Chapter 12
The scene reminded Whitney of the ending of Planet of the Apes, where the Statue of Liberty stood crooked and half-buried in sand, except that this was a church steeple, and the sand was snow . . . and there were no apes, maybe anywhere. Looking for any other signs of the town that no doubt stood frozen beneath her feet, Whitney saw nothing but a flat expanse of white in all directions. As in many New England towns, the church steeple was the tallest structure, and for the first time in Whitney’s life it symbolized the same hope it had for others: salvation.
Whitney looked up to see the glimmering yellow cross that had alerted her to the church’s presence. It shone brightly even though the sky above had become a churning caldron of storm clouds. She knew the storm would soon descend, and she had no intention of being outside when it did. She approached the church.
The steeple looked intact; this was good because it gave her hope that the church buried below had survived as well, but bad because she could not see a way inside. The spire was constructed of wood. It was hard and stiff to the touch—no rot, no soft spots. Two sides were flat, while the other two had horizontal vents built from angled slats of wood. She grabbed one of the slats and pushed. No give. It was the only weak spot in the steeple she could find.
The wind picked up and pushed the arctic air through her clothing. The atmosphere was changing. Whitney again looked high above to the sky and saw a swirling mass of clouds. She followed their motion and jumped back from the sight snaking toward her.
Whitney had heard of arctic hurricanes before, otherwise known as “polar lows,” but she’d never seen one. They were reported by Nordic mariners as fierce freak storms that created havoc with their vessels. The storm’s one-hundred-fifty-mile-per-hour winds churned sea and ice into a volatile stew and launched hail like bullets. They were cyclones of pure, frigid pain . . . and this one was headed straight for her. Nature, having missed her during the first pass, was coming to finish the job.
To hell with that, Whitney thought.
Stepping back, Whitney prepared to ram the vent with her body. She didn’t know what was on the other side: a floor, or a ten-foot drop. She had to risk it. A broken bone was better than freezing to death. After taking three vaults forward, she stopped and rubbed her aching shoulder. The first thick flakes of snow from the hurricane fell from the sky like shots from cannons. Windswept arctic air found chinks in her winter gear armor, stinging her skin.
“I’m being stupid,” she said out loud.
Dropping her backpack on the ice, she opened it and reached inside, fishing through the tightly packed gear. When her hand reemerged, she was holding an ice axe. While not an axe in the traditional sense, it was solidly constructed and very sharp. She began hacking at the vent slats, concentrating her blows on the outer edges. After five minutes, the muscles in her right arm burned and her hand stung from the effect of repeated impacts. Worse, her whole body shook from the cold. She had worn the wood down where vent met wall but had not broken through.
It may be weak enough, though, she thought. It had to be.
The thick flakes of snow had been replaced by an endless white static of tiny white flakes that flew horizontally at great speed. She looked back to the approaching storm, and through the wash of white flakes, saw a towering cyclone . . . a tornado at the center of a hurricane. Its approach was preceded by a loud hiss and wash of snow that caused her visibility to dwindle down to a few feet.
Whitney grabbed her backpack, took a step back, and braced her left boot into the snow. She kicked desperately with her right foot, putting the weight of her body behind the blow. With a crisp snap, the wood shattered. She kicked again, widening the hole, and wasted no time being careful as she leaped inside.
Inside, the steeple was dark and she felt claustrophobic. Whitney took out her small Maglite flashlight and switched it on. Panning the interior revealed a small space, not bigger than a common closet except that it was ten feet tall and tapered to a point at the top. Other than a few cobwebs, the space was empty.
The wind and snow, kept partially at bay by the steeple, howled and pursued her through the hole she’d created. Her reprieve was momentary; if the tornado struck this steeple, she doubted it would be sturdy enough to save her life.
Whitney stomped on the floor, her fury growing with each passing second. It was solid, but more important, sounded hollow. Kneeling to the floor, she scoured the flat surface for any anomaly signifying a hatch or doorway. She was certain that she couldn’t hack through the floor. She shifted around and spied a small loop of metal bolted to the boards. She hooked her fingers around it, stepped to the side, and yanked. The wooden panel creaked as it became dislodged from its place in the floor. It wasn’t a hinged hatch, simply a block of wood set into the floor.
Placing the hatch to the side, Whitney peered into the opening. Under the light of her flashlight, she could see a long ladder leading down. Whitney snatched up her pack and descended the ladder, pulling the block of wood back into place. The sounds of the wind and storm were replaced by an unqualified silence.
Her backpack scraped against the back wall of the enclosed space, but she made good time down the ladder. At the bottom, some thirty feet down, was a large square chamber. The only feature here, aside from the ladder, was a square, three-foot door with no handle.
She crouched and pushed on the door. It swung open easily and noiselessly. Slightly warmer air rushed across her face, carrying with it an odor that brought Whitney back to her childhood days. Most Sundays had been spent at church. The smell of pews, old Bibles, and crayons invaded her nose. Stepping out into the room, she played the flashlight across a short, round table covered in pencils, paper, and frozen, half-filled juice cups. Sunday school, Whitney thought. The juice stood out in Whitney’s mind. Most Sunday schools she’d been to had been very tidy places. Cups left on the table were nearly a crime.
After exiting the room, Whitney headed down a hallway, opening doors as she went. Two more Sunday school rooms, both the same as the first: projects dropped, juice not drunk. The last door was a deep closet full of typical church supplies: an old podium, microphones, a stack of ruined hymnals, several trays of old communion glasses, and a box full of white sticks.
Not sticks, Whitney thought. Candles!
Whitney shuffled past the closet clutter and inspected the box. It was full of previously used Christmas Eve candles, hundreds of them. She reached into the box and pulled out one of the candles. Her elbow struck the communion glass tray on the way past, drawing her attention. She glanced at the glasses and saw a solution to a problem she’d only just discovered. The candles would come in handy for light and heat, but on Christmas Eve, churchgoers singing “Silent Night” held the candles in their hands. There were no candlesticks. Whitney quickly snatched up a communion glass and inserted the candle. It was a perfect fit.
Whitney smiled. “Thank God for pack rat churches.”
She stuffed her pockets with candles and glasses then left, intending to come back for more. Her inspection of the rest of the church was brief as she headed down the stairs to the first level. A pair of solid oak doors led to the side of the sanctuary. Following the dim light of the flashlight, she made her way to the podium at the front of the room. She knew that the room wouldn’t hold heat well, but had planned on camping out there since she’d seen the steeple. Perhaps it was the familiarity of the place, she wasn’t sure, but she felt safest there.
She lined up twenty communion glasses on the podium. Each clack echoed through the vaulted room. After jamming a candle into each glass, she pulled a lighter from her backpack and touched it to one of them. Then, as she had on countless Christmas Eves, she lit each candle, one by one, with the first.
It wasn’t until she was done lighting the candles that she looked up and saw them. An entire congregation of people, sitting in the pews, bent over in prayer . . . and frozen solid.
Chapter 13
Sleep descended on Merrill
. After returning to base camp, he activated the GPS emergency transmitter. It was his intention to do some more exploring: investigate the exposed wall, the churned-up bones, and the amazing new growth. But upon entering his tent, he felt an irresistible urge to lie down and rest. Before his thoughts could wander, he was asleep.
The rest of the day and the following night passed without a twitch from Merrill. He was in a deep REM sleep, brought on by the month-long shake and the day’s excitement. He dreamt a dream that had been repeated since childhood. He was in the back seat of his parents’ pea-soup-green Chevy Bel Air, being chased by an irate Dilophosaurus. The car would speed down a back road, trees crowding on both sides and the dinosaur close behind. A DJ squawked over the radio, reporting on the beast being sighted. The news report always ended with the details of his family’s death at the hands of the rogue Dilophosaurus.
He woke from the dream calmly. It no longer held the fear it had as a child. He knew it was only a dream. Ironically, it had been that repeating dream that had fueled his interest in dinosaurs and led him to become a paleontologist. His fascination with dinosaurs had waned as he came to believe that, while interesting, digging up ancient animal bones wouldn’t ultimately enrich his life. It was only from a study of humanity that he might glean some understanding of human nature. He earned PhDs in both anthropology and archeology, but rather than give up his paleontological skills completely, he focused on excavating sights where extinct creatures and human remains might be found together. His first dig had been uncovering the remains of a saber-toothed cat, which had died amid the bones of several humans. The giant predator had been a man-eater. Eventually, his dual interests led him to Antarctica. When he’d first announced his focus on Antarctic civilizations and dinosaurs, he became the brunt of his peers’ jokes. It wasn’t until the discovery of Crylophosaurus that the critics were silenced.
Ten years later he was still here, and all the evidence for an Antarctic civilization had been unearthed for him. Merrill frowned as he sat up in the cot, rubbing his temples. He wondered if anyone would even be interested in his discoveries after whatever global disaster had occurred.
No matter, he thought. I still think it’s interesting.
For an instant, Merrill’s thoughts returned to Mirabelle. The emotional jolt caused a pain in his chest. He squelched the images of her face with visions of exploring the uncovered wall. Wondering and worrying about Mirabelle’s fate caused him too much angst to entertain. Until someone arrived to pick him up, there was nothing he could do about it, anyway. He’d rather stay productive and sane than wring his fingers raw with anxiety.
A sharp bark pierced the air.
Merrill looked around the tent. Vesuvius wasn’t in his usual spot. He stood up from the cot, still fully dressed from the day before, and pushed through the tent’s exit.
As his eyes adjusted to the bright sun, he became keenly aware of an unfamiliar scent. The air smelled sweet, almost like a bouquet of flowers. He reached into his pocket and donned his sunglasses. The now-polarized landscape came into brilliant focus. Speckles of blue, orange, yellow, and red coated the landscape, dotting a solid patch of green grass. Overnight, the valley had been transformed from desolate, dry wasteland into a botanist’s dream come true.
Vesuvius let out another bark. Merrill searched for the dog but could not see him. A third bark revealed Vesuvius behind the supply crate. Merrill crept around the side, wanting to see what the dog was getting into without being noticed. Merrill leaned around the side of the crate and saw Vesuvius lying down in the middle of the newly formed stream, his head buried under the crate. Water flowed around the dog’s large body, carrying bits of grass and flowers downstream.
At first, Merrill feared the dog had somehow become stuck under the crate. He knew it was too heavy for him to lift on his own. Merrill stepped forward, making no attempt to mask his approach. Vesuvius pulled his head from under the crate, saw Merrill, and barked again. Merrill could have sworn the dog was smiling.
What was he into?
Vesuvius uncharacteristically ignored his master and dove back under the crate. He was acting like he did when he lost a tennis ball under a couch.
“Vesuvius.”
The dog continued to ignore him.
Merrill stepped closer, bending down to look under the crate. From his vantage point, he couldn’t see more than a few inches beneath the wooden pallet that supported the crate. He sighed.
“Vesuvius, I swear, if you’ve become attached to a rock . . .”
Merrill placed his hand gently on the dog’s side and Vesuvius reacted as Merrill knew he would. The dog backed away and barked again, allowing Merrill to take a look, but his lowered head and tapping paws revealed he was eager to return to his wet post.
With his hands under three inches of chilled water, Merrill leaned down so that his head was almost in the stream. It was dark under the crate and he couldn’t see more than a few dark humps, which he took for rocks, and a slight glisten from the flowing water. Suddenly, one of the rocks moved from its position and launched at his face.
Merrill jumped up with a shout and fell onto a newly grown parcel of grass. He looked back at the crate in time to see a small creature bolt from under the crate and dive through a small hole in the ground. Vesuvius sprang into action, pounding his paws at the small creature, then digging furiously at the hole. Merrill hadn’t seen much, just a gray blob of color . . . but it was a living, breathing creature.
His thoughts became analytical. It could have been a mouse, hiding within the crate. No, he thought. It would have been frozen solid until the great thaw began. Merrill pictured a mouse freezing, then thawing and returning to life. He knew some species of frogs could freeze solid during the winter and return to life when thawed. But this was no frog. This moved like a mammal, and he could have sworn he’d seen hair. Merrill had never heard of a mammal surviving being frozen solid . . . unless . . .
Merrill caught his breath. There was another explanation.
Anhydrobiosis. Literally, “life without water.” Some organisms on earth had mastered the technique, during which the cells contain only minimal amounts of water. Metabolic activity was completely suspended. Several species of plants, insects, and nematodes were all capable of anhydrobiosis. Most famous were the brine shrimp known as Sea Monkeys. They were the kings of the anhydrobiotic universe, staking a claim in children’s rooms around the globe. Merrill smiled. The Sea Monkeys had just been overthrown.
Antarctica was the perfect environment for a species to have evolved anhydrobiotic capabilities. It was so cold that everything not well protected was literally freeze dried. Antarctica, contrary to most people’s assumptions, was the driest environment on earth. Merrill was fond of reminding people who questioned this point: ice is not wet. Merrill was among a group who believed that Antarctica shifted between freezing and thawing every five thousand years, give or take a thousand. Now that the ice had returned to its liquid state, the dormant seeds—and creatures—would spring back to life as though they had had a long night’s sleep.
Merrill laughed as he watched Vesuvius fruitlessly dig at the dirt around the hole and considered what else might be awakening after five thousand years of dehydrated suspended animation.
Chapter 14
The crystallized skin of the frozen congregation glistened in the candlelight. For five minutes Whitney had stood as still as a frightened mouse, letting her eyes take in each horrific face. Men, women, and children sat in the pews, heads bowed, hands clenched. The church had weathered the tsunami—the dry interior was a testament to that—but the cold killed the people before they could react.
She let her eyes linger on the faces. Two old women sat together, eyes clenched shut. A father cradled his daughter, who couldn’t have been more than six, his tight grasp on her never wavering, not even in death. A family huddled together, hands interlocked, faces screwed in pain. A single mother held her infant to her breast, connected as one, forever.
A sob escaped Whitney’ s mouth and echoed in the tall sanctuary. It was the most heartbreaking scene she’d ever experienced.
The strangest thing was that she envied them. No one in the room had died alone; whether with friends, family, or simply their congregation of fellow believers, not one of them had died alone. Even if Whitney survived the storm and escaped to greener pastures, it seemed she was destined to spend the rest of her life alone and without family.
As Whitney lingered on the families, her thoughts turned to her own. Growing up, her parents had seemed inseparable, immortal, and infallible. Now she knew not one of those three adjectives was true. And after what happened, it seemed that even the relationships she’d built on her own couldn’t last. And now . . . now, everyone she knew—her friends and extended family living in Maine, New Hampshire, and Massachusetts—might all be gone, too; frozen like the congregation.
Whitney removed her hand from her mouth, where it had been since seeing the group, and took a seat behind the podium. The chair was ornately carved, made of dark-stained wood with crimson upholstery. Like a throne, Whitney thought. As a teenager, Whitney began refusing to go to church, seeing its stringent rules as oppressive and overbearing. She viewed the pastor and any other church authority as power mongers who saw her as nothing more than a peasant. She glanced to her right and came face-to-face with another body. The man was well-dressed and manicured, sitting on another throne-like chair. He was bald and long dead, but seemed to have passed peacefully, his face free of worried creases. A Bible was clenched between his frozen digits.
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