Chapter 29 Kiera
KIERA
Kiera was shivering so hard her teeth wouldn’t stop chattering.
The cold had gotten to her fast—much faster than she would have believed possible.
It bit through her t—shirt and jeans as though they were made of tissue paper instead of cloth and sank straight into her skin and bones.
Her fingers felt clumsy and numb already.
Her nose burned every time she inhaled. Even the inside of her mouth tasted cold, metallic and sharp–as though the freezing air itself had a flavor.
She hugged herself as best she could with her bound hands and forced herself to think. She had to get a grip–panicking wasn’t going to help.
The first thing to do was get untied if she could. Then she could get up, move around, maybe find a way out…or at least keep from freezing to death before anyone came looking for her.
Though who would come looking? she thought miserably. Iyanna would think she was waiting at the sanctuary for the shuttle. Brux—oh, Brux—was still on the Mother Ship. Nobody knew where Higgs had taken her.
No, don’t think about that, she lectured herself. Think about the ropes and how to get out of them.
Kiera looked down at her hands. They were tied in front of her, at least, which was something. Higgs had apparently decided that her wrists bound together and her ankles tied were enough to keep her helpless. He probably thought the freezing cold would do the rest.
Well, maybe for some girls, she thought fiercely. But not me.
Clumsily, because her fingers were so cold they barely seemed to belong to her anymore, she bent forward and began fumbling at the cord around her ankles.
The synthetic line was slick and stiff and bit into her fingertips, but after several agonizing minutes of tugging and twisting and swearing through chattering teeth, she managed to loosen the knot enough to get one boot free.
“Oh, thank G-g-god,” she whispered.
The words came out in a little white puff of vapor.
She worked the other foot loose more quickly after that and then sat there for a moment, bent double and breathing hard, while the refrigeration units droned around her and the hanging carcasses swayed faintly on their hooks.
The sound was awful–a constant deep mechanical hum undercut by occasional icy hisses from the vents and the soft, almost polite creak…creak…creak of metal hooks carrying dead weight. Every now and then something dripped and froze with a tiny brittle click.
It smelled even worse than before now that she was more awake.
Not just blood and cold meat–though there was plenty of that.
There was also the sour stink of old fat, the chemical tang of industrial cleanser, the coppery reek of slaughter, and underneath all of it that stale, dead smell of frozen flesh that had been hanging too long.
Kiera swallowed hard against another wave of nausea.
Don’t think about it–just concentrate on getting out of here! Your hands might be tied but at least your legs are free. Use them to carry your ass to the exit, girl!
She forced herself to her feet.
The concrete floor was slick beneath her boots, and she nearly fell at once. The wall at her back had leeched whatever warmth remained in her body and every muscle in her legs felt stiff and shaky. Still, she managed to stand.
“All r-right,” she whispered to herself, her teeth chattering. “All right. N-now find the d-door.”
That should be simple, right?
Wrong. The warehouse was bigger inside than it had looked from the outside—much bigger.
Huge rows of hanging canthor carcasses made aisles and corridors between them, and the ceiling vanished into darkness overhead where the rails and hooks ran in endless lines.
The refrigeration vents blew slow ribbons of freezing mist through the dim overhead lights, making the far end of the place look vague and dreamlike and strange.
It was like wandering through a maze made of death.
Kiera started forward carefully, hands still tied in front of her, peering around the nearest row of split carcasses.
The canthors hung there head—down and skinned, their flesh a terrible slick greenish—white under the harsh lights, their two necks ending in severed stumps or frozen slack—jawed heads depending on how far along Higgs had gotten with butchering them.
Dark green blood marbled the concrete beneath them in frozen fans and puddles.
Every time Kiera brushed too close to one, the cold flesh bumped lightly against her shoulder or arm and she had to fight the urge to scream.
Keep it together, girl—just keep it together and keep going, she told herself.
She turned left. Then right. Then left again. Where was the exit?
At first she told herself she was heading toward where the outer wall ought to be—toward where the main door must logically be—but after a while the rows all looked the same.
Hanging carcasses. Metal rails. Green—black frozen blood.
White vapor drifting through the hard electric light and the reek of frozen death in the air.
She tried to retrace her steps and somehow ended up farther into the freezer instead.
“Shit,” she whispered. “Wh-where the h-hell am I?”
Her voice sounded tiny in the huge, freezing space but she kept walking. What else could she do?
If she stayed still, she would freeze faster. That much she knew. Better to keep moving, keep blood pumping, keep trying.
But as she wandered, the cold seemed to seep deeper and deeper into her bones. Her feet ached and her fingers had gone beyond pain and into that frightening waxy numbness that made them feel useless. Her lips felt stiff. Every breath hurt her lungs.
And despite the cold—despite how impossible it seemed—she was getting sleepy.
Not really sleepy, she told herself. Just tired. Exhausted. Drugged maybe. Cold.
But isn’t that how freezing to death starts? a frightened little voice in her head whispered. Don’t people get sleepy right before the end? Isn’t that classic hypothermia?
That thought woke her a little.
No. No, she was not going to curl up in a corner and go to sleep in Higgs’ murder freezer.
She had to keep moving…keep thinking. But lost in a maze of frozen carcasses, that was easier said than done.
She stumbled around another row of hanging canthors and almost slipped in a patch of green blood. Catching herself on the nearest hook rail, she stood there panting for a moment and trying not to cry.
Oh God, would she ever get out of here? Her head still hurt from where she’d banged it in the cart. The pain came in dull throbs behind her eyes and every so often the edges of her vision went a little gray and swimmy.
Then she saw something different. Not a canthor carcass–a door. It was a small metal door set into the back wall.
Hope flared hot and sharp in her chest.
“Oh thank God!” she mumbled through numb lips.
She half—ran toward it, slipping and staggering over the slick concrete…only to find when she got there that it wasn’t an exit at all. Just another storage room—locked, with a heavy mechanical seal and no handle on the inside because it wasn’t meant to be opened from this side.
Kiera leaned her forehead against the freezing metal and nearly burst into tears.
“Damn it! Damn this stupid, f-fucking p-place!”
Her breath fogged on the door and instantly froze into a patch of white crystals.
She pushed away from it before it could leach any more of her precious warmth and kept going. What else cloud she do?
The aisles of hanging meat seemed stranger now…narrower…darker. The carcasses looked less like butchered livestock and more like bodies hanging in rows.
Bodies…
The thought came and stayed in her tired mind.
Kiera slowed and looked around. Now that she was deeper inside the warehouse, she was beginning to notice something.
The hooks back here weren’t all carrying canthors. Some of the hanging shapes were smaller.
At first she told herself they were juveniles—young animals slaughtered before full growth. But as she got closer, her stomach dropped.
The shapes weren’t canthors–not at all.
They were too narrow in the shoulders…too long in the legs. Too…wrong.
A terrible chill went through her that had nothing to do with the freezer.
“No,” she whispered. “Oh my God, no–it can’t be.”
She took one more step and came into the light–there, hanging in the harsh white light and rimed with frost, was a body–a woman’s body–or what had once been one.
Kiera made a sound she would later never be able to describe—something between a gasp and a moan and a scream that never quite made it all the way out. She stumbled backward, hit a row of frozen carcasses, and nearly went down.
The body hanging from the hook was naked and blue—white with cold, its hair hanging stiff with frost, its features shrunken and terrible and half—hidden by ice. There were marks all over it. Bruises, cuts, old violence–the signs of a death that had not been clean or merciful.
And it was not alone. Kiera looked around wildly. She saw another body…and another…and another.
Women–at least a dozen of them. They were frozen hard in the back section of Higgs’ warehouse as casually as he stored meat.
Kiera’s skin crawled like it was trying to get off her body and run away.
“Oh my God,” she whispered. “Oh my God.”
It hit her all at once, then. The women who had gone missing from nearby settlements…the drifters…the ranch hands’ girlfriends who had “run off.” The one or two transient workers nobody could ever seem to find once the season ended.
Higgs had them here. Higgs had killed them.
And now he had her.
The warehouse suddenly seemed even colder than before…more silent…more hopeless.
The “girlies”—he said the girlies were nicer to him after they spent some time in the deep freeze. This is what he meant. He’s been at this for a while–he’s a fucking serial killer!
Kiera backed away from the frozen dead until her shoulders struck another rail and the hanging canthor halves bumped against her from both sides like grotesque, icy curtains.
She barely bit back a scream–she had to get out. Had to.
Because if Higgs came back and found her still here…if he dragged her out of this freezing maze and smiled that ugly smile at her again and got his hands on her…
No. Kiera refused to let herself think about it–refused to speculate on her horrible fate if that happened.
She began forcing her numb fingers against the ropes at her wrists again, sawing and twisting and pulling as hard as she could. Her skin was already rubbed raw from her earlier attempts, but she barely felt it now.
“C-come on,” she muttered through chattering teeth. “Come on, d-d-damn you—move!”
But it didn’t work–the rope only tightened, and her hands had gotten so stiff she could hardly make them work at all.
A sob rose in her throat. She swallowed it down.
Think–there had to be something sharp in here. A hook edge, a broken metal shard, something she could cut the rope on.
Kiera turned in a slow circle, forcing herself to really look this time and ignore the dead bodies. She saw metal rails overhead…hooks…frozen puddles…and a low butchering platform in the next aisle over.
Yes! She started toward it, shivering so hard her whole body jerked with each step. The cold had gone past painful now and into a weird woolly numbness that frightened her almost as much as the bodies had. Her thoughts felt slower…her eyelids were getting heavy.
But isn’t that how people die in the cold? she thought again wildly. They get tired. They just want to rest.
Well, that wasn’t going to happen to her, she told herself fiercely. Not today, Satan. She was going to keep going.
She rounded the last row of hanging carcasses and came into a lower work area with a steel table, a blood channel carved into the floor, and–oh, thank sweet baby Jesus–several racks of tools hanging on the wall.
She saw knives, hooks, bone saws and several other sharp instruments.
Hope flared in her chest, bright and hot…and then she heard it.
The metallic clang of the outer warehouse door opening.
Kiera froze where she stood.
A gust of slightly less freezing air swept through the aisles. Then came the heavy tread of boots–slow and unhurried but utterly relentless.
Higgs was back and he was looking for her.
Her blood seemed to freeze in her veins. For one panicked instant she didn’t know whether to run, hide, or scream.
Then she heard his voice drift through the aisles in a rough, ugly sing—song.
“Girly? You still kickin’ in here? You feeling like you want to be sweet on old Higgs now? I can warm you up, real nice–I promise.”
Kiera clapped both bound hands over her mouth, hardly daring to breathe.
The footsteps kept coming–closer and closer.
She was trapped in the butchering room, with nowhere to go and only a few seconds left to decide whether she was going to fight for her life—or die in the dark among Higgs’ frozen dead.