Borealis(26)

Just as his fingers looped into the collar of Gabriel’s parka, he happened to look up and meet Johanna’s eyes. Laughing, shrieking, Gabriel eventually pulled free and sprinted across the yard. Dale’s dog loped wildly in the snow.

“Why you gonna leave?” he said suddenly to Johanna.

“What are you talking about, Charlie?”

“I know you’re gonna leave.”

“I don’t know what you mean, Charlie.”

“Yes you do.” Gabriel’s laughter faded into blackening ether. “You’re gonna wait for me to go out so I won’t know until I come back home. It’ll give you a good head start.”

“Charlie, please. You don’t know that. You’re dreaming this now and it’s not real. It already happened. That’s how you know. This isn’t real.”

“Don’t go,” he begged her, tears suddenly spilling down his face. He crossed the yard and, before the trailer’s steps, dropped to his knees in the snow. “Please, Jo. Don’t leave. Don’t take him away from me. If you’re unhappy—”

“It’s not about me being unhappy. The boy shouldn’t live like this, Charlie. Look around. This isn’t normal for him. And with you gone half the year—”

“Please, Jo,” he begged. “Please…”





13


And opened his eyes—

He was covered in frost, the back of his coat frozen to the pillar of ice. Likewise, his gear lay frozen to his legs. He had no feeling from the waist down. The snow had let up to a lazy flutter, the large flakes twisting and spiraling in the clear, crisp night air. Overhead, he saw—or imagined he saw—the great bruise-colored northern lights, the aurora borealis, the spirit of the great north. It gleamed like heat lightning.

Over the nearest bluff, a figure appeared. Small, inconsequential. Almost nonexistent. Charlie blinked his eyes and, with much difficulty, managed to bring his gloved hands, hooked now into inflexible talons, up to his face. He scrubbed the ice from his lashes and peered out along the moonlit pass. The figure was descending the bluff, coming toward him.

Charlie’s breathing quickened. He tried to move his legs but couldn’t. Moving anything but his arms—which were weak and practically useless anyway—was impossible.

“Huh…huh…huuuuhhh…” Clouds of vapor wafted before his face before being carried off in the wind.

The figure stood before him now, peering down at his broken, immobile form.

“G-G-Gabriel,” Charlie managed.

The boy was wearing his ski parka and Ninja Turtle earmuffs. Red mittens, yellow books with the bright red buckles.

“Daddy,” said the boy.

“G-G-Guh-Guhhh—”

The boy crossed over to him. Bending down, he peeled Charlie’s pack from his legs, the frost popping and tearing, until he was able to roll the pack down a nearby embankment. Then the boy climbed up into Charlie’s lap, his weight and warmth so real, Charlie could not deny the boy’s existence.

“How d-d-d-did you guh-get— Huh-how…how…”

“Daddy,” the boy said, pressing his face to Charlie’s chest. His small arms found Charlie’s neck, looped around it. “I missed you, Daddy.”

“Oh, pal,” said Charlie, his eyes welling with tears that froze the second they spilled from his eyes. He managed to bring one arm up and encircle the boy with it. Hugged him gently. “I was g-gonna f-f-find you, p-pal,” he told the boy. The nacreous, velvety lights in the sky seemed to brighten, tremble, waver.

“I love you,” the boy told him, his breath warm on his neck. “I love you, Daddy.”

“Was g-g-gonna f-f-find y-y-yuh-y-yuh—”

The boy’s arms tightened around Charlie’s neck. Charlie forced himself to smile, the flesh cracking and splitting and bleeding down his face and chin, and returned the boy’s embrace with his one free arm. He squeezed the boy as tight as he could— “…find you…”

—while the world around him went white, white.





About the Author

Ronald Malfi is the award-winning author of the novels The Ascent, Snow, Shamrock Alley, Passenger, and several others. Most recognized for his haunting, literary style and memorable characters, Malfi's dark fiction has gained acceptance among readers of all genres. He currently lives along the Chesapeake Bay where he is at work on his next book.





A predator stalks the frozen woods!



Dead of Winter

? 2011 Brian Moreland



At a fort deep in the Ontario wilderness in 1870, a ghastly predator is attacking colonists and spreading a gruesome plague—his victims turn into ravenous cannibals with an unending hunger for human flesh. Inspector Tom Hatcher has faced a madman before, when he tracked down Montreal’s infamous Cannery Cannibal. But can even he stop the slaughter this time?

In Montreal exorcist Father Xavier visits an asylum where the Cannery Cannibal is imprisoned. But the killer who murdered thirteen women is more than just a madman who craves human meat. He is possessed by a shape-shifting demon. Inspector Hatcher and Father Xavier must unravel a mystery that has spanned centuries and confront a predator that has turned the frozen woods into a killing ground where evil has come to feed.