There really are such things as Ice Tsunamis and they look creepy as Hell!
Something about the Ice
I was playing kick-around with my two best pals, Alan and Gino that day.
“What is that?” Alan pointed.
We stopped our game and looked towards the lake which was only a couple of hundred yards from our homes dotted along the shore. Between us and the lake, a sparse line of conifers stood tall. Behind them now, what looked like a cloud bank was moving toward us, steadily, but along the ground. It was difficult to judge its mass without scale reference, but as it approached the trees, we saw it was pretty vast with a low leading edge and wide expanse.
“Let’s go see,” said Gino, always the adventurous one.
Whatever the white mass was, it was coming on and gaining speed. It covered all the ground now almost up to the tree line.
“Ice!” said Alan. “It’s ice.”
“Cool,” said Gino and he ran towards it and skipped onto the surface. It began to carry him along. It was moving fairly fast now so he made a pose like a surfer and was laughing and mucking about.
Suddenly he seemed to lose balance. We began to laugh now but when he didn’t get up again, I shouted “You okay Gino?”
“Help! Help me!” came the reply.
Alan jumped up onto the encroaching ice and I was about to do the same when Gino screamed and I stopped in my tracks.
“He’s being dragged under! Get help! Get help!” shouted Alan.
Gino struggled and screamed out in terror.
I’ll never forget the panic in Alan’s voice, the look on his face, nor what I saw next.
The ice surface was creeping forward all the time, the top layer moving over the bottom layer, but as it did so, the top put out legs of ice: white spidery legs of ice, sharp as razors, strong as steel, relentlessly pushed onward by the sheer speed of the accumulation behind. Alan screamed as his legs were pulled under and lacerated by these sharp blade-like protuberances. Gino was silent by now. But there was more. Among that seething mass of white, I saw, periodically, as one layer moved inexorably over the other, eyes – many eyes – little bead-black eyes – thousands of them – blinking open and then sinking down within the general mass.
I ran home – ran as if hell was after me, and raised the alarm. According to official records, there were only two victims of the ice tsunami that winter’s day in the UPs and the verdict was, though no bodies were ever found, that they had been crushed to death after being caught in the ice flow. But you have to believe me… I saw what I saw. Somewhere out there, there are creatures of ice, millions of them and they have a liking for blood.
© Oonah V Joslin
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