Heart of the Snowman

I wrote this story last year about this time. Now, I know I’m not getting the love I deserve for this one …

(This and more stories like it are in my short story horror collection called A Codex of Malevolence)

Heart of the Snowman
by
Matthew Sawyer

Best intentions aside, the Department of Natural Resources surely did not intend that Tim and I feed their endangered wolves – those scrawny runts reintroduced to the wilds of Wisconsin. The corpse had to go into something’s tummy, so better it went to them than any other native, furry meat-eating resident. If wolves didn’t get the stale meat, coyotes will. Rats and racoons will scrape up the remains. None of those animals hid, asleep, in their dens through the winter. All would scavenge tonight and feast on a corpse and celebrate a belated Yule.

Human is probably especially exotic in a diet of one of their four-legged kind; comparable to mankind eating buffalo – an evolved, civilized and novel opportunity in place of a cursed survival. Fair is fair, I suppose, I’d eat the raw heart of any and all of those carnivores. Wolves, coyotes, and even rats, are strong; their hearts are strong. And none of the animals will get the heart of the corpse lain here this evening – Tim took it.

The heart has always been, and remains, the center of health and strength – even a plastic, artificial heart is powerful, but that little golem sleeps and remains without life, forever. The circulating blood makes the organ special – which is why insects have no souls. Their hearts sit in vats of lymph, thumping and stirring the slush. A precious heart spills warm blood and life, and drinks death.

Hearts are easy to come by here in southern Wisconsin. Depending on the season, farmers, hunters and butchers acquire organs in abundance and commonly sell them for the asking. The power in any animal’s heart is less, though, than that of a human being. Tim may have seen opportunity when we killed Mr. Jenishek, I don’t know, so I asked. I called to my friend standing at the rear of my pickup truck.

“Tim”

The bare, frozen earth kept my half-ton Ford above ground. Normally, black mud would have sucked the truck down, past its stainless steel rims.

“You didn’t invite Mr. Jenishek to your house, did you?”

“No, again, Rob. I didn’t.”

Tim pulled an empty Styrofoam freezer case from the bed of my truck and dropped Jenishek’s heart inside. Before replacing the lid, he looked at the ground, over each shoulder.

“Too bad Spring is coming early.” He grinned. “We could have used snow and packed our cargo.”

“You want it frozen, right?” I asked my accomplice. We had talked a little of Tim’s scheme when we drove from the other side of Wister Town.

“Yeah, it’ll have to get frozen.”

“I’ve got a sixty-four ounce bottle of water in the cab. We can pour that in the freezer and leave it outside.”

“That’s thinking, Rob.”

Tim rushed to the passenger side of my truck, opened the door and rummaged over the front seat. The slam of the door then the snap of a plastic ring announced his return before Tim reappeared. He emptied the bottle into the freezer case and tossed it over his head. The plastic container danced and hiccuped before coming to rest in a frost-enforced furrow.

“Push it up,” I told Tim and pointed toward the back of my truck’s bed, beneath the rear window.

Tim slid the container with the heart sloshing back and forth inside. The organ remained trapped in manic currents and waves until the cold water turned into ice. Freezing required the container to sit overnight under the February sky in Wisconsin.

Although, we were back at Tim’s house on the far side of Wister Town, within minutes. He lived in a single story ranch home on the outskirts of town. His only neighbor was a defunct cheese packing factory. At home, Tim jumped out of the truck and grabbed the freezer. I followed him into his attached garage through a door from the driveway. Inside felt just as cold as outside.

I saw Tim had opened the back and northward-facing side-window. Dirty heavy snow covered the floor of his empty garage – Tim didn’t own a car and that’s why we used my truck. Most of the snow outside had already melted last week, before the wind became sober and seasonal again. The only places snow survived were in permanent, northern shadows and within shrinking piles upon parking lots.

Besides the snowpiles in parking lots, Tim probably had more snow in his garage than what remained in Wister Town. He had begun a snowman; not in the garage, but hauled from somewhere else. Apparently, he had built the figure when he collected the snow weeks ago and brought it along with his haul.

Or, Tim may have shipped the chunky snow balls and assembled them when he came home. What are the pieces of a snowman called? A head, obviously, but then the sculpture is more insect-like – and doesn’t have legs. What it has is a thorax that the head goes atop, and a bulbous abdomen the thing sits upon. Anatomically, snowmen are ghastly, helpless monstrosities.

The fact Tim had given it no face – nothing to mark eyes, nose or mouth, ears – made the craftwork ghostly. The undefined snowman in Tim’s garage was the phantom of an alien monster. Opposed pursuing some artistic Minimalism or Primitivism, Tim had constructed exactly the shape he wanted.

“I’m gonna put this in the freezer,” he said going into his house with the box. “Then, time for a heart transplant.”

“What are we transplanting?” I asked Tim and followed him inside. “Did you bury something in your shitty snowman?”

“Not yet,” Tim said and descended stairs inside his house into his basement. “I guess we’re just gonna dig out a cavity for old Jenishek.”

I resumed my inquiry from the moment I beat the old man to death. “I still don’t understand what he was doing here. He came to complain about the noise?”

“From your truck,” Tim added. Having made his deposit, he ascended the stairs.

His reply instantly made me suspicious. “That’s how I know you’re lying. My truck doesn’t make any noise.”

“Not to those who are not cursed.” Tim waved his finger.

“Why did you curse Jenishek?” I asked. “Why use my truck as a trigger?”

Tim shrugged. “Why not, Chaos, Rob.”

“Chaos just happens,” I scolded Tim. “If you inflict it on others, you are doing the exact opposite. You defeat the concept when you inflict Chaos you create, on me specifically.”

“And that, my friend, is the epitome of Chaos,” Tim laughed.

Giggling, he joined me in the kitchen. Outside, the sun instantly set, plunging the room into darkness despite the exterior light outside the picture window.

“Evil,” I said and shook my head.

The overhead light came on the moment of Tim’s reply. “Yes.”

“Mental Illness.”

“Hoop.”

“Retarded.”

“I’m not.” Tim stopped joking and laughing.

“Then stop fucking with me,” I insisted. “If you want to kill somebody, just tell me. I want to learn Dark Arts, not change religions or play games.”

“It’s one and the same,” frowned Tim.

“No, the separation of Church and State has always been the case with the Dark Arts. Gods are interchangeable. Your brand of Chaos is just sadistic hedonism, more of your jerking-off.”

“I’m sorry, Rob,” Tim promised. “Don’t be mad at me, I need your help.”

“Animating your snowman golem.”

Tim jumped into the air. “Yes. Don’t you want to?”

“Yeah,” I insisted. “I just want to know why Jenishek showed up and how he spotted my M’thlck amulet. Did you know he could see the ethereal?”

“He was complaining about your truck,” Tim claimed. “We’re both tired and need to be awake before dawn – we’ll have an icy heart by then.”

“I just want to know.”

“Tell you what,” Tim propositioned. “You’ll dream about it tonight, I promise.”

Tim’s word was good for me. “All right.”

I had come to his house today and we conjured the M’thlck. The amulet the thinking energy infused was curing overnight – with magic similar to that being frozen into the heart of dead Jenishek. Before the old man pounded on Tim’s door, I had set up camp on my friend’s couch. I thought we’d spend the whole night drunk and watching television. Jenishek changed that unambitious idea. Once everything settled down, Tim and I went to sleep.

Before I closed my eyes, I saw Mr. Jenishek through the front windows. He saw me, too, and yelled.

“Stop, stop, stop, stop, stop,” howled the old man when Tim answered his front door.

Tim howled back with a nasally, pitched tone. He didn’t say anything and I knew the language he spoke. Tim said nothing and only laughed in an adopted, alien tongue.

I had not immediately spotted the unsheathed Samurai katana old man Jenishek carried. When he raised the blade in both hands over his head, I saw the black, plastic handle had been inlaid with red and translucent and equally plastic gems. Novelty weapon or not, the blade still looked sharp.

For a moment, I wondered where Mr. Jenishek had found a katana then realized they were as common as snow shovels and axes in southern Wisconsin. The old man probably took the weapon from his kid’s room.

I turned and caught his wrists, lifting the hem of my shirt from drooping pants. The girdle wrapping my waist beneath my navel shown plain to poor and wretched Mr. Jenishek. The light in his eyes was snuffed and he dove upon me, biting, spitting and snarling.

Defending myself, I struck first and hard. I knew then Tim had engineered this encounter. Where was the bastard now that he opened his cage? Had he, again, snuck away and laughed.

While I overturned Jenishek and hit him again and again, Tim joined along. The old man dropped to the floor and I rode him down, hammering into his bloody and lathered face. Tim switched to kicking the man’s head with his steel-toed boots.

Tim inhaled deep and sharp when we both realized Mr. Jenishek was dead. “Let’s dump him in Odenschee’s field on Junction J. I know, for a fact, Odenschee alternates planting that field. Nobody will see Jenishek for a couple years.”

“Besides deer and hunters.”

“Yeah, so,” dismissed Tim. “Help me drag him to your truck.”

“Why did he come here?” I asked Tim the moment I had doubts about my involvement. My friend never stopped playing with my head, or with the heads of other people.

My question was ignored while I mindlessly assisted my friend an mentor. While we threw Mr. Jenishek into the bed of my truck, Tim expressed his thoughts.

“I can use his heart and bring my golem to life.”

“Yeah,” I thought aloud.

As a dark sorcerer myself, I never overlooked chance and opportunity. Mine and Tim’s blood had already been invested in the ink for this creation. We were bound to the snowman in his garage and promised a foul spirit a form to animate. Possession of a disposable human heart – such a powerful engine of life – may never come again; certainly not before June when Tim could no longer keep his garage cold.

“We’re not cutting him open here,” Tim explained needlessly. “Not at my house.”

I then dreamed we took the dead Mr. Jenishek to Odenschee’s field, where Tim cut out the man’s heart. The organ now froze in the freezer below. Upon living the encounter again in a dream, I noted Mr. Jenishek said nothing about my truck. Tim had simply let the insane man into his home and Jenishek attacked me with a sword. His happenstance glimpse of the M’thlck demanded his death, and Tim and I beat him ruthlessly. Jenishek had seen my invisible amulet; I know because I watched him drift away.

When I woke, Tim came downstairs bundled in his winter coat and boots; I still wore mine from yesterday. The frozen mud on the bottom of my shoes had thawed. Globs of wet dirt lay in centers of damp circles across the end of the couch. My hand rested over a wet stain once I sat upright.

“Let’s go, the Popsicles are done baking,” Tim merrily claimed and continued tromping downstairs and into the basement.

I wiped my hand on his tattered gray couch and my jeans. I then zipped my coat and walked into the dark and cold garage. The sun had not yet risen – not for another hour. The pillar-of-a-snowman was caught in the wide wedge of light thrown from the kitchen. The phantom might have frightened me if I didn’t know it was there. The thing still looked eerie in shadow, so I threw on the bald overhead light. The illumination did nothing to chase the chill.

Tim huffed, breathless, behind me. “I got it.”

He held a rectangular, molded plate of clear ice in one bare, pink hand. Jenishek’s heart was embedded on one side, and in a corner, of the inch-thick plate. Tim held the ice sheet at its opposite end. He bumped against me recklessly, as he often would.

“Dig the hole for his heart,” Tim said.

“Me?”

“Yeah, why not?”

“Because you might try to bind me, like you try whenever you bump into me.”

“No, Rob, I’m just clumsy. You know that.”

I trusted my friend and moved toward the snowman. Meanwhile, Tim snapped off corners from the brick of ice – banging the frozen cast against the concrete step into his house. The cracks echoed inside the empty, twin-car garage. Heedless, I dug into the thorax of the snowman.“The chest isn’t very thick,” I observed for Tim’s benefit. “Chip away the ice if your cube is too big.”

“It’ll fit,” he promised.

“And you’re gonna put it in,” I told Tim.

“Yeah, unless you want to,” he replied. “Do you?”

“No.”

“You sure?” Tim asked again. “I’ll let you.”

I almost told him I did want to implant the heart – I wanted to birth this golem. Before acting on impulse, I realized I could not trust my chaotic friend. He may even try and manipulate my desires. My best and only defense remained a cautious and rational mind.

“Put it in, Tim,” I prevailed. “The sun will come up soon.”

“Not for a while yet,” he countered and joined me aside the featureless snowman I had eviscerated. With quick hands, he slipped the encased heart into the empty space cut into the figure’s chest. “Kick some snow over here, I’ll pack it in.”

“That’s not required, is it?” I inquired about the technicality. In the meantime, I wasted time moving small piles of snow with the side of my foot. All the mud on my shoes from yesterday wiped away in the thick sludge.

“No, but I like everything neat, we’re artisans, you know,” Tim answered. “I just haven’t got around and found a face or arms for him.”

“He won’t last long,” I stated.

“That don’t matter, he’s an experiment,” said my friend. “If he works, we’re one step closer to our consciousness prevailed through reincarnation.”

“If it’s possible.” I continued doubting Tim; he lied. Regardless, he continued his crusade to convince me of his credential into such blasphemous research.

“Seriously, my mother reincarnates herself – all women can.”

I rolled my eyes while we shivered and waited for the sun to rise. “More of your bullshit.”

“No, here’s how they do it,” Tim insisted. “First, they have to remove their uterus; before or after death makes no difference.”

“They need accomplices, midwives,” I pondered.

“Yeah, you know,” Tim recovered from my interruption. “When the witch is dead, the rest of her is cremated – then the leather womb-purse is stuffed with the ashes.”

“And she sprouts out of the charm.”

“My mom did.”

“How is that knowledge helping us animate a golem made of snow?”

“Listen,” Tim demanded, taking his turn to scold me. “The heart is the key and is more powerful than a womb, right?”

“I suppose.”

“Then, why can’t we stuff our ashes into our hearts?”

Given all I knew of the Dark Arts and Tim’s mother, my friend’s thoughts seemed plausible and elemental. If his idea was truthful, why hadn’t other sorcerers attempted the feat? Why, and more important, had not the rebirth been documented?

Then again, the Dark Arts are dark regarding everything unknown, even those truths discovered and lost or denied. Sorcerers, alchemists, are explorers. Discovery of truth brings renown, or power when one’s find remains secret. Arcane strength encouraged rivals who eliminated each other, or when some greater power swooped upon newborn competition.

Tim finished packing snow into his transplant patient. He stood back, took a deep breath and admired his work. I admitted my friend achieved a preschool-level of masonry and asked a proactive question about our experiment.

“If this is about reincarnation, why are we using a snowman? We can’t stuff the heart with snow.”

“No?” Tim genuinely asked. “That’s an experiment we can try.”

“I’m saying,” I said and stepped up my protest. “Using the heart this way is a waste. What do you hope you’re doing, bringing back Mr. Jenishek?”

“No, one step-at-a-time,” Tim recited. “We need to make a golem, first, and learn how it works. You want to do that, right?”

“Yeah,” I agreed.

“That’s what we’re doing, be happy.”

While the sun rose, the windows drank in reflected light and the snowman shrank, as if melting. No water dripped from the stark figure, nor vapor rose from its shape; the snowman simply transformed into another state of existence. Arms, made of ice, wrapped the sculpture – something large had squatted over and now held the snowman.

“What, in Hell, is that?” Tim shouted.

“It sprouted from the heart,” I conjectured, though uncertain. Nothing umbilical appeared connecting the bandy troll to the snowman. Nothing tangible held the monster in this world. The sleeping troll simply appeared when the sun arose.

“Is that the spirit? Why didn’t it fill the snowman?” Tim persisted, distraught.

“Probably, because its unfinished – no face, legs…”

“That’s on-purpose,” Tim exclaimed. “What if it got away?”

“You did recite prayers for protection, right?”

“Yeah,” said Tim. “But why barter for a physical body when spirits can manifest in our world?”

“You have to ask?” I explained to my friend and pointed at the icy and knotted, long-limbed thing. “Spirits probably want a natural shape, like a human being or an animal – not a cold dildo.”

“Why isn’t it moving?” Tim said and reached up toward the monster. He hesitated against making contact.

“Maybe it needs to touch the heart,” I proposed.

“Shut up,” Tim fumed. “Critics – stop being critical and suspicious. Touch it.”

“Hell, no,” I answered firm.

“Fine, coward.”

Knowing I didn’t know what would happen, I stepped backward. Touch bound targets with sorcerers and that was powerful magic. More grievous things may happen such as electricity bolted through the garage, or the troll coming alive – and it did and seized hold of Tim.

The thing grabbed his arm when he came close. My friend jerked and pulled his locked arm; his hand at the other end spun and beat from the wrist. His fingers extended, vibrated and became still as his hand paled and Tim howled with pain.

“Kill the damned thing!” he shouted.

“How?” I shouted back.

Before Tim answered, he stopped still and all of him shattered into icy chunks, as if frozen suddenly and entirely in liquid nitroglycerin then dropped. After killing my friend, the wicked spirit faced toward me.

My thoughts the thing resembled Mr. Jenishek were purely fantastic projections. The monster was made of ice with telescopic eyes. Eyes were the only other feature distinguishing the thing’s face – it also had teeth. Rows of icicles filled the gap between the thing’s strange eyes and long neck. The mouth of the thing appeared fused into a 360 degree grin, and it did not bite when it killed.

Though the troll attacked with bone-shattering cold and bore a useless, vestigial mouth, the bunches of hooks terminating its long arms appeared hurtful. The thing stepped away from the snow-phallus (embedded with a dead man’s frozen heart) and reached toward me. The doorway into the kitchen remained open, so I stepped inside and shut the door.

It smashed through the glass window on the door the moment I locked the latch. While it bashed its entrance, I ran from the front of the house and to my truck. The thing ransacked Tim’s house as I drove away. I thought, “Shit, Tim’s dead.”

My heart sunk even deeper when I thought of his mother, a vengeful witch. She will certainly hold me accountable, and have evidence. My blood forms the ink of the contract with the spirit. Once Tim’s mother dispels the troll the ethereal fiend became, she’ll find me.

The woman’s predictable reaction vexed me further, because I needed help from a necromancer. She could tell me how to simply banish the monster and I would; this unusual monster.

It’s willfulness made this one unique. The spirit rejected the shape Tim had provided and assumed its own form. Consequently, its source of power lay outside its body. That fact may aid the task of destroying this thing. The frozen heart had only to be replaced with a warm one.

Moving within reach of the organ might be the difficult aspect of the chore. I suspected the spirit guarded the snowman. If it didn’t, the range the monster roamed may be limited and it stayed near. I resolved to make observations and collect this information, after I return from home.

First, I’ll eat then bring back Heartless Pete, my pet rabbit I kept for an occasion such as today. Pete’s bleeding heart will replace the frozen block in the thorax of the snowman. Until then, Tim’s neighbors were responsible for themselves. I don’t know how far the thing can travel, but it hadn’t left the house before I drove away.

At home, I microwaved a branded serving of frozen lasagne and ate the dish with warm milk for breakfast. After grabbing Pete and throwing him into a burlap sack, I grew excited and charged back to Tim’s house. I knew I must merely distract the monster and swap hearts. The job was as easy as changing a light bulb guarded by a murderous tackle.

Once I arrived at my dead friend’s home, and in preparation, I killed Pete with my filet knife and cut out his heart from beneath fragile yet flexible ribs. The spirit, in its shape as a troll, appeared nowhere at the front of the house. It neither lurked in the windows, and may be in the back or anywhere in the house. I suspected it was exactly where I needed to go.

Knowing where the monster may be boosted my confidence, but I wanted to be certain. I strolled into the house and crept toward the smashed doorway of the attached garage. All the while, the snowman and myself remained hidden from each other. Pete’s wet heart stayed warm in the palm of my hand.

I still held the filet knife in my other hand and carried no hope it matched the machinery of scythes the creature wielded at the end of its arms. Very slowly, I moved at an angle toward the open doorway and more of the shaded garage became revealed with each step. Close the entrance, I saw the shining back of the troll.

Upon spotting the creature and knowing the snowman was inaccessible, I reminded myself I must only distract the monster. Locking it away was preferable, but it had made short work with the door into the garage. Besides, I had no idea how I might lure it into the basement – or maybe outside.

Wherever the monster went, its absence for a few minutes provided lots of time for me to punch out the frozen heart and stuff in the peanut-sized organ from Heartless Pete. I resolved myself and decided I’d bait the monster – I got away earlier and now I was ready and would keep my head-start.

Hopefully, the troll will follow my plan and chase me from the house. I can then run around and into the garage from the rear entrance. If it continued pursuing me, I could take another lap through the kitchen and perform my operation on-foot.

After scrutiny, I reversed my track and decided the chase will begin out the backdoor. If it was locked, I would find and resolve the obstacle before the chase began. Given what the troll would do if it caught me, I spared no flexibility for surprises. I left through the front door and tread over hard, cold ground and looked at the troll through the rear window.

It’s telescopic eyes instantly swung in my direction and the thing lunged. The troll swung away from the snowman and jumped toward the window. The thing reacted more quickly than I anticipated and I lost an opportunity to test the door. It crashed through the window and I sprinted toward the front of the house.

I rounded the corner of Tim’s house then leapt upon the front porch before the monster appeared. It followed my trail and I heard the frozen earth behind me torn up into solid chunks. The thing plodded forward like an unworldly plow.

Once inside Tim’s house, I shut the front door and tossed the dead bolt. And still, I expected the door would not hold back the monster, but will delay its progress. Cutting down the door will take more time than I required. When I finished, the troll will die and melt as the ground thaws in the coming month.

I listened to the troll claw and beat the front door while I skipped into the garage. The skinny snowman stood defenseless in the pastel light of late afternoon. I sheathed my knife and dug away the front of the snowman, taking away so much snow that the top third of the sculpture broke away and fell to the ground.

The frozen heart was not inside the snowman, but before I mauled the statue, the figure appeared unchanged; I swear. The moment I failed to find the heart, the siege against the front door ceased. I decided to leave at that moment and supposed the troll was coming back the way it went. If I lingered, I’d watch it come through the broken window pane. Preservation taking precedence over curiosity, I decided that I’d leave and stepped into the kitchen.

The demolished snowman did complicate the destruction of the spirit’s body. Because I no longer had a shape on which to operate, I would have to run home with the frozen heart and melt it in my oven. Entirely lacking the evil heart rendered the fresh one I carried useless. I tossed Pete’s rabbit heart into the polluted snowscape within the garage and promptly left Tim’s house.

As expected, the troll was not outside in front, and I jogged to my truck parked on the street. I needed the frozen heart and the spirit had obviously hidden the artifact. Though the monster will die when it melted within the next couple months, Tim’s mother will discover her son’s death sooner. Meanwhile, the troll will cause havoc and draw attention.

If the wicked spirit was clever enough to hide its heart, who knows what mayhem it may instigate. My best interest insisted this thing was killed immediately. I can then set about disguising Tim’s death until I vanished.

When I reached my truck, I found my driver-side window smashed. Cubes of glass and ice covered the seat and I carefully – though swiftly – brushed them to the floor with my bare palm. I guessed the monster had looked for me in my truck. Failing to find me, it went back into the garage. Once I sat down and became gripped in cold, I knew I had sprung its trap.

The moment I touched the ice on my seat, the chiseled bits from the troll, my thoughts were not my own. I thought, I must find Tim’s mother. The witch threatened my new, human body and she must be destroyed. She may have collected the knowledge of lifetimes, but I know the Dark Arts of eons. No witch will spoil my infraction to this world, no matter how many lives she remembered.

- – END – -