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trying to get a good pull of water through its gills. “Really, people, we don’t know what happened here. It’s not our place to speculate.”
    â€œWhy not?” Horn said. “Why the hell not? If that chopper was from Colony, then you never know what kind of crazy-ass shit it was up to.”
    â€œThat’s right,” Frye said. “Could be them Martians you hear about.”
    Slim giggled . . . then stopped when he saw no one thought that was funny. Not down here. Not on the Ice.
    Coyle just watched the inferno.
    The sight and smell and sound of that burning debris made something twist up in his belly like a screw seeking threads. It was horrible. The wreckage was scattered easily for two-hundred feet in all directions, fanning out from the central flaming mass. There were lots of charred things and smoking clumps everywhere. In the semi-darkness with the shadows thrown from the clouds of smoke, it was hard to tell much of anything.
    Slim and Horn started ducking around the flames, checking things out while Special Ed told them to stay back, throwing his arms up into the air when they wouldn’t listen.
    Frye and Coyle sat on the treads of a Sno-Cat while Special Ed called it in on the radio and Flagg just stood there with his hands on his hips, his medical bag hanging from his waist.
    There was a humming sound in the distance that got louder and louder until it became the telltale
thunk-thunk-thunk
of an approaching helicopter. It was coming in fast.
    â€œAnother chopper,” Frye said. “And I can just about guess where it’s coming from.”
    Coyle did not move. He just watched Horn and Slim playing amongst the burning wreckage like boys, kicking smoking shards of metal around and leaping over blackened sections of the chopper itself.
    â€œFuck is that?” Horn said. “That a body?”
    â€œA couple of ‘em,” Slim said. “I think.”
    Flagg was interested now.
    He moved around the perimeter of the wreckage, trying to get a look at what they’d found.
    Both of them sounded excited. Even Horn who got excited about nothing but the idea of anarchy. Flagg was sixty-years old and he was in no shape to be leapfrogging burning debris. He held a hand to his face to shield the smoke and heat.
    Frye just shrugged, disinterested.
    But Coyle was interested. He went over there and jogged around the far side. The sound of the approaching helicopter was getting really loud now.
    â€œLook at that,” Horn said. “A body, all right.”
    Coyle saw it. Looked like a man all twisted-up, mangled. He was burning and the stink was nauseating.
    A section of the tail fell right over on top of him and he was completely engulfed in flame.
    â€œDamn,” Slim said.
    â€œSomething else over here,” Horn said.
    They darted around behind the wreckage, trying to get at something near a flaming section of tail stabilizer. Something large and oblong. It was covered in a tarp that was smoldering, flames burning around its edges. Whatever was under it was steaming like it was frozen and melting very fast.
    â€œIs that a man over there?” Flagg said.
    â€œCan’t tell,” Horn called out.
    In an act of bravado born of youth and inexperience, Slim leaped the stabilizer and tried to get at the tarped form. Smoke was in Coyle’s eyes, so he could not really see what was going on. Just Slim trying to yank that burning tarp away and commenting on the stink coming from underneath it.
    â€œBe careful!” Flagg called out.
    Horn was peering into the smoke as Slim took hold of the edge of the tarp and gave it a quick yank with his mittened hand. He pulled his hand away quickly.
    â€œOw! Ow! That shit is hot!”
    â€œSomething under there,” Horn said. “Something big and it ain’t no man.”
    Slim tried again and managed to pull it away and as he did so, he stumbled and fell back like whatever was under there had scared