Dead of Winter Read Online Free Page A

the wind of his passage whipping the words from his
mouth.
    One final
ride , he thought, cracking the reins. The
reindeer, their hooves pounding nothing but the air, quickened the
pace. Rudolph looked back, the light in his nose brightening the
closer they got to the moon. There was a knowing sadness in his
dark eyes. The old man nodded at him and smiled, an acknowledgement
of their friendship, of their eternity spent together in service to
some unknown force.
    As the sleigh crested an invisible
wave, the reindeer dipped its head and twisted sharply around,
turning the sleigh upside down. The other reindeer, forced to
follow its lead, kicked and protested, but it was too
late.
    The old man fell from the sleigh,
smiling as he plummeted toward the earth. The wind snapped at his
clothes, tore free his gloves. A boot slid off and was lost to the
night. Overhead, the reindeer carried on, led by a small blue star,
their sleigh bells ringing like the chiming of a clock counting off
the moments before the end. They were headed for the moon and
whatever resting place would have them.
    The lights of the city rushed up to
meet the old man, an ugly sulfuric glow that made him think of the
poisonous air ghosting its way across those European
battlefields.
    Time marches
on , he thought, seconds before the
impact. And we are soon
forgot .
    There were no faces in the windows,
watching.
     
     
     
    BLACK
STATIC

    "What date is it?" my father asked.
The television was off. On the screen I could see the reflection of
his face, and the snow, as if the world outside our window had lost
reception.
    "The 25th," I reminded him,
trying hard to keep the exasperation out of my voice. "Remember?"
It wasn't his fault his mind was going, or that every second
sentence emerged tethered to the end of a ropy cord of
drool. It'll require a great deal of
patience , the doctor had said, And it'll exhaust you, but remember he can't
control what's happening to him. Neither can you.
    "It's Christmas."
    "Oh," he said.
    I looked down at the milk and cookies
I had prepared for him. Such a childish ritual, one I could
scarcely reconcile as a memory from my own turbulent childhood. But
here we were. Roles reversed. He'd lost his mind; I'd lost
everything else.
    "It's cold in here. I can see my
breath. Why is it so cold?"
    "I'll take care of it."
    "Christmas," my father grumbled as I
delivered his treat. Standing there facing him, I saw that he
looked little different from his reflection in the television
screen. Haggard, drawn, eyes sunken. Only the snow was gone, but
all I had to do to see it again was raise my face to the window, to
the dizzying maelstrom of white and the children dashing past the
yard trailing gleeful screams as they pelted each other with hard
orbs of snow and ice and pretended it hurt. "Christmas for
whom?"
    Beyond the haze of white, Christmas
lights twinkled feebly like lost memories struggling to
resurface.
    "For me, Dad," I replied.
    He shifted uncomfortably in his
tattered armchair. Brought his face close to the glass and sniffed.
"There's something in my milk."
    The snow was mesmerizing. A temporary
escape. A blanket beneath which forty years of contempt could be
buried and forgotten. A shroud beneath which anything could be
hidden.
    I looked at him. At the look of
desperate concentration on his face.
    I looked at the milk.
    Black specks. Black static. In a
moment he would drink it because he would forget why he ever
thought he shouldn't.
    "This year it's just for
me."
     
     
     
    THEY
KNOW

    The phone rings just as
the weeping stops. He stares at the glass and the amber panacea
within, shutting out the trilling with minimal effort. There is
nothing to hear. Just as there was nothing to hear the last time he
answered the phone. Nothing but damnable winter breathing on the
line and the faintest whisper, whispering the impossible: “They
know.”
    Just the wind.
    And the ticking from the
walls of the deathwatch winding down.
     
    * *