 
Mythical

By: William Petersen

Edited by: Piers Anthony

Copyright 2011 William Petersen

Smashwords Edition, License Notes

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Chapter 1

Tim opened the door to a smack of negative twenty-five degree wind right in the face, with a glaringly bright light in every direction, as an added bonus. Just another day in paradise... he thought sarcastically.

Stepping out the door, he carried his 'shoe-shine' box: a collection of water-sampling and testing tools, used for obtaining the day's samples. As he looked down at them he thought: Who in the hell needs samples everyday? But he knew already.

As a training climatologist and meteorologist, Tim knew all too well that these samples were essential and they would help prove, in real time, what global warming was doing to marine life, particularly marine mammals. This spot had become a little-known home to several pods of whales, narwhals to be exact, that were keeping a breathing hole and a path to it, cleared and open all year long. This provided a great base for water, weather and animal studies in a single location and one that was extremely sensitive to environmental changes, recording those changes effectively in climate records.

The small community college at which Tim was studying received a sizable grant and paid research opportunity for direct studies into the growing crisis of global warming. While very uncommon, it was the break Tim needed to finish school and have a nice cushion of money, while earning valuable field time and first-hand experience.

This sent him to one of the northernmost locations on the North American continent, just about halfway between the Prudhoe Bay oil fields and Point Barrow, the official and literal top of the United States. As he walked along, the wind howled and blasted him from the side, as if to remind him of where he was. "Just think warm thoughts," he said out loud, sarcastically repeating the advice that Maddie, another researcher at the station, offered him at every opportunity.

At the top of the world, hundreds of miles above the Arctic Circle, in some of Alaska's harshest conditions, a small research station had been assembled from the remnants of long-abandoned oil exploration facilities. Privately funded and well beyond the bureaucratic tangle of the lower forty-eight, the place was doing real research as they saw fit, breaking new ground and getting paid very, very well in the process. He was astounded at the offer presented to him.

"Tim, this is full payment of the rest of your studies through post-graduate and beyond, if you want. You also get a monthly paycheck that is nearly four times what you're making now filing weather reports for websites and news stations. This is too good to pass up," the grantor's representative had told him.

Tim normally took his backpack, binoculars, a .357 revolver for bears, snacks and a warm drink on his twice-daily outings. However, today it was miserable, and it would be a fast one, if he had any say about it. Nearly running his first few steps, he immediately remembered that sweat killed in these extreme climates and slowed his pace.

Heading down a gradual snowy decline from the research station, he followed the familiar entrenched path to the spot which a particular pod of narwhals had been using for some time. The whales conveniently kept a large hole, thirty feet or more in diameter, open year-round. The whales accomplished this by swimming back and forth constantly and through their surface breathing; the action kept water flowing and prevented a total freeze.

The landscape off of the coast also contributed, providing shallow currents close to the shore that naturally kept pathways open under the ice. The whales capitalized on this for a reliable path to and from their communal breathing hole, safe from most predators.

All of this went through Tim's mind as he walked to take his daily samples, thinking of all the things that had to have happened just right, however unlikely they were, to bring him to this point. It helped break up the monotony of the nearly half-mile hike through pathways cut into the snow and ice.

Sometimes the paths were as deep as ten or twelve feet, making for a cavernous trek that was eerie at times, yet seemingly benevolent at others, especially when it offered protection from gusting Arctic winds. As Tim rounded the last turn of the snow and ice trench, the land opened up into unimaginable whiteness as far as his eyes could see. Even when the wind wasn't blowing snow everywhere, the view took his breath away with its expansive barrenness.

He could just barely see a distant, rocky shoreline emerging to the west, but it quickly faded into the blur of white. To the north and east, nothing but white... an endless spell of unimpeded white. It played tricks on his eyes; he squinted, then slowly took in more and more light as his eyes adjusted, until he was eventually able to make out contours and ice floes in the distance.

Tim walked to the edge of the hole and bent over to set his box of tools down, when a narwhal unexpectedly, and rather rudely, broke the surface and sprayed seawater all over him. He was used to it, it actually happened quite often. The animal researchers suspected the whales were territorial, though not much was actually known about them, another lure to his scientific interest.

"Not cool man..." Tim told the whale as it dove back beneath the water. He moved around the hole and away from the frisky whale, taking note that there were now several more poking their mottled gray and black heads up and out the water. Their eight and ten foot long spiral horns cast long reflections on the glassy surface in front of them. All at once, they began expelling air and water very hard, almost in unison.

That's pretty cool, synchronized spitting, Tim thought, and made a mental note to tell Maddie about the number of whales and their excessive exhaling. Maddie was the lead whale researcher and much like himself. She was from the Midwest, lower middle class and working hard to pay for school. She was attractive, smart and nice, but not all there sometimes; a sort of childish naivety permeated her personality, which Tim found more endearing than the others.

Tim took the first vial out of his 'shoe-shine' box, removed the lid and swished some water around inside, then dumped it to remove any contaminants, making a point to hurry. The whales were moving over toward him to spray some more. After the next scoop of water, he held the plastic container up to what light was available, looking for anything that looked to be lint or dirt, when his view abruptly shifted. It was almost as if the ice on which he was standing had broken loose and was tilting over.

Something caught his peripheral vision, and something sprayed over the water in front of him and to his left, making loud slapping noises on the water. However, he couldn't look to see it directly, he seemed to be paralyzed and though he was trying hard to move his body, it was going nowhere. The effort was actually hurting his head, badly. The landscape was rising up to him at an odd angle.

I must be tilting fast, he thought, as his face hit the ice... hard.

Tim could only see out of his right eye now, which was looking straight down into the water. He realized that he was slumped over the edge of the breathing hole. There was the movement of the water and sound, and while a black fuzz was encroaching on his vision, he could just make out the red, oily stain moving out across the water away from him. The stain was growing larger with each passing second, and it was steaming. The black fuzz was closing in fast, squeezing out the light in an oval pattern.

Just like looking down a tunnel _,_ he thought comically, Tunnel vision... the thought faded as the blackness took over.

Chapter 2

Starting out two weeks previous from Deadhorse, the trip was arduous, to say the least. He had been through worse, hell, he had lived through worse, but this was close. Up here it was just cold and brutal. There was a serious lack of the comforts and amenities he had become accustomed to through previous jobs with this group, but the pay was worth it and then some. Traveling from one ghetto and slum neighborhood to the next, he'd given up his real name decades ago, opting for Mr. Willow and refusing to give a first name to anyone. Even his falsified travel documents were labeled: "M. Willow."

He checked and rechecked his weapon, cleaned the scope lenses and ensured there were no obstructions at the end of the barrel. Ice, compacted snow or anything else that got inside the suppressor could easily cause a catastrophic explosion and, at the least, ruin the shot. The wind howled outside of his tiny pup-tent, colored white as his clothing was, ensuring the maximum amount of camouflage. He sipped hot cocoa, courtesy of a tiny propane camping stove which doubled as a heat source, letting his mind drift until the day became fully lit.

He drifted back to his childhood, to his first murder and the willow. The willow held significance to him, it was the weapon he had chosen for his first murder at the ripe old age of eleven. Drugs and crime had gotten him well acquainted with local drug dealers, for whom he distributed product to the schools and kids on the street.

One unforgettable cold and rainy day in October, he volunteered to collect an outstanding debt from a long-suffering client and one he knew personally. He pointed out that, by sending him to the door first, a young and seemingly innocent-looking boy, his presence would disarm the rival, leaving him open to a quick attack. The rival was only to be "roughed-up" in the words of the bosses. However, when the beating started, he pretended to be scared and ran out of the house.

Once the men were gone, he returned with a willow branch from the tree in the next yard where he had been watching. He then strangled the broken man to death with the flexible limb. Since that day forward he had assumed the Mr. Willow persona and could not resist smiling every time he heard it or saw it.

He had camped near the breathing hole overnight, under a natural windbreak formed by two very large pieces of ice that had broken loose and been shoved upwards, freezing into place again. This not only helped to keep the howling wind off of him, it also helped to keep him hidden as well.

As the blackness gave way to what passed for dawn above the Arctic Circle this time of year, he assumed his position on the ice, waiting, adjusting his weapon and scanning the surroundings. This was the beginning; when the whole thing was over, he would be somebody, not just a killer in the streets, not a nameless thug, but a real somebody. A person with real wealth, power, and most of all, status.

For now though, there was a job to do. He knew from the previous months of surveillance that the researchers' day started here, every day, with the water sample collections. On good weather days, groups tended to come out twice a day. On days like today, he knew he should only expect one or two, and that was why he was here. He had to contain any stragglers or potential escapees heading away from the camp, as this was the only way they would have to go, if everything went as planned.

In just a few moments, after his shot was heard, the other teams would take over the station. He was about to lose himself in thoughts of future plans and the work to come, when he saw movement by the breathing hole. Only one researcher, he thought, Well, that makes this part easier... one and done. Easy money.

He put the scope up to his eye, quickly bringing the researcher's head into clear view. Leveling out the gun and switching off the safety, he took a deep breath and prepared to fire. A huge burst of water sprayed up from the breathing hole and all over the researcher's face and head. He almost laughed out loud, realizing immediately that it was the whales.

The guy seemed to take it in stride and moved down the hole a little ways, when several spouts of water came out at once, from what must have been a dozen whales. The guy got down quick this time, getting his sample and standing up before the whales got to his new location.

The cross-hairs were directly on his right temporal lobe, just about the same level as his ear, ensuring that the brain stem would be severed for immediate death. The researcher looked up toward the sky as he let the shot go. The recoil and blast of noise knocked identical puffs of snow off each side of the ice shelter under which he hid.

Son of a bitch!!! he screamed in his head...

Even with a top-notch suppressor on the gun and thick earmuffs, the impact and shock nearly blew out his eardrums, amplified by the triangular structure of ice under which he sheltered. Shaking it off, mentally and physically, he put the scope back to his eye and surveyed the situation.

The red triangular plume was clearly visible, still settling and refracting the light like mist from a waterfall, producing a clearly discernible rainbow. The body was face-down, looking as if all of the muscles were flexing at once. Ripples were merging together on the surface of the water from the skull fragments and tissue blown out. Even from this angle he could see the steaming, oily slick expanding outward from where the head dangled over the edge of the ice.

The body was in a suspended, arched shape, then it convulsed once and went limp. There was steam rising from the open cavity in the skull and from the brain matter and warm blood on the top of the water. He ejected the spent round, slid the bolt back into place without reloading and retrieved the shell casing.

Sliding the rifle over his shoulder and stowing his range-finder in his pack, he brought out his silenced nine-millimeter pistol and started to head toward the breathing hole to take care of the body. Got a few more of these to do, he thought as he walked up to the edge of the water.

There was obviously no need for another shot. The bullet had entered just below the right ear, traveling up and to the left, removing most of the upper left quadrant of the face and head from the hairline to the upper lip. As he put away his pistol and unsheathed the huge hunting knife strapped to his leg, he couldn't help but notice the whales sitting at the surface, not making a sound; it was almost as if they were staring.

He started to reach for the pistol again, to put a couple of shots in the water and send them on their way, but then remembered that these animals were why they were here, and accidentally shooting one could be trouble. As if they knew what he was debating, the whales exhaled noisily and, one by one, descended beneath the glassy surface.

As he began his final job with the body, now beginning to waft the smells of coppery blood, feces and urine into the surrounding air, he heard the distinctive pops of small-arms fire in the distance behind him. It had begun.

He turned to complete his task when a huge crashing sound, accompanied by vibrations across the ice, came from out of nowhere. Turning toward the direction of the research base, he could see the black cloud of smoke curling around on itself in the characteristic shape of a small mushroom cloud: the sign of an explosion.

Something had gone wrong...

Chapter 3

Maddie's narwhal obsession started at age twelve, seeing her first one in a marine mammals book at the local library. The only time she stole anything in her life, she tore out the picture and kept it hidden at home, taking it out only at night, long after her parents were asleep. The connection, to her at least, was instant and obvious; these were the descendants of, or at the very least, somehow related to, real unicorns.

Maddie would argue: "There are lots of abnormalities in nature producing what some _call_ unicorns: goats with malformed horns or horses with calcium deposits on their foreheads, but the narwhal horns are not defects. These are grown from birth, a natural evolutionary formation with a specific design, and the purpose of that design is still up for debate."

As Maddie delved deeper into the aspects and physical appearance of the mesmerizing creatures, she was stunned by the lack of information available then, just as it was this very day.

"There is very little consistent information available on these animals. Why do they have horns? Why do some twist one way and others the opposite? And almost nothing is known of their mating behaviors, feeding habits or social structures," she told anyone who would listen.

This floored her, that in the modern age of wireless internet and instant information, so little was known about such an intriguing creature. She wanted to scream out loud: "Am I the only one seeing this?" at times. It really seemed as if not too many people were concerned with these blatantly obvious and burning questions. Well, she was, and she would pursue these questions to their conclusions.

Hence, the near cardiac arrest when she was called into a counselor's office and presented with the opportunity to come to Alaska for a research program devoted exclusively to narwhals. They had chosen her for the lead biologist role! _Chose_ her, that was the thing; she never even applied, they had found her.

It was unreal, a paid vacation, as she saw it. Studying, first-hand at that, the animal that had fascinated her for nearly sixteen straight years, and not just study it, but lead the team that studied an entire pod of them.

"Everyone else at the station will have their own disciplines and agendas, but the entire station is devoted to the primary goal of studying narwhal whales. That means you will be the most important researcher there, the Lead Marine Biologist, is your official title," the representative had told her in the counselor's office. It would take her classmates a lifetime to achieve a goal such as this, and hers literally fell right into her lap. She was ready to leave right then and there.

Maddie was dreaming of new discoveries and majestic, horned horses in a thick and misty forest, when the trees of the woods starting buzzing, rather annoyingly and loudly. The entire forest was abuzz with it now, and the unicorns must have run away, because all she could see was a dull beige hue, with something red blinking in the background.

Oh Shit! I'm late again! Maddie's mind shouted at her, even though the rest of her body was not awake yet, and the lack of coordination showed.

Fumbling for the clock and knocking it on the floor, as usual, she managed to silence it. Squinting through the light, she knew she had already missed Tim's daily sample collection; he always went out at first light. One thing she could never seem to accomplish was getting up on time. She consistently ran out the door dressing and cussing as she went. To her credit though, she was never late to work or school, however disheveled she appeared upon arrival, she just couldn't get up on time for anything else.

Maddie always wanted to be present when Tim took his samples, even though it was not part of her official duties. Not only did the whales congregate and even interact with them in the mornings, but she also liked Tim's company. He was much of the big brother she never had; he was tall, smart and good-looking, and Tim was the only one in the station that did not treat her like she was crazy or stupid.

While she had learned long ago to stop verbalizing her wild theories to colleagues, word from past acquaintances and the unfortunate articles she posted on the internet theorizing her ideas got around within academic circles. No one else at the station liked or respected her, and that was just fine with Maddie; the feeling was mutual.

Running out the door of the station with gloves dangling out of her pockets, a pop-tart in one hand and her upper coat in the other, Maddie took off down the trail in her usual fashion. Looking out the window of the cafeteria, two of her fellow station-mates wondered how she survived up here at all.

Approaching the last bend in the trench, Maddie stopped to catch her breath, don her coat and compose her appearance, not wanting to look like she woke up late and rushed out... again. As she tried in vain to get the fuzzy hood just right, keeping those tickling hairs off of her nose, an overwhelming urge to pee took her by surprise. Maddie realized that she hadn't even visited the latrine before heading out and that she would have to relieve herself outside... again.

A mix of trotting and skipping, blended perfectly with the 'I have to pee' dance, combined for a one of a kind performance that put the Jitter-Bug to shame. She made her way back to an area where part of the trench wall had slumped down and collapsed, making a sloped drift for her to climb up and get out of sight.

The only thing worse than squatting in the cold is squatting in front of someone in the cold, she thought to herself and smiled. She had to pee bad... almost bad enough to let it go right there, but the top was close enough now, if she could get her clothes parted in time, that is. This was the main reason she wore a two-piece outer and inner shell: not only was it easier to put on when running late, but she could "Get the plumbing out when she needed to," as Tim would put it.

As she parted the bottoms and tops and positioned herself, she always thought she must look as awkward as a giraffe trying to drink, and this thought always made her giggle. As if it wasn't hard enough to pee in sub-zero temperatures, laughing was not conducive to the act of urinating and further impeded her progress. The pressure on her bladder was steadily growing.

Mentally scolding herself for wasting so much time and thought on peeing, she pushed hard and just as the relief came, she notice movement out of the corner of her eye. This immediately halted the flow for which she had worked so hard. It was Tim taking his samples. She ducked down below the height of displaced snow at the top of the trench, noticing just how cold her exposed 'plumbing' was becoming. There was no need for her to even try at that point, it was nearly frozen shut now.

She started to stand up and yell at Tim when he took a peculiar stance, with his head tilted forward and to the left, like he was trying to look over and behind a store display counter. He must have vomited. Chunks were making loud and wet slaps on the water as they impacted, and a triangle of ripples appeared on the surface, originating from his face. There was an unusual sound, a _Whuummp!_ that echoed all around, then was gone.

Tim was falling... he was down... the vomit was red... the ice was red... and she knew at that very moment, Tim was dead. The sound she heard was the shot, and Tim's head had just exploded before her eyes. She had no idea what was going on, and briefly wondered if Tim had just experienced the only explosive aneurism in recorded history.

Her mouth had gone almost painfully dry in an instant. Maddie's panicked brain was trying to reason why Tim had just puked his face right off of his body, but her cognitive reasoning had already put the pieces together; Tim had been shot from a distance.

Fortunately, she had slumped back on her rear, steadying herself with her hands, and avoided the sight of the convulsing and perverted arching of Tim's body as his nervous system tried to deal with the overload of signals from the trauma. Flipping over onto her belly, she crawled to the edge of the trench to peer over, when a sharp pain in her chest reminded her of the binoculars around her neck, which also reminded her of the .357 pistol under her outer coat.

She got both out and after checking the status of the gun, trained her binoculars on the hole where Tim's body lay limp. She could clearly see the chunks of skin, with a layer of bone and internal matter clinging to it, in a macabre sedimentary layout on top of the water that made her wretch. The nausea passed, and resuming her survey, Maddie could not help but notice the steam rising from Tim's head and the widening trail of blood and brain matter, also steaming, spilling out onto the surface of the water.

Movement on the surface revealed that about a dozen whales, narwhals, were crowding together on the far side of the hole, as far from the body and drifting blood as they could get. In confirmation of her observations, the whales started to descend under the water, one after another, as the blood-slick approached, blowing exhaled air as they went.

Then she noticed something odd, a patch of ice appeared to be moving toward Tim's body, then it occurred to her that it was not ice at all, it was something alive. Scavengers or a bear this soon after a kill? They have good senses... but not that good, she mentally reasoned.

Putting the binoculars back to her eyes, she zoomed in and took great pains to hold steady. It was a person. A person in all white: "camouflage" her mind displayed to her in neon letters inside her head. It's a person in camouflage... with two guns.

She allowed herself to slip back down behind the embankment, concealing her head, then panic began washing over her in terrifying and debilitating waves. Her mind pieced the puzzle together for her, like an out of body experience, she could almost see the conclusions forming in her head. Tim was just shot in the head by a camouflaged sniper... She nearly blurted out, What is going on?

She looked back over the embankment, not knowing what else to do, immediately wishing that she hadn't. The sniper had stripped Tim naked and slid him away from the edge of the water, leaving a thick and very dark, red trail. He was cutting Tim's legs, back, arms and buttocks in long, somewhat straight slices. Then, as she looked on in total horror and disbelief, he packed all of Tim's clothes and belongings into a pack and began stabbing it.

What the hell is going on, her mind begged, is this guy really killing his clothes too? Then the sniper threw the pack into the breathing hole and Maddie understood, once again wishing desperately that she didn't know. He was sinking the evidence, poking holes in the pack so it would sink. The mutilation must be to speed the arrival of predators and scavengers alike, aided by the memory of the impression of the sniper upon her first sight of him.

Slumping down again and realizing her relatively close proximity to the sniper, Maddie began to panic yet again, shaking violently. She began losing control of her breathing and was expelling so much air that she was sure he would hear her, or at least see the plumes of vapor she was producing. She also realized at that moment that she had finished peeing, right into her pants.

Maddie rolled back away from the edge of the trench embankment, out of sight, and vomited in her own lap as she sat up. Dizzy and scared out of her mind, she began to crawl back in the direction of the station, too afraid and weak from shock to stand and walk. Something sounded like firecrackers. It was coming from the direction of the camp. Maddie realized that she was passing out. The shock and trauma of what she had witnessed, and what she realized was happening now, was just too much to handle at once.

As her brain was shutting her mind and body down, she had no doubt that the firecrackers in the distance were gunshots, probably leaving huge holes in the faces of the other team members, just like the one in Tim's face. Maddie's last conscious thought was: At least I won't feel it when they shoot me... and then she was gone.

Chapter 4

Maddie awoke to find her face in the snow. Fortunately, her warm breath had carved out a pocket for her to breathe, or she might not be waking up at all. Looking up, she resisted the urge to raise into a crouching position. She had passed out but had not forgotten where she was or what had happened. She could smell burning plastics and hear faint voices. She was still near the edge of the carved trench entrance and crept up to have a look.

She was too worried about being spotted to use the binoculars, and her goggles were hanging around her neck, which also might reflect light that revealed her presence, even from this distance. She mentally patted herself on the back for watching so many war and crime movies, else she would have never thought about things like that. Not bad for a girl, she mentally congratulated herself again.

Then, just as her mind started to wander even further, she snapped herself back to reality, remembering the seriousness of the situation developing. It still didn't seem that real to her, even though she had watched Tim die, and then the memory of the sniper came to her, which brought a chill that had nothing to do with temperature. It just hadn't set in yet.

As she squinted against the white, she could tell right away that she was more than close enough to be seen with the naked eye, if she were to move around. This fact had an immediate sobering effect, superseding the cold and her borderline shock. She could almost make out what was being said, though it became all too apparent what was happening, even without dialect.

Groups of armed men dressed in white winter gear, and with a lot of equipment, were clearing the camp of everything. Some of the material and furnishings were taken to the bunk area, while the majority of it went into the large pile of burning debris that was, at one point in time, the maintenance building. It dawned on her that this must have been the low-pitched noise she heard and felt through the ground; the building had exploded and was now burning away to nothing.

Movement from the edge of the smoke caught her eye, and much to her shock and dismay, three station members were being led forward by armed guards, their hands bound behind their backs. It looked like the Chief Meteorologist, Jon something or other, and two people that had just come in three weeks prior.

Maddie didn't even know their names yet... and didn't know anyone's last name, only what they did and why they were there. No one talked to her outside of research matters, and she offered no conversation in return. It seemed wrong of her now, and she felt very guilty.

The trio was being led toward the entrance of the trench and her current location. Maddie had the grim thought of their executions next to the breathing hole. Hoping that she was wrong, she began asking herself questions, trying to make up reasons why they wouldn't kill them. They had taken the time to capture and restrain them, what danger where they now? They would be wasting bullets and making unwanted noise, wouldn't they?

Then there was no doubt, as they were, in turn, forced into kneeling positions, one next to another in the unmistakable pose of the execution-style killing. As the tears started to flow down her cheeks, two new individuals approached. One was instantly recognized as the sniper that had killed Tim, rifle still slung over his shoulder. The other was a tall, well-built man, with distinct silver hair blowing in the wind; it was well-groomed and not the silver of an old man. Just from his stance and the way he carried himself, she could tell that he was either in charge, or very close to it.

The two stopped just about ten feet from the three researchers on the ground, the sniper looking to the tall man, the tall man nodding slightly. The sniper walked up to the first researcher from behind, the guards must have moved out of the way while she was watching them, and raised a pistol she had just noticed in his hand. He shot Jon something or other in the back of the head.

His head pitched up and forward and a pink mist sprayed out in a fine pattern in front of him, like he had laughed with a mouth full of Kool-Aid, then he slumped face-down on the snow. Before she could comprehend what had just happened, the process was repeated with the next in line, without any hesitation or ceremony. The last was a woman, Maddie could hear the higher pitch of her voice, and while she could not make out the exact words, she knew that she was pleading for her life.

Her head was shaking in a 'no' fashion, when the sniper unexpectedly grabbed a handful of her hair and pulled her head back. Thank God... Maddie thought, He's not going to kill her.

She almost gagged out loud when he put the gun to the back of her neck and fired. The amount of blood that erupted was staggering, even from a distance. It was almost like a bad special effect for a B-movie, but it sprayed out in a rhythmic pulse that reduced in distance each time until her body went limp, dangling from the handful of hair the sniper still held. Her last motion was the twitching of one leg, then that too receded and stopped altogether. He let her body drop just as carelessly as he had killed her, and walked away toward the bunk house.

At this point, she realized that there were several other bodies scattered around the entrances and exits, with one in particular lying face-down, a dark brown stain spreading out from the mid-section and a smaller one on the small of the back. Whoever it was had been shot trying to get away, shot in the _back_ , while trying to escape.

She couldn't take any more, and even though she couldn't feel it, she knew that she was very cold. She had to get moving and hope that she could find a hunting shack, abandoned mine or oil station to shelter in for the night. She knew that if she stayed, she would certainly die, and a night in the open in this climate was a sure death as well, but she opted to take her chances on the move.

Sliding backwards on her belly until she was almost to the edge of the sea ice, Maddie was finally comfortable enough to stand and begin walking briskly, mindful for the first time during her stay here of sweating in the cold. She was nervous and shivering but eager to put distance between her and the camp. After what seemed like thirty-minute intervals, she would stop and scan her previous path for any pursuers.

The stress of the events and the brutal cold were taking their tolls, Maddie knew at this point, even if she spotted a shelter, she would not have the strength to get to it. "I'm not just giving up and I'm not getting eaten by anything!" she defiantly yelled out loud and gripped her pistol as tight as she could. She took note that it was cocked and ready to fire, even though she couldn't feel her hands, feet or face, and her exhaustion was complete.

Maddie sat down and propped herself up against a sheet of ice protruding from the pack, gun in one hand, binoculars in the other, and resigned to close her eyes for just a minute or two. The shivering had stopped, and she wasn't even that cold now. She was almost comfortable, and while closing her eyes felt so good that she smiled a little, she knew very well that she would not be waking up this time.

Chapter 5

Slinging his rifle over his shoulder, Marcus set out in the general location of his snares when a distinct sound, extremely faint but familiar, caught his attention. There were many sounds out here, the ice moving, animals, things freezing then breaking loose and the wind. This was different though, and if he were a dog, his ears would be standing straight up.

He had unconsciously brought out his .50 caliber revolver, his main tool for personal defense. Just the concussion from the monster handgun sent the largest bears running for nearly a mile, it was that loud and powerful. The bullets were so big that it could only hold five rounds, but those rounds really made an impact when they went off and more of one when they landed. It always reminded him of one of the snub-nosed .38s so prevalent in classic cop shows, only this one had been fluff-dried and fed horse steroids.

He listened intently, but there were no more sounds. He knew it was not his imagination and that it was not a natural sound. However, as remote as this place was, there were still people about, at times. He generally got close enough to discover why they were there, then melted away without them becoming wise to his presence. He moved on, though once his senses were piqued, they didn't settle down right away. He felt uneasy.

Moving along the interior of the shore, below the sight line of land, he took care to keep his head below the shoreline to avoid being seen while he was distracted locating traps. He had set several snares for the critter that had been leaving footprints in the area over the last week; he wasn't much for identifying animals by their tracks, but this looked edible.

The first snare was empty, with no new tracks anywhere, and he was setting out to check the next one when something in the sky caught his eye. It looked like a malformed and quick-moving cloud, at first, then he could see it was nearly black and swirling around and in on itself. Like a mushroom, he thought, and it hit him like a boulder was just dropped on his head... it was an explosion.

"But what in hell is out here that could explode?" he pondered aloud. There was literally _nothing_ out here, no volcanoes no industrial sites... as his mind went over the possibilities it was stopped in mental mid-sentence: ...no oil refineries... no... the old oil station! That was it, he knew there were people using it again, he'd been close enough to see them moving in and scuttling about, though he kept his distance and left them to their research.

That looks really bad... he thought, looking at the puff of smoke. Then a twinge of responsibility and guilt, two recent traits he must have developed up here, made his path from this point pretty obvious to him. He would at least go check and make sure they weren't running around with their heads on fire. The need to help those in real trouble had always been a contradiction in his personality.

The ability and desire to hurt people was so strong, yet so was the need to help those who were hurting; not those that he had hurt, of course, but those that _didn't_ deserve it, at that particular point in time, as he saw it.

Marcus took a glance out over the sea ice, knowing he would miss his chance to hunt a seal today. Although, he had to admit, it had been a while since he'd even seen another human being. It might be interesting to have a look. It was most likely some green horn that had just blown up a propane stove or heater and was now missing some eyebrows or a patch of hair. If nothing else, maybe he would see something to laugh about later.

Chapter 6

Marcus was repositioning his gear and preparing to head in the direction of the old oil surveying station, which was now being occupied for some kind of research, he had no idea what, but he was pretty sure it wasn't for oil this time. From the smoke he had seen, long since dispersed by the harsh upper-level winds, he judged it had come from his left about forty-five degrees or so. While compasses were mostly useless this close to the North Pole, he could use his directional compass as a guide from place to place, just not through traditional direction-finding.

Marcus carried a lensing compass, and merely used it to mark directions from his starting point to or from a particular location. Using the degree dial on the compass, he simply pointed the dial marker where he wanted to go and periodically corrected his course to keep it pointing in the right direction. Employing the same methods on the return helped him stay on track. However, nothing was certain in this part of the world, and he had become hopelessly lost twice since his arrival.

The first time he was lost on the ice, he was actually _scared_ back to within sight of the shoreline by repeated polar bear sightings. Luckily, they didn't follow him. The second time he was lost less than a mile from his shelter on the mainland. He never left without some means of direction-finding or trail marking again.

Marcus had just reached the summit of the shoreline, and took a moment to survey his surroundings through the binoculars before proceeding. He scanned first in the direction he intended to go, then to the right until he had made a full rotation. This was repeated each half-mile or so and each time he transcended to higher terrain, always ensuring he wasn't being stalked by a bear.

Marcus had just reached the mid-point of his scan, looking almost straight out onto the jagged sea ice, and something moved. He stopped his scan and quickly trained back a few feet, but there was nothing to be seen now. It was not a glint or reflection, something _moved_. He was about to pan out, when whatever it was quickly moved again then stopped, but this time he was ready.

He expertly trained in on the spot in his periphery that had caught the motion, and he just managed to spy the last of the movement. It looked kind of like fabric blowing in the wind. Squinting behind his binoculars, he waited for the movement again. This time he was looking right at it, and when the motion started he saw right away what it was: hair... human hair.

This human hair was attached to a human head, which was, of course, attached to the rest of a human body. He must have stared at it for a minute or two before a gust of wind brought him back to reality. There was a body on the ice. Just what he _didn't_ want to find out here. Well, there were actually quite a few things he didn't want to find out here, but this was right at the top of the list. Maybe third down, with a live body and polar bears competing for the number two and number one spots.

Marcus didn't care that it was a dead body, he had seen plenty of those in much more gruesome states than freezing, it was the drama that would surely follow. Investigators, reporters and people wanting to talk to him. He had no intention of leaving it for the animals, as he would not want that to happen to him, and he didn't want anything near him developing a taste for people meat.

"This is going to be a pain in my ass either way," he stated to the cloudy sky. It would be summer again soon and that small window would bring a flood of outsiders. She had to be a researcher, there was an emblem on her coat and she looked young and obviously female, not native.

This all meant that she would have co-workers, family and friends that would want closure, eventually resulting in them probably coming up here too. It would be a mess no matter how it turned out. He put the binoculars away and started the arduous trip back down to the ice through the same tracks he had made on the way up. Marcus cursed under his breath and moved with exaggerated motions reflecting his irritation.

She was out about two-hundred and fifty yards or so, and after Marcus had made it about halfway there, he stopped to take a survey, then focused on his target for a more detailed look. The glinting of light off of metal got his attention right away. He could see that she had a gun and was leaning slightly to his left. She looked very dead. Even from his current distance, the blue of her face and lips was clearly visible. There were glints of light from the snow that was sticking to her face, in just tiny amounts now, but it would soon cover her completely.

Marcus changed his direction slightly in light of the revelation of a gun in her hand. It looked pretty big too. He reasoned it must be a .44 or .357, both good choices for up here. Real stopping power was needed for a thousand-pound, hungry polar bear.

Not that the gun was uncommon, it would be strange to see anyone out alone up here without one, but Marcus would not take chances. He knew exactly what gunshot wounds were like and preferred to live the rest of his natural life without ever experiencing that again.

He shifted his direction to the right, since her face was pointed generally to his left, allowing him to approach on her blindside. However, she was holding the gun in her right hand, which meant he would be approaching with the muzzle pointed straight at him. Once he was close, he planned to circle the ice shard she was leaning against, coming around so he could get the gun from an angle that would make it impossible for her to shoot him, even if a round was discharged during a struggle.

He made it to the back of the ice shard without incident, and cautiously moved around it to approach her right side. Marcus first stared warily at the gun, then at her face. She had clearly frozen to death, clenching her gun and holding binoculars, looking back, presumably in the direction from which she had come.

This intrigued Marcus, but what was even more intriguing was her face. She was really adorable, even blue and dead. Her body abruptly slid down a few inches and scared him so badly that he nearly shot her in the face with his own revolver, and then she moaned.

"Ho – ly Shit... " Marcus professed out loud in three very distinct syllables.

*****

"She's alive..." he whispered. The next thought, This changes things a bit... He didn't risk screwing around any longer. She was alive and that was just dandy, but she still had a big gun in her hand. Marcus wasn't going to take any chances. He kept his eyes locked on her face, his gun at his side, cocked and off-safety. His right arm was tensed and ready to come up at a moment's notice, while his left hand slid down and grabbed the gun so that his thumb was blocking the hammer, which happened to be cocked back, ready to fire.

Her eyes opened wide and she tried to scramble backwards, only shuffling her legs in front of her in a pathetically weak display. She looked like an animal that had just been knocked out by an abusive owner, only to wake up with the same owner standing above it and preparing for another blow.

She was trying to keep him from getting the gun. The nearly frozen woman managed to get it away from him with the help of the ice built up on it, and the fact that it was frozen to her glove which was, in turn, frozen to her hand. Marcus took a quick step back and brought his gun up in one blindingly fast motion, but before he had gotten his finger to the trigger, he saw that the barrel of her gun was still on the ice in front of her.

She couldn't even hold it up, though she was trying hard, and he felt a twinge of pity for her. She was obviously a fighter, and he liked that trait. He could respect that. He started back toward her, leaning down to try and lock eyes with hers. He was saying: "It's all right. I'm not going to hurt you..." as he moved closer.

Once in reach of the gun, he gently grabbed it again, refusing to put his own weapon away just yet. She looked up with those terrified, yet fiery eyes, then they rolled back in her head and she slumped over completely. The effort of trying to lift the gun had taken whatever she had left. She was alive for now, but Marcus knew that wouldn't last much longer.

He put both guns in his outer pockets and scooped the mystery girl up from her contorted position. He first tried carrying her like they were a honeymoon couple but quickly repositioning her for a fireman's carry. It was going to be a long trip back to his shelter, and there was no way he would make it to investigate the explosion now; it would have to wait until tomorrow.

He didn't want to venture back up there with her in tow, as she seemed to be trying to get away. He also knew that if he didn't get this one warmed up within the hour, she really would be dead. Stopping periodically to warm their bodies with vigorous rubbing and trading her frozen outer coat for his, he managed to get her back to his shelter and inside. Quickly removing her clothes to the bra and underwear, which were stiff with cold, he laid her on the pile of blankets he slept on and covered her next to the wood-burning stove.

There were always active coals in one of the three stoves he had inside the shelter, ensuring a quick and warming fire whenever needed, and they were needed frequently. Stoking the fire and opening the front grate a little, he could see moisture forming on her cheeks as the snow and ice melted, and he hoped he had gotten to her in time. He settled back in to the corner of the room wondering, Who was she? What had happened, and why was she so far out on the ice alone?

He wondered most of all, if she would be able to fill in some the blanks for him. As he settled in for some quiet time and maybe a nap, he was glad he didn't wander up to the research camp now, there might be more going on there than he realized. He managed to drift off to sleep, the events of the day and the possibilities of what tomorrow held bothering him incessantly and bringing on disturbing dreams of shootings and being shot.

*****

Maddie was dreaming of killers in white jumpsuits with automatic weapons. If her body would have been able to, she would have been tossing and turning, as it was, she was frozen in place. She drifted in and out of strange dream-lands, when a fish in her dream started biting her hand. It wasn't biting hard, not chewing into her, just grabbing and pulling, but it started to hurt in the cold water. Upon closer inspection, it looked like a tropical eel of some sort with big eyes and a wide mouth, and a snake-like body tapering off after about two feet, but the water was really cold.

The fish was suddenly gone and she was on the ice, painfully cold, so cold that it hurt to think, breathe or open her eyes. She missed the fish that was then an eel, it was much more pleasant than the bear that was looking her in the eye right now. Although, even in her less than focused state, she could not help but notice this bear was really scrawny. It had matted hair all around its face and was painfully skinny for a bear. She knew it had to be starving, literally.

Sorry buddy, her inner voice said, I'm not dinner yet. She tried to raise her gun, but it was so heavy. Then she noticed the bear was trying to take the gun out of her hand. Smart bear... she thought. It appeared that this bear had a gun of its own, a really big gun, not so much long as it was fat, and it was pointing the gun at her. Maddie mentally reconciled this by concluding that bears have big hands and, therefore, need big guns.

She was proud of her on the spot hypothesis and was about to ask the bear what he thought of the whole thing, but her brain once again abruptly shut the system down, shutting off all but the tiniest amounts of blood circulating to the outer extremities and the brain itself, conserving what heat it could within the core of her body.

Chapter 7

Marcus awoke some time after dawn, following a night of fidgeting and glancing in the direction of his new guest. She had changed position a few times during the night, ensuring him that she was warming and hopefully, regaining her power of speech to tell him what was going on. He got up as quietly as he could, and with nothing on the floor to make noise, just soft blankets and furs piled on top each other, he was essentially silent.

He had dug his home during the height of summer, when the topmost layer of ground was thawed. The ground was so cold year-round, he could use a three-foot deep hole as a freezer in July. Marcus dug three rectangles with adjoining passageways. One was for storage and supplies, one a living area and one an access and ventilation room. The biggest of the three was the main room, built in the center of the site, with an entrance and exit of its own.

He also had an emergency exit that ran almost fifty feet, just under the surface, allowing him to escape if needed; he was mindful to keep it smaller than an average-sized polar bear, yet big enough to move through with guns and gear. Each room had a pot-bellied stove for heat and cooking; this also allowed him to keep a stove with active coals all year long. It did get warm, at times, but the need for a quick fire was always present in this part of the world.

He had arranged four makeshift ceiling doors in the ventilation room. Just branches, bows and wire tied together and hinged to act just like the bomb-bay doors on an upside-down plane. These were set together in two pairs, one on each side, supporting each other in an 'A' frame fashion.

This kept a low-profile, while providing a crude warning system for attempted intrusion; if either were disturbed when open, such as when a bear came sniffing around, touching them would cause them to fall, closing the entrance and making a loud noise. Although, he had been scared to death a few times from the wind and now only exchanged air on nicer, calmer days.

He had finally propped opened one set of doors, it could take a minute to get it just right, and was returning to the main room. He immediately noticed that she had moved again, and then she moved as he was looking on. This gave him a quick moment of panic, as his gun was closer to her than it was to him. She poked her head and terribly tangled mess of hair out from the blankets and looked around, doing a double-take upon seeing Marcus, yet not saying a word, then returning to her investigation. Then her hands went inside the blankets and were fumbling about.

"I didn't tamper with anything," he said, his voice a little louder than intended. Damn, it's been a while since I've even talked to another person, a little rusty with the volume control... he thought.

She looked up, realizing he was telling the truth. She was obviously disoriented, but it struck him just how much she did _not_ look afraid. Tough girl, he mused in his head. When she spoke, it was soft and warm. Chills ran up his spine. The last human he spoke to was nearly two years ago, a native at the general store in the village who had neither the time nor desire for conversation, and Marcus could not understand a thing he said anyway.

The old native had no teeth and mumbled everything; Marcus would just nod, smile and wait for the little white, numbered tabs to pop up in the cash register display window. The register looked almost as old as the ancient, wrinkled man operating it.

"I thought you were a bear," she nearly whispered. "Who are you," she queried, "and where the hell am I?"

"I found you on the ice," he replied, adding, "You were almost dead."

Without missing a beat she came back with, "You have no idea buddy..."

Marcus told her where her clothes and gear were in the ventilation room. Then he made coffee on the stove and they ate seal meat on an improvised table, as she filled him in on the details. He listened intently, stopping her periodically and asking her to be quiet for a moment, while his mind processed the information. He took mental notes and compared them as the story continued, though it didn't seem like a 'story' at all. Her descriptions and condition confirmed enough that he believed her completely.

When she was done, he nodded, got up and left the ventilation room. She didn't know what to do, still very weak and exhausted, but at least she was warm now, so she stayed where she was. She didn't know anything about this guy, although, he had not tried to kill her. He had actually saved her, which made him alright so far. He was obviously not one of _them_ , and that was a plus too. She thought her situation might have improved, somewhat.

Marcus emerged after some time. Maddie had fallen asleep sitting up and jumped, realized where she was, then relaxed. "I've got to go take a look," he said, and it occurred to Maddie that he had a distinct matter-of-fact tone when he talked. It was almost like he was observing and reporting on what was happening, or in this case, what was about to happen, to someone else.

She started to get up and throw off the blanket wrapped around her shoulders, but Marcus was already shaking his head. "No, I can move faster and safer on my own. You are in no shape to travel or fight, if need be, so just stay here and regain your strength. We both may need it..."

It hadn't even dawned on her that they would simply fan out and search the surrounding areas for her, and a wave of panic washed over her body. She almost jumped up to start running, while telling Captain Caveman here to try and keep up as she passed by, but then quickly realized that no one _knew_ that she had escaped. If _they_ had seen her, _they_ would have found her, not Daniel Boone here. Seriously, she thought, with just a little humor, the only thing he is missing is the coonskin hat _._

"I'll be back in a few hours. Stay inside and keep these closed," he said, motioning to the 'A' frame doors overhead. "If you have to go..." he started.

"I'll use the honey bucket..." she finished for him, with a grin that lit up the dank and dark room.

The 'honey bucket' was a plastic bucket to relieve oneself in, then throw out when able, and the name was only funny until the first time it needed to be emptied. I'd hate to see the bees that come after that honey... was all Marcus could think upon his first 'emptying'.

He headed toward the emergency exit, wanting to survey the shelter and its surroundings from a distance, without being seen. As he left the room, he stopped and turned just enough to show his face to her and said, "I'm Marcus, by the way." He felt extremely foolish for introducing himself, but felt as though he should say something before leaving. He'd forgotten most of his social skills but was pretty sure people still said 'bye', or something, before leaving.

"I'm Maddie," almost a whisper again.

"I know," he replied with a smile, then turned and walked out.

Maddie looked down at her coat to see her name embroidered in big, bold-white letters and smiled too.

*****

Marcus was still grinning as he maneuvered down the crawlspace that was his emergency exit, leading him down a dark tunnel that required a half-crouch, half-crawl to get through. This particular part of the shelter was not lined, as the other rooms were, with strips of tree bark and sticks.

The linings, over time, became extremely dry and actually adhered themselves to the walls as the permafrost warmed and cooled. The process essentially petrified them to the wall, accelerated by the dry heat of wood-burning stoves; although, he had to use wood that was dead already, or it just decomposed and fell off... it stunk too. This part though, had no lining, and it came back to haunt him every time he used it, because dirt and other things were scooped and funneled right into his butt-crack from the edge of his pants rubbing against the wall.

He always waited to don the coveralls outside; it was just easier when leaving this way. The first act out of the hole was to jump in place and twitch his legs to get the majority of the dirt down and out of his clothes, though it never came out all the way. Marcus did his dirt-butt dance and then took a survey of the area, a full three-hundred and sixty degrees, looking for anything out of the ordinary. He looked to the path he took out and back in the day before, planning his approach as he went, then got his gear out of the hole and strapped it on for travel.

He decided that if Maddie had been accurate about her departure, and she didn't seem like the type to miss any details, she had made a large, hooking path to where he had found her on the ice. He reasoned that the best path for him would be to start from the spot where he had found her, then head ninety-degrees inland to where he estimated the whales' breathing hole should be. This gave him a clear view of his approach to the hole and a trenched path that he could sneak through, or he could hook around to where the shot had come from that killed her friend, heading around to the opposite side of the station to the bunk house.

Marcus was familiar with the general layout of the camp. One of his favorite things to do was to explore the surrounding areas, and that area had been visited several times. He knew from Maddie's description that the farthest left end of the station, left from what would be his perspective, anyway, was the bunk house. This was the living quarters for all of the staff, with the cafeteria, research facilities and clean labs in the middle and the storage and maintenance building at the far right.

This general knowledge led him to believe the best approach would be on the farthest side of the maintenance building, where the least activity and interest should be. However, it would depend on what he saw when he got there.

He figured that he had gone about a mile before he started smelling burnt plastics and wood from the previous day's explosion. He was getting close. He started crouching and taking a turn every few steps to scan the horizon, always both front and back. When he caught sight of the breathing hole and the trench that wound up from the shoreline, he stopped to survey again before moving on.

The shore hooked abruptly from just about where Maddie had been lying on the ice, in over a mile, then sloped back out into the sea over a distance of around two or three lateral miles. This was known on maps as the Harrison Bay and Cape Halkett, but Marcus called it 'The Claw.'

On his way back from his first trip to Nuiqsut, he stopped to camp overnight on a small uprising of land where he could see out onto the ice and all around for some ways, looking for bears, of course. From this vantage, the hook of the land resembled a huge claw swiping the top of the ice, and the floes and jagged pieces bunching together, around and away from it, lent credibility to the illusion.

He inched along on his belly now, over the incline and onto the plateau of the right side of the trench. He could see the breathing hole and Tim's body, long strips cut into it on the back, legs, buttocks and arms. An eagle and an Arctic fox were already feeding on it. This made it clear why the bodies were cut up and stripped, they wanted to speed the arrival of scavengers to dispose of them.

The whales periodically surfaced in groups to breathe, which made him glad, as the noise would help mask his own movements. It was uncanny how well sound could travel in these conditions, while at other times, no sound could travel at all. He loved this place, it kept him on his toes, thinking and problem-solving... and Marcus loved to think as much as he loved overcoming challenges. The only thing that ruined it was people. People ruined it every time, just like they were doing now.

Carefully positioning himself at the edge where the excess snow was piled from clearing the trench, Marcus peeked over the edge and took a look around. It seemed to be exactly as Maddie had said, right down to the bodies, although, the pace seemed pretty hectic right now. There were groups of men in white jumpsuits with equipment belts, face-masks and guns moving around at a fevered pitch. The far right building, the maintenance building, was essentially gone, burned to the ground. Only jagged remnants of the building's two outer walls remained.

There were several pieces of debris scattered about from the explosion and a lot of blackened snow. He decided to take a closer look and chance using the binoculars. Marcus trained his binoculars in an upward angle, just to the point where objects were on the very bottom of his lenses. This reflected light upward and away from what he was looking at and the general area around it. The same tactic worked great when he was trying to look up on something with binoculars or a scope, without giving his position away.

Two 'invaders', as he was calling them in his head, were running with papers in their hands, dropping several and turning to regather them as they went. They were yelling too. The two got to the edge of a larger group of invaders and one, who must have been some kind of an officer-type, rudely snatched the papers from the man's hands. The man who had brought the papers was leaning over, puffing out clouds of mist, breathing heavily with his hands on his knees, obviously winded from the run.

Must be important... Marcus thought.

The officer-man was motioning over toward the naked and mutilated bodies, then smacking the papers with the back of one hand. Marcus trained in on the papers and squinted to try and see further, when his heart jumped into a beating pattern nearly as fast as a hummingbird's. Employment files... the words grew larger in his head at the same rate that his eyes were growing larger in real life.

They had found the employment records, they had counted the bodies, then they had counted the active employee files. They knew Maddie was not among the dead, and now they also knew her age, physical description, medical information, personal contact information and exactly what she looked like; even from his current distance, he could see the glossy photo on the front of the folder reflecting light as it waved in the breeze.

Chapter 8

Marcus pushed himself back in a quick jerk, too quick, hoping that he didn't dislodge any snow to reveal his presence. Then, tapping his forehead with the binoculars, he realized that he also had not tilted them back toward his head when moving. This could have very well flashed light right at the people he was trying to avoid, that he _really_ wanted to avoid now. He stopped moving and held his breath, waiting for a yell or the distinct sound of armed men running toward his position. There was nothing.

Faint voices, talking as they had been, assured him that it was safe to move. He decided to crawl backwards and slide down into the trench, where he could make better time back to the shelter and stay out of sight at the same time. He slid down as quietly as he could, using his hands like two snow rakes to slow his descent. At this distance, with a winding path this deep, there was no real danger of being heard.

He ran the last few yards to the opening and the breathing hole. He couldn't help but notice the rumpled surface, brimming with the backs and heads of dozens of horned whales. He was wondering what they had to do with all this, when one whale abruptly blew air out and slapped its tail hard, launching it forward at a startling speed. The whale had closed half of the fifty-foot width of the hole, when Marcus realized it was charging. He stopped in his tracks...

Charging? Do whales charge? he pondered. He was looking right at it, contemplating what to call a charging whale, when the animal's massive, eight-foot spiral horn rose out of the water, followed by its head, followed by half of its body, missing Marcus by about two feet. The ice broke into three massive pieces, all of which were stood immediately on end by the whale's weight. Marcus was underwater before he realized what had happened.

COLD!!!COLD!!!COLD!!!COLD!!!

It was _damn_ cold, not just cold. This was the kind of all-encompassing cold that caused heart attacks, aneurisms and strokes. The kind of cold that causes every fiber of every muscle to flex as hard as it can, all at once, the kind of sudden cold that could make him bite his own tongue off. He was dead and he knew it.

A whale was swimming around him. His eyes were locked tight; he didn't want to open them in saltwater, especially thirty-degree saltwater, but he could feel it circling. It was nudging him now, and each bump was causing him to expel precious air. He was trying to swim, but the shock of immersion had his muscles in grid-lock, and the weight of his gear was holding him down. There were several whales bumping him now and his air was nearly gone.

Well.. he thought, at least I'll drown before they eat me, and let the last bit of air out of his lungs. He started to inhale the water and get it over with, when something smacked him, hard, in the forehead, forcing his eyes open for a second. The cold saltwater burned like acid. The impact caused him to take a gasping breath, but it was not the burning, choking sensation he had expected.

Something smacked him again, much harder. His eyes stayed open this time; abandoning his query into why he wasn't drowning, he saw a whale, up close. Its eye was about a foot from his own. The whale smacked him with its horn... not so hard this time, and Marcus realized it was trying to get him to look up. There was another whale just above him, floating upside-down, blowing bubbles at him.

Cute.. Marcus thought sarcastically, then realized this was why he wasn't drowning. The whale horn again... Marcus almost yelled out loud, "OK... I get it!" but restrained himself. He looked up again, and the whale put its blowhole right up to his mouth and blew out, thankfully much more gently than it expelled air on the surface, or his face and lungs would have exploded.

The whale was breathing for him. He held onto its spiraled, javelin-like horn to keep from sinking. He also noticed that he was engulfed in bubbles now, all around him, lots of them. Once again, he was putting together a sarcastic comment in his head when it hit him that they were keeping him warm, not post-toastie warm, but he was not shivering and dying either.

The bubbles from below stopped and all but the breathing whale were swimming and making frantic buzzes and clicks. A whale darted to the far side of the hole, exploding with the same force of the whale that had sunk him, followed by a blast of muffled noise, smacking and cracking sounds.

One of the invaders was descending about fifteen feet away in a stream of small bubbles. The whales were swimming around him as he struggled to get his pack off, which was sinking him like a stone. The whales were not helping him, though they were watching, intently. Marcus suddenly realized that they were killing him...

Movement caught his eye and again another whale darted from the opposite side, except this one wasn't going up, it was staying straight and level, heading right for the sinking man. The man must have seen it too, as his efforts increased and then changed to a pathetic defensive posture, which consisted of both arms and legs straight out in front of him, as if he were falling sideways through the water.

The whale hit him hard, and his already straightened arms and legs became just a little straighter with the force. His waving hair straightened out, covering the terrified look on his face. Blood was immediately trailing from the wound and out of his nose and mouth, streaming out, over and around the horn and the head of the animal.

The whale's mark was dead-on, left side of the chest, the heart. The man was not dead though, not yet anyway, and was holding the eight-foot long horn between his hands as the whale pumped its tail for more propulsion. The whale swam straight into the ice shelf, slamming its horn all the way through the man and into the ice behind with a dull, echoing thud. The whale had hit so hard, in fact, that it became stuck, thrashing back and forth as it tried to break free. The man went totally limp upon impact, though the whale's thrashings made his limbs and head drift from side to side, like he was swaying to music.

Two narwhals swam up fast, one putting its horn between the ice and the dead man, levering the body farther up on the horn, while the other whale speared the ice around the stuck whale's horn, until it was free. With a powerful thrash of the whale's tail, the invader's body was dislodged and drifted into the deep, streaming a red trail, but no bubbles, behind it.

The breathing whale suddenly stopped and moved away; luckily, Marcus had a full breath in him and sealed his mouth off right away. He was starting to drift down now too, and he was getting cold. Is it my turn now? his mind questioned. He saw a dark shape below, and for a moment thought it might be the dead guy swimming back up, but this was way too big and way too fast to be anything close to a man, even one recently back from the dead.

It was a huge narwhal, really huge, nearly twice the size of the others he'd seen so far, and it was coming up fast. It was coming up fast toward _him_. Marcus figured the big guy wanted his turn and closed his eyes, waiting for the nearly twelve-foot long, double twisted horn to stab into his heart.

Instead, it stabbed into his arm, his left arm, and pinned him to the ice. The tip of the horn was surprisingly small and sharp, and the whales used them with precision. This one had pierced the skin, and the skin only, though being speared to ice is never pleasant. Then his vision went completely white as a jolt of what seemed like lightening passed through his body.

That wasn't so bad... he thought, as he slipped away.

Chapter 9

Much to his surprise, Marcus wasn't dying, though he couldn't see anything except an intense white. It was like staring directly at the morning sun after just waking, but this light was coming from everywhere, and no matter where he looked, the intensity was uniform. The electric current pulsing throughout his body was physically rocking it, he felt himself bumping against the ice, the horn pinning his arm, the resistance of the water as he moved and the currents as they washed around him.

Marcus was at the point at which he thought his head was going to explode, and then realized the pain had him squeezing his eyes shut as tight as they would close. The light was _in_ his head. What the? He tried to inquire mentally, when the energy pulsing throughout his body intensified, stiffening his limbs and arching his back, cutting off all thoughts.

He seemed to be waking up, although, _coming to_ would be a better description; he was becoming aware and though groggy in his head, the realization of what was going on came right back. The blinding light and pulsing energy were both gone, replaced by a comfortable, floating sensation and a dull gray everywhere.

He wasn't cold, he couldn't feel the water or the huge horn spiked through the skin on his forearm, though he was floating nonetheless, he could feel it very distinctly. The all-encompassing gray was giving way to a mist, he could see some depth to it now, and darker, somewhat amorphous shapes were materializing. He realized that he was looking down, onto what was another story entirely, but it was becoming more and more clear.

He was looking down on a green field, there were still wispy tendrils of the gray passing by, as if he were descending through cloud cover, though there was no sensation of movement and, his perspective was not changing; the gray seemed to be moving passed _him_. It was an unbelievable rolling, green field that was bordered on one side by thick old-growth forest, steaming with moisture and featuring the deepest green crowns he'd ever seen.

The emerald fields gently rose into crests of foothills and knolls in the distance, and he could clearly see there was only one sign of life here, a dark gray, almost black structure, rectangular and long. It sat atop a broad and gently-sloped hill. He could see for miles in all directions, and this was the only structure anywhere.

There were people moving around and his vision went all white again, though not as intense this time, and then he was at the foot of the hill that the structure was perched upon. He saw the trail leading up to what was, without a doubt from this range, a castle. The six ramparts clearly visible and very distinct, each having three spikes, as opposed to the familiar open-blocks that most ramparts featured. These were obviously not for defense, maybe for viewing or just to be imposing, but definitely not for defense.

Dozens of people were moving about in tattered clothing and cloth shoes and boots, they were very dirty and carrying tools, baskets and bundles. They were working with the drive of an ant colony. A lone figure stood at the edge of the hill's plateau, away from the bustle and movement, surveying the meadow below, looking toward the forest. He held a large staff, had flowing black robes and a long, thick gray beard, though the rest of his head was shrouded in a draping hood.

Marcus followed the bearded man's gaze toward the treeline, seeing that there was quite a bit going on there as well, now that he was closer. The same dirty, matted-haired people were working hard here too, dragging large animals out of the woods, obviously dead, matting and flattening a trail as they did so. There were seven or eight of these very large creatures already arranged neatly on the ground, and he realized from the legs and shape that they were horses, very big, horses.

The horses were a slate-colored base, punctuated by beige and off-white spots throughout. The one they were presently dragging had several of what looked like sticks protruding from its side and neck. The flared ends of the shafts told Marcus they were arrows. There were two in its side and four in its neck. They were apparently hunting wild horses. A cart was now in view and planks were arranged to drag two horses at a time onto it, then it was dragged away by hand.

They should be using those horses to pull the carts... he thought, then was blinded again, and this time it really hurt. He was back with the whales, underwater, and the spearing whale had repositioned itself to put its eye as close to his face as it could get, without removing the giant horn from his arm and the ice. The whale looked, well, it looked impatient... and just a little angry. He started to ask himself if whales could _be_ angry or impatient, but quickly remembered how he had gotten to this very point and the shish-ka-bobbed invader, concluding that _these_ whales could be whatever they wanted to be.

It also became clear to him that he was not breathing, water or whale breath, and that the fun little trip he had just taken, he had taken without ever leaving the farm. It was all in his head, and upon making eye-contact with the whale again, he knew it was coming from the animal. It was trying to show him something.

As if realizing that 'the human gets it now,' the whale flexed slightly and the trip was back underway. Marcus thought to himself that he should keep those kinds of comments about the horses to himself. The animals were running this show, and they could probably hear what he was thinking. Maybe I'll just pay attention then... echoed in his head.

He was back with the horse killers again, and he was very close this time, maybe ten or fifteen feet away from the animal with the arrows still in it. There was a lot of blood, he couldn't see it as well until he was close. It was _a lot_ of blood. He traced the path of the arrows, and he could see now that one was embedded into its hindquarter, apparently shot from behind, wounded and then finished off, most likely. The arrows in the side were in a little deeper and those in the neck were in nearly halfway, denoting close-in, killing shots. _Four_ , close-in killing shots.

He started to look away when something registered in his head that this scene was not quite right. Well, there were quite a few things not right about this whole deal, but there was something wrong about this horse. It was huge, sure, bigger than a Clydesdale, but something wasn't _right_ about it. Even in his mind, his ethereal head and neck turned sideways, resembling a dog that is trying to understand human speech. Then he got it... the horse had a horn.

The horse had two horns, he noted upon closer inspection, similar to those of certain antelope, twisting outward from above the eyes, where the skull was thickest. Each one spiraled out to around two feet, the left one turning clockwise, the right one turning counterclockwise, thinning and straightening, until the last four inches or so were sharp spikes, coming closer together where the points formed.

The horns spread out from the base of the skull, forming an oval shape, then curved back in, like two decorative daggers that were joined to make a single weapon. They were dark too, lightening a bit as they became slender at the tips. There were shorter, splintered arrow shafts as well, he couldn't see them at first because they had broken off in the animal. Must have been one hell of a fight, Marcus surmised.

He felt a pang of guilt. The majestic animal had obviously been ambushed, attacked from behind and crippled, then shot from a distance as it tried to get within striking range of its horns. Then, realizing its situation, it had tried to get away. It was a sad sight, and when he looked closer at the remaining animals, all had similar wounds, signs of struggle and... the horns.

He was trying figure out how to turn his imaginary, floating body, which he could not see, around to take in more when the light returned. When it faded this time, he was inside the castle. There were long, wooden tables with vials, trays, jars and other containers filled with an array of colored liquids, some bubbling and smoking, others containing powders and other condensates. People were working diligently here too.

It was a lab. It was a medieval laboratory, and before he could ask, his vision flashed again and he was in another part of the castle. Mr. Gray Beard was here too, he was standing at a window and looking out, holding his staff in his right hand. Behind him was a large rectangular table made of very thick wood. Mr. Gray Beard had a vial of his own. His contained a white powder that looked like flour.

Doin' a little blow eh? Marcus thought. He knew it was more than that and wanted to joke as a way of diverting the seriousness of what he was seeing. He was already making small connections in his subconscious, though a clear picture was not yet available. Mr. Gray Beard turned, with staff in hand, his eyes were a piercing, pale blue and full of ill-intent. Everything went white again...

He was back in the air, now over a village, well, more like a small town. There were primitive roads and structures, mostly housing, with small farm plots everywhere. Armored horseman were riding through, though not on the horned horses, these were much smaller, normal size horses.

The riders were dropping small bags that puffed when they hit the ground, but the puff was not brown, as the dirt was; it was white, like the powder in the vial on Gray Beard's table. Behind them, people were running around, attacking each other, attacking their work and stock animals. They were writhing on the ground and pulling their own hair out in bloody patches. Everything was white again.

Marcus was back at the top of the hill, looking down the opposite side from the forest's edge, where the workers were taking the bodies of the giant horses. Once on the other side, the horses were unceremoniously dumped out and decapitated, with the body being slid down the side of the hill.

A well-worn, blood-slick track had developed, denoting the amount of use. At the bottom rested a burn pit, where more workers were pulling horse carcasses into the pit and stoking the fires. From the size of the pit, there must have been hundreds, maybe even thousands, of dead animals in there. He was glad he couldn't smell. His vision took him back to the horse heads. The workers were skinning the heads and removing the horns very carefully, ensuring to get all of the attachments that fed blood and nutrients to them, he assumed.

He flashed again, and when his vision refocused, he was in a dark and thickly wooded area, mist and sunbeams cutting through where they could in the dense pack of trees and undergrowth. A horse was in front of him and it looked back, like it could see him, then started walking. His vision began flashing in and out so fast that he was having trouble taking it in, images appearing and disappearing, like they were being sped up. Someone hit the fast-forward button, was his mental reply.

The horned horses had been driven farther and farther into the thick woods, pursued the entire time by Gray Beard and his minions, until there was no more forest in which to hide. They pushed the species into the swamps where, after thousands of years of cat and mouse, they began to adapt in response to their new environment. Growing shorter, the horses' legs became thicker and flatter to better navigate swamp conditions.

As generations of horses came and went, so did the generations of Gray Beard's descendants, keeping their relentless pursuit alive. In time, even the swamps offered no more protection. The majestic animals were pushed closer and closer to the ocean, where they eventually began to spend more time in the water, ultimately trading legs for fins, a snout for a blowhole and finally, merging their two horns into one extremely long horn. They were narwhals.

He knew what they were, and not just from television, he had seen them in real life many times. It was all coming together in his head. Then it was all white again. He was over the research station as it must have been at the start of the attack. The men in white were overtaking the camp, and he could already see two people face-down in the snow, wearing the same light-gray colored clothing Maddie wore. The three people Maddie had described, the last researchers she had watched die, were on their knees, awaiting their end.

The two she had mentioned, the sniper and the man in charge, were there as well, and he was instantly aware of the man in charge. His eyes were a piercing, pale blue, and his hair was gray, not the gray of an old man, but the gray of a disturbing figure in long robes and with a staff, killing now-extinct horses for their horns. Except they were not extinct, they were whales, and that could only mean one thing: they were here to get what was left of the herd, which was now this pod of whales.

The connections were coming like bullets from a machine gun now, it all came together, and it meant they would be on their way to find Maddie as well. There was no way this guy was going to chance leaving a witness, and even if she got away, he knew who she was.

He was back underwater now, with the whale still just a foot or so from his face, though the whale's horn was no longer in his arm. He stared intently at the animal, looking deep into its eye with a new sense of understanding. The other whales were also back and using their horns to lift him to the surface, they held him in place until he could scramble back onto the ice.

He looked back to see all of the whales at the surface, with the large one in the middle. A huge shudder passed through the ice, shaking snow from the sides of the trench, with a cracking sound wave following close behind. It was obviously another explosion. It was _them._ He needed to get back to the shelter, without coming into contact with any of _them_ , and he had to do this before he froze to death from bath-time with the whales.

Chapter 10

Marcus waited for the smoke, and there it was. Billowing up and out of the pack ice to his right, slanting and dispersing rather quickly. These were explosives _,_ he deduced, not a lot of smoke like something still on fire or a fuel explosion.

He figured he could make a straight path up and out of the trench, skipping the winding path that he had taken in. This would most likely put him on the same path the patrol, which had lost a man earlier, would be taking back. He needed to hurry. The explosion was over, it was getting late and they were probably heading his way already.

*****

Maddie was getting nervous and upset, as she paced back and forth between the main room and the ventilation room, stopping to strain her ears in an attempt to hear anything that would mean someone approaching. "Or some _thing_..." she said out loud. She then hoped that when Grizzly Addams returned, it was him and not his cousin, Polar Bear. That would be unpleasant, since there was no way out that she could see, other than the vegetable sunroof deal he had going, which she did not want to mess with. It looked dangerous, and she was short.

Maddie had felt and then heard the explosion, which got her heart pumping and motivated her to keep her gun in her hand. She didn't cock the hammer back, but it stayed in her hand the entire time. She heard a rustling and was overtaken by a momentary wave of fear, freezing her in place. It was definitely something moving towards the shelter, albeit very clumsily. The noise got closer and she wanted to call out but refrained, knowing it could be anyone, even _them_.

The roof of the shelter began to precipitate small bits of dirt, snow and dust as the doors shuttered once, then again, and she saw a hand reach under and lift it up. Before she could figure out whether to cock her gun and aim, Marcus fell through the half-open door, which closed as it was designed, right on his leg. This suspended him upside-down, and Maddie saw that he was in real trouble, not from the trap door, but from the cold. He was blue and trying to talk, but no sounds were coming out.

She grabbed his shoulders in a scooping motion, pushing him up slightly to dislodge his leg, and they both fell hard on the floor. He was a little bigger than she had expected and much heavier, far too heavy for her small frame.

She struggled to get out from under him, then dragged him into the main room where a nice fire was still burning. He was shivering, which was a good sign. When the shivering stops, death is close behind. Maddie knew this from cold-weather training and recent experience. His salt and pepper beard had pencil-sized icicles embedded into it and his eyelashes, eyebrows and hair were frozen together and sporting their own little stalactites of ice.

She opened the front of the stove to expose more direct heat, tossing in the remaining pieces of wood sitting on the ground next to it. She then started trying to strip the frozen clothes off of him. His clothes were nearly solid blocks of ice. The movements of his body kept them from solidifying into a cohesive piece, but they still formed blocks on the legs, mid-section, arms, shoulders and head. She had to really work at it, and the excessive struggling was warming them both up. His icicles were melting nicely, and only his lips and cheeks were still blue.

She got the top layers off and was struck by how many scars he had. There were dozens of them, long ones, short ones, raised ones and recessed ones. Tears started to well up in her eyes. The sight was heartbreaking, and she had to look away. It wasn't that he was hideous, he was actually quite fit, but it was disturbing to see so many obvious knife wounds and other, much larger wounds, on one person.

He was still shivering, though he was able to prop himself up on an elbow. He looked down, as if surveying his scars for himself and said, "It used to be pretty bad _..._ " in his matter-of-fact way.

Pretty bad didn't exactly cut it, but she managed to save that inquiry for later. Maybe she didn't want to know at all. What she did want to know was what was going on now, and Marcus told her as he warmed himself.

She cried several times, sat open-mouthed for a while and then said: "They're Unicorns..." her tone rising in volume as the words came out. "I Knew It!" she screamed, so loud in fact, that Marcus jumped a little.

"OK..." Marcus stretched the phrase out in a tone that was very familiar to her, one that said, "Whatever, crazy lady."

"Don't you start with me!" she snapped, making his eyes grow wide.

He smiled a little, then retracted it, as she was obviously and seriously angry, and at this point in time, he sort of needed her to be happy and helpful. Letting it go, Marcus reminded her of the employment files and that they needed to get out, away from here, as soon as he could travel. They would be fanning out and looking for them, and as secluded as the shelter was, they would eventually find it.

They talked more into the night, making plans and gathering supplies. He had everything they would need to travel comfortably but light. They would take only food, a water bladder for melting snow, a piston fire-starter and guns. He packed both of their backpacks to the brim. They would have to go on foot, making temporary shelters as they went, until reaching a village or settlement. It would not be pleasant, but he had done it many times before, and he knew he could get them both out.

As they packed, he told her more:

"The whales showed me Gray Beard's family tree, as best they could. In the old days they went by Merlin, not as a first name but as a last, eventually evolving as the horses themselves did, modernizing it into the more accepted, Sterling name." However, he conveyed to her that just as in those days, they were no magicians or benevolent spell casters. They were evil men bent on world domination and destruction, using poisons then, as now.

"Back then, these poisons gave them superstitious power, as well as physical power. In the modern world, adaptation was necessary. In the right combinations it breaks down the nervous system or heightens its abilities, giving Sterling many of the same mental abilities as the whales. This has made him a shrewd and rich businessman, as well as nearly superhuman in his ability to avoid trouble and anticipate opponents, whoever they may be. They began funding research projects and supplementing fishing villages with money for watching the whales, either as a dedicated project, or as a side project to pay for other research and facilities."

Marcus had seen how they chose lower-income students, who would jump at nearly any opportunity, particularly a well paid one, and those with little or no family ties. This latter step helped with parents. Parents could be the most tenacious when a child disappears. Marcus told her how each one of the villages and research stations were used to watch the whales, until groups like the one visiting now could be dispatched. Of course, Sterling went every time.

The villages and research stations were wiped out, the whales trapped and killed, and the horns were harvested. They had their own people throughout schools and universities as well, helping to falsify or confuse any real data collected, while secretly using money and influence to block anyone else from trying to research the species.

After a dinner of the remaining seal meat and some canned potatoes and green beans, Maddie filled him in on how she ended up at the top of the world. Then she began to inquire about his past. "So what's your deal?" she queried, "What are you hiding from?"

"Hiding?" he asked.

"People come this far north for two reasons: work or to get away from something," she affirmed.

"A troubled past," he offered.

"What kind of trouble?" she asked gingerly.

"I used to be a different person. I used to be a street thug, basically. I robbed drug dealers and crack-houses. It paid very well, but the risk factor was pretty high," he began.

"I wanted money and all the things that go with it, but I didn't want to work for it and I had no real education. Crime was almost a guaranteed career. After reviewing my options, I decided that drug dealers and crack-houses were the safest and most profitable options. They're not going to call the cops, the neighborhoods they are in are not well patrolled, if at all, and everyone is usually so far out of their minds that I was in and out before they knew what had happened."

"What about witnesses? Surely somebody saw you."

"I wore the same tactical raid gear that the police used, right down to jackets and shirts with 'Police', 'Sheriff' and 'DEA' on them. Anyone looking on just thought it was another raid."

"What happened?"

"My luck ran out. I kicked in one too many doors, and there was a dealer on the other side who didn't want to let his product go. He shot me as soon as I came through the door."

She had already seen the huge scar on the upper left part of his chest.

"I shot him too. It was a reflex effect when the bullet hit me. I woke up in the hospital a few days later, handcuffed to the bed with the police watching over me. The dealer made it, though he was in much worse shape than I was. I got fifteen years when it was all over. I did my time, and now I'm up here to get away from all that... and people in general... I guess," he finished.

As the night went on, they became more and more comfortable with each other, and eventually found themselves staring face to face, both realizing how long it had been since their last physical contact. They almost broke teeth, slamming together hard and fast, with an animal-like need that was purely physical, complete with all of the grunting and snorting of two wild dogs. After a few moments of heated and urgent exchanges, both were lying on the floor, breathing heavily and sweating profusely.

The only light was the glow escaping from the slats in the stove, giving both of their bodies a golden sheen. They made love again, this time more slowly, more attentive and lasting. They kept quite warm until morning came, though the fire had gone to coals sometime in the night; steam rose off of their bodies and puffs of condensation emerged with each breath. Both fell into a deep sleep, with no troubling nightmares or restlessness.

Chapter 11

Maddie and Marcus woke to mutual embarrassment and uncomfortableness, reminiscent to both as times of drunken horniness in their younger, and not so younger, years. Smiling sheepishly, Maddie was gathering her clothes and moving into the ventilation room, with a blanket wrapped around her.

Marcus wanted to watch her go, intently, but didn't want to stare. When she came out she was glowing and grinning, but he wasn't sure if he had been that bad or if he had made an impression. He was dressing as well, just stepping into his pants and unconsciously looking down at his crotch while debating this. He came back to reality with a sound from her direction, realizing that he should probably try to remember that he wasn't alone from here on out.

She must have sensed his confusion, or maybe it showed. She stepped over in one fluid motion and kissed him on the cheek, then rubbed it off with a quick and light swiping motion. She smiled, and it felt like a hand had just clenched around his heart, not metaphorically, but physically. It almost pained him, and he was getting light-headed. He was thankful that she turned away to finish assembling the travel needs.

Wow, he thought, I'm in real trouble here...

Once the gear was together and everything was strapped down tight, Marcus climbed out of the shelter. Maddie handed the packs up, then the rifle and shotgun and stood on the chair to get a grip upon the edge of the opening, with Marcus pulling her up by her other hand. They caught eyes again, and Marcus thought he was going to fall over and drop them both back in, but he managed to pull it off and fell back, as if the effort had been that great.

"Trying to say I'm fat?" she jokingly questioned.

He smiled a big smile that time, she knew he had teeth, she just hadn't seen them yet, and while not a supermodel, he was actually a very attractive man, for an old dude.

Crack! Crack! Crack!

Marcus yelped and dropped and blood spray appeared on Maddie's face and coat. She didn't have to look far to see what had happened as four men, in all white, were walking toward them carrying assault rifles. A fifth was on the ground, holding the side of his head, as another berated him. From the sound of it, Maddie guessed he wasn't supposed to shoot until he was told.

She looked down at Marcus, dropping to her knees and instinctively putting her hand over the smoking hole in the left side of his coat. Panic was trying to latch on, but she was focused on the task at hand; he was starting to bleed profusely. She leaned back, trying to quickly assess the situation. He had been shot in the left thigh, his left index finger was missing and there was a smoking hole in his coat. She leaned back to him, lifting his arm to elevate the hand and slow the bleeding, while she tried to find the bandages they had packed.

The sound of the men moving near her made her look up. They were just standing there, a few feet away. One motioned with his gun to move away, and she did without hesitation. She knew they meant business, and the fact that they were left alive longer than the others already seemed to be a bright point to focus on. Two of the men took their packs off, while the other two started removing Maddie and Marcus' gear and guns. The two with their packs off were apparently attending to the wounds.

When they opened his coat and cut open his pants, she was grateful to see the wounds were less severe than she would have thought. The bullet impacting his chest had skimmed along the breastplate and exited the left shoulder, and while damaging, if the bleeding was controlled, it was survivable. The leg wound was a grazing shot, tearing into fat and tissue, but not too much muscle or any bone.

The hand was another matter. One man held his arm and actually sat on him, while the other injected a needle repeatedly into the open wound where his finger and knuckle used to be. He was squirming and moaning, but she doubted he had the strength to fight or resist, and was likely in shock already. She knew they were numbing it. As he passed out from shock or the pain, they scrubbed it, bandaged it and cleaned up the other injuries. While passed out, he received two more injections, probably antibiotics and a painkiller, she suspected. Thank God... she said in her mind.

Then the men rudely woke Marcus with slaps to the face, put zip-tie handcuffs on Maddie and tried to get them walking. Marcus was not walking anywhere. He was hurt. They ended up carrying him, each man in turn, all the way back. Periodically dropping him to rest, check his vital signs and change carriers.

No whales emerged or broke the surface when they went by, but each of the men in white stared intensely at the black-glass surface. Maddie noted that they were nearly up against the wall that eventually led to the trench, as far from the edge of the breathing hole as they could get. The hole seemed to have expanded here. After catching small bits of chatter from her captors, she realized there had been seven people when they left, and the whales had taken one under. Marcus hadn't told her that part.

Marcus awoke tied to a chair. Next to him Maddie, sat with a concerned look on her face. He processed what he remembered, each thought in turn, until he understood what was going on again. There were two guards in the room with them, their guns pointed right at them. He felt drugged, and looked down to see the bandages on his chest, shoulder and leg, and while he couldn't see it, he felt the throbbing in his hand that was telling him something was wrong there as well. He was somewhat confused, thinking he should be dead if these people had him.

He tried to give her a reassuring look, though the pain of movement made him wince. He coughed and asked the guards for a cigarette. Neither even changed their expression. Marcus just grinned. They heard the outer door open, and in walked the sniper and Blue Eyes, the former not even making eye-contact and moving to the far side of the room, the latter smiling a large and bright smile, though it did not have the trusting, disarming effect of most bright smiles. This was a smile of triumph, one of expected power and control over the situation. It was a smug smile.

"Sterling is my name," he announced, "And I already know yours, but you knew that, didn't you? See," he said smiling, "now this is fun!"

He had an English accent, not too obvious, but it was there. He looked right into their eyes when he talked; Maddie found it difficult to hold his gaze for long. The piercing blue was almost white at times, and she felt as though he looked _through_ her, more than at her.

"You're only alive because I want you to be. Do what I say and you'll not be harmed further, choose not to, and ..." he trailed off, turning his head toward the sniper in the corner. The same smug grin was on his face when he looked back at them. "You spoke with them, didn't you?" he queried Marcus.

"I did," Marcus replied.

"Interesting creatures, wouldn't you agree?"

"Looks like they've been getting the better of you for a while," Marcus replied with a mischievous grin.

"Indeed, but no longer. This is it, these are the last and I have them. Do you know that the noises you heard yesterday were the sounds of the exit channel being blocked? They have no way out; I've surveyed the ice above and below for hundreds of miles. See, we're not just going to harvest them."

At this, both Marcus and Maddie looked at each other, then back to Sterling.

"There are not enough of them left anymore. We need to keep some alive to breed, because the materials in the horns cannot be synthesized, we've tried for centuries. And the influences of people are taking their toll: warming climate, depleted food, over-hunting and pollution. These are the last of them, and now they are trapped, which is why I've decided to add something new to the timetable. Something _just_ for you two," he stated, then grinned.

They were both untied from the chairs, although, their hands were left bound behind their backs. Movement was excruciating for Marcus, and while he tried valiantly, he could not hold back the moans and grunts.

The two guards herded them into an adjoining room, where a sealed medical lab, was centered in the room. One of the invaders was tied to a chair, just as Marcus and Maddie had been a moment ago, though he was blindfolded. Marcus knew, this was the man who fumbled the maintenance shed incident, leading to the unplanned explosion. This was his punishment.

There was one of Maddie's co-workers in the room too, crouched in the corner, hands tied behind her back and blindfolded. From Maddie's expression, Marcus assumed that she didn't know her at all. Someone opened the door and must have told the woman to get up. Then a piece of paper came into view, and a man with a masked face wearing surgical gloves pushed the button on a can of compressed air, used to clean computer keyboards. A fine white dust cloud puffed out, encircling the woman's head. The door was slammed shut.

Marcus knew what was coming. The woman started convulsing, fell down writhing and flopped and turned until she was no longer restrained or blindfolded. She began screaming like a wild animal and pulled out a patch of her hair so violently, it slung little droplets of blood in an arc across the room, covering part of the window in tiny, red freckles. Almost instantly, she noticed the man in the chair and with no hesitation, ran straight to him and attacked like a rabid dog: scratching, biting and hitting until they were both covered in blood and he was sideways on the floor, no longer moving.

She was even attacking the chair, biting it and tearing out several teeth in the process more than once. Then she ran around screaming, and screaming, for what seemed like forever, eventually settling into a corner and seething. She wasn't breathing, it was _seething_. Spittle and blood streamed out with each cycle of breath, and her shredded lips flopped with each exhalation. One of her broken teeth protruded almost horizontally out of her ragged mouth.

Chapter 12

Even the tough, stoic guards looked unnerved by the preceding spectacle. Marcus and Maddie were in stunned silence; they were rudely sat back in their chairs, though not tied to them this time. Marcus let out a long groan, followed by heavy breathing. Maddie noticed the red stain on his shoulder had grown, filling out around the darker red with brighter, newer red.

"This is my world now..." Sterling said, as he grabbed Marcus' arm and plunged his finger into the hole left by the whale's horn.

The electricity and pain were there, but not the white light or floating sensations. He's not trying to tell you anything... he's looking for what you know, Marcus thought. As if in response to his thought the white lights came, and he was floating again, this time over a destroyed city. Smoke and fires were everywhere, the streets were choked with bodies and vehicles, both of which were horribly mangled. Pools of blood and blood stains were everywhere, even streaking down the sides of the buildings, emanating from the windows on high-rises.

There was a river, the first five feet of which was dark red, so red in fact, he could clearly see the distinction between it and the muddy brown water, even at his present distance. Once again, he was very glad these little trips didn't come with smell-a-vision.

He was pulling back and the view was blurring, but as his view retreated he spotted something very distinct near the river, not realizing it for what it was, at first. A large U-shaped structure was lying on its side, looking rather precarious where it sat. The jagged remains of one leg still stuck out of the foundation. It was shining in the sun, as light rays glinted off the individual sections of what looked like stainless-steel plates combined into what was, a giant monument.

It was the riverfront of St. Louis, Missouri. The St. Louis Arch was on its side. Blue Eyes had shown him what his home town would look like in the very near future. This was the future that awaited everyone. His view turned to all white, and then he was back in reality.

He knew, even before being shown, what this man's intentions were. Marcus had heard it repeatedly mentioned in books and within movies. This man was evil. Real evil personified, cultured and nurtured over countless generations. He was thousands of years of misdeeds, murder and trickery, and as far as Marcus and Maddie were concerned, he might as well be The Devil.

He smiled at Marcus again, then at Maddie. Maddie did not even hesitate, like she knew the outcome at this point. "Don't even think about touching me," she spat at Sterling, almost making Marcus laugh.

Sterling was taken aback but not for long. "My dear girl, I bet you would claw my eyes out if I untied you..."

Again, without so much as a heartbeat in between: " I don't want you blind... I want you dead," she said, looking him right in the eyes as she did.

Marcus could tell he wasn't used to that, especially from someone whose look and inner fire told him she was telling the truth. Sterling looked at Marcus, then did an about face and walked out without another word. Marcus and Maddie looked at each other, no expression on either of their faces.

The sniper followed in Sterling's wake, also not saying a word to them or the guards. They both knew, however, that Maddie had just shortened whatever time they had left to live. Neither cared that much, it was worth it to both of them to see the smug look wiped off of his face for the first time.

During the exchange, Marcus had been taking advantage of the fact that his left arm, the severely wounded arm, had been secured loose and high, compared to the other. While it was very painful to move, he was slowly working his hand up near the zip-tie. His grunting and exhalations did not alert the guards, as he was grunting in pain nearly the whole time up to that point. He was shot in the chest, so it really did hurt just to breathe. There was a shout outside, and one of the guards walked out, returning in seconds to call the other out with him.

Marcus acted quickly, pulling his hand through the hole as fast he could stand to, without having to scream out in pain. Once out, he freed the other arm using his teeth and got his knife from its leg-mounted sheath, which had remained unnoticed under his layers of clothes. Maddie thought he was coming to cut her restraints, but he put the knife blade up to his mouth, making the universal 'shhhh' sign, and crept to the side of the inner door.

Marcus suspected the two guards were getting the order to kill them, so it was now or never. He heard the outer door open and close. As he flexed his grip on the knife handle, Maddie noticed the blood dripping through the bandages on his injured hand. It was dripping in erratic pulses: five to six drops in succession, then a slower pace, repeating over and over again.

The footsteps were getting closer, and each one thundered in Maddie's ears. The first guard was close now. He could see Maddie, and she could see him. He immediately noticed Marcus' chair empty and waved to his comrade as he started to run. As his face crossed the threshold of the door, Marcus swung the knife directly into his throat, just under the Adam's apple, then ripped it out, stepped back and rammed another stab home. This one went up from the front, under his chin, through the roof of his mouth and into his brain.

The guard reflexively jumped back, slamming into the second, knocking them both to the floor. Marcus moved with terrifying speed, jumping on top of both men and in one fluid motion, he pinned the doomed man under the combined weight of himself and the man's dead comrade. He switched the position of the knife to point down and stabbed hard. He stabbed three more times, and Maddie saw the blood flying and the tissue dangling from the knife when he stood. She was stunned.

He limped over to her and cut her loose from her restraints. Trying to move toward the door again and looking very unsteady, he dropped the knife and put his good hand on his knee. Marcus needed a moment to get his breath. He had lost a lot of blood, and all the activity was quickly weakening him.

Maddie had no idea what to do at this point. Marcus sat down and instructed her. "Get their guns," he told her, "Don't look at them. Back up to the bodies, and just feel up the side until you find the gun."

She helped him to his feet, and he told her to take him to the maintenance building. "It's gone..." she said.

"Yes, but not all of what was in there is gone yet. I have an idea," he was grinning, and his grin was just a little bit evil. They fired two shots with one of the assault rifles to mimic their execution and moved as fast as Marcus could toward the maintenance building.

They navigated to where the maintenance area joined with the main building through an open walkway; it smelled like smoke, burnt plastic and fuel. Maddie kicked the door open, and the winter winds hit them in the face. The two walls facing towards the front and far right of the camp were essentially gone. The explosion was clearly defined with a debris pattern and blackened snow.

Upon closer inspection, they noticed a lump of snow-covered debris right where the corner used to be. Then they made out the blackened bones of a human foot. There were flares everywhere, the flares they used in the rare event that anyone had to go out at night or during dark, winter days with little or no sun.

"Looks like someone made a final stand here, igniting the box of flares, causing an explosion that set off the fuel stores for the generators," Maddie surmised.

"Good for you," Marcus slurred to the charred remains, "Hope you took a few of them with you."

Marcus turned to the opposite corner, and right there, just where the whale had shown him, was a five-gallon bucket of sulfuric acid. The acid was used to recharge lead-acid batteries all over the camp. It was the natural ingredient in the batteries, and while it was possible to add water to a dead battery as a temporary fix, that was not an option in the Arctic.

"What are we going to do with that?" Maddie wanted to know.

"Give them a taste of their own medicine," he replied.

Marcus' plan was simple; Sterling and his team had blocked the channel to keep the whales from escaping to the open ocean or to another breathing hole, so they were only headed one place: the breathing hole. The whale had shown him this, the images of the dead whale carcasses being hauled onto the ice and their horns cut out, some still flopping around, not quite dead yet.

Marcus wasn't having any of that. He was no tree-hugger, but he couldn't stand by and let this happen, not now. He told Maddie to get to the top of the trench. He managed to get down into it, and just as the whales had shown, no one was there as of yet. He told Maddie to leave her guns and gear on top, while he had carried two small shovels and she carried the bucket of acid.

They dug out the trench wall at the bottom, just enough to make it precariously unstable. Then Maddie got back up on top of the trench and into position, flat on her belly, looking straight at the ground and waiting to hear the men walk by. She didn't know exactly what Marcus was up to, but he was clear that she was to fire a few shots and then get down and not move or look up until he called out to her. She suspected it would be nasty, as he had told her to dig a little bowl out of the snow and keep her face in it, just in case.

Marcus painfully dragged the bucket into place, kicking snow over it and packing it down until it could only be seen from his perspective. He arranged the loose snow from their digging to look as normal as possible, then retreated to where the trench opened up to the breathing hole. He sighted in on the bucket and waited, wondering how long he _could_ wait. Little floaters were dancing in greater numbers throughout his vision, and he was feeling very weak and light-headed. He was bleeding out, and he knew it. He had felt the sensation before.

Maddie heard the clatter of metal and the clinking of gear, the crunching of boots on ice and hard-packed snow. They were coming. She was shaking. It was cold, and she was terrified. She didn't have to kill anyone personally, and didn't know if Marcus would, though she could see no alternative way out of this. They were below her now, still crunching and clattering, though not talking at all. Marcus couldn't see them yet, but he would see them soon enough.

Marcus could hear them coming too, and he steadied his rifle on the middle of his forearm, the cold making every movement that much more painful. There were shadows on the wall of the trench; they were almost in view. As they began to round the corner, they were walking two-by-two, each with an AK-47 assault rifle slung over his shoulder.

There were seven pairs, the last of which had two larger, hunting-style rifles, most likely .50 caliber models to punch through thick blubber and bone. He knew Sterling would not be among them, he also knew that the sniper would. He was following behind, walking alone and oddly enough, not carrying any visible weapon.

Marcus heard Maddie's shots as she opened up with a burst from the assault rifle commandeered from the dead guards, and he let his shot go as soon as the first one looked up in her direction. Maddie had shot the top of the trench, and the impact and concussion of sound waves caused it to collapse where they had undermined the wall.

It flowed down fast and hard, Maddie immediately did a belly flop to get out of sight, but the avalanche was too big and brought her down on top of the trap she had just sprung, right in plain view of her enemies. She heard the shot from Marcus and rolled down the other side of the huge drift that she had just made, out of sight. She stayed there, face-down, waiting for something to tell her what had happened.

She heard the men on the other side yelling, it sounded like they were saying, "Run, run!" but the voices were already changing pitch, turning into a tone of panic. Then screaming... lots of screaming. She could hear coughing and the distinct sounds of choking, gasping for air, and jumpsuits sliding on ice and snow. Then it was quiet.

Marcus shot the bucket of sulfuric acid straight through the middle, and the bullet went right out the back side, spraying acid and releasing a thick gas that just kept coming. It was yellow and came out of the bucket remains like a smoke bomb. The men were engulfed as the steep walls, lack of wind and cold temperatures kept the fumes inside with them, as the avalanche was intended to do. The only way out was toward him.

He kept the rifle trained, but the recoil had sent white-hot pain through his arm and hand. After few moments, he realized that no one was running out. Moving in a little closer, he could see them. They were crawling around inside the yellow cloud, in no real direction though, some grabbing their throats and rolling over onto their backs.

He called to Maddie, and she responded. Telling her to come around from the other side, he started to walk toward the breathing hole. He was very unsteady and was trying to decide on just the right spot to fall down and rest, until Maddie got around to him.

A deafening crash rang out, and Marcus felt, more than heard, a ringing in his ears. He felt like he was floating again, but there was no bright light this time, only a dull, grayish light, as if he were underwater. Then he _knew_ that he was underwater, and he could see the trails of blood drifting upward but, he noticed right away, no bubbles. Not a good sign... he thought sarcastically.

He wasn't cold, and he had stopped drifting downward, though a lot of blood was still streaming up. He glanced down to see a large hole in the left side of his coat, just below his previous chest wound. However, this one was much worse, it was spewing out blood in a thick and steady stream. His vision was fading, growing darker from the outer edges in, and he was vaguely aware of getting closer to the surface. He could hear screaming and the pops of gunfire. He hoped it wasn't Maddie.

Marcus saw the familiar spiral horns around him in the water and realized that the whales were bringing him to the surface. The closer he got, the more the black border on his vision closed in, and he could now only see faint light piercing the water through a view the size of a porthole on a ship. Marcus caught a glimpse of the familiar, strawberry-blond wisp of hair through the water. He smiled and was gone before his body broke the surface.

Maddie had heard a shot, a very loud shot, much louder than the guns she and Marcus were carrying, so she quickened her step. She rounded the backside of the drift that was sloped out onto the ice, making a somewhat easy path to the breathing hole. She stepped out to see Sterling standing over the edge of the hole, Marcus' .50 caliber revolver still smoking in his hand. There was a ripple and bubbles distributing across the surface of the water.

Maddie let out a scream that could have curdled milk, then took off running toward Sterling and squeezing the trigger of her rifle as fast as she could. Sterling turned when Maddie started screaming. He never had a chance though, her aim was erratic from running, sending the first round wild, but the second two bullets tore in to Sterling's stomach. He fell to his knees and curled over to rest his head on the ice, resembling a vertical fetal position.

The rounds continued to pummel into his back, shoulders and head. The last two shots impacted the top of his skull and one erupted from the base of his neck, spraying blood and tissue in a 'V' pattern out behind him over a distance of nearly four feet.

She kept running and kicked the bleeding hulk with a force that would have made an NFL special teams coach proud. The kick at a full run tripped her, and she slid forward on her belly, until one hand was over the edge of the hole and in the water. She looked down and saw the whales holding Marcus in a raft made of horns.

They were bringing him back up, and a wave of hope came, then faded just as quickly when she saw the blood, the hole in his chest, and upon nearing the surface, the lifeless eyes. They brought him up to the edge, where she reached out sobbing, then the whales moved and gently let him drift down out of sight. Maddie felt a sorrow that was beyond description and considered following him.

She sat by the hole for a moment, as the whales watched silently. She got up, walked over and retrieved Marcus' pistol from Sterling's body. She headed toward the opening of the trench where she could see wisps of what looked like yellow smoke coming out. She turned the corner and had to put her goggles back on and pull her head wrap up over her mouth and nose. The fumes burned like oven cleaner.

She was navigating her way through the tangled mess of bodies where everything was covered with a light yellow dusting, except where bright red blood trails led back to the faces and mouths. She tried to feel sympathetic but could not bring herself to do it. As she stepped over and around the dead, she noticed the last one in the string was not dead yet. She froze in place.

Not really knowing what to do, Maddie just stared. He was trying to crawl, dragging himself along with his arms. His head was down, and a thick red trail stretched out behind him. He pulled himself along, stopping and gurgling blood out of his nose and mouth. She could see his eyes were being corroded away, developing a milky coating that was very disturbing to watch. He wasn't blind, yet, and as he reached out in her direction, she saw his face clearly. Even covered in blood and yellow poison, she recognized him: the sniper.

Maddie walked up to him until she was just beyond the reach of his outstretched arm. She cocked the .50 caliber revolver's hammer back and pointed it at his forehead. "You know you deserve this..." she said, then pulled the trigger.

Chapter 13

Maddie looked for a place to climb over the drift she had made, when she heard the sound of crunching ice and snow behind her. She wasn't alarmed, realizing it must be another one of the men not quite expired yet. Turning to ensure that she was not within reach, the gun in her hand hit the ground and she sucked in a huge breath.

Marcus stood about ten feet away, dripping and soaked, but not bleeding from his chest wound at all. The previous wounds seemed to still be there, but they weren't bleeding either, and he actually looked warm to her. "What..?" she tried to ask but wasn't able to get any more out.

"I don't know..." he said and grinned, "They... they brought me back," he finished.

Tears flowed down her face, and she ran to him, first hugging him tightly and then pushing him away to inspect where the fatal wound had been. She probed front and back with her fingers into the holes in the fabric. There was nothing but the previous shot's damage, no large hole, no sign of it at all.

They embraced again, and Maddie could see the heads of the whales and their horns lightly breaking the surface of the water. "We have to protect them," Marcus said as he too, turned to look at the whales.

"I know...but how?" Maddie replied.

"We'll figure it out as we go, and I'm sure they'll help," he said, nodding toward the breathing hole. He took her hand in his, and they started walking toward the hole in the ice as more and more whale heads and horns broke the surface.

"A long time ago, there were people who looked after and guarded these animals," Marcus stated.

Maddie thought for a moment, then squeezed his hand just as two of the massive horns rubbed passed one another in the water, like two medieval swords crossing, only the horns breaking the surface.

"And there will be again..." she said.

The End

*****

William is a Missouri native who finds endless inspiration within the natural world for horror, science-fiction and fantasy. His writing has appeared in anthologies from The Bearded Scribe Press and JWK Fiction, as well as in Nebula Rift Magazine and Calamities Press Literary Magazine. William's stories can be found at Amazon, Barnes & Noble, Smashwords and iTunes.

" _I write because I'm terribly unhappy if I don't..." - W.P._

Visit William Online At:

Facebook: Author William Petersen

Twitter: @WideWorldOfWill

Blog: TheInwardSpiral.Wordpress.com

***

A very special thanks to Piers Anthony for his invaluable advice and direction, and a very special thanks to Steve Williams for his editing, production and narration of the audiobook.

***

For more information on real narwhals and the real people researching, tracking and protecting them, like Kristin Westdal and the PEW Environment Group's Oceans North Project, please visit the resources that follow:

**Kristin Westdal**  
Oceans North: Protecting Life in the Arctic  
Marine Biologist, Canadian Arctic Program

http://www.OceansNorth.org

*****

Thank you for reading! -William
