Fresh Bait

Leonard pushed his face firmly into the crease of his elbow as another scathing blast of frigid air blew through the valley. The snow piled up at his feet while he stumbled up a small incline, struggling to keep his balance, the biting cold permeating his winter jacket. Shivering, he turned, baring his back to the icy downpour and staring across the barren fields of white before him. At the very crest of the blizzard, a single tent was cartwheeling, leaving a trail of tiny dents as each of its jagged ends hit the ground. He prayed no-one was inside as he watched it disappear from sight, disintegrating to torn scraps of material.

Tracing the tent’s path, he spotted a patchy, levelled area strewn with a collection of scattered debris. Hastily, he skittered down the incline and ran toward it, clutching his hood as it flapped mercilessly in the wind. Two ends of torn wire swayed at the edge, where another tent had been nailed in place. Beside them was a piece of dark fabric, and Leonard’s pulse quickened as he saw it was the torn remains of a winter coat collar. Reluctantly, he kneeled and scooped it into his palm, wiping the blurriness from his eyes with a gloved hand.

‘JEFFRIES’ was scribbled on the frost-smeared label. Leonard rolled the name back and forth through his head as he stared at the familiar handwriting. Jeffries. Jake Jeffries. The one who had convinced him the oncoming blizzard was ‘just a minor weather spike’. The rotten, no-good bastard that had talked him and his wife into joining him on this damned trip in the first place.

He tossed the collar aside and with moderate difficulty, pushed himself back to a standing position. The last tent of the half a dozen the expedition had begun with flew into the air as he came near it, its orange exterior fading to a solemn grey as it vanished in the haze. Leonard dropped to his knees once more and rummaged through the snow, finding only empty flasks, plastic food packaging, and used waste bags. No flare gun, no emergency supplies, and no sign of any of the other hikers. No sign of…

“RACHEL?” He desperately called out. “RACHEL, CAN YOU HEAR ME?”

He was answered by another intense blast of cold to the face, this time without the shield of his arm to nullify its effect. He coughed and hugged his chest, gritting his teeth to stop them chattering. Already, he had lost feeling in his toes. The temperature was undoubtedly getting to him, and yet, there was nothing he could do. Dozens of questions raced through his brain as he felt his final moments dawning. Where were all the others? Had they already succumbed to the conditions? Was he the last one left? The thought of his wife of so many years dying frozen and alone was almost enough to force a tear from his wind-stabbed eyes.

And then, like a mirage, he saw it. An animal corpse in the snow.

With the last of his energy, Leonard sprinted at the thing. He was both grateful and dumbfounded: grateful that whatever powers that be saw him fit to live another day and dumbfounded that such a creature had made it so far into oblivion. The nearest wildlife should have been miles away, but here lay a sizeable beast whose basic survival instinct must’ve somehow malfunctioned, leading it all the way to certain doom. From the way only its lower half was covered in snow, he reckoned it must’ve perished fairly recently. As close as it was to the tattered remains of camp, he was sure he would’ve seen it.

And as for what it was, Leonard didn’t have the slightest clue. It could’ve just been his frozen mind, but as he shuffled to where he assumed its stomach would be, he noticed it didn’t seem to match the characteristics of any animal he knew of. Its skin was dark and furry like a bear’s, but its appendages were elongated, ending in shattered, deformed hooves. Welts of flesh collected on its back like purplish bruises, and several long, thin scars ran down the length of its body. “Perhaps it wasn’t the cold which lead to this thing’s demise,” he thought to himself, “but rather, some apex predator that had chased it until it could go no further.” He shuddered at the notion of such a beast roaming through the wasteland, teeth bared, looking for its next victim.

The ambiguity of the creature remained as Leonard took out a pocketknife and slit open its coarse belly. Warm, slimy innards spilled out, resembling no kind of anatomy he had ever seen before. There was no stomach, intestines, liver, spleen; everything just looked like one big pile of rotten, pinkish mush, the consistency of melted ice-cream. It stuck to his clothes as he shovelled it out onto the snow, distracting him from the cold if only to violate his senses in an equally unpleasant manner. Gore had never bothered him much, but now he felt sick to his stomach.

Before long, there was a big enough hole for him to crawl into. It was likely going to be the foulest, most repugnant thing he had ever done, but it was still preferable to succumbing to hypothermia. Leonard stood up and gazed out at the valley one last time, re-affirming its emptiness, then took a deep breath and climbed in the carcass.

Jagged ends of bone pressed against the surface of his coat as he made himself as comfortable as possible, tucking his legs into the fetal position. He reached back to the flap of skin he had used as an entrance point and folded it shut, bidding farewell to the whistling wind. The smell was even worse than he had expected, but the difference in temperature was immediately noticeable. How long he would have to remain inside the corpse, he had no clue of. He dreaded the thought of sleeping within it, physically cringing at the idea of rot and decay seeping its way through the body as he tossed and turned in slumber.

A little bit of time passed. Leonard kept his ears sharply tuned to the sound of the storm, which was showing no signs of diminishing. The concept of a warm shower with Rachel helped him keep his composure as he repositioned himself for the fourth or fifth instance. Without warning, a revolting churn erupted behind his head, followed by a sharp rippling noise like tape peeling off a wall. The thin trickle of light coming in from outside ceased; goosebumps shot down his back as he turned to see what had caused it. He reached out to re-open the flap, only to find it had sealed itself shut.

He pawed at the inside wall relentlessly, assuring himself that he had merely misplaced where he had made the incision. But no, the mark was there plain as day — the scar from which he had separated the tissue remained, perfectly reformed. Instantly, the fleshy walls of his meat prison seemed to be closing in on him. The heat growing infinitely more intense, he once again unsheathed his pocketknife, but it slid through his slippery gloves and disappeared between one of the creature’s organic crevices.

Leonard screamed, writhing and squirming as his body sank in the carcass’ watery fluids. A soaked tendril oozed out of a newly formed opening beside his neck, filling his mouth and reaching all the way into the depths of his throat. Several more tendrils wrapped around his arms and legs and rolled him over to face the opposite side of the creature, where a gaping maw beckoned him with its lips.

As he stretched his hands into the creature’s flesh and strained against it, he found himself sliding closer to the maw with each passing second. Hot sweat poured from his brow, vomit rising up his throat and being forced back down. Pushed inches away, he was thrust inside the opening, the tendrils releasing their grip and the maw shutting behind him, plunging him into pitch blackness.

Ripping his gloves off, Leonard clawed incessantly at the flesh around him, only managing to scrape off tiny slices of meat with his fingernails. Small strings of a hard, wiry substance grabbed hold of his head, pinning it to the side and burrowing into his skull. Blood spurting down his neck, he felt his body go limp as the cordons squeezed his brain, darkness intruding on the edges of his vision. The sound of static filled his ears before everything went silent, his senses switched off in an instant.

–

Horrid, indecipherable screams burst through his mind as he was slammed back into consciousness.

“Leonard?” He heard one of the voices shout, a little louder than the rest. “Leonard, are you there?”

A piercing agony stuck its claws across his brain as he felt it brush against the brains of many others, electrical impulses burning and carving their way over his mind like streaks of fire. With his eyes glued open, before him sat the cold, desolate valley, snow still ravaging the ground, the storm just as intense as ever. A shattered, deformed hoof lay limp in the corner of his vision, and it took him but a few seconds to realise the sight he was staring through was not his own.

“W-we tried to warn you…” another voice spoke. “We tried to warn you…”

He attempted moving his body, but knew deep down he didn’t have one anymore. There was nothing but constant noise and the unmoving visage of the piling snow. Picking them out individually would be a near-impossible task, yet Leonard was sure he could make out dozens of voices, some shouting, some whispering, some simply weeping, all fighting to be heard over each other.

Their collective attention was diverted by the appearance of a figure in the distance wandering aimlessly through the storm. The noise suddenly grew to an unbearable level, though the voices all seemed to share the same sentiment. Everyone was screaming at the person to run, to get away, to seek shelter elsewhere, even as they got closer and closer to the body. Close enough for Leonard to recognise who they were.

He could only watch as Rachel spotted the carcass and ran toward it, a hopeful smile on her face.