She chased a few aspirins down with a cup of watery tea before settling back into her chair and opening her laptop. Displayed before her were various graphs describing the deteriorating affects climate change was having on this particular glacier. In another week or two she would have enough data to take home with her to study it further. She hoped to publish a paper on her findings before the university pulled the plug on any further field projects. A paper would give her the leverage she needed to shut Harold up for awhile…
There was so much pressure involved. Developers, hungry to turn the glacier into another winter ski run and summertime sled course for the amusement park crowd, were growing increasingly nervous that she’d find something which would prevent them from pushing forward with future plans. Local environmentalists hailed the study as a positive step in the right direction.
What Dr. Unger had discovered so far was that her glacier was alarmingly smaller than it had been fifty years ago. All summer they’d heard the mountain roaring as blocks of ice, sometimes the size of townhouses, broke apart from the crevasses and crash against one another like giant dice. As the bottom end of the glacier receded, rock once blanketed by ice for hundreds of years was becoming exposed.
Dr. Unger lost herself in the data the team had already compiled. She enjoyed the rush of scientific discovery, could spend days searching for patterns and developing theories to explain them. Sometimes she felt sad by what she saw happening, days when she looked upon the glacier as if it were a terminally ill patient—a patient whose body was slowly vanishing…
“Carol! Carol!” she heard Marco yelling excitedly. He and the other hikers from the team had finally reached camp.
Dr. Unger hadn’t been aware that she’d fallen asleep. When she opened her eyes she realized her headache was gone. Marco was heading toward her.
“What is it?” Unger asked. She stood up from her chair and stretched. “I couldn’t understand a single thing you said on the radio.”
As Marco got close she began to reach out to hug him before thinking better of it. Although the team knew they were sharing sleeping bags, she had to keep reminding herself to make an attempt at being circumspect. You just never knew if one of your grad students might become disgruntled for some reason and decide to make trouble for you. She’d heard plenty of nightmares from colleagues over the years.
Marco struggled to catch his breath. Unger could see his arm was bleeding through his down jacket. The other three students had rushed over to the supply locker and began pulling flashlights and heavy equipment.
“What the hell is going on? And what did you do to your arm?” Carol asked.
Marco took another step closer, his breath almost steaming against her face.
“I found a tunnel Carol. And it goes down inside the glacier. On my way out I slipped and scratched myself.”
“You aren’t supposed to be exploring any tunnels. We’ve already been in plenty of those this summer.”
“This one’s different. I saw something in the ice. I think it might be human…”
“A long lost skier perhaps?” Carol smirked. “Or a well preserved snow-boarder?”
Marco pulled off his jacket. The scratch was long but the bleeding had stopped. One of the crew came by and handed him a first aid kit and left. He unsnapped the lid and found antibiotic cream and gauze.
“All I know is that it looked human,”
“You mean you couldn’t see it very well?”
“The ice is a little clouded on the surface. But I think I can fix it.”
“We don’t have time for this. It’s probably just a rock or a tree that the glacier picked up a long time ago. I think you’re imagination has gotten the best of you.”
“No. It was real. The others believe me and we’re going back today.”
Carol couldn’t believe it. Not only was Harold trying to end her research trip early but now the team she’d brought up was going to mutiny on her.
“Are you forgetting what we’re here for? We still have tons of work to finish before we can leave. You’ve got to call this off, Marco. This is a ridiculous waste of time…”
Marco tied off a gauze bandage and looked up at her, grinning. “Then think of it as a chance to have a little fun for a change.”
Carol watched as Marco slid his hand inside his coat pocket and came out with something flashing between his closed fingers.
“Catch!” Marco said. He flipped a gold object up into the sunlight. When it came down Carol reached out and caught it. She was surprised by what she saw. The gold piece looked old, over a hundred years at least. What could something like this be worth?
“Where did you find this?” She asked, fearing the answer she already knew was coming.
“In the tunnel I was telling you about. I don’t think anyone has been down there for a long time. I think the entrance must have been sealed until just recently. If you hurry up and get your gear we can make it back up there in an hour.”
Dr. Unger stood silent for a moment, her mind trying to right itself again as she stared in awe at the coin in her hand. Not far away she could hear members of the team having a good chuckle. When she glanced up at them they looked away.
“I’ll have no choice but to fail you,” she shouted. But she knew her threat was useless. The team was ignoring her now. They had bigger things on their minds.
This is nuts, she thought. Who would have thought this could happen? Dr. Unger turned her gaze to the glacier looming above them.
The patient might be dying, but she still has many surprises up her sleeve…
Carol held the coin up to the sun one last time before handing it back to Marco.
“So you’re saying there are more of these?”
“I sure hope so,” Marco said. He pressed his lips against the coin like some crazed prospector from the past.
CHAPTER 52
Robert closed Stick’s dead eyes and found a blanket to cover him with. There wasn’t any time to wait for the ambulance to arrive. They got in the truck and Will stepped on the gas. Fifteen minutes later they were rolling down a dusty road to the front of Wilbur’s house.
The house looked closed up and the curtains were drawn. Robert wondered if Stick had been right about where Peggy and the others had fled from Marsh. Perhaps the neighbors were out of town, leaving Peggy to decide whether they should find another household that could help them.
But she would have checked to see if they had a phone first. Even if that entailed putting a rock through the front window so she could get inside.
She’d left no signs of stopping here. At least so far he hadn’t noticed any. Everything appeared to be in its place.
The porch was deeply shaded, surrounded by waist-high planter boxes overflowing with flowering plants. A wooden loveseat squeaked back and forth in the breeze and an occasional gust of wind caused it to thump against the house.
“I don’t like this,” Will said. “I don’t like this at all.”
“What is it?” Robert asked.
“We’re being watched.”
“You know where?”
“They’re inside the house. I saw someone behind the curtain of the front window when we pulled up. But they’re gone now. They’ve moved away from it.”
They gazed at the rest of the farm, noticing that the barn door had been left open. A padlock hung from a metal hasp. If the inhabitants of the house had gone somewhere it seemed odd they hadn’t closed things up. Unless they just forgot. Or had to leave in a hurry…
“I’ve got a funny feeling about this,” Will whispered. “Like a fly must feel before you sneak up and swat it.”
Robert exhaled slowly, trying to settle his nerves. “Then maybe we should hang back a bit, let them show themselves so we’ll know what we’re dealing with.”