The wind cut like a knife, sharp and relentless, whipping flakes of snow into our faces. You couldn’t see more than twenty feet ahead. Alaska in winter wasn’t a place you wanted to be lost. And yet, there we were, five of us, huddled together on a ridge, staring down into a frozen valley. Somewhere down there, men were hunting us.
“Keep moving,” I said, my voice low but hard. “If we stop, we die. Either from the cold… or them.”
Sarah pulled her scarf tighter around her neck, eyes wide. “You think they’re still behind us?”
I glanced at the trail of boot prints behind us, already half-covered in drifting snow. “They’re behind us. And they’re closing in.”
The truth was uglier. I knew they were tracking us with more than just footprints. They had a dog. And the way the wind was blowing, that dog could smell us for miles.
* * * * * * *
We had crash-landed three days ago. Small bush plane, engine failure. The pilot, dead before we even hit the ground. The rest of us, Sarah, a nurse; Malik, an oil worker built like a brick wall; Keating, a corporate guy with city hands and no clue how to survive; and Jessie, a teenager who’d never seen snow before, had pulled ourselves from the wreck and started walking south. The nearest settlement was over fifty miles away.
We might’ve made it if we hadn’t stumbled onto their trap.
First night, we found a camp. Empty. Or so we thought. Food left out. A fire still smoldering. We took what we could, jerky, matches, a rifle with six bullets and left fast. What we didn’t know was that it belonged to them: three men with the kind of eyes that don’t blink when they kill. Hunters. Not the kind who chase moose.
* * * * * * *
A crack echoed across the valley.
“Down!” I shoved Sarah into the snow as a rifle shot whined past my ear.
“They found us!” Keating shouted, panic in his voice. He started to run, but Malik grabbed his arm. “You run in the open, you’re dead. Stay low.”
I peered through the swirling snow. Movement in the trees, maybe two hundred yards away. One of them, wearing white camo, melting into the terrain.
“They’re splitting up,” I muttered. “One’s circling.”
“What do we do?” Jessie’s teeth chattered.
I checked the rifle. Four bullets left now, I’d already used two to scare them off earlier. Not enough to win a fight. But enough to make one.
“We keep moving along the ridge,” I said. “Stay to the shadows. If they want us, they’ll have to come take us.”
* * * * * * *
We pushed on, snow crunching under our boots, lungs burning in the freezing air.
“They’re not giving up,” Malik said.
“They don’t have to,” I replied. “We’re moving slow. We’re bleeding heat. They’ve got all the time in the world.”
I stopped suddenly. Ahead, the ridge narrowed to a shelf barely two feet wide, ice-slick, with a hundred-foot drop into a frozen gorge.
“Great,” Keating muttered. “We’re done.”
“Not yet.”
We crossed single-file, every step careful. Halfway across, I heard the snap of a branch behind us. I turned and there he was. One of them, crouched low, rifle up. He fired.
The bullet slammed into the ice a foot from Jessie’s head. She screamed. I raised the rifle and fired back. Missed. But it made him duck.
“Move!” I shouted.
We scrambled the rest of the way. Malik lingered just long enough to kick loose a slab of ice. It slid off the ledge and took the shooter with it. His scream vanished into the wind.
* * * * * * *
We didn’t have time to celebrate. A howl rose behind us. The dog.
“They’ll push us toward the river,” I said. “They want us where we can’t run.”
“And if we get there?” Sarah asked.
“They finish it.”
We made it to the treeline just as the second man appeared on our flank. He was closer, fifty yards and fast. I didn’t think. I aimed and squeezed the trigger.
He dropped into the snow. Didn’t move again.
Jessie stared at me. “You… killed him.”
“Yeah,” I said. “And I’ll do it again if I have to.”
* * * * * * *
By the time we reached the river, night had fallen. The wind eased, but the temperature dropped even lower. The ice stretched black and solid, a twisting highway under the moonlight.
“That’s not safe,” Keating said, staring at it.
“Neither is standing here,” I replied.
We started across. Halfway, the dog appeared at the edge of the trees, snarling. The last hunter stepped into view. Bigger than the others. He had a shotgun.
He didn’t shout. He just raised it.
I fired first. Missed. My last bullet.
“Run!” I yelled.
We pounded across the ice, the cracks groaning beneath us. The shotgun boomed. Malik staggered but kept going. I spun, grabbed a chunk of ice from the surface, and hurled it. It didn’t hit him, but it made him step forward, just enough.
The ice gave way. He vanished into the black water. The dog whined, pacing the shore, then ran.
* * * * * * *
We collapsed on the far bank, gasping. The adrenaline bled away, leaving nothing but bone-deep exhaustion.
“What now?” Sarah asked.
“Now,” I said, looking at the faint glow of the northern lights above us, “we walk until we find someone who isn’t trying to kill us.”
“And if we don’t?” Jessie asked.
I smiled without humor. “Then we keep walking anyway.”
The cold still bit, the night still stretched long, but the hunters were gone. For now, that was enough.
We rose, turned south, and disappeared into the dark.
THE END
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