Ice Cold

6

I DON’T SEE ANY POWER LINES,” SAID ARLO.

“You mean I can’t recharge my iPod?” asked Grace.

“They could have underground lines,” Doug suggested. “Or generators. It’s the twenty-first century. Nobody lives without electricity.” He adjusted his backpack. “Come on, it’s a long walk. We want to get down there before dark.”

They started down the slope, where the wind stung like icy nettles and the drifts made every step hard labor. Doug led the way, breaking a trail through deep virgin snow, with Grace, Elaine, and Arlo following in a line behind him. Maura brought up the rear. Though they were moving downhill, the ever-deepening snow made it an exhausting hike. No one was talking now; it took all their effort just to keep slogging ahead.

Nothing about this day had turned out the way Maura had expected. If only we’d ignored the GPS and followed the map, she thought. We’d be at that lodge right now, sipping wine in front of a fire. If only I’d turned down Doug’s invitation in the first place, I wouldn’t be stuck with these people at all. I’d be back in my own hotel, warm and safe for the night. Safety was the option she almost always chose. Safe investments, safe cars, safe travel. The only risks she’d ever taken had been with men, and every one of those had turned out badly. Daniel, and now Douglas. Note to self: In future, avoid men whose names begin with D. Aside from that, the two men were nothing alike. That had been Doug’s charm, the fact that he was wild and a little reckless. He’d made her want to be reckless as well.

This is the result, she thought as she stumbled down the mountainside. I’ve let an impulsive man lead me into this mess. Worst of all, he refused to acknowledge how serious their predicament was, a predicament that only seemed to be worsening. In Doug’s sunny world, everything was always going to turn out okay.

The light was starting to fade. They’d been walking at least a mile now, and her legs felt heavy as lead. If she dropped right here from exhaustion, the others might not even hear it. Once darkness fell, no one would be able to find her. By morning, she would be covered in snow. How easy it was to disappear out here. Get lost in a snowstorm, vanish beneath a drift, and the world would have no idea what became of you. She had told no one in Boston about this overnight jaunt. For once, she’d tried to be spontaneous, to jump aboard and enjoy the ride, as Doug had urged her. And it had been her chance to put Daniel out of her mind and declare her independence. Convince herself that she was still her own woman.

Her shoulder bag slipped off, sending her cell phone tumbling into the snow. She snatched it up, brushed away icy flakes, and checked the reception. Still zero bars. Useless piece of junk out here, she thought, and turned it off to conserve the battery. She wondered if Daniel had called. Would he become alarmed when she didn’t return any of his voice mails? Or would he think she was purposefully ignoring him? Would he simply wait for her to break the silence?

If you wait too long, I could be dead.

Suddenly angry at Daniel, at Douglas, at the whole miserable, screwed-up day, she attacked the final drift and charged ahead like a bull through hip-deep snow. She staggered out of the drift and followed the others onto level ground, where they all halted to catch their breaths, gasping out frosty clouds. Snowflakes fluttered down like white moths and landed with soft tick-ticks.

In the deepening gloom, two rows of identical houses stood dark and silent. All the buildings had the same sloping rooflines, the same attached garages, the same porches, even the same porch swings. Right down to the number of windows, the houses were eerily perfect clones of one another.

“Hello?” Doug yelled. “Is anyone here?”

His voice echoed back from the surrounding mountains and faded to silence.

Arlo shouted: “We come in peace! And we bring credit cards!”

“This isn’t funny,” said Elaine. “We could freeze to death.”

“Nobody’s going to freeze to death,” said Doug. He stomped up the steps to the covered porch of the nearest house and banged on the door. He waited a few seconds and banged again. The only sound was the creak of the porch swing, its seat frosted with windblown snow.

“Just break in,” said Elaine. “This is an emergency.”

Doug turned the knob, and the door swung open. He glanced back at the others. “Let’s hope no one’s waiting in there with a shotgun.”

Inside the house, it was no warmer. They stood shivering in the gloom, exhaling steam like five fire-breathing dragons. The last gray light of day was fading in the window.

“Does anyone happen to have a flashlight?” asked Doug.

“I think I do,” said Maura, hunting in her purse for the mini Maglite she always carried while on the job. “Damn it,” she muttered. “I just remembered I left it at home. I didn’t think I’d need it at a conference.”

“Is there a light switch somewhere?”

“Nothing on this wall,” said Elaine.

“I can’t find any outlets at all,” said Arlo. “There’s nothing plugged in anywhere.” He paused. “You know what? I don’t think this place has any electricity.”

For a moment they stood without speaking, too demoralized to say a word. They heard no clocks ticking, no refrigerators humming. Just the vacuum of dead space.

The sudden clang of metal made Maura jump.

“Sorry,” said Arlo, standing near the hearth. “I knocked over one of the fireplace tools.” He paused. “Hey, there are matches here.”

They heard the whick of a match head being struck. In the flickering light of the flame they saw firewood stacked by the stone hearth. Then the match went out.

“Let’s get a fire going,” said Doug.

Maura remembered the newspaper she’d bought at the gas station and pulled it out of her purse. “You need some paper to get it started?”

“No, there’s a pile right here.”

In the darkness, they heard Doug rummage for kindling, crumpling newspapers. He struck another match and the paper caught fire.

“Let there be light,” said Arlo.

And there was. And heat, too, blessed waves of it as the kindling lit. Doug added two logs to the fire and they all moved close, savoring the heat and the cheery glow.

They could see more of the room now. The furnishings were wood, plain and simply made. A large braided rug covered the wood floor near the hearth. The walls were bare, except for a framed poster of a man with coal-black eyes and a thick mane of dark hair, his gaze turned reverently toward the heavens.

“There’s an oil lamp here,” said Doug. He lit the wick and smiled as the room brightened. “We’ve got light and we’ve got a nice pile of wood. If we just keep that fire going, it should start to get warm in here.”

Maura suddenly frowned at the hearth, which was still littered with old ashes. The fire was burning cleanly, the flames leaping up like jagged teeth. “We didn’t open the flue,” she said.

“It seems to be burning okay,” said Doug. “There’s no smoke.”

“That’s my point.” Maura crouched down and looked up at the chimney. “The flue was already open. That’s weird.”

“Why?”

“When you close down your house for the winter, wouldn’t you normally clean up the old ashes and close the flue?” She paused. “Wouldn’t you lock your door?”

They were silent for a moment as the fire burned, consuming wood that hissed and popped. Maura saw the others glance nervously around at the shadows and knew that the same thought must be going through their heads. Did the occupants ever leave?

Doug rose to his feet and picked up the oil lamp. “I think I’ll check out the rest of the house.”

“I’m coming with you, Daddy,” said Grace.

“Me, too,” said Elaine.

Now they were all on their feet. No one wanted to be left behind.

Doug led the way down a hallway, and the oil lamp cast moving shadows on the walls. They entered a kitchen with pine floors and cabinets and a wood-burning cookstove. Over the soapstone sink was a hand pump for drawing well water. But what drew everyone’s attention was the dining table.

On that table were four plates, four forks, and four glasses of frozen milk. Food had congealed on the plates-something dark and lumpy alongside concrete mounds of mashed potatoes, all of it coated in a fine layer of frost.

Arlo poked a fork at one of the dark lumps. “Looks like meatballs. So which plate do you suppose was Baby Bear’s?”

No one laughed.

“They just left their dinner here,” said Elaine. “They poured milk, set food on the table. And then…” Her voice faded and she looked at Doug.

In the gloom, the oil lamp suddenly flickered as a draft swept the kitchen. Doug crossed to the window, which had been left open, and slid it shut. “This is weird, too,” he said, frowning down at a layer of snow that had accumulated in the sink. “Who leaves their windows open when it’s freezing outside?”

“Hey, look. There’s food in here!” Arlo had opened the pantry cabinet to reveal shelves stocked with supplies. “There’s flour. Dried beans. And enough canned corn, peaches, and pickles to last us till Doomsday.”

“Leave it to Arlo to find dinner,” said Elaine.

“Just call me the ultimate hunter-gatherer. At least we’re not going to starve.”

“As if you’d ever let that happen.”

“And if we light that woodstove,” said Maura, “it will heat up the place faster.”

Doug looked up toward the second floor. “Assuming they didn’t leave any other windows open. We should check the rest of the house.”

Again, no one wanted to be left behind. Doug poked his head into the empty garage, then moved to the foot of the staircase. He lifted his oil lamp, but the light revealed only shadowy steps rising into blackness. They started up, Maura in the rear, where it was darkest. In horror films, it was always the rear guard who got picked off first, the hapless character at the end of the column who caught the arrow in the back, the first blow of the ax. She glanced over her shoulder, but all she saw behind her was a well of shadows.

The first room Doug stopped at was a bedroom. They all crowded through the doorway and found a large sleigh bed neatly made up. At the foot was a pine hope chest over which a pair of blue jeans had been draped. A man’s size thirty-six with a worn leather belt. Across the floor was a dusting of snow, blown in through yet another open window. Doug closed it.

Maura went to the dresser and picked up a photo with a simple tin frame. Four faces gazed back: a man and a woman, flanking two young girls of about nine or ten, their blond hair neatly bound into braids. The man had slicked-back hair and an unyielding gaze that seemed to dare anyone to challenge his authority. The woman was plain and pale, her blond hair braided, her features so colorless she seemed to recede into the background. Maura pictured that woman working in the kitchen, wisps of white-blond hair escaping her braid and feathering her face. Imagined her setting down plates and forks and dishing out food. Mounds of mashed potatoes, helpings of meat and gravy.

And then what had happened? What would make a family abandon their meal and leave it to harden to ice?

Elaine grabbed Doug’s arm. “Did you hear that?” she whispered.

They all went dead-still. Only then did Maura hear the creaking, like footsteps moving across the floor.

Slowly, Doug moved into the hall and toward the second doorway. Holding his lamp high, he stepped into the room, revealing another bedroom.

All at once Elaine laughed. “God, we’re idiots!” She pointed to the closet, where a door was creaking back and forth, propelled by gusts that blew in the open window. In relief, she sank onto one of the two twin beds. “An empty house, that’s all this is! And we’ve managed to scare the hell out of ourselves.”

“Speak for yourself,” said Arlo.

“Oh right. Like you weren’t freaking out.”

Maura closed the window and stared out at the night. She saw no lights, no sign that anyone else in the world was alive except them. On the desk was a stack of school workbooks. Independent Home Study Program. Level 4. She flipped open the cover to a page of spelling exercises. The pupil’s name had been printed on the inside cover: Abigail Stratton. One of the two girls in the photo, she thought. This is their room. But gazing around at the walls, she saw little to indicate that preteen girls lived here. There were no movie posters, no photos of teen idols. Only two twin beds, neatly made up, and those schoolbooks.

“I think we can now say this house is all ours,” said Doug. “We’ve just got to sit tight until someone comes looking for us.”

“What if no one does?” asked Elaine.

“Someone’s bound to miss us. We had reservations at that lodge.”

“They’ll just think we stood them up. And we’re not due back at work till after Thanksgiving. That’s nine days from now.”

Doug looked at Maura. “You’re supposed to fly home tomorrow, right?”

“Yes, but no one knows I came with you, Doug. They won’t know where to start looking.”

“Why the hell would anyone look here?” Arlo pointed out. “This is the middle of nowhere! It’ll be spring before the road clears, which means months could go by before they find us.” Arlo sank on the twin bed, next to Elaine, and dropped his head in his hands. “Jesus, we are fucked.”

Doug looked around at his dispirited companions. “Well, I’m not panicking. We have food and firewood, so we won’t starve and we won’t freeze.” He gave Arlo a hearty slap on the back. “Come on, man. It’s an adventure. It could be a lot worse.”

“How much worse?” said Arlo.

No one answered. No one wanted to.