Snowblind II: The Killing Grounds Read Free Page B

readers, and various media players work like they were supposed to. “Think of each of these creases on the tape as a scratch on a DVD; they’re areas of lost data that can’t ever be retrieved. These data could represent video or audio or—”
    “Will it play?” Dayton said.
    Thom looked up from where he knelt in front of the TV, making the final connections. The sheriff hoped his expression conveyed how little he cared about the technology involved.
    “Yeah. It’ll play.”
    “I don’t want to watch this,” Seaver said. They were the first words he’d spoken since he’d shown Dayton the short segment he’d been able to make play. He crossed the office without another word and closed the door behind him.
    “You want me to stay?” Thom said. “You know, just in case anything happens during the playback?”
    Dayton said nothing. He was already fixated upon what he would have to do once the video ended. They would need an image-capture of the woman’s face to feed it through the missing persons databases. Search and Rescue would need to be coordinated. They’d have to call for the cadaver dogs from Alamosa. That she might still be alive never occurred to him. He’d seen her eyes; they were those of a woman who already knew her time had come.
    He’d seen them before. Inside the old Alferd Packer Grill. The day the hunter stumbled out of the blizzard, a human head hidden inside his jacket. He would never forget that man’s eyes.
    Dayton pressed the tiny PLAY button on top of the camera with a gloved finger. The digital counter was broken and both the FAST FORWARD and REWIND buttons were missing. Thom had rewound the cassette by hand while he cleaned and straightened the tape, of which roughly a third of the sixty-minute reel had been used.
    The screen filled with horizontal bands of static that bucked up and down. He heard voices, slow and distorted, like he remembered a record sounding when he put pressure on it and slowed the spin. The voices sped up until they sounded like chipmunks, then, with a crackle, resolved into normal tones. The static settled over the top half of the screen. Beneath it, he saw a woman’s torso squared to the camera. She wore a Spyder jacket over ski bibs. At least three other people moved in the background, apparently either loading or unloading whatever was on the rack of the green Subaru Forester.
    “ …the five of us on the greatest Christmas Break adventure ever! ”
    One of the guys in back whooped and pumped his fist. He wore an ugly gray sweater and had his hair tucked up into a slouch cap.
    “ Not if we don’t actually leave, ” the driver said, and punctuated his statement with a beep of the horn.
    “ Okay. Gotta go. ”
    The girl raised her hand into the static, made a kissing sound, and held out her palm. She turned and started for the car.
    “ Wait. ”
    The view swung down toward the ground and there was a loud clattering sound as whoever held the camera handed it off to her.
    “ Last chance, ” she said, and turned the camera upon a kid who couldn’t have been more than twenty. His face quickly vanished into the static.
    “ Some of us actually have to work, you know. ”
    “ Call in sick. ”
    “ We’ve been over this. You know I can’t do that. ”
    “ Then tell me how much you’ll miss me. ”
    “ Are you still recording? ”
    “ Tell me. ”
    “ More than the moon and the stars. ”
    “ Now tell me you love me. ”
    The driver honked the horn again.
    “ You’d better get going. ”
    “ Nuh-uh. Not until you say it. ”
    “ I love you. Now get out— ”
    “ How much? ”
    “ They’re going to leave without you. ”
    “ Are you embarrassed to say it in front of my friends? ”
    “ Jesus, Michelle. I love you to eternity and back— ”
    The audio deteriorated into the roar of static, which consumed the entire screen.
    “See what you can do,” Dayton said.
    “I’m on it.”
    Thom ejected the cassette and attempted to straighten the