Mythical

  Chapter 6

  Marcus was repositioning his gear and preparing to head in the direction of the old oil surveying station, which was now being occupied for some kind of research, he had no idea what, but he was pretty sure it wasn't for oil this time. From the smoke he had seen, long since dispersed by the harsh upper-level winds, he judged it had come from his left about forty-five degrees or so. While compasses were mostly useless this close to the North Pole, he could use his directional compass as a guide from place to place, just not through traditional direction-finding.

  Marcus carried a lensing compass, and merely used it to mark directions from his starting point to or from a particular location. Using the degree dial on the compass, he simply pointed the dial marker where he wanted to go and periodically corrected his course to keep it pointing in the right direction. Employing the same methods on the return helped him stay on track. However, nothing was certain in this part of the world, and he had become hopelessly lost twice since his arrival.

  The first time he was lost on the ice, he was actually scared back to within sight of the shoreline by repeated polar bear sightings. Luckily, they didn't follow him. The second time he was lost less than a mile from his shelter on the mainland. He never left without some means of direction-finding or trail marking again.

  Marcus had just reached the summit of the shoreline, and took a moment to survey his surroundings through the binoculars before proceeding. He scanned first in the direction he intended to go, then to the right until he had made a full rotation. This was repeated each half-mile or so and each time he transcended to higher terrain, always ensuring he wasn't being stalked by a bear.

  Marcus had just reached the mid-point of his scan, looking almost straight out onto the jagged sea ice, and something moved. He stopped his scan and quickly trained back a few feet, but there was nothing to be seen now. It was not a glint or reflection, something moved. He was about to pan out, when whatever it was quickly moved again then stopped, but this time he was ready.

  He expertly trained in on the spot in his periphery that had caught the motion, and he just managed to spy the last of the movement. It looked kind of like fabric blowing in the wind. Squinting behind his binoculars, he waited for the movement again. This time he was looking right at it, and when the motion started he saw right away what it was: hair... human hair.

  This human hair was attached to a human head, which was, of course, attached to the rest of a human body. He must have stared at it for a minute or two before a gust of wind brought him back to reality. There was a body on the ice. Just what he didn't want to find out here. Well, there were actually quite a few things he didn't want to find out here, but this was right at the top of the list. Maybe third down, with a live body and polar bears competing for the number two and number one spots.

  Marcus didn't care that it was a dead body, he had seen plenty of those in much more gruesome states than freezing, it was the drama that would surely follow. Investigators, reporters and people wanting to talk to him. He had no intention of leaving it for the animals, as he would not want that to happen to him, and he didn't want anything near him developing a taste for people meat.

  “This is going to be a pain in my ass either way,” he stated to the cloudy sky. It would be summer again soon and that small window would bring a flood of outsiders. She had to be a researcher, there was an emblem on her coat and she looked young and obviously female, not native.

  This all meant that she would have co-workers, family and friends that would want closure, eventually resulting in them probably coming up here too. It would be a mess no matter how it turned out. He put the binoculars away and started the arduous trip back down to the ice through the same tracks he had made on the way up. Marcus cursed under his breath and moved with exaggerated motions reflecting his irritation.

  She was out about two-hundred and fifty yards or so, and after Marcus had made it about halfway there, he stopped to take a survey, then focused on his target for a more detailed look. The glinting of light off of metal got his attention right away. He could see that she had a gun and was leaning slightly to his left. She looked very dead. Even from his current distance, the blue of her face and lips was clearly visible. There were glints of light from the snow that was sticking to her face, in just tiny amounts now, but it would soon cover her completely.

  Marcus changed his direction slightly in light of the revelation of a gun in her hand. It looked pretty big too. He reasoned it must be a .44 or .357, both good choices for up here. Real stopping power was needed for a thousand-pound, hungry polar bear.

  Not that the gun was uncommon, it would be strange to see anyone out alone up here without one, but Marcus would not take chances. He knew exactly what gunshot wounds were like and preferred to live the rest of his natural life without ever experiencing that again.

  He shifted his direction to the right, since her face was pointed generally to his left, allowing him to approach on her blindside. However, she was holding the gun in her right hand, which meant he would be approaching with the muzzle pointed straight at him. Once he was close, he planned to circle the ice shard she was leaning against, coming around so he could get the gun from an angle that would make it impossible for her to shoot him, even if a round was discharged during a struggle.

  He made it to the back of the ice shard without incident, and cautiously moved around it to approach her right side. Marcus first stared warily at the gun, then at her face. She had clearly frozen to death, clenching her gun and holding binoculars, looking back, presumably in the direction from which she had come.

  This intrigued Marcus, but what was even more intriguing was her face. She was really adorable, even blue and dead. Her body abruptly slid down a few inches and scared him so badly that he nearly shot her in the face with his own revolver, and then she moaned.

  “Ho – ly Shit... ” Marcus professed out loud in three very distinct syllables.