Frostbite - N.S. Thorne
fiction ☆
fiction ☆
Swollen fingers, caked with dirt and frost, rose out from the ground like sprouting flowers.
I had trudged through the snow as high as my knees long after the lights and blinds of the neighboring homes were shut. Either by instinct or intuition, I knew I was on the verge of discovering why my grandfather’s home had always left me with knots in my stomach. However, I never could’ve guessed that I’d be holding a decapitated hand.
How many days of playing catch or eating barbecue in the summer heat was I ignorant to what was buried beneath me? How many snow angels have I made in this very yard, unknowing that I rubbed my back on top of a decomposed corpse? I should’ve panicked and buried the hand back underground, but it was like the first piece of candy, and I needed to know where this trail would lead.
About five feet away I found the rest of the arm. By the shed, there was a foot. Underneath the pansies was its chest. But once I stopped by the sycamore tree, the one that has stood tall way before I was born, was when my stomach started to burn.
I dug my bare hands into the snow, my fingers red and numb, and pulled out the decaying grass and their roots. What I had uncovered was the head of a man that I’d never seen before. His eyes stared up at the sky and his blue lips parted as if he died screaming. The flappy flesh where his neck was ripped apart felt like cold leather.
Bile crept up my throat. The regurgitated chicken and acidic wine we had for dinner was harder to keep down the second time. Snot hung from my nose like icicles, but my hands were too shaky holding the heavy head that it would slip out of my grasp if I tried to wipe it.
A light shone over me, too orange to be the moon. At the top floor window, I saw my grandfather. So high up that he could see his neighbor’s yard, and their neighbor’s yard. Even past the specs of snow that flew in front of my eyes, I could see his full, grey beard was stained red. It dripped onto the grey robe he had always worn since I was a child.
Other than my teeth chattering, I was unable to move. Pain spread up my arms as the whipping wind grazed my aching cheeks.
But it wasn’t until he turned the light off and closed the blinds that I realized the head was biting my hand.
N. S. Thorne is a queer horror writer based in Los Angeles. When he is not writing, you can find him giving tarot card readings, haunting the aisles of local bookstores, or brainrotting over reality television. You can find him on Instagram and TikTok @ns.thorne.
