20
It takes five minutes for my eyes to adjust to the light enough to see, even with the sunglasses on. Of course, it doesn’t help that the sky is nearly cloudless and most of Antarctica is covered in a sheet of sun-reflective white. I’d like nothing more than to retreat into my subterranean home, but Ninnis insists that I try out my birthday present.
The fact that it’s my birthday hardly seems deserving of mention or gift. It’s a tradition of the outside world, and I doubt I ever considered it a day of any significance. But I cannot deny the gift from Ninnis. Rejecting it would be an insult to the man who has given me so much already.
So I follow him over the snow-covered mountain. My bare feet sink into the white powder, disappearing beneath a foot of the stuff. It slows our progress, but we make it to our destination—a bare ledge—in good time.
Ninnis lies down on the gray stone, which is magically free of snow, and I take the spot next to him. Below us, the mountain stretches down, a long slope of white ending in a mixture of stone and snow. And this leads to a mixture of bright colors. Reds. Blues. Yellows. The colors make me sneer. They’re revolting. Like a blemish on the pure landscape. Beyond them is a long stretch of white that ends in a sliver of blue ocean.
Ninnis points toward the sea of bright colors. “What do you think?” He motions to the telescope. “Give it a try.”
I pop open the telescope and place it to my eye. The bright colors pop out as large metal boxes. Even uglier up close. Between the boxes are people, bundled in thick clothing. I observe them for several minutes, watching the lazy way they walk, the grime covering their hands and the gray snow beneath their feet. “Disgusting,” I say.
“Quite,” Ninnis agrees. “How do you feel?”
“Angry.”
“Why?”
I put no thought into the answer, speaking quickly and honestly. “I hate them.”
“Good,” Ninnis says. “Very good.”
A strong wind rolls down the mountain behind and over us. It scrapes away the top layer of snow and pelts our backs. The fast moving flakes sting my skin, but I’ve learned to deal with pain far greater than this.
Ninnis taps my arm. “I’m impressed.”
I turn to him. “With what?”
“Your resistance to the cold.”
I look at my skin. It’s pale white and like Ninnis’s, partially translucent. I can see the blue of my veins below. I turn my attention to Ninnis. His skin looks similar, but is pocked with goose bumps. He feels the cold. I decide to keep the fact that I feel nothing to myself. I don’t want Ninnis to think I’m strange. I don’t know why I fear that, but I do. He might stop being my friend.
“There,” he says, pointing beyond the blocks of color. “Quickly.”
I look through the spyglass and focus beyond the ugly city. A large airplane is parked on the ice. An airport, I think. The word sounds foreign in my mind, but I know what it means. A treaded vehicle pulls up to the staircase hanging down from the side of the plane. A line of people file out of the vehicle and rush up the stairs into the airplane.
Weaklings.
The stream of people is followed by a final pair. They’re moving slower than the others, not worrying about the cold. Halfway to the staircase one of them stops. It’s a woman. I can tell by her shape.
Brick house
, I think, but I’m not entirely certain what it means so I keep it to myself.
The woman falls to her knees and is caught by the man. He holds her for a moment, while her body shakes.
Crybaby.
Then the man has her up and moving again.
“What do you think of them?” Ninnis asks, peering through a set of binoculars I did not see him take out.
“The man and woman?”
“Yes.”
I watch as the woman turns her face to the mountains as though looking for something. Her face is twisted, like she’s in pain, and for a moment I think she is looking right at me. Her gaze makes me uncomfortable, so I look at the man instead. He just looks sad, but unlike the woman seems resigned to whatever tragedy is making the woman weep. “Crybaby,” I say as a second wind rolls down the mountainside.
“Indeed,” he says. “Anything else?”
“I hope they all leave. This isn’t their home.”
“Very intuitive.”
“Who are they?” I ask.
“They came here to look for something.”
“Did they find it?”
“No.”
“Will they ever?” I’m not sure why I care whether they do or not, but I can’t help wondering.
“Never,” Ninnis replies with conviction. “It is lost to them forever.”
I watch them take the steps slowly and enter the plane. When they’re finally out of sight I feel restless. The need to get back underground overwhelms me. When I turn to Ninnis to ask about leaving, I find his head turned toward the sky.
I follow his eyes up and find the blue sky above us blotted out by a roiling storm cloud. “Where did that come from?” I ask.
“I was wondering the same thing.” He looks at me and is about to speak again, but a rumble we can both feel distracts him. He looks up. His eyes widen. Then he has my arm clutched in his hand. “Run, boy, run!”
I glance up as we backtrack toward the cave entrance. A wall of white is rolling down the mountainside.
Avalanche
, I think.
Faster than I thought possible, we’re back at the cave entrance. Ninnis motions me through. “Go!”
I dive in, sliding through the slippery tunnel with ease. Before I’m through I feel a wave of pressure pushing behind me. When I reach the cave and turn around to pull Ninnis through, I find him missing. The tunnel is sealed with packed snow. I dive into the tunnel and crawl to its end. I pummel and scrape the fresh cork of snow. But it is packed tight. Not even the sharp tips of my climbing claws can break through.
Ninnis is gone.
My friend is gone.
I mourn his loss for only a moment—sadness results in death—Ninnis taught me that, and then I turn to the tunnel leading back down into the heart of the mountain, and beyond that perhaps, the heart of Antarctica itself. I take a tentative step forward, the first tingle of fear taking root. I have no idea what waits for me in the dark, nor how to reach my unknown master. I am lost without my guide but—no.
I am not afraid.
I have survived worse.
Ninnis told me I was a hunter. Like him.
I glance down at my claws. I feel the weight of my pack and the supplies it contains. I am ready.
It’s time to hunt.
21
There are twenty-one small fissures in the walls of the underground river tunnel. These are the nooks and crannies I think I can fit through, but just barely. Fifteen more are tunnels I can crawl through easily, though I don’t know whether or not they shrink or expand later on. I suppose that’s true with all of them. Each could taper off to nothing.
Have patience
, I tell myself.
Explore each tunnel. Become as familiar with this place as Ninnis.
Three tunnels are tall enough for me to walk through, perhaps eight feet tall. Only one really counts as a branching cavern. It’s a stone’s throw away from the bottom of the river tunnel, where Ninnis and I first entered from our waterfall hideaway. It’s close to thirty feet tall. What’s strangest about it is that it seems to be the most worn tunnel. Many stones are crushed flat. The floor in the center is worn smooth, as though well-traveled. This seems like the most likely avenue to reach the ones Ninnis spoke of. Also the most likely place to find something to hunt.
Walking alone in the sparse dark space of the new cavern, I find myself relaxing, feeling right at home. I have a sense of having been here before. An uncommon familiarity. But I know I’ve never been here before. While I can’t see my past clearly anymore, I sense it wasn’t here. Or was it? Some parts of my memory—very old images—remain less fogged. I suspect because they are memories of Antarctica, perhaps of some significant event.
I focus on recalling this memory. Something about it feels important. Before I can recall anything with clarity, I hear a sound. It’s a gentle scraping, amplified by the echoing tunnel.
Crouching low, I advance. Boulders on the side of the tunnel conceal my approach. I move in silence like Ninnis taught me, keeping three limbs in contact with the stone at all times. Stealth and balance are keys to a successful hunt.
A scent tickles my nose. I suck it in slowly, tasting it. I cannot recognize the specific origin of the odor, but I know it’s blood. A fresh kill. I move closer. The scraping is just on the other side of a tall, obelisk-like stone. I chance a look.
My head pokes into view for the briefest of moments. But in that time I’m able to take everything in. The fresh kill is a large albino centipede, perhaps the size of my arm. Ninnis cooked one once. I have come to enjoy a lot of questionable meals, but the centipede was one of the more revolting. Even Ninnis cringed at its flavor.
The creature atop the death-coiled centipede must lack taste buds entirely, because its head is buried beneath the white exoskeleton shaking back and forth feverishly, devouring the slick insides with abandon. As for the predator, I’m not sure what it is. It’s hunched over, so I can only guess its true height, but it appears to be five feet long with two feet of tail and another two of neck. Its torso is about the size of a cocker spaniel. Its hind legs smack of ostrich, but the claws on its three toes are infinitely sharper. Its forelimbs are short, but dexterous, tipped with tiny hands that grip the centipede carcass. Shiny green skin, perhaps scaled, covers most of the body except for the back, where it is patterned with splotches of maroon. Though I fight the conclusion—it’s beyond imagining—I can’t help thinking that this is a small dinosaur.
How can I see all this?
I wonder. I know there is no light here, but I can make out details like this without problem.
I’ll have to ask Ninnis.
But Ninnis is dead. A question for another time, then.
Right now, it’s time to hunt.
The creature doesn’t see, hear or smell me coming. With its head buried inside the centipede’s gullet, its fate is sealed. Perhaps if the ground was less firm, a vibration from one of my footfalls might give me away. But the cave floor is solid rock.
I approach it from behind, arms tense. My plan is simple and according to Ninnis, the safest way to make a kill. Attack from behind, slice the neck and then retreat while the prey bleeds out. “Many denizens of the underground are equipped with sharp claws and teeth,” Ninnis told me. “And most thrash wildly about as their life comes to a close. Best to distance yourself until the life goes out of them.”
One quick, deep cut and then retreat. The whole attack should take seconds.
But I never get that far.
I hear breathing.
Not mine. Not my prey’s. It’s deep, like the lungs of a large horse.
You fool
, I say to myself. Following Ninnis’s advice on hunting is no good unless I also follow his rules on survival. I paid attention to my prey, but not the world around us. I took its size for granted, assuming it was full grown and never once considering it might be the young of something larger.
Less than a day since Ninnis departed this world and I’m about to join him. He had so much faith in me. I shake my head, determined not to let him down.
I turn to face the new threat while the baby finishes its meal, oblivious to what is going on behind it.
A face stares at me from the shadows, hanging low over a boulder. I can’t see its body, but I sense it is tense, coiled and ready to pounce. The face is colored green, like the baby’s and sports a ruddy splotch shaped like an arrow on its snout, which tapers up from two large nostrils and ends with a large crest behind the eyes. And those eyes hold my attention. Two yellow orbs with black serpentine slits stare back at me.
I hold my breath when the head slides forward, emerging from the shadows. A long neck follows, then two short arms. I call them short, despite each being longer than my arms, but in comparison to its body, which is massive, the arms are disproportionate. I see two crouched hind legs in the darkness and hear its tail swishing back and forth like an agitated cat’s.
Aim for the eyes, I think as it stops only a few feet from my face. It sniffs, taking in my scent with deep breaths. It leans closer, nudging my shoulder as it smells...my hair?
The thing, which is without doubt a living dinosaur, snaps its head back like it’s been slapped in the face. The dinosaur turns its head up and opens its mouth, revealing two rows of needle-sharp teeth, and calls out two quick barks.
Two distant barks reply.
Then four more even further away.
There are more of these things! Many more!
As it brings its head back down, I have no doubt the dinosaur will pounce, so I make the first move. I swing out with an open palm thinking
wax on
, but not recalling the reference. The tips of my climbing claws dig into the beast’s forehead, cutting the flesh until striking the thick bone of its eyebrow and glancing away.
It’s a paltry distraction, but it’s enough.
With a roar, it lifts its head for a moment.
When it lowers again, I am off and running.
Like the young dinosaur, I can’t hear anything as my rushing blood courses past my ears. I suspect it runs as silently as I do, too, because despite the thing’s size (I’d guess twenty feet from snout to the tip of its tail) I still can’t feel any vibrations beneath my feet. I’m breathing too hard to smell anything. And like my mother says, I don’t have eyes in the back of my head.
My mother?
The distraction nearly costs me my life.
The river saves it.
I hit the water and fall down as the dinosaur’s jaws snap shut above me. The water sweeps me away. As the water pushes me downstream and pummels me into stones, I get a look back. The dinosaur has not given up the chase. It pounds through the water behind me.
I see three small tunnels rush by. Each would have provided refuge from the ancient predator. The tunnel ends up ahead and I see the crevice that leads to the waterfall hideaway. I swim for shore, but the current is too strong, and the river bottom is too polished to get my footing.
I pass my salvation in a blur before being sucked underwater. The river tunnel ends in a whirlpool before descending deeper. I’m pulled into it, spinning madly. I can’t see. I can’t breathe. And the pain of my head striking something hard registers for only a moment. As consciousness fades, I think, did I remember my mother? The question is answered by darkness.