***
Gabriel’s legs burned and the altitude had stolen his breath, causing him to double over as he walked. He was panting, trying to steal enough oxygen to prepare himself to run again. His head was light, disconnected. Maura’s scream played over and over within on a continuous loop.
“Maura? Will?” Cavenaugh’s voice called from the walkie-talkie Jess held in her fist. His words were ragged, his breathing fast and haggard. “Do you read me?”
There was a crashing sound behind Gabriel and he turned to see Jess crumpled in the snow amidst a scattering of broken branches. By the time he reached her, she had already pushed herself to all fours. Her shoulders shuddered, and when she looked up at him, tears streamed down her red, chafed cheeks. She reached into her jacket pocket and removed the emergency transceiver, scanned through channels of static, and screamed in frustration.
“It’s going to be all right,” he said, helping her stand. “They probably just saw a mountain lion and dropped the walkie-talkie in their hurry to find cover.”
“Maura said she heard ‘somebody.’”
“Who else could possibly be up there?”
The answer hung in the silence between them.
“We need to keep moving,” Jess said. She shoved the transceiver back into her coat and stumbled away from him through the calf-deep accumulation. The wind rose with a howl, shaking the upper canopy and dumping clouds of snow all around them. They remained partially shielded by the dense forestation, but the wind that managed to find them lanced right through their gear.
“How close are you?” Cavenaugh panted.
“I don’t know,” Jess said. The panic sharpened her voice.
“Don’t go in without us. You wait for us before you get to the spring. Am I clear? You wait for us. Copy?”
“Loud and clear.”
A steep valley opened before them, a vertical scar formed by centuries of spring runoff from the exposed summit. The descent wasn’t sheer, though neither was it graceful. They were going to have to carefully choose their route to navigate the clusters of pines and limestone cliffs. Progress would be slow, but on the other side of the canyon the forest bent to the right, following the western slope of the peak as it gradually became the northern.
And somewhere, just out of sight over the jagged horizon and beneath the seemingly impenetrable masses of trees, was a steaming cauldron full of human bones.
***
They ascended from the forest onto a windswept slope of bare granite. The ground was uneven with sharp boulders as though the mountaintop were in a perpetual state of decay, sending large chunks of rock tumbling down to meet the resistance of the trees. There was no longer anything to save them from the wind, which battered them with fists of snow and bitter cold. They had hoped to be able to see the steam from the spring from this higher vantage point, but the worsening storm choked visibility down to fifty yards at best, and even then they could only look for so long before the snow that pelted them in the face forced them to turn away.
How much time had passed since Maura’s communication had been abruptly terminated by her scream? Two hours? Three? Time had lost all meaning. There was only the mountain and the elements, which warred against each other with stone and ice, creating a treacherous battlefield to cross.
Gabriel tried to tell himself that Maura had just been startled by an animal and had dropped the walkie-talkie, which had broken on the rocks surrounding the spring and short-circuited in the warm water. He imagined that even now she and Will were pacing nervously, waiting for the rest of them to arrive so they could apologize for worrying them and explain away Maura’s clumsiness, but deep down, Gabriel knew that wasn’t the case. There was something in the air, something callous and unfeeling, a deadness that seemed to radiate from the earth beneath their feet and whisper promises of suffering on the breeze.
Jess brushed the snow off of a boulder in the lee of another larger stone and sat down. She brought the emergency transceiver to life with a squawk of feedback. The only response was static, but it changed in quality as she scanned through the bandwidths. Rather than a harsh crackle, it produced a more subdued buzz.
“Is someone there?” she asked. “Can anybody hear me?”
She fine-tuned the knobs and elicited more feedback. When it faded, there was something else beneath it. A voice.
“…you copy?” a man’s voice asked from a million miles away. “I repeat: This is Alpine Ranger Station. Do you copy?”
“Oh my God,” Jess blurted. “Can you hear me?”
“Yes, ma’am.” The voice sounded bored, distracted, as though the ranger had been stolen away from a good book and a fresh mug of coffee. “Is everything all right?”
“This is an emergency. We’ve lost contact with two members of our group on the northern face of Mount Isolation.”
“What the hell are you guys doing up there in this storm? We’re under a winter storm warning and all roads up the mountain are closed. How in the world did you get up there anyway?”
“We’re staying in the old cabins on County Road 432. We started hiking—”
“I didn’t receive notification that anyone would be staying there. Standard protocol dictates that the owner or leasing agency contact us regarding all off-season rentals, and no one ever—”
“There’s no time to argue,” Jess snapped. “Our friends might be in big trouble up here.”
“There’s no way anyone can reach them until the storm breaks. Even with four-wheel drives, we can only get as far as the main road. You’re talking about hiking for miles up into the mountains in this weather. We’re better served waiting it out and sending up a Search & Rescue chopper—”
“We found human remains.”
“Please repeat,” the ranger said, now all business.
“We found human remains. Do I have your attention now?”
“Are you certain?”
“They’re in the hot spring on the northern slope of the mountain. Our friends had just discovered them when communications were cut off.”
“Where are you now? State your position.”
“Maybe a quarter to a half mile southwest of the spring.”
“Are you in any immediate danger?”
“No, but our friends—”
“Stay on this channel,” he said. Gabriel could hear the ranger talking away from the radio, but was unable to make out his words. “I’m patching you through to the Morgan County Sheriff’s Department.”
The wind erupted with a scream and a new siege of snowflakes commenced, isolating them even from the rocks surrounding them. Gabriel had to duck his head and walk closer to Jess just to keep her in sight.
“We need to keep moving,” he said. “Maura and Will might need our help.”
Jess held up a finger to signify that she only needed another minute. The transceiver crackled. Jess brought it right next to her ear in order to hear over the wind and static. There was a loud squeal and a faint voice emerged in bursts from the overpowering fuzz.
“…Deputy Ross, Morgan County…Department. What is…on the way…twenty-four hours…”
The static silenced the voice like the closing of a coffin lid.
“Are you still there?” Jess shouted. “Can you hear me?”
“We can try again when the storm dies down,” Gabriel said. He took her by the hand and guided her down off the rock.
Jess screamed in frustration, but the blizzard swallowed the sound before it could echo.
They hurried back into the relative protection of the trees and again continued east along the northern face of the peak. The wind tore right through the forest, bringing with it the assault of flakes and the reinforcements from the accumulation in the branches above. Visibility was fading fast. All either of them could see was the thickening sheet of white underfoot and the dark silhouettes of tree trunks.
