Page 90 of Death Valley

They move like shadows through the trees, always just visible enough to make sure we know they’re there. Guiding us. Herding us. Playing with their prey.

I count a dozen of them now, keeping pace effortlessly despite the deep snow. Some bear the tattered remains of hiking gear or winter clothing, suggesting they were once ordinary people who came to these mountains and never left. Others wear older garments, so weathered and filthy it’s impossible to guess their original form or era. Maybe some of them are the McAlisters themselves, or the pioneers Jake and Eve McGraw encountered.

All have the same unnatural blue eyes. All move with the same predatory grace. And all watch us with patient hunger, content to wait for whatever end they have planned.

“We need to distract them,” I say to Aubrey, keeping my voice low as we pick our way carefully along the trail they’ve left open to us. Cole and I ride on Harry, keeping abreast with Jeopardy. All three of us have our weapons raised and ready, unsure if they will help. Eli, meanwhile is unconscious across Jeopardy’s withers, and much too pale.

“How?” Aubrey whispers.

“I’m not sure,” I say, feeling so fucking helpless that it gnaws at my bones. The adrenaline and sleepless nights of the last few days are starting to take their toll and my brain is feeling fuzzy and useless at the wrong fucking time.

Meanwhile, the sky has begun to darken, not just with the approaching sunset but with gathering clouds. The clear morning has given way to a threatening afternoon, the wind picking up, carrying the scent of snow. A storm is coming, and soon.

“There’s an old trapper’s cabin near here,” I eventually say, just as the first snowflakes begin to swirl around us. “If I’m right about where they’re taking us, we might be able to reach it before the storm hits in full. We could barricade ourselves inside.”

“And if they don’t want us to?” Aubrey asks, nodding toward our silent escorts still pacing us through the trees.

“Then we find out just how determined they are,” I reply, patting my rifle. It’s bravado, and we both know it. Our weapons didn’t stop Hank in the end. Who knows if Red is still dead. Might have had to bash his brains in for nothing. If all of these hungry ones decided to attack at once, we wouldn’t stand a chance.

The snow begins falling more heavily and the temperature drops, the wind cutting through my jacket. Eli stirs against Aubrey, mumbling incoherently, his face flushed with fever despite the cold.

A crack sounds sharply to our left—a branch breaking under weight of snow.

Before any of us can react, the tree line erupts with movement. Two of the hungry ones burst from the shadows near us, moving with that unnaturally fluid speed, no longer content to watch from a distance. They cross the open ground betweenforest and trail in seconds, blue eyes locked on us, teeth bared in feral anticipation.

Harry rears, kicking his front legs out at the attackers, then drops low to buck behind him. I twist to see him get one of the creatures in the head, one that was just about to attack from the rear, but the relief is short-lived when Cole loses his balance and pulls me off with him.

We both tumble to the snow as Harry bolts for the trees.

Cole is the first to get up and stagger away, Jeopardy moving between us as if to protect me, as the creatures come at us again, this time on the opposite side of the horse.

Jeopardy rears now, giving just enough space for me to get low and shoot, getting one of the monster’s in the kneecaps. It cries out and falls down into the snow in a bloody heap just as Jeopardy twists and brings his hooves down on their head, crushing their brains.

But Cole is screaming as another creature grabs him, and Aubrey is trying to prevent Jeopardy from running off. I wish she would, she could get to safety with Eli and leave me here.

But she’s aiming her gun while balancing Eli against her. She fires twice at the monster that has Cole in rapid succession, the sound cracking across the mountainside. The creature jerks as the bullet strikes, a spray of dark fluid erupting from its shoulder, but it doesn’t stop.

I run around Jeopardy’s body, taking aim as Cole struggles to his feet, reaching for the knife at his belt, his pistol in the snow beside him. “Run!” I shout to him, squeezing off a shot that catches the creatures in the chest. Like Aubrey’s bullet, it seems to do little more than annoy it.

Cole manages three stumbling steps before another monster comes barreling out of the trees and reaches him, tackling him back to the ground with bone-crushing force. The other is on him in an instant, a writhing mass of pale limbs and snappingteeth. Cole’s scream cuts through the falling snow, high and desperate, before it chokes off in a wet gurgle.

My bullets can’t save him now.

Nothing can.

“We have to help him!” Aubrey cries, trying to control Jeopardy.

“We can’t,” I say. Blood sprays across the snow, vivid red against pristine white. Cole’s arm rises from the mass of bodies, still clutching his knife, before it’s dragged back down. “He’s our distraction.”

In one quick motion I reach under Eli’s body to grab the saddle horn and then swing my legs up, using all the energy I have. I slide onto his back behind the saddle, Jeopardy protesting at the added weight, but we have no choice.

“Go!” I yell and Jeopardy bursts into a gallop despite the treacherous snow. The hungry ones not occupied with Cole continue to pace us through the trees, still herding, still guiding our flight exactly where they want us to go, but even at their top speed, we’re faster.

Eventually they’re left behind, though I know they won’t be behind for long.

We ride in grim silence, the only sounds the heavy breathing of Jeopardy beneath us and his hooves thundering through the snow. Cole’s screams echo in my mind, the bright spray of his blood against the snow a vivid afterimage whenever I close my eyes, and I’ve already seen my fair share of horror today.

Another one gone. Another life claimed by these mountains, by the hunger that waits in their shadows.

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