Apocalypse Machine (3 page)

3

There isn’t a single member of our expedition who needs to be told what boiling water atop Vatnajökull means, especially when it’s originating from what I’m now positive is an ancient lava tube. Bardarbunga is going to erupt, probably before I have time to upload the story to my editor. The region is geothermally active. There are vents and hot springs dotting the landscape surrounding the glacier, reminiscent of those in Yellowstone Park, but not on top of three thousand feet of ice. The heat and pressure required to push boiling water to the surface means we’re standing on a powder keg. It also means that a good portion of what we thought was ice beneath our feet is actually boiling water. And the longer we stand here, the weaker the ice will get.

Kiljan rams his foot into his boot, shouting in pain. He ties the laces fast and pushes his bulk onto his feet. “Leave your packs.”

“But it will be night before—” Phillip stops when the puddle gurgles again. “Yes, of course. We don’t have that long. But we mustn’t leave empty-handed.”

We shed our packs and pocket whatever basic survival gear we might need for the return hike—water, rope, energy bars, first aid. Phillip assaults the spike, now rising from a foot deep puddle, with his ice ax. His first strike glances off the top and strikes water. Ice hisses where the water lands, kicking up steam.

“Phillip,” Holly scolds. “Not now!”

“This will be our only chance to collect a sample,” Phillip argues. “You were right about the formation’s significance.”

Kiljan limps around us. “If you wish to leave this place with your lives, follow me now. I will not wait.”

Diego pockets one last water bottle and starts after Kiljan. He claps his hands at the rest of us. “Let’s go! Vámonos!”

Phillip cocks his hand back and takes another whack. The ice ax connects with the spike, just above the waterline, where the spire is only a quarter inch thick. From the resounding clang and jarring impact, you’d think the stone jutting from the ice was actually rebar. Phillip hisses through his teeth and pulls back from the puddle. He drops the ice ax and holds his arm. “It’s like hitting a brick wall with an aluminum bat.”

Holly takes her fellow volcanologist by the coat and drags him away. “Now! Move!”

Defeated by the ancient stone spike, Phillip relents.

I recover the ax and step after them, stopping for a moment to look back at the black-red spire.

“Abe!” Holly shouts at me. They’re twenty feet away and speeding up to catch Kiljan, who has broken into a limping jog.

I kneel beside the gurgling puddle holding up the ice ax. “What are you?” I say to the small spike, watching the puddle around it inch its way closer to my knees. My memories of the dream world are as fresh and clear as every real experience during the last fifteen minutes. Wanting to know what caused it, and suspecting the old stone, or perhaps something in it—microbes, an electrical current, something new—was the cause, I haul the ice ax back and strike.

The hard metal blade connects with the very tip of the spike, the serrated edge bumping over the thin formation and then connecting solidly. The millimeters thin rock—if that’s what it really is—has taken my hardest hit and remained whole.

Or has it?

I lean in close, steam collecting on my face. There’s a thin scratch on the surface. Determination takes root, and I raise the ax again, eyes on the spike, aiming for the same spot. But I don’t swing.

The scratch is gone.

Healed.

“What the...”

“Abe!” Holly shouts.
Not shouting,
I think,
screaming.

I don’t turn toward her to see what she’s warning me about. I don’t need to. I’m already looking at it. Straight down. Between my knees. The glacier beneath me has turned translucent, like ice on a lake. And through its clear, wet surface, I see bubbles.

I nearly stand to run, but decide that would be a mistake. I don’t know how thin the ice is. Could be a foot. Could be inches. Either way, it’s getting thinner by the second. Putting all my weight in a small area could send me shooting through the ice. So I crawl, still clutching the ice ax. I move slowly at first, trying to disperse my two hundred pounds over three contact points at all times. When a geyser of steam spews into the air behind me, I shout and crawl-sprint, watching bubbles roil beneath me. I can actually see the ice thinning now, absorbing cracks and imperfections as the water rises, threatening to cook me alive like a lobster. I haven’t eaten a lobster since I heard one scream, as it was placed in boiling water. I wonder, for a moment, if my scream will be as high-pitched.

When the ice beneath me spider-webs, I shout out and nearly start sobbing. Sudden heat scalds my left knee, and I hear the scream, not as high-pitched as the lobster’s, but far more anguished. Lobsters are primitive creatures. They eat, poop and procreate, driven by instinct more than any kind of mind. But me...I have two sons and their mothers, Mina, my wife, and Sabella, who I call Bell. She’s my...it’s complicated. But I love them all, and that deep sense of loss, for my boiled self and for my family, who I know loves me, bubbles out as a pitiful wail.

And then I’m lifted. Propelled really. The ice below me gives way to boiling, steamy water, but I’m no longer there. I see glacial ice beneath me again, and then I slam down onto its blessedly hard surface. Before I fully understand what has happened, I’m lifted once more and placed back on my feet. “Move,” says the mountain of a man who saved my life. Kiljan shoves me so hard that I nearly fall back down. Instead, I turn the tumble into a run, and obey.

When Kiljan sidles up next to me, grunting and wincing with each step, I slip the ice ax into my belt and look up at the big man. “You came back for me.”

“I have not lost anyone before,” he says. “I did not want you to be my first.”

“Uh-huh.” I smile at him. “And if it had been Phillip?”

He chuckles and winces, but doesn’t reply.

“Admit it,” I say. “You like me.”

The glacier answers for him with a loud
pffft
. We’re a hundred yards from the small spike, and the puddle now looks like a pond. A jet of steam erupts from the center of it, rising high into the air, before freezing into snow and being carried off by the wind.

“Faster,” Kiljan says, lumbering ahead.

I’m not entirely sure running is going to help us much. Near as I can tell, we’re at ground zero for an impending eruption. But I’m desperate to see my family again, to hold them in my arms and tell them all how much I love them. So I run faster, despite the burn already settling into my chest. I’m no athlete. None of us are. And the air consumed by our desperate lungs is frigid, fighting with each breath to lower our body temperatures and slow our retreat.

When Kiljan and I catch up to the others, just a quarter mile from the steam vent, they pause for a breather, hands on knees, lungs wheezing.

“Can’t...breathe,” Phillip says, gulping air like he’s just surfaced from the ocean after nearly drowning. I know how he feels. My heart is pounding. I feel lightheaded, and I’m seeing spots dance on the fringes of my vision.

“You can breathe when we are off the glacier,” Kiljan says, slowing to a walk, but not stopping.

It takes us four hours to trek five miles, slowed by frequent stops and scientific arguments. Someone in good shape, and who’s accustomed to the cold, might be able to cover the remaining distance in an hour. We’ll be lucky to cover it in two, which is around the same time the sun will set. If that happens before we reach the superjeep, we’re going to be in trouble. Of course, there’s also the chance that molten lava could consume us all at any second.

When Holly and I pass Diego, he forces himself to follow.

“Move it, you old codger,” I say to Phillip, but he just waves me off.

“Need another—”

The ice beneath us quakes. Some unseen and distant part of the glacier cracks open, the sound like a gunshot, rolling over the icy plane.

Phillip groans and brings up the rear.

We move like this for more than an hour, stopping just twice to drink, breathe and stretch. Both times, we’re propelled back into action by the rumbling volcano. It’s no longer beneath us, but it’s still capable of killing us instantaneously, with poison gas, glacial flooding or good old fashioned pyroclastic flow—a mix of 1000-degree gas and powdered stone that rushes away from a volcano at 450 mph, enveloping everything in its path. It’s a horrible, yet very fast way to die, as the residents of Pompeii discovered when Vesuvius erupted in 79 AD.

The sun is low in the sky ahead, forcing our eyes to the ground as we trudge along, our energy nearly sapped. My legs ache, but not nearly as badly as my lungs, which feel blistered and torn. With every step, I feel lower to the ground. I fight off thoughts of stopping and laying down to sleep by picturing Ike, Ishah, Mira and Bell. They become my world. My goal.

Stay alive.

Get home.

“Stop,” Phillip says. “I can’t go on.”

I turn my eyes forward without lifting my head. Phillip stands a few feet away, his legs teetering like pine trees in a storm. He’s pitched forward, hands on knees, head dipped toward the earth, which I notice is dark gray now, not glacial white.

Where are we?
I think, and I look beyond Phillip. I see Holly ten feet ahead, smiling back at us, and Diego further on, leaning against something solid, black and cast in silhouette, thanks to the setting sun. Diego tilts his head back, draining a water bottle.

“Phil,” Holly says. “We’re here.”

“Here, where?” Phillip says, standing and staggering until I reach up and catch him. We stumble a bit before balancing and lifting our hands to block the sun. With the sun blocked, the superjeep is easy to see. Its bulky frame fills me with relief.

“Thank God.” Phillip staggers past Holly and collides with the vehicle’s side, arms outstretched to embrace the vehicle. He flinches back when the engine roars to life. Kiljan is already behind the wheel, waving us on. Despite the long, exhausting trek, the man hasn’t lost his sense of urgency. And with good cause.

It feels like we’re half a world away from the melting ice and churning subglacial caldera, but in geological terms, we’re still at ground zero. Pompeii was a little more than six miles from Vesuvius, and it would have taken the pyroclastic cloud just forty-eight seconds to envelope the city. At five miles from the caldera, we’d have even less time, assuming the eruption jettisons material in our direction. Most models predict Bardarbunga’s ash and gasses will travel east to west, descending on the UK and Europe. But that doesn’t mean we’re safe. Not remotely. Even if six miles is considered the standard ‘safe zone for habitation.’ Tell that to the residents of Pompeii, and the more than 25,000 people killed by volcanoes since 1980.

Kiljan juices the gas, prodding me along with the engine’s roar. I hobble to the tall jeep and open the back door, where Phillip and Diego are already waiting, looking half asleep. Holly has a hard time climbing in, so I shove her from behind and close the door behind her. I have my own struggle climbing in to the tall, front passenger’s seat, but Kiljan reaches across, grabs my arm and hauls me inside.

Blessed heat rolls over my exposed skin. I lean forward, melting the frozen moisture from my face.

“Buckle,” Kiljan says.

“I will, I will.” The vehicle’s heat, despite just starting to warm up, feels like a hot flame against my skin. But I can’t pull myself away.

“Buckle, now!” Kiljan shoves the transmission into
Drive
and hits the gas. I’m flung back into my seat, lost in the chaos of the moment. And then I see it, out the windshield and then the side window, as the superjeep peels around in a circle; a cloud of ash and smoke launches skyward on the horizon.