Nothing.
But the arches weren’t her destination, not yet. She moved to the plywood door that led to the rough ice tunnels, her feet crunching and squeaking on the ice floor. She wrapped her hand around the rope handle of the door and yanked it open, thrusting her flashlight into the opening like a sword.
The light showed nothing but the round-roofed shaft leading into darkness. The silence beyond was absolute, sepulchral.
She closed the door behind her and shuffled forward. The walls of the older tunnel were serpentine, and the beam from her flashlight illuminated only a few feet ahead, refracted by the next turn or aberration in the tunnel. The smell of gas was less oppressive here, but there was a new, brassy odor she couldn’t place. It sat in the back of her throat like a pill half swallowed.
She moved down the tunnel slower than she ever had, her muscles and eyes twitching, her breath coming in a quick, one-two rhythm just shy of a gasp, trying to inhale and exhale without tasting the air. The first turn was coming up.
Steeling herself, she rounded the corner with the flashlight held steady and straight. Light splashed over Jerry’s screaming bust.
Then, Cass’s vision shifted violently, as though she’d been blindsided in traffic, and she realized Christ, oh God, it wasn’t Jerry, it wasn’t a bust of snow tinted with axle grease or human shit; it was smaller and more articulate than the crude sculpture had been. Gaskets were still there where the eyes should be and the vacuum hose still made the outline of the mouth an “o” of surprise, but this head had a long nose and a bearded chin, gold-rimmed glasses crushed into a face crusted with ice and covered with a stain that spread over the rim of the ice shelf it rested on, forming rusty brown stalactites that hung from the ledge.
She clawed the scarf away and doubled over, vomiting onto the ice. The beard, the long nose, the glasses. It’s Keene , she thought as she heaved. Tears collected and instantly froze around her eyes and she had to gulp in deep breaths of the brassy, tainted air to make them stop. She stumbled blindly down the tunnel.
Weaving like a drunk, careening off the ice walls, she pressed forward, not quite caring if she ran into whoever or whatever had killed the psychologist. She had one goal at this point and it was impossible for her brain to move beyond that single point, although her eyes registered that drops of the rusty brown stain decorated the ice floor in front of her every few feet . . . and were appearing with more frequency.
A distant part of her mind edged through the fear and the growing scream that was building inside of her. Come on, girl. Just fifty more feet. She concentrated on counting off the remaining distance in strides. Thirty more feet. That’s just ten strides sprinting, fifteen walking, thirty crawling. Do it .
The path was familiar, at least. Even without the flashlight, she could’ve found her way to the small corridor that peeled off the main artery toward the sewer bulb. She panned her light over the floor, the rungs, and the dark shaft that led into the darkness above.
Coffee-colored stains speckled the ground at the foot of the icy ladder and decorated several of the rungs. She stared at the dots, paralyzed. She didn’t want to think what they meant overall, let alone what it meant for accomplishing her single goal. You can go up there and find out or you can curl into a ball and die right here.
Cass held her breath, listening. Nothing.
Swapping the flashlight for the headlamp, she began climbing, chasing the red light up the shaft. With a surgeon’s care, she placed her cramped hands and aching feet precisely on each rung before moving to the next. Every few seconds, she paused again to listen, trying to hear past her own heartbeat. Only silence greeted her and, halfway to the top, she allowed herself to feel a small flush of success. She tilted her head back so she could shine the beam directly up the shaft and her heart stopped.
The hatch to her hideaway was open.
The light from her headlamp punched through the open hole, illuminating the ceiling of the Jamesway hut above it. She was unable to move or swing the light away, holding in place so long that her arms and legs started to quiver from the strain.
What’s it going to be, Cass? Do you have any other choice?
Shaking, she climbed the last five or six rungs, expecting at any minute to see someone hurtle out of the hole at her, or a face to pop into view.