SIMON STRANTZAS

Cold to the Touch

SIMON STRANTZAS’ MOST RECENT short-story collection, Cold to the Touch, was published by Tartarus Press in 2009. Meanwhile, his first collection, Beneath the Surface, has recently been reprinted by Dark Regions Press. The author’s work has also appeared in the previous two volumes of The Mammoth Book of Best New Horror, as well as Cemetery Dance, PostScripts and elsewhere.

“Stories often find their origins in unexpected ways,” Strantzas reveals. “I was inspired in this case by a photograph of a Zen garden I once used as my computer’s desktop background. After staring at it day-in and day-out while I worked, I began to wonder about that dark circle of rocks and just what its true purpose might be.

“There was something there in the coldness of the photograph, something that brought to mind the barren vistas of the Canadian Arctic, which ended up being the perfect setting for my tale of tested faith.”

Along with its appearance here, “Cold to the Touch” will appear in Holy Horrors, a two-volume anthology of religious horror edited by T.M. Wright and Matt Cardin, from Ash-Tree Press.

ANDREW LAUZON STOOD surrounded by his equipment on the tarmac of a small airport just beyond Iqaluit. He had gone as far north as aeroplanes could take him, but he still needed to go further, deep into the Nunavut Territory, to the edge of the Arctic itself.

He shivered uncontrollably as he waited for Luis to arrive. The cold October wind scratched his face like sandpaper and, beneath his crossed arms, he felt the shape of the small book pressed into his ribs.

God, at least, had a plan for him.

Andrew spotted the truck moving towards him through the greyish landscape of the northern brush, and when it arrived it was mottled with a haze of salt and snow. Behind the wheel the thick dark-skinned Inuk was barely older than Andrew himself, yet his face was broad and wrinkled, as though a lifetime of icy wind had dug grooves into his features. Those deep crags did not move when he spoke.

“You weren’t waiting long,” Luis said. It wasn’t a question. He glared at the young scientist, while behind him blue fumes of sweet poison filled the air.

Andrew introduced himself. Luis said nothing, and scratched the coarse stubble along his chin.

“Should we . . . um . . . where should the bags go?” Andrew said. Luis sighed and got out of the dirty truck to unchain the tailgate.

“Right here. All you had to do was open your eyes.”

The inside of the truck smelled of old vinyl and stale cigarettes and beer. The two travelled along a solitary road northward, with nothing on the horizon before them but flat brush. Even that slowly thinned, and the ground gradually became whiter. Luis smoked cigarettes one after the other, and tossed each finished butt through a cracked window, while Andrew read quietly from his Bible. He could feel Luis’ periodic scowl, but the man said nothing. Andrew eventually put away the book, and only then did Luis return his full attention to the road. After an hour, Andrew struggled for something to say.

“Have you seen it?”

“Seen what?” Luis took the cigarette from his mouth and spat carelessly until a small piece of tobacco landed on the dashboard.

“The anomaly I was sent to study. The satellite photos were very unclear about what I’d see.”

“No. What the hell do you do, anyway?”

“I specialize in abnormal weather patterns, in climate fluctuations.”

Luis tossed another cigarette through the window. “You can remove your hood; the climate in here doesn’t fluctuate.” Andrew smiled uncertainly and removed the fur-lined hood.

Luis pointed a thumb over his shoulder. “Is that what all the equipment’s for?”

“Yes. It’s primarily thermometers and temperature sensors. Some seismic monitors, too.”

“Sounds fascinating,” Luis said, feigning interest poorly.

Andrew looked out the window at the shifting landscape. He could see how perfect it all was, even when the Arctic weather was coldest, when the sun hung just on the precipice of the horizon yet refused to fall off for months, and time itself seemed to stand still.

“Everywhere I look, I can see the hand of God.”

Luis scoffed. “There’s nothing out there but nothing.”

“How can you say that? I thought the Inuit saw the North as sacred?”

“Yeah, and we all ride dog-sleds. Don’t worry, the igloo’s well heated.”

Andrew touched his Bible through his coat.

It took two more hours to reach their destination, though Andrew didn’t realize at first they had arrived. He expected something bigger, more settled, than a single cabin. There was no one around to greet them, but he thought he saw a shadow move behind the murky window. Smoke rose from the tiny chimney, trying desperately to keep the cold at bay.

Luis pulled the truck off the road and parked it beside a pair of snowmobiles at the rear of the building.

Andrew unlocked the door to the small cabin. The place was little more than a room with a large iron stove and two cots, and whoever had lit the fire for them was no longer there.

The two men unloaded the equipment from the truck bed, and carried it into the cabin. When they stepped back outside another Inuk, shorter and wider than Luis, waited by the snowmobiles for them. Andrew said hello, and the man nodded, then let loose a stream of grunts like nothing Andrew had ever heard.

“His name’s Akiak,” Luis said, and kicked his steel-toed boot against the doorframe. “Nobody speaks English up here, and they don’t do much talking, especially to a qallunaat like you. They’re all outcasts; they don’t fit in anyplace else, and they don’t like being disturbed.”

“Is that what you are? An outcast?”

“No,” Luis said, and paused to light another of his cigarettes. “I’m a heathen. And I’m too poor to live anywhere else.”

Andrew cleaned his hands in the small washroom at the opposite end of the cabin, happy to be rid of the dirt he had managed to accumulate over the past day of travelling. He already felt exhaustion creeping into his mind, and he found it difficult to focus. The buckled laminate that covered the walls and floor made the whole place seem unreal, as though part of some dream. Behind everything a generator droned, powering ineffectual lights that were unable to prevent the dim shadows from crowding at the window. Andrew felt claustrophobic, and he closed his eyes and prayed until he felt safe again.

The cots faced each other from opposite sides of the room: one caught in the yellow light from the window, the other beside the old iron stove. Luis settled on the warmer cot and stretched out until his dripping feet hung over the edge. His cigarette pointed straight into the air, and a thin column of smoke twisted upward. He coughed then snorted, and wondered aloud, “When do we start?”

Andrew put down his bag to consult his watch. He had been travelling for almost twenty hours straight. “I think we ought to get some sleep. We can start work in the morning.”

“Morning isn’t coming,” Luis said. He sat up, and plucked the cigarette out from between his lips. He looked straight at Andrew, then flicked the butt at the iron stove. It slipped through the grate and into the fire. “Don’t forget to shut the blinds when you’re done praying,” he said. “That sun isn’t going anywhere soon, and I don’t like God watching me sleep.”

If Andrew slept, he did not remember doing so. Even if light hadn’t continued to slip past the closed blinds and into his eyes, the odour would have been enough to keep him awake. It was like wet leather and old sweat, like a dampness that would never dry no matter how hot the stove burned. Luis remained unaffected; instead, he was splayed across the bed, and the creak from his throat filled Andrew’s mind.

Andrew prayed for silence, but it was in those moments, alone and in the dark, that he feared no one was listening, that if he didn’t do all he could to hold his faith together, everything would fall apart.

He put the thought out of his mind and sat up. His eyes felt thick, and he rubbed his lower back where the cot’s metal frame had pressed into it. He sighed heavily and checked his watch in the light from around the edges of the wooden blinds.

Upon the wall by the door hung a painting Andrew hadn’t registered the day before. It was about two feet square and depicted a sea of white scratched with greys and blues. Within this blizzard sat a large rounded figure, curled and grey, featureless but for the large hands that it held cupped. They were one above the other, and between them swirled clouds of red and yellow. The figure was painted with thick black lines and rounded joints, very much like the native art he had seen before, but the painting held no Inuit totems. There was nothing but the curled figure, and the light between its hands that danced like millions of glowing red men.

Andrew first sensed, rather than heard, the sound emanating from the wall before him. It was a slight vibration, a hum, which progressively increased in volume. The timbre, the rhythm, sounded like a voice echoing from the painting, more than one in fact, as if the painting spoke to him, but he couldn’t understand what it was saying. He leaned closer, his breath on the canvas, and he jumped when, behind him, Luis spoke.

“What the hell are you doing?”

“I thought – I heard voices!”

“What? Are you Joan of Arc, now?” Luis sat still a moment, then shook his head. “I don’t hear squat.”

A sharp knock made them both jump.

At the door, stood Akiak, his fur-lined jacket embroidered with the pattern of sprinting animals. He said something, and Luis grunted back and got out of bed.

The two snowmobiles idled outside the cabin, though only one had a small sled attached. After they loaded the equipment on to it, Luis pointed a gloved finger at Andrew’s face. “You’ll go with Akiak. Try not to fall off.”

There was a moment of hesitation, and Akiak beckoned Andrew impatiently. Andrew sat on the back of the vehicle and put his hands around the Inuk’s chest, closed his eyes, and nodded. Akiak put the snowmobile in gear and Andrew was yanked back. Then they were moving across the snow.

The snowmobile vibration rattled Andrew’s teeth, and he ducked his head to keep his face from freezing. After a while, he opened his eyes to nothing but white. Snow lay everywhere, great plains of it, and it would have been impossible to tell where it met with the grey sky if not for the giant yellow orb that sat on the horizon, halfway between night and day.

When the snowmobile finally began to slow down, it came to a stop in the middle of nowhere. Andrew’s legs vibrated as though he were still moving, and for a moment he didn’t trust them. Akiak stepped off without pause, and was already unloading the sled when Luis pulled up beside them.

“This is as far as we can go. We’re walking the rest of the way. Unless you don’t think you can make it.”

Andrew furrowed his brow. “Why here?”

Luis pointed ahead, and then Andrew understood.

The white surface of snow before them dipped into the ground and formed a crater at least five miles wide. In the distance, Andrew could see a darkness at its centre: some blackened rocks that stood out from the ground, in relief against the white of the crater walls. Akiak swung the equipment cases on to his back, then carefully stepped to the edge of the crater. He hesitated, then hiked his load further and started down. Luis followed, then Andrew.

The walk was harder than Andrew had expected; the muscles in his legs burned after only a few minutes. Luis and Akiak had already left him behind as they effortlessly moved through the snow. Andrew tried to remain unconcerned – they couldn’t do much without him, after all – but he couldn’t shake his sense of dread. Even the prayer he said under breath didn’t help; the cold of the snow was sneaking through the soles of his boots, and he wondered how long it would take to die if he were left out there alone.

As if on cue, Luis and Akiak stopped and looked back at him. “We’re almost there,” Luis shouted, then said something to the guide that Andrew couldn’t hear over his own heavy breathing.

As they came nearer, Akiak grunted something that slowed Luis. He stopped and looked around, then he stuck out his arm to prevent Andrew from going further. “Watch out,” he said.

Andrew looked down and found himself one creaking step from a deep fissure in the ice. It stretched about ten feet long, and the snow from Andrew’s halted footsteps was swallowed by the darkness.

“There’s about three miles between us and the actual Earth,” Luis said. “The rest is ice, and sometimes it cracks. Nothing to worry about. Unless you step in one.”

“What happens then?”

“You go straight down to hell.”

Luis and Akiak laughed. Andrew looked out across the ice and snow and saw more cracks, dark marks like fingerprints upon the empty whiteness.

Andrew was careful to watch the ground as they proceeded, and planted his feet on firm snow. He didn’t see the dark rock formation until he was almost upon it.

In the snow towered five black stone monuments of various heights arranged roughly in a circle almost twenty feet across. The tallest measured at least ten feet, and each was about three feet wide. Their surfaces were rough and uneven, yet covered in a swirling pattern of shallow grooves.

And all five stood incongruous in the icy tundra.

Andrew’s eyes widened. “It can’t be,” he muttered. “Those rocks are completely dry.”

Akiak spoke, and Luis translated. “He says these rocks have always been here, but he avoids this place. It’s bad luck.” The Inuk didn’t seem comfortable in the ring of stones. He kept glancing at them, though, and ran his hands across the leg of his pants.

“Why?”

“This place is called Okralruserk, and no one is allowed to come here, not even Torngasak, the spirit of Good. It’s just a superstition,” he said, and began to reorganize the empty equipment cases.

Andrew placed sensors and instruments around the stones. It felt no warmer within the circle than elsewhere, but the thermal satellite photos indicated otherwise. He was determined to discover the cause. While Andrew worked, Akiak appeared mesmerized by the five monuments. He stared for some time, then approached one cautiously, and stopped inches from its rocky surface. With a sense of wonder on his face, he let his eyes follow the swirling grooves. Akiak rubbed his mouth with the back of his hand, then removed his glove. Whispering something, he slowly raised his arm, fingers spread wide, and laid his palm upon the rock. Andrew thought he heard the man sigh.

When Luis yelled, Akiak snatched his hand back and Andrew dropped the thermosensor he’d been holding; it smashed to pieces on the frozen ground. Luis said something in a stern voice and Akiak simply nodded, then went to help Luis with the cases, doing his best to ignore the five monoliths.

When Andrew finished setting up the equipment, and they were preparing to leave, Andrew asked Luis what the yelling was about.

“I was trying to scare the love of God into him.”

There was only the sound of wind and ice creaking underfoot during the long walk back to the snowmobiles. Andrew was tired, lost in contemplation, and he felt the effects of the twilight sun upon his body. Akiak suffered the burden of the equipment wordlessly while Luis, cigarette hanging from an exposed lip, ignored them both. As snow fell from the dark amber sky, Andrew wondered what kind of a man would willingly spend his life so far from everyone and everything.

Perhaps all Luis needed was a little salvation.

Andrew had trouble with his dinner. He had never tasted deer meat before, and the caribou was sweeter than he expected. He paused after the first bite, unsure what to do, and Luis laughed. “I guess you’d rather have a hamburger and some fries,” he said, and took a large piece of steak from Andrew’s plate.

“It’s just new to me, that’s all.”

Luis chewed on this a moment, then said, “I don’t see any reason why you think you’re wanted up here; the weather’s fine.”

“It’s not, not really. We’re sitting on one of the largest stores of methane and carbon dioxide on the planet, and it’s trapped in the ice. The temperature here over the last forty years has gone up almost six degrees! That means it’s only a matter of time before the gases are released back into the atmosphere. Once that happens, the chain-reaction will make the hole in the ozone layer look like a pinprick. Something’s happening, and everyone’s in a panic. Global warming makes people jittery; they all think Armageddon’s coming.”

“Do you?”

“It’s coming, the Bible says so,” he said, and placed his copy on the table; “But not today.”

“Right. I forgot. So if you don’t believe it, why did you come?”

“It’s not that I don’t believe – I’ve seen the projections – but I suppose I just wanted some time to see things myself.”

Luis snorted, and pushed his plate away. “Well, all you get up here is time. Time and space.”

“You make it sound lonely.”

“All of us are alone. All of the time.”

“You know,” Andrew said, laying his hand on the book, “You aren’t alone now.”

Luis shook his head. “Open your eyes and look around. God is dead. Don’t be a chump.”

“I used to feel the same, but just because Science doesn’t believe in Faith doesn’t mean Faith doesn’t believe in Science. God is there for you if you’ll listen.”

“Why don’t you listen,” Luis said, then stopped himself. He stood. “Suddenly I feel a bit crowded up here by all your saints. I’m going out. Don’t wait up.”

“Just because you don’t feel His love, doesn’t mean you’ve been abandoned . . .” Andrew said, but it was too late. Luis had gone.

Andrew lay in bed and read his Bible. He scoured every page -ran his fingers along the text, feeling the grooves of the printed letters. He read until his eyes itched and the words began to swirl in strange patterns, then he stood and pushed the bed until it was out of the sunlight. If he were lucky, he would manage to sleep through the night.

Andrew sat up, wakened by a sound that nearly stopped his heart. His ears still rang, and he looked around the room but saw nothing wrong. Luis lay unmoving, dead to the world, and the smell of liquor and cigarettes hovered in the air. Nothing moved.

Then, the air was disturbed by a low creak. It grew with each passing second and filled his head. He covered his ears, but it was useless; the sound broke through. It became louder, then louder, and just when Andrew feared his skull would burst, there was a crack as if the world had split open, and Andrew leapt from his bed, terrified, and fell to his knees. He prayed for the noise to end.

The air fell quiet, and though he waited, the sound did not return; yet when Andrew got back into bed, he could not sleep. Across from him, above the motionless Luis, rays of light slipped through the covered window.

The next morning Luis laughed while rubbing the sleep from his bloodshot eyes.

“I saw the show last night. You city people are all the same – can’t take the isolation.”

Andrew made an effort to smile, and touched the book in his pocket. “What was that?”

“The ice. It cracks like that all the time. Usually, though, it’s not that loud unless you’re closer to the water.”

When they met with Akiak at the snowmobiles, he was bundled up against a cold that surprised even Luis. Andrew could still hear the ice cracking, though the fresh snow seemed to dampen the noise of the changing landscape.

Akiak was unnerved by the sound, and he jumped at each crack, disquieting Andrew. The wind had gone for the moment, yet it seemed colder somehow. Andrew wrapped his scarf higher on his face as Akiak started the snowmobile’s engine. When they took off, the small rectangle of the Bible pushed into Andrew’s ribs.

The new snow lay over everything and instantly obliterated any landmark Andrew might recognize. Within minutes he was lost in the Arctic tundra.

On the edge of the giant crater, the snowmobiles came to a stop and Andrew hastily dismounted. He stumbled as he did so, and the Bible slipped out of his pocket and disappeared beneath the surface of the snow. Andrew reached into the collapsing hole until his arm sank to his shoulder, but he felt nothing. He thrashed his hand in panic, while Luis and Akiak stood idle. It wasn’t until Andrew’s fingers grazed a solid corner that he relaxed, and he pulled out the snow-covered book as he stood.

“Is it okay?” Luis asked, his eyebrow cocked in amusement.

“I think so,” Andrew said as he inspected the book. Snow had slipped into the binding beneath the faux leather covers, and he brushed off as much as he could.

“If not, there might be a hotel ahead where you can grab another.” Luis laughed and started walking again, while Andrew carefully unzipped his coat and placed the book inside. He shivered as the cold of the wet volume pressed up against his chest. It took a few minutes for the book to warm, and even then he could feel the dampness seep into his clothes.

The snow was deepest at the crater’s bottom; Andrew sank to mid-thigh, and his progress slowed. Luis and Akiak moved more easily, though they too were panting.

Andrew continued to hear the muffled creaking, and saw more fissures in the ground. The snow was deep, but not deep enough to fill them, only to better hide them. More than once, he found himself a step away from falling inside one. Though the cracks were not large enough to consume him, they were wider than any he had seen the day before, and he worried that he might be pulled beneath the snow before anyone noticed that he was gone.

Ahead, Luis had stopped. He was panting and staring at Okralruserk when Andrew reached him.

“I feel drawn to this place,” Luis said, almost to himself. Akiak grunted. It did not sound like a word, but it caught Luis’ attention. He was himself again. He removed the pack of cigarettes from his front pocket and lit one. “There it is,” he said, and started walking.

The rocks looked bigger than Andrew had remembered, taller, even with the extra foot of snow on the ground, but he couldn’t be sure. Okralruserk was still a few hundred yards away, with only a background of white for reference.

They finally reached the circle of rocks, and Luis stopped again. “What is it?” Andrew asked.

“Look,” Luis said. “Don’t you see?”

But Andrew couldn’t see anything. Okralruserk looked just as they had left it the day before. Luis pointed.

“Why aren’t they covered in snow?”

He was right. The snow that had caused them so much trouble had not touched the tall dark rocks. Luis walked around the stones and inspected them. “They don’t have ice on them,” he said. “They’re completely dry.”

“The darker the surface, the more light it absorbs,” Andrew said as he checked the readings on the instruments. “This constant sunlight, even half-light – maybe it’s warmed the rocks enough that the snow and ice have simply melted away.”

Luis made a strange noise, then removed his glove and laid his bare hand on the stone. “This one’s cold.”

“Well, the electric thermometers haven’t recorded anything significant. Wait—” Andrew said, and bent closer to the plastic box he had previously installed. It was crushed; the sensors inside had been rendered useless, and it was the same for the boxes at the other stones. “My equipment’s been damaged. I can’t accurately determine if there were changes to temperature delta.”

Luis continued to touch the five rocks, looking unsuccessfully for one that might still be warm. He ran his fingers over them, along the swirling grooves, and suddenly he stopped and looked closer.

“Hey, these are symbols, like something’s written in the stone.”

“What?” Andrew put the broken equipment down and went over.

Akiak stood rubbing his hands together at the edge of Okralruserk, keeping as far away as he could from the rocks. Luis beckoned him closer, but the older Inuk would not come.

Andrew inspected the writing. “Do you recognize it? It looks old.”

“It’s not Inuit. We didn’t have a written language until around the twenties, and this looks . . . older.”

Luis bent on his knee and inspected the foot of one of the stones. “These grooves go all the way down, under the snow and ice.”

“I wonder how big these rocks are.”

“Let’s find out.” From one of the equipment cases, Luis removed a large hammer with a thin, sharp head. “Let’s see if we can dig far enough to get below the writing.”

Luis swung the pick down with all his strength, aiming at the ground from where the monument emerged, but the thick ice proved stronger than he’d expected, and the hammer kicked up in his hand, then smashed into the stone. A large chunk of black rock broke free and hit Luis square in the temple. Unconscious, he crumpled to the frozen ground and twitched as blood coursed from his head.

Akiak was at Luis’ side a moment later. He pulled a rag from his pocket and held it to the wound, then pointed urgently at the scientist’s waist.

“My belt?” Andrew said, his head swimming in mounting panic. Akiak pointed again and nodded.

Andrew had to remove his gloves first, and his fingers quickly became numb in the chill. He fumbled the buckle open as quickly as he could and handed the belt over.

Akiak wrapped the belt around the unconscious man’s head and pulled it tight to keep the makeshift bandage in place.

The two men carried Luis across the deep snow, narrowly avoiding the fissures that multiplied with every creaking sound, back to the crater’s edge. They pulled Luis up and over the ridge, then strapped him to the sled and covered him with a blanket. Andrew prayed aloud as he climbed on the back of the vehicle behind Akiak. They drove faster than Andrew thought possible, and he pressed his head against the driver’s back to avoid the stinging snow.

Luis moaned as the two men carried him inside the cabin and placed him on his bed. Blood had seeped through the makeshift bandage, and Akiak loosened the belt to check the wound. He turned and grabbed Andrew by the wrist, then pulled him closer and pressed his hand to Luis’ wound. Akiak stood and said something else then ran out the door. Andrew remained, quiet and unmoving, and prayed that God might help the unconscious Luis.

The heat of the cabin did not warm him.

After twenty minutes, Akiak returned with another Inuit behind him. This second man pushed Andrew aside and started checking Luis, then opened the small bag he was carrying and removed a stethoscope. Andrew stood, then he ran to the washroom and vomited in the sink. He wiped his mouth, but stayed in the small room for a few moments and tried to steady his breathing. In the other room, there was very little talking. Then, he heard the loud rap of something heavy being dropped, and no further sound followed. When Andrew emerged, though, both the doctor and Akiak were still there.

Andrew paced the room for a few minutes, then stopped at the window and ran his fingers through his thin hair. Outside, clouds had managed to dampen the setting sun.

Akiak spoke and Andrew shook his head. “What? I don’t understand.”

The Inuk looked at him a moment, then put his wool hat on and walked out.

On the table beside Luis’ head sat a chunk of dark rock, about the size of a fist. Even from that distance, Andrew could see swirls of writing upon it.

He checked his watch. It had been hours since the doctor left, yet Akiak had still not returned. Luis slid in and out of consciousness, mumbling incoherently. Half his words were not words, instead just noises pretending to be words. Andrew had no idea how long he might be incapacitated, or what kind of care to provide. There seemed to be no one nearby other than Luis who spoke English. The doctor had tried to communicate with him before leaving, eventually settling in frustration on a pantomime of sleep, though Andrew was unsure to which of the three it referred. He wasn’t sure if the doctor planned on returning.

Andrew knelt beside the bed, Bible in hand, to pray for Luis. The book had still not dried, had become warped by the moisture of the snow, and as he opened it to find the verse he wanted pages began to fall out. The entire book then crumbled in his hands, and he struggled unsuccessfully to keep the leaves in order as they spilled onto the ground.

He scooped up the pages and carried them to his bed. He felt uneasy at the sight of Luis, as though the air were being sucked from his lungs. He faced away from the window, closed his eyes and breathed deeply, in and out, willing himself to relax.

He no longer felt safe. He felt trapped.

Andrew checked his watch and wondered what was keeping Akiak. At the door, he looked out and saw everything bathed in late afternoon sunlight, but Andrew knew that it was far later. He felt out of sync with the world and was unsure what to do.

On the table beside Luis, the stone fragment from Okralruserk watched over him. Andrew remembered it being larger, and picked it up to feel its weight.

And almost dropped it.

The rock was covered in something dark and wet and sticky, and it had turned Andrew’s hand almost black in the shaded cabin. There was blood everywhere, more than Andrew imagined there should be, and it filled the symbols carved into the rock’s surface.

Andrew felt sick and quickly went to wash his hands. The porcelain of the small basin turned red as he rinsed the blood from between his fingers, and he stared, lost in worry, as the tainted water circled the drain.

He dried his hands and sat down on his bed again. Across from him, Luis lay with half his head swathed in white gauze. He had not stopped muttering anxiously, though about what Andrew couldn’t understand.

The day had been a long one, and Andrew was starting to feel its effects. He yawned, then laid his head down only a moment to still his troubled mind. He closed his eyes, and was awoken hours later by the sound of a deafening crack. Across from him, Luis’ bed was empty.

The door stood wide open and Luis’ coat and boots were gone. Cold filled the room, a dull light fell upon the unoccupied bed. Andrew ran to the door, but the sudden white was too much for his eyes. When they adjusted, he saw a set of tracks across the snowy tundra, and a small dark spot disappearing into nothingness.

Andrew stood in the doorway feeling utterly alone.

He had no idea where Akiak had gone, no idea where he might find help. Behind the cabin sat Luis’ snowmobile, but even if Andrew could drive it he didn’t have the key. The tiny figure grew smaller by the second, and he feared at any moment it would be gone forever. His heart beat faster in his ears, and he tried to control the breath that moved too quickly through him. The ends of his fingers tingled in the cold, and he clutched them together and prayed for direction. He closed his eyelids tight until he saw stars, and then opened them slowly. All breath left his body for a moment.

Then, he put on his own gear and went after Luis.

He hoped he might catch up quickly, but the depth of snow fought against him, and he had no choice but to follow at a slower pace.

Periodically, the dark figure would stop, wait for Andrew to gain ground, and then start moving again. It did this for the better part of an hour, each time leaving Andrew further behind.

Then, without warning, Andrew was following only footprints.

The air howled with cold wind and shifting ice. It had become deafening, and Andrew held his gloved hands against the hood of his parka to stamp it out.

He was exhausted, and felt more uneasy the further he travelled from the cabin. If Luis didn’t tire soon, Andrew would never catch him.

The trail brought Andrew to the edge of the crater. He stopped and called out as loudly as he could, but the wind and cracking ice swallowed the sound. He strained his eyes, looking for movement in the white, but there was nothing between him and the silhouette of Okralruserk at the depression’s dark centre.

Andrew prepared to descend the crater’s edge when he looked down and felt a chill run through him. The snowmobile Akiak had been driving was at the bottom of the sharp decline, about twenty feet away and wedged into the ground. A giant fissure stretched from it; the entire floor of the crater was full of them, long gaping cracks that had churned up large slabs of ice. He tried to get to the snowmobile and see if Akiak lay there wounded, but the upheaval prevented his approach. He reached instinctively to touch the Bible in his coat, and felt nothing in its place. Andrew’s heart started racing, yet he was powerless to slow it. He tried to calm down, but the blood moved faster and faster until his head began to throb. Sparks of light filled his eyes, and he closed them, terrified he would faint. He crouched and held his breath. After a moment he forced it, as slowly as he could, through his pursed lips, and told himself over and over that things were okay, that God was with him, that nothing would go wrong. When he finally believed it, he opened his eyes.

And saw that it was snowing. Large flakes filled the air, and where they landed they erased the footprints and landmarks that were Andrew’s last tether to the world behind him.

If not for Okralruserk’s dark blemish, visible through the swirling white, Andrew would have dropped to his knees and abandoned himself to the cold. Even so, the image only flickered in the brewing storm, as though it was insubstantial. The monument beckoned him, and Andrew had no choice but to go forward, tripping over the upturned ice, before Okralruserk vanished completely into the blinding snow.

The wind howled as it cut through his thick clothes, but he kept moving straight towards the darkness. He had to find Luis before it was too late, or else neither of them might survive what was coming.

The weight of snow against Andrew took its toll, and he almost collapsed when he reached Okralruserk. He needed a moment to catch his breath, and when he looked up he was astounded. The giant black rocks were completely untouched by the storm, though the ground beneath them was a maze of extensive fissures that radiated from the foot of each stone like ripples in the ice.

The remains of his thermal equipment were scattered around the site, some half-buried in the snow within the circle, others blown into the periphery. Andrew picked up a piece, unsure of what it once had been, then dropped it to the ground. Everything he had was destroyed.

The wind pushed hard against him, and it threw the snow up into eddies around Okralruserk. He twisted his body to escape the brunt of it and caught from the corner of his eye a shadow move behind one of the five monoliths.

Luis knelt at the base of the stone, his hands tangled in his thick hair. He giggled and whispered in delirium at the dark rocks.

“Are you okay?” Andrew asked, his voice drowning in the wind.

Luis looked up and his frozen red cheeks cracked as he spit out more laughter.

“I knew it! Even when I didn’t know I knew it was here!”

He turned back to the rock and eyed it up and down, then mumbled something more to it. He ran his hands along its deep grooves as though he could read every word of the chiselled writing. The left side of Luis’ face was stained with dark red blood from his wound.

“We have to go,” Andrew said.

Luis only laughed, and the wind howled in unison. Andrew had to yell to be heard.

“Have you seen Akiak?”

Luis stopped laughing, and looked straight into Andrew’s eyes.

“He’s here! He’s come back for us.”

“Where?” Andrew said, and spun around, but the swirling snow beyond Okralruserk blurred everything, and Andrew couldn’t tell which shadows within the storm were real. He stumbled, as though something had moved beneath his feet.

“He’s here,” Luis said, and he was crying. “He’s here to save us all.” Andrew realized then that Luis’ mind had gone, lost in the miles of white empty snow.

And worse, Andrew felt another sudden and cold understanding deep within him.

He had been abandoned.

“He’s here,” Luis screamed with a manic joy into the wind, and he wept as he clutched at the tall black stone.

The ground beneath Andrew then shifted, revealing something in the snow beyond the circle of Okralruserk.

Snow drained into the newly-formed crevasse, filling a hole thousands of feet deep. Andrew approached it, his mind struggling to understand what he saw within the snow that remained, but the shape seemed beyond comprehension.

Then, just as he was upon it, it reformed itself in his mind, and he gasped.

It was a glove, and beneath it, trapped in the fissure, was Akiak.

Andrew stood back, thoughts in his head crashing into one another. Then the ground began to shake, and all around him the dull cracking sound grew sharper, louder.

“You see?” said Luis as he stared into the half-lit sky. “He’s back for us now. God is back for us now.”

Andrew fell over, but his eyes would not leave the sight of the dead man’s hand as it slid further down into the ice.

“Look!” Luis said, and pointed at the giant black rocks that circled them both. “They just moved again!”

And Andrew did look. He looked at those five dark fingers sticking up from the snow, and then at the five black rocks that rose from the frozen ground, and, for a moment, they looked the same. Like a hand trying to break free of its frozen prison.

But, as he watched the monoliths in the harsh arctic light, his eyes open wide, he did not see what Luis saw. He saw the land around them quake and open wide to swallow great pieces of ice and rock. He saw the arctic wind throw frozen chunks of snow into the air, and saw them swirl in a frenzy. But, as hard as he tried, Andrew did not see the five towering black stones move. They were as cold and as lifeless as the icy tundra that surrounded them.

“See?” Luis said. “I told you we weren’t alone.”

And Andrew cried, his unblinking eyes burning from the cold.