The Winter Over(86)

The gust presaged a shift in the wind. Snow hit him full in the face, cutting visibility down to nothing, and he slowed the sled down even more. Slow enough, in fact, that he risked a glance behind. In his imagination, he’d assumed he’d see a starlike pinpoint of light from one of the outside spotlights or maybe even the Halloween glow of fire from the explosion he’d triggered in the garage.

But Shackleton had long since disappeared from view, and the world behind him was as dark as the bleak, flat night in front of him. Nothing ahead, nothing behind . A hollow pit opened up in his stomach, despair and dread and naked fear fusing together . . .

It took longer than it should have to realize that the twisting, careening sense that the bottom of his world was dropping away was real, not imagined. The Skandic’s headlight tipped forward and away, a plank of light teetering over the crumbling edge of a crevasse. Taylor tried to roll backward from the sled, but it was too late. Man and machine tumbled into the darkness, the single headlight playing over the blue-black walls.





CHAPTER FORTY-FOUR


Cass unwound the scarf from around her neck and doubled it over her mouth and nose. The smell of gasoline was strong enough to make her gag and she had to squeeze her eyes hard to clear it of tears that formed and froze. Rationally, she knew that the Beer Can, always unheated, couldn’t be any colder than it had always been, but it somehow seemed darker and less protective than ever as she started down its metal steps.

The central shaft of the staircase appeared to her flashlight in muddy sections. The familiar sterile lights of each level were gone, as was the sluggish glow at the bottom of the shaft that she associated with the service lights of the ice tunnels that led to the arches and the VMF. Just one emergency footlight glowed at the top of the Beer Can. Her flashlight was the only other illumination.

Her steps made a hollow, staccato rapping as she descended the staircase. She wanted to move quickly, but the muscles of her calves and thighs twitched and shivered, making both her steps and her judgment risky. Her only source of heat was movement, which might be good enough for now, but as she failed to replace the calories she’d lost, her body would start to break down, slow, and die.

The dark maw of the ice tunnels loomed in front of her. She swung the light back and forth, expecting, perhaps, to see more bodies lying in the tunnel, on the ground, propped against the icy walls, but there was nothing. The sound of her breathing was loud in her ears. The layers of cloth swaddled around her head kept her warm, but also kept her isolated and deaf.

The smell of the gas was stronger. Moving slowly but steadily, she made it to the conduit intersection in twice the time it normally took with the power on and the lights guiding her way. Tugging the cloth aside from one ear, she listened down the tunnel.

Nothing.

But the arches weren’t her destination, not yet. She moved to the plywood door that led to the rough ice tunnels, her feet crunching and squeaking on the ice floor. She wrapped her hand around the rope handle of the door and yanked it open, thrusting her flashlight into the opening like a sword.

The light showed nothing but the round-roofed shaft leading into darkness. The silence beyond was absolute, sepulchral.

She closed the door behind her and shuffled forward. The walls of the older tunnel were serpentine, and the beam from her flashlight illuminated only a few feet ahead, refracted by the next turn or aberration in the tunnel. The smell of gas was less oppressive here, but there was a new, brassy odor she couldn’t place. It sat in the back of her throat like a pill half swallowed.

She moved down the tunnel slower than she ever had, her muscles and eyes twitching, her breath coming in a quick, one-two rhythm just shy of a gasp, trying to inhale and exhale without tasting the air. The first turn was coming up.

Steeling herself, she rounded the corner with the flashlight held steady and straight. Light splashed over Jerry’s screaming bust.

Then, Cass’s vision shifted violently, as though she’d been blindsided in traffic, and she realized Christ, oh God, it wasn’t Jerry, it wasn’t a bust of snow tinted with axle grease or human shit; it was smaller and more articulate than the crude sculpture had been. Gaskets were still there where the eyes should be and the vacuum hose still made the outline of the mouth an “o” of surprise, but this head had a long nose and a bearded chin, gold-rimmed glasses crushed into a face crusted with ice and covered with a stain that spread over the rim of the ice shelf it rested on, forming rusty brown stalactites that hung from the ledge.

She clawed the scarf away and doubled over, vomiting onto the ice. The beard, the long nose, the glasses. It’s Keene , she thought as she heaved. Tears collected and instantly froze around her eyes and she had to gulp in deep breaths of the brassy, tainted air to make them stop. She stumbled blindly down the tunnel.

Weaving like a drunk, careening off the ice walls, she pressed forward, not quite caring if she ran into whoever or whatever had killed the psychologist. She had one goal at this point and it was impossible for her brain to move beyond that single point, although her eyes registered that drops of the rusty brown stain decorated the ice floor in front of her every few feet . . . and were appearing with more frequency.

A distant part of her mind edged through the fear and the growing scream that was building inside of her. Come on, girl. Just fifty more feet. She concentrated on counting off the remaining distance in strides. Thirty more feet. That’s just ten strides sprinting, fifteen walking, thirty crawling. Do it .