction.

  We parked on the corner of Royale and Third. Even in this, the nosiest section of town, there was no sign of the snowsquatches. The emergency workers were taking advantage of this respite to gather up the bodies of the fallen, the ones that the snowsquatches hadn’t consumed. At last count, the death toll had been close to a hundred and sixty people, nearly a third of our towns’ population.

  “Where do you think they came from?” Clive asked, out of the blue.

  “What do you mean?”

  “The snowsquatches… where do you think they came from?”

  “Why? Does it really matter?”

  “Come on, Winston, aren’t you just a little bit curious?”

  “No.” I replied shortly. “I just want them gone.”

  “I think that, with all the junk we’ve sent into space, we’ve angered some type of alien race, and this is how they’re punishing us.”

  “You think aliens sent snowmen to kill us because we polluted space?” I asked, looking at him incredulously.

  His eyes lit up, as if he’d had some great inspiration. “No! I bet it was the inhabitants of Pluto that sent them!” he cried.

  “Pluto? Why Pluto?” I asked, knowing I would regret my foolishness.

  “Because, they’re miffed about the whole ‘you’re not a planet anymore’ thing!”

  I couldn’t help but stare at him.

  “What?” he asked innocently.

  “Nothing.” I said, shaking my head in disbelief. “It’s almost four o’clock, let’s head b
ack to the diner.”

  The 7-7 Diner

  Tisa greeted us as we entered the restaurant. “Hey, guys, how’d it go?”

  “We couldn’t find them.”

  “What?!”

  Half the diner looked at us, surprised by her outburst.

  “Keep your voice down, I don’t want to worry the others.”

  “Sorry, I just don’t understand how you couldn’t find them! I mean, they’re giagantic, for Pete’s sake! Unless… you don’t think they went away on their own, do you?”

  I shook my head. “No, I don’t. I just wish I knew where they were.”

  “They’re here!” a woman’s voice screamed.

  Seeing the horrified look on Tisa’s face, I turned just in time to see the bulletproof glass shatter, and one of the creatures leap through the window. It howled ferociously, and the diner erupted in a panicked frenzy.

  “Be quiet, everyone! The noise makes it stronger! Clive! Tisa! Shut them up!” I cried.

  They both slid through the room as quietly as possible, silencing as many people as they could. Those that couldn’t be quieted soon became food for the snowsquatch.

  “Winston!” Tisa hissed, when she was once again by my side. “We’ve gotta get that thing out of here!”

  “How do you propose doing that? I’m certainly open for suggestions.”

  Clive pointed to the beast. “Look, the silence is affecting it, it’s starting to get mushy.”

  “Okay. When it starts glopping on the floor, we just need to hit it with something, or…”

  “Blow it up?” Tisa suggested.

  “I suppose that would work, but how do you suggest we do that, dear?” I asked.

  “With these.” She replied, reaching under the counter and calmly pulling out a small box. When she opened the lid, we saw the three grenades.

  “Those are incredibly dangerous, Tisa! Where did you get them and, more importantly, why do you keep them in the diner?” Clive exclaimed..

  “Doesn’t matter… we’re damned lucky they’re here. Now, we just need a place to contain it… keep the blast from getting all of us.” I said.

  “The freezer! It’s huge, and it doubles as a bomb shelter!” Tisa cried.

  “That’ll work. Tisa, start talking the others out the back door. Clive and I will distract the monster and lead it into the freezer.”

  “We’ll do what?”

  “You heard me.”

  “But…”

  “Look! You got me into this mess, and you’re bigod going to help get me out of it! I could have stayed in bed and…”

  He threw his hands into the air. “Alright, alright! What do you want me to do?”

  “Grab that pan and spoon, and start banging.” I ordered.

  We made just enough noise to lead the creature away from the others, and into the large walk-in freezer. Once he was inside, Clive pulled the ring from the grenade, threw it in behind the beast, and slammed the door.

  “Winston?”

  “Yeah, Clive?”

  “We’ve only got five seconds before that thing goes off.”

  Without another word, we bolted for the back door, making it outside with mere nanoseconds to spare. The blast was deafening.

  “Man, that was close!” Clive cried, holding his ears.

  “I’ll say! How did they know where we were?”

  “I’m telling you, they followed us…”

  “Guys!”

  We glanced up to see Tisa and the others pressed up against the wall of the diner.

  “What are you all doing?”

  They pointed frantically behind us.

  “Holy crap!” I exclaimed, as we turned slowly, already knowing what we would see. The fourth and final snowsquatch stood leering at us, half of a human body clutched in his hand.

  “Where are the other two grenades?”

  Clive shook his head. “I left them in the diner, Winston.”

  “What are we going to do?” Tisa cried.

  “I… I don’t know. The only thing we can do is stay silent and hope…”

  The creature lunged towards us, its fingers ready to grab Nile from her mother’s arms, when suddenly, a blast of orange flames flared up behind the monster. It screamed and tried to run, but more flames appeared, and soon, a large puddle was all that was left of the snowsquatch.

  Moments later, we saw several dozen uniformed men step out of the shadows. One of them approached us.

  “Hello! I’m Captain Daniel Compton of the National Guard. Sorry it took us so long to get here.”

  “H-how…?”

  “We got several hundred calls… all from a woman named Tisa, and all concerning a bunch of murdering maniac monsters… her words, not mine.”

  “But, how did you know to bring flame throwers, and to not run your sirens?”

  “Those are two things she insisted upon. She’s very persistent, and persuasive.”

  “Yes, I can see that, Captain.”

  I gave the Captain my statement, then joined Tisa, Nile and Clive, who were watching the freshly falling snow. We were quiet for a while, contemplating our narrow escape, but it couldn’t last forever.

  “Who would have thought that the way to kill a snow monster would be with silence?” he said in amazement. “I guess it’s true what they say… ‘silence is golden’, eh, Winston?”

  I nodded, but couldn’t help thinking that, if I was going to put a color on silence, it would definitely be white.

  ###

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