It was almost easier to believe in arctic ghosts.
Chapter 12
Master pipefitter Sergei Yevgenyevich Buyanov was not at all happy to be out in the snow, walking the station’s pair of guard dogs.
Ordinarily he wasn’t supposed to handle them at all; that had been Salnikov’s job. But Salnikov hadn’t come back from Sobchak’s little errand, so someone had to take the dogs out, and Buyanov had been ordered to do it. He had made the mistake of admitting that he knew something about dogs.
The dogs didn’t seem very happy about the state of affairs, either, and it wasn’t just the cold, Buyanov was certain of that. Instead of trotting along as they usually did, sniffing at anything interesting, they hugged the station’s walls and seemed to be constantly whining, heads down, or else staring out into the icy gloom of the arctic night and making unhappy noises in their throats.
At first Buyanov had thought it was just him, that the dogs didn’t like him, that they missed Salnikov, but when they didn’t improve, and it sank in that they always both looked into the darkness in the same direction, he reconsidered.
There was something somewhere out there that they didn’t like.
But there wasn’t anything out there, Buyanov told himself. It was quiet and clear. The storm had ended, at least for the moment-everyone who had been here for more than a single winter seemed to agree that this was probably just a lull and they could expect howling winds and blinding snow to come sweeping back down on them at any time, but right now the air was calm-so cold and still that it seemed almost solid, as if all the world were encased in crystal.
Did the dogs sense a new storm coming?
That couldn’t be it-there were storms here all the time, and Buyanov had never heard of the dogs being spooked like this before.
There had been all those stories about the missing squad, about ghosts or monsters or some crazy American commando mission, but Buyanov hadn’t believed any of that-and he didn’t see anything. He stared repeatedly in the direction that seemed to worry the dogs and couldn’t make out anything but snow, ice, and the overcast sky.
”What the hell’s the matter with you?” he demanded, tugging at the leashes as the dogs crouched, staring out into the wilderness. “There’s nothing out there!”
Just then a puff of wind swept down at them from the nearby hilltop; snow swirled around Buyanov’s boots. As if that had shattered the stillness gusts and eddies began to appear everywhere.
That new storm was definitely coming, Buyanov decided, and might break any moment. The storm was coming, and he wanted to get back inside, where it was warm, where he wouldn’t have to worry about these crazy dogs, and where he wouldn’t find himself half believing children’s stories about snow demons or ghosts. Next thing you know, he told himself, I’ll start believing Baba Yaga’s out there, coming in her chicken-legged house to snatch me up for her stewpot.
”Come on!” he said angrily, giving both the leashes another Yank.
The dogs didn’t move. The big female growled, deep in her throat. This wasn’t just worry, Buyanov knew-he did know something about dogs, or he wouldn’t have spoken up and wouldn’t have been given this duty. That was a serious warning, that growl, and Buyanov knew it. That wasn’t playing, or any sort of low-level threat; that was a “back off right now or I’ll rip your throat out” growl, nothing halfhearted or playful about it. If any dog had ever growled at Buyanov like that, he’d have backed down immediately.
She wasn’t growling at him, though. She was growling at something out there.
”There’s nothing out there,” Buyanov repeated, baffled and frightened. “Just the wind.”
The dog barked angrily, once, her hot breath a dense cloud in the cold air. The wind picked up just then, and snow sprayed up from the hillside, glittering white in the light from one of the station’s few windows, like a flurry of diamond dust.
The storm was coming, no doubt about it, and coming fast. Buyanov realized suddenly that that eerie stillness must have been the calm before the storm that people spoke about. Wind roared in the distance.
”Come on,” he said, pulling at the leash.
The big dog jerked back, and the leather strap slipped from Buyanov’s glove. The dog immediately charged up the hillside, her legs churning through the drifts as she bounded away into the darkness and swirling snow.
”No!” Buyanov shouted. “Come back, damn it!”
The dog didn’t come back, and by the time the echoes of his own shout had died away Buyanov couldn’t hear her anymore over the mounting howl of the wind.
”God damn it,” Buyanov said as he dragged the other dog growling and yapping around the final corner to the door. The dog planted his feet, but Buyanov was bigger and stronger, and with just the one dog now he could rely on brute force to haul the animal to the door.
He shoved the heavy steel door open and caught a faceful of warm, damp air that felt like a foretaste of heaven; the entryway was unlit, but light spilled out from somewhere farther inside, tempting Buyanov.
He did not yield. He had to track down and recover the other dog.
”Get in there,” he said, shoving the other dog inside. Then he flung in the leash and slammed the door, shutting the dog inside and himself outside in the storm.
He would have to be careful when he returned, he reminded himself, and make sure that the stupid cur wasn’t waiting there to lunge out the instant the door opened again.
Right now, though, he intended to find the first dog and haul her back.
”I should let you freeze, you stupid bitch,” he muttered as he located the dog’s tracks and began following them up the hillside. The wind was fierce now, already approaching gale force; he shielded his eyes with one gloved hand, trying to see clearly through wind and snow and night. He would have to move quickly if he didn’t want to lose the trail-drifting snow would cover it in minutes, he was sure.
”When I find you, I’ll…” he began, but then he stopped; he couldn’t think of any appropriate vengeance that he would dare take on Salnikov’s dogs. “By God, I’ll do something, you miserable…” He peered into the darkness; he was over the hilltop now.
Something slammed into him, something big and soft and heavy that hit him hard. He toppled backward into the snow and felt the cold crystals spray into his boots and gloves and collar, felt the icy hardness of the ground as he landed flat on his back.
He blinked, clearing the snow from his eyes, and saw what had hit him.
His missing dog lay on his chest, her face mere centimeters from his own. Her eyes were blank and staring, and blood was trickling from her open mouth.
”What…” He sat up, enough adrenaline pumping through his veins that the dead dog’s weight might as well not even have been there. As he rose the dog rolled down to he lifelessly across his legs.
Blood was everywhere, on his coat and his boots and his leggings and thickly matted on the dog’s fur.
The dog had been gutted. Something had ripped open her belly in two long slices, side by side.
”What could have done this?” he asked, staring.
Then he realized that the dog had not jumped on him; the corpse had been flung. What could have thrown it with such force?
He looked up, and there they were, three of them, standing in the snow, watching him.
They were bigger than humans; the shortest was well over two meters. They were shaped more or less like men, but their faces were hidden by metal masks, their hands ended in claws. They wore no coats, despite the cold, and bristled with unfamiliar weaponry. Their skin was yellow, where it showed; their hair, if it was hair, was worn in long, decorated, snakelike braids that flapped eerily in the wind.