White Walker by Richard Schiver

had been with
Jimmy the whole time. Had witnessed his abduction, yet had refused
to say anything about it. In his defense he had never in a million
years even once considered the possibility that Jimmy was in any
more danger than a swift ass kicking and banishment to his house
after the two boys were done with him. When the truth came out, he
was sick to his stomach.
    The guilt lay heavy in his heart. If he had come
forward in the beginning none of it would have happened. Jimmy
would have been saved, he’d still be alive today, and his own life
might have taken a turn for the better.
    At the same time he understood it could have been
him. But would they have tortured and killed them both if they had
been together? It was a question that would forever haunt him.
    His eyes had become fixed on the back door, the
image of his friend’s battered and bloodied face firmly planted in
his mind. Every time the wind rattled the door he cringed, imaging
that Jimmy was on the other side trying to get in.
    ***
    While Judy was busy putting on a pot of coffee to
help warm them, Teddy and Cody spoke in hushed whispers about what
they had seen, while Norman’s gaze remained fixed on the back
door.
    “Did you hear it?” Cody said.
    “I heard footsteps in the snow,” Teddy said.
    “Did you see anything?” Cody said.
    “I didn’t see a thing,” Teddy lied, opting to
refrain from saying anything about the lone figure in the storm. Or
what he had seen inside the building when he was unconscious. He
still didn’t believe it himself, choosing instead to classify what
had happened as a dream.
    “I saw him, for a second or two,” Cody said.
    “What did you see?” Teddy said.
    Cody shook his head. “It was one guy, dressed in a
long coat, and with a cowboy hat pulled down over his face. All I
could see was his eyes. They sparkled in the shadows.” Cody
shuddered at the memory.
    Teddy cringed inwardly at Cody’s description that
matched his own, confirming they had both seen the same thing.
    “Did he say anything to you?” Teddy said.
    “He asked if he could come in. I said no fucking
way, man. When I was a kid, my mom used to tell me about some guy
she saw walking through a snow storm when she was a kid. I always
figured it was bullshit. Just a story she made up to try and scare
me and my sister. She called him a White Walker, and said he faded
in and out of the snow storm.”
    “My nanny told me a story about her grandmother,”
Teddy said. “Telling her about a creature that lived in snow
storms. She called it Byelii, which she said translated to White
One. It was supposed to have saved the village she lived in when a
German patrol came through during World War II.”
    “You had a nanny growing up?” Cody said.
    “Yeah, didn’t you have one?”
    “Fuck no, we were lucky to have a babysitter when my
mom worked. My dad was a worthless shit, always drunk, could never
hold down a decent job.”
    Judy placed two steaming cups of coffee on the table
between them. Norman had been silent while his gaze remained fixed
on the back door.
    “So what was the story your mom told you?” Teddy
said.
    “She said one night during a bad winter storm she
was sitting at her window watching the snow fall when a man dressed
in a long coat with a hat pulled down over his eyes stepped out of
the woods into her back yard. He stood there and she knew he was
watching her, and then she heard him in her mind asking her to let
him in. She got away from the window and tried to go to sleep, but
several times through the night she sneaked to the window to see if
he was still there, and each time he was. Just standing in the back
yard staring up at her window, and every time she peeked she heard
that same voice in her head. Asking to let him in.”
    “What do you think he, or it, wants?” Teddy
said.
    Cody shrugged. “Don’t know, don’t wanna know. I just
want him, it, whatever to leave me alone.”
    “What about you, Norman? What have you