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Alex Simpson

The January Editor's Pick Writer is Alex Simpson

You can email Alex at: alex1mp@hotmail.com

Alex Simpson

A MOTHER’S EMBRACE
by Alex Simpson

The wind howls through the nearby trees of the forest. Its icy edge effortlessly cuts through everything in its path like a scalding blade through butter. It wails against our snow-laden cabin like some hysterical banshee.

I detest the winter with every fiber of my pointless being. The cold is crippling; the snow is constricting, the days are brief, and the darkness is terrifying.

The sun’s up now though, which means we survived, my sister Florence and me.

It was sixteen long hours of deathly silence; sixteen hours of reassuring Florence that everything’s going to be all right, without the luxury of being able to speak a single solitary word…sixteen hours of keeping watch with our father’s shotgun. Sixteen hours of waiting for the sweet release of death’s icy grip that never comes.

Sixteen hours of darkness.

I’m so tired I no longer know what tired is. I loathe the winter; the nights are so long.

Florence gets out of bed. “Did Mommy come home last night?” she asks in the same hopeful tone as she does every morning.

“Yes, she did,” I tell her softly and apologetically. “You were asleep, though, and you know I couldn’t wake you.”

I know what’s coming next, yet my heart still breaks in exactly the same way as it always does. The tears stream from Florence’s innocent azure eyes like the waterfall five hundred yards away where I collect our water. “Why doesn’t mommy just stay home?” she wails.

I embrace her and stroke her tangled, golden locks. “Mommy loves you very much. It just takes her such a long time to get home that you’re always asleep when she does. And you know we’re not allowed to speak at night-time or they’ll hear us.”

We don’t have a name for them. We don’t know anything about them. We simply refer to them as they.

The outbreak happened less than two years ago, seemingly overnight, and spread like wildfire throughout the busy towns and cities. The government was convinced it was a terrorist attack, in the form of some loathsome biological chemical agent that attacked the nervous system of the body and somehow mutated the cellular structure in a person, transforming them into one of those wretched things that terrorize me and Florence on a nightly basis.

Other, perhaps more paranoid individuals, claimed it was the work of the government itself, exposing the populace to some mystery substance or virus as a way of keeping the ever increasing population under control. The truth is that nobody that’s left of the human race knows where this plague originated from, or what it is.

All Florence and I know is that once a person becomes infected, we put as much distance between us as is humanly possible. They only seem to venture out during the night, meaning that a good night’s sleep is quite literally a thing of the past. What I’d give for just one peaceful night’s sleep.

Almost everyone and everything we’d ever loved was now gone; cruelly and evilly torn from us and ripped apart by those soulless beings out there in the wilderness.

I regard my baby sister beside me and my heart is now in my mouth. “I just miss Mommy,” she sobs.

“So do I; who knows, maybe she’ll stay home tonight.” I hate myself for lying to her. Maybe one day when she is old enough, I’ll tell her the truth and she’ll understand and find it in her heart to forgive me. “Florence, I’ve got to head outside and try to find some wood we can burn, so stay inside and be brave for your big sister, okay? I’ll be as quick as I can. Remember, Daddy’s gun is under the stairs.”

The woodpile that father stockpiled for us last summer is rapidly diminishing. Fire was all we have to get us through everyday life. It is such a risk having a fire lit during the night but without it, we’d both be frozen corpses before sunrise. To be honest, that doesn’t sound like such a bad thing right now, considering.

I find a little solace and comfort in the fact that they don’t seem to have a sense of smell. Terrifying past experiences taught me that they pay little heed to the smell of wood smoke.

The bright flickering flames however, proved to be an entirely different story. I discovered that when four of them came across our cabin one fateful night and maintained a twelve hour vigil outside in the freezing cold, seemingly drawn to the flickering embers visible through the window as they cast their ambient orange glow on the sitting room walls. I’m not stupid of course. All the doors and windows are firmly locked and bolted but even so, as seemingly stupid as they are, there’s always that voice in the back of my mind telling me that perhaps tonight’s the night that they figure out how to break open a door or window. I should really get around to boarding up the doors and windows. Just to be sure.

I unbolt the many locks on the front door and cautiously push it open. Immediately the bitter-cold wind cuts into me like a thousand shards of glass, chilling me to my very core. The thick, sheep hide coat that I’d practically lived in for the last four or five months offers little protection against the harsh elements. The snow-glazed trees of the forest helped to subdue the bitter wind a little, yet still it howls and casts its icy cold on all who dare to stand in its path.

The skies are their usual dull, ashen grey, and tiny flakes of snow are barely visible, blowing around gracefully, dancing in the wind before vanishing forever into a cloud of brilliant ivory-white nothingness.

Exiting the cabin, I look down. No visible tracks on the ground. Hardly surprising though. The amount of snow we get up on these mountains in one week is roughly the same amount as some countries receive annually. Cold countries I might add. I feel naked and incredibly vulnerable without father’s gun. I’m safe though, I tell myself. I’m safe. They only come out during the night and anyways, I’d much rather my four-year-old baby sister has access to father’s deadly shotgun than I, for peace of mind if nothing more.

It’s been months since I’ve had a decent night’s sleep.

Before everything changed, I was just a typical thirteen-year-old girl, taking advantage of every opportunity that I could to sleep, even while in school some days. What I’d give to be back there now. How many teenagers are likely to say that?

The snow, waist-deep in places, makes even the simplest of tasks a daunting and energy sapping chore. I’ll check the traps I laid under the trees in the slim hope that today’s the day that something has actually been snared there, yet deep down I know that they’ll be empty like they always are. In conditions like this, no animal is likely to venture outside of its warren, burrow, or tree unless it absolutely has to. If the traps are empty, then it’s boiled rice and oats for dinner again.

A raven lets out a shrill, yet unmistakable shriek in the distance, barely audible against the howling winds stampeding their way through the bleak and desolate evergreens that are dominating the snowy landscape for miles upon miles.

The air feels colder, if that’s possible. My feet grow ever increasingly weary and every ounce of my being screams for me to head back inside the cabin, burn the last of the wood, feed my baby sister, and do my best to get through another hellish night of anguish afflicted upon me by my thankfully unseen tormentors.

I scan the ground for fuel. No wood left here worth burning, and no energy or strength left for me to try to cut down one of the many mighty evergreens that have been a part of this topography for centuries upon centuries. Better try deeper inside the woodland.

Father had shown me the best spots for finding firewood in deep snow before he was so cruelly snatched from me and my sister’s lives all those months ago, so I know roughly where I’m heading. His wicker basket swings majestically from my mitten-covered hand.

I’ve been walking for less than an hour now, yet it feels as if it’s been days. Just past the clearing up ahead, that’s where the last tree fell that Father cut. It has to be there. It must be there.

It is there! Coated in an achromatic covering of snow lays the unmistakable horizontal outline of a fallen pine tree. The wood, now dead, crumbles apart as if it were mere sand. A brief feeling of allayment washes over me. My lips almost actually form what some could construe as the beginnings of a slight smile. It lasts less than a second. I set Father’s wicker basket down beside the fallen tree and begin chopping away with his old, now almost exclusively edgeless axe. The axe would struggle to cut through sodden paper, yet it is all I have.

Stroke after stroke, I swing the humble hand-held axe down onto the rotten, soggy, and dead bark of the tree again and again. A bead of sweat gently cascades down my crimson cheeks before plummeting to the ground, into the awaiting icy, bloodless white abyss below.

My basket is now full, and my arms exhausted. The bitter wind, accentuated by the sweat now desperately clinging to my face is near paralyzing. “Don’t give up now. Florence needs her dinner, her warmth, and her sister.”

I know these woods like the back of my hand, having lived here all of my life. Mother and Father had often taken us hiking through the mountains during the warmer summer months and I now know every route and shortcut back to our cabin. My Mother used to love these woods during the summer.

My Mother…the cause of so much anguish and heartache for our family. 

My feet dredge through the snow as if it were thick tar or treacle. I’m beyond tired now, and my body’s running on auto-pilot. The walk back seems to last an eternity. Half a mile on and my nostrils pick up the unmistakable scent and welcoming aroma of wood smoke. Sure enough, about a hundred yards away my eyes can just make out the safe haven that is our humble little wooden cabin. My feet now pick up pace and I begin to run, well, wade through the waist high snow on the ground.

I knock on the front door and say, “Florence, it’s me baby, it’s Katja, open the door.”

No answer. My heart begins to flutter and my stomach twists and contorts itself into knots.

“Florence, open the door, sweetie.” I try to mask the tones of sheer panic in my voice, yet I could break down in hysterics on this very doorstep any second.

Suddenly the door swings open. Sure enough, wearing the same pink duffle coat that she always wears, stands Florence. “Why are you crying Katja?” she asks in a worried tone.

“I’m not crying; it’s just the wind making my eyes water.” I hate lying to my sister. “Why did you take so long to answer the door?”

“I was just putting more wood on the fire for when you came home. Is that why you were crying? Were you worried?”

I smile back at her. “Come on, let’s get some food.”

*****

With Florence and I now fed, the newly acquired wood drying next to the roaring fire, I find myself at the mercy of my own suspended consciousness. The lack of sleep every night was bound to rear its ugly head at some point in time. The heat from the fire gently soothes my aching muscles and relaxes each and every one of my senses. Feelings of weariness, relaxation and fatigue wash over me like rain over a barren landscape. My eyelids grow heavier by the second and I can feel my body surrendering to the debilitating feelings of exhaustion plaguing my body. Did I lock the door? I ask myself. I’d better check it again.

I awaken with a start. Something’s not right. The room! Its pitch black! You fell asleep! I tell myself.

I leap out of the old, florally decorated, pale green armchair like a girl possessed. I sprint to the front door as quickly as my feet will carry me, my heart smashing against my chest. I feel sick with terror. I now slow my sprint down to a hasty slink towards the door, trying to make as little noise as possible. My heart is beating like a drum and I’m certain that whatever evil lurks outside is hearing every single deafening beat.

One glance at the open bolt at the top of the door confirms my worst fears. The tears now stream down my cheeks. What if they took my sister? Before I can even finish my thoughts I see something illuminated in the pale moonlight of the sitting room that makes the blood flowing through my veins freeze to pure ice. Wait, It’s Florence!

I’m so relieved I could scream with joy.

She nonchalantly shuffles its way towards me. Something’s wrong. “Florence, are you all right?”

But I know that she isn’t fine. She is silent, yet keeps coming toward me.

I step back. “Florence, answer me.”

Florence hesitates, and says, “I was playing with Mommy.”

“Did Mommy touch you?”

“She gave me a big hug. Mommy is waiting upstairs for you, too.”

My sister is gone. I let out a piercing cry. I don’t give a shit who or what hears me now. I wipe my bloodshot eyes, clear my thoughts, and make my way over to Father’s shotgun at the other end of the room.

I pick up Father’s shotgun. “Well then, Florence, let’s go upstairs and say hello to Mommy.”

Alex Simpson is 28 years of age and lives in a small village in the United Kingdom where he makes a living as full-time freelance writer and editor. Although writing has been a passion of his since he was a child, it was only recently within the last two years that he decided to actually earn a living from it. Before getting into writing he worked as a chef for just over seven years. This was his very first attempt at a short story and it is his goal to eventually make the transition from freelance writer to horror author.