Beady Black Button Eyes

Frosty goes visiting

Photo by Zarah V. Windh on Unsplash

No one knew where the snowman came from, or who made it. It just seemed to appear in random yards around town: in front of this house one morning, somewhere else the next. The folks in whose yard it sat thought it a great joke, and the newspaper even ran a small article entitled, ‘FROSTY VISITS LOCAL HOMES.’

When the snowman showed up in our neighbor’s yard I got a good look at the thing.

The snowman had beady, black button eyes that shone in the sunlight, glittering glass teeth and a diseased-looking carrot nose. A faded black felt hat sat on its head at a rakish angle, and a moth-eaten purple scarf graced its fat neck. Its arms were made of barbed wire with the ends twisted into claws. It didn’t look anything like Frosty the Snowman to me. In fact, it gave me the creeps. I was glad when it was gone the next day.

The day after the article ran the first child went missing. Little Ricky Jameson was seven years old, and even though his mom was a bitch, I liked the kid, and tried to be nice to him whenever I saw him. He’d seemed excited about the snowman in his yard, and wanted to make it a friend. I told the cops this when they questioned me and my grandmother during the search.

The national media didn’t pay any attention to the missing child until Ricky’s body was found in the dumpster behind Yum-Yum doughnuts up near Oildale. The officer who found him took early retirement and refused to talk about it. I should know--I worked there, and I got a good look at Ricky, or what was left of him.

I didn’t begin suspecting the snowman had anything to do with the murder until the next child disappeared. When I heard the snowman had been on the Dickerson’s front lawn two days before little Bobbie went missing, I got a sick feeling in my stomach.

Bobbie’s mutilated body was found behind the high school in a ditch by a couple of teenagers looking to score some weed. Now the investigation went into high gear. All known felons were brought into the station for questioning.

I could have told them they were on the wrong track, but of course no one asked me. The fact that I was old Lady Shadowfax’s grandson might have had something to do with it. Most people thought her a witch, and since I was a Shadowfax, I was probably as loony as my grandmother.

True, my grandmother was a witch, and a rather powerful one at that. I didn’t go for that stuff, but I couldn’t escape my destiny, as she continually reminded me. I had what she called the ‘Sight’; I just called it a pain in the ass. I saw, or sometimes felt, stuff happening. And it wasn’t good stuff, either. No, it was always a murder or some such nasty thing that I’d rather not know about. When it first started, I was about nineteen. I dreamed one night that the mayor stabbed his wife to death and then killed himself. I thought it was just a crazy dream until I heard on the news it had actually happened.

Drinking myself into a stupor every night worked for a time, until I lost my job and then I knew there had to be another way. But nothing stopped the dreams. Nothing. Eventually I learned to live with them, as my grandmother had told me I would.

Two children went missing next, and the media went crazy. As did the townspeople. Parents kept their kids close, and the cops increased their patrols.

My grandmother was strangely close-mouthed on the subject. When I mentioned something about how terrible it must be for the parents of the murdered children, she only grinned. I attributed it to her advanced age, at least for awhile. But when I opened the paper one morning at breakfast and saw the headline, she laughed at the expression on my face. She actually guffawed when I read it out loud. ‘BODIES OF MISSING CHILDREN FOUND DISMEMBERED IN DITCH.’

“How can you laugh? Those poor children…” Her laughter only got louder no matter what I said. I couldn’t stand it. Tossing down the paper, I fled that house of madness.

After walking for awhile I went into the diner for a coffee. I almost didn’t recognize the gal sitting in a booth by the window, but when she called my name it clicked.

“Whitney? Whitney Bolze?” I carried my coffee over to her booth.

“It’s Bradford, now. Have a seat, why don’t you?”

I slid in across from her, thinking she hadn’t changed a bit; thinking that she was still as beautiful as I remembered.

“How have you been, Dylan?”

“Okay. And you?” I watched her pale skin color a little.

“Not so good. I got a divorce last year, maybe you heard?”

“I’m sorry,” I told her, but I wasn’t, and she could tell. Whitney was my long-time school crush, and there was nothing more I wanted than to be the one to hold her.

“Dylan, you haven’t changed one bit.” She laughed a little, and touched my hand.

“Neither have you.” I was about to suggest we go out sometime when she glanced at her watch and winced.

“Oh, heck. I’m late picking up Tiffany.” She rose from the booth and tossed a couple of bucks on the table. “It was good seeing you, Dylan. Bye.”

“…bye,” I muttered, and finished my cold coffee.

That night I dreamed of the snowman. It sat in the yard of a modest white house, and its beady, black eyes glittered in the moonlight. Impossibly, it began to move toward the house, shuffling its large body across the snow. It left no track. The scene shifted, and a jumble of images assaulted me: Broken glass teeth dripping blood, a girl’s tiny face screaming, a tattered purple scarf fluttering in the wind.

I sat up in bed, the sheets twisted about my body and sweat dripping from my face. I couldn’t get the last thing I’d seen out of my head: Whitney Bolze’s crying face.

I didn’t need the television news to tell me that another kid had disappeared; I already knew. Still, I sat there on the couch staring as the newsman interviewed the mother of the missing child.

“Please, don’t hurt my little girl.” Whitney stared right into the camera, tears streaking her smooth cheeks. “Please let Tiffany come home.” There was more, but I couldn’t watch any longer.

I didn’t know what to do. It hurt to see Whitney in pain like that; I knew it would only get worse for her, and I wanted to be the one she turned to. I went into the kitchen and there she was.

My grandmother turned to face me, a sly expression on her face. It startled me; she’d been so weird lately, I’d figured senility was creeping up on her. But I was wrong, very wrong. There was nothing wrong with her brain. Suddenly it all made sense. I didn’t know why I hadn’t seen it before. The names of the victims…Bobbie Dickerson, Ricky Jameson, Tiffany….I knew them. I knew their parents, I mean. They were all old classmates of mine. Memories invaded my mind, memories I’d spent years suppressing.

When I stepped outside the first thing I saw was the snowman. There was something weird about it, though. When I got close enough I stopped, feeling my face heat. Giggles alerted me that I was not alone.

“What’s the matter, Dylan? Ain’t you ever seen what a man looks like? Or a woman?” More giggles. I knew who it was without looking. My usual tormentors, the popular boys and girls who made my life miserable at school and beyond. This wasn’t the first time they’d targeted me at home. Since school started they’d broken out windows, trampled my grandmother’s flowers and thrown rocks at me while I hung out laundry in the back yard. But this was probably the worst thing they’d done yet.

They’d molded both male and female anatomy onto the snowman and I hurriedly tried to knock the obscene thing down before my grandfather saw it, but I was too late. Irritated by my absence at the breakfast table, he stormed outside, halting when he saw the snowman.

“What the hell? Dylan! Get away from that goddamn thing.” The perpetrators tried to sneak away then, but he saw them. “You rotten bastards! I’ll call your parents! You won’t get away with this--.” I watched as my grandfather’s face suddenly went grey and he fell, tumbling down the steps to land face down in the snow.

“So ya know, do ya?” The old woman cackled, and nodded. She pointed a gnarled finger at me. “Yer granddad was a good man, Dylan. He didn’t deserve to be hounded to death.”

“It was a long time ago, Grandmother. I’ve forgiven them.” Black memories crowded my brain, memories of cruel words, punches, ridicule. I shoved them back into the box and shut the lid.

“There’s no forgivin’ some things, grandson. They killed yer granddad.”

I bowed my head. She was right, but their children hadn’t hurt us. They were innocent.

As if reading my mind, she cackled again and quoted part of her favorite Bible verse:

“…visiting the iniquity of the fathers upon the children unto the third and fourth generation of them that hate me.”

“Please,” I whispered, hating the whine in my voice. “How many have to die before you’re satisfied?”

“Death is never satisfied.” She paused, and something akin to pity filled her rheumy eyes. “It’s only a snowman, Dylan.” With those words she turned and left the room.

It took awhile for her words to penetrate. Was that demonic thing truly only a snowman? Would it melt like the ones I’d made as a child?

I drove around town, searching for the snowman. And the sun climbed higher in the sky and began to sink, and desperation seized my heart. It may have been too late for Tiffany, but I wouldn’t let another child be killed. I couldn’t.

I finally found it on the outskirts of town, squatting like an evil toad in a good sized yard. The house was a large, yellow two-story with a double car garage. I briefly wondered which classmate lived inside, and then blanked it from my mind. I didn’t really want to know. I parked and got out as the late afternoon sun made the snowman’s beady black button eyes glimmer. As I approached warily, its smile seemed to mock me, daring me to come closer.

I dropped the first armful of sticks at its feet and returned to my car to get more. I’d spent the last hour filling up the trunk with firewood, and as the pile grew around the snowman I prayed it would work.

It wasn’t until I took the lighter from my pocket that the people in the house noticed me. The dry kindling caught nicely and began to smoke as a tiny curl of flame burned.

“Hey! What do you think you’re doing?” Rough hands grabbed me, knocking the lighter from my grasp.

“Saving your children,” I said bluntly, and the man’s face paled. I didn’t recognize him, but it didn’t matter.

The man took a step backwards, gaze flickering to his kids, a young boy of around ten, and a cute little girl a few years younger.

“Get in the house,” he barked, keeping watch of me. I stood calmly, watching the flames trying to grow. I was going to have to help the fire.

“My wife’s calling the cops, you freak,” the man snarled. He stayed back, though, and I shook my head.

“I’m trying to help you,” I said, crouching down and digging in the snow. The lighter had to be somewhere close; why couldn’t I find it? The snow froze my fingers, making them clumsy.

A searing pain erupted across my scalp and I fell back on my butt. When I touched my head, my hand came away bloody. Glancing up at the snowman, I felt frightened for the very first time. Its black button eyes glared down at me, and that sharp mouth smiled toothily. A few of my hairs stuck to the thing’s rusty fingers.

Sirens sounded as I struggled to my feet. My scalp burned and I felt dizzy from the loss of blood. The collar of my coat was soaked with it. The man looked like he’d seen a ghost as his eyes flickered from me to the snowman and back again.

The flames began to die, and with them all hope that the killings would end.

“We’ve got to make it melt,” I said urgently. “Do you have any matches?” He just looked at me stupidly and began backing away.

A cop car screeched to a stop behind mine and my shoulders slumped as the sheriff got out, hitching up his belt.

“What’s the problem, Mr. Evans?”

“This crazy freak showed up and started building a fire right here in my yard, Sheriff.”

“Is that so?” He turned to me. “What’s going on here, Dylan? I guess I don’t have to tell you that this doesn’t look real good.”

I fell to my knees and clawed through the snow, tearing off several nails. Where was it? Where? I had to find the lighter, I had to! I had to kill the snowman before it killed another child.

Mocking laughter echoed in my head, evil, triumphant laughter that came from the pit of hell. I didn’t need the Sight to tell me that I’d failed, that the killings would continue until every child whose parents had wronged my grandmother were as dead as her husband.

I didn’t struggle when he cuffed me and led me to the squad car. I kept my eyes on the snowman the whole time, twisting my head around so I could see it while the sheriff shoved me inside and slammed the door. Leaning my forehead against the cold glass, I watched as Mr. Evans and his beautiful children picked up the sticks I’d piled around the snowman and tossed them in the ditch.

The snowman’s smile glittered in the waning sunlight, and its beady black button eyes shone.