Free FROSTBITE by David Warren Page B

continued. “They probably hunt by sound or by vibrations.”
     
    “I like it,” Ted said. “Good idea kid.”
     
    “Why can’t we just wait for someone to come rescue us?” Stephanie piped up. She had been quiet and distant ever since young Billy died. “Why even risk leaving? We have food, drinks…a bathroom. Why risk your life?”
     
    As she said this the diner suddenly went dark. Stephanie stifled a scream and Elaine said, “Oh great.”
     
    “This was bound to happen in a storm like this,” I said. “Just like the phone line.”
     
    “No,” Stephanie said. “It…it was those things!”
     
    “No,” I said. “I don’t think so.”
     
    “Yes it was!” Stephanie suddenly screamed, jumping up. “They are out there just waiting for us!”
     
    Elaine hurried over and put her arm around the young lady. “It’ll be alright.”
     
    “These things are just animals,” I said. “They don’t understand electricity.”
     
    “They’re going to kill all of us,” she muttered as Elaine led her away.
     
    Kevin and Brad looked upset by what just happened. “She’s just scared boys,” I said. “We will get through this.”
     
    “I know,” Brad said, regaining his young composure.
     
    “With the electricity out, it won’t be long until it is nice and cold in here,” Ted remarked.
     
    “No generator?” I asked.
     
    “Sure,” Ted smirked. “Just not one that works.”
     
    “Oh.”
     
    “That hysterical girl was starting to make sense,” Ted said. “I mean, the sheriff will come looking for the kids once their mom reports them missing, right?”
     
    “If the roads are accessible,” I agreed. “And if her phone is working.”
     
    “I just can’t believe in this day and age a stupid storm can stop us from communicating with anyone,” Ted complained.
     
    “A storm can do a lot worse,” I said. “Look at the natural disasters over the past, let’s say five years.”
     
    “You’re right Mr. Harrison,” Elaine said from the nearby booth that she and Stephanie were sharing. “Look at what happened to Japan.”
     
    “It is quite a storm though,” I said, looking out at what I could see of Main Street. The snow drifts now covered the entire bottom half of the windows all along the diner. Judging by the wind and the onslaught of flurries, there didn’t appear to be any end in sight. I wondered how much accumulation we had received just in the few short hours that we had been trapped in Lovell’s. “The storm of the century.”
     
    “We’ve had bad storms before,” Ted agreed. “But this one is…different.”
     
    “It sure is,” Stephanie agreed. “We’ve never had a storm that brought man-eating worms with it before!” After she had said this, she laid her head down on the silver tabletop and started to cry again.
     
    Her comment however, struck me as interesting. Did the bad storm we had earlier this year and the storm now have anything to do with the creatures? Did having so much snow so close together give them the incentive to come down from the mountains? I certainly had no idea, but it seemed like an awful coincidence that we hadn’t seen these things until now. Did the storm somehow bring them with it? It was anyone’s guess.
     
    Maybe the weather had absolutely nothing to do with it, other than the fact that the worms obviously knew that camouflaging themselves in the snow helped them to score their prey. Perhaps it was the same thing with the death worm from Mongolia. Did its red color help it blend in with the desert terrain?
     
    Elaine, who was on the inside of the booth, glanced at her watch and said, “It will be dinnertime soon.”
     
    I couldn’t believe that it was almost five o’clock already. Time does fly when you’re scared senseless, I guessed. Despite everything, my stomach was telling me to get something to eat. “Hey Ted,” Elaine called, leaning her head against the window. “We’re gonna have to scramble up some