Handro had climbed out of the shelter and was leaning against a rock near the fire. He stood when he saw Cooper approaching, his face nearly as red as his own hair. Handro was leaning against a large stick in order to keep the weight off his injured leg as he asked, “What’s going on?”
Cooper was hunched over, trying to catch his own breath but he kept pointing to the field.
Handro didn’t understand what he was saying. “Is something coming? Are we in danger?” The dark skinned man stood up straighter, even injured he was ready to fight if need be.
Cooper shook his head and slowly started to calm down. “No, no. I...there’s something…over there. A…door…lights…”
“I never saw anything over there when we walked that way our first day here.”
“Goes…into the…hill!”
Handro handed Cooper the jug of melted snow they were drinking and told him to relax and settle down. Handro desperately wanted to know what he was talking about, but couldn’t understand what he was saying in that state.
Even the dogs had stopped bopping around and were staring at Cooper as he finally recovered. He explained to Handro what he had found, how he had seen the odd light the last two evenings in the darkness, how the door was angled so it was difficult to see unless you came from the right direction. He described the door opening on its own, and how he felt warm air come out; even how the lights had been functioning, lighting up the path inside the hill.
Handro’s eyes grew nearly as wide as Cooper’s listening to his tale. “Are you sure they were real lights? If they have lights that work, then they have some form of power. My father told me all about electricity.”
“Yeah, they talk about electricity in Katherine’s books. Scoob even had one of his engines powering a freezer for a while last summer, but it quit working. These lights just turned on by themselves though, so I know they weren’t torches that were just still lit. They were functional lights for sure! Scoob has been trying to make a motor that would create electricity constantly; these people must have figured that out.”
“Did you see any people? Or hear anything?”
“No, there were no human tracks in the snow besides mine and there was certainly no one in the hallway that I could see. I can’t be sure, but as I was running back here I thought I heard a voice say something, but that can’t be right. I want to go look at it again. ”
“That’s probably a bad idea alone. I can go with you,” he said confidently.
“Now that’s definitely a bad idea. You can’t exactly run if something goes bad.” Cooper immediately regretted saying this, even though it was the truth. It was salt in a wound and he knew it. “I won’t go inside. I just want to look a little more. I want to leave a note that someone might find too, I’ll use my sketch paper. I need to check my snares over there anyway; I saw lots of animal tracks.”
“Just be very careful, we don’t know what we’re dealing with here and nothing should be trusted.”
After bringing a few loads of wood back for Handro, Cooper started across the field. The injured man reminded him not to trust anyone if he came across people and not to give away too much information. Cooper nodded in agreement at all this and started again across the snowy field.
He was learning that the cold wasn’t anywhere near as bad on these bright sunny days when there was no wind. He still preferred it warm, but there were no bugs anywhere, at least. His only concern was how to wash off his own stench. The water was so cold he had no plans on breaking through the ice just to scrub up.
As he got closer to the other side of the field, he heard a distinct noise and became nervous that it was coming from the door. He worried people were inside it and he had left the door open. He didn’t know how to shut it; it had just opened on its own and then disappeared!
He was relieved to find out the odd screeching wasn’t from the door at all, but from rabbits trapped in his snares. He saw two rabbits immediately upon getting to the other side and quickly dispatched them with a rock to the head. He hated to see them suffer for any longer than they had too and he knew being tied down caused plenty of anxiety for those animals.
After checking his other snares, he found two other rabbits for a total of four. He removed the snares so he didn’t trap anymore accidentally. Four rabbits was easily enough food for them for several days. He decided to set some snares closer to the camp in the interim, just in case some were moving around there. He figured the dogs had spooked most of them away, but an unset snare serves no purpose at all.
After stowing all four rabbits beside a large rock outside the door, he approached it again. The concrete tomb was shut again, but he couldn’t tell if it had done that automatically or if someone had shut it. He still didn’t see any human footprints besides his own. Looking at his tracks from running away made him chuckle. It was apparent that he was flailing about when running. He was lucky he hadn’t fallen and smashed his head open, again.
He slowly walked back up to the door. Looking all around, he still only saw the one light, the two black boxes and the metal door. Following the same procedure as last time, he stepped right up next to it, which he noticed was right between the black boxes, and the door slid back into the hillside again.
Cooper tried not to startle when it swished open, but did anyway. The lights all popped on going down the hallway, but this time he did not run away. He stood there, staring down the seament path.
Suddenly, he heard a woman’s voice say, “Welcome.”
He jumped back out of the doorway, trying to figure out where the voice was coming from. He saw no one. “Hello? I don’t mean any harm.”
Cooper heard nothing in return except for the constant thud thud thud inside his own head. He caught his breathe, trying to slow his heartbeat and asked his question again. Still, no response. As he waited, the door slid out of the hill again and snapped shut.
He stared at it blankly, trying to figure out what had just happened. The redhead stepped back up to the door and it opened another time. He watched the lights turn on in order from nearest to farthest away again. Then, after that, the same voice said “Welcome.”
Again, Cooper called out to the mysterious voice and again he got no response. He was starting to feel silly, but better safe than sorry. He repeated the entire procedure another two times and had the exact same result.
After that he was confident that the voice was some kind of recording! He had read about these as well, but never encountered one. Peering down the hallway, he wondered what else was inside this place that he had only read about or heard about in whispers.
The sun was starting to set over their camp and Cooper knew he should be getting started back across the expansive flat field. His own curiosity was getting the better of him in this instance.
Feeling confident that he knew the voice was not a real person, he still had to leave his note. He decided it was best to leave it inside the hallway a little bit since it didn’t seem that anyone came out the door.
Without thinking, he stepped across the threshold and felt the solid thud of his feet against the seament floor. He listened to it echo slightly down the hall. Inside was noticeably warmer than outside. The air felt good, no longer painful. The lack of sound was odd though. He was used to the nearly constant background noise of the natural world. Even in this cold environment, he could hear leaves rustling and a myriad of other noises. In here, all was still and lifeless. He noticed a few more lights flicked on further down and he took a few steps towards them. To his horror, the door slid shut with a familiar snap.
He instantly regretted stepping inside and feared he was trapped like one of the rabbits he had just killed. He quickly got back to the metal door and it slid open again. Cooper waited, but the voice did not come that time. He wanted to explore further, but was still a little shaken up by the surprise of the door closing. He should have expected that to happen and he did not. There was much he still needed to think about before going farther into this mys
tery.
He stepped back out into the cold and quickly grabbed his prizes from where he left them near the rock. Pulling his thick shirt closer around him, and tucking his chin down, he began walking across the field towards the bright orange glow of the fire. The one thing he was learning about the cold was that when the sun set on the horizon, the temperature followed it straight down.
19
Aria took a small sip from her mug of beer. The firelight danced around her wavy hair, throwing shadows across her face. Her eyes were tight with concentration as she sat beside Tom, so close their shoulders were nearly touching.
If he wasn’t out fishing, the two were nearly always together now. Tom was her oldest friend and reminded her of happier times, but even more so he reminded her of her husband, Alan. The pair had grown up together since they were boys causing trouble. Not surprisingly, they had grown into men that still caused trouble from time to time. When they were together, the two men acted more like boys usually. A sad smile broke the serenity of her fire lit face as she thought of the memory.
Tom hadn’t said a word after telling her that he was leaving. Aria hadn’t spoken either, just stared into the dancing orange spirits rising out of the fire. She knew he was going to look for Cooper and Handro. She worried about them as well. It was just too cold.
In her memory, this was the coldest weather anyone had experienced in the village. One morning they woke up and the salad greens had turned mushy and dark overnight. Many of the herbs also turned nearly black and simply fell apart. This wasn’t the time for anyone to be leaving the village, even on a rescue mission. It was simply too dangerous.
“What if I asked you not to go? she said, still refusing to look over at him.
“Then I would leave anyway and beg forgiveness later.” He also took a drink of his beer and stared at the fire, not really seeing it.
Aria knew Tom had always been stubborn; Alan had been the same way. It had led to some monumental arguments between the pair in the rare instances they would disagree about anything. She knew arguing with him now would serve no purpose.
“We won’t be gone long. We just…”
“That is the exact same thing Cooper said before he left,” she scolded, “so watch your words carefully.”
“We are only going up river for two days, after that we turn around no matter what. We at least need to look.”
The blockheaded old black hound, Fry, had picked up on the tension and was now pushing his way between them. He was demanding a head scratching as his tail wagged dangerously close the hot fire. He was rewarded by absent-minded scratches from both of them.
“Who is ‘we’?” Her eyes squinted even tighter as she asked the question.
“Scoob and the big man, John, are coming too. Scoob thinks it may have gotten too cold up there for the motor to start but he has something that should start it, even in the cold. John heard we were going and demanded to go. We didn’t think we could tell him no. Plus, maybe we’ll need him to knock over a tree or something. I need to go because if something else happened to the boat, I can fix it. I’m even bringing my patch kit in case they hit something small.”
“That’s it, just the three of you? ”
“Yup. We’re going to take one boat, go upriver two days, and then head straight back down. We are set to leave at first light tomorrow.”
“You don’t find it odd that you three are going to rescue two people who are much better equipped to survive in the wild lands than you are? They may end up having to rescue you.”
“Hey, I’ve got a few tricks still. Besides, if that means we find them, I don’t mind having my pride hurt a little. We will be very careful; I promise we’ll come back.”
Aria didn’t speak. Having finished her beer, she stood up and tossed a few more logs onto the fire to ensure warm coals for the morning. She began to head back to her house for the evening. “Sounds like you have a busy couple days. You should probably turn in soon.”
Tom didn’t take this as a complete endorsement of his trip, but he thought it was about all he was going to get. A smile broke across his face as he finished his mug of beer and headed over to Scoob’s to get the last few things together.
+++
Tom fired up the motor just before sunrise and the men set off. He knew the rivers so well this close to the village that he had no problems piloting the boat in the near darkness.
The sun rose at their backs as they made it further up the river. Tom had chosen his fastest boat to make this trip. He had promised Aria only two days of travel upriver, but he had made no distinctions on just how far they would go in those two days.
The three men were all bundled up tightly against the cold wind, but only Tom was really exposed to it. Scoob and John were huddled with their backs against the built in bench and facing away from the icy wind. Thankfully, the wind they were feeling was also coming from the swiftly moving boat. Actual wind would have made small waves on the river and in turn caused small, frigid splashes, something Tom was very much against.
It was midday before they began to notice ice forming along the river banks and any slack water areas. While it was a surprise to the crew, they weren’t overly worried about it until they saw the chunks floating freely down the river.
At first, Tom had yelled at the men to get to the bow as he motored over to one hoping it was another piece of the floating material that Handro had found. As John attempted to scoop it up, he saw that it was a large block of ice, several feet thick.
The boat was switched to idle as Tom inspected the block. Judging by its weight, he knew this would cause serious damage to the boat and he ordered the men to the bow to point any more out to him. Hitting one at full speed would surely sink the boat. As he cruised at a lower speed for safety, he began seeing what could have easily happened to Cooper and Handro and his heart sank.
Before long, the river was nearly full of those ice chunks. They had been trying to maneuver around them for what seemed like an eternity to Tom, but it was nearly impossible. Suddenly, there was a loud crunk and the boat came to an instant stop.
“What the hell happened?” yelled out Tom.
“We were looking for the chunks and didn’t see a rock, it looks like!” hollered back Scoob. “I think we’re stuck on it. I can’t get us free!”
John, who had been watching the ice chunks swiftly floating closer and closer toward them made a desperate move. Tom heard a loud splash and saw Scoob holding down the big man’s legs on the bow. He had plunged his body just past his shoulder in the water and was trying to shove the craft off the boulder. Scoob was doing everything he could to keep the rest of him from being claimed by river’s icy embrace.
The little craft abruptly kicked backwards and was floating freely again as Tom raced up the boat. He and Scoob grabbed the top of John’s shirt and hauled him back out of the water. They stripped down their outer layer and wrapped him up in it. His face had turned a ghostly shade of white even though his eyes didn’t seem very worried.
“Thanks guys,” John said through shivering lips that had lost their normal, healthy pink color. “Shouldn’t we get moving though?”
Tom and Scoob looked at each other bewildered. The big man had just probably saved their lives, but there wasn’t time to thank him properly. With the boat idling and no one in control, it was just floating along amidst the underwater rocks. Above water, the ice had rapidly increased all around them.
Tom hurried back to the motor, thankful he hadn’t shut it off. He gave it a little throttle and slowly turned the boat around, pointing downstream.
“Are we quitting?” asked John.
Tom stared at the big-hearted man, whose eyebrows had sprouted frost. He didn’t know what to say to him, so he just went with the truth. “We are stopping for now, this is way too dangerous. You just saved our skins back there buddy, we can’t risk that again.”
John didn’t seem upset at all. In fact, to Tom he seemed relieved. “That’s good, beca
use there’s a lot of water coming in the front of the boat up here.”
Scoob stopped digging around in the packs for more dry clothes to give him and peered into the front compartment of the boat. “We’re gonna need that patch kit, Tom, like now!”
With one hand on the motor, Tom dug around in the bag until he found the kit and tossed it up to Scoob. They weren’t really made to be used on the inside of the boat, but there wasn’t time to pull over with the ice flowing around them this fast. If they tried to pull up on shore they would have to bust through the ice lining it first, probably damaging things even more.
John started bailing the water out of the boat and Scoob unrolled the sheets of tanned leather. These patches were emergency use only and wouldn’t work for long, but they would slow the water down considerably.
Tom could already feel the extra weight in the boat affecting his steering abilities. He stood up now, watching out for things in front of him as they headed back downstream. John and Scoob were busy keeping the boat from sinking.
It was difficult to stand while operating the arm that turns the motor. Thankfully, Tom had years of experience with this. Tom was making educated guesses where the deepest part of the channel was as he zigged and zagged through the white chunks that seemed intent on destroying their boat.
John had bailed as much water out as he could when Scoob applied the patch strips to the cracked hull. They were beginning to move out of the thick ice field now and Tom could breathe a little easier.
“This hull is in bad shape, the whole thing might blow out at anytime, man!” Scoob yelled back to Tom.
Tom didn’t think about it very long. They only had one real course of action here. He instructed the men to move back to the rear of the boat and he opened the throttle up all the way. This made the bow come out of the water, easing pressure on the patched cracks. It was also incredibly dangerous because they were moving so fast.
Further: Page 12
