Dead People Don't Feel Cold

The night was one of those ones that make you feel cold and hollow. Four a.m. in the city will do that to you, though. The streets were dead and quiet, and the sky was hazy and starless, and my fingers were numb lumps of flesh at the ends of my hands. I’d have killed for a warm bite to eat, a hot cup of tea at that moment. Anything to thaw me out a bit from the trudge home in the snow.

But home was still far away, and I didn’t have money for a cab. I had about $15 left in my wallet and I’d have to stretch it for next week’s groceries. I’d have to walk.

I’d been up all night drinking, but I was no longer drunk. I had a slight twinge of nausea and my stomach and my face was stiff from the angry tears I cried earlier. I could remember crying, but I couldn’t remember why. Stupid drunken emotion, I was sure. I made a vow to stop drinking, the same vow that I’d made the previous month. 

There’s something about walking home at night that makes you feel invincible if you’re drunk, or profoundly mortal if you’re sober. I was the latter. It’s not that I necessarily felt frightened, but I felt my time ticking away in the back of my head, slipping away through my frozen fingers.

It might have been the emptiness of the streets. And they were rather empty, it occurred to me. Even despite the hour, it was odd not to see a single soul out. No comforting, clattering sounds of someone cooking up late night noodles in a kitchen. No comrades in arms, stumbling home. No silhouettes through lighted windows, or homeless people bundled up in makeshift shelters, or cab drivers, or anything. I hadn’t seen so much as a rat skittering across the street. They say that snow absorbs sound, but this was something different. There was something wrong.

This thought unsettled me deeply, and I paused to take a look around. It was more than just the fact that there was no one else around. There was something that I couldn’t quite put my finger on, something almost intangible. I scanned the surrounding area and turned to look down the alley that I’d just walked through. 

I didn’t initially see anything out of place. All I could see was yellow light illuminating piles of trash bags crammed into the over-full dumpsters. I didn’t see anyone crouching in the shadows, ready to pop out and murder me. I didn’t see… well, anything.

But then I realized: what I didn’t see was the real problem. Footprints. I’d left no footprints. I’d walked all this way, and I’d left no footprints behind me, as far as I could see.

I wracked my brain for an explanation. Maybe there was a big pile of snow on the roof that blew off, or maybe there was a lot of wind near the ground, quickly covering my tracks. My ideas didn’t really make sense, but my brain was scrambling for answers.

I looked down at my feet. They were sunken into the snow, just like I thought they’d be. But when I raised one foot, the footprint dissipated, making way for fresh snow, as if I’d never been there at all. 

I did my best to stay calm, stay rational. I pinched my cheek, to make sure I wasn’t dead. It hurt. Besides, dead people don’t feel cold. Maybe someone had drugged my drink at the pub? I felt lucid otherwise, and in full control of my faculties. But there was no way that I was thinking clearly. Not with what I was seeing. I reached into my pocket for my phone to call a friend, but when I pulled it out I realized it was dead. 

Just make it home, I told myself. Sleep this off. Unless perhaps I was dreaming already? I willed myself to wake up, but it didn’t work. 

I took off in a run in the direction of my apartment. I ran hard, lungs burning and ears aching in the cold, not daring to look behind me as I went. 

As I ran, I tried to think about the night, about the missing pieces in my head, but I couldn’t make sense of it. I couldn’t make sense of anything at all.

“Hello?” I called out as I ran. “Is anybody there?” not really expecting a response.

“I am,” replied a whisper, that sounded like it was directly behind me. It felt like it had come from directly behind me, as I could feel the warmth of its breath on my neck.

I froze in my tracks (or lack thereof) and peered over my shoulder. Out of the corner of my eye, I thought I saw movement. A shadow, a figure. Then it was gone. 

“Who’s there?” I called out, turning. At first, there was no response. “Who are you?” 

Then I saw a flicker of movement again, inside of a 24-hour convenience store. Barely a shadow, but it was there. 

I walked cautiously toward the door. “Hello?” 

There was no response again, but this time I saw something oozing out from beneath the door, forming a dark puddle in the snow. 

I knelt down beside it. It was blood. Warm. Someone could be hurt. I stood and tried to peer through the windows, but they were covered with frost. With a shaky hand, I turned the doorknob. It was unlocked, so I slowly pushed the door open. 

A little bell jingled cheerily above, obliterating my attempts to be stealthy, but it didn’t matter. There was no one at the door. There was no blood on the floor, nor anyone within sight. 

“Hello?” I beckoned, quietly. I heard a faint whimpering coming from the aisles, but there was no response. 

I couldn’t tell quite where the voice was coming from, so I walked along the aisles, peeking down each one. 

She was in aisle five, hunched in a ball and facing away from me. She appeared to be a little girl around the age of five, but it was hard to say when I couldn’t see her face. Her body was shaking. 

Everything had gone so wrong up to that point, and I’m ashamed to admit that I was frightened. 

I approached her carefully. “Are you hurt?” I asked. “Will you let me help you?” 

She didn’t say anything, just kept her back toward me. “There’s no need to be afraid,” I continued. “Just-”

Slam. Something had crashed into the window, startling my gaze away from the girl. When I looked back, the girl was gone. There was no trace of her at all. I peeked around the store for a moment, but my gut told me that I wasn’t going to find her. She’d vanished. 

A sick, anxious, feeling in my stomach began to build and my chest grew tight, and I decided to leave the store and keep moving towards home. I had to get home. 

But when I pulled the door open, everything was wrong. I wasn’t at the same street that I was on before I’d entered the store. Before there was an intersection up ahead, and now it was gone. There was a church, and an alleyway to the right, and a flower shop.

Now it looked like a totally different street. Where the flower shop stood, there now was a meat market. Where there was an alleyway, there now stood a brownstone. Where there was an intersection, there now was a fork in the road. 

It was all off. I didn’t know which way to go, so I just started moving. I just went left at the fork and ran. 

I could feel them breathing, breathing down my neck. Whoever it was. Whatever they wanted. They wouldn’t let up. I didn’t stop this time, just kept moving. 

But even though I kept going straight, the streets seemed to be taking me in circles. I kept passing the same convenience store over and over, the bloodstain still on the snow. 

I was beginning to grow weary. I was growing painfully tired, and I didn’t know how much longer I could take it.

It wasn’t until I collapsed entirely on the ground that they spoke to me again. I felt warm, despite the snow that I was lying in. I felt my eyelids grow heavy, barely able to keep them open. I felt a strange, bony hand on my back, stroking my hair. 

“Come with me,” it whispered. I willed my eyes to open one last time, and saw two red eyes peering back at me, and a yellow, toothy grin. “Come with me, and you’ll be home.”

I closed my eyes and waited.