FROST- Jotun Chronicles #1

The Ice Chest

We both turned to the frozen statue, and I grimaced. “How…how do you want to do this? Should we wrap him in something?” The limited amount of murder movies I’d watched flashed through my memory, “like, in the shower curtain or something?”

            “No, we don’t want his hair or skin cells to get onto the shower curtain.” Charlotte frowned at the fake detective, like he was the one to blame for the dilemma we were having in disposing of his body. Which in a way, I told myself, he was. If he hadn’t tried to kill me, I wouldn’t have frozen his ass. I blinked away a fresh wave of stinging tears, telling myself over and over that I hadn’t mean to kill him.

            “Can you keep him frozen?” Charlotte either didn’t notice my tears, or she pretended not to. Either way, I was grateful, “Yeah, I think so.”

            “Great, keep him cold. We don’t want him melting  on the carpet on the way there.”

She checked her watch, “it’s four thirty, so no one should be awake roaming the halls right now. Let’s grab him.”

            We approached him cautiously, like we both thought he might just unfreeze himself and lash out at us. For all her brave talk Charlotte was obviously just as uncomfortable about the whole dead body thing as I was. She hesitated, hands hovering over the icy surface. I took a deep breath and said, “You take the feet.”

            She looked relieved. It was the least I could do considering the circumstances. I reached out, gingerly grasping his arms. The surface of his shirt was a bit slippery, but not cold. Charlotte crouched down and grabbed his feet, making a face, she hissed out, “Cold!”

            “Sorry,” I grabbed his arms more firmly and tilted him back so she wouldn’t have to heave him up all by herself. He was heavy, and we carried the body to the door huffing and puffing, moving awkwardly till we reached the front hallway.

            “Set him down here, “Charlotte panted.

            We did, and his feet clunked heavily onto the carpet, making us both wince. Charlotte was rubbing her hands on her pants, mumbling about freezing hands. “Check outside,” she instructed, “make sure the coast is clear.”

            I eased the door open a crack and peered around the door frame. The hallway was long, lit by eerily humming florescent lights and decorated by plastic ferns in squat black pots on both sides. It was totally empty.

            “See the cameras?” Charlotte hissed.

            I did. They were subtle, but they were there. Two little black domes at each end. “Yes.”

            “See if you can freeze them.”

            I drew in a deep breath and stuck my hands out, touching the wall on either side of the door just above the tacky red carpet, doing my best to concentrate on the camera to the right of me. At first nothing happened, so I tried to replay the feelings I’d been having when the fake detective had attacked me. Just thinking about him was enough to make me upset, and I heard a thin crackle as ice shot out from under my fingers, coating the wall. I needed more fuel for the emotional fire though, so I finally let myself think about the guilt burning in my stomach.

            You killed a man, a nasty little voice reminded me, seventeen years old and you killed someone already. You’re a murderer. You’ll go to jail. You deserve to rot in prison for what you did. What if he has a family?

            My gut was crawling, and I felt limp with fear and horror. A line of ice shot up the wall, traveling quickly all the way down the hallway, engulfing the little black dome, covering it with a thick layer of white frost. I looked to my left, seeing a second line of ice streaking across the wall. The black glass of the camera’s dome cracked as it froze.