by Ann Gimpel
Billy glanced out at the faces, wondering if any of them had ever gotten far enough from their living room sofas to have any idea what he was even talking about.
“There...there’s something disorienting about trying to go somewhere in a blizzard after dark. You get vertigo where it feels like you’re still moving even when you’re not. Those blasted lights didn’t help things. The coyotes didn’t either since it sounded as if they were getting closer. I totally understood why Mary wanted to follow the lights, because I did too. If it hadn’t been for all my years of training as a guide, god only knows where we would’ve ended up.”
So, how would that have been any different?
Crap, my goddamned conscience has turned into a fucking smart-ass.
A snort blew past his lips, and he wished he had another beer.
“I knew when I saw a dip in the ridge that we were almost there. About then, those weird lights flickered and died out. But I was so ecstatic I’d managed to navigate my clients to safe haven, I didn’t waste time worrying about the lights. I waited till we were all together in that little declination, and then I pointed dead ahead. ‘You can’t see it quite yet,’ I said, ‘but the hut’s only about fifty feet thataway.’
“Well, those damned girls started crying all over again. I don’t know how they could have seen anything since tear tracks streaked down the insides of the tinted lenses of their goggles. But they stumbled forward with the rest of us.
“We couldn’t get in the front door of the hut since it was mostly buried under snow. So we went round the back and took off our skis so’s we could climb the ladder to the big window that opened onto the second story. Hut was designed that way on purpose. Otherwise, you would’ve had no winter access at all. I made everyone hand up their skis since I was afraid the blizzard would bury them, and we wouldn’t have been able to find them again. It took a while, but eventually we were all inside, milling around the rough wooden-slatted floor. It was really just one medium-sized room with open rafters, bunks built into the sides, and a stack of mouse-chewed mattresses shoved into one corner.
“Everyone was giddy, feeling like we’d cheated death. Which we had. After a bit, I went down the inside ladder to the first floor to get a fire going in the cast iron woodstove. It wasn’t really any warmer in the hut than outside. Only difference was we were out of that infernal wind. I chopped up some kindling and stuffed it into the stove. Didn’t find any paper, so I used some pages from the register they keep in all the backcountry huts so the Sierra Club can keep track of guests. When I went to the cabinet where the matches should have been, they were gone. Cursing, I fitted my clumsy ski boots into the rungs on the ladder to climb back up to get my first aid kit where I knew there’d be matches mixed up with Ibuprophen and Ace wraps.
“By now I was shivering. All that struggling out there on the ridge meant all of us had done a lot of sweating in spite of the subzero temperatures. That’s one of the ironies of mountaineering. You can be cold and hot at the same time. I told my charges to sort through the mattress stack and pick the least damaged ones. Then they were supposed to double up two to a bunk and hold one another to try to stay warm since none of us had sleeping bags. While I was digging around in my pack for the first aid kit, I pulled out my down jacket and another long john top. Then I stripped the clothing off my upper body so I could get rid of my drenched inner layers.
Once I’d replaced the clammy material next to my skin, I felt better. Shrugging into the down jacket, and zipping it up to my chin, I made my way back downstairs and got the stove fired up, blessing whichever work crew had left the neat stack of wood. I stayed down there for a while. It’d be warmer upstairs, but I had to keep feeding the stove until I could put a pretty big piece of wood in, and it would catch. While I was about it, I called Joe to come down where I was so he could get a pot, take it outdoors, and fill it up with snow. Once I had that, it would melt nicely atop the old cast-iron stove.
“We didn’t have much in the way of food since this had started out to be a day trip, but there were basic staples in the hut. I’d found tea bags, pasta, and sauce in the cupboard, and I figured a good strong cup of tea and some carbs would do us all good. For that, we needed water.
“When Joe came down, I asked him quietly how everyone was doing. ‘Not good,’ he told me. ‘Those lights are back, and the girls want to go outside to see who’s there with lanterns.’ Then he told me that Mary and Beth had gotten it into their heads someone out there needed rescuing.
“I instructed him to make sure they stayed in their bunks and sent him up the ladder with the empty pot.”
“Why not the front door?” one of the other passengers asked from two rows of seats away.
“Blocked by snow,” the guy who’d poked him earlier cut in and gestured for Billy to keep talking.
“Joe started shouting my name, sounding totally panicked, just before he came back down the ladder, balancing the pot full of snow I grabbed it as soon as I could reach it and dropped in on the stove.
“‘Listen to me. You’ve got to come,’ he screeched. ‘The girls, they went outside to see about the lights. They slogged right past me when I was on my way in with the pot. I tried, but I couldn’t stop them.’ I considered telling him he should have decked them both, but caught the words before they could tumble out. No point in recriminations. There was no way he could have known what a monumental error he’d just made.”
Billy dropped his head into his hands. The buzz from the beer that had felt pleasant a little bit ago was nauseating now, and his guts clenched. Even though it was silent in the bus, but for the roar of the storm rattling the windows, he thought he could hear voices urging him on.
Tell it, they screamed in his head. Tell it all, Billy boy. You’ve never told anyone. Big opportunity for you here.
“Shut up,” he muttered, shaking his head from side to side. “Just shut up.”
“But none of us said a word,” a woman protested, looking at him like he’d lost his mind.
Maybe she was onto something, and he had.
“Got to take a leak,” he said, looking up. “Get rid of some of that beer.” Stumbling to his feet, he wove unsteadily to the john at the back of the bus. Standing there with his dick in his hand, he felt so dizzy he wondered if he was going to pass out. But god—or whoever—wasn’t going to let him off the hook that easily. All too soon, he ended up back in his seat, facing everyone, though he didn’t remember how he’d gotten there.
“I swarmed up that ladder intent on finding the women. Sure enough, they were nowhere to be found. Ned was hanging out the second floor window, the glow from his headlamp yellow against the snow. I asked him if he could see them, but he shook his head. The last thing I wanted was to go back outside in that blizzard, but I bundled back up, swapping my down for my hard shell jacket. At least my goggles had more-or-less dried.
“My first thought when I climbed down the outside ladder, was that I’d follow their tracks in the snow, but it was coming down so hard and so fast there weren’t any tracks. No sign which way they’d gone. And then I remembered those guys from years before and what had happened to them in this hut, and I was pretty sure I knew who’d been waving the lights around.
Not anyone living, that was certain.
“I tried calling for Beth and Mary, but gave it up for wasted effort after the first round of shouts. They hadn’t taken their skis, so I didn’t figure they’d be able to travel very fast. See, I’d had Ned drop mine down to me. I took a careful compass bearing on the cabin and set out with a plan in mind. I was going to ski about half a mile in the direction the lights had been coming from. They’d been off to the east in the vicinity of Mount Andersen’s summit. Next, I’d circle round toward Tinker’s Knob to avoid the corniced areas on the ridge. If I didn’t find the girls there, I was going to backtrack along the ridge the way we’d come.
“I called up to Ned to make sure he and Joe stayed put and kept the fire going. Then I set out.
It took me a couple of hours to cover both directions, but there was no sign of either woman. From time to time, I could have sworn I heard macabre laughter, mixed in with coyote cries. Both sounds followed me, but I pretended it was only the storm. If I’d thought there was really someone laughing at me...someone dead... I’d have lost it then and there. I figured I could scare off a bunch of coyotes for long enough to get back to the hut. But I sure as hell didn’t know what to do about ghosts. Especially ones who considered the living a personal challenge to be eradicated.”
Billy took a deep breath. Once he stopped talking, he realized he was shaking. Okay, just a little more here. Then I can quit, and one of those rubes who are staring at me can take my place.
“I finally went back to the hut. My headlamp was dimming, but it was getting easier for me to find my way because that’s how it’s always been for me. Once I start knocking around a place in the backcountry, even if I can’t see very well, I get like this sixth sense about where things are. Plus, I could smell the smoke from the fire I’d made. I tell you, I was plenty relieved to see light coming from the hut once I got close. It meant Ned and Joe were still there. I didn’t know what I was going to do about the women, but I was beat to shit. I had to rest. It wasn’t safe for me to be on my feet much longer.
“I called out, but no one answered. Even though it was awkward, I stuffed my skis between myself and the ladder and made it to the window. When I pulled on the shutter, it wouldn’t open, and I knew it had been latched from the inside.
I pounded on it. And pounded and pounded. Eerie, inhuman laughter rose around me in gales, and I felt as if someone had punched me in the guts. When the laughter faded, the coyotes’ song filled in for it.
“I remembered an axe on the hut’s front porch. I’d used it to chop wood when I’d been there during an unseasonable summer storm. Working my way down the ladder, I clipped back into my skis and went around to the front of the structure. Removing one ski, I used it to dig down to where I thought the axe should be.
“A coyote got pretty close while I was working. Close enough, his eyes gleamed, reflected in the feeble light from my headlamp. He was making that yip-yip-yip sound they do when they’re excited, so he must’ve had a bunch of buddies just out of sight. The rapscallions no doubt saw me as dinner. I had to do something, or the whole pack would probably jump me, so I pulled a rock out of the hole I’d just dug in the snow and hurled it at him. He yiped, so I knew I’d hit the wily bastard.
“Guess I got lucky. Clipping that coyote meant the whole pack of ’em would kite off and leave me alone. I located the axe the second place I dug. Holding onto it carefully, I skied back under the window, shucked the skis and placed them upright against the wall of the hut. I stuck them partway into the snow to make sure they didn’t go anywhere. Then I climbed up that ladder, balanced myself, and swung the axe at the wooden shutter standing between shelter and me. It didn’t take long. The wood was rotten and, even though I’ve been calling it a window, there wasn’t any glass. Only that wooden shutter. All the huts in the Sierras look the same. They were all built round about the same time in the nineteen forties by the Sierra Club. Anyhow, the bottom story is made of rock and mortar, and the upper story is usually wooden, except for the Peter Grubb hut that’s all stone...”
Billy opened eyes he hadn’t realized he’d closed. The low hissing moan from the crowd chilled his soul. They wanted to know what happened after he’d stove in that shutter and he...well, he’d backed away from what had been in that cabin on that long-ago night.
I’ve got to keep going. They’ll tear me limb from limb if I stop now.
He could feel the angry energy from the crowd—mob energy—pushing against him, competing against the memories gnawing at his insides. The nausea that had caught him unawares in the bathroom was back, and he wondered if he was going to puke.
“Uh, okay...” Throat dry as dust, he reached for his beer, and then remembered the bottle was empty. Someone in the crowd shoved another Bud into his hand. Not caring if it would make the sickness in his guts better or worse, he chugged off part of the bottle. The green bandana from his neck made a handy rag, and he mopped his forehead.
“I sort of, uh, did a front somersault through the second floor entrance. See, I wanted to land on my feet. And I did, axe in both hands, ready for anything. Anything but what I found.
“Mary and Beth were back in the cabin, but I could tell from the gray, bloodless color of their skin, and them running around with bare feet and not much else on, they had to be dead. At first, I thought they’d frozen to death, but then I saw the unnatural bend in Beth’s right leg and the triple-jointed look of Mary’s arms, and I knew they’d fallen. That something—the thing with the light—had lured them off a cliff or out onto a cornice that collapsed.
“‘Billy,’ Beth chirped, ‘There was someone lost out there. We found him and brought him back.’
“Following her pointing finger, I located a shadow in one of the corners. I hadn’t seen it when I’d first scanned the room. But something lurked there, something shimmery and hazy, but definitely something. If the girls were dead, this other thing had to be too. As I kept an eye on that strange shadow, I wondered what had happened to Joe and Ned, so I called out for them. Joe answered from downstairs. Not words exactly, but it was his voice, so I stopped worrying about the guys. I had plenty on my plate without adding to it.
“As I stood there, wondering what to do next, the shimmery thing unfolded and grew taller. If it’d been a human, I would have said it stood up, but the motion wasn’t anything quite that well defined. At least I could see it now, though. Long black hair stood out from its head in matted tangles, and strips of dried-up, blackened flesh hung off the bones in its face. Christ! Once that mangled face came into focus, my insides turned to mush and my bladder let go. Scalding urine soaked my pants and dribbled into my boots.”
Billy’s face heated, and shame poured through him. Grown men didn’t wet themselves, or if they did, they didn’t admit it to a bunch of strangers. “Look here,” he said defiantly, daring anyone who might’ve considered mocking him, “I...I recognized it. I’d seen that face when the dog dug up the frozen climber years before. The guy showed up in my nightmares from time to time too. But tonight he wasn’t begging for clemency from the storm gods. He was getting even, taking down every living soul who came within his reach.
“A low, keening sound rose from him. Beth and Mary ran to help, linking arms behind the dead man’s back. I heard them cooing, like a mother would to a baby. Watching them trying to take care of that...abomination made me sick. Once the thing started moving, this ungodly smell filled the upper floor of the hut. Like something freshly dead, yet worse. It...it was like the body pits in ’Nam. Except things don’t usually stink, even dead things, when it’s as cold as it was in that hut.”
Billy snaked a hand toward his beer but pulled it back. He was definitely feeling worse, and the thought of putting anything into his stomach, even booze, didn’t set well. “I, uh, watched the thing as it crept closer to me. I kept telling myself it couldn’t hurt me directly. It could do things like it’d done to Mary and Beth, where it tricked them to their deaths, but I was smarter than that. Leastways, I thought I was.
“After about five minutes, with the girls chittering nonsense at me while they clung to the remains of the climber who’d frozen to death years ago, I sidled along the far side of the room, grabbing my pack from where I’d left it propped up against one of the two by six supports. Yelling for Ned and Joe to get away from the ladder I heaved my pack through the hole in the floor, tossed the axe after it and, with a last glance at the grotesque tableau tottering toward me, I flung myself down the ladder just as my headlamp died.
“Cursing the fates for bad timing, I felt my way down the metal rungs. A pale glow came from the stove, but it wasn’t anywhere near enough light to see what I was doing. At the bottom of the ladder, my boot hit something soft. Figuring it was my pack, I
kicked at it. Except it didn’t move. ‘Ned, Joe,’ I called. Anxiety gnawed at me as I willed my eyes to a supernatural acuity trying to see something...anything at all.
“‘I-I’m here,’ Joe said at last. I asked him what the fuck had happened. I suppose I could have tried for a gentler tone, but I didn’t have energy to spare for subtleties. He took a shot at answering me, but the words kept getting swallowed up in strangled-sounding sobs.
“Because I needed to see more than anything else right then, I felt around, found my pack, and pulled spare batteries out of the upper compartment. Then I got right up next to the stove so I could use what little light there was to swap out the dead ones in my headlamp for fresh.
Lots of dead things in here tonight.
“It took a while to fumble the headlamp open. My fingers were half-frozen and, what with the moaning and scraping coming from upstairs and Joe’s sobs from right next to me, I had a hell of a time concentrating on much of anything. Finally, I had light again.
“Ned’s body curved into bizarre angles next to the bottom of the ladder. ‘H-he fell,’ Joe moaned, having regained the ability to do something other than cry. ‘It was right after the girls brought that...that thing in here. The whole lot of them oozed through the walls. One minute it was just Ned and me, and then there were five of us. Ned shrieked, ran for the ladder, missed his footing, and fell. I-I checked for a pulse, but...’
“Long years of training and discipline took over, and I knelt by Ned’s still form. It didn’t take me long to determine he’d broken his neck. If that wasn’t bad enough, he also had a huge swelling at the back of his head. He was still breathing, but he wouldn’t be for long since there was no way to transport him to an emergency room in time.
“‘I-is he...’ Joe’s tremulous voice drifted over from next to the stove.
“‘Not yet, but soon,’ I snapped, kicking myself once the words were out. I’d been guiding long enough I was no stranger to death, plus I’d seen active combat. But Joe was an accountant for chrissakes.