Refrost: A Short Story (Patreon)

On Saturday afternoon at 3:38 PM, Brad Middleton gets a notification. A picture has been posted to well-known blogger Liza Janson’s Instagram account from her own phone. The location is tagged and so is one name: The Shadow Striker.

He rushes there immediately, his sleek black car effortlessly traversing the steep mountain road even in the pouring rain. But of course he is too late. He finds Liza alone, sprawled in the yard, her body already going cold. 

She’s barely recognizable. The Plastic Surgeon carved up her face, mangled her hands and feet, hacked into her flesh over and over. The phone left beside her dings. There’s a comment on the post, but it’s not one directed at Liza. “I made her look beautiful for you,” it simply says.

Brad lets out a sob, falling to his knees beside the shattered shell of the woman. He holds her blood-soaked hand in his own. “Why did you come here alone?!” he moans.

But he knows before he even looks at her phone. “It was…me, wasn’t it.” He slides open the device and confirms this with one glance at the comment left on her blog. The one saying the truth she’d dedicated her whole site to uncovering was waiting for her here. “It was always me. Oh, Liza. so curious…so headstrong…so desperate to find out…he saw that blog of yours and…God, it’s all my fault.”

He takes a ring from his pocket. The diamond glitters in the weak rays of sunlight now coming through the clouds. “I was going to propose tonight. And then…if you said yes…I was going to tell you…”

He slips the ring onto her mangled finger. “I was right beside you all along,” he tells her in a choked whisper.

He remains bowed over her for a moment, shoulders quaking. Then he gathers her broken body in his arms and rises. His eyes flash. “I won’t let him get away with this.

He carries her corpse to his Black Bombshell and lays her gently in the backseat. He takes the wheel, a grim expression on his face.  As he drives along the cliffside, his speed climbing higher and higher, only one thought rings through his head:  The Surgeon will pay.

But then he hears something. His eyes flick to the backseat, just in time to see Liza sit up and yawn.

“Hey there,” she says as she sucks on her half severed knuckle.

***

What kind of plastic surgeon uses a gun?

That’s all I can think about, even now that he’s long gone and I’m nearly finished bleeding out on the muddy grass.  It totally doesn’t fit his nom de guerre at all, but I guess he couldn’t resist the whole “girl opens the door, surprise it’s a gunshot!” classic. I don’t know why they’re so attached to that one.

God, his screechy little laugh is still echoing in my skull. Just when I think I’ve heard all the registers, they somehow invent a new one. I guess I should be grateful for a little variety. The shit they say when they cut me up sure as hell never varies. If they’re not going on some stupid rant about how they’re too edgy for the world to handle and no one appreciates their genius, it’s something about how pretty or ugly I am. Naturally, they never fail to mention that “he” won’t be here in time to save me.

I’ve taken to keeping a tally to alleviate the boredom. The Surgeon is the four-hundred-and-ninety seventh-one to comment on the “beautiful color of my blood”, the one million-seven-hundred-thousand-and-fourth one to inform me what got him started on the road to hell was a girl rejecting him, the one-hundred-thousandth to tell me my suffering is nothing compared to his and…well, I could go on, but even counting them is starting to get boring.

 You’d think as he’d at least find a novel, creative way to cut me up, but nope. This is my thousandth Glasgow smile.

Speaking of boring, here comes Liza Janson’s boyfriend. I wonder what his tally will be?

“Why did you come here alone?” Of course. My fifteen-hundredth opening scold.

I find his kind to be even more mind-numbing than the villains. I wish it was a fresh twist that he, like the surgeon, just assumed that Liza’s blog was devoted to his exploits without ever reading it; when it’s actually a recipe blog….but yeah, that’s fairly typical. It’s hard to resist groaning  when he starts in on the  whole “it was all because of me” shtick. You’d think they’d get tired of saying “I” so much, but they never do.  “I’ll make them pay”, “I’m sorry I couldn’t protect you”, “I’ll find who did this to you” and the most pathetic one of all, “I love you”. 

He was going to propose and then tell her the truth if she said yes, naturally (four-hundred-eighty-two). A test to see if she’d accept the “real him”, probably. As if such a thing even exists, as if he sees the “real her”… or even sees her at all.

 Ugh, is he really trying to jam that ring on my finger? This is so fucking awkward, he got the wrong size and it’s all slippery with the blood and…welp, he just jammed it into the wound, huh. Lovely. Took it from half-severed to a near complete amputation.

Okay, he got to the part where he swears his vengeance fairly quickly, at least it wasn’t a long speech. He must really be raring to go. He picks me up and…Seriously? He’s dumping me in the backseat? 

Well, at least that’ll make things easy.

As the car winds down narrow roads at an ill-advised speed, my arms and legs flop all around and my head bangs against the seat. My ringed finger swings to and fro, hanging on by a thread. I reach over and yank at it clumsily. Sinew and skin snap as the finger comes off completely, and the ring clatters to the floor. He doesn’t notice. I jam the finger back on its stump and wait.

Flesh regrows. Wounds stitch. Bones knit.

 Slowly I sit up. I stretch. I lick the blood off my knuckles.

His head snaps around. 

“Hey there.”

His mouth forms a tiny “o”.

“Eyes on the road,” I remind him.

“Huh?” he says as we skid off the cliff. 

***

I emerge from the wreckage, patting out the flames on my sleeves. I glance around and quickly find what’s left of him. I sigh. It’s all over.

It’s not always this simple. Often I have to follow him around for years. Flit in the corners of his eyes. Figure out the crucial moment to strike. It doesn’t matter what I do, really, so I try to change it up. I appear from the dark suddenly and silently, I throw a thing. Whisper a chilling phrase or something just plain weird into his ear. Whatever it takes. I just need to distract him from his epic vengeance battles against my murderer long enough to screw things up. Make each encounter end in some stupid anticlimax.

 (Incidentally, my favorite fuck-up was when I startled Agent Adonis so much he somehow stabbed his own foot while trying to skewer Chaos Creeper. The Creeper literally pissed himself laughing over it and Adonis was so mortified it took two full months before he was able to face anyone again).

 Over the years, I make him chase shadows. And slowly, he loses face- with his fellow heroes  (or anti-heroes), superiors ,villains, fans. Everyone stops taking him seriously. See, being haunted by the brutal and tragic death of your woman is only tolerated if it makes you angry and driven and , well, cool.  Nobody has time for a basketcase prone to hilarious pratfalls.

And so he gets desperate to prove he hasn't lost his touch. He pulls some risky, pointless stunt. He dies spectacularly.  I don't even have to lift a finger. God, I've seen so many amazingly stupid deaths through my career it’s hard to choose a number one, but The Mane Man suddenly deciding he should take on a wild lion as a sidekick and that going exactly how you’d expect? Definitely up there.

As for the men that don’t self-destruct, they become obsessed with me. Plenty of them try to kill me. I mean, I’m clearly some evil being who took the form of this poor man’s lover! Or better yet, I’m truly his angel baby, but I’ve been taken over by an evil mastermind! Now my hero has to save me by killing me for my own good! Look what I made him do!

There’s not much variety in how these little crusades turn out- they all end with a man pleading with the cops about his very public attempted murder of a helpless, innocent woman. “But just a second ago, she was my wife/girlfriend/really important fuckbuddy, I swear!” 

If I’m feeling bored, I can spice things up a bit and let my ex-man catch a glimpse of my real face just for a second, as he’s dragged away. His expression’s always priceless. Even if the dude never sees the inside of a jail cell (and so many of them won't), he’ll lock himself away after that.

Then there are the exceptions. These are rare, and seem to get rarer as the years go on. But it’s always exciting in a depressing way when it happens. 

Like, okay, I was  lying there  all corpse-like, expecting to hear my reliable, boring-ass stock lines from this boy, but he just started  hyperventilating and sobbing over how Zoey can’t be dead, she obviously would never die! Not when the Ninja Frog movie she’s been hyping out about for years is coming out this week! Look, If Zoey  just wakes up he swears he’ll take her to every single Ninja Frog event and sing the theme song with her for real this time and never fall asleep in the middle of a film again, so just please!!! and oh god he knows he should be finding the person who did this to her, but Zoey’s Mom’s going to come in any minute and he knows Zoey would be so p[issed he just left her mom to find her body and deal with that all on her own!!! What should he DO??? Zoey always knows what to do? What would Zoey do??? Zoey, please!!!

And it’s just so novel to hear that sort of thing from one of them. I’ll admit I was charmed. So I popped right up off the floor and told him Zoey wasn't here. And (after a lot of screaming and placating and me twisting my head around so it faced the right way again) I showed him a glimpse, just a glimpse. I watched the light in his eyes dim and his mouth scrunch up in shame as I gently explained what he had done, and why he could never take it back.

“I’m so sorry.” He said as tears streamed down his face. “I know you don’t have any reason to believe me…but I truly am. I understand it’s better this way. Thank you.”

I remember that ‘thank you’ a lot. It's hard to believe one of them appreciated me. Like I said, novel.

Zack went back to a normal life, grew up a bit and I think he’s doing well as an elementary school teacher. But he’s never dated anyone after Zoey, and I doubt he ever will. The others I’ve shown the truth also led decent, contrite lives- but as I’ve said, Zacks are very few and far between.

The rest of them, I’m happy to lead to their ends. My goal isn’t necessarily for those ends to be violent or painful, because a lot of them would be fine with that part. They want a noble and glorious fight to the death. One where they fulfill their duty as an avenger. Where their sacrifice will be remembered  by all and respected forever.

Yeah, no. Fuck that. They don’t get dignity. They don’t get catharsis. They don’t get the respect due a warrior or whatever the shit, they don’t get to be idolized or remembered by the masses. We don’t get that, so why should they? They don’t get to climb on the broken bodies so they alone can reach the stars. No, They will trip on those mangled corpses. They will fall and become tangled here in the mud with me. They will fade away, just like I do, every time.

Of course, I can’t stay faded forever. I’ve got plenty to do.

***

After I finish one job, I’m drawn to the next one like a magnet.  I just follow the pull and see where it takes me. This time, it’s a sprawling apartment complex.  I walk up a rusty flight of stairs and find door 201. When I touch the knob, it opens easily, noiselessly, like always.

I enter and find her hunched  over the dining room table, eating ramen with one hand and clacking away at her laptop’s keyboard with the other. Dinner alone while he sleeps. That’s common at this stage.

She’s a serious looking woman, hair up in a messy bun, very focused on what she’s doing. I walk up behind her and see some kind of data entry work. Even now, she doesn’t notice me. They never do, until….

I sit down at her right side and gently cover her hand with my own. Her typing stills. Her ramen-loaded fork falls to the table with a clatter. She turns to me.

 I don’t know what I look like to any of them during this part. I don’t ever see myself reflected in their eyes. All I know, if they never scream or run. They just stare. 

 “I need to show you something,” I say softly, lacing my fingers in hers. And the world melts away around us.

We arrive. It’s a strange, formless place as always. No ground to stand on, no horizon in the distance, just indistinct and constantly shifting colors and shapes. Her and I, we just kind of float in the void. She’s still holding onto my hand, but her form is flickering and blurred around the edges.

“Don’t let go,” I warn.

She finally cries out, her eyes wild. “Where-? Where are-?”

I point and she sees him, and predictably, calls for him. “Rob!”

I shake my head wearily at her. “He won’t hear you.”

Rob is so completely covered in those strange dizzying shapes and colors it’s nearly impossible to see the silhouette of a man underneath. But she, like most of the others I’ve bought here, still recognizes him somehow. One of them once told me when you love someone you just get this “feeling”. Guess I can’t relate.

For a single second, the colors melt into Rob and he’s a distinct person. He’s grizzled and muscular, wearing a huge amount of belts and pockets, wielding a sword and a huge gun…it looks uncomfortable as hell to me, but his expression is positively jubilant. Then he fades back to silhouette again.

“This is-?” she asks.

“Yes.” I drone. “His place. He’s been sleeping a lot lately, hasn’t he? Going to bed early?”

She nods in a forlorn sort of way. 

“He’s doesn’t realize this, but it’s because there’s something he wants to see. And someone he wants to talk to.”

“What? Who’s he talking to?”

Right on cue, He begins to speak. Well, speak isn’t the right word. He is not “heard”. There is no voice. Instead, every other sound, sensation, thought you have is extinguished. For a moment, there is nothing inside you but His Message. It is becomes your core and after he is done, the rest of you reforms around that core and then you Know. You have always Known. 

You have been Chosen.

Rob’s silhouette fills out into a person again. He is wearing an impeccably tailored suit and his gun is smaller and sleeker now. Before his smile can even fully form, he fades again into that inconsequential little outline. He cries out in frustration.

There is so much you can have. So much you can do.

More colors and shapes are moving towards him rapidly, so much bolder and brighter than the rest of this misty, unclear world. As the beautiful mass swallows him up, he shouts in ecstasy. The vibrant colors and jumbled forms swell and flash so quickly it hurts even my eyes to watch it. But in every flash, Rob is there.

Flash. He’s speeding across a highway, a mass of vehicles pursuing him. Bullets are flying, shattering the windows and whizzing past his head. He just goes faster and faster, until he’s soaring through the air in an impossible jump, fire and destruction in his wake

 Flash. Rob is flying with no vehicular aid now, zipping through the endless expanse of space, weaving around stars and smashing meteors with his bare hands. 

Flash. Rob is slick with blood, carving his way through swathes of men with a blade that moves like lightning. They fall at his feet and  he gives a mighty battle cry. 

Flash. Rob, clad in skin-tight black leather, effortlessly dodges a glamorous woman lunging at him with a knife. He pins her against the brick wall of an alleyway and she’s forced to drop her dagger. She smiles seductively. 

Flash.

Flash.

Flash.

It keeps going. World after world after world, all with Rob at the center of them. They get bigger and bigger, taking up more and more of the dreamscape. The colors creep ever closer to the little corner of it she and I inhabit.

Her hand is trembling in mine. Her mouth moves soundlessly. This part is always overwhelming for them, but it’ll be over soon. He can’t stay like this for long before…

It all unravels. Every color and shape falls away, and Rob is left as a nothing silhouette in his wispy world once more. 

“Bring it back!” Even Rob’s voice is weak and shapeless, his whine barely audible.

I can, but only if you will it. You have the power to choose any path you wish. All you must do…is accept a loss.

He hesitates.

Some colors return, but they are as weak and muted as Rob himself. They wrap around him and bring him to his knees. A shape forms behind him, faint but recognizable.

She certainly recognizes it. She gasps and tries to tear away from me, reach out to him. I hold on tight. Hold back a sigh.

 To truly be yourself, you must lose this. Only then will everything come together.

Rob shifts uncertainly and looks up at the hollow outline of his lover.

The real woman beside me is still struggling, calling out to him.

 “If you let go, you slip away from here,” I hiss. “Believe me. He won’t see you. There’s no room for you here.”

 She stops. Her shoulders slump. Her hand goes slack in mine. After a few seconds, she bows her head and steps back. Like so many before her, she can't argue with what I'm saying. It's something she's known for a while now.

Rob knows too. The message is unfolding.

Take this one loss, so you can see clearly. 

Endless forms appear, the shapes of his infinite dazzling selves, each one bursting with overwhelming color and life, each one the promise of a new world. 

Take this one loss, so you can save countless others. 

The shadow of the woman holding him grows even fainter in the bright glare.

Take this one loss, so you can become the man who will change the world. 

The shadow’s hold on him loosens. Slowly, he gets to his feet.

So you can become the man you were always meant to be.

He looks at her shape like he doesn’t quite know what it is anymore.

The real woman beside me shakes her head wildly. “He wouldn’t…he would never…” But even she doesn’t sound convinced of what she’s saying. 

Who even is this to you now? Can you even remember her name?

“She…” Rob finally speaks. He reaches out, touching the tips of the shadow’s smoky fingers. “I think I remember. She… loves me. She..is a good person...”

“See!” she whispers at me in a high pitched voice. “See!”

 I don’t bother to respond.

“Yeah, She’s good…” he continues. “ She’s good…and she loves me…so…she would understand, right?”

And there it is.

Yes. Of course she would. She knows what needs to be done. All her love. All her goodness. It was always all for you..” 

“No…” she moans.

“She was made to give the world its legend.”

“NO!"

But he doesn’t hear her. He won’t. He nods, and he lets go. The shadow vanishes. And so does the dream.

***

We reappear in her living room. It’s dark outside now. We can still hear him snoring softly down the hall.

She lets go of me and turns away, walking a few stumbling paces. Her shoulders shake silently.

I’ve done this so many times, but I never know what to say to them during these moments. I just stand there, wondering what she’ll do. Will she accuse me of tricking her somehow? Most of them do. 

God, I’ve been saying that a lot, haven’t I?  Like the heroes and villains, the women I help are starting to blur together for me, a faceless mass rather instead of people who each have their own feelings and lives. Maybe I’m becoming as bad as He is.

I should at least try to comfort her, I guess. 

“You know, uh…in dreams,nothing feels real. Memories, morals, logic…it’s all a bit muted. Other people just kind of fade away. Only your desires exist. Your basest, ugliest desires. That’s the reason He approaches them in their sleep, I think. It wouldn’t work as well if they were awake. Or at least, it wouldn’t be as easy.”

 She slowly turns to face me, her puffy red eyes narrowed.  “That’s a bullshit excuse.”

I rub the back of my neck. “Yeah.”

She swipes furiously at the still streaming tears, continuing to glare. “What is…it? Why does it…?”

“I don’t know,” I sigh. I hate admitting that, every time. “Could be that He hates women, since it’s pretty much always us that get the shit end of this deal. Well, kids are sometimes included, if you have them, but fortunately you don’t…” I try not to get off into a tangent, she doesn’t need to know all the intricacies. “Or He just sees us as resources. Maybe He thinks he needs us, that He needs to do this whole….thing to fuel His magic, or life, or whatever. Or He’s just bored and this is His entertainment. Could be all of that at once! He’s a demon, after all.”

She arches an eyebrow. “And what does that make you?”

I blink, then laugh dryly. Haven’t heard that one in a while. “Good question. Might be one too. But at least I’m the demon on your side.”

She closes her eyes and nods. “I believe that somehow. I… felt it the second I saw you. I don’t know why though!” Her tears are coming thick and fast again, and she falls into a crouch, burying her face in her hands. “ I don’t understand any of this!”

I take a few steps forward and  kneel down in front of her.“I know. It’s a lot. But I can show you. Show you everything I’ve learned. Everything I’ve seen. I’ll see everything you are. And then you can decide. If you want to stand by him. Or… if you want me to take over.”

She’s silent for minute. Then slowly, she raises her head from her hands. Her eyes burn into mine. “You’ll make him pay?” 

I smile. Sounds like she already knows what she wants.“That’s what I’m here for.”

She nods, her jaw clenched. She offers her shaking hands.

I grasp them. She bleeds into me and I bleed into her. As we mix together, I let her see everything. My first life. My mother. What she did for me. And all the lives since then. You’d think it’d be too much for a person, but we can hold a lot more than we bargained for. I know that better than anyone. I take her in, like I’ve taken in so many before her.

When I finally let go of her, I am in her form. And she…

“You can go do whatever you want now. I’ve got a lot of, y’know, qualifications, so the world’s your oyster. You’ll turn back into yourself when I’m done. Don’t worry. It will be like no time has passed. And you’ll forget all the awful shit. Him included.

“But…what about you?” Those eyes are so round. I guess she’s… worried about me? That’s sweet, I suppose. But it’s too hard to look at her the way she is now. I turn away.

 “I can’t afford to forget. I’ve got a promise to keep.”

With a wave goodbye over my shoulder, I walk down her hall into my new life.

***

Back when I started this whole thing, I wasted so much effort. I obsessed over getting down every weird habit, every vocal tic, every little quirk. And whenever I slipped, I would freak out, so sure the jig was up.

But now I know better.  It’s a lot easier to just  be what they want me to be . These guys only really see that outline they drew in their dreams. For Rob, it’s Jenna the Nagging Workaholic Wife. 

So I snipe at him all through breakfast. I give him the business for about being out all night again. He sighs and gives his excuses. Then I grouse about how those ridiculous fights between those silly super-powered fools hold up my commute every morning. He gets all sheepish and mysterious, but I am oblivious as usual. I head out to my job.

I’m humming a little tune as I walk to the bus, but it’s interrupted by a piercing cackle. I turn around and see him standing atop the tall building, all garish green with his cape swaying in the breeze. The Misery Master surveys his prey with a leer.

I crack my neck and smile real pretty for him. 

Time to get to work.