A Memory of Zero Degrees

Chapter 2: The Taste of Ashes and Filth (2)

While she kissed him, Rivan moved behind him. He drew a serrated hunting knife. With methodical, almost bored precision, he sliced through the back of Arthur's parka, then the wool sweater beneath, then the thermal underwear. The cold air hit Arthur's spine like a second blade.

Sera broke the kiss, laughing as Rivan ripped the shredded clothing from Arthur's body, leaving him bare chested and shivering. She looked down at his exposed skin, at the ribs showing through, and shook her head. "So pathetic."

"Strip him," Rivan ordered.

Sera knelt, her delicate fingers the same fingers Arthur used to kiss goodnight unbuckled his belt and yanked his pants down around his ankles. She pulled off his boots, then the pants, leaving him standing in nothing but his underwear in the sub zero tomb of the store. Arthur's body began to shake uncontrollably, a violent, bone jarring tremor.

"Please..." Arthur stammered. "Sera... I love y "

"Shut up," she spat, tossing his clothes to Rivan, who began putting on the extra layers immediately. "I can't stand hearing that from you anymore."

Rivan grabbed Arthur by the hair and dragged him outside into the deeper snow. The cold was an animal, biting and tearing at his near naked flesh. It was then that Rivan began the real work. He didn't just want Arthur dead; he wanted him erased.

He used the tip of the knife like a paintbrush, drawing thin, bleeding lines across Arthur's chest and back. Just deep enough to hurt like fire, just shallow enough to not kill quickly.

"Every time you got an A on a test, I wanted to smash your face into the desk," Rivan hissed, cutting a line over Arthur's collarbone. "All you ever had was that stupid brain of yours. No charisma. No strength. Just books. And yet you walked around like you were the center of the universe."

Another cut, this time on the bicep. Arthur screamed, the sound swallowed by the wind.

"And Sera," Rivan continued, leaning close so only Arthur could hear as Sera watched from the doorway, wrapped in the stolen coat. "She was mine first, you know. Before you ever laid eyes on her at that party. I was just waiting for the right time. But you swooped in with your 'nice guy' act. You made her feel safe. Safe is boring, Arthur."

Rivan grabbed Arthur's jaw, forcing him to look at Sera. "But here's the best part. You're going to die here, and I'm going to live. And not just me. Do you remember your little list? The list of ten girls you had a crush on before Sera? The ones you told me about in the dorm, drunk on cheap whiskey?"

Arthur's eyes widened, the frost forming on his lashes.

"Yeah. I remember," Rivan whispered, his lips brushing Arthur's frozen ear. "I have the list memorized. If any of them survived this freeze, I'm going to find them. And I'm going to rape them, Arthur. All ten of them. I'm going to make them carry my bastards, make them give birth in this frozen hell, and I'll raise those children to spit on your memory."

He stood up, unzipping his pants. Sera laughed again, a cruel, broken sound.

"And when I'm done with them," Rivan said, his voice rising to a triumphant shout over the gale. "I'm going to bottle up their orgasm, the slime and the sweat of their defeat, and I'm going to come back here and pour it on your frozen corpse. That's what I think of your love. That's what I think of your friendship."

The hot, yellow stream of urine hit Arthur's face, steam rising violently from his frozen skin. It was the last warmth he would ever feel from the living world.

Rivan wiped the blade on Sera's stolen coat and pocketed it. He kissed Sera deeply, tasting Arthur's blood on her lips from their earlier kiss. She moaned into it, pressing her body against him.

"Let's go," Rivan said, pulling back. "He'll be a block of ice in twenty minutes."

Sera looked down at Arthur, whose vision was fading to a pinpoint of grey light. "Goodbye, Arthur. Enjoy the cold."

Arthur watched their boots crunch away in the snow, the sound fading until there was nothing but the roar of the wind and the slowing, sticky thud of his own heart in his ears.

If only...

The thought was a white hot poker of rage in the center of the dying star of his consciousness.

If I had one more chance... I wouldn't just kill them. I would make them watch the world end again. I would make them beg for the mercy of this cold.

His body gave up. His heart stuttered. The last thing Arthur saw was the grey, indifferent sky. The last thing he felt was not the cold. It was the burning, consuming, molten hatred that refused to freeze.

And then, in the infinite, silent darkness of death, a blue light flickered.