The Ice by John Kåre Raake

Author:John Kåre Raake
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Pushkin Press
Published: 2020-11-15T00:00:00+00:00

50

A clenched fist of searing heat punched her in the face. The basket from the icy depths had transformed into a reactor of incandescent flames.

Zakariassen screamed again. Green flames snaked wildly around him. The grit in the basket was burning as if it had been impregnated with high-octane fuel. Anna backed off, but the flames pursued her. She threw herself to the floor and forced her face into the ice, clasping her hands around the back of her head as she caught the stench of scorched hair.

When she realized her hair hadn’t caught fire, she looked up again. Zakariassen was turning around, encased in dancing whirls of flames, which were casting pulses of green, orange and blue light towards the walls. Marco and Jackie lowered their heads to shield themselves from the blaze.

Anna breathed in through her nose. The smell of scorched hair and skin was overwhelming. Zakariassen was still on fire as he fell, writhing around on the floor. She got to her feet, and tripped rather than ran towards him, kicking snow free from the ice. Raking it together in her hands, she threw it at his head.

Zakariassen tore off his glasses and thrust his hands against his face. She kicked more snow and ice loose, throwing the frozen water over him and brushing back the flames from the survival suit, where the fabric had started bubbling up in the heat.

“You need to cool your face down!”

She was screaming to make sure that Zakariassen heard her as she pressed more snow against him. The smell of incinerated hair was intense. He splashed the ice outwards across his face. Between flakes of snow, his skin was a furious red.

“We have to get you into the water!” She grabbed the hood of his survival suit and slung him like a rag doll over to the hole. Burning pieces of ice were still falling from the basket, but the flames licking the air had died out.

Zakariassen let out a short wail just before she shoved his head under the water. His hands grasped Anna’s, trying to force her to loosen her grip, but she kept pushing his head down. He glared at her in fury from under the surface as clouds of bubbles raged out of his mouth. Silently she counted: One thousand and ten… one thousand and eleven, one thousand and twelve… At twenty, she wrenched his head out of the water.

Zakariassen inhaled in sharp, gasping breaths, his hot skin steaming. His face was contorted in anger.

“You’re fucking drowning me!” he managed to scream before she forced him back under the water. By the third time, he had lost the will to protest, his hands lying limp on the ice as she held him down. After another twenty seconds submerged, she lifted him back up. He wheezed as he sucked air into his lungs.

“How does your face feel?”

“It’s burning, and I’m fu-fucking cold.” His teeth chattered as his fingers fumbled around his face. The skin was red, his eyebrows had been singed off and his grey hair was streaked with black, but he seemed otherwise unhurt.

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