But when they finally reached the base camp they discovered what that cost was. It had vanished. Along with it, any trace of their presence, including their footprints. It was as though they had never been there.
“Are you sure this is the right place?”
“Of course I’m certain. Don’t you recognize the shape of rocks? Or the nook we used for shelter? This is most certainly the right place.”
The three stood watching the snow for a few minutes, as though the sheer force of their collective will would make the camp re-materialize, and when that too failed to yield results Dogan sat down on the snow, spent, a heavy-browed doll whose strings had been cut.
“Maybe we should go back to the landing strip,” Wendell suggested. “Gauthier and Isaacs may not have left yet.”
Dr. Hanson shook his head. “We’ve barely begun, we can’t leave.”
“But, Dr. Hanson, our camp—look around us. We can’t stay here. Whatever it is that’s—”
“Enough!” Dogan said, struggling to his feet with a concerning wobble. “I’m not waiting to be hunted by whatever is out there. At least at the landing strip, we’ll be ready to leave once Gauthier gets back. I don’t give a shit about ichthyosaurs or Mesozoic migration patterns or just when the hell Melville Island formed. All I want right now is to get off this iceberg and back to civilization where it’s safe. And Wendell, I’m betting you feel exactly the same. So, are you coming or not?”
Wendell liked neither solution. Dogan was right: staying seemed like idiocy—something was watching them, stealing from them, and had left them for dead. And yet, his solution made no sense. How did he know whatever was following them wouldn’t track them to the landing strip? How did he know when or even if Gauthier would be back to rescue them? Wendell wasn’t convinced, but to blindly ignore what he had seen so far and continue to explore Melville Island with the same willful ignorance as Dr. Hanson seemed ludicrous.
“All I know is that whatever we do, we can’t stay here. We need to keep moving.”
“I don’t think the two of you understand the importance of what we are doing here, or the costs involved. This is not simply a trip to the shopping mall. This is not something easily aborted. We must stay and complete our expedition. We have found nothing so far to justify the cost, and without that we will never be granted the opportunity to return. My tenure at the university will shield me from losing my position, but likely I’ll never complete my work. Isaacs, he’ll get by on his father’s wealth, but the two of you? Your careers will be irrevocably damaged. Your graduate studies will have become a waste. This is the moment. This is the place where you both have to decide your respective futures. I already know what needs to be done. I implore you both to stay with me and discover those secrets hidden long before man’s eyes could witness them. Stay with me and discover the true history of the world.”
But Dogan wouldn’t. And Wendell reluctantly concurred.
The three men split what remained of the food and set a timeline for Dr. Hanson’s research. They agreed that he would keep trying to contact Gauthier via the satellite phone the pilot had given him, and when he got through he would let Gauthier know that both Dogan and Wendell had returned to the landing strip, and what his own coordinates were so the party could return to meet him. If before then anything should occur that might suggest Dr. Hanson was still being followed, he would immediately set out for the landing strip and join the two men there. Wendell didn’t like the idea of leaving him alone, especially with little more than a half an energy bar and overburdened with excavation equipment, but there was no choice. Hanson insisted on completing the expedition, no matter what the cost.
Dogan, on the other hand, was not so committed. He and Wendell took the rest of the food and began their long hike back. Clearly, it wasn’t lost on Dogan that he had chosen to retreat with his worst enemy; Wendell certainly felt no better about it.
The trek across Melville Island was as quiet as it had been the first time, the two men walking single file over the uneven terrain. But Wendell’s dread made the journey much worse. They had been numbered five before, not two, and they hadn’t carried the suspicion they were being stalked by a predator. On the occasions the two men stopped to rest, they didn’t speak, sharing an overwhelming fear of what was happening. Wendell hoped if they remained silent the entire trip would simply be a hazy dream, one from which he’d soon awake. But he didn’t.
His stomach rumbled after the second hour of their journey, and the sourness on his tongue arrived after the fourth. His head ached dully, letting him know his body was winding down. Dogan, too, seemed to be having trouble concentrating on the direction they were supposed to go, and more than once he stopped to ask if Wendell wanted to take the lead while he plotted their next steps.
They took a rest after a few hours to eat a portion of their reserves. It seemed so little once Wendell saw it through the eyes of hunger, and it took immense willpower to keep from swallowing it all. He was exhausted, and Dogan looked no different, his eyes rimmed with dark circles against pale skin. His voice, too, was throated.
“Who would have thought it would be you and me, trying to keep it together?”
Wendell wanted to laugh, but just wheezed air.
“I don’t think anyone would believe it if we told them.”
“I’m not sure I believe it myself.”
And like that, things had changed between them. Wendell didn’t know how long it would last, or if it would survive their return to civilization, but at that moment they were bonded, and Wendell would have done anything to keep Dogan at his side.
It was unclear how long they sat, silently building their strength for the journey ahead, but their stupor was broken by an unsettling howl. Dogan and Wendell straightened, eyes wide and searching the landscape in all directions for its source.
“There!” Dogan shouted, and went off running toward the sound, his feet sinking into snow as he dashed, his limbs flailing for balance. Wendell followed blindly in Dogan’s footsteps, hand pressed against his pack to ensure nothing was spilled. When he finally caught up, both he and Dogan were panting, barely able speak.
“What did you see?”
Dogan pointed.
There was nothing there, but that wasn’t what caused Wendell to shiver uncontrollably. It was instead what
had
been there, and the evidence it left in the crusted snow—a flurry of footprints, none larger than a barefooted child’s. They proceeded in a line, leading back in the same direction from which Wendell and Dogan had come, as though whoever or whatever had made them had been keeping a steady watch on the two students since they left Dr. Hanson. It was no longer possible to avoid the truth: something was following them, something that wasn’t a wolf or polar bear or any other northern predator. It was something else, and they knew absolutely nothing about it.
“What are we going to do?” Wendell asked. Dogan’s eyes teared from the cold.
“What else
can
we do? We get the hell out of here right now.”
They didn’t stop until they reached the landing strip, both afraid of what might happen if they rested too long. By Wendell’s watch it was well past midnight, though the frozen sunlight still shone, lighting their way. When they arrived, they found the strip vacant. No plane, no sign of life. Just a long stretch of iced snow and an ocean off in the distance. Wendell couldn’t explain why the discovery was crushing—Gauthier and Isaacs had over a day’s head start, and Wendell knew they wouldn’t have waited. And yet it was devastating. He and Dogan had walked so far . . .
“On the bright side,” Dogan said, “we know they found their way back. That means they’ll be returning soon. It’s better than finding them stranded like us.”
“True, true.”
Wendell looked back at the snow and ice they had walked across. There were shadows moving out in the nooks and recesses, but none that seemed unusual. Wendell wondered what an unusual shadow would even look like, and whether he was in any condition to find out.
“We need cover. Who knows how long we’ll be waiting.”
There was a depression in an ice drift that shielded them from the brunt of the wind and snow. Their combined body heat warmed the air enough to diminish the chill under their jackets, and Wendell was able to peel back the farthest fringes of his hood so he might speak to Dogan without shouting. It had been so long since their last snack, simply raising his voice aggravated his headache.
“Do you think Dr. Hanson is okay?”
“If anyone would be, I’d bet on him. That old man is resilient.”
“I’m not sure we should have left him, though.”
“He wanted us to.”
“I know, I know. I just feel it was a mistake.”
Wendell closed his eyes to rest them. The brightness of the snow after being under a hood for so long was blinding. It would take some time to adjust.
“Did you get a good look at it?” Dogan asked.
“At what? The snow?”
“No, not the snow, you idiot. What was following us in the snow. What left those footprints.”
“I don’t want to talk about it.” He didn’t even want to
think
about it. Dogan wouldn’t be dissuaded.
“I’m sure I was close to it, but I barely saw anything more than a blur.”
“Maybe you were seeing things. Maybe your hunger—”
“Did you, or didn’t you, see those footprints in the snow?”
“I—”
“Do you think I put them there?”
“No, I—”
“Did you put them there?”
“How would I—?”
“Well, they got there somehow. Just like they got inside our camp. It wasn’t an accident. It was something, watching us.”
Wendell took off his mitten glove and rubbed the side of his face. It made him feel better, and slightly more present. “I don’t know, Dogan. It so hard to think. I’m tired and hungry and terrified of what’s out there and of never getting back home. My brain feels like mush.”
“How much food do you have?”
He opened his pockets and turned out what was left. An eighth of a power bar, a handful of nuts. His water supply was okay, but only because he and Dogan had been filling their flasks with snow to melt.
Dogan assessed the situation.
“Yeah, I don’t have much more than that, either.”
“Are you worried?”
“About being here?” He frowned. “No. I’m sure Gauthier will be back.”
“How can you be so sure?”
He shrugged.
“What else do I have to do?”
Wendell eventually fell asleep. He and Dogan had huddled close to conserve heat, and when they both ran out of energy to talk Wendell’s eyes flickered one too many times. There was the sound of the ocean, and the wind rushing past, and then nothing until Dogan shook him awake.
“Look.”
The snow had accumulated since they took shelter, and the footprints they had made were buried, but Wendell could still see the wedge cut into the corridor down which they’d come, and in the distance a solitary figure staggering toward them.
“Is that Dr. Hanson?” Wendell worried he was suffering from a starved hallucination.
“I don’t know.”
“Is it what’s been following us?”
Dogan didn’t respond.
Whether from hunger or cold or exhaustion, Wendell’s eyes teared as he watched the limping figure. His muscles ached, trying to tense in anticipation but too exhausted to do so. The approaching shape resolved itself first for Dogan, who made an audible noise a moment before Wendell realized what—or rather whom—he was seeing. Isaacs stumbled forward, and a few steps before meeting Dogan and Wendell he crumpled and dropped to his knees, then collapsed face-first into the frozen snow.
They scrambled to him as quickly as their tired bodies could manage. Isaacs was nearly lifeless, his left leg bent at an angle that suggested it was broken, but leaning close Wendell could hear his shallow breathing. They wasted no time dragging Isaacs back to their shielded depression, and while Wendell did his best to splint the leg, Dogan brushed the remaining snow from Isaacs’s face and pulled up his hood to help protect him.
“What do you think happened?” Dogan quietly asked.
“What do you mean?”
“He looks strange. What’s up with his
eyes
?”
Wendell shook his head.
“I’m more concerned about what he is doing on Melville Island at all.”
Isaacs breathed heavily as he lay unconscious. They shook him and called his name, worried about what had happened, but neither Dogan nor Wendell understood what he mumbled. There was something about a plane, which did not ease Wendell’s worry.
When they were finally able to rouse him, Isaacs screamed. The piercing sound overloaded Dogan’s starved brain and he lashed out, striking Isaacs in the face. Then Wendell was between them, urging both to calm down. Isaacs shook, pulled the straps of his hood tighter, hid his face. All that was left were his large watery eyes.
“Isaacs, it’s okay. You’re okay. I’m sorry I hit you, but you’re safe. Do you understand?”
He was a trapped animal, shivering uncontrollably.
“Do you understand?”
Isaacs nodded.
“What happened?” Wendell asked. “Why are you here? Where’s Gauthier?”
Isaacs continued to rock, hiding behind his drawn hood.
“It’s okay, Isaacs. Just tell us what happened.”
“Gauthier and I made it back here to the plane,” he said. Even in his semi-consciousness, he sounded terrified. “The wings were iced, he said, and we couldn’t take off. He told me to go outside with a bottle of propylene glycol and spray them down after he started the plane. He said the heat and the solution would melt everything. While I was doing that the wind was blowing like crazy. I thought I heard yelling, but I wasn’t sure. Then out of nowhere the plane was shaking. I lost my balance, and the plane jerked and started to move. I was falling and tried to grab hold of something, but the wing was slick and I was already rolling off it. I don’t remember anything after that.”