By Staten Ell
Williams followed Haley, making sure to keep several paces behind his bright orange snowsuit. Aside from her lab partner’s reasoning that it would help if they needed rescuing, she didn’t fancy walking next to a target. Even if Antarctica’s predators were primarily colorblind and oceanic. Besides, any minute now, that Staypuff Creamsicle was going to blow.
She elbowed Grey, the third member of their expedition, as Haley’s head began to swivel. They shared a laugh as his predictable tells became more pronounced. He was consistent in his dramatics—had been ever since they first started training for life inside the Antarctic Circle.
They counted down with gloved fingers behind his back—Three. Two. One!
“Terra Australis Incognita.” Haley whirled with outstretched arms to encompass the icy monotony before him.
There it was. Grey rolled her eyes and smirked.
Williams side-eyed Haley through her goggles. “It’s okay to just call it Antarctica. You know, like a normal person?”
“I’ve been dreaming about being in Antarctica for twenty years! I’m not about to be banal about the experience.” He rubbed his gloves together, and the zip-zip of Haley’s gloves got into Williams’s teeth, making them feel cottony.
Williams batted at his hands. “Stop that. Let’s get to the research post before—”
“Before what? Nightfall? That’s not for six months.” Haley grinned.
Grey ignored the usual bickering and held binoculars up to her goggles. The blinding white was dotted with penguins. To her right was endless ocean blue interrupted only by the bobbing of seals.
Nothing else roamed the loneliest continent.
“I’m freezing,” Williams said.
“I don’t see how that’s my problem,” Haley said.
The jerk.
“Guys,” Grey lowered the binoculars. “There’s something out there.”
“Penguins, mostly,” Haley said.
“No, bigger.”
Haley and Williams traded a look.
“An elephant seal?” Williams offered. Nothing larger hung out on the Antarctic landmass.
“No. Way bigger.” Grey offered Williams her binoculars, then pointed.
Williams complied, searching slowly. “There’s nothing out th—” She stiffened.
“Right?” Grey hissed. “That shouldn’t be there.”
“No, it shouldn’t.”
How had the previous Antarctic researchers missed something so big? How did satellite imagery miss it?
Haley took the binoculars and searched the horizon.
“Maybe the last team set it up? As a joke?” Williams suggested.
“What the—” Haley scowled into the distance. “What is that?”
If she didn’t know better, Williams would suggest a woolly mammoth. She couldn’t tell how big it was, but it was either a lot closer than it seemed, or much bigger than Mammuthus primigenius was supposed to be.
Williams did know better, though. It couldn’t be a mammoth, woolly or otherwise.
“It looks like Snuffy, but with ears,” Haley said.
“Snuffy?” Williams glanced at him.
“From Sesame Street?” Haley lowered his binoculars and frowned.
Williams opened her mouth. Then closed it. “What?”
“I always hated that show, especially the puppets,” Grey murmured. She squinted into the distance, probably seeking a glimpse of the anomalous figure.
“Heresy,” Haley gasped. “And they’re Muppets!”
“I don’t know what that is,” Williams said.
Haley turned back to Williams. “You can’t be serious.”
“I don’t watch much TV,” Williams said.
Haley looked almost stricken under his winter goggles and fur-lined hood.
Grey took back the binoculars from Haley. “I don’t think Sesame Street is the most pressing matter right now.”
Williams and Haley turned to her.
“I think it’s a mammoth.” She slowly lowered the binoculars. “And I think it’s headed toward us.”
Haley looked green behind his goggles. “Are mammoths hostile?”
“They’re extinct,” Williams said. Rather, they were supposed to be extinct. “How would anyone know their propensity toward hostility?”
“Should we… call this in?” Haley motioned toward the satellite phone on top of their equipment sleds.
“And what? Tell them we see a mammal that’s been extinct for four thousand years… in the middle of Antarctica?” Grey turned to glare at Haley. “They’d think we were trying to be funny at best. Crazy at worst.”
Haley crossed his arms and pouted into the collar of his coat. “Then what do we do?”
“We’re researchers. Scientists. What do you think we should do?”
“Leave,” Haley suggested. “Call in an emergency lift and hope that it reaches us before the mammoth does. I’m not getting eaten by a mammoth.”
“All Elephantidae are herbivores, mammoths included,” Williams murmured. She retained a backlog of mammoth facts from her childhood obsession.
“Well, at least I won’t be eaten by a mammoth!” Haley folded his arms and grimaced, looking even more like an irritated orange marshmallow.
“We gather evidence,” Grey broke in. “That’s what scientists do.”
“Evidence?” Williams asked.
Grey began rifling through a hard case on one of the sleds. “Pictures. Video. Audio recordings. Written observations. Irrefutable proof that we’re not experiencing folie à trois.”
“Anything can be faked,” Haley said.
“That’s why we’re not going to lean on any one evidentiary source. We’ll have eyewitness accounts, notes, media. A fur sample, if we can manage it. Feces. Saliva!” Grey grinned and pulled a camera from the case. “This is an opportunity most scientists only dream of.”
“Do I look like most scientists?” Haley asked.
“What? Are you scared?” Grey asked.
Williams smirked and waited—Grey was a master at provoking people to obtain cooperation. Haley was especially easy to provoke.
“Are you not scared? That thing is huge! And extinct.” Haley threw his hands above his head.
“Exactly,” Grey said. “So how is it here? And how was it missed?”
Haley turned to Williams for help, but she just shrugged. “Grey has a solid point. Don’t you want something to put under a microscope?”
“Yeah, but not at the cost of safety. Do you want to risk life and limb just to prove you weren’t hallucinating?”
Williams nodded at the beast lumbering in their direction. “I loved mammoths as a kid.”
Haley deflated in defeat. “Well, I can’t let you put yourselves in danger without me.”
“Great, we’re agreed.” Grey straightened. “Haley, you’re the distraction.”
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
I thought the story was fun and a lively, I could really see the characters arguing in the bitter cold snow. Just after half of it, I felt the tension disappearing and with that some of my interest. Sorry, I guess I wanted to know more about the mammoth like the characters themselves.
Is there more? You’ve piqued my interest in how a wooly mammoth could exist in Antarctica. Great story!
interesting premise, but as they were pulling sleds with all that gear, shouldn’t they have moved forward to find where the herbivore’s food supply is, instead of debating whether to use the gear?
Fun story!
What a fun story! I love the bickering and antics between the characters.😆
I like the banter between the three.
This has great characters but no real story. Would definitely want to read more, but alas, 1000 word limit.
I want to know more about the mammoths! And put Haley at the end. ” you’re the distraction” lol. Fun story!