“Try to find dry pieces,” Carter told Tony. “Dead stuff. As much as you can carry.”
“Got it.” Tony peered into the growing dark. Thankfully, the moon was full, easy enough to see by, and he headed for a wall of thick fir trees twenty yards up the slope from the cabin. As he trudged uphill, he noticed how the cabin was situated almost like a pebble in the bottom of a giant bowl, and he plowed through the knee-high drifts with steady persistence. Halfway up, he pulled out his phone, turned his back to the trees, and held it up. The battery was still at half, but the signal was nonexistent. Carter had said something about the mountain interference, and while Tony didn’t doubt him, he was the type of person who always needed to test things for himself. No matter what he’d been told.
But in this case Carter was correct. “Shit,” Tony muttered and slid the phone back into his front pocket, careful to zip it shut. He certainly wasn’t going to be the idiot who lost his phone in a snowbank, even if it didn’t work. Still grumbling, he headed back up to the trees, realizing the ultimate irony was that when you really were depending on technology to rescue you, you only learned of its limitations.
Tony pushed away a snow-covered limb, wondering how he would find anything dry under so much frozen water. With a grunt he scooted under the branches, and once underneath realized he could barely see his hand in front of his face. “Dammit.” He waited a few seconds for his eyes to adjust, and when they did he noticed that underneath the branches there was a wide open space, big as a tent and nearly tall enough to stand up in. Upon closer inspection he noticed dull-looking stubs jutting out from the main trunk, and to Tony’s relief they broke off easily in his grip, like stale crackers. Dead wood. Exactly what he needed. He quickly removed every available stub and stick until he had a whole armful. He even stuffed some withered-looking pinecones into his coat, and as he turned to exit the tree shelter, he heard something that froze him still.
A low growl. A curdling rumble. Tony held his breath. A sigh. An exhalation of breath. His? No. Not his. He counted his pulse and when it hit thirty beats he backed out from underneath the branches, muscles tight, eyes darting over the bright open sheet of snow.
Nothing moved. Nothing there. No sound. No wind.
“Carter?”
Silence.
He watched the cabin. The dull glow from the lantern was visible, and the place reminded Tony of a small island surrounded by a giant white sea. He blinked again, feeling that peculiar sensation shiver his scalp, tightening the skin under his hair. The sensation of being watched. “Carter?”
“Yeah?”
Tony jumped. Carter was right there, standing a few yards down the hill, off to the left with his own armload of sticks.
“Oh,” Tony said, feeling disoriented. “Nothing.” He had been sure Carter had been behind him. That’s where the noise had been. Or had it? Tony pivoted around, wondering if now his mind was playing tricks on him. The woods were still. Nothing there. Must have been a bird, Tony thought, feeling stupid and relieved at the same time. “I found a bunch of dead sticks and some pinecones.”
“Good.” Carter turned and tromped back down the hill to the cabin. “Let’s go make ourselves a fire.”
Tony hurried after him, forcing himself not to look back.