Free Snowman's Chance in Hell by Robert T. Jeschonek

Snowman's Chance in Hell
     
    *****
     
    More Fantasy E-books by Robert T. Jeschonek
     
    6 Fantasy Stories
    6 More Fantasy Stories
    Blazing Bodices
    Earthshaker – a n urban fantasy novel
    Girl Meets Mind Reader
    Groupie Everlasting
    Heaven Bent – a novel
    Rose Head
    The Bear in the Cable-Knit Sweater
    The Genie's Secret
    The Return of Alice
    The Sword That Spoke
     
    *****
     
    Snowman's Chance in Hell
     
     
    The man of meat sat at a campfire inside an ice cave and watched the snowman build him a partner. The fire was just close enough to remind the snowman of the meat man’s new invention and its power to destroy him.
    If the snowman, whose name was Wink, had known that the meat man would invent such a rotten thing, he never would have built the man in the first place.
    “Make him strong ,” said the meat man, who called himself Hurt. “Strong and smart .”
    Wink continued to knead and shape the flesh on the ice shelf. He had already given it the same rough form as Hurt, which wasn’t much like a snowman’s body at all.
    Instead of an elegant arrangement of stacked spheres, able to function in concert or independent of each other, Hurt’s body consisted of a head and appendages permanently affixed to a central trunk. Hurt’s thick, stiff arms and stubby fingers were awkward compared to those of a snowman, which were graceful and branchlike. Hurt’s beady, watery eyes and knobby nose were nowhere near as handsome and functional as the stony, black eyes and long, pointed nose of a snowman.
    Still, as crude as Hurt’s body was, one fact remained: he was the only meat man who had ever come to life.
    In those days, when the world was always winter and snowmen ruled it, building men from meat was a diversion. During the annual fleshstorms, when meat fell from the sky and covered the ground, roly poly snowchildren near and far assembled meat men in parks and yards. In some towns, making meat men became a competition, with prizes awarded by judges.
    This year, Wink was the winner in his hometown of Drift...at least until his creation killed everyone in town with fire.
    “Why did you make me?” said Hurt.
    Wink’s spindly fingers were red with blood as he molded the flesh of Hurt’s partner. “Not to kill and destroy, that’s for sure.”
    “You did a lousy job, then.” Hurt laughed.
    “I just wanted to show people what I could do. I wanted someone to like me.”
    “And now they’re all dead,” said Hurt. “Because of me. Funny how that worked out.”
    Wink pulled the skin together over Hurt’s partner’s torso and sewed it up with reindeer hide thread.
    “Yeah, funny,” said Hurt. “It’s like you hated them, and I came along and did what you never had the balls to do yourself.”
    Wink ignored him and kept sewing up the skin. “You realize I don’t know how you came to life, right? I don’t know how to make it happen again with your friend here.”
    Hurt got to his feet and scooped a flaming branch from the fire. “I think you just need the right motivation.” Waving the fiery branch back and forth, he walked through the snow toward Wink.
    “No,” said Wink, staring into the approaching flame. “Please don’t.”
    “I’ll kill you like I killed your whole town.” Hurt leered. “Like I’m going to kill every last one of you.”
    Wink remembered the glittering, icy towers and domes of Drift...the sunlight streaming in rainbow colors through window prisms...farmer snowmen tending fields of icicles...snow angels singing and circling overhead.
    He remembered the town’s snowpeople gathered around his creation, praising it in their wind chime language, filling Wink with pride and triumph.
    And, later, he remembered that same creation stalking through Drift with a blazing torch in each hand. He remembered the screams of the townspeople, now more like the howling of winds than the tinkling of chimes.
    Hate surged in him like the spume of a whale.
    Suddenly, Hurt’s new-made partner on the