Carrie Philips Untitled

Untitled

Carrie Philips Washington University in St. Louis, ’21 Digital Photography

Ice Runway

Paul

We pass twelve miles Northwest of McMurdo Station when our Snowbird 8 hits the first body. Before I can press the brake pads, Bernard jumps off, rolls the first one over, and shouts back to me:

“Oh buddy, we got some popsicles.”

There are four of them total—three men and a woman. None of them were carrying any gear. They must have dropped one by one in the night, lined up almost single file. The first is laying face down in the snow, an arrow to McMurdo, arms spread out, like The Crucified. Her skull and ribcage now cracked open by the Snowbird.

“Was her hair still wet? Christ. You’d’ve thought they’d learned not to go out after showering.”

I think it’s a joke, but Bernard’s pretty fucking dumb. Anyone walking on Ice Runway Road is going to get soaked from seawater in the wind.

“Jesus, it just breaks right off.” He holds a little bit of blonde hair in his hand and gestures with it to me.

“That’s two blasphemes, Bernard. I wasn’t gonna call you out after the first one, but – not in my presence.”

“Yessir.”

I don’t know if I actually care anymore. Bernard just needs to shut the fuck up. The first two are spread out along the Ice Runway, 400 meters apart. We find two more 300 meters back from the second, 700 meters from the first. They’re spooning in the ice, the little one holding the big one. The big one must have gone down first. The little one might’ve gotten emotional and stayed with him. Or maybe the big one just fell on him.

It’s hard not to imagine a heroic narrative for them. Trudging in thick snow to McMurdo, hiking who knows how many days before they reached Ice Runway, desperately keeping a southwest heading. The group probably started off in the low teens, and then one by one each of them rolled up into little frozen ice balls. It must have felt, last night, like they almost made it, too. They must have hit the Ice Runway a couple hours before midnight. At that point, you’d probably want there to have been a heated debate. One side conservatively pleading to camp, rest up, wait, slow down. The other boldly dares them on. The repetition of 14 miles—14 miles—as both an unspeakably short and unspeakably long distance, depending on the inflection of whoever was spinning it. Can’t be more than a seven hour hike for anyone with experience. And then again, a seven hour hike for a group of half-dead

refugees. It’s easy to imagine she, the one in front, had pushed for it, didn’t want to wake up dead in a makeshift ice fort, suffocated under snow blown across the tundra. Dying like that would be way worse than dying on your feet.

In reality, they probably hadn’t said anything when they hit the Ice Runway. Their faces were already set like dumb cows, stuck hiking. Totally silent, with a little bit of drool dribbling down their chin and then freezing.

When the big guy went down, it was probably a relief for the little one. He must have had a real Napoleon complex, terrified he was going to be first.

Male number three and the woman probably didn’t even notice and just kept walking. Number three would have fallen after another 300 meters, so that’s what? Five minutes later? And by then she definitely didn’t notice, just kept walking on the ice road until her own five minutes were up. The opposite of a deer in headlights, just a zombie cow stuck walking forward. Drooping eyes, blistered feet. Just the body of whatever she had been before—a researcher? Astrophysicist? Biologist? Glaciologist? Or maybe someone just meant to shovel snow at Zuccheli or serve lunch for the scientists.

It’s a mystery how Bernard missed them the day before. Maybe they mistook us for whoever was kicking people out of Zucchelli.

Bernard always grabs the feet while I grab the armpits. Bernard doesn’t like being too close to the faces, and I don’t like looking at them, so it works out as long as the heads don’t roll back. They usually don’t. Frozen necks are too stiff.

Bernard and I tie them to the top of the Snowbird. The first time I picked up a stiff, I left it in the trunk. It’s not like the trunk’s toasty, but it’s above freezing. And that was enough to make the ice melt. The bacteria and fungi unfreeze. All the tiny organisms that live inside you start squirming around your insides. When you’re dead, you can’t give them food, so you become the food. They don’t need you alive anymore, so they digest you the way they used to digest your spinach. The problem isn’t that you’re dead, it’s that parts of you are dead, and others are very much alive. And the alive parts—the bacteria, the fungi, the single cell eukaryotes—all of them start chewing your intestines into ooze. And I can’t have that ooze in the back of my truck.

Laura “Jesus Christ, close the fucking tent door, Reggie.” Reggie has been crouching in the tent entrance for the past five minutes. “I thought I heard something.”

“Of course you heard something, it’s the windiest place on earth, you’re always gonna hear something. You do this every fucking night, Reggie. You’re freaking Vincent, Simon, and me out. Get in the sleeping bag.”

“I’m not freaked,” Vincent murmured from his sleeping bag. “And I’m pretty sure Simon’s asleep.”

“Fine, you’re freaking me out then,” I said. “Alright, Laura, fine. Just wanted to make sure there wasn’t a truck or something.”

“There’s not gonna be a truck. We’d see the headlights through the flaps if anyone was near long before we heard them.”

“Alright, boss, you got it.” Reggie starts getting undressed.

“You’re not getting spooked right? We’re almost there, we don’t need you going all Igor Dyatlov on our ass.”

Reggie grunts. “Who the fuck is Igor Dyatlov?” “How has Vincent not told you about Igor Dyatlov.” “Reggie doesn’t like listening to me talk.” “Shut up, Vince.” “Jesus Christ, you’re a fucking child.” Reggie finally crawls into his sleeping bag. “Gimme a bed time story, Laura.” “Go fuck yourself.” “I’ll share some canned peaches.”

“Excuse me?” I roll up from my sleeping bag, now fully awake. “Why the fuck do you have canned peaches?”

“I wanted a treat for the road.” Everyone’s silent for a minute. “So, what, you just took them? Christ, Reggie.”

“Hey, seeing how we’re saving Zuchelli, I didn’t figure it was that big of a deal if I took a can of peaches.”

“Jesus. People are starving.” Vincent’s sitting up in his sleeping bag now, too.

“Yeah, and we’re gonna be back with food from McMurdo in like 48 hours. One can’s not gonna make a difference.”

Another moment of silence passes. “Yeah? You gonna tell that to Marty?” I finally say.

“Fuck you, Laura, tell him when you get to Hell. One can wouldn’t have saved Marty.”

“Yeah, but people stealing cans definitely killed him.” Reggie is silent. Simon continues softly snoring in the corner. “Do you want some or not?”

I do. So does Vincent. While we devour them, we guiltily look over at Simon. He’s a big guy, though; he doesn’t need it. Besides, by the end of the day tomorrow, we’ll be in McMurdo with plenty of food. Just one more day’s hike. 14 miles. Half a day’s hike, really. And then we’re golden.

“Who’s Igor Dyatlov?” “You tell him, Vincent.” “Nah, he doesn’t want to hear it from me.”

I sigh. The peaches did taste fucking amazing. Reggie deserves something for sharing them at least.

“He was a hiker in Soviet Russia. It’s one of those unsolved mysteries that people like to speculate about. Kind of a hiker horror story.”

“What’s the story?”

It really is a shock that Reggie hadn’t heard it yet. Any time one of the younger researchers wants a spook back at Zuchelli someone tells their version of the story of the Dyatlov pass incident.

“I guess… to tell the story of Igor Dyatlov and his group you gotta keep in mind what we don’t know. And what we don’t know is why they left the tent. There they were, five very experienced hikers.”

“Eleven hikers,” Vincent mutters from his sleeping bag. “I’m just telling it how Marshall told me.” “Marshall’s an idiot.” “It doesn’t matter.” “It does if you’re the other six.” “Do you want to tell the story?” “Eh.”

“Whatever. There was some amount of hikers—all of them, way better than us, especially their guide, Igor Dyatlov. He was the real deal. They had one last hike before they got the highest hiker classification in wherever they were from. And that night, they were safe in a tent. But outside, it was -40°C. You know. That’s the temperature that makes you feel like you’ve fallen into cold water if you step outside. Makes urine freeze before it hits the ground. The kind of air that will kill you in minutes. I mean ‘cold air’ doesn’t really cut it. Neither does bitter wind or arctic

blast. Negative 40 degrees centigrade isn’t bone-chilling, it’s bone-freezing. All the capillaries in your legs freezing and expanding until they send canyons of cracks into your bones and shatter your body. And inside the tent, they were wrapped in their hardcore sleeping bags, real professional shit, the kind of thing that would have kept them safe.”

Reggie interrupts. “I know what the cold is like, Laura. We’ve been hiking the Antarctic for four days.”

“Do you want to hear it or not? Jesus, this is just how you tell it.” He does.

“They left the tent. All of them, hardcore hikers. Thousands of miles hiked between them. All they had to do was stay in the tent, and they would have been fine. But around midnight, someone in the group tore the tent open from the inside. And one by one they filed out. One of them only in their underwear. Dyatlov himself had on little more than a sweatshirt, as did his friend. Only two wore proper clothing.

“The tracks from the tent lead to a tree a mile downhill. A mile in bone freezing weather. And at the base of those tracks the search party found the body of the hiker only in his underwear.”

“Two miles, and three hikers in their underwear, but whatever.” “Vincent.” “Sure, whatever. It’s just a story now, but there were actual people who died, Laura.”

Vincent must be tired, because he’s being a real puckered asshole, so I tell him as much in more words.

“The tree was torn to shreds, and so were their hands. All five of them had made it to the tree, the tracks say. All the lowest branches were torn off. Maybe they were trying to build a fire? But they couldn’t, there was no ash in the area. Or maybe they were trying to climb the tree, and the brittle winter branches kept snapping. While three hikers mangled their frozen fingers on the frozen bark, Dyatlov and his friend in a sweatshirt decided that getting back to the tent was the only option. Whatever reason they had for leaving, they figured was gone. Or maybe they realized the cold would kill them anyway. Maybe the hiker in underwear had died already, and they knew the clock was ticking.

“Dyatlov and his friend were found scattered across the hillside. It was too dark to see, and they got lost. A mile is pretty far in the dark. They thought they had the best chances by splitting up, and maybe that was right. But Dyatlov himself only made it 300 meters from the tree.

“So you have the three hikers, one only in underwear, the other two lucky enough to be well dressed. All we know is that the hiker in underwear died under that tree. He could have easily just sat down with the calm of hypothermia, thinking he just needed to get some rest from the day’s hike. But if you’re in underwear, in -40°C, does even the stupidest person think they’re making it out of there? Especially when you see two others, fully clothed. You gotta wonder if he tried to fight for clothing. His hands were already so mangled from the tree that there’s no way to tell. Or maybe he had clothing. Him and one of the clothed men were roughly the same size. None of the investigators knew whose jacket belonged to whom originally. They just had to piece it together from the bodies and assume. He could have been held down in the snow, with his clothing torn off his body to keep someone else warm. Anyone involved would have been too tired to do anything—what, Vincent?”

“Nothing! I mean, sure. That could have happened. And maybe they cleaned up the signs of a struggle. But. I mean. Whoever left the tent clothed were gonna have all the energy by the time they made it two miles—or you know, maybe one mile, to the tree. There couldn’t have been a proper fight. All the power was held by whoever was lucky enough to sleep in their clothing.”

“Whatever. One guy in underwear dead under the tree. Cause of death, hypothermia, just like Dyatlov and his friend. And those lucky two that had slept in their clothing finally left the tree. But they didn’t go to the tent like Dyatlov and the others. They went downhill. Another thing we don’t know—why couldn’t they make for the tent? When the search party finally found them, one had died from hypothermia. But the final three—two had crushed chests, and another a crushed skull. One had their eyes and tongue ripped out. The later investigation said “an unknown compelling force” caused the injuries.

“It’s that unknown compelling force. Because what kind of thing is worse than your bones freezing in your body.”

It’s silent for a bit. Then Reggie says, “Christ.”

“Yeah well. It’s a bunch of bullshit anyway. The crushed chests and skull probably happened from falling down a cliff in the dark. The torn out eyes and tongue was probably squirrels after they were already dead.”

“Sure. But why leave the tent?”

“Someone must have got spooked. It was torn open from the inside. Some people say they must have thought an avalanche was coming. Panic attacks induced by infrasound from the wind on the mountain. I always figured it had something to

do with hypothermia. People just going crazy from the cold. Not knowing what to do with what they have. But Igor Dyatlov was the leader. He should have been able to keep a calm head. If you look at the terrain, there was no chance of an avalanche coming, and he’d been on enough hikes that he should have known that. You’re not getting rattled on me, are you?”

“Nah, shut the fuck up. It was probably like a Yeti or some shit.” “Sure,” I say. “Ready to sleep, Vincent?”

Vincent is muttering again, his mouth clearly against his sleeping bag. “How long we hiking tomorrow?”

“It’s a fourteen-mile straight shot to McMurdo. Maybe we’ll run into a truck or something on the runway and get a lift.”

Bernard

It’s Paul’s day off. He’ll be back tomorrow, but today it’s just me in the Snowbird, zipping down Ice Runway. Mad Max shit, but cold. Way better than the jobs back at the station. All you gotta do is clear off any junk, check for any animals that could be brought back to McMurdo, and, of course, any of the groups from Zuchelli that might be on the road. I check real carefully for groups when Paul’s not here.

And today’s my lucky day. Almost thirteen miles down, I find them. Four people, waving their hands over their heads. I can’t hear, of course, but I bet they’re shouting at the truck, they seemed real excited. Running across the ice, one of them tripping and falling on his ass. All in real nice North Face jumpsuits. Just another few hours and they would have made it on their own.

I stop the Snowbird a few meters away from them and climb out.

“Hey folks! You looking for McMurdo?” I shout over the wind, smiling and waving at them from the Snowbird.

“Yes!” The voice is hoarse, probably from screaming over the Antarctic winds, but she’s definitely a girl.

“Here, it’s not much, but I brought a bit of warm water just in case some of you showed up today. It’ll make you feel a hell of a lot better,” I shout over the wind, then open the side door of the Snowbird and climbed in. I get ready with the hose and the switch.

Three of them just shuffle along but the girl runs in front of the group, clearly still has a lot of energy to her. I wait till she was right up next to the truck, the other three about ten meters back and then flip the switch.

The engine whirrs to life, and water shoots out with the force of a fire hydrant. Maybe there’s a flicker of confusion in her eyes behind the balaclava. Maybe she’s still wondering if she’d be drinking out of the hose.

And then she’s knocked on her ass. I aim for the faces, knocking all four of them down one at a time with the water. They’re probably concussed immediately, not likely to stand up any time soon.

The rig was designed for a crop watering experiment of mine on difficult Antarctic terrain. It had been canceled years ago. At different settings, you could shoot water across a football field of plants. At ten meters, it was like a battering ram to the face. It does kinda feel like watering plants as I keep them down, moving the hose back and forth from each of them, careful to aim for the hood, turning their jumpsuits into wet suits, filling them to the boots with ice-cold water.

I turn off the hose. The big guy and the little guy seem to be out cold in a pile on top of each other. The girl and the other guy are coughing out water, still lying flat on their asses.

I cut the backpack off the girl first. “Sorry, Miss.”

I cut the final backpacks off the pile of men, wary of the one still coughing. But their heads must have still been ringing when I dumped the gear in the back of the Snowbird, cuz they’re still retching on the ground.

As I reverse down Ice Runway, the girl’s getting up. Scrappy little bugger. It didn’t matter, she’ll be down in five minutes, tops. The last thing I see before I turn the Snowbird around is her helping up the last conscious man.

Paul thinks McMurdo could take in a few more people. That it’s just a couple of months till the mainland remembers us and sends supplies. It’s not true. Either the mainland forgot about us, or it doesn’t exist anymore. Fuck the helicopters, there hasn’t even been static on the radio since December.

I didn’t kill these people. Everyone in Zuchelli is already dead. But McMurdo might hold on a little bit, if Paul can get his head out of his ass and focus on conserving what little we have.

I’m a little shaky from the cold and accidently swerve the Snowbird a little bit. For a moment, I’m looking directly at the Southern Sea, its cold waves crashing against Ice Runway as the winds blow salt water onto the tracks. I warm my shivering hands for a moment and turn the Snowbird back to McMurdo. Thomas Spencer Parish

Yale University, ’20