by Scott Sigler
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.
DECEMBER 1: 7:31 A.M.
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.
DECEMBER 1: 7:34 A.M.
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.
He walked up to one of the cows. It had an all-white head with a black eyepatch. The plastic tag clipped through its ear read A-34. In permanent marker, someone had scrawled Molly McButter underneath the numbers. The tag meant the cows were from the main facility on the south end of the island. How in the hell had the cows traveled some ten miles, during the night, in the midst of a mangler of a blizzard?
“Well, hello there, Molly. I’ll bet you’ve had an interesting night, eh?”
The cow said nothing.
Sven didn’t see any tracks. Just a few snow-covered low lines in the snow. That meant the cows had stood here for several hours, tucked into the edge of the woods, waiting out the storm that had covered their path.
Sven kept patting Molly and talking in a low, calm voice. “Well, ladies, I’d better get you all under cover, eh? We’ve got another storm due soon.”
He held up a hand. Mookie’s head swiveled, her body motionless, her eyes now only on Sven. The dog radiated intensity. This was her favorite thing in all the world. Except, perhaps, for nap time.<
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“Mookie, find.” The lithe dog shot through the snow and into the woods. She’d search for any strays and bring them back.
Sven started the snowmobile and began guiding the cows back to the barn.
DECEMBER 1: 8:14 A.M.
CLAYTON STOPPED THE Nuge in front of Sven’s barn. He let the vehicle idle and hopped out. A beat later, forty-five pounds of happy-ass black border collie shot out of the barn. Mookie jumped at Clayton, her front paws on his chest, her hind paws hopping up and down as she tried to stretch up enough to lick his face. She whined with excitement.
“Easy there, eh?” Clayton laughed and he twisted his face away from Mookie’s insistent tongue. “Take it easy, girl.”
“Mookie, sit,” Sven said firmly. Mookie’s rump hit the snow. Her tongue dangled out of her smiling mouth. Her tail kept sliding back and forth across the ground, kicking up wisps of powder.
“Morning, Sven. Thought I’d stop by and see if an old fart like yourself managed to survive da storm.”
“I’m fine,” Sven said. “You’re out here to fix da phone lines?”
Clayton shook his head. “Not yet. Grooming da trails first. Phone lines down, I take it?”
“Yah,” Sven said. “I tried calling da mansion to tell them I have their cows.”
The words didn’t register for a moment. Clayton stared at Sven, then walked up to the barn’s open door. Sven walked with him. Mookie heeled to Sven, locked in just a few inches from his feet.
Inside the barn, Clayton saw forty-some cows standing in the open area between the stalls lining either side. He walked up to one and checked the ear tag. A-13, it said, with the words Clara Belle written in permanent marker.
“An A-tag,” Clayton said. “She’s from da main herd.”
“Yah,” Sven said.
“Well, I’ll be dipped in meteor shit. I saw these same damn cows loaded onto that big fuckin’ plane last night.”
“Plane must have come back.”
Clayton shook his head. “Can’t see how, it didn’t land at da mansion.”
“Well, unless they make cow-sized parachutes these days, da plane had to land somewhere.”
Clayton nodded. Aside from the mansion and the hangar, the C-5 was the biggest damn thing on the island. Couldn’t land it on a dime like some helicopter. “You see any people, Sven? Someone had to be with da cows.”
Sven shook his head. “Nope.”
“Well, this is nuttier than a no-dick stag in mating season. Don’t make any sense. You hear anything last night?”
“Slept like a baby, eh? Don’t mean there wasn’t any noise, though, da wind was screaming.”
The presence of the cows meant a landing, or at least a controlled crash. If cows survived, people survived. Which meant the people had either let the cows go, then gone off in another direction … or the people were hiding. But hiding from what? From who?
“Sven, I really don’t know what to make of this.”
“Me neither.”
“You mind keeping this to yourself for a little bit? Maybe until I figure out what’s going on?”
Sven shrugged. “Don’t really matter to me. They’re safe here. Besides, I can’t call anyone until your lazy ass fixes da phones, now can I?”
Clayton nodded slowly, his eyes still scanning the extra cows that had magically appeared in Sven Ballantine’s barn. “I’ll fix da lines today. I better finish my swing up to North Pointe and see if I can find anything.”
“Just let me know.”
Clayton gave Clara Belle one last look. She seemed sick, her eyes glazed over with a thin layer of mucus.
“They don’t look good, do they?”
“Nope,” Sven said. “They don’t look good at all.”
Clayton turned and walked back to the Nuge.
DECEMBER 1: 8:46 A.M.
SARA AND TIM stood shivering in the woods, a thick, snow-covered pine between them and the road. The storm had passed, but the cold had not. It hung in the air like an ethereal hammer, pounding at them with a constant, numbing pressure.
When the throaty gurgle of a diesel engine had broken the all-powerful winter silence, they’d moved into the woods to hide. On the plowed road the going had been easy, thanks to Ted Nugent and Clayton’s early-morning work ethic. Waist-high drifts in the woods, on the other hand, made each step a struggle.
The diesel engine sound grew louder, closer, then the sound changed to an idle.
It had stopped.
Sara peeked around the tree. Clayton and the zebra-striped Ted Nugent. No surprise there … but why had he stopped?
The vehicle’s door opened. A thickly bundled Clayton climbed out. Sara ducked back behind the tree, then slid her hand out of the parka sleeve that doubled as a mostly ineffective glove. Heart pounding in her chest, she unbuttoned her holster strap and pulled out the Beretta. The pistol felt like a block of ice against her bare skin.
“F-f-fuck yes,” Tim whispered, his teeth chattering audibly. “Let’s whack that old man and t-t-take that tank-thing.”
“We’re not whacking anyone.” She hoped. She didn’t want to hurt Clayton any more than she wanted to hurt Sven, but Clayton hadn’t stopped in this spot by coincidence. If he found them and told Magnus …
She peeked around the tree trunk again. Clayton stopped at the road’s edge. He reached into his snow pants, fished out his penis and started urinating on the snowbank. His hips twisted, directing the stream of urine.
“What’s he doing?” Tim whispered.
Sara shook her head in amazement. “I think he’s writing his name in the snow.”
The urine stream slowed to a trickle. Clayton shook once, zipped up his fly, then lifted a leg and cut loose with a fart that echoed off the trees.
“You can come out now,” he yelled. “If you don’t mind, I really don’t feel like marching into da woods after you, eh?”
Sara’s hands were cold and brittle. She wasn’t even sure if she could actually feel the trigger.
“My truck is nice and warm inside, eh?”
“Sara,” Tim said. “Come on … I’m … so cold.”
Other than the black stitches and the purple bruise, Tim’s face had little more color than the snow around them. The man shivered uncontrollably. Maybe they should have taken Sven’s house, but that chance was gone.
And now? She knew they didn’t have any choice at all.
Sara stepped out from behind the tree and leveled the Beretta at Clayton.
The man’s hands shot up. “Christ on a pogo stick, Sara. Don’t point that thing at me, eh?”
“Just don’t you move, Clayton, you got me?”
Clayton nodded. Sara reached back and pulled Tim to his feet. They stepped around the tree and trudged toward the road.
“Move to your right,” Sara said to Clayton. “Step into that snowbank.”
“Where I peed? That’s gross.”
“Fine, then not there, but get your ass in the snowbank. Any sudden moves and I’ll put a round in your kneecap.”
“But I already have arthritis in my knees.”
“Clayton, shut the fuck up! Tim, get in the vehicle and shut the door behind you.”
Clayton stepped into the bank, sinking into snow up to his crotch. He wouldn’t be able to make any fast moves in that.
Shivering madly, Tim limped through the snow and onto the road. Sara kept the Beretta leveled at Clayton. Tim climbed into the vehicle and shut the door behind him. Once inside, he wrapped his arms around his shoulders and trembled like a puppy in a thunderstorm.
“Sara,” Clayton said, “put that damn thing down. You’re shivering so bad you might shoot me by accident.”
Sara looked at her own hand—the pistol seemed to shake like a living thing, as if it, too, were a victim of the island’s oppressive cold. She lowered the gun. “How did you know we were out there?”
“Saw footprints in da bank. And seeing as I just saw all da cows that were supposed to be on that plane, I figu
red some of da crew was around.”
“You’re a regular fucking Columbo, Clayton.”
“Oh, yah, Peter Falk could knock back da soda pops, but now’s really not da time for stories, girlie. Where’s your crew?”
Sara felt a new stab of loss as the memories of her friends welled up fresh and hot. She shook her head.
“Aw, no,” Clayton said. “Only you and Tim made it?”
Was that real sympathy, or just acting? “Clayton, how many people know we crashed?”
“Don’t know, eh? We didn’t hear anything about it back at da mansion. Can’t believe you could bring down something that big without da whole island knowing.”
“Yeah. Real hard to believe.” She raised the gun and aimed it at him again. “When did Magnus send you out to look for us? Did you radio him and tell him you found the cows?”
Clayton shook his head. “You are really starting to piss me off with that damn thing. Magnus didn’t send me out here, Sara. I plow da road and groom da trails after every storm.”
Her whole body shook. Clayton was right, she might just shoot him by accident. He was an old man, for God’s sake. He’d been on the island long before Magnus and Danté and Genada … or so he said. She had no way of knowing who the hell he was.
“I’m da only one knows you’re here,” Clayton said. “Now get in da damn tractor before frostbite sets in, eh?”
It was only when Clayton said the word frostbite that Sara realized her fingers had stopped stinging.
They were numb.
She took three steps toward the Bv206 before her vision blurred and she fell, unconscious, face-first into the snow.
DECEMBER 1: 10:05 A.M.
SVEN STOOD ON his porch, Mookie in her constant position at his side. The salt he’d put down to melt the ice crunched underfoot every time he moved. Winter sucked up all other sounds, hoarded them and refused to share. There was never a time like the dead of winter after a storm, when you couldn’t hear anything at all.