The Start of Frost
By: L.G. Jones
Tags: Frosty The Snowman, Short Story, Christmas, Fiction, Horror

ffPhoto by Charles Gao on Unsplash

There was a blizzard that night, I remember. The small town of Evergreen with its lights so bright and homes so warm. The children are fast asleep, dreaming of tomorrow. A Christmas like no other.

Yet one individual was left in the cold, alone with a wife no more. His eyes as black as the night sky and his soul so cold that even Santa Claus shivered twice. Who was this person left in the snow? The one approaching a yellow brick house door.

He knocks.

The sound of murmuring people rush to tidy things up. We can hear them just on the other side. “Who can that be,” said an older man. “Don’t answer it; maybe whoever it is will go home,” said a woman.

“It’s almost Christmas; show some love, my dear.”

The figure knocks again.

“Coming,” said the older man.

The door unlocks, and the wind blows in. What stood before the man was no neighbour, no mayor, no police, or child. Clad in snow, standing six feet tall. A black top hat with a blue and orange flower sits on its head — a wooden pipe in its mouth.

“Frosty,” asked the older man.

“Don’t mind me, Phil, just wondering if Karen wanted to go sledding,” ask Frosty.

“Old boy, it’s too late; she’s fast asleep. Come by tomorrow.”

Frosty glances past him and into the home. He can feel the heat rising from the fireplace. It rubs him wrong; he never liked it. Sometimes he’s had felt it from the children’s hands as they patched him up after running around. It made him sick to his very core. You see snowmen melt.

“Frosty,” Phil asked again, “If you don’t mind, I’m letting all the cold air in.”

“Oh, I’m sorry I guess I’ll head back up the hill where I belong. Alone.”

“Where’s Crystal? Isn’t she always with you,” Phil asks.

“Oh, she’s up North helping old Claus out with his sleigh.”

“Why are you here,” said Phil grabbing his coat and stepping outside, “I’ll be inside soon, dear.”

“Don’t take too long. The blizzard is coming in rough,” said the woman.

“Now, Frosty, what’s really bothering you? You didn’t go help old Saint Nick this year?”

“I’ve done it far more times than you can imagine. I grow weary of fake love and kindness.”

“Fake? There’s nothing fake about Christmas.”

“Oh, there are things I wish to show Phil, things I’ve kept bottled up. Even you were a child yourself. Do you remember when I was born?”

Phil shivers to cold winds; the blizzard is picking up.

“Is the cold getting to you,” asked Frosty.

Phil nods.

With a flick of his snowy wrist, the blizzard vanishes.

“H-how’d you do that, old friend? Did you learn a trick or two from Jack Frost?”

“Oh, I learned a lot from Jack. Do you remember when I was born?”

“Of course not, old boy. It was my great great great grandfather who helped create you. I believe it was right after the first World War. He had lost his father to it and wanted a companion; many Evergreen kids wanted a friend. That hat of yours is older than me,” chuckled Phil.

“Yes, those days of joy and wonder. But every boy grows up to be a man.”

“Now that I can see that hat more clearly, it seems different than last I saw it,” said Phil staring at the top hat. It was torn and more worn down than before. The flower also froze with icicles on the tips of the petals.

“I came to see the kids one last time.”

“One last time?”

Frosty places his cold snow hand on Phil’s shoulder.

“I’m tired, Phil. Like a rubber band stretched out too far. Like an engine at the end of its lifetime,” said Frosty, melding with Phil.

“Frosty, let go,” said Phil.

“I don’t want summer to come. I crave for a winter in my image. A winter that lasts forever.”

“You can’t,” said Phil, his body melding more with Frosty. Half of him in and half of him out.

“A version of a white wonderland, with all my friends at my side.”

“Frosty!”

“You are there with me, Phil. A friend standing with me hand in hand.”

“Frosty, no!”

“I am lonely, Phil. I want to continue and play, but my heart feels no warmth anymore. Make me a friend.”

Just as fast as the blizzard had come, Frosty was gone. Phil was now alone in the middle of the street. His body still remembering and feeling the cold touch of Frosty. Shaken, he returned to his home but even inside with the fire so bright. He felt no warmth, only the Frosty touch of something other.

It was a different experience for him. He had known Frosty most of his life. It was a type of tradition in Evergreen for the parents to let the children experience the wonders of winter with Frosty the Snowman and his band of merry Christmas folks. Like Crystal, his snow wife or Jack Frost. If you were lucky, you might see Rudolph, the Red-Nosed Reindeer. Yet when this winter came, only Frosty appeared, and the kids rarely got a glimpse of Crystal. Jack was nowhere to be found.

“What did he want,” said the woman bringing a cup of hot cocoa. Philip accepted the mug and returned his gaze back to the fire.

“I-I… I don’t really know?”

“I never liked him, always felt there was some creepy old man inside.”

“Yeah,” said Phil. He had heard her nag about Frosty before, and each and every time, it irritated him. It wasn’t the fact that he didn’t love the sweet woman of his life. It was because of a small group in the town that believed this theory as well. That the sweet old Frosty was a sweet old man that may or may not have ulterior motives.

Even in the presence of something that surpassed the science and the rules that society has put in place, they still try to rationalize the unknown.

“I told you many times not to let Karen play with him.”

“You used to play with him,” said Phil sipping the cocoa.

“And I told you how he, you know-“

“He did not do that.”

“He did; I’m a victim just like the others.”

“Kristy, there are no other-“

“Just because you don’t believe us,” yelled Kristy. Phil turns to look at her; he hadn’t noticed that she was getting worked up. “Doesn’t mean we don’t exist, Phil!”

Phil puts down the mug; it was no longer to his liking. Neither was the fireplace, and he headed over to the kitchen.

With a switch of the lock and push of the window, the cold air gently came in. It felt great on Phil’s skin like a fresh glass of cold water on a hot summer day.

“Why did you open the window,” Kristy said, rushing to the window.

“Just need to cool off,” said Phil stopping her from closing it.

“Phil.”

Phil let out a sigh; he didn’t want to fight anymore. Just before Frosty came knocking, Phil and Kristy were bickering. A happy marriage turned unhappy over a magical snowman who only showed up in December.

The whole town was being split apart.

People questioned Frosty’s legitimacy and soon started to speculate where he had come from. The founding kids were now all buried in the Evergreen cemetery. You could say overprotective and sensitive parents were beginning to become the majority in Evergreen, and letting their kids play with a Magical snowman sounded like a bad idea more and more.

“We might be small, but we already have half of the council on our side. Do this, and we can go back to what we had before.”

Phil glances over to Kristy, her beauty gone, faded with time. Instead of a beautiful wife, what stood before him was a woman with too much botox. Trying to hide her age with plastic and pins.

“Frosty or you,” said Phil.

“Yes.”

“What about Karen?”

“I am doing this for her, so she can be raised without being attacked by that evil man.”

“He’s not a man.”

“Yes, he is Phil, this whole nonsense of a magical talking snowman is nonsense. Grow up”

“He’s not a man!”

“He is!

“He’s a god,” roared Phil, his fist slamming into the countertop, cracking it. Kristy jolting in surprise.

Phil takes a moment to let his words sink into himself. Did the old boy say what he thought he said?

He headed for the door, Kristy behind him but keeping her distance. He doesn’t grab his coat and just bolts out of the house.

“Phil,” Kristy called out, reaching the door.

Phil just stood a couple of meters away from the door. Frosty standing before him, a broom in his hand.

“Frosty,” said Phil.

“Do you wish for a winter that never ends,” asked Frosty. We can see his breath freezing up the moisture in the air.

Poor old Kristy rushes back inside.

“What have you done to me?”

“All I gave you was time and kindness.”

“People think you’re a monster.”

“The human mind is powerful and deceiving. You find it easier to blame the most prominent ones. Usually an ally or friend. Trauma can be a poison when denied.”

“I believe in you,” said Phil stepping closer.

“I don’t need you to believe in me. I just want you to be a friend. One month of freedom is not enough for me anymore.”

“I understand.”

Frosty smiles, and the pipe perks up.

Kristy returns, fire pit poker in her hand, burning red hot.

“Move away from him,” yelled Kristy charging at Frosty with all her pain, anger, and her sorrow, even though fictitious or not. To her, it was real, and this was real to her.

She swings down into Frosty, melting into this body straight to this core and nothing.

She pulls on the poker, but it doesn’t come free.

She pullers harder.

Harder.

Har —

“Does this make you happy,” said Frosty, his voice cold and deep.

Trembling, Kristy, let's go.

Phil grabs the poker and gently pulls it out. The end shattering into pieces like snow smashing on the highway.

Phil looks at the poker and, without warning, he rams it into Kristy’s skull. It pierces her skull like butter, her eyes flicking in two different directions. Clicking in place. Blood drips out of her nose slowly and subtly.

Phil’s eyes glazed like ice. He has changed. Frozen from the inside out.

“Now, Phil, we can’t go scaring the children.”

Phil glances over to Frosty before turning his gaze up to the second floor of his house. Karen stands in her window, crouched, staring down at him. He releases his grip on the poker, and Kristy falls to the snow melting it with her blood.

“Go to her, and show her our love.”

Phil staggerings towards his house, walking like his legs are no longer his own. We hear ice inside of him, breaking and reforming.

Frosty looks down at poor Kristy, her body twitching in the snow. With a grab of his pipe and stare of his beady black stone eyes. He walks over Kristy’s body as she slowly disappears into his snowy form. The blood flowing into him and the sound of bones breaking and shattering down to the base molecule level.

“May your flesh, bones, and blood lead this world to a kingdom of snow and ice. A winter that never ends and happiness that never slumbers. I will be the Alpha and Omega in this world that God has forsaken. I am your future and dreams in one. Let the world be covered in frost and snow. Let it flow red.”

Blizzard picks back up, roaring stronger and stronger till everything is white. A white, white, Christmas.