Excerpt from Color Them Gone

Below is a short piece from one of my upcoming books, a novel of icy dread and mystery.

They jumped in Glen’s truck and could already hear the radio crackle with Bill’s voice making a general call out for one of the chopper pilots. There was no telling where any person would be in a camp that ran twenty-four hours a day; the dining room, rec rooms, the residence areas or even the yard, so general calls went out for key personnel in emergencies.

Glen dropped the truck into gear and floored it. The vehicle spun, sending an arc of snow clattering across the side of the trailer.

He flicked his radio to another channel and grabbed the mic, “Jerry, it’s Glen.”

A few seconds of static, then a laconic voice, “Yeah. Go ahead, Glen.”

“I’m heading out of camp looking for a guy. I need you up at the gate.”

Another few seconds, “Right now?”

“Right now. No messing around. We got a missing guy and another one injured.”

They drove by the open main gate as Jerry answered, suddenly rapid and clipped, “Roger. I’m already halfway there.”

Glen switched the radio back to the main channel in time for them to hear Boorman’s gravelly voice come on, “-the fuck is going on out there? Who’s calling for a chopper?”

Bill came on explaining the situation delicately and Glen turned the sound down to a buzz, “Don’t need to hear that asshole getting up everyone’s nose right now.”

They were already a hundred yards down the road, their headlights spearing the emptiness all around them. Without the lights of camp, the world beyond the road directly ahead was totally black.

Glen said, “What did that guy say about where they were?”

Andy pointed out the windshield, “He said they’d just come around the last bend, so it must have been just up there.”

They could already see the curve ahead, right at the limit of the lights. Glen slowed down and they peered ahead, squinting at the edges of the headlight beam to the front and sides.

About fifty yards from the curve, Andy spotted a disturbed area in the snow on his side, “Stop. This might be it.”

Glen squeaked to a halt on the ice just shy of the spot. He put the truck into Park, leaving it idling, and pulled his parka hood over his head, “Going to be mighty cold out here. You got a flashlight?” 

Andy dug in the top of the survival kit and pulled one out, “Yep.”

Glen had his own light on the dash. He grabbed it, flicked it on and opened his door, “Here we go.”

Andy pulled his hood on and got out on his side.

The cold was immediate. Though it was the same temperature as in the camp yard, it seemed colder somehow out here in the darkness.

Andy switched on his light, fumbling with it through his thick gloves. He got it on and swept it around in an arc.

White snow, black trees, the road curving away from them a few yards ahead and arrowing back to the lights of camp about a half mile behind. That’s all there was to the world under the stars.

Glen rounded the front of the truck, whispering, “If something like a bear or a wolf got our guy, I guess we’ve already advertised our presence on the menu. You hear anything?”

They both stood still and held their breath. All Andy could hear was that curious low staticky sound he knew was his blood flowing through his own head. There wasn’t even a whisper of wind.

After several seconds, Glen murmured, “I don’t hear anything.”

“Me neither,” Andy aimed his flashlight ahead to the disturbed snow at the side of the road.

Glen pointed farther ahead with his light, “Look. Skid marks. If the thing hit the truck back just a bit, Bobby must’ve hit the brakes and they ended up…” his light traced the path right to the disturbed snow, “here.”

Andy stepped over to the place. Right between the spots where the tires obviously stopped, piling up small ridges of dirty snow, there were dark holes in the clean snow just off the road.

He aimed the light down into the irregular holes and saw frozen, dark purple blood.

He straightened, “Yeah. It happened here.”

“Well, what the hell then?” Glen said.

“What?”

Glen swung his light across the snow on that side of the road, “If something hit this side of the truck, where did it come from? There are no tracks anywhere.”

Andy aimed his light out and scanned the whole area between the road and the trees in a one hundred-eighty-degree arc.

There was nothing. The snow was a pristine white blanket.

Glen started walking along the shoulder, his light aimed at his feet, “Maybe it was on the road already, just walking along.”

Andy waggled his light to get Glen’s attention, “Maybe. We have to find that guy, Glen.” Even in his heavy parka, Andy was feeling the cold leech into his body. His face felt tight, and he pulled the furry hood further down over his face.

“Right,” Glen turned and came back, “Well, he didn’t head anywhere on this side.”

They moved to the other side of the road parallel to the disturbed area, but their lights didn’t show anything on that side either.

“What the…?” Glen waved his light back and forth along the edge of the road, “Where the hell would Kenny go?”

Andy raised his eyes and looked along the straight stretch toward the distant lights of camp, “If it were me and I knew we were this close…”

Glen swung around, his light spearing back down the road, “Right. I’d head for camp.”

They walked side-by-side along the opposite shoulder of the ice road. They’d only gone two dozen steps when Glen said, “Whoa. Here it is.”

His light traced a line of deep prints heading away from the road at a ninety-degree angle. They went straight across the flatness between the sparse trees to the limit of his light.

Glen spoke softly, as if to himself, “Where the fuck was he going?” He pointed down the road toward the lights, “He could see the damn camp from here.”

Andy said the only thing that made sense to him, “He obviously started out toward camp, but maybe something scared him off the road.”

Glen sighed and pulled his portable radio out, “Jerry?”

The metallic voice came back, “Yeah?”

“We’re going cross-country for a bit. My truck’s about seven hundred yards from camp, just before the first curve. We’re heading, uh…south off the road to look for this guy,” he shifted his gaze to Andy as he continued, “We’re only going to give it ten minutes, because we don’t want to end up as popsicles ourselves, over.”

Jerry buzzed, “I’ll get someone else out there to back you up, don’t worry,” he clicked off.

Glen looked at Andy, “Ready for a hike?”

“Ten minutes?” Andy said.

“It’s already coming up on a half-hour for Kenny in forty below. If we don’t find him in ten minutes, he’s beyond our help anyway.”

Andy gestured with his light, “Lead on.”

“Oh no. After you. I insist. Watch that first step, though.”

Andy looked at Kenny’s tracks. It looked like the guy had flung himself off the road. There was a big impact crater in the snow about six feet out from the road, then regular prints from that point on.

The snow didn’t look particularly deep, but the ice road was built up a good couple feet above the land, so he gingerly slid his foot down the sharp slope of the edge to where he felt solid ground underneath.

He stepped over to the first spot where Kenny had landed as Glen stepped down behind him.

“Look,” Glen swung his light all around them, “No other prints.”

Andy crouched and carefully examined the footprints and disturbed snow between them. It seemed that nothing else had gone this way.

He stood and shivered, “No other tracks in here that I can see either.”

Glen’s light traced the tracks through the snow ahead, “Then what the hell was he running from?”

“I don’t know but come on.”

Single file, they stayed in Kenny’s tracks, moving straight away from the road. All Andy could hear was his own breath and the squeak of their boots in the snow.

The snow was only knee-deep and was dry and light, but after several minutes of pushing through it, he was panting, and his throat felt raw. He reminded himself to breathe only through his nose.

They were about a hundred yards from the road when Glen pointed ahead with his light, “Look.”

Andy had been focusing on the tracks directly in front and hadn’t noticed.

They were no longer going straight.

The tracks had begun to meander, and it looked like Kenny had stopped a few times and turned, maybe thinking about heading back or maybe going in another direction.

Andy turned to Glen, “It’s like he-”

“Either didn’t know where he was, or wasn’t sure where the threat was coming from,” Glen finished for him, panning his light around.

“He was panicked and disoriented,” Andy said, “Probably starting to fall into hypothermia.”

“He’s also right there,” Glen said flatly, aiming his light over Andy’s shoulder.

Andy spun around, expecting to see a guy just standing in the snow ahead of them.

Instead, he saw the black trunk of a tree and the tracks curving toward it. And just beyond…

They both ran up to the tree to find the body of a man lying in the snow.

They skidded to a stop and Andy sucked in a breath, shocked.

Glen breathed, “Fuck me. You ever see anything like that?”

Kenny was lying on his back, eyes frozen wide, staring up at the stars. Andy’s light reflected the ice crystals in the eyes. The face was white, like a wax doll.

“Look at his hands,” Glen said.

Kenny’s hands were up in the air over his chest, palms up, fingers splayed. He’d somehow frozen in place with his arms almost straight up.

“Jesus Christ,” Glen whispered, “You ever see anything like that? Looks like he’s reaching for something.”

“Or fending something off,” Andy said.

“What?”

“Look at his face,” Andy aimed his light at the pale features.

Kenny’s eyes held a frozen look of terror, and his mouth was stretched open, like he froze mid-scream. Bizarrely, there was even snow inside the mouth.

Glen whispered, “Holy shit. I’ve never seen anyone with such a scared look on their face.”

Andy turned away from the body, “This makes no sense.”

“You’re telling me.”

“No, I mean, he’s been out here for only a half hour. Granted, it’s forty below, but he was mobile for at least some of that time, yet he looks frozen solid,” he swung his light back onto the face, “Look, there’s even unmelted snow in his mouth. This just isn’t possible.”

“I don’t know what is or isn’t possible, but I want to get the fuck out of here right now,” he slapped Andy’s sleeve with a glove, “Come on, there’s nothing we can do for him.”

“We can’t just leave him here.”

“Yes, we can. I expect this is going to be a police matter now and we aren’t detectives.”

Glen started backtracking their trail. Off in the distance, Andy faintly heard the thin whine of the chopper starting up at the airstrip, warming up to take the other guy into the hospital. Sounds of reality in the middle of an unreal situation.

He swung his light back onto Kenny’s face, You were so close to camp. Why did you come out here? 

A cold deeper than that of the air moved through Andy’s body and he trembled. Hearing the swish of Glen’s footsteps fading behind him made him feel suddenly alone, more alone than he’d ever felt in his life. Alone and hollow inside. And yet…

The feeling was back, like a faint itch somewhere deep inside, between his ears. He knew he was surrounded by unseen eyes watching, studying him from the darkness.

He scanned around with his light and saw nothing but the featureless expanse of white everywhere. He raised his head and gazed up at the thousands of stars overhead, the constellations in different positions from what he was used to down south. 

He half-expected to see faces leering down at him, but they were just stars. There was a hint of green aurora just on the northern horizon, the only color in the night.

He looked down again into Kenny’s frozen, terror-stricken eyes, What did you see out here?

No answer came in the silence. 

He turned away and followed Glen’s black figure back to the road.

I hope you enjoyed this short excerpt. I’m aiming to have the book out soon. In the meantime, you can find all my books and contact me at my author page:

amazon.com/author/jaygould