“He’s just standing there.”
“Menacingly?”
“Like he’s already dead.” Martin lowered the binoculars. “I know we wanted to see some penguins, but I don’t think watching one slowly mummify was the intent.”
Chloe took a swig from her water bottle. “Look, you wanted to see a penguin and you need to keep up your training for the marathon. Now we get to do both. No complaints.”
“No, you want me to train for the marathon. I’d be just as happy back at base cramming cookies into my mouth.”
“Yeah, but you can never say no to me.”
“So how long has our penguin friend been standing here?” Martin asked, pointedly avoiding the implications.
Chloe shrugged. “Iunno, he’s been there since my shuttle came back from Willy, so at least four hours, but the driver said she saw him the other day, so maybe a day or two? And he hasn’t moved an inch. Basically the same position as when I saw him the first time.”
“And you’re sure it’s not just rigor mortis and that the skua haven’t gotten at the body yet?”
“Don’t be such a wet blanket. Doesn’t it at least make you think? To reflect on death and how even an animal can meet it with dignity? The noble sacrifice of an animal, leaving behind his colony to not drain resources. Making the ultimate choice, controlling his own destiny. Maybe his mate died before him and he’s ready to go to the great penguin beyond and be with her. He’s a paragon; he’s a model to learn from; he’s the pinnacle of philosophy; he’s—”
“He’s leaving.”
“What‽” Chloe grabbed the binoculars from Martin. Sure enough, the emperor penguin they’d come out to the ice to see was now waddling his way further in the direction of Castle Rock. And he was making surprisingly good time for his little legs. She passed the binoculars back. “Well, I certainly wasn’t expecting that.”
“Really ruins your thesis paper on Noble Penguin Deaths.”
“Let’s tail him.”
“No.”
“I’m gonna.” Chloe began to follow after. Martin groaned and trotted to catch up.
“So it was less a suggestion and more of an order.”
“You’re free to do what you want. I have no control over your life.”
“Aren’t we violating the Antarctic Treaty doing this?”
“I think it’d be pretty hard to argue that we bothered the animal when we’re watching with binoculars.”
They continued their banter as they followed the apparently revitalized penguin. It led them along the same trail that would take them to Castle Rock.
“Surprisingly considerate of him to avoid the crevasses for us,” Chloe noted.
“I’ll have to recommend him for additional tours,” Martin replied.
The penguin stayed close to the cliff, occasionally stopping to scratch at one indiscernible patch of snow or another. Whatever had possessed the penguin to stand by the snowmobiles for two days had apparently worn off and he was back to being a regular bird brain.
“Okay, Martin. I guess you’re right. This has been nice, but we should get back to training for the marathon.”
“Thank you. Let’s go before my legs seize up.”
Just then, the penguin toppled over onto his belly and disappeared from sight.
“Did he just vanish into thin air?” Chloe made to run ahead. Martin grabbed her arm.
“Maybe he fell down a crevasse. Probably not wise to run after him. And what happened to marathon training?”
“Oh come on, where’s your sense of adventure?”
“I’m literally in Antarctica. How much more adventurous do I need to be?”
“You know what I mean. Of course there’s a rational explanation here, so let’s just find it. Then maybe we can go.”
“Maybe?” But Chloe was already poking around, though carefully. Apparently the crevasse idea had some merit for her. And despite his protests, the curiosity was starting to eat at Martin too. Methodically, he began poking around the area where the penguin had disappeared. Chloe worked on the other side.
“I think I found it,” Martin called over. He brushed some of the snow, revealing a gap in the cliff, just wide enough for a body to slide through. “I think our penguin friend knew where to go.”
“So do you think it’s some kind of penguin city? Like all the penguins are hiding out here in an advanced waddling civilization?” Chloe's eyes were wide with excitement.
“Sure, with flying cars and sushi 3D printers. Either way, we know where the penguin went, so let’s—Chloe, no!” Martin grabbed Chloe, hauling her back to her feet as she tried to squeeze down into the tunnel. She’d already slipped out of her big red coat to slim down. “You can’t be serious.”
“Look, Martin, we’ve come this far and I would bet money that no one knows about whatever Penguin Shangri-La is down here. We’d be revitalizing the Golden Age of Antarctic Exploration! They’d name whatever’s down there after us; we’d go down in the history books.”
“Or we’ll get caught in a rock slide and die a slow and painful death underground. Seriously, Chloe, there’s the spirit of adventure and then there’s reckless abandon. I don’t want you killing yourself for some stupid bird hole.”
“Martin, level with me. Despite my propensity for the dramatic, have I ever actually put us into real danger? We got through the running of the bulls just fine, despite your protests. Our skydiving adventure was good enough that you asked me to go again. We’ve camped on desert islands in Japan, rode on top of the train in India, and went white water rafting in Brazil. And every time, you complain that it was a dumb idea and we’d die, and every time after it’s over, you tell me how right I was.”
“I….” Martin hated to admit that she had a point. Chloe seemed to have an unnatural sense for finding adventure and how to best enjoy it. And he couldn’t lie to himself totally and say he wasn’t curious.
“Let’s just slip in, poke around a bit, and then head back,” Chloe suggested, reasonably. “It’s probably not that deep and there’s likely just a dead end a few feet in.”
Martin could feel himself giving in. “Fine, but I’m going first.”
“What a gentleman.”
“Don’t make me change my mind.” But he was already shuffling into the opening, scraping out snow as he went. In a moment, he was under the initial entrance and into the cave. The ceiling was already rising a few feet into the space. He could hear Chloe scrambling in behind him. “All right, it should be safe, Chloe. And—!”
Chloe watched as Martin disappeared just like the penguin had and heard him yell as he fell. She dove forward to try and catch him, but only succeeded in starting her own slide down the icy incline neither had noticed. If her mind wasn’t racing from losing Martin and possibly their way out, she might have found it fun. The ride was fairly smooth and she managed to avoid bashing into the walls.
“I got you!” Martin’s voice cut through her barrage of thoughts, just in time for her to thump against him as the ice finally gave way to rock. Chloe took a moment to catch her breath. Nothing hurt, and Martin was safe as well.
“So what now?” Martin asked.
“I don’t suppose we can climb back up? Maybe check along the walls for hand holds?” Chloe said, but even she didn’t believe it.
The beam from Martin’s cell phone flashlight lit up the rest of the cave. The ceiling was maybe ten feet high and the tunnel they were in was wide enough for the two of them and probably a third. With the slope behind them, ahead was a long tunnel, curving slowly down.
“Looks like we’re getting that adventure you wanted.”
“Not exactly how I wanted to go about it, but I’ll take it,” Chloe said, dusting herself off. “Lead the way.”
In the slowly bobbing phone light, the two began to slowly make their way deeper into the mountain. The tunnel was surprisingly dry, with only the central pathway showing any disturbance in the silt, likely from the penguin that came before them.
As they walked along, they found that it wound back and forth, sometimes turning sharply. And always leading down. It was a gentle slope, but it was definitely descending. While it was only a few minutes of walking, the seclusion and the silence they both felt compelled to keep made it feel like it could have been days. Antarctica was already an otherworldly continent, but now it felt like they’d stepped out of reality itself. There was only the two of them, their footsteps, and the light of an Android flashlight.
The beam caught a glint of white against the dull browns of the cave.
“Is that what I think it is?”
“Yeah, that’s a penguin skull.” Chloe confirmed.
With care, the two examined the skull. It was about the size of Chloe’s fist, with the long beak of an emperor penguin. There were pockmarks on the bone, as if something sharp had stabbed and scraped it. The hole in the left side of the crown confirmed that something had broken through.
“I doubt this is the one we saw come down here.” Chloe remarked.
“Clearly,” Martin sighed, standing back up. “This one has been here for a while. So I guess this means that other penguins have come this way before.”
“Agreed, unlikely that our friend just coincidentally came down here.” Chloe eyed the skull and then looked further down the tunnel. “So what then, some kind of penguin graveyard?”
“Or some kind of predator’s lair.” Martin’s gaze was darting around the cave.
“That penguins come to, seemingly willingly? I doubt it.” Chloe took the flashlight from Martin. “Come on, we need to go this way anyway. We won’t learn any more just standing around.”
Not wanting to be left behind in the encroaching darkness, Martin caught up to Chloe and the pair made their way further down the tunnel. A few hundred feet and around another bend, they found another bone, a few spine vertebrae.
“At what point do we think a pattern is forming?” Chloe asked.
“Let’s say at three,” Martin said, attempting a light tone, but he couldn’t hide his nervousness.
“Like that one there?” Chloe panned the light over another bone further ahead. It looked like part of a rib cage. Both the spine and the ribs had similar marks on them.
“I don’t like this.” Chloe took a few steps back from the ribs and leaned against the wall. Crumbs of dirt and stone clattered to the ground from where she leaned. “Maybe I was wrong. Maybe we can find a way back up that slope. We just turn around and not bother with whatever is happening to these penguins.”
Martin shook his head. “I’m not thrilled with this either, but going back is just going to waste more time. I don’t want to get stuck down here longer than we have to. If this is the only way we can go, let’s just go.” He gave Chloe a weak smile. “We at least know what kind of wildlife is down here. Even if we run into a seal that’s been apparently gnawing on penguins, I don’t think we’ll be in trouble. Let’s just grit our teeth and hope for the best.”
“Right.”
Further into the unknown they walked. As they went, they found more bones, all of them likely from penguins. What had been one or two became seven or eight every few feet. As the minutes passed and they journeyed deeper, the bones piled higher. Soon Chloe took the lead as they had to walk single file along the one pathway through the bones. Neither said a word. To acknowledge it was to admit that something was very wrong. But both of them knew, there was really no other choice.
Bones rattled as they stepped past the growing piles. Bits of penguin would clatter onto the path as they brushed past precarious mounds of bird. The occasional snap of stepped on bone was the only other sound in the tunnel.
When it finally felt as if the catacomb walls would close in on and crush them under the weight of the dead, Chloe and Martin stumbled out of the tunnel and into an open cavern. The room stretched high and wide, with a ceiling that was domed. The walls were rough and rocky, but it felt like they were almost columns of stone, like a great cathedral. Bones were strewn across the stone floor and stacked in piles all over. If the tunnel had seemed dense with them, this room was positively filled with bones. Thousands of penguins must have met their ends here to make such a collection.
“I’m scared.” Martin spoke for the first time in a while. His voice was dry and cracked on the words.
“Yeah.” Chloe could only agree. They’d known each other too long to try and hide it, and in a situation as insane as this, it was comforting to know that at least they were on the same page. “But we keep going.”
“Yeah.” Martin nodded.
Around all the bones, it was hard to tell how far the cavern stretched, but Martin’s light managed to find a wall on the other side. It felt as though the skulls were watching them as they carefully stepped around the bones littering the ground. They could make out the small path that the penguin that started all this had shuffled through. It led down the center of the room.
The sound of something crunching stopped them dead still. Martin looked down; neither of them had stepped on anything. The crunch came again, echoing off the cavern walls and falling around them. Chloe pressed against Martin’s back, eyeing where they’d come from. Still, nothing moved amongst the remains.
Martin crept forward as Chloe watched their back. Now the crunching was constant, a slow, almost rhythmic, grinding. Occasionally it was punctuated by a wet slurping.
There was something in there with them.
A few steps ahead and the pile of bones opened off to the right, like it had been swept away. In amongst the bone piles was a shadow, a giant shadow. Martin’s light illuminated some of the thing, its body gleaming under the unnatural light. A thick web of spiny feathers covered its body, black at the top and cutting to a stark white towards the ground. With the sound of more bones snapping, its head raised into the air, tossing the intact corpse of a penguin up and catching it in its blood stained beak. Its head and neck convulsed as it swallowed the bird whole.
In front of them was a monstrous emperor penguin. It was easily the size of Ivan the Terra Bus. Sunken in its head were glowing red eyes, and unnatural teeth poked out from its curved beak. Despite the familiar shape of the bird, it was a mockery of life. There was no way something like this could be real. But the way its feathers bristled as it moved and the muscles underneath tensing, it had to be true. The beast rocked back onto its legs and stood up, again jerking its body as it further swallowed down its grizzly meal. Now upright, its flippers stretched all the way down to the floor, ending in a row of talons that no penguin should have. Spittle and gore dripped from its misshapen mouth and splashed onto the cave floor.
Martin and Chloe screamed. It was an unconscious reaction. They had expected something bad, likely dangerous, but this was beyond comprehension.
But their noise alerted the monster. It turned its head, slowly taking in the new presence. Mouth open, the thing’s rancid breath fogged in the air. Its next meal had arrived.
With speed unfit for its size, the beast lurched forward, swinging its taloned flipper to grab them. Chloe reacted first, tackling Martin and throwing the two of them out of the way.
“Run!” Chloe screamed. She hauled Martin up and sprinted further into the cavern. The penguin let out a thundering scream, like a propeller engine at full blast, and thudded after them. With a groan, it crashed to the ground and flung itself forward, sliding on its belly like a freight train.
Martin saw it coming and shoved Chloe to the left and dived to the right. The creature slid past them, careening into the bones and throwing them against the walls and ceiling. It tried to snap at Martin as it flew by, but only succeeded in upsetting its balance and tumbling further in.
“Are you okay‽” Martin called, struggling out of the bone pile he’d landed in.
“Yeah,” Chloe said. She was also fighting her way out of a pile of the dead. “We need to—whoa!” She nearly slipped as she stepped forward, but regained her balance. The penguin had left a slick trail on the ground. It smelled of rot.
“Look, there!” Martin pointed. Past the debris and behind the nightmare penguin struggling to right itself, was another tunnel. The entrance had been cleared of bone by the flailing, unholy bird. It was more narrow than the tunnel they’d come down. “Think that’s our exit?”
“Better than staying here!” Chloe said.
The monster faced them, its eyes blazing. It charged forward, sliding towards them again. Chloe and Martin, braced, ready to jump again. But before they could, the thing twisted and flung its flipper out, slamming it into Martin and throwing him back the way they’d come. Martin hit the ground in a cloud of dust and rolled to a stop.
“Martin!” Chloe dashed through the detritus over to him. The swing from the penguin had gotten it turned around and it struggled to maneuver to face them again.
Martin gaped like a fish, his mouth moving desperately, before finally he drew in a breath. “I’m… alright. ...Knocked the wind out of me.”
“Come on, while it can’t see us!” Chloe grabbed Martin’s hand and the two ran to the right edge of the cavern, keeping themselves between the penguin and piles of bone as much as they could. The monster righted itself and began scanning the area. Crouched as they were, the beast couldn’t see them. It let out a roar like grinding steel and swung its flippers, bashing a bone pile out of the way. It swung again and again, clearing out the surrounding area.
“No time for stealth!” Martin barged forward. “Keep along the wall. Hey, over here!” He shouted, waving his arms at the creature. It sighted him immediately, and with another screeching roar, took off after Martin. Bones splintered and scattered as the creature bore down on Martin. Again it dived forward, sliding on its belly to swallow him whole.
“Hey!” Chloe yelled. She’d managed to get around to the opposite side of the cave and was standing at the other tunnel’s entrance. She saw the creature’s eye briefly glance in her direction, and at that moment she hurled the penguin skull she’d picked up. It soared across the open air and bounced off the penguin’s barrel-sized eye. The beast roared, squeezing its eye shut and losing control.
Martin lunged forward and just managed to avoid the penguin’s bulk as it slammed into the wall. Nearly falling, he got his feet under himself and made a headlong dash for the tunnel. But the fiend wasn’t done with them. It kicked off the wall and unsteadily trailed Martin’s retreat.
“Faster!” Chloe screamed.
Martin could feel the penguin gaining on him, its death-tainted breath clawing at the back of his neck. With a burst of energy, born of desperation, he launched himself forward, Chloe right there with him, and into the tunnel. Following behind them was a scream of rage and a bone-shaking crash as the monster slammed into the wall.
“Did we—” Martin began.
“Move!” Chloe dived at him, dragging him down as the beast’s wicked beak scraped the floor of the tunnel where he had just been kneeling. It lashed out again, cutting through Chloe’s jacket and causing a spray of blood from her shoulder to splatter on the rocks.
She screamed.
Martin grabbed her and pulled her deeper into the tunnel as the monster continued to thrash and peck at them, furious that its meal had gotten away. No matter how hard it smashed into the rocks, it couldn’t get to them through the narrow passage.
Somehow, they were safe.
Martin looped Chloe’s good arm over his shoulders and practically dragged her along. The howls of nightmarish rage were the only thing that followed them.
When they finally had a moment to breathe, Martin stripped off his inner liner and ripped what he could into strips. Under Chloe’s direction through gritted teeth, he did his best to wrap and staunch the wound, at least enough to keep her from losing more blood.
Together, with Chloe leaning heavily on Martin, they continued through the pass. As the sound of the monster faded, they found that the path was sloping upward. In a few more minutes, they found an opening similar to the one they had entered. Sunlight streamed in, illuminating the ground.
Martin helped Chloe to sit and then crawled out the opening. He pushed his way out into the snow. From where he came out he could see Hut Point off in the distance.
In short order, he’d managed to clear more snow and widen the gap. With only a little blood spilled onto the snow, Chloe joined Martin in the sunlight.
She slid down and sat on the snow, leaning against the stone wall. The wind had died down and it was surprisingly quiet. Martin sat down next to her.
Chloe sighed. “I’m so getting NPQ’d for this.”
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