Apocalypse Weird: Reversal (Polar Wyrd Book 1) (6 page)

“The wind is all wrong,” Soren muttered after a bit.

Sasha knew the prevailing winds at the Arctic were the Polar Easterlies, which blew east to west—the icy winds that were currently slamming them from behind—but the warm winds were blowing west to east. She had assumed that this happened sometimes in storms.

“You’ve never seen this before?” she asked.

“Never,” Soren said firmly.

“Do you want to try getting a radio or sat phone signal from here?” she asked. Looking for the others in this condition was, in her opinion, as good as useless.

“We haven’t come far enough to be out of the lee of the mountain,” Soren replied.

They continued on until Tundra came to an abrupt stop, barked, and veered right, almost throwing Sasha off the sled.

“Soren!” she cried, but it was too late, Soren’s yell of surprise came an instant later, and she felt movement in the rope around her waist that attached her to Soren.

“I’m falling! Plant your ice axe!”

Falling? Into what? A crevasse? Why would there be a crevasse here? Where
were
they? Sasha fumbled with the axe that Soren had fastened at her waist. The rope snapped taut, and Sasha was jerked off the sled onto her knees, and started to slide in the direction of Soren’s yells. She reared up and drove her ice axe as deep into the snow as she could. It caught and held. The weight of Soren’s sudden stop on the straps of her harness almost took her breath away, and she nearly released her grip on the axe. She could feel him scrambling about on the other end of the rope to get a foothold, the rope alternately slackening and pulling tight. Her ice axe was too loose and she could feel it carving a trench in the snow as inch by inch she was dragged towards Soren. But if she pulled it out and drove it in again, she could be pulled over the edge too.

Her hands were slick in her mitts. She tried to think. She was still attached to the sled and Tundra. If Tundra went the other direction, his weight would help.

“Tundra. All right. Gee!” she ordered, trying to mimic Soren’s tone when he gave commands. Tundra gave a yip of confusion, but she felt the sled start to move, in the right direction, she hoped. Her axe was cutting a swathe in the snow now as she moved towards the crevasse at an ever-increasing pace. She started to panic. She and Soren would die blind at the bottom of a crevasse.

Suddenly, the pull on the rope slackened and she stopped moving.

“I’ve got my own axe in the wall of whatever this is.” Soren’s voice sounded faint. “But I don’t know how long it’ll hold.”

Sasha was jerked in the other direction. Tundra had managed to pull the sled around and start to barrel back the way they had come.

“Tundra! Whoa! Sit. Stay,” she yelled.

The pull stopped, and now with Soren holding some of his own weight, the added support of the dog and the sled, as well as her own ice axe, Sasha felt a bit more stable.

“Is it a straight drop?” she called to Soren. “How close are you to the bottom?” This was a stupid question of course. Without sight, how would he know how close he was to the bottom?

“It’s pretty straight, maybe eighty degrees,” he said. “And it’s weird. It’s not a crevasse. It’s like a crater or a pit or something. The side is mud or dirt in spots, and it stinks. My axe is starting to slip. Plant a screw, the longest one you’ve got, and hook me to it.”

Sasha yanked an ice screw from the gear belt Soren had insisted she wear and tried to ratchet it into the snow one-handed, but the snow was almost soupy and she couldn’t get the screw to catch. Her ice axe continued to slip infinitesimally, and she was not sure how much longer it was going to hold. Tundra and the sled, while adding some weight to keep her out of the hole and Soren from falling any further, were not heavy enough to hold them alone.

“Replant your axe,” she yelled. “I need two hands.”

“It won’t hold for long.”

“I can’t get the screw in. You’re going to need to try.” Sasha pushed her own axe as hard as she could into its spot in the snow with her other hand.

“On three,” Soren said.

The jolt when Soren said three was fierce. But then the rope slackened again.

“I’m in,” Soren said. “Go!”

Sasha let go of her own ice axe and dug frantically at the soupy snow to get down to the firmer ice layer below and then ratcheted in the screw again. This time it held. She attached Soren’s carabiner to the screw as well as her own harness, checking twice to make sure she had not inadvertently fastened it to thin air. Then she drove her ice axe back into the snow. She needed to add another screw. She placed the second screw a few inches ahead of the first, but when she tried to loop the rope around the second screw, she couldn’t get enough slack.

“Soren, can you pull yourself up on your axe for just a second? I need a tiny bit of slack.”

“Yup.” His grunt seemed to come from too far away.

The rope loosened again and she looped it around the second screw, then she risked unhooking her own harness from the rope. She felt the rope and the screws again and again to make sure they were holding.

“Now what?” she called. She considered crawling in the direction of Soren’s voice, but it was too risky.

“I’m going to climb out with my prusik. Put two pickets in the snow and attach your spare rope to them on an angle, like I showed you. Make sure the anchors stay put.”

“You can do that blind?” Sasha asked, feeling once again for the solidity of the screws, the tautness of the rope.

“I don’t have much choice, do I? If something happens to me, there’s a spare set of station keys in the dryer exhaust pipe in the wall of the station opposite the bay door, right by the emergency exit from the west wing.”

“Don’t say that,” Sasha said.

She drove the pickets into the snow with her axe and then attached the spare length of rope to them in the layout that Soren had ordered her to learn a few weeks ago. Then she attached Soren’s carabiner to rope and called okay to Soren. She was checking the arrangement for the third time when a low whooshing sound broke through the howling wind and intensified into a full on thunder and squeal as something hurtled past overhead at unbelievable speed. It had to be a fighter jet, or jets, flying extremely low. She had a wild brief thought that the military had come to rescue them and threw her arms skyward, to signal them. But these planes did not sound like they were slowing to approach the station runway, and they would be too big to land there anyway.

A few seconds later, a huge explosion rocked the air, throwing Sasha to the ground. Tundra jerked forward with the sled, and Sasha was dragged along the snow for several feet before he listened to her screams to stop.

What had just happened? Had whatever had just flown overhead hit the mountains?

She instinctively reached out to recheck the ropes that held Soren in place, but she couldn’t find them. She had been pulled too far away.

“Soren!” she called. “Are you alright?”

“All is lost, all is lost,” said a voice right next to her.

A seize of sick fear clutched her gut. “What? Soren? Is that you?” It was a stupid question. She knew it wasn’t his voice, and that he could not have gotten out of the crevasse, or crater, or whatever it was so quickly, but the sudden appearance of someone right next to her in the Arctic was too shocking. Had he come by parachute from one of the planes? Was that how they intended to rescue them?

“All is lost,” the voice continued.

“Who are you?” she said. “Did you come from one of the planes?”

“Who am I? Who are you? I’m afraid I can no longer see.”

“Join the club,” said Sasha. How was it that nobody could see? Some airborne chemical? A terrorist attack? Had a war started? “I’m Sasha Wood, one of the researchers here at the station.”

Hands felt for and gripped hers, and then pumped them in an exuberant handshake. The man smelled of menthol. “You’re alive. I’m so glad to hear that. So glad. Sasha, Sasha, Sasha…I’m sorry. I don’t remember you. There have been so many researchers over the years. Did we officially meet?”

“It’s okay. I don’t think we’ve met. Who are you?” She really had to find Soren’s ropes. She knelt and started feeling around in the snow.

“Why, I’m Vincent Robinson, of course. But I guess you can’t see me, can you? I thought everyone was killed when the station was destroyed. But I should have guessed someone would be out collecting data. I couldn’t read the log on my phone.”

“Station…destroyed. Are you sure?” The prospect was horrifying. Were Amber, Cedar, and Timber dead? To her chagrin, it was the loss of the dogs that upset her the most.

“Yes, of course. Didn’t you hear the explosion last night during the storm? It was earth-shattering. I went to the station as soon as the storm subsided, and there was nothing there. Nothing. All those poor researchers. All our years of research and equipment.”

“Last night? But we’ve just come from the station this morning. It was just fine.” The other researchers
are
probably all dead, though, she thought. What kind of rescuer was this? From the tenor of his voice he sounded like an old man.

Her hands moved over the snow with more urgency. She couldn’t find Soren’s ropes. She needed to get to the edge of the crater without falling in.

“Soren!” she called. “Soren! Are you alright?” She heard no answering call.

“What? The station not destroyed? How is that possible?” Vincent interrupted.

“It’s true,” Sasha said. “I can’t talk, I really have to find my friend. He’s climbing out of a crevasse, or a hole in the ground, or something.” She started to inch away from Vincent on her stomach feeling everywhere for the ropes. “Soren! Please answer me. Are you okay?”

“Could I have gotten turned around? I can’t believe it. I’ve travelled this ice pack for years. I knew my GPS was acting up, seemed to be giving me the complete wrong directions.”

“Ours too. I wonder if a satellite got knocked out of orbit or something. Maybe there was some strange solar flare. Maybe that’s why we’re all blind.” She heard Vincent’s footfalls in the snow next to her. “Vincent, please stop walking! There’s a crater or hole in the ground right around here, and Soren’s ropes are anchored in this area. I don’t want you to trip over them.” Why was Soren not answering? The air had grown heavy with the smell of electrical smoke. Maybe the station had been vaporized. Or maybe it was the plane, burning off in the distance.

“Soren? That’s not a common name. You must mean Soren Anderson? Did he come back to the station?”

“Yes,” Sasha stuttered, trying to get him to stop talking. What did he mean by come back to the station?

“Wiry fellow, strong as an ox. Built for polar research that one. It was a terrible tragedy about Marina of course,”

“Vincent!” Sasha’s voice was sharp this time. “Stop talking. I need to go find Soren.”

“I’m sorry. I’m prattling on, aren’t I? I’m not quite right. I think I hit my head. One of the hazards of being blind, I suppose. I must get back to the station and see if everyone is all right. Which direction did you say it was?”

“I don’t know. We were going to rely on Tundra and retracing the route on our GPS to get back.”

“Sasha!” She heard Soren’s voice, ever so faint in the distance, calling for her. She nearly fainted in relief. But where was he, and why did he sound so distant? Had he wandered off in the wrong direction?

“Over here, Soren!”

“Sasha!” he called again and then “Tundra!” Tundra apparently heard him because the rope on her harness snapped around. There was a moment of slack and then she was being hauled along the snow, in the direction of the crater she was certain. “Tundra! Whoa!” But Tundra, now responding to his master, ignored her and she began to be pulled along on her stomach across the snow at breakneck speed.

Soren must have realized what was happening because he also yelled “Whoa!” The sled mercifully came to a stop, and this time Soren’s voice sounded firmer, more solid.

“I’m still attached to the sled. Where’s the crater? Are you out?”

“I’m out.” Soren’s voice materialized nearby this time, and she would have launched off the ground and thrown herself into his arms in relief if she had been able to see him.

By calling each other’s names, they were able to inch their way to each other on hands and knees until Sasha could feel the puffs of Soren’s breath on her face. For a second it seemed like they would hug, like they should hug, but neither of them could see each other to note the suspension of arms, the quick exchange of permission and intent. Instead, Soren called Tundra, and the dog joined them in the tangle of ropes. Sasha closed her eyes and felt the warmth of Soren’s closeness, just for a second.

“I think we better go back to the station. We can’t do anything blind, and I don’t know where the hell that hole in the ground came from. I’ll just check the radio and sat phone signals and then let’s go,” Soren said.

“Wait! There was a man here, while you were in the crater. He thought everyone was dead. Vincent Robinson. He must have come from one of the planes that crashed.” She turned and called into the wind, “Vincent! Vincent! We’re over here.”

Nobody replied.

“Did you say Vincent Robinson?”

“Yes, he was upset about all the researchers being dead. He seemed to think the station was destroyed. Does he live around here? Who is he?”

She called again for Vincent. But as before, the only thing that echoed back to her was the cry of the wind.

“Soren, what if he’s fallen in the crater? He sounded like an old man.”

“He is an old man, Sash. But I don’t think he’s fallen in that pit. We need to get out of here.”

“Is he here to rescue us?”

“No, he’s not. We’ve got to go.” Soren’s voice sounded dangerous and terrible again, and Sasha bit off her reply.

Soren detached and reattached the ropes in the proper configuration with surprising speed, checking and double-checking the ropes that bound them together. He called for Vincent a few times himself, and then when no response was received, ordered her onto the sled. She suggested he should go on the sled as he had just climbed out of a pit in the ground, but he replied with a terse “get on the sled.” Sasha got back on the sled and they hastened away, following the directions of the GPS to retrace their steps to their most recent waypoint. Sasha wanted to ask what they were running from, why they were leaving an old man behind, but she did not.