It crackled.
Like twigs breaking or something stalking you in the dark. It sounded like the ice murmuring to itself in some ancient glacial tongue. Plotting to itself.
Two dead, five to go.
Chapter Fifteen
Victoria's scream brought Carl fully awake.
What the fuck!
Surging to his feet, still sleep-dizzy, he dashed around the ice.
Victoria was gone, but Alex, Chrissie and Megan stood where she'd been. They stared at the burial mound. Or what remained of it. A lot had melted away during the night.
'What's wrong?'
Chrissie pointed at the mound.
Glen’s head and torso lay exposed.
His eyes were open.
Wide open as though he'd woken to find himself buried under the ice.
'We buried him alive!' cried Victoria from around the ice. 'He was still alive!'
Megan looked up at Carl. 'Did we?'
Carl groped for an explanation, but Chrissie jumped in first.
'Of course we didn't,' she snapped. 'The cold pulled his eyelids open.’
Chrissie sighed and went after Victoria.
'Did Chrissie just make that up?' asked Megan.
‘No,’ answered Alex. ‘It’s true.’
'He was dead,' said Carl.
'But we couldn't touch him,' Megan said. 'We didn't check his pulse. What if he was still alive?’
Megan covered her mouth.
Carl scratched his palms.
'They planted the Trojan horse to kill someone,’ said Carl. ‘Not to almost kill someone. The evil bastards probably used enough poison to kill Glen ten times over. You heard him dying. You saw him. No one could survive that.'
Carl hoped he sounded convincing.
Megan backed from the body. 'But no one checked. There wasn't even much blood.'
'I checked,' murmured Alex.
'What?'
'I checked he was dead,' replied Alex. ‘Twice.’
'How?' asked Megan.
Alex pointed to Glen’s watch on Megan’s wrist. 'When I took the watch I checked his pulse.'
'You said twice,' prompted Carl.
'I used the glass bottle,' Alex explained. 'I held it to his nose and checked for condensation.’
‘From his breathing,’ realized Carl. ‘That’s how they check sleeping babies.’
Alex nodded. ‘My mother used her make-up mirror when I was a baby to check me.’
'Thank you, Alex,' said Megan.
Carl nodded his thanks. We didn't bury him alive. But now we have to rebury him.
#
'We'd better get to work,' said Carl.
'Wait,' said Megan. 'How did the ice covering Glen melt so fast?'
‘I’m not as cold as yesterday,’ said Alex. ‘The temperature must have increased?’
‘We need Ericsson’s watch,’ said Megan. ‘It has a thermometer.’
They found Chrissie already checking the watch.
‘Six degrees Fahrenheit,’ she said, predicting their question. ‘The temperature has increased six degrees since this time yesterday.’
‘Something doesn’t make sense,’ said Carl. ‘I heard the melt water pouring down the drain last night.’
‘It’s still flowing fast now,’ agreed Alex.
Carl pointed up the ice. ‘But the height of the dome hasn’t dropped much. Look.’
‘Hardly any lower at all,’ agreed Chrissie.
‘I’ll pace it out again,’ said Alex. ‘Then we’ll know the height.’
‘How’s your leg?’ asked Megan.
Alex put one shoulder to the ice. ‘Better than I expected. Walking actually helps. Just not too much of it.’
Megan started her phone as Alex carefully paced the dome’s circumference.
‘Thirty-three steps,’ he reported back.
Megan entered the number and then frowned over her phone. ‘Hardly any change at all. It’s still 5.24 meters high. It’s only dropped 41 centimeters.’
Something doesn’t feel right, Carl thought.
He didn’t doubt Megan’s math. He could see for himself that she was correct.
But with the amount of water pouring down that drain I would have expected at least a third of the ice to be gone by now.
'Enough ice melted to expose new artifacts,’ said Alex.
'Show me,' said Carl, wary of traps. ‘But don’t touch any of them.’
It took Carl a few moments to recognize the first object.
'An abacus,' said Megan. ‘The earliest calculator.’
Victoria was staring at the abacus.
What is she thinking about?
The abacus looked old, but functional. Only half of its wooden frame had emerged from the ice. It didn’t look trapped.
Carl looked up to the top of the ice and then back down to the abacus.
He couldn’t shake the feeling their calculations were overlooking something important.
Does Victoria know?
'Look at this,' called Chrissie.
Carl left Victoria staring at the abacus.
The next object jutted from the ice like a sun-bleached Frisbee.
'Look underneath,' urged Chrissie.
Carl crouched.
'An old plate. I see a lion's head. A man’s foot. Maybe a spear or a sword.’
Chrissie said, ‘I think it’s a gladiator fighting a lion.'
They found Alex and Megan at the third object.
'A toy train,' announced Carl. 'I had one like that.'
Carl stepped closer, peering at the toy still half-embedded in ice.
It’s exactly the same as mine.
The uncanny resemblance was unnerving. One of Carl's few childhood photographs showed himself and his younger brother, Joshua, with their new toy trains at Christmas. The toy in the ice looked identical. Carl wanted to check his name wasn't scratched into its undercarriage.
'Don't touch it!' warned Megan.
Carl snatched his hand back.
What am I doing? This could be deadly.
He took a startled step backward, alarmed at his own carelessness.
'Is it dangerous?'
Megan nodded. 'It's another trap.'
'How do you know?'
Megan looked around at them.
‘I know because I’ve discovered the purpose of the ice.'
#
Megan left everyone speechless.
She pointed into the ice.
'The ice contains a record of human achievement through time. Each artifact represents an important human invention or discovery.'
Chrissie rolled her eyes.
Alex and Carl exchanged doubtful glances.
Megan persisted.
'Just listen. We found the oldest artifacts at the surface. Like the bone needle and the Mayan calendar. The deeper we've dug, the more technologically advanced the objects have been.'
Alex asked. ‘You think the objects are emerging from the ice in the order man invented them? Is that right?’
Megan nodded. ‘You said it better than me.’
‘That’s ridiculous,’ scoffed Chrissie. ‘Half the objects are completely out of order.’
'Exactly!'
Megan pointed at Chrissie. 'Those are the traps. The objects we find out of order are either trapped or dangerous.'
Everyone glanced backward and forward between the ice and the artifacts.
'Even the food fits,' Megan added quickly. 'First we found hunter gatherer food in a leather pouch. Then we found smoked fish wrapped in flax. They both fit the historical timeline.'
‘What period of history are we in now?’ asked Alex.
Megan pointed to the artifacts on the calendar. ‘Whenever sundials were invented. That’s the last safe artifact we’ve discovered. I don’t know when they were invented.’
Carl said, ‘That means the bomb was a trap. It’s way out of order.’
Megan nodded. ‘You were right, Carl. It’s not defused. If we’d dr
opped it, we’d all be dead.’
Alex said, ‘The Trojan horse was plastic. Plastic is modern. It’s way out of historical sequence. If you’re right, that’s why the Trojan horse killed Glen.’
Megan looked down. ‘If I’d figured this out yesterday, Glen would be alive.’
‘If you’re right,’ said Chrissie.
'She's right,' said Victoria. ‘She’s completely right.’
Victoria hadn't spoken since finding Glen's eyes wide open.
She waved at the artifacts. 'How did I miss this? It's obvious now. It was right in front of me.'
'We hadn’t discovered enough artifacts before now,' said Megan. 'The abacus and plate revealed the pattern to me this morning.’
Victoria shook her head and pulled something from her apron pocket. ‘You didn’t have all the artifacts. I found this.’
‘What is it?’ asked Megan.
‘A piece of pottery. It reminded me of my garden, so I kept it. I didn’t think it mattered.’
‘Does it fit?’ asked Megan. ‘When did you find it?’
Victoria rubbed her fingers over the palm-sized shard. ‘Pottery was invented in western Asia around 6500 BC. I found it after the bone needle but before the fish wrapped in flax. Flax was used right through Mesopotamia from around the fourth century BC, so this pottery fits your theory perfectly.’
Alex raised an eyebrow at Victoria.
Megan quickly asked, ‘Do you know when sundials were invented, Victoria?’
‘Yes,’ replied Victoria. ‘Around 800 BC.’
‘What about the Trojan horse?’ asked Alex.
‘The Trojan horse was thought to have existed around 1200 BC,’ replied Victoria. ‘So even if the horse was made of wood, it was still out of order. It would still have been a trap.’
How does she know all this? wondered Carl.
He asked, ‘Victoria, you said you were a teacher, right?’
Victoria nodded.
‘What did you teach?’
‘Social studies and history. My degree was in ancient history, but I couldn’t teach ancient history to grammar school students.’
Carl realized Victoria had just become the most important person in the room.
‘That can’t be a coincidence,’ said Alex, waving at the artifacts. ‘They’ve put Victoria in here to figure this stuff out.’
Chrissie clapped her hands to her forehead as though too much information was coming at once.
‘This is the craziest thing I’ve ever heard in my life,’ she said. ‘Why would anybody do this?’
'We’re being tested,' said Alex.
‘Tested for what?’
No one had an answer to that.
Megan said. 'This is bad news too.'
'How?' asked Carl, scratching the skin between his fingers. 'We can avoid the traps now. How is that bad?'
'The Chernobyl lock,' replied Megan, almost apologetically.
'Oh, God help us,' realized Chrissie.
'Nuclear power is way out of order,' Victoria said.
'It’s a trap,' said Alex quietly. ‘It must be lethally radioactive.’
#
The news hit Carl like a punch in the stomach. They'd all crowded around the lock, but Carl had touched it the most.
'Maybe we buried it fast enough,' said Megan.
'The ice we used is already half gone,' cried Chrissie. 'It melted while we rested. Now we're absorbing twice as much radiation. We shouldn’t have rested. We should have kept working!'
'I don't want to die from radiation poisoning,' said Victoria. 'That's a horrific way to die.'
Carl's palms itched insanely. I handled that lock. I carried it with my bare hands. I held it against my body. Why didn't I wear the gloves? Who was I trying to impress?
He said, 'I've got really itchy palms where I carried the lock. Is that a sign of radiation poisoning?'
'An itchy rash is an early symptom,' confirmed Victoria. ‘Where else do you itch?’
Carl lifted his shirt.
An angry red rash covered his hips and stomach.
'Oh, fuck.'
Carl needed to sit down.
Megan rushed to help steady him.
Chrissie took a few cautious steps away from him.
'I'm not radioactive,' he barked. 'It's not an infection.'
'Well, what the hell is it?' she said. 'What should we do?'
'Bury it,' said Alex. 'We keep the lock covered in ice. The more ice the better.'
Megan nodded.
Chrissie pointed at the ice dome. 'We can't dig out more ice. That thing is full of traps! That's where the lock came from in the first place. And the bomb. And the Trojan horse.'
'And all our food,' added Megan.
Chrissie put her hands on her head and glared at the ice. She looked like she'd just reached another dead-end in a complicated labyrinth.
‘What do you think, Victoria?’ Carl asked.
‘We never should have interfered with the ice,’ said Victoria. ‘I’ve said that from the start. I still feel the same way.’
‘But you’ve been drinking the ice water,’ said Alex.
‘Not a drop,’ said Victoria. ‘I’ve been drinking melt water.’
'We don't have any choice,' said Megan. 'We have to keep going now.'
Alex nodded. 'Whoever put us in here is challenging us to survive. We won’t be rewarded for doing nothing. We have to fight for every extra hour we want to live.'
'I'm ready to fight,' said Chrissie.
'Me too,' said Carl, scratching his wrist. 'Now Megan has figured out the rules.'
Alex looked around the group. 'This is like the worst history test ever. If you get an answer wrong, the teacher kills you.'
#
Carl just wanted to lie down. Every few minutes the entire chamber spun around him. He itched all over. The one small mercy was his reduced hunger.
Nausea had replaced his hunger.
'What about the toy steam train?' asked Chrissie.
‘Steam power is very old,’ said Victoria, ‘but it was perfected in the seventeenth and eighteenth century.’
‘I know it’s a trap,’ snapped Chrissie. ‘I meant what will we do about it?’
'We let it fall,’ said Megan. ‘No one touches it. Not even the ice around it. After it falls we'll push it around to the burial mound with the umbrella. Everything dangerous gets buried. The other artifacts get arranged in order. The abacus is sticking out further than the plate, so we put the abacus before the plate.'
'And we dig ice non-stop to block the radiation,' finished Alex.
Carl took the umbrella around the ice to check his rash.
Pants down and shirt up, he saw the rash hadn’t spread.
Maybe that's a good sign.
He began the butt-freezing process of peeing down the drain without making a mess.
He couldn’t pee.
I’m dehydrated. Maybe that’s why I’m so dizzy. Maybe it’s not the radiation at all.
His damaged teeth made drinking painful, but he needed to deal with it. After all, without Glen’s gum it would be much worse.
As he stood, dizziness threatened his balance. He grabbed the wall.
Shit, that felt weird. I hope that's from dehydration and not from radiation poisoning.
He took a few steps. The dizzy feeling surged back. He staggered into the ice, bracing himself. The feeling subsided and Carl felt normal again.
Whoa, that one was intense. Wait, what's this?
He hadn't grabbed ice to balance himself. He'd grabbed glass.
A glass bottle.
Carl rubbed the glass.
There's paper inside. Another secret? Is this what Alex meant? More bottles?
He pulled at it.
It didn’t budge.
I need a tool.
He had nothing tool-like. Chrissie and Victoria still enforced their 'no tools for Carl’ policy.
I wouldn’t need a tool to hurt them, but I need one to get this bot
tle out.
He pulled out his necklace and scratched the ice with the metal tag.
Useless.
He carried the umbrella back, searching the floor for a tool.
Nothing on the floor, but maybe in Megan's bag?
Chrissie stood near Megan's bag, checking the pockets in her fatigues. She checked the same pocket three times.
'Lost something, Chrissie?'
Chrissie glared at Carl.
'I haven't taken anything,' said Carl.
Not yet anyway.
Chrissie called out, 'Megan, can I check your bag? I've lost something.'
'What have you lost?'
'Can I check it or not?' Chrissie yelled.
‘Yes.'
She needs a cigarette, thought Carl. I bet she's lost her lighter.
Alex turned from working the ice. 'You can't lose anything in here. There's nowhere for it to go.'
'Exactly,' said Chrissie, rummaging through Megan's bag. She tossed out Glen's Rubik’s cube. 'Why is this stupid thing in here?'
Carl stooped for the cube and gave it a few twists. He hated puzzles, but he was stalling to see if Chrissie's search turned up anything he could use as a tool.
'Just tip it out,' mumbled Carl, twisting the cube.
Chrissie up-ended the bag, scattering Megan's belongings.
'Hey!' yelled Megan. 'What are you doing?'
'Who took them?' Chrissie yelled.
'Took what?' asked Alex.
'My cigarettes,' spat Chrissie.
She slapped her cargo pocket. 'Last night I had three cigarettes in this pocket. Now they're gone.'
Victoria returned from dumping ice. 'Maybe they fell out during the night.'
'But who picked them up?' said Chrissie.
Megan stalked over and angrily repacked her bag. 'Well, you've already searched me.'
Carl helped Megan, returning the Rubik’s cube. 'I woke up last. I didn't see them on the floor where we rested.'
Alex shrugged. 'I'm glad they're gone.'
Christ, Alex, thought Carl. Don't provoke a starving nicotine addict.
'None of us smoke,' said Megan. 'You have the only lighter. We couldn't even smoke them. Why would anyone want to take them?’
MELT: A Psychological Thriller Page 14