The Glaciermen #15: Cigarette

Early access prepublication manuscripts of "The Glaciermen"

Hey folks,

Quick aside: did you pronounce that as “fow-ks” or “full-ks?”

Either way, it doesn’t really matter. Another quick aside for my longtime readers, I’ve re-ordered a couple of the first chapters—this is now officially a dual-timeline story. It’s just better this way (and it doesn’t actually change anything in terms of plot, just a few tweaks to when you learn a few things).

All it really means is that some things will be in italics to communicate this change in time.

Anyways, here we go:

(Link to previous segment if you missed it, and a link to the beginning, if you’re new).

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Cigarette

Amanda was through her fourth cup of coffee and was beginning to feel jitters in her hands. Lee had been talking for over an hour, his baritone voice commanding the room even though he spoke barely above a whisper. The poor boy—no, he was a man. But still, she could barely imagine the pain he must have gone through, first losing his mother, then the woman, Sandy, and now being tortured just so he could be allowed to live. 

Lee was leaning against the wall, arms crossed. She looked at the scars trailing over his skin. She had noticed them when they were running in the ice cave below, but that was so fast, and now she had time to look closely. There were so many, and they traced intricate patterns across his arms, shoulders, and chest, which she couldn’t help but notice were quite well-muscled. Her eyes lingered.

There were other scars, though. Thick, ugly ones. A grisly circle on his shoulder, a gash on his arm, but most notable were four parallel strokes down his chest, each an inch wide and nearly a foot long, the flesh knitted back together with jagged, pale scar tissue. Amanda ached to know what stories these held, but at this point she was wary of asking. Lee had been sharing so much, and she didn’t want him to clam up if she pried.

An ache in her thigh pulled on her attention. It had been over an hour in the stiff folding chair of the research station’s main room, and her muscles were stiff and complaining about it. She stood, pushing back the chair, and stretched her arms with a yawn, much like a cat after a nap. She still held the blanket in her hands, so it shrouded around her as she reached up into the stretch. Amanda wasn’t sure, but she thought she saw Lee’s eyes looking toward her in that moment. There was a flutter in her stomach.

“I need some air,” she announced to the room. “I’ll be back in a minute.”

Mikkel stood too, his chair creaking as it released the burden of his large frame.

“I’ll join you—and I think I will have a smoke,” he said.

Amanda just shrugged, ignoring the concerned look from her father. A moment later, she was standing with Mikkel on the cramped landing at the top of the short stairway leading up into the station from the surface of the glacier a few feet below. She huddled under the blanket, pulling it tighter around herself. There was a chilling wind, and the sun had already set, even though it was barely into the evening. The last vestiges of light shrunk from the sky, casting dark purples and umbers across the cosmos above as the first stars began to twinkle through.

“Want one?” Mikkel asked, holding out a pack of cigarettes.

Amanda considered it for a moment, then shrugged. 

“What the hell, I almost died today, so might as well give it a shot just to know what it’s like. First time for everything right?”

“Ah, I’ve corrupted another one,” he replied as she took one. 

He held out a lighter, flicking the flame to life. Amanda put the cigarette in her lips and held it over the flame. She sucked against it gently, like she’d seen in movies, and the tip of the cigarette bristled with cherry ash. Satisfied with lighting it on the first try, she leaned back against the railing of the landing and took a massive pull of smoke into her lungs. Immediately she doubled over into hacking coughs, sending the cigarette flying from her lips to land against the metal grate with a tiny flurry of red ash.

As her coughing subsided, Amanda shot a piercing look at Mikkel.
“That is absolutely disgusting!” she gasped, “How do you smoke that crap?”

It was Mikkel’s turn to shrug. He leaned down and retrieved the cigarette, popping it between his lips and taking a pull. He blew the smoke out in a thin stream above his head and looked up at the first stars of the night.

Without turning to her, he said, “You’ll be feeling it any second now.” 

“Feeling what?”

“Just look up.”

Amanda craned her head back and immediately felt light in her head as the few visible stars began to twist in the sky. She also felt a dizzying rush in her brain as the nicotine stimulated her neurons with the potency of a first-timer.

“Woah…” she said, steadying herself with a hand on the railing. “I think I understand why you people do this. I felt so… attentive. Still gross though, so no thanks.”

Mikkel shrugged again. “It will go away after a few times. Then you just smoke them to feel not-like-crap.”

They watched the stars together as Mikkel finished the cigarette, Amanda wrapped in her blanket and Mikkel in his bright orange jacket.

“Well,” he said, flicking the cigarette butt off into the gloom, “We should probably go back now. Hear some more stories to feed our nightmares, eh?”

Amanda was about to reply, but a clanging sound broke across the ice. It came from the nearby tent where the shaft had been drilled down into the ice. She squinted into the murky darkness. There was another clang, causing her to jump. She turned and locked eyes with Mikkel. His were wide with fear. With silent acknowledgement, the decision was made in an instant. Mikkel yanked open the door to the station and they both rushed inside.

Out in the wind and cold and descending night, the muffled sounds of frantic yelling from within the station drifted serenely through the crisp air. Wisps of powdered snow trailed across the surface of the ice. The wind rippled the fabric of the drilling tent. Inside, with only the sound of the fabric dancing in the wind, the cable of the elevator hung down into the shaft, descending into darkness. There was another clang, something hard banging against metal, and the cable vibrated with the twanging trill of steel under tension.

Down the hole, in the cloying blackness, a dim blue glow appeared. And it began to ascend.

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And that’s it for now folks

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