The Runalong

The sun shone brightly that day. Had the climate been normal, it would’ve been a perfect day for the beach. The pearly-white ice, however, did not allow wishful thinking to outshine it. 

Rhys was perched on his look-out spot up on the rock with his well-kept binoculars. He had been quiet for a few minutes.

“What are you looking at?” Mitski called out from behind him, sitting at the foot of the elevation. In his fur, Rhys looked like a giant owl spying.

“I’ve spotted it again. The Runalong.” he announced.

“Why do you keep calling it that?”

“‘Cause that’s what it does. It runs along.”

“Terrible name.”

Mitski climbed onto the rock and reached for his binoculars. Way out on the ice she spotted a muscular, four-footed silhouette lumbering forward, its pitch black body sharply contrasting itself to the snowy scenery.

“How do you zoom in on this thing?”

“That little button by your index.”

Mitski zoomed in on the creature, and was confused by its odd-looking shape; almost resembling several animals at once. Its body was in many ways like that of a dog but more compact, with stouter legs. The head was round with small and pointy ears, a short snout and a massive, slack jaw which hung open.

“It looks kinda stupid,” Mitski laughed. “What is it?”

“Don’t know, but it’s coming straight from the Capital.”

“How’d you know?”

“Sometimes when we’re out fishing I see dog-like footprints across the ice. They always go either straight toward or straight away from the city, returning each time.” Rhys explained. “

“Each time? You mean, It’s here a lot?”

Mitski glared at Rhys, and he nodded. “I don’t know if it’s just one. But it’s hunting something, for sure. Otherwise it wouldn’t go so far.”

Mitski looked into the binoculars again and studied the animal. “That one’s beefy. He’s got big legs.”

A muffled stomach growl escaped Rhys’ fur coat.

“Oops,” he chortled. “What food do we have?”

Mitski cocked her head towards their igloo a few feet away below.

“Check the ‘gloo, I think we have some rabbits.”

“Aw, man … No fishies?”

“Not today, sorry.”

Rhys slid down the back of the rock and ran off. Mitski observed the animal plod through the white landscape. Wherever it was headed, it headed there slowly. She sat and watched until he returned with a small piece of meat.

“You should grab some as well. You need to fatten up,” he stated and tore off a piece.

“I’m fine. We need to stock up.” Mitski brushed off and grabbed Rhys’ binoculars again.

She zoomed in another few times to examine the physical structure of the odd looking beast. In the sunlight, Mitski caught the muscles protruding through the fur, practically wobbling with each step. Its head turned in their direction, and she spotted the immense pools of drool dripping from the mouth and melting the top layers of frost on the ground.

“Either he’s sick, or he eats way more than he needs to,” she commented. “That boy doesn’t go to bed hungry.”

“Don’t talk like that, you’ll only make it worse. Let’s just go fishing tomorrow.”

Mitski furrowed her brow in a moment of thought before quickly grabbing a hold of Rhys’ arm.

“My god, are we idiots? We should hunt it down!”

He chewed his rabbit more intensely by the second. “‘Huh? Really?”

“Yes, Rhys. Don’t you see what an opportunity this is?”

“But it’s so big. And it looks dangerous.”

“We need food, and just stumbled upon the fattest game in ages.”

Mitski almost threw the binoculars in Rhys’ face, and pointed to the Runalong with an eager hand.

“See those thighs? Imagine how tender they are, how packed with nutrients they gotta be. If we store the meat right we’d have food for months.”

Rhys drew a long sigh, and shoved the rest of the rabbit into his mouth.

“We won’t catch up with it on foot. Even if we do, it’ll charge, I’m sure of it.”

“I know …” she mumbled. “But what if we call-”

“No, uh-uh. We’re not calling him!” Rhys blurted out and covered Mitski’s hand with his mouth.

His voice echoed. It bounced across the ice and reached the beast, who nervously raised its round head and scanned their surroundings. The two sat perfectly still on the rock, nervous that they had spoiled their chance. But it soon resumed its slow pace.

Mitski slapped away Rhys’ hand. 

“He has the gear. Don’t tell me you’re still scared of him?” she grinned. 

“Shut up. I just think he’s shady, that’s all.”

“Well, he is, that’s why we need him. You can’t survive with a clean slate in this world anymore, Rhys.”

He fell quiet for a second, subjugated by Mitski’s dogged stare.

When they referred to him, they were talking about Farosh. He was a former government worker from the Capital who helped fortify the city from the cold; vehicles, buildings, infrastructure, everything. A hero, for the few years that the technological implementations lasted. Now he resided alone in an abandoned cottage, bunkered up with countless gadgets and pieces of gear left over from his working days, on the smaller dune of Grassrow. It laid a few miles north of the Red Ear, where Mitski and Rhys resided. The ‘dunes’ used to be islands in the archipelago, but now nothing but lumps of rock and soil burrowed into the ice.

“Yeah, I know,” Rhys then admitted. “So how do we catch it?”

“With sleds.”

His eyes widened. “Sleds? As in … the rocket sleds?”

“Of course. Remember when we used to sled hunt? That was kinda fun, wasn’t it?”

“That was when there still was big game,” Rhys warned. “We stopped using the sleds for when we really needed them.” 

Mitski broke out into laughter while he looked off in obstinacy. The Runalong had gotten far at that point, soon slipping out of their view behind the tree line of the dune.

“Come on, Rhys. I want to go sledding. Maybe Farosh even wants to help!”

“Farosh doesn’t help anyone.”

“Until today, that is.”

She hopped off the rock and scurried away to the igloo. Reluctantly, Rhys followed her closely, and hit his head on the way in as he always did. Wrapped in a bundle of heat-tech thermal cloth, scuffed in the corner of the nest, laid the current world’s greatest invention: the walkie-talkie. Mitski slid off her mittens, her hands almost immediately turned red in the biting cold.

“Which frequency is Grassrow on?” she asked.

“What if you accidentally give away our location to weirdos?”

“It’s gotta be 17.”

“No, idiot, it’s 19. I told you,” Rhys muttered.

“Just … let me do the chatting, okay?”

Mitski tuned the walkie-talkie and held it close to her mouth with her finger on the talk button. 

“This is Red Ear calling Grassrow. Grassrow, do you copy? Over.”

A tense moment of silence. Then, the speakers started crackling and a husky voice, broken with an unknown accent, emerged.

“This is Grassrow responding to Red Ear. State your business, over.”

Mitski pumped her fist and grinned smugly at Rhys while talking. “We are requesting to borrow some of your equipment, over.”

“Please specify your request, over.”

“We need your rocket sleds, over.”

“Negative,” Farosh snapped. “The sleds are to be used solely as crisis vehicles, over.”

“We’re aware, but new circumstances have arisen, over.”

He sighed on the other line. “Please specify, over.”

Rhys tapped Mitski on the shoulder and whispered, “Tell him he can share the food with us.”

“Hell no!” she snarled and covered the speaker with her hand. “This is our find.”

“You know what this is, Mitski? It’s a negotiation. We want his services, and we have to give him something in return.”

“We don’t have anything to give him.”

“We will have, if we catch it.”

Mitski brooded over the proposition for a few seconds. Then, she put her mouth to the speaker.

“Actually … could we pay a visit? We would like to discuss these circumstances with you. They could be favorable for the both of us, over.”

“Please,” Farosh repeated, increasingly annoyed this time, “specify.”

“There’s a large animal walking around our dune line, and we require high-speed equipment to seize it. When we do, we could split the bounty, over.”

Farosh went quiet. Rhys and Mitski listened persistently to the white noise waiting for his voice to break through. 

“How fast can you reach Grassrow, over?” he then asked.

They high-fived each other silently. “We can leave A.S.A.P, over.”

“The door will be unlocked. Grassrow out.”

Rhys exhaled nervously and tried to look to Mitski for reassurance. She, however, beamed with smugness. None of them had to talk to know what was coming. They wrapped up two pieces of rabbit in cloth, bundled the walkie talkie together, and grabbed their walking canes. Out onto the scintillating and wide-stretched surface they went, visible to any and all like black and brown stars on a white sky.

***

Grassline had always been on the lonely side, even when populated. Back then, the island governors didn’t allow automobiles for flora preservation purposes, but to the summer guests it was a low blow. Not to say they didn’t succeed - survivors who lived in close proximity of the Grassline dune always had wood and a (highly) limited selection of plant life at their disposal. In these terms, Farosh was somewhat of a friendly despot. Though not exactly friendly, he possessed some gadgets that were close to lethal. Had he been any less sane, he could rule the archipelago with violence.

That fateful day, Rhys and Mitski were hoping to get on his good side and stay there. After a few hours on the ice, they arrived at the Grassline bank. The pines were smothered under the duvet of new snow. The snow smoke rose upward and danced in the bright sunlight like small ghosts against the clear blue sky. Below them lay Farosh’s cottage, looking large in its solidarity despite the small size.

“Do we knock?” Mitski hesitated when they arrived at the door.

Rhys shrugged. “It’s polite, isn’t it?”

“Yeah, but what if he thinks it’s someone else? Maybe we startle him.”

“He doesn’t have visitors. He scares everyone off,” he argued.

Heavy steps thudded behind the wooden door, and the two instantly went quiet. Farosh opened the door wide and seemed surprised to see them behind his irritable expression. Dressed in slimming, black thermal wear and with the long hair draped over his broad shoulders, he looked a good bit over 6 feet tall and practically towered over his fur-covered visitors. 

“I feel this will be challenging,” he rumbled. 

“Uh … what will?” asked Rhys.

“Getting you two to shut up.”

Farosh stepped aside and let them into the cottage. It consisted of one square room with a thin cot on the floor, a fur blanket, and a tall stack of wood lined against the far wall. There was also a tree stub with papers on top, assumingly being used as a makeshift desk. By the wood was additionally an outward wall with a door, properly sealed with two massive iron padlocks. Upon closer inspection, Rhys noted that Farosh carried the keys on a string around his neck.

“I want to know what information you have gathered about this animal you have been seeing,” he enquired, standing in front of the locked door with his arms crossed.

Rhys and Mitski cast a quick hesitant look at eachother.

“Well,” Rhys began, “in the past few weeks I’ve been spotting this odd-looking animal kinda lumbering around our dune. Its footprints go in a straight line to and from the Capital.”

“How peculiar,” Farosh mumbled, now pacing the room. “Do you suspect it’s harboring food there?”

“It’s a possibility. Its eyes are on the front of the head, so gotta be a predator.”

“Does that mean if we find where it lives we can get even more food?” Mitski implied.

“So that is why you want my sleds - to catch a predator,” Farosh deduced. “How bold of you, not even knowing whether there is a pack.”

His assertion threw Rhys off. He looked down onto his shoes, trying to avoid Farosh’s wide-eyed stare while thinking of something to say. 

“I think we have a good chance of catching up to it before we reach the city,” said Mitski in a helping effort. “The sleds go to, what, eighty miles per hour?”

“Ninety,” Farosh quickly corrected, “and they keep that speed until the fuel runs out.”

“You don’t think we can outrun what looks like a fat dog with that kinda speed?”

“It’s simply too dangerous. It could very well lead us to our deaths.”

Another muffled stomach growl emerged, louder this time.

“My god, Rhys, you just ate,” Mitski joked at Rhys.

“That wasn’t me,” he said.

“It was me,” Farosh groused, and scowled in another direction.

The two glared concernedly at the large man. 

“For how long have you been hungry? You could’ve told us to bring something,” Rhys affirmed.

“That is not your responsibility. I can fend for myself, thank you.”

“You have nothing to fend yourself with. We’re running a bit short as well, it’s okay.”

“Oh, come on!” Mitski warbled. “The issue is simple; either we go after the food and potentially risk our lives, or we don’t and we die. Me and Rhys walked over the ice for two hours to get here, and barely have food to get through the week! Let’s just stop blabbering and decide what to do, or go home. I don’t feel like wasting any more time today.”

The room turned quiet. Farosh sneered at Mitski behind his furrowed brow, with Rhys apprehensively watching. Then, he tore off his key necklace and chucked them at her.

“You’ll need helmets and goggles. One weapon each; something long and sharp. If I find you’ve been stealing, which I will, I’ll take more than just my gear in return. We leave on my word and no later. Got it?”

Mitski smiled and let out a sigh of relief. “You’re a good man, Farosh. Can I call you Farosh?”

“No.”

***

Rhys tapped the ignition button lightly with his finger, and was startled by the sudden roar of the engine. It was the equally celestial and infernal hymn of modern technology reminding him of his obsoleteness. He sat down on the sleek, carbon fiber sled and caressed the handles a few times to remember the touch controls; lower right stick to accelerate, lower left stick to activate the brakes, press both to activate autopilot. Mitski trilled in delight as she got on her stomach and laid flat on her sled. 

“Ooh, she feels so good, this one. Don’t you think, Rhys?” she teased.

“Careful not to impregnate it,” he scoffed and got on his sled.

Farosh got on his knees and started up his engine. He motioned his hand outward, to the wide stretched field of hail ahead of them.

“Lead the way, kids.”

Mitski took the lead, and rode in the same direction they came earlier that day. Their footsteps were still visible on the surface, and so they kept to the side in order not to lose them. Rhys gritted his teeth at the biting cold in his face. The monotonous landscape rushed by, and he could perceive virtually no movement apart from the speed meter on the sled and the bypass of the trees.

After riding for a minute someone tapped into the built-in comms inside the helmets. 

“I have a visual at 3 o’clock. Big, black thing. Is that the animal?” Farosh enquired, as he pulled out his spear from his back brace and pointed ahead.

Mitski looked to her right and saw the Runalong flash by behind the pines, now steadily trodding on route to the archipelago mouth and the Capital.

“Affirmative!” she called out. “We should pick it up.”

The three sledders steered out into open territory once again. The beast had spotted them and picked up its pace for every second they got closer. Eventually, it broke out into a vigorous sprint.

“We have to get to top speed or we’ll lose it!” Rhys yelled into the comms. “Me and Mitski get parallel with it, Farosh takes the rear!”

Their engines whirred like a colony of furious bees as they pressed on. They approached the racing animal in a triangle formation and when close enough, Farosh raised his spear and battered its hind legs with his spear. The Runalong squealed, and stumbled just enough to lower its pace. 

“Rhys, strike it! “Now!”

He squeezed the sled handles, and felt the computer seize control. With a raised posterior and readied spear, Rhys got caught in a fleeting moment of stillness between him and his prey. The short, rugged fur blowing in the wind. The flaccid jaws partially uncovering rows upon rows of serrated teeth. He yanked out his spear, pulled it back for momentum and thrusted it in between the Runalong’s shoulder blades.

An exasperated yelp, and silence. The three sledders watched in apathy as the beast kept running, panting, with Rhys’ weapon jammed between his bones.

The last moment of confusion was followed by one of destruction. The group’s inattention to the destination of the beast led them straight into a several feet tall wall of hardened snow. The sleds shot to the sky from underneath them, while gravity seized their bodies and they tumbled down. Once the snow smoke settled and the last breaths of defiance had been uttered, the three sledder’s injuries led them to a silent end.

Not far from the site, something burrowed into the ice had awakened. A calamity of behemothic size, unbeknownst to creatures living and dead. The predator dragged the dead sledders, stained by their own pride, into the maw of the behemoth, in lieu of being preyed on for another day.