“No, really,” Calliope went on. “Don’t say anything. Everything he said, about you… about Adam and about me… it’s all true, and you know it. If there’s a demon inside us, we invited it in. Don’t you see that? The thing up in the cave might have been evil, but the awful parts of us are what fed it and made it grow.”
The camera fell from her hand, thumping into the snow. Tears filled her eyes as she staggered backward, off the trail.
“Don’t be stupid, girl,” Hakan said.
Calliope only glanced at him, not bothering to wipe her eyes. She picked up her pace, cutting her own path away from the trail. Hakan started after her, angrier than ever. Adam expected her to stop, to cry and catch her breath and then rejoin them, but it wasn’t until Calliope started to run and fell, sliding down the mountain slope, bumping over rocks under the soft layer of white, that he realized she really meant to abandon them.
“Damn it, Calliope!” he shouted, striding off the trail.
Meryam grabbed his arm, her grip too weak to hold him but enough to get his attention. He turned to her, torn and panicked. Without a guide, off on her own, Calliope would die. Even if she made it to the base of the mountain, the odds of her being anywhere she could find refuge without freezing or starving to death were pitiful.
“I have to—” he began.
“No. You don’t.”
Heart pounding, he stared at Meryam, then turned to watch Hakan skidding and clambering after her. The wind kicked up again and for several seconds the storm swallowed Calliope entirely. They could still see Hakan, but she was gone.
“Calliope, come on!” Adam shouted. “You can’t do this on your own!”
Hakan paused on the mountain, turned to point back up toward them.
“Stay on the trail. Camp Two is just below!” Hakan shouted. “Rest there no more than ten minutes, then carry on. I will bring her back.”
“Let her go, Hakan!” Mr. Avci shouted. “We must have a guide!”
But Hakan had gone. Adam could see him slipping, knees bent, maneuvering down the slope. He watched until, like Calliope, Hakan had vanished in the swirl of white.
“I hate him,” Meryam said, standing beside Adam.
“He hates you, too.”
They stood another few seconds, staring into the frozen landscape, where the rush of wind and snow seemed to stretch out forever.
Then Meryam took his hand and they marched down into Camp Two.
Seven of them remained, and only Adam, Meryam, and Olivieri had any history climbing this mountain, all with more courage than skill.
TWENTY
They gathered behind a ridge of black rock that half encircled Camp Two, eating protein bars and drinking water. Walker wanted coffee, but none of them dared to take the time to make it, him least of all. They spoke little, still smothered in the paranoia that had been with them all day. They eyed one another, took a drink or a nibble, and then they packed up again. At first they had all been glancing the way Hakan and Calliope had gone, expecting them to return at any moment, but after the first ten minutes, there had been few glances in that direction. They had left enough people behind on the mountain that they were getting used to it.
Walker ejected the magazine from his weapon, checked it over, and then slammed it back into place. He wouldn’t take any more chances.
“Let’s move,” he said, standing up.
Kim and Father Cornelius rose immediately. The others all glanced at Adam and Meryam, still thinking they were in charge. But Adam had to help Meryam to her feet, and the way he held onto her arm, assisting her, Walker wasn’t confident she would make it to Camp One, never mind off the mountain. Part of him wanted to abandon them all, to just get himself home to Charlie. He would be a better father now, he promised any god who might be listening. He would be kinder to Amanda, a friend to her in the aftermath of his failures as a husband. If he left Meryam behind—and the priest, damn it, because Father Cornelius was so old and so fucking slow—he could be a better man.
But that made zero sense. How could he be a better man back in the world he’d known if he abandoned these people now? He couldn’t be a father any son would look up to if he left them to die.
And you’d probably get lost and die without at least someone who’s climbed Ararat before. Walker trudged down the snow-covered trail, claws of his crampons keeping his footing firm. He peered through the snow, watching Adam and Meryam moving slowly up ahead, and tried to tell himself that wasn’t it—that he would have stuck with them even if he had climbed this mountain a thousand times.
It’s not just that you need them, he thought.
And he tried to believe it.
He watched them carefully, now. For the first twenty minutes out of Camp Two, he kept his gun in his hand, but after awhile he had to holster it so that he could stretch his fingers and clap his hands together to get the blood flowing. The temperature ought to have risen at least a little as they dropped elevation, but if it had, Walker noticed no difference. If anything, the wind seemed to bring even colder air, frigid and biting, and there were spots on his mouth and around his eyes that had gone numb, places his balaclava didn’t cover. He tried not to think about it.
Just as he tried not to think about the one thing on all of their minds with every step. Walker’s back prickled with his certainty that he was observed, that evil descended the mountain with them, burrowed inside their hearts or minds. If he let himself think about it, he found he couldn’t breathe. Fear trapped him between the desire to just stop and curl into a ball, huddling in fear, and the atavistic urge to simply run, screaming.
The demon was here among them, and Walker could practically feel it relishing their dread. Each of the survivors knew it was only a matter of time. He watched Adam and Meryam up ahead, wondering. On edge, afraid, but also ready.
“Slow down, Walker!”
Startled from his reverie, he realized he’d nearly caught up with Adam and Meryam. Snow had gathered on his goggles, as if for several minutes he had been sleepwalking. A hot jolt of dread ran through him. Sleepwalking, or not in control of himself?
He stopped and turned. Reached up and wiped the snow off his goggles, letting his hand come to rest on the lump beneath his thick layers of clothing, the hunk of bitumen rock on the twine around his neck. Anger flashed through him. They had relied on Olivieri. Even Father Cornelius had bought into the scholar’s logic, but obviously it had been no better than a guess. A guess we all wanted to believe.
The curtain of snow parted and Kim emerged, Father Cornelius holding her arm to steady himself. A gust of wind embraced them, a squall of white that obscured them again, as if the storm were reluctant to reunite them. Then Kim was there, her eyes narrowed with frustration at being left alone with the priest.
“Sorry,” he said. “Just got into the rhythm of it.”
“Do not leave us behind,” Kim replied with such emphasis it was nearly an accusation.
Walker stood aside and let them pass. “I won’t. I swear.”
Father Cornelius had been watching his own feet with determination, as if unsure of his steps. Perhaps he couldn’t feel his feet touching the ground. Walker swore silently. That would be very bad.
“I need to talk to you about the charms,” Father Cornelius said.
Walker thought he heard a cry behind him. His pulse quickened and he turned, holding up a hand to block the wind as he tried to peer through the storm. The other three members of the group had fallen back farther and were nothing but silhouettes in the storm. He cursed himself for not noticing, for getting so caught up in his own fear that he’d forgotten the people depending on him.