What I will tell here is the written account of an old friend, a man I assure was a skeptic, sane and trustworthy citizen, so I advise you to take those lines seriously.
To preserve the families, all the names from now on will be alias.
Back at the end of the 1999, a great blizzard hit the North America, causing a great deal of material damage and deaths.
One of the most affected areas was Toronto and its outskirts, where my friend Tom and his wife Megan had a comfy house on Georgina Island, one hour drive north from Toronto. With him traveled also an old family friend named Jeff, with his girlfriend Mary and her younger brother, Mark, a quiet and shy figure, recovering from depression.
They arrived for a two weeks vacation, two days before the blizzard. They knew a storm was coming, but they didn’t worry about it. Having a well built house, a stock of wood and anything else they could need, it was, to them, nothing more than a nuisance.
Tom even had his own small generator in case it needed.
Everyone was having a good time, even Mark, who to our surprise, and to Mary pride, was a spectacular photographer of the wild. In two days he managed, no one is sure how, to get a vast collection of pictures of the Island wild life. Tom only worried about him going around alone, but Mark was a cautious and inflexible individual, so he would keep going in his photo hunts, at least until the snow storm begun.
The morning of the third day was dark and gloomy, and it hit Mark the worst, or so Tom assumed at the time. He would stay alone in his room staring at the windows for hours. At the meals he would just nod at any question or comment. At 16:30h, his behavior growth stranger. He stood in the window by the door, looking outside and shivering.
His sister was concerned and asked him:
-Mark, is everything all right? Are you sick?
-Mary… I… I don’t know how to put it without sounding like a crazy person, but since last night I feel that someone is stalking us…
Jeff, who was bothered at Mark’s behavior, which he at the time called as “party pooping in his pants for nothing” simple told him to “stop imagining things, no one would be outside in such weather”.
-Jeff! How can you be so sure, did you at least look outside?
Was an empty but very delicate question: Mary raised Mark after her mother abandoned them, and his father, who had to work some time for weeks away, couldn’t be present. She had this mother feeling toward her little brother, and as any mother she would start a fight with anyone who looks wrong at her child. But outside the snowstorm was already a deadly predator: Visibility was near to zero, and the temperature kept dropping.
To ease thing among the couple, Tom’s wife, Megan, suggested that they all could give a look outside, after all, the island was a tourist resort, and it could be a lost camper. Jeff, who know better than pick a fight over something as sensible as Mary little brother seeing shadows in the snow, agreed.
They kept looking for few minutes, and even Mary accepted that it was the storm playing tricks with her brother. Hurt and still afraid of something, Mark went back to his room, on first floor and spent the rest of the day with his FD-91 digital camera
At night, before dinner, the blizzard was almost at its peak. Mark went down to dinner and eated in silence.
At the morning of the fourth day, the electricity had been cut, and their cars, kept in an old barn converted to a garage, were already impossible to reach, and even if they could get to them, they would be useless under so much snow.
Tom started the generator and just before the breakfast, Mark dashed down from his room to the kitchen, grabbed his sister, and took her to his room. Jeff was already pissed off with Mark, and Tom and Megan where speechless.
-Mark! Mark! What’s wrong?!
-I will show you! He tried to get inside my room! I took pictures of him! He thought I was sleeping or something!
In his room, he took the cam and showed the pictures to Mary. Jeff annoyed looked at them too, but with disdain.
-There’s nothing but snow on those photos Mark! Can you grow up a little and let us enjoy this trip?
Mark, angry, got his camera, selected a picture and pointed something on it to his sister:
-Look here, See it?
Everyone looked at it. Was a picture he took from the window, aimed to something beside it, out the house. Was barely impossible to identify if it was snow or… Something else.
Was like a face made of snow, a disfigured snow man, blurred. Two small black eyes …Simply disturbing
Mark claimed it was some kind of monster, Jess ignored him. Mary kept the camera with her and would stare at it for hours. Tom and his wife didn’t took sides, but when no one was looking, they double checked the locks on every window and door, “just to be sure”, Tom would say.
The dinner was a silent one, the kind of silence that is part awkward, part cautious. They didn’t knew what to say, at the same time they were alert to any strange sound, a futile effort on that point of the storm.
Close to midnight, a loud crash followed by a scream woke everyone. It was from Mark’s room. Mary was the first to arrive, and she would had entered if Jeff didn’t held her.
Tom opened the door, with a baseball bat in one hand and tried to turn the lights on.
-Mark!? Mark! It’s me, Tom! Are you all right?
A fierce growl exploded and a strange white and gray creature jumped over tom.
Good old Tom.
Almost became a pro baseball player, but he injured his knee five years before. But he swung that aluminum bat so fast it looked like a silver blur, straight on that thing’s face. They heard a loud snapping sound, the creature neck breaking as the bat bended and Tom wrists almost broke from the strength of his own attack. When small, Tom had the dream of someday play for the Mets; the Mets may never know what great player they lost.
Mary and Megan screamed in panic, Jeff too, exploded in a name-calling storm:
-FUCK FUCK SHIT FUCKING SHIT FUCK! OH GOD!
Mary, afraid for her little brother safety, jumped over the carcass of the unbelievable creature and disappeared in the darkness.
Soon she started to shout and ask for help.
They entered and found Mark severely wounded, unconscious and laying on a pool of his own blood.
Everyone gathered and helped to carry him to the living room; Megan picked the first aid kit, some blankets and clean sheets and started to tend to his wounds.
Megan had only a basic training as a nurse, from several years before, and Mike situation looked very serious. Tom dialed 9-1-1 on the wire, but it wasn’t working. Everyone tried the cell phones, but they weren’t any good either. Mary was desperate, and Jeff had to literally hold her, or she would collapse right there, in front of her dying brother.
Later Tom would describe Mark as “a man mauled by a savage animal, like a puma or a tiger. The creature appeared to bite his throat in order to hold him tight, and then swung him around the room to break as many bones it could, and finally attacked him with razor sharp claws.”
They had forgotten about the half human, half beast creature, until a loud “thump” sounded in the floor above. Still holding his bent aluminum bat Tom were the first to talk:
-I think…we should go see if that thing is really dead…
-No Tom! It’s dangerous!
-I know Megan! But stay with …with…with that thing crawling around is more dangerous!
In the end they decided that Jeff and Tom would go upstairs and check the fiendish creature.
Tom exchanged his baseball bat for a sharp axe he used to chop wood, and Jeff took a shovel and a flash light. Carefully both men climbed to the first floor; Tom was the first to realize that the creature was gone, and without taking his eyes from the corridor whispered to Jeff:
-Jeff, it’s gone!
-What is gone?
-What?! The goddamn thing is gone!
-How!? I thought you broke its neck!
-Well yeah, I and my bat thought that too, but I’m afraid that a broken neck wasn’t enough, shit!
-What we do?
-What can we do? On the ground floor there are only two doors to close, one to the generator cabin, the other to the basement, and both places must be far below zero by now…We can’t leave either, the snow is already above knee-high and the blizzard is still strong as fuck! We won’t make to the city, shit; we would probably die before even getting to the cars…
-So what Tom? We hunt that thing?
-It’s not like I’m happy about it, but damn, what else can we do? Mark is in bad shape, we can’t drag him to a subzero basement like that.
-Well, its probably wounded, isn’t? The thing, I mean. We can beat it right? There are two of us against one of…it.
The sound of something crashing inside Mark’s room made both men freeze. Tom whispered:
-Jeff, I’m going ahead, for everything holy in this fucking world, don’t you take your eyes of this corridor. I don’t want to have that creature jumping in our backs by surprise…
Tom silently moved to the door, still wide open. The cold air and snow were like razorblades cutting them. The room was totally dark; the only source of light was the light coming from the corridor, and as Tom got closer to the door, his own shadow would turn the room darker and darker. Tom entered. He saw something vague, moving strangely. Afraid and with the adrenaline pumping, he jumped over the vague figure and stroked it with his axe, hitting it in the first attempt. But he found no resistance: his axe went right through it and Hit the wooden floor, where it got stuck.
-Shit! Shit!
Afraid, Jeff entered, and tripping found the lights. What they saw was nothing more than bed sheets blown away by the strong wind.
Jeff laughed:
-Well, I think it was a nice practice…
-Jeff, would you please watch the door?!
Took lest than a minute to free the axe, and Tom had just turned to the door, when it jumped directly over Jeff.
Jeff couldn’t scream, but his thorn throat exploded in a blood eruption with a deep inhuman chirp. Jeff’s body barely shacked. Tom would later say to me he thought he died instantly, or at least he hoped so.
The beast was mauling Jeff, his back turned to Tom, who saw that his neck had swollen, like it was still injured, but healing. Tom did not hesitate.
This time he cut off the monster’s head, which felt forward, still attached to the body by a thin string of skin and flesh. The blood, very dark, gushed three times high enough to hit the ceiling and the wall. It eventually felt over Jeff’s dead body.
Tom told me that he felt no joy on killing that monster. Jeff was his best friend, and now he was dead. Crying he cursed the monster and proceed to axe its body into shreds, splitting head, arms and torso in dozen of pieces. He took a blanket in Mark’s room, and carefully wrapped Jeff in it. As he cried, he took Jeff downstairs. He told me that later he would notice some kind of smoke or mist coming from the creature, and at some time he actually saw small parts of the creature turning into smoke as he took care of the corpse of his best friend.
Downstairs, Megan was shacking so hard she barely could stand up. Mary had already collapsed. Both girls didn’t saw the attack, but they clearly heard everything.
-Jeff…?
-He…is dead Megan.
-Oh, Tom!
Megan burst in tears but hold herself up, and gathering some strength, she informed something equally sad:
-Tom…Mark… didn’t make. His wounds were too deep…
Now was Tom who burst in tears. Placing his best friend on the floor he, bend on his knees and cried.
-Goddamn!! God damn…Why…what’s going on!?! Jeff, mark…it was supposed to be our holyday vacations!!! Why this shit had to happen to us? To Jeff…Mary…!
Megan nodded.
-She already know. I think it was for the best, if she had heard what I heard… I think she would collapse…
Megan put her arms around a blood stained Tom, and comforted him; it was 01:20h of the fifth day.
Megan and Tom tended to Mary, and put her in a sofa close to the fire place, no one feel safe enough to go back upstairs and sleep. After, they wrapped Mark’s body and took it and Jeff’s to the basement, which was cold and dark. Tom described the scene like something that would be marked with fire in his mind and would never let go of him until the day he die: He there, under the flickering light, in front of him, in a large wooden table, the bodies of two good men, good friends, people he cared about. He couldn’t understand anything.
Here I would like to say that Tom was a good man, and one of the bravest guys I ever met. When his parents died in a car crash, he just had finished college and had two younger sisters still studying. His dad had a couple mortgages to pay and Tom was in his first job as engineer. He become the man of the family, worked in three different jobs at the same time, from designing to delivering pizza, and kept his sisters studying and out of the harms way. He only allowed himself to cry or feel tired in his younger sister graduation. He was one of those types of man.
As he climbed the stairs back to the kitchen and locked the door behind him, he decided to go up and double check everything. Megan wasn’t happy about the idea of having her husband wandering around a place that could be full of monsters, but they had no choice. The first thing he saw when he got to the first floor was puddles of black ooze with a hideous stench where the carcass of the monster was before. It simply melted, like it was truly made of snow.
He double checked every single inch of the first floor, and locked all doors. Then he went back to the ground floor and barricaded the doors. He had decided to nail some wooden boards at the windows. He wouldn’t let anything bad happen to his wife.
-I will go down and grab a hammer and some nails, I will be right back.
He opened the door and turn the lights on, but he saw that his friends weren’t there anymore.
He froze.
The shattered sheets on the floor, a strange and unpleasant smell in the air… Another creature?
He step back, and saw two figures in a corner. It was hideous caricature of his deceased friends.
The arms and legs longer, the body thinner, slender… The faces inhuman but still recognizable. Claws bursting through shoes and hands, the skin, rugged, white and still dead.
The eyes, now small dark beads aimed at Tom, who closed the thick door just before they reach it. The door was resisting, but only god knew for how long.
-Megan! Go upstairs; lock yourself and Mary in our room! Barricade yourselves in anyway you can!
Tom dragged the table and a small closet full of pans in front of the basement door, while the monsters who once were his friends growled on the other side.
Megan did what Tom asked her to do: with tears rolling her face, she dragged Mary upstairs.
At the same time one monstrous hand crushed through the door and almost hit Tom.
With the adrenalin rushing, he reached for the axe and without even thinking, cut of the arm, which fell dead at his feet. On the other side a monster’s cry, like a banshee, deafened Tom.
After that, the creatures become even more violent and dashed against the door time and time again. Tom didn’t had much time, his mind racing wild as he stood there, waiting for the shattered door to finally give in.
Tom told me he was aware that he wouldn’t make it alive. The only thing that made him stood there was his wife, upstairs. He decided to gamble with his own life.
When the creatures finally broke in, he ran into the door that leads to the generator shack. The generator itself was out of the house, in a small shack, but the previous owner built a corridor, so he could go in and out without exposing himself to the weather. He remembered that Megan always begged him to put that ugly corridor down, but he never did it.
-Sorry Meg, I guess it’s best later than never.
He kicked the door and faced the generator. He smashed the light and axed two of four gallons of gasoline who were there. In the dark, he felt the lighter in his pocket. He always kept it there, even not smoking. It was his father’s lighter after all.
The monsters growled again and he could hear them running through the narrow corridor. He could hear them breaking it as they dashed in.
They entered the generator room. And Tom hit the first one with the axe right in its forehead, sending brain matter over the following monster. He lit the old lighter and he discovered that the last monster, the one without an arm, was dressed like Jeff. He should have blown the shack with them inside, but the shock paralyzed him for a second.
The monster swung his cold arm hitting Tom, who flew through the small shack, hitting the wall, while his lighter fell close to the gasoline, still lit.
Tom told me later that what happened before was, somehow clouded in his mind.
He told me that he saw him and Jeff again, as kids, playing baseball: Jeff was the pitcher, Tom the batter:
-hey Tom! Heads up! I won’t take easy on you pal! You better hit this one with all you got!
He swore to me he could hear grown up Jeff voice too, clearly asking him for a last favor.
-Old pal, don’t miss that one, please. Hit it for both of us.
And he swung the axe faster than ever in his life.
The blade entered the shoulder, cut its way through its neck, and split the monster head in half.
Tom just sat there, as he watched both bodies melt.
He said only one thing:
-Thank you Jeff. Thank you.
But he had no time; he finally realized that the lighter was still lit. Tom turned only to see the gasoline about to touch the flames. He ran as fast as he could:
-Come on Tom! Do it like you used to do in the old times!
Was just enough time before the explosion burst a flame over his head.
The entire face of the house turned to the shack was scorched, but the blizzard prevented any fire or more serious consequences.
Later they were rescued, but no one could explain what truly happened. Everyone, including Mary told the authorities that Mark and Jeff had died in an accident on the generator shack. To Tom’s surprise, bones were found, human bones, incomplete, but without any sign of violence.
Just enough evidence to let them out of the hook.
Mary never discovered that his brother turned in a monster; they all thought it would be too much suffering to her.
Tom and Meg moved to Boston as soon as the investigations were closed. Before selling the land they had the house torn down. But they never set foot there again. They had a couple of daughters, baseball fanatics, even without any influence of his dad, or so said Tom. Now they all go see at least one Game of the Mets, is their version of annual picnic. In April of 2010 Tom was driving home when a truck hit his car. He is still in coma. His body was in bad shape, but even now he is fighting. We only pray he wake up soon.
Mary was deeply affected: She started to study occultism and other strange things, and I say its nothing light as wicca: She was after some heavy stuff. Everyone lost contact with her in 2003, in June I think.
Tom told me the entire story because he didn’t liked the idea of lying to everyone about Jeff and Mark. To him was important to tell at least to one person all the truth.
Now I tell this story to you, because I had decided to look it with my own eyes. I’m going back to that Island, and from there I will look for Mary. So if I don’t come back, or if Tom doesn’t wake up, the story will remain alive.
