This is the continuation of The Nome Man saga, about a man that inherited a strange power, found himself standing on the edge of an abyss, contemplating whether to deal with the power, or step off the edge, and take it to his grave. As he made the decision to deal with the power and live, the frozen cliff edge broke loose, and he fell into the abyss. Twenty years later, he was discovered by an ecological survey team, encased in a block of ice. Find out what lies in wait for the continuation of this exciting saga.

The Nome Man 2 (Nome Man, No More)

By Raymond J. Howlett

AuthorHouse

Copyright © 2012 Raymond J. Howlett
All right reserved.
ISBN: 978-1-4772-6049-4

Chapter One

It is the eleventh day of the month of June in 1996, and for most parts of the United States (other than the high mountain ranges), the snow has long since been gone. But, there is one place in the U.S. that still has snow at this time of the year. That place is the Northern part of Alaska. The snow is even starting to melt there, but it will not stay green for very long, before the snow covers the ground again with a blanket of white.

An ecological survey team, consisting of seven men, had just arrived in Nome, Alaska to set up their base camp for exploration. Three of the men would stay at the base camp to work on analysis of the samples that would be brought in. They also keep in close communication with the exploration team, as they explore the frozen tundra of Alaska. One man would start out with the exploration team, and then act as a transporter between the exploration team and the base camp. The other three men would do the measurements of the ice thicknesses, and gather the samples from the different areas.

Their plans are to explore the upper regions of Alaska and parts of the Yukon, to test the different thicknesses of ice in varying areas. They will be working on, determining the effects of what Global Warming may be causing on these areas of the continent, and compare them with other studies, which were taken from the North and South Poles.

They used tents for their base camp and set them up in an open field, which a landowner had leased to them for three months. Each man had his own personal tent, and three large tents were brought along for different purposes. One large tent was used as a headquarters area, communications area, and meeting tent, where the explorers brought their data, and also work on their tests in one designated place. That was the tent which was used for everyone to bring their data into, so it could all be compiled together, and properly analyzed. They also used this tent to have meetings on the information that was accumulated, and the different subjects that would come up about the exploration. It also served a third purpose of keeping their communication equipment in one place, so they could keep in close communication with the men that were out on the exploration. Another large tent was used as a makeshift cafeteria, and the last large tent was used as a makeshift medical station. The medical station tent was also used as a supply area. This way, they would have a designated place to pick up more supplies when they needed them during their exploration. They also set up two smaller tents, which had a small porta-potty in each tent, to be used as restrooms. Once they had their base camp situated, all of the members of the exploration team had gathered in one of the large tents, to have a meeting on their plans of gathering their data.

While they were discussing different issues of the exploration, they decided that it will take them about two months, to complete all of their testing of the areas that they will explore. Upon arrival to each area, they will be checking the thicknesses of ice in each of the areas, and also take samples from each of these areas to be analyzed later on. Once they gather all of the samples, from the different areas of the explored region, they will load them onto an Arctic transport vehicle. As they complete their exploration of each region, they will send the samples back to their base camp in Nome for analysis. They also decided they would start their exploration, at the furthest northern point from Nome first, which was in the Yukon, and then they would work their way back towards their base camp.

As soon as they had all of their plans ironed out, they adjourned the meeting for the day. Afterwards, they started packing up one of the two transport vehicles that would be used to make the journey north. Most of the equipment they would use was packed onto one of the vehicles. The other vehicle would carry the rest of the equipment and three of the scientific explorers. When they completed packing up the equipment that was being taken on the exploration trip, they each went to their own designated sleeping tents to get some rest for the next day.

The following morning, the men woke up around 6:00 A.M., got cleaned up, and ate breakfast in the cafeteria tent. While they were eating breakfast, some of them discussed some last minute preparations for the trip up to the Yukon. When they finished breakfast, they double checked to make sure they had all of their equipment packed up. Then they all climbed into the transport vehicles, and headed out towards the Yukon.

Because of the rugged, snow covered terrain; it took them about two days of traveling, before they arrived at the place in the Yukon, where they wanted to start their exploration. When they arrived at their destination, they were on the frozen tundra, in the middle of the Yukon. They had stopped near the mouth of a river, which cut through the tundra, and had created the walls of a huge cavern. The river was still frozen at this time, which gave the exploration team the chance to study the ice, from the bottom and the top of the great cavern. This was the point where they had originally planned to start their exploration.

They jumped out of the vehicles and started their exploration at the beginning of the cavern. They worked their way inward towards the dark depths of the chasm, gathering up samples from the walls, as they made their way towards the center of the cave. As they continued in towards the middle of the cavern, the light of the day had disappeared, and gave way to the darkness of the depths of the cave. At this point, they had to start using flashlights, so they could see through the darkness. As they reached the middle of the cavern, one man named, "Charlie" saw a huge cone shaped, block of ice protruding upwards, and sticking out of the frozen river. He thought this seemed kind of peculiar, so he went to investigate it. He walked over to the block of ice, and shined his flashlight up about waist-height at the ice. As the light hit the mid-section of the ice, he jumped back quickly, then shouted out loud, "Holy crap!", and stood there with a startled look on his face, as if he had seen a ghost.

Another man, who was situated about thirty feet down towards the opening of the cave from Charlie, yelled out, "What's the matter, Charlie?"

Charlie answered back in an anxious, almost scared, voice, "Bill, come over here, you have got to see this!"

As Bill came over to see what all of the commotion was about, he walked over to Charlie and said, "What's goin' on, Charlie?"

Charlie pointed to the block of ice and again said in an anxious voice, "Look at this!"

As Bill looked at the ice, he too had a surprised look on his face and said, "What the heck!"

Charlie then told Bill, to go get the other two guys, and bring them down to see the spectacle.

Bill was standing there in awe, but when he heard what Charlie had said, he turned around, without saying a word, and started back down towards the entrance to get Steve and Mike. A few minutes later, all three men returned to the block of ice.

As the other two men gazed at the protruding block of ice, neither one of them could believe their eyes.

After a few seconds of being mesmerized by the object, Steve spoke up and said, "I can't believe this!"

Mike also responded in disbelief, "No, neither can I!"

All four of the men were standing in a semi-circle around the block of ice, which had...