The Broken Heater

In a downtown Winnipeg that has suddenly gone wrong, a man finds connection with a stranger while the frost tries to get inside.

It didn't look like a hand at first. It looked like a glove. Just a stiff, brown leather glove dropped by someone rushing for the 11 bus. That’s what my brain said. Glove. Dropped. Normal. But the sound wasn't right. Gloves don't clatter. They don't hit the concrete with the wet, heavy slap of a raw steak thrown against a wall. The wind on Portage Avenue was doing that thing it does in March, where it promises spring but delivers a knife to the ribs. Grit from the road—that nasty, gray, salty slurry—stung my eyes. I squinted. The thing on the sidewalk twitched.

I looked around. The bus shelter was empty. Usually, at 5:15 PM, this spot is a mosh pit of government workers and students trying to get to North Kildonan. Today? Just me. And the wind. And the twitching thing.

I took a step closer. My boots crunched on the salt. The sound was too loud in the empty street. Where were the cars? The rumble of the engines? It was silent, except for the wind howling through the concrete canyons of downtown. I looked at the thing again. Not a glove. Definitely fingers. Five of them. Pale, blue-nailed, severed cleanly at the wrist. And they were tapping against the pavement. *Tap. Tap. Tap.* Like someone impatient waiting for a check.

My stomach did a slow roll, like I’d swallowed a cup of cold grease. I didn't scream. You don't scream in Winnipeg. You just zip your jacket higher. I backed away, my heel catching on a patch of black ice. I stumbled, arms flailing, looking ridiculous, waiting for the laugh, the honk, the 'Watch it, buddy.' Nothing. Just the gray sky pressing down like a dirty sheet.

I turned and ran. Not a jog. A sprint. Toward the spinning doors of the office tower. I needed inside. I needed the smell of floor wax and stale coffee. I needed the hum of the HVAC.

The spinning door was stuck. Of course. I slammed my shoulder into the glass. It gave, grinding on its tracks, screaming metal-on-metal. I squeezed through, stumbling into the lobby. Warmth hit me. Dry, recycled, dusty heat. The best thing I’d ever felt. But the lobby was dead. Security desk? Empty. The little coffee kiosk? Shuttered. The lights were on, buzzing with that headache-inducing fluorescent whine, but the people were gone.

"Hello?" I said. My voice cracked. It sounded small. Embarrassing. "Is… is anyone here?"

The elevator dinged. I jumped, my heart hammering against my ribs like a trapped bird. The doors slid open. Nothing inside but the mirrored walls reflecting me: red nose, watering eyes, toque pulled down too low. A mess.

I needed to get to the skywalk. The walkway system. Connects all the buildings. Always people there. Always safe. I hit the stairs, taking them two at a time, my breath loud and ragged in the stairwell. Second floor. I burst out onto the carpeted hallway and headed for the glass bridge.

That’s when I saw her. Or it. I don’t know what I thought she was at first.

She was standing in the middle of the walkway, looking out the window at the street below. She wore a yellow parka that looked too thin for this weather, the kind you buy at a thrift store because the color is nice, ignoring the fact that the down is all matted and useless. Her hair was dark, choppy, like she’d cut it herself with kitchen scissors. She wasn't looking at me. She was watching the frost.

And the frost was… moving.

Not growing. Moving. Like a colony of ants made of ice. It was crawling up the outside of the glass, scratching. I could hear it. *Scritch, scritch, scritch.* Thousands of tiny claws seeking purchase on the pane.

"It wants in," she said. She didn't turn around. Her voice was scratchy, low. Like she hadn't used it in days.

I stopped about ten feet away. "Where is everyone?"

"Gone," she said. She turned then. Her face was… sharp. That’s the only word. Angles and bones. Dark circles under her eyes that looked like bruises. But her eyes were bright. Too bright. feverish. "Or we're gone. Hard to tell which side of the glass we're on anymore."

"I saw a hand," I blurted out. Stupid. Why say that? "Outside. On the sidewalk."

She nodded, like I’d just commented on the price of milk. "Yeah. It starts with the extremities. The cold takes the pieces it likes first."

She walked toward me. She didn't walk normally. She moved with a weird fluidity, no wasted motion, like a cat stalking a moth. She stopped close enough that I could smell her. She didn't smell like perfume or shampoo. She smelled like burnt matches and wet wool. Static electricity made the stray hairs on her toque stand up.

"I'm Mara," she said.

"Ben," I said. I jammed my hands in my pockets. My fingers were trembling. "Ben. I work in the… I used to work… I work in the building next door."

"Doesn't matter now, Ben," she said. She reached out and touched my arm. Her hand was hot. searingly hot. Through my heavy jacket, through my flannel shirt, I felt the heat of her palm like a branding iron. I flinched, pulling away.

"Sorry," she muttered, retracting her hand. She looked at her own palm, flexing the fingers. "Running high today. The cold makes it worse."

The lights in the hallway flickered. *Buzz. Click. Darkness. Buzz.*

When they came back on, the hallway seemed longer. Stretched out. The carpet pattern—those ugly geometric shapes—looked wrong. Twisted.

"We have to move," Mara said. She looked back at the window. The frost had covered the entire pane. It was thick now, opaque. And the glass was bowing inward. Groaning.

"Move where?" I asked. "The exits are downstairs."

"Downstairs is compromised," she said. "The lobby is already freezing. I can feel it coming up the elevator shafts. We need to go up. Or deeper in. Towards the Graham Avenue side. The heat is better there."

She started walking. Fast. I hesitated. This was insane. I should call the police. I pulled my phone out. Dead screen. I held the power button. Nothing. Just a black mirror reflecting my own scared face.

A loud *CRACK* echoed behind me. The window. A spiderweb fracture shot across the glass.

I ran after her. "Wait!"

We hurried through the connected buildings. The mall was a ghost town. The food court was eerie—trays left on tables, half-eaten burgers, spills drying on the laminate. But no people. It was like everyone had been vaporized mid-bite. I grabbed a napkin from a dispenser as we passed, wiping my running nose. It felt rough, real. How could this be a dream if the napkin felt so cheap?

"Why are we the only ones left?" I asked, struggling to keep up with her. She was fast.

"Maybe we're not," she said. "Maybe we're just the only ones warm enough to matter."

She stopped abruptly in front of a shuttered jewelry store. The metal gate was down. She put her hand on the grate. The metal hissed. Steam rose from under her fingers. She wasn't melting it, just… heating it. Like she was a living radiator.

"You're…" I trailed off. "You're really warm."

She looked at me, her expression guarded. Defensive. "Better than being cold, right?"

"What are you?"

"Cold," she whispered. "I'm just cold, Ben. Like everyone else. I just… handle it differently."

She turned away and kept walking. We crossed another skywalk bridge. This one was older, draftier. The wind howled outside, shaking the whole structure. I could feel the vibrations in the floor, buzzing up through my soles. It felt like the bridge was being chewed on.

"Don't look down," she warned.

I looked down. Of course I did. Through the glass floor panels… wait, there were no glass floor panels here yesterday. The floor had changed. Sections of the carpet were gone, replaced by thick, cloudy glass. I looked through. The street wasn't there. It was just… white. A swirling vortex of snow and gray fog. No pavement. No cars. Just an endless drop into a blizzard.

"Vertigo," I mumbled, swaying. "I think I'm gonna be sick."

She grabbed my collar and yanked me forward. "Don't fall in. The glass isn't real. It's just ice thinking it's glass."

We scrambled to the other side, bursting into the next building. A bank tower. Marble floors. High ceilings. It felt colder here. My breath plumed in the air. White clouds drifting up toward the pot lights.

"It's inside," Mara said. She stopped, scanning the lobby. "It's already here."

Shadows stretched across the marble floor. But the lights were overhead. The shadows shouldn't be that long. And they were reaching for us. Dark, elongated shapes that looked like fingers. Like the fingers on the sidewalk.

"Run," she said. Softly.

We ran. My boots slipped on the polished stone. I scrambled, hands slapping the cold floor to keep my balance. My knee slammed into the ground—pain, sharp and hot. Good. Pain is real. Pain means I'm not a ghost.

We hit the stairwell door. Locked. I rattled the handle. "It won't open!"

Mara shoved me aside. She grabbed the handle with both hands. She squeezed her eyes shut. I saw her jaw clench. Smoke started to curl from under her palms. The smell of burning metal filled the air. Harsh. Acrid. The handle glowed cherry red, then white. The locking mechanism groaned, melted, gave way.

She kicked the door open. We fell into the stairwell.

She leaned against the concrete wall, gasping. She looked pale. Drained. She held her hands away from her body. They were trembling.

"You burned it," I said. I was panting, sweat freezing on my back.

"Takes a lot," she wheezed. "To get that hot. Takes… energy."

"You okay?"

"Hungry," she said. She looked at me. Her eyes were dark pools. For a second, just a split second, I felt like a steak. Like prey. But then she blinked, and she was just a scared girl in a yellow jacket again. "I'm okay."

"We need a place to hide," I said. "Somewhere small. Easy to defend."

"Janitor's closet?" she suggested.

"Too obvious. Mechanical room. Top floor. The heat rises."

We climbed. Flight after flight. My legs burned. My lungs felt like they were filled with broken glass. Every time we passed a landing, I expected the door to burst open and the white void to swallow us. But it didn't. Just the echo of our boots and our ragged breathing.

Top floor. The door to the mechanical room was unlocked. We slipped inside. The noise was deafening—the roar of giant fans, the hum of boilers. But it was warm. God, it was warm. It smelled of oil and dust and hot metal. The smell of life.

We slumped down against a large, vibrating yellow machine. I didn't know what it did, but it was radiating heat. I pressed my back against it, closing my eyes. The relief was so intense it almost made me cry.

"We're safe here," I said. Or tried to say. It came out as a whisper.

Mara sat next to me. Close. Her shoulder brushed mine. She wasn't searing hot anymore. Just warm. Pleasantly warm. Like a mug of tea on a snowy morning.

"For a while," she said. She pulled her knees up to her chest.

I looked at her. In the dim light of the maintenance bulbs, she looked younger. Vulnerable. "What was that? Back there? The door?"

She shrugged. "I told you. I handle the cold differently. Some people freeze. Some people burn."

"I've never seen anyone burn a door lock."

"You've never seen the city try to eat you before, either," she countered. "Rules change when the weather turns."

She had a point. I looked at my hands. They were raw, red. I rubbed them together.

"My name is Ben," I said again. "I work in IT. I have a cat named Buster. He’s probably starving right now."

She looked at me, a faint smile tugging at the corner of her mouth. "Buster? Really?"

"He's a fat tabby. Not very original, I know."

"I don't have a cat," she said. "I move around too much. Cats need… stability. I don't have that."

"You have it right now," I said. "We're stable. We're sitting against a giant heater."

She laughed. A short, dry bark of a sound. "This isn't stability, Ben. This is a pause. The cold doesn't stop. It just waits."

She shifted, leaning her head back against the machine. Her neck was exposed. I saw a scar there. jagged. Old. "Why did you stop for me? In the hallway? You could have kept running."

"I don't know," she admitted. "Maybe I needed a witness. If I vanish, I want someone to know I was there."

"I see you," I said. It felt important to say that. "I see you, Mara."

She turned her head to look at me. Her eyes searched my face. Looking for what? Fear? Judgment? She didn't find it. I was too tired for fear. I just felt… grateful. Weirdly, stupidly grateful to be sitting on a greasy floor with a girl who could melt steel.

"You're not afraid of me?" she asked quietly.

"I'm afraid of the hand on the sidewalk," I said. "I'm afraid of the glass floor. I'm afraid of freezing to death. You? You're the only warm thing in this entire city."

She exhaled, a long, shuddering breath. She reached out and took my hand. This time, I didn't flinch. Her skin was warm, dry. Her grip was strong. It felt… grounding. Like an anchor.

"Hold on to that," she whispered. "Don't let the cold inside your head. That's how it gets you. It makes you think you're alone. It makes you think it's easier to just… lie down."

"I'm not lying down," I said. I squeezed her hand back.

We sat there for a long time. Just breathing. The machine hummed behind us, a steady, rhythmic heartbeat. I let myself relax, just a fraction. I thought about Buster waiting for his kibble. I thought about the leftover pizza in my fridge. Stupid, mundane things. But they felt like treasures now. Evidence of a real world.

"Ben?" Mara asked softly.

"Yeah?"

"Do you hear that?"

I listened. Over the hum of the machinery. A sound. Faint at first, then louder. *Scritch. Scritch. Scritch.*

It was coming from the vent. The large metal ventilation shaft directly above us.

I looked up. The metal grate was vibrating.

"It's in the vents," I whispered. horror washed over me, cold and absolute.

Mara stood up, pulling me with her. Her eyes were wide. The heat was rising off her again, waves of shimmering air distorting the space around her.

"It found the heat source," she said. "It's tracking the warmth."

The grate rattled. A screw popped out, pinging off the concrete floor. Then another.

"We have to go," she said. "Now."

"Where? There's nowhere left! We're at the top!"

"The roof," she said. "There's a maintenance hatch. We go to the roof."

"Are you crazy? It's open air! It'll be freezing!"

"Better than being trapped in a box with *that*," she pointed at the vent. Something white and amorphous was pressing against the grate, oozing through the slats like thick dough.

She dragged me toward a ladder in the corner. I climbed, my limbs heavy, clumsy. I pushed the hatch open. The wind hit me instantly. A physical blow. It shrieked, tearing at my clothes, blinding me with ice crystals.

I pulled myself up onto the gravel roof. The city was… gone. There were no other buildings. No lights. Just a swirling gray void below us. We were on an island of concrete floating in a white ocean.

Mara scrambled up beside me. She slammed the hatch shut and stood on it. "It's coming up the ladder!"

She looked around frantically. There was nowhere to go. Just the edge of the roof and the drop into nothingness.

"We're trapped," I yelled over the wind. "Mara, look! There's nothing out here!"

She grabbed the front of my jacket. She pulled me close. Her face was inches from mine. She was glowing now. Actually glowing. A faint, orange light radiating from under her skin. She looked beautiful and terrifying.

"Trust me," she said.

"Trust you with what?"

"I can burn it away," she said. "But I need… I need a spark. I need something to hold onto."

"What do you mean?"

"I need you not to let go," she shouted. "No matter what happens. No matter how hot it gets. Do not let go of me!"

The hatch beneath her feet buckled. A dent appeared in the metal. Something was punching it from below.

"Okay!" I screamed. "Okay!"

She wrapped her arms around me. It was like hugging a furnace. I gasped, the air sucked out of my lungs. It hurt. It burned. But I held on. I buried my face in her shoulder, smelling the sulphur and the wool.

"Close your eyes!" she commanded.

I closed them tight. I felt a surge of power. A hum that vibrated through my bones, louder than the wind, louder than the machinery. The heat intensified. It felt like my jacket was melting. Like my skin was blistering. But I held on. I thought of Buster. I thought of the pizza. I thought of the way her hand felt in mine.

Then, the world turned white. Not the cold white of the snow. A hot, searing white. A flash that I saw even through my closed eyelids. The wind stopped. The sound stopped. Gravity seemed to vanish.

We were falling. Or flying. I couldn't tell.

Then came the impact. Hard. Cold. Wet.

I groaned, rolling over. I was lying on slush. Real, dirty, city slush. I opened my eyes. I was on the sidewalk. Portage Avenue. Cars were driving by. People were walking. A bus rumbled past, spraying dirty water.

I scrambled up, looking around frantically. "Mara?"

People gave me weird looks. A guy in a suit stepped around me, muttering. I checked my hands. No burns. Just cold, red skin. I checked my pockets. Phone. It turned on. 5:25 PM.

I spun in a circle. "Mara!"

Nothing. Just the crowd. Just the rush hour traffic. Just the normal, gray, miserable city.

Then I looked down. At my feet. In the slush.

There was a circle of dry pavement. Perfectly round. Bone dry. And in the center of it, a single, yellow feather. Down. Like from a cheap parka.

I picked it up. It was warm. Still warm.

I looked up at the skywalk bridge above me. The glass was intact. No frost. But for a second, just a split second, I saw a hand press against the glass from the inside. A silhouette in a yellow jacket. Watching me.

I clutched the feather in my fist. I wasn't alone. I knew that now. The city was hungry, yeah. But I had a spark in my pocket. And I knew where the heat was.