(Note: this short story is one my stranger ones. I just turned my imagination loose and this is what it came up with. It’s also the story that won the Bould Award in 2021.)

I thought they were just a legend, a story, but I was wrong. The ice demons showed up two days ago. Sharp, pointy little creatures with glowing red eyes. Lust and hunger filled those ugly eyes. They disabled the Jeep somehow. I managed to chase them off, but they keep coming back and one of these days I won’t be quick enough or ready enough. They’re waiting for their opportunity. They’re going to get me sooner or later. Just so you know when you find  

“Ice demons,” Deputy Del Talcott scoffed after scanning the note they found on the table. “Right. Who ever heard of such a thing?”

Deputy Jake Harper, who’d also responded to the nine-one-one call, shrugged and looked around the small cabin. “Something sure as hell happened here.” He scanned the main room of the small cabin, cataloging overturned chairs, a table lying on its side, books and pictures dislodged from a shelf and scattered across the floor, and most dramatically, the trail of blood that led out the door, which had stood open when the deputies arrived.

Harper put in a call to a supervisor and suggested they send an ambulance and a detective as well as some backup.

“We gonna follow the blood trail right now?” Talcott zipped his jacked up.

“Protocol says we wait for backup.” Harper stared at the wood floor, where blood had smeared in a way that suggested the bleeding victim might’ve been dragged out.

Talcott rolled his eyes. “You worried about them ice demons?”

“Been some reports of peculiar things going on in winter in this valley over the years,” Harper said. “Especially when there’s a few inches of snow on the ground like there is now.”

“Didn’t figure you for being the superstitious type,” Talcott said. “Guess that happens as you get older.” He lifted the hem of his jacket and set his hand on the gun in its holster.

“Just cautious.”

“And I’m heading out to follow that trail. Guy may still be alive out there.”

“How long you been on the force?” Harper asked.

“Almost a year now. And I ain’t ignoring the fact there may be someone out there who needs rescuing.”

“True. But you are ignoring the possibility that something bigger and stronger than one man is out there, too.”

“I got a gun. I figure that evens things up.” Talcott shrugged off the hand Harper had put on his arm to stop him from leaving.

“Not always good to rely too much on your gun.” Harper spoke to the air as the younger man was already out the door.

Harper shook his head and debated following him. Instead he looked around the cabin, studying the blood stains on the floor. Streaks of it led out the door without doubt, but the pattern was different deeper inside the room. Drops of blood spotted the wood beyond the overturned table, but they weren’t streaked or smeared, so Harper figured the victim must have still been on his feet at that point. The trail of drops ended about five feet from the left side of the fireplace, where a rack held a dozen or so two-foot-long branches with the ends wrapped in wads of stained fabric.

Harper leaned closer to sniff and caught a faint aroma of kerosene. Torches, maybe? He shook his head and studied the floor again. From where he stood, a smear of blood went around the table and toward the door. The way he read it, the injured man had tried to retreat backwards into the cabin, toward the fireplace. A few embers still glowed from what must have been a pretty good fire a few hours ago. But the victim was stopped short of the fireplace and dragged to the door.

Harper looked around the fireplace for a weapon of some kind—a  rifle or shotgun, even a staff or walking stick. But all he found other than a stack of split firewood on the right side were the torches. They might be useful as clubs in a pinch, though the lengths of wood were too light to do much damage. On the mantel he found a faded black-and-white photo of a woman and child and a long butane lighter.

Harper returned to the table. Without touching it, he read through the note again.

Several shots, fired in quick succession, made him straighten up sharply and look around. A long scream, abruptly cut off, followed. Harper headed for the door and stopped. He’d told Talcott a gun might not be enough. But the victim had left enough clues to the most effective weapon, and it made sense. He took a moment to gather up several of the torches and grabbed the lighter, then ran out and plunged into the woods around the cabin, following the trail of blood streaks in the snow.

Even though the trees and shrubs were leafless and sunset still an hour off, he couldn’t see very far into the dense wood. But Talcott’s footprints in the snow added to the occasional blood streak, making the path easy to follow. The wind whistled through the trees, rattling the dry branches. A few swishes and low grunts ahead hinted at some tussle.

Harper turned so his body sheltered the torch from the wind while he used the lighter to ignite it. After a minute, the fabric caught and flamed up. As he’d hoped, the fabric had been saturated with some kind of fuel. He tucked the other torches into his belt, held the lit one aloft, and drew his gun with the other hand.

Some fifty feet farther on, he rounded a bend and climbed a slight rise. He halted there for a moment. Just below and beyond him, Talcott sprawled on the snowy path, unmoving. Surrounding him… Harper blinked a couple of times in disbelief. Those things weren’t possible. Three feet tall, spiky, moving clusters of icicles sticking out in every direction had red eyes and diamond-shaped crevices of mouth.

Ice demons.

Impossible

But several of them clustered around Talcott’s prone form, and if Harper hadn’t known better, he’d swear they appeared to be trying to chew on him. Jagged icicle shards of teeth appeared to shoot from their mouths, working their way through the tough fabric of the deputy’s uniform pants. Blood oozed from several wounds around his shins and thighs.

Harper took a moment to consider the risks, but he had to do what he could to save a fellow deputy, so he charged down the hill, yelling, and fired the pistol several times at the ice creatures. Only one bullet hit a target, blowing apart one of the creatures, spraying shards of ice in all directions. The others stared at him, red eyes glowing.

He stopped when he stood beside Talcott’s head. The ice demons watched him, red eyes shifting from him to the downed deputy and back. He waited for them to attack. For a few long minutes they stood in a frozen tableau. An eerie sound, halfway between a wail and a creek, came from the creatures.

Harper realized that it wasn’t his face they focused on when they looked to him, but the torch. He thrust it out toward them, and the ice demons slid back. He holstered his gun and used the free hand to pull a second torch from his belt. It took only a moment to ignite when held close to the first one.

The demons moved back even more. They didn’t have legs per se, and didn’t seem to need them, as they glided across the snow on sharp edges, like a skater on ice. He advanced a couple of cautious steps toward them, and they cringed back farther. Encouraged he stalked forward. The demons retreated. Two of the bolder creatures tried to circle around him, but he thrust one of the torches out to the side and they retreated again. He swung one of the flaming brands in a wide arc.

That appeared to be too much for the ice demons. They fled deep into the woods, skating the surface of the snow, making crackling, clacking sounds until he could no longer see or hear them.

He leaned over Talcott, feeling for the pulse in his neck. He found a strong beat and breathed a sigh of relief. But the torches wouldn’t last forever, and they needed to get out of there. He shook the younger man and called his name, trying to rouse him. After a minute or two, the other deputy opened his eyes, winced, and put a hand to a large bruise on his head.

Talcott said “Crap,” and groaned. Then his eyes widened and he looked around. “Those…things. Whatever they are…”

“Gone, for the moment,” Harper said. “Not sure for how long. We gotta get out of here. Back to the cabin and the cars.”

Talcott pushed himself to his feet. Harper shifted the torches so he could hold both in one hand and use the other arm to support the wobbling deputy.

Step by slow, painful step, they made their way. “You find out what happened to the old man from the cabin?” Harper asked.

“Yeah. Found. Him.” The words came out slowly, between huffing breaths. “Too late. For him. Way. Too. Late. What are…those things?”

“Beats the hell out of me. Ice demons seems as good a name as any.”

They hadn’t gotten far when they heard voices calling them. “Help’s here,” Harper said. Moments later several people rushed forward to help.

Harper and Talcott both tried to explain to the newcomers what had happened, but Harper wasn’t surprised to meet a wall of incredulity and disbelief.

“There’s a body down there, and I know you need to retrieve it,” Harper said after the arguments died down. “But if you don’t want to wait for the snow to melt, then at least take these when you go.” He yanked the other torches from his belt and held them out.

The sergeant in charge said, “We’ve got our service pistols and a couple of shotguns.”

“Take the torches,” Harper insisted.

The man rolled his eyes. “All right.”

He lit all of them and handed one to each of the team members.

When all but the medic had left, Talcott said, “I’m coming back later. After I get what we really need.”

“What’s that?”

“Flamethrowers.”