The Ice King (The Witch Ways 0.5)(21)

She reached into her sweatshirt pocket for her compass and, before she looked at it, she could feel the movement, the steady whirling of the needle. Its steadfast activity settled her despite the oddity of it. She put the compass back into her sweatshirt pocket. Record. Her own drawings were unreliable, just as her readings had been. There had to be a way to record.

She reached around onto the worktop for her camera and began taking a series of pictures of the floor. There was some element to the shadows that was pricking at her mind as she looked at them through the viewfinder but she couldn’t quite place it. She continued to take photographs. As she stepped down from the stool she was aware suddenly of a smoky, honeyed scent. She felt as if she was on an edge, that the stool was too high from the ground and if she put her foot down she would, without a doubt, fall. As the panic seized her the alarm sounded in the corridor, the blaring wail reaching right into Vanessa’s already panicking chest and punching her heart.

Dr Hardy, Dr Crowe and Dr Byrne were at the far end of the corridor by the emergency exit. The door there, a heavy duty corrugated metal affair, was ringing like a church bell. As she ran up the corridor, she could hear the heavy pounding on the metal and the shouts on the other side of the door.

“Help me. HELP ME…Let me IN…” Bale’s voice was tangled up into the wind and the sound of him pounding on the door, again and again.

“What’s happening?” Vanessa hurried up. Byrne turned to her.

“Bale’s outside. He’s in trouble. The door won’t open.”

The assembled academics were struggling to open the bar mechanism.

“Is he drunk? For God’s sake let him in…” Dr Byrne barked.

“Why isn’t it opening? For Christ’s sake…” Dr Hardy was protesting “Christ, what is happening here? What the hell is going on out there? Has he been at that ruddy still again?”

“Let him in.” Dr Byrne’s voice was hard, knocking against the pounding on the door.

“It won’t…open…I can’t get…” Dr Crowe grunted in effort. Dr Byrne rummaged in a nearby store cupboard, retrieving a can of WD40. The sickly clag-scent of the oil choked at everyone, making them cough as she sprayed it liberally over the mechanism. Dr Crowe fell back from the door.

“What the hell are you doing? It’s too slick now…For PETE’S sake.” Dr Crowe beat on the door. As he did so the noises from outside stopped abruptly just as the alarm shut down. The silence threw everyone for a moment and then Dr Byrne, gathering her thoughts, leant her weight against the door mechanism, the bar shifted along its track and the emergency exit opened.

Outside the storm had dropped into sudden silence, the sky ink black above them. The cold screamed in at them but, after all the knocking and pounding there was no one on the other side of the door.

“Where the hell is he?” Hardy strode out into the bitterness “Bale? BALE? BAAAAAALE?” his voice was damped against the cold. They listened, there was no answer.

“I don’t understand…” Dr Byrne stepped out, her hand fiddling with the switch on their million candle power torchlight. The batteries were duff and despite her efforts to shake the thing into life the torchlight remained resolutely dark.

“He’s got to be here…” Crowe’s feet crunched in the snow, the harsh light of the centre reached out for a few feet. There was something just beyond its leading edge.

“Bale you out here?” Crowe’s voice ought to have sounded angry but it didn’t. “Bale. This isn’t funny.” Crowe moved forward into darkness. Hardy took a few steps behind Crowe, raised his hand above his eyes to peer into the iced darkness. “Bale?” his voice was lower now, the uncertainty evident as he stepped cautiously forwards. Dr Byrne knocked the torchlight against the side of the door and the batteries sputtered it into dim life. Dr Byrne moved out to where Hardy was standing. As she did so Hardy turned and vomited.

“What the…?” Byrne took step after step towards him, her pace increasing. Crowe’s voice rose out of the darkness.

“Everybody inside. NOW.”

Only after they slammed the door shut did Vanessa see that the snow on their boots was red with blood.

The concensus of opinion was that Bale had been attacked by a polar bear as he’d gone back out to the comms mast. The meeting in the common room was sombre and the company fell into a deep silence riven only by the sound of the storm rising once more around them. The wind was battering at the roof, the insulating panels just above their heads were bowing in and out with the concussion of air through the roof.

There was no way to communicate their current distress to any authority.

“We should retrieve the remains.” Dr Byrne sat forward, Dr Crowe was shaking his head.

“We do no such thing. Whatever’s left the bear can have, means it won’t be hungry when we head out there tomorrow to fix the comms.”

Dr Byrne did not disguise her outrage.

“Don’t look like that… I’m talking sense. You go and pick his bones out of the bear’s teeth if you want but I will not be doing that. Bale won’t care, he’s dead.”

Crowe’s ire was rising and Dr Byrne was about to protest but Hardy interrupted.

“There’s another storm coming. If the roof holds we might make it to the morning.” he said “I’m instigating emergency protocol one.”