We were up north for the holidays, I was staying at a hotel with my family, my son was obsessed with skiing, and he was pretty good. I think that’s why he liked it so much, he wasn’t so good at many things, not the scholar type, and not very good at sports, so when strangers complimented him for his talent, he was hooked. It was winter, and the snow was getting thicker each day.
I love my wife, but sometimes she drives me crazy. It's interesting how violent we can be to the people we love, maybe it’s because we love them. I dunno. Point is, I was angry, and needed to clear my head, so I decided that we, as a family, would get out to the woods. At first the idea was frowned upon, but when my son heard that there was a skiing lodge two hours walk from our hotel, one that wasn’t riddled with tourists, like the one near our resort, he begged his mother and me to go. I found a hiking group, there were seventeen of us in total.
We had a guide, I’m not an idiot, and I knew the risks of the harsh environment. The company was Red Willed Natural Historians, and they offered guided walks to the ski lodge during the Winter, and they didn’t charge anything, something about being a “non-profit organisation”, hey, I wasn’t going to complain. Our leader’s name was Skye or something, I don’t remember. We started the hike at midday, so the sun was up, and we’d arrive at the lodge when it started to go down, and we’d enjoy the warmest part of the day as we walked.
You know they say that you know when you’ve done something, you realise what you’ve done when you do it, I didn’t realise until I had made a mistake until we had been walking for four hours, and the sun was setting, and kept walking. Despite this, no one asked anything, we just marched forward, onwards towards our goal. I kept my head down, just like everyone else, as the sun vanished, and our coats failed us, the cold seeped through the small gaps in our pants and jackets. I felt it all over me, across my face, fingers, and my eyes. The old man was the first to fall, he tripped after the fifth hour of walking, but we didn’t stop. I hesitated, but our leader kept moving, and I was more scared that I’d be left behind, with the old man, than I was scared that I’d lose sleep over leaving him behind.
I was tired, and my body ached, when finally Skye stopped, she turned around, and spoke to us;
It sounded like an animal at first, like a bird, but I recognised the noise as a song quickly. I turned to look at the source of the unexpected tune, when I saw a man. A man who was frozen, skipping through the forest. His face was blue and his clothes were covered in ice, his eyes bloodshot and his body stiff. He seemed to be wearing a uniform, it was like the thing you’d see in a history book, but it was real. He didn’t take any notice of us, just kept skipping along. My foot began to tap along to the beat, which was odd, because I felt no ability to move my foot, it was completely numb. Then I stood up, with such a speed, you'd think it was a warm summer's day. I still couldn’t feel my body, and as I began to move, I realised that I still had no movement in my frozen body, but nevertheless, I danced. I danced to the music, and moved without reason or motive, I just moved. Towards the corpse of the woman I had killed, as I danced I stepped over her, crushing her frozen arm, like a paste. I pushed holes into her back, and mauled her body until she was nothing but a grey stain in the snow.
The song quieted, and as it did, I cried. I’ve never felt so pained as the moment the song died down, because I knew what was waiting for me, a cold prison that would have me sitting there for hours. I was scared that maybe next time I’d be the one who would be trampled. So I kept dancing, like my life depended on it, but it didn't take long for the cold to set back in, and nothing, not even the sun from the early morning, could keep me from returning to my deep, frozen sleep.
When I next woke up, it was the sound of sirens, and people talking. Apparently the lodge we were expecting to reach had called the police to report us missing, and the medical team only now found us. I grinned when I felt the heated condition of the ambulance, and it only took a couple hours of sleep in the hospital before I could think again. When I woke up, my back ached, and my body was sore all over, the residual sting from the cold in my fingers stuck with me.
I learnt that I was lucky, that most people would die if they had to spend the night out there, apparently most people did. My son included. He was found half a mile away from me, frozen to death. The guide had gone missing too, but suspectedly to escape law enforcement. As for my wife, she was ok, and getting better. I told the hospital about the man playing the pipe, but they responded soberly that hallucinations were a symptom of extreme temperature conditions, and that I probably dreamed it. We never talk about that night, my wife and I, even now. I try to forget about it, but sometimes, if I get angry or violent, and want to yell at someone, I swear I’ll hear a pipe playing in my head. Some nights I see him, marching down the street, and when I do, I feel cold, so terribly, terribly cold.