It Looks Like Us by Alison Ames

Author:Alison Ames [Ames, Alison]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Page Street Publishing
Published: 2022-08-08T00:00:00+00:00

12

THE WIND WHIPS ACROSS THEM AS THEY EMERGE from the station, everyone wrapped head to toe in protective gear. The sun is still shining, but the air is hazy with ice and snow and it feels like it’s getting cloudier by the moment.

“Wait.” Luke pauses, one foot already on the snowmobile. “We need a flag line.”

“A what?”

“A flag line,” he repeats. “We have to put something up between the stations, so we can get back here if we need to. If the storm keeps up. There should be a cable spool somewhere.”

“Where would they keep something like that?” Riley asks, turning in a circle. “They don’t seem to have an outbuilding like we do.”

Ilse steps into her snowshoes and starts carving an arc around the station to the south, where there are a few shipping containers tucked against the side of the building. She disappears into a cloud of swirling ice as Riley watches.

“What if it’s not long enough?” she asks, trailing behind Luke as he searches the storage compartments of the snowmobile.

“There should be guide poles on the snowmobiles,” he says. “If we run out of cable, we switch to those.”

Ilse emerges, dragging something behind her. Luke jogs toward her as best as he can in snowshoes, takes the other side of the handle, and the two of them hoist the spindle toward the group.

“It says six hundred yards,” Ilse says. “I don’t know if that’s enough.”

“We’ll find out,” Luke says grimly. He tucks the spool onto the sledge, under the seats, and pulls the end of the cable free. He walks it toward the station, making sure the spool spins freely, and weaves it through the door wheel. He yanks on it hard, testing the give, and nods with satisfaction. He comes back to the group and they all load themselves back into the sledge. Riley and Dae squeeze Ilse into the seat with them, and the three of them huddle together for warmth as Luke pulls away from the station. The radio is tucked under Ilse’s feet, and the gun is clutched tightly in her mittened hand.

The sky is close and sullen, darker than it’s been the entire time they’ve been here. It looks disappointed and angry, about to mete out punishment. Riley watches the cable spool out behind them and disappear into the white fog, wondering how they’ll know when it’s about to run out.

She leans toward Ilse. “What is a summer storm usually like here?” she yells over the wind and the motor.

Ilse turns her head and yells through her gaiter. “Katabatic winds!” she says, gesturing with her non-gun hand, swooping it down like an owl onto prey. “From high, to low. Up to a hundred kilometers an hour!”

“How much snow?”

“No!” Ilse says, shaking her head.

Riley stares at her. “What do you mean, no?”

“There’s not usually new snow,” Ilse says. “The wind blows it into the air, but it’s not fresh.”

Riley closes her eyes, hoping Ilse can’t see them through the mirrored lens. She’s so tired, and she wants to cry.

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