“Heck no. If I eat any more granola, I’m going to turn into a vegan nature-loving hippie. It starts with granola and the next thing you know you’re wearing your hair in dreadlocks and forgetting to shower.” I hadn’t set out to be funny or curt, but he laughed, and I realized he had worn on me in more ways than one. Maybe that was a good thing. Maybe not.
“Well, you’ve got the granola and no showering parts down, so I guess the next logical step is dreadlocks.”
I shook my head. “Not happening.”
“I know a few vegan hippies and they’re some of the nicest people I’ve ever met. They make the best natural soaps and grow some of the best organic wee... wheatgrass.” He cleared his voice, stopped poking the fire, and looked at me. “Forget it. You’re not a vegan-hippie kind of person.”
“I don’t want to be a vegan or a hippie, remember?” Why are we arguing?
“That’s good. You’d make a terrible one.” He leaned over the pot and smiled. “About time.” He used the stick to swing the pot away from the flames. “As soon as it cools, we’ll fill our water bottles.”
“Okay.” I stood, holding a sleepy cat. “I think I’m going to go to bed now. It’s been a long day and I’m exhausted. You coming?”
“I’ll get some sleep in a bit. I’ve got to string up my hammock and make sure the fire is out first.”
“Hammock? The tent is all ready to go. There’s plenty of room for your stuff and mine.”
“I think the hammock will be much better for the both of us, don’t you think?”
I shrugged. “Do whatever you want, Cole. I’m too tired to argue with you let alone try to molest you while you’re sleeping, if that’s what you’re thinking. If you want to sleep in a hammock, go for it. You might want to rig up a tarp while you’re at it, too. Looks like it might rain tonight.”
He glanced at the dark clouds circling the tops of the trees, making them appear larger and taller than they actually were. Precisely at that moment, a drop of rain landed on his cheek. It couldn’t have been timed better.
He turned his gaze from the sky to the pup tent and then to me. “I’ll take my chances.”
Rain drizzled from low-lying clouds, carrying right on into the following afternoon without a break. What had once sounded beautiful and lulling against the tent walls soon began to annoy me outside. Wetness curdled my toes and water logged my fingertips. Even with a raincoat thrown over my clothes and backpack, water still managed to work its way inside, drip down my neck, and soak my socks, making the very act of walking miserable.
The trails became muddy encumbering pathways, and both Cole and I slipped our way along them. We would have stuck to the paved roads, the easiest routes through the mountains, but when we’d come to the mouth of the canyon, we’d found it blocked by a massive impassable landslide.
“That doesn’t look natural,” Cole had said. “Look there.” He’d pointed to the smooth canyon walls. “That didn’t happen on its own.”
“What do you mean?”
“There and there.” He pointed once again, this time to several different spots. “Someone blasted the mountain and forced a road closure. If the weather did this, there would be more of an angle to it. This looks chiseled and deliberate to me.”
“You’re saying someone did this on purpose? Why?” What did this mean?
He shifted the pack on his shoulders. “I don’t know, but an awful lot of trouble went into this decision, so whatever the reason, it must have been a good one.”
Even now, as we traversed the dangerous mountainside, weaving between trees and boulders, my mind couldn’t shake the vision of someone purposely exploding a mountain.
The reason must have been a good one. Cole’s words thumped at my brain, and with the rain making it too miserable to do much of anything but place one foot in front of the other, talking gave way to silence and I was left alone inside my head.
Callie had it good, riding in the front pocket of my backpack. She didn’t even complain when I shoved her inside, but curled up and fell asleep, probably realizing it was better to be dry and uncomfortable.
Every time it seemed as though the rain would let up, giving us a reprieve, the clouds would slam back together and rain once again. Too many disappointments taught me to stop hoping when I saw a hint of blue in the sky.
Cole didn’t grumble or voice his discontent, but trudged through the soggy mud sucking at his boots, and tightened his rain jacket around his neck. He had to be just as tired and wet as me, but never said so.
We climbed steep paths and made our way through thick trees, following the downward flowing river. Cole didn’t want to venture too far away from our only source of water; besides, it kept us from walking around in circles. Even with a compass to direct us—something I couldn’t quite figure out and left up to Cole to interpret—it wouldn’t take much to become lost.
Each step, however wet and awful, got me closer to Dad. I kept my mouth shut, my head down, and trudged along.
We rounded a bend and our path opened wide, revealing a beautiful grove of tall grasses and multi-colored wildflowers bordering the large crystal-clear lake. Jagged mountain cliffs walled it in, and pines and junipers grew in clumps, giving the entire area a tranquil mystical feel.
Mirror Lake. I’d been here before with Dad and Toby. We’d camped under a blanket of trees off to the south and fished the inlet of the river to the north. Years had passed since I’d last set foot here, but the memories rushed back as though only a few days had gone by.
I smiled—we’re getting closer—but my grin slipped away as I was overcome by dread and fear. The beautiful flowers and trees faded and the gruesome scene before us came into full view.
From a distance, the lake appeared to be circled by large rocks and boulders, almost like sandbags used to keep the water from overflowing and flooding the exquisite space, but as we drew closer, it became quite apparent the mounds weren’t rocks at all.
The bodies of hundreds of dead animals, bloated and decaying, lay on their sides along the lake’s edge, the carcasses wrapped around the entire length of the lake, ten to twenty animals deep. Smaller animals lay on top of the larger ones like Russian stacking dolls, with their milky eyes wide and their mouths gapping. Tongues hung from open jaws. Stiff legs jutted at awkward angles. Bears, deer, birds, horses, domestic dogs and cats, mice, bobcats, chipmunks, rabbits, beavers—the predator and the prey—all asleep in death; all sharing the massive unnatural gravesite.
Worse yet, dozens of animals floated in the clear blue water, some just below the surface, while others lingered and swayed on top. Creepy and unreal. Rain rippled the water and rolled over the dead animals bobbing along the edges, washing away the smell that would’ve accompanied the scene.
I couldn’t move or look away, even though I wanted to run. This solved part of the mystery of where all the animals had gone, though I couldn’t understand what it meant. Had some of the animals run straight into the lake? None of them would have been able to swim across the expanse. Had they known they were sentencing themselves to death? But most importantly, what were they running from?
Cole came to stand at my side. Rain dripped from the brim of his hat. “Now you know why filtering the water isn’t good enough.”
We’ve been drinking this water? I bent at the waist and vomited into the wet grass until I had nothing left to throw up. Cole didn’t try to comfort me, but stood quietly at my side until I had finished. I swiped a wet hand over my mouth. “We need to get out of here.”
“Agreed.” He shook his shoulders, spraying rain like a wet dog. “Be careful where you step.”
“You have got to be kidding me.” Cole bent down, picked up a handful of thick snow from the pile wrapping around our legs, and held it out to me. “We’re not prepared for this kind of thing.”
My body shivered and my teeth chattered. I agreed with Cole without having to voice it. In the space of a week, we had seemed to experience all four seasons—extreme heat, torrential
rains, and now a snowstorm. He was right: we weren’t prepared for winter conditions. A snowstorm this time of year, especially in the higher elevations, wasn’t unheard of, and packing a winter coat among our supplies would have been a smart thing to do, but neither of us had.
I’d already put on every piece of dry clothing available. With the way the weather seemed to change every few hours, it seemed we just needed to wait out the storm. Eventually, it would get better. I had to believe that.
“How’re your feet?” Cole brushed the snow from his gloved hand.
“Frozen.”
“Can you feel your toes?”
“No, not really.” The Doc Marten boots, though stylish, didn’t do much to keep my feet warm or dry. The souls were cracked and my toes threatened to poke through the leather at any moment. They made horrible hiking boots, but they’d gotten me this far and I hoped they’d hang in there long enough to take me the rest of the way. “But that’s normal, right?
“Normal if you like walking on stumps instead of feet. No, not feeling your toes is never considered normal. It’s pretty bad, actually.”
“I’ll be fine. If we keep moving, I’ll warm up.” I didn’t want to waste time on a standard part of being out in the cold. We were so close to finding Dad, and I didn’t want to get sidetracked. True, I hadn’t experienced this kind of snow and cold before—most of our winters consisted of a few inches of light snow mixed with icy rain, not sub-zero temperatures like this. My wimpy, summer-loving body needed to adjust.
I took off my gloves and blew on my hands, trying to instill some warmth back into my numb fingers. My breath turned into white puffs that hung in the air, and my nostrils began to freeze. I instantly regretted the removal of my gloves. Breathing on my fingers hadn’t helped at all.
Cole grabbed my hands right as I tried slipping my frozen digits back into my gloves. “How long have they looked like this?”
I hadn’t noticed the redness creeping over my fingers or the pasty-white patches covering their tips. “I don’t know. This was the first time I’ve taken my gloves off.” The cold air bit into my flesh.
He pinched each finger in turn. “Do you feel that?”
I nodded.
He helped me put on my gloves, but kept turning his head, looking around. For what exactly, I had no idea. “We need to get you out of this cold.”
“Should we pitch the tent?” We didn’t have many options as far as shelter went, and I wouldn’t mind slipping into my sleeping bag for a minute or two.
“No.” He held both my hands between his, rubbing warmth into them. “The snow is too heavy. It’ll collapse. We can’t even start a fire, because the falling snow will smother it.” The look on his face told me if he could have punched something, he probably would have.
“Then let’s keep walking,” I suggested. “Standing here is making it worse.” Cold seeped through my boots and crept up my spine. Each intake of breath chilled my lungs, and every release meant I was forced to take another. The longer we stood there, the colder I became, and the more the pile of snow around us deepened.
“This isn’t good, Tess.” His eyes held a sense of seriousness that should have scared me, but didn’t. “I’m getting worried about you.”
“We’ll be fine. It’s not far now, just over the hill there.”
Cole’s eyes narrowed. “No, it isn’t. That’s not even the right way.” He pointed in the opposite direction. “We have to head for that ridge, you know that.”
I smiled. Why is he getting all worked up? “Yeah, I’m sorry. I guess I got a little turned around.”
He swore under his breath as he removed the crinkled map from his pocket, stared at it for a long time, and then scanned the area around us. “There’s got to be a cabin or a hunting shack around here somewhere.”
“We haven’t seen any so far.”
Cole kept glancing around. “Doesn’t mean they aren’t there. This is serious, Tess. We’ve got to get out of the cold before you lose your fingers and toes.”
I’d thought he’d been joking before about the stump thing. “How are your hands? Are you freezing?”
He shook his head. “I’m fine.”
“Let me see.” I grabbed one of his hands, and even though he didn’t make it easy, I managed to remove his gloves. What the heck? I snatched his other hand, took off that glove too, and held both his hands in mine. “They’re not cold.”
“I told you I was fine.”
His hands gave off warmth right through the gloves covering my own. A normal flesh- colored tone proved his words true. He was fine. No sickly white spots or bright-pink areas. His fingers didn’t look anything like mine though we both wore the same gloves. In fact, he probably didn’t even need gloves at all.
“You’re not shivering.” I hadn’t noticed it before now, too focused on my own cold and discomfort. My body hadn’t stopped shaking for at least a good hour. I didn’t think I could stop, or ever would, and I assumed he was suffering like me. “Why aren’t you shivering?”
He snatched his hands away and worked his gloves back over them. “I have more endurance than you, I guess.” He pointed to the west of the ridge. “We should head for that section, because if I had a cabin, I’d build one there.”
Beautiful majestic mountains rose up behind where he pointed—a perfect Ansel Adams backdrop for a cabin.
“Okay,” I said, wrapping my arms around myself, “we’ll head there if you think that’s the way to go.”
“I don’t know if we’ll find anything, but it’s worth a shot. Otherwise, we’re in a whole lot of trouble.”
I let him take the lead. He stomped out the path—an arduous task of lifting one leg, putting it down on top of the snow, and then sinking nearly up to his thigh. Walking in the snow was hard and time consuming.
I kept my eyes on him as I trudged behind, but my mind kept going back to his warm hands. Why didn’t he shiver? “Are you okay?” I called to him.
He glanced over his shoulder at me. “Yeah, I’m fine. How you holding up?”
“I’m hanging in there.” I managed a few more steps, but walking was getting harder and harder. “Are you cold?”
“I’m fine.
“You’re not even a little cold?” How could he not be?
“Oh, I’m cold,” he said. “I just seem to handle it better than you.” He zipped his jacket a little higher around his neck, rubbed his hands together, and shivered once. “You need to stop thinking about it so much.”
My teeth chattered non-stop. My body shook. I couldn’t feel my feet or hands, and my nose had turned into a giant ice-cube on my face. The only thing missing was an icicle dangling from my nostrils—a real possibility. How could I not think about being cold?
Because I knew how miserable I was, I couldn’t buy into Cole’s act one bit.
Cole flicked my nose. “Stay awake.”
My eyes snapped open, and I blinked several times, breaking the crystals forming on my eyelashes. I’d fallen asleep standing against the cabin’s porch railing, and it took a moment for me to remember where we were. I hadn’t meant to fall asleep, for however short a time, but the cold made it increasingly difficult to stay awake. “Are we here?”
“Yeah.” He tapped both of my cheeks. “Don’t close your eyes, okay?”
I bobbed my head and my eyelids fluttered, fighting to stay open.
“Step back,” he said. When I didn’t move, he took hold of my shoulders and positioned me away from the cabin door. “Don’t move and don’t fall asleep on me again.”
“Okay.” The word pressed through my frozen lips.
He took a step back, lifted his leg, and kicked the wooden door. The frame splintered, but continued to hold. He kicked it again and the door gave away a little more, but instead of kicking it a third time, he let out a tribal yell and rammed it with his shoulder, over and over, until the wood finally split under the pressure.
Cole slipped through the tight space, entering the cabin
sideways.
He didn’t open the broken door, but pressed his face through the crack in the middle of the wood. “Heeere’s Johnny!”
Cole’s antics were funny, but all I could manage was a tightlipped, teeth-chattering grin.
“You don’t even know what that’s from, do you?” He opened what was left of the door, half-hanging on hinges, and half-falling apart, then came to me, took my arm, slipped it over his shoulder, and helped me inside. “I’ll give you the chocolate candy bar I’ve got hidden in my bag if you can name the movie.”
He didn’t have a candy bar. He didn’t have the will-power to keep one on him this long, but I played along anyway. “Stephen King’s, The Shining.”
His laugh echoed off the cabin walls. “No way! How did you know that?” He removed my backpack, set it carefully on the floor, then lowered my frozen and tired body on the nineteen-seventy plaid style couch. “That’s way before your time.”
“Who doesn’t love Stephen King? Dad had it in the bomb shelter. I think I watched it half a dozen times.”
He grabbed an old quilt off the back of the couch, shook off the dust, and draped it around me. “Have you seen Misery with James Caan and Kathy Bates?”
I shook my head and hugged the blanket tighter. “No, but I’ve read the book.” I tried to lie down, but he grabbed me by the shoulders and righted me.
“Keep talking to me, Tess. Stay with me okay?”
I nodded. “I’m really tired.”
“I know, and I promise you can sleep in a minute, but not yet. I need you to keep me company while I get a fire going.”
He propped the broken door mostly in place, though large cracks on either side let in a few swirling snowflakes. They gathered on the floor in a soft pile. It was too cold, even inside the old cabin, for them to melt. “What other Stephen King movies have you seen?”
Cold nipped at my brain, and I struggled to think. “Cujo, but the book was way better.”
“I heard the ending in the book was sad, where the movie ended a little more optimistically.” He unzipped the pocket of my bag, and Callie popped out of the opening. She let out a high-pitched meow and shook her head; her fur stood upright.
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