The Snow
William Bailey
(Stoke-on-Trent)
“It is not normal, it must be stopped. No-one should be allowed to go out there. It is sweeping the country. It is now taking an average of twenty-five people per day. It will not stop. It will not die away. It will kill…” crackled the electronic and robot-like voice of the news reporter on the small, box-like TV wedged into the corner of the room.
“It’s nothin’,” spluttered the man slumped lazily in his battered armchair, “It’s too of’n worried abou’!”
The cottage creaked and a single crack appeared in the ceiling. The face of the man in the red armchair dropped.
“You should have listened,” warned a ghostly figure with cold pale skin, short white hair and small bloodshot eyes towering before him. The bewildered man shot up out of his armchair and snatched the dilapidated phone perched on a tower of books. His crumpled finger prodded it three times and he put it to his ear. Silence.
“You won’t hear anything,” the icy figure said, “It’s a little…disconnected.” The man glanced at the floor and saw the snapped phone wire.
“Who are you?” shuddered the man staring, frozen with fear.
“If only you knew,” came the cold reply…
Later that month, a man in a red armchair was found sadly and mysteriously – dead.
The snow had struck again.