Ile des S?urs black against the predawn sky. Though their scoreboards were out I knew the players. Nortel. Kodak. Honeywell. So normal. So familiar in my world at the end of the second millennium. I wished I were approaching their well-ordered offices instead of the madness that lay ahead.
The atmosphere in the Jeep was tense. Ryan focused on the road and I worked the thumbnail. I stared out the window, avoiding thoughts of what might await us.
We crawled through a cold and forbidding landscape, a vista beamed from a frozen planet. As we moved east the ice increased visibly, robbing the world of texture and hue. Edges were blurred and objects seemed to blend together like parts of a giant plaster sculpture.
Guideposts, signs, and billboards were obliterated, erasing messages and boundaries. Here and there through the darkness wisps of smoke could be seen curling from chimneys, otherwise everything seemed frozen in place. Just over the Richelieu River the road curved, and I saw a beached car, belly-up like a loggerhead turtle. Stalactites hung from the bumpers and tires.
We’d been driving almost two hours when I spotted the sign. It was dawn, and the sky was changing from black to murky gray. Through the ice I could see an arrow and the letters
“There.”
Ryan released the gas and eased onto the exit. When it ended at a T-intersection he pumped the brake and the Jeep crunched to a stop.
“Which way?”
I grabbed the scraper, got out, and struggled to the sign, slipping once and cracking my knee. As I hacked away, the wind stood my hair on end and drove icy granules into my eyes. Overhead it hissed through branches and rattled power lines with an odd clacking sound.
I chopped at the ice as though demented. Eventually the blade snapped, but I jabbed on until the plastic was completely shattered. Using the wooden handle I scraped and clawed until finally, I could see letters and an arrow.
As I scrambled back to the Jeep something in my left knee felt terribly wrong.
“That way.” I pointed. I didn’t apologize for the scraper.
When Ryan turned, the rear spun out and we swerved wildly. My feet flew forward and I grabbed the armrests.
Ryan regained control and my teeth unclenched.
“There’s no brake on your side.”
“Thanks.”
“This is the Rouville district. There’s an SQ post not far from here. We’ll go there first.”
Though I begrudged the lost time, I didn’t argue. If we walked into a hornet’s nest I knew we might need backup. And, while Ryan’s Jeep was good on ice, it had no radio.
Five minutes later I saw the tower. Or what was left of it. The metal had cracked under the weight of the ice, and beams and girders lay twisted and scattered like parts of a giant Erector set.
Just beyond the collapsed tower, a road took off to the left. Ten yards down I could see Anna’s gingerbread hut.
“It’s here, Ryan! Turn here!”
“We’re doing this my way or not at all.” He continued without slowing.
I was frantic. Any argument.
“It’s getting light. What if they’ve decided to act at dawn?” I thought of Harry, drugged and helpless while zealots lit fires and prayed to their god. Or loosed wild dogs onto sacrificial lambs.
“We’re going to check in first.”
“We could be too late!” My hands trembled. I couldn’t bear it. My sister could be ten yards away. I felt my chest begin to heave and turned my back to him.
A tree decided it.
We hadn’t gone a quarter mile when an enormous pine blocked our way. It had fallen, bringing up a twelve- foot root wad and dragging power lines across the road. We would not be continuing in that direction.
Ryan struck the wheel with the heel of his hand.
“Jesus Christ in a peach tree!”
“It’s pine.” My heart hammered.
He stared at me, unamused. Outside, the wind moaned and threw ice against the windows. I saw Ryan’s jaw muscles bunch, relax, bunch again. Then,
“We do this my way, Brennan. If I say wait in the Jeep, that’s where your ass will be. Is that clear?”
I nodded. I would have agreed to anything.
We did an about-face and hung a right at the toppled tower. The road was narrow and littered with trees, some uprooted, others snapped where their trunks had failed. Ryan wove in and out among them. To either side poplars, ashes, and birches formed inverted U’s, their crowns bent toward earth by the burden of ice.
A split-log fence began just beyond the gingerbread shelter. Ryan slowed and crept along it. At several places toppled trees had crushed the rails. Then I spotted the first living thing since Montreal.
The car was nose-down in a gully, wheels spinning, enveloped in a cloud of exhaust. The driver’s door was
