Trepidation overwhelmed her as she reached camp, almost expecting to see everything in black and white like the famous Dyatlov photos—the tent with its torn side, half-collapsed beneath a mound of snow. Instead, the vivid nylon of Steven and Joe’s tents stood as a beacon against the whiteness, providing some welcome color. Nat was relieved to find they’d avoided the Dyatlov site entirely, pitching their tents on the other side.
The men had managed to convince Lana to accompany them, but the woman shook so severely Nat expected her to stop at any moment and refuse to go farther.
The camp was eerily quiet. She turned to Lana. “Where’s Vasily? Did he leave too?” If he had, she would sue his ass off. He’d been hired to help them through this, goddammit, not take off at the first sign of trouble.
Lana gestured to the one tent made from natural materials. Heart pounding in her throat, Nat skied toward it. She didn’t see any of the blood Lana had mentioned, but what if something had happened to the Mansi? What if the man’s tent were a tomb?
“Vasily? Vasily, are you in there?”
She could have cried with relief when she immediately heard a shuffling within. Before long, a familiar weathered face emerged from the animal hides.
“We need to go, Miss. We have angered them.”
“Angered who?” For the first time, Nat noticed how frightened the man was. He shrank back inside his shelter, obviously reluctant to leave it, and was even more gaunt than she’d remembered. She wasn’t sure how it was possible for Vasily to have lost weight, but apparently he had. The man was a living shadow.
“The ones who rule this mountain. We must leave.”
Nat looked to where Igor and Steven were attending to Andrew and Lana, helping them to sit around the dying fire. The pile of collected branches would be enough to get the blaze going again, but more would need to be gathered before nightfall if they were to stay warm. A lot more. It would take a collective effort to keep the fire going.
“We can’t leave. Andrew is ill, possibly with altitude sickness. He needs to rest for at least a few days. Lana is in shock. And Anubha and Joe are missing.”
The man peered at her from the darkness of his tent, the naked terror in his eyes unnerving. “Not missing. Dead. It is my fault.”
Nat thought of Steven’s account of a heated argument between Vasily and the trappers. Had it gotten even more heated after the mountaineer had left? “Did you hurt them, Vasily?”
“No, not me. Not me. But they didn’t listen to my warning. They didn’t believe. I should have tried harder.”
“What warning?”
“No one can hunt on this land. It is their territory. We have no rights here.”
She resisted the urge to seize him by the shoulders and shake him, but just barely. “Whose territory?”
The Mansi said a word she didn’t understand, his eyes rolling around like those of a spooked horse.
“I’m sorry; I don’t understand.”
“The snowmen. This land belongs to the snowmen.”
Nat shivered. From now on we know that snowmen exist. Could it be? After six decades? Clearly the Mansi wasn’t joking, but there was no way he could be referring to the same creature referenced in the Dyatlov note. She touched the man’s arm. “We can’t leave, Vasily. At least not tonight. And we need your help. Please help us get the fire going again.”
For a moment, she thought he would refuse, but after disappearing into his shelter, Vasily returned in his heavy, fur-lined jacket, emerging to stand beside her. “If we don’t leave, they will kill us. The trappers disrespected them.”
Vasily’s fear was contagious, his terror getting to her like a damp cold sinks into one’s bones. “There’s a chance Andrew will be well enough to leave in the morning. Do you think we’ll be okay for the night?”
The man shrugged. “It is impossible to say. Perhaps if we leave them a peace offering, it will give us more time.”
“Then we’ll do that. In the meantime, please help us with the fire.”
Nat followed her guide to the others, mind racing. Already the fire had been replenished enough to revive her, thawing her cheeks with its warmth. She was filled with gratitude as she removed her skis, laying the poles beside them. If she never skied again in her lifetime, that would be fine with her.
Lowering herself to the makeshift log bench where Andrew and Lana huddled together, she took her friend’s hand and squeezed it. “How are you feeling?”
“Exhausted, but Lana doesn’t want me to sleep yet. Just in case.”
Nat studied him with what she hoped was a critical eye, wishing she’d found the time to take more than a basic first aid class. His color was good, his breathing steady, but his eyelids were at half-mast. He clearly needed to rest.
“Are you nauseous?” She ran over the symptoms of altitude sickness in her mind. “Do you feel disoriented in any way?”
“No, only tired. Really, really tired.”
“Lana, is it okay if Andrew lies down for a bit? He needs to rest.”
The Olympian’s eyes were glazed and dull. “Not yet. Someone needs to monitor his breathing.”
Feeling helpless, Nat rubbed her friend’s hands to get the blood flowing. What a mess. What a colossal mess. Andrew was ill, Lana was in questionable shape, and the guide Nat had hired to protect them was ranting about snowmen. The trappers were missing, presumably along with most of the group’s food supplies. The situation couldn’t possibly be any worse.
“And then we need to build a sled,” Lana said, startling her.
“A sled? Why?”
“We need a way to get him out of here as soon as possible. We can’t stay in this camp tonight. It’s too dangerous.”
She wondered if Vasily had told Lana about the snowmen. “It’s going to be dark soon. We have no choice; we have to stay the night. But maybe we can leave first thing tomorrow, if Andrew feels strong enough.”
If he were suffering from altitude sickness, decreasing their altitude should help. A sled was a good idea, though. Nat couldn’t imagine him getting back to the village under his own power. Not that soon.
Steven dropped another load of branches on the pile. “What about the podcast?”
“At this point, the cast is the least of my worries. I think we should chalk this up as a failed experiment and get everyone home safe. But we can’t leave without Joe and Anubha. We have to find them first.”
The mountaineer nodded, but he didn’t look happy. From the beginning, his enthusiasm for the investigation had outweighed Nat’s own, and yet the man wasn’t the type to go nuts over conspiracy theories. He was much too pragmatic. So what was in it for him? Perhaps she’d get the opportunity to ask him that night.
“Lana, you said you saw blood? Whereabouts?” Steven asked.
She lifted a quivering hand long enough to point at the woods on the opposite side of the pass.
“I’m going to check it out. Hopefully I’ll be back before too long.”
“I’m coming with you.” Nat pushed herself to her feet before she had the chance to change her mind.
“Are you sure? Whatever we find might not be pretty.”
“I’m sure. Besides, we shouldn’t separate. No one should wander off unaccompanied, especially with two people missing.”
“I could get Igor to go with me. Or Vasily.”
“No, we need them to gather more wood and take care of the others. I’ll be fine. I don’t scare easily. Let’s go.”
When they told the others their plan, Nat braced herself for more resistance. But Andrew and Lana were too depleted to argue, and the Russian only told them to be careful. The Mansi said nothing.
Once they’d left the relative safety of the campsite for the forest, Nat regretted her insistence. Though the woods sheltered her from the bitter wind, which should have been comforting, she felt anything but comforted. Her scalp prickled, and she quickened her step, closing the distance between her and Steven.
“Do you feel that?” She was close enough to whisper in his ear.
“What?” The mountaineer spoke in a similar hushed tone, giving her the courage to express what she felt, no matter how paranoid it sounded.
“It feels like someone is watching us.” Nat was tempted to whirl around, but at the same time, she had a suspicion it was better not to know.
“Probably your Canadian friends. Who else would be lurking in here? How well did you know those two, anyway?”
She bristled at the veiled accusation. “About as well as I knew any of you. But their character references and reputations were impeccable.”
“Which could be easily faked.”
Right. The guy was an asshole. How could she have forgotten so soon? “I do have some experience, you know. I can sift through the bullshit.”
“I’m sure you can. But, whatever their reasons were, it was wrong of them to take off and leave the rest of us without a word about where they were going. And since Joe has most of our food, it’s downright irresponsible.”
“Maybe the food is in their tent. Did anyone search it?” She was willing to give the trappers the benefit of the doubt. They’d been hired for their hunting ability. After Vasily gave them grief about trying to do their job, it made sense they would have slipped away when he wasn’t paying attention. There probably hadn’t been an opportunity to let the others know. At least, that was what Nat hoped. There had to be a rational explanation.
“Not as far as I know, unless Lana did. We were too concerned with finding them. And after Joe nearly took my head off the other night, I certainly wasn’t going anywhere near their tent.”
“Understandable.”
Steven whistled under his breath. “Hey, check that out.”
Nat leaned forward, steadying herself on his arm to get a closer look. Snowshoe tracks. They were on the right path.
“And see the ski trail cutting across? That must be Lana’s. I can’t see her wandering off too far on her own. We should be close.”
That’s what she was afraid of. The skin on the back of her neck tightened, intense enough to make her shudder. “What do you think about what Lana said? About the blood? Do you think—”
“No. I’m thinking they killed something. It’s what they do, correct?”
Praying he was right, Nat followed Steven farther into the forest, focusing on the snowshoe tracks. They were fresh, proving that Joe and Anubha had been fine not long ago.
The trees thinned, and the forest ended abruptly. Directly ahead, Nat could see the remains of a small fire under a towering cedar. Two familiar figures huddled around it, their backs to Nat and Steven.
Relief giving her renewed energy, Nat hurried forward, her mouth open to call out when Steven threw out his arm, holding her in place. He held a finger to his lips. “Don’t move. Something’s not right.”
Then Nat saw the blood. It dotted the ground in ominous polka dots around the fire, circling to the cedar tree. Under the tree was a large, dark puddle, a stain on the snow that stretched nearly as long as the cedar’s shadow.
“We have to go to them, Steven.”
“I’ll go. You stay here.”
“What? I’m not staying here.”
Steven rested his hands on her shoulders, staring at her with those unnerving eyes of his. “They’re dead, Nat. Do you really want to see them like that? The only reason to go over there is to check for supplies we can use. They’re gone.”
“They’re not dead.” Nat tried to laugh, to show how ludicrous the very idea was, but it emerged as a strangled choke. “That’s crazy. They’re sitting right there.”
“Can’t you smell it?”
She hadn’t, until Steven pointed it out. Death. The sweet, iron tang of blood. “It could be an animal, like you said.”
“I don’t think so. Wait here. If I’m wrong, you’ll know in less than a minute.”
Heart in her throat, Nat hugged herself as Steven crept into the clearing, studying his surroundings like a rabbit watching for a hawk. When he reached the fire, he knelt in front of the trappers. She didn’t need to see the grimace on his face to know the truth. Anubha and Joe didn’t move. They didn’t say anything, or turn to wave at her. Either they were asleep, or…
Steven gently removed a strap from Anubha’s shoulder. Nat recognized it immediately. It was Joe’s backpack, the one they’d carried the food and cooking supplies in. Its existence, its very presence in that terrible place, confirmed their identities more than their clothing had. She wanted to wail as she remembered Anubha’s smile, Joe’s quiet confidence. How could they be gone? This had to be a nightmare, a horrible nightmare she’d soon awake from.
In spite of Steven’s caution, the movement was enough to disturb Anubha’s body. The woman fell backward, exposing a swollen face that was purple with bruises. Where her nose and eyes should have been were torn, bloody holes.
Nat screamed.