Perma.

Early mornings could be fatal. Often, around three am when the chill was at its sharpest, those ill prepared would be cut by the night. It was not uncommon for Darius to look out of his kitchen window to see the bodies of those who’d made it past his fences, only to reach part way before falling. The fog would clear at six or seven revealing their slumped figures under mounds of frost. Shame, Darius would think, dragging the frozen piles and heaping them on top of the others; waste of good compost, that.

Nothing really decomposed anymore. Darius remembered a time when it used to get above five degrees in the summer, back when you could grow things outside. Then it got colder, and colder, and at around the time he last recalled seeing birds, it became too cold for even man to withstand, and everyone retreated indoors, or underground. He wasn’t sure how they were surviving, let alone making it to his yard, but he wasn’t bothered. There were less of them as the years passed, and his concern lay elsewhere. Darius removed the knife from his belt and hacked at the clothes on the frozen piles, tearing them from the bodies in strips. He draped the material over his arms and collected their shoes. Three pairs today, not bad. They were worn through at the soles, beginning to fray at the heels. Coming from further away, obviously. They were beginning to get desperate.

In his house he tapped the snow from his boots and made his way toward the basement. He opened the door that connected the stairs to the upper part of the house, and the warmth slowly flittered out. Shutting it quickly behind him, he allowed his eyes a moment before embarking down. Soon, the faint, orange glow coming from below filled the room and he stepped down. Dumping the morning’s collections onto a patch of earth in the corner, he surveyed the crops in the middle of the room. All flooring had been removed and repurposed. The concrete slabs had been used to bolster the fences, and some of the smaller parts had been used in the construction of the small firepit that lit the room. Any wood had, of course, been burned. The bare dirt that remained had been sectioned into small pens. Three had a variety of shoots and sprouts ranging from trying to live, to struggling to die. Darius knew he’d need to work harder than before to keep the fire burning bright and hot enough to grow anything this season. The fourth patch, well. Nothing had ever grown there.

He poked the embers of the fire gently. Careful not to smother them, he delicately placed the strips of material over the coals, blowing softly to get them burning. He tore the soles from the shoes and put them on too. The fire was burning, but it wasn’t enough. Darius cursed and headed upstairs, cursing again as he put his boots back on. He cursed every step as he went back to the frozen piles and surveyed what else he could take. Sighing, he slashed at the hands and feet of the piles, cutting ankles, elbows, and ears. Kicking the bodies, flipping them over to start slashing away at the piles underneath, he caught a small glimmer from the corner of his eye. Perhaps he’d been outside too long already; perhaps the odd grey-blue darkness of the sky was playing tricks on him. Darius wiped his brow on his sleeve and grunted, stabbing his knife into a smaller frozen pile. His knife made a barely audible tink against something less solid than ice and he pulled his hand back. Stuck against a chunk of what he assumed used to be a neck was a small, silver heart on a chain. He stuffed it in his jacket pocket and resumed cursing.

Back in his basement, he plugged his nose against the stench. It was an awful thing, to have to burn parts of bodies to keep warm, but he could always count on some decent ash to come from it at least. He warmed himself against the fire, now burning a smidgen too well. He removed the silver heart from his pocket, gingerly clearing some fine, blonde hair from the links. Examining it in the light, he saw a small slit in the slide where presumably, it would open. It was a small piece of jewelry, something he imagined a mother would give her daughter. For a moment, he considered simply tossing it onto the fire. It was small enough that it would melt without too much difficulty, however it had been so long since Darius had seen anything other than blue, or white, or red, or black, he shook the thought away and began to fumble at the slit. Had he any nails, it would have been an easy task. Instead, he tried clenching it in his teeth, and when that failed, shucking into it like an oyster. The heart refused. Growling, he rose, digging into the heart with different points of his knife, pacing around the room. He stomped and stabbed, he swore and skewered the heart. With a final twist and groan, he drew the knife down through the heart, slicing his palm. He yelled, flinging the heart to the ground and grabbing his hand. Blood dribbled down his arm and into the patch of dirt beneath his feet. Darius picked up the heart with red fingers and it silently opened.

The fire burned bright that evening, warmer than Darius had ever seen it. He didn’t even need to throw another leg on it.

All the other crops had died. Darius continued to feed the fire. Whatever was growing in that fourth patch was growing well and threatened to overtake the entire room. He’d be hard pressed to stop it from bursting through the upper door before too long. Some days he thought he saw fruit beginning to grow along the dark tendrils, and others he believed they were vegetables. On particularly cold days, he thought they may have even been hands or feet. He let them grow, and change. He kept the room warm, although that hardly seemed to matter now.

He’d barely slept. He made his way to his kitchen, waiting for the first signs of light so he could see how thick the fog would be this morning. He peered out into the darkness, lightly tapping the hilt of his knife. There were only two yesterday, and they wore strange clothes well suited for the cold. They were getting smarter. They were surviving longer. At two minutes to three, came the knock from the basement door.