T Connor - Bitter Cold Apocalypse

“John!” Angie shouted, her voice filled with the same terror that was flowing quickly through my veins.

But it was already too late. By the time I’d sent the necessary commands to my limbs and whirled toward her, the cracks under our feet were already snaking along the ice, growing larger and larger as they went. And they were heading right for the sled.

“Oh God, the sled!” Marlon shouted, springing toward Angie just as the ice started to give way under his feet.

I sprang forward at the exact same moment, though I could already see that we were going to be on thin ice—no pun intended—as far as timing went. The ice was cracking around the sled already, particularly in front where Angie’s pack was sitting, and I could see her jerking with the sled as the ice started to give way underneath her. I sprinted for her, one part of my brain screaming at me to get there as quickly as possible while the other part screamed—almost as loudly—that adding my weight to the ice was going to make the cracking even worse.

I didn’t listen to that second voice, and if Marlon had heard a voice like that in his own head, he wasn’t listening to it, either. We raced forward, my mental dialog throwing curse after curse at me for having left the ropes so long between us and Angie, and for a moment, I thought we were going to make it. We were running faster than the cracks were progressing, and the thunderous sound that had accompanied them had fallen off now. Perhaps, I thought, it had ended. Perhaps it had just been some sort of small crackle, and we were going to get through it okay.

But I was still a solid five feet from her when the ice under the front of the sled gave way completely, sending the nose of the vehicle tipping right through the ice sheet and into the rushing water underneath it. I had time to register that Angie’s pack had been swept away and was now bumping along underneath our feet, and a split second more to look up and see Angie’s eyes on me, wide and full of the knowledge of what was about to happen, and then she was gone, sliding under the ice and right into the churning, freezing cold water underneath us.

I had a snapshot of her going in, one of those cold, dead moments when the world around you stops and you see one thing with ice-cold clarity, like that’s the only thing in the entire world that matters. And in this case, it was. My Angie, my wife , was trapped in the water under our feet—trapped under the ice—without air or any way to get it. I saw her almost at my feet, her face turned up to the ice, her eyes wide and terrified and her mouth stretched into an O of shock and absolute horror.

Then I started moving. We had to get her out from under that ice, and we had to do it immediately. She was going to run out of air within a minute or so—and that was only if she’d managed to take a breath before she went under—and I didn’t know if her body would even last that long in the freezing temperatures under the ice. Even worse, she was wearing what amounted to a metal cast on her leg. She’d be lucky if she stayed up against the ice for long. That thing was going to drag her right to the bottom.

Fifteen seconds had me at the sled, and I yanked it out of the hole in the ice and slid it quickly toward the shore. We might need it later—especially if we got her out. Then I was on the shore and absolutely sprinting for a point I’d already marked about two hundred feet in front of us, Marlon on my heels. We needed to get ahead of Angie and get to a spot where we could prepare an exit route for her.

I had no idea if she could hear me, but I shouted at her anyhow.

“Angie, hold on! We’re going to get you out of there! If you see anything down there to grab onto to slow your progress, do it !” Then, to Marlon: “You still got that drill on you?”

“You bet I do,” he answered, his voice as cold as the air around us. “Give me thirty seconds of head start and I’ll break into the ice ahead of her.”

“That spot up ahead where the trees reach down into the river,” I said, my voice just as cold, my eyes on Angie, who was indeed trying to hang herself up on the shore. “It’s a place she can actually hold on for a moment. That’s our target.”

“Right,” he answered firmly.

“Angie!” I shouted, breathing more heavily now. “There are a bunch of trees reaching into the ice in about fifty feet! Stay as close to the shore as you can and get yourself wrapped up in them! That’s where we’re going to get you out!”

I had no way of knowing whether she heard me or not. No way of knowing whether she’d be able to manage it. She had to be getting horribly beat up down there, bumping up against the ice and against the bottom of the river, at the mercy of the water. The only high point right now was that we were so close to the shore that even with the weight of the exoskeleton, she wouldn’t be out of our reach. Even if it took her to the bottom, she’d only be three feet down from the bottom of the ice.

Three feet. We’d be able to reach her.

As long as the current didn’t take her further out toward the center of the river. If she went out there…

No. I cut that thought off before it could fully form, absolutely unwilling to even consider it. It would never happen, and it wasn’t even worth thinking about. She was doing everything she needed to do to keep herself on the shore, and as long as she hit those trees up ahead, we’d be able to get her out of there.

It was the only option. The only option.

We reached the trees seconds later, and looking back up the river, I could see that Angie had given us about fifty feet of head start. She was currently clinging to some reeds in the riverbank, and I could see her body being tossed about by the current under the ice. I had no idea how she was managing to hang on—but I didn’t need to know. I just needed her to do it for a little while longer.

God, how long had she been under there now? I had no idea, and that was going to be the much bigger problem. If she ran out of air down there, it wasn’t going to matter how close we were to the shore.

I turned back to the trees and saw that Marlon already had the drill out. And he was pushing it much harder this time, the drill’s whine sounding out at a much higher key than it had when we’d measured the ice before.

“How fast can that thing get through the ice?” I asked.

“I’m pushing it as hard as it’ll go,” he answered quickly. “With luck, the increased pace will cause some additional cracks here. Make it easier to break through.”

Then, as if on cue, there was a loud cracking sound, and the drill shoved down several inches—and the ice around it cracked.

“Thank God,” Marlon murmured. “John, get over here and give me your weight.”

I darted over, thinking heavy thoughts, and paused at the edge of one of the cracks.

“Stomp on it, and be ready to jump back,” he said grimly.

I did just that, and with my second stomp the ice broke through, leaving a large hole. A hole big enough to grab Angie.

I turned and ran back up the river to where she was still hanging on, and got down on the ice, putting my face right next to hers. She looked terrified. And the crease in her brow told me that she knew she didn’t have much longer under there.

“Let go!” I shouted. “We have a hole in the ice about fifty feet down! Stay close to the shore!”

She gave me a single nod, then let go of whatever she’d been holding onto and started flying down the river again. Jumping to my feet, I raced after her, my hands already flexing with the need to reach through the ice and get her. I beat her to the hole, went skidding toward it on my knees, and plunged my hands down into the hole up to my shoulders, my hands hitting the ice-cold water and going almost immediately numb.