Winter Feast - Part Three of Six
Mike walked outside. The wind and snow attacked him with a stabbing hardness as he turned right and walked past three other units, two of which were unoccupied and then turned left. As he walked another five feet, he stopped abruptly and stared into the jaws of death.
Mike backed up, almost falling in the snow, shook his head swearing what he was staring at couldn’t be real. The snow was playing tricks with his eyesight; that or he had had one too many beers. He shook his head again and stared once more, his breath caught in his throat.
What he saw stared back at him and uttered a cry of savagery, and even in the blustering wind, Mike would have sworn he could have seen blood drooling over its long fang-like incisors and huge distended mouth.
Mike couldn’t move. It was fear, not the bitter cold that froze him where he stood. He couldn’t even utter a cry for help.
It quickly reached out for Mike and grabbed him by the throat with long, talon-like fingers; its hand, the strength of solid steel had closed around Mike’s neck and literally twisted his head from his shoulders.
Dragging the body like a stuffed animal in one hand and in the other, Mike’s head, it proceeded back to the boatshed to find what it required.
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The wind continued to rage against trees and bellow out a demonic sound not heard before, at least not by those who remained in their cabins, and the group who sat huddled around the fireplace.
Once Yaz explained what they found, a hush came over the bar and no one dared speak a word for the longest time.
The front doors seemed to explode open from the gale force winds.
Brenda let out a short scream. Yaz placed himself in front of his sister, and Faith stepped behind Darwin. Charlie and Gerald never moved from where they stood.
“Sorry, guys! Lost my grip on the doors. Wind out there is brutal. Felt for a minute as if I might be blown away to Kansas.”
It was Jesse, with all of his lanky hundred and seventy pounds on his six-foot frame. After closing the doors, he removed his parka and gloves and headed for the crowd by the fireplace.
“Okay, I give up. What’s with all the long faces? I didn’t mean to bust in that way, you know.”
“It’s not that,” said Yaz.
Jesse looked around at the drawn and tight-lipped faces, then down at Brenda, who looked like somebody scared the ever-living hell out of her.
“Okay, somebody want to tell me what’s going on?”
“Did you come straight down the hill to get here?” asked Shellie.
“Nope. I live on the far end of the cabins, so I came the other way, and it’s shorter, or maybe because it’s so cold, I walked faster. Why? Something happen?”
Yaz showed him David’s hat, coated with splotches of dried blood.
“Oh, wow. No way. I just gave him that hat not more than a month ago for his birthday. Where was he?”
“That’s just it, we don’t know.”
“What? You tell me David’s dead, but you don’t or can’t find his body?”
“I saw him first,” said Brenda. It was terrible. His face was ripped off. The guys went up the hill to find him but now—now his body’s gone, too.”
“So you’re saying someone killed him and has stolen his body on top of that? C’mon guys, that’s hard to swallow.”
Gerald started to tell him the story he told the others, but before he could get started, the front doors opened again. This time, Lucy and Matt walked inside, closed the doors behind them and walked toward the huddled group.
Before Gerald started telling the tale, he first said, “Good, except for Mike, everyone else is here.”
“I saw Mike heading this way about half an hour ago. Saw him walk right by our cabin,” said Matt.
“Besides Mike, David isn’t here either,” commented Lucy.
Shellie made more coffee for everyone to drink. As Lucy, Matt and Jesse settled in with their coffee, Gerald began explaining the mysterious death of David, and not quite possibly, Mike. Then he recounted the tale of the two major snowstorms and how twelve people each time were found horribly and sadistically murdered, and how either a group of killers had been on the loose, or a large man-eating animal surprised twelve people and feasted on them. The most horrific part was that no one was ever apprehended for the killings. Whoever it was, or they were, is back.
When Gerald was finished, for nearly a full minute, the only noise heard were deep breaths of ten people and the crackling wood in the fireplace.
It was Darwin who broke the silence.
“I got a Remington .357 pump in my truck and a .44 in the glove box. Any of you have any guns or anything?”
“I have a Winchester,” said Gerald.
“We have a shotgun behind the bar, and a police-special .32,” said Shellie. “Only thing is, we only have about a dozen shells for the gun. Shotgun’s never been fired and it’s just for show.”
“Not true, Shellie,” said Brenda. “I know where there are six shells we can use.”
Matt walked into the kitchen and returned with a baseball bat.
“Hey, it can’t shoot, but let me get within swinging range and I guarantee you whatever I hit will feel the bang.”
“That leaves Charlie, Lucy, Jessie and myself without a weapon.”
“Not necessarily true, Yaz.”
Lucy also went into the kitchen and returned a minute later with three very sharp carving knives she handed out to the men. Another chef’s knife she kept for herself.
The lights flickered off and on and the TV signal finally gave up the ghost just as the weatherman said, “Indications are, this storm that is blanketing central Wisconsin, will be letting up sometime between midnight and three in the morning. Actual snow totals are hard to determine at the moment, but it appears several records may be shattered. More coverage on this from ….”
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https://theprose.com/post/217322/winter-feast-part-one-of-six
https://theprose.com/post/217462/winter-feast-part-two-of-six