NORTHERN DETACHMENT

BY Clancy Margaret

The wind was still, but the cold was biting all the same. Stepping outside made her sinuses burn and her eyes water. She brushed the snow off the seat of her snowmobile—a mid-nineties Ski-Doo, always giving her trouble. She surveyed the town as she waited for the engine to warm up. It’s squat vinyl sided homes glowed amidst the dim winter daytime. Snowmobile tracks crisscrossed on the road but not a person was in sight. She checked her handheld GPS. The coordinates lined up with somewhere northwest, about a forty-five minute ride under the blanket of dark. There were no stars today. It was always cloudy.