Terminal Freeze

20

The shudder of a slamming door; a shake of the mattress; a rough jostling of his shoulder. Josh Peters stretched, plucked the buds from his ears. As his dream and the pianistic musings of McCoy Tyner both faded into memory, the sounds of reality-and Fear Base-returned: distant clangs, the incessant tapping of the heating pipes, and the impatient voice of his roommate, Blaine.

“Josh. Hey, Josh. Get the hell up.”

Peters snapped off his music player and blinked his eyes open. Blaine ’s red, wind-chapped face swam into focus.

“What?” Peters mumbled.

“What ‘what’? It’s your turn, man. I’ve been out in that shit for an hour.”

Peters struggled to a sitting position, then collapsed again back onto the cot.

“You’d better hurry up. It’s past nine and you wouldn’t want Wolff to catch you still racked out.”

That did it. Peters got up from the bed and rubbed his face vigorously with his hands.

“The whole thing’s crazy,” Blaine said in a petulant voice. “We’ve been searching an entire day already. Nobody’s going to find anything in that storm. Just do what I did: walk in circles, look busy, and try to keep your ass from freezing.”

Peters didn’t reply. He tugged on a shirt and stepped into his shoes. Maybe he could remain half asleep through this, then return to his bunk and pick up where he’d left off: a delightful reverie in which Ashleigh Davis had been rubbing hazelnut-infused massage oil-the edible kind-all over…

“When we get back, the union’s going to hear about this. I mean, I’m supposed to be maintaining the digital library and logging takes, not out searching for the abominable snowman. And another thing. Why are they making us look outside? Why can’t we be like Fortnum and Toussaint, searching the lockers?”

“Because we’re PAs. Doesn’t take a rocket scientist to figure that out.” And Peters shuffled out, shoes untied, leaving the door wide open.

He made his way, in a somnambulistic haze, along the corridors and up an echoing stairwell to the entrance plaza. It was deserted except for the army engineer manning the security station. Peters gave a desultory wave as he shuffled into the weather chamber, opened his locker, and put on his parka. Blaine was right: this was bullshit. To begin with, half of the base was off-limits to them. If he had wanted to hide the carcass, he’d make sure to find a way to stow it someplace the others wouldn’t be allowed to search. Or in the quarters of the army guys, maybe-they probably wouldn’t be much inclined to let a bunch of faggoty film types paw over all their gear. But the bottom line was, only an idiot would stow the creature inside the base. Not only were there too many pairs of eyes everywhere, but the place was warm and humid enough to grow orchids. A carcass hidden somewhere-especially a ten-thousand-year-old carcass-would start to stink in a matter of hours. No: anybody with half a brain would have stowed it outside.

Which was precisely where he was headed.

Peters stopped to enter his name and the time into the logbook Wolff had placed in the chamber. Then he walked through the staging area, opened the main doors, and stepped outside. At the first biting blast of wind, the last clinging vestiges of drowsiness were brutally ripped away. Any hopes he’d entertained of getting back to sleep after his one-hour shift had been in vain. He’d heard about the bad weather that had come in, pinned them down, kept planes from either landing or taking off. Hearing about it was one thing-experiencing it firsthand was something else. He staggered back against the outer doors, lowered his head, leaned into the blast. Sharp cold needles stung his cheeks and he retreated farther into the fur lining of his hood. Through the tumbling sheets of ice and snow he could make out the faint silhouettes of the outlying structures. He took a tentative step forward, then another. It was so dim it seemed more like night than day. Gaffer’s rigging and scaffolding swayed like giant Tinkertoy constructions, creaking with protest under the fierce gusts.

Searches in shifts: one hour on, eleven hours off. Six searchers inside, six outside-the latter number reduced to three in the stormy weather. Even so, it was hard to believe there were two other poor saps out here with him, searching uselessly in this shit. This was beyond crazy. What were Wolff and Conti smoking, anyway?

Face away from the wind, he plodded forward a dozen steps to a storage shed, its door rattling fretfully in its frame. He paused a moment, then tacked left to the outbuilding that served as temporary prop fabrication. He peered in through the window: empty, of course. Was it really just two days before that he’d lounged in there, chewing on a piece of chipotle-flavored beef jerky and scoffing at the army types and lame-assed scientists who were stuck in this godforsaken place? Now those same soldiers and scientists were inside, warm and dry-and he was out here freezing.

With a curse he moved forward again, counting the steps-ten, twenty, thirty-until he reached the ice-road trucker’s cab. He huddled behind one of the huge tires, partially sheltered from the wind and snow. He’d been outside less than five minutes and he felt numb already.

Once again he wondered about the two others who were supposed to be out here, searching. He upbraided himself for not checking the logbook when he’d signed in. A little company might make the time pass quicker. He opened his mouth to shout for them, then-feeling the wind immediately snatch the breath from his lungs-thought better of it. Why waste energy when nobody could hear him, anyway?

He shuffled forward again until the heavy chain-link of the perimeter fence abruptly materialized out of the gray soup. He stopped, extending one hand to brush the fence. He’d been warned not to stray far from the base in this weather, and with polar bears roaming the tundra he planned to heed that advice, big-time. He walked another few steps to the corrugated metal walls of the deserted security station, then stepped past it. He’d make one circuit of the base, keeping an arm’s length from the fence. That’s as much as anyone could expect. Then he’d go hide in some outbuilding for the remainder of his hour, try to warm up.

Rounding the security station, he stepped out of the perimeter apron and onto the permafrost. The wind seemed to redouble its fury. He trudged ahead more quickly now, one step, another, and then another…He staggered forward like a blind man, one hand trailing along the fence, his eyes all but closed against the ice pellets. The shriek of the wind filled his head, making his ears ring strangely. Already it seemed like he’d been out here forever. Jesus, this was awful. Blaine was right: he’d file a grievance not only with the union but with the channel as well. He’d do it as soon as he could get online; he wouldn’t even wait until they were back in New York. It didn’t matter if he was just a production assistant: his job description didn’t include anything like this, and all Wolff’s talk of “emergency measures” was nothing but a crock of…

He paused. His hand fell away from the fence, and he looked around, temporarily heedless of the brutal cold and stinging wind.

Why had he stopped? He’d seen nothing. And yet suddenly his senses were on full alert, his heart hammering in his chest. Living well east of Tompkins Square Park had honed his instinct for self-preservation-but he wasn’t in New York City, he was in the middle of frigging nowhere.

He shook his head, moved forward-then stopped again. What was that noise that seemed to come from everywhere and nowhere, that made the inside of his head feel like it was stuffed with bees? And what was that shape, dark and indistinct, in the tumbling hail of snow ahead of him?

“Who’s there?” he called out, the wind snatching away the words as quickly as he uttered them.

He blinked, peered more closely-and then with a piercing shriek of terror tumbled backward, turned, and, half falling, half staggering, fled in the direction of the security station. Screaming and gibbering in sudden mindless fear, Peters made it two more steps before a devastating blow from behind knocked him to his knees, wheezing, eyes bulging-and then a violent, unimaginable pain abruptly blossomed between his shoulder blades. Yawning darkness claimed him for its own.