"I didn't do it!" Torrington screamed.

They gagged him with a handkerchief. Blue diamonds against a grayed white; Torrington recognized it as one of his own. There was silence then, save for the sounds of his captors digging graves and the frigid wash of Barrow Strait on the beach.

At least no one had thought of a stake through the heart. Or a silver bullet.

They were treating him gently enough considering the fiend they thought he'd become. Ironic. Both their treatment of him and the coffin. Their kindness meant only one thing: they weren't positive. He might be still nothing more than twenty-year-old Chief Petty Officer John Torrington. The coffin, with the temperature sitting below zero and firewood in such demand, was a mystery. He could only guess that their British sensibilities would not allow them to bury a man alive without some measure of protection against the elements.

As if it would make a damn bit of difference.

Brian A. Hopkins, Cold at Heart
Copyright © 1997 by Brian A. Hopkins. All rights reserved.

Posted 4 February 2001

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