Homecoming, page 20
While he was a scientist by nature, a man of intelligence and learning, he was also a soldier, and while he didn't fight on any front lines, he'd received enough basic training and refresher courses down the years to evaluate a situation and deal with it.
The footprints were deeply disturbing to his analytical mind, but someone was in trouble and that meant taking action rather than simply pondering a theory.
He quickly started to trudge through the snow, following the tracks. He found that they went behind the row of cabins, but it was hard to tell through the storm which way they'd come from and which way they were heading.
With his head lowered, he turned right and started to head to the next cabin over from him.
The wooden lodges were given a large plot of land so that they were all distanced out from each other.
It took him some time to wade through the snow, which was knee height by now and only growing deeper.
By the time he reached his neighbour, he was exhausted, but he pushed on. If he was feeling the cold, then he could only imagine what a shoeless person must be going through.
He checked in through the rear windows, but the cabin was dark inside and nothing appeared to be moving.
Sara Stark was currently staying here. She was on the Delta Bravo team, which was the team that ran opposite to his. Their projects sometimes ran hand in hand, but such was the military way that they often didn't know what the other was working on until it was required for them to pair their projects together.
Having been staying out at the cabins together for the past few months, they had often shared a nightly beer and occasionally, after a few too many, she had let a few things slip about her work, specifically her unease with what her team were doing. He hadn't pushed for details as any kind of divulging protected information would be grounds for disciplinary action, but he hadn't seen doubt in her eyes before, and that moment had stuck in his memory.
She was a nice enough woman if a little chatty, but her exuberance had paired nicely with his quiet. He knew that she had been planning on moving into the barracks soon, but when he leaned around the corner of the cabin, he saw that her truck was parked outside.
“SARA?” he yelled, banging on the window. “SARA? YOU IN THERE? IT’S WENDELL.”
There was no answer, and he didn't like the silence; in fact, it made him feel sick to his stomach.
Using the cabin’s side wall for protection, he edged his way along it until he reached the door. He banged on it hard but was unsurprised to find no response.
There was a chance, he supposed, that Sara had gone into town, that maybe she'd gotten a ride into the Institute this morning and now found herself trapped there with her vehicle stuck here; there was a chance, that was true, but it was a slim one. Sara, like him, was a soldier – a scientist yes, a brainiac sure, but she was in the army, and you weren't trained to be sloppy.
He banged on the door one last time before trying the handle, and his worst fears came true when he found it unlocked.
“SARA?” he called out as he stepped inside. “YOU IN HERE?”
The smell hit him hard as soon as he was out of the storm. The cabins were relatively spacious, but they consisted of a large, open-plan kitchen-cum-lounge with an en-suite bedroom beyond the single interior door. The open space now stank of fear and blood.
During his earlier days in the science division, he’d had to work in vivisection. It had changed him as a person, and he'd threatened to resign his commission if he wasn't transferred. He knew that his superiors must have valued him greatly to agree as the army weren’t in the business of keeping people happy or granting requests. He’d only been part of that particular lab for a couple of weeks, but he'd never forgotten the smell that came from the animals. Their primal terror was baked into his memories, and some nights his dreams were invaded by their anguished howls. Sometimes, when he’d woken up drenched in sweat and terror, for a lingering moment he'd still smelled that foul aroma until it faded. Now, as he stood in the log cabin, he could smell it again, only this time it wasn't fading.
Looking around, he spotted a heavy-looking brass lamp and picked it up. He stood on the cable before pulling it towards him and yanking the wires out of the plugged-in plug. He hefted the lamp and felt that it was heavy enough to be a worthwhile weapon.
He didn't call out again. He'd made too much noise already, and he wasn't comfortable making any more.
Heading towards the closed bedroom door, he prayed that he was wrong, but he knew in his gut that he wasn't.
Holding the lamp in one hand, he reached out and pulled open the door, recoiling as the stench got worse without a barrier.
Checking inside, he could see that there was blood on the floor, bloody tracks leading to the en-suite bathroom door which was open a crack.
He crossed the room quickly, eager not to prolong the suspense and the inevitable.
Pulling the door open, he found himself staring into a bloody mess quite literally. The walls were splattered as though someone had painted them crimson. The shower curtain was out, hiding the inside of the bath, and as much as he didn't want to look, he knew that he had to. No one could have lived having lost this amount of blood, but he still needed to be sure.
With a trembling hand, he slid back the curtain, the metal rings scraping the pole as he did so and exposing the bath below.
He honestly didn't know if he was staring at Sara or not. The body in the bath had been torn apart and was missing three out of four of its limbs. The torso appeared to be female given the genitals, but there was no head attached. Vomit rose in his throat as he leaned over to take a closer look, and that was when he spotted the small rose tattoo just above the hip. It was an inking that Sara had proudly shown off when drunk one night at a divisional Christmas party.
“Jesus Christ.” He inhaled sharply as he stared down at the mess, unable to understand what could have done this.
While there was undoubtedly frenzy here, there were also clear signs of design as even with his rudimentary biology, he could see that several organs had been removed from the body. Had a wild animal been the perpetrator, even if one existed here, they would not have left so much meat behind.
He staggered back out into the bedroom and then the open-plan lounge before he let his held breath out and started to pant with the unconscious effort.
Setting the lamp down, he crossed to the kitchen area and selected a long, vicious-looking knife from the block on the counter. The blade was sharp as he drew a little blood from his thumb while checking.
“Better,” he whispered to himself.
There were thirteen rental cabins in total including his own and Sara’s, along with a much larger lodge where Mrs Chandler lived.
“Alright then. Two down, twelve to go.” He nodded to himself before heading back out into the storm.
----------
CHAPTER 16
Closed for the Holidays
Belle felt like the outsider that she was when Nathan arrived back with Dan Marko.
Tara’s threat to lock her up next to Vanek had thankfully been just an empty one, but now she was standing on the outskirts of the group as Nathan hugged Tara, and Marko shared an awkward half embrace with the town doctor, showing that whatever was between them was obviously a recent development.
While there was obvious tension in the air between her and Tara, the other woman hadn't thrown her out of the station. Perhaps she sensed that Belle wouldn't have gone easily or perhaps there was still a semblance of friendship between them, somewhere buried deep down in the spirit of children. Or perhaps the horrendous weather outside simply meant that the town’s constable wasn't willing to throw her out into the storm.
“So tell me,” Tara instructed when the reunion had been completed.
“It was like Nathan said,” Marko started. “No sign of anyone at the farm, not Travis or Jennings or anyone else for that matter. There might have been something large parked out there recently, but I guess it is a farm.” He shrugged.
“Our friend downstairs says that he killed Travis,” Belle offered.
“Said it was self-defence,” Tara added. “He also said that he and Travis found a severed finger in the chicken coop, one that Travis thought belonged to Jennings.”
“Well there’s no sign of a body anywhere on the farm,” Nathan said. “If you don't count the chickens, that is.”
“Yeah, one of the outbuildings was a right mess,” Marko said, his voice suitably queasy. “The barn that Nathan saw burning was down by the time that I got there, but as far as we could see, there were no bodies in there.”
“You sure?” Tara asked.
“It’s a wooden barn; my guess is that it wouldn't burn hot enough or long enough to destroy a body, especially given that the snow put it out before too long,” Nathan mused, specifically towards the doctor.
“Sounds right. Cremation chambers burn at about 1500 degrees, and that's directed heat in a small confined space. I doubt that a burning barn would get the job done. Plus – and forgive me, folks – you'd smell a burning body from a mile away.”
“So excuse me for asking the bleeding obvious, but what the hell is going on?” Belle asked the group.
No one had an answer, and most of them looked around the room at each other, all with nervous expressions painted on their faces.
“Okay then, first things first.” Tara nodded thoughtfully. “Doc, how’s the guy in my office doing?”
“Mr Kline? Conscious and talking, but to be honest, I'd feel better if I was able to get him a head scan to make sure that there’s no serious damage.”
“Well as long as the weather keeps up like this, he's not going anywhere,” Tara replied. “Hopefully, we’ll get a break, a large enough window, and then we can reach out for help, get him transferred and his buddy too.”
“So we keep them here? What about an investigation?” Marko asked his boss. “I mean..., we’re not exactly set up for anything like this, boss.”
“This is still our town, Dan. Our town, and we are the law here… you and me, and maybe even Frank.” She laughed, and the ice in the room broke a little as the aged dispatcher looked up nervously. “Doc, I need you to take a look at the body in the car out there, the young woman that our new friend downstairs brought in.”
“What am I looking for?”
“Anything you can tell me. Vanek told a pretty tall tale, and I don't believe a word of it, but that doesn't necessarily mean I don't want it checking out.”
“Okay, but I’ll need to take her over to my office to do it right or at least as close as I can get.”
“Fine, take the car she came in.”
“I’ll go with her,” Marko immediately offered.
“Sorry, lover boy, but you're needed elsewhere,” Tara shot him down.
“I’ll be fine,” Lizzie assured him.
“I can go with her. I might be a vet, but I'm sure that I can assist,” Nathan offered. “Besides, maybe none of us should be going out alone until we figure out what's going on.”
“Good idea,” Tara agreed.
“Keys?” Lizzie asked.
“Here,” Frank answered as he retrieved the set from his desk on the other side of the room.
Belle watched as the doctor gave Marko’s hand a quick squeeze before she headed out with Nathan protectively in tow.
“So what's next?” she asked the town constable, knowing that at least for the moment, they weren’t speaking as friends.
“Next I try and figure out what the hell is going on in my town,” Tara replied with added emphasis. “Dan, go and grab Kline and take him downstairs. Put him in the cell next to his friend and turn on the sound on the cameras before you leave, and then you can watch from the observation room. We put a couple of rats in traps next to each other, and maybe they get a little loose-lipped.”
“Is that legal?” Belle asked.
“Right now, I care more about answers than judicial procedure.”
Dan left, leaving her, Tara and Frank.
“Frank, you get on the radio and keep trying to reach Fallstowe. Tell them what's happened here; tell them we got dead and missing in Wellspring.”
“Doubt a signal is going to get through in this storm,” Frank said dubiously.
“Then you’re going to sit your ass in a chair and keep trying until you do. Clear?”
“You got it, boss.” He shrugged and returned to his desk, leaving the two women alone.
“You really think that this is all about drugs?” Belle asked quietly.
“Honestly? I have no fucking idea,” Tara admitted, and for the first time, Belle saw the woman behind the badge now that they were alone. “What do you think? I mean, do you believe any of that garbage Vanek was spouting about monsters roaming the forest?”
“Monsters? No. But the Institute bothers me, Tara. Something is going on up there, and I've been doing this for far too long now to not trust my instincts.”
“It’s an army facility. We couldn't go up there even if I wanted to. I don't have the jurisdiction.”
“Actually, that's not strictly true. Nathan told me that his mother has only leased the place to them. The military don't own it, so it's not army territory… they’re actually Nathan’s family’s tenants.”
“That true?”
“Yes.”
“Well now, that is interesting,” Tara replied, and for the first time in a while, they shared a smile.
----------
Lucas Moffat took a nip from the coffee Thermos in the snowplough cab and welcomed the warmth of the whisky he'd added.
After taking over from his father, as was the Wellspring tradition, he'd seen plenty of winters, but this one was already shaping up to be the worst in his experience.
The snowfall had come earlier than usual and certainly earlier than predicted. It was falling hard and fast, and deep drifts were forming all over town. The plough’s blade was doing its job for now, but almost as quickly as he was clearing it, he could see in his rear-view mirror that it was already forming again in his wake as if mocking him.
The town paid him to keep the town’s inner roads clear, and he made his year’s money during the three months or so that he was required. The addition of the military moving into the Schaefer Institute had doubled his workload but quadrupled his income meaning that he had bought a second vehicle and actually had an employee now like a proper business.
Eddie Marlow was currently driving the old plough around town while Lucas had had to head quickly out to the outskirts of Wellspring to open up the road in and out of the facility and the cabins where many of the military employees stayed.
It had been hard going, and for a while he’d been worried that he’d left it too late, but yard by yard he’d managed to cut the plough through the heavy snow until eventually he'd seen enough of the road underneath.
Already he knew that he'd be out here all night. At this rate, the road would be impassable if he left it for more than an hour or so. His father’s old plough wouldn't be able to cut it out here, and he felt a swell of pride that this was all about him and his success.
His father had retired about seven years ago when the old man’s arthritis had finally gotten the best of him. His mother had walked out on them almost twenty years ago now. She'd met and fallen for a yoga instructor who’d passed through Wellspring whilst on a hiking holiday.
He’d never blamed her for wanting more than their town had to offer – after all, no one could ever choose whom they fell in love with; he did blame her, however, for just up and disappearing on them in the middle of the night without a word.
The sky was so thick with snow now that it was getting almost impossible to see more than a few feet in front of the cab. He'd lost track of the time of day. The eerie white glow and covered sky made it impossible to tell what time it was.
The laced coffee in his system was giving him a nice buzz and keeping him warm despite the arctic conditions. The plough practically drove itself at this point, and seemingly without another living soul out here, he found himself able to let his mind drift.
While he had to work insanely long days during the winter, he had most of the rest of the year off, and although this year’s shift had only just begun, he was already picturing the hot sandy beaches of his extended summer break.
He loved to travel and he loved to sail. He had a boat currently moored in Antigua, and she was eagerly waiting for his return. He dreamed of the day when he could simply retire to the sea and sail under a never-ending sun, far away from the grip of another icy winter.
His mind was on golden sands and golden tans so much so that he didn't see the man standing in the road ahead of him until it was way too late to stop.
The shock at seeing the figure alone in the frozen tundra was enough to freeze the signal to his brain and prevent him from hitting the brakes, not that there would have been enough time anyway. The plough's blade hit the guy at waist height and passed through him like a hot knife through butter. Severed in half, the man’s torso bounced up and his head hit the cab’s windscreen, leaving a red wet splat against the glass before bouncing off and falling out of sight.
He hit the brakes just after the nick of time, and the plough responded in typically sluggish fashion before it slowed rather than skidded to a halt.
Only after he came to a standstill did the shock start to hit him, and his hands shook violently as he fought the urge to throw up.
He pulled on his outerwear and opened the door. The cab’s heated interior was suddenly flooded with the frozen wind and snow as he battled his way out, closing the door behind him.
Climbing down to the ground, he had to hold an arm up to shield his face from the blizzard that buffeted his face and body as he made his way around the plough and started to walk towards the twin red halves of the man he’d sliced in two.
He had to lean hard into the wind as he walked, almost bent over doubled, each step harder to take than the one before.
He reached the legs first, twin twitching limbs that were still kicking a little. The top half was several feet away, and despite not wanting to, he knew that he had to take a look.
The footprints were deeply disturbing to his analytical mind, but someone was in trouble and that meant taking action rather than simply pondering a theory.
He quickly started to trudge through the snow, following the tracks. He found that they went behind the row of cabins, but it was hard to tell through the storm which way they'd come from and which way they were heading.
With his head lowered, he turned right and started to head to the next cabin over from him.
The wooden lodges were given a large plot of land so that they were all distanced out from each other.
It took him some time to wade through the snow, which was knee height by now and only growing deeper.
By the time he reached his neighbour, he was exhausted, but he pushed on. If he was feeling the cold, then he could only imagine what a shoeless person must be going through.
He checked in through the rear windows, but the cabin was dark inside and nothing appeared to be moving.
Sara Stark was currently staying here. She was on the Delta Bravo team, which was the team that ran opposite to his. Their projects sometimes ran hand in hand, but such was the military way that they often didn't know what the other was working on until it was required for them to pair their projects together.
Having been staying out at the cabins together for the past few months, they had often shared a nightly beer and occasionally, after a few too many, she had let a few things slip about her work, specifically her unease with what her team were doing. He hadn't pushed for details as any kind of divulging protected information would be grounds for disciplinary action, but he hadn't seen doubt in her eyes before, and that moment had stuck in his memory.
She was a nice enough woman if a little chatty, but her exuberance had paired nicely with his quiet. He knew that she had been planning on moving into the barracks soon, but when he leaned around the corner of the cabin, he saw that her truck was parked outside.
“SARA?” he yelled, banging on the window. “SARA? YOU IN THERE? IT’S WENDELL.”
There was no answer, and he didn't like the silence; in fact, it made him feel sick to his stomach.
Using the cabin’s side wall for protection, he edged his way along it until he reached the door. He banged on it hard but was unsurprised to find no response.
There was a chance, he supposed, that Sara had gone into town, that maybe she'd gotten a ride into the Institute this morning and now found herself trapped there with her vehicle stuck here; there was a chance, that was true, but it was a slim one. Sara, like him, was a soldier – a scientist yes, a brainiac sure, but she was in the army, and you weren't trained to be sloppy.
He banged on the door one last time before trying the handle, and his worst fears came true when he found it unlocked.
“SARA?” he called out as he stepped inside. “YOU IN HERE?”
The smell hit him hard as soon as he was out of the storm. The cabins were relatively spacious, but they consisted of a large, open-plan kitchen-cum-lounge with an en-suite bedroom beyond the single interior door. The open space now stank of fear and blood.
During his earlier days in the science division, he’d had to work in vivisection. It had changed him as a person, and he'd threatened to resign his commission if he wasn't transferred. He knew that his superiors must have valued him greatly to agree as the army weren’t in the business of keeping people happy or granting requests. He’d only been part of that particular lab for a couple of weeks, but he'd never forgotten the smell that came from the animals. Their primal terror was baked into his memories, and some nights his dreams were invaded by their anguished howls. Sometimes, when he’d woken up drenched in sweat and terror, for a lingering moment he'd still smelled that foul aroma until it faded. Now, as he stood in the log cabin, he could smell it again, only this time it wasn't fading.
Looking around, he spotted a heavy-looking brass lamp and picked it up. He stood on the cable before pulling it towards him and yanking the wires out of the plugged-in plug. He hefted the lamp and felt that it was heavy enough to be a worthwhile weapon.
He didn't call out again. He'd made too much noise already, and he wasn't comfortable making any more.
Heading towards the closed bedroom door, he prayed that he was wrong, but he knew in his gut that he wasn't.
Holding the lamp in one hand, he reached out and pulled open the door, recoiling as the stench got worse without a barrier.
Checking inside, he could see that there was blood on the floor, bloody tracks leading to the en-suite bathroom door which was open a crack.
He crossed the room quickly, eager not to prolong the suspense and the inevitable.
Pulling the door open, he found himself staring into a bloody mess quite literally. The walls were splattered as though someone had painted them crimson. The shower curtain was out, hiding the inside of the bath, and as much as he didn't want to look, he knew that he had to. No one could have lived having lost this amount of blood, but he still needed to be sure.
With a trembling hand, he slid back the curtain, the metal rings scraping the pole as he did so and exposing the bath below.
He honestly didn't know if he was staring at Sara or not. The body in the bath had been torn apart and was missing three out of four of its limbs. The torso appeared to be female given the genitals, but there was no head attached. Vomit rose in his throat as he leaned over to take a closer look, and that was when he spotted the small rose tattoo just above the hip. It was an inking that Sara had proudly shown off when drunk one night at a divisional Christmas party.
“Jesus Christ.” He inhaled sharply as he stared down at the mess, unable to understand what could have done this.
While there was undoubtedly frenzy here, there were also clear signs of design as even with his rudimentary biology, he could see that several organs had been removed from the body. Had a wild animal been the perpetrator, even if one existed here, they would not have left so much meat behind.
He staggered back out into the bedroom and then the open-plan lounge before he let his held breath out and started to pant with the unconscious effort.
Setting the lamp down, he crossed to the kitchen area and selected a long, vicious-looking knife from the block on the counter. The blade was sharp as he drew a little blood from his thumb while checking.
“Better,” he whispered to himself.
There were thirteen rental cabins in total including his own and Sara’s, along with a much larger lodge where Mrs Chandler lived.
“Alright then. Two down, twelve to go.” He nodded to himself before heading back out into the storm.
----------
CHAPTER 16
Closed for the Holidays
Belle felt like the outsider that she was when Nathan arrived back with Dan Marko.
Tara’s threat to lock her up next to Vanek had thankfully been just an empty one, but now she was standing on the outskirts of the group as Nathan hugged Tara, and Marko shared an awkward half embrace with the town doctor, showing that whatever was between them was obviously a recent development.
While there was obvious tension in the air between her and Tara, the other woman hadn't thrown her out of the station. Perhaps she sensed that Belle wouldn't have gone easily or perhaps there was still a semblance of friendship between them, somewhere buried deep down in the spirit of children. Or perhaps the horrendous weather outside simply meant that the town’s constable wasn't willing to throw her out into the storm.
“So tell me,” Tara instructed when the reunion had been completed.
“It was like Nathan said,” Marko started. “No sign of anyone at the farm, not Travis or Jennings or anyone else for that matter. There might have been something large parked out there recently, but I guess it is a farm.” He shrugged.
“Our friend downstairs says that he killed Travis,” Belle offered.
“Said it was self-defence,” Tara added. “He also said that he and Travis found a severed finger in the chicken coop, one that Travis thought belonged to Jennings.”
“Well there’s no sign of a body anywhere on the farm,” Nathan said. “If you don't count the chickens, that is.”
“Yeah, one of the outbuildings was a right mess,” Marko said, his voice suitably queasy. “The barn that Nathan saw burning was down by the time that I got there, but as far as we could see, there were no bodies in there.”
“You sure?” Tara asked.
“It’s a wooden barn; my guess is that it wouldn't burn hot enough or long enough to destroy a body, especially given that the snow put it out before too long,” Nathan mused, specifically towards the doctor.
“Sounds right. Cremation chambers burn at about 1500 degrees, and that's directed heat in a small confined space. I doubt that a burning barn would get the job done. Plus – and forgive me, folks – you'd smell a burning body from a mile away.”
“So excuse me for asking the bleeding obvious, but what the hell is going on?” Belle asked the group.
No one had an answer, and most of them looked around the room at each other, all with nervous expressions painted on their faces.
“Okay then, first things first.” Tara nodded thoughtfully. “Doc, how’s the guy in my office doing?”
“Mr Kline? Conscious and talking, but to be honest, I'd feel better if I was able to get him a head scan to make sure that there’s no serious damage.”
“Well as long as the weather keeps up like this, he's not going anywhere,” Tara replied. “Hopefully, we’ll get a break, a large enough window, and then we can reach out for help, get him transferred and his buddy too.”
“So we keep them here? What about an investigation?” Marko asked his boss. “I mean..., we’re not exactly set up for anything like this, boss.”
“This is still our town, Dan. Our town, and we are the law here… you and me, and maybe even Frank.” She laughed, and the ice in the room broke a little as the aged dispatcher looked up nervously. “Doc, I need you to take a look at the body in the car out there, the young woman that our new friend downstairs brought in.”
“What am I looking for?”
“Anything you can tell me. Vanek told a pretty tall tale, and I don't believe a word of it, but that doesn't necessarily mean I don't want it checking out.”
“Okay, but I’ll need to take her over to my office to do it right or at least as close as I can get.”
“Fine, take the car she came in.”
“I’ll go with her,” Marko immediately offered.
“Sorry, lover boy, but you're needed elsewhere,” Tara shot him down.
“I’ll be fine,” Lizzie assured him.
“I can go with her. I might be a vet, but I'm sure that I can assist,” Nathan offered. “Besides, maybe none of us should be going out alone until we figure out what's going on.”
“Good idea,” Tara agreed.
“Keys?” Lizzie asked.
“Here,” Frank answered as he retrieved the set from his desk on the other side of the room.
Belle watched as the doctor gave Marko’s hand a quick squeeze before she headed out with Nathan protectively in tow.
“So what's next?” she asked the town constable, knowing that at least for the moment, they weren’t speaking as friends.
“Next I try and figure out what the hell is going on in my town,” Tara replied with added emphasis. “Dan, go and grab Kline and take him downstairs. Put him in the cell next to his friend and turn on the sound on the cameras before you leave, and then you can watch from the observation room. We put a couple of rats in traps next to each other, and maybe they get a little loose-lipped.”
“Is that legal?” Belle asked.
“Right now, I care more about answers than judicial procedure.”
Dan left, leaving her, Tara and Frank.
“Frank, you get on the radio and keep trying to reach Fallstowe. Tell them what's happened here; tell them we got dead and missing in Wellspring.”
“Doubt a signal is going to get through in this storm,” Frank said dubiously.
“Then you’re going to sit your ass in a chair and keep trying until you do. Clear?”
“You got it, boss.” He shrugged and returned to his desk, leaving the two women alone.
“You really think that this is all about drugs?” Belle asked quietly.
“Honestly? I have no fucking idea,” Tara admitted, and for the first time, Belle saw the woman behind the badge now that they were alone. “What do you think? I mean, do you believe any of that garbage Vanek was spouting about monsters roaming the forest?”
“Monsters? No. But the Institute bothers me, Tara. Something is going on up there, and I've been doing this for far too long now to not trust my instincts.”
“It’s an army facility. We couldn't go up there even if I wanted to. I don't have the jurisdiction.”
“Actually, that's not strictly true. Nathan told me that his mother has only leased the place to them. The military don't own it, so it's not army territory… they’re actually Nathan’s family’s tenants.”
“That true?”
“Yes.”
“Well now, that is interesting,” Tara replied, and for the first time in a while, they shared a smile.
----------
Lucas Moffat took a nip from the coffee Thermos in the snowplough cab and welcomed the warmth of the whisky he'd added.
After taking over from his father, as was the Wellspring tradition, he'd seen plenty of winters, but this one was already shaping up to be the worst in his experience.
The snowfall had come earlier than usual and certainly earlier than predicted. It was falling hard and fast, and deep drifts were forming all over town. The plough’s blade was doing its job for now, but almost as quickly as he was clearing it, he could see in his rear-view mirror that it was already forming again in his wake as if mocking him.
The town paid him to keep the town’s inner roads clear, and he made his year’s money during the three months or so that he was required. The addition of the military moving into the Schaefer Institute had doubled his workload but quadrupled his income meaning that he had bought a second vehicle and actually had an employee now like a proper business.
Eddie Marlow was currently driving the old plough around town while Lucas had had to head quickly out to the outskirts of Wellspring to open up the road in and out of the facility and the cabins where many of the military employees stayed.
It had been hard going, and for a while he’d been worried that he’d left it too late, but yard by yard he’d managed to cut the plough through the heavy snow until eventually he'd seen enough of the road underneath.
Already he knew that he'd be out here all night. At this rate, the road would be impassable if he left it for more than an hour or so. His father’s old plough wouldn't be able to cut it out here, and he felt a swell of pride that this was all about him and his success.
His father had retired about seven years ago when the old man’s arthritis had finally gotten the best of him. His mother had walked out on them almost twenty years ago now. She'd met and fallen for a yoga instructor who’d passed through Wellspring whilst on a hiking holiday.
He’d never blamed her for wanting more than their town had to offer – after all, no one could ever choose whom they fell in love with; he did blame her, however, for just up and disappearing on them in the middle of the night without a word.
The sky was so thick with snow now that it was getting almost impossible to see more than a few feet in front of the cab. He'd lost track of the time of day. The eerie white glow and covered sky made it impossible to tell what time it was.
The laced coffee in his system was giving him a nice buzz and keeping him warm despite the arctic conditions. The plough practically drove itself at this point, and seemingly without another living soul out here, he found himself able to let his mind drift.
While he had to work insanely long days during the winter, he had most of the rest of the year off, and although this year’s shift had only just begun, he was already picturing the hot sandy beaches of his extended summer break.
He loved to travel and he loved to sail. He had a boat currently moored in Antigua, and she was eagerly waiting for his return. He dreamed of the day when he could simply retire to the sea and sail under a never-ending sun, far away from the grip of another icy winter.
His mind was on golden sands and golden tans so much so that he didn't see the man standing in the road ahead of him until it was way too late to stop.
The shock at seeing the figure alone in the frozen tundra was enough to freeze the signal to his brain and prevent him from hitting the brakes, not that there would have been enough time anyway. The plough's blade hit the guy at waist height and passed through him like a hot knife through butter. Severed in half, the man’s torso bounced up and his head hit the cab’s windscreen, leaving a red wet splat against the glass before bouncing off and falling out of sight.
He hit the brakes just after the nick of time, and the plough responded in typically sluggish fashion before it slowed rather than skidded to a halt.
Only after he came to a standstill did the shock start to hit him, and his hands shook violently as he fought the urge to throw up.
He pulled on his outerwear and opened the door. The cab’s heated interior was suddenly flooded with the frozen wind and snow as he battled his way out, closing the door behind him.
Climbing down to the ground, he had to hold an arm up to shield his face from the blizzard that buffeted his face and body as he made his way around the plough and started to walk towards the twin red halves of the man he’d sliced in two.
He had to lean hard into the wind as he walked, almost bent over doubled, each step harder to take than the one before.
He reached the legs first, twin twitching limbs that were still kicking a little. The top half was several feet away, and despite not wanting to, he knew that he had to take a look.
