Snowman (15 page)

Bradford paced off a hundred yards. The men took various positions to fire. Packard was crouched; Spider was upright; Jamie kneeled. They sighted the boulder through the telescopic sights. Bradford held a stopwatch, then gave the order to fire individually.

The four shots reached the target area in one and nine tenths seconds. The arrows were within eight inches of one another, and Bradford was satisfied that there was no question of the crossbow's accuracy, although the men made various adjustments. He kept them practicing for twenty minutes, until the shots were within three inches of one another. Because the wind died down for a time, the velocity increased to just over one second.

Bradford signaled Carlos to bring him the armed arrow. It was in a lead container. Bradford examined the warhead. It was cup-shaped and covered with a transparent material. Inside he saw a miniaturized pendulum and copper-colored hammer. He was conscious of Ashby taking pictures of him and said bitterly, "Now, we're not fucking around playing games. Get the hell back."

Bradford stood upright, set the arrow on the aircraft cable, then pressed the zoom button on the sight, bringing the boulder inches away from his right eye. He released the automatic trigger and watched the flight of the red-fletched arrow.

The arrow struck the exposed patch of rock and adhered. Virtually instantaneously, the boulder began to disintegrate. Huge shards of stone flew into the air; there was a deep smoking hole where the giant boulder had been.

Ashby shielded his eyes from the flash of light, while the men cheered jubilantly. Monte put his arms around Carlos's shoulders and did an absurd little jig with him. The test had been perfect.

"What about fallout and contamination?" Ashby asked.

"Minimal in these conditions."

Bradford nodded and said, "Pay the man, Monte."

"You're a brave but naive man, Dan. You don't think I would have boarded the plane without my money," Carlos said.

"What if it didn't work?" Bradford asked.

"Mr. Dale could have tried to sue me," he said with a complacent air.

The chopper brought them all back to the lodge. During the short trip, Bradford saw the slopes filled with people skiing with various degrees of proficiency. It had begun to snow, and he had deep misgivings. The skiers might be exposed to an attack in these conditions. But there was easy laughter among his team, and he decided to hold back his concern. This was the first time since he recruited them that they were acting like friends with a common purpose. He'd let them take the rest of the day off. They'd begin the climb tomorrow morning.

Outside the warming hut, mobs of people patiently waited in line for their turn on the lifts. A holiday atmosphere was evident in spite of the heavy snow which struck at them. Many of the men wore face masks; the women were colorfully outfitted in fashionable ski suits. A group of young children below the ski school had built a snowman and were pelting it with snowballs.

Bradford watched through his binoculars and remembered how as a boy he had waited in all kinds of weather for his turn to get on the T-bar. He would ski from eight till four, forgetting to eat lunch. The sensation of actually flying when he was coming down a run was embedded in his consciousness. He had been truly free, a boy on a pair of wooden Head skis a bit too long for him, and he had navigated mountains with the joy of someone making a discovery.

When he was no more than eight he had realized that he would never be able to settle down like his parents and their friends. There was too much to do in a short lifetime for him to stay put; he had a secret desire which he nurtured all through his adolescence. He wanted to fly. Not in a plane or a copter, but to take off from the slopes and float through the air. He believed that one day he would. He would leave the slopes at the end of each day in a state of profound exhilaration. Skiing for him was the ultimate high, capturing the magical properties of the unknown. He spent hours during the summer sitting in the town library, poring over maps of mountains; he knew by heart the height of the hundred highest mountains in the world. Everest always held him fast, and before he went to sleep he would chant the Sherpa word for it: "
Chomolungma!
Goddess Mother of the world."

Now he looked up at the slopes and had a moment of regret.

The practice had gone better than Barry had any right to expect. He had skied out of the shoot on the experts' slope. The slope angled downhill to a sheer forty-five degrees. His speed neared seventy miles an hour, and he made perfect christies. He had forced himself back into a routine, even agreeing to teach a beginners' class as therapy.

Unfortunately, his afternoon was spoiled by a difficult pupil. A practical joker by the name of Willie was constantly interrupting him and cutting up. If the kid got out of line one more time, Barry was determined to leave him behind after they skied this run.

He waited a short distance down the slope and called out to a young woman: "Bend your knees and turn."

She did precisely the opposite—leaning back, failing to flex her knees forward—and flopped on her can. He sidestepped up the slope and helped her get back in her right ski. He adjusted the binding. Above them Willie was shouting at the woman, "Fat horse, you need a sled!"

"Shut up, Willie!" Barry called out angrily. It took a great deal for him to lose his cool, but this monster was the limit. Now that the woman was back on her skis, Barry took her arm and guided her down past a mogul. "Press your ankles against your boots so that you feel them, and keep those knees bent," he counseled. They reached the spot near the cross-country trail and stopped. Barry waved on the class one by one; several of them were making progress, Which pleased him.

"Okay, Willie, you're doing fine . . ."

Despite his obnoxiousness, the boy had that fearlessness that comes with ignorance. He made two perfect turns, but then, instead of stopping at the rear of the group, he gathered speed and headed directly for the five people in the class. In their anxiety to get out of his way, they were forced to lurch sideways, and they tripped over their skis. The whole class, including Barry, fell.

"Got you, fatso," Willie cawed at the woman, who had just gained some confidence after Barry had led her down. Willie skied past them without losing his balance and headed for the cross-country trail. His middle finger was raised in a "screw you" gesture.

Barry struggled to his feet and shouted, "That's it! You're finished! Now, goddamn it, stop and wait for me!"

Willie skied through the patch of forest alongside the run. A pine forest dense with trees almost sixty feet high blocked off the afternoon sun. The snow from the branches was whipped off in sudden flurries by wind gusts. Willie looked up and saw the gondola cars passing slowly above him. He bent down and picked up a hardened piece of snow. He was transfixed by the bright crystalline light it threw off. He sniggered with delight, visualizing packing soft snow around it and slamming the ski instructor right in the face with it. He put it in his pocket; he would save it for the right moment.

He skied down a small hill. Something in the distance caught his eye. He'd been right last night. He
had
seen something move, trailing the gondola. Surrounding him were a series of enormous wedge-shaped tracks, leading deeper into the forest. If this was a new species of animal and he discovered it, he'd become world-famous and make a fortune. He'd buy all the condominiums and resell them at a huge profit. The tracks led to a clearing, and he peered through some high evergreen bushes to see where they continued. The trail became bumpy, and he almost lost his balance as he tried to separate the bushes to get a better perspective.

He stopped moving when he heard an odd humming sound coming from somewhere behind him. Through the thicket of trees, a sharp ray of light struck a mound of snow beside him. He shielded his eyes from the intense glare and jumped back when the snow burst into flames. It smoked, then turned black, and he began to scream.

The animal was moving toward him. Lurching back to avoid it, Willie fell. It was making a sound like a bear. Long, gnarled fingers groped toward him; then he saw sharp claws flick from the fingers, like switchblade knives.

He began to cry and plead, but the claws ripped at his parka and he was lifted off the ground. He was carried higher and higher, almost to the tops of the trees. Blood oozed from his mouth. The claws were tearing at his flesh. He looked down and saw that his right leg had been torn off at the hip. He fell into deep shock.

"Willie, Willie, goddamn you, if you're hiding I'll bust your head!" Barry struggled along the narrow cross-country path. He stopped and picked up a short ski pole. "Willie, are you okay?" The snow became heavier, and Barry dropped his goggles and strained to see where he was going. Behind him the snow hissed as though it was on fire, and the smell became putrid as though flesh was burning. Barry wanted to vomit. As he moved more surely now, where the mouth of the path widened, an explosion of blood and tissue descended from above him, drenching him.

"Oh, God, no," he said weakly when he saw the giant horned gray body towering over him. There was a hideous grinding of teeth which threw off blinding sparks, charring his clothes. He flung himself against a tree to put out the fire on his sleeve. He was suddenly seized by his head; teeth were driving demonically through his flesh.

Bradford sat with Cathy on the porch of the warming hut, drinking a rum toddy. His attention was caught by some kind of trouble on the slopes. A siren from the ski patrol resounded frantically. Moving down the center run was an object traveling with tremendous speed, which the skiers were attempting to dodge. Bradford rushed down the metal-runged steps and held up his binoculars.

"What happened?" Cathy asked.

"Oh, shit, no!" he said, dropping the binoculars. "Don't look," he said, turning her away forcibly, but she had already caught a glimpse of it.

"I—" She began to weep, and held her hand to her mouth.

Coming to rest at the ski school was a headless bloody torso with one leg still attached to it.

A sheet of heavy snow obliterated Bradford's vision as he rushed up to the school. People on the slopes were injured, screaming for help, and rolling down head over heels. On the P.A. system, over the siren, a man's voice kept repeating "Code Three, Code Three . . ."

The wailing of the people gained intensity until it reached a crescendo. Ski instructors jammed onto gondolas and lifts in an effort to rescue the people who had fallen. A low underground noise gained force. Gigantic séracs crumbled below the summit and thundered down the runs in enormous blocks, creating tremendous fissures in the ice.

The mountain itself appeared to cleave open for an instant as the avalanche spread, jarring eaves of snow into enclosed valleys on the mountain's flanks. These cwms overflowed with snow and ice and were unable to contain the rocks and boulders which came down in a steady, unrelenting cascade.

Bradford helped a middle-aged man to his feet, then grabbed hold of two crying children and carried them down to ground level. Ambulances and police sirens whined in the background.

In just over an hour the lodge resembled a military field hospital. Dozens of people had broken arms and legs; others had suffered fractured skulls and concussion.

Nine were dead.

Cathy watched the gondola taking the men up the mountain. The wind cut at her face as she tried to keep it in sight; she wanted to keep alive the final brief moment she had had with Bradford. When most of the injured had been carried to ambulances, he had assembled his men outside the lodge. Then he had taken her aside and put his arms around her.

"I'll be back."

"I won't count on it," she replied.

"It wouldn't have mattered to me one way or the other a while ago, but now it does."

The gondola vanished and she headed back to the lodge. There was a crush of people in the lobby—grieving and panic-stricken, searching for their mates and lost children. Squads of state troopers tried to restore order, and one of the officers kept repeating over the loudspeaker: "Keep calm. Please return to your rooms. Don't attempt to leave yet. The roads have to be kept free for rescue squads." His voice was drowned out by caterwauling cries of terror and hysteria. People were being knocked down as others flooded the exits. There was no place that was safe.

Cathy slipped out of an emergency exit in the bar and ran toward Monte's office. Red and amber lights on the mass of squad cars wormed a dizzying pattern as they flashed across her line of sight. She became disoriented for a few moments and leaned against the porch rail of a deserted town house. The door was open; skis, boots, and clothing were scattered on the floor. Water was running in a bathtub which had overflowed; it seeped slowly across the floor. She caught her breath and pushed through a group of reporters, who had arrived in helicopters from all over the state. Cameramen with miniaturized hand-held cameras panned across the shattered runs. Interviewers shoved microphones in the shocked faces of eyewitnesses, who babbled incoherently about the avalanche.

She knocked on Monte's locked door and shouted her name. The door opened a few inches, and Ashby let her in. The phones rang, but no one in the room seemed to have the will to answer them. She took the receivers off and looked from Ashby to the sheriff. Monte sat numbly at his desk, impotent and frightened.

"What are we going to say?" she insisted.

"Ice weakness caused by an earthquake," Ashby said.

"Jim, you've all been lying to me. Now I want to hear the truth. No one's going to believe that we had a tremblor. Something killed those people on the mountain," the sheriff insisted. "The same thing that attacked that girl?"

"There's a giant bear loose . . . a new strain that nobody knew existed," Monte said.

"You've sent a group of men up there. Are they game hunters?" Garson asked.

"Yes," Ashby said. "Monte brought them in when he realized that there wasn't anyone local who could handle it."