Frostbyte

Predator Press

[Mr Insanity]

“If it wasn’t Ethan’s request,” Captain Reinhardt yelled over the deafening semi-steady throb of the helicopter, “I would never fly in these circumstances”.

Diminutive, Cobe sat bundled up in his huge arctic gear looking more like a kid on the school bus. He said nothing due mostly to nausea; at this point, even exhaling might bring an uncontrollable fit of vomiting all over the cockpit.

He tried closing his eyes for a bit, but that didn’t help. "Motion sickness," LOBO once explained while Cobe barfed over the side of Ethan’s yacht, "has something to do with losing track of the horizon. The magnets in your head get all scrambled up or something."

Cobe forced his eyes open, and stared into a plain white sky. It was snowing so hard, you couldn’t see the edge of the rotors.

“So what,” laughed Reinhardt, trying to lighten the mood. “You tell Ethan you wanted to get away for a while or something?” The pitch of the engine changed as he fought the buffeting winds with the stick. “I just hope this little gizmo doesn’t start freezing up like it did last time.”

Something dark loomed into Cobe’s vision.

Cobe pointed.

Reinhardt looked up from the stick, and saw it too.

A mountain.

“Whoa!” laughed Reinhardt, throwing the tiny chopper into a gut-wrenching starboard dive. “That could’ve gone badly.” Arching within meters around the cliff face, he exhales in relief. “It’s right here somewhere,” he says. He presses a button on his helmet, and Cobe can hear him over the radio. ”Chuck, this is Jerry, do you copy?”

Static.

“See anything?”

White.

Wait.

Cobe points to two faint glowing rods, swinging like pendulums in the distance.

There he is,” says Reinhardt, shrugging. “Communications must be out again.”

Comments

Popular Posts