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

ice shelf stirred and drew in a sharp breath.
    “Ha!” said Hurt. “I knew we could do it.” He moved closer for a better look, and Wink shrank back from the flame. “Wait. Why does he look funny?”
    Wink rolled back further. “You wouldn’t want the two of you to look exactly the same, would you?”
    Hurt stepped closer. “But those big bumps on his chest. What are they for?”
    “Upper body strength,” said Wink. “You said you wanted him strong.”
    “How come he doesn’t have a tail?” Hurt pointed at the tubular organ between his own legs.
    “It’s useless,” said Wink. “You can’t swing from a tree or hold a club with it, can you?”
    Hurt frowned, then walked right up to the body on the ice shelf. “Hello,” he said.
    The meat-person on the shelf opened her eyes. “Hargh,” she said.
    “I’ll be right back.” Hurt smiled. “I just have to take care of something.”
    Then, waving his torch, he stomped toward Wink.
    “Goodbye, Maker,” said Hurt.
    Wink rolled back fast on his big base sphere. “No!” he said, waving his twiggy hands at Hurt. “I did what you said! Why kill me now?”
    “Me and the new meat man don’t know how to make more flesh people,” said Hurt. “With you gone, there won’t ever be more than two of us in the world.”
    “You think I’d want any more of you?” said Wink.
    “What’s hell like for snowmen?” Grinning, Hurt thrust the torch forward. “A desert?”
    Wink skidded up against the wall of the ice cave and had nowhere left to go. “All right, all right.” He felt the heat from Hurt’s torch liquefying his crystalline outer crust. “But what will you do when Squall gets here?”
    “Squall?” said Hurt. “What’s that?”
    “Our god.” Water from Wink’s melting head trickled over his obsidian eye-stones. “Taller than a glacier. Mightier than a thousand snowmen. He’ll strike you down for what you’ve done to us.”
    Hurt looked around. “Liar.”
    “There is only one way to save yourself.”
    “What?” Hurt plunged his torch toward Wink. “Tell me!”
    Wink felt his body condensing and slumping from the heat. “You must fool him,” he said. “It’s called a snow job.”
    Hurt listened. When Wink had finished, he melted him down to a puddle with two black eye-stones floating in it. Then, he followed the steps that Wink had prescribed to protect himself and his partner from Squall.
    Even though Squall did not exist.
    What Hurt did was this: he built a snowman just outside the mouth of the ice cave. He even gave it Wink’s leftover eyes, because they were handy. According to Wink, when Squall saw the snowman, he would be tricked into thinking the cave was occupied by people of snow, not meat.
    The real reason for the snowman was something that Hurt would never know.
    In years to come, the meat people and their descendants never forgot the story of Squall. After they had wiped out the snowpeople ruling the world, they feared Squall’s wrath all the more. They tended roaring fires in case of attack and told bedtime stories to keep their children alert.
    And when there was snow, they built snowmen near their caves and camps in the hope that Squall would pass them by.
    What they didn’t know was that snow always dreams. Even a snowman made by a meat man dreams and thinks and waits.
    And snow always comes back.
    Someday, when it’s always winter again, and the meat people build enough snowmen and the moment is right, the snowmen will rise up and take back the world with swords of ice powerful enough to overcome the hottest fire. They will rebuild the towers and domes of ice and replant the fields of icicles and put up glittering frozen statues in every town square in honor of Wink, who ensured their return.
    That is the story the snowmen tell each other when no one else is around to hear, their voices tinkling like wind chimes when there are no wind chimes to be found.
     
    *****
     
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