5 Minute Fiction: A Chilling Visitor

It was going to be a White Christmas. The snow was about a foot and a half deep. There was no way it was going to melt within two days time.

Melanie opened the front door to her house and stepped outside into the crisp-smelling air with her son Tyler, both of them bundled in hats and coats and gloves. They were going to make a snowman.

Tyler ran down to the edge of their lawn near the sidewalk declaring that this is where the snowman would live. It could wave and talk to the neighbors that way, he explained, and Melanie smiled and agreed.

An hour later they had a damn fine snowman (she used the word awesome with Tyler) and proceeded to give it a carrot nose, two multi-colored super balls for eyes (which gave the snowman a slightly crazed look) and wrapped a scarf around it’s neck.

Tyler was excited about their creation but was even more excited to go inside and drink some hot chocolate now that their work was done. Melanie waved to Derrick, their next door neighbor who had sons of his own, and she and Tyler went into the house.

Later that night as Melanie sipped more hot chocolate (this time with a little bourbon mixed in) she looked out her window at her and Tyler’s awesome snow—.

She looked a little closer out the window. Hadn’t the snowman been closer to the sidewalk?

She put her drink down, got up from the couch and stuck her face right up to the window. She could feel the cold air from outside on her face and silently reminded herself that she probably needed to replace these windows. But for right now, she could have sworn that snowman was built closer to the sidewalk.

She glanced at her drink and wondered had she added a little more bourbon than she thought.

A couple hours later, she headed up to bed, Tyler long asleep. She undressed, put on pajama bottoms and a tank top, and just out of curiosity looked out her bedroom window.

The snowman seemed to be even closer to the house, and what’s more, it’s face seemed to be turning to face Melanie. She closed her eyes and shook her head a little, just to get the weird thoughts out of her head, but she went to bed uneasy. They must have been a little further up from the sidewalk than she had realized.

A few hours later Melanie awoke suddenly from a deep sleep with a feeling of foreboding and a desperate need to look out the window. She didn’t want to, but she had to.

She threw the covers off of her and felt the shock of cold air. Sitting up on the side of the bed, she stared toward the window for ten or fifteen seconds, gathering her courage. Finally, she got up and walked to the window.

The snowman was halfway up the yard and looking directly at her, its super ball eyes seeming to bulge right out of its cold face. It didn’t have a mouth, but it was smiling at her. She could feel it.

That was the last straw. She was going for the shovel.

* * *

The next morning, Melanie yawned and got herself out of bed having slept peacefully the second half of the night. She found Tyler downstairs watching TV and looking slightly disappointed.

“Mom, our snowman isn’t there anymore,” Tyler said, looking up at her as she descended the stairs.

Melanie put on a look of surprise and disappointment.

“It’s not?”

“Nope. Go look.”

She looked out the window knowing exactly what she would see. Just then, the doorbell rang. It was Derrick, from next door.

“Hey,” he said, as she opened the door, Tyler right behind her. “I just wanted to apologize, I think Muffin (that was Derrick’s family’s mastiff) may have gotten to your snowman when we let her out this morning. Although, I could have sworn you guys built that thing down by the sidewalk.”

Melanie told Derrick it was nothing to worry about, and let Tyler know that sometimes these things just happen.

When she closed the front door again and Tyler had gone back to the TV, she put her hand in the pocket of her robe and enclosed it around two multi-colored super ball eyes.

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Amanda Linehan is a multi-genre fiction writer and indie author. She has published 13 titles since 2012. Get a free, exclusive short story, The Sommer House, when you sign up for her newsletter.