The Last Hunter - Descent - Jeremy Robinson [28]
“It’s a whiteout,” he says. “I couldn’t see more than a foot.”
“Where’d this come from?” someone asks. “There was nothing on the weather report.”
Dr. Clark and I share a glance. We’re both wondering the same thing. Is this my fault?
“This is Antarctica, folks,” Dr. Clark says. “This is the kind of thing we expect to happen.”
The roof shakes so hard I wonder if it’s going tear away.
“One forty!” shouts the man at the laptop.
Collette looks whiter than usual, her eyes locked on the roof. “This place wasn’t build to hold up to sustained winds of this force. If this keeps up we’ll—”
The lights go out.
Someone whispers, “Oh God.”
“What happened?”
While the panicked discussion continues, I listen. Beyond the voices and rumbling wind, something is different. It’s not a new sound. It’s a missing sound. “The generator is off,” I say. I’d heard the rumble of the generator when I woke and recognized the sound from our time in Willy Town.
“He’s right,” Collette says.
“Where is it?” I ask. “Can we get to it?”
“Backside of this building, between here and the lab. Has its own little hut. But no one can go out there right now. Between the snow and wind, you’d wind up frozen and lost in a matter of minutes.”
The discussion continues, but within the hushed cacophony of frightened voices I hear the only one that I want to.
“Merrill,” Aimee says.
“I’m here,” Dr. Clark says. “The power is out.”
“Merrill,” she repeats. “He was telling the truth.”
“What do you mean?”
“Solomon.” Her voice is harder to hear as I sneak away in the dark, but I hear my guilt cleared as I enter the hallway. “There was someone else out there.”
A flashlight blinks on.
“Hey, stop!” a voice shouts out.
But they’re too late to stop me. I’m already outside. I slam the outer hatch shut and walk into the storm. I hear the door open behind me. I’m only ten feet away, but I’m invisible. Through the howling wind I hear my father’s shouting voice. I’d like to stop and chew him out for not believing me, for not trusting me, with anything. But there’s no time. Without the generator there is no electricity, but there is also no heat. Within the hour those people inside will be popsicles.
I lift my bare hands up to my face where I can see them. The snow melts on contact as it hits me. I can feel the pressure of the wind, the sting of the whipping snowflakes, but not the cold. Having everyone I love freeze to death would be bad enough, but having to stay out here, waiting for rescue with their corpses...who could endure such a thing?
Tracing a hand along the outer wall of the bunk house I move to the back of the building. The snow is already half way to my knees. If it keeps up, Clark Station Two might be buried. I stop in my tracks. This is my fault. The station is going to be buried, just like the first one was! I double my effort, slogging through the snow. If we need to dig ourselves out in the morning, I want the heat running for as long as possible. Maybe we can make the metal building hot enough to melt the snow gathering on it?
I reach the end of the building and follow the wall around to the back. The building containing the generator must be nearby, but I can’t see a thing. I follow the back wall, scouring the area for any hints. That’s when I notice a stub of black just above the snow-line. I brush away the snow, finding a wire that leads down to the ice. After digging for a minute I find that it leads straight out and away from the bunk house.
I still can’t see it. I pause, recalling the stories of people getting lost in the snow, of death and limb amputation. But those people could feel the cold. I can’t. I could probably wait out the storm in a swimsuit and be no worse for wear.
I strike out into the snow, aiming myself along an imaginary line. Ten feet from the bunk house, I realize the wire could have turned in a different direction. I could be going the wrong way. If I don’t find it within thirty feet I’ll