‘Likewise,’ said Glen.
‘What about the bomb!’ cried Chrissie.
Ericsson waved at the bomb. ‘That weapon won't drop in the next hour. That’s long enough for—’
CRrrr-aaaACK
Someone rammed knitting needles in Megan's ears. Long, fat knitting needles.
Oh, my God!
She covered her ears, but too late. The noise had already stabbed her brain.
'What the hell was that?' cried Chrissie, looking around for where the lightning had struck.
Glen clicked his fingers to check his hearing. 'It sounded like someone cracking a whip in my head.'
'It's the ice,' yelled Carl, keeping his ears covered. 'Glaciers crack when they melt. Keep your ears covered!'
Megan slapped her hands back barely in time as—
CRrrr-aaaACK
The second assault made Megan’s ribs vibrate.
What if this doesn't stop? I’ll go deaf!
Megan counted to twenty.
Still protecting his ears, Ericsson yelled to Carl, 'Is it finished?'
'Wait,' yelled Carl. 'Two more minutes.'
Megan closed her eyes and counted. She hadn't even reached one hundred when Carl touched her arm.
'I think it's okay for now,' he said.
'For now?'
Carl shrugged. 'No way to tell.'
Victoria rubbed her temples. 'You mean that will happen again? At any time?'
Carl nodded.
'How could ice be so noisy?' asked Megan. 'That's the loudest sound I've ever heard in my life.'
'The steel walls reflected the vibrations back onto us,' explained Carl.
Megan lifted her hand for quiet. ‘Can anyone else hear that?'
...crackle-crack-crackle....
Megan heard a sound like a dozen people twisting their freezer icetrays simultaneously.
'It's another one!' cried Victoria.
Everyone clapped hands over ears, but instead of the atomic thunderclap, a cloudy stream of ice crystals began lightly pattering down around Ericsson.
Ericsson stepped back, lifting his hand against the soft hail, seeking a better angle to peer up the ice.
He found the worst possible angle.
Megan spotted what Ericsson couldn't.
A huge stone disk was sliding down the ice toward him.
And it moved fast, invisible to Ericsson who was stepping back into its path....
'LOOK OUT!' yelled Megan. Everyone erupted with their own shrieks of warning, surprise or horror.
Too late.
The stone disk slid straight off the ice. Straight through the air. And straight into Ericsson's head.
After half-decapitating Ericsson, the disk slammed into the floor.
Its leading edge disintegrated.
Stone flakes exploded from the point of impact, slicing through the air like a thousand Stone Age razor blades.
After Ericsson, Megan stood closest.
The first piece of flying stone slammed low into Megan’s stomach. It felt like someone striking her full-swing with a golf club. As she folded from the impact, an angry stone hornet buzzed toward her face. The razor shard sliced straight through her ear, carving away skin and cartilage.
Stone flakes pounded her like an unforgiving bully. A bully wearing sharp rings. Hitting the floor, Megan curled tightly into a ball.
But the barrage had stopped.
Megan tasted blood. She heard moaning. She felt warmth gliding down her cheek and into her mouth. Her shin throbbed.
She felt her right ear.
My ear doesn't feel right. It's the wrong shape. Part of it's missing!
Behind her came a chorus of painful cries, but Ericsson now captured Megan’s full attention
He was still standing.
Just standing there with half his head missing.
Megan had the most ridiculous thought: The part of his brain that controls his balance is still working.
Ericsson's expression, the two-thirds that remained, seemed unable to fathom his situation.
He turned slightly, pointed at the ice, and then tumbled forward.
His body hit the floor.
In the freezing cold chamber, Megan half-expected him to shatter into a million tiny pieces.
Whump!
He didn't shatter. He just landed like a man missing half his head.
Megan crawled away from him as stabbing pain flared in her stomach. Pulling herself up against the wall, she ignored the freezing metal burning her back.
Her shin throbbed like she’d taken a nasty street-hockey injury.
She probed the spot. The stone flake hadn’t cut through the denim. The pain was already receding. She’d taken worse injuries playing hockey.
Doesn’t feel like the bone is damaged.
Her stomach felt much worse.
She tried unbuckling her thick leather belt.
She couldn’t.
The buckle wouldn’t move.
She looked down.
A large stone flake had wedged into her belt buckle.
The buckle had stopped the missile. A missile with enough force to knock her from her feet.
She touched the razor sharp flake.
This would have gone right through me. I’d be lying on the floor bleeding to death right now.
After working the stone free, she checked her ear again. Her normally smooth outer ear felt totally messed up.
OOUUCCHHH!
Pain flared down her cheek. Her fingers came away bloody.
Who else was hurt?
Carl sat a few meters down the wall. Crouching in her skirt, Chrissie worked on his leg. In his UPS uniform, Carl’s legs had no protection from the flying stone.
A stone flake protruded straight out from his kneecap.
Chrissie tried to pull free the foreign body.
She gave up. ‘It’s stuck, Carl. I can’t get it out.’
Without hesitation, Carl gripped the shard and yanked it from his kneecap. Blood instantly followed.
Carl tossed aside the shard and then slapped his hand over the wound.
Megan looked for the others.
Glen and Alex were checking Victoria. After Victoria, they rushed over to Megan.
They knelt either side of her. Neither seemed injured.
'Did any big ones hit you?' asked Alex.
Megan pointed. 'That one almost went through me. My belt buckle stopped it.'
Alex picked up the shard. ‘Shit. This would have killed you.’
‘It feels like a horse kicked me,’ admitted Megan.
Glen passed Megan a handkerchief. ‘Put this on your ear.’
‘How does it look?’ asked Megan.
‘It’s not bad,’ he said. ‘Looks like an earring got yanked out. Should heal up fine.'
Megan hoped he was being honest. It felt worse than he described.
Alex stood and unzipped a pocket. From his hoodie he pulled out two sealed alcohol wipes and three bandages. He handed Carl a wipe and a bandage.
He handed Glen the other wipe. ‘Use that on her ear. It’ll sting. I’ve got another bandage if you need it, Megan.’
Chrissie took the still-wrapped bandage from Carl. ‘Where’d these come from, Alex?’
‘Just be happy I’ve got them,’ replied Alex. ‘I’m not supposed to.’
Megan began to ask Alex what he meant, but Glen used her moment of distraction to apply the alcohol wipe to her ear.
The pain felt more like an electric shock this time as the alcohol penetrated places it didn’t belong.
Glen waited for Megan to stop hissing.
‘Sorry,’ he said. ‘But it’s done now.’
Carl tore open the bandage with his teeth and began wrapping up his knee.
'How’s Victoria?' asked Megan.
‘Just shocked,' replied Glen. ‘How’s Ericsson?’
Megan realized that neither Alex nor Glen had spotted Ericsson yet.
She pointed silently.
'Fuck,' swore Glen, catching his first look at Ericsson.
'Shit, is he dead?' asked Alex.
‘Yes,’ said Megan.
‘Someone has to check,’ said Chrissie.
Glen was closest.
With his bathrobe pressed to the wall, watching the ice in case anything else slid down, Glen reluctantly approached Ericsson.
He winced. 'He's definitely dead. Half his head’s gone. It must be under this stone disk.'
'Check his pulse,' instructed Chrissie.
Glen shook his head. 'I don't need to check his pulse.'
'You need to check,' insisted Chrissie. 'He could be suffering.'
Glen knelt.
He pressed his fingers to Ericsson's neck. After a second he backed away, rubbing his fingers on his bathrobe.
'You didn't check properly,' yelled Chrissie. 'It takes longer than that.'
'I checked,' insisted Glen.
'Well?' prompted Carl.
Glen shook his head. ‘He’s got no pulse. He’s got no head. He’s dead.’
'He's dead,' Megan said with finality. And in her heart, at that moment, she knew it was only the beginning.
Chapter Four
'I recognize this stupid thing,' said Chrissie.
They stood shivering around the huge stone disk.
Chrissie clicked her fingers. 'It's that stupid calendar. What's it called? It predicted the end of the world in 2012.'
Victoria spoke for the first time since seeing Ericsson’s corpse. 'It's the Mayan calendar.'
'Of course,' said Alex. 'Those things fall from the sky and crush people to death all the time. Now it makes sense.'
'It didn't fall from the sky,' Carl corrected. 'It melted from the ice. It must have been right at the top.’
Huddled in his robe, Glen pointed at the bomb. 'At least the bomb didn’t move.’
Megan felt surreal. Ericsson lay dead, crushed by a giant falling Mayan stone calendar. An unexploded World War Two bomb could kill them all at any moment. And she'd just watched Glen and Alex drag a corpse around the ice. Carl and Alex still exhaled large white clouds from the exertion.
Ericsson must have been heavy. He looked heavy.
The intricately carved stone calendar looked like it belonged in a temple or a museum.
'What do you think this means?' Megan asked out loud. 'Is it a message?'
Her only answer was baffled expressions.
Alex asked, ‘What kind of a message?’
‘A message for us,’ replied Megan. ‘A clue. To help us understand why we're here?'
'If it's a message then it's a pretty crappy one,' said Glen. 'It's not even in English.'
Megan pointed at the calendar. ‘This thing predicted the end of the world, right? Well, the woman who abducted me was talking about how she needed people like me to save the world. It can’t be a coincidence.’
'How could this be a message for us?' scoffed Chrissie. ‘Look at all those crazy symbols and zigzags. None of us can read that gibberish.’
Megan shook her head and blew into her hands. ‘We were meant to see this. Someone put us in here. They knew this ice would melt. They knew this calendar would fall.’
'Is the bomb a message too?' asked Chrissie sarcastically.
'Maybe,' replied Megan.
'We're wasting time,' said Carl. 'Let's just escape before anyone else gets hurt.'
Carl shuffled awkwardly, favoring his injured leg. Blood showed through his bandage.
Victoria said, 'Ericsson had a plan.’
Megan remembered. 'He said he could get a signal out.'
Victoria pulled her cardigan tighter. 'But how?'
Glen kicked the calendar with his slipper. 'This stupid thing killed him before he could tell us.’
'I have an idea,' said Megan, rushing to crouch over her bag.
She upended her bag.
Everything tumbled out. She shook the bag upside down and checked all the pockets.
Time to take inventory. What exactly have I got to work with here?
House keys, deodorant, sandwich box, drawstring bag for my hockey shoes, hairbrush, grape lip gloss, sunglasses, pen, box of stickers, bus pass, tissues, empty diet Sprite bottle, nail file, wallet and...yes!
She snatched up her prize.
Her collapsible umbrella.
She pressed the button to make the umbrella shoot out. She hadn't unclipped the stud, so the fabric didn’t unfurl. She just had a straight pole.
Her hair elastic worked perfectly to secure her phone to the umbrella. She looped it on nice and tight. Confident her phone wouldn’t fall, she typed a short text message to everyone in her contacts folder: HELP. I’VE BEEN ABDUCTED.
She’d write more in a second message if this one transmitted.
‘Here, Glen. You’re tallest. Hold this as high as you can.’
‘I can do better than that,’ said Glen. ‘Alex can sit on my shoulders and hold it up.’
Alex looked skeptical.
‘I can lift you,’ said Glen, getting into position behind Alex.
‘You can try,’ said Alex, accepting the umbrella.
Glen crouched. Alex sat on his shoulders.
‘Ready,’ said Alex.
Huuuffff
Glen heaved Alex smoothly into the air.
He really is strong, thought Megan. He’s not even shaking.
Alex locked his shoes behind Glen’s back.
‘Just push send,’ instructed Megan.
Alex touched the phone and then stretched his body, his arm, even his fingers up, up, up so the phone reached as high as possible.
The phone teetered upon their human transmission tower.
Megan willed her phone to cooperate. Come on. Just one bar of signal. That's all I need to get the message out. One measly bar. You can do that for me.
Megan’s phone was set to low power mode, so it wouldn’t beep to alert of an outgoing message.
‘That’s long enough,’ said Chrissie. ‘Did it work?’
‘Let me have it,’ said Megan.
Alex lowered the umbrella down to Megan as Glen lowered Alex to the floor.
Megan checked the screen.
MESSAGE UNABLE TO SEND
Chrissie twisted the umbrella to see the screen.
‘It didn’t work,’ she announced.
Crestfallen, Megan unwound her hair elastic from the phone.
'It was a good idea,' said Carl.
Everyone shuffled silently as Megan refilled her bag.
Glen broke the awkward silence.
'Any other ideas?’
Waking last, Megan didn’t know what else they’d tried.
'Has anyone tried calling out for help?'
'I did,' replied Victoria. ‘I woke up first. I panicked. I thought you were all dead.’
'She woke me up,' confirmed Carl. 'Scariest thing I've ever heard in my life.’
'I tried too,' added Glen. 'The steel walls just reflect the sound back at us.'
'What about calling up the air vent?' suggested Megan.
Everyone looked at each other.
Megan realized they hadn’t thought of that.
Carl rubbed his hands together excitedly. 'To hell with yelling up the vent. Let's get a phone up there!
#
'My phone has GPS,’ said Alex.
Carl pointed at the phone. 'So if we get a signal out they’ll know exactly where we are. Exactly.'
Megan realized getting a phone to the vent might have been Ericsson’s plan all along. From the top of the ice a person could easily reach the vent, even if they were lying down on the ice.
Carl moved to better see the vent.
He said, 'The vent shaft is way too narrow for a person, but a phone signal might escape.'
'I’ve set my phone to broadcast an SOS message every five minutes,’ said Alex.
'Then what are we waiting for?' said Glen. 'Let's do it.'
'Wait!' said Chrissie. 'What about searching for the exit?’<
br />
'We’ll never find the exit in time,’ said Carl, glancing at the bomb. ‘Megan’s idea is our only chance.’
Alex and Glen nodded vigorously.
Chrissie shot Megan a frosty glance.
'That's ridiculous,' she said. ‘You'll never get the phone up there.'
‘Yes, we can.’ Glen slapped the ice. 'We'll climb up.’
‘How?’
‘We’ll chip footholds.'
'With what?' asked Chrissie. ‘Your fingernails?’
'I can make—' began Alex, but Victoria yelled over him.
'We are NOT chipping the ice,’ she yelled. ‘There's a bomb in that ice. That’s insane!'
She's right about the bomb, thought Megan. Disturbing the ice isn't smart.
Carl studied the ceiling vent again. 'But getting a phone to the vent is our best chance. Come on people, think. There must be a way. Everyone think.'
'I think we're wasting time,' insisted Chrissie. 'Are you people all deaf? Why aren't you listening to me?'
Victoria touched the slippery ice. 'You'd break your neck if you tried to climb.'
'She's right,' agreed Alex, stamping the steel floor. 'That's a bone breaker of a fall.’
'Unless someone caught you,' said Glen.
'Then two people get hurt,' barked Chrissie. ‘Isn’t Ericsson enough?'
'We can't just call an ambulance,' Victoria added, moving to stand with Chrissie.
‘I think I know a way,’ said Megan.
Everyone looked at her.
'We can make a rope.’
‘Yes,’ beamed Carl. 'Then we can pull someone up the ice from the other side.'
'A rope?' asked Chrissie. 'How?'
'We'll tie our clothes together,' Megan explained.
'This isn't a movie,’ said Chrissie. 'That doesn't work in real life.'
‘You won’t have enough clothes to make a rope,’ said Victoria.
'We have enough,' countered Carl.
‘You don’t even know how high that ice is,’ said Chrissie. ‘And you’ll need twice as much rope to pull someone up from the other side. How much rope is that? You don’t have a clue.’
‘Wait one second,’ said Alex.
Alex put his shoulder to the ice and walked off.
He counted as he returned, ‘thirty-six, thirty-seven, thirty-eight.’
He checked his position. ‘One large pace is about one meter, so the dome is thirty-eight meters in circumference.’
Alex found his phone and started the calculator.
MELT: A Psychological Thriller Page 3
