The Winter Box Read online

  She lowered her head, brought her hands to her face and tried to cry, but no tears came.

  * * *

  In the living room, the Winter Box shifted slightly on the couch, its lid opening a crack. Heather didn’t hear it over the hissing of the gas fireplace, but even if she had she wouldn’t have understood what it meant. How could she? How could anyone?

  * * *

  The garage was dark and cold as fuck. Using his phone to light the way, Todd found the pull rope that would disengage the opener and allow him to raise the door by hand. He pulled it, then opened the door. As it began to rise, the air that blew in was absolutely fucking freezing. It felt like tiny ice daggers slicing into the exposed flesh of his face. He almost decided to shut the garage door, go back inside, and spend the rest of the night in front of the fire. But he didn’t want to be around Heather right now. The whole anniversary thing had angered and depressed him—especially when she’d brought out the goddamned box. He’d thought it was kind of a fun idea when they’d first started it all those years ago, but he’d never been into it as much as Heather. Now the ritual struck him as childish. Besides, being outside and working to clear the driveway would make him feel better. The snow blower was something he could control. The machine came with clear operating instructions and was easy to maintain—unlike a marriage.

  He stepped back from the opening and gazed out into the storm. The street lights were out, and the cloud cover was too thick for any moonlight to get through. Nevertheless, he could make out the white snow on the driveway and yard, almost as if it glimmered with a subtle, almost undetectable light. Snow fell—no, plummeted—from the sky in flakes the size of half dollars. The wind whipped them around, and they darted and swirled, almost as if they were alive.

  The snow blower was a small gas-powered one, and its size was another reason he wanted to clear the driveway now. It could only handle so much snow at a time. He took the blower to the end of the garage and turned it on. The engine sounded pathetically weak, especially when compared to the sound of the wind. It was blowing so hard that for a second time he considered giving up before he started. How in the hell could he hope to get the driveway clear with the wind blowing like this? But he reminded himself his goal was just to get enough snow off the driveway to make clearing it tomorrow easier. So he pushed the blower forward, it struck the snow with a loud chuff, the rotor began chewing, and a shower of snow shot out of the chute, arcing through the air like a spray of ivory-white water.

  But the wind shifted direction and the snow was blown back into his face. The cold came as a shock to him, and he took in a gasping breath. He sucked in a mouthful of snow and he started coughing, almost as if he’d drawn water into his lungs. But then, snow was water, wasn’t it? He wondered if it was possible to drown in snow. Maybe when there was so goddamn much of it.

  He’d released the snow blower’s switch when he’d started coughing, and the machine had stopped chewing and spitting snow. He coughed a couple more times—the cold air burning as it went down his throat and into his lungs—and then he drew his scarf up over his mouth and nose, gripped the blower’s handle tight and started it up again. This time he was more careful to direct the snow spray with the wind instead of against it, and while he still got hit by the spray a couple more times, as least he saw it coming and was able to turn his head and avoid the worst of it. He only had a narrow strip of skin exposed now—his brow, eyes, and the bridge of his nose—but his skin was wet with moisture from the snow, and the wind sliced into him like ice-cold razors. He squinted his eyes in a useless attempt to protect them, but they ached and watered, and as the tears welled, he thought he could feel them immediately freeze to his cheeks. How fucking cold was it out here?

  He struggled along for several more minutes, snow falling and blowing, before realizing that Sisyphus had a better chance of keeping that rock of his on top of the mountain than he had of clearing away any significant amount of snow. Frustrated and cold as hell, he took his hand off the snow blower’s switch and the device shuddered and fell silent. He started to wheel it back toward the garage, but he stopped when a strange sound came to his ears, carried on the turbulent wind. At first he sensed more than heard it, and he paused to listen. It sounded like someone talking, but the wind was so loud he couldn’t make out any of the words, couldn’t even tell what direction the voice was coming from or how close or far away it was. Sound traveled differently at night, and it did so even more during a snowstorm. Was someone else out trying to clear their driveway? He supposed it didn’t matter. His exposed skin was burning now, and he knew he should get back inside if he didn’t want to get frostbite. But still he listened, unable to shake the feeling that the voice—wherever it came from—was somehow speaking to him.

  Snow swirled near him in a spiral pattern, like a dust devil. Snow devil, he thought. It grew larger as he watched until the column was nearly as tall as he was. The snow drew inward, coalesced, and formed the figure of a woman. She was naked, her skin bluish-white, and her curly hair was coated with frost. He recognized her, of course. How could he not? It was Heather, but not as she was now, a woman in her forties. This was the Heather he had first met and fallen in love with, a woman still in her teens—barely—so young that he could still see the girl within her. Had his wife ever been this young? Had he?

  She smiled at him and he wondered what was really happening. Was he having some kind of hallucination, a winter storm version of a desert mirage? Or had he suffered a heart attack or stroke—both ran in his family—and was lying in the snow, his malfunctioning brain conjuring a fantasy to entertain him while he died? If so, at least he’d done a good job of creating her. She seemed so real…

  She started toward him, moving through the snow as if it wasn’t there. It rose to the level of her knees, but not only didn’t it impede her progress, the snow behind her remained undisturbed, leaving no sign of her passage. He stood still as she approached, no longer feeling the cold, no longer hearing the wind. Her lips moved as if she were speaking, and he heard her voice, but it was no more intelligible than before, her words remaining maddeningly indistinct. He felt as if they were just beyond the grasp of his consciousness, and if only he could concentrate hard enough, he might finally get what she was trying to say to him. But how could he concentrate with her coming toward him like that, naked, advancing with smooth, languid, almost seductive motions, as if she were perfectly comfortable with the cold, as if she were somehow part of it?

  He let go of the snow blower’s handle and stepped forward to meet her. She held out her arms as if to embrace him and he reached out to her. Then she exploded in a sudden gust of wind, becoming a burst of snow that struck him so hard that it sent him tumbling backward. He lay there, surrounded by snow, looking up at a dark sky, snowflakes falling down upon him like frozen tears.

  * * *

  When Heather heard Todd activate the snow blower, she decided she’d sat in front of the fire long enough. It didn’t look like the power would be coming on again anytime soon, so she might as well gather some flashlights and candles. It would give her something to do, anyway. She removed the blanket from around her shoulders, dropped it to the floor, stood and, using her phone to light the way, she headed for the kitchen. She went to the junk drawer, opened it, and began rooting through the odds and ends inside. This drawer was entirely hers. Todd refused to have anything to do with it. He liked things neat and orderly, especially when it came to tools or useful household items. She wasn’t big on organization, though. She liked putting things in a single place and then going through them whenever she needed something. Despite how Todd viewed her preference, she found it—if not exactly organized—to be focused. No trying to remember where in the house or garage an individual item was kept. One drawer, one place.

  She found matches without any problem. They were in a large cardboard box with a striker strip along the side. She found a couple of tea light candles, neither of which had been used before and would
n’t produce much light, but they were better than nothing. She lit one, got a saucer from the cupboard and set the candle on it to catch the dripping wax. Then she placed the saucer on the counter and resumed her exploration of the junk drawer. She was certain she’d put a penlight in here at one point, but for the life of her, she couldn’t—

  A wisp of cold air caressed the back of her neck, making her shudder. An instant later fear surged through her as she realized she was no longer alone. The air had been a breath. Someone was standing right behind her. It had to be Todd. Who else could it be? But she hadn’t heard the door to the garage open, hadn’t heard it close, hadn’t heard Todd’s boots thumping on the carpet as he moved through the house.

  His boots would be wet from the snow, she told herself. He’d take them off in the garage before coming back into the house.

  But that wouldn’t explain why she hadn’t heard the door. Or why right now she was hearing the muffled sound of the snow blower out front.

  Hands came down on her shoulders then, their touch so light she wasn’t sure at first that she really felt them. The cold came next, seeping through her skin into the meat and bone beneath, the sensation pleasant and painful at the same time. It’s Todd. It has to be. His hands were cold because he’d been outside working on the driveway. They’d warm up soon.

  A part of her pointed out that the snow blower was still running—and that it couldn’t function without someone holding down the trigger switch attached to the handle. If Todd stood behind her—and it had to be him—then someone else, she didn’t know who, but someone, had taken over the blower’s operation.

  She felt cold breath again, this time tickling her right ear. That sensation was followed a second later by the feeling of lips cold and hard as marble brushing against her earlobe. If someone had described the feeling to her, she would’ve said it didn’t sound pleasurable in the least, but she felt a warm flush in her stomach. It traveled down to her sex and she felt herself moisten. She couldn’t remember the last time she’d responded to Todd’s touch like this, so fast and intense. Not since the early days of their marriage, she thought. His grip on her shoulders tightened, and she felt his lips touch her ear again, but this time he whispered four words.

  “Why did you change?”

  And then, before she could react, she felt teeth cold as ice touch the back of her neck, felt pressure as they pressed into her flesh. There was a bright flash of pain, and she clapped her hand to the back of her neck and spun around.

  No one was there.

  She pulled her hand away from her neck and held it close to the tea candle’s meager light. There was blood on her fingers. Not a lot, just a smear, but it was real. She thought of the voice that had whispered to her. Not so much about the question it had asked—although that had been strange enough. She’d recognized the voice as Todd’s.

  She stared at the blood on her fingers, remembered the feel of those cold teeth on her skin, and she shivered.

  * * *

  Todd shucked off his wet coat, boots, and socks in the garage. Once inside he went to the bedroom—which was cold as fuck with the power out—and removed the rest of his clothes in the dark. He tossed them on the tile floor of the master bathroom to be dealt with later, and then he went to his dresser and pulled out a fresh pair of underwear, socks, and jeans. He put them on, then went to the closet to grab a turtleneck. He slipped it on and then grabbed and donned an Ohio State sweatshirt for good measure. As he dressed, the wind outside rattled the bedroom windows, and he thought he could hear words on the wind, and this time he could make out what they were saying, if barely. It was a single word, repeated over and over.

  Why? Why? Whyyyyyyyy?

  He told himself it was imagination combined with stress, nothing more. He was a practical, pragmatic, and above all logical man.

  “Fuck you,” he said softly. It might not have been logical to cuss at the wind, but it made him feel better. A little, anyway.

  He left the bedroom, ignoring the sudden violent burst that slammed into the windows like angry, frustrated fists.

  * * *

  Heather had been sitting in front of the fireplace when he’d come in. She hadn’t looked at him then, and she didn’t look at him as he approached now. If the power hadn’t been out, he would’ve gone somewhere else in the house to get some space from her. Hell, if the roads hadn’t been so shitty, he’d get in his car and go somewhere, anywhere, just to be alone. But his practicality—which he thought could be a real pain in the ass sometimes—told him that the wisest move was to remain by the fire, and if that meant he had to tolerate Heather’s presence, then so be it. Besides, she had to tolerate him, so that made them even.

  He sat once more, not too close to her but not so far that she might comment on it, pulled a blanket over his shoulders, and stared at the flickering flames. Several minutes passed in silence, and when Heather spoke, her voice startled him. For an instant, he thought it sounded like the voice in the wind.

  “At first glance, it looks like a real fireplace, doesn’t it?” she said. “But the longer you look at it, the more you realize that it’s an illusion of a fireplace.”

  “The fire’s real,” he said.

  “It’s a type of fire, but it’s not the kind you feed and tend. The kind that you have a true connection with. This is an impersonal fire, one that turns on and off with the twist of a dial and the flick of a switch. It may put off heat…”

  “But it’s still cold.”

  She nodded.

  He thought she might take it further, might ask What happened to our fire? But she said no more, and was grateful.

  * * *

  He tries to move, but his arms and legs won’t cooperate. Something binds them at the wrists and ankles. He opens his eyes, but it’s dark and he sees nothing. He’s lying on a mattress, no sheet beneath him. When he tugs at his bonds, he can hear the headboard and footboard rattle. He twists his wrists back and forth. He’s not in handcuffs. The material is rough but it yields more than metal. Rope, knotted tight. He’s naked, and the room—the bedroom, he thinks—is so cold it feels as if his entire body is covered with frost. But the strange thing—okay, one of the strange things—is that he’s not shivering and his teeth aren’t chattering. In fact, the cold feels almost pleasant in a way. Soothing, even stimulating, after a fashion. His skin tingles and he’s surprised to realize his cock’s half-hard. Cold this intense should be a real ball-shriveler, but it seems to be having the opposite effect on him.

  He hears movement, and a moment later a soft blue light begins to glow. It comes from one of the nightstands—Heather’s, in fact—and he turns his head toward it. At least he can still move that much. The light comes from a smooth orb the size of a golf ball, and it manages to provide enough illumination for him to confirm that yes, this is his and Heather’s bedroom. Except it isn’t, not completely. Aside from the bed and nightstands, the room is empty. The dressers are gone, the surfaces of the nightstands clear of reading lamps, paperbacks, magazines, water glasses, boxes of facial tissues…There are no curtains over the windows, no art on the walls, and no carpet on the floor. But he’s not alone in this near-empty room. A figure stands in one corner, only partially concealed by shadow. Heather steps forward, naked and younger-looking, as young as she was when they’d first met. She starts toward the bed, moving slowly, keeping her gaze fixed on him as she approaches. Despite himself, he feels his cock stir. The blue light makes her skin look unearthly, almost as if she were made of—

  A memory comes to him, of being outside in the cold, trying in vain to clear snow from the driveway. He remembers Heather—young Heather—coming toward him, remembers the glittering frost clinging to her skin.

  Ice, he thinks. She looks like she’s made of ice.

  She stops at the edge of the bed and regards him for a moment, features impassive, eyes unreadable. She reaches out and with surprising gentleness, touches an index finger to his lips. Her flesh is hard and so cold it bur
ns. She allows her finger to remain on his lips for a bit, gazing down at him with eyes that reflect blue light and nothing else.

  His cock is almost all the way hard now.

  She traces her finger past his lips, across his chin, his throat, chest, and abdomen. His cock is rock-hard now, harder than he can remember it getting in a long time. Maybe not since he and Heather had first started seeing each other. His skin burns where she touches it and although he fears how strong that sensation will feel on his erection, he can’t help hoping she’ll wrap those blue-tinted fingers of hers around his stiff dick and begin working it. It’s been so long since the sex between them has been anything but routine—when they have sex, that is—and while this situation is weird as hell, it’s different. Bizarre and exciting. But she pulls her hand away after the finger trails through his pubic hair. Then, in a single fluid motion, she climbs onto the bed and straddles him. Her vagina envelopes his erection, but she’s dry inside, and cold, so very cold. It feels like his cock is wrapped in frozen sandpaper, and he draws in a gasping breath. He expects her to begin easing up and down, writhing and grinding. If she does, he fears she’ll rub his dick raw, but he wants her to start moving anyway, needs her to.

  Instead she leans forward, still holding him inside her, until her face is only inches away from his.

  “We’re going to play a game,” she says. Her breath is cold on his face, so cold he wouldn’t be surprised if frost crystals form on his skin. “I’m going to ask you some questions, and for every wrong answer, you will be punished. Do you understand?”