Winter Is Coming

I was familiar with the stories—every child is, and we know they are true—but seeing The Beast was the start of knowing true terror. See, the stories are a feeling-knowledge. Our mothers and fathers tell us before bed. Our imagination takes the tale and runs amok. And we get scared as a result. We learn from that feeling and take it as truth. But exposure, now that turns folklore fiction into fact. And you can’t escape that feeling, you can’t escape it.

It was days ago that I first saw The Beast. I had mostly forgotten about it, discarding my fear as another piece of childhood mythology meant to indirectly discipline me. But all throughout autumn, Hannah talked about The Beast with brewing urgency. She, having grown up in the city, was intimately familiar with its behavior. I was not. So her passing comments about its looming winter emergence prompted my growing anticipation, worry, and anxiety. As the cold months approached, I found myself compulsively checking the weather, hoping that precipitation remained rain and only rain.

I was lucky. The first semester was warm and the warmth prolonged The Beast’s hibernation. But while the planet’s warming atmosphere kept the air hot through December, my fateful return in January aligned with an inescapable snowfall.  It was no doubt that the horrid creature would rise from their slumber and begin to stalk. The Beast was coming.

My parents lived in the city for several decades before I was born. It was from them that I developed such habits and an overly cautious predisposition towards The Beast. They, too, checked the weather as autumn became winter and advised me to make a swift and sudden return to campus.

“This year will be brutal.” My father said while helping me fold my shirts. “After a dry summer, The Beast always wants a larger meal. It’s hungry.”

My mother stood in the doorway. “We just want you to be safe,” she said. In her hand was a picture frame. I knew the photo well and the story behind it. She gazed down and smiled with a melancholic pang. It was a sharp contrast to the beaming smile of my mother and her best friend. They possessed all the hope in the world, newly graduated with arms wrapped around each other’s shoulders as they posed in front of their first apartment. It was a modest building. They just signed the lease in the photo. “Did I ever tell you about Kate?” She said. She had. My mother didn’t look at me, still transfixed at the memory of her life before the tragedy. Her thumb brushed along the side of the frame.

“Yes,” I said. I left it at that, knowing better than to rehash the wound of that winter when a nasty blizzard bashed the city. My mother made it home. Her work had the luxury of yielding to things like that. The only damage to her was the slight bite of frost against her nose. Kate worked farther away in one of the hospitals. She usually returned after my mother; her hours ran later and her commute was longer. Her absence that night was not peculiar. But the hours ticked by on the microwave’s digital clock and my mother was alone in her apartment. Kate had gotten caught up in her work before, last-minute medical emergencies were not uncommon. But Kate usually called. Kate had not called.

In the distance, there was the droning sound of plows. The streetlamps shut off, sending the street into darkness. Only the dim glow of apartment living room lights weakly streaming through curtains illuminated the steadily growing snowbanks. My mother waited on the couch, fought slumber, and succumbed to her exhaustion from being burnt out by a growing feeling of disturbance. 

Late in the night, there was a buzz from the intercom. It started as a sharp static—white noise—but it was lower and more devoid of sound, like a sonic vacuum. Then there was a low murmur. It awoke my mother, but in her groggy state, the message was unintelligible. A soft crushing noise began to grow. Then it changed to scrape. The voice outside began to sound desperate as her whispering pleas went unresponded. The background noise grew louder. 

A sharp and piercing “please” shook my mother awake but by the time she rushed to the door, the intercom clicked dead. Outside her window was the cacophonous sound of harsh crunches. Then silence. My mother collapsed to the floor. It was cold. 

A few hours later there was a knock on the door.

“New York Police Department, is this the residence of Kate Burns?” My mother rose from her position. After checking the door chain, she opened the door. There was a gray look on the slim section officer’s face visible through the sliver. His hat was lowered to avert any unnecessary eye contact.

“Yes,” my mother said. Her eyes were set against dark circles.

“A civilian turned these into the station an hour ago,” he said. He opened his hand. Resting on his palm was a keychain. On the ring was Kate’s hospital ID, a few trinkets, and the apartment key. “It was found a few blocks south of here.” My mother nodded.

“Do you know where Kate is?” She asked.

“There’s been no sign of her, ma’am.”

“She’s usually back by now.” 

The officer shifted outside the doorway. He cleared his throat although there was nothing in it. It was just a show, passing the conversation back to my mother.

“Where is she?”

“There’s nothing we can do,” The officer replied. There was a sense of detachment in his response, as if this was a regular occurrence and therefore deserved no pity.

“There hasn’t even been a missing person report.”

“Everything that could be done has been done,” the officer responded. There was a force to his voice. “There’s nothing to do but move on.”

My mother shut the door and undid the door chain. She opened the door and entered the doorway. The officer forced the keychain into my mother’s fist then scratched the back of his neck. His radio clicked to life in a string of undecipherable codes, except for two words: The Beast. My mother stood frozen. She opened her mouth to speak. There were no words. The officer adjusted his stance and looked off to the side of the hallway. He turned his head back to my mother and tipped his hat. “Have a good night, miss.” He made no eye contact when delivering the messages. There was just a violent silence. He left. The wind howled outside the window.

The next morning was without any notice. There were no stains outside, no marks by the intercom, There was nothing but streets ready for walking and sidewalks ready for pedestrians. The sky was clear and the sun glared down on the street. The light reflected off the snow and the world was oppressively bright. The sidewalks were clean. Kate disappeared without a trace. The hospital mailed her things to the apartment the next week. My mother, in her grief, sent it straight to a storage unit. It was all too much. She kept the photograph they had on a side table, brought it to our home when she and my father moved to the suburbs. A few years ago I think she tried going to the storage unit once but turned around halfway. It was still too much.

Her eyes were glassy as she stood in the doorway to my bedroom, deep in thought about how things were different then, and how they could’ve been different if only for timing. With the help of my father, I finished packing.

The last night was one of constant tossing and turning. I was nervous for the first winter nights, the emergence of The Beast, and what that might entail. The next morning was a tearful farewell as my parents dropped me off at the train station. My father hugged me tightly before I made my way to the platform and waited. An unsettling feeling grew as gusts roared against my face from the north and as my watering eyes crystalized against my cheeks. The wind brought small cuts of the cold, slicing at my exposed nose and knuckles. But my train came soon enough and I was enveloped in the warmth of the cart.

The rest of my return and the move-in process was uneventful. Columbia’s campus was empty. There was no chatter of students walking between buildings. College Walk was near silent except for the focused shuffling of strangers and the low hum of the tree lights. I did, however, pass by one group of students that were discussing the looming snow the following night. They exchanged their planned precautions and their dining hall hordes filling their minifridges.

Night came and went and daybreak ushered in a new day. The morning brought a destabilizing chill. The sky was a uniform shade of gray with the faint swirling of clouds crashing into each other. The ghost town aura continued to settle into a new status quo, not helped by the inhabitants already preparing to bunker down for the night.

Students floated aimlessly across campus to fill their idle time in the pre-semester season. There seemed to be not enough time to accomplish anything meaningful, but too much time to sit around and wait. Thus, we wandered about outside as the daylight fleeted. 

I was caught with a group of friends, chatting, talking, walking, and paying no mind to the ticking of my watch. Our laughter seemed to distract from the darkening of the night sky and the growing tension in the air. While seated in the deep recesses of the secure Carman basement, we found ourselves drawn outside. The sun had set and we wanted to catch a glimpse of campus at night.

As we left the building the symphony of cars was silent. There was, however, a low droning sound echoing off from the innermost heart of campus. We paid this no mind and continued our way towards the Southfields. Hannah, our New York  Native, had been exceptionally tired that day and had seemingly forgotten much of her better senses. We were swayed by a desire to watch our peers from warmer climates enjoy their first snowfall.

And all at once, the sky began to fall in fluttering sheets of white. The snowflakes journeyed throughout the upper airways before landing around our feet. It surrounded each of our figures and gave breadth to the lights adorning the campus walkways. The snowflakes settled on the shoulder of coats or fixed themselves as melting flowers intertwined in hair. Columbia’s campus was encapsulated in an idyllic sheen. Every surface was insulated under a snowy sheen, undisturbed by any force.

The enveloping vales of wind softened the sounds of New York and the growing growls that reverberated up the streets. The idyll of the first witnessed snowfall, although succorable, was mistakenly blissful. That is, in all the pleasure of bearing witness, we had all missed the vital signs warning us of impending peril.

It began softly at first, a sign indistinguishable to most. The yellow light of The Beast’s blinded sight blended into the reflection of lamplight on snow. The low growl of hungered tone muted into the shrieking wind. The creeping gait of The Beast’s approach granted alibi from our focused starward gazes. It was only when there was a low in the snowfall that we all laid eyes on The Beast barreling towards us.

I have attempted to recreate the sight. Forgive my artistic shortcomings and behold, The Beast!

As the distance rapidly diminished, I was caught by the lack of odor that radiated from the beast except for the faint scent of automotive exhaust. What was striking, however, was the massive digestive vacuole in which the previous meal was visible to the outsider. Through translucent skin, a body of a Columbia campus maintenance worker floated inside, logically melting at a slow rate—from The Beast’s slow and enviable metabolism. 

The Beast moved at a fast speed propelled by four small legs which pulled it along the ground. What was mysterious was the mechanism by which The Beast observed the world. Lacking any evident eyes, the only possible explanation was a form of chemilumilocation from the light-producing organs fixated at the top of The Beast’s visage. 

Unmistakably, the viridescent exoskeleton quickly made any attempt to try and fight The Beast, undoubtedly in vain. The hard chitin seemed to mimic metalwork and would not yield to any of our mortal efforts. This pigmentation—in addition to the light-producing organ—made spotting The Beast easy during our attempts to evade its hunt. However, our attempts to outsmart it were futile due to later developments in monstrous behavior. 

The main and most notable feature was the gurgling and ever-moving mouth that The Beast bore as it tore through the snow. There seemed to be tens of thousands of thin serrated black teeth that left nothing in its wake. It would destroy any soft material it came in contact with, tearing it to shreds or passing it through its system whole. The Beast manically masticated the snow on the ground. 

On a trajectory course towards us, we began a sprint, only to revert to a power walk in order to not slip and fall victim to the immense hunger of The  Beast. We soon realized that while it maintained a fast pace, it would slow considerably when faced with a change in direction. Still, it followed amidst the snow. That determined, we plotted a labyrinthic course throughout campus, weaving between quads, tents, and buildings in hopes of losing it from our tracks. But with every turn, it continued its charge and advancement towards us. It spat from its mouth in hopes to burn through our coats and tear one of us apart. This only motivated us to break into as much of a sprint as we could (because the rock pathways do get very smooth with decades of wear).

With The Beast far behind us, but maintaining pursuit, we approached Broadway in hopes of taking refuge in the subway station. The Beast, having been in hibernation, would not have a valid MetroCard and was too massive to jump the turnstile. We would be safe. However, our hopes were quickly dashed when, upon rounding the corner, we were met with not one, but multiple Beasts in our planned tracks.

The Beast was not just one horrid creature, it was, in fact, a herd—a pack of perilous and pugnacious plows bent on clearing everything in their path. There was no safety in numbers because the Beasts were far greater in size. Our only hope now was to find a new location accessible only to people.

We attempted to retreat only to see the first Beast biting at our heels. Sandwiched, our only solution—and evil by any standard except for death—was to hide in Hartley. After barricading behind the automatic doors, we made our way through the kafkaesque quarters and burst into the sky lounge. Having depleted all of our energy, we surrendered to slumber in hopes of a better morning.

This brings me to our present situation. There has been no improvement in our condition. We have gone in shifts to venture down to the vending machines but have, at least, depleted the last of our dining dollars accumulating food supplies. Already we are running low. A pod of beasts continues to hound the outside of Hartley. It is surrounded. My fellow survivors have confirmed this. Loathsomeness from our current housing situation was not aided by the dire situation and the conclusion of certain death. Our world is defined by a fighting fright and frenzy, hoping for rescue that will likely not arrive.

While all seems dark or blindingly bright—from the unrelenting skylights—we are still attempting to forge our way to freedom. Daily attempts are made to CAVA our way to the established safehouses, but currently to no avail. And during the nights we make our way to the lower levels in hopes of uncovering a tunnel that might lead us away from this festering abyss towards a better tomorrow. Come rain or shine—but certainly not snow—one can only hope. And that is all we have. 

Image via Bwarchives