Beneath the Snow

The snow blanked most of the landscape, a few pine needles poking through the white dresses of the evergreens and rocks blending into white meadows; small mounds formed where sunlight could catch the dazzling flakes and reflect starlight. Jaylynn glared at the flecks of blinding white, green eyes squinting as she took on the sheer brightness around her. But the effulgent setting would not last long and though she enjoyed the comfort of the dark, here it brought freezing temperatures and hostile weather. Clouds were rolling across the campestral backdrop, rich with fresh flakes to drop on the terrain.

The lone hitman drudged down the Alaskan road that led away from the only civilization within 30 miles: a town called Stone Ridge, population of 88, located slightly north of the Yukon River. She was glad to leave the place behind, preferring to face the wilderness beyond. Though the land was desolate she felt she needed to keep as many of her features covered while she walked in broad daylight. Her long black hair was tucked into her trapper hat, scarf wrapped around her neck, mouth, and nose. Her black leather gloves were stuffed with heat packs and she walked with them tucked beneath her arms while she tried to keep from shuttering. She hated the cold, freezing temperatures broaching old and painful memories. After this job, she would move somewhere where snow never fell.

Jaylynn had been hunting a target that eluded her for almost a year: a man named Kyro Hermansen—a former member of a crime syndicate based out of Singapore who had attempted to murder his boss to ignite a coup that would overthrow the organization. He failed, which got him blacklisted, but he was an artist when it came to disappearing from the view of the entire world. Jaylynn was one of few who thought it worth it to chase the bastard across the continent of Asia, the man slipping through her fingers as soon as she felt she had cornered him. She dropped the chase after coming to a dead end in Libya.

Seven months later, Jaylynn had been in L.A. hunting a triad thief when she got the call from one of her connections in Seattle. He had gotten a hit on Hermansen, who departed three days ago from the city in destination for Juneau, Alaska. It had taken Jaylynn half a day to finish the job in LA; found the target at a motel in Santa Monica and sniped him with her Barrett M95 from 2500 meters. Immediately after, she booked the next flight she could to Juneau.

Hermansen was in Juneau for two days before boarding a ship headed north. During his time in the capital, he made few movements and met with no one. Jaylynn found the company and ship name of the boat he boarded with the destination. She dropped in a call to an underground airline that sent a floater to pick her up; destination: Nome. The floater was sent out from her connections in Seattle, arriving 3 hours after the call, and landed in Nome after a 4-hour flight. She had missed Hermansen when she landed, a car rented with an alias in Hermansen's handwriting, moving him inland. She got a rental car and tracked him around the Seward Peninsula towards the Yukon River.

A scarce number of buildings made up the community of Stone Ridge, the roofs gaining a few extra feet in height as winter arrived and snow became a regular visitor. Houses were scattered, meek lights glowing in only a few of the windows. 20-foot piles of snow were pushed beside the roads, slick at some points, which kept Jaylynn focused as some roads led around steep edges with no guard rails. There were few out in the cold, the plowing of the road poorly done. The few people she spotted outside were hunched over their shoulders with scowling faces bright red from the chill wafting into their faces. There was one stoplight in the town and lights along the road were few and spaced apart. As Jaylynn rode through the town at dusk, she noticed papers wrapped in tape around every pole and sign in town. The script was drastically faded, but she could recognize the layout of a 'missing persons' poster etched in shadow. The faces were harder to distinguish, but when she pulled close to the pole of the single stoplight, she could make out the face of a young blonde girl smiling for a school photo. 

There was a single motel in town: The Hound Tavern, which had a single floor of outdoor bedrooms with full-sized beds and poorly heated running water. She waited until dark, rolling slowly into the small snowy lot of the motel. All the lights were out except for one in the office at the end of the building. When she entered she saw a manager with a wide waist curled by a heater in a haimish position, a bilious expression on his face as she opened the door of the office and let in a cold gust of wind.

She had her hair hidden and her scarf wrapped around her neck and mouth. The manager barely glanced at her as she gave him an alias and paid for a room in cash. When she got inside, she dropped her stuff on the floor and flopped onto the bed; her body and mind drained as she wondered where Hermansen could have fled. So many questions pulsed in her head that she was surprised she fell asleep.

The next day Jaylynn walked around Stone Ridge after the sun had risen. Most houses were made of wood, with slanted roofs doing their best to cast off the dense layers of snow. As she walked past the few sets of houses by the motel, she saw an older man bringing trash to his trashcans buried beside a one-story house. He glanced at Jaylynn, and he gave a scowling expression with his wrinkled face. A car passed her on the road, coming over a mound of white on a hill below her. She could see the driver as she hid in the snow—a middle-aged woman with short brown hair. The car rolled down the road and turned into a patch of trees. Most of the houses were placed in the center of town where there was a single grocery market and a gas station. There were dozens of other houses further apart, but many were abandoned, leading Jaylynn to believe that at one time the population of Stone Ridge was larger than 88.

Jaylynn took her time studying the missing person posters when she passed them, numerous faces, all children. The faces were easier to make out than the descriptive script, but she had to guess the posters could have been up for almost a decade. 

She walked around the 'downtown' area for a little, entering the grocery store where there was a small coffee shop that served only drip coffee and mochas. She paid for a large cup of steaming black coffee and held it tight in her hands as she swallowed the hot liquid before it was cooled. The barista had been a man in his early twenties, and Jaylynn asked him about the missing person's posters, but he claimed having moved after the 'incident'. When Jaylynn tried to probe him further, he said he knew little about it, only knowing there was something that caused many people to move away.

Jaylynn began to move away from the denser cluster of buildings, looking at the homes preserved but abandoned to slowly decay under the snow. She turned down a road with a single building at the end of staggering trees larger than the single-story structure standing in the tree-line shadows, boards over the windows, and a chained fence blocking off the property. A rusty playground stood to the left of the building, white stacked where surfaces were flat. A set of swings rocked slowly in the soft breeze, the shrieking sound of rusty metal echoing down the street. Yellow tape was buried beneath mounds of snow and she put her gloved hands on the fence as she read the name of the building above the entrance doors: Rutherford Elementary.

A gust of wind tunneled through the building and out the boarded windows, bringing with it the faint sound of a voice from somewhere within the school. Jaylynn froze with an impulse to jump the fence waving over her. She scanned the front of the school—snow and still pines—and kept motionless, letting her ears absorb everything.

There was movement within the school and she jumped the fence. The building sat quietly as Jaylynn approached the front doors, chains wrapped around the handles. She went to one of the windows and began to pull at the wood. The worn structure tore away and she tossed the plank to the ground.

Ice coated the walls and the floor of the school, colorful signs fading and words of encouragement peeling from the walls after years of sitting in the cold and the dark. She looked at the messy drawings of animals and landscapes, class photos of smiling children bunched in front of the school building. A shadow moved in the corner of her eye, but she saw the twitching of a branch through a classroom window and she walked further down the hall. Classrooms had tables scattered across the spaces with small chairs stacked. Jaylynn moved as quietly as she could, ears open while small beams of light were cast across the hall from the deterioration of the roof.

She turned back to some of the drawings and pictures, studying a particular drawing pinned to one of the corners of the posterboards. It looked like the outline of a person; the figure was filled with dark red scribbles and black hoops coming out of the head that looked like horns. There were 4 pairs of arms outstretched from the shoulders, yellow eyes scribbled on the head. In the background were simple drawings of young faces, their heads circular and hair made of string, with dense blue tears running down their frowning faces. The name 'Max' was scribbled in the corner of the drawing. It had been pushed to the side to leave room for the happy drawings of stick figures around massive trees and pets with circular bodies and pencil legs.

In the center of the posterboard was a picture of one of the classes, 3rd or 4th grade probably. As she studied the fading faces, she noticed traits that matched the missing person's posters. Most were smiling brightly, and then there was the boy on the far right, almost alienated from the group with his washed-out glare and frowning face. Jaylynn squinted at the photo, wondering what that dark shape behind the boy was. It could have been mistaken as a shadow, but even with the page cold and worn, she could see the shadow was too long and lanky to have come from the boy.

An echo of a voice floated down the hall, and Jaylynn pulled her attention away from the photo, trying to hold the shaking sensation out of her body that there was someone else in there, and she was starting to think it was not Hermansen.

"Hello?" Jaylynn called where shadows took over and hid the back wall. Please don't respond, she thought. 

"W-w-who are you?" came a voice from the black, raspy, and strained and not all human.

Jaylynn did not move, hearing heavy breathing and watching warm smoke coil into the light. Her hand began to move for the piece in her shoulder holster hidden beneath her jacket and she took a small step backward. The breathing stopped, the smoke ceased, and Jaylynn took another step.

"WHERE ARE YOU GOING?!"

The voice made the posters and child artwork flutter. Jaylynn turned her back to the voice and ran back towards the window. She could hear the quick patter of feet on stone following close behind, the smacking continuing to quicken in pace. She could feel the breath on the back of her neck when she jumped head-first out the window. She landed on the snow on her stomach and jumped to her feet immediately and did not look back until she was over the fence and had turned down another street.

After 7 minutes of sprinting, her pace began to slow and she let her legs relax and her heart rate lower. There were 4 houses on the street Jaylynn turned down, all quiet with few lights and signs of life. The driveways were cleared, but in a half-assed effort, and the sidewalks had only been partially cleared. She climbed over uneasy mounds of snow, looking at the house on her left made of dark red-colored wood. There were no lights through the windows, but the small chimney on the side of the building had black smoke coiling out. She gazed into the backyard of the house, a small fence bordering the property. Most of the ground still held several inches of snow, except for a small plot of earth in front of a brown wooden cross. The stake stood crocked in the ground, the snow making the ground around it brown and muddy and she imagined cold dead fingers crawling out through the mud.

Turning down the road that led back to the motel, Jaylynn's stomach began to grumble beneath her jacket. She ignored her body's protest for fuel and did not stop walking until she was back in her room. She had passed 3 strangers on her walk back and did not like the looks she got from anyone. She would not risk showing her face anymore.

When she got to the motel she locked the door of her room, letting herself catch a breath before she pulled out her laptop. She searched for Rutherford Elementary, Stone Ridge Alaska, and began to pull up articles.

Stone Ridge had always been a small town and got little attention until an article from 11 years ago did a study that found Ruthford Elementary was one of the best schools in the nation. Though a small town, the teachers were dedicated and children enjoyed the teaching styles they had adopted. Many were psychologists, researching child psyche and introducing new ways for adolescents to learn. There were articles about an increase in the popularity of moving to remote locations, and the high ratings of Ruthford Elementary caught the attention of parents looking to change their lifestyles. After that, information got fuzzy, but the town got attention when an unusually large number of disappearances began to occur. There was a story from a small newspaper that spread out the scene, describing that there was a presence from a family that began to stir up problems. Particularly, a child in the 3rd grade of Ruthford Elementary. There were reports that the child had been causing disturbances: arguing with teachers, breaking school supplies, and distracting students. Small disruptions at first, led to greater issues as the child began bringing in dangerous objects to school like knives and lighters he would try to show his classmates in secret, beginning to thrust threats towards his classmates and eventually his teachers. The boy tried to encourage violence in his peers in a manipulating way that began to change other kids' behaviors. There was little information on the ID or background of the boy, unknown if family disturbances had contributed to the behavior. Then children began to vanish. First was a young girl named Amy Shwartz; a small girl with long blonde hair and sparkling blue eyes, who vanished on a Tuesday when she didn't come home after school. She had been in class the entire day, behavior normal other than her sudden friendship with the troublemaker, and then sometime on her 7-minute walk home she vanished. Next was a boy named Ben Fekete. A smart kid, a bit of an outsider, disappeared on a Saturday afternoon. He told his mother he was going to a friend's house, never mentioning a name when his mother called every house in town looking for him, he never turned up again. After 5 disappearances the town was under a lot of scrutiny and families were beginning to move away as no answers surfaced. The school was closed for good when the troublemaker broke into a fit in the middle of the class. He became furious with the teacher, muttering madness about how vile he thought everyone was, yelling about a world he thought he understood, and pulled a Swiss army knife from his pocket and tried to shove it into his teacher's chest. He punctured her breastplate but other teachers stopped the boy before any fatal damage occurred. The boy was locked in the teacher's lounge with his hands bound while the authorities arrived. No one wanted to be in the room with the child. When the small-town officers went back to the lounge, the boy was gone. The search went on for days, but he vanished as the other children had. The family of the boy moved away almost immediately, creating rumors of a dark home life that led to the death of 5 children. People moved out in droves and Stone Ridge began to shrivel and disappear from the public eye.

After closing her laptop, Jaylynn stepped in front of the window and peeked from behind the blinds into the parking lot. She thought of the vanishing children, the frightened families. Her brother had disappeared when he was 12 and became one of those unsolved cases that faded for all except the family. She knew what it was like to live with huge questions that had no answers. Now only the old and bitter remained in this town, and she thought again about her target while she looked at her car in the lot. Hermansen may be gone now, but she thought it possible he had stopped here and left something behind she could use.

She began picking the old-fashioned locks of the other motel rooms, quickly checking the motel office where she saw the manager asleep in his chair, book on the floor, neck bent at an awkward angle that would hurt tomorrow.

Each room contained nothing of significance, most collecting only dust. She was about to check the last room when she saw a car peering over the snowy hill. She darted back to her room as it pulled into the lot. She locked her door and peered through the blinds. The truck's engine died, and a lean man with a tan, round face stepped out of the car. Jaylynn's heart jumped as she saw Hermansen pull his cap over his head, ungloved hands tucked in his armpits as he sped-walked to the office. She unlocked her door and gently walked along the concrete lining the front of the rooms. She silently slipped across the icy surface, paying mind to her footing as she crept towards the motel office.

"Just let me stay here a few hours," Hermansen said in a hoarse voice. "I don't have enough for a full night, but…"

"Sorry, man," said the motel manager, still rubbing his eyes awake. "I don't take squatters. Either pay for a night or get out."

"I want to get out of here but I can't just yet. All I need is a few hours with a roof."

The manager sat, unmoved.

"I used to live here; you know that?" said Hermansen. "A long, long time ago. But I'll always remember this nightmare of a place."

The manager looked like he was made of stone, absorbing none of the words.

"How about I pay half for two hours?"

"Pay or get out."

Hermansen smashed his fists on the counter, but the attempt had not startled the manager. He sat and waited for the money. Finally, Hermansen dropped it on the counter. He counted his change to meet the fee, and Jaylenn was pleased to know that the man was almost out of money. It's harder to hide when you're out of cash. She snuck quickly back to her room, shutting her door as Hermansen exited the office. She looked through the blinds and caught him entering a room 2 doors down. He slammed the door hard behind him, and the motel was silent. Jaylynn tried to listen through the walls.

She waited for 15 minutes. No cars passed outside. The manager was bundled in the office, and she knew it was only her and Hermansen in the motel. She went to her suitcase, pulled out her 9mm, and attached the suppressor.

Poking her head out of the door, Jaylynn exited with the handgun and took two steps towards his door when Hermansen opened it himself, exiting with a large trash bag. He had shut the door and did not look up for a moment, but it was not enough time for Jaylynn to move out of sight. He looked at the woman, gun in hand, and turned and ran down the concrete path. She raised her gun but did not need to pull the trigger. Four steps in Hermansen's feet fell from under him on the ice and smashed his head on the corner of the concrete slabs. Blood began to pool around his head, and his body went limp and lifeless.

The heavy-set manager appeared from the office, alerted by the small cry from Hermansen when he fell. The manager looked at the woman, confused, but he did not utter a word before she put a bullet through his head, red painting a spot on the building, body landing half-in-half-out of the office doorway. The gunshots had barely been whistles, but she would not wait for the tohubohu to continue. She collected her bag from the room, wiped all surfaces, and stole the keys to Hermansen's truck, tossing her case for her M95 in the passenger seat, and leaving the rental behind. She stepped over the manager's body and used the office phone to call for a pickup. She had a GPS in her bag and read the coordinates to the operator, the voice delivering in response to new coordinates for the pickup. There was a plane by the state's southern border, and she had 2 hours to get to the remote spot when the chopper would land inland and drop her at the plane's location on the coast. 

After the call, she started the truck and turned down the road that led out of town. Everything was quiet, and she felt some relief when she reached the exiting road. She drove the truck for 15 minutes before the tank ran out, and Jaylynn punched the dashboard in frustration. The idiot couldn't have filled the tank?! Snow was beginning to fall slowly and the woman tried to stuff as many hot packs in her boots and gloves as she got out of the car, throwing her bag and sniper rifle over her shoulder, her 9mm tucked in the inner pocket of her jacket. She took out her compass and GPS; she would need to continue down the road for another 4 miles, then turn off in the southeast direction.

Jaylynn felt exposed in the open space. At first, it was nerves that a car would roll by and cause more problems. But as she realized that was not going to happen a thought occurred that she may not see another person again. Looking at the endless white landscape, she felt permanently alone. It made her body feel tense, her heartbeat increasing as her legs began to move faster. The rush of worry made her mouth taste sour. She had been alone most of her life—or so she thought until she was looking at the freezing surroundings, everything still except for the falling flakes. Jaylynn tried to push out the loneliness and isolation from her thoughts. She looked at her gloved hands and began to stretch and move her fingers. An image sparked behind her eyes of her ragged father and their time in North Dakota and told herself she would not lose any fingers or toes to the frost as he did. She could still remember the look of his fingers, swollen like sausages as his skin turned blue and purple. It made her nauseous thinking about it. Everything about her father made her feel nauseous. She had not been sorry for leaving him behind to care for himself in his crumbling age. "Drop dead now for all I care," were the last words she said to him when she left at the age of 17. She remembered how he grew verklempt and then proceeded to throw kitchen items at her as she went out the door.

Jaylynn pushed her boots through the powder, fresh flakes helping to mask her prints. Her eyes were on her feet for so long that she almost did not notice a lynx that had snuck out from the trees and trotted across the road. She was amazed at the stealth of the animal. Even with trained ears and attention, she had not seen the cat coming. It gazed at her with cold, inimical eyes when it got to the other side of the road, a white aura glowing from its fur as it collected falling flakes. It then turned and disappeared into the snow; the whole time, not a single sound escaped from the lynx's movements.

The clouds began to produce thicker snowflakes, the fresh white dusting Jaylynn's hat and hair as she pulled it out of her hat to keep her ears warm. She was almost at the point where she would need to turn off the road. The light was fading, and her body was beginning to shake more. She searched her pockets for more heat packs; she found nothing.

She checked her GPS location when she reached the point to turn off the road, and a sudden hesitation took over her as she looked at the untouched snow. Who knew the last time human feet stepped across that land? She put her foot down on the flakes and sank to her knees, moisture instantly beginning to soak through her layer of jeans and long underwear. Her socks also grew soggy as she could not stop some snow from falling into her tightly laced boots.

The sound of running water echoed ahead. A neat line of pine trees bordered the river, all equal in height and spacing, and passed by the trunks that masked a torrent of clear water and sheets of ice. Jaylynn could see the coursing water beneath, icy rivers pooling around rocks sticking out through the clear shards collecting around the rims. Parts of the covering would crack and drift off, releasing a patch of water to lick onto the surface, spreading over the ice that would freeze and add uneven layers. It was tricky to tell where the land gave way to the river with the snow covering the ground, so Jaylynn took a moment to trace out the boundaries of the obstacle. She dug rocks from the snow and threw them at varying lengths to the other end of the river to get a measured width of the water. By the time she threw her fourth rock, she had measured the river at about 13 meters across. She did a quick walk in both directions. It stretched for miles and did not appear to develop any thinning in its width. No time to find a way around it.

After checking her watch, she saw she did not have more time to scope the environment and slowly tried to make her way across the ice. She watched where layers were forming and kept an eye on her feet to watch the thickness of the sheets beneath her boots. Steps had to be slow to test the durability of each part of the surface. At about halfway across, she hopped onto a rock just as the ice beneath her gave out. A massive layer broke off around the rock, and Jaylynn was surrounded by ice-cold water, licking at her boots, and slickening the rock's surface. She stuck her arms out for balance as her back leaned with the weight of her rifle and pack, and she tried to get her momentum in front of her again, her M95 shifting on her shoulder as she leaned forward and felt her shoes steady.

In front of her, the ice had broken away, leaving a 1-foot gap between the rock and the next sheet of ice, and that layer was so thin Jaylynn knew she would break through with the first step. But there was another rock about 3 feet away, a small portion appearing between layers of ice. She tensed her legs where they were, trying to get the best footing on the rough surface, and jumped onto the next rock. She tottered for a moment upon landing but found her balance quicker this time.

More ice surrounded her, but she could see the water below—too thin. She scanned the ice further, hoping to find a layering that could hold her. A patch of ice displayed a hazy glow a few feet from her rock, but she couldn't be sure how thick it was. She didn't want to look at her watch, knowing that time was eating up. She stretched out her leg as far as she could (above-average height coming in handy) and rested her boot on the ice. It strained as she began to put on weight, and she could feel breakage beneath her toes. But the caving slowed as Jaylynn pushed the rest of her weight onto her foot and pushed off the rock before she was sure. The first step held, as did the second, and she was only a few feet from the other side when the ice gave way, and her foot fell through, pant leg soaking to her knee in water so cold she felt stings of pain shoot through her body. Her last stretch brought her onto solid ground, and she rushed onto the other side of the river.

Jaylynn's leg trembled severely, and she knew she had to do something if she was to keep moving. She ran away from the river to keep blood flowing and took off her layer of jeans that were now soaked and freezing more by the second. She felt horribly vulnerable as she stood in the snow in her socks and long underwear in a snowstorm. She had always been someone who did not like being seen—she never wanted to be the show's star but rather the hidden director. She created distractions that took her away from herself but being alone like this, she felt like she was the only entertainment for miles, which shuddered her almost more than the cold that threatened to freeze her limbs.

She had an extra pair of leggings and snow pants in her pack and quickly slipped them on, tossing her freezing clothes to the side—no point in keeping them, and they would never be found anyway. When she got on the dry clothes, she began to run to keep her legs in motion. She kicked her knees in the air, flinging snow with each step, and checked her watch. She had a little over an hour before her pickup would be at the spot.

Trees scattered across hills, the wind twisting the white surface to create swirls in the air. Jaylynn tried to look beyond the blankets of white, mind focused on her goal. The ground existed in vague mounds shifting in the wind. A few trees stood across the landscape, but it was a few hundred meters ahead that she saw an obvious tree line, trunks massive in diameter, and pine needles stretching several stories high. She checked her GPS to confirm that was where she was headed. She took off in a run to keep blood flowing, fighting the stiffness seeping into her soaked leg.

As Jaylynn got closer to the tree line she began to slow her pace. The trees began to take form in her vision and she could see the density of the trunks and branches that blocked out light and allowed blackness to take a solid form. The species looked unfamiliar to her; as tall as a spruce, pine needles coating the branches, which did not as much turn at normal jagged angles but curved and swirled out from the dark trunks. She looked at the trees and felt that drop in her gut that told her to find another way. To her left, glaring through the snow, the trees looked like they thinned out a bit. She was not sure why but she knew she needed to stay as far away from the trees as possible.

She told herself she had time as she began to walk along the tree line, the snow continuing to block her view when she spotted movement. Dropping to the ground, Jaylynn looked through her scope.

A pack of wolves was roaming through the snow, about 20 of them searching with their heads down. Their fur looked matted and clumped; their bodies stretched in long shapes, bones poking through the skin. When some of the pack raised their heads she could see the steam swirl from their jaws, mouths hung open in desperation.

She watched the pack as they slowly got closer and began to block her path down the tree line. Most walked with their heads down, noses working on picking up a scent. She stiffened her body and her finger began to rest on the trigger of the rifle, but she hesitated, not sure what to do. She then saw one of the wolves perk its head up and she could see the focus on the animal's face as if it had found something. She knew it was smelling her, and her hopes that the animals were the type to avoid humans began to wither in her heart.

She saw snarling fangs through her scope and fired two rounds at the wolves closest to her before she took off in a sprint back in the direction she came. The beasts came for her, powerful legs carrying them across the terrain. She could hear growls behind her and she looked at the tree line, 10 meters from her, but every inch of her was telling her to stay away. As the growling wolf sounds got more intense, she gripped her handgun from her jacket and turned in one swift motion, arms outstretched, staring at a 200-pound wolf cantering towards her. She shot a bullet through its opened jaws, tunneling out the back of its head as it fell into the snow. More were coming, and dread filled her chest as she turned towards the tree line. She was almost there, hoping to climb one of the strange branches to get herself out of reach, when one of the wolves jumped onto her back, ripping through her pack as claws and fangs dug into it. Jaylynn dropped the handgun, gripping the rifle that now hung in front of her, and slugged the butt of the rifle under her arm to jab the animal in the ribs before its massive jaws closed on her neck. She was unsure she could push it off, falling face-first into the snow, but she hit the animal and it fell back in a wince of pain.

When Jaylynn was back on her feet she refused to see how close the rest of the pack was and tripped over her feet as soon as she made it to the trees. She scrambled on her stomach, trying to get to one of the trunks to climb, but she stopped when she heard no movement. She looked behind her and saw the pack standing beyond the trees, motionless and watching her closely. She could see the starvation in the animal's expressions, but they felt the same way about this place as she did, and she knew the wolves would not follow her.

The wolf that had gotten on her back had clawed through her pack and shredded parts of her jacket where its claws had met her flesh. She could feel the blood run down her back, the warm liquid feeling nice on her cold skin. When she stretched her back, she could feel where her muscles had torn and deemed it injuries that did not need attending. With her pack ripped, she had lost half of her supplies, but her GPS and compass were zipped in her jacket pockets that had not been shredded.

After she checked her GPS and compass, she adjusted her path and continued through the snow to a dense collection of evergreens, her rifle slung over her red-stained shoulder. Pain radiated from her body as she struggled through the trees, her heart slamming in her chest as she tried not to look at her gloomy surroundings. She was beginning to feel claustrophobic as she weaved between thick trunks, invasive branches curling into her hair and picking at her clothes. The sky was completely obnubilated by the branches, a few flakes falling between the slits. Her eyes had to adjust, the smell of decay beginning to fill her nose. She continued checking her compass.

Sounds in the darkness caused her to pull her rifle into her hands, scope scanning through the trees. The smell of death was thickening, and Jaylynn wanted to plug her nose to keep the stench out. Crunching sounds radiated through the trees, the light almost completely gone amidst the trees, growing in height. Jaylynn scanned the dark with her scope, seeing nothing but still hearing the faint crunch nearby. A whisper of laughter whisked through her ears as she turned the scope upwards towards the branches. Amidst the darkness, she something; four long arms reaching out to grab branches as it slowly climbed toward her. Its movements were slow and jerky, the shape of a head tilting and shifting as it moved. The laughter began to grow, the single voice of a young boy watching something of great amusement.

The rifle rested on her shoulder; she kept the barrel pointed at the thing as she tried to take a step. The disturbance of snow and her boot caused the thing to burgeon towards her, laughter growing. She fired a single shot, the bullet tunneling through something, but Jaylynn did not stay to find out what she hit. Running in the hope of finding a light that would take her from the dense hell and the crawling beast snapping branches in the dark as it climbed after her.

There was a glare ahead, and Jaylynn hoped what she saw was sunlight. She kept her eyes pointed forward when she saw the shape between the trees—a small boy the color of ice, laughing as he watched the creature chase its dinner. Her legs were aching, and her rifle was beginning to weigh more on her shoulders. She ignored the whispers and denied hearing her name between the trees. It was getting harder to run, her legs falling into pockets of deep snow where tree branches broke open enough to allow fresh flakes to collect on the ground.

She could see the sky ahead for only a moment before cold hands clamped around her neck, falling into the snow, her rifle falling to the ground as other hands clasped her ankles and began to drag her back to the trees. She looked back to see the deformed humanoid dragging her through the snow. Its limbs bent awkwardly as it crawled backward. Though it had no lips, something in Jaylynn's mind told her it was smiling at her, teeth like tiny needles that sprouted from its gums and seemed to grow in the sunken pockets of its face. The thing opened its mouth, ready to chomp down on her flesh and Jaylynn was on her back, legs held together. Jumping on instinct she pulled the bowie knife from her jacket pocket and tunneled the blade into the thing's head. It fell backward as a horrid shriek erupted from the creature, black blood sloshing from its head as it tried to pull the blade out. Jaylynn crawled on her back, flipped over, and ran for the light in the distance. A high-pitched scream whipped through the trees, causing splitting pains in her head as Jaylynn grabbed her rifle and stumbled out of the woods and away from the screaming boy, furious that his pet had been stabbed.

Jaylynn could feel fresh blood covering her neck where the nails of the creature had dug through her flesh, leaving a bloody trail behind her. She looked through her scope and saw an open field covered with fresh snow. In the distance was a small cabin, little left of the structure but enough to pinpoint it in the sky. Jaylynn looked at the clouds above and wondered if her ride would be on time—or show up at all.

Jaylynn began to run through the snow again, more energy bursting through her as hope began to shimmer in the distance. She checked her watch. She had 6 minutes.

She was so close, a cold taste of relief flushed in her mouth as she took those last steps to the cabin. And then she felt the ground beneath her disappear. From the look of the space, Jaylynn had not realized she had been running across a frozen lake, the snow a dense cover over the ice, and she hit a spot too weak to support her. Horror erupted as she tried to swim to the surface. She hit the bottom of the lake and pushed off the freezing bottom. Her head smacked into a dense layering of ice. She tried to find the hole she had fallen through—the only patch of thin ice—but she could feel her lungs beginning to give out. She thrust her fists into the ice above as blackness started to coat her mind.

***

Merlin Espenson flew his Sikorsky H-19 Chickasaw helicopter over the Alaska terrain, a bottle of vodka beside him as he followed the coordinates to pick up a woman he had known a long time ago.

He was 15 when he watched Jaylynn Boivin storm out of her home, the angry shouting of her alcoholic father following as she marched to her beat-up station wagon, a stuffed duffle bag in one hand and a determined look that told him she was not coming back. He ran in front of the car as she was beginning to pull out, waving his hands for her to stop.

"Get out of my way Merlin," she told him with the firm tone she used to use when she would babysit when he was too young to stay home alone.

"Can I come with you?" he asked with honesty in his features.

She gave a small smile. "You and I both know you won't do that."

"Then let me buy you dinner. Or at least let me say goodbye."

Jaylynn unlocked the door and he jumped in the passenger seat.

"Where will you go?" he asked her when they were seated in The Midnight Diner. They had spent the drive in silence, Merlin able to feel the rage radiating from her, and let her work through the emotions.

"Not sure yet. Probably as far as I can from here," she said as she sat with her elbows on the table coffee and a plate of waffles in front of her.

"Any place is better than here," he said with a mouth stuffed with pancakes. "I always wanted to go north."

"How far north?"

"As far as I can get. I'm sick of sticky air and blistering heat. I want to see snow and evergreen trees. Canada looks beautiful."

"What would you do in Canada?"

"Anything where I could work outside."

"At least you know what you want. All I know is what I don't want, which is frustrating. I have all of these things I want to run away from, but I wish I had something to run towards. Something to give me hope in such a crap existence."

"I think you're the kind of person who could do or become who or whatever they wanted."

Jaylynn laughed. "You don't know me well enough to say that."

"I know about Simon Frazier."

Jaylynn stopped her fork in her food and looked at him with a cold glare that made a chill run through his spine.

"I don't know what you're talking about," she said in a flat tone.

"Don't worry," he said. "I'm not going to tell anyone. I know what really happened that night. How he attacked you—"

"Shut your mouth," Jaylynn hissed and her face broke into an expression of rage and fear. She looked around the diner. There was an old man at the booth in the corner and a crew of teens at the large table by the kitchen, all minding their own business. "I don't know how you found out but it's something I am not going to discuss."

Merlin nodded. "I understand. I just wanted you to know I know the truth. I know what you did that night was to protect yourself, and I'm glad you were able to. So I'm not worried about you leaving, even though you don't have a plan. You're the smartest and strongest person I've ever met."

The malice retreated from her face and her lips grew into a small, flattering smile. "You're the only person I'll miss, Merlin."

She dropped him off at the corner of their street and he watched her car drive down the road and turn out of sight. His heart ached at the loss of his friend, but a heavy satisfaction held in his gut since he had the chance to say goodbye.

Merlin had not seen Jaylynn after that night, but after 17 years he still remembered her face and her name, and when he got the ID of his pickup his heart leaped into his throat. Is it really Jaylynn? he asked himself. After all these years? The anticipation made him jittery as he turned the helicopter through the low clouds.

He was unsure what he expected to see when he landed in the wilderness, desolation everywhere. He slowly set down the chopper, snow continuing to thicken, and he knew he could not stay long. He landed beside the beat-up cabin near the trees to keep off the frozen lake and watched for movement through his binoculars. There was a break in the ice a few meters from the edge of the lake, and he moved closer as he saw the drag marks across the ice where the hole was. But they did not lead towards the end of the lake where he was. The path led across the lake to the trees on the other side. He searched a small perimeter from his chopper and called her name, but nothing appeared from the trees or the ice.

The snow was getting heavier, and he could wait no longer. He got into the helicopter with disappointment bowing his head. He gave a salute to the beautiful Alaskan landscape, remembering a time when a place like this was something he dreamt about. He laughed at how much he had changed since then and wondered how his old friend had changed…wherever she was.

END