* * *
Meanwhile, after asking Dr. Armitage about library access, Tarleton walked under the archway and out onto College Street. Outside the university precincts, carters and taxi drivers were dropping off boxes and trunks belonging to the students starting the new term. The late afternoon sun was still strong and Tarleton's shadow stretched out before him.
Crossing Garrison Street, Tarleton spotted an ice truck outside a restaurant. The driver swung down from his bench seat, draped his reins over the brake and opened the truck's insulated doors. He placed sacking over his shoulder as cold air billowed out in a wave of condensation. The driver climbed inside and backed out carrying a block of ice.
Tarleton stopped walking, his mind fixed on the ice. Even as the iceman crossed the sidewalk splinters of ice fell from the block, melting the instant they hit the sun-warmed cobbles. Tarleton watched, transfixed as a woman opened the restaurant's door and let the iceman in. The two spoke together in Italian. A minute later, the man returned, stuffing some money into his apron pocket. The iceman then swung back up into his seat, clicked his tongue and his tired looking nag picked up his hoofs and shuffled down Garrison Street to make the next drop-off.
Rooted to the spot, Tarleton still hadn't moved. Ice. Cold, sub-zero ice. The Arctic wastes of Baffin Island. The raw, howling, cutting wind; the land's grey rocks rimed with frost. And then the pure Hell of what came out of the blizzard and into their camp. No, no, no... his mind shrieked.
"Mister..., mister, are you alright? Mister?" Tarleton felt several tugs on his sleeve, pulling him from that nightmare and back into the sunny street. A boy, maybe nine or ten years old, was pulling him towards the restaurant. His mother was standing by the door, a look of concern on her face. She said something in rapid Italian to the boy who replied in the same language.
The boy dragged Tarleton into the restaurant and sat him down at a table with a red chequered tablecloth before running and fetching a glass of water from the kitchen.
"The heat, signor? You felt faint?" the woman asked. Her dark brown eyes looked into his as if searching his soul. She pushed several strands of black hair out of her face as she did so.
Tarleton shook his head. "No, ma'am, not the heat. Something... something came over me. I don't know...," Tarleton's voice tailed off.
The boy brought a glass of water and placed it before him. The boy then stood next to his mother; like hers his big brown eyes staring. Tarleton reached out his hand. Then stopped. His hand shook, a slight tremor at first but then a definite tremble. He withdrew his hand. Condensation beaded the glass. Yet what stopped Tarleton's hand floated on top of the water. Chips of ice. Like little icebergs floating in the Davis Strait. One chip chinked against another and it dipped beneath the surface. A crack splintered the ice.
"Your water, signor," the woman reminded Tarleton, pushing the glass closer. His eyes stared, fixed on those tiny chips of ice. He could almost see the ice-haze on the surface. Straining his ears, he heard the tiny crackle and pop as the chips melted.
He felt a scream rise in his throat. No, no, no. Cold flooded his body and his skin broke out in goose-bumps. For a moment, yet it felt an eternity's age to Tarleton, he was back on that rocky camp on Baffin Island's Cumberland peninsula. That camp where soul shattering horror came one night.
With a cry, Tarleton pushed his chair back away from the table and leaped to his feet. The glass rocked, the ice tumbling like bergs calved from a glacier. Snatching up his boater, Tarleton dashed from the restaurant. He raced along College Street, east towards French Hill. Passers by jumped out of his way and then stopped and stared as the young man ran as if pursued by invisible demons.
The Horror From The Blizzard Page 3
