Return to Dyatlov Pass

~ Chapter Twenty-one ~

They shared a cold dinner that night, splitting the contents of one of Joe’s last foil packets. Dehydrated food wasn’t so bad served cold. It was kind of like jerky. Crunchy jerky. By that time, Nat was so hungry she would have eaten almost anything. The wonderful meal they’d enjoyed in Vizhai had taken place a lifetime ago.

Igor slept fitfully, his breath coming in painful-sounding snorts through his broken nose. They’d been unable to rouse him or get him to eat. Now that his face was clean and bandaged, it was easier to look at him without wincing, but any help she’d been able to give him was mostly cosmetic. For the Russian to survive, emergency medical treatment would be essential.

“What if he doesn’t wake up?”

Moistening his finger, Steven poked it into the corner of the foil packet to pull out the last bit of seasoning. “Honestly, it’s probably better for him if he doesn’t. I can’t imagine how much pain he’s in. It must be unbearable.”

“What about all the blood? Won’t it lead them right to us?” The thought had been nagging at the edges of her brain. She had no proof that blood was a lure—only her instincts had made her spill her own around her tent. But, assuming the creatures were more animal than human, it was a safe bet.

The mountaineer shrugged, never taking his attention away from the foil packet. His obvious hunger was a reminder of the desperateness of their situation. They were running low on food, and with Igor in his current state, there would be no leaving Dead Mountain. At some point in the not-too-distant future, impossible choices would have to be made. “It might.”

His nonchalance angered rather than comforted her. “Doesn’t that worry you?”

“I don’t see much point in worrying. We had no choice. We couldn’t leave him there, so we’ll have to take our chances. Right?” He cocked an eyebrow at her, daring her to speak the vile truth—that it would have been smarter to have left Igor where he was.

But she refused to be the bad guy. And what if, on some level of consciousness, Igor could hear her? “Right.”

As the sun lowered, so had their voices, until they were whispering in the near darkness. “We’ll have to leave soon if we want to survive. We can’t stay here.”

“I know,” he said, and the silence stretched out between them. Had they caused Igor further pain and injury, only to abandon him in a day or two? “Maybe one of us should stay behind and look after him while the other goes for help.”

“Absolutely not. No way.”

“It might be our only chance, Nat.”

“I don’t care. Whenever one of us has tried to go it alone, they’ve died. You know what the definition of insanity is. Either we live together or we die together. We are not splitting up.”

“We can’t leave him by himself. Not like this.”

We might have to. It was the one thing she could never bring herself to say.

“Besides, the snowmen are nocturnal. All we’d have to do is make good headway during daylight hours. I could be out of their territory by the first day.”

“What makes you so certain? We don’t know where their territory is, where it begins and ends. We don’t even know for sure they’re nocturnal. Maybe some of them are out and about during the day, and what then? We don’t know anything about what they are.”

Whenever she’d read stories about yeti sightings, she’d pictured great furry creatures with masses of white hair, certainly not these repulsive things with their glowing yellow eyes and razor-like teeth. Were they a link on the evolutionary chain that Darwin had missed? A bizarre hybrid of some sort that had evolved to live in these mountains?

“The Cold War.”

Steven broke into her thoughts, making her jump.

“What?”

“The Cold War. Whatever those creatures are, I bet they have something to do with that. Maybe the Russians tried to make super soldiers, and instead they ended up with—”

“Monsters.”

“Yeah.”

Nat considered everything she’d seen. Assuming they didn’t have a personal shopper, the snowmen were intelligent enough to fashion their own clothes out of hide. They’d shown considerable smarts when it came to killing as well. Igor’s survival was nothing short of a miracle, while she and Steven had only dumb luck to thank. Well, dumb luck and the mountaineer’s foresight in finding the ravine.

“You really think those things were once human?” she asked.

“I think any humanity was bred out of them a long time ago.”

She trembled, remembering the coldness of those ugly, pupil-less eyes. There had been no compassion, no remorse, no hesitancy in them, only cold-blooded murder. Then again, she wondered what other creatures saw in the eyes of her own species. Man wasn’t exactly known for his merciful, live-and-let-live nature either. What if the snowmen had been created to embody the worst traits of humanity with none of the good?

“I always thought that yetis, if they existed, would have evolved from the common ancestor we share with apes,” she said.

“I’m not sure if they’re yetis or not, but there’s no way those things are related to apes.”

Nat wondered how he could be so sure. They walked upright like humans and had opposable thumbs and fingers like both species. They were obviously capable of using tools, of planning, and of conscious thought. Aside from a few examples found in politics, people looked nothing like their hairy cousins, despite the similarities in DNA. So who was to say the snowmen hadn’t simply evolved in a different direction? The eyes and fangs could be modifications selected over time in order to survive such a harsh climate.

“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 become 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.”