Mountain of the Dead

by Jeremy Bates

  The crown went wild. The monstrosity bellowed.

  In the next instant the creature peeled open the bars imprisoning it as if they were made of cheese. It lurched through the opening and stampeded straight toward me. Screaming, those in the stands nearby fled, though I couldn’t make my legs move. Someone knocked me over in his or her panic, and then I was being trampled beneath dozens of feet. I closed my eyes and covered my head with my arms, waiting for the thing to find me—

  Hands shook my shoulders. At first they were assimilated into the dream—one of the audience members attempting to rouse me, perhaps—but then the hands shook harder and the dream snapped.

  I sat up in the dark, stiff and cold, confused.

  I was on the floor of the prisoner barracks, I realized. Little more than embers remained of the fire. Outside, the wind whistled with gleeful malevolence.

  In the molten light, I made out Olivia awake next to me, a worried expression on her face.

  A flashlight stabbed the dark, then another. Disco and the two Russians rousing in their beds.

  “What’s going on?” I asked.

  “It’s out there!” Olivia said.

  Her words hit me like a slap.

  “I don’t hear—”

  “Quiet!” Fyodor hissed. He went to the entrance to the sleeping quarters. He inched open the door and peered into the room beyond.

  “There!” Olivia whispered.

  I heard the familiar sound right away. It was faint and rhythmic, powerfully ominous.

  Clack…clack…clack…

  ⁂

  “What do we do?” Disco said, a quiver in his voice.

  “Stay where we are,” I said.

  “And wait for whatever’s out there to get us?”

  “It won’t come inside,” Olivia said, though she didn’t sound confident.

  “You don’t know that,” Disco said.

  “You think it can use a doorknob?”

  “I think it can bust down a door, sha.”

  Vasily hissed something to Fyodor in Russian. The guide unslung his rifle from over his shoulder and yanked the bolt to crank a round into place. Pressing the walnut stock into the meaty pocket of his shoulder, he started into the front room.

  “Where’s he going?” I whispered.

  “To take a look,” Vasily said.

  “To take a look?” I said in disbelief. “Tell him to come back!”

  He left.

  ⁂

  Fyodor returned ten minutes later. He had only stuck his head out the front door of the building, and he had seen nothing. He had heard nothing more either. None of us had.

  And right then, in the dark of night, that was just fine by me.

  CHAPTER 20

  NORTHERN URAL MOUNTAINS, USSR, 1959

  TWO DAYS TO LIVE

  After a cold and restless night, the Dyatlov group continued north along the Lozva River until they reached the Auspiya River, which deviated in a westward direction. They had been following the Mansi hunter’s tracks for much of this time (whether they belonged to the hunter who’d confronted them was anybody’s guess) until the weather worsened and the tracks disappeared beneath a blanket of fresh snow. The coniferous forest gradually shrunk in size around them, the towering birch and pine and spruce yielding to smaller, twisted versions of themselves, a visual reminder of just how harsh and unforgiving the environment into which they ventured was.

  On the third day of hiking, the evening of January 28, Igor suggested they build a fire outside to sit around. Doroshenko knew why. It was his twenty-first birthday, and this was how Igor wanted to celebrate it. Doroshenko would have preferred the anniversary to pass with no fanfare, but he knew that would not be the case.

  They cooked an especially large dinner over the fire, they had their usual debates about science and poetry and literature, and then with Georgy strumming on his mandolin, everybody broke into a birthday song. Doroshenko felt his face flush red with embarrassment, but he thanked them afterward and told them he appreciated that he could celebrate this day with them. Then Zina stood and produced from her pocket a tangerine, a rare fruit only available for a brief time each year.

  She kissed him on the cheek and said, “This is from all of us. We’ve been saving it the entire trip.”

  “Then let’s enjoy it,” he said, peeling the skin. He pulled off a wedge and passed the tangerine to Igor, who sat next to him.

  “No, comrade,” Igor said. “You enjoy it.”

  “I will enjoy it most by sharing it with my friends.”

  After everyone had taken a piece, Georgy said, “What about Lyuda?”

  They all looked at the tent. Lyuda and Kolya had gotten into a fight earlier about who had to stitch closed a hole in the canvas, and Lyuda had been silently fuming inside the tent ever since.

  “I’ll bring it to her,” Igor said.

  “No,” Kolya said, taking the last remaining piece from Georgy. “Let me. Maybe she will no longer hate me so much—”

  A strange whistle pierced the night.

  Everyone froze. Doroshenko stared into the sepulchral forest, though he couldn’t see anything except the stunted trees closest to the fire. The sound had raised the fine hairs along his nape.

  Igor said, “What was that?”

  Zolotaryov was frowning. “I’ve never heard anything like it.”

  Lyuda stuck her head out of the tent, her eyes wide. “Did you guys hear that?”

  “Georgy!” Zina said. “This better not be another one of your jokes!”

  “That wasn’t a snowball, Zina,” he said. “What was that—?”

  They heard it again, definitely a whistle, high-pitched, sorrowful.

  Doroshenko’s heart pounded in his chest. He looked about for a weapon, though he knew they had nothing but the communal knife and their individual pocketknives.

  Zolotaryov took a burning branch from the fire and started toward the trees.

  “Sasha,” Igor said, standing also. “You should stay here.”

  Zolotaryov hesitated, then nodded, remaining where he was.

  “Maybe it’s some kind of bird?” Zina said. She looked terrified.

  “That wasn’t a bird,” Doroshenko told her. “And what kind of bird lives in the taiga in the winter?”

  “An owl?” Rustem said.

  Nobody answered. They knew it wasn’t an owl.

  Zolotaryov returned to the circle of light. He tossed the branch back onto the fire. “It must be a wolverine.”

  Doroshenko shook his head. “Wolverines don’t sound like that.”

  “No, they don’t. But they might if they were injured.”

  “He’s right,” Rustem said, relief in his voice. “Whatever it is must have stumbled into a Mansi trap.”

  Doroshenko wasn’t sure he believed this, but he didn’t have an alternative explanation.

  Zina, frowning skeptically, said, “I want to go back in the tent.”

  Zolotaryov nodded. “That’s a good idea. It’s late. We should get some sleep.”

  Everybody retreated to the tent with the exception of Igor, Doroshenko, and Zolotaryov.

  Doroshenko said, “What should we do?”

  “Put more branches on the fire,” Igor said. “Keep it bright.”

  “I’ll do it,” Zolotaryov said. “I’ll keep watch too. If we don’t hear it again, whatever it is, we probably don’t have anything to worry about.”

  ⁂

  Inside the tent, with the stove burning warmly and the three layers of canvas walls separating them from the night, Zina began to relax. The whistle-like noise they’d heard already seemed less and less real, almost as if they’d imagined it. And perhaps they had, she thought. They’d heard something, of course. But maybe they were confused. Maybe it hadn’t been a whistle after all. Maybe it had been…she didn’t know. Something explainable though.

  Rustem, writing in the group journal, said, “How would you describe what we heard? A whistling, right?”

&nbs
p; “Yeah, a whistling,” Lyuda said. “Only deeper.”

  “A howl?” Georgy said.

  “Yeah, a howl. Sort of like a monkey howl.” She did a comically bad impression.

  “I don’t really know what a monkey howl sounds like,” Georgy said, “but I don’t think it sounds like that.”

  Zina giggled. “Write it down, Rustik.”

  Rustem seemed nonplussed. “You want me to write that we heard a monkey whistling in the Russian taiga?”

  “No, a monkey howling,” Lyuda said.

  “I’m not writing that we heard a monkey howling.”

  “So we’re going to leave this out too?” Kolevatov said.

  “Yeah,” Igor said tiredly. “I think we should. I think we should forget about it and get some sleep.”

  And so they did.

  ⁂

  The next day they broke camp early. The weather deteriorated throughout the morning, slowing their progress to a crawl, though it improved again in the afternoon, allowing them to make up much of their lost time.

  By dusk they were once again huddled in the tent, warm and comfortable. Zolotaryov detected the tempting aroma of hot cocoa and raised his head from the group journal. Zina knelt next to the cast-iron stove in the center of the tent, pouring steaming water into a metal mug. Perhaps she felt his gaze on her, because she raised those dark eyes of hers, catching him watching her. A faint, playful smile creased her lips. Zolotaryov recalled the night they had spent together in Vizhay, and a combination of passion and guilt filled him. He was too old to be fooling around with her. He knew better. Yet he hadn’t been able to help himself.

  He’d tried to do more with her than fool around, of course. He was used to women agreeing to whatever he wanted. Yet Zina had been different. Chaste, wholesome—and that was attractive too.

  Looking away from her, he pretended to be interested in Georgy, who was playing the mandolin and singing one of the songs Zolotaryov had taught him a few days earlier. Lyuda sat cross-legged next to him, clapping her hands to keep beat to the music, while in the far corner Doroshenko, Kolevatov, and Rustem enjoyed a game of cards.

  Zolotaryov was about to return to the journal when Igor shouted from outside the tent, his voice charged with what sounded like fear.

  “What the hell?” Rustem said.

  Igor shouted again, this time requesting Kolya’s camera. Kolya set aside the book he was reading and jumped to his feet. Ducking low to avoid catching his head on the tent’s low roof, he retrieved his camera from where it dangled from a horizontal ridgepole. As an afterthought, he grabbed the ice axe that lay next to one wall. He unzipped the door flaps and disappeared outside.

  Everyone else sat in silence, trying to decipher the rapid exchange between Igor and Kolya above the drone of the crosswinds ruffling the tent’s outer skin.

  “What’s happening?” Lyuda said finally, her brow furrowed, her jaw set resolutely, as if this action alone would elicit answers.

  “Igor says he saw something,” Georgy told her, setting aside his mandolin. His usual cherub features were tugged downward in concern.

  “But what?” Lyuda asked.

  No one had an answer to that, so they continued to sit in silence until Kolya reentered the tent, followed by Igor. Kolya’s complexion appeared paler than usual, his mouth a tight line. And Igor seemed as though he had seen a ghost. His cropped and receding hair clung wetly to his bare skull. His wide-set eyes were haunted, passing over everyone without seeming to see them.

  “Well?” Rustem said in his typical haughty fashion. “What did you see?”

  Igor shook his head. “I don’t know,” he said.

  “What do you mean you don’t know? You said you saw something, didn’t you?”

  “Was it a bear?” Zina asked a moment before she seemed to realize the answer to her question.

  “Bears are hibernating right now,” Rustem told her dismissively, if not condescendingly.

  “But you saw something, Igor,” she pressed. “So you must know what it looked like?”

  “It was…big,” Igor replied.

  “How big?” Rustem asked.

  “I don’t know. It was some distance away.”

  “So maybe it was nothing?” Lyuda said. “Maybe it was just some shadows—”

  “No,” Igor said. “It was something. I saw it move.”

  The collective mood in the tent had nosedived, becoming anxious, even fearful. Igor was not only the expedition’s leader, but a stalwart of competence and confidence. He was intelligent, rational, and impeccably calm. Nothing seemed to faze him. Which begged the question: what had now?

  “So where did this…this thing…go?” Zina asked him.

  “Away.” Igor waved vaguely. “Into the forest.”

  Zolotaryov spoke for the first time. “Did you see it too?” he asked Kolya.

  Kolya shrugged. “I saw something. But it was quick…”

  He turned to Igor. “You took a photograph of it?”

  Igor looked down at the camera, as if just realizing it was in his hands. “I think so. But I won’t know until I can develop the film.”

  “This is crazy,” Rustem said. “If it wasn’t a bear, what could it possibly be? We’re in the middle of nowhere. Nothing is out here. Nothing except snow.”

  “I saw what I saw!” Igor growled.

  “Yes, I know. Something you can’t describe. If this is some joke, Igor, it’s not very funny.”

  “It must have been a reindeer,” Lyuda said.

  Igor shook his head. “It was no reindeer. It was too big…and it was standing upright.”

  “On two feet?” Zina said, clearly surprised.

  Zolotaryov was surprised by Igor’s statement as well. To his knowledge, bears were the only animal in these parts that could stand on their hind legs. But it was 31 January, and as Rustem had accurately stated, bears would be hibernating right now.

  “Could it have been a person?” Lyuda asked.

  “Out here?” Georgy said. “Impossible.”

  “Perhaps another skier?” Doroshenko suggested.

  “By himself? Alone in the woods, watching us?”

  “The Mansi hunter,” Zina said, which was what Zolotaryov was thinking. “The one with the rifle. He followed us.”

  Lyuda was nodding. “That’s right! It must have been—”

  “No,” Igor said defiantly. “It wasn’t a person. It was too big.”

  “Big again!” Rustem snorted. “That is all you will tell us. It was big! And did it fly around on a giant mortar and pestle? Is that what you would have us believe, Igor? That it was the witch Baba Yaga? Do you take us for fools?”

  Igor didn’t reply. Instead he went to his bedroll and lay down on top of the blanket, still dressed in his fur coat and felt boots.

  He closed his eyes.

  Nobody else spoke. For several long moments the only sound was the creak of skis as members of the group shifted their weight on the floor uncomfortably.

  “We should get some rest,” Zolotaryov said finally. “Tomorrow’s leg of the trek is uphill through the forest. It will be the most difficult terrain yet.”

  Without waiting for a consensus, he lay down on his bedroll, pulled the cover to his chin, and attempted to sleep. Yet his thoughts kept him awake for much longer than he would have liked.

  What had Igor seen to rattle him so much?

  What was in the woods with them?

  Krivonischenko reverse angle taking a photo of Kolya

  Front to back: Kolya, Zolotaryov, Alexander Kolevatov, and Lyuda (left)

  CHAPTER 21

  I didn’t know whether the others were able to sleep well or not, but I managed the improbable feat of dozing while remaining aware of every ambient noise in the room, which included restless bodies tossing and turning, weathered and rotting wood settling, wind pummeling the loose windowpanes, and repeated flatulence in the vicinity of Fyodor’s bunk. Needless to say, I felt like crap when I finally roused myself to
face the morning.

  Within five minutes of me fussing around getting breakfast ready, everyone else was up, yawning and stretching their cramped muscles. I stoked the fire and was going to cook baked beans and Just Add Water pancakes when Fyodor reminded us we had plenty of venison left over. After he went to attend to his butcher’s duties, I said to Olivia. “No snowbath?”

  She was scratching her left breast, which swayed substantially beneath her thin cotton top. “Sorry to disappoint,” she said, a bit snarky, apparently back in her I-Hate-Corey mode. And was this because I didn’t want to kiss her last night? Why was that my fault? You can’t just go around trying to kiss people without their consent and get pissed if they didn’t reciprocate.

  Disco sat down next to me. “Good dreams?”

  “Didn’t dream,” I said, deciding not to mention the surreal circus my sleeping mind had conjured up. Naked Olivia and Ringmaster Vasily? They’d have a field day psychoanalyzing that.

  “I did,” Disco said. “Dreamed a forest giant bust in here and tried to eat us.”

  “Part alligator, part tiger?”

  “More like a werewolf with big fangs and claws.”

  “Did we kill it?”

  “It got Olive.”

  “Shame,” I said.

  Olivia turned toward the fire without a word.

  After dressing in another layer of clothing, I went outside to fill the billycan with snow. The clear sky buoyed my spirits, and the sharp, fresh air hit me like a shot of espresso. In fact, now that I was up and about, I felt oddly giddy, which contrasted sharply to the fear that had stalked me throughout the cold night after the second stick-banging incident. In the light of day, a forest giant no longer seemed like a monster to be feared but merely an animal to be bested and tracked down.