by Matt Hults
A deer’s carcass hung from the branches of the nearest tree, its skeleton picked clean. It seemed to float in the shadowy stillness, the tethers of rawhide that secured it to the tree all but invisible when set against the backdrop of the snow-frosted forest.
Jacob gaped at it, captivated.
Ice from the recent storm clung to its boney crown like transparent flesh, creating a sharp contrast to the darkness that gazed back at him from the black pits of its eye sockets.
Sadie mewed. “Daddy, what’s that?”
“Bones,” Kate answered for him. “Probably left by some hunter.”
“What’s hunting?” Sadie asked.
“It’s how people used to survive in the wilderness,” Jacob replied. He had to swallow to wet his throat. “Way back before grocery stores people had to hunt animals for food. Now most just do it for sport.”
Sadie shifted on his shoulders. “Sport?”
“Yeah, like a game, to have fun.”
“People kill things for fun?”
“I’m afraid so, kiddo.”
Sadie’s gaze returned to the bones, her young mind no doubt trying to make sense of the notion. “That’s not nice,” she said.
Fifty feet ahead a white glare cut through the trees where they opened into the valley.
“No, it isn’t, sweetheart,” Jacob agreed. “Come on. Let’s keep going.”
They altered course around the tree with the skeleton, Jacob taking the lead. He made it three steps before stopping again.
“Jesus,” he said out of shock.
He’d pushed through a cluster of spruce saplings to behold a towering curtain of fleshless animal remains blocking his path. Thousands of withered hides and stripped bones decorated the forest like gruesome ornaments on row after row of blasphemous Christmas trees.
Jacob stared, mouth hanging open.
Skulls. Femurs. Vertebrae. Ribs.
They adorned branch after branch.
Some hung in groupings meant to resemble the animals they came from, whereas others had been mixed and fitted together to create elaborate abstract sculptures of death.
Jacob thought of the wind chime hanging outside their kitchen window back home and wondered what kind of music this collection would make on a blustery day.
“My God,” Kate said under her breath. In the cold, the word came off her lips like a ghost.
“Was this from hunters?” Sadie asked.
“No,” Jacob replied. He glanced behind them, to the cavernous shadows under the pine trees and the million or so hiding places among the ground clutter and rocks.
Kate, too, scanned their surroundings. “Should we go back?”
Jacob strained to hear into the depths of the forest before answering. He thought he heard a low chanting in the distance, a repetitive cadence that he soon realized was his own heartbeat pounding in his temples.
He looked ahead of them, beyond the bones. Twenty feet away the woods opened onto a ledge overlooking the valley.
“No,” he answered. “Whoever did this did it a long time ago. Let’s just keep moving and put it behind us.”
He adjusted Sadie’s seating on his shoulders and moved forward, not looking up when he passed under the bones. Kate followed.
They cleared the trees, all squinting against the glare of the snow. The valley floor lay below them, looking like a vast frozen lake. On the opposite side, a palisade of pines hid the view of the town. The sun hunkered on the horizon behind them, creating a silhouette that looked like a row of black fangs.
Jacob gazed in disbelief.
Kate gasped even as he looked to his watch.
“Jacob, the sun—”
“I see it,” he croaked.
“But how?” she asked. “It wasn’t even noon when we left.”
“I know.”
Sadie shifted uneasily. “Is it going to get dark now?”
Jacob patted her leg but couldn’t summon the saliva to answer. He looked back into the cave of trees where they emerged from the woods and the shadows that seemed dim beforehand had become impenetrably black.
“Jacob how—” Kate pleaded.
“I don’t know!” he shot back, then muted himself.
He stepped onto an outcrop and stared out at the valley. What had first appeared as a blank white palette now looked streaked with oranges and purples, divided by long, pointed shadows. Their brilliance faded with each passing second.
There was no denying it—they’d walked for less than an hour, yet his watch showed that it was five minutes to sunset.
“Let’s go back,” Kate whispered.
Jacob nodded his agreement and gestured to the left. “This way looks less rocky.”
He started walking, but a crisp noise suddenly cut through the stillness and his right leg sank up to his crotch. He buckled over, straining every muscle in his back to keep Sadie from tumbling off his shoulders.
“Shit,” he yelped.
Sadie screamed. Her small hands clutched his head.
“Hon—” Kate started, but Jacob cut her off with a shout.
“Stay back! I can’t feel anything underneath. I think we’re on a snow shelf or something. The way this land slopes away … Christ, we could be fifty feet off the ground.”
“Can you get back up?”
“I don’t know.”
He tried to push up with his left hand and it disappeared into the snow up to his elbow.
“Damn,” he cried. “Quick, take Sadie and back away slowly.”
Kate moved forward, easing her weight down with each step. The snow crunched underfoot. Below them, phantom sounds issued from something unseen, something Jacob knew could’ve only been hunks of packed snow breaking loose and dropping to the rocks.
“Don’t come any closer,” he shouted.
Kate froze, her arms outstretched. Sadie mewed at the force of his voice.
“It’s okay, baby,” Kate said. “Just hang on.”
Jacob sank another inch as he maneuvered Sadie off his shoulders with his free hand, struggling to keep her balanced.
“Momma!”
“I’m right here,” Kate said, her voice miraculously calm. “Just move slow and come to me.”
Jacob reached.
Sadie reached.
Kate clutched the girl’s hand.
And the shelf collapsed.
Jacob saw the crack open in the snow inches from his wife’s boots, giving them enough time to lock eyes before he and Sadie plunged six feet, dropping with the slow motion fluidity of a Hollywood special effect.
Sadie’s hand pulled away, leaving her empty mitten in Kate’s grasp.
Jacob saw the scream form on his wife’s lips, her cold-blanched face creasing in horror. But then the section she stood on followed suit, breaking off before the cry left her mouth.
The two massive slabs of snow shattered into a thousand hard fragments, engulfing them in an avalanche. The world went black. Jacob’s ears filled with a rumbling white noise. He felt Sadie yanked from his hands as the flow engulfed them, tumbling him end over end, contorting his body regardless of all efforts to curl into a ball.
With each roll and twist he expected a fist of granite to punch a hole in his ribcage or smash open his skull. But then he came to a halt in mid-summersault, suspended upside down in the snow.
He tried to move. His muscles flexed, straining each fiber, but the snow had packed tight around his body, immobilizing him in a frosty embrace.
Panic bit into his senses. He imagined Sadie trapped somewhere nearby, buried alive. The back of his throat seared with pain as he fought to scream through a mouthful of snow.
Something slammed into his back.
A hand grabbed his coat.
“Jacob,” Kate cried.
He felt the pressing weight of the snow shoved aside, and her shouts grew louder. She hauled him free just as his lungs seemed ready to explode.
He gasped for air, ignoring the frigid sting of it as he drew in breath
after breath.
Kate helped him up, wiping snow from his face, and he exhaled a great sigh of relief when he saw Sadie standing next to her. The young girl’s eyes glistened but looked bright and alert.
“Are you all right?” Kate asked between sobs. “Is anything broken?”
Jacob shook his head. He looked up, shocked to find the ledge that they’d fallen from now towering three stories above them.
“I thought I lost you,” he said to his wife.
“Ditto,” she replied.
He reached out and hugged them, clinging to his wife and daughter as his own emotions evolved into tears. The last rays of sunlight bled out of the valley as he gazed over his wife’s shoulder, leaving the sky a deep shade of crimson.
When he finally released them, Kate regarded him through wet eyes. A faint grin dimpled her fiery red cheeks.
“Now the hard part, right?”
* * *
Runny nose. Freezing ears. Chapped lips.
None of the other pains compared to the ache in Jacob’s feet as he plowed onward through the dark.
Three hundred yards from the cliff the wind picked up, coming out of the north.
“Cover your face,” Jacob said to Sadie as another gust hit them. He held up one hand to shield his own face from the cold, and the suede material of his driving gloves felt like stiff rawhide on his skin.
With the sun gone, the valley had turned into a shimmering white sheet that glowed in the starlight. The forest had before a black ring around them, with the only sounds coming from their feet and the morose howl of the wind.
Jacob was trying to think of something to say when his wife beat him to it.
“Look,” Kate cried. She pointed through the flying snow.
Jacob peered past her, making out five figures moving toward them. He refused to believe his own eyes at first, worried the wind was playing a trick on them, but when the black shapes moved closer he knew he wasn’t imagining it.
“I’ll be damned,” Jacob said.
Both he and Kate waved their arms over their heads, signaling the newcomers. Jacob counted five people, their features lost in the dark. The shape in the lead waved once in reply.
Jacob pushed on to meet them, a fresh surge of hope charging his spirit.
“Are we glad to see you,” he said once they’d neared within speaking distance.
The men remained silent as they approached. All five appeared to be American Indians, clad in camouflage snow pants and jackets with bright orange hunting vests. Rather than rifles or shotguns, however, they sported more traditional bows and arrows that looked handmade.
Jacob adjusted his grip on Sadie, smiling.
“Hello,” Kate said.
The quintet closed within ten feet and came to a halt, watching Jacob and his family with unreadable eyes. None of them spoke, not even to acknowledge Kate’s greeting.
Jacob extended his hand. “I’m Jacob Strode, pleased to—”
“What are you doing here?” the closest man asked. He was older than the rest, his face a craggy landscape of wrinkles.
Jacob swallowed, wetting his throat. “We had a bit of an accident with our car,” he explained. “A deer ran into the—”
“This is sacred ground,” the man interrupted. “It is a spiritual place. You shouldn’t have come here.”
Jacob exchanged glances with Kate. “I’m sorry. We didn’t intend to trespass or anything. We’re just trying to get to town.”
“There are roads to town,” the man answered.
Jacob swallowed again. He saw Kate look to him out of the corner of his eye but kept his attention focused on the tribesman. He shifted position, trying to free himself from the snow hugging his legs.
“Like I said, we wrecked our car back there, and we haven’t seen any other traffic for hours. You see, we were on our way to a wedding, so we’re not really dressed for—”
“You are not welcome here.”
“Please,” Kate cut in. “We just need a cell phone or a radio, and we’ll—”
The elder shook his head. “Your white man’s magic will not work here.”
Jacob blinked, catching another shocked glance from Kate.
White man’s magic? Did he actually say that?
“This is a place of uneasy spirits,” the elder went on. “You have disturbed them with your presence, and for that you must die.”
Each word of the old man’s statement resounded with perfect clarity in the open air, but Jacob floundered for a response while he waited for the grin that would put them in context. In contrast, the man’s expression remained maddeningly impassive.
“We said we were sorry,” Kate said. “You don’t have to play games with us.”
“Regret means nothing,” the old man replied. “Only blood will cleanse your transgression.”
“This isn’t funny,” she shot back.
The wind howled, stirring up specters of snow that swirled around them. For a moment the distant trees become lost in a white haze, and the rest of the world vanished.
Jacob used the moment to turn to his wife and slide Sadie into her arms. When he faced the hunters again, he stripped off his gloves and dug his wallet out of his pocket.
“I have sixty dollars cash,” he said, pulling the bills out to show them. He strove to keep his voice level, as if the leader’s announcement never registered. “I know that’s not much, but if there’s a bank in town, I’d gladly pay you men one hundred dollars apiece to—”
“Five hundred,” Kate interjected. “We’ll pay you five hundred dollars apiece. It’s all we have, but we’ll give it to you if you help us. Please.”
“Trade will not save you,” the leader replied.
Jacob’s eyes flicked to each of the men. They all shared the older man’s blank gaze, not one looking even the slightest bit insincere. Their silent subservience cleaved a new wound into Jacob’s resolve.
“Look, we’re scared enough as it is,” Jacob told them. “Why are you doing this?”
No one replied. Had someone sneered or offered a comment, then at least he might have had a clue to their intentions, but their incessant silence deepened his fear that the old man wasn’t joking.
“Is it a racial thing?” Jacob pressed, searching for the source of the unspoken hostility. “Is that what the white man comment was about? Because we’re not like that.”
The leader’s stare remained constant, his expression unyielding.
Jacob crammed the money into his pocket. A flush of anger drove the cold from his cheeks.
“Forget it,” he said. “We’ll find our own way—”
“Jacob,” Kate cut in.
He turned to look at her, only to find her attention trained on five more natives who’d approached from behind. Like the first group, all of them wore hunting gear and carried handcrafted weapons.
By the time Jacob faced the leader again the other hunters had fanned out, joining with the newcomers to surround them.
“Come on, guys,” Jacob pleaded. “Enough is enough.”
Ignoring him, the leader nodded to his fellow tribesmen, and the men all readied their bows. They drew arrows.
Kate gasped, moving closer.
“Okay, stop this,” Jacob demanded. He glanced back and forth, trying to watch everyone at once. He shuffled his feet in the snow, hoping to bump into a rock or a stick, anything he could use as a weapon.
“This has gone way too far. If you’re not going to help us then just back off and—”
But his words died off in mid-sentence when he saw the hunters knock the arrows to their bowstrings and pull back. The wood creaked as the pressure compounded.
Jacob froze, his anger turning to terror.
Kate grasped his arm.
“There is no fighting it,” the old man said. “The spirits demand sacrifice.”
Jacob’s heart machinegunned inside his chest, firing adrenaline to every muscle in his body. His hands shook. His legs trembled. Sweat burned o
n his brow.
The valley surrounded them like a wasteland, offering no shelter, no means of escape. The deep, clinging snow assured that even the fastest lunge would prove useless, and the nearest tree seemed a world away.
But not nearly as distant as reasoning with the man standing ten feet in front of him.
Jacob met the elder’s emotionless gaze.
“Take me,” Jacob pleaded. “Let my family go.”
“Jacob, no,” Kate cried.
“Yes,” he said, stepping away from her. “I’m the one who decided to cross here. Leave them out of this. I’m begging you, don’t hurt my family.”
The old man’s eyes never blinked. His pupils appeared huge in the gloom, and what Jacob saw welling in their black depths drowned his last hope for salvation. Behind his impervious expression of detachment, Jacob saw a glimmer of revelry in the old man’s dark gaze, a sinister obedience to customs that had been forged in another age and carried out over the centuries with an unbending devotion.
“The woman first,” the old man ordered.
And with those words, Jacob realized what had been nagging him ever since the hunters arrived: no steamy exhalations issued from the man’s lips when he spoke. His chest remained as still as the frozen valley floor.
Because he’s already dead, Jacob thought. All of them are.
—This is a place of uneasy spirits—
Jacob’s mouth dropped open even as the sound of bowstrings thrummed the air. Arrows hissed past on both sides.
Half a dozen impacts issued from behind, like fists hitting a pillow.
Moving with the tarry slowness of a nightmare, Jacob swung around to see his wife falling backwards, wooden shafts jutting from her torso and legs. She collapsed with her eyelids peeled back in shock, teeth bared in a display of animalistic horror. Sadie tumbled from her grasp, landing facedown in the snow.
“No!” Jacob bellowed.
Something punched him in the back.
He glanced down to see an obsidian arrowhead poking through his coat, just over the right breast pocket. Thin wisps of steam trailed from the blood smeared across its surface.
Jacob glanced up, immobilized by shock.
He saw Sadie, still stuck in the snow, unable to move. Kate rolled toward her, reaching out, striving to help the girl in spite of her wounds.