Supernatural Fresh Meat (22 page)

He scanned for the ranger, not seeing anything but the storm.

“Grace!” he shouted above the din.

Suddenly, the shaking stopped. The roar was instantly replaced with a hiss that faded to silence. Dean strained his ears. All he could hear was the quiet musical tinkle of snowflakes cascading down around him.

“Grace!” he shouted again.

There was crunching in the snow, and a second later she came running around the side of the cabin, breathless. Her cheeks were rosy from the cold, and she bent over, catching her breath.

“What was that?” Dean asked.

She pointed up and behind her, toward the obscured mountain slopes above them. She swallowed, her throat sounding dry. “Avalanche!” she said between gasps. “A huge one!” She shook her head, hands on her knees. “Thought it was going to arc this way and take us out!” She stood up, looking back. “As it is, it barely missed us. I’ve never heard one that huge.” She stared around her. “And it’s still snowing.”

Dean stepped aside as she moved into the warm cabin. She stripped out of her jacket and hat, tossing her gloves onto the couch.

“We can’t stay here, Dean. Another avalanche and we could easily be buried.”

He shut the door, then moved to the fireplace. Grace had evidently piled more logs on the fire before she went out.

“Someone built this cabin in an avalanche path?” he asked incredulously.

She shook her head. “No. It was probably fine for decades. But for a second the clouds parted, and I could see that one just took out a swath of the forest that was protecting this cabin. We couldn’t withstand another one, and they can come in swarms.”

Dean thought of Bobby and Sam. He suspected they were on the way back with the weapon. If they left now, they could hike out, avoid the avalanche, and get the weapon.

“I have to get back to my car.”

She put her hands on her hips, still laboring to breathe. “No—you can’t do that. You’d be walking right across the foot of the avalanche path. In fact…” She pulled out her map as her words trailed off. She spread it out on the coffee table and gestured him over. “I did some place finding out there. When the clouds parted for just a couple of minutes, it was long enough for me to see that we’re at the bottom of this escarpment here.” She pointed to a steep cliff on the map. “If you hike out to your car,” she trailed her finger along the path he would take, “you’re not just crossing this avalanche zone, but three more.” She met his gaze. “Dean, there’s a good chance you simply wouldn’t make it. And with it continuing to snow like this, the danger is just going to get worse.”

Dean felt his stomach sink. He had to reach Bobby and Sam.

“We can’t stay here, either.”

“Right.” Grace moved her finger to the symbol of a downhill skier on the map. “I think we should head for the Tahoe Summit Ski Resort. They’ve got to know about the avalanche danger, and the avalanche patrol might be able to do a controlled slide we won’t get caught in. That’ll release the pressure and we’d be able to hike safely across the avalanche zones.”

Dean studied the map. The ski resort lay six miles from where they were, and up one thousand vertical feet.

“Why would we be safer going there, crossing this area, instead of back toward the car?”

She pointed out the trail they would use. “It’s up and across some very dense forest. We’d be a lot safer doing that trek than trying to get out and crossing large open spaces. The ski resort will have electricity, food, water, emergency supplies, and a medic.”

Dean considered it. With electricity, he’d be able to recharge his phone and call Bobby and Sam. A ski resort also meant roads going up to it, and maybe they could reach him that way.

He looked at Grace, still concerned, but leaning her way. “If there really is such a high avalanche danger, how do you know if the resort will still be open? Wouldn’t they have evacuated it?”

“They would have evacuated the guests, but not the skeleton crew. The avalanche control team and the mountain manager will still be up there, as will members of the ski patrol.”

Dean looked back at the map. The lines of contour appeared tiny and simple on the paper, but he knew from his trek yesterday that walking six miles in thigh-deep snow would be exhausting and take a ridiculously long time. Trying to do that with an injured leg, like Jason, would be nearly impossible. He worried the hunter might not have made it out alive, even without the aswang hunting them.

Heading to the resort was their best bet. “Let’s do it.”

“Okay.” Grace folded up the map and stowed it back in her bag, then started to suit up again.

“I’m going to look for an outbuilding with supplies.”

“I saw one when I was out there trying to get my bearings. Head around back.”

Dean slung on his coat and left the cabin. A few feet from the door, he sank up to his waist. Each step was an effort, as he had to extract his legs and swing them over the top of the snow. Fifty feet behind the cabin stood a small shed. Dean hadn’t seen it at all in the whiteout the day before. He pushed through the white powder and reached the door. Thankfully it swung inward, or he’d have to shovel the whole thing out. He lifted the latch and pushed it open. Inside were two inner tubes, an old-fashioned sled, four pairs of cross-country skis with poles, and four pairs of snowshoes. He breathed a huge sigh of relief. Six miles would have been hell without snowshoes. This was starting to look possible.

He grabbed the pair that were about the right length for his height and sat down on the dusty floor of the shed next to the sled. Quickly he lashed the snowshoes on, grateful he’d found them.

While he sat there, he unloaded his rifle and .45. Carefully he dipped each bullet in the spice concoction. Since it had made the aswang’s skin bubble, maybe he’d be able to get some inside the creature this way. He reloaded the anointed ammunition back into the guns, and put the extras into his parka pocket.

When he left the shed, he stepped up into the mound of snow, finding the going infinitely easier. He walked along the surface, sinking just slightly into the soft, powdery snow.

He gazed around him. Smoke curled from the cabin’s chimney. Above the roof, mist gathered, creeping slowly through the forest. He looked up in the direction of the slope where Grace had seen the avalanche. He couldn’t see anything but clouds there, obscuring the peaks.

A wind kicked up, swirling snow in front of him and blinding him for a second. Then it whirled away, and suddenly he could see the whole extent of the mountain slope above them.

Dean had never seen a swath cut by an avalanche before, but now he found himself staring at the raw power of nature. A staggeringly huge mass of disturbed snow wound down the entire mountain, splintered tree trunks sticking out at odd angles. It had cut a track for itself hundreds of feet wide.

He understood what Grace had tried to explain; only a small patch of protective forest stood between the cabin and the massive destruction of the avalanche. That tiny patch of trees would not survive the next big rumble of snow.

They had to get out of there now.

THIRTY-SIX

Grateful for his snowshoes, Bobby trekked through the powder with Sam walking beside him. At first they had walked single file, taking turns in the lead, but the wind was so powerful that the person behind could never hear the person in front unless they stopped and turned around.

Every twenty minutes or so, Bobby pulled out the map and compass and checked their location. Not only were they hiking into an unknown area, but the snow fell so intensely beneath such a low cloud cover that he wasn’t able to check for landmarks. The battery-operated device that he’d sneered at before had now come in handy more times than he could count. He stopped, pulling out the GPS unit from the warmth of his pocket and powering it on.

He waited while it found their location, then waited another thirty seconds while it averaged readings, making the outcome more accurate. He checked the map against the coordinates. They were on the right track, thankfully. To save time, they were trailblazing, not sticking to any known route. It had seemed like a good idea at first, but now Bobby would have welcomed a marked trail in the blizzard. While any sign of a trail would have been lost beneath the feet upon feet of snow, the forest service regularly marked them by leaving small metal placards in trees.

“How we doing?” Sam yelled above the gale, lifting his goggles. Bobby could only make out Sam’s eyes. Snow completely encrusted his balaclava, and his hood was pulled low over his hat.

Bobby struggled with the map as a sudden gust tugged at it. He knelt down, smoothing it back. They needed to go another 1.7 miles northwest, and they would intersect the trail on which they’d last seen Dean. Of course, that had been more than a day ago. Now it was light, but Sam and Bobby had hiked through the bitter darkness, only the effort of trekking through the snow keeping them warm. That first vague glow in the east had been a welcome sight to Bobby. It would be a hell of a lot easier to navigate in the daylight.

He turned off the GPS unit, got out his compass to ensure the right direction to head in, and folded up the map. He pointed in the direction they’d been heading and nodded to Sam. Sam lowered his goggles back in place, and they trudged on in silence.

The crunch of the snow beneath their feet filled Bobby’s world. His breath frosted beneath his fleece face covering. He was glad they’d brought snow goggles as the world around them grew brighter and brighter. He couldn’t make out the sun overhead, the clouds were too thick, but the diffused light gave everything an almost ghostly glow.

It was obvious Dean and Jason wouldn’t be out in this. Even with their tents and warm bags, they would likely have sought shelter of some kind. Bobby knew there were a few backcountry cabins out this way, and hoped Dean had found his way to one of them.

The lack of sleep burned Bobby’s eyes, making him want to rest. But first they had to find Dean, then he’d get a few hours of shut-eye. He had to know Dean was all right.

The powdery snow was easy to walk in, and the snowshoes made it simple to ascend and descend the steep hills that separated them from the trail they sought. They walked up forested knolls and crossed a few areas of exposed granite.

As they summited a rounded section of rock, Bobby’s snowshoe slid on a patch of ice beneath the powder. His foot slipped out from under him. At the last minute he lashed out with his trekking pole, saving himself.

“Nice moves,” Sam told him.

“Thanks. Don’t think I’ll be applying for a spot on the Ice Capades any time soon, though.”

They continued on in silence once again, then Bobby stopped to check the map. Still they couldn’t see any cliffs or landmarks around them. The mist crept through the forest, making it impossible to see more than twenty feet in front of them. The GPS unit told Bobby they were still on the right track.

“0.6 miles to go!” he called to Sam above the wind.

They walked on, Bobby looking forward to reaching terrain that Sam might recognize. Then they could start searching for Dean’s trail.

The wind buffeted Bobby’s back and snow spiraled around him, landing on his eyelashes. His fingers felt warm inside the thick mittens as he moved with the trekking poles, working himself into a rhythm. They crested a small hill and descended the other side, moving around tremendous boulders and a few stunted trees. At the bottom, Bobby spotted a trail running to the northeast and southwest. Trees had been cleared out for it, forming a perfect tunnel through the snow-laden forest.

“Look familiar?” he asked Sam.

Sam looked both ways, studying the area. “I don’t know… Everything looks so different in the snow, and I can’t see into the distance.”

Bobby hooked his thumb toward the southwest. “You think the car’s back this way?”

Sam squinted. “Maybe. Sorry, Bobby, it all looks so different.”

Bobby pulled out the GPS unit and checked their location. They were right where Bobby thought, according to the map. They’d intercepted the trail Dean had been using. Two miles to the southwest was likely the Impala.

“If he made it back to the car, he would have driven out, or at the very least recharged his phone and called us,” Sam said.

Bobby tightened his mouth. “So you’re thinking he hasn’t made it back to the car?”

“Maybe he didn’t even try in all this.”

Bobby looked up at the heavily snow-laden trees. “You could be right.”

“He might be hot on the trail, reluctant to lose it,” Sam suggested.

Bobby pointed up the trail. “I say we rule out that he’s back at the car, and go check it out.”

“Good idea. If it’s still there, we come back and follow the trail, searching for any sign of him.”

Bobby nodded. “Right.” He considered separating, one of them trekking back to the Impala to see if it was still there. But in this storm, finding each other again might be impossible.

Bobby had never been in a snowstorm this bad, and he was starting to worry about Dean. He knew he could take care of himself, but even the most experienced outdoorsman could get hopelessly lost in whiteout conditions like this.