PART 1
Derry was my best friend, but that was a long time ago.
Since then, I built my career while Derry played in a band. I saved for retirement and Derry saw the world. And when I bought a house, Derry was still burning through a revolving door of roommates. Derry always used to say, “Sam... you’re the Yin to my Yang.” Thanks to him, I had a long slew of firsts. My first girlfriend, first toke, first summer job, first suspension, first set of wheels, and so on.
Derry may have been there for many of my firsts, but not the parts of my life that were built to last. When I graduated from Stanford, Derry was backpacking in the Alps. When I purchased my Tesla, Derry was flat broke. When I got my partner track job, Derry was working in the kitchen at a crêperie.
So once upon a time, Derry was my best friend.
I see him every year or so when I travel back home to Eugene, Oregon. We go through the motions of well-intentioned phone calls a few times each year. Sometimes, I’m quite restless after these calls. The last time we spoke to one another, I sat in bed staring at the ceiling until well after midnight. My brain kept repeating an old saying I had heard: “Time is like a roll of toilet paper. The closer you get to the end, the faster it goes.”
Early in the morning, the day after our last phone call, my phone started ringing. It was Derry. We had just talked yesterday; I couldn’t possibly think of a good reason why he would be calling again so soon. I picked up and said hello. There was a long pause. Derry breathed loudly on the other end. Finally, he spoke.
“Do you remember Jesse?”
“From high school? Of course,” I replied.
“He passed away yesterday.” Derry’s words cut through the air like a knife.
Finally, I spoke. “What happened?”
Derry sighed. “It was a heart thing. I don’t want to pry, but all I know is that it came out of nowhere.”
Jesse Portsmith. The mighty cross-country runner. The third leg to our inseparable trio of long-distance misfits. Jesse insisted on rocking the shortest of shorts even in the dead of winter. He would unapologetically piss in water bottles on the bus ride to races. And the day before Thanksgiving each year, he hosted a potluck for everyone on the team. I hadn’t spoken to Jesse in years. I wasn’t expecting to ever speak to him again. A rotten corner of my brain wished I could simply unhear this news.
I felt detached from my body as it floated into the kitchen and numbly prepared my coffee. I actually went the entire week without shedding a tear. Meanwhile, Derry was profoundly shaken. We talked on the phone twice more that week.
He’d regale stories I couldn’t have possibly remembered from our past. I hadn’t thought of Jesse in years, so there was little I could add other than silent nods from the other side of the phone. Every summer during high school, we would drive into the mountains for a few days. The Pacific Northwest was the one place in the country with snow-capped peaks well into the summer. Jesse stuck with Boy Scouts throughout his senior year, and he would teach the two of us survival skills. Conditions were always pretty extreme, so we would be sure to downplay the risks to our parents.
“Jesse always tried to convince us that Mount Shasta was haunted,” Derry blurted out unexpectedly during one call.
I vaguely remembered these tirades. The mountains were a sacred and mystical place for Jesse. Derry had always been eager to “yes and” any situation. So, the two of them created extensive lore. More than likely just to get a reaction out of me. The snow prints of other climbers were Yeti tracks. Cave creatures lived deep inside the crevasses. I did my best to convince them none of this scared me back in the day, but I wasn’t very persuasive.
Shasta was our big adventure to top off high school. We all went our separate ways after that. I went to Stanford, Jesse to University of Oregon, and Derry hit the road. We never made it to the summit on that final adventure. At the time, we thought there would be a next one.
On the second call, I discovered that Derry had been spending a lot of time on the phone with Jesse’s mom, handling funeral arrangements. I was amazed he still talked with her. The funeral was planned for next Saturday. Derry begged me to fly back to Eugene for the service. I went back and forth on whether or not to go. I was very busy with work. There was so much to do, and I dreaded being pulled back to my hometown.
I wasn’t used to Derry needing me like this. Despite my reservations, I acquiesced to Derry’s request. The night before my 6:00 A.M. flight, I had a hard time getting to sleep. Finally, I slipped into a fitful nightmare. I was back on Shasta. Derry, Jesse, and I found ourselves halfway up the mountain as blood started oozing out of its snowy pores, trickling slowly. Neither Derry nor Jesse seemed perturbed by this.
I desperately needed to get off, but they kept assuring me it was fine. I just needed to lighten up. Dream Me went into his tent and stubbornly shut himself away from the others. Their voices died down, and all I could hear was the wind howling outside.
An outline of a figure approached my tent. It stood there for longer than I thought possible. Finally, it crouched down and slowly unzipped the flap. It had heavy black boots and muscular legs. They were gray and covered in decomposing flesh. As dread filled my body, its knees started to creak. Each inch sounded like bones snapping. A scaly hand pulled the cover to one side. Then, a decrepit face with an ear-to-ear grin forced its way inside. It was a face that I hadn’t seen for many years, but I recognized it straight away.
Jesse smiled in the darkness as I silently screamed in horror.
Back in Eugene, Derry insisted that we share a hotel room to save money. He was already there when I got in, lying on his queen bed, leafing through a Gabriel Marcia Marquez book. I glanced at his shoes still on his feet and frowned. Ignoring this, Derry sprung up from his bed, placing me in a mighty bear hug. I squirmed uncomfortably and patted him on the back.
Derry seemed genuinely excited despite everything. I reminded him that I was flying out the next morning before glancing at my watch and informing him that we should get going. There was a long line out front of the chapel. Derry’s face turned pale as we inched our way forward. There were too many people in front of us to make out the casket right away.
Finally, we saw Jesse. I had only seen a few dead bodies before in my life. All the others were elderly and tired looking. Jesse looked as if he was still a boy, with a ruffled tuft of black, bushy hair upon his peaceful face. I realized that I had frozen still and was holding up the line. Derry also wasn’t moving. His left hand jutted out and grabbed mine, holding it tight. Normally, I would have wrested my hand away from him, but he looked terrified. “Please stay with me,” he mouthed. I swallowed and led us to the casket.
Derry hugged several old classmates as we stood next to Jesse. I vaguely recognized some of them, but Derry had specific and thoughtful words to share with each. Jesse’s mother held Derry in her arms for a whole minute when she approached us. Derry promised to visit her often.
“I’m so sorry for your loss,” was all I managed to get out.
I couldn’t bring myself to say I would visit. I couldn’t imagine speaking with Jesse’s mom even prior to this tragedy. Holding this loss between us felt like an impossible feat. I desperately wanted to get back home to L.A. To get away from all of this. Derry and I finally left the suffocating chapel. Outside, late spring danced playfully around us. Derry looked up at the bright, blue sky and smiled.
Finally, he gave an enthusiastic sigh and slapped me on the back. “Let’s go get drunk!”
“Perhaps one,” I reasoned. But somehow, I found myself smiling for the first time all day.
Without my consultation, Derry ordered a shot and a beer combo for each of us. He vaguely reasoned that it was economical to do so. By the third round, I was ready to object, but my head was swimming. Plus, Derry was very busy explaining who was married, who had children, who had shitty partners, and who was cheating on who. I really didn’t care about any of this, but there was enough booze in my system to ask follow-up questions and nod along convincingly. Plus, the more gossip we covered, the less likelihood of covering the elephant in the room. The thing is, Derry lived for the elephant in the room. I knew there was no avoiding it. After a long-winded story about Wendy Permoth’s shoplifting addiction, he focused his gaze on me somberly.
“Can I tell you something I’ve never told anyone?” he whispered. Derry didn’t need my permission, but I still nodded. He looked down meekly, as if it pained him to share what he needed to share.
“It feels like everything changed when we came down from that mountain. I’ve told myself this fairy tale for years. I’ve told myself that if we had made it to the top... if we had summited. You, me, and Jesse... we would still be friends.”
Derry’s admission was pure. I didn’t have enough time to put up my defenses. My heart started thumping in my chest. Something was all wrong inside me. I couldn’t breathe. I felt scared. So scared that I looked to Derry for help. All of a sudden, whimpers began to escape from inside of me. Tears started streaming down my face. I missed Jesse. Hell, at that moment, I missed Derry. I even missed myself. Derry held me close. He didn’t seem to mind my tears staining his dark blazer. Against all rational thinking, I let go. And it felt good.
After years of begrudging calls with my old friend Derry, after begrudgingly flying to Eugene for Jesse’s funeral, and after begrudgingly ripping the walls of my heart open for just a few minutes, I begrudgingly agreed to climb up Mount Shasta with Derry. The next morning, all these commitments flashed through my brain. I wanted to find a way to wriggle out of this crazy idea, but Derry was glowing. It was all he could talk about.
So, that’s how I found myself at the trailhead of Mount Shasta a decade after my senior year of high school. One member of our trio had passed on, and the other had grown into someone unrecognizable. But the same Derry from way back then was right there in front of me.
PART 2
Pickaxe, rope, crampons, boots, tents, sleeping bags, and layers upon layers of clothing were all crammed into a backpack I could barely hoist onto my shoulders. Derry insisted that we take a route starting from the north which was far less traveled than the typical southern route. He wanted the mountain all to ourselves for a purer experience. Since this type of activity wasn’t really my thing, I just had to take his word for it. Personally, I’d much rather spend my Saturday at brunch or wine tasting like a normal person.
It was hard to believe that all this gear was necessary. The May heat was sweltering at the trailhead. I was already sweating at 7:00 in the morning. But as I looked far off into the distance, the treeline faded into rock and snow all the way up to the top. We’d be spending two chilly nights on the mountain. A lot would change in this snowy world above the clouds.
Before starting the hike, I took one final look at the peak. Jagged rocks violently protruded from the glacial snow. They looked deadly even in the distance. This wasn’t going to be an easy feat, but I had missed my chance to opt out. I looked over to Derry for wisdom.
“This is the one place where Jesse didn’t need to piss in water bottles. God bless him for that,” he remarked somberly.
With that, we started hiking. The first few hours crept along at a relaxed pace. The trees around us were ancient and tall. They protected us from the brutal overhead sun. We didn’t see another soul the entire day. The chirp of birdsong and Derry’s idle musings made the hours flow along pleasantly. Late in the afternoon, the tree line cleared out, and we began hiking on a mixture of dirt and snow. Little by little, I put on more layers of clothing. The air was thinning and my breathing began to labor. The terrain went from solid to sloshy.
Those past few weeks had disrupted so much of my well-being. I had become one of those sad sacks who dwell on high school like it was the apex of their lives. Memories of the three of us kept coming into focus at unexpected times. We all lifeguarded in the summer prior to our junior and senior year. At the time, days crawled along endlessly. A five-hour shift might as well have been an eternity.
There was really one reason, and one reason only, that lifeguarding mattered. We got the opportunity to hang out with female co-workers. Girls in these cases were literally being paid to hang out with us, so our risk of being abandoned or belittled was quite small for a change.
Life during those summers held a highly regarded ritual. We’d wake up at first light for cross-country practice and run our hearts out. By junior year, Jesse, Derry, and I were like agile antelopes far in front of the rest of the pack. We’d take down a few bottles of Gatorade followed by a shower and pancakes back home. After that, we’d typically make our way to the pool for work. On a lucky day, I’d be paired up with someone like Ashley Whitman for an hour on slide duty. This meant we could talk the whole time while kicking preteen pool rats down the Aqua Loop. Nine hours later, we’d be tanned, tired, and a hundred bucks richer.
The three of us would grab some well-deserved ice cream before going to bed and doing it all over again. That was the summer of The Strokes. Julian Casablancas was the coolest human being on the planet. He was pissed off, righteous, rarely sober, and singing the thoughts we all felt but didn’t know how to say.
“Time, like toilet paper, disappears faster near the end,” I muttered philosophically.
“And you don’t know how big of a roll you’ve got until it’s out,” Derry followed up.
We were now traipsing through inches of powdery snow. Derry had assured me that crampons would not be necessary on our first day. They would only slow us down until the route became pure glacier. It was hard for me to imagine going any slower. We couldn’t be covering more than a mile an hour. With the bird chirping long gone, I was once again certain that an afternoon wine tasting would have been preferable.
We arrived at Marine Camp about an hour before sunset. I am told that it got its name because Marines used to climb here for basic training. Derry also said that they stopped this practice decades earlier due to a horrible accident. A dozen or so recruits had died in a cataclysmic blizzard.
“Your ghost stories were a lot more convincing back in the day,” I retorted. But Derry assured me this was one hundred percent true. I told him he was getting worse at lying with age. Derry shrugged and gestured at our empty water bottles. There was a nearby glacial stream. I agreed to go on water duty while Derry set up camp.
I scrambled down a small boulder field leading to the shallow stream just beyond our camp. I crouched down and laid out our bottles. With a sigh, I took off my gloves and allowed the frigid air to numb my extremities. I took this as a sign to work quickly. My hands were shaking by the time I submerged the final bottle into the icy glacier water. I scanned the horizon to distract myself. It was so barren and sterile. Nature here wasn’t the most inviting. All of a sudden, I bolted upright. Someone was watching us.
A human-shaped shadow stood motionlessly just beyond the mountain ridge. I looked at it, and it looked at me. Or at least I thought it was looking at me. I glanced down for a moment to grab our water. Just like that, the figure disappeared. With a shudder, I scrambled back to our campsite. I decided not to voice my paranoia just yet. After all, this was a public space.
By now, I was wearing every piece of clothing in my pack. The sun had disappeared behind the mountain, and it was freezing. Derry and I made our way into the tent and zipped ourselves into insulated sleeping bags. It wasn’t late yet, but I knew I wouldn’t be leaving that spot until the sun came out again. It felt weird to be so close to Derry. If Jesse hadn’t died, the next correspondence between us would have probably been my annual Christmas card. Or more accurately, it would’ve been me asking Derry what his latest address was so I could send him a Christmas card.
The day had been hard on my body. It needed to rest. In no time, I drifted off into a dreamless and stale sleep. Derry’s infamous bladder issues caused him to step outside twice to urinate. I’m sure that could not have been comfortable. I silently thanked myself he didn’t have Jesse’s tendency of pissing in water bottles.
The next morning, we woke up to a grisly surprise. A coyote head had been planted on the ground in front of our tent. There was no meat left on the bones; just two hollow sockets and a taunting grin. Its front teeth jutted out like daggers. It smelled all wrong too like it was still decomposing. I lifted my thermal over my nose and looked to Derry for advice. I could see the hairs standing up on the back of his neck.
He shoved the skull off to the side with a nearby branch.
“I’ve seen a lot of shit outside, but this is new for me,” Derry stated cautiously.
My head was spinning. I couldn’t figure out how to gauge this eerie situation. This was why I liked the indoors. “We’re going back down, right?” I asked.
“I can’t. I won’t fail again,” he whispered. “I need this.”
“We need to read the room. This is weird. I don’t like it,” I shot back.
Something hardened in Derry’s eyes. He swallowed and faced me directly. “If you’re looking for an excuse to run back to your fancy L.A. bachelor pad, just have the decency to say it. Let’s not pretend that the circle of life is a valid reason to give up. Especially considering why we’re up here.”
I felt livid. Derry couldn’t succeed by playing by the rules. He was never the one to get into the best school or have the discipline to buy a property or stay in on the weekends and save up. So, he had to come up with new reasons why he was better than everyone else. I could feel his judgment percolating. He’d be lucky if he even got the Christmas card this year.
I decided not to say another word as we packed up our gear in preparation for a more technical day across the glacier portion of the mountain. We had about four-thousand feet of climbing to get to the base camp. We would then push to the summit the next morning at dawn. The tension between us was like a highly strung tightrope. The only words we spoke to one another were practical instructions for the day ahead. Any sour remark was bound to take our fight postal. Both of us were too upset to notice that the boot prints all around the site weren’t even ours.
The past ten years have aged me. I could still manage slow progress, but just barely. The last time we were here, each step was a breeze. We had so much extra energy that we would continue playing physical games like wrestling or handstand contests at our camp. Now, I could feel the grueling labor of every step. My muscles were very sore, but I didn’t want to give Derry the satisfaction of asking him to slow down.
After several long hours, we came to a crevasse jutting far across on both sides of us. The depths were sickeningly deep, and there was no way around it. I realized this was far worse than exposure on a cliff. If you fell in, you probably would not die right away. But you’d be shut off from the rest of the world for good while the freezing cold and solitude took the last bits of life from you.
Derry gestured to a metal ladder that had been laid across the narrowest portion of the crevasse. A guided group from earlier must have set this out for the season. Derry was taking the rope from his bag and tying it to his harness. I guess with Jesse gone, he had learned all that Boy Scout stuff.
A few minutes later, we were roped to one another with our packs secure and our pickaxe in hand. Each one of us would walk across the ladder while the other braced himself on solid ground in case of a fall. Derry had learned a pulley maneuver he promised to employ if he needed to rescue me. I can’t say what his plan was if someone needed to rescue him.
As if he could hear my thoughts, Derry confidently strolled across the ladder. In an instant he was on the other side, smiling encouragingly at me. I took my first step. My jagged crampons locked into the slats of the metal steps. There were maybe six steps between me and safety. I took a deep breath and made my second step. I was now entirely over the crevasse. It was difficult to balance with my off-center backpack.
My third and fourth steps took place in rapid succession. I hadn’t meant for this to be the case, but my back foot started to slip, and I instinctively moved it forward. I couldn’t help but notice Derry drawing his breath in sharply. How much of his confidence was just an act?
I was now closer to Derry than to the start of my crossing. I refused to look directly into the crevasse, but still felt sickened by its presence. I took my fifth step and finally the end felt close. Suddenly, the ladder clanged and shifted slightly. I lost my balance and began to tumble. Instinctively, I lurched my pickaxe forward. It planted firmly into the ice on the other side. Derry started laughing and shaking his head. I had never been more thankful for solid ground.
The rest of the day tested my psyche. The air was too thin for comfort. The ground was steep and slippery. Our packs were heavy, and fear was eating away at my brain. Luckily, we got to base camp several hours before nightfall. This meant several hours to recover under direct sunlight. I remembered making it to this very spot with Jesse and Derry all those years ago. We had arrived in much better condition and were entirely convinced we’d make it to the summit. Now, I craned my neck the final three thousand feet to the top and couldn’t fathom the hazards that lie in store for us.
“Do you remember what happened here last time?” Derry was sitting next to me on his pack. We had supplies strung about. Since we would be pushing for the summit in a few hours, we could leave a lot of the heavier stuff at the camp.
“The weather looked perfect when we went to sleep,” I remarked. “I never guessed that we would wake up to a blizzard.”
“We would have never turned around without you,” he said. “Thank God we did.”
“I always thought you resented me for making us go down,” I confessed.
“I was mad for about twenty-four hours. But you were our token responsible friend.” Neither of us said anything after that as we relished the golden hour in all its glory. All of a sudden, my heart leapt into my throat. We were being followed. Far beneath us on the mountain, a solitary figure bounded towards us across the ice. It was moving fast.
PART 3
I couldn’t make out much, but its aura was threatening. To make things worse, the sun was rapidly setting. If the figure had turned on a headlamp, I would have been more convinced it was just a fellow climber. But it looked otherworldly in the distance. Unlike Derry, I didn’t spend my weekends on dangerous mountains, so I had no gauge as to what level of threat this was, but there was genuine fear in Derry’s eyes. It took him a few moments to collect himself and revert to calm, collected Derry.
“Not everyone on this mountain drops a grand at REI for gear. Just because someone looks like the ghost of John Muir doesn’t mean they’re a threat,” Derry rationalized. “Besides, it’s going to be dark soon. The most dangerous thing we could do right now is go wandering through an ice field in the middle of the night... even if that is the ghost of John Muir.”
I squinted down the mountain using the last rays of sunlight. I could still just barely make out the figure. I felt deeply unsafe. This feeling transitioned into resentment. I couldn’t believe how much effort I had invested into rekindling our friendship over the past few weeks. It was like trying to make a fire with waterlogged wood. Even the tiniest spark took so much effort and was gone in an instant. We were a square hole and a round peg. I had childishly deluded myself for old times’ sake, but the past is the past. Derry and I didn’t have a purpose for sustaining our friendship any longer.
“Screw you, Derry,” I said.
Derry sighed. “Screw this. And screw you too, Sam. This isn’t even about the summit. You don’t get how difficult it is trying to stay friends with you. It’s always been that way, but I’ve never been able to give it up. When we were kids, I used to always say that you were the Yin to my Yang. We complemented each other. But that was never true. All you are is a selfish leech.”
I was by now practically blinded by rage. “I’ve built a good life. Most people are proud of me for that. Some are indifferent. But you’re the only one who looks at the life I’ve built... at me, with disgust.”
“And you’re the only one who looks at me with pity,” he shot back.
It was now fully dark. If things had gone differently, we’d be leaving for the summit in several hours. But something had snapped between us. And we still weren’t safe.
“Derry–you’re right. Climbing down in the dark is too dangerous,” I admitted, thinking back to the crevasse from earlier. “But I’m not taking another step towards the summit. At first light, I’m out of here!”
Despite everything, Derry bitterly agreed to go down with me. He stated outright that it was because he didn’t think I was capable of climbing back in one piece. It was going to be a long eight hours sharing a tent with someone so alien. Despite the exhaustion, I doubted that I would sleep a wink. But this whole ordeal felt like a long overdue divorce. We had deluded ourselves into a false friendship for years. It was better to have a clean break. In a few hours, we’d be done with it for good.
I guess despite it all, I did go to sleep. I know this because I woke up in the middle of the night to Derry taking his ridiculous bathroom breaks outside the tent. He hadn’t had the decency to close the flap this time. The icy air was unbearable. I had enough. “Do you think you could close the flap while you’re pissing?” I shouted. There was no answer from him. I sighed and rolled over to my side. Shit. Derry was asleep right next to me.
Someone else was standing directly outside of our tent. I couldn’t bring myself to wake Derry. I stared at the entrance, doing my best to make out its features in the dark. The figure’s skin was horribly frostbitten and ashy. It had raspy breathing. A bony hand pulled back the flap and I recoiled in horror.
It didn’t look human. Long strands of thinning hair hung from its fleshy scalp. What clothes it had were in tatters. Its mouth contained a few blackened teeth on top of bloody, infected gums. In its left hand was a pickaxe... my pickaxe. But worst of all were its eyes. Deep within the caverns of its sockets were two deadened, ravenous globes.
By now, Derry had awakened. Both of us stared at the figure, mouths agape. It gave a throaty grunt and gestured. It wanted us to leave the tent. I looked at Derry, and he gave the faintest of head shakes. We stayed put; not that it made us any safer. The figure grunted again more loudly. Again, we stayed put.
An instant later, the figure began swinging the ax erratically. I heard a scream. The ax had been buried into Derry’s shoulder which began oozing blood. Despite its ragged state, the creature was inhumanly strong. It yanked the ax, taking Derry and his sleeping bag with it. Derry howled in pain.
I leapt out of the tent and followed them. Somehow, in those few seconds, both Derry and the creature had covered twenty yards into the night. It was now crouched down on top of Derry. I took several steps forward to better make out what was happening. Derry didn’t appear to be conscious. The creature was greedily licking his shoulder wound. Its audible pleasure sickened me.
It was not easy to walk on the icy snow in my thermal stocks. I did my best to keep my balance as I marched purposefully towards the creature. It seemed preoccupied with Derry as if I didn’t pose a threat. I mustered up all my courage to shout at it to get away from him. The creature looked up and gave a blood-soaked smile. It picked up a nearby rock and flung it at my face. Direct hit. My last memory before losing consciousness was my teeth rattling in my skull from the impact.
Derry and I had been wrapped together in the same sleeping bag. It was still pitch dark and we were being dragged somewhere by the creature. I had no idea how long I had been out. My head was throbbing, and I could barely see straight. Derry did not seem to be doing too hot.
“It’s going to eat us,” I whimpered. This all felt like a cruel dream. Neither of us were in any state to fight back. The creature jerked its head back and growled. It did not seem to want its food conversing. I shivered helplessly. Meanwhile, Derry seemed to be making a calculation. Finally, he looked straight at me and mouthed something.
Crevasse.
I could barely see two feet in front of me, but dawn was fast approaching. I trusted Derry. If there was any chance of making it out alive, it was here. The creature stopped dragging us forward. It was thinking how to get past the crevasse. Amidst all this confusion, Derry squirmed out of the sleeping bag and began crawling silently towards it. My heart slowly sank. Even uninjured he didn’t stand a chance against this thing.
Derry had gone about five yards forward before it noticed. It snarled and clambered towards him. The two began wrestling on the knife’s edge of the crevasses. Within seconds, it grabbed Derry’s hand and forced it into its mouth. The creature bit down and Derry shrieked.
It hovered above Derry, pleasurably chewing his severed finger. I stared in shock. We were no match. There wasn’t a chance of overpowering this thing. It would have its way with us and leave us stripped to our bones just like that unlucky coyote.
With glee in its eyes, the creature finished its appetizer. It scanned its entree for something more substantial to feast on next. I thought about how much pain must lie in our very short future. I didn’t know it was possible to feel this much fear. Amidst all of this, something else had quietly approached us. My heart sank. There was more than one of them.
But this mystery figure was paying no attention to us. It crept stealthily towards the bloody creature. All of a sudden, it lunged. The two intertwined in a brief struggle before toppling over the crevasse and disappearing. I paused in shock, not knowing how to make sense of what had just happened. Our world went silent.
I sat up, breathless and disoriented. I crawled towards Derry and held him close. He was still conscious, and I caught a faint smile. He was in far worse condition than I was. As the glow of sunrise approached, I could make out his injuries better. Sure enough, there was a puncture wound in his left shoulder. He was gushing blood from the spot where his finger used to be. I peeked over the crevasse and shuddered.
Derry looked pale and frightened. He had lost a lot of blood, and his lips were discolored. I had no idea how far we had been dragged from our camp. I removed a sock and used it as a miserable tourniquet. I put Derry’s head in my lap and stroked his hair, assuring him that it was going to be alright. Something told me if I left him, he might drift off to sleep for good. As we sat on that mountain, feeling as if the end may be upon us, Derry looked up to me with a twinkle in his eyes. “I’m glad you’re here with me Sam,” he muttered.
I was able to slow Derry’s bleeding. I wrapped him tightly in the sleeping bag for warmth and told him I had to find our SOS device back at camp. I told him whatever he did, do not go to sleep. I would be right back. It took me probably an hour of searching. The camp was nearby, but I could hardly see through the blustering snow. I brought the SOS device and some basic supplies back to Derry. I didn’t want to move him in this state. When I returned to him, he was unconscious. I got into the sleeping bag with him. I held him as tightly as I could for another seven hours. By the time a rescue team arrived in their helicopter, I had stopped listening for a heartbeat.
AFTERWORD
Five days later, Derry woke up in a hospital bed. He wasted no time pointing out that a ring finger was probably the least unfortunate extremity for him to lose. I laughed so hard I nearly cried. For the next few days, Derry was held at the hospital. He did a lot of sleeping, which was his body’s best way of recovering. We had so many unanswered questions.
A strange man with a suit and aviator sunglasses came to visit on the seventh day. He vaguely appeared to work for the government but gave little introduction. The agent asked to take a seat. After an uncomfortable moment of silence, he started to talk to us about what had happened. He had a deep voice, a voice perfect for radio. On his right ear was a Bluetooth speaker.
Twenty years ago, a group of marines had gone up the mountain in a blizzard. They were there for a training exercise just like Derry had said. Everyone perished in the storm. The finer details had been kept out of the news cycle. I suppose someone wanted to avoid any news that would threaten the public’s goodwill during a tumultuous war. As the agent went on, his voice began to hush like a high schooler regaling locker room gossip.
“Now get this... the deceased all had gruesome, barbaric injuries. It was not at all what you’d expect from a mountaineering accident. We’re talking missing limbs and organs strewn about for miles. The rescue team made sure to gather every part they could. They were able to recover everybody... except for one.
I shivered as our assault flashed through my mind. “That thing wasn’t human,” I replied.
“Sure, but it once was,” stated the agent.
We wanted to ask so many more questions, but the agent glanced at his watch. It was time to leave. As far as he was concerned, we had all the information we needed, but my brain was spinning. As if reading my mind, the agent spun around and smiled patronizingly at us. “Look fellas... I did you a real solid by walking you through the details here. I wanted to save you the years of therapy. But... my department doesn’t like the word extortion, so let’s try incentive instead. There are a lot of incentives for you two to keep this spooky ghost story to yourselves. In fact, we’ve decided to deposit a generous gift into each of your bank accounts. The bedridden one gets a bonus on account of the missing finger.”
Derry glanced at me and raised his eyebrow. The agent continued. “But, if you need any more incentive to keep this on the DL, know that our agents will dig up every bad thing we can about you and unleash it upon the news cycle if you draft up any wild stories. You’ll be walking pariahs. Bona fide crazies.”
The agent was actually leaving now. Before I could get a coherent thought out, Derry shouted, “What about that other thing up there?”
The agent laughed quietly. “There wasn’t any other thing,” he retorted. If I had to wager, I’d say maybe you two smoked a little too much of that reefer we found at the campsite.” He winked and disappeared.
We were left alone in the hospital room. Derry seemed to be working up the courage to say something. For once, there appeared to be an elephant in the room too big even for him to acknowledge. I mercifully beat him to the chase. “There was somebody else up there. Somebody friendly.”
Derry nodded solemnly. “A guardian angel.”
I thoughtfully turned around and stared out the window. It was a beautiful, sunny day and children were running about on a nearby playground. Two young women in scrubs sat on a bench talking with one another. Birds were chirping. The world was alive... we were alive. For just a moment, I thought I made out another figure sitting on a bench. Perhaps it was just my imagination, but it... or he... had a messy mop of black hair on his head.
I looked back at Derry who was sobbing. He didn’t need to say anything, I knew that he missed Jesse. I missed Jesse too. There was a lot to miss in that moment. Something finally clicked. I looked warmly at the man who had gone in such different directions than I had over the years. No one will ever understand you quite like your childhood best friend. I loved Derry. And love requires work sometimes.
“Derry... if you’re feeling up to it, do you think you’d wanna give Shasta another shot next year?”