Free Snowblind by Michael Abbadon Page B

of the room. A thin outline of amber light glowed around its iron door, and a box with a spray of long stick matches stood beside it. Nearby was a bench and a table, and to the side a bed made of rough planks, covered with the hide of a moose.
    She moved toward the other side of the room, where her light revealed a fresh snowshoe hare hanging from a wire on the wall, an iron-clawed trap glimmering beside it. On a bookshelf several moldy leather-bound books gathered dust, along with a collection of small Inuit carvings of walrus tusk and whalebone. Above the shelf was something that seemed strangely out of place in the central mountains of Alaska: a rack of whale harpoons carved with Inuit hieroglyphs. One of the harpoons appeared to be missing.
    Andrea came upon a large square hole cut neatly into the floor. The trap door had been thrown open, and the wooden stairs, receding into the darkness, seemed to beckon to her.
    "Is anyone there?" she called. A strong, putrid, animal odor emanated from the opening.
    She started to close the door, then hesitated. She felt a presence, as if someone were there, or had just been there. The coals burning in the stove. The lantern outside. Why had this door been left open? Perhaps whoever lived here had had an accident. They might be lying down there right now, unconscious and hurt.
    She thought of the girls waiting in the car. She couldn't bring them in without checking out the place. And that meant all of it.
    Andrea stepped onto the stairs and descended into the dark. As she passed beneath the floor, the coldness of the cellar air seemed to crawl up her limbs, as if she were wading into a black pool of icy water. The stairs creaked noisily, the pungent odor increasing with every step. She reached the damp stone floor and raised her lantern.
    Before her stood a workbench covered with carpenter's tools and tanning implements. Fur hides lay piled across it, along with various glass jars, bottles and coffee cans, a whipsaw, a set of steal shears, and several gallon cans of tanning chemicals.
    Andrea moved through the room, past a shovel, a rake, a pickaxe, a steel drum full of water. The musky, foul odor seemed to be getting stronger. In the corner, beside a tall pile of hides and several shelves of canned goods, she saw a huge wicker basket. She grimaced as she approached it, the smell growing nearly intolerable.
    She felt something move across her foot! She screamed, turned abruptly, and banged the steel drum with the kerosene lamp, sending the lamp crashing to the floor.
    The flame went out.
    Andrea was immersed in complete blackness. She held still a moment, trying to get a grip on the sudden panic overcoming her. Her pulse pounded, her lungs filled with the putrid air. She heard the tiny patter of the rat as it crept along the wall. She swallowed hard. Then, trembling, she slowly bent her knees, lowered herself to the ground. She reached out slowly with both hands, feeling for the lamp. She moved out carefully from the wall, her fingers exploring the damp floor around her. She felt a block of wood, and the wet edge of a fur hide. She felt something metal — a tin can. She felt the bottom of the wicker basket. Then she felt something soft and fleshy. A piece of hide, she decided.
    She moved farther down the wall — and at last her hands fell upon the lamp. It lay at the base of the beam of timber that held the stairwell. Miraculously, the glass of the lamp was unbroken. Andrea held it tightly in her arm. With her free hand, she felt her way to the base of the stairs.
    She crawled carefully up the stairs through the inky darkness.
    This, she thought, is what it's like to be blind.
    Reaching the top of the stairs, she felt her way out of the cold air onto the warm floor of the cabin.
    She felt a human leg — screamed!
    "Mrs. Parks — it's me, Kris!"
    "Oh, my God..."
    "You were taking so long, I got worried."
    "Where's Erin?"
    "She went back to the car. She said it was too dark in here.