Supernatural Fresh Meat (24 page)

Sam frowned. “The fact that Dean hasn’t called could be because his phone is dead or that he lost it.” He glanced toward the trail they’d come from. “Either way, it means he’s out of contact, and if his phone’s dead, then he’s in a place with no electricity.”

“Which could be very cold.”

“We need to find him.”

“We’ll have to track him. Gonna be hard as hell in this storm, but we have to try.”

Bobby headed back to the trailhead a few feet away, and Sam joined him. They stared at the intensely falling snow, which had already partially filled their tracks in just a few minutes.

“This is going to be tough, Bobby.”

Bobby didn’t respond, just stared at the storm with a grey slash of a mouth.

FORTY

Dean felt a primal wave of self-preservation sweep over him. “Is that another avalanche?”

Grace trained her ears toward the sound. As they listened, the ground beneath their feet started rumbling. Snow shook, moving in shifting drifts around their boots. Adrenaline kicked up the pace of Dean’s heart.

“Yes. But we should be safe in the trees,” Grace told him.

Dean wasn’t convinced. “Did you see the section of forest the last one took out?”

She hesitated. “Yes.”

“And you think that won’t happen here?”

“We’re higher up on the slope, in denser trees.”

The mountain really started to shake beneath them, and Dean grabbed onto a tree trunk to steady himself. “Where is it?”

Grace tried to see upslope, past the trees. “Must be on the slope to our left.” She waited. “I think it’ll pass us by.”

The mist was so dense that Dean couldn’t see past the edge of the trees. For all he knew, the avalanche could be speeding their way. It was humbling to think that a wall of snow could just wipe them off the mountain. He listened for the crunching of wood, the splitting of trunks, anything that would give away the direction of the avalanche or if it were taking out another swath of trees.

“Maybe we should move in the other direction, or go upslope?”

Grace stood still, listening. Beneath them the snow had shifted so much from the vibrations that their boots were completely covered. Then the quaking lessened.

“I think it’s ending,” she said finally.

The rumbling stopped, the roar in the distance fading away as the snow settled.

“So we’re safe?” Dean asked.

“For now.”

“That doesn’t instill a lot of confidence. We need to get to the ski resort.”

Dean started upslope again, winding between the trees. Grace followed, occasionally glancing nervously in the direction of the avalanche noise.

The low cloud layer was almost claustrophobic at times. Their stalker could be following them and Dean would never see him. In fact, he was pretty sure he was still following them. He could feel eyes staring into his back.

FORTY-ONE

Dean and Grace slowly worked their way toward the ski resort through the driving snow. At least, Dean hoped that’s where they were going. He estimated they’d walked four of the six miles and made about half of the one thousand foot elevation gain.

He could certainly feel the five hundred feet they’d climbed. While that was nothing to him on a regular hike, slogging in the snow took a lot more energy.

They reached a large meadow, and Grace stopped, checking her map. She pointed out a meadow that ran alongside a slope. “This is Seven Boulder Meadow. Once we cross this, it’ll be up a rockslide on the far side, and then we’ll be within range of the resort.”

Dean looked up from her map. The visibility was so poor, he couldn’t even see the edge of the meadow. It just looked like a flat expanse of deep snow ending in a sky of white.

She followed his gaze. “If it were clear and sunny, we’d be able to see the ski runs of the resort by now.” She stared out over the field. “We’re close.”

On the map, she pointed out the resort in relation to the meadow, and she was right. They were close.

She started across the flat expanse of snow. The wind created a hypnotic effect on the ground, like snow snakes winding in and out of each other.

Dean followed in Grace’s trail, keeping an eye on their six. But he hadn’t seen their pursuer since he shot him.

Grace reached the center of the expanse. Dean didn’t like being so out in the open, but he did appreciate finally moving on a level surface, and felt some of his energy returning. He hadn’t eaten anything but a few strips ofjerky in over twenty-four hours.

He slowed, getting his water bottle out of his pack and taking a long drink. The cold dry air sucked the moisture right out of him, making him constantly thirsty. As he paused to put the bottle back, he heard a loud cracking noise.

At first, he glanced upward, afraid it was another avalanche. Then Grace cried out. He turned just in time to see her apparently fall into the snow. There was another tremendous cracking sound, and suddenly the ground around her tipped upward. Water sprayed up and she disappeared.

“Grace!” Dean yelled, hurrying in her direction.

Then he saw their terrible mistake. They weren’t on a meadow, but on a frozen lake. He dropped to his stomach and crawled forward to the hole where she’d gone in. He didn’t see her at all, just a dark hole in the ice, sloshing with turbulent water.

He felt something thump under him, and realized she’d been sucked under the ice sheet. She was pounding on the ice beneath him, trying to find her way out.

Dean knew the icy water would almost instantly paralyze her lungs and body. He had seconds to get her out. He pulled his glove off, slid to the edge of the hole, and thrust his hand into the water.

He waved it around, thrashing it so she’d see the movement. Too many seconds passed. Suddenly, something brushed his fingers. It was her pack. Dean grabbed it, heaving upward with all his strength. For a second the pack caught on the edge of the ice, and he worried she’d slip out of it. Then he saw her head emerge, sagging forward. He pulled hard, slithering backward on the ice. His snowshoes dug in and he managed to pull her partially out, then grab her shoulders and tug her all the way out of the water. She collapsed on the ice next to him, shuddering. Her eyes rolled back in her head, and Dean knew he had to get her warm and dry as quickly as possible.

Continuing to lie on the ice, he elbowed his way to the edge of the hidden lake, dragging Grace along with him.

When they entered the trees again, he stood up and threw her over his shoulder. After carrying her a few feet to safety, he set her down against a tree and shucked off her wet pack. Her teeth chattered, her lips already blue. He shrugged his own pack off and left it next to her.

Dean replaced his glove and looked around for kindling that wasn’t soaked through with snow. Quickly, he moved through the denser undergrowth. He found a few logs that didn’t look too bad and carried them back to her. She remained silent, shuddering, teeth chattering.

Good. As long as she kept shivering, she wasn’t going hypothermic. But she wasn’t cognizant, either.

Dean clustered some pine needles and kindling around the logs and pulled out his Zippo. But when he tried to light them, they wouldn’t catch. He tried again and again, but everything was just too wet. Some of the pine needles caught, but it wasn’t enough heat to even catch the kindling on fire. He tried for a few more minutes, then knew it was futile.

He had to get Grace out of her wet clothes.

Dean rummaged through his pack, pulling out his tent and sleeping bag. He set the tent up in the snow, efficiently snapping the poles together and sliding them through the nylon sleeves. When it was up, he tossed his sleeping bag inside and unrolled it.

Grace hadn’t moved or said anything. He picked her up and slid her into the tent, laying her next to the bag. He grabbed a pair of pants and a flannel shirt from his pack and laid them out.

Then he quickly stripped her out of her wet clothes and dressed her in the dry ones. Crawling into the tent with her, he zipped up the tent fly, blocking out the wind. He folded her inside the sleeping bag and then got in himself. Wrapping his arms around her, he warmed her with his body heat. She continued to shiver, and pressed in close to him. Even her breath on his neck was icy cold, and he pulled the sleeping bag tightly around her.

“You’re going to be okay, Grace.”

She shuddered against him, her wet hair cold against his face, and muttered unintelligibly.

Dean stared up at the tent ceiling, feeling a tinge of fear in his gut. One thing was clear. They’d somehow gone off course. There was no lake on the map where they thought they were. They could be miles from the resort.

Dean listened to the wind as it made the tent flutter and quake.

They were lost, and Grace could die out there.

FORTY-TWO

Dean kept talking to Grace, jostling her when she started to fall asleep. If she lost consciousness, she would be at even greater risk of hypothermia.

Her body was starting to warm up. Her wet hair had at first frozen into spiky strands, but the tent grew slowly warmer with their body heat, and finally they thawed out.

She started talking a little bit. Dean had asked her trivial questions at first, trying to get her to stay awake, but those hadn’t worked well, so now he asked her tough ones that made her stir.

“What’s your family like?”

That one had earned him a jab to his ribs. She didn’t answer, just shifted around, trying to shove him away, drifting in and out. He held on to her. The light outside dimmed and night set in, the temperature lowering. But with the thick cloud cover, it only felt a few degrees cooler.

Dean wondered where Sam and Bobby were. They must be out there looking for him. He had to get to a phone or electricity.

Grace was warming up; at least that was going well. If she had fallen into unconsciousness or hypothermia, he would have had to hike out and get her help.

It had been dark for a couple of hours when she stirred next to him and spoke. “Dean?”

He looked down, meeting her blue eyes. “Grace.”

“What happened?”

“The meadow turned out to be a lake. You fell in.”

She brought a hand up, rubbing her forehead. “My head’s killing me.”

“I’m not surprised. It was pretty dicey for a while there.”

“Good thinking with the sleeping bag.”

He smiled.

“So where are we, then?” she asked. She tried to focus on his face, but her head tilted to the side.

“That’s a good question. Figured we could look at the map once you were
compos mentis.
”

She looked at him groggily. “So where is it?”

Dean reached his hand out of the sleeping bag, and felt around in his pack until he grabbed the map. He picked up his headlamp and switched it on so they could see.

Staying hunkered down in the warm bag, Grace took the light and examined the map. “Damn.”

“Don’t tell me. We’re in an avalanche area.”

“No.” Her voice trailed off. Then she said, “I’m just mad I got us off course.”

“Frankly, I’m impressed you could get us anywhere without seeing any landmarks.”