Sometimes,right before you are about to
die, mysteries are revealed to you.I am
standing on the crest of a wide snow
covered meadow at the foot of Mt.Dead
in the Russian wilderness.
The pure white snowy field is littered
with the crumpled corpses of twenty of
my fellow scientists and military
officials.We were here to maybe solve
the mystery of what really happened to
those nine Russian hikers back in 1959.
Instead, it happened to us.
I was the last one to answer the
emergency beacon. I was inspecting
some medical equipment that was
issued to me as the chief medical officer
on this mission. The Russian
government gave an international
camera crew access to the area of
that 1959 incident where nine
experienced young hikers were
killed under still unexplained
circumstances.
When the “all hands”alarm sounded
I meticulously put all my equipment
away, jumped on my assigned
snowmobile and raced through the
forest trail towards the campsite.
I am a surgeon and have witnessed
many shocking things but none as
explosive as the one I received when
I jettisoned from the forest onto the
meadow right at Mt.Deads’ base.
I was frozen.Not from the below
zero Russian temperature but of
what I now saw before me.
Eighteen men and women were
sprawled out grotesquely mangled
in the deep snow. I freeze. I am
afraid to move. I see no threat.
There are no footprints in the snow
other than my dead colleagues. I also
note that there could not have been
an avalanche because none of the bodies
were completely covered.
The wind started howling. Slightly
breezy at first but suddenly the wind
blowing down from the mountain
itself became much stronger. It was
silent though. I realized quickly that
two of the most widely theorized
causes for the 1959 calamity were
not what was going on now.
The wind was now turning into a
maelstrom.There were suddenly
snowflakes the size of apples flying,
swarming around me. It was not
snowing. It seems the quietly, howling
wind was lifting the ground-snow into the air all across the meadow.
My vision was almost zero. I realized
now at this critical moment that I
forgot my goggles.Of course that
would be a bad idea if I wasn't facing
immanent death.In the snowstorm that I
now find myself,I lift my hand over
my brow in a vain attempt to see
something. I do.
Standing over each corpse is a figure.
I see large creatures.Everywhere.There
is an emergency button under my
overcoat lapel. I grab hold of it but I
do not activate it.A military response
would bring other young lives in
danger.The Russian government was
right to close off this area.
I want to know what is happening.
I ease off the alarm button and await
my fate.
There is a noise at my feet and
suddenly I am face to the stomach of a
large white creature.When I looked up
onto the creatures’ face I saw something
familiar.But just like that, the thing was
gone.All the other meadow creatures
were gone also.The wind stopped and
the large snowflakes from hell floated
softly to the ground.That’s when I
heard it.Helicoptor rotors. It was the
military response to the first alarm
beacon.I was saved.Saved from what.
How do I explain this?Never go to the
Russian wilderness.Stay away from
Mt.Dead.What just happened here?
The End.GeorgeBMBrown.