As Josie looks out from the attic window of her home, she sees the first snowfall of the winter starting to cover the ground. The First Snow is already here. She remembers when the snow was fun and wonderful. When she would go out and play until her nose and ears were red with the cold. It’s fun to look back at the naivete of youth. Nowadays the snow isn’t something to be happy about. It is something to fear. Would she survive another First Snow?
An hour later the ground is completely covered with white. Josie can still see bits of grass sticking up through the heavy blanket, but she knows that it won’t be long before that is gone. That means they will be coming soon. She isn’t prepared. The weatherman had said that there would be rain and mix in the forecast, not three inches of death. In the world the way it is now, how could they get it so wrong?
Josie leaves the attic to make sure that her doors and windows are locked on the first and second floors. Not that it matters much, she thinks, locks and windows have never stopped them before. As she reaches the front door she looks out of the half-moon window at the top of the door, she’s short, a couple of inches taller than five feet, so she stands on her tiptoes. She sees the neighbors have all pulled their blinds and turned off their lights. She doesn’t see any movement on the street, but there does seem to be a light shining on the freshly fallen powder.
But my lights are off. Josie panics thinking about what she has forgotten to turn off. The attic! She bolts up the stairs, down the hall, and up the second flight in a panic. How could I have forgotten?
As she gets to the door she reaches in and quickly extinguishes the lights. This plunges the whole house into darkness. The only light is filtering in from the clouded full moon outside through the half-moon window in the attic. She stoops low and almost crawls to the window to look out. The snow hasn’t slowed, it seems to have picked up just since returned upstairs.
A full moon and the first snow of the year? How many of us are going to see the morning sun? she asks herself. Each year there seems to be more and more deaths during the First Snow. The small population of her town can’t sustain this type of death toll year in and year out. Josie has never been told why they only come during the First Snow, she just knows that’s how it is.
If you have been good all year and you stay silent on the night of the First Snow, you may survive. The unfortunate part was that you never knew when it was going to come. Last year the First Snow came so late that it was almost a relief when it came. It meant the waiting was over.
The snow was still falling. The screams would start soon, then the panic would set in and all you could do was pray and hope that your house wasn’t one of those picked. Had she been good this year? She wasn’t so sure.
Josie would’ve left this fearful town if there was any way to get out. The land surrounding the town was mountainous. There were no passes through. If someone decided that they would try and find a way through, the townspeople would rally and bring them back to town. They were then tied to a post in the town square on the night of the First Snow. They became the first victims of that violent night.
Josie couldn’t give herself up to them like that. The fear was bad, but life outside of this first night was not. Sure, this town was a little boring and always had a stink to it that made everyone a little standoffish, but it was home and people genuinely helped people most of the year. One odd thing about this little town, though, was that no one seemed to pass away from natural causes. She was in her thirties and Josie could never remember anyone dying from sickness or injury.
How can it be with all of the stress that this night brings that no one has ever died of a heart attack?
Josie tries not to think about any of this too heavily as it leads to questions that others don’t like. Do others think about the same things and just keep them behind closed doors? Is Josie the odd woman out? Joshua doesn’t even like talking about this in the comfort of their bed at night. He says that others have spoken out before and they were the first to disappear during the following First Snow.
Thinking about this gets Josie’s hands shaking. She has spoken to Joshua about these things, was that enough for her to be heard? She slowly and quietly walks to the kitchen to pour herself a drink, a small glass of wine. She then sits on her bed and tries to keep her mind clear.
As she lifts the glass to her lips for the first sip, a squealing laugh pierces the night. She jumps and spills the wine down the front of her shirt. She sighs and puts the glass down, a little too hard, on the dresser and grabs a clean shirt. I guess there is no reason to be killed in a dirty shirt. The morbid thought scares her. Is she giving herself up to the inevitability of her death, or is she just nervous and trying to break her monotonous thoughts?
Several more laughs fill the night. It seems like there are more every year. Minutes after the first laugh, the first scream pierces Josie’s home. It’s close, maybe even her neighbor. There are only five streets in this town, so nothing is very far away, but this scream was so close Josie could hear the death gurgle at the very end. Whoever that scream emanated from would never have to fear a First Snow again. Would Josie have the same fate?
For the next hour, the laughing and screaming come again and again. Josie can’t stand it, she buries her head under her pillows and tries to hum herself to sleep. If she can sleep then the night will disappear and the next thing that she will be aware of is the morning light. If she survives.
As Josie lies there trying to keep the fear and world out of her head, she hears what sounds like glass breaking. She sits up quickly and tries to quiet her heart so that she can hear properly. Sound echoes and carries far in the snow so it may not have been her home. That thought is gone as soon as she hears a foot crunch on the glass. They are inside.
Josie doesn’t have time to think. They’re on the first floor and hopefully don’t know where she is. She eases out of her bed and silently slips to the door in her bare feet. As she opens it on silent hinges she peers into the hall and tries to determine where the sounds are coming from. She hears the deadbolt click and the front door swings open. They are trying to be quiet, but they can’t help themselves from laughing. Josie isn’t sure how many of them there are, but one is too many to overpower.
“If they enter your house, you might as well give yourself up to them. They will find you, there is no use in fighting or hiding when you have been chosen. Be brave and hand yourself over to them,” is what her father used to tell her.
Josie couldn’t do that, she wouldn’t. She has always been a fighter, she isn’t giving up that easily. She opens the door a little farther so that she can slip into the hallway and up to the attic before they make it upstairs, she may only have seconds. As she tries to slip out, her shoulder hits the dresser and the wine glass falls to the floor, shattering the glass. The laughing downstairs stops. Crap, they know that she is there now. She slips out of the door and runs as quietly as she can to the stairs. All the way she can hear the footsteps storming up the other set of steps. Too many feet on the stairs and coming too fast.
Josie makes the turn and quickly glances back down the hallway. She just saw a bit of a hand on the railing as she disappeared around the corner. They aren’t laughing now. A low growling precedes them. Josie is scared to make any noise and draw them down the hallway towards her. Slowly, slower than she has ever moved in her life, she moves one foot to the next step and transfers her weight. As she settles on that step she moves the next foot to follow.
The weight transfer causes the step to creak. Crap! They had to have heard that. With all thoughts of moving silently out of her mind, Josie takes off up the stairs slams the attic door shut behind her, and slides the deadbolt home. The door is solid wood and the deadbolt is an inch thick, she had installed the lock unbeknownst to even her husband.
As she leans against the door, Josie thinks through this plan. The attic is too far off the ground for them to climb in the small window and the roof line is too steep for anything to climb the roof in the snow. She should be safe here. This thought only lasts seconds as she hears what appears to be nails scratching on the siding. She rushes to the small window and looks down to see them climbing the siding with just their hands and feet. She didn’t know that they could climb like that. They were beating on the door to the attic and climbing the siding on the outside, she was trapped. This is the night I die, she thinks. She almost loses herself to this emotion before her anger kicks in. I will not die at the hands of these things. They will not be the death of me.
She makes up her mind, takes a deep breath, and moves to the attic door. In a sudden burst of speed that she never knew that she had, she runs full speed toward the other end of the attic. At the very last second she vaults herself into the air and flies head-first through the half-moon window and into the cold, snowy night air.
Time seems to slow down as she breaks through the window. She can see pieces of glass spinning all around her, falling through the air with her. She slowly rotates and can see them climbing the siding. They have stopped their ascent and watch her with wide eyes as she plummets to the ground.
She had never seen them so clearly before. They are smaller than she thought, yet somehow even uglier. Their faces are full of hundreds of razor-sharp teeth and large beady eyes. Their large hats and shoes are only outdone by the oversized, gaudily-colored shirts that they wear. Razor-sharp nails poke out of their shoes as they climb the outside of her house matched only by the nails on the ends of their fingers. This is all she has time to see before she hits the snow and ground harder than she ever thought possible. With any luck, this will kill her and take that away from them.
She is not that lucky. As the glass pierces the snow and her flesh, Josie rolls over and groans. The snow is deep and must have cushioned her fall enough to let her survive. She thinks that she has a couple of broken ribs and her left arm hangs awkwardly from her shoulder. She doesn’t have time to think about this if she is going to survive. She gets up seconds after hitting the ground but can see them retracting the claws on their feet and hands and dropping to the ground at the edge of the house. Already in pursuit.
Her momentum took her a couple of feet into the yard, but she didn’t have much time. She pushes herself up to her feet and slogs her way through the ever-deepening snow. The snow slows her down, but even though her legs are short, theirs are even shorter. They are having to jump up and down to make their way through. It slows them some but the chase and the thought of the kill drives them forward. There are so many of them, how are there so many?
Josie works her way to the neighbor’s property. There is an opening in the snow. It takes her a second to realize this is where they dragged her neighbor out of the house and away from town. It seems a little sickening but she follows this track to make better time. She has to hurry, and while this will help her move faster it will also let them move after her easier too. Through the streets and around the buildings, Josie outpaces them to the edge of town.
As she hits the edge of town she hesitates for just a second. She had never been this far before, she was never allowed. Does it matter now? if she is caught she is dead, if she gets away from them she will live for another year until next year’s First Snow then be left out for them and their revenge. She wants to survive, she isn’t sure why but this gives her more energy to push through.
Josie is starting to lose feeling in her feet and hands. When she entered the woods at the edge of town she lost any light that would help her find her way. The foliage was thick and covered in snow. The moon, as full as it was, couldn’t penetrate. The snow isn’t as deep, but the ground is still covered. All of this combines to cause her numb feet to catch a root and tumbles her to the ground. The pain makes her cough and she spits bright crimson blood into the pale white snow.
She is hurt more than she thought, but she can’t let this stop her. There are caves up ahead, or at least she has been told. If she can get there, maybe she can lose them. Don’t caves have twists and turns that you can get lost in? She isn’t sure.
The sounds of pursuit seemed to have fallen behind as she enters the deeper woods. Her strength is waning and she has to look at her feet just to be able to tell where she is placing them. As she is about to give up, she scuffs her foot on the stone. She looks up and into the mouth of a small cave. She takes a quick look behind her. They are at the edge of her vision but they don’t seem to be coming after her.
She did it! She outran them to somewhere that they wouldn’t go. Josie’s confused by their lack of action, but the pain is clouding her mind. She takes the win and walks into the cave. The cave is warm and inviting. She feels her feet warming up on the warm stone. The smell isn’t as dank as she would expect, it almost smells like peppermint and gingerbread. Is she losing her mind?
Josie continues into the cave hoping to stay warm and get as far away from them as she can. She can see light emanating from ahead of her so she follows the tunnel towards the light. Should this be warm and inviting? She thinks about this but brushes the thought away. She survived them coming into her home. She survived being outside during the First Snow, nothing in this cave can stop her now.
This thought leaves her mind as she turns the last corner.
“Hello, Josie. Welcome to my home.”
Josie looks up and sees a large dais with a very large throne upon it. The man/creature who spoke is covered in a red suit and is surrounded by the bodies of her neighbors and fellow townsfolk. They are alive, but bleeding out upon the dais, none of them will last long. The large man has blood covering his face and his white beard.
Josie’s scared and turns to run back out of the cave. Dealing with them will be better than the images that are now scorched into her brain from this room. As she turns she sees that the tunnel behind her is full of them, full of what she now sees as his elves. They may be the ones that attack the townspeople but they bring them here, to him.
She can see him now. The red suit isn’t red, it is just covered in blood. The jolliness in his smile is overpowered by the hundreds of razor-sharp teeth hidden in his mouth.
Josie can see the truth, no one is ever supposed to leave her town. They are bred there to be food for this creature and his minions. They must die so others can live.
“Where are you going to run Josie? You’ve been a bad girl this year. Yes, very bad thoughts. You know the punishment for that is death. Ho! Ho! Ho! I need your blood to survive the coming season. Thank you for your sacrifice, the rest of the world’s children will thank you for providing your life so they can receive their gifts for another year,” the dark creature taunts.
Josie has no idea what the man in the bloodstained suit is talking about. The world’s children will thank her? All she can think about are the bodies on the dais she knows that she will be joining them soon. There is nowhere to run and nothing she can do. She just falls to her knees, hangs her head, and hopes the end comes quickly.
