As far as the film company, Wickedly Weird Productions, went...
To be fair, Thor conceded, some of their reality TV was interesting. They did shows that dealt with roadside diners, special tours that no one should miss and unusual cities or areas in the United States. He had a feeling that the real powers that be at the film studios loved history and travelbut they also needed to make money.
That meant that some of their shows were, at best, juvenile.
Those were the programs that were mostly popular with a young crowdthe kind of viewers who found fart jokes hilarious and also seemed to enjoy the distress or humiliation of those caught in the wheels of their Gotcha! factory.
Wickedly Weird Productions had rented two of the main properties on Black Bear Island. They included the Mansion, a sumptuous house that had begun its existence as a log cabin only to become something of a modern-day castle, and the Alaska Hut, a rustic lodge with eight or nine bedrooms, a huge living room, kitchen, dining room and expansive porches.
The crew was supposedly filming a piece on the Celtic American Cruise Lines entertainment venuesthats what the cast members from the ship believed, and what they thought they were signing release forms for. However, the real plan for the day had been to film a segment for their show Gotcha.
Other agents and the Alaska State Troopers were still busy going through procedure in Seward; dealing with the crime scene units, possible witnesses, hotel staff and more. But Thor and Mike and three officers were on this trailhoping to find that Natalies crew and the cast of the Fate were patiently waiting for their leader or already in the midst of filming.
In short, that they were all alive and well.
And it might be very difficult to figure that out.
Because, according to Misty Blaine, they were going to find a scene of carnageblood and destructionwhether it was real or not.
Misty had supplied them with the file folder on the days intended shoot. Wickedly Weird Productions had filled the Mansion and the Alaska Hut with bloody mock-murder scenes. Scenes meant to terrify the Fate cast. Of course, before anyone succumbed to their terrorthe film crew would jump out and scream, Gotcha!
Almost there, Thor heard. He turned around. Lieutenant Bill Meyer, with the Alaska State Troopers, approached them.
Weve got a storage shed near the docks, Bill told them. We dont have any permanent force herea good majority of the year, no one is out here at all. But the owner paid for the snowmobiles we keep. Theres been trouble before, of course. One rush to the hospital. Wild party and a man wound up outside naked and nearly froze to death. Other than that...lets see, alcohol poisoning, a fight, one time a break-in...mostly, people behaving badly. Not lethally.
Thanks, Thor said. He liked the cops he and Mike were working withthen again, he liked cops in general. His father had taught him from a young age that most were decent and hardworking and doing their best. Only a few were assholeswhich he assumed was true in any vocation. Bill Meyer was a good guy, he knew. Theyd worked together before. Bill had been assigned to Anchorage for a year and hed spent many of his off-hours finding the down-and-outers and trying to get them help.
The Coast Guard cutter arrived at the one long dock the island offered. Captain Filmore handed out walkie-talkies to Thor, Mike, and Bill Meyer and his men, instructing them to keep close contact.
Theres no telling what youll encounter, but...
Were not going to be meeting an army, Mike said.
But, a strong man with some lethal weapons, Thor said. Perhaps meeting up with a number of accomplices? Thing is, to escape the hotel security, it had to be someone who appeared to be part of the hotel staff. You didnt have just anyone doing that. You had someone with an extremely sharp weaponand the strength to make that weapon cut through flesh and bone.
Someone who might not even be on the islandwho might be chopping off more heads back in Seward.
Then again...
They might find a slew of dead right here. Oh, wait. They definitely would; he just hoped the dead were all mannequins and stage props.
Yeah. Anyway, watch your backs, the captain said.
Will do, Meyer murmured. Thor and the others nodded.
Ten minutes later, they were on the snowmobiles, headed to the Mansion. And then another ten minutes, riding through the snow that almost continually covered the island, brought them to their destinationand a scene of utter chaos.
Bodies strewn here and there, blood sprayed everywhere.
Thor hunkered down by the first body.
He looked up at Mike. Mannequin, he said.
Bill Meyer had hurried on to another. Fake blood, he called.
Thor moved through the downstairs, stopping at each bodyit was all part of the staged scene that the assistant producer had told them about.
Someone thought that this would be funny? Mike asked with disgust.
Apparently, Thor said, rising after his inspection of the last corpse.
They just had to come to Alaska, Bill Meyer muttered.
Thing is, Thor said, where is the film crew? And where is the cast?
Alaska Hutor here, somewhere, in all this. Ill take the upstairs, Mike said. We may find real bodies yet. Fellows? A hand? he asked the state police officers.
They nodded and started to follow him up the stairs to the many rooms above. Man, this is sick! one of them muttered.
Im on the exterior, Thor said.
Near the top landing, Mike nodded.
Thor headed out. There were no snowmobile tracks leaving the Mansion, but there had been precipitation in the last few hours, so a path might have easily been covered.
He kept looking. And that was when he found the trail of footsteps.
And he began to follow it.
* * *
The Alaska Hut, the Alaska Hut... Help would be there, all she had to do was reach it...
It might be summer, but the snow was still thick on the ground on the rise. She was slogging through it, sinking and falling and trying to right herself. She staggered and fellthinking of the times she had mocked horror movies, those that featured victims who seemed to trip over their own feet.
And then, over another rise, she saw it. The Alaska Hut.
Help! Help would be there.
Producer, director, fellow actors, makeup artists, costumers and...security! All she had to do was reach it.
But...was anyone left alive? She hadnt waited long enough at the Mansion to find out, not after shed seen what shed seen and heard movement upstairs and then...
Coming down the steps.
Shed run.
She should have stayed to help Larry.
No, how could she have helped himagainst all that carnage? She didnt even have a plastic butter knife on her!
She could see it...the Alaska Hut...just ahead.
Hope allowed her to redouble her efforts. She heard the sound of her breath, and the squish of her footsteps as she ran the best she could over the snow. Her legs burned, her lungs were now pure fire.
Suddenly, a voice called out to her. She nearly lost her footing in the snow as panic swept through her anew.
Stop! Stop now!
Stop? What insanity was that?
She ran all the harder!
She didnt hear footsteps following so close behind hershe didnt hear or feel anything at first, just that pounding of her heart, the ragged and desperate rise and fall of her breath...
Suddenly, a voice called out to her. She nearly lost her footing in the snow as panic swept through her anew.
Stop! Stop now!
Stop? What insanity was that?
She ran all the harder!
She didnt hear footsteps following so close behind hershe didnt hear or feel anything at first, just that pounding of her heart, the ragged and desperate rise and fall of her breath...
And then, it felt as if she was hit from behind by a semi.
She went down, flying, her face smashing into the coldness of the snow, a mouthful of the stuff nearly choking her. There was someone on top of her...or trying to drag her up.
And all she could picture was the blood spattered over the snow-white landscape, the woman cut in half...pieces connected by a pool of blood.
And so she fought. She fought with every remaining ounce of energy within her; she fought for her life.
2
Thor was at a disadvantage.
The young woman he tackled hadnt paid the least bit of attention to his words or his tap on her back, and shed gone completely ballistic when hed tried to stop her.
Now she fought and kicked like a banshee.
Miss, miss, please! he tried again.
Maybe she was deaf.
He was trying hard not to hurt her, but she had the athletic agility of a cat and managed a right hook to his jaw that would have done a boxer proud.
She was in panicand he understood. But, hell! At some point she had to realize...
Stop! he snapped, catching her shoulders and straddling her. Stop, please! FBI. Special Agent Thor Erikson. FBI! Stop!
And then, she did, at last.
She stared up at him, blinked, her expression unchanging.
He immediately wondered who she was; the woman beneath him had fair skin, brilliantly blue eyes and a long mop of golden hair beneath the hood of her snow jackethair that tumbled around her face in wild strands after their altercation. He found himself tensing; she looked like a fairy-tale princess, a Sleeping Beauty beyond a doubt. Her features were delicate and well-formed, her lips were fullmore blue out in the cold than red, but rich and fulland he imagined they could curl into the perfect bow of a smile.
She wasnt smiling. She stared at him blankly.
FBI, he repeated. Youre safe, he said.
She seemed to digest that for a minute and then breathed softly. Really?
He didnt get off her, but he sat back carefully on his haunches to produce his credentials.
She looked at them.
He had a feeling, though, that in her mind it was the fact that she was still alive more than his identification that convinced her of the truth.
Really, he said.
She stared at him suspiciouslyand stared at the documents again. Thor? she said.
Yes, Thor. Thor Erikson.
It sounds made up.
It is made up. My parentsHeidi and Olaf Eriksonmade it up when I was born!
Again, she was silent for a minute, and then she said, If thats the truth, perhaps you wouldnt mind getting off me? Its very, very cold.
He quickly rose and offered her a hand. She seemed to hesitate before accepting it, but then she did, trying to dust some of the snow off herself after she had risen. Have you seen...? she asked then.
Miss...? he began.
Avery. Clara Avery, she said. Have you seen... Oh, God. The film crewtheyre all dead. Some at the Mansion...and now...here.
Miss Avery, I was just at the Mansion. Im afraid that youve been misled because of a sick prank. The scene you discovered there was completely fabricated by set and scene designers for an episode of Gotcha.
No, she murmured. She blinked, as if unable to assimilate that anyone could do such a thing as a prank.
Frankly, he couldnt begin to understand it, either.
Yes, Miss Avery. But, Im sorry to say
Even thethe body in the snow?
Hed meant to tell her about Natalie Fontaine, but before he could do so, she had interrupted.
What body in the snow? he asked.
Her brows hiked up. You didnt see it?
No. I saw youI tried to get you to stop, to listen to me.
You tackled me, she muttered, and she seemed to be aggravated and angryat the film people or him, he wasnt sure, or maybe even herselfand apparently even more disgusted by the body in the snow.
Where is this body? he asked.
She pointed over a little rise of snow. There, she said.
It was probably more of the horror created by Wickedly Weird.
A body...um, two pieces, she said.
He didnt reply; he headed over the rise in the direction she had pointed.
Then he saw the drops of blood.
And then the dead woman.
A dead woman, in two pieces, as she had said.
He had witnessed pictures of a scene like this, too.
And then he knew what kicked in his memory.
The Black Dahlia.
This woman had been cut in two...and lain out just like the Black Dahlia. An unsolved murder; he had seen crime scene photos in one of the numerous classes he was always taking on criminology for the FBI.
He hoped against hope that this was another horror vignette by the Gotcha people.
But, as he neared the bisected body, and smelled the tinny scent of real blood, he knew that it was not.
He pulled out his radio and called back to the state police and Mike.
We have another corpse, he said quietly. A real one.
* * *
The city was filled with cell phones, PA systems, rapid response teams, computers, and all manner of tools and aids for investigation.
All of that was moot on Black Bear Island. Phones never seemed to work; the internet needed to be reconnected.
He had his walkie-talkie, and he had a corpse in the snow, and a woman standing so still she might have been a statueexcept that she shook like blue blazes.
He shouldnt leave the corpse; he really shouldnt keep a witness standing there.
But there had to be something there that suggested how the killer had come and gone, what weapon or weapons he had usedand where the hell he was now. But there seemed to be nothing; just the victim, bisected, dead in the snow. Not enough blood for the young woman to have been murdered where she lay, so she must have been brought out hereand cut in half.
By what instrument? It wasnt easy to dounless you happened to know how to use a French headsmans sword or a Japanese samurai sword, a machete or a chain saw. But a chain saw would have left little bits of flesh abounding around the body, like wood chips...
There were no prints in the snow. Nothing leading away from the disposal of the body. It looked as if the victim might have been teleported to where she lay.
It wouldnt take Mike long to get there. Thor carefully skirted the body and hiked over the little rise. The snow there was already trodden and thrownit was where he and the shaking blond had wound up in their ridiculous tussle.
His jaw still hurt. The woman knew how to throw a right hook.
So horrible! she whispered, as if to herself and not to him.
You went to the Mansion? he said.
She nodded jerkily. I told you that I didand what I saw!