The White Abyss

One month later

The morning sunlight pierced through the window shades and a beam of light hit Jacob in the face from his twin bed he was sound asleep on. It woke him. Stretching out his arms and legs, he began to make his way from laying down to sitting up in the side of the bed. Jerry was still sound asleep in the bed next to him. ‘Breakfast’ Jacob made his way down to the kitchen and began slowly preparing their morning meal. The cabin was eerie and quiet this morning. But that didn’t seem to bother Jacob in the slightest. His main concern was trying to wake up. Thinking that this Ice Doom was all a dream in his mind. But he kept to his sanity and wandered into the living room with a glass of orange juice in his hand.

“Good morning bro.” His little brother mumbled and followed with a yawn. “What’s on the menu this morning?”

“Eggs bacon...” replied Jacob rubbing his eyes of ‘sleep’ from what he was grown up they called. Really his little brother would sometimes make fun of him for having ‘eye boogers’. But the fun and games were moderate. Especially in this anxiety of a scenario “you want some milk?”

Jerry stumbled to the chair sitting at the bar of the kitchen. He looked over at the clock as he looked to his left that was mounted and fixed to the wall leading back to the bedrooms. “Is it really 10:00 am?”

Jacob looked at his half charged the phone and saw that Jerry was right on the dot.

“10:00 am”

“It sure is a little man!” Said Jacob as he began to break the eggs over the hot skillet with the soothing sound of eggs boiling over its smooth surface. “Nothing out of the ordinary this morning down here.”

“Yeah” yawned Jerry as he rubbed his eyes and stretched out his little skinny arms at the dining table. Just before the living room.

The kitchen and living were in the same section of the cabin. It basically was a hunting lodge more than anything. Their father purchased about two years ago. It was a decent sized cabin. Two story with a long set of beds, and then had a bathroom and three extra rooms down the hall from each other. Their father was sort of wealthy man. A good businessman at that. ‘But that didn’t matter much anymore. Now that the world is dead. Now that...our father was dead.’

Jacob scooped up the sunny side eggs and then tossed some piece of bacon into the well-heated oven. Thankfully, the electricity was still running for a month now. ‘But, eventually, it will go off’ he thought to dose the bacon under hot grease and began to pour himself a glass of milk. “What do you want man?”

“Orange juice. If there is some left?”

“I believe there is a little man!”

Jacob was trying extremely hard to be strong and well headed for his little brother. He’d seen things that would make any other kid scream in fear and hide in the corner for days. He was strong. Jerry was a strong little soldier. Jacob wouldn’t last a minute or two when he would have been his age.

Jerry had prepped the table up just as soon as Jacob got their breakfast done and ready. He began to position their plates and started to hand the plate in his left hand to Jerry and then handed him his small glass of orange juice. ‘All is peaceful’ Jacob silently thought as he and Jerry went to the dining table and began to chow down on their breakfast. This morning they were particularly hungry. Especially Jerry.

“Hey...” Jerry said after engulfing a slice of bacon “what do we have going on today?”

“I have to make sure that we have plenty of firewood whenever the power eventually runs low or completely out on us,” Jacob replied as he put a fork full of egg into his mouth.

“Are you going outside?”

The table was then silent for a few seconds as Jacob didn’t want to worry his little brother with that notion. But he knew he would have to go check things out ‘eventually’

“I have to the least see if our firewood is outside beside the back door on the porch”

“Please don’t...” said Jerry in a worrisome tone in his voice ” you and I both know what is lurking out there. For all, we know that-“

Jacob could now see that Jerry was growing more and more anxious to pleading Jacob not to dare go out those doors for any reason.

“Jerry... I have to see if I can grab a batch of wood. We won’t survive in here much longer if those subzero temperatures make it past us”

“I know...” grumbled Jerry as his plead seemed to fail towards Jacob.

“I’ll be fine little man, it’s not like I’m going very far out there like I did as the storms hit”

‘The storms’ the mega fronts that poured into the United States and iced everything in its path over, like a tsunami wave striking a city with everything it took. The mega-storms that caused a huge cold front stimulation, the temperatures started to fall at catastrophic levels. Anything that was outside during this storm was either badly frostbitten or already frozen to death where they stood. The national weather service was providing extra details upon the mega fronts that had moved in swiftly and slowly. People dying left and right. Hypothermia or like I said before ‘frozen to death instantly’

But as the storms concluded though, we were given a warning that several creatures ‘carnivorous’ creatures in packs where hunting down helpless people in the middle or were unfortunately trapped within this apocalyptic ice front and killed. Wolf-like mega dogs, huge and according to the broadcasters said to ‘avoid at all cost. Gunfire will enrage them if not killed’ it’s just like the one I encountered whenever I found my dad frozen to death on the side of our family vehicle. Originally, we were on a hunting trip whenever the storms began to hit. ‘How unlucky we are’

Jacob and Jerry finished their plates and began over to the sink to wash them out. ‘Water was still working...for now...’ Jacob thought to rinse out his plate and silver wear. His brother followed him. Jacob then went to retrieve his hunting boots: well insulated and fit for weather hopefully such as this one, he had on his already thick layers of clothing and three layers of shirts and pants as well as his skull cap soft and insulated as well. He was tying his shoes when Jerry came up from behind him.

“Please don’t be gone long,” said Jerry as he hugged Jacobs arm delicately “please”

“Man!” Said Jacob in a slightly annoyed tone “it’s not gonna even be five minutes out there. A few logs for the fire, and we can play a board game.”

“Battleship?” Asked his brother in a little more uplifting tone.

Jacob smiled ‘that’s the little brother I haven’t seen in weeks’ he thought “Yes... Battleships we can play. Go get it ready alright?”

“OK!” Jerry said as he then rushed over to the coffee table in the living room pulling out the board game from underneath.

Jacob began for the back door to the porch. His palms did sweat a little. He hasn’t been outside from this cabin in a month. There are no telling what is to be seen outside, or the horrors that laid out there ‘or were hidden out there’ he took in a deep breath and silently exhaled as he began for the doorknob. At first, it was tough to pull the door to. But it gave way as a few crunches and cracks were heard from the ice that had been sealed on the outside of the door and onto the porch.

‘Holy shit...’

As his vision came into the picture, the once front location of the cabin (which is also where the back door is located) nothing but a field of ice and the tree lines were nearly engulfed by the fury from the storms. Branches are all you could see. They were all replaced with icicles and frost. The snow wasn’t present at the so-called ‘blizzards’ that occurred made the once snow into peer ice. Everything looked like a glacier. Everything felt eerie out here. ‘The wood and that’s it’ Jacob thought as he kept the door slightly cracked as he carefully made his way to the stack of wood just near the end of the porch.

He approached the stack of wood and began to grab a few pieces of log. ‘It’s quiet out here....too quiet’ thought Jacob as he began to slowly make his way to the back door. But just as he was about to. A low sound came from behind him. Like a voice from extremely far away.

Jacob turned around to see where the noise was coming from and just in the near distance down the once road. Near the gates that they had to come through. A man in what looked like an attire that you would see on a hiker going up Mount Everest coming but slowly into view. ‘I thought the mega storms killed everyone?”

“HEY THERE!!” Yelled the man in the distance. “I NEED HELP!!”

Jacob was stunned, he didn’t know what to say at this point. He didn’t respond as he slowly dropped the wood down on the floor of the porch and watch as the man seemed to be struggling in the ice.

“I NEED HELP SIR!” Yelled the man MY FRIENDS! WE ARE TRAPPED IN-

Suddenly, just above the cabin, right on the roof, loud growls and roars could be heard and paws and claws tearing at the shingles of the rooftop. ‘That motherfucker was on top of us this whole time. It was waiting for us or waiting for something’

a white grayish shadow leaped out onto the icy field. It was the beast from beforehand. For months, this huge monster was lying and waiting for the two young boys to come out. ‘It knew we were in here this whole time. It was taunting us’ it’s canine-looking tail danced around as the man stopped shouting in the distance. The beast bellowed our a huge roar that instantly broke the silence of everything in the location. The ground trembled to its audio. Not a few seconds rolled and then two more of the same beasts ran out of the woods breaking at nearly what a rhinoceros’s speed would seem like. These creatures were impressively large. Larger than two horses stacked on top of one another. ‘They almost looked...prehistoric’

The man can be heard screaming from the distance as Jacob silently witnessed the first beast trail in towards the scene as the two other beasts caught up to the strained man and began to pounce on top of the defenseless man. The first one that stood above him was seen its sharp and edged teeth diving in on the shouldest of the man, ripping his head and even some of his shoulders clean off instantly and hurling it towards the cabin. The second beast went after the arms and then the first one from behind came for the legs, and they devoured the corpse. Three woolly haired looking beasts were dining on their unsuspected victim. Not a moment before Jacob picked up his bundle of wood, the head of the man landed just near the steps of the cabin. It rolled and then faced Jacob, the eyelids were still twitching and the mouth gaping open with blood spilled onto the ice.

The glaze from the dead man’s eyes gave enough fear towards Jacob to silently scream in his mind as he ran back inside and throwing the wood onto the floor as fast as he could before locking and deadbolt locking the door. He settled to the floor in front of the door. He cupped his hands and birdies his face in them. Silently weeping.

“Brother...” Jerry answered from hiding underneath the dining table are you okay? I heard it”

“Yes, Goddammit?!” Snapped Jacob in fear and anxiety that overwhelmed him at the moment. “That fucking thing was on top of our cabin this whole month. The nerve of that fucking thing!?” He cradles his knees into his face and kept weeping. He snuffled up a thing of snot as tears rolled from his cheeks “I witnessed a man get killed out there.by that thing.”

Jerry came over to Jacob and sat beside him. Holding him now with some slight tears in his eyes now. Both brothers were now extremely terrified. They had no idea for weeks that the beast from before lurked just above their heads. It probably could almost smell the breakfast they had just been cooking without them evening known. ‘But thank god it didn’t’ Jacob was showing his mentality to this point. But now his inner child was crying in fear. Jerry, however, showed some tears but not nearly as much as his older brother. The responsibility of protection and now seeing death happen before your eyes was a lot to take in for Jacob at the moment.

“It’s alright to cry, brother.” Jacob said as he rubbed his brothers back “don’t hold it all in all the time. I sometimes cry too. A true human being cries. I’d be more concerned if you didn’t.”

Jacob lifts his head up snorting some snot back into his nose. “You truly are older for your age man.” Replied Jacob to follow him rubbing his hair. “I got our wood...”

“Good!” Jerry said gratefully and glad. “I’ll take it over by the fireplace. You take it easy.”

“Thank you...” Jacob slowly took a second to breathe in all that he had been through and then silently lifted himself up from the carpet and rubbed the ice and dirt from his pants. And then went over to sit on the recliner. Trying to still process all that had just happened. ‘If I had spoken just then’ he silently thought ‘that man...and then I and Jerry would have all been...dead men...’

He reclined his seat back and closed his eyes and soon faded to a nap.