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For an ad-free listening experience, visit patreon.com slash drnosleep. Sign up for a 7-day free trial and gain access to all my stories, including over 80 bonus episodes completely ad-free. That's patreon.com slash drnosleep. Now let's dive into the story. Journal Entry 12, June 16th, 1889 The mood aboard the ship has soured since today's news reached us.
If Captain Fletcher hadn't barred me from leaving the ship, I would have had a chance to read the letter myself. Now, I have no choice but to relay what I've heard second and third hand. As it stands, Fletcher hasn't let anyone other than the officers read it, probably because he knows the effect those words would have had on morale. But that in itself has caused the men to conjure up various reasons for this secrecy. Seafaring men are a superstitious lot.
so some of their suppositions are rather fantastic. As a seasoned newsman, I believe I have the knowledge and experience to parse out the fantastical, separating reality from the superstitious fiction that seagoing men are wont to spread. But in my role as recorder of this expedition, I feel I must also include what are certainly false claims and elements of the average seaman's imagination.
After all, these factors are an important part of the expedition, as they get to the heart of what really goes on in men's minds during a lengthy mission such as this. First, I'll start with the facts. Two days ago, we made landfall on an icy and rocky patch of earth just a few hundred yards away from the crippled HMS Wraith. When we first spotted the half-sunken ship, hope slid through the crew like a shark's fin cutting the ocean surface.
However, when a small contingent headed over to inspect the ship in search for survivors, they found that the vessel had been abandoned. A simple note was left on the ship, and this one I was allowed to read. It said in full: "Supplies low. If we stay, we die. Attempting Overland Route. We'll leave Cairns with messages to mark our progress. We lost Thunder three months ago on our voyage in.
We sailed into a fog, and when it cleared, Thunder was gone. Mystery. May God watch over us, or have mercy on our souls. It was signed by Captain Crane. Commander, HMS Wraith. HMS Thunder was the other ship in the expedition, commanded by the leader of the mission, Sir Thomas Winstead. We haven't encountered any fog coming in, but we've been sailing through icy waters for several weeks now.
However, since summer is approaching, there's not nearly as much as there would have been during fall or winter. After finding the HMS Wraith empty, Captain Fletcher decided to send a search party out across the land to see if we could determine the fate of those who'd abandoned the Wraith. When I asked him if he would search for the HMS Thunder, he said simply, "I'm determined to follow the trail across land to see what came of those brave men who left their ship behind in the ice."
Soon after, I asked him if I could join the land-bound party, and he refused. I'm still not sure of his exact reasoning for this, as he didn't give me a proper explanation. However, I've had plenty of time to think about these things, and I realized that Fletcher sent only a small party of the most trusted men to search the half-sunken wraith. And if I'm remembering correctly, those men seemed a little more drawn and a little paler than usual when they returned.
I can't help but wonder if they found something else on that ship, something they're not telling us about. Or perhaps I've spent too much time among superstitious sailors. Which brings me to the stories of the Overland Party from the Wraith. The youngest man on the ship, a 23-year-old midshipman by the name of Billy Chatham, told me of the cairn in which they found the note. He had been among the small number of men sent to investigate yesterday, only returning a few hours ago.
"It was a pile of rocks about as tall as me," Chatham told me. "But it wasn't just rocks, see? They were bones mixed in with the stones. We pulled out two human skulls and some other parts, like ribs and arm bones and leg bones, while we searched for the note. Did you have a chance to read the note?" I asked the young man. "No," he said sullenly. "Lieutenant wouldn't let me, but as soon as he read it, his face changed colors.
I could see it even though he had a scarf over his nose and mouth. Whatever was on that note was bad. After he was done reading, he said we needed to go back. Even though our orders were to keep searching as long as we had supplies, we had enough provisions to last us a week. "Do you have any idea what the note said?" I asked. "No, but some of the chaps think there are cannibalistic natives out there."
They'd think the note was a warning against going any further, because we'd be attacked and eaten by the natives. I ruminated on this for a moment. As I did, Shaddam continued, "You know what I think? I think there's something out there. Some kind of beast." "Oh? And what makes you think that?" "You know the bones I told you about?" I nodded. "They were really scratched up in places, almost like they'd been chewed on by sharp teeth."
Journal Entry 13, June 17th, 1889. Chaos on the ship tonight. I woke two hours ago now to the sound of screaming and rifle fire from the deck. My damned curiosity getting the better of me. I headed up from the sleeping quarters to see what was happening. Thoughts of insane, inhuman cannibals raced through my head, but I dismissed them with prejudice.
As I made my way up the narrow staircase that led to the deck, I ran into a midshipman who was coming the other way, covered in blood. "What's happening up there?" I shouted, grabbing him by his bloody coat. He said nothing with words, only speaking in compacted syllables that made no sense to me.
He thrashed in my grip, gibbering, until finally, in his desperation, he punched me in the jaw. I let him go, watching him scramble down the stairs, no doubt searching for a hiding place. After collecting myself for a moment, I rushed up the stairs and to the door to the deck. The sounds of violence had dimmed considerably, but prudence got the better of me, and I refrained from rushing headlong onto the exposed deck. Instead, I eased the door open and looked out.
Even though it was the middle of the night, it was still daylight out. The sun wouldn't set on this part of the world until September. Nonetheless, it was a cloudy day, reminding me of England. In this more than adequate light, I spotted a pool of blood near the door. Footsteps sounded from somewhere on the deck. The crack of a rifle made me flinch back just as a figure darted past the doorway.
The glimpse I caught of the figure caused my heart to lurch like an unruly mare, and I turned immediately away, running back down the stairs and finding a place to hide. As I cowered amid the barrels of provisions while one of the officers shouted out orders and tried to mount a defense against the ongoing attack, I recalled the strange-looking figure. It looked like a man in many respects. It had two arms and two legs, but its skin wasn't the color of my countrymen.
or the darker hue of the people who called the Arctic Circle home. It was a mottled black with patches of inflamed red on the abdomen. I recalled its teeth, the sharpness of them, the brown coloring, and the way they seemed to be permanently exposed due to the lack of lips. But what gave me the most pause was the distorted and swollen hands and feet. I had seen photographs of people who had suffered horrendous frostbite.
and the creature had the disfigured extremities of those unlucky individuals. Could it be possible? I wondered. Could it be a member of the Wraith's crew? Still alive after all this time? Journal Entry 14 June 17th, 1889 Shortly after I spotted the strange figure on the deck, order was restored. The only reason it took so long was that the commanding officers weren't anywhere to be found when the attack started.
Soon, it became clear that Captain Fletcher and his retinue had gone over to see the contents of the Wraith for themselves, only telling one officer. They had wanted to keep it a secret. When it was safe to come out, I ventured up to the deck and saw that five of our crew had been killed, but only two bodies remained. The other three had been carried off by our attackers. Panic swished around the ship, and it only increased when Fletcher and his officers didn't return from the Wraith.
The ship was plenty close enough that the captain would have heard the gunshots and hurried back, but he hadn't. Soon, the only remaining officer, a slender and twitchy man by the name of Delrod, ordered a search party to the Wraith. When the men he named refused, I knew that things were likely to turn bad if all the other officers were dead, as the men feared they were. Against my better judgment, I volunteered to go to the Wraith.
When some of the sailors saw that I, a newspaper man, was brave enough to go, they volunteered. When we started for the other ship, there were five of us in total. I don't know what I expected when I climbed over the side of HMS Juggernaut, stepping foot on Arctic ice for the first time in my life. I don't know what I hoped to find on the Wraith. Looking back on it now, I think I just wanted something to do.
My cowardice surprised me when I ran away from the deck and hid among the provisions. I wanted to prove to myself that I wasn't a coward, but mostly, I wanted to get Captain Fletcher and the other officers so we could cruise away from this damnable place. Unfortunately, things didn't work out the way I hoped. To be as clear with this as I can,
I'll relay things as I remember them. "Who's going first?" Gilbreath, the only lieutenant in our party, asked as we stared up the netting hanging off the side of the Wraith. The ship's stern had sunk several feet into the icy Arctic waters, causing the vessel to come to rest at an angle of about 10 degrees. Still, it wasn't nearly enough to allow us to board without climbing the net. When no one volunteered to go first, I swallowed my fear and stepped forward.
My limbs shook as I climbed the net and peeked onto the tilted deck, seeing nothing out of the ordinary. I got over the gunwale and turned around, looking down at the four men below. As I opened my mouth to tell them all was clear, I saw two dark figures moving swiftly across the landscape toward the wraith. They were close, maybe 30 yards. Patches of dark rocks and dirt stood out all across the land, which may have been why we didn't see them on our walk across from the juggernaut.
Now, as they closed in, I saw that they were both similar in appearance to the creature I'd seen not long ago on the deck of HMS Juggernaut. They were both men, or had recently been men, and they were completely naked, their skin darkly discolored, and their extremities deformed. The sight of these ghastly creatures brought my overwhelming cowardice back to the surface. "Look out!" I screamed, pointing at the approaching beasts.
The four men below spun around, all of them armed with rifles, but only two of them made use of the weapons, while the two shooters, which included Lt. Gilbreth, aimed. The other two men made different decisions. One of them darted back toward HMS Juggernaut, while the other one, Sutherland, dropped his rifle and immediately started climbing up toward me. The two rifles cracked.
One of the creatures stumbled and fell, but the other one kept coming, crashing into Gilbreth and quickly ripping into the lieutenant with its teeth. Blood spewed forth as the creature tore at the man. The red liquid stained the snow and steamed in the frigid air. Meanwhile, the other creature was getting back to its feet and rushing at the second shooter. Seeing that his shot had done little to slow the thing down, the young man turned and started up the netting, but he was too slow.
The creature caught him by the legs and yanked him off the netting. Screams ripped from the young seaman as the creature tore into him. Midshipman Sutherland was nearing the top of the gunwale. I reached over and pulled him up. We both looked down at our shipmates, who were both being torn apart. I looked over to see that the young midshipman who'd run was nearing the halfway point between HMS Juggernaut and HMS Wraith. Silently, I urged him on, hoping he would bring help.
Then another dark figure emerged from the craggy landscape, sprinting toward the midshipmen. I looked away, knowing the young man wouldn't make it back to our ship. "Come on!" Sutherland said, yanking me by the arm. A glance down showed me that both the blood-smeared creatures were climbing swiftly up the side of the ship. I ran toward the cabin door with Sutherland, and we both hustled down the stairs, stopping short when we reached the cabin and found Captain Fletcher and the other officers from HMS Juggernaut.
They lay in pools of freezing blood, their insides torn out, much of their flesh eaten. We moved past them and into the galley, but there was nowhere to hide. All the provisions had been taken off the ship long ago. I could hear the clomp of footsteps as the two creatures came down the stairs from the deck. I wanted nothing more than to find a place to hide. The urge to curl into a ball and cry was almost too much to resist. But Sutherland, a good ten years younger than me, was looking to me for guidance.
"What do we do?" he asked, voice tremulous. "It would be so easy," I thought. "So easy for me to tell him we had to fight and then leave him here to die while I went deeper into the ship, looking for some form of salvation." The thought disgusted me. How could I be so willing to throw away another human life for the chance at living just a few minutes more? Although the thought was seductive and probably a result of my unescapable will to survive, I knew that wasn't the ultimate.
I had free will. I wasn't just a being driven by instinct. I could choose, and I could choose wisely. I slammed the galley door shut and put my back against it. The slant of the ship made it easier to put much of my weight against the wooden door. Run, I said to him. Find a weapon or way out. I'll give you as much time as I can. He turned to go, but then he looked back over his shoulder at me.
He turned back and shook his head. "No, we'll fight. If they get through, we'll fight." A moment later, one of the creatures slammed into the door. Shouting, I braced my feet against the wood floor and fought against the incredibly strong force on the other side. Sutherland appeared next to me, jamming his shoulder into the door.
The other creature put its weight into it, and the door started to come open. My head filled with thoughts of being ripped apart by those creatures. And still, I had to fight against the urge to run, leaving Sutherland there to his fate. But I won that fight, and I stayed, determined to die with honor. Then, something happened. A shriek came from the other side of the door, and suddenly the force wasn't so strong.
Sutherland and I got the door closed all the way again. Sounds of a struggle came to my ears, followed by more inhuman shrieking. I thought I could hear the crackle of a fire, and then there were several moments of silence. Sutherland and I looked at each other in hesitant hope. There was a knock on the door, and a man's voice said something in a language I couldn't understand. "Who's there?" I asked. The man spoke again, but I couldn't understand him. Still, his voice was calm.
so I ventured to open the door. An Inuit man stood there in his warm clothes made of animal skins. Behind him were two more Inuit men. They all held hand weapons like war clubs or spears. The two men behind him also held flaming torches that burned an odd red color. I looked at the floor to see the two creatures. Both of them shriveled up like dead spiders. Their limbs curled in towards their chests.
Holes the size of my fist were visible in the center of their rib cages, and in those holes burned some sort of red coal fire. As the fire smoldered, acrid smoke filled the room, but the creatures seemed to shrivel more and more the longer those strange coal fires burned. The native men gestured us out and ushered us past the dead creatures. There were a dozen more Inuit men outside the ship. They had dispatched all of the creatures that had attacked us.
When we got back to the Juggernaut, escorted by these brave warriors, I found a shipmate who I'd heard spoke some Inuit. Before we set off from that hellish frozen landscape, I managed to piece together what had happened, according to the Inuit man who agreed to talk to us. He said that the men from the doomed expedition had killed and eaten a creature the Inuit called Umujuk Guti, which roughly translated to animal god or beast god.
According to the man, those who ate the meat were cursed to roam the Arctic starving, searching for meat, their bodies freezing but forever unable to get warm. The only way to kill them, he told us, was to harvest the earth fire and burn them with it. They had been hunting the cursed men for many months after an Inuit village had been attacked. Now, he said, they were all dead. I thanked the man profusely before we set off again. Now as I write this, we're on our way back.
It will be about a month before we reach England. I can't wait. But I keep thinking of something the Inuit man said as our conversation came to an end. He'd said that he'd never believed the stories about the beast god or the curse. It was only seeing the cursed men with his own eyes that brought him around. I know I wouldn't have believed it had I not seen it for myself. And I half expect this story will not run in the paper for the very reason that no one will believe it. Maybe, in time,
I will stop believing it myself. But for now, while the incident is still fresh in my mind, I know what I saw was true. Whether you believe it is completely up to you. I couldn't think about anything but a hot shower as I waited in the freezing wind for Emil to finish chainsawing out the chunk of ice. I didn't understand why he had to saw the ice out first, but that was pretty much par for the course. I didn't understand much of anything going on here.
And that was okay, because it paid well. My brother, Thomas, was the one who got me aboard the year-long expedition. As a climate scientist and one of the organizers of this project, he had some sway. And besides, the scientists needed helpers to do the heavy lifting. People like me and Emil handled the hard, dirty, and tiring work, while the scientists did the delicate, smart, intellectual work.
Not that I was complaining. I had enjoyed the first several months of the expedition, but now it was winter in the Arctic, and there was no sun to speak of. It was dark all the time, and the lack of sunlight was starting to get to me. Emil finished sawing the square of ice out. I watched from outside the circle of light cast by four powerful work lamps running off of batteries.
Dr. Sato stood nearby, readying her scientific equipment for whatever research she was doing. Dr. Sato was from Japan, and she was one of many scientists on this expedition. There were smart folks from 10 different countries, and they each were doing different research in the Arctic. Most of them were doing climate change stuff, but there were plenty of other areas of study as well.
Some of that research overlapped, of course. But today, it was just me, Sato, and Emil out here. Off in the distance, about half a mile away, I could see the German icebreaker ship lit up like a Christmas tree. It was surrounded by ice, frozen into the pack until summer when the ice would become thin enough that we could cruise out again. Until then, we were at the whims of the ice pack. We went where it wanted to take us.
The ship was home to 186 people. Luckily, it was a pretty nice home. It had good food, comfortable beds, rec rooms, a couple of gyms, and heaters that worked especially well. Out here on the ice, it was far below freezing. So far, I didn't want to know exactly how much. At a certain point, cold is just damn cold. Even wrapped up in my heavy-duty bright red snowsuit, I was having a hard time not shivering.
But once this project was over, I'd be able to take a hot shower and then get into my warm cabin, slide into my comfortable bed, and sleep for eight hours if I was lucky. It sounded like heaven. Hey, Foster! Help me, will you?
Emil said in his cheery German accent. He spoke better English than me. I walked over and grabbed a tool held out by Emil. It was a slender but strong pole with a hook at the end of it. We needed to lever the ice block out, and the poles would help us do it. We slid them in the narrow gap sideways and then turned them, allowing the hook to catch the bottom of the block. Then we lifted, pulling on the poles to lever the block out.
As we got it partially up out of the hole, I realized my pole was slipping out of my gloved hands. "Just a little more!" Emil said. "It's slipping! Don't let it fall back in!" It was a heavy son of a bitch, so I wasn't about to let it fall back in. Moving quickly, I shifted, grabbing the underside of the ice block with my right hand, right next to my pole hook.
A strange jolt traveled up my arm as soon as I touched the ice. For a moment, I thought something had stabbed through my glove and into a nerve in my hand, but a hazy sort of high settled on me even as I heaved the block up away from the hole it had just been in. Once the block was safely away from the hole, I stood up and looked at my gloved hand. The glove didn't appear damaged. I flexed the hand as the jolt faded away. Along with that strange head change,
I glanced down at the bottom of the block, where I'd grabbed it, and saw that the ice was dark there, almost black. "What's wrong?" Emile asked. "You okay?" I stared down at the black ice, convinced I'd seen it moving, like the blackness was retreating up into the block, but as I blinked, I saw that it was just a trick of the light. There was no black ice on the bottom of the block. There never had been. "I'm okay," I said, still flexing my hand.
"If we're done here, I could use a shower. Algo esk," Emil said, starting towards Sato. "Thanks," I said, flexing my hand once again. Back on the ship, I pulled my hood down and basked in the warm air. Dr. Sato had wanted one of us to stay outside, and Emil had volunteered, even though I said I would do it. He insisted, and after a few more half-hearted protests on my part, I capitulated and headed back to the ship.
Now, in the big vessel's warmth, I took my cap off and shoved it into a jacket pocket. Then I removed my gloves, one at a time. When I pulled my right glove off, I saw a collection of small red circles on my hand. They looked like bug bites, raised slightly from the skin, but they didn't itch. At least, not yet. I trudged to my room, determined to take that hot shower.
If the little red circles got any worse, or if I started feeling bad, I would go see the ship's doctor. Until then, I wasn't going to worry about it. As I stepped into my room, I saw that my roommate, a slovenly Swedish guy named Gert, was there. That was one of the bad things about this job. I was forced to have a roommate. Gert lay sprawled on his bed, laptop on his stomach, and Bluetooth earbuds in his ears.
He gave me a sour look and then reached up and pulled the privacy screen shut around his bed. He liked me about as much as I liked him, probably because anytime anything of his ended up on my side of the room, I threw it onto his bed. We had started the trip off cordially enough, with me asking him politely to keep the room clean, but after several months of him not taking the hint, I was through being cordial about it.
Sighing, I pulled my boots and snowsuit off and then put them in my closet. Then I stepped into the shared bathroom, clenching my teeth at Gert's mess on the counter. He had shaved and hadn't bothered cleaning up. There was beard hair and bits of shaving cream everywhere. Ignoring it, I grabbed my towel from the hook and then tossed it over the shower stall door. That was our signal that one of us was about to shower.
I went back out into the room and flopped down on my bed, thinking I just needed a few minutes to rest before my shower. My eyes closed, and I drifted into a state of semi-consciousness. Unbidden, my mind started going over all the times Gert had pissed me off. It seemed like he went out of his way to be a slob now, because he knew it pissed me off. My body tensed, and my right hand throbbed. My eyes shot open when I heard the shower turn on.
I rushed into the bathroom, finding Gert standing between shower and toilet in his boxers. "Get out!" he said. "I'm going to shower!" My right hand felt like it was going to come off, like it had swelled to quadruple its size. Unable to help myself, I slapped Gert across the face. The sound was as loud as a gunshot in the small bathroom. He recovered and looked at me.
My face blanched as a dozen cuts opened up on the left side of his face. The trickle of blood from them soon turned to a flood. I glanced down at my hand and saw small, sharp-looking pieces of black filament retracting back into my skin through the red circles. Shocked, I looked back up at Gert. His eyes bugged out as he brought a hand to his face and then pulled his fingers away to see that they were covered in blood.
He screamed, and in my panic, I jumped toward him and put my hand over his mouth. He fought against me, but I had several inches and 30 pounds on him. We ended up on the floor between the toilet and shower, me leaning over him as he screamed into my palm. I felt as if something was happening under my palm, something with those black filaments that had sliced Gert's face open. I tried to pull my hand away,
but it felt stuck to Gert's face. He squirmed, battered my face, and kicked his legs. I let my body go limp, but my hands stayed stuck there. Gert's thrashing grew weaker, and his nostrils disgorged streams of blood. My thumb and forefinger moved on their own, clamping down on his nose.
Pretty soon, Gert's eyes rolled back into his head and his body went limp. I pulled my hand away to see that his tongue had been shredded and his mouth was full of blood. I looked at my hand, seeing that the red circles had disappeared. Mouth hanging open, I stood up and caught a glimpse of myself in the mirror. During his thrashing, Gert had hit me several times in the head, neck, and chest. My lip was split and my nose bled. My right eye would swell shut soon.
Knowing I had no choice but to alert the others about this strange happening, I grabbed a fistful of toilet paper, put it to my nose, and stepped out of the bathroom. As I reached for the cabin doorknob, I heard movement from inside the bathroom. Turning my head in that direction, I saw Gert jerking, blood pouring out of his mouth as he tried to lever himself up into a sitting position. His limbs spasmed and jerked, as if he didn't know quite how to work them.
His eyes swirled around in his head, irises and pupils jerking in opposite directions. Finally, using the wall behind him, he managed to work himself to a standing position. But I knew it wasn't Gert. I guessed that whatever had been inside my hand was now inside Gert's body. Maybe it needed a dead host to control the entire body instead of just one appendage. Or maybe it was learning. I yanked the cabin door open as Gert lurched toward me on unsteady legs.
As I got out into the hall, I turned and pulled the door closed, but Gert got an arm through the gap at the last moment. The door bounced off his arm, giving me an idea. I opened the door wider while keeping Gert from getting out with one hand. Then I yanked on the knob again, pulling it shut as hard as I could. I felt the bones in his forearm break under the door. There was a shout from behind me.
I glanced over my shoulder to see a member of the crew running over, a shocked look on his face. "What are you doing?" he shouted. "Stay back!" I said. The man ignored me. As I tried to push Gert back inside the cabin, hoping to contain him in there, the crewman grabbed me by the shoulders to yank me away. I struggled against him as he shouted for help. Finally, he wrapped an arm around my neck and used all his weight to pull me onto the floor. I landed on top of him.
The cabin door came open, and Gert staggered out, moving toward us. I whipped my head back, smacking the crown of my skull into the crewman's mouth and nose. His arms loosened around me just as Gert approached. Kicking out with one foot, I sent Gert tumbling back into the doorway. He crashed into the jam and then sat down heavily when his legs gave out. The organism controlling him was still learning how to work the body. I got to my feet and rushed my roommate, shoving him down to a lying position with one foot.
At first, my thought was to keep him on the ground until I could find some way to subdue him. But then I saw that his head was positioned between the open door and the metal door jamb. Knowing that we were all at risk, I grabbed the door handle and slammed his head between the door and the jamb. I did it several more times before his skull started to change shape. I kept going, working the door until there was nothing left but a twitching body with a bloody pile of gore that had once been ahead.
gasping and sweating. I straightened and stepped away from the door, only realizing when I did that, I had an audience. Eight or ten people stood around me in the hall, staring, shock frozen on their faces. I opened my mouth to defend my actions, but before I could get a word out, I saw two familiar faces near the back of the small crowd to my right. Emil and Dr. Sato had just walked up.
Oh shit! Does anyone copy?
I listen to the answering static, leaning over the desk, too amped up to sit. "Try again!" André says in his French-Canadian accent. "This is Summit Station 2," I say. "Do you read me? We need assistance. This is an emergency. Mayday, Mayday, 911. Help for fuck's sake, help us!" After a long moment, I toss the microphone down in disgust. "No one can hear us." I snap, straightening.
I'm betting he did something to the transmitter. "Can we fix it?" Andre asks, light-colored eyes pleading with me in the dark interior of the communications room. "Maybe, given time," I say, turning to look down the hall of the research station. "Who do you know where he went? We need to find Fusco. He might still be alive." "How do you know? We could need this," Andre asks. "It could be Fusco. We don't know." I've been staring down the hallway, but now I stop and turn to Andre.
You really think Fusco did this? And not the giant Norwegian man who's been acting strange every time we've come here for the last month? Andrei averts his eyes. I'm just saying, we didn't see what happened, that's all. All the more reason to be careful as we look for them. You... you don't think something... got to him... to Vigo? Andrei asks. Don't start that shit. He's just a man, that's all. There's nothing up here to get to him, okay?
But what about the noises? What about the things we've seen? I haven't seen anything! I interject, getting angrier with each passing moment of this ridiculous conversation. But you've heard things! We've been here too long. It's been dark for five months!
That does strange things to a man's mind. And Vigo has been here longer than any of us. Yeah, but... I grab Andre by the chin and put my face inches from his. No buts. He's a man, that's all. Just a man. A big, powerful one. But still a man. Andre nods with his eyes, since he can't move his head. Let me hear you say it. Vigo is just a man. And there's nothing else going on. Nothing has gotten to him. Say it.
Nothing is gotten to him. He's just a man. A tear escapes and streaks down Andrei's cheek. My stomach churns and my throat thickens. I release Andrei's chin and turn away, face flushing with shame as I pick the hunting rifle up from where I propped it, next to the door. Let's go find Fusco. Andrei and I are responsible for manning the equipment on Summit Research Station 1, which is located four miles east of Station 2.
Andre and I have been driving over to this bigger and more well-equipped station once a week since winter started. We have snowmobiles that are up to the task. We generally drink and play video games or watch movies. It's good for our sanity. Up until a month ago, Vigo would join us for our weekly get-togethers. It was Andre, me, Gerard, Fusco and Vigo. The only five people within hundreds of miles.
Vigo has always been a weird guy, but I considered him a friend. Then, a month ago, he started acting strange, skipping out on our get-togethers and spending more of his time in the ICE research facility. At first, we all just figured he was on to something big in his research, but as the weeks passed, that concern grew. Then, exactly one week ago, Fusco told us Vigo was refusing to come out of the ICE research facility altogether.
One of the men, usually Fusco, would bring his meals out to him. Half the time, Vigo was down in the tunnels, so Fusco would just leave the food to grow cold on Vigo's desk. But I'm getting ahead of myself. I haven't even mentioned the tunnels yet. Summit Research Station 2 is a series of buildings on a massive iceberg near the northernmost tip of Greenland in the Arctic Circle. The biggest building, the one we're in, is the living quarters.
It's about the size of a two-story house if both stories were laid out side by side. There's one central hallway that runs the length of the building and another smaller one that bisects its width. All the rooms are located off these two hallways. The other buildings are a bit of a different story. The ICE research facility is the size of a three-car garage, but below it sits a maze of ICE tunnels that researchers have been digging for years.
Vigo said the ice near the bottom of these tunnels has organisms frozen in it that haven't roamed the earth in millions of years. I try to stay out of the tunnels, not only because that's not my area of expertise, but also because I find them deeply unsettling. There are random tunnels that lead to dead ends, and not all of them are lit. Only the ones that are actively being worked on are illuminated with LED lights.
Plus, the shifting ice makes strange noises, and the shadows seem to move down there. Now, as Andre and I move toward the equipment room, I'm hoping Fusco is okay and Vigo is somewhere down in the tunnels. If so, I think I can lock him down there until we can fix the radio and contact someone to come help us. As we come to Gerard's quarters, I stop. "'Go on,' I say to Andre. "'I'll meet you in the equipment room. "'Just be careful. "'We don't know where he is.'
"Why are you going to look at him again?" Andre asks, looking sick. "I need to remind myself what we're up against," I tell him. "I liked Vigo before this. We had some good times together. We all did. But I can't let those feelings get in the way of what has to be done. If it's him or one of us, I can't hesitate." Andre doesn't understand, but he doesn't need to. He moves down the hall as I turn and open the door, looking inside to see Gerard's body on his blood-soaked bunk.
By all appearances, Vigo came in while he was still sleeping and started in on him with the ice pick. It looks like it happened not long ago, judging by the freshness of the blood. I take one last look at Gerard's mangled body and resolve to keep it in my mind. Vigo is highly dangerous, and if we don't do something to stop him, there's no telling what he'll do to us. For the third time since we arrived, I ease the bolt back on the rifle, verifying there's a cartridge in the chamber.
and I hope to God Fusco is still alive. Andre and I stop outside the ice research facility door. The arctic wind blowing snow into our faces. My hood is cinched tight over my head, but the wind is trying its best to tear it off. We've just checked all the other buildings, seeing no sign of Fusco or Vigo. My right hand is nearly frozen because I've kept my glove off in case I need to fire the rifle. Andre has an axe from the equipment room, but
as much as I like the guy. I can't rely on him to use it if the situation requires drastic action. I nod once, and he yanks the door open. I rush inside behind the rifle, sweeping the barrel around the one large room that makes up the bulk of the building. It's only occupied by desks and computers and inscrutable scientific equipment. There's a large metal door at the other end of the building, like the door to a walk-in freezer. Beyond it is the tunnel entrance.
Andre and I do the same thing again. He opens the door and I step through with the rifle. No Vigo, no Fusco. Andre comes through the door behind me, stepping into an uninsulated warehouse-like room the size of a two-car garage. A specialized ice mover sits silently to our left, next to a large roll-up door that's currently closed. Straight ahead is a sloping tunnel that dips down into the glacier, wide enough for the ice mover to fit inside.
I walk cautiously to the tunnel and look for any sign of the two missing men. Strings of soft LED lights illuminate the white-blue walls of the tunnel. "Why don't you stay up here?" I whisper to Andre without looking away from the tunnel. "No way," Andre says. "That's always the worst thing you can do in one of these situations. Haven't you seen a horror movie?" I was only thinking about keeping him safe, but I suppose he's right. Better if we stick together. I sigh.
"Okay, let's go." We walk down into the ice tunnels, where it's slightly warmer than outside, despite the surrounding ice. The smooth walls shimmer in the LED light. The floor is slick under our feet, despite our ice-ready boot treads. We slow as we come to the first branching tunnels, and I curse under my breath when I see that the string lights have been sabotaged ahead, leaving only impenetrable darkness in every direction but backward.
Luckily, we always carry headlamps with us. We both strap ours on and continue. Soon, the noises start. Some of them sound like cracking or shifting ice, which is unsettling enough. Others sound like whispers in some ancient language. We come to a place where several other tunnels branch off the main shaft on either side. I was hoping we could find Fusco before this, knowing it would be the area of highest vulnerability.
You look down the tunnels on the left, I whisper to Andre. I'll take the ones on the right. If you see anything, let me know. Quietly, Andre gulps and then nods, adjusting his grip on the axe handle. We move forward together, side by side. As I shine my headlamp down the first right-hand tunnel, I see the barest glimpse of a figure darting away, echoing footsteps coming to my ears moments after he's disappeared into the darkness beyond the reach of my headlamp.
Vigo? I call. It's me, buddy. It's Welker. Why did you come on out? Did you see him? Andre asks. Keep moving, I say. There's only one way he can go. We move up to the next tunnels, seeing nothing. Then the next. And I flinch as I see Vigo standing at the very edge of the light, back to us, hands held in front of him. He's so big, he has to hunch so his head doesn't touch the cold ceiling. Vigo? Vigo?
"How did you turn around, buddy? We can figure this out. What do you say?" He doesn't answer. "Where's Fusco, Vigo?" Still no answer. I start toward him, rifle ready. "Vigo, come on, man. Turn around and let me see you. Do you have any weapons?" An image of Gerard's body flashes in my mind, combining with Vigo's silence to spark my anger. I aim the rifle and fire a warning shot into the ice wall, wincing at the painful report.
The tunnel seems to rumble, cracking and shifting noises getting louder. A crack forms in the ceiling, snaking its way toward Vigo. I follow it with my headlamp, frozen in fear, sure that I'm about to be buried under several hundred tons of ice. But as the crack reaches the ceiling above Vigo, I notice something there. An anchor, drilled into the ceiling, with a white cord hanging from it. The crack reaches the anchor, which drops out of the ceiling,
Vigo falls into a pile on the floor, revealing a completely naked and blood-covered Fusco crouching there with an ice pick in his hand. He'd been entirely hidden by Vigo's bulk. Belatedly, I realize Vigo's dead, and he was being held up by a rope. As my mind struggles to process this new information, Fusco leaps over Vigo's body and rushes at me. "Run!" I scream at Andre, pulling the bolt back and loading another cartridge, then shaking as I try to get the rifle pointed at Fusco.
I fire the gun, the ear-splitting report roaring in my head. The shot misses. I work the bolt again, loading another cartridge while I backpedal, but the floor is too slick and I slip, hitting the ice hard. Fusco screeches madly as he kicks the rifle out of my hands and plunges the ice pick into my abdomen. The pain is sharp, the steel colder than the ice under me. I get my hands up around Fusco's throat, but he plunges the pick between my ribs, prompting me to scream.
I know he's just killed me with that wound. But to remove any doubt, he does it again. Between two other ribs, I can already feel myself getting weak. Fusco pulls away from me, and as he lurches up, I see that Andre hasn't moved. He stands petrified about ten yards away, staring, shaking, unable to move.
Surprised at my quick reaction, I reach up and grab Fusco around the ankle just before he's out of my reach. He slips, hitting the ice floor. "Run!" I scream, and then I cough blood onto the ice. Andre finally snaps out of it, dropping the axe and running, but I can't hold on to Fusco for long. Even as this thought forms, he's turning around to stab me a fourth time.
Still holding onto his leg, I roll over once onto my stomach, grimacing at the pain it causes. I reach out for the rifle, my fingers barely touching the trigger assembly as a screeching fusco stabs me in the back with the ice pick. Somehow, I manage to hold onto his foot with my left arm, and I get my right finger inside the trigger guard.
"Run fast, Andre!" I think as I pull the trigger. The tunnel rumbles. The cracking sound like the world splitting apart. Then the ceiling starts to come down. A chunk of ice hits Fusco in the head, causing him to collapse. I look up to see his now misshapen head as he struggles like a drunk to get to his feet. A moment later, a chunk comes down on my back, snapping my spine like a piece of uncooked spaghetti. I don't have time to scream before the tunnel collapses on us.
Hey guys, thanks for listening. I want to give you all a quick heads up regarding some upcoming political ads you may start hearing leading up to this year's presidential election.
These ads do not represent my own political viewpoint. So if you hear a political ad play on the podcast and it's not in my own voice, then it has absolutely nothing to do with me personally as a podcaster. Thank you again for being a dedicated listener of mine, and I can't wait to have another amazing year with you guys. I'll see you in the next episode.
