Then she cursed, wondering if she’d hit her head on top of it all. Come on, Cass . What was the one ever-present structure in the tunnel, the reason she was down here in the first place? The sewage pipe. And it consistently ran along just one side of the tunnel. Which meant all she had to do to get back was reach out, find the pipe, and keep it on her left. Assuming she didn’t smash her arm into another timber support and kill herself this time.
Cautious in the extreme, she sent her left hand out on a scouting expedition at about thirty degrees up and out from her shoulder, sliding her mitten up the ice at a slow, measured pace until her hand bumped into the cushy insulation that wrapped every inch of the sewage pipe. She cupped her hand around the underside of the conduit; then, moving forward with short, wary strides, she let the pipe guide her forward.
As step followed step, however, she struggled to keep herself grounded and calm. In the complete absence of light, she had nothing to indicate her progress, which fostered the disturbing sensation that she was endlessly repeating herself. Cass found herself taking longer and longer steps, wanting nothing more than to get back to the cheap plywood door that meant she’d made it at least halfway home. But she forced herself to slow down and stick to the shallow stride that would keep her safe.
Counting helped. Picturing the schematic in her head and factoring in what she knew about her own stride, she did some rough calculations. Safety was still many paces away, but any problem could be quantified and, if it could be measured, overcome.
A memory hit her then, hard and visceral, so real that she gasped, fighting to keep her balance. This wasn’t the first time she’d counted off steps or followed a schematic. Measuring, assessing, noting. It had been a tunnel then, too. It was amazing she hadn’t seen the similarity sooner.
Maybe it was understandable. She’d had a hard hat on then, and jeans, not a parka and mittens. And she hadn’t been in a squat, claustrophobic wormhole, but in an arched, rounded cavern so colossal that it resembled a cathedral more than the transit tunnel it actually was. She hadn’t been frightened and alone; she’d been surrounded by welders and drillers and engineers working round-the-clock shifts. The city had been pushing for completion—constant pressure rained down from the mayor’s office, it was an election year, transportation was that season’s cause célèbre. Sparks flew at one end of a run while her team took measurements at the other.
Tight lips and flattened mouths spoke of mute disapproval, but no one had the brass to stop the process. They were a tight, professional group—a rarity in city government—and they prided themselves on never being the bottleneck in a project, doing their work on time and under budget. The unrelenting pressure had given all of them a fever, though, and they’d scrambled over pipes and scribbled in their notebooks at a pace they’d never allowed before. They made the numbers work, and when they didn’t work, they made them right. Boxes were checked, lines were signed, and assurances given. There’d been much patting on backs and handshakes all around, until five months later when those same hands were being wrung in agony or covering their faces in horror.
A noise somewhere ahead brought both her feet and her memory to a halt. A clacking noise, followed by a thump, but having heard it through three layers of clothing, she couldn’t be sure. The only sound she’d been hearing for long minutes had been her own breathing and the silvery whisper of her mitten’s synthetic fabric against the slick insulation.
She hesitated, then pulled her hood back and loosened the scarf over her face. She wouldn’t last long in the cold without both, but it was the only way she’d be able to hear anything louder than her own heartbeat.
There it was again. Click-click-click, thump . The bottom of her stomach dropped to the floor. Willing herself to move, she shook off a mitten and slid a hand down to her belt where she kept a multi-tool in a nylon sheath. Working fast, she ran a thumb along each tool, fumbling in the dark to find the one with the blade, cursing softly when the edge sliced into her thumb as she unlocked it.
With her left hand on the pipe and her right holding the knife, Cass resumed her tentative steps. If she was right about the distance, she should be near the door to the main artery. But was the person who killed the lights on her side or the other?
Her face and hand prickled with the bite of subzero temperatures. With her hood and scarf pulled down to hear and her right hand exposed while it held the knife, her skin was directly exposed, but she needed to hear.
And there it was again. A clacking, followed by a thump. Then she heard a soft, whisking sound, like a cornstalk broom being brushed across a hardwood floor. Cass strained to hear. Slowly, the whisking noises became a whisper, and the whisper became a word.
“Cass .”
Sweat stung the punctures caused by the bursting of the wooden beam. She squeezed the knife, unsure what to do. After a long wait, crouching slightly and leading with the knife, she pressed forward. Five steps. Then ten.
“Cass .”
The sound was barely there and seemed swallowed by the ice around her. Was it farther away? Or so close she could feel someone’s breath? She recoiled.
After a moment, the whisking sound began again . . . and this time she realized what it was.
Laughter.
White rage flooded her from somewhere deep inside. Screaming something incoherent, she dashed forward, swinging the knife back and forth like a flyswatter . . . but the blade made no contact, encountered nothing. The cold whisking sound faded. Cass stumbled forward, stabbing and punching and slashing at whoever had tried to turn her fears and memories against her. Even in the complete darkness, she felt like she could sense the other person so well that she could actually see them. Hysterical, she swung for the imagined face.
But there was nothing there. Staggering forward from the swing, her foot kicked something hard and unyielding—the door frame?—and she pitched forward with a yell. The knife flew from her hand; her breath was nearly knocked out of her body. Pain tore through her ankle.
She pulled herself off the ground and crouched in the dark, whimpering, terrified, ready for someone to attack. When nothing happened, she listened intently, hoping to catch a telltale sound. But all she could hear was her own tattered breathing.
After an infinite minute, she put a hand to the wall for support once again and pulled herself to her feet. Limping, cursing, and crying, she made her way blindly through the darkness.
CHAPTER SEVENTEEN
“And then you walked back to base.” Hanratty’s face was as blank and unreadable as a stone. “But didn’t tell anyone.”
Cass matched his stare. “I’m telling you.”
It had been a day since her harrowing journey through the tunnels. The tiny wounds she’d received from the exploding timber shoring weren’t serious, but the resin or the preservative in the wood had caused a reaction and her normally clear skin blazed like she had the measles. After staggering back to her quarters, she’d spent an hour picking out splinters, debating what she should do about her experience in the tunnels. Report it or keep the whole thing to herself? Expose herself to questions and potential ridicule, or act like it hadn’t occurred? She went back and forth with herself until, exhausted, she’d simply crawled into her bunk, giving herself permission to sleep on the issue.
The next morning, she’d decided there was no way she could simply ignore what had happened; her only choice was to tell either Hanratty or Taylor. Of the two of them, and despite her innate dislike of the man, her instinct told her Hanratty would handle the situation more professionally. But now looking at him across his desk, faced with his icy indifference, she had her doubts.
His gaze slid off her and over her shoulder. “Jennings, some of the infrastructure down there is nearly seventy years old. It’s not beyond comprehension that the lights might stop working.”
“What about the sewer pipe? The vertical split? That’s not natural.”
He shrugged. “Says who? I respect the fact that, of the two of
us, you’re the one with the degree in mechanical engineering. But strange things happen at the Pole, and just because a pipe broke in a different direction than you expected doesn’t mean there’s a grand conspiracy.”
She gritted her teeth. “And the person in the tunnel? The one who turned the lights out? The one who I almost knifed ?”
“But didn’t.” Hanratty ran his hands wide along the lip of his desk, like he was smoothing a wrinkle in a tablecloth. “You said you returned later.”
“Yes.” With three flashlights and a crowbar .
“You found evidence of this other person? Blood, maybe, or a footprint?”
Cass paused. “No.”
“Was the . . . assailant a man or a woman?”
She swallowed. “I don’t know.”
He nodded, as if expecting the answer. “And the voice . . . no help there?”
“No.”
“What did they say, again?”
“They whispered my name.”
“Demonstrate.”
She looked at him. “What?”
“Say it to me like you heard it.”
“Why?”
“I want to hear what you heard.”
“You’re serious?”
“Yes.”
Cass cleared her throat and lowered her voice to a whisper. “Cass.”
It sounded profoundly ridiculous. What had been sinister and life threatening in the darkness of the ice tunnel sounded like the soundtrack to a bad movie in the warmth of Hanratty’s office.
He looked down at the surface of his desk for a beat, then back up at her. “Jennings, how are you sleeping?”
“Oh for Christ—”
“How well?”
“Shitty,” she said, exasperated. “Just like everyone else on base. And that has nothing to do with what happened yesterday. I didn’t hallucinate this. Just like I didn’t hallucinate that person in the back of the VMF the day you, Taylor, and Keene were in my garage. Which I’d like to know more about, by the way.”
“What would you like to know?”
“Why were the three of you there? And who did I chase down the tunnel?”
Hanratty tilted his head as though unable to understand her. “I told you at the time that Taylor and I were overseeing the loading for the last flight. We’d just come from the warehouse and Keene had joined us because he was tired of sitting in his office. There isn’t much for a morale officer to do when eighty percent of the staff has left.”
Cass gritted her teeth at Hanratty’s infuriating equanimity. So helpful, so curious, so full of shit. “Was the person who ran down the tunnel also there to inspect the loading of the last flight?”
“I didn’t even know there was anyone in the back of the VMF. In fact, the three of us were surprised when you took off like a shot toward the carpentry shop.”
“You didn’t hear anything? See anything? Nothing out of the ordinary.”
The manager shook his head. “No. The only strange event was you sprinting out the back of the VMF like you were on fire.”
“You were gone when I got back.”
He shrugged. “Were we supposed to wait for you?”
Cass looked at him, sure he was lying, but unable to comprehend why. “You saw no one? Really?”
“I know you want me to say yes, but I didn’t. That doesn’t mean there wasn’t anyone there. It means I didn’t see them.”
“Why would they run away?”
“It was the last flight of the year. Everyone at Shackleton was trying to get that bird off the ground while conditions were good. Whoever you think you saw could’ve simply been one of a hundred different people trying to meet a deadline. You yourself were pulled in about a dozen different directions that day, correct?”
Cass put a hand to her head, then winced at the contact with the miniature puncture wounds. They weren’t running to do something. They were running away from something, from me . Was the runner the same person who had been in the tunnel yesterday, whispering her name? She opened her eyes to suggest that, then stopped.
Leaning backwards, Hanratty had reached a long arm out to a counter behind his chair. Stacks of folders lined the surface. He fished through the tallest pile, found what he was looking for, then straightened up, his chair making a creaking noise. Taking his time, he leafed through the dossier. Sheets of colored paper—white, pink, and green—lay in the folder like stripes of candy. Cass gripped the arms of her chair, all thoughts of continuing the discussion about the mysterious runner gone. She knew what was coming.
“You had an unfortunate accident several years ago, I understand.”
“Yes.” Her voice jumped and she had to take a second to get it back under control. But as she spoke, it climbed the scale again. “I put that behind me, I passed the tests, I’ve paid. Goddammit, I’ve paid every day and every night since that happened.”
“Jennings—”
“Don’t.” She skewered him with a finger. “Don’t you fucking dare. If you had a problem with my fitness to be here, you had plenty of time to review my file. I didn’t imagine what happened to me yesterday in that tunnel. My history doesn’t change that. I’m fit for the position and I’m more than mentally stable enough to remember when I’ve almost been attacked .”
His eyes so blank they might’ve been glass, Hanratty stared at her. “Jennings, I’m responsible for the lives of forty-four people on this base. Every one of them is important, their well-being paramount.”
“Then do your job and support me.”
Hanratty gently closed the folder. “I’m doing my job by questioning the veracity of what appears on the surface to be an outlandish claim. Can you see where I’m coming from?”
She said nothing.
“I’m glad we have an accord,” he said drily. “Now. I’ve officially heard your complaint. I’ll ask Deb to look into this. She may ask you to take her down to the tunnels and walk her through the . . . incident. Is that satisfactory?”
“Yes.” It was the best she could expect.
“I’m obligated to ask if you’d like to see Dr. Keene about this incident. Would you?”
“No.”
“You understand, also, that I have to tell him about this event. He may take the initiative to speak to you. Keene is allowed to conduct psych investigations that are beyond my purview to control. You can refuse to speak to him, but I don’t think that would be . . . wise.”
She closed her eyes, opened them, nodded.
He stopped speaking, as if considering something, then, “I would also ask you to keep this to yourself. Not to cover anything up. But let’s consider this from an extreme range of possibilities. On one hand, it could be a prank by somebody with a sick sense of humor, in which case making it public will just encourage them to do it again. Somebody will get stabbed eventually if he or she doesn’t stop.”
“And at the other end?”
He shrugged. “If someone was preparing to attack you, making it public knowledge would not only encourage them, it would tip them off that we’re watching.”
Cass felt something unclench inside her chest. Was this lip service? Or a modest effort to help her? Examining Hanratty’s face, it was impossible to tell. Residual aggravation from his early questions and the nagging sense he was just patronizing her still hung in the air, but at least he wasn’t throwing her out of his office.
“Is there anything else?” His tone indicated he didn’t think so.
“No.” She stood and had walked to the door when he stopped her.
“Jennings.”
She turned, but couldn’t bring herself to look at him. He waited until she’d raised her eyes to his. His face, normally severe, showed sympathy.
“You won’t believe it, but I’m on your side. More than you know.”
Cass had nothing to say. He nodded once, though, as if she had, and bent his head to look over a report open on his desk, dismissing her. As she left, she saw him reach for a single, white piece of paper fro
m a stack on the corner of his desk.
CHAPTER EIGHTEEN
Cass looked out the narrow window, trying to imagine a world without light.
“It will be dramatic,” Anne explained, holding her hands wide, “but not like a light switch being thrown. Refractive light from the sun will continue to bounce off of the atmosphere for several hours after it goes over the horizon. That’s what makes sunsets so pretty, right? Same thing here. The big difference is that our sunset starts six months of night.”
A week earlier, the astrophysicists had reminded the crew that the last day the sun would be above the horizon, March 23, would be coming soon. Anne had offered to bring a telescope to the galley and lead a vigil of sorts to watch it go down. A small group had taken her up on her offer and were now gathered in the galley to grab coffee and peek through a filtered telescope. Cass had debated whether she wanted to take part or not, but finally joined the group to clear her head and take her mind off of recent events.
“So, it won’t get dark instantly?” Pete asked.
“No. In fact, it will be dusk for quite a while. Technically, there are three stages—civil, nautical, and astronomical twilight—to describe how far below the horizon the sun is. Back home, we’re used to seeing each stage occur with every sunset and sunrise. But here, since our day is actually measured in months, each twilight will be weeks long.”
“So, when will it be totally dark?” Cass asked.
“To our eyes, it will seem dark in just a week or two,” Anne said. “But officially? Astronomical twilight ends in early May. After that, there will be zero celestial illumination except that coming from stars, the moon, and the auroras. That’s when it will be dark dark.”
“And, if I remember right, you guys will still have to hump out to COBRA for work,” Tim said with a matter-of-fact tone. “When it’s pitch black out, the wind is howling, the temp is eighty below, et cetera and so on?”
“That’s right, Tim,” Anne said sweetly, scratching her nose with an extended middle finger. There were a few chuckles, then she looked down at her watch. “Oh, get your cameras ready, everyone. There may be a green flash as it sets, just like at the beach. You’ll only get one chance to snap a picture before it’s gone.”
The Winter Over Page 13
