Tag: science-fiction

Razor Mountain is a serial novel, with new parts published every week or two. For more info, visit the Razor Mountain landing page.

They walked. A sliver of moon rose, giving them a little more light to see by, and the girl slowed her pace. Her head still swiveled constantly, watching the shadows.

“What’s your name?” he asked.

She scrawled in the notebook and held it up to the light, still walking.

Amaranth

“Who was shooting at me, Amaranth?” Christopher asked.

She turned to look at him, then closed the notebook and kept walking.

He stopped.

“Look, I’ve had a lot happen to me out here, and none of it makes any sense. Yesterday I didn’t know if anyone even lived out here. Now I’ve apparently got someone trying to kill me. You’ve got to tell me something about what’s going on.”

She wrote in the book.

Be patient. Answers when we get there.

“Where is there?”

She started walking again.

“Look,” Christopher said. “I need you to give me something here, or I’m not going.”

Amaranth turned to face him. He tried to look determined, despite holding the thin blanket wrapped around him and shivering. She half-smiled sadly at him, raised a hand in farewell, and walked backward a few paces before turning and continuing on her way.

Christopher sighed and followed.

“What a skill, to be sarcastic without even speaking.”

They walked for hours, Christopher in sullen silence, Amaranth seemingly in her element. She exuded a confidence and grace moving through the woods.  After a while, he realized that she was leading him through the thickest parts of the forest, keeping them well-hidden from distant eyes.

“Did you leave that rabbit for me?” he asked.

She nodded.

“How long have you been watching me?”

She didn’t reply.

Christopher felt himself beginning to slow. He stumbled. He hadn’t gotten a proper meal or a rest after he set up camp, and the blanket wasn’t an adequate replacement for his coat, especially as the night grew colder. He clenched his jaw to keep his teeth from chattering.

Amaranth glanced back at him, and he thought he caught a hint of concern behind the serious expression.

Finally, she stopped and took out the notebook again.

Wait here.

Christopher looked around. They were still in the middle of the forest, in a place that looked the same as anywhere else they had hiked that night.

“What do you mean, ‘wait here?’” he hissed. “You’re the first person I’ve seen since my plane crashed. I’d rather not be alone in the woods again.”

I’ll come back.

He nodded. There wasn’t much point in arguing. She could run off into the woods if she wanted to, and he would never be able to keep up.

She crept off, and he found a dry patch of soft forest detritus under a big pine. He sat with his back to the tree, the blanket wrapped tightly around him. He instinctively faced south, away from the broken mountain peak and the source of the shooting.

Christopher tried not to nod off, his fingers going numb, wondering if he was cold enough now that he might not wake up again. He could no longer keep his teeth from chattering. He vaguely remembered reading that it was only when the body gave up on shivering that you really knew you were in trouble.

The tiny patches of black sky between the branches were just starting to turn morning gray when Amaranth returned. He didn’t realize he had fallen asleep until she shook his shoulder.

The notebook raised into his field of view as he blinked away the bleariness and tried to focus.

Let’s go. There’s a place up ahead where you can warm up.

She grabbed his hand and helped him to his feet. They trekked onward. The ground grew more uneven and rocky. There were boulders among the trees.

Then they came to a gully that descended into the earth, twisting and turning. It widened and led to a broad depression in front of a wall of rock, a ridge about ten feet high. The depression had become a little pond of dirty, frozen water. Set into the rock face a row of three drainage pipes, each a few inches in diameter and covered with rusted metal grating. They were half-visible, half-buried in the ice. Next to them was a metal hatch with a lever set into it. The design was similar to the door of the bunker, but twice as wide and slightly taller. The bottom of the door was also beneath the level of the ice. Christopher saw chunks had been chipped and cracked away along the frame.

Amaranth led him across the dirty ice, which was slippery in spots and rough in others. There was a number pad in the wall next to this door, just like the bunker, and she shielded it from view with one hand while she punched in numbers. There was a thud from within the door. She pulled the lever, then pointed to Christopher and mimed pushing.

“Teamwork?” he asked, and she nodded. They both put a shoulder against the door and did their best to find purchase on the ice. The door groaned and scraped, and eventually slid about a quarter of the way open. Amaranth slipped inside, and Christopher followed.

Beyond the door was a hallway, perhaps fifty feet long, that looked as though it was cut through solid stone. It was fairly smooth, but not as smooth as the walls of the bunker. It had faint circular scoring, like the marks of some high-powered drill or saw. There were webs of cracks running across the floor, some barely visible, others wide enough that he could stick a finger in. Most of them glistened with cold moisture.

Christopher looked back at Amaranth as she shoved the door closed and pulled the lever back into place. The hatch was keeping out most of the moisture, for now. Surely it would be an issue when the summer thaw came.

“What happened here?” he asked. “The bunker was in great shape. This place looks like it was hit with an earthquake.”

Amaranth shrugged and scribbled in the notebook in the half-light. Circular holes in the hallway ceiling provided diverted sunlight, but it was dim.

Problem with the geothermal. Before my time.

She led him to a similar hatch at the far end of the hallway. This one had no keypad, just a lever. It was in good shape, opening easily. A wave of warmer air washed over them as they entered.

On the other side was a huge space. It was outfitted like an old-fashioned office, with rows upon rows of identical desks. There were filing cabinets here and there. Much of it was knocked over or broken or shoved out of the neat and orderly rows. He found himself in a space near the door that looked like a sort of waiting area, with coat hooks on the wall and two rows of metal chairs all bolted together. The ceiling was higher here, but the light was still dim. A section of the room on his right actually tilted at a disconcerting angle, as if it had sunk a foot or two from the rest of the floor. It was eerie, deserted, and quiet. The air was stale and musty. Christopher felt like he was stepping into a scene from a horror movie.

Amaranth led him on a path through the sea of desks and fallen filing cabinets. She navigated the maze of furniture with the ease of familiarity, and she seemed less guarded and wary than she had been in the woods.

There were papers scattered here and there, occasional coffee mugs, pens and pencils. Christopher was hardly knowledgeable about architecture and design, but it all had a very post-war look to it, maybe the 40s or 50s. A few things, like a winged figure in stained-glass and chrome decorating one wall, seemed older.

They reached the far wall of the huge room and began to follow it to the left. They passed an opening, an empty metal door-frame with broken hinges still attached, but no door. It was a stairwell, but unnavigable because it had been crammed completely full of desks, chairs and filing cabinets, all the way to the ceiling. It was clearly a barricade, and it did not make Christopher feel any more at ease.

A little way further down, they came to a pair of elevators with steel doors, a rainbow of oxidation creeping across them like lichen. Amaranth took a short piece of metal out of her backpack. It looked like it had been broken off some piece of machinery for use as a makeshift crowbar. She wedged it between the doors and pulled them open far enough to put an arm through. After that, they gave way with little effort. The girl banged a syncopated rhythm on the metal door before putting the bar back into her backpack.

She gestured to Christopher, then pointed to the side wall of the empty elevator shaft. Christopher leaned forward and peered into the abyss. There was a ladder along the indicated wall, leading up and down into darkness.

“Up or down?”

Amaranth pointed down.

Christopher took a deep breath and fought back a little vertigo. It was perilous stretching out an arm and a leg to the ladder while clinging to the edge of the opening. Once he had hands and feet firmly planted, he felt a little more at ease. He wasn’t particularly scared of heights, but he was not comfortable hanging in the dark shaft, gripping a rusty ladder.

Amaranth illuminated the shaft with her flashlight while he got onto the ladder and began to descend, but she turned it off and stowed it before she followed. Christopher found himself in nearly complete darkness, with the sound of their feet on the ladder echoing dully around them. When his foot hit the bottom of the shaft, it was a shock.

He stepped out of the way, giving her space to come down. The bottom of the shaft was bare except for what looked like a big shock absorber made of thick rubber, dry and cracked. There was no elevator car, which made Christopher wonder if it was hanging suspended, high above them.

Amaranth reached the bottom of the ladder and stepped past him. She turned on the flashlight again, illuminating a low metal door in the concrete sides of the pit. She banged on it, the same odd rhythm she had used at the top of the shaft. Christopher realized it was a code, or a password. After a moment, the door opened, letting in too-bright light. Amaranth ushered him through.

He had to bend to fit through the door, squinting and half-blind. When he came up, he found himself in a small utility room. Discolored stripes on the walls indicated where shelves had been removed. A man in camouflage fatigues with a bushy beard and wild hair stood in front of him, holding a rifle. It wasn’t pointed directly at Christopher, and the man had his finger on the side of the trigger guard, but his bearing and his stare told Christopher that the gun could be brought to bear quickly, if that proved necessary.

Christopher held his open hands out at his sides as Amaranth stepped out next to him and closed the little door.

Christopher was unceremoniously ushered out of the room, his two armed companions behind him. They walked down another nondescript hallway to another room. This looked like a central area with more hallways and doors leading off in every direction. It felt more like a custodial or maintenance area than the offices above. There were a few chairs and tables crammed into the space, and a group of people. Two were playing cards at a table. Others leaned against the wall, resting or sleeping. Two men stood in one corner, talking quietly. All of them wore the same camouflage fatigues with no insignia. They all stopped what they were doing to silently watch Christopher as he entered.

He glanced back at Amaranth. She tilted her head slightly and raised her eyebrows. He took a deep breath.

“Um. Hi,” he said, addressing the group. “My name is Christopher, and I have no idea what is going on.”

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Razor Mountain is a serial novel, with new parts published every week or two. For more info, visit the Razor Mountain landing page.

Christopher jumped up from the fallen log that he had rolled up next to the campfire. He dove into the shadows of the surrounding trees, out of the firelight.

From the sound of gunfire in the distance, the shots had come from the direction of the broken mountain peak. That was the one direction where there was a clear view into the clearing where he had set up his tent.

Silent seconds ticked by. The fire still crackled merrily. The tantalizing smell of the half-cooked rabbit still hung in the air. It lay across the makeshift scaffold of sticks and twine, just above the tips of the flames. Without Christopher to rotate the spit, it would soon begin to burn.

A speculative shot hit the base of a birch just a foot to the right of Christopher’s head, leaving a flap of papery bark hanging loose. Christopher rolled again, further from the fire and the clearing.

He tried to think. He had packed a rifle, but it was on the sled and he had no idea how to find a target. The idea of shooting at someone, even someone who was shooting at him, turned his stomach.

Everything he had brought with him was in the clearing, in the tent or backpack or sled. He had even taken off his coat while he sat by the fire. It lay on the fallen log. If the shooter really was as far away as they seemed, he could easily escape under the cover of the thick forest in the dark. But how far would he get without the coat or his supplies?

A whistle cut through the air. It sounded close. Christopher scanned the shadows at the opposite edge of the clearing. There was a crouched shape there. As his eyes focused on it, a tiny white light flashed at him three times. In those momentary flashes, he could see the faint outline of a person.

It was too much. After weeks alone in the woods, it felt like the world was crashing down on him all at once.

He saw the shadow flit around the outer edge of the clearing, moving toward him quickly and soundlessly. He instinctively scuttled backward into the woods, too frantic to make it onto his feet. The shape crouched next to him, and the light came on again. It was a flashlight, one of those big, serious, black metal flashlights that police sometimes used, probably because they could be used as a weapon in a pinch. It had a hand cupped over the illuminated end, glowing pink and letting only a sliver of light out.

In that sliver of light, Christopher saw a girl in green and brown camouflage fatigues. Her brown hair was pulled back in a tight, short pony tail. She looked young, maybe a teenager. A rifle was slung over her shoulder, the barrel poking up behind her left ear.

She said nothing, but motioned toward the clearing, the fire and his supplies. Then she slashed a hand horizontally in two quick chops and shook her head.

Don’t go that way. Got it, Christopher thought.

She pointed to him, then to herself, then swept a down-pointed finger in a half-circle, pointing across the clearing. She was saying they should both go around the clearing, outside the firelight, and continue to the east. She turned off the light and motioned for him to follow her, both of them just shadows in the trees again.

Christopher was grateful for the direction, the opportunity to not have to make a decision for himself. He clearly didn’t have enough information. It hurt to think about leaving all of his supplies behind, but the idea of going back into the clearing to get them was absurd.

The girl moved much faster than Christopher. She ran ahead silently, then waited for him to catch up before taking off again. When he caught up to her a second time, she put a single vertical finger to her lips. He was obviously being too loud for her.

He raised his eyebrows, shrugged and put his hands out, palms up, in the universal silent gesture for, What the hell am I supposed to do? I’m not a ninja like you.

The whites of her eyes flashed in the darkness as she rolled them and kept going.

They continued for what felt like only a few minutes. Christopher had a hard time guessing how much time had passed. It was long enough that the adrenaline started to fade and he began to shiver without his coat. She stopped and took off a backpack, much smaller than his. She pulled out a thin blanket and handed it to him. He wrapped it around his body. He saw a sizable sheathed knife and a handgun in the bag. The girl took out a dirty, bent, pocket-sized notebook and a pencil.

She turned the light on again, setting the illuminated end into the snow to limit the light it gave off.

She scribbled on the notebook, then held it close to the light.

Who are you?

He reached out for the pencil, but she pulled it to herself as if it was a precious thing. She wrote again.

You can talk. I can’t.

She raised the light a little, then tilted her chin and pointed to her neck. Several vertical scars ran along her trachea.

“Oh,” he said. “I didn’t know.”

She shrugged and pointed at her original question on the page.

“My name is Christopher,” he said. “I…I was in a plane crash a few weeks ago. I’ve been trying to find people. Trying to find a way to get home.”

How did you survive?

“The crash, or afterward?” he asked.

She nodded.

He thought for a moment, trying to figure out how to put it all into words.

She wrote again.

Don’t lie.

He blinked. “I’m not. I’m just not sure how to describe it. It all sounds ridiculous to me. I can’t imagine how it sounds to someone else.”

She waited.

“I jumped out of the plane, before it crashed. I landed in water. Somehow, I didn’t break myself in half, although my knee has been pretty screwed up since then. I think I was probably pretty close to hypothermia, but I found…a door, a hatch in the side of a cliff. And inside, it was warm. There were supplies and beds and running water.”

She stared into his eyes for a moment, then nodded as though satisfied. She wrote in the notebook.

Come with me.

“Where are we going?”

Her pencil hovered over the page for a few seconds.

Maybe we can help each other.

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Razor Mountain is a serial novel, with new parts published every week or two. For more info, visit the Razor Mountain landing page.

Christopher shivered, despite the bright mid-morning sun. He squatted and studied the skinned and skewered rabbit as though it were a bomb he had to diffuse. He shaded his eyes and squinted into the surrounding trees. A pair of small birds flitted in the shade, but there was no other movement.

“Why don’t you just come out and talk?” he said, partly to himself and partly to the woods.

Who would be hiding out here in the wilderness, and afraid of Christopher of all people? Sasquatch? Some crazed hermit playing tricks on him?

He stood and shouted into the surrounding woods, trying to sound reasonable.

“I don’t suppose you want to have a conversation? I’m alone out here, and I’d really like to get home.”

The trees absorbed his words, only a hint of his own voice echoing back to him from distant rocks. He waited for a few beats, just in case a mysterious stranger was going to appear. As expected, nobody did.

He sighed, then pulled the stick out of the ground, rabbit and all. There were a few smooth footprints in the snow, leading to and from some nearby trees, and there, they vanished. He didn’t wander around looking to pick up the trail somewhere else. He doubted he would find much.

Someone was out there. They were watching him, but they weren’t too keen on being seen themselves. The rabbit felt like a peace offering, left for this clearly untrained explorer who would no doubt be running out of food at any moment now. Or it could be a trap.

Christopher looked over the rabbit carefully. Could it be poisoned somehow? Full of sharp things?

It didn’t make any sense to think that way. It would be a needlessly complicated way to kill him. After all, there was a good chance that whoever it was could just wait a few days and he’d run out of supplies and freeze to death.

He put the rabbit into a small canvas bag that had previously held the strange jerky bars. He packed a little clean snow alongside it and hung the bag on the outside of his pack, to keep it refrigerated and make sure it didn’t leak rabbit juice on anything. Then he re-situated his gear and continued the way he had been traveling, hauling the makeshift sled behind him.

The snow was shallower under the trees, allowing him to walk comfortably without snowshoes. The branches blocked most of the sun, but they also blocked the wind that gusted periodically through the upper branches, setting the trunks swaying.

If the mystery rabbit-giver wanted to reveal themselves, they would. If they didn’t, all he could do was continue with his plan. There was another dot on the map, another bunker or some kind of structure, and he was going to find it. That was the thing he had some control over.

The day passed in the monotony of hiking that he had become used to. The rhythm of one boot in front of another. The pause to rest, to drink, to take a bite or two of the second-to-last jerky bar. They rhythm of boots again. The wind and the creak of swaying trees.

Christopher had never been the sort of person who was interested in becoming one with nature, but he was starting to feel the odd sensation that all these little rhythms of his life fit neatly into the larger rhythms around him: the cycles of the sun and the moon, the weather, the seasons. He wasn’t sure if that was a sign of personal growth, or if the stress of the situation was getting to him.

That night, he set up his tent in a small clearing surrounded by birch. It felt pleasantly secluded from the surrounding forest, with a view of the sky like a natural skylight, and a parting in the branches that perfectly framed the broken mountain peak to the north.

He built a small fire, then tied together a few sticks with spare twine, forming a slightly uneven scaffold that he could use to spit-roast the rabbit on a stick. It wasn’t exactly fine engineering, but it worked. The meat dripped and sizzled and smelled delicious. The thin limbs began to crisp while the body was still rare, so he cut them off and ate the little morsels of meat off them while he turned the body on the spit. It was delicious, even by his pre-falling-out-of-a-plane standards.

A sharp crack of wood startled him out of his greasy reverie. It sounded like a sizable branch snapping on one of the trees behind him. As he turned to look for falling deadwood, an echoing crack answered it from the direction of the broken mountain.

There was a whump next to him, and a puff of snow a few feet to his right. Another crack in the distance.

A thud accompanied the spray of splintered bark that exploded out of a tree to his left, at head-height.

As the distant crack reached him a second later, he realized someone was shooting at him.

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Razor Mountain is a serial novel, with new parts published every week or two. For more info, visit the Razor Mountain landing page.

As the tent walls darkened around him, Christopher found himself thinking about the past. He wondered if his family had arranged a funeral for him by now. What would people say about him?

He had been to funerals for people he didn’t care for very much. He had an uncle in particular who was a mean drunk. Christopher’s cousin, Susan, had spoken very eloquently about Uncle Dale. Christopher had come away wondering if, perhaps, he had misjudged the old man, at least until he overheard Susan talking about him later in the evening, when everyone had been through a few drinks.

Christopher didn’t think anyone would be speaking ill of him. He didn’t have enemies, so far as he knew. He got along. He was nondescript. If they remembered him for anything, it would be his childhood. And really, they wouldn’t be remembering him; they’d be remembering his brother. They’d be remembering the aftermath that was the rest of his life.

“Christopher kept his head down and stayed out of trouble,” they’d say. “He did his best to make his parents happy. He did well enough at his mundane job that they kept him around, but he was never going to be in upper management, was he? Not in his character.”

He tried to think of the hyperbole they’d use in his eulogy. He couldn’t come up with much.

There’s a kind of cowardice, he thought to himself, that’s not impressive or exciting, like deserting the army the night before the battle. It’s more like failing to stand up to the crowd that you know is wrong. Failing to stand up to anyone, for anything. Just doing the minimum that you think the people in your life want you to do.

He tried to think of a time when he had taken a risk. Nothing since childhood. Children have no conception of risk, they just act and find out later whether it works out or not.

He sat up in the dark. This was it. He was in the middle of the biggest risk of his life. Even this wasn’t entirely his own choice. He had been tossed out of the sky into this ridiculous situation. Every choice available was a bad one. Rot underground or go look for someone in the empty wilderness?

He sat for a while, cross-legged in his sleeping bag with his hands in his lap. His thoughts turned in circles of irritation and despair and self-loathing. He realized he was shivering, his body heat not being captured fully by the sleeping bag.

He fumbled for the lantern and lit it. Fuel was one of his most limited resources. He put on his layers and stepped out into the dark, the lantern providing a little orange bubble of illumination around him. He tried to remember where the closest trees were by the position of the rock and the tent, and trudged off with hatchet and sled. His aim wasn’t perfect, but after a couple minutes he came close enough to the pair of birches to see the lantern light glinting in the snow on their branches.

He went to work, chopping all the dead wood and more besides. He stripped papery bark, slipping it into the pile of wood on the sled.

Back at the tent, he cleared more space in the snow with the collapsible shovel. The air was still, and the sky was clear. The stars were unbelievably bright. It seemed almost offensive to drown them out with a fire, but he was shivering again as he cooled from the work of chopping wood.

He was confident using the flint now, but he lit the fire with a rolled-up piece of birch bark in the flame of the lantern. The shredded bark burned quickly, setting the smallest branches alight, which slowly ignited the larger branches. He split the wettest wood into thin pieces, and only put it on once the rest was blazing. He sat on a low part of the boulder and felt the heat on his face and hands.

The stars were still bright, even with the sparks and smoke and light of the fire rising up to meet them. The bonfire was bright enough that he could see a wide expanse of snow, glittering in every direction. The trees lurked out in the half-dark. Much further away, the sky was revealed to be not quite true black, where Christopher could see the faintest outlines of the mountains, shadow on shadow.

He breathed deep, taking in the strong smell of smoke and his own sweat, and the bright cold air. His thoughts had felt frantic in the tent. Out here, they evaporated. He thought of nothing but these smells and the stars above and the cold smooth hardness of the rock where his fingers ran along a sharp edge. It was the melancholy peacefulness of being completely alone, completely comfortable in nature. It was something he had never felt before.

For a moment, he didn’t care about what had happened or what would happen. He could choose to do anything he wanted.

He realized that he had never really taken choice seriously, as an idea. There were always choices, but there was also always the path he was “supposed” to take. The choices, the crazy possibilities of the world, always seemed like furniture: something to make the place seem a little more interesting. He had a path laid out for him, and the other options were just to look at.

The default path, the reasonable path, was to go back to bed. He would wake up in the morning, pack his tent and his things and trudge his way back to the bunker. He would have just barely enough food. He’d get there and he’d clean himself off. He’d eat a feast of dull and carefully preserved food. He’d sleep in an uncomfortable bed and it would feel amazing. He’d wait out the cold and snow of the winter. Maybe, when summer came, he’d venture out again.

That was the safe path, and he hated it.

The next dot on the map was the same distance as the bunker. Even if he went back and started out again, he wouldn’t stretch his supplies that much further. He was limited by the backpack and the sled, and the amount he could reasonably haul along with him. There was still some faint hope that somebody was out here searching for him. He doubted they would still be searching months from now, when the spring thaw came.

He could at least make a better eulogy for himself, even if he was the only one who knew it.

He sat until the fire burned down to coals, staring up at the stars. When the cold brought him out of his reverie, he doused them and went back into the tent. He undressed and shivered in the sleeping bag until his body heat warmed it up.

He slept, deeper and more peacefully than he had in years.

The next morning, he hummed to himself as he cooked his meager breakfast and packed his things. He hiked north, away from the bunker. The overcast had finally passed. It was sunny, if not particularly warm. It was the kind of winter day that looked perfect through a window, but had a bit of a bite when you were out in it.

He took his time, using the snowshoes to stay on top of the heavy snow. By mid-morning, the land was rising slowly. There were a pair of mountains that had grown closer in the past few days of his trek, though he hadn’t known it with the storm and the poor visibility. He could see a wide gap between them, and peering through was a third peak. That was the one that was oddly broken-looking, as though the top half had been split down the middle. He wouldn’t have to go that far, but it was the perfect landmark to aim for to get to the next dot on the map.

The trees grew more dense again, blocking his view, but he felt confident he had his bearings. He took frequent breaks, snacking and drinking. He tried not to linger over the three remaining jerky bars in his pack.

It would take days to reach the dot. When he arrived, he might have a long and grueling search. For now though, he only had to maintain his course as well as he could. Since the land was relatively flat and he had his compass, that was trivial. He had attention to spare for the birds flitting in the trees, or the occasional shelf mushrooms or bright lichen decorating a trunk.

It came as a complete surprise when he discovered a heavy stick stuck in the ground in his path. On its sharpened upturned end was a rabbit carcass, neatly skinned, gutted, and ready to cook.

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Razor Mountain is a serial novel, with new parts published every week or two. For more info, visit the Razor Mountain landing page.

Christopher awoke, aching and feeling like he hadn’t slept at all. Light was just beginning to suffuse the sky. The world was blanketed in knee-deep snow that had settled in layers: dense near the ground, fluffier and lighter above that, with a hard crust on top that broke apart under his feet. The net result was exhausting to wade through. He was grateful to have his snowshoes. He wouldn’t get anywhere trying to trudge around in boots.

He packed his things, eating one of the jerky bars as he worked. His brain shifted into planning mode. He had packed extra supplies, but he had also expected to be at his destination by now. The storm and his detour chasing shadows in the forest had not helped him stay on schedule. He knew it was foolish to expect anything to go to plan when he was alone in the wilderness and so inexperienced, but his general sense was that everything was going poorly. If he didn’t find anything of value, his return would take longer than the outgoing journey. If he really wanted to plan for the unexpected, he was well past the point when he should turn around and go back.

However, he was close, perhaps only a couple hours away from the dot on the map, assuming he was correct in interpreting his surroundings. He could see that the land rose to the north. There was a hill there that looked like it rose above the treeline. He would make that his first destination.

He broke camp while the sun was still hovering at the horizon. His snow shoes distributed his weight enough that he mostly didn’t crack the crust of the snow, and he made good progress until he got to the steeper, rockier crown of the hill, where he had to take them off and scrabble his way up. At the top, he found that he did have a fantastic view of his surroundings. The low sun splashed rosy color across the snow-covered landscape.

The forest grew sparse on the other side of the hill to the north-east, which was the direction he wanted to travel. It opened up into the familiar flat, boulder-strewn terrain he knew from the area around the bunker. Further afield, a pair of small lakes flashed in the light. They looked to be iced over, but the snow had blown over them in drifts, and there was bare ice in the middle. They matched a place on the map that was further east than Christopher had expected, but that put him even closer to his destination than he had thought.

He descended with more confidence in his location, if not in his choices. He traveled over slight rises and descents, with only occasional trees and rocks to break up the monotony. He chose a path around the lakes. It would be a gamble to test the ice, and the edge of the water was hidden by the snow. If he took the path between them, he might very well not know he was out on the ice until he fell through.

The sun still showed late morning when he began to think he was close to his destination. Now came the tricky part. There were no particular landmarks close to the dot on the map. The contour lines were unlabeled, but Christopher thought they probably showed either twenty-five or fifty feet of elevation difference. If the second dot was a bunker like the one he came from, it could be hidden in a fifteen-foot-high escarpment and not show up on the map.

He began to walk slower and meander back and forth. The terrain looked about the same as it had all morning. A small entrance might only be visible from a specific angle or vantage point. His bunker door hadn’t exactly been hidden, but it would certainly be easy for a traveler to overlook.

When the sun reached its zenith, he stopped to eat and drink. His life consisted now of the study of trees and rocks. Nothing else interesting presented itself. His supply of homemade red ribbons was running low, but he decided to use them to demarcate his search area.

He tied them as high as he could on half a dozen trees, to create a rough perimeter. He found himself glancing skyward more and more, all too aware of the passage of time. He hiked to a large rock that stood somewhat close to the center of the area he had marked off. The land was flat. He could see each of the trees with ribbons in the branches from this vantage point. There was no structure. No big cliffs or changes in elevation. If there was something to find here, it was hidden under the snow.

Christopher imagined hatches set flat into the ground, or in some narrow crack that wouldn’t be visible until you came right up to the edge. He knew it was time to turn around and start going back. It was time to give up this ill-conceived plan, do his best to get back to safety, and try to come up with a better one. But he kept searching.

It was mid-afternoon when he slipped and fell hard onto his left side. As he rubbed his bruised elbow, he was thankful that at least he hadn’t landed on his injured leg. Then he felt the ground beneath him. At first, it felt like yet another boulder, picked up thousands of years ago by some glacier, and then placed back down in the long, slow retreat northward. But the flat surface of this rock was oddly pitted. When he scraped away the snow, he saw that it was an aggregate of fine rocks embedded in rough gray substrate. Worn and buried, but easily identifiable as concrete. He used his collapsible shovel to clear more snow.

This had clearly been one large slab at some point, but it was now broken into several pieces, each one meters long. They weren’t flat, they were embedded in the ground at slight angles. In many places, they were blackened or large pieces appeared to be missing.

Once he knew what he was looking for, he began to find more pieces scattered further out from the broken slabs. He went back to his viewing rock, not too far distant, and looked at the area he had excavated from the snow. There was a slight depression there, perhaps only a foot or two lower than its surroundings, although it was hard to tell beneath the snow. There had definitely been a structure here. Perhaps a doorway to something underground, with an angled descent to a hidden entrance?

For a few minutes, Christopher was lost in the exhilaration of the find. It felt like he had accomplished something entirely by his own wits and effort, and in spite of conditions that were far from ideal. That feeling faded quickly as he thought about the implications.

It was a ruin. Whatever had been here was now destroyed. By the looks of the charred concrete, it had been done thoroughly and on purpose. The damage didn’t look recent. But who would put these structures out here, and who would go to the trouble of destroying them? Some sort of military testing ground? Rich people building fallout shelters in the wilderness, and then changing their minds? It only added more confusion to his vague ideas about the intact and well-stocked bunker he had come from.

He sat on the central rock and unfurled his map. He marked an X over the dot with his pencil. Equidistant from him now were the bunker (the dot furthest south), and another dot to the north.

He thought he ought to feel something; anger or disappointment. He felt numb. There was some daylight left, but he unpacked the tent and set it up next to the big rock at the center of his search zone. He opened his pack and took out supplies. It was clear that he had been lying to himself. He had less food than he thought. At the rate he had been consuming it, it wouldn’t last the entire trip back to the bunker. Less than half of the rice and beans remained, and he had only five more jerky bars.

He made a fire and cooked a smaller portion of rice and beans. He refilled his water bottle, cleaned his utensils and packed it all up. It was routine now.

As the sky darkened, he got into the tent and tried to go to sleep, but sleep wouldn’t come.

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Razor Mountain is a serial novel, with new parts published every week or two. For more info, visit the Razor Mountain landing page.

When everyone was done eating and resting, and nobody had any arguments left, it fell to God-Speaker to step first into the cave. Nobody said it, but he sensed that they were waiting for him. God-Speaker wondered if this was what it felt like to be Braves-the-Storm, or Makes-Medicine. It sat like a rock in his stomach. The feeling that others might speak, might argue or offer advice, but he had to take the first step. He had to start walking and hope or trust that the others would follow.

When he did take his first step into the dark throat of the ice, Finds-the-Trail and Braves-the-Storm came a few paces behind him. The rest gathered behind them. As God-Speaker looked back, Finds-the-Trail’s face was grim. He looked as nervous as God-Speaker felt. Braves-the-Storm looked more bent, older than God-Speaker had ever seen him. Far-Seeing was near the back of the group, his face hard to read.

The sounds of the world had been muffled in the ice cracks, but it was even worse in the cave. The soft shuffling of their feet echoed down the tunnel and came back to them. Every time the tunnel turned, God-Speaker expected to see other people, owners of these other footsteps. The ice itself was not completely silent either. It creaked and groaned. It even cracked once, a deep boom directly over their heads that made everyone jump.

Time was lost to them under the ice. It was lighter or darker only because of the thickness of the ice above. They could not guess the direction of the sun or how much of the day had passed. Cracks and tunnels intersected with their cave, but it continued in roughly the same direction, and God-Speaker saw no reason to change their course.

The people kept hiking without pause or complaint, longer than they would have if they were under the open sky. Each twist or turn of the cavern, God-Speaker hoped to see an exit, but the tunnel kept going.

Eventually, there was a change in the echo of footsteps. God-Speaker shuffled his own feet and felt gravel beneath them. He squatted and reached down, as did Finds-the-Trail beside him. It was dirt. Ahead, the tunnel turned again.

They both stood and moved toward the bend. The tunnel widened.

Around the corner, God-Speaker halted, shocked to see a hunched shadow rise up in front of him. There was a flash of movement to his left, and he realized that Finds-the-Trail had thrown his spear. It hit the shadow with a thud, and the shadow roared. More spears flew from either side of them as the others rushed toward the noise and movement.

Finds-the-Trail motioned for God-Speaker to wait. They all stood, watching for any sign of movement. When he was satisfied, Finds-the-Trail rose from a half-crouch and approached the shapes. The other hunters followed. God-Speaker came behind.

Finds-the-Trail retrieved his spear. “A bear mother,” he said. He motioned to a smaller shape pressed beside her. It had also been struck with a hunters’ spear.

Far-Seeing retrieved his own spear and ran a hand over the flank of the beast. “They’re lean,” he said, “she’s been struggling to find enough food. Usually there are two cubs, maybe one was gone already.”

Finds-the-Trail nodded. God-Speaker stood, distracted from their conversation by the feel of cool air on his cheek. There was another bend at the far end of the bear den. The floor here was all dirt, and the shape of the walls was different, rising to a triangular point instead of a rounded tunnel.

Around the corner, God-Speaker felt the wind blow. The tunnel opened out onto trees. It was night outside, and the air was thick with snow. Here, the harsh, echoing quiet of the tunnel faded into the soft quiet of falling snow. To God-Speaker, it was like the first breath in hours.

Braves-the-Storm came up beside him. “A good sign.”

“Makes-Medicine once told me that the spirits sometimes speak through the world around us,” God-Speaker said. “They may be guiding us still.”

The mood of the people changed in moments. They all gave thanks to the spirits of the bears, and set to work butchering them. With new energy, several of the hunters ran out into the snow and chopped branches from the nearest trees to start a fire. Everyone ate bear meat and enjoyed the light and warmth of the fire, and the feeling of breathing fresh air again.

God-Speaker saw smiles around the fire, but this was not the festive feeling they had shared after catching beavers and fish by the lake. This was relief more than joy. There were no stories late into the night. They talked, but they talked quietly still. Soon, they let the fires settle low, and they slept.

God-Speaker and two of the hunters remained awake. He sat with the stone god at the opposite end of the cave opening. The hunters kept watch for predators, though they were unlikely to be prowling in the blizzard, or near a cave that smelled like bears. God-Speaker worried about other, less obvious dangers.

He thought about the words he had said to Braves-the-Storm. They sounded wise, but he could not believe them. The people had made it through the dark cave. They had found meat in an unlikely place. Still, the stone god was silent, and the buzzing from the mountain was only getting louder.

God-Speaker hunched over, exhausted. He closed his eyes and pressed his forehead to the head of the stone god, straining to hear its voice. His chest and arms were chilled by the outside air. His back was warmed by the fire. He breathed in the smells of the cave, animal smells and roasted meat, the musty smoke of smoldering green wood, and the cold clean snow.

He was surrounded by softness. The world faded. The snow left everything silent and white.

He stood alone. The trees, the cave, the people, the stone god were gone. Everything was gone except for the flat white, empty world, and the looming black shape ahead.

The mountain leaned over him and buzzed. God-Speaker could hear it now. Not the buzz of insects. The buzz of voices, so many voices. More voices than he could imagine, far more than he had ever known. They spoke together, but they spoke in different pitches, different tones, some fast, some slow. They spoke in words he had never heard, but he felt their meaning.

They told him that he would come to the mountain, and they told him that his people would be destroyed.

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When morning came, the people ate cold smoked fish and packed their things in silence. They walked, one by one, along the ledge and through the gap, and they all dropped down into the snow.

There were no boulders or rock piles now, no going back to find another path, but the hike was no less miserable. The snow came up to their knees, and trudging through it was cold and exhausting, even wrapped in their warmest skins. The children who were too small had to be carried, and were passed from one tired person to another.

When they came to the blue ice, the snow had blown and piled up in drifts, so there were paths between where it was thinner on the ground and walking became easier. A biting wind began to blow into their faces. God-Speaker looked back. The gap they had come from looked far away and surprisingly high up. They were descending.

The smoking mountain slowly grew, filling their view. Its peak was sharp and split. The change in wind blew the black smoke over them, far above. The mountain reached out to cover them.

When they stopped to eat and rest, the people were mostly quiet: a few hushed conversations here and there; a crying child. God-Speaker heard a familiar tone and turned to see Far-Seeing and Finds-the-Trail sitting together. It was Far-Seeing he had heard. God-Speaker couldn’t hear the words, but Far-Seeing was grumbling, by the tone and the expression on his face.

If Finds-the-Trail heard the other hunter, he didn’t reply. He looked up at the sky, then at the mountain. Far-Seeing spoke again. Again, Finds-the-Trail was silent, his face blank. Eventually, he stood and walked away, leaving Finds-the-Trail sitting by himself, staring out at the horizon.

Whenever they rested, God-Speaker sat at the edge of the group with the stone god. It did not speak to him. God-Speaker wondered if he would even be able to hear it over the buzzing that he was now sure was coming from the mountain.

It took the rest of the day to reach the place God-Speaker had seen from above, where the smooth ice cracked and split. At first, they were able to walk across the small gaps, but the ice soon turned into a forest of jagged blue spikes with deep, wide chasms between. As night approached, they climbed down into one of these large cracks to take shelter from the wind.

It was warmer in the crack, but also dark and eerie, with only faint blue light coming through the ice and a narrow stripe of stars above, half-hidden by the smoke. Being without fire for so long did not help the people’s mood. The light was as important as the warmth.

They had come away from the lake with a bounty of fish and beaver meat, but that seemed like a long time ago in this desolate place. God-Speaker had noticed everyone instinctively eating less, already worrying how much longer the food would have to last. No trees or plants grew on the ice. No animals would live where there were no plants to eat. It seemed doubtful they would find more food any time soon.

* * *

Walking in the forest of ice kept the people out of the cold wind. It was blowing harder now, by the howling it made above them. It was still a dismal place. The light was dim and too blue, a blue that lingered even when they closed their eyes. They saw themselves, bent and twisted, looking back out of water-smooth blue curves; or a single feature, an eye or a mouth, repeated across cracked and broken ice.

The cracks deepened, and the sky seemed higher and higher above them. It seemed that they were going in the right direction still, but it was hard to tell without the horizon to guide them.

Then they came to the place where the ice pillars came together to form a roof high above them. There was a tunnel, smooth like a toothless mouth, black except for lines of deep blue where the curve of the ice gathered the light. To God-Speaker, this felt like the same darkness as the mountain. It was like the mouth of the mountain, hanging open, waiting patiently to devour them. It also went straight, as far as he could see, in the direction they wanted to go.

The people stopped there, to rest and eat. They faced the maw and the question was there among them, though no one asked it aloud. One by one, they finished eating and readied themselves. God-Speaker saw glances here and there, but when eyes met, each person turned away.

Far-Seeing stood and looked around at the group. He pointed into the ice cave.

“Are we really going into there?”

Braves-the-Storm, to God-Speaker’s left, sighed, but said nothing.

God-Speaker took a deep breath and forced himself to stand. Eyes turned to him.

“I have asked the spirits to guide us, but they do not speak. We all saw the snowless lands. Is there another way that we can take?”

Far-Seeing clenched his jaw and shook his head. “We all saw the mountain too. That is a place of evil spirits.”

“Yes,” God-Speaker said.

Far-Seeing opened his mouth and paused. He looked at the bag next to God-Speaker, the bag that held the silent stone god. God-Speaker felt his chest tighten. Would Far-Seeing dare to speak to the god? To offend the god in a place like this would be terrible. They needed its protection now. Far-seeing closed his mouth, and God-Speaker let out his breath.

Far-Seeing turned to Finds-the-Trail. “What about you? You’re happy to let others lead now? To follow and be silent?”

Finds-the-Trail shrugged, eyes fixed on the ground. “I am not happy, but what other path would you have us walk?”

“Back the way we came! Let us try to find another path through the ice, or even back to the snow. There may be a place we can walk over the ice all the way across.”

“I saw no paths like that from above,” God-Speaker said quietly. Everyone had seen what he had seen, even Far-Seeing. There was no easy way across the broken ice. God-Speaker wondered why he had to be the one to say it.

“Who are you to say?” Far-Seeing asked, his voice echoing in the ice. “What names do you have for making ways and finding paths?”

“None,” God-Speaker said.

Far-Seeing looked around at the rest of the people. Nobody else spoke. He had hoped others would agree with him, or at least say something. They looked fearfully at the cave, but nobody else said they wanted to go back. What was back there for them? The same empty land they had just come through, hiking uphill instead of down?

Far-Seeing turned to Braves-the-Storm. “Tell me that we should go this way. If you say it, I will be silent.”

Braves-the-Storm shook his head. “I will not say it. If you need someone to tell you what you’ve seen, it will not be me.”

“Then you will all follow God-Speaker? What good is it to speak to the god, if you hear nothing back?”

“I have never told you which way to go,” God-Speaker said. “I have only told you what I think, and what I have heard from the spirits. Do what you want to do.”

Far-Seeing stared at him, then turned to look into the cave. “You’re going?”

“I don’t see any other way.”

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Razor Mountain is a serial novel, with new parts published every week or two. For more info, visit the Razor Mountain landing page.

The people left the basin and went down into the long and narrowing valley between two mountains. The path was easy where it came out of the basin, but as they went deeper, they were hemmed in by brittle and broken rock faces. There were shattered boulders everywhere, and the ground was covered in gravel and sand. It crunched and shifted under their feet as they walked. They often found the way blocked or difficult, and these sharp shards of rock could cut a misplaced hand, or even the hardened hide of a foot covering.

The little waters that trickled down from either side came together to form a stream that soon became a river. It was colder here than in the lake basin, and while the river ran clear of ice, there was snow nestled in crevices and beneath overhangs.

The people had all seen what God-Speaker had seen from the top of the hill. The sun-touched, snowless lands far in the distance. The shadowed, smoking mountain that stood guard off to the right, daring them to pass. There was no questioning the way now. They all felt the pull of that warm place, an idea that had almost become a myth, now brought to life in front of them. Their worries now came from the smoking mountain. They did not need to hear the spirits like God-Speaker to know that place was cursed. They now saw what God-Speaker had known already, what Makes-Medicine and the stone god had made plain to him: there would be danger and darkness they would have to pass through before they arrived at their destination.

Soon, the valley became enough trouble to busy their minds. It was slow getting the entire group across such rough terrain, and even slower when they found the way blocked and had to back-track. Strikes-Flint slipped and slid down a gravel slope, leaving a rash of red down her left leg. Then Black-Eyes-Staring slipped on a wet rock crossing the river, landing on his arm and leaving him wet and shaking even after he was wrapped in thick furs.

They came to a place where many boulders had fallen, leaving only narrow gaps for the river to flow through. It had backed up and spread to form a shallow pool that blocked the entire valley. The people sat and rested at the edge of the waters and ate. The hunters, once they had eaten, spread out and searched the huge rock piles for hidden ways. When the people were ready to travel again, they took a path found by Far-Seeing, around the edge of the water and over several long, flat slabs of rock. They had to help the young children and elders, but everyone eventually made it across.

Far-Seeing was the last one to come down, but as he did, he stepped on a head-sized rock in the pile, and it rolled out from under him. He fell back against one of the huge slabs. The others watched, not daring to breathe. It already felt as though this valley was cursed. Far-Seeing had landed flat on his back, but he moved himself into a sitting position. His face showed surprise, but no pain. After a moment he smiled in relief.

As he stood, the entire pile shifted beneath him again, more large rocks tumbling and sliding toward the gathered group. They all scrambled back. The rock-slide cascaded further and further up the slope to their right. Far-Seeing was once again on his back, riding the slab as it slid down smaller boulders. Fist- and head-sized rocks fell around them, shattering on impact. God-Speaker saw one hit the slab and shatter just above Far-Seeing’s shoulder. A line of red ran down his arm.

The slab slid to a stop among the rocks as the slide began to settle. God-Speaker moved forward, reaching out to help Far-Seeing stand, watching the rocks for any signs of movement. Suddenly, he stopped. His body froze, beyond his control. Sound was muffled. His eyes wandered, and the world became fuzzy and unfocused. Slowly, pain blossomed on the right side of his head. His own hand, no longer under his control, reached up to the place where the pain was, felt something wet.

God-Speaker felt he was floating in water. Then he was floating in the wind, somehow so light that he could soar like a bird. Then he felt sharp little rocks pressed against his back, and the pain in his head became sharp and throbbing. He found himself laying in the gravel. He realized his eyes were closed, and he opened them. The light was too bright.

He sat up, holding the right side of his head. Where the pain was, his hair was crusted. He looked at his hand. There was a smear of blood there, but it was dry.

The people were all sitting nearby, and God-Speaker realized that many of them were staring at him.

“We were worried,” Braves-the-Storm murmured. God-Speaker realized the old man was sitting close beside him. He could see that it was true. Worry and some relief were on the faces of the people around him. The sky was purple, fading into black.

“What happened?” God-Speaker asked.

“There was a rock-fall,” Braves-the-Storm said. He pointed to the place on God-Speaker’s head. “A rock hit you. Others were hurt too, but not so badly.”

God-Speaker looked at the people again. Many of them had scrapes and cuts on their arms or legs. They looked tired. He turned and found his pack and the stone god placed next to him. He began to take out the plants he would need to make medicine.

“Is there fire?” he asked Braves-the-Storm.

“There is no wood here,” he said. “We have only the little we brought with us.”

“I will need to heat a little water to make the medicine,” God-Speaker said. “A small fire should be enough.”

Braves-the-Storm spoke to others. His words faded against the buzzing in God-Speaker’s head.

God-Speaker found a bundle of dry leaves in his bag. He untied them and placed most of them in his lap, then retied a few to keep in reserve. Makes-Medicine had shown him the plant they were from, a tall shrub that grew in forests, its stems covered in tiny bristles, but they had not come across any so far this spring. He ground the leaves into a green-black powder. He set that aside and took out some thin strips of willow bark. He still had a good supply of that, at least.

After a time, someone brought God-Speaker a rough wooden bowl of water, hot rocks from the fire still in it. He placed the bark in the water to soak, and waited until the rocks  were cool enough to fish out without burning himself. Then he mixed in the ground leaves and stirred them with the bark until they became a thick paste. He added a small amount of animal fat to help it stick together. It smelled sweet and woody, with a hint of bright mint.

The injured came to him one by one, and he gently rubbed a thin layer of medicine on their cuts and scrapes, spreading it on with the softened willow bark as Makes-Medicine had shown him. Far-Seeing came last, with a long cut on his arm just below the shoulder. God-Speaker rubbed a thin line of the paste along the cut. Far-Seeing didn’t look at him, just nodded and walked away.

When he had finished tending to everyone, God-Speaker looked down at the sludge left in the bottom of the bowl. His head was still buzzing. Without a task, his head felt empty of thought.

“You should use it on yourself,” Braves-the-Storm said.

God-Speaker nodded and reached up to feel the swelling on the right side of his head. It was a big lump, but he ran his fingers slowly through the blood-crusted hair and found only a small cut. He scooped the last of the green paste out of the bowl and smeared it over the wound as best he could. It would help the swelling around the cut as well as the pain.

He sat, dazed, watching the light fade. Someone brought him smoked fish to eat. He drank cold water from the stream and chewed an unused piece of the willow bark. It had been a hard day, and many of the people were already asleep.

He stood, slowly and unsteadily, and made his way through the group. He hadn’t taken a good look at the land on this side of the rockslide. They were nestled in a narrow place between two high walls of rock, and it tightened even more ahead. Where the stream passed through, it cut to one side of the opening. The flat ledge along the other side was wide enough and flat enough to make a path.

God-Speaker approached and saw a spray of water. It looked like they had come to a cliff. When he peered over, he saw that the water fell only a short way, barely God-Speaker’s own height. The ground beyond widened and sloped down. They had reached the tightest point of the valley. Outside the shelter of the narrow pass, there was deep snow. Beyond, glowing in the last light, was the blue ice, a thick sheet that was smooth at first, then broke into a field of icy spines further out.

Once again, the shadow of the mountain loomed on the right, its black smoke melting into the darkening sky. The snowless lands were somewhere beyond that, lost in the smear of darkness just below the horizon. It all still seemed far away.

God-Speaker returned to his people and wrapped himself in fur against the cold. He sat with his back to the canyon wall and faced the stone god. There was only one path ahead of them, but now more than ever, God-Speaker wanted the god to speak to him, to tell him that they were on the right path.

The god remained silent, but as God-Speaker drifted into sleep he thought that the buzzing wasn’t in his head. It was coming from within that smoking black mountain.

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Christopher let out the breath he realized he had been holding and sat in the quiet place among the birches. He drank his water and nibbled from yet another weird jerky bar. He tried not to fall into the gaping chasm of hopelessness that he felt opening behind his sternum. Why did it feel like the world was playing some terrible trick on him, like he was trapped in this limbo while the real world, the world that he remembered, was constantly lurking just out of sight, constantly retreating just beyond his senses?

“What am I doing?” he asked himself. The footprints were right there, if that’s what they were. They might not be entirely lost to the blowing snow. The longer he waited, the more they would fade. If he followed quickly, he might have a chance of finding something before the trail was lost.

He stood up with some effort, took another swig of water, and checked the map and compass. He suspected that he was well over halfway to the dot on the map, but it was only a guess without being able to assess his wider surroundings. According to the compass, the footprints ran at approximately a forty-five degree angle to the direction he wanted to go: north instead of north-east as he had been traveling. He would be going off-course.

The footsteps faded into nothing about ten feet from the protection of the cluster of trees, but Christopher continued in that direction across the clearing. When he reached the woods again, he paused to scout around. The wind had been blowing from the east, leaving drifts on one side of the trees and protected spaces on the opposite side where less snow accumulated. Sure enough, after a couple minutes he found a few more faint prints on the protected side of a larger tree, south of where he had begun his search.

He consulted the compass, adjusted his trajectory, and went further into the forest. Soon, he came across the tracks again. The wind lessened as he moved deeper into the trees, and the snowfall seemed to be slackening. The trail was better defined as he went, giving him the feeling that he was catching up.

He never lost the tracks for more than a few seconds now. They were still featureless, with no clear boot tread, but they were definitely fresh.

There was a crackling sound in the forest ahead of him. He looked up from the ground and froze, remembering the moose he had nearly stumbled into. With a moment to process it, he decided the sound was probably a tree branch cracking under the weight of the fresh snow.

The snowfall had nearly stopped now, and visibility was much better, although the light was starting to fade into evening. Christopher realized he hadn’t been eating or drinking. How long had he been following the tracks? His careful progress, his reasoned system had all been thrown out in the pursuit of the footprints.

He took out his water bottle and drank.

There was a flash of movement, ahead and slightly to his left. It was distant enough that he wasn’t sure he had actually seen it. He took off anyway, capping his bottle as he ran, not taking the time to put it into his pack.

“Hey! Hello? Is someone out there?”

The trail of footprints led to the place where he had seen the movement. They wove between the trunks, deep furrows showing where their maker had slid here or there, longer strides showing that whoever it was, they were moving fast. Faster than Christopher in his snow shoes, he was sure. He wondered if he ought to have kept quiet instead of shouting. If someone was out here, why were they running from him.

His left foot caught a tree root, and his right slid into a divot, his ankle twisting. He nearly fell and his water bottle went flying, but he caught himself and stood, scooping the bottle off the ground as he went.

The footprints led to an area where the trees were dense. Then they stopped, right in front of a huge pine. It was gnarled and thick with old, dead branches that reached out to the neighboring trees. Christopher looked up. There was a layered canopy of branches above. It would have taken a good jump to reach the first few branches, but a good climber would have little trouble climbing from there. They could even conceivably have moved among the other nearby trees.

Christopher meandered around the area, studying the ground for footprints, then looking up for any signs of movement in the branches above. Minutes passed. The adrenaline faded, leaving behind a residue of disappointment and frustration. He unstrapped his snow shoes and kicked a nearby tree, shouting wordlessly. His heavy boots protected his toes, but he noticed now that his freshly twisted right ankle was beginning to ache again.

He took a deep breath. “I don’t know who you are, or why you’re hiding!” he shouted up into the branches. “I just want to go home.”

He slid to a sitting position on a dry patch of ground and drank from his water bottle. He expected no response from the forest, and he got none.

He opened his pack and took out the carved wooden figure. He stared at it, mind blank for a time.

Nothing made sense. Was there something wrong with him? He wondered what it was like to hallucinate. Wondered if he could even trust his own senses. Maybe he had been traumatized more than he realized. Maybe he was seeing things. Hearing things. He realized he had always thought of hallucinations as something a bit like waking dreams, with the same haziness that dreams always had upon waking. But dreams never felt hazy while you were in them. Most people couldn’t identify the dream from within it.

His sweat cooled on his body, leaving him shivering even without the wind to chill him. He stood despondently and felt a twinge in his ankle as he put weight on it. The light was fading. He had no idea how long he had sat among the trees.

He forced himself to look at the compass and the map again. He had to guess how far he had gone off course, and adjust his heading to counteract it. If the snow would cooperate, he only needed to get out of the trees and get an idea of the surrounding landscape, so he could compare his guesses against the map.

He began to trudge through the snow on his new heading, with the simple goal of finding a good place to set up camp well before dark. He found a place that satisfied him well-enough within a half hour. It was decently shielded by trees, and only lightly dusted with snow.

He set up the tent, doing his best to straighten the damaged poles. It still leaned noticeably to one side when he was done, so he ran a rope through the crossed roof poles and tied each end to nearby trees. He would have to hope that it was enough to secure the tent against whatever the wilderness decided to throw at him before morning.

He used his collapsible shovel to scrape an area clear of snow a short ways from the tent. He collected dead branches and started a fire, using the flame of the camp stove to light it with less effort than the flint and steel. He found a good drift where he could collect clean snow and cooked his rice and beans. He ate, barely tasting the food.

Robotically, he melted more snow to refill his bottles. He cleaned his pot and packed it up.

With nothing else to do, he sat and stared at the fire. The dampness of his sweat in his clothes was slowly drying, although his socks were still wet around the ankles. His face felt wind-burned. His ankle throbbed. His mind was blank, as though it had given up on forming any thoughts more complex than dull disappointment.

Some amount of time passed. No stars in the overcast night sky. No wind. The world was still and silent.

Christopher doused the fire and climbed into the tent. He sealed himself inside, swaddled himself in the sleeping bag.

If he had done well in guessing his trajectory across the map, he might reach the dot sometime around noon on the following day. What he would find there, he no longer cared to guess.

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Razor Mountain is a serial novel, with new parts published every week or two. For more info, visit the Razor Mountain landing page.

Morning came, slow and dreary. There wasn’t so much a sunrise as a faint brightening of the tent fabric. Christopher had given up on sleeping, but he thought it would still be best to wait in the tent until morning and whatever warmth it brought. As soon as he opened the tent, his trapped body heat would be lost.

He had time to think and assess his situation. One of the poles that crossed the tent roof had bent significantly. He would have to see if he could bend it back into reasonable shape, but it would be permanently weakened. He also realized that he should not have completely closed the zippered mesh vents at the front door and along the walls. The tent had been keeping him warm enough. He could afford to lose a little heat, and he suspected it was the lack of circulating air that had caused condensation to accumulate: that and the snow that had gotten in and melted.

He had two sleep pads. The bottom one would be wet no matter what he did now. The top one was relatively dry, so he carefully rolled it up and put it back into its bag. He put it into his pack and put the pack in a corner of the tent that was slightly elevated and dry. When he was as prepared as he could be for morning, he sat and planned what he would do when the sun was up. Mostly, there was nothing to do but wait.

When he exited, there was no way to keep out the snow. It was still coming down, although it seemed to have slackened. He guessed there had been at least six inches of accumulation overnight. The real problem, though, was the piles that sloughed off the branches above, and the wind-blown drift that had nearly buried one side of the tent.

Christopher changed into dry clothes and suited up before exiting. All the wet things went into the second sleep mat bag, loosely tied and strapped to the outside of his pack. They would likely freeze, but he could thaw and hopefully dry them by the fire once he was out of the blizzard. With the ground covered in inches of heavy, wet snow, it didn’t seem worth trying to start a fire. He ate a breakfast jerky bar, strapped on his snow shoes and began hiking.

It was immediately clear that his pace would be much slower. The snowshoes helped, but it was still more effort for less distance. The cloud cover and falling snow made for poor visibility as well. He continued to pause regularly to tie ribbons on the trees and drink, but navigation was much more difficult. He had to rely on his compass.

“The safest thing to do would be to go back,” he mumbled to himself. “Of course, the safest thing to do was to not go out in the first place.”

There was always going to be an element of risk. He knew he couldn’t expect the weather to cooperate. Knew that the world around him was inching over the edge of autumn and into winter. The only question was how much risk he thought he was in, and how much he was willing to tolerate. Going back in the face of the snow felt like giving up at the first sign of difficulty. He wasn’t sure how often it snowed in Alaska, but he assumed it was at least as much as it had back home in Minnesota, and probably much more.

He had enough food to travel for at least one more day and still be able to get back to the bunker. He had a good amount of water, and the means for melting more. Hell, he could suck on snow if he had to.

He realized what was really bothering him was his destination, or lack of one. He hoped, desperately hoped, that there was something at the dot on the map. But what did he even hope for? Some park ranger station? Another mystery compound like the bunker he had just come from? What would that even tell him, if these places were scattered across a swath of Alaskan wilderness? His best hope was so vague as to be meaningless, and he couldn’t connect the dots into a believable story that ended with him getting home safe.

Still, if he did nothing, then he was even less likely to get anywhere. The risk was still worth it. He had to keep going, to feel as though he had made an effort to save himself. He would still have more opportunities to turn back toward safety.

He hiked on, up the forested miles of gradual incline. He saw nothing but dense pines, occasional boulders, and blowing snow. He existed in a small bubble of forest, contained within murky whiteness. The trees gave him some cover from the sharp wind, although occasional gusts still chilled him. He took care to keep as much skin covered as possible, and took his water and food breaks sheltered against the largest trees, or behind rocks and escarpments when he could find them.

He continued his careful strategy of frequent breaks with food and water, and still tied ribbons on branches as he went. Now though, the ribbons were lost in the snow after only a dozen paces, and he kept his mittens on against the wind, which made tying them that much harder.

The ground began to level out, and he wondered if he was finally coming out of the forested area he had seen from the cliff. He wasn’t sure whether he should hope for more forest, and the protection that it offered, or for open spaces where he might get his bearings if only the wind and snow would let up.

He came to a clearing, or at least a less dense patch of forest. There was a bowl-like depression with a hill next to it, almost as though some giant had dug out a huge scoop of earth and plopped it, upside down, nearby. Between the depression and the hill was a tight cluster of thick birch trunks. They were rooted so close together, Christopher wondered if they weren’t all trunks of the same tree. They formed a perfect sort of semi-circle to protect him from the wind.

He walked around the perimeter of the depression and approached the cluster with his back to the wind. It did, in fact, have a large drift piled against one side, while the other was so protected that there was scarcely more than a dusting of snow. Within the half-circle was a nest of browned leaves and other forest detritus.

There was also a series of faint depressions in the light snow, leading out from the shelter. Two rows, alternating, fading as they went into the deeper, more windblown snow. Footprints. Human-sized footprints.

Christopher approached slowly, almost creeping, as though he might scare them away. He crouched and examined them. They weren’t clearly footprints. They had no pattern like he would expect from ordinary boots, but they might have been made by something smooth, like a moccasin. He wondered if it would even be possible to make moccasins that were warm enough to protect feet in this kind of weather. He supposed there were native people in Alaska who must have been able to do it. Maybe the footprints were made by boots like his own, and they had just been subjected to enough blowing snow to be partly filled in.

He tried scooping out the snow to look at the ground underneath. There were no natural features below to explain the sequence of divots. The size, the shape, the spacing—they all fit human footprints. Somewhat smaller than his own feet.

He looked around, staring into the blowing snow, looking for shadows out beyond where the visibility faded to shades of white.

“Is somebody out there?” he shouted. The wind and the snow stole away the sound of his voice.

He screamed louder, “Hello? Anyone?”

There was nothing but the wind and the sound-dampening snow.

“Help!” he roared, straining to project his voice. He thought he just might be able to hear a faint echo of his voice from some unseen geography out beyond the veil of snow. No person, no indistinct shadow showed itself. No other voice sounded in the surreal, half-visible forest.

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