Return to Dyatlov Pass

~ Chapter Twenty ~

Upon waking, there was a blissful moment of ignorance before the pain of losing Andrew came back to her. Moaning, she pressed her face into the snow, the heat of her tears turning the surface beneath her to ice.

A hand touched her shoulder. “Nat, you’ll suffocate. Please don’t do that.”

The agony was overwhelming, so intense it felt physical, like having a limb ripped from its socket. She was missing a limb, would always be. Without Andrew, she had nothing. In so many ways, he’d been the love of her life.

“Leave me alone. Just let me die.”

“Sorry, no can do. Andrew would never forgive me if I did, and the last thing I want is his ghost haunting me for the rest of my life. We may not survive, Nat. But don’t you think we owe it to them to at least try?”

She pressed her face deeper into the snow. Ice crystals filled her nostrils, and she felt the welcome pressure on her chest as her lungs struggled for air. Fingers grasped her hair close to the roots, wrenching her upright. The freezing air hit her face like a slap.

“Ouch!”

“You have to stop feeling sorry for yourself. We don’t have the luxury.”

She narrowed her eyes. “Fuck you.”

“Maybe later, when our body heat runs low. For now, we have more important things to worry about.” Incredibly, he grinned at her. She shuffled forward, kicking his boot with hers.

“How can you smile when they’re dead? They’re all dead.” The sob caught in her throat. “They’re gone.”

“Because we’re alive, Nat. And damn lucky to be here, drawing breath. My focus is on survival, not self-pity. Have you forgotten I lost someone too?”

She turned away, sniffling. “That’s different. You knew Lana for a few days. I’ve known Andrew for most of my life.”

“Maybe I loved her enough for a lifetime in those few days. Did you ever consider that?”

“I’m sorry.” She wiped her face on her sleeve. “I’m finding it hard to care about anyone else’s pain right now.”

“It’s okay; I understand. As much as I can. I’ve never had someone be as close to me as Andrew obviously was to you. But that’s what you have to hold on to. Honor his life, not his death.”

“Easy to say; impossible to do.”

“I get that. And you have nothing to prove to me, Nat. You’ve already shown more guts than I ever gave you credit for.”

She sniffed, looking past him. “Where are we?”

Her surroundings were white, white, nothing but white. It was like being in an igloo.

“The ravine. I found it yesterday. I was going to tell you, but I never got the chance. We had… other things to discuss.” His cheeks reddened.

“The ravine? You mean the same one where—”

“Where my great-aunt died, yes. It’s been my mission to find it, though I never thought it would save our lives. It’s fitting, in a way. Lyudmila would have liked that.”

She swallowed hard and considered the ill-fated young woman. Nat wasn’t comfortable living in Lyudmila’s tomb, but what choice did she have? “I don’t mean to be a pessimist, but have you forgotten what happened to her? I don’t think it’s safe for us to stay here.”

“No, I haven’t forgotten. But there has to be a reason she lived longer than the others. All we need is a couple of days, just enough time to rest and give things a chance to calm down. Then we’ll leave.”

She knew she should thank him for saving her life—for staying calm in a crisis and getting her the hell out of there before she hurtled into her own death. But she couldn’t. Not yet. She figured Steven of all people was smart enough to understand. “What if we don’t have a couple of days?”

“Look, nearest I can tell, Lyudmila’s group made some mistake, and that’s when the creatures found them. Maybe they thought it was safer to leave the ravine at night; who knows? All we have to do is not make the same mistake they did, and we’ll be fine.”

“How are we supposed to avoid it, when we don’t know what their mistake was?”

He shrugged. “We’ve been able to observe these things for days. We’ve witnessed what they sound like, when they move, how they kill. Now we have to use that knowledge to our advantage. We’re going to get out of here, Nat. I promise you. You will not die in this ravine.”

His words were small comfort. Even less so when she heard a scraping noise and saw he was digging at the roof of their shelter.

“What are you doing?” she hissed at him, kicking the sole of his boot again.

“Making a hole.”

“I can see that. But why?”

“So I can get out.”

“Are you crazy? They could be standing right outside, waiting.” But as her paranoia quickened her pulse, she already knew it wasn’t true. She’d have been able to smell them. The snowmen had their own particular stench, a pungent aroma of dust, body odor, and rotting meat.

“They travel at night, Nat. I assume they sleep during the day.”

“That’s a big assumption to make. And a dangerous one.”

“I prefer to call it an educated guess. Anyway, it has to be done. I need to get you those boots.”

“You’re not leaving me here alone.” As awful as it was being stuck with him in the snow cave, the thought of being alone was so much worse.

“And once you have the boots, we’ll go together to get supplies.”

“We can’t go out there. That’s what they’re waiting for. What if they’ve taken over our camp? We killed their friends; I’m sure they want to kill us.”

“We have to risk it. It’s either a quick death out there or a slow death in here. We need supplies, Nat. We won’t live long on snow.”

By now, he’d dug a hole large enough to expose his head. Putting on his shades, he wiggled his way outside. She bit her lip to keep from crying out, certain something ghastly was going to happen. She kept seeing Andrew’s death, over and over again, the anguished expression on her friend’s face, until her chest squeezed so tight she could barely get air. The feeling of being buried alive intensified.

Steven lowered his arms, dropping back inside their shelter. “It’s clear. I should only be a few minutes.”

“Please don’t leave me here. I’ll go with you.” In her panic, she clutched his pant leg. With a bemused smile, he pried off her fingers.

“I can move faster without you. I’ll be right back, I promise. You have to start trusting me, Nat.”

“This isn’t about me not trusting you. It’s about me not trusting them.”

Pulling her toward him, he kissed the top of her head. “I’ll be right back. Wish me luck.”

And then there were two, she thought as she watched him disappear through the hole he’d dug.

She hoped she wouldn’t have to revise that number down to one.

Nat had expected to go half-mad waiting for him to return, but before she could blink, he was shaking her awake.

“Here, put these on.” He thrust Lana’s boots into her arms, and her stomach churned at the faint smell of decay. “Quick. We have to hurry. I found Igor.”

Perhaps it was the lack of food, or she was groggy from the unexpected nap, but he wasn’t making sense. “Why the rush? Is it getting late?” Ensconced in their cocoon of snow, she had no idea of the time.

“You don’t understand. I found Igor, and he’s alive.”

She came to life herself, her stiff fingers fumbling with the bootlaces. Igor, alive! When she’d last seen him, he’d been surrounded by the creatures. How on earth had he survived? “How bad is he?”

Steven grimaced. “He’s not great. I honestly don’t know how much longer he’ll live, but we can’t leave him there. At least, I can’t, but I need your help to bring him here.”

“How did you find him? I thought you were going for the boots.”

“The coast seemed clear, so I kept going, figured I’d grab some supplies on my own. The more we can get, the better.” He gestured to a full pack she hadn’t noticed. It was Joe’s, so she guessed it contained what was left of their food, not that those dehydrated packets would be much good to them without a fire. Hopefully Steven was right and they’d only be hiding here for a couple of days before descending. The important thing was that they were alive and that they continued to stay that way.

As soon as she’d tied the second boot, Steven was through the hole in the snow and reaching back for her. It was tougher to get out than it looked. As he pulled on her arms and she leaned forward, trying to use her body weight as leverage, she realized how much strength she’d lost. If something happened to Steven, would she be able to leave the ravine, or would she be trapped, helpless, until the snowmen found her?

She emerged into a sparkling wonderland. New snow had fallen during the night, capping the trees in crystalline white.

“Do you still have your sunglasses? Wear them. With this much sun, there’s a considerable risk of going snow-blind.”

Nat did what he said, not minding his bossiness. In her current state of brain fog, it was a relief to be told what to do.

“Here.” He handed her a pair of snowshoes. Anubha’s. While she gawked at them like they were some bizarre relic from another era, Steven bent to fasten a pair to his own feet. Joe’s fit him well. There would no longer be any question of how to share them among the group, she realized sadly.

“You have been busy.”

“I did my best to get everything I thought we could use as quickly as I could.” He shot her a worried look, brow furrowing. “We’re going to have to pass them… and Lana… on the way back to camp. Can you handle it?”

The thought made her want to melt into the snow and disappear. “I think so.”

“My advice? Try not to look. For some reason, Lana… well, she’s not in a good way. She’s going fast.” His voice broke. “Soon she won’t be recognizable.”

It was cold enough that the bodies should have remained intact until the spring thaw, but she remembered the same thing had happened with some of the Dyatlov victims. Several members of their team had decomposed much faster than the others, in a manner that defied scientific explanation. Another mystery that would forever be unsolved, unless she could figure out what had made Lana’s death different from the others’.

They set off through the woods, their footsteps nearly silent on the fresh snow. The shoes made it a lot easier to walk, and Nat was grateful Steven had had the courage and forethought to get them.

She stared at a point between his shoulder blades, figuring it was safest, but every now and then she glanced at the path they were cutting through the forest. It might as well have been a neon sign. “What about our tracks? We’ll lead them right to us.”

“Don’t worry. When we get back, I’ll use a cedar branch to get rid of them. That’s another reason we have to hurry. We can’t risk running out of time.”

Nat’s stomach growled, but then recoiled as she caught a whiff of rotting meat. Sickly sweet, it made her gorge rise until she was sure she would vomit. “It’s them, isn’t it?” she asked, not daring to look.

“No, that’s Lana. She’s even worse than she was earlier this morning. Put your hand on my shoulder and let me guide you. Don’t look. Trust me, you don’t want to see this.”

Breathing through her mouth, she squeezed her eyes shut, gripping Steven’s shoulder with all her strength. She forced herself to concentrate on his movements and the sound of his progress, matching him step for step. A sensation akin to vertigo urged her to open her eyes, to take a peek, but she resisted. She didn’t need any more fodder for her nightmares.

“Okay, we’re past.”

She knew without his telling her. The air was clean and crisp again, free from the cloying stench of death.

“What about Andrew?” Nat was hardly able to say his name.

“I’ve covered him, don’t worry. For what it’s worth, it doesn’t look like he suffered. Can’t say that about the rest of us.”

She moved close enough to put her hand on his shoulder again. “Thank you.” As much as she longed to see her dear friend again, it would completely undo her. Their focus had to be on the living until they got home. Once they were off this terrible mountain there would be time to grieve.

In the harsh light of day, their campsite resembled a war zone. Not much remained of her charred tent but the poles and a few blackened strips of cloth. Gray ash, looking like piles of salt and pepper, littered the ground. In spite of the fresh snow, some of the blood and gore was still visible. Ski poles had been bent and twisted into garish modern-art sculptures. Makeshift clubs and other wood fragments speckled the ground.

But worst of all was Igor.

The Russian moaned when he saw her, and she clapped her hand over her mouth before she could scream. Steven should have warned her.

The skin on the right side of his face was in bloody tatters. His eyelid drooped and his nose had been smashed flat. Someone—no doubt Steven—had covered him with a blanket, so mercifully his body was hidden from view. When she reached him, she collapsed, taking his hands in hers. They were cut and scratched, but were in a much better condition than his face.

“Don’t cry,” he slurred. “I’m all right.”

The obvious lie made her cry harder. If a snowman had appeared in front of her at that moment, she would have killed it with her bare hands. So many good people dead or dying and for what? These creatures killed for the joy of it. There was no other explanation.

“Come on, Nat. We have to go. It’s going to take us a while to get him back.”

Igor rolled his eyes to Steven’s. “Leave me,” he said, and she saw most of his teeth were either missing or broken. The pain must have been excruciating.

The mountaineer didn’t dignify the Russian’s pleas with a response. “I think, between the two of us, we should be able to pull him to the ravine on a sleeping bag. We’ll need to move quickly, but the fresh snow will work in our favor.”

Nat felt the opposite—that had it been packed, it would have made the journey easier, but there was no point arguing. “Okay,” she said, wishing she felt stronger. All she wanted to do was curl into a ball, go to sleep, and escape from this living nightmare. “What do you want me to do?”

“I’ll need your help getting him on the bag. After that, we pull. Can you check the tents for the slipperiest bag you can find? I’ll pack some more supplies while you look.”

The work was a welcome distraction from Igor’s condition. Patting his hand and kissing the top of his head, careful to avoid the wound that dissected his skull, she hurried to Lana’s tent first. The Olympian had owned the best in high-tech gear; it was the likeliest place to start.

Inside, Nat was struck by the smell of her. Not the sickening decay she’d experienced earlier, but the scent of a healthy, living woman who’d favored jasmine soap. Tears burned her eyes, but she forced them away. Focus. She soon saw that her instincts had been good but not great. Lana’s bag was slippery, but it was also cocoon-style. It didn’t fold flat and wouldn’t be large enough to hold the Russian.

Holding the tent flap aside, she nearly ran smack into Steven.

“Never mind—turns out Igor’s own bag is perfect. We can start rolling him onto it now,” he said.

Nat steeled herself for the job ahead. “Is he okay?” she whispered. “I mean, obviously he’s not, but is there anything wrong with his body, anything I should know?”

“He’s got a nasty wound across his abdomen. Some of his… insides were exposed. I did my best to put them back in the right place, and I packed the opening with some gauze, but once we have him safely in the ravine, he’s going to need stitches. And bandages. We might not have enough.”

Swallowing hard, Nat ignored the waves of nausea that threatened to overwhelm her. “Okay. Anything else?”

“That’s all I could see. His splint is gone, so I wouldn’t be surprised if his leg is rebroken, and there might be more nastiness going on internally, but if we get him to a place where we can give him some serious first aid, he might make it.”

There were plenty of obstacles: the weather, the fresh snow, the challenge of carrying the Russian’s weight all that way, and the creatures, who could be anywhere. But the last thing Nat had expected was for Igor to be the most formidable.

“No,” he said when he saw them coming with the bag. He shook his head, making his loose flesh wobble and spatter the snow with blood. “No, nyet.”

“Come on, Igor. Don’t do this. We have to get you out of here.”

Nat had never heard Steven sound so kind, so patient. Was this the same man who’d been determined to abandon Andrew?

“No!” Igor’s protests echoed through the frigid air, and she cringed, expecting one of those appalling creatures to come charging through the forest at any moment. “Leave me.”

She reached for his hand. He was frantic enough that she was worried he’d strike her, but he wrapped his fingers around her palm as if she were a lifeline. “Please, Igor, you have to help. We have to take you with us. We can’t just abandon you.”

Tears streamed from his good eye. “Leave me. Please. You need to get out of here. You must go. Me, I am already dead.”

Nat met Steven’s eyes. They couldn’t possibly transport the Russian if he wasn’t willing to cooperate. He had already suffered too much blood loss, too much shock. The stress of the moving alone could kill him; an out-and-out struggle would do him in.

The mountaineer whistled under his breath. Looking into the distance, he grimaced. “Shit. We’re too late. Here they come.”

Before she could move, Steven struck. As soon as Igor turned his head to look, the mountaineer got his arms around the man’s neck in a chokehold. The Russian’s eyes bulged and he clawed at Steven’s sleeves. For an agonizing second, Nat thought Igor would break free, but the man’s diminished strength worked in their favor. She stifled a cry as the Russian fell backward, unconscious.

“Don’t just stand there, help me. We have to hurry. I’m not sure how long he’ll stay out.”

Moving the unconscious Igor was like grappling with a life-size concrete statue. The two of them grunted and groaned until sweat poured down their faces, but finally they managed to roll the Russian onto his sleeping bag, trying to be as mindful of his wounds as possible.

Mission accomplished, Nat collapsed onto the snow, panting. “Do you really think we’re going to be able to get him to the ravine?”

Steven took her by the wrist, tugging her to her feet. “We have no choice. I’m not leaving him here. Once we get some momentum going, we should be fine.”

Shouldering one of the team’s packs, he handed her another. As she slid it on, she couldn’t help but stare at the blanket-covered mound that was Andrew’s body.

“I’m sorry,” Steven said, touching her arm. “There’s no time.”

That wasn’t Andrew anyway, she told herself. It was only a shell, a shadow of the man she’d loved and would always love. The real Andrew had escaped this place. She hoped he’d landed somewhere good, where the drinks were strong and the men gorgeous.

“Ready?” Steven gave her a corner of Igor’s sleeping bag.

Wiping her eyes, she nodded. “As I’ll ever be.”

“Hey, what’s going on? What are you guys doing?” They turned to see the Russian blinking at them, struggling to sit up.

They froze, barely daring to breathe, and then Steven smiled.

“We’re going on a little trip, buddy. We’ll be there soon. Go back to sleep, okay?”

“Okay.” Igor slumped back on the sleeping bag, leaving Nat weak with relief.

Steven’s grin vanished. “Let’s get moving. If he wakes up again, it might not be so easy.”

Gritting her teeth, she put her weight into it, feeling herself falling backward. It was hopeless. The Russian was simply too heavy. The muscles in her arms strained past their limits, but finally the bag began to move.

“Keep pulling,” Steven said. “If we stop, it’ll be that much harder to get going again.”

She didn’t bother to respond. Even with the snowshoes, every step she took sank into the fresh powder before taking hold. It required an astonishing amount of energy to put one foot in front of the other. How would she make it to the ravine?

Igor moaned, but thankfully remained unconscious. Was he sleeping, or had he passed out from the pain? She couldn’t survive another struggle with him or stand to hear his desperate pleas. After an interminable length of time, they at last reached the edge of the clearing. The path to the ravine lay before them, heaped with snow. She felt the urge to weep. There was no way they could carry Igor through this, no way. He was too heavy and they were too depleted.

“Don’t stop, Nat. Keep going. We’re almost there,” Steven lied. “Just look at your feet. Focus on each step, and before you know it, this will be over.”

The mountaineer wasn’t even out of breath. She would have hated him if she’d had the energy.

Pull, slide. Pull, slide.

After a treacherous moment when it appeared Igor’s sleeping bag would slip right off the path, they managed to get it moving again. Fortunately, it was a bit easier than traversing the campsite had been, but it was far from effortless. Nat’s breath came in short gasps that burned her lungs. Her hands shook, the sweat coating her fingers making it difficult to maintain her grip on the bag.

Pull, slide. Pull, slide.

“You’re doing great. Remember, we can’t let them win. We can’t. We can’t let them take another one of us without a fight.”

She wheezed, wondering how Steven had enough wind left in him to be a cheerleader.

His words echoed in her brain, becoming a chant. We can’t let them win. We can’t. We can’t let them win.

In all the excitement, if she could call it that, she forgot about Lana until the smell hit. She’d forgotten to avert her eyes.

The woman’s face was a swollen, mottled purple. Her hands were clenched as though she’d died in the middle of a boxing match, but the skin hung from her bones in shreds. Nat’s gorge rose before she could stop it, and she turned her head to the side, vomiting on the snow.

“We can’t stop.” The urgency in Steven’s voice drove her forward. It bordered on shrill. “Don’t stop; keep moving.”

Breathing through her mouth, Nat drove the grotesque image from her mind. That thing wasn’t Lana, like the body at the campsite wasn’t Andrew. Their friends were gone, safely away from here.

“That—isn’t—her—Steven,” she said between gasps.

His eyes narrowed, intent on the path ahead. “I know. Don’t think about it. Just keep moving.”

So she did. She moved until every muscle in her legs, arms, and back screamed for mercy. She pulled until spots swarmed in front of her eyes and she felt she would faint. Sooner or later, she would faint. But until she fell unconscious on the snow, she wouldn’t give up. At some point, saving Igor had become everything. Steven’s conviction was contagious. She would not leave her friend at the snowmen’s mercy. He belonged with her.

She hoped he’d live long enough to see the ravine.

“Well done.”

Weary, half snow-blind in spite of her sunglasses, Nat lifted her weary eyes to Steven. He raised an arm to hold her back, to halt her momentum. “You can stop pulling now. We’re here.”

She gaped at the snow-covered valley before them. She would have never noticed it on her own, and if Steven hadn’t stopped her, she would have pulled Igor right off the ledge.

Nat had to hand it to him. It was one hell of a good hiding place.

“I’ll lower you down first. I’m going to need your help with Igor. You’ll have to catch his legs. Do you think you can do that?”

“I hope so.” She felt limper than a used dryer sheet. She had nothing left, and yet she knew that’s when humans often showed the greatest resources of strength. Nat hoped she’d be one of them.

Steven gestured to the hole he’d dug. In the glare of the still-bright sun, it wasn’t easy to find. Lowering herself to the ground, Nat resisted the urge to sleep, but instead wiggled backward until her feet dangled over the opening. Taking hold of her hands, the mountaineer lowered her into the ravine. She staggered when her feet hit the ground but managed to regain her balance before she fell. Scanning the cave for enemies, she sighed with relief when she saw their packs, and only their packs. What if the snowmen had been inside, waiting for them? It was a horrible thought.

“You ready?”

She wasn’t, but she agreed. What else could she do? They hadn’t come that far to leave the Russian outside.

The circle of blue in the ceiling was blotted out by the black tread of a large ski boot. Nat caught a glimpse of Steven’s gloves as he shoved Igor’s other foot through the crack. Snow drifted down to frost her hair and face. She started when the coldness hit her neck, melting as it made contact with her bare skin.

“Hold him around the calves, but be careful of the break. If he gets a good jolt of pain it could wake him up, and this would not be a good time for that.”

Wrapping her arms around his legs, Nat held on with all her remaining strength, cautious of not applying pressure in the wrong place.

“Okay, I’m going to lower him down. See if you can guide him into a prone position away from the entrance.”

Igor’s weight was immense, but she was surprised to find she could support him. Before long, she was holding the Russian’s hips, and she could see Steven’s hands gripping Igor under the armpits.

How on earth is he managing this? Just how strong was he?

“You can let his good foot touch the ground to take some of the weight off, but not the bad one. Be careful.”

Straining, she struggled under the Russian’s mass, with the absurd image of dancing with a gigantic doll running through her head. She kept her footing for a moment, but then Igor’s unconscious form fell forward, crushing her underneath him and forcing the air from her lungs.

Steven was there in a flash, rolling the big man off her. “Are you all right?”

She had to take several deep breaths before she could answer. “I think so. He just knocked the wind out of me.”

“It’s getting late. The sun will set soon. I need to get rid of our tracks.” Steven cast a wary glance at the opening, and Nat noticed the shadows had grown longer.

The idea of being left alone with Igor didn’t thrill her, but it was a necessary evil. The tracks were a beacon announcing their location.

“Can you see to him while I’m gone?”

The Russian’s breathing was frighteningly loud in the enclosed space. “How do you mean?”

“You know, change his bandages, set up a bed of sorts, make sure he’s comfortable. Best to do everything while he’s unconscious so he won’t feel the pain.”

Her stomach writhed, turning anxious somersaults. Now she was going to have to deal with something that would give a military medic pause. “Maybe I should get rid of the tracks. I don’t really know much about the first aid stuff.”

“You know as much as I do. I’ve been making it up as I go along. Do the best you can, and be gentle.”

“Wait.” She grabbed his arm before he could pull himself through into the outside world. “Why can’t I be the one who goes, and you stay here?”

“Because there’s always a chance whoever leaves won’t come back. And I’d rather that be me.”