by Mark Kelly
“All right, we’ll find something for you to do. What do you think, guys? We could use the help, right?” He glanced at Beth and Bennett. They both nodded.
Emma lifted her head and looked at him. “Really?”
“Yes, under one condition.”
“Anything…I’ll do anything you want, Professor Simmons, even if it means working with poop.” She wiped the tears from her face.
“Oh, you’ll be working with poop. That’s not up for discussion, but promise me one thing.”
“What?”
He smiled at her. “That you’ll stop crying. We don’t need any more saline solution.”
She furrowed her brow, then choked out a laugh. “Good one, Professor Simmons. That’s a science joke, right?”
“A bad one,” Mei replied, shaking her head in disbelief. She glanced at Simmons and whispered, “Thank you.”
He gave her a quick nod. “Let me know as soon as Leduc decides to send the troops back out.”
39
Time to leave
Saanvi lay on the mattress, staring blankly at the ceiling. During the first few days of the never-ending blizzard, she was lonely and scared but read and collected wood while she waited for Daphne and Alisha to return. But they never did.
On the fourth day, the stream at the back of the cabin froze over, forcing her to melt snow on the stove for drinking water. By the fifth day, she was only eating once every twenty-four hours to conserve food. At the end of the sixth day, the blisters on her hands began to fester, making it nearly impossible for her to hold anything—including the saw she needed to cut wood. She burnt all the books on the seventh day, and the stove went cold on the eighth. From then onward, what little water she had came from the snow she melted in her mouth. Slowly, she became dehydrated.
She rolled over onto her side and rested for a few seconds. Then she swung her legs over the edge of the mattress and shuffled across the dirt floor to the cabin door. Bracing herself, she opened the door and dropped to her knees so she could lean forward and scoop a handful of snow into her mouth. As it melted, she gulped the meagre amount of water down her parched throat. Then she staggered back to her feet, closed the door, and shuffled back to the mattress to lie down.
She was so tired, all she wanted to do was close her eyes and sleep, but from somewhere deep in the back of her mind, she knew if she didn’t sit up now, she never would again.
Forcing herself upright, she stared at the dirt floor and shivered uncontrollably. She knew she had to leave the cabin. If she didn’t, she would die.
Digging deep into the last of her energy reserves, she rose from the mattress, packed the remaining food in a small daypack, then sat down at the table to carefully unwrap the strip of cloth that covered her left hand. Yellow pus oozed from the infected blisters.
Wincing from the pain, she gingerly picked up the same pen Alisha had used and started to write. Then she stopped as she wondered what the point of leaving a note was. She stared at the blank page and then started again. If she didn’t write, there would be nothing to show she had ever lived. She signed her name, placed an empty cup on top of the note to keep it in place, and climbed to her feet.
With the daypack looped through her arm, she opened the door and stepped out of the cabin and into the chest-high snow.
40
Found a clue
Simmons looked around the inside of the semicircular steel Quonset hut and nodded approvingly. The building was jammed full of soldiers and equipment. It had finally stopped snowing and after more than a week of helpless inactivity, it seemed the general had spared no expense in making every possible resource available to the search team.
While the soldiers gathered to receive their orders, he and Mei and Emma stood at the back of the building out of the way. He slipped his arm around Mei’s shoulders and gave her a reassuring hug.
“We’ll find Saanvi.”
“What if she went south with that nasty little man?”
As much as it pained him to think about it, that option wasn’t the worst case. Almost five feet of snow had fallen, and it was dangerously cold. If Saanvi had been caught out in the open when the storm hit, she’d already be dead from exposure.
“Let’s just worry about what we can control,” he said to Mei as Abrams climbed onto the front bumper of a vehicle resembling a pair of small camper trailers outfitted with tank tracks.
“Listen up,” Abrams shouted, raising his hand in the air to quieten the soldiers. “We will split up into two squads. A-Squad will head south with me in the BV 206. B-Squad will head north with Sergeant Dines on the Bison. Both squads will have a pair of scouts on snowmobiles. I want every building searched; every person you see questioned. You all know who we’re looking for. The last time anyone saw her she was with two women in their early twenties. The girl couldn’t have just disappeared off the face of the earth. let’s find her and bring her back home. Any questions?”
A chorus of “no, sirs.” broke out.
As Abrams made a move to climb into the BV 206, Mei elbowed Simmons. “I’m not staying here, Tony.”
“All ready one step ahead of you.” He waved his hand to catch Abrams’s attention and said, “We’re coming with you.”
Abrams gave him a pained look in return. “We’re at capacity, Professor. I’d fit you in if I could, but there’s no room, and with all due respect, the troops are better equipped for a mission like this.”
“You can come with me,” Dines said from beside the Bison, a massive eight-wheeled armoured vehicle with a sloped front end. “But you’ll have to ride on top, and it’s gonna be colder than a witch’s tit up there.”
Mei nodded uncertainly.
“I’m coming too.”
Simmons turned to Emma with his mouth half-open, ready to tell her no.
“Yes, I am, Professor Simmons, and you’re not going to stop me. I’m coming even if I have to walk behind you wearing those webbed things.”
“What webbed things?”
“I think she means snowshoes,” Dines said. “But she doesn’t have to walk. There’s room on top for all three of you.”
“Let her come with us, Tony,” Mei said. “She deserves the right to help as much as anyone.”
“Let’s roll,” Dines shouted. Then she turned to Chenney and Baker’s partner, Taxson, who were both wearing white winter camo suits and holding snowmobile helmets in their hands. “I want you two up front. If you see anything worth checking out, let us know on the radio.”
“Roger that.”
Once they had all boarded the large armored personnel carrier, it headed north with Simmons, Mei, Emma, and Dines riding on top and the two scouts on snowmobiles out in front.
In a matter of minutes, Simmons found himself holding his arm in front of his face to ward off the steady stream of blowing snow that coursed over the sloped front end of the Bison as it plowed through the six-foot high drifts covering the highway.
Even bundled up against the cold, he could feel his core body temperature drop with each passing minute. He glanced at Mei and Emma, checking their faces for signs of frost-bite.
An hour—and five futile stops—later, the APC rounded a curve. A gas station with a dilapidated bungalow beside it sat a few hundred feet ahead on the left-hand side of the road. Dines leaned over and shouted through the open hatch at the Bison’s driver.
“Pull over here.”
The gas station and the small home next to it looked like they had been abandoned.
“There isn’t anyone here,” Simmons said to Dines.
“Nah, there’s two sisters that live here,” Dines replied confidently. “We met them on the road when we were heading back to the base before the storm. It’s worth talking to them. They might have seen Saanvi or know something.”
Simmons doubted it. There were none of the telltale signs of life he had come to expect; no footprints in the snow, and even more importantly, no smoke from a fire signalling there were people inside
trying to stay warm.
Before he could say anything further, Dines stood and waved her hands in the air to catch the attention of the scouts. She pointed at the bungalow. Taxson steered his snowmobile up to the front door and dismounted. He waded through the snow, returning a moment later shaking his head. Then Chenney headed towards the garage.
“Son-of-a-bitch,” Dines muttered. “I wonder where they went.”
Simmons resisted the temptation to gloat. The important thing was to keep moving, to keep searching. The less time they wasted on dead-ends, the more chance they would have of finding Saanvi. “Can we please go now?” he asked Dines.
She grunted once, then pounded on the roof with her gloved fist. “Let’s go. There’s nothing here.” Simmons steadied himself as the Bison began to move. A minute later, he felt himself being thrown forward when they braked with no warning.
“What the hell are you doing?” Dines shouted at the driver.
“There’s two bodies in the garage, Sarge. Chenney just called it in.”
Dines’s face fell. She looked utterly disheartened when she spoke. “I gave them food and warned them about the storm, but maybe I should have offered them a ride in to town.”
“I’m sure you did what you could,” Mei said sympathetically.
“Turn around and head back,” Dines shouted at the driver. “I want to check and make sure it’s them.”
“I can’t turn, Sarge. It’s too narrow and if we go off the shoulder, we’ll end up on our side, ass over teakettle in the ditch.”
“Then back the fuck up. You do know how to do that, don’t you?”
“Yes, Sarge, right away.”
Simmons heard a loud clunk as the driver put the transmission in reverse. “Hold on!” he yelled, grabbing Mei and Emma by their coat collars in time to stop them from tumbling off the front end of the APC as the vehicle lurched backwards.
When they arrived back at the garage, Chenney and Taxson were standing in front of a door they had broken to gain entry. Dines climbed down from the Bison using a set of metal hand-holds and waded through the snow towards the building. A few seconds later, Mei made a move to follow her.
“Where are you going?” Simmons asked Mei.
“They might need my help.”
“Who?”
“The people inside.”
“Why? They’re dead.”
“Tony!”
“Well, they are. That’s what the driver said. There’s nothing we can do here. We’re wasting precious time. What about Saanvi?”
“I know, but it won’t take long.”
She jumped down and followed the path Dines had already cut through the deep snow. When she was half-way to the building, he cursed under his breath and climbed down after her.
“Should I come too?” Emma asked.
“No, stay here. This is a complete waste of time. I’m going to hurry them along.”
He turned and trudged through the snow towards the building’s broken door. When he caught up with them inside the run-down garage, they were standing next to Chenney and Taxson staring at something. He stepped around Mei to take a look.
“Oh, Jesus…”
The two bodies were lying side by side on the oil-coated floor. One of the women had been shot in the chest and the other’s throat was slit. He guessed the boot prints preserved in the frozen pool of blood between the two bodies belonged to their killer.
“I think they were killed for whatever it was they had in that,” Taxson said, pointing to a backpack laying against the cinder brick wall. An empty soup can and food wrappers lay on the floor next to the pack.
“Are they the two you saw on the road?” Mei asked Dines
Dines answered in a subdued voice. “I don’t know who the brunette is, but the one with the blonde ponytail is one of them. Were there any other bodies?” she asked the scouts.
“No, we searched both floors. The place is empty.”
“Then where did her younger sister go? We need to find the kid,” Dines said, becoming agitated. She made a move towards a set of stairs leading to the building’s second floor.
Simmons grabbed her arm. “There’s no one else here. There’s no smell of smoke in the air and no footprints outside.” He pointed to the bloody boot print. “Look, it’s frozen now, but it was made when the blood was still warm, around the time that they were killed—which was days ago. We’re wasting valuable time. We need to keep looking for Saanvi.”
Dines’s face twisted with anger as she pulled free from his grip. She looked like she was about to slug him. Simmons took a wary step back. “Take it easy. You know I’m right.”
“What are you guys talking—”
At the sound of Emma’s voice, Simmons spun around, ready to block her from seeing the bodies, but it was too late.
“That’s them,” she cried out. “The ones from the fence—Saanvi’s friends. I saw her talking to them, but I don’t know their names.”
“Are you sure?”
She nodded, and her eyes went wide as saucers when she saw the blue backpack against the wall. “Oh my God…that’s Saanvi’s pack. Is she dead? Please don’t let her be dead.”
“Emma, how do you know it’s Saanvi’s?”
“Because we got them at the same time. Don’t you remember, Professor Simmons? You brought them back from your scavenging trip. Saanvi wrote her name in her pack because I kept taking it by mistake.”
Simmons ran to the wall, dropped to one knee beside the backpack, and lifted the top flap. SAANVI CHOPRA was written in block letters across the inside. Thunderstruck, he looked at them and said, “It’s hers.”
He turned his attention back to the pack and ran his fingers over the letters. Just because it’s her pack, doesn’t mean she’s dead. He looked at Mei and said, “I don’t think she was here. If she had been with these two when they were killed, whoever did this would have killed her too.”
“They might have taken her instead,” Mei replied.
He mulled it over. “That’s possible, but I don’t think so. I think they split up and then these two met up again for some reason—maybe to bring the supplies back to wherever they were staying.”
“Why do you think that?”
“Because Emma said she saw all three of them together at the fence, but a few hours later there were reports of the brunette in town by herself complaining about doing the work of three, and Sergeant Dines saw the blonde woman and her sister on the highway.
He chewed on his lower lip for a second and then looked up at Dines and asked, “What did the blonde’s sister look like?”
Dines shrugged. “I don’t know. It was snowing hard, and she had a scarf over her face. All I know is she freaked out and started talking nonsense when I asked to see what was in her pack.”
He pointed at Saanvi’s pack. “That one?”
Dines took a second look at it. There was a faint glimmer of recognition in her eyes. “Maybe, but I never got a good look at it.”
“And you never saw the sister’s face.”
“No.”
“But the blonde woman told you they lived here, in the house next to the garage?”
“Yes.”
Simmons turned to Taxson and asked, “When you searched the house, was there any garbage, beds, anything that would lead you to believe someone lived there?”
“Not a chance,” the soldier said, shaking his head. “There was rat shit everywhere. No one lived there in a long time.”
“Okay, so we know she lied about that being their home,” Simmons said with a satisfied nod. “What else did she lie about?”
Mei’s eyes widened. “Do you think the sister was Saanvi?”
He smiled and nodded. “What direction were they headed when you stopped them?” he asked Dines.
“North.”
Are there any other houses north of here in that direction?”
“A few and there’s a handful of cottages on sturgeon lake.”
Simmons felt
a surge of hope. “My bet is they were living in one of those houses. Let’s keep going. ”
“What about the bodies?” Mei asked, glancing at the two dead women. “We can’t just leave them like this.”
He paused. They couldn’t do anything for them now except treat their remains with the respect they deserved. But that would have to wait.
“The living take priority. We’ll come back for them after we’ve found Saanvi.”
41
A snowy owl
They had searched all the houses alongside the highway and were now visiting the cottages dotting the lake’s shoreline. Simmons tried to stay positive, but it had become harder and harder with each successive failure. Other than a family of raccoons, they’d found no signs of life anywhere.
“If you want to keep going, there are more cottages on the far side of the lake,” Chenney said.
“How far?” Dines asked him.
“About three or four miles I think. There’s a marshy area up ahead, then the road hugs the shoreline before going up and over the escarpment.”
“We can’t risk going any further, Sarge,” the Bison’s driver told Dines as he assessed the road in front of them. “This thing is a beast, but even getting this far was dicey. If we get stuck, we’ll never get out, and the general will have a fit.”
The Bison’s radio crackled, and he climbed back up on top of the big vehicle, disappearing through the hatch. A minute later, his head popped up.
“Sarge, There’s more bad weather on the way. They’re giving us an hour, maybe two at the most, but they want us back at the base by dark.”
As tiny snowflakes began to fall, Simmons groaned out loud. He looked up into the sky and shouted a few choice curse words.
A bird, startled by the noise, took off from the open field to their left and flew across the road in front of them.