1Suppressing horrendous memories, Karl sat there alone in his cabin by the lake. As he sipped on his cinnamon tea, the fresh-lacquered walls seemed to close in on him. The small cabin seemed more like a studio apartment than a cozy getaway, and the cold of the northwest was nothing to him..
He was alone, and growing increasingly paranoid. Despite the biting temperatures of yesterday's blizzard that snowed him in, Karl had awoken in the middle of the night drenched in sweat. The grim images of his vivid nightmare clawing his thoughts. Nothing could compare, however, to the carnage he had impossibly survived in Barrow, Alaska, just 3 months ago.
"What the fuck was I thinking trying to find this 'snowboarding paradise' in that shithole?'", he thought to himself. "I just have to find the most insane places, don't I? Damn you, Karl. You and your idiot ideas." Anger mixing in almost deliberately to try and vainly counter his increasing claustrophobia. "Pfft.", he muttered aloud as he backed up to the wall, practically slamming his head. Staring up to the logged ceiling, he slowly closed his eyes as he gritted his teeth.
Closing a white-knuckled fist in his left hand, and almost dropping his ceramic mug in the other, he began to slowly slide down with his back firmly against the wall. Darkness began to overtake him, as his knees bent to a careless sitting position. The strong pine smell of the wall, mixing in with the spice of his steaming drink began to waft into his senses. In a seamless moment, the smell began to change. It was very subtle at first, then intensely...metallic.
As if he had stuffed his mouth with coins. He recalled this taste when he split his lip wide open, attempting some immense air-time while competing on Rendezvous Mountain, back in Wyoming. It was overpowering. Blood. Opening his eyes, he was no longer in his cabin.
The familiar, yet somehow new terrain lay before him. Not three feet in front of him, the frigid powder of immaculate white snow was tainted in crimson droplets. Deep red droplets, that began to grow in density as he slowed quickly slowed down. Ripping winds forced him to un-clamp his boot bindings and carry his snowboard. He also removed his goggles, as the last tiny vestige of sunlight behind the thick clouds was now swallowed by the horizon. He should have headed back to the resort hours ago.
"Wonderful. Here's to a whole month without you, buddy...", he gestured as if toasting a drink to the fleeting Sun and its dying rays. "Where the hell did I put that flashlight?" he said aloud, his voice trailing as the heat from his breath quickly dissipated in the growing winds of the white out. He heard a snapping sound ahead. It was quite abrupt. He reached for his bear mace as he fumbled to activate his flashlight. He froze for an instant. Turning his head left and right rapidly, all he could see was the seemingly endless pines that flanked the trail.
Cold and towering pine trees. It was as if they shunned and punished his extended venture for that "sick spot" he had overheard back in the resort. Another snap. Louder this time, and closer. To his left? No, the right. "Fuck...", he whispered. He was practically immune to all sorts of cold, but this made every hair on his body stand up.
His unkempt dirty-blonde beard accumulating more snow. Adjusting his winter hat and gloves, he aimed his bear mace in front of him with his right hand and managed to get the flashlight working with the other. He began to slowly move forward, after the trail of what he now knew was blood.
He hesitated as he saw how fresh it was. "Shouldn't these damn wolves be howling by now?"
He recalled the high-pitch of them plenty of times as they would converge for a hunt during previous riding sessions. "Shit!", he cried, startled by the sound of another cracking and snapping in the distance. Closer this time. He had heard that sound before plenty of times. It was the sound of twigs being stepped on, but not by the padded paw of a wolf or coyote.
At this point, Karl was convinced the wolf pack -or bears- were circling him now, but there was no howling or territorial growling. Not once did he hear a single howl or familiar animal sound. He proceeded to follow the trail of thickening blood. His heart was about to pound through his chest and out of his snowboarding jacket.
As he quietly crunched through the packing snow, he remained on the side of the widening blood pool. "How far is this thing!?", he thought.
He knew the recent kill of the wolves or whatever, happened not long ago, as the blood still hadn't frozen over or coagulated in a deep brown color. He was walking downwind. Not a good thing, and he knew it.
A few eternal paces ahead, his green eyes widened, panic surging through him at what he saw. The origin of the blood trail pooled in an unimaginable sight. He wretched. Adrenaline kicked in as the fast winds of the white out slowed. A dozen or so yards ahead in the blinding gloom, six dark silhouettes stood. Frozen. Motionless. They appeared humanoid. "What the hell?", he lipped, keeping his mouth slightly open as he panted.
"Hey! Help me!" he boomed in his low voice. The dark figures didn't budge. Karl's nose felt as if it was about to fall off with frostbite. "What the fuck!? This person must be rushed to the hospital, are you insane!?", he pleaded.
Karl felt rage coursing through him as he was struggling to catch his breath. The person in the small lake of blood maimed beyond belief. He couldn't identify if it was a man or woman, and the horrific injuries left the victim practically decapitated. He didn't see these grisly details before, with the winds blasting through his sight. Pointing the flashlight down to secure his footing in the loose snow, he aimed it back to where the hardly visible silhouettes stood. Nothing.
He thought he was seeing things, he had only pointed his flashlight downwards for a split second. "Where are you!? Do you have a phone!?". No response came to Karl's increasingly hoarse plea. "Keep fucking around, you assholes, this person has been killed by a goddamn animal!"
Silence.
All he could see was his rapid breath disappearing into the pitch-black night with every tiring pant. If it weren't for his flashlight, he would be in an utter void of dark. Raising the only light source once more, he scanned around for any signs of their movement. He began to tremble as the stress and cold finally began to wear on him.
His frustration and adrenaline stirred into a sheer gasp of terror, as he raised his thin Maglite, and a lone shadowy figure stood staring right at him about fifteen or twenty feet away. Karl almost fired off his bear mace, he gripped it so tightly.
"What's your name, are you from Barrow!? This person over here is dead!"
The individual in front of him cocked his head slowly to the left. Skin almost as pale, if not more, than the snow itself. If it wasn't for those lifeless, black tar pools of eyes, on what appeared to be a male of thin and tall frame, Karl wouldn't have noticed half of 'his' lower-face caked in red.
Dripping red gore.
"Oh my god...", Karl whispered as he began to slowly back away from the figure clad in tattered in aged formal wear. Right before every single instinct in Karl's body told him to spray him with his animal deterrent and flee with every ounce of strength he had left, the gaunt and pallid figure slowly turned and formed a clawed hand by its right hip.
Karl saw the crimson-black stained long fingernails protruding from every one of its digits, unnaturally fortified. Unnaturally pointed. "You sick fu-", Karl's words engulfed in fear were abruptly severed, as the creature slowly widened a grin, exposing one by one, rows of blood-drenched stalagmite-like razor teeth.
In that moment, he turned his body in a complete one-hundred and eighty degree motion, and charged the slight uphill. He noticed that about fourteen feet or so ahead to his left, the trail opened and dropped into a steep hillside. As he neared it, he instantly halted, as a shrill, ear-piercing shriek he could have sworn ruptured his ear drums, sounded above.
He pointed his flashlight further up, and saw another ghoulish pale-skinned figure in a decrepit grey skirt, and slick, long black hair clinging with gore to the side of its agape, piranha-like maw. 'She' had appeared in an instant, blocking his path on the trail, impossibly fast.
"How in the hell do they move with such speed in this thick snow!?", Karl wrestling the logic in his mind.
He didn't even bother looking back, he knew what -or whom- was so eager to rip him apart for whatever sick and depraved reasons. The fingernails on the horrendous female in front of him must have been twice as long as the male counterpart, as Karl was running out of options. He could hardly breathe. In a moment of desperation, Karl quickly strafed to his left, and dove off the side of the very steep hill where the clearing was.
The unforgiving night swallowed him as he fell out of view.
...to be continued.
