Cold

Horror. A hunter and his son discover a strange cave in the frozen wastes.

***

Cold

Noon in the frozen valley. They were heading home, a hunting party of three. The dog led their way, a Labrador Retriever black as pepper, and next in rank was the man with a hefty heart-shot buck heaved over one shoulder. Trailing behind them, the boy trudged along, their cherry mahogany bolt-action rifle slung across his back.

Everything was bleak white in the darkened daylight. Following the trail, they climbed down the lip of the valley and steadied themselves against the steep slope, snow falling under each step they took. The dog charged down the way, his breath steaming the air.

Halfway down the slope, something caught the pup’s attention. His ears perked and he shot his head to the right, then he barked once. Before the man could catch up, the Lab bolted away from the trail, flinging bits of snow behind him.

The man and the boy followed him across the treacherous slope until they reached the mouth of a huge cave. Thirty feet tall, partially concealed by a pair of pine trees, and wide enough to fit a dump truck. Wind howled into the black depths of the chamber, and the dog perched by the edge, barking into the abyss.

“Quiet,” hissed the man, and the dog obeyed, turning back and sauntering past him with a tucked tail.

He clucked and gestured back the way they came. The Lab obeyed, running to the trail, and the man started to follow. But the boy stood at the hollow and leaned forward, as if he might get a better look inside. The man turned back and called out.

“Come on. We should get back before another storm kicks up.”

“Wait,” said the boy. “Listen. Do you hear it?”

He didn’t listen. Instead he replied, “I didn’t hear anything. Hurry up, now.”

“There’s someone in there.”

The man went stiff. Waiting between him and the trail, the dog cocked his head in confusion.

There was a cry coming from deep inside the cavern. Somewhere in the winding blackness, a little voice called out. It sounded like a girl.

“We have to help her,” the boy said.

The man trudged back to the mouth of the cave, hauling along the dead buck, and grabbed his son with his free hand. The dog barked at them.

“We’re not going in there,” he said. “Do you hear me? Let’s get, now.”

---

At the end of the valley, the country opened up into a white desert littered with patches of snow-dusted pine trees. The man had built their cabin next to a river that led down from the mountains up north, bending past their property and stretching eastward across the plains. Twelve years they lived here, and never before did he notice the cave.

The man spent the afternoon butchering the buck, and come dinner time, they ate venison steak with baked potatoes. The woman was pleased with the kill, and everyone got a hearty fill. Talk turned to the strange cave, which captured the daughter’s imagination.

“You never told me there’s caves around here,” she said.

“I didn’t know,” said the man. He speared a chunk of steak and sawed it with his knife.

“Do people usually live in caves?”

“No,” he said harshly. The girl flinched at his tone, but she was undeterred.

“Then why didn’t you help her?” she said.

“That’s what I said,” mumbled the boy.

“Quiet, both of you. Eat your supper.”

---

When he awoke the next dawn, their son wasn’t in bed. The man stomped around the cabin yelling the word damnation over and over.

The boy’s boots and winter coat were gone, too. Already, the man knew what happened. He kept cursing, barely a proper word exchanged with his wife and daughter as he suited up. He grabbed the rifle off the wall and slammed the cabin door shut behind him.

Marching into the frozen dawn, the Lab led the way under a thick gray sky. They marched through the snowy trail and entered the valley by its opening vestibule, then they climbed the steep slope toward yesterday’s hunting ground.

The man didn’t know exactly where the cave was. But thank God the dog remembered. This time, he approached the mouth of the cave with his head low and his ears turned back, and he whimpered.

“That’s a good boy,” said the man. “You wait right here.”

Whining, the dog watched him step into the darkness of the cavern. The man stopped with the safety of the sun just feet behind him, and he cupped his hands over his mouth to call out.

“Are you in there?”

There was a long silence while the constant stream of wind flowed past him. The man shivered and tried again.

“Hello?”

Nothing.

He clucked at the dog and gestured for him to follow, but the dog refused. The man entered the cave and submerged himself in the frozen darkness.

It was pitch black in there.

“Where are you?” he called out.

Still no reply.

The man looked back, a halo of light glowing from the entrance, and decided there was no point to this. If the boy had come here, there was no getting him back. More likely, he’d gotten turned around looking for the place. After all, the dog was the one who knew the way.

He marched back out of the cave where the dog waited. And as he stepped into the bright morning light, he heard a little voice call back to him from the cave’s innermost depths.

“Help.”

It was the boy’s voice. Tiny, weak, and distant.

The man cried back with a cracking voice, “Where are you?”

His voice echoed into nothing. Then came the boy’s voice once again.

“Help.”

The man racked the bolt of his rifle, shouldered it, and moved slowly into the cave. He dissolved into blackness, and the dog whined behind him.

There were slick and narrow rock walls somewhere in the impenetrable dark. The man couldn’t see a thing. Trickling water just ahead, and the howling wind showed him the way back. If he got lost, maybe he could call for the dog—follow the sound of the barks.

He shut his eyes, opened them, shut them again. No point trying to see your way in a place like this. In the bowels of the earth, sight quickly became a distant memory. His bootfalls echoed ahead of him, rifle leading the way, until everything fell silent. No stream splashing on rocks, no wind whistling through a hollow. Nothing.

He called out, “Where are you?” and his voice echoed around him. Still nothing. When he turned back to face the cave entrance, there was not even a pin of light, like a mouth had closed and sealed him inside its esophagus.

In a panic, the man started running back in the direction of the entrance, and his boot snagged on a rock outcropping. Funny that—he didn’t remember stepping over any rocks. There was no time to reflect. He fell forward, striking his knee on the wet stone floor, and with a jolt of pain he accidentally squeezed the rifle’s trigger.

For a split second, the muzzle flash lit up the cave like daytime, and what the man saw shocked him pale stiff. There was not just one path ahead of him—behind him?—but a dozen tunnels splitting off in different directions. Holes in the rocks leading every which way, down and up and left and right, even in the ceiling where one might fall through with a misplaced step.

He was lost.

The gunshot ringing in his ears, the man stood shakily and whistled out to the dog. The tone echoed in the chamber and carried through the maze of tunnels. And then he waited.

And he waited.

And he kept waiting.

But the dog made no sound.

The man cried out for the boy again, and there was no reply. He chambered another round and fired, this time keeping an eye on the exact tunnel he thought he’d come from. But they all looked so similar, and they were all just the right size and shape for somebody to walk through, as if the cave had been designed for human traversal. For him and his boy.

So he picked a tunnel and started walking. His boots echoed around him. Soon he heard trickling water again, and he hastened his pace. He called one more time.

“Hel—…”

And at that same moment, he set his boot down on nothing, stepping over an unseen ledge. Nothing to be done now. He swung for balance and tumbled over, plunging into the black.

The man’s screams echoed through the cave as he fell.

At the bottom of the black gulf, perhaps twenty yards down, he landed on a layer of ice and crashed right through to the freezing water underneath. The cold stiffened his nerves, and for a long moment, he couldn’t move. Like a statue sinking in a lightless pool. The shock electrified his body, and he reflexively gasped, filling his lungs with ice water.

And he sliced the water with swinging hands and kicking feet, until someone grabbed him from underneath. Rigid fingers with icy skin, long unkempt nails digging into his ankles. His screams were muted in frigid blackness, and the hand tugged his leg, pulling him farther down. Then a second hand grabbed his thigh, and a third one his waist.

When he lost consciousness, there was nothing but cold.