The Man Who Knew the Cold

The January air bit through my coat like a pack of starving dogs, and the temperature read six below, but the medicine for my roommate’s fever couldn’t wait. I pulled my scarf up over my nose, leaving only a slit for my eyes, and set off down the three blocks to the corner store. The street was a brittle tunnel of ice and silence, the kind of quiet that makes you hear your own heartbeat.

About a block in, a car—a rusted blue sedan I’d never seen—started crawling along the curb beside me. I kept my eyes forward, but I could feel the driver’s gaze boring into me. I’m small, barely five feet, and bundled up like a marshmallow, so maybe he thought I was a girl, or a kid. But something else prickled the back of my neck: the way he slowed exactly to my pace, not passing, not speeding up.

I told myself it was nothing. Maybe he was lost, looking for an address, too polite to honk. But every instinct I had was screaming to cross the street. I didn’t. I kept walking, my boots crunching in the frozen snow, and the car kept pace.

At the intersection, he pulled to a stop, and the window rolled down. I saw his face then—gaunt, pale, with eyes that seemed too white in the streetlight. He smiled, but it didn’t reach his eyes, and his breath misted in a way that seemed wrong, like he wasn’t exhaling warm air but something colder.

‘Hey,’ he called out, his voice thin and dry. ‘You’re heading to the store? I can give you a lift. It’s dangerous out here.’

I shook my head, kept walking, but my legs felt heavy. The intersection was empty, the traffic light blinking yellow, and the only other soul was a stray cat that had frozen mid-step in the gutter, its fur rimed with frost. I noticed the cat’s eyes were open, staring, and it hadn’t moved when the car passed.

He stepped out of the car then, slowly, as if he had all the time in the world. The door swung open, and I saw the back seat—it was piled with old coats, scarves, and gloves, all neatly folded, like a collection. My heart lurched. That wasn’t just a lift. That was a trap.

‘You don’t look like you belong here,’ he said, taking a step closer. His boots made no sound on the snow. ‘You look like you’re running from something. Or to something.’

I turned to run, but my feet wouldn’t move. The cold had seeped through my boots, numbing them, and I felt a sudden, terrible fatigue, like I’d been walking for hours. He reached into his coat pocket and pulled out a small, glass jar with a dark substance inside. It swirled as he tilted it, and for a moment, I thought I saw a face in the liquid—a woman’s face, mouth open in a silent scream.

‘Don’t worry,’ he said, his voice now a whisper, but it echoed in my skull. ‘I only collect the ones who let the cold in.’

I wanted to scream, but the cold had taken my voice too. I felt my knees buckle, my body dropping toward the frostbitten ground. The last thing I saw was him kneeling beside me, his breath fogging in front of my face, and then—nothing.

I woke up in my own bed, my roommate’s fever broken, the medicine sitting on the nightstand. I don’t remember coming home. I don’t remember the store. But on my wrist, just beneath the sleeve of my coat, was a small, black mark like a bruise, shaped like a fingerprint. And outside my window, the blue sedan was parked across the street, the engine off, a silhouette sitting inside, watching.

I haven’t left the house since. And every time I look at my reflection, I see a flicker of someone else behind my eyes—a woman with a silent scream—and I wonder if I’m the one who let the cold in, or if he’s just waiting for me to step outside again.