Chapter 30.
Antarctica
Reg, Wyatt, Alek, and Hannah have made their way to the ice cave located near the end of the Erebus Ice Tongue that is the centerpiece of their mission. Wyatt thinks of it that way, as a mission and not a game.
They are all forced to drop down on the ice and slide themselves through the entrance to the cave. Once inside—and able to stand again—they move carefully across various snow bridges and into a soft, beautiful blue light.
The ice cave is everything Hannah promised—blue light, smooth walls, a quiet that’s both soothing and terrifying.
“These caves don’t last,” she tells them as they pick their way through. “A few months, sometimes less. Then they collapse or melt or . . . just vanish. Like ice castles instead of sandcastles.”
They’ve been inside for about half an hour, having reached the end of the cave before turning back.
Only one way in and out, something that doesn’t exactly thrill Wyatt Jordan.
Wyatt doesn’t like anything with only one exit.
And even though he has been as swept away as the others by the quiet, spooky beauty of the interior, he wants to get out of here.
“As amazing as this all is,” he says, “there’s something about this place that gives me the creeps. I keep waiting for these walls to just come tumbling down. Or start melting.”
“Or for us and the glacier to just float away,” Alek says.
“Wyatt’s right,” Reg says. “We really should be going. We’ve got a long walk back to the snowcat, and then we have to make it all the way back before the sun sets and what they call the polar night here sets in.
I don’t know if we need to be the first ones to the station.
But I don’t see how it can do us any good to be one of the last.”
Hannah leads them out, Alek behind her, Wyatt and Reg behind them. When they’re back outside in the brittle light of the sun, it’s as if they’ve left one world for another.
The drone still circles overhead, patient as a judge.
Wyatt stares up at it, and waves, imagining The Host watching their every move.
Probably because he is.
Mission accomplished, Wyatt thinks.
Wyatt feels the beauty of this moment, of them being part of it together, still helping each other after having done everything humanly possible to keep each other alive.
The thought of it almost takes his breath away. The fact that he is part of the moment with Hannah makes it even better.
Hannah continues to lead them over the ice field to where they’ve parked the snowcat.
It is a long walk back from the cave, the Ice Tongue stretching seven miles in all, the ice cave having turned out to be three-quarters of the way to the water of the Sound.
They move gingerly across the ice. The Yaktrax cleats they’re wearing provide them the best possible traction and make loud, crackling noises as they go. They all keep looking down, checking for any possible cracks underneath their feet no matter the traction they’re getting from their cleats.
They stay in their lane, basically, just as they had on their way to the cave, making sure not to stray outside the red flags on either side that act as their guardrails.
It is not them against nature. Just them dealing as best they can with the natural world all around them, the snow and the ice and sunlight making everything seem as bright and sharp as a diamond, their breath coming out of them like plumes of white smoke.
Wyatt just wants to be off this long, thin glacier, with what he knows is more ice-cold churning water underneath them.
Reg keeps checking the sun. “We do not want to be the last ones back,” he says.
Wyatt is about to agree—
—when the ice under Alek makes a sound that doesn’t belong in the natural world.
A crack. A split. A sudden opening.
Alek drops to one knee, then both, sliding as the surface gives way beneath her.
She throws her hands forward and catches the edge—gloves scraping snow, arms locking as her body tries to follow gravity into the hole and she is pulled down toward the water, somehow managing to stop herself almost by the force of her will.
Alek’s eyes go huge. She doesn’t scream. She can’t spare the breath.
But her grip on the ice and snow, they can see, isn’t going to last very long. Alek’s fingers are frantically trying to claw into the snow as her weight drags her farther into the hole.
They can all see the roiling water below.
Reg is moving before Wyatt’s brain catches up. Reg dives flat, crawls to the edge like he’s approaching a ledge in a burning building.
“Axe!” Reg yells.
Wyatt rips off his pack with hands that feel clumsy for the first time in his life. He finds the small pickaxe and shoves it into Reg’s reach.
Reg slams the axe into the ice with a brutal swing. The metal bites. He wraps his left hand around the handle, then reaches with his right and grabs Alek’s wrist.
“Hold,” he grunts. “Hold!”
Wyatt knows that if she hits the water, it’s a death sentence.
“Don’t . . . let axe . . . come loose!” Reg yells, and then with what little leverage he has, he starts to slowly pull Alek toward him, his right hand holding on to hers for dear life.
Wyatt drops flat behind Reg and grabs Reg’s ankles, locking himself in. Hannah drops behind Wyatt and does the same.
A chain.
A human anchor.
All of them against the world.
And still the three of them start to slide.
They all begin to slide slowly toward the edge, like this is a tug-of-war being lost by their increasingly desperate and unlikely team. Not fast. Not dramatic. Just enough to be terrifying. A slow, steady pull toward that black water.
Somehow Reg, even being pulled toward the water, still has Alek’s hand in his.
“Hold on!” he gasps.
Wyatt doesn’t know whether he’s talking to Alek, or to him and Hannah.
It doesn’t matter.
They all have to hold on.
But the three of them keep inching forward, continuing their slow slide toward Alek and the water.
Reg’s shoulders strain. His arm shakes. The axe handle creaks against the ice.
Wyatt feels his stomach go weightless as inches disappear.
“Hannah—don’t let go,” he says, voice cracking.
“I’m not,” Hannah spits back, teeth clenched, eyes wet with cold and panic.
Reg draws a breath like he’s about to lift a car.
Then he hauls.
Alek rises an inch. Two. Her free hand claws at the snow, searching for purchase that isn’t there.
Reg lets out one more yell as he hauls, the loudest yet, a combination of discus-throw grunt and primal scream, and with one last massive effort pulls Alek all the way out of the hole.
Alek’s body clears the edge.
Wyatt scrambles forward and grabs her jacket. Hannah grabs Wyatt’s belt.
Together they drag Alek back onto solid ice.
Wyatt and Hannah drag her away from the edge.
Alek collapses face down, shaking so hard her whole frame rattles. Alive.
Reg just stays where he is, sprawled out on the ice, chest heaving, one hand still firmly on the pickaxe. When he finally lets go of it, he uses what strength he has left to roll himself onto his back and stare up at the sky.
Wyatt stares too—at the drone, at the tiny, distant eye that watched all of it.
Reg sits up, points at Wyatt with a trembling finger, and somehow manages to break out into a loud and boisterous laugh.
He points at Wyatt.
As Wyatt points back at him. And they all laugh hysterically.
And then a thought hits them that’s not relief.
It’s dread.
Because if this is Game One—
What the hell is Game Two?
Patrick Arrasmith