White Hell
The forecast didn't mention forever.
The sky outside is the color of a wet sidewalk. Channel 12 is running the "Storm Tracker" graphic on a loop. They keep using the word "historic." The radar says we have eight hours of quiet left before the first flake hits the porch. This story is what happens when that clock stops. Stay warm. Keep your watches wound.
The guy on Channel 12 had a twitch in his left eye. He kept touching his tie, pulling it away from his throat. “A generational event,” he said. He stopped saying snow. He just called it “the accumulation.” Behind him, the radar map was a solid, unmoving block of digital white. People at the grocery store fought over the last loaf of sourdough. They looked like they were prepping for a siege. They looked like they knew the bread wouldn’t save them.
By Tuesday, the sky and ground were gone. A vibrating wall of white took their place. The power lines snapped with a sound like a pistol shot. The house went dark. The silence was heavy, pressed against the eardrums.
He shoveled for four hours. The driveway filled back in before he reached the garage. The snow was fine, like powdered glass. It got into his lungs. He coughed and felt a sharp, frozen bite in the center of his chest. His breath came out in gray plumes of smoke.
On the fifth day, the radio played static for hours. Then it stayed quiet. He sat in the kitchen wearing three coats and his old flannel pajamas. The ceiling joists creaked under the weight. A low, slow groan of wood under pressure. It was noon, but the house stayed midnight. His hand went to his wrist. He wound the watch. He counted twelve turns. He set it back against his skin where it ticked against his pulse.
He found the can behind a stack of empty jars. Jellied cranberry sauce. He used the manual opener, his wrists clicking with every turn of the crank. The lid came off with a wet, metallic snap. He dumped the contents onto the laminate. It was a single, ribbed cylinder of dark red. It shivered once, then stayed still. It was food. That’s all that mattered. He didn’t bother with a plate. He dug in with a soup spoon. The sugar hit his back molars. His jaw locked. He swallowed. His stomach cramped around the ice-cold weight. He wiped his mouth with his sleeve. It left a purple smear on the wool.
By the seventh day, the calendar on the fridge was a joke. He looked at the front door. The deadbolt was frozen solid, a silver nub of ice. He pressed his hand to the wood. His palm went numb instantly. He climbed to the attic and looked out the small circular window. The streetlights were gone. The neighbor’s pine trees had disappeared. The crust was high and hard. It sat flat against the glass like a wall.
He scraped a layer of frost off the window pane. There was no wind anymore. No movement. Just a permanent, vertical ocean of white sealed to the glass. It wasn’t melting. It wasn’t shifting. It was just home now.
His hand went to his wrist. His fingers found the crown. He didn’t turn it. He pulled his hand back and tucked it under his arm for warmth. The watch ticked twice more, then stopped.
I swear I've lived at least a little of this hah
One year, our town lost power during a major ice storm and we were all out for days. Snow kept piling and the cold kept deepening.
The horror for me in that instance was living in a trailer at the time. Truly no better icebox could be purchased.
Great story here!
Love it! I would call this “chilling” but that would be a bad pun. So let’s go with “unsettling”.