The creature gestured at the crater. “Around here, arranging a death is hardly even an inconvenience. We could burn you, let you plummet to the bottom of that pit, or leave you to freeze to death slowly. So many options. Has he bedded you yet? Soren? He used to be quite the Lothario. Quite tireless in bed, for a human, and can’t be trusted, I’ve heard. I see you’re blushing. So you and Soren have been doing the lust and thrust? No?”
Sasha’s answer was cut off by the scream of jet engines just above them. Out of nowhere, a 747 airplane hurtled out of the low-hanging clouds at full speed, too close to the ground to even come close to executing a safe landing. The plane passed overhead, throwing Sasha to the ground with its energy, and then plunged straight into the ground less than half a mile away, disintegrating into bits in an explosion of flames on impact.
When Sasha managed to scramble to her feet, small bits of wreckage burned all around them, but the plane had otherwise been completely obliterated.
“Oh my God,” Sasha said. “Oh my God…”
Paul exposed his distorted teeth in a wide and creepy grin. “We call them demon fireworks. With the blindness and the loss of GPS, and the coming magnetic reversal, the last few days have been a veritable Mardi Gras, with all sorts of juicy human-filled planes popping off left right and center. These ones were probably heading to some sort of southern clime on a little autumnal get away, determined to continue on with their lives and the holidays that they so deserve, despite the clear and evident signs that the apocalypse has started, while the airlines continue to bravely carry passengers forth, lest they risk bankruptcy with their paper-thin margins.” Paul shook his head and offered an exaggerated sigh. “It’s a pity.”
Sasha turned back to him, holding back the tears. She wasn’t even sure what she was crying about. The plane, her situation, the things the mist traveler had said, the fact that in the past forty-eight hours, the world had turned upside down—literally.
Probably all of it.
She clenched her fists. “I won’t help you.”
Paul was all of a sudden inches from her, even though she had not seen him move, his rotting, chemical-scented breath hot in her face, and long-nailed fingers wrapped tightly around her wrist. From a distance, one could be fooled into thinking that Paul was human, or human-like. But up close, his eyes were pools of terrifying emptiness. She expected him to sprout fangs at any second. He pulled her in even closer, but instead of teeth carving into her jugular, he ran his nose up her neck and jaw, inhaling her like one would savor their dinner. She tried not to scream. Then he pulled back and smiled.
“Did I present it as a choice? My mistake. You’re assuming your death would be quick and relatively pain free. I feel obligated to mention that it won’t be.”
The wind and blowing snow had picked up dramatically, and Sasha wondered idly whether if Paul were to let go of her, she might just be carried into the atmosphere on the wave of the storm.
Paul glared up at the clouds that were generating the snowflakes and shoved her to the ground hard.
“I have a meeting. I’ll be back to discuss our arrangement further,” he said. “Continue helping Robert with the fires.”
And then he was gone, as if he had just blinked away, leaving Sasha breathless with fear.
The storm let up slightly as Sasha and Robert moved on with their torches to the next crater, thankfully out of sight of the blackened wreckage of the plane.
After the fire was lit, Robert followed his usual protocol of staring at the fire and completely ignoring Sasha, apparently unconcerned that she might wander off into the night because that would of course mean inevitable death. However death might be preferable to what Paul might be planning.
Sasha sank to the ground to watch the fire herself. Soren had equipped her with a small compass. The compass would obviously be wrong, but maybe she could use it somehow to find her way back to the station, if there was still a station.
She searched for her compass in her small pack. Was north south now, or west as it had been this morning? In the dark and snow on the back of the snowmobile, she had become hopelessly turned around. She had the sense that the station lay to the southeast because she had glimpsed some of the western coastal mountain range as they drove to their most recent crater. But they could have traveled far enough to come around the northern tip of the island, which would mean the station was due south. She tried to flip the compass bearings in her head. If north was mostly south on the compass, as it had been yesterday, she should head to compass north. But if north was west as it had been today, then she should head to compass east.
She pulled out the round compass and waited for the red north arrow to settle. But it didn’t. It pulled first one way, and then the other in a dizzy circle. She steadied her hand and tried again, but although the needle pointed briefly to where she thought might be south, it soon resumed its drunken oscillation around and around and around beneath the glass of the small metal compass. Useless piece of crap. She was starting to sound like Soren.
She stared in the direction she thought might be south. The blizzard tossed the snow around her in a torrent, and without the aid of the inferno in the crater she could only see about five feet in front of her. The prospect of leaving the dozy warmth of the fire and heading into a sure death was daunting at best. But death by hypothermia was surely better than by burning or falling.
She squinted again into the whirr of snowflakes. Had something just moved, a shadowy form? Was Paul coming back? She leapt to her feet, her heart stuttering wildly.
She saw the shape again. Four dogs pulled a sled carrying a parka-clad figure. Soren. The sled stopped. Sasha glanced behind her, but Robert still watched the fire fixedly. She ran madly in the direction of the sled. But it was not Soren. It was Vincent bundled up in layers of scarf and mittens, his rheumy blue eyes wide.
“Get on, get on,” he said. “We don’t have much time.”
Sasha climbed on the sled and clasped her arms around the old man. He was very warm. Vincent gave the snow-covered dogs the order to go, and the sled sped silently off into the night. She could not make out which dogs were pulling them, but she knew it was not Tundra, Cedar, or Timber. The other dogs must have come back.
After they were far enough away that Sasha could no longer see the flames, Vincent stopped the sled.
“Soren’s been taken,” he said without preamble, his hearty voice muffled through his balaclava. “He came back to the station in a panic to see if we had seen or heard anything. They took him out just outside the bay. Three men on snowmobiles. Before he left, he said that it was him they were after and they had just taken you because they know he loves you. He said that if anything happened to him, they would take him to the hole in the world. He said you’d know where it is.”
Vincent’s hands started to shake, and Sasha patted his arm awkwardly even as she scrunched up her eyes. Hole in the world? What was Vincent talking about? Soren loved her? Liked her, maybe. Love seemed a bit out there, although she had to admit, the prospect was not totally unwelcome.
“I can’t believe I just cowered in the storage bay like a feeble old man when they captured him. We have to help him,” Vincent said urgently. “I’m armed now, and ready. Where is the hole in the world?”
Sasha shook her head. “I have no idea. Soren never said anything about a hole in the world. There are holes everywhere. Maybe he means the crater he fell into yesterday. He said he heard penguins.”
Vincent shook his head violently. “No, no. It was something bigger than that, I’m sure of it. Soren is a volcano researcher…or was. It has to be some sort of volcanic hole. Think. Think. We need to rescue him.”
“Why didn’t he just tell you where it was? I don’t have a clue.”
For a fraction of a second, something dark and dangerous seemed to flit across Vincent’s eyes, but it vanished almost immediately, replaced by wide-eyed alarm. “Think back through your conversations. It could have been something seemin
gly innocuous. We need to find him. He also said something about a deal with ice that you could explain it to me. What are you doing with ice?”
“I really can’t help Vincent. I don’t even know Soren that well. Soren has no deal with Ice as far as I know. Ice asked us to help, but Soren didn’t agree to it. I don’t know what you’re talking about.”
The sound of jet engines cut off Vincent’s reply as another plane screamed overhead, way too low. The explosion of the crash echoed through the night, but the plane was too far away, and the snowstorm too blinding for them to see any flames. The dogs, clearly spooked, started to bark and then took off, the empty sled trailing behind them. Vincent turned and ran after them, yelling “Whoa! Whoa!” The dogs ignored him. Sasha added her own calls and started to run after Vincent, who was moving extraordinarily fast for a man in his late seventies. The shadows of the dogs and Vincent began to grow dimmer and dimmer, and finally Sasha stopped.
She could no longer see anyone ahead of her.
“Vincent! Vincent!” she yelled. Nobody replied. She called again and again, turning around and around, running first in one direction and then in the other. But she heard no answer, and nobody came. After ten minutes of yelling, her voice was completely hoarse, and she was still completely alone.
The storm had increased in intensity, and she was completely and utterly lost. She scanned the horizon, swiveling in a full circle, looking for anything, a shape, flames, an aurora, a mountain, lights…anything to orient herself. She put on her headlamp and pulled the compass out of her pocket. The red arrow moved in an erratic and unsteady circle and then oscillated back and forth in a thirty-degree arc.
“Fine, then,” Sasha said to nobody. “I guess I’ll go that direction and hope it’s south. She set off at a reasonable pace, but after an hour trudging in the freezing wind and dark, and nearly stumbling into two craters, she was shaking uncontrollably from the cold and began to feel her hope ebbing. Where the hell was she going? Her head spun and she wanted to rest in the snow. She was becoming hypothermic.
She closed her eyes and tried to summon some sort of strength. But all she felt was cold. She let herself fall to her knees. Maybe just a short rest.
Something wet touched her cheek, a warm tongue. Her eyes fluttered open. A dog stood in front of her. Timber, a mask of white covering his face and blanketing his back, his brown eyes and tips of his ears the only spots of darkness in his pale face.
She put her arms around him, the snow from his face soaking her neck.
“Good dog. Good dog,” she murmured. “I’m just having a little rest.”
As soon as she released him, Timber turned away from her and started to head back the way he had come. But unlike Vincent and the other dogs, he stopped and waited a few feet away. Sasha closed her eyes again.
Timber barked loudly.
“I know, I know,” she said. “I’m just tired.”
He lunged back at her, his teeth bared, closed his jaws on her arm and started to pull. The pain and pressure jolted her awake. Timber did not release her arm, and slowly she rose to her feet. The dog, apparently satisfied that she was now alert, loosened his hold and started to move forward again. Sasha collected every fragment of strength she had and followed.
They walked on and on through the night and the squall, until Sasha was stiff with fatigue and cold. Timber set a faster pace, pushing her to generate a small core of body heat. He paused occasionally to sniff the ground, or the air, and led her around crater after crater. She avoided leaving her headlamp on, lest she ran it out of batteries or notified someone of their location, but she risked flashing it occasionally. All she ever saw ahead of them was the relentless streak of snow against the backdrop of night. The snow had started to grow deeper and making her way through the snowdrifts was exhausting. She would stumble and fall, and Timber would stop and wait until she was once again pressed against him.
Where was Soren? Where had they taken him? Who had taken him? Was he dead? Where had Vincent gone? Were she and Timber alone on this vast cold plain?
At times, she thought she saw the glimmer of green and purple in the sky through the snow. More of those strange auroras that Edie and Cal had been tracking? Or the arrival of an alien spaceship?
Occasionally she thought she heard the sound of a snowmobile. Someone coming to rescue her or Robert hunting her down? Timber seemed to veer away from the noise, and she could only pray he knew what he was doing.
After what seemed like an eternity, the light level shifted, from blackness punctuated by ribbons of white to a deep grey. It was dawn then. At least the sun still seemed to be following the natural order of things.
The sound of a snowmobile engine broke the relentless sound of the squeak of snow under boots. This time Timber stopped and sat, and then let out a low keening howl followed by stream of barks, his head thrust high and fierce into the air. She could see why he had once been the lead sled dog. The snowmobile slowed and then came closer. Despite her hope that Timber somehow knew who it was, she shrank away from the noise and cast about for a place to hide. But on this part of the island the snow carpeted a flat plain with no relief, not even a hillock, to be seen against the gunmetal grey sky.
She sank to her knees, considering burying herself in the snow. But Timber seemed determined to make their presence known and as the snowmobile approached, she saw Soren’s brilliant red parka. Soren. He was alive. But Soren did not wear the expression of joy that she was sure occupied her face. Instead, he wore a ferocious and angry scowl. He barely slowed the machine when he neared.
“Get on,” he ordered.
She hesitated, but then she heard the second snowmobile. Robert.
“Get on. We’ve been playing goddamn tag all night, and I’m always it.”
Sasha got on, and Soren gunned the engine tearing away at top speed.
“But what about Timber,” Sasha screamed in Soren’s ear.
“I can’t bring him. Robert will follow us. He knows the way back.” Soren swerved to the left suddenly and Sasha had to clutch him with all her strength to stay on the snowmobile. The roar of the other snowmobile was closer now, and Sasha thought she could see a black shadow following them through the still pounding snow.
“But can he make it? It’s a long way…He’s so tired. Timber.” Sasha said the words softly, to herself.
“He’s an Arctic dog, Sasha. We’re not that far from the station.”
Soren carved a strange and winding path through the snow, trying to lose Robert in the quickening light of morning. But Robert continued to hone in on them, almost as if he had a tracking device, and Sasha could hear Soren swearing a blue streak as he turned and veered, trying to outdistance the other machine. The faint buzzing of another snowmobile joined the first one.
“It’s no use,” Soren said over the engine. “He’s got a faster snowmobile and he’ll be able to see us as soon as it gets any lighter. I’m heading for the crater I fell into yesterday. When I say jump, you need to jump. I’m going to let the snowmobile crash into the crater. Then we’re going to lower ourselves into the crater with our ice axes. They’re in the back compartment. Grab the whole compartment, or you’ll stab yourself with the axes when you jump. As soon as we hit the ground, you’ll only have a few seconds to lower yourself into the hole. The slope at the lip is only about sixty degrees.”
“But—”
“Don’t argue!” Soren barked. “We’re going. Grab the compartment.”
Sasha took hold the detachable back storage compartment. “But he’ll see us. He’ll look over the edge.”
She felt Soren’s body move as he shook his head. “This crater has fog in it. Jump. Now!”
Even with the cushion of snow, the impact of leaping off a snowmobile going full tilt took Sasha’s breath away. She rolled over and over in the snow trying to hang on to the compartment and stay away from the lip of the crater, as the snowmobile arced over the edge and into the depths below. She braced for the sound of it
hitting the bottom. Soren was on top of her opening the compartment before she could even inhale. When the snowmobile crashed, the gas tank would explode and the crater would ignite, and they would be burned to a crisp.
She tried to find the words to explain this to Soren, but he was busy removing the two axes and a length of rope, and her lips seemed frozen, unable to articulate the danger. Soren tossed the compartment into the crater after the snowmobile, hooked the rope to the harness that she still wore from earlier, and gave her a push toward the crater.
She braced for the explosion of flame, but nothing happened. The snowmobile still had not hit bottom. But how was that possible?
Soren had already vanished over the edge, indicating that he would place a few screws for her to brace herself on. The other snowmobile was almost to the crater. If she didn’t go over the edge now, Robert would see her. The blast of a shotgun shattered the air over the ceaseless hum of the snowmobile. Had she been seen, or was Robert just firing randomly?
She scrambled over the edge, fumbling for the braces that Soren had placed. The upper part of the crater side was more gently sloped, as Soren had promised, allowing for some possibility of digging in with her axe and gaining a foothold, compared to the lower part of the crater where the walls became vertical.
“Just a little bit further,” Soren said. She turned and saw him a few feet below her, just above the fog that pooled in the bottom of the crater.
The snowmobiles were almost to the edge of the crater now. Sasha inched her way down until she was next to Soren, her axe planted in the snow-covered dirt. This was the easy part and yet her arms still felt wrenched nearly out of their sockets every time she moved.
“This is insane,” she said. “I won’t be able to hold on once the walls get steeper. I’ll drag you down with me.”
“We just have to get to the fog,” Soren repeated doggedly, continuing his way down the slope. Sasha followed him as best she could, wondering which step would be her last, the one where her toehold did not hold, or her axe slipped and she went plummeting to her death in the crater.
Apocalypse Weird: Reversal (Polar Wyrd Book 1) Page 10