The Lonely Dead by Michael Marshall Read Free Book Online Page B

that. He was scared, pissed at himself, pissed at life, and most of all, he was monumentally pissed at the old fool in Henry's. If you were trying to scare people, and bears were likely, surely you mentioned them? What kind of rancid old scaremonger didn't tell about the bears? Impenetrable woods are one thing. The same woods plus huge carnivores famous for intractability are something else entirely. You owe it to your audience, especially the suicidal ones, to bring up the fucking bears.
    As he lurched out from behind the tree Tom realized something. The idea of going back and slapping the old codger was the first he'd been excited by in a long while.
    —«»—«»—«»—
    The snow wasn't thick, but it was easy to retrace his progress down the hill. At the bottom he was confronted with tangled and frosty bushes. He turned, favouring his swollen ankle, and looked up the rise. He dimly remembered swerving right to bank up it. So he now needed to turn left. This would take him through the thickest section of the undergrowth. No thanks. Instead he took a detour up around higher ground, stepping over rocks and clambering unsteadily over nursery logs, until he could rejoin the right direction.
    He didn't have any clear idea of how far he'd run. In the cold, beautiful light of A Good Day To Die + 1, he wasn't even sure why he was going back. Walking was warmer than standing, and if he was going to walk, it felt better to have a destination: a real one for the moment, not the dark, vague place he'd been stumbling towards the day before. That place was still out there, and there was probably enough left in his backpack to bring it closer still. He was no longer sure what he felt about the prospect, but finding the pack was something to do.
    He walked for twenty minutes. The cold helped meld his myriad aches into one giant super-pain, a humanoid discomfort trudging between the trees. He spent some of the time muttering to himself about how cold it was, which was pointless but oddly comforting. He stopped frequently, turning his head in hope of recognizing something and to reassure himself that his environment remained BEAR-free. He'd just about given up when he heard something that sounded like running water.
    He abandoned the path of least resistance and pushed his way through the undergrowth, very carefully. One more fall and he would not be walking anywhere any more.
    On the other side of the bushes was a clearer area, and then a gully. The gully, he hoped, though it didn't look at all as he remembered it. He'd only been there in darkness, of course, and had no time to observe its appearance before finding himself at the bottom. His glimpses with the flashlight had shown it to be fairly wide, however, and about fifteen feet deep at the point where he'd holed up. What was in front of him could only be about twelve feet across, but was a lot deeper. The sides were extremely steep — far too steep and rocky for him to consider climbing down.
    He must have overshot his position of the night before.
    He glanced right, the direction he'd have to go. Tough-looking trees and bushes grew right up to the side of the drop. He could go back around the long way, but it was a long way. Hence the name. Left looked more clear, but was going in the wrong direction. And it was steep.
    Christ, he thought, wearily. His stomach was full of razor blades. His head felt like an avalanche of glass. Did he even need the bag? Maybe it was the smell of alcohol which attracted the bear. Maybe it was still there, waiting. And drunk. He stood irresolute.
    Get the fucking bag, he thought. What else are you going to do?
    He trudged up along the edge of the gully. It began to narrow, but not enough that jumping it was a possibility. Then he hit a bank of trees and had to dodge left for a little while before skirting back around to the gully.
    He stopped. A tree lay across the gap. It had fallen there from the other side, chance bringing it down neatly so there