Snowblind (13 page)

The forest gradually emerged in a dusky twilight. She could see the branches now, and the thick trunks and the white snow carpeting the ground at her feet. The space between the trees began to widen. She saw an opening, and all at once, she burst out of the woods onto the road.

She paused in the middle of the road, panting wildly, scanning in both directions. The plow had cleared the heavy snow — only a few inches remained. Up ahead, the road split in two directions. And from somewhere up the right fork, she heard the faint sound of a straining engine.

She glanced into the woods behind her. The killer could be heard crashing through the trees.

Erin skied up the road to the fork. She saw that the plow had clearly headed away from the cabin and up the main road. She could hear it in the distance, just around the bend.

Should she head back to Kris, or try to catch the plow? She glanced behind her at the trees. The killer had still not emerged. He was on foot, she was on skis. She could beat him.

She tore off up the main road, skiing as fast as she could.

It rose in a mild slope, angling up the side of the mountain. Erin struggled forward, pushing in short vigorous strides up the hill. She glanced behind her: the woods from which she had emerged were lost in the twilight; the killer was nowhere in sight. Erin continued on toward the sound of the plow.

Now the sound seemed to be coming from the woods to her left, uphill from the road. Impossible, she thought. Another switchback? She paused a moment, listening to the aching engine as it ground up the road. The sound progressed through the trees. She stared ahead into the dark, saw the road bending left. It was a switchback. Should she cut through the trees?

No way, she thought. She charged ahead up the road.

The engine noise grew fainter as it proceeded up the mountain. Erin raced a hundred yards up the road, where it turned sharply to the left, switching back and angling up the mountain in the same gentle slope. Erin realized this must have been what the ranger had mentioned: the road above the cabin where he'd parked his snowmobile and taken a shortcut through the woods.

As she rounded the bend, Erin's heart soared: she spotted the lights of the snowplow ahead in the dark. It was pushing its way slowly up the mountain road, several hundred feet ahead.

Erin pressed on with renewed vigor. The driver was sure to have a radio. He could contact the rangers, call the police. They would rescue Kris from the cabin, and bring them both safely to her father.

Erin fought away the image of her mother's frozen body. Tears streamed down her face, stinging the cuts from the branches, and blurring the lights of the plow. She strode on, closer and closer to the huge vehicle. It had slowed down to a crawl, moving off to the shoulder of the road. Had he seen her? The machine loomed above her in the dusky darkness, the high enclosed driver's booth glowing with light. Erin shouted, but the noise of the straining engine blotted out her voice. She skied up alongside the booth, shouting up at the dark figure in the foggy side window. She heard music blasting on the radio. With that, and the roar of the engine, the driver couldn't hear her. He stared ahead into the headlights, where the huge angled plow blade was piling up with snow.

"Stop! Please — help me!"

The machine gradually ground to a stop against the mountain wall at the edge of the road. Erin banged on the door. "Help me! Please! I need your help!"

The blurry figure didn't move. Erin reached up and grabbed the door handle. She pulled it open.

Rock music poured out into the night. The bulky, bearded man at the wheel wore a camouflage military parka. He stared ahead through the windshield as if lost in the music's screaming lyrics.

"Please," Erin shouted over the noise. "Help me!" She reached up and pulled the driver's sleeve.

The man's body toppled toward her. Erin screamed. She reached up to stop his fall, catching him by the shoulders.

The man's bearded head fell off, dangled from the spine — then cracked and dropped, rolling down her red parka, landing at her feet with a thump. Erin gasped — the man's dead eyes stared up at her in horror. Blood spilled down upon her from the open neck of his body. She staggered back, letting go of his shoulders. The body tumbled out of the booth, knocking Erin to the ground and crashing into the snow.

Erin crawled backward, whimpering, pushing herself away. She was covered with the man's blood. The body and the head lay before her in the snow. She cried out weakly, the cry lost in the blare of the music and the throbbing of the engine.

And then she saw the killer. He stood at the edge of the twilight, down the road behind the plow. A dark, towering figure, motionless, silent, watching her. He held a long rod like a staff.

Erin scrambled to her feet, muttering hysterically. Her heart thumped like a pounding fist. She looked down at her feet: her skis were still on. Raising her knees high out of the deep snow, she swung her skis away from the road. Then she pushed off toward the trees. It was downhill, through the forest, to the cabin with its bolted door.

She thought she had a chance.

Snow was still falling heavily at Fairbanks International Airport, so much so that Josh nearly missed the access road to the C.A.P. aircraft hangar. It lay at the far end of the older part of the airport, now used mostly by cargo companies and bush pilots running small-time charter operations. Josh finally spotted the enormous wood-frame hangar in the snowy glare of his headlights, and pulled off to park across from several four-wheel drive vehicles half-buried in snow.

The Civil Air Patrol hangar was a relic of the Second World War. Located at the edge of the old Alaska Lands Airport, it had been hurriedly constructed five months after the bombing of Pearl Harbor. The American military, fearing a Japanese invasion of the Aleutian Islands, built the hangar to store rear-guard fighter planes and to house supplies for the U.S. naval base in Dutch Harbor. The Japanese did invade the islands, in 1942, bombing Dutch Harbor and capturing their only American real estate of the war: the islands of Attu, Kiska, and Agattu. Flights out of Fairbanks were crucial in helping the Americans recapture the islands, ending the "invasion of Alaska" in 1943.

Josh had heard all this a dozen times from Leopold "T-Bird" White, a bald, pear-shaped 72-year-old veteran who had played a small but — to his mind at least — key role in the American counter-attack: he had been a mess cook at the naval air station on Adak Island.

"Well, for God's sake," said Leo as Josh entered the cavernous hall. "It's the Professor!" Leo was leaning back from the table where he and five other men bundled in parkas and caps and gloves were playing a round of five-card stud. The table was actually an old Twin Otter's tailfin rudder set up on milk crates under a dim light bulb that dangled thirty feet from the ceiling. The men called out greetings to Josh as he walked over to warm his hands at the ancient pot-bellied stove in the corner.

"It's colder in here than it is outside!" he told them, his breath fogging the air.

"Tell that to Monty," said Leo, nodding his head toward an office door.

A short man with a walrus moustache and wire-rim glasses poked his head up over his cards. "What the hell are you doing here, Josh? Not gonna join the troops again, are you?"

"I am for this one, Verne." He eyed the four airplanes parked in the hangar.

"You got yourself a cold wait then, Professor." Galvin Kennedy was a handsome, white-mustached pilot who flew cargo planes for ARCO Alaska.

"I can't wait," said Josh. "I got friends stranded up near Caribou Mountain."

The men glanced at one another without speaking. John Schneider, wearing a beaver-fur cap and a down vest with bare, tattooed arms, pulled a fat cigar out of his mouth.

"That's where Jake O'Donnell went down," he said.

"I take it you heard about the cargo he was carrying," said Josh.

Schneider kept his eyes on his cards. "We heard."

Nobody else spoke. Leo nodded toward the office again. "You better talk to Monty," he said.

Montgomery Harper was the lean, long-jawed, feral-featured manager of the Fairbanks C.A.P. office. The 68-year-old retired air force pilot lay snoozing under a wool blanket on the couch in his office. "What is it?" he asked without opening his eyes.

Josh had merely poked his head in the half-open door. "Sorry to bother you, Monty."

The old man turned to look at him. "Josh. I thought we'd lost you to higher education."

"I want in on this one, Colonel."

Harper sat up, pulling off the blanket. He was wearing a leather flight jacket that looked like it had never been taken off. "Hope you like losing at poker," he said.

"I can't wait. I've got to get out there right away."

The old pilot squinted at him. "What's her name, Josh?"

Josh's face reddened. "There's three of them," he said. "They're friends of mine from the blind school."

Harper nodded bemusedly.

"They're stranded near Caribou Mountain," said Josh.

Harper's eyebrows went up. "Oh," he said. He got up slowly and crossed the room. "Coffee?"

Josh declined; Harper filled a mug from a battered thermos on his desk.

"You got yourself a real problem," he said. "Take a look." He nodded toward a panel of equipment that included a weather radar screen.

Josh stepped over and looked at the screen. A large ragged pattern of green light filled the center of the glass.

"When'll it break?" asked Josh.

"Couple hours," said Monty. "But I'm not sure for how long."

"What do you mean?"

Monty pressed a button that threw up a wider area of coverage on the screen. He pointed near the top of the glass, where a second pattern of light was encroaching on the first.

"There's another storm coming right on the heels of this one," he said.

"How long is the gap?" asked Josh.

"One, maybe two hours," said Monty.

"That's enough time," said Josh.

"Barely," said Monty. "You'd have to leave now. And nobody in their right mind wants to go up when it's this heavy."

"Give me a plane," said Josh. "I'll go up."

"Alone? Lot of good that'll do. You'll have your hands full manning the radio and flying the plane. Who's gonna be your spotter?"

Josh stared at him.

"Don't look at me," said Monty. "You need somebody that's crazy, or senile, or just plain stupid. They're all in the other room."

Josh gave him a look and went out the door.

The men at the poker table feigned not to notice him.

Josh cleared his throat. "I'm going out to rescue three women whose lives are in imminent danger. I need a spotter to go with me. There's going to be a break in the storm, and if we leave now, we've got a good chance to make it to the mountain and back before the next storm hits. Now which one of you boys would like a chance to prove himself in a dangerous situation?"

"Been there, done that," said Leo White. "I was on Adak Island when the Japs bombed the harbor at—"

"We've heard it, T-Bird." John Schneider crushed out his cigar on the rudder-fin table. "Forget it, Marino. It's suicide."

"It's a risk, John-boy. That's all it is. We've all been in worse ones than this."

The men stared at their cards.

"C'mon, guys. Who's with me?"

No one answered. Josh stepped over to Galvin Kennedy.

"How about it, Galvin? Will you fly with me?"

"Kid, I think the butter’s slipped off your biscuit."

Josh scanned the table. The walrus was hiding behind his cards. "What about you, Verne?"

Verne Schoberlein shrugged. "I’m living on borrowed time as it is."

Josh looked desperately from one face to the next. They weren't going to go. None of them was going to go.

"I don't believe it," he said. "Doesn't anybody here have any guts?"

"They got guts," said Monty Harper. He was standing behind him at the door to his office. "They just don't want 'em decorating Caribou Mountain."

Monty sipped his coffee, turned back into his office. The men went on with their cards.

Josh stood there, looking at them. He didn't have a clue about what to do next.

I have made a covenant with my eyes; how then could I look upon a virgin?

I cannot. I will cut her eyes away. She will vanish in darkness, and thick darkness cover her face. I will worship at the altar of her flesh. I will gnaw at her entrails in token of the Worm that never dies.

I go forward, she is not there; or backward, I cannot smell her; on the left she hides, I cannot behold her; I turn to the right, but I cannot see her. But she knows the way that I take; when she has tested me, I shall come out like gold. My foot has held fast to her steps; I have kept her way and have not turned aside.

Now a sound comes stealing to me, my ear receives the whisper of it. She glides past my face; the hair of my flesh bristles. She stands still, but I can discern her. Her form is before my eyes.

There is silence. Then I hear her voice.

It is a call to my hunger.

*  *  *

"Please..." cried Erin. "Please... don't hurt me."

He was watching her. She could feel his presence in the dark.

"Please... don't..." She wept, her limbs trembling, her mind delirious with exhaustion and fear. "I can't..." she sobbed, "I can't..."

The woods were his domain. He was the predator, she was his prey. He was toying with her in the dark, waiting for her move.

I'll die here, she thought. He'll cut me like he cut my mother.

Erin searched for a hint of light — she saw nothing. Her eyes filled with a flood of tears.

"Oh God... help me..."

Out of the silence came a thundering howl.

Erin shrieked in panic. The earth-shattering roar shook her to the bone.

What horrible creature was this?

The answer came on the wind. Far off in the woods, echoing cries of timber wolves assailed the frigid air. Erin shuddered with dread. The howls bred visions in the darkness around her.

Again the creature roared its call, and the chorus broke into yaps and yowls, the wild whoops of an animal army surging through the trees.

Erin stumbled away. She pushed off into the dark, skiing blindly through the black brush, battling her way from the on-rushing roar. The claws of a limb ripped her sleeve. Hooks of needle brush tore her thighs. Bristling branches scored the frozen skin of her face.

She rammed the massive trunk of a spruce; staggering, her eyes filled with a shock of light. The light broke into a swarm of stars that danced to the sound of the baying wolves. The stars swirled into a bright fog, a twinkling mist in the air before her.

Then the mist dissolved. She was sitting on the downward slope of a hill. The frozen expanse of a snow-covered lake showed through the trees like a white abyss.

But where was she? Clearly nowhere near the cabin.

She climbed up on her skis. The braying wolves were coming closer, their cries piercing the darkness behind her. She skied on down the hill through the trees toward the lake, gathering speed as she went. She saw an opening at the shore and shot out onto the unbroken plain of snow.

Chalky flakes fell through the somber twilight. Erin heard a strange sound out on the lake, a sound like a voice calling faintly in the wind. Breathlessly, she skied toward it.

A white heap of ice emerged like a mirage from the dark. Not ice — an airplane. Upside down and covered with snow. Erin moved closer.

The voice, weak and strangely distorted, seemed to come from beneath the broken wing of the plane. Erin pushed through the snow, ducking under the crook of the angled wing with its bent and twisted propeller. There in the salmon light of the dawn, at the side of the snow-blasted fuselage, a dark splatter of debris lay scattered in the snow. Erin moved closer, searching through the detritus for the source of the sound. Toy trucks, dolls, a plastic gun, a metal picture frame, a deflated volley ball. She saw a flashlight and grabbed it. The batteries had been emptied out. Tossing it into the snow, she finally saw the source of the sound: a boom-box spilling out an indecipherable dirge. Beside it in a patch of blackened snow lay a dark pile of what appeared to be branches with wet rags and shreds of clothing, and a gnarled leather boot. Erin bent down to look closer at the pile.

The branches were bones, the rags flesh.

A surge of vomit stung her nostrils. She dropped to her knees, retching, and crawled away through the snow.

A horrible half-human howl thundered across the lake. Erin raised her teary eyes and peered out into the dusky dawn. The shrill cries of timber wolves rang through the bracing air.

Erin dragged herself to her feet, pushed off away from the wreck of the plane toward the other side of the lake. She could just make out the black border of pointed pines lining the shore. The yapping wolves were gaining; if she could make it to the trees she might escape them.