"BELOW ZERO":
I arrived at the Amundsen-Scott South Pole Station with great enthusiasm for the forthcoming research. As an assistant scientist, I was basically responsible for assisting in the telescope's data access and ensuring that the equipment was functioning properly. Our base resembled a small village built in the ice cap, with just fifty or so of us residing in heavily metal-clad buildings that were linked with tunnels. There was just no way of leaving in winter as the airplanes could not fly in such intense weather. All of this was known in advance, of course.
Rodney was among these astronomers. He was from Australia, tall, with a quick smile, and he loved strumming the guitar in the common room after dinner. He was also in charge of the big telescope outside, which he used to track stars in the night. He and I would sometime share shifts, sipping hot drinks while discussing matters of the universe. "Just look at the data," he would say, his eyes falling on the screen. "Just like looking into the past." He had someone who was waiting for him back in Australia, and he was to marry this woman someday. Things looked well for him.
It all began with little things. Halfway into the first weeks of winter, people started reporting missing items from the lab, such as cleaning supplies and equipment. However, no one made a big fuss about it. People were too busy saying they forgot because of the long days. The nights were simply too dark, and it messed with our minds, making it difficult for us to sleep and making us short-tempered. Dr. Thompson, our only medical person, advised us in our last group meeting to keep an eye out for signs of stress. However, no one was talking about anything.
One night, I was with Rodney in the mess hall having stew. Paul, Rodney’s friend who is a mechanic, joined him at the table. Paul said, "Hey, Rod, you look tired!" Rodney rubbed his eyes and said, "Yes, maybe I am. Been looking at screens too much." Rodney tried to downplay the moment, but shaky hands accompanied Rodney’s attempt at taking a bite with his fork. I asked Rodney if he was tired, but Rodney dismissed the question with, "Nah, I'm fine, just the usual cabin fever."
The following day, however, came Rodney, but he was late for work, and his face looked quite pale in the glow of the fluorescent tubes. "Something's wrong," he confided to me as we calibrated our work tools. "My stomach hurts bad." I immediately recommended he see the doctor, and he nodded before leaving the lab. Later, Dr. Thompson confided with a few members of the staff, for I overheard him say, "Rodney has a bug, but really, it's not serious."
Word got around in whispers. In the common room, a handful of people gathered – I, Paul, and Lisa, a biologist. "What's happening to him?" Lisa asked in a quiet voice. "Doc says it's flu or something," Paul said, but his voice was ambiguous. We were all feeling the pressure of the walls, how they seemed to close in just a little more.
By morning, Rodney cried from the pain. I went to the clinic in a hurry. Rodney was lying in bed, rolling from the pain. "Make it stop," Rodney cried to Dr. Thompson. The doctor gave him a shot to ease the pain. "This will help," said Dr. Thompson. Rodney's breathing slowed down, and his body seemed to relax. "Better?" I asked. Rodney nodded slowly. "Yeah. for now."
His body felt cold on my touch.
One hour later, alarm bells rang. We quickly went to the clinic. Dr. Thompson was working hard, pushing on Rodney's chest. "He's not breathing!" Dr. Thompson yelled. Paul and I were stunned. Lisa was covering her mouth. After a long period, Dr. Thompson stopped. He had sweat on his forehead. "He's dead." The room was silent. Rodney was lying on his back, eyes open but empty.
The shock was felt by all. How could a healthy guy die that fast? Dr. Thompson suggested that it could be a rare disease. But apprehension began to set in. "He was fine yesterday," Paul whispered to me in the hall. "What if it's not natural?" I had cramps. The base had methanol for cleaning equipment. You had to be careful using it, but anyone could get some from the storage.
The nights dragged on. We made a wooden box for Rodney's body using wooden planks we found in the area, hammering it together in the workshop. "This feels wrong," Lisa said, still clutching the hammer. "Like we're burying secrets." They kept it in a cold shed, and the ice inside meticulously preserved everything. Nobody wanted to be in or around that shed.
Whispers began. In the mess hall, over cups of coffee, everyone discussed theories. "Perhaps he ingested something bad by mistake," one of the engineers said. However, Paul shook his head again.
"Rod knew better, though. Rod was smart."
"Or could someone have given it to him?"
She stopped, and the silence was heavy, as everyone at the table wondered who might do that to the young man.
We lived like family, but the isolation did bring grudges, and petty fights from weeks ago now seemed larger than life.
I lacked sleep. Every movement of the metal walls made me startled. Is someone walking outside the door where I slept? I secured my door for the very first time that night. One night, I heard steps that stopped somewhere. I felt nervous. “Who’s there?” I shouted. There was no answer. Then the steps disappeared.
Dr. Thompson called a meeting. "We need to stay calm. Help will come in spring." But his eyes looked tired, as if there was something behind them. I thought of the blood machine in the clinic that could test for poison and replied, "Why not fix it sooner?" to Dr. Thompson in private. Dr. Thompson frowned at me, his eyes flashing with anger, and said, "Too busy saving him." This cast a shadow in my mind: did he miss something?
One day, Paul took me aside. "I have some news. I found Rodney's journal." "What did he write?" I asked. "He wrote about arguments he had with a couple of guys about work shifts." We read the journal together in secret. There were mentions of his arguments with an electrician, a guy by the name of Greg. "Greg's acting strange, hiding things around the place." My skin crawled. Greg was a quiet guy, always in his room.
I questioned Greg when I saw him next in the lab. "Did you fight with Rodney?" I asked Greg directly. He looked at me like I had crazy eyes. "What? No big deal. Just work stuff." His hands fidgeted as he spoke. "Don't accuse me," he snapped and walked out. I felt afraid; what if Greg was the killer? What if it was another person? We would be stuck with the killer.
Days went by in a blur. Food didn't taste right. Had someone been tampering with the food? I spied everyone when they ate. Lisa didn't eat much anymore. "Can't trust food," she whispered. Paul offered the idea of pairs for safety reasons. "Never alone," he said.
One night, the light flickered. The lights went dark, and people panicked. "Stay put!" Dr. Thompson shouted from somewhere in the darkness. In the darkness, I heard breathing close beside me. Who was near me? A person touched my arm, and I jumped back in alarm. "I'm Paul." The lights came back on, and I saw Greg on the other side of the room, tools in his hands. "Fixed it," he said, but his smile seemed false.
Suspicion was a poison as potent as our methanol. Arguments broke out over nothing at all. "You're hiding something!" Lisa accused her cook at dinner. But he said he wasn't. Dr. Thompson attempted to intervene, but trust was at an end.
One night, I found a note stuck under my door: "Stop asking questions." I was shaking. Who wrote it? I showed it to Paul, and he said, "We need to watch our backs."
With time, the months went by, and the wait for rescue seemed to drag endlessly. We called out, and help was on the way, but not yet. The investigators would arrive with the planes, but until then, the menace was in every shadow, every face.
Finally, spring came. Planes took Rodney's body away. Later, we knew it was a methanol poisoning. Everyone, including us, was questioned by the authorities. Nobody confessed. The crime remained a mystery.
Even now, far removed from the ice, I wonder who did it. And if this person is roaming freely, who knows the horror of what happened on the ice?
"LOCKED IN":
The assignment had been one I was looking forward to for months. The chance to work at the SANAE IV base in Antarctica meant pushing the limits of science and studying ice cores and climate patterns in one of the most remote locations in the world. Our team of nine—a group of scientists, engineers, doctors, and support staff—arrived by the light of the sun in early February. The base was perched atop a rocky outcrop, surrounded by the seemingly endless expanse of white, with the next source of civilization thousands of miles away. We all knew what the score was—we knew that come winter, we'd be marooned for months, depending on the team to keep each other sane and alive.
At first, everything was normal. Normal in that we were bringing in supplies, normal in that we were getting equipment ready, normal in that we ate meals in the common room. Johan, our lead mechanic, was an okay guy, seemed solid. Tall, quiet, always working on something with his tools at hand. Hummed old folk songs while he worked. Made it seem like there was more life in the room. Pieter, the engineer, was more outgoing. Made jokes. Helped distract from the grime. And me? I was in charge of collecting the data, spent hours in the lab.
But as the days grew shorter, other small things began to change. Johan had started to miss dinner more and more. He would sit by himself in the bunks, staring at the wall or mumbling to himself. I came into the kitchen one night, to make myself a cup of coffee, and caught him sharpening a knife that was longer than he would ever need. He looked up, smiled weirdly, and said, "You never know when you'll need a sharp edge, Lukas."
I made a joke out of it, thinking it was just cabin fever. "Yeah, for cutting that tough seal meat we never eat," I said. His eyes, though, didn’t match the smile. They were flat, as if he were looking me over.
Pieter noticed it too. One evening, during a game of cards and while the wind was howling outside, Pieter leaned in and whispered, "You know, Johan's been acting strange lately. I got a lecture from him for borrowing his wrench without permission. Says I invaded his space."
I nodded, speaking softly. "Give him time. Isolation can affect everyone in different ways."
But it only got worse. A few weeks later, the doctor called another meeting. This time, she explained that Johan complained about headaches and sleeping difficulties. “He's stressed,” she said. “So are we all. Let’s keep an eye on one another.”
That night, I couldn't sleep. The base creaked and groaned as if it is alive, metal expanding and contracting in the cold. I listened intently from my bed, and it sounded like someone was making deliberate steps along the hall outside my room. The steps came to a deliberate stop right outside my doorway. I felt a racing heartbeat, but I pushed the thought aside, knowing how old buildings creaked and settled. The next morning, all was fine.
Then came the first actual incident. The incident involved Pieter and Johan, who were mechanically working on a snowmobile in the garage. I, meanwhile, was in the adjacent room when I heard them arguing loudly.
"You're doing it wrong!" Johan exclaimed. "Always messing with my tools!"
"Hey, calm down, man," Pieter said. "I'm just tightening the bolt like you showed me."
I heard a thud, and a grunt followed. I entered and saw Pieter lying on the floor, holding his arm, and blood was seeping through his sleeve. Johan was standing next to him, a wrench in his hand, breathing heavily.
"What happened?" I demanded, helping Pieter up.
Johan dropped the wrench, looking pale. "He slipped, hitting his arm on the edge."
Pieter flinched but said nothing. "Yeah, accident. No big deal."
The doctor bandaged Pieter's cut, which was deep but not too bad. Later, the doctor called me aside. "That was no accident, Lukas," she said. "Pieter's told me Johan swung at him. Keep an eye on this."
Fear started creeping in then. We are stuck here—with no flights out until spring, and no means of calling for immediate assistance other than radio check-ins to the mainland. Our daily reports to base command in South Africa, however, did not mention anything unusual. But Johan's behavior took a turn for the worse.
He started shadowing people around the base. I'd turn a corner, and there he was, lurking in the background watching me. One afternoon in the lab, I was by myself entering data when he came in through the doorway. "What are you working on?" he said, very casually.
"Just the usual ice samples," I said, attempting to act normally.
He walked closer, and his hand came into sight, holding a glass vial. "You think you're smarter than me, don’t you? All you scientists, looking down on the mechanic."
I took a step back. "No one's looking down on anyone, Johan. We're a team."
He smashed the vial on the floor, and the glass shattered. "Team? You're all against me." Then he walked out, and I was left to clean up the mess, my hands shaking.
That night, Pieter told me as well as a few others during a lull in the common room, "He's been saying things. Threatening me, saying he'll hurt me unless I stay out of his way. And last night, he cornered Anna in the hall."
Anna was our biologist, quiet and intent. "He grabbed my arm. He said I was teasing him by paying no attention to him." She shook her head. "I pushed him away. He didn't let go until I yelled."
We decided to confront him as a group the following day. Before we could do that, things got out of hand. It was late at night, and everyone was in their bunks. Then a scream was heard. It was Anna. I quickly jumped out of bed, grabbed a flashlight, and went running to find out where the scream was coming from.
Anna was pinned against the wall in the hall, with Johan leaning over her, resting his hand on her shoulder. "You think you can walk away?" Johan muttered menacingly.
"Get off her!" I shouted, holding the intruder back.
He spun around and attacked me, his eyes crazy with anger. "You! Always interfering." He pushed me hard, and I fell to the floor. Then Pieter and the doctor came running, alerted by the noise.
"Johan, stop this," the doctor said firmly. "You're not yourself. Let me help you."
He laughed, his laugh low, his tone unsettling. "Help? You want to lock me up like an animal." He then attacked Pieter, fists flying. The two struggled, with Pieter covering himself as well as he could. Johan climbed on top of him, choking him. "I'll end this right now!"
I grabbed a fire extinguisher hanging from the wall and swung it at Johan's back, not hard enough to kill him, just enough to stun him. He rolled over, gasping for breath. We pinned him down, and the doctor shot him with something from her medical bag.
Gasping for air, Pieter looked at me and said, "He was going to kill me. I saw it in his eyes."
We radioed command that night, telling them everything. They promised to send help as soon as the weather allowed, but storms rolled in for days. Johan was locked in his room, under guard, but we kept watch in front of the door. Every creak, we jumped. I sat in front of that door, in the dim light, thinking whether Johan had snapped in his cell, whether the isolation had snapped him, or whether it was going to snap us.
After that, Anna did not utter much, sticking close to the group. "I keep thinking he’s listening," she said, looking at the door of his room. "Planning something."
Pieter nodded in agreement. "We cannot trust him," Pieter said. "What if he escapes?"
The days seemed to pass slowly. Johan would sometimes strike the door, yelling out accusations. "You're all plotting against me! I'll make you pay!"
Sleeping became impossible. I would lie in bed and worry he would sneak out, tool in hand, going to get us one by one. The base felt smaller, like the walls were closing in on us.
Finally, after what seemed like forever, relief arrived in the form of a plane. A plane landed, officials took Johan in for evaluation. Johan went without a fight, but the look in his eyes as he gazed at me.
We finished the season, and nothing was ever the same again. Fear persisted because, in a place like that, nothing teaches you that what's feared most is not what happens outside but what happens to build inside, waiting to explode at its own timing.
"HAMMER":
I arrived at my duty position at McMurdo Station on that October morning in 1996, mixing the dough in the galley to prepare the evening meal. This station was huge, the biggest station in Antarctica, with a population of hundreds in the summer months, but in the winter months, it was much less, just a small group like us. I worked as the assistant cook, with the head cook being a big man named Tom, always yelling and barking around orders, but in a place as remote as Antarctica, one tends to go with the flow. In the blizzards that closed the doors and us inside for weeks at a time, there was nowhere to run from each other.
I noticed, though, that Tom had been rather cranky lately. He was staying in a dorm with a few other mechanics, and he would often talk about useless things, like the lighting and people using his cards without asking for them. "People around here think they own the place," he went on brandishing his mouthful of teeth and chewing away at the vegetables I was mincing. I kept agreeing with him, busily mincing the vegetables away.
The other cook, whose name was Ben, was handling the grills. Ben was new that season, hailing from some small town in Ohio, I think, and when he had nothing much to do, he would often sing to himself. We were all right with each other, though Tom was constantly nagging at him about something. He even went so far as to bark at him when Ben had his music too loud in the grill section. Ben, though, would only smile and turn it down.
"Who moved my hammer?" I recall a day while assisting with the clean-up of the lunch hour, Tom pounded the pot down onto the counter. "Ben, I needed it to hang my rack, so could you put it back where you originally saw it – in the drawer?" replied Ben as he gazed up from the area he was scrubbing.
Tom's face turned red as he replied, "Ask next time. This ain't your house."
"Sorry, Tom. Won't happen again." Ben shrugged.
I stepped between them. "Easy, guys. Long day ahead. Let's focus on dinner – stew tonight."
They stepped back, but the atmosphere was so charged, so to say, as before a storm. On that night, in the midst of the mealtimes, Tom once again complained at his brother Ben, "Ben, you're burning the meat again, Pay Attention!"
“It's fine,” Ben said calmly. “Folks like it crispy.”
A mechanic, Carl, sitting at the counter, eating, laughed and said, "Easy, Tom, lighten up. We're all in this ice box together."
Tom glared at him, but said nothing. I was tired, so I climbed into my bunk after the cleanup. The generators provided a steady reminder that we were alone on this rock.
Next day, tensions simmered. In our meeting that morning, the station manager, a stern-looking woman named Rita, reminded us to get mental health check-ups. "Isolation gets to everyone, talk if you need to." Tom rolled his eyes. Then, in the galley, he confronted Ben as I continued peeling the potatoes. "You think you're better than me? Always smiling as if nothing bothers you."
Ben paused, holding the knife in his hand. "What's really wrong, Tom? You've been acting strange for weeks."
"None of your business," Tom said in reply, and stormed out, his tray in hand.
I dried my hands. "He's stressed, Ben. Give him space."
Ben nodded. "Yeah, but it's wearing thin."
That night, I couldn’t sleep, and I kept hearing the sounds of distant laughter from the rec room, but something seemed different. I went to get a drink, and I walked by the galley. I knew the light was on. I peeked in, and I saw that Tom was sharpening knives alone, very slowly, and he had his back to the door.
Days rolled by, and Tom remained withdrawn as ever, skipping his meals as we did. Ben talked to me during recess. "Sometimes, he stares at me. Like, as if he is planning something."
"Talk to Rita," I suggested.
Ben hesitates. "Maybe. Don't want to stir trouble."
On one occasion, the kitchen was busy preparing for a movie night where there would be popcorn and hot chocolate. Tom arrived quite late and his eyes looked bloodshot. He then asked, "Where's my spot?" because he saw Ben occupying his spot.
Ben shifted over. "Here, take it."
Tom pushed past him, grumbling to himself. Meanwhile, Ben went to get a pan, and Tom said, "Quit touching my stuff!" Tom took the hammer from the drawer, the one that was used for fixes.
Ben raised his hands. "Calm down, Tom."
I remained stationary, frozen in my position at the sink. "Tom, put that down. We're friends here."
However, Tom's face contorted. Tom then swung the hammer, the claws out, at Ben. The claws hit Ben's arm, tearing away the fabric and the skin. Ben cried out in pain and backed away.
"Stop!" I exclaimed, stepping forward.
Tom became crazy-eyed again, swinging once more. This time, the hammer touched my shoulder, creating a scorching pain. Blood flowed. Ben clutched his wounds, with blood dripping on the floor.
Carl burst into the room in a hurry. He had heard the commotion. "What the—?" Carl asked Tom, tackling him.
Rita came quickly: "Everyone back! Get the doc!"
We got Tom down. "He pushed me too far," he whispered. He was panting heavily, no longer struggling.
Ben leaned against the counter, his face ashen. "Why, Tom? What have I done?"
The doc stitched us up – Ben needed twenty stitches and staples in his arm, and I had five in my shoulder. It hurt like fire, but we made it through. Rita made herself marshal, and locked Tom in a storage hut with guards. "No one leaves here until help arrives," she said.
Word got around fast. People were saying things in the hallways, locking doors at night. Was Tom cracking from the eternal darkness? Or was something else going on? I took care of my wound, but the pain was in the fear of it all. Anyone could crack in a place like this, and there was no escaping it.
A few days later, FBI agents showed up, and we all were questioned, our faces gravely inspected beneath our parkas. "Tensions build in places like this," they said. Tom was flown to Hawaii to face his assault charges.
So we continued, but the galley felt haunted. I checked for shadows, listened for echoes of that swing. McMurdo is a big base, but isolation has a way of shrinking the world. I finished my tour, then got out. The chill follows, though, in quiet moments. I think: Who's next to break?