Chapter 3
Chapter Three
The captain left me after his unexpected, and almost poetic comment about an ancient being frozen in time.
Obviously screwing with me since I didn’t take him for the fanciful type.
Then again, who knew what ran through his head after enduring several long and dark winters.
Seasonal depression was real. I’d done an episode on it.
We landed in Antarctica—not something I ever thought I’d experience in my lifetime—without mishap and emerged into sunshine, despite the late hour. It led to Vernon joking, “Guess we don’t need to worry about vampires.”
“No duh,” Joslyn riposted. “They tend to gravitate to the Yukon and Alaska. More people to chomp on.”
I sighed. “Joslyn, you were with me when we visited and debunked that claim.” No mysterious deaths or loads of missing people.
No puncture wounds on any of the population.
I even opened my window at night and loudly yelled an invite to any vampires lurking—to Vernon’s entertainment when he listened to the recordings the next day.
“Vampires haven’t lived this long by being dumb. When they heard about your investigation, they obviously behaved,” was Joslyn’s pert reply.
Just went to show you, sometimes evidence wasn’t enough. Some people wanted to believe.
I stepped down the ramp, leaving the heat of the airplane, the cold air fogging up my glasses just as I set foot for the first time in Antarctica. Immediately, I felt the ground shake. A slight tremor that didn’t seem to be causing any panic, given I didn’t hear anyone yell.
Joslyn joined me on the ground, chirping, “Did you feel that?”
“Yeah.” I took off my glasses and rubbed the fog from them before putting them back on for a glance around. “I’m thinking it must be a normal occurrence because no one is running for cover.”
“Ice quake. Happens all the time,” the captain stated as he joined us. His statement slightly reassured.
“So, we’re not about to get swallowed into a crevice?”
“Not yet,” was his less than reassuring reply.
The chilly air bit the skin despite the shining sun.
Thankfully, we didn’t stand around for long.
The captain ushered us into a heated vehicle and off we went.
In the front passenger seat, I mentally catalogued my first impression of the South Pole, “stark” being the first word that came to mind.
The compacted snow of the runway gave way to drifts of the stuff.
Flags intermittently spaced appeared to mark the road, again made of flattened snow.
Mountain peaks in the distance proved impressive, and Joslyn had her phone pressed to the window, capturing their majesty even as the footage would likely be unusable.
“Is that where we’re going?” Vernon, in the back passenger seat, pointed to a series of green painted buildings.
“No. That’s Scott Base, a research station run by New Zealand. Up ahead is where you’ll be staying.”
I craned forward for a glimpse and spotted a multitude of buildings, utilitarian in appearance.
Not surprising, given the station’s function.
I spotted warehouses with a lot full of parked heavy machinery.
Someone zipped past us on a snowmobile, leading Vernon to exclaim, “I am totally going to ride one of those while we’re here. ”
As we entered the heart of the base, a big blue building drew the eye and turned out to be our destination.
“Welcome to Building 155, where you’ll be staying,” the captain announced, stopping outside its main door.
“Definitely not the Ritz,” Joslyn stated, pointing her camera.
“No, but it holds most of the amenities you’ll need without having to go outside. It’s got your galley, personnel offices, recreation areas, barber, general store, laundry.”
“Sounds like a mini town,” Vernon joked.
“Designed that way because during the dark months, no one wants to spend much time outside.”
The bright blue, two-story building hadn’t been built to be pretty, but at least it had windows.
Not that they would help much when the sun didn’t rise.
We didn’t see much of the main floor, with the long hallway the captain called Highway 1.
Captain Harrison led us straight to our rooms, which left much to be desired.
A narrow bed with shelves above it, a tiny desk with a chair, and a wardrobe for my clothes.
At least we each had our own space, although, when it came to bathing facilities, we would be sharing.
Each floor had a washroom for men and women.
The captain, who’d been the one to show me to my room, noticed my grimace. “As you’re noticing, we practice communal living here. It’s more efficient.”
“And lacking in privacy,” I groused. I rubbed my face before adding, “It’s fine. It won’t be for long.” I hoped. In any case, I had experienced worse. My search for Bigfoot had me living in a tent for weeks.
“If you want food, the galley is currently serving dinner for another half hour. If you miss that, they offer midnight rations ‘til one.”
“I think I’m just going to hit the sack.”
“Fair enough. See you tomorrow.”
“Going to be keeping watch for when I venture forth so you can shadow me?”
“I’ll be informed, yes.”
Meaning someone would be tattling on our movements. I’d let Joslyn figure out who. She had a knack for spotting spies. Then, like that time in Russia, she’d provide a distraction so I could slip my watchdog. Sometimes getting to the truth required me being tricky.
My luggage arrived not long after the captain left, and I thanked the young man with the red nose, but when I offered him a tip, he shook his head. “No need, ma’am. Glad to help.”
Ignoring my tired body, I spent a moment unpacking, quickly running out of storage space. The snow gear ended up piled on the desk so that my other clothes could fit, if crammed, in the wardrobe.
With the basics handled, I hit the bed. More comfortable than expected, and warm, with its thick layers of blankets.
The blackout blind thankfully shut out the bright sunlight, and I quickly fell asleep.
However, it didn’t prove restful. My dream began with me standing at the base of a white-capped mountain.
Wind whipped, peppering my exposed cheeks with ice crystals and turning my breath into a white fog.
This sucked. Why couldn’t I have a nice dream? You know, the kind where you’re skipping happily through a field of flowers—and not dripping from the nose because you’re allergic.
A dream where I’m fighting criminals, maybe with superhuman powers like strength or bopping them from above because I had the ability to fly.
Heck, my dusty pussy would have appreciated a sex dream, the kind that started a flood in my dry Saraha that hadn’t gotten action in years.
Alas, I didn’t get any of those options in my dream. My apparently warped mind chose instead to have me freezing my tits—
“Aaah!” I couldn’t help but scream as the ground beneath my feet suddenly collapsed and I plummeted several meters before landing with a hard thump.
“Ouch.” A dream shouldn’t hurt. Nor should it be this cold. What kind of nightmare had my subconscious decided to embroil me in? The kind that hopefully had a knight ready to rescue.
Hopeful things would take a positive—maybe sexy—turn, I sat there for several moments for nothing.
A hero failed to appear. Guess I’d have to save myself.
I glanced above at the blue sky, so close and yet impossibly far.
The sheer ice walls around me would be impossible to scale.
As if I’d go through the effort. Time to wake up.
I didn’t want to be there, but did my mind and body listen?
Nope. And despite wearing my expensive snowpants, the chill from the ground radiated to my butt, forcing me to my feet.
Since I had nothing interesting in front of me, I spun around and noticed a tunnel—large enough I could walk upright—leading to who knew where.
Given I’d been reading up on all the crazy theories about Antarctica, maybe it led to a hidden jungle.
A warm one, because damn, I was cold. The exertion from trudging didn’t improve that state.
The tunnel I’d dumbly entered appeared to go straight. No turns. No exit. Nothing. And yet…
It occurred to me suddenly that I could see.
Puzzled, I paused a moment, trying to discern where the light came from.
There appeared to be no source. While not bright either, the illumination allowed me to see.
Strange, but then again, dreams didn’t have to make sense.
If mine wanted to make sure I didn’t fall into a hole or trip on my own feet, then whatever.
I walked, not as long as expected, and found myself inside a huge cavern, empty but for a mound that rose from the floor, almost like a ramp, that ended nowhere. Despite still not spotting a source of illumination, light refracted from the walls limned in ice.
Since my tired legs didn’t want to trudge the length of the cave looking for an exit, I chose to stumble up the ramp until I stood atop it with an aerial-like vantage point.
I faced a wall grayer in color than the rest of the cave, the surface of it textured, the pattern reminding me of overlapping petals, or, if I were to be fanciful, scales.
Had I found a dinosaur frozen in ice? Certainly possible.
Scientists did claim there existed a time when the South Pole experienced a tropical climate.
Despite my lofty view, I didn’t spot any egress from the cavern, just the tunnel I’d exited. So much for escape. Annoyed, I yelled, “Wake up!”
Bad idea. A rumbling noise had me hunching on the promontory, hands over my head as chunks began to fall, frozen ice stalactites that crashed and exploded. The shower of debris lasted a few minutes, and by the time it finished, my tunnel entrance had been buried.
“Great, just great,” I muttered. I held out my arms and yelled, “Are you fucking kidding me? Wake up.” I gave myself the order, but rather than pop my eyes open and free myself from this nightmare, I caused a chain reaction.
This time the rumbling and crackling came from directly in front. The scaly wall, to be exact.
Not a wall, as it turned out. A giant eye opened. An eye impossibly big. Bright blue. Very much alive and staring at me.
But what had me falling?
The voice in my head booming, “Stop yelling. I’m awake.”