He began to sweat almost immediately when they picked up the pace. Within a hundred yards his legs began to burn. He could hear his nervous breath rattling and catching in his throat. He had to turn and see what was on their ass, what was freaking Jay out. He stopped and looked back down toward the river. All he saw was Jay’s snarling face as the crazy man shoved him up hill so hard he fell, and then dragged him up the thick-grassed snow-covered incline until Eddie managed to scramble to his feet and start pumping his legs again.

As if the man had heard his thoughts he gave Eddie a gentle shove and trotted back down the hill.

He could not keep from checking the time on his watch as he trudged on and the incline steepened. It was now 5:15 p.m. and Jacques could not walk anymore. Terrence was hauling him over his shoulder, and the big man was getting winded, legs slowing. Regardless of his own apparent pain and fatigue he turned at regular intervals, about every fifty steps or so and waved Eddie on with an encouraging smile.

What is following us?

He had to turn for a look; could not stand the thought of something unseen just running up on him. He risked Jay’s wrath and turned his head without actually stopping. That turned out to be a huge mistake as something clicked in his neck and a paralyzing pain shot across his upper back and into his head.

He walked backward up the hill as he looked back down, determined to get his view and not be caught stopping. A vast hillside swept down toward the river before him. The incline had not been so visibly noticeable from below. It was obvious looking back.

The stream narrowed to a thin line in the distance where it met the river. There, at the confluence, Jay could be seen, like some tiny figurine waiting on the riverbank. The vast valley stretched out westward before the tiny sentinel, a mass of green-flecked white that stretched to a horizon that seemed unbelievably distant and white. Crowning all of this desolation was a rolling bank of gray clouds heavy with snow.

Eddie strained his eyes to see what the man down by the river might see. Off in the distance, miles beyond the river, he thought he saw some small dots bobbing, more dots then he could count.

A wet feeling chill played down his spine and reminded him to turn around and head uphill, and it was really turning into a hill.

What is coming, and what is that crack-head doing waiting for it? Damn my neck is killing me!

His heart felt lighter when Terrence turned to encourage him again, pointing to what appeared to be the only tree in the world.

His legs swelled with new life and he was actually encouraged to feel his heart pounding in his chest as he picked up the pace to close with his big team member and the disabled team-member he hauled like a sergeant in a war movie getting the wounded to safety.

It was 5:45 p.m. when they came to the huge twisted tree. The ancient plant had sprouted from this wintery landscape just where the gradual incline became less gradual. His legs were really feeling the strain and he could not wait to use his arms to pull himself up into that tree.

Terrence stopped fifty paces from the tree and pointed to something that appeared to be in it, where one of the larger branches shot off of the trunk about twenty feet up. It was a leopard with open mouth and blazing eyes looking down at them. Terrence looked over at him as he sat Jacques down on his feet and the man hugged him to stay upright. The big man from D.C. tried to console him. “It’s not like we could have climbed it anyway. Drop your pack at the base Eddie. Shit’s critical and Jay ain’t here ta call it. Drop it and stay tight with me.”

Terrence then switched his sword into his right hand and hoisted Jacques over his other shoulder as snow began rolling down the face of what was turning out to be the sneakiest mountain in the world. They had travelled miles up the incline before the rise even became perceptible. The snow on the ground was beginning to even out into a six-inch powder with some bare spots and foot-deep drifts. He took Terrence’s advice and dropped his pack against the western trunk as the big cat up above rumbled and coughed a warning. All he hauled now was his medical harness: first aid kit; medication pouch; surgical kit. Terrence was keeping his eye on the beast as Eddie laid down his burden. “I gotchyou covered Brutha. Let’s step.”

They were off into the teeth of the gathering snow with one final look behind them. Terrence whispered, “Nothing.”

Before Eddie could reply they heard a faint laughing sound that seemed to him like the snickering of a ghost.

They were off, as fast as they could manage…which was no longer fast at all.

Terrence was really beginning to suck in air. For his part, Eddie could not really feel his legs any longer. But breathing in the icy air was beginning to hurt his chest, and the sweat was pouring off of him, had long since overloaded the moister-wicking underwear. He was doing better than Terrence though. He kept close to the big man, who was hauling a massive load when one factored his and Jacque’s body weight together. Eddie reached out with his left hand and placed his palm upon the big man’s back and leaned into it, trying as best he could to help the man make it up the steepening incline.

“Thanks Brutha. Don’t gas yoself out doe. Save whad ya can. Look up ahead of us yo. Dare’s an embankment, snow pushed up una. Maybe a cave, who know’s. Ahead to da left, ‘bout a half mile. Push it, push it.”

He fought back the now irrational impulse to check the time. But time seemed to be moving very slowly. The last half mile seemed like it would never end.

His lungs were burning when they finally came to a stop. Was dusk suddenly upon them or had the snow and cloud-cover stolen their last bit of daylight? Jacques was standing on unsteady legs next to Terrence, who was now nearly as bad off. Terrence wanted to say something, thought about it, and then gave up on the attempt.

A loud screeching hoot, accompanied by bizarre nightmarish laughter, sounded downhill from about where the tree would be. Another hoot followed by frenzied laughter followed. The laughs then developed a rhythm, as if a pack of dogs were all cackling meth-heads instead of barking animals, and chasing something. Terrence and Eddie looked at each other searchingly. Eddie spoke for them both. “There is a lot of something chasing Jay-Bone’s fast ass up this hill. Shit’s commin’ quick.”

Terrence swallowed hard and put both hands on the stripped-down samurai sword Jay had tossed him. Below another loud hoot cut the air, turning into a frenzied laughing whimper. The laughter now propagated across the broad snow-obscured sloop as shadowy forms could be seen a few hundred yards down slope darting around; thick bodies and big-heads with asses low to the ground. Then something came to him from the reading Sensei had him do on ice age animals.

“Oh snap Terrence, dey hyenas. In Africa dey still jack up lions!”

The furious wining laughter below intensified as Jay came into view. The man was running. He then stopped and let loose an arrow at something invisible, something that hooted in pain as a mob of shadowy misshapen dog-like forms darted around him. Terrence sucked in another big breath and then Jacques threw up his arms like it was his birthday and jogged downhill into the swirling snow. “Jay, I’m here Jay, ready to egress.”

The man then witlessly ploughed through the snowfall toward the ever-larger darting bodies below.

“Dude, no!”

Terrence was too beat to go after him.

Another hoot of pain could be heard below as a rumbling laughter converged on Jacques when he neared Jay. The men were lost in the swirling snow and mass of odd-proportioned galloping animals. There were now too many hyenas to count. Jacques screamed in terror and they heard the shing of steel as Jay silently tried to keep the circling animals at bay with a sword and knife.

“Dude, this is real bad. I’d already be under them things if not for you Brother. Thanks for lookin’ out.”

He heard a scraping sound and low growl above them and turned to look above the rocky embankment against which a deep sloping snow drift had been blown. A pair of large wolves, bigger than any dogs he had ever seen, were standing above them, quietly salivating and licking their lips as the beastly scene unfolded before them.

Jacques was caught by the knee by one massive jaw while another clamped onto his wrist and a third mounted his back and began to bite into his skull. Jay, fighting his way through a swarm of four beasts, sprayed blood from one’s leg with a slash of the sword and then leaped over another, decapitating the hyena that had a hold of Jacques wrist. Poor Jacques was now a standing dead man with a heavy head still attached to his arm while the other two animals bore him down and he screamed horrifically. One of the beasts then got a hold of Jay’s knife-hand and the man snarled like an angry dog as he ran a larger hyena through with his sword and began to stager sideways.