They Came With The Snow Box Set {Books 1-2]

by Coleman, Christopher

  “What did you say?” I hear the words come from my mouth, but I feel like they’ve been spoken by some alien being on another planet. I can feel the blood rush from my face, my knees weakening. I could faint if I’m not careful, so I force myself to rally from the blow of her words.

  “I don’t know where the internals are, but—”

  “The name you just gave. Who did you say?”

  “What? Oh, Ms. Wyeth. Estelle Wyeth. She goes by Stella. We don’t usually call her by her first name because—”

  “I don’t care.” I pivot to Jones. “Give me the gun, Mr. Jones.”

  Jones hands me the gun without hesitation. He no doubt recognizes the determination that has suddenly overcome me, perhaps from some past experience of his own when a thing needed done at the moment without question.

  “This wasn’t the deal.” Pam complains. “I’m not sure—”

  I raise the gun and point it at Sydney.

  “Whoa, professor, what’s going on?” It’s Smalley, her tone more curious than concerned.

  “Where are they? Where exactly are the internals?”

  “I...I don’t know. I mean, we can hear them, so they obviously must be close, but they weren’t in one of the offices so I don’t know.”

  I study Pam’s face for a few seconds. “I think you’re lying.”

  Pam puts her hands on her hips and cocks her head, and then opens her eyes wide, defiantly. “Well I’m not.”

  I open my eyes equally wide now and take a step toward Sydney. “Well, we’re going to find out. I’m counting to two, and if you haven’t told me where they are, I’m shooting your friend in the face.”

  “Jesus, Dom,” Jones says. “What just happened?” I can hear the doubt in his voice, doubt that maybe him giving me the gun wasn’t the best idea after all.

  I ignore him, my focus locked now on the young IT specialist, Sydney, who was probably considering grad school only a year or two ago, and decided to go with this job instead. She’s crouched in a heap below me, facing forward and crying to some unseen god.

  “This place is too big and I don’t have time to look around. And suddenly I don’t trust you anymore. So here we go Pam. On two. One.”

  “Who counts to two?” Smalley whispers to herself rhetorically.

  “It’s in the floor, behind the holding cells.” Pam shakes her head as she speaks, her voice distant, undetached, as if understanding that she’s sealed her fate.

  “What is?”

  Pam rolls her eyes. “The blueprints to Fort Knox. What are we talking about? The people who came with Ms. Wyeth. They’re in a cellar behind the offices.”

  Stella.

  The name suddenly hits me again. I knew it. And then for a while I didn’t know it. But I think I always did. Somewhere inside of me, I knew Stella was lying. Or at least holding something back. Maybe I didn’t think it was something on this scale, but I knew there was more to her story.

  A man and his son. Or grandson. That’s who Pam said were with them. That means Tom and James.

  And no Danielle, which means Danielle is dead. What other explanation could there be?

  “If those two men aren’t out of that cellar in the next two minutes, I’m going to tie a rope around you and young Sydney here, and the three of us are going to hoist you up over the wall of office number six and into the pit of that thing back there.”

  “I don’t understand what the hell happened here?” Pam asks, genuinely confused. “I thought we had a deal. What did we do wrong?” She looks at Jones, who can only shrug, not quite understanding the change in terms himself.

  “You took the wrong job, Pam, and then the wrong people broke into your office today. Let’s go.”

  We walk around to the backside of the right row of offices, and as we turn the corner, I can just make out to my left, in the distance, one of the panes of glass that forms the hockey rink. I can’t see any of the crabs from here, but I think I can see a section of the penalty box contraption that Pam mentioned.

  At the back corner of the office row, we turn right again and circle back towards the front, and, about a third of the way back, Pam stops above a small square that’s been carved into the floor. The hinges and latch are sunken so that anyone walking near it would barely notice the hatch existed. The pounding and screaming beneath has stopped.

  “It’s here,” Pam says.

  “I’m really hoping that when you open this door, my friends come out of there unharmed.”

  “Friends?” Smalley and Jones say simultaneously, like they’ve practiced the line for a slapstick comedy routine. “What are you talking about, Dom?” Jones adds.

  “It’s them, my group from the boat, and the diner, the ones I’ve been looking for. Two of them at least.”

  “How do you know that?”

  I don’t have the time or energy to explain it all now, so I close my eyes and shake off Jones’ question. “Just open it, Pam.”

  She reaches down to the latch of the cellar and, before she places her hand on the thin metal, a voice echoes through the hangar. “Hello, Dominic.”

  It know instantly it’s Stella, and her speech is coming from somewhere high up and behind me. The words sound powerful, nearly bringing me to my knees. But I hold myself steady and take a deep breath, resisting the urge to turn. I can’t know for sure, but I’m guessing there is a rifle or two pointed at my back.

  “Who the hell is that,” Smalley asks, wasting no time in turning toward Stella. But she gets no reply from the woman.

  Jones is already facing in that direction and I can see his eyes searching for the voice as well.

  It’s Sydney’s turn to rotate to the voice now, and I can hear the relief in her weak and pleading voice when she says, “Ms. Wyeth.” She pauses and lets out an audible bawling sniffle. “Oh my god, Ms. Wyeth! They broke in and took us—”

  “I’ve no doubt you did all you could, Sydney,” Stella interrupts, and I can hear in her tone that she’s clearly embarrassed by the girl.

  “Where are you?” Jones asks, and with that question, I turn in time to see Stella walk from an unlit section of the raised walkway into the halo of the auxiliary lights below; walking beside her are two soldiers, presumably the ones who monitor the roof for hordes.

  “As I’m sure you did too, Ms. Young.” Stella is too far away for me to see her eyes, but I can almost feel the look of contempt in them, blazing at the back of Pam like lasers. “And where is Spencer?”

  Pam turns now and looks up at Stella, shaking her head. “He left. He just...they broke in through the lobby glass and then he...I don’t know.”

  Stella nods at Pam’s answer, a gesture that says she always suspected Spencer would betray her someday, though betrayal wasn’t quite what it was.

  Stella moves a few steps closer on the walkway, so that her face is now fully illuminated by the light. Her hair is pulled back and her face made up. She looks showered, freshly clothed.

  “Where’s Danielle?” I command, stepping away from the door to the underground prison and toward Stella, meeting her eyes with mine as I approach.

  “That’s good right there, Dominic.” The soldiers don’t move, but the message has been sent.

  I can see Stella’s face even clearer now, but there isn’t the look of smugness I had expected, a look that says you were right not to trust me, Dominic, and you should have gone with that feeling. Her look is worse than self-satisfied. It’s cold and uncaring. All business.

  “Answer me, Stella. Where is she?” Suddenly, the whereabouts of Danielle is the only thing I’m interested in. The rest of it—the ‘Whys’ and the ‘Whos’ of everything that went on in this building, and even Tom and James imprisoned below me—has now taken a secondary position.

  “She’s pretty amazing isn’t she?” Stella asks, nodding in what appears to be genuine appreciation for Danielle’s aptitude. “After Tom got that boat started and got us to shore, it was mostly Danielle who kept us alive for the next few days.
Though I’d be misconveying the story if I gave her all of the credit. Some of it has to go to Tom as well. Maybe even a little bit to James.” She folds her hands in front of her and erects her posture. “Certainly none of the credit goes to you though, Dom. I see you’ve moved on and made new friends.”

  I feel no need to defend myself to Stella, but I would be lying if said I don’t feel the tiniest of stings from her jab. If I had found a way back on the cruiser, maybe Danielle would still be alive.

  Stella looks at Pam and frowns. “Are you going to open the door or what?”

  “Okay,” Pam answers quickly, timidly, and then she unlatches the door to the cellar, pulling it up and flopping it to the floor.

  I walk over to the opening and look inside, and there, on the floor about ten feet below ground level, are Tom and James sitting against the tight, metal walls of the enclosure. Their eyes are closed and they look haggard and skinny, in dire need of a meal. I immediately note their shoes, which are not on their feet, and I quickly realize the banging was coming from them throwing the footwear up against the bottom of the cellar door. It was likely that physical strain and their cries for help that have now tired them to the point of exhaustion.

  “Jesus Christ, Stella,” I say, shooting a glare toward the woman that’s as poisonous as the thoughts in my head. I take a single step toward her, this time with aggression, and I can see the soldier to Stella’s left raise his rifle and point.

  And then I hear a voice from below.

  “She made it out.”

  I can hear immediately that it’s James, his speech weary and dry, and I move back to the opening. I have no concern for the weapon pointed at me—I assume the endgame involves me dying, though probably not like this—and I can see James is slightly less slumped than before. His eyes are still closed and his breathing is labored and slow.

  “She made it out, Dom. They tried to get her, but...” James coughs a couple of hoarse, painful coughs. “But she’s a badass.”

  I doubt Stella can understand the words James is saying, not from the distance she’s standing, but she can definitely hear that he is saying something, and I don’t want to risk him getting shot for spilling any secrets he may have, though what harm they would do at this point I can’t imagine.

  “Good James,” I whisper down. I look over at Pam, who’s standing only two or three feet from me, and I give her a stare that threatens murder. “We’ll find her, buddy. Just hang in there.”

  “What is he saying?” Stella calls down from her perch, and I can hear a trace of concern in the question.

  “He’s delirious,” I call back, and I realize that I’m not sure that isn’t the truth. “He’s dying Stella. And being in that cold pit is only going to speed that up.”

  “He’ll be fine.”

  I shake my head and chuckle softly. “Man, Stella, you are quite the thespian. I mean it. I taught English literature for eight years, at the college level, and I saw lots of Shakespeare and Ibsen and O’Neill. But I don’t know that I’ve ever seen a performance like you pulled off.”

  Stella purses her lips, as if accepting my words as a compliment.

  “I mean, I always knew you were a bitch, which I’m pretty sure you knew I always knew; but I thought there might be a small pocket of decency inside you somewhere.”

  “What the hell do you know about decency?” Stella snaps, clearly fed up with my indignation, especially considering she’s the one with the guns. “How many times did you cheat on your wife, Dom? A decent amount of times? And then the woman you left her for, how decent was it of you to let her die out in the snow, ravaged by monsters?”

  “Monsters that you created,” I remind, but it lands with little effect. Still, the fact that Stella is pointing out my flaws and indiscretions as a way to justify her own brutality leads me to reconsider that perhaps at least has the remnants of a conscience; otherwise, why would she be wasting her breath?

  “If we could have conducted this experiment without anyone dying—or changing—don’t you think I would have chosen that route instead?”

  I shrug and answer honestly. “I don’t know, Stella. I have no idea what to think about you. I mean, you’re obviously evil, I just don’t know exactly how far into hell you go.”

  She rolls her eyes and shakes me off dismissively, as if my answer is a childish one.

  “Experimentation is a messy thing sometimes. Especially in this industry. And this particular experiment was simply necessary. It was the only way we could know the full impact, the global impact.”

  The more Stella reveals to me, to us, the more I know for sure she doesn’t have any intention of letting us live. “The global impact of what?”

  “Our product, Dom.”

  “Your product?”

  Stella steels her look now. “That’s right. Our product. The result of decades of work by geniuses in fields ranging from chemistry to anthropology. And unfortunately, I don’t have the time to explain it and you don’ have the capacity to understand it even if I did. No offense on that last part; it’s just that there’s a lot of advanced science involved that I fear it would sound a lot like Greek to the untrained ear.”

  I have so many questions my head is ringing, about the chemical and the explosion and the snow and the reasons for the changes. But Stella’s demeanor gives me the feeling that my time to ask questions is nearing the end, so I cut to the ones most important to me. “How are you doing this? How could you destroy so much and be able to explain it to the rest of the world?”

  Stella shrugs. “It’s not easy. Every day is a mammoth effort by our PR people to satisfy the press. But we have extremely charismatic and persuasive people in our company, people who earn a lot of money to explain things satisfactorily. But it’s also perhaps not as difficult as you might think. There are more than enough bad people in even worse countries all over the world. And plenty of their surrogates here at home. It’s hard to satisfy the details the families and the press and the politicians demand, but it isn’t hard to find someone to take the rap.”

  I shake my head, hearing the words but still not quite believing it all. “But you’ve got a whole county cordoned off. More than one county. Even if you can convince people that thousands are dead or missing, how can you keep that going?”

  “She has an army son.”

  It’s the colonel from the exit ramp. I notice his stature and facial structure the moment he steps from the shadows and past Stella. But he doesn’t remain on the scaffolding; instead, he climbs down the ladder, moving with the grace of a gymnast, despite being in what must be his late-fifties. He hops to the ground, turning towards me on the dismount.

  “It’s a fact that history has proven over and over again: people trust the military force on the ground. Even the generals and politicians in charge of that force don’t question it, at least not in the beginning. After all, what choice is there? A bomb went off in Warren County, and those of us on the scene, the elite squadron of soldiers who happened to be conducting exercises there at the time, well we’ve decided the area is no longer safe to occupy. We’re working on getting all of the names of the people affected, of course, but until then, we can’t risk allowing anyone inside. Think Chernobyl, something of that magnitude. That’s what the world envisions now when they hear Warren County. There’s a whole lot of radiation and instability inside, and that’s all people need to hear to keep as far away from this place as possible. We tried to pick a time when the fewest people would be affected, but there’s really no way to do that with an area this large.”

  “So you’re the heroes then?” I take a step forward, feeling a primal need to exert some measure of counter-masculinity. “Blame some fanatic from ten thousand miles away, and then sacrifice yourselves for the cleanup.”

  The colonel smiles a huge toothy smile that stretches temple-to-temple. “You’re damn right, son. Who else would be willing to clean up this cancer-infested cluster-fuck?”

  It’s a rhetorical ques
tion, but I shake my head, indicating that no one would.

  “And fortunately, as Ms. Wyeth alluded to, we didn’t need to search ten thousand miles. We were able to find a fanatic right here in town. Eastern European—Muslim, but with blonde hair and blue eyes. That way everyone is happy. He’ll be as infamous as Hitler when this is over.”

  “Who are you? Where do you get this authority?”

  “It’s a long, thin chain of command, son. That’s about all I can say about it.”

  I look back to Stella. “So how does this end? What’s the point?”

  Stella nods, satisfied with the inquiry. “That question, the ‘why’ part of all of this, is the last question we ask at D&W. Our sponsor never gives us a reason, and we don’t ask for one.”

  The colonel picks up from Stella and continues the answer, as if completing the second half of a motto. “Create something new and powerful, and we’ll figure out how to use it. Those are the specs.”

  I feel nauseous and I want to sit, but instead I lean over slowly and put my hands on my knees. I keep my head up, facing forward, trying to breathe.

  The colonel takes a few more steps in our direction now, walking casually, his tight lapels and rows of medals making him look like an actor in some Vietnam drama. He steps past me and takes a quick peek into the pit, giving a mildly curious ‘Hmm,’ as if he’s seeing Tom and James for the first time in their new accommodations. He then saunters over and stops directly in front of Smalley. “Hello, specialist Smalley.”

  Smalley’s eyes get wide as she takes a swallow, and then she looks over to Jones first, then to me, and then finally to the ground.

  “Did you think I wouldn’t recognize you?” the colonel asks, a bemused smile on his face.

  Smalley stays quiet.

  “I never forget my soldiers, even the ones who were under my command for as short a time as you were.”

  Smalley stays quiet.

  “And I always give my soldiers a second chance, that’s another thing my men and women know about me.” The colonel pauses and dips his chin, and a rigid, compelling stare forms beneath his brow. “We could use more bodies here, Smalley, especially those who’ve been out there, who’ve been in the fight.”