ICEBOUND By Dean Koontz

Rita knocked and opened the cabin door, startling Harry.

Swallowing a mouthful of soup, he said, “What’s wrong?”

She leaned inside, using her body to block out the wind and its gibberous voice. “He wants to talk to you.”

“Brian?”

“Yes.”

“He’s still improving?”

“Oh, yes. Nicely.”

“Does he remember what happened?”

“Let him tell you,” she said.

In the fifth snowmobile, the one parked farthest from the cave, Brian was slowly recuperating. Rita had been in the cabin with him for the past twenty minutes, massaging his chilled fingers, feeding him soup, and making sure that he didn’t lapse into a dangerous sleep. He had regained consciousness during the ride back from the third demolition shaft, but he had been in too much agony to talk. When he first woke, he’d been racked with pain as his numbed nerve endings belatedly responded to the severe cold that had nearly killed him. The kid would not feel half normal for at least another hour.

Harry capped his Thermos bottle. Before he pulled his goggles in place, he kissed Rita.

“Mmmmm,” she said. “More.”

This time her tongue moved between his lips. Snowflakes swept past her head and danced across his face, but her breath was hot on his greased skin. He was flushed with a poignant concern for her. He wanted to protect her from all harm.

When they drew apart she said, “I love you.”

“We will go back to Paris. Somehow. When we get out of this.”

“Well, if we don’t get out of it,” she said, “we haven’t been short-changed. We’ve had eight good years together. We’ve had more fun and love than most people get in a lifetime.”

He felt powerless, up against impossible odds. All his life he had been a man who took charge in a crisis. He had always been able to find solutions to even the most difficult problems. This new sense of impotency enraged him.

She kissed him lightly on one corner of his mouth. “Hurry now. Brian’s waiting for you.”

The snowmobile cabin was uncomfortably cramped. Harry sat backward on the narrow passenger bench, facing the rear of the machine, where Brian Dougherty was facing forward. The handlebars pressed into his back. His knees were jammed against Brian’s knees. Only a vague, amber radiance from the headlamps filtered through the Plexiglas, and the darkness made the tiny enclosure seem even tinier than it was.

Harry said, “How do you feel?”

“Like hell.”

“You will for a while yet.”

“My hands and feet sting. And I don’t mean they’re just numb. It’s like someone’s jabbing lots of long needles into them.” His voice was shaded with pain.

“Frostbite?”

“We haven’t looked at my feet yet. But they feel about the same as my hands. And there doesn’t seem to be any frostbite on my hands. I think I’m safe. But—“ He gasped in pain, and his face contorted. “Oh, Jesus, that’s bad.”

Opening his Thermos, Harry said, “Soup?”

“No, thanks. Rita pumped a quart of it into me. One more drop, and I’ll float away.” He rubbed his hands together, apparently to ease another especially sharp prickle of pain. “By the way, I’m head over heels in love with your wife.”

“Who isn’t?”

“And I want to thank you for coming after me. You saved my life, Harry.”

“Another day, another act of heroism,” Harry said. He took a mouthful of soup. “What happened to you out there?”

“Didn’t Rita tell you?”

“She said I should hear if from you.”

Brian hesitated. His eyes glittered in the shadows. At last he said, “Someone clubbed me.”

Harry almost choked on his soup. “Knocked you out?”

“Hit me on the back of the head.”

“That can’t be right.”

“I’ve got the lumps to prove it.”

“Let me see.”

Brian leaned forward, lowered his head.

Harry stripped off his gloves and felt the boy’s head. The two lumps were prominent and easy to find, one larger than the other, both on the back of the skull and one slightly higher and to the left of the other. “Concussion?”

“None of the symptoms.”

“Headache?”

“Oh, yeah. A real bastard of a headache.”

“Double vision?”

“No.”

“Any slurred speech?”

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