Darcy Coates

Strange sounds come through the roar of the gale. They blur in and out until it’s impossible to know whether they are manmade, animal, or the whistle of wind passing through narrow gaps in the rocks. Sometimes, they sound like screams. Lasting longer human’s lungs could manage, they shriek and shriek and shriek.

Brian’s place by the fire is empty. He must have needed the bathroom. There’s a stack of papers, facedown, where he sat.

The others are all still and quiet, either asleep or close to. I bend down. The papers don’t match anything else in the cabin; they’re crisp and white. Recent.

I turn one over and see Kiernan’s signature.

A small object clings to one of the last trees in the cluster. In the poor light and snow-dense air it takes me a moment to recognise it. It’s the lantern we left there the previous night.

Its light has gone out. But not because its batteries failed.

Someone has smashed it.

Speared onto the end of the branch is something horrendously familiar.

Brian’s head.

“Are we sure Brian pointed to this when he said he’d called the emergency responders?” Hutch’s face is hidden behind the radio as he examines it.

“Yes,” Alexis says, but she’s looking less certain.

“I remember it too,” Simone adds.

“Okay. And did anyone actually hear him make that call?”

There’s silence.

Hutch lowers the radio. His face has greyed out. “Because this is broken.”

Something on the windowsill catches my eye. Small shapes are lined up on the outside, crusted in fresh snow. I lean forward, frowning, doubting what I’m seeing. My breath condenses on the glass.

The shapes are pale white, with spots of deep crimson.

Those are…

Recognition hits me. I reel back, one hand pressed across my mouth as I try not to scream.

Someone has left a row of human teeth on the windowsill.

They’re crusted in frozen blood. Some still have nerve endings attached.

The dreams change, spiralling to the one day I don’t want to remember. The rain. The voices, calling, “Can’t we do something?”

And then, “Where is she?”

My dream splinters apart at the edges. My eyes creep open, but my limbs are still heavy with the numbing effects of sleep. The voice repeats, nearer and louder and horrifically real.

“Where is she? Where’s my Miri?”

A dim shape emerges through the haze. It’s rounded, like a boulder in the snow. It shivers. Simone stops ten paces from it and extends the phone, the light angled at the form as she slowly circles it.

Different aspects are cast into view as the light moves. Creases in fabric. The edges of an arm. Then the head lifts, revealing Steve’s face, blotchy and wet. Strings of fluid cling to his beard. The distended skin under his eyes is swollen and red.

His arms stretch towards the patch of dark snow ahead of him. He moans, a deep, aching sound that comes from low in his stomach. “Look what they did to her.”

I drag my eyes upwards, towards her head. The space where it should be. It’s been cleaved off, just like Brian’s. A glut of red blood sinks into the field of white, slowly mixing with it and turning to ice.