Locking the door behind him, Ray shut it and sprinted across the street. He had just reached the cover of a low railing when Mr. Rifle emerged from the alley. Ray held his breath, expecting to feel steel piercing his body. Instead, the man walked casually up the long wooden porch and tried the door to the butcher shop.
He hadn’t seen Ray!
Finding the door locked, the man raised the rifle and used the butt to break the glass. He reached in and fiddled with the knob.
Ray watched, wondering who this guy was. Not Makintanz. Too tall. Not fat enough. The chief was recognizable simply from his shadow, his girth capable of eclipsing the sun. It wasn’t Leeland either. The build was wrong. Too slight. The man was about 5’ 10”, approximately 175 pounds. Who fit that description?
As the man disappeared through the doorway, Ray came to a startling conclusion: Billy Bob? Did the voice have a drawl? Ray wasn’t sure. But it was deep, authoritative. Billy Bob? No. There was no possible way that it could be. Unless …
Ray forced himself to set off down the street, running from railing to fence to alley to Dumpster, headed for an unknown destination.
Unless it was all an act: the dopey expressions, the naiveté … Ray had been down this mental road before and turned back. But now … Billy Bob?
He came to the end of main street and paused. Where to go? The Davis camp? No. Not until he figured out who was after him. Showing up in Bauer’s office might be tantamount to jumping into the lion’s den. Turn around and head for the Bradbury? No. Same reason. Until he figured out how Makintanz fit in, if he fit in, the chief couldn’t be trusted. The roadhouse? Now there was an idea. Enlist Elvin and his buddies to help apprehend the gunman. Maybe even …
The brainstorming session came to an abrupt end: a high-pitched whistle, then, pain. His upper biceps was on fire, bitten by an unseen serpent. He wavered, disoriented … then he began to run.
He ran away from the street.
Leaving the hard-pack, he stumbled into the snow. He high-stepped from drift to drift, boots plunging into the powder.
He ran away from Deadhorse.
The wind seemed to mock him, blowing as though it had authored this viciousness. Ray swore at it, pushed through it, light-headed, panicked. One sleeve of his jacket was wet, the neon stained black. He was exhausted, still the voice inside bellowed: Run!
He ran away from the rifle, from the boots that bore it up.
He ran in slow motion. He ran a hundred miles. He ran a hundred years. Legs carrying him away from the light … toward the shelter of darkness.
THIRTY-SEVEN
A HALF MILE from Deadhorse, snow gave way to frozen tundra. It was uneven, rising and dropping like swells on a black sea, the wind howling across it.
Willing himself forward, losing then regaining his balance a thousand times, Ray decided that he was marooned, stranded in the closest thing to Hell the earth had to offer. It was insane, really, he thought, trying to escape a madman by setting out across the bleakest, most cruel stretch of territory on the planet, with a bullet in his arm. Smart, real smart. A wise man, a man like Grandfather, would stop running, sit down, and prepare himself for death.
Ray paused and looked back. Deadhorse had fallen off the edge of the world. Either that or he had. No lights. No buildings. His legs began pumping again, as if activated by an autopilot mechanism. Where was he going?
His face was frostbitten. The only question was how severely. The wind had first burned then numbed his nose and cheeks. His lungs felt as though he had swallowed a jigger of gasoline, but the wound wasn’t bothering him any longer. Both arms were without sensation. It took some amount of concentration just to move his fingers. At least he thought they were still capable of moving. Without feeling, it was hard to tell.
An engine rumbled to life somewhere behind him. Far, far behind him. He tried to analyze it over his own labored breathing. The driver gunned it, then the sound fell away, hidden by the moaning wind. When it returned, it was moving, a constant treble note. A snow machine.
Ray laughed at this. Even the nutcase who was trying to kill him wasn’t stupid enough to wander off into the night. He was taking up the chase on a snow machine.
What little hope Ray had managed to collect spilled out of him like water from a paper sack as the whine rose, the engine shifted gears, and the machine raced after him. In the absence of light and direction, he had the eerie sense that he was trapped in a sadistic dream: pursued by a giant mosquito, ever running, but not making any progress.
It was only a matter of time now. He would soon be dead.
The morbid pronouncement was still hanging over Ray when his boots began to slide. The terrain seemed to shift beneath him, the ice rolling away, deserting him. There was a brief moment of hesitation, then he was falling, slowly, effortlessly, without violence. And he offered no resistance. Physically and emotionally he was incapable of reacting.
The ground reached up to greet him. Its embrace was soft, comforting. Warm. As if by magic, the wind ceased, refusing to utter so much as a whisper.
Ray was hovering … in darkness … in silence … in absolute peace.
THIRTY-EIGHT
THE SEAL DIED without fear or pain. Asleep on the ice pack, its spirit slipped away quietly, ushered heavenward by the razor-sharp point of his spear. The throw was perfect, the stone tip finding its mark, deep in the creature’s heart.
Ray freed his weapon, took the tail fluke and began dragging his catch across the floe, toward his hunting camp. The animal would provide his family—his wife, little ones, and aging Grandfather—with sorely needed meat. He smiled at this, happy that he had again fulfilled his role as provider.
Reaching land, he stopped and stared at the snow. It was covered with tracks. Many. Large. Made by the fiercest, most dreaded creature of the Arctic: a polar bear. Several polar bears.
He continued on, pulling the seal at a more energetic pace, eager to put distance between himself and the bears. His right hand instinctively gripped the spear a little tighter, ready to use it in self-defense if necessary.
Moments later, he heard something: feet in the snow, a muffled grunt, sniffing … A glance over his shoulder told him that he was alone. His mind told him that he was imagining things. His heart told him otherwise. He began to trot, the dead seal bouncing limply from drift to drift.
Struggling to the top of a pingo knoll, he took another look back. The sight filled him with terror. Just fifty yards behind him was a polar bear. It was big, maybe 1600 pounds. To his horror, he suddenly realized that it was a mutant, with ten legs reaching down from a thick, barrel-like torso.
You’re dreaming, Ray told himself. It’s just a dream.
The observation did little to quell the rising tide of panic. The scenario was too real, the vision overriding his conscious mind. Even if it was a dream, and he was somehow certain that it was, he couldn’t deny the emotions that were assailing him. There was no way to disregard the compulsive, almost pathological desire to run.
Dropping the seal, he hurried down the pingo, away from the great predator. Two minutes later, out of breath, strength already depleted, he twisted his head just in time to see the bear reach the seal. It curved its mighty neck toward the un-moving prey, jaws opening to engulf it whole. An instant later, the bear was racing toward him, ten colossal paws prancing along the surface of the snow, refusing to sink into the dry, crystalline powder.
Ray forced himself to go on, to make one last, futile dash toward safety. Flailing forward through a deep drift, he saw two blocks of ice ahead, each the size of a small ivrulik. Without looking back, he ran for them, legs burning as he high-stepped through the bottomless snow. Sliding between the blocks, he flattened himself against the back of one, lungs fighting for air.
Maybe the bear hadn’t seen him. Maybe it would give up and go away. Or maybe …
He snuck a look around the corner of the ice block. The bear was only a dozen yards away, its long neck lifted high, nose s
niffing the air, searching for Ray’s scent. The beast grunted, almost smiling as it lumbered toward the ice blocks. Ray swore. Holding his spear with both hands, he braced for the assault.
Seconds passed … a minute … two minutes … The wind had begun to blow, ice pellets blurring the frozen landscape. Ray took a deep breath and looked out from his hiding place. The bear was gone. Or, at least, it was obscured by the snow. He leaned forward, squinting into the wind.
A clap of thunder knocked Ray to the ground: the growl of death overtook him. From his seat on the ice he looked up into the face of the bear. It was standing atop one of the ice blocks, jaws open, enormous teeth gleaming down at him. Ray froze, unable to breathe, unable to think, unable to react … The spear was beyond his reach, a worthless shaft of wood and stone.
The bear growled again, as if confirming Ray’s impending fate, then crouched to attack. Suddenly it was falling, seemingly dozens of feet slipping, tangling, tripping … The bear performed a slow flip, landing on its back with a tremendous thud. Still alive, it began to squirm, legs pulling at each other, muscles trying to untangle the knots its uncoordinated feet had tied.
Ray dove for his spear. He rose, turned, threw the weapon with all of his might. It rocketed through the air and penetrated the bear’s heart. There was a throaty groan, the legs quivered, and then … it was dead.
Kneeling to cut off its feet, Ray was startled to see the beast change color, dull, yellowed white becoming olive. The ten feet merged into two, paws transformed into feet, the neck retreating, long nose receding. Fur became skin, the hard, predatory gaze softened, then took on human form. The bear was now a woman: jet black hair, curving hips, sparkling eyes, mouth bowed up into a smile. It was Margaret.
The ice floe was gone. Ray was in a hazy limbo, confronted by a vision of his fiancée—without clothes or inhibition. He gawked at her, then gasped as she wavered and began to fade.
“Margaret!”
He reached for her hand, but it was too late. She was gone. So was all color and sound. He was alone in the dark. Before he could reflect on this or even entertain the sadness at having seen but not spoken to or touched the love of his life, he saw something else.
Light. Distant but piercing. It grew from a pinprick to the size of an evening star to the size of the sun and continued to expand, blazing with a fury Ray found difficult to endure.
When the light had swallowed the darkness and was poised to swallow Ray, enveloping him in a hot, pulsing, nearly unbearable glow, the hungry entity paused.
Ray was no longer breathing, his entire being paralyzed by fear and awe. He had the uncanny realization that he was about to die.
The question came without warning, a feeling that asked wordlessly yet unmistakably: Do you want to live?
Snapshots of Grandfather, of Ray as a child, as a man, of Margaret, of Billy Bob, of dead bodies, faces, experiences, fragments of memories, joys, and sorrows. A grainy black-and-white montage spilled over and through him, past, present and future merging into a single, desperate cry: Yes.
Cold … Pain … The far away roar of a river rushing over a falls. Ray’s arm was throbbing, his fingers and toes tingling with fire. His cheeks were brittle, his nose a thick, flat chunk of ice.
Prying his eyes open, he squinted through the crystals that had formed on his lashes. Black. Nothing else, except the wind. And yet, he was alive. No amount of darkness or wintry evil could take that away.
The momentary sense of relief was quickly forgotten, driven away by a high-pitched whine: the mechanical mosquito was still on the prowl. Ray sat up and peered into the field of black. The snow machine buzzed at him from somewhere off to the right, faded, then buzzed from the left. An Arctic Cat, he decided. He rose stiffly, groaning at his aching, depleted body, then cocked his head to listen. Wind … his own heart beating … blood rushing through his ears … the sound of the snow machine at close range. The guy was driving back and forth, conducting an exhaustive inspection of the area.
A roar came at him from the west. Or was it the east? Normally quite adept at finding his way in the wilderness, Ray had lost all sense of direction. Even the stars above seemed unfamiliar. The roar rose and fell repeatedly before settling into a constant hum, but there was something unusual about it. Familiar. It reminded Ray of turbines spinning. A jet warming up. The airport! Turning his body toward the noise, he tried to judge the distance, but it was hard to determine.
It was time to make a decision. He was alive, but barely. Another hour out in the elements would kill him, if the madman didn’t do the job first. In order to survive, he needed to seek shelter. There seemed to be only two alternatives: plod back to town, or head for the airport. At least the latter had a guiding beacon—the turbines.
He was about to choose the airport, when something caught his eye: light. The head lamp of the snow machine bounced into view a hundred yards behind him, left and right.
Ray willed his lifeless legs to run. Churning through a drift, skating across a patch of frozen, nearly bare tundra, bogging into another drift, his nightmarish dream came rushing back and he was struck by the irony. Instead of fleeing from a ten-footed polar bear, like the one in the fable Grandfather had related to him countless times, he was fleeing from a rubber-tracked Arctic Cat. The driver of the Cat would soon see Ray’s trail and move in for the kill. But, unlike the seal hunter, Ray possessed no weapon. And there didn’t seem to be any huge ice blocks around to hide behind.
He changed his mind two minutes later. Muscles inflamed by fatigue, the Cat closing on his flank, Ray saw a pair of metal squares: hangars mostly buried in the snow. It was the outskirts of the airport. He sprinted for the buildings with a last burst of strength, legs energized by the thready promise of escape.
Panting, he dove behind one of the hangars. The roaring jet was louder but still a figment in the dark ahead, probably another three or four hundred yards away. Ray tried to think. He wasn’t sure he had another sprint in him. And he was almost certain that the Arctic Cat had picked up his tracks. He could hear it approaching.
No weapon … No place of refuge … No hope …?
He lifted his head above the roof of the metal shed and gazed into the night. The buzz of the snow machine rang crisply, then evaporated, almost as if the engine had been cut. Ray watched, glancing around the corner of the building. Where was it?
In his mind’s eye Ray saw the hunter hiding between the blocks of ice as the polar bear mounted one of them to attack. The picture offered little in the way of practical assistance. Except, what if …
Ray removed the butcher’s jacket and hunched next to the metal wall, waiting. One of three things would happen now. Either he would be shot as he stood there like a ninny without his coat on. Or he would surprise the gunman, following the example of the hunter’s victory over the mutant polar bear. Or he would be overcome by hypothermia and freeze to death. With the wind whipping at his shirtsleeves, he wondered if the popsicle scenario was the most likely.
In reality, there was little if any chance that his enemy would make the mistake of driving his vehicle over the top of the hangar. Unless he didn’t see it.
The whine startled him. It was close, doubling in intensity. The snow machine was accelerating, seemingly right at him. Ray looked up just in time to see the Arctic Cat shoot over the hangar, skis leaving the snow, tracks grasping at air. He reacted by tossing his coat straight up. Missing the snow machine, it caught the driver, clinging magically to his head. The man flailed, making an effort to remove the down-filled blindfold. He succeeded, but lost his hold on the Arctic Cat in the process. His body flew sideways, disappearing into the darkness as the vehicle continued on, unabated. Ray’s coat was caught on the skis, flapping like a malfunctioning sail before being gobbled up by the rubber tracks. The machine twisted in the air and landed upside down, the parka effectively gumming the traction mechanism.
The polar bear’s feet were tangled!
Ray’s eyes darted across the a
rea illuminated by the snow machine’s still burning head lamp. Where was the rifle?
The question was answered by an explosive boom. A bullet grazed Ray’s boot, puncturing a vapor layer. The bunny boot hissed and went flat. Ducking, he slid around the hangar, using the wall to pull himself through the heavy drifts. Without a jacket, without a “spear,” this battle would be over in a heartbeat. There was another shot. This sent him swimming further around the building. In the absence of a plan, he made the short climb to the roof. It was icy, slick, raised above the surface of the surrounding snow just enough to make him an easy target. By the time he realized this and was about to scoot back down, another bullet came after him. It pinged off of the roof. Ray flattened himself and closed his eyes, prepared, or at least expecting, to die.
There was a brief pause. Then a curse. Another. Ray could hear the rifle being cracked open. The man was reloading. Ray stood, glanced at the man to verify his activity and distance, and crouched to make the leap across to the other hangar. He would jump to the adjacent roof and make a run for that jet.
The plan was aborted when he slipped. The flat bunny boot twisted beneath him, the tread failing to grip the ice, and he tumbled from his perch, directly onto his foe. The gun, loose shells, the man, and Ray fell into a heap. Instinctively, Ray fumbled for the rifle. He found it just as his opponent grasped the other end. There was a short tug of war as both of them yanked, butts scooting in the snow. Ray kicked, hit something, and realized that he was now in possession of the rifle. He heaved it away, outside of the dim circle of light, with as much strength as he could muster, then rolled and scrambled to his feet, intent upon finding the jet.
Two frantic steps later, his forward progress was abruptly impeded. He felt his head snap backward, his neck emitting a sickening crack, and was suddenly airborne—shadows, hangars, and the still running carcass of the snow machine spinning around him. His ponytail was being jerked from his scalp. In the next instant he was released and rushed at the wall of the closest building. His cheekbone impacted the barrier first, followed by his shoulder, then hip. The result was a riptide of pain as his skeletal system quaked with shock waves. His lungs were empty, seemingly unable to replenish themselves.
Elements of Kill Page 31
