Authors: Scott Sigler
Colding tossed the last plastique ball and turned toward the
Otto II
, chancing a quick glance at his watch.
Twelve seconds.
He had only one chance. He opened the throttle and leaned forward, holding on tight as the Ski-Doo slammed toward the boat.
They didn’t have time to tie off. The Bv’s port side ground against the
Otto II
, breaking away ice that clung stubbornly to the starboard hull. Sara and Tim scrambled aboard as Gary pulled his dad out of the hatch. Clayton screamed in pain, but with his son’s help made it onto the boat.
Sara looked around for Colding but didn’t see him. “Gary! Where’s Colding?”
Gary ran to the short ladder leading to the boat’s flying bridge. As he climbed, he pointed out the port side.
Sara looked. There was Peej, driving toward them, Ski-Doo bouncing off the broken ice like a Jeep driving through a rutted gully.
She checked her watch.
Two, one …
Twenty-four balls of Demex plastic explosive detonated simultaneously. Ice chunks and shards flew like frozen shrapnel, some to land a good mile away.
A six-pointed ring erupted around the
Otto II
. The concussive force ripped inward, powerful enough to hit the ancestors closest to the boat and knock them into the frigid waters. Sara and Tim dove to the deck, ice flying all around them.
Colding was halfway between the ring and boat when the plastique detonated. The shock wave hit him from behind, so powerful it tumbled the Ski-Doo like a toy thrown by a petulant child. He flew through the air, the snowmobile spinning out from under him and smashing into a dozen pieces against the ice.
He landed fifteen feet from the boat’s port side, his limp body cartwheeling off the ice. He flew another ten feet to plunge into the newly open water just five feet from the boat.
Sara watched, horrified, as P. J.’s body vanished beneath the surface.
“Rope!”
She stripped off her jacket. “Get me some fucking rope!”
The
Otto II
’s engines roared to life. Gary looked down from the flying bridge and pointed to a footlocker.
She opened it and pulled out a long coil of red-and-white nylon rope. Then Gary was at her side, clumsy bandages across his chest showing huge splotches of red, some of them wet and fresh.
She handed him a loose end of the rope. “Tie it around my waist!” She peeled off her sweater and kicked off her boots as Gary tied the rough rope around her hips.
She turned on Gary. “You do
not
pull me up until I tug on the rope, understand?”
Gary shook his head. “You’ve only got a few seconds in that water, Sara, you can’t—”
She reached out and held the sides of his face.
“Pull me up before I tug, and I’ll
kill
you. Do you understand?”
Gary nodded.
Sara turned, put her foot on the side rail, then dove into the water.
The cold splash from the Bv’s brief submersion had been bad, but nothing like this. She tried to stay under as her body rebelled, instinctively pushed for the surface.
Get out get out get out
.
Her head popped out of the water, barely in time for her to let loose a scream of primitive, instinctive fear.
She looked up at the boat. Gary stood there, the white-and-red rope in his hands, a look on his face that said
Should I pull you in?
Sara didn’t answer the unasked question. She drew a huge, rattling breath, then forced herself under once again. The cold scraped her skin like a grater, driving at her with needles of pain. She kicked and kicked. Hard to see anything in the murky water.
So cold …
Her lungs screamed from lack of oxygen, but she dove farther. She wouldn’t leave him down there. She kept on kicking with all of her quickly fading energy.
Where is he? I can’t lose him …
She couldn’t see. Blood roared inside her head. Her heart banged like a kick drum, faster, faster.
Her hand smashed into a slimy rock at the bottom of the harbor. She couldn’t take any more,
had
to go up. She put her hands out to push away from the bottom, and her fingers hit something soft.
Soft like fabric.
She grabbed for it. It was a body—Colding’s body.
He’s not moving …
Sara wrapped her legs around his back and yanked on the rope. She immediately threw her arms under his shoulders, clutching him chest to chest in a desperate, loving embrace. The rope snapped taut around her waist, pulling them toward the surface.
Can’t breathe can’t breathe …
Sara’s mouth opened of its own accord. Icy water poured across her tongue, into her throat. She thrashed, panic taking her, yet she refused to let go.
Her head broke the surface. She gasped for air, coughing violently. She barely felt the hands pulling her into the boat. Her body shivered as if from an epileptic fit. Somebody pulled off her pants and wrapped a blanket around her before her thoughts became her own again.
She sat up. Tim was over Colding, performing CPR, blowing air into his mouth, then pumping his chest.
Unable to move, Sara watched while her lungs kicked out deep, chest-rattling coughs. Engines roared. She felt the boat lurch forward.
Colding coughed, sending a splash of water out of his lungs and onto his face. Tim turned him on his side. Colding coughed again, then Sara heard the sweet sound of air rushing into his lungs.
“Help me get his clothes off,” Tim said. Sara reached in. She and Tim pulled the waterlogged snowsuit off Colding’s body. Colding kept coughing,
but he obliged, weakly helping them remove his clothes. Sara moved to him and held him, their two naked, wet, frigid bodies wrapped in the same blanket. Gary threw a second blanket around them. It had blood on it—the same blanket he’d been wearing only moments earlier.
“You two will be fine,” Tim said. “I’ve got to look at Clayton.” He limped to the bow, leaving Sara and Colding clinging together, their bodies shivering in unison.
“Guess I owe you one,” Colding said through blue lips.
Sara nodded. “Guess so.”
They kissed, both sets of lips feeling icy and clammy, but it didn’t matter. All the death was forgotten in that moment, because she had life, and she had
him
.
They had won. Not without a heavy price, but it was over.
They had
survived
.
Huddling together, shivering together, they looked back to shore as the
Otto II
pulled away from Black Manitou Island.
COLDING’S LAST EIGHT plastique balls had made an arc behind the ancestor horde. The bombs shattered huge chunks of ice, enough to break off a massive slab that stranded the ancestors in the harbor.
They ran about the slab, looking for a way off, but there was nowhere for them to go. A small piece near the edge broke off under one’s weight—it fell into the water, thick limbs splashing uselessly. It lasted only a few seconds before it slid beneath the surface.
The main slab cracked in two. When it did, the seven ancestors at the edge of the left chunk proved to be too much weight—the slab tilted like a large teeter-totter. The seven tried to turn and run back up the ice, but it was too late: they all splashed into the water, doomed by their useless attempts at swimming.
The slab continued to break apart.
Sara and Colding heard the animals’ roars even over the wind and the
Otto
II’s full-out engine. One by one, the ancestors fell into the water and disappeared.
One last ancestor remained afloat. It was missing its left ear and had an all-white head save for a black patch on the left eye. It looked at the boat, seemed to look right at Sara and Colding. It opened its mouth and let out a huge, primitive roar of unbridled fury.
Colding saw something moving in the water, something with a wet,
black head. Could some of them swim after all? Then the image crystallized in his brain.
“Mookie,” Colding said quietly. He shouted up to the flying bridge, “Gary, stop the boat!”
The black Australian shepherd cut through the frigid waters, heading straight for the patch of ice that held the last ancestor.
“Mookie!” Colding shouted. “Get the hell away from there! Come here, girl!”
But the dog ignored him. She reached the ice patch and struggled to climb on top.
BABY MCBUTTER TURNED and saw the small creature. She had seen this prey before. It had been there when she’d torn her way free from the big animal, when she’d taken her first bite of the trapped prey with the wounded leg. This creature had attacked her,
hurt
her.
Baby McButter roared in wide-mouthed fury, challenging this new threat. The prey managed to clumsily scramble aboard the ice patch—it roared back, the
roroororoo
sound pitiful and small in comparison, but no less hateful, no less primitive.
Baby McButter took a step toward the prey, but stopped—the ice shifted with every movement. She’d seen all of her brethren enter the water and not come out. She had to stay still.
The little prey ran toward her, barking, stopping just out of claw-swipe range. Its black lip curled back to show small white teeth. It made threatening lunges.
It wouldn’t stop making that annoying noise.
COLDING LOOKED AWAY from the ice-top battle to see Tim helping Clayton move to the back of the boat.
“Dad!” Gary shouted down from the flying bridge. “Are you okay?”
“Good enough,” Clayton said. He looked up and smiled. “I’m proud of you, son. Now get me da hell out of here.”
Colding pointed out to the ice floe. “Clayton, you know that dumb-ass dog, call her in here! What the hell is she doing?”
Clayton leaned heavily on the rail and looked out. “We haven’t seen Sven, eh? I think he’s dead, and I think Mookie knows it. She’s getting some payback.”
Mookie barked so hard her body shook, pure fury encapsulated in wet black fur. The last ancestor took a tentative
snap
. Mookie easily danced away, kept barking, kept snarling.
The one-eared ancestor reared back its head, then lunged at the dog. The ice floe tilted instantly, sending dog and ancestor into the frigid harbor. The ice righted itself, splashing back into the water. A huge white head with a black eye spot surfaced. The ancestor’s long claws splashed feebly, hitting the edge of the ice. Chunks broke off with each swipe, giving the creature no purchase. It opened its mouth for one last roar, then slid below the surface.
Colding looked hard, hoping,
wishing
. Finally, he saw a small patch of black cutting through the ice-filled water.
“Come on, girl!”
The dog looked exhausted. She paddled straight for the boat. Waves lifted her, buffeted her. She panted, spitting out water in big, cheek-puffing gasps. Colding reached out as far as he could. Sara weakly held his legs, letting him stretch even farther. Mookie dipped under, then popped back up. She slowed. Colding reached farther … and his fingers grabbed the dog’s collar. He dragged her to the rail. Sara reached over and helped him pull the exhausted, tuck-tailed dog onboard. Mookie collapsed between Colding and Gary Detweiler, shivering madly, chest heaving: one more exhausted, wounded survivor of the disaster.
Her tail slapped wetly against the deck.
Finally, it was over.
The six survivors of Black Manitou Island headed out into the churning waters of Lake Superior.
HE STOOD ON the dune ridge, left paw up and against his chest, watching the prey float away on yet another noisy thing. The wind blew into his face, carrying their scent. He wanted the skinny prey, wanted to tear them to pieces, but now for a new reason.
That reason? Baby Moos-A-Lot wanted to kill them. He wanted revenge. They had killed his brethren and his leader. But he didn’t want to eat them because for the first time in his short four-day life he wasn’t hungry anymore.
One of the skinny things had stung his mouth with the stick. He pushed his thick tongue against the spot, feeling where a tooth was not. It had also stung him in the paw, so bad it was hard to walk. Baby Moos-A-Lot hadn’t been able to keep up with the others. He’d arrived just in time to see the leader fall into the water. Fall in, and not come back up.
Hatred. Hatred for the skinny prey, and it felt much,
much
stronger than even his worst hunger pangs.
A noise behind him. He wheeled, bared his gap-toothed maw, ready for a three-legged charge.
But it wasn’t a skinny thing. It was one of his kind. Scorched black skin covered the right side of its head. The right eye was a hollow socket rimmed with wetness. There were more burns on its right shoulder, down the side.
He was upwind and hadn’t smelled his own until now. This close, however, the rich stench of scorched fur and burnt flesh filled his wounded nose. He also recognized a signature scent: no other of his kind would smell quite like that. If there were any others of his kind left.
And he smelled one more thing, a smell that affected him in an exciting new way.
It was the smell of … a female.
THE RED SQUIRREL stopped and stared at the treasure trove.
A pile of pinecones.
She smelled the seeds inside. So yummy. And she was so hungry.
There were other smells, too. The smell of a dead animal. The smell of another squirrel—faint and strange, but still there.
She looked up, eyes scanning for the silhouettes programmed into her instincts: small head close to wings, long wide tail, the silhouettes of hawks and owls. Nothing. She scurried a few feet closer, then stopped again.
Now she smelled a new smell, a
strange
smell. Some kind of animal, but one she’d never known before. Anything new made her want to run. But such a pile of pinecones! So much food!
She moved closer. The pile of cones sat near a hole in the ground next to a small white tree. A hole like the rabbits made. And next to the hole was a shiny thing just a little bigger than the squirrel herself. Like a piece of tree branch, but thicker, smoother. The round sides were a dark red, with spots of white like the snow. The sun glinted off its top. That sight made her
more
hungry, because usually when she saw that shiny shape, nearby there were crinkly things with salty food inside.
Movement.
She scrambled away, then stopped and looked back. Movement
behind
the pinecones. The fluff of a squirrel tail. One of her own, already eating the pinecones! But those were
her
pinecones!
She sprinted in, came around the pile to drive the competitor away.
A glimpse of horror—nothing
but
a tail! Danger! She turned to flee, but felt a stabbing pain in her back. She squealed and tried to run, but something lifted her into the air. Her feet kicked on emptiness. She twisted her head to attack the pain in her back, bit down on something hard.
Even in her panic, she recognized the taste.
Bone
.
A bone, long and thin like a stick. At the other end was the unknown animal that produced the new smell. The squirrel couldn’t turn all the way around, but she saw glimpses of white skin and a head covered in long, heavy black fur.
The creature holding the bone was dragging her into the hole. Darkness covered her, just the spot of light shining in from above. Her little feet dug into dirt and scrabbled, pushed, clawed, but it made no difference. The thing in her back pulled her down and down, the stench of death grew thicker.
She saw big, curved white bones scored everywhere with gnaw marks. She was
inside
something dead. The pain!
The spot of light seemed so far away. She felt something grab her, hold
her. She squealed and squealed. Her head thrashed, she snapped her jaws, anything to escape, to
survive
.
Crushing pressure on the back of her neck. Her body stiffened, then relaxed. She felt a chunk of herself torn away. Small mouth opening and closing, tiny breaths slowing, she finally stopped moving enough to see her surroundings.
She saw the torn, meatless corpses of her kind, stacked into a neat pile of fur and bones.