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Martin had always known there was a chance of succumbing to a horrific fate when investigating, but he’d never expected it to happen in a case like this. It had sounded so stupid at first that Tim and Sasha had laughed about it, while Jon almost refused to read it. It was a story of a woman with a haunted freezer. She never saw anything come out of it, never contracted any odd illness, and seemed to be recovering fine now that she'd moved away from it.
The only odd thing about the statement had been the fact it couldn’t be downloaded online, something many of the scarier, more serious statements shared in common. Because of that, it would have to be treated just as seriously as the rest. This meant an investigation was needed, a task that was handed to Martin. He'd been investigating a lot lately and was becoming more nervous with every trip. Most of the time it was your normal everyday creepiness, but he'd been coming across more disturbing and unsettling items recently and was beginning to question whether he was safe.
Still, the object of interest in the case was just a freezer. An unmoving, unthreatening freezer that made the temperature of the house drop by a few degrees. It shouldn't have been anything to worry about.
The house she'd lived at was in London, around a 30-minute commute from the institute, and Martin had offered to go in the hopes it would get him on Jon's good side. Sasha had originally wanted to go with him, but Jon had been insistent that he needed her, so in place of assistance Martin was told to call Tim once he was done, just so they'd know he was okay. The offer was given jokingly, and Tim playfully warned Martin not to let the freezer gobble him up.
So Martin took the subway, stepped out onto the block, and entered the building. Her house looked relatively normal, having a good balance of dreary and vibrant colors, and enough windows to cover the place with natural sunlight. At least, that was how it was on the ground floor. The basement was different, lacking both windows and working lightbulbs, and was covered in spiderwebs and dust bunnies that made his skin crawl when he looked at them. At the back of the room sat a freezer.
It wasn't the quaint, average-looking freezer that the woman had described. For starters, the thing was ginormous, nearly as long and wide as a bed and almost as tall as Martin. He had to grab a nearby step stool to get a proper look inside. On top of that, the thing was oddly colored, its once-white surface stained yellow by an unknown substance. As soon as he lifted the lid and peered into what appeared to be a freezer full of ice, he knew he’d done something terribly wrong.
There was a brief moment of mounting dread before the lid was thrown open, slamming back against the wall and nearly throwing Martin back. Then a pair of hands as solid and cold as ice gripped the back of the sweater and pushed him forward. He barely had a second to think before gravity changed and he found himself sliding across the slippery floor of a ginormous ice cave.
He let out a yelp and clambered forward, his hands slipping against the ice as he struggled to stop his momentum. After a half minute of writhing and flailing, he came to a stop and let out a shaky sigh of relief before turning around to face the entrance.
A man was there, leaning over the freezer and peering inside. At first, Martin thought he was dead. Then his clouded eyes began to move in an unnatural fashion that made it clear he still wasn't alive. The man seemed to have been frozen and had purple-reddish skin and black-tipped fingers that trembled as they clutched the edge of the freezer. His brown hair was speckled with snow and ice and frozen in place, as were his eyebrows and eyelashes. He slowly tilted his head with a series of pops and cracks, then let his mouth fall open to reveal a blackened throat.
It was then that Martin fully realized there was a good chance he wasn't coming back from this in one piece. Oddly enough, one of his first thoughts regarding that realization was 'I won't be able to tell Jon what happened.' Thankfully, this worry was enough to remind him that he had people he could call.
Martin slowly reached down to pull out his phone, his eyes never leaving the frozen man. Once the phone was in his hand he held it in front of him and tried to turn it on. Despite it having been nearly fully charged when he arrived, a no battery sign flashed across the screen. Martin exhaled shakily and placed his phone in his pocket before pushing himself to his feet, his legs trembling as he struggled to keep his balance. The man watched him, eyelids fluttering as his eyes slowly moved to meet Martin's. He smiled, his lips cracking and dripping blood onto his white teeth. Martin smiled back, hoping the gesture would save him. Then the man sprung forward, skidding across the ice toward him, and Martin screamed, turning on his heel and running. He made it two steps before he slipped and hit the ground, the impact of his fall causing the place to shake and crack along the edges.
One glance over his shoulder showed him that the frozen man was staggering toward him, so Martin started to crawl, ignoring how the ice burned his hands as he scrambled forward. All around him the cave continued to quake, small chunks of ice falling from above and smashing onto the floor around him. The world seemed to shrink as the cold and fear ate away at him, putting all his other problems out of his mind as he clawed and pushed and cried. Eventually, he managed to get back to his feet, and stumbled forward, his core tensing as he shook and sank, the ice cracking and breaking him below him as if it were trying to swallow him whole.
When a large icicle nearly as thick as he was fell from the ceiling and embedded itself in front of him, he let out a scream and fell back. His head hit the ice with a crack and his world spun, his vision swimming in and out as bile built in his throat. He turned his head to the side to cough up a mouthful of vomit, then once again got to his knees and began to crawl. Behind him, the sound of footsteps drawing closer taunted him.
This is it. He thought as he crawled forward. This is how I die. The world around him continued to collapse, folding in on itself with him inside of it. The walls seemed to be moving toward him and he couldn't get away. The man let out a low grown behind him, and Martin felt the sudden urge to cry. The crushing weight of his own doom was lowering itself onto him, and as he crawled deeper and deeper into the cave, his hope for rescue dwindled. He thought of Tim, of Sasha of Jon and his mother, and wondered what they would think happened to him. Would they know he died tragically, or would they think he abandoned them and ran away like a coward? Would his mother cry if he never came back, or would she just nod and accept it? All those thoughts plagued his mind as he crawled toward what he knew to be his final destination.
Eventually, he found himself at a dead end. In the place of a path was a small carved-out semi-sphere, which Martin crawled into. He saw no other place to go and found the small size to be comforting like the Earth was hugging him.
As Martin positioned himself in the small space, he turned to face the man as he approached. As the man's cold dead eyes met Martins, something inside him broke and a terrified sob was pulled from his throat. The tears froze on his cheeks as the man let out a low growl that almost sounded sympathetic. "Cold." He murmured. "Cold." He stopped a few feet away from Martin, then fell to his knees, causing the ice to crack below him. His clouded eyes darted back and forth, before landing directly on Martin. "Cold." The man wasn't alive, there was no doubt about it, but there was a trace of pain in his voice that made Martin wonder if a person was still in there. The man wrapped his arms around himself in a self-hug and lowered his head as the cave around them continued to quake. Martin battled with himself for a minute, then sighed. With his remaining strength, he opened his arms. The man stared at him, confused.
"To preserve heat...I mean...we're going to die anyways." Martin whispered, chuckling nervously at the end.
The man's dead eyes widened at that, and he smiled at Martin before crawling into his arms. Martin realized he'd made a mistake the moment the man fell into his arms. Every part of him was ice cold, from his jacket to his hair, and simply being this close to him was enough for Martin to feel the remaining heat being sapped from his body. Still, the man let out a sigh of relief and whispered. "Warm," To himself, evidently enjoying the experience much more than Martin was. Then the man reached up to grab Martin's throat, not to squeeze or choke, just to hold. His ice-cold hands closed Martin's throat, making every breath a struggle. The man hummed happily and murmured 'Warm', once again, before closing his eyes. Martin didn't dare move him.
As they sat there, the cave continued to collapse around them, stealing space from them until all that was left was the small hollow the two of them had crawled into. Martin could no longer feel his hands or his face as the ceiling above them quaked and poured small ice chunks onto them. When a large crack ran through the ceiling, Martin knew that this was it. The end had found him. Despite the man having only caused him grief and pain, he still squeezed him tight as death approached them.
He didn't hear the ceiling fall, only knew that it must have since he was now covered in chunks of ice. Except, he couldn't feel the man anymore, and he swore he'd been sitting upright, not laying on his side. He shifted and gasped as he felt the ice around him move in small chunks that felt and looked like ice cubes.
Get up. He shifted again, trying to follow the order, but his limbs refused to cooperate. Martin whimpered and tried not to cry again as he realized he was going to slowly freeze to death when escape was so close.
His terror was cut short when the freezer lid creaked open and someone gasped above him. "Martin?"
Relief flooded Martin as he recognized Tim's voice, and he used the last bit of strength to kick his leg against the side of the freezer. Tim gasped and began to push the ice off of Martin before pulling him up, an impressive feat considering Martin's size and inability to help.
Once Martin was out of the freezer and on the floor, Tim covered his body with his own, allowing his warmth to seep into Martin. Tim interlocked their fingers, his warm breath thawing Martin's cheeks as he examined his face "Martin, how are you feeling?" Martin groaned, then grimaced as his nose began to run.
"Sorry. N-not feeling great."
"Don't you dare apologize. We shouldn't have let you come here alone." He gave Martin a quick hug, then pulled back. "One sec, I gotta scold our boss for being an idiot." He pulled his phone from his pocket and held it up to his ear.
Martin sighed. "Tim you don't have to-"
"Nope. I'm doing it. He will face my wrath. Hi, Jon," There was a beat of silence, followed by an offended gasp from Tim. "Oh yeah, I've retrieved him. From the goddamn freezer! He almost died, and would have too if I hadn't come to check on him," Another beat of silence. "Yes, I'm going to call the ambulance." He scoffed. "Well sorry, I just wanted you to know your employee didn't die. Next time I'll call you at the hospital to yell at you there. Yeah, you better be sorry." He hung up and started to dial 999.
While Tim did that, Martin thought back to the frozen man and wondered why he had let Martin escape. Was the man playing with his food? Was Martin going to die in a few days? Or was the man simply giving his thanks to someone for keeping him warm, even if it had only been for a short time?
As Tim rambled their location to the dispatcher, Martin allowed himself to believe it was the last option and that there was a monster out there with a heart.