Authors: Scott Sigler
“Hell, should have been here in ’68, eh? So damn cold da mouth of da harbor froze over. We had to plant dynamite to break up da ice to get boats in. That was da year Paul Newman fell in while we were ice fishing. Me and Charlie Heston had to drag him back to shore.”
Clayton paused for a moment. “You’re really worried about Sara, eh?”
“Yeah,” Colding said. “I am.”
“Pretty fuckin’ stupid to send them out in that storm.” Typical words from the old man, but not a typical tone. He didn’t sound insulting, he sounded … regretful.
Clayton picked up the shovel again and got back to work, the gong-on-glass sound ripping the air. “When do you expect to hear back from them?”
Colding shrugged. “They should be back in Manitoba already.”
Should
be back, but no word yet, at least not that Magnus had shared.
Clayton scraped snow two more times, then he rested the shovel against the mansion wall. He picked up the salt jug and tossed granules down on the freshly cleared ice. He opened the French doors to the lounge, then stopped, turned, and gave Colding a hard, cautious look.
“I wanna know something,” Clayton said. “Tell me da truth. You just fuckin’ that girl, or you love her?”
The question magnified Colding’s misery, his powerlessness. That familiar feeling of tears again, but this time, tears of frustration, maybe even tears of rage.
“I love her.”
Clayton nodded, took off a glove and rubbed his mouth. “Thought so. You need anything, you let me know. I’ve seen a lot of shit come and go on this island. Something’s off here, I can feel it.” He kicked snow off his boots. “Something’s
real
off, eh? And one way or another, we’re gonna have to deal with it before too long.”
Clayton walked inside and shut the door behind him, leaving Colding alone in the frigid morning to wonder what the words really meant.
HAD SHE SLEPT on a bed of dull nails? Every atom hurt, pulsed, screamed or ached. She smelled of sweat and dirty hay, the odors combining with the unmistakable scent of cows and cow shit so that even her nose found something to bitch about.
Sara pushed herself up on one elbow. She wanted to sleep. Sleep for days, for
weeks
, even, but she had to move. She looked at Tim Feely—and suddenly all the pain was worth it.
He sat on his butt, hugging his knees to his chest, head down and eyes closed. He swayed slightly.
“Tim?” Her voice cracked from a dry throat. “Are you okay?”
He looked up. A huge red and purple bruise covered the right side of his face from hairline to chin. Dried blood clotted the black line of stitches on his forehead. Dark circles ringed both eyes.
“I’m pretty fucking far from okay,” Tim said. “How long have I been out?”
Sara took a deep breath, then gave Tim the condensed version of everything she knew—Jian’s death, Colding sending the plane out in the storm, Magnus’s bomb, the crash landing, and the struggle to reach Sven’s barn.
Tim sat quietly for a moment, taking it all in. He gently rubbed his swollen knee. Even the smallest touch there made him wince. “So everyone but you and I are dead.
I’d
be dead if you hadn’t dragged my ass a mile through a blizzard?”
Sara nodded.
“Thanks,” Tim said. The word couldn’t have been simpler, and the look of gratitude and sheer amazement in his eyes couldn’t have been deeper. “Sounds like Rhumkorrf really fucked up the works. I hope he’s dead.”
Sara hoped for the same. Rhumkorrf’s actions had caused her friends’ deaths. “I got out just before it blew,” she said. “I didn’t see anyone else.”
She looked around the barn, taking in its details for the first time. Fairly standard: fifteen-foot-wide aisle, big enough for a large farm tractor to
drive through. Twenty-five stalls on each side. Full haylofts above each row, all under a high arcing roof supported by thick wooden rafters. A few small birds fluttered up there, tiny chirps adding an oddly optimistic feel to their dark situation. Big cow heads peeked out from most of the stalls, vacant black eyes staring curiously at the strangers lying on the ground. Instead of a cow, the first stall to the left of the big sliding door housed a brand-new Arctic Cat snowmobile. Its presence was only a partial comfort—they could use it to get away from Sven’s barn, but where would they go?
“We can’t stay here, Tim. How’s the knee?”
“Fucked up nine ways to Sunday. I think the patella might be broken. Sure as hell can’t put weight on it.”
She shook her head. “I almost died carrying your ass here. You’re coming with me, and you’re walking. I’ll help you, but you
are
coming with me.”
“But what about the storm? It’s warm in here.”
“I don’t hear much wind, so I think the storm is over. That means Sven will be here soon to check on these cows.”
“But isn’t that what we want? We need help. I’m
hurt
, I need a doctor.”
Sara rubbed her eyes. Just one other survivor, and it couldn’t be Alonzo or one of the Twins, someone with mettle—it had to be this pussy. “Tim,
listen
to me. If Magnus finds out we’re alive, he’ll come for us. We’re still too close to the plane. We’ve got to get out of here, try and find Colding. Maybe we can use that snowmobile over there.”
Tim looked at the Arctic Cat, but his thoughts were obviously on the bigger picture. “Didn’t Colding send us up? How can you trust him now?”
Sara took in a slow breath. She
couldn’t
trust Colding. But those nights they’d spent together, the things he’d told her … at the very least, he was a far better risk than Gunther or Andy or even Clayton. “I don’t know that we can trust him.”
A dog bark from outside made them freeze.
The barn door slid open, just a crack. Sara grabbed Tim’s hand and yanked him into a stall just as the door opened a little bit more, letting a golden rectangle of brilliant winter morning sunlight spill onto the barn floor.
SVEN BALLANTINE LEANED against the door for a third time. The snow had drifted high against it, half blocking it, half freezing it shut. It opened just enough for him to slide inside. Mookie pushed through his
legs and ran into the barn, tail wagging furiously. She darted from cow to cow as if to say
hello!
to the friends she’d missed during the storm, staring at each one briefly to let them know she was there and that she was in charge.
“Take it easy, girl,” Sven said. “I’m sure they miss you, too, eh?”
And then Sven Ballantine heard a moo.
At least, he
thought
he’d heard it. But it hadn’t come from the barn.
He looked back through the open door, out across the blazing expanse of his snowed-over hayfield. Sunlight roared off the undulating surface, an electric field of frozen white waves running up to the thick pine trees at the field’s edge.
Moooooo
.
There it was again. And it hadn’t been his imagination.
Mookie started barking, a long
ro-ro-ro-ro
, the kind of urgency usually reserved for trespassing squirrels or insolent rabbits. But Sven didn’t look, didn’t turn around to see Mookie’s hackles raised at two battered people hiding in a stall, crouched down by the black-and-white legs of the stall’s normal occupant.
Ro-ro-ro-rororo
.
“Shut up, girl,” Sven said.
Mooooo
.
No mistake that time. And it wasn’t just one cow, it was several.
Roro-ro-roro-ro
.
“Goddamit
, Mookie, shut da hell up!”
The scream seemed to hit Mookie like a rolled-up newspaper. Her head dropped to the ground, her tail curled slightly between her legs.
Sven walked out of the barn. He peered across the blinding field, looking for movement. He had to squint to block the worst of the reflected light. There … cows. At the edge of his field.
Sven pushed the barn door open a little wider, then walked inside and hopped on the Arctic Cat. It started on the first try. The sound of the engine drew Mookie away from the two people her master didn’t seem to notice. The dog barked at the snowmobile and turned three fast circles.
Sven eased the sled out of the barn, then gunned the engine. Mookie followed, barking all the way.
CLAYTON SAT IN the Nuge’s toasty warmth. Frank Sinatra blared from the stereo. Sinatra—now, there was a man who could knock back shots of bourbon. Clayton fondly remembered his earliest days on the island, when he and Frank and Dean had drunk Sammy under the table. After Sammy passed out, Clayton had replaced the singer’s glass eye with a ball bearing. Sammy had been pissed as hell the next day, but Frank thought it was fucking hysterical.
Always so beautiful after a big storm. The most beautiful place on Earth, really. Not a day went by when Clayton didn’t thank the Lord above he’d not only lived here for over fifty years, but been
paid
to do so.
The storms had covered everything in a thick marshmallow coating. Pine trees looked like lumpy white giants out of some paint-by-numbers canvas. The snow changed leafless hardwood branches into soft skeletons. A trillion snowflakes reflected the morning sun, making the landscape shimmer and sparkle.
The Bv dragged its weighted sled along the snowmobile trail. Fourteen inches of snow had dropped in little more than twenty-four hours. A fresh snow meant Magnus would want to take the sleds out, so Clayton had to make sure the trails were properly groomed and ready to go.
Something just
off
with that Magnus boy. His brother Danté wasn’t much better. At first, Clayton had thought Colding was yet another Genada doofus, like that ass-wipe Andy Crosthwaite. But maybe Colding was all right. Poor kid was a mess worrying about Sara. And he wasn’t the only one. Clayton liked that girl.
Something was wrong on Black Manitou. Way wrong. Fifty
years
on the island. Long enough to know the spirit of a place, to know when something stank worse than a shit sandwich with a side of skunk spunk.
Well, no point worrying until something happened.
Que sera sera
, as Doris Day had said. Now,
she
had been a looker. Too bad she wouldn’t put out. The little tease.
Clayton hummed “My Way” as he moved up the trail, wondering if Sara and the others had landed in Manitoba.
SARA RISKED A peek past the stall wall. Through the open barn door, she saw Sven, his dog, and some cows far across the snowy field.
“Get up, Tim. We’re moving.”
“Moving to
where?”
The million-dollar question. They could go into Sven’s house, wait for him to come back, and then … what? Use her Beretta to shoot the old man? Take him hostage? There wasn’t any other shelter. Except …
“That abandoned town,” she said. “Right in the middle of the island. We can lie low there for a little bit, figure out what to do next.”
“How far away is that?”
“Maybe five miles.”
Tim stared at her like she had a dick growing out of her forehead. “Five
miles?
On foot?”
Sara nodded. “It’s our only option.”
“We have another option.” He pointed to the pistol on Sara’s hip.
“No,” Sara said. “We don’t know that Sven has anything to do with this. I’m not going to hurt him.”
“You don’t have to shoot the guy, just point it at him and—”
“No, Tim. I know guns. You draw this thing on a human being, you better be prepared to use it, and I’m
not
going to blow away some old man. Besides, as far as we know, he has to check in with Magnus every couple of hours or something.”
“Or Colding,” Tim said.
Sara said nothing.
“I say we take the house,” Tim said.
“Doesn’t matter what you say.”
Sara crept to the barn door and looked out. Sven was still out there with the cows from the C-5. Mookie bounded through the snow, running a long circle around the herd. Sven would come back the same way he’d gone out, which meant Sara and Tim couldn’t go out the front—too much fresh snow; Sven would be bound to see the tracks.
She walked deeper into the barn, looking for an exit. Directly opposite the big sliding door she saw a normal, hinged door with a four-paned window on the top half. She used her sleeve to scrape frost away from a small spot, then looked out. Nothing much out there other than snowdrifts, a tiny snow-covered shed and a few snowcapped fence posts.
She pulled the door open, slowly, so that the drift built up on the other side wouldn’t fall into the barn. The snow there looked like a waist-high white wall. She stepped over it into the deep snow, then reached back to help the limping Tim Feely. She carefully shut the door. Some snow fell in, but she hoped the still-running heaters might melt it before Sven returned.
She and Tim stood side by side, backs flat against the barn. Before them was a long stretch of undisturbed white marked with high drifts. A single line of footprints led into the shed. Those tracks were covered with less than an inch of snow, making each print look fuzzy and blurred.
“Look,” Tim said. “There’s no frost on the shed windows. It’s heated.”
He was right. Probably an electric heater like the ones in the barn. Inviting, but too risky.
“We can’t hide there,” Sara said. “Looks like Sven went to the shed sometime last night. Means he might be in there again today. It’s only six by six, nowhere to hide if he comes out.”
“Shit. What now, gunslinger?”
“We just go and hope he doesn’t come back to the shed and see our footprints leading out of the barn. Come on.”
She put her shoulder under Tim’s arm to carry some of his weight. Together, they trudged through the deep snow.
SVEN LOOKED ALL around, searching for any sign of a person. There had to be someone around. Had to. It wasn’t like forty-three cows could just appear out of thin air. They weren’t James Harvey’s herd. As far as Sven knew, James’s cows weren’t knocked up, and these girls were pregnant with a capital
P
.
Mookie was doing her thing, circling the herd, stopping and staring with her head low to the ground. If her eyes had been lasers, she could have burned a hole clear through the moon. She packed the cows together, waiting for Sven’s commands.