Wind rushed past us, each gust carrying with it a flurry of snow. I could feel the cold bite at my extremities, even as the exertion of movement made me uncomfortably hot beneath the layers of clothing.
I’ve never been much of an outdoors person. My perfect day is one spent warm and safe on the couch, a good book in one hand and a mug of hot chocolate in the other.
This - this was the opposite of that.
“Let’s go back!” I shouted over the howling wind.
“We press on. The treeline isn’t far ahead.” Mark yelled back. His voice barely reached me through the storm.
I suppose it’s healthy to have friends with differing interests, and I can’t deny that over the last four years Mark and August have encouraged me to try many things I would not have even considered on my own. Even so, I found myself cursing the fact that I’d been so easily convinced. Yes, it was the last year of college, but was a hike through the Alaskan wilderness really the best way to celebrate?
I waded through the snow, trying to keep pace with the others. Mark was the furthest ahead, practically dragging us along by the guide-rope, occasionally stopping to allow us to catch up. He probably considered this horrible ordeal ‘character building’ or something - he was the kind of person who purposefully sought out the most challenging option whenever he was given a choice. August seemed to be more in my boat. Even though he too was an experienced hiker, he wasn’t as much of a masochist as Mark.
We continued to plow our way through the storm for a while, the everpresent din of the tempest punctuated only by the occasional swear word. Visibility continued to drop as conditions worsened, until all I could see of Mark up ahead was his high-vis jacket. The mythical treeline was nowhere in sight, though that wasn’t saying much. It could have been two dozen yards to our left and would have completely missed it.
Something loomed out of the blizzard. Large and rectangular, it took my brain half a second to process that it was a man-made structure, obscured as it was.
“Fran!”
I realized that I had stopped. Mark had clearly spotted the structure - he and August were already moving towards it. I scrambled to keep up. The building’s features resolved themselves as we drew closer - at least three stories tall, with sturdy concrete walls and small, dark windows. A rusted iron door appeared to be the only entrance.
Mark moved up to the door, and banged on it three times with his fist.
“Hello, anyone there?” He shouted. No response. He tried the handle, and gave it a shove. The door swung inwards with a creak of protesting metal, revealing a dark interior.
“It looks abandoned, come on.” Mark waved us over. August and I looked at eachother, and hesitated for only a moment before following him inside.
The sounds of the blizzard faded to background noise as we moved through the dark corridors. There were switches on the walls, but they were nonfunctional, so the only light came from the narrow beams of our flashlights.
We checked room after room. Most had furniture - utilitarian-looking steel tables and similarly uncomfortable looking chairs - all were covered in a layer of undisturbed dust and cobwebs. Some of the rooms were offices, complete with ancient, bulky computers. Everything appeared mostly untouched, which I guess was to be expected - I would bet that we were the first people to walk these corridors in over a decade. Which circled back to the question.
“Why on earth is this out here?” August said.
Mark let out a sigh. “Well, whatever the reason, it’s certainly saved our asses. Let’s set up camp here for the night.”
The idea of staying the night here unnerved me. Something just didn’t add up about the place… But what choice did we really have, when the alternative was freezing to death in a snowstorm?
We cleared out a large hall which may have once been a canteen, and put up our tents. Though we were out of the wind, the temperature was still well below freezing, and nobody wanted to risk a fire in such an enclosed space. No matter which way you sliced it, this would be an uncomfortable night.
“The last landmark we passed before we lost visibility was this peak here… So on the bright side, we should only be a few hours from the next checkpoint.” August said, looking over a map.
Relief and frustration welled up in me in equal measure. Our route took us past several towns, which provided opportunities to rest and resupply. If it hadn’t been for the storm, we could have easily reached the next one before nightfall. At least tomorrow’s journey would not be as grueling as today’s had been, and I looked forward to spending a night in an actual bed again.
Dinner consisted of trail mix and crackers. The last of the energy bars and jerky had been polished off yesterday, as had the big bottle of orange juice I’d brought.
“I’m going to try to get an early night, so we can set off earlier tomorrow.” I said.
Mark grinned. “Fran, when did you suddenly become a morning person?”
“It… It’s just this building - I don’t want to stay here any longer than we have to.”
“I get what you mean,” said August. “It creeps me out.”
“You guys have no sense of adventure.” Mark rolled his eyes. “Come on, look on the bright side - we’re out of the storm, we’ve got four walls and a roof over our heads for the first time in days. Plus, this isn’t like some abandoned building in the city - I doubt we’re going to find many crackheads out here.”
“Mmm… still, you have to admit, it is kinda eerie.”
Mark shrugged noncommittally. We finished our meal in silence, and then each retreated into our tents.
Perhaps it was the oppressive atmosphere, the constant roar of the storm outside or a premonition of what was to come, but what little sleep I managed to get was fitful, and plagued with nightmares. I remember them only in scattered, nonsensical fragments of emotions and imagery, devoid of meaning except in the alien logic of their lost dreams.
It was sometime after midnight when August shook me awake. I opened bleary eyes as the last of the night terrors slipped away.
“Get up… Mark’s missing.”
Though the words took time to register, I could tell immediately by his tone that something was wrong.
“What?”
“His tent’s open, and he’s not in it.” His voice was a frightened whisper, barely restrained panic behind his words. “I thought he may have needed the toilet or something, but it’s been too long and he hasn’t been back.”
My fatigue vanished in an instant as ice shot through my veins.
“Shit… what do we do?”
“W-we go look for him,” August said. “He must still be in the building somewhere.”
The two of us moved quickly. We swept our flashlights up and down shadowed halls and empty rooms, never lingering somewhere more than we needed to. The storm outside had faded, leaving only a disquieting silence. Our footsteps echoed much too loudly in the enclosed space, and with every passing minute my anxiety grew.
“Stop.” August said, suddenly.
“What did you find?”
“Shh. Listen.”
I did as he said. Sure enough, I could make out a faint, repetitive sound at the edge of my hearing. It was not too dissimilar from the sound of a sledgehammer striking stone, though heavily muffled.
“It’s this way.” He said after a couple of seconds, and started moving briskly in the direction of the noise.
“Wait - are you sure we should be heading towards that? What if it’s dangerous?”
“If Mark’s in danger then all the more reason to. You don’t have to follow me, but I’d appreciate it if you did.”
He spoke with conviction, though there was a slight tremble to his voice that nevertheless betrayed his fear. I took a deep breath. We were both scared - terrified for good reason; we were in some dark creepy place in the middle of nowhere, only each other and the biting cold for company. I could have turned back, I knew that August would not have faulted me for doing so. Yet despite everything that happened afterwards, I do not regret my decision.
We followed our ears. The noise seemed to be coming from the far corner of the building, away from where we had made our camp. This area of the building seemed even more foreboding than the rest, everything just slightly more sinister; the shadows were deeper, the furniture more decayed and the air mustier. Black dust coated every surface so thickly that we could make out Mark’s footprints on the ground as we moved closer. I ran a finger along a wall, and examined it.
“It’s soot.” I realized, surprised.
August frowned. “Maybe it was some kind of fire that led to this place becoming abandoned? But the structure seems too intact for that to be the case…”
We kept moving, following the footprints until we reached a stairwell. Soot-coated metal steps corkscrewed downwards, guarded on one side by a rusty rail. The strange clanging sound echoed up from its depths.
“Seems like this place has a sub-level…” August sighed. “This just keeps getting better and better.”
Carefully, we made our descent. I felt the temperature drop as we moved downwards, until I was shivering from the cold even through my many layers of clothing. The sub-level was noticeably different from the floors above; gone were the generic rooms and corridors which would not have looked out of place in an urban office, replaced with a sleek and clinical design that was still visible beneath the frost which clung to the walls.
Heart racing, I followed August as we moved forwards, down a central corridor which stretched out before us in an almost completely straight line. The passage could not have been longer than a hundred feet, yet it felt like a mile.
Blast doors hung open at regular intervals along its length, and I could not help but wonder at their purpose.
The corridor seemed to open up into a larger chamber at the far end, from which emanated the noise, now much louder than before.
“Ready?” August murmured as we neared the dark entrance. I answered with a slight nod, and we pointed our flashlights into the room beyond.
The first word that came to mind was ‘cavernous’. Ice encrusted everything, smoothing out the hard edges of human architecture to the point where, had the place not been so perfectly circular in shape, I may have mistaken it for a natural ice cave. Machines and instruments lined the perimeter, whose function I could only begin to guess at. I realized with a start that some of them had power, screens still displaying all manner of esoteric readings and graphs. Each device was accompanied by a tangle of cables that burrowed into the wall behind them, presumably connecting them to power sockets that had been long since frozen over. A large cylinder of ice dominated the center of the space, stretching from floor to ceiling. There was… something in it, a dark shape in the heart of the frozen column which I could barely make out.
Next to it stood Mark. He held an ice pick in one hand, and was chipping away at the pillar with it. Each time the pick struck, it made the familiar clanging sound which had led us here. He’d already made a fair bit of progress - a hole about as wide as a dinner plate and as deep as my forearm was long had been carved into the ice. He didn’t react as we entered, didn’t even acknowledge our presence. He just kept digging.
“Mark?” August called out, hesitantly. No response.
I walked nearer, and shone the flashlight directly at him. His eyes had this glazed over look about them, as if he were in some kind of trance. I moved to try and shake him out of it, but August stopped me.
“He might be sleepwalking. If you wake him he may panic and lash out - we don’t want to risk that when he has a potentially lethal object in hand.”
“Shit… but it’s freezing down here, we can’t just leave him.”
August took off his outermost jacket and, being careful to avoid the ice pick, draped it over Mark. He couldn’t get the sleeves on, but at least it would provide some insulation against the sub-zero temperatures. He stepped back, and we stood quietly for a moment, unsure of what to do.
It was then that my attention drifted back towards the shape in the column. The ice was murky and the room was not well lit, yet I managed to get the impression that it was distinctly organic. A horrible chill that had nothing to do with the cold ran across my skin. If Mark kept digging…
“August. We need to-”
The words died in my throat as Mark stopped. The pick clattered to the ground, and for a moment there was complete silence.
“Mark?”
“Huh?” Mark jumped a bit, and spun round, trance seemingly broken. “Guys? W-where the fuck are we?” His speech was slightly slurred, as if he had just woken up.
Then several things happened at once.
A flame burst from the hole in the ice, its orange light all of a sudden illuminating the room. Mark stumbled away from it and lost his balance, slipping. I rushed forwards to help him, and was immediately assaulted by a wave of nausea. The air smelled rotten and sulfurous, like moldy meat that had been left in the sun. I put one hand over my mouth and nose, used the other to pull him up and we both scrambled backwards.
Then the fire began to spread.
I remember when we had a bonfire in Mark’s backyard once. We’d built up a big pile of wood, however when the time came to light it, we quickly found our work cut out for us. We tried dried leaves, twigs, pine needles and newspaper. Maybe the logs had too much moisture in them, or maybe it was something about the air, but nothing worked. Finally, Mark simply went into his shed, brought out a half gallon bottle of turpentine, poured it over the wood pile, and tossed in a match.
The effect was somewhat similar here, except this fire appeared to spread inside the ice, which went against basically everything I knew about how fire was supposed to work. That dark shape within became illuminated in haunting detail, as flame traced out the twisted contours of limbs, torsos and heads, melding together into a single horrific silhouette.
“W-what the hell?” Mark stammered. August’s eyes were wide, transfixed by the hellish sight before us. Cracks began to appear in the pillar, accompanied with bursts of steam.
“Holy shit. Get back!” I yelled. The three of us bolted back down the passage just in time as the ice gave way at last in an explosion of scalding steam. Alarms began to blare, and the corridor was illuminated by the eerie crimson of emergency lights.
“You all okay?” August asked. I nodded. The steam had cooled rapidly once it came into contact with the frigid air, and none of us were particularly hurt.
“Guys… we need to fucking run.” Mark said in a panicked voice. I followed his gaze, and what I saw will likely stay with me until the day I die.
The thing was huge, well over twenty feet tall. Flames ravaged every inch of its monstrous form, its flesh blackened, skin dried and pulled taut over its charred bones. It was vaguely bipedal, though clusters of malformed limbs sprouted from each of its joints, twitching and writhing as if they had a mind of their own. Head misshapen and bulbous, its facial features appeared to have melted and set like wax, lips burned away, leaving an unnatural and morbid grin. Its eyeballs were shriveled, carbonized lumps that dangled uselessly inside their sockets.
Yet despite all of this apparent mutilation, it was still evidently alive. As were the people.
There had to be at least a dozen of them, buried within the thing’s torso. Their flesh had seemingly burnt and fuzed with it and with each other in a horrific amalgamation. Each and every one of them wailed and screamed, expressions contorted into masks of pain as they struggled uselessly.
“Oh God…” I whispered. Mark tugged at my arm, and I allowed myself to be pulled backwards as we retreated towards the stairwell.
Then it bent down, oversized face almost completely filling the entrance. It began to crawl after us.
We ran faster, a primal fear urging us onwards. I heard bones crack and skin tear behind us as that hellish thing contorted and forced itself down the narrow corridor, accompanied by the sound of roaring flames and desperate screams. Bile seared the back of my throat as the air around us was filled with the same rotting meat stench as before.
“Come on!” Screamed August. He was well ahead of us, and was standing with a hand on a button set into the wall. As we reached him, he pushed it and then followed us up the staircase in a mad scramble.
I spared a glance behind us as the blast doors swung closed with heavy thuds, muffling the creature’s ear-splitting wails.
None of us cared to spend time retrieving our stuff.
Dawn had already come by the time we burst out of the building. Mark closed the door behind us, jamming it shut with his ice pick. For a moment, we all stood there, panting heavily.
“Look!” Mark pointed. I turned, and almost started laughing at the sheer irony of it all. Less than a few dozen yards behind the building was a forest of snow-covered conifers, stretching as far as the eye could see. The treeline had really been basically right in front of us.
“What do you wanna bet that thing’s going to make it out eventually?” August said nervously.
“Let’s head for the trees, we can lose it in the forest.”
“What if it follows our tracks? This snow is practically knee-height.”
“It can’t do that.” Mark said. I looked at him, frowning.
“And how can you be so sure?”
There was a pause. “When it had me in that trance, I learned… things about it. It ‘sees’ living things and living things only. We’ll be practically invisible in the forest.”
We hiked faster than we had at any point during the previous few days, spurred on by adrenaline. Despite Mark’s reassurances I couldn’t help but feel as if at any second we’d hear that thing’s horrible cries, or see its burnt visage grinning at us from around a corner. The way August’s eyes darted from side to side, and periodically glanced behind us told me that he felt the same. And so we kept moving, and moving.
It was still early morning by the time we reached what was supposed to be our next checkpoint. All of us had silently agreed it would be our last. None of us wanted to call someone to come pick us up - not when that thing could be in the area - so we ended up hitchhiking to the nearest big city. By that evening we were on a flight back home.
I’m still not quite certain what it was that had been trapped in the ice beneath that abandoned building. Nor do I know exactly how or why it had been down there. I’ve pressed Mark for answers, but he’s reluctant to give them. I suspect he does not want to relive whatever he went through while under that thing’s thrall.
August has this haunted look about him whenever he sees fire now - even a lit match is enough to make him space out for a second. I’ve also become vegetarian - the sight and smell of cooking meat is just too much for me to handle. Needless to say, none of us have gone on a hike up north ever again.
I’m writing this down because, yesterday, I saw something on the news.
It was about this forest fire up in Alaska, and I swear, for a split second on the video, I could make out that twisted grin through the raging flames and clouds of black smoke.