Blake Crouch - Snowbound

Wolves were howling outside, on their way back to the lodge.

From where Fidel stood, the view was spectacular—the black lake and the hills and a moon edging up on the horizon. Nothing like Sonora or the industrialized desert waste of Phoenix.

His parka and snow gear lay in a pile nearby.

He crossed himself and waited for the signal.

The snow was deep on the veranda, almost to the man’s waist. The large wooden door stood thirty feet from where he squatted by the railing, protected from the snow by a steep overhanging eave.

Javier reached into his pocket and sent the signal, then pulled out the walkie-talkie. He pressed TALK, said, “Get ready.”

The deep anticipatory tingling in the pit of his stomach was spreading like wetness across a napkin. He’d mapped everything out, nailed it down so cold, he had but to execute the movements, the choreography. He felt like a ballerina in that regard, waiting backstage before the curtains opened.

Devlin sat on the floor in Ethan’s room. She was cold.

In the opposite corner, the newborn cooed.

The head of a woman named Theresa rested in her lap, and Devlin stroked her hair and whispered into her ear that everything would be all right.

. . .

A shaft of moonlight passed through the west-facing window of the south-wing alcove. It illuminated the floor, the walls in lunar light. A wolf howled, much closer now, and received no answer.

Lucy’s walkie-talkie coughed up a loogie of static, Kalyn’s voice squeaking through the speaker, “Lucy, come see me for a second.”

“Be right there, K.”

Will reached out, located Rachael’s hand in the darkness, squeezed.

Lucy walked quickly down the corridor, the vast darkness of the lobby looming just ahead. The shotgun she carried in her left hand was so heavy, and she couldn’t imagine actually firing it at someone, the bruising recoil, the earshattering report, the killing.

Ten feet from the lobby, she spotted something out of the left corner of her eye. She stopped, staring at the door to 114. It was wide open, which shouldn’t have been the case, considering they’d locked every room on every floor that afternoon.

Lucy hurried on.

Three steps from the lobby, her legs melted.

She hit the floor, head pounding and consciousness fading as someone dragged her back into 114.

SIXTY-FIVE

The pager in Roddy’s pocket vibrated. He inhaled the spike of adrenaline, moving now toward the east-facing window at the end of the north wing, wading through the snow. He reached the window’s base, took a moment to calm himself and rack the slide on his suppressed Beretta 93R, slipped his finger into the trigger guard.

He peeked over the windowsill, peered through the glass, the night-vision world green and grainier than a B horror movie. He spotted a man sitting against the wall, not ten feet away, at the opening to a stairwell, with what appeared to be a shotgun across his lap. Roddy ducked down, listened. No sound of movement. He hadn’t been seen.

Three, two, one. This time, he stood upright, the detachable stock pressed tight against his shoulder, squeezed the trigger twice, half a dozen 9-mm rounds piercing the glass.

The man with the shotgun shook like the epicenter of a tiny earthquake, his body riddled with bullets, and fell over. He hadn’t made a sound. Only the shatter of glass could have compromised Roddy’s presence, and he didn’t think it had been that loud.

Never saw that coming, did you, my man? I’d have made a helluva Special Forces solider. It’s gonna be so much fun to talk about all this with Jonas and the boys. After the Alphas are gone. He pictured them having beers, laughing in Stoke’s poolroom at the Fairbanks warehouse, each taking turns telling everyone how they’d stormed this lodge like it was fucking Normandy.

Kalyn’s walkie-talkie chirped.

Suzanne’s voice: “Kalyn, you there?”

“Yeah, what’s up?”

“Where’s Lucy?”

“She’s not with you?”

“No.”

“She left the lobby at least a minute ago, heading back your way.”

“Well, she isn’t here,” Suzanne replied, in tears now, “and I don’t hear her coming.”

“Just sit tight. I’ll find her.”

Kalyn slipped her radio into her pocket and stared down at her sister, who lay unconscious on the floor. “Sorry, Luce,” she whispered, “but I didn’t come all this way to see you killed.”

All right, buddy, time to focus. Roddy played the move several times in his head. Stand quickly. Both hands on the windowsill. Leap through. Roll twice across the floor and sight up the corridor while lying on your stomach. Extra clips in your pocket. Use controlled bursts. Don’t freak out, and remember to breathe. Three, two, one.

He came to his feet, gloves on the windowsill, such an adrenaline charge running through him that he swung both feet over at once, clearing the sill by several inches, with enough energy to jump a mountain.

Screaming, something gone terribly wrong, like he’d landed in the mouth of a shark, then realizing what it was with a crushing desperation, saw in that gray-green light the rusty metal teeth of a grizzly snare sunk into his shinbones, clamped halfway up his throbbing tibias.

He tore his gloves trying to pull the jaws apart, grunting, teeth gritted, veins rising from his forehead. Oh God, I fucked up. The Alphas are gonna kill me.

But the jaws didn’t budge. He could hear his legs splintering as he stared at the man he’d shot, the teeth burrowing deeper, closing slowly, and through the bone-fracturing pain, he realized there was something wrong with the guard—longhaired, pajamaed—and it was this: He had rigor mortis. He was stiff, rigid, dead for hours, maybe a day. What the fuck?

And the grainy green turned to blinding white as a shotgun boomed. His vest caught most of the pellets, but the force knocked him back onto the floor. He ripped off his goggles, reached for the Beretta, footsteps coming toward him and the unmistakable horror of a twelve-gauge pumping, thinking, The vest will buy me time to spray them. He aimed at the light, but the time wasn’t there. They don’t make a vest for your face.

SIXTY-SIX

Jonas could tell right away that the man was already dead, his face polka-dotted with buckshot. Besides, he wasn’t sitting right. His head tilted unnaturally to one side and the shotgun looked as if it had been propped up against him. Means there’s probably someone sitting a little ways down the corridor with some firepower trained on this spot.

If the Alphas hadn’t vetoed the use of radios, he’d have warned Roddy’s dumb ass, since they probably had the same setup at the end of the north wing.

He slipped off his goggles. Didn’t really need them yet, the moon bright as all get-out and lighting up the alcove like Christmas. He heard something in the distance behind him, glanced back across that long, narrow lake lathered in moonlight. At first, he thought they were men running toward him, then realized it was the wolves he’d been hearing, their heads rising and falling as they bounded through snow.

Why the fuck were they moving toward him? Ever since coming up to Alaska from L.A., all he’d heard was how skittish they were, and you were supposed to have an orgasm if you saw them in the wild. Fuck this Grizzly Adams shit. God, he missed the Valley. He turned back toward the lodge, raised the Beretta, and squeezed off a burst.

Suzanne was looking over her shoulder for Lucy when the glass of the west-facing window fell out. She hadn’t heard a gunshot, and from where she sat, she couldn’t see either window. Suzanne slowly rose to her feet, reaching for her radio, and as she pressed TALK, someone screamed at the other end of the lodge.