The Glaciermen #10: Ice Man

Early access prepublication manuscripts of "The Glaciermen"

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Ice Man

Lee cried. As horrific as the last two days had been, at least he had not been alone during his travails. But now everyone was gone—his mother, Sandy, the old man, even the fat man and the rest of the passengers from the flight—either dragged away as corpses on sleds, or hardened into lifeless statues of frozen flesh around him in the pit.

Lee sniffled and raised a sleeve to wipe the snot from his nose. A rumble in his stomach reminded him that he had not eaten since the first night, back when he was telling Sandy silly stories while lounging next to the luggage fires in the first cavern. With only the spectral azure light under the ice for reference and no indication of the cyclic rising and setting of the sun, Lee had no sure concept of exactly how long ago that had been. Long enough to be hungry, he thought.

Lee’s stomach rumbled again and he instinctively checked his pockets. His probing fingers found a half-eaten packet of airline pretzels crumpled in side pocket of his oversized jacket. Sandy had given it to him that first night and he must have stuffed it in there for safekeeping. Lee scarfed down the few remaining salty snacks and licked his lips. He was thirsty, too.

The layer of condensation from earlier had frozen over, leaving everything covered in a crystalline layer of frost—no liquid water anywhere. He scratched his head. I know! 

Lee pulled off a glove and placed his hand against the ice of the floor. He closed his eyes, took a deep breath, and tried to focus on warming his hand. Nothing happened at first, so he kept at it for over a minute, trying to will heat into his hand, but all that happened was his skin of his hand started to ache from the cold and stick to the ice a little bit. Frustrated and fearing his hand might freeze to the floor, he pulled it back. Why didn’t it work this time? he wondered.

The regular warmth of his hand was still sufficient for a minor melting effect on the ice, so it had a thin sheet of moisture on it, but it was not the melted puddle he was hoping for. Lee licked his hand anyway, capturing what little water he had been able to produce. His plan had not been a full success, but at least he was on the right track. I’ve got to find a better way so I don’t freeze my hands off, Lee thought.

He looked around the pit, purposely ignoring Sandy’s frozen form next to him. Then he remembered that the fat man had been drinking from a flask. He had stowed in his front jacket pocket. Lee went over to where the large man had pulled off his clothing and found the massive red jacket in the pile. It crinkled as Lee turned it over, shedding flecks of frost from the frozen condensation.

After rifling through a few pockets in the plus-sized  jacket, Lee found the flask. Shaking it next to his ear, he confirmed there was still a small amount of the original contents remaining, so he unscrewed the lid and took a sniff. His sinuses stung as the aroma of the alcohol pulled into his nostrils. It smelled like what his grandmother used to drink, so it was probably ber-bin, if his memory served correctly. He decided against a tasting based on the smell, replacing the lid and proceeding with his plan.

After moving away from the fat man’s area of the pit, Lee scratched the hard metal edge of the flask against the ice, flaking off little crystals until he had a pile of shavings the size of his fist. With his gloves back on, he then cupped his hands to scoop up the shavings and held them in from of his mouth. He exhaled a warm breath past chapped lips and onto the shavings. A thin layer showed hints of beginning to melt on the top of the pile. He breathed onto the pile again. 

The shavings melted slowly, and Lee’s mouth was bone dry. He licked his cracking lips and decided not to skip any more melting, shoving the frozen shavings directly into his mouth. The ice chilled his tongue and made his teeth ache, but it was worth it for the trickle of water that found its way to the back of his throat. Lee repeated the process several times, and despite the uncomfortably cold temperature of the water, it was exceptionally refreshing to relieve his thirst. He only stopped when his stomach began to hurt from the influx of near freezing water.

Satisfied for the moment, Lee wiped his mouth on his sleeve and sat back on his haunches, pleased with himself for having come up with what felt like a very clever solution. He had since retrieved the fat man’s enormous coat and was now using it as a blanket. With the jacket wrapped around him like an oversized shawl and his thirst slated, he was almost comfortable, if not still a bit hungry.

How am I going to get out of here? Lee wondered, eyes wandering around the cavern.

Then Lee spotted him, up on the shelf above the pit. A solitary blue man crouched at the edge, watching. Lee sucked in a breath as he locked eyes with his observer. 

How long has he been there? Lee asked himself, drawing the jacket tighter around himself. They looked at each other for an entire minute, neither making any motion to act.

Why is he just sitting there staring at me? Lee wondered. He began to feel anger rising in his chest. They had taken everything, everyone, from him. They had taken Sandy. 

“What do you want with me?” he croaked up at the crouching figure.

The blue man simply cocked his head a little bit to the side.

Lee cleared his throat before continuing, his voice getting stronger, “You think you’re so tough, sitting up there, staring at me. You like watching us die? Is that what this is, some sick show for you? I bet you’re just the sucker who got stuck babysitting ‘til I cash out too. Well, sucks to be you, ‘cause I’m not gonna just sit here and die.”

The observer lowered his hand into a pouch tucked into the girdle around his waste. He pulled out a small bone, then proceed to pick something from his teeth with it.

“That old man was right about you. You’re bastards.” Lee enunciated the word, invigorated by the unfamiliar feeling of the vulgarity in his mouth. “Some evil guy and his dirty creature made you. You’re just a stupid tunlaq.”

The blue man’s head snapped up at the last word. His eyes opened wide as he locked them directly onto Lee. He maneuvered forward from his crouch, placing his hands on the edge of the pit to lean for a closer look at the boy.

Lee jerked back with a start, not having expected a response. Then the blue man shuffled out of view and was gone. Lee blinked, wondering if somehow his bold insults had been understood. His righteous anger drained away, a crawling angst replacing it. Did he make the blue man angry? Was he going to get killed now too? He should have kept his mouth shut, played dead or something until they left him alone and he could somehow escape. Lee groaned. He had blown it, and now he was certain they would kill him for it.

He heard the soft patter of footsteps returning from above, along with a scrabbling sound against the ice. The blue man reappeared at the edge of the pit, dragging something on ropes behind him. Lee knew it had to be another sled, and now he would be speared and thrown on top of the pile with the rest of the corpses.

The blue man turned to lean down and grab something from out of sight beyond the edge of the ice pit. It would be the spear. This was it. Lee tensed, pulling the jacket tightly around himself and squeezing his eyes firmly shut, preparing for the final blow.

He heard a clattering sound and waited for the pain to come, but after a few seconds he did not feel anything. They were playing with him, no doubt, so he kept his eyes shut, expecting death shortly, but still there was no spear in his chest. Finally, Lee cracked one eye open. The tension released from his body as confusion replaced the fear.

Dangling down the side of the pit was a ladder made of rope and bones. The top ends of the ropes were grasped firmly in the hands of the blue man. Lee just looked at it dumbly until the man grunted in a firm tone and jerked his head in a gesture that could only mean: Come on already!

Lee could not conjure any reason for this unexpected turn of events, but that rope was a way out of the pit, so he made a decision. He shrugged out from under the fat man’s jacket and scurried across the pit toward the bottom of the ladder. When he arrived at it he reached out with a hand and grasped one of the bone crossbars.

Lee paused there, looking up at the blue man. He looked back down at Lee with what could have been a pensive expression, though Lee could not be sure. For some indiscernible reason, an instinct perhaps, Lee felt that this blue man was different, not like the others… trustworthy. The man grunted something again and his face broadcast urgency, so Lee did his best to scramble up the rope ladder quickly, though his ascent must have looked quite awkward from above.

Once he was on top of the ledge, Lee had a chance to see his mysterious companion up close. Like the others, his head was shaven and his skin shined iridescent blue, but his eyes were gray like a cloudy sky. His naked torso was tightly muscled in a wiry way, unlike the brawny builds of the others. His arms were shorter, less apelike, more lithe and sinewy. Lee noticed that there were thin scars crisscrossing the skin on his shoulders and chest.

The blue man pointed at himself.

“Aguta,” he said in a raspy, gravelly voice.

Lee blinked blankly at him, confused. 

“Aguta,” the man said again, finger tapping against his bare chest.

Then Lee understood, feeling somewhat stupid—this blue guy was trying to tell him his name. Lee attempted to repeat it back to him.

“Agoo-tuh… Agoo—”

The man grew frustrated and cut Lee off, shaking his head. He said his name again, but this time hitting each syllable emphatically: “Uh-gu-tah.”

“Uh-gu-tah,” Lee repeated slowly, pointing to the shirtless man. “Aguta.”

Aguta nodded, satisfied, then pointed at Lee expectantly.

“Oh yeah, I’m Lee,” the boy responded cheerily, catching the nonverbal question. 

Aguta wrinkled his face at the strange name, giving it a try: “Oww-yah… ayem—” 

“No, wait,” Lee interrupted.

Then, pointing to himself, he simply said, “Lee.”

“Lee,” Aguta repeated.

Lee nodded. The blue man then pointed to to Lee again and said: 

“Sikanuk.”

“No, I just told you my name is Lee,” Lee said, confused again.

Aguta shook his head. He paused, thinking, then he pointed to wall of the cavern.

“Siku.”

Lee followed the gesture, then he understood. Words, he thought, He’s trying to teach me words.

Lee looked at the wall and guessed, “Wall?”

Seeing Lee’s uncertainty, Aguta crouched to the floor, then pulled a bone knife from a sheath on his belt and scraped a few flecks of the ice onto his hand. He pointed to the shaved ice, then pointed to the wall of the cavern.

“Siku.”

Lee looked between the shavings and the wall.

“Ice,” he said, more confident this time. “Ice… siku,” he repeated.

Aguta nodded, then pointed at one of the frozen bodies in the pit.

“Inuk.”

“Person?”

Aguta pointed to the ice.

“Siku.”

Then the body.

“Inuk.”

Then after a pause.

“Siku… inuk..”

Then he pointed to Lee. 

“Sikanuk.”

Lee mimicked the motions, filling in the words as he pointed.

“Ice… then, person. Ice person. Are you saying I’m an ice person? A sikanuk? Right, is that what you’re trying to tell me?” Lee aimed a finger at himself when he said sikanuk.

Aguta nodded and said, “Lee. Sikanuk.”

Then he pointed to himself as well, saying “Aguta. Sikanuk.”

“But hold on,” Lee said, gesturing toward Aguta, “I thought you were a tunlaq.”

Aguta shook his head sternly, clearly upset by Lee’s use of the term. Then he stepped back and began a series of movements. First he snarled and mimed stabbing with a spear, then dragged his thumb across his throat.  Next, he held his hands above his head, sticking out his fingers like antlers, then he moved his hands in front of his eyes and wiggled his fingers while making a hissing sound.

“Tunlaq,” he said, the spat onto the ice. He thumped a fist against his chest and in a firm voice repeated, “Sikanuk.”

Then he pointed to Lee again. “Sikanuk.”

Lee finally understood. He thinks I’m like him. An iceman.

He turned to look back down into the pit. The frozen figures looked so small and far away. His memories of when they had been living people huddled around a few makeshift fires seemed almost dreamlike to him now.

He turned back to his mysterious new companion, Aguta, who was now hastily slinking backward toward the nearest exit tunnel, eyes fixed toward something across the pit. Then Lee heard it: the soft shuffling sound of moccasined footfalls scraping against the ice intermingling with low grunting. It was coming from one of the tunnel entrances across the pit, and he could already see the waxing blue glow that meant tunlaq were immediately forthcoming. Aguta gestured aggressively and took off down the nearest tunnel. Lee needed no translation. The message was universal:

Follow. Now.

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And that’s it for now folks

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