Robert Masello - Blood and Ice

Another pole suddenly flashed past Michael's head and gouged a hole in Danzig's shoulder. The man reared back, then jumped at Lawson. But his boots skidded on the loose seedpods, and he had to scramble to get up again. Michael quickly rolled over and stumbled to his own feet. Danzig had shoved Lawson, not all that steady to begin with, out of the way; he was sprawled on the floor, waving his ski poles wildly.

But instead of continuing his attack, Danzig stumbled away and went barging through the shelves with his arms swinging like an ape's, pulling one rack after another down onto the floor behind him. Sod and seeds and gravel flew everywhere, and by the time Michael had clambered over the detritus and made it through the plastic curtains and out to the door, the only thing he could see was a slick of blood on the ramp and a dark shape staggering blindly through the trellis and on into the maelstrom outside.

December 15, 10:30 p.m.

“What the hell are you talking about?” Murphy said, once Michael and Lawson had cornered him in the kitchen. Uncle Barney was just out of earshot, frying up one final skillet of grits. “Danzig is dead, for Christ's sake!”

“He's not,” Michael repeated, keeping his head and his voice low. “That's what we're trying to tell you.”

“You saw him, too?” Murphy said to Lawson, looking for confirmation of the impossible.

“I saw him, too.” Lawson glanced at Michael, as if urging him to continue.

“And he's killed Ackerley” Michael said.

Murphy looked as if he was about to swallow his own tongue. The blood drained from his face.

“We found Ackerley in his lab,” Michael said, “already dead, and Danzig was mauling the body. In fact, he's out there somewhere right now.”

Murphy leaned back against a freezer, plainly unable to process what he was being told-and Michael couldn't blame him. If he hadn't seen it with his own eyes-if he hadn't been attacked himself-he wouldn't have believed it either.

“So, he's not in the body bag,” Murphy said, thinking out loud, “and he's not in the core bin where we put him.”

“No,” Lawson said, “he's not.”

“And Ackerley's dead, too,” Murphy repeated, as if simply to let the terrible information sink in.

“That's right,” Michael said. “We should go after him-now- before he gets too far.”

“But if he's gone stark raving mad,” Murphy said, as if clutching at a ray of hope, “he'll just freeze to death out there.”

Michael didn't know what to say to that. It sounded perfectly reasonable-of course a crazy man, without even a hat on, would surely die either from exposure or from falling into a crevasse-but at the same time he wasn't sure of it at all. Nothing made sense anymore. He had been with Danzig in the infirmary; he'd watched as Charlotte recorded his time of death. Whatever was running around out there on the ice wasn't necessarily Danzig at all. Michael didn't know what to call it.

“What did you do with Ackerley's body?” Murphy asked, trying hard to collect himself.

“It's where we left it,” Michael said. “Charlotte should examine it as soon as possible. And then we need to store it somewhere.”

Uncle Barney said, “Excuse me, gents,” opened the freezer to retrieve some butter, then limped back out of earshot.

“Not where we put the last one,” Murphy said, keeping his voice low. “We'll use the old meat locker outside. If Dr. Barnes is wrong about this one too, I don't want it running amok like the other one.” He suddenly caught himself, and said, “You know what I'm saying. I mean, Danzig was a great guy, and Ackerley was a nice enough fella, too, but this is all just so goddamn bad, so goddamn awful…” He trailed off, clearly flummoxed at everything he had to deal with.

But Michael didn't think Charlotte had been wrong. Impossible as it was to accept, Danzig had died, then somehow come back to life-though that was not an argument he was prepared to make just now.

Lawson bent down to nurse his bad ankle, made worse by the scuffle in the botany lab. And Murphy's hair suddenly looked a lot more salt than pepper.

“We could look for Sleeping Beauty at the same time,” Michael said, eager to get the go-ahead from Murphy. “And her Prince Charming.”

“Not to mention the sled dogs,” Lawson said. “If the NSF finds out that the last team ever allowed down here-the dogs that poor Danzig had to get grandfathered in-are missing in action, it's going to be a bureaucratic nightmare.”

“Danzig used to run them to Stromviken,” Michael said, “and the forecast's good, for a change. This storm is passing.”

“Not for very long,” Murphy said. “Last report, a new front's due by early evening tomorrow.”

“All the more reason to get on it,” Michael said.

Lawson nodded his agreement.

“What about your ankle?” Murphy asked. “Looks like you're favoring it.”

“Snowmobiling's no problem. And if we do find them-the dogs or the bodies-at least I know how to drive the sled back to camp.”

“All right,” Murphy said, as if he could no longer argue the point. “But not tonight. Get some solid rack time, then, first thing in the morning, if the weather allows, I'll log you in on a trip to the whaling station.” Reaching for the walkie-talkie fastened to his belt, he added, “I'll tell Franklin to have a couple of snowmobiles at the flagpole, gassed up and ready to go, by nine a.m.”

December 16, 9:30 a.m.

Sinclair had been gone for hours, and while Eleanor's greatest fear was that something would prevent him from returning at all, she also dreaded the state in which he might return. He had been in a black humor when he left, seething with rage at the endless storm and bristling at his confinement in the freezing church.

“Damn this place to Hell!” he'd shouted, his words echoing around the abandoned chapel and up to the worn beams in the roof. “Damn these stones and damn these timbers!” With one arm, he'd swept a candleholder off the altar and sent it spinning across the floor. Stomping down the nave, his bootheels ringing on the stone, he'd thrown open the creaking door to the graveyard outside and hurled his imprecations at the leaden sky. He'd been answered by a chorus of forlorn howls from the sled dogs, curled up in balls among the markers and tombstones.

She especially feared him when he was like that, when he chose to issue his challenges at the heavens. She was convinced that he'd already had his answer, in Lisbon, and she had no wish to hear that verdict again.

“Sinclair,” she'd ventured, leaning for support against the door-jamb of the rectory, “shouldn't we bring the dogs into the church? They'll die if left outside, unprotected.”

His head had whipped around, and in his eyes she could see that mad feverish gleam she had first seen at Scutari.

“I'll warm them up,” he growled, and then, in his greatcoat, he'd stalked out into the storm, not even bothering to pull the door closed behind him; he seemed impervious to the hostile elements. A cloud of ice and snow had whirled into the church, and she had heard the barking of the dogs as Sinclair harnessed them to the sled.

Eleanor had gathered her coat around her, the one made from the miraculous fabric, and made her way to the open door. She had seen Sinclair standing at the back of the sled, swearing at the dogs as they ran down the snowy hillside. When they were out of sight, she put her weight against the rough wood and pushed it closed.

The exertion made her weak, and she slumped into the last pew. Afraid she was about to faint, she bent her head to the back of the pew in front of her and rested it there. The wood was cold but not entirely smooth, and she could see, very close up, some words- a name? — carved into it. But whatever it was, it wasn't English and the letters were nearly worn away. All that she could discern were some numbers, in the form of a date-25.12.1937. Christmas Day-1937. And she simply let her gaze remain there, while her mind turned this information over and over. It had been 1856 when she and Sinclair had embarked on their ill-fated voyage aboard the Coventry. And if this inscription, these numbers, were indeed a date, then they had been carved eighty-one years after she had been cast into the sea.