“Do you think—” She hesitated, uncertain how to phrase her question. In spite of the forty years that had passed, she could tell it was a sensitive subject. “Do you think this is what happened to your aunt?”
“Yes, I do. What else could it be? Our people have the exact same injuries as her friends.”
It was true, but there was so much that couldn’t be explained. The radiation on some of the Dyatlov group, the crushing internal injuries, the mysterious burns. Nat’s brain spun in circles until she felt dizzy.
“We’re not going to solve anything tonight, and the quieter we are, the better, so let’s try to get some sleep. Maybe things will be clearer in the morning,” Steven said.
In spite of her exhaustion, she couldn’t imagine being able to rest. The closeness of the snow around her gave her the feeling of being buried alive. Her chest was so tight it was difficult to breathe. Still, she shuffle-crawled over to Igor. They’d agreed to spend the night in a huddle to conserve body heat, keeping the unconscious Russian warm, though whenever she touched his skin that was less of a concern. The man was burning up.
Refusing to let her mind wander into darkness as she worried about the infection Igor must be fighting, she buried herself in the blankets and cuddled close to the unconscious man, praying he’d be alive in the morning.
The snow crunched underneath Steven as the mountaineer moved to Igor’s other side. “Christ,” he whispered. “He feels like he’s on fire. That’s not go—”
The roof caved in, smothering her in cold and darkness. Choking, frantic to free herself, she pawed at the snow that covered her face, hands hooked into claws. Over the pounding of her pulse, she could hear Steven screaming.
Shut up. You’ll call them. You’ll lead them right to us.
Then she could hear something else, a familiar snarling that made goose bumps spread along her spine. Her bladder clenched in terror. It wasn’t a cave-in.
The snowmen had found them.
“Steven!”
He was still screaming, which was awful, but at least it meant he was alive. Her fingers dug through the snow, searching for the knife she’d last seen lying on Steven’s sleeping bag. But all too soon the screaming stopped, replaced by a sound a million times more dreadful.
Chewing.
Her hand closed around the hilt of Joe’s knife. Digging through the snow, she gouged great chunks of it away from her face, moving blindly toward the appalling sounds. Touching something, she flinched before recognizing the feel of slick fabric—ski pants. Steven’s leg, dangling in midair. Reaching upward, she followed the form of his body until she could estimate where the creature was, its guttural growls chilling her blood.
She swung the knife in a wide arc, connecting with something yielding and malleable. Rewarded with an ear-splitting shriek, she thrust the blade forward again and again, hitting her target each time with all her strength. Nat closed her eyes as steaming gore gushed over her face. Her sight was useless anyway. After another anguished, inhuman cry, she heard a soft thump and Steven’s body fell against her, knocking her off her feet. She tumbled to the ground, snow cushioning her fall, and dragged the mountaineer away from the cave-in by his jacket.
Gasping, she fumbled for the lantern. Steven would have berated her, told her it wasn’t safe, yelled about the glow of the light revealing their location through the snow. She didn’t care. The worst had already happened; their location was already compromised. She had to see what she was dealing with.
Steven’s lovely blue eyes—the eyes a multitude of women had no doubt swooned over—were fixed on the roof. His mouth was twisted in a grimace. She wept to see the atrocious wound on his neck. Most of the protective flesh was gone, leaving a bloody mess behind. Tying her scarf around the gaping cut, she watched the fabric immediately become saturated with his blood. Laying her head on his chest, her body shaking with sobs, she listened frantically for a heartbeat, though she already knew the truth.
He was gone.
She’d been too late.
“I’ll fucking kill you! I will fucking kill you, all of you.”
“Nat?” A cautious voice spoke in the shadows of the snow cave, making her flinch. It was like hearing a ghost speak. “What’s wrong? What happened?”
She raised the lantern. It might as well have been a ghost. Wincing in the glare, Igor lifted a hand to block his good eye. He held his other arm across his abdomen. Incredibly, he’d managed to extricate himself from both his sleeping bag and the cave-in. For a moment, she gaped at him, unable to speak. He should have been dead. The Russian had so many critical injuries it would have been easier to list the parts of him that weren’t wounded. And yet he was still alive, still drawing breath, while Steven was…
Nat pointed at the mountaineer’s body, crying.
“Oh no! No.” Igor shuffled closer, never taking his eyes from Steven’s face.
“He’s gone.” The last word ended in a wail. For all the trouble he had caused, Steven had been their best chance of getting out of there alive. Without his help and guidance, they didn’t have a hope in hell.
The enormity of the loss threatened to crush her, and the tears rushed from her in a torrent. Andrew, Lana, Joe and Anubha, Vasily, and now Steven. Igor put his arm around her shoulders, pulling her close. The sound of her grief might bring the creatures back, but once set free it was impossible to stop. Nat sobbed until she had nothing left.
“I thought he would be the one to make it,” Igor said. He’d shut off the lantern, but she could feel the presence of the mountaineer’s body. In so many ways, Steven had been larger than life. Already she missed his marching orders, his analysis of every situation.
“I thought it would be you.” They both acknowledged, without her having to say it, that this wasn’t a possibility. The Russian was alive, which was nothing short of a miracle, but it was obvious he was dying. Without sophisticated medical care and a means of leaving the mountain, there was no chance of saving him.
“Looks like it’s going to be you. As soon as the sun’s up, you have to leave.”
“I can’t walk out on you, Igor. I won’t. Not going to happen.” Now that Steven was gone, she was no longer willing to leave the ailing Russian behind. She kept thinking, what if it were her? What if she’d been the one with fatal wounds who had to watch the others abandon her to her fate? What if there were no choice but to lie in this snowy grave, waiting for the creatures to return and tear her apart? The thought made new tears start.
“Listen to me. If you don’t get out of here, they will kill you too, and then all of this will have been for nothing. No one will understand what happened to us. We’ll become another Dead Mountain mystery like Dyatlov. Steven deserves better than that. Lana deserves better. Andrew deserves better. Don’t you want him to have a proper burial?”
He took her hand in his, entwining their fingers. Normally, she’d have shied away from such prolonged intimate contact with anyone except Andrew, but the comfort of Igor’s touch was welcome, even necessary. The warmth of his hand through their gloves kept her tethered to reality. “I know you’re right, but I won’t leave you. I can’t.”
“You have Joe’s knife?”
“Yes.” She’d somehow managed to keep it with her during her stabbing frenzy and afterward. Its weight in her lap was the only security she had.
“Use it to slit my throat. Wait a minute before you argue. You’d be doing me a favor, Nat. It feels like my whole body is screaming, all the time. It never shuts up. I can’t sleep, can’t get any peace. I’m in so much pain, but I’ll be damned if I let those bastards take me. I want to choose my own death, and I want you to help me. I’ll show you where to cut.”
She shook her head. “No…no. I can’t do that.”
“Sure you can. You’ve killed two of those things now. I’m not going to fight back.”
“I can’t kill you, Igor. I—I love you.” She was surprised to find it was true. At some point, their little group had b
ecome her family. It was what she had left to live for. It wasn’t worth surviving if she was the only one left.
He squeezed her hand. “I love you too. That’s why I’m asking you to do this. I trust you.”
“There has to be another way. There has to be.” Could she get help before Igor succumbed to his injuries or the snowmen returned to finish him off? She wished she’d entertained Steven’s idea of splitting up. If she’d let him leave, the mountaineer would be halfway down Kholat Syakhl by now. He’d be alive.
As her adrenaline wore off, her lids grew heavier and heavier, until they felt weighed down with sand. She rested her head on Igor’s shoulder, taking comfort in the rise and fall of his massive chest. Nat knew she was drifting, but it felt impossible to stop, like she was a late-night driver hypnotized by the road. Her chin fell to her chest, and she slept.
* * *
A strange scraping sound made her open her eyes. The first thing she saw was Igor’s face looming above her. Somehow, she’d ended up with her head in his lap, but before she could register any embarrassment, he held a finger to his lips.
Tilting his head, he indicated something in front of her. Warily, she rolled to the side, moving off Igor’s lap and onto her elbows. Weak light filtered into the cave from the ruined section of the roof, and she started to see the prone figure of Steven was moving. Drag, pause. Drag, pause. The weird scraping was his body being towed along the snow.
Something was in here with them. Something alien, something evil. She could make out a great, hulking shadow, its claws piercing Steven’s hood. Mercifully, the mountaineer’s eyes were closed now. She couldn’t have handled it if he were staring at her.
When she’d moved off Igor’s lap, she’d felt the weight of Joe’s knife slide off her legs onto the snow. She felt for the weapon now, but the Russian pressed her arm. “Let it go,” he whispered. The creature stealing Steven’s body didn’t react, though it must have heard. The space was too enclosed for it not to have.
“They can’t have him.” Her fingers tightened around the knife’s hilt, and as if it could read her mind, the creature fixed its hateful yellow eyes on her. She caught a glint of light reflected from its teeth.
“Nat…” Igor urged her close, so he could whisper his next words into her ear. “You don’t have the benefit of surprise this time. If you try to stop that thing, it will kill you, and Steven would never want you to die for this. He’s dead, Nat. That’s just his body. His soul is long gone from this place.”
She realized this, accepted it even though she could feel the mountaineer’s presence watching over them still. “They can’t have him.”
“It’s not him—it’s a body. A corpse. That’s all.”
“Why can’t they leave us alone?” Rage made her body surge with renewed energy, but whenever she tried to move, to grab Steven’s leg and pull him back, Igor stopped her.
The creature kept its baleful eyes on her, staring backward as it hauled their friend toward the entrance.
“I imagine they want his skin.”
“What?” Her brain refused to process the Russian’s words, the image too repulsive to contemplate.
“Its coat—what did you think it was made of?”
The suggestion drove her gaze upward before she could think better of it, away from their dead friend and onto the creature itself and the oddly shiny-looking hide that covered it. The hide had always repulsed her, though she’d never asked herself why. Everything about the creatures had been repulsive. But now she knew. Her stomach filled with ice. Intermingled with the patches of animal fur on its coat were large swatches of human skin.
Something inside her snapped. Those things were not going to use any of her friends—her family—as their fucking clothing.
Before Igor could react, she dove for the creature, who gaped at her, startled. The shallowness of the cave worked in her favor, as the snowman was hunched over, nearly frog-walking away with its prize. Using both hands, she swung the knife home, plunging it into the thing’s eye.
This time, neither the gush of gore nor the metallic-sounding shrieks fazed her. She stabbed again and again, never pausing, her rage and fear driving her to destroy.
“Nat. Nat!”
Whirling around, she saw it was Igor who was trying to restrain her. For a second, she didn’t care. She wanted to keep stabbing, keep destroying. The realization horrified her, and the knife fell from her fingers. The sight of the thing at her feet made her gut churn.
The creature’s face had been obliterated. Her clothing, the snow, and the snowman’s coat were covered in blood and bright yellow fluid. Stumbling away, she vomited until nothing was left but dry heaves.
“You shouldn’t have done it,” Igor said once she’d rejoined him. “There are more, and they’ll come after him. We can’t win. There are so many of them and only two of us.”
She shuffled forward to retrieve Joe’s knife. Settling with her back against the wall of the cave, she focused on the hole in the roof.
“Let them come,” she said. “Let them come.”
~ Chapter Twenty-two ~
Hours passed, but she never faltered.
Eyes narrowed, she stared at the slice of sky visible from the hole in the snow cave’s ceiling, waiting.
Steven was on one side of her, Igor on the other. Sometimes she forgot who was dead and who was alive, her only reminder the Russian’s ragged breathing.
It didn’t matter, in any case. Both were too far gone to help her, like Anubha and Andrew and all the others. She was the hunter now.
She was Death.
Clutching Joe’s blade in two hands, she pointed it at the opening and waited. She could be patient. She knew they would come, and when they did, they would die.
The moment before it happened, part of her—the part that was still sane—wondered how it had all gone so terribly wrong. She cuddled closer to Steven, though her friend’s body had long grown cold and stiff.
She tensed her muscles as she heard a crunching sound from above. At last, her waiting was over.
She was ready.
A shadow fell across the floor of the cave.
She burst through the roof, blinded by snow, thrusting the knife upward with all her strength.
Her target fell to the ground with a yelp of pain. An all-too-human sound.
“Nyet, nyet! STOP.”
A cacophony of shouting. Cruel men’s voices surrounded her, followed by an ominous click.
Nat blinked, feeling her fragile sanity return. She lay half in and half out of the ravine, her victim facedown in front of her. Crimson pooled around the wound in his throat where she’d buried Joe’s hunting knife. A cry of anguish erupted from her as she recognized the diminutive figure.
Vasily.
As she screamed her rage to the darkening sky, another threatening click came from the circle of men who pressed closer, rifles pointed at her head.
The Russian police.
They stared at her in horror.
What did they see when they looked at her, she wondered. A victim? A survivor? A monster?
Not daring to move, she waited for them to fire.
The End
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Acknowledgments
I’m eternally grateful to everyone who continues to support these wild stories of mine, especially Hunter Shea, LaVona Parker, Tara Clark, Louise Gibson, Dana Krawchuk and John Toews from McNally Robinson Booksellers, R.J. Crowther Jr. from Mysterious Galaxy Bookstore, Wai Chan, Nikki Burch, and the Insecure Writer’s Support Group.
I would never have survived my trek through the Ural Mountains without my personal cheerleaders Simon Fuller and Christine Brandt. Thanks to my copy editor Chris Brogden for his patience and eye for detail.
To all my readers, blog followers, librarians, friends, and family: I couldn’t do this without you. Thank you so much for your encouragement and support.
Once again, Gary and th
e folks at Severed Press have been great to work with, and I’m thrilled to be one of their authors.
1
James Payne lounged in his lawn chair under the overhang of the cave, reading one of his Louis L’Amour westerns. The paperback was missing the front cover, and the pages were about to fall out of the spine, but that didn’t deter him from continuing the saga of the marshal single-handedly trying to protect the townsfolk from the ruthless outlaw gang.
He flipped the page, bumping his elbow against the barrel of his 30-shot magazine Bushmaster automatic rifle leaning against the armrest.
It could hardly be called a sporting hunting gun—more of an essential weapon for protecting one’s property.
He took a break from his book, dog-eared the page, and tossed the reading material onto the backpack just inside the cave. The cavern went back twenty feet, was ten feet wide, and was high enough to walk upright to the rear of the hollowed rock.
Marijuana stalks hung from clotheslines stretched across the width of the cave, the ends anchored to carabiners wedged in the crevices in the walls. A large blue tarpaulin was on the ground where James would bring in his lawn chair and trim the buds off the stalks. A couple canvas picking sacks with neck straps were on the ground next to some tilling spades, shovels, rakes, and hoes leaning against the cavern wall.
He had a modest setup for cooking: a frying pan and a pot for boiling water and a double-burner portable Coleman camp stove. For lighting at night, he had one flashlight and a kerosene lantern. His sleeping accommodations consisted of a dirty mummy goose-down bag on top of an inflatable air mattress that demanded to be frequently filled up with air with a foot pump as it had a slow leak.
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