Michael rubbed one mitten across his goggles to clear away some of the snow, and for a second he wondered if he could make his fortune by marketing goggles at the South Pole that had their own windshield wipers. He’d have liked to call out to Lawson, to ask him if the leg was really okay or if he wanted to turn back, but he knew that the wind would blow the words right back into his mouth—and the temperature was so low you could crack your teeth if you kept your mouth open too long.
They made their way past the glaciology lab—Michael glanced inside for Ollie, but if the bird had learned anything so far, it was to stay inside the crate on a night like this—and the marine biology lab, and the climatology lab, until Michael saw Lawson heading off to the left, toward a big, rusted-out trailer squatting on its cinder blocks like an old red rooster. Bright light shone out through its narrow window panels.
Lawson stopped to rub his ankle under the rough wooden trellis that framed the ramp, and motioned for Michael to go on ahead. The door was a steel plate—dented, scratched, and covered with the faded remnants of Phish decals—and Michael banged on it with his fist. Then, having given warning, he shoved it open and went inside.
His goggles immediately fogged up, and he had to slip them back on top of his head. He parted some thick plastic curtains, threw his hood back, and found himself standing in a sea of metal shelves and cabinets, all at least six feet high, and crammed with samples of indigenous moss and lichens. There were little white labels, inscribed in a spidery hand, on each shelf or drawer. Fluorescent lights flickered in the ceiling, and from somewhere among the impenetrable racks he heard the tinny sound of cheap speakers playing an endless jam.
And he also heard something else—a low, wet, snurfling sound. When Lawson came through the door, Michael instinctively motioned for him to keep silent. Lawson looked puzzled, but Michael gestured for him to stay where he was, by the door, and then, still carrying his ski poles, he started to thread his way through the maze of cabinets. Could it be another one of the dogs, Michael wondered? Or more than one? Should he back off and call the chief for reinforcements? But what if Ackerley was in big trouble and needed help right now?
The music was getting louder, but so was the strange lapping sound. Like somebody slurping soup. Or cereal. Was that all it was? Ackerley, deaf to the world, eating a bowl of cornflakes and rocking out? Michael found himself wedged between two towering cabinets, one marked GLACIAL MORAINE, SW QUADRANT, and the other reading SPECIMENS, STROMVIKEN SITE. But there was a chewing sound, too, so maybe it wasn’t cereal. More like a stew maybe. Why would you eat some microwaved crap in a lab trailer when Uncle Barney was serving up hot grits at the memorial dinner?
He peered through some of the shelves and saw a long lab counter, not so different from Darryl’s, with a couple of sinks, a microscope, some bottles of chemicals. But no one was sitting on the lab stool. And now that he looked again, he saw that a couple of potted plants were upended, and one of them had smashed onto the floor. An iPod was cradled on a shelf between its own tiny speakers. Michael stepped out of the shelves and closer to the lab table. The eating noises were coming from the other side, from down near the floor, and as he moved around the corner, he saw the tips of two rubber boots, their clasps undone, sticking out. He gripped the ski poles harder.
The eating sound became a rending sound, like flesh being torn, and when he got all the way around, he saw first the broad expanse of a flannel shirt, stretched across the shoulders of a big man, huddled over a body on the floor, and busy at work. If he hadn’t known better, Michael would have thought, in that first instant, that it was Danzig.
Who was dead.
He raised one of the sharp-tipped ski poles and shouted, for want of anything better to say, “Hey! You! Stop what—”
But he got no further. The huddled man’s head whipped around, startled, the beard so matted with blood it looked like it had been coated with a bright red paintbrush. His eyes were red-rimmed, too, and blinking furiously. Michael was so stunned he fell back, and the man leapt up at him, snarling. One of the poles went flying, clattering against a cabinet, and Lawson hollered, “What’s going on?” and started crashing through the labyrinth.