Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

When Chris came to, the world was blindingly white.

He lay still for a few moments, blinking groggily up at the ceiling. Ceiling? The last thing he remembered was a great plume of fire, and the heavy smell of smoke, and shouting as a helicopter descended in front of the morning sun . . .

There was a bright light shining down directly above him, and he raised a hand to block it out. But even through squinted eyes, he could see that something was off. A needle was piercing the back of his hand, a piece of tape covering it and keeping it stuck into his skin. An IV, his brain supplied. And that could only mean one thing.

He sat up quickly, head spinning, and looked around to see the familiar scene of a hospital wing. His bed was one of six in the large room, and the one of only two that was occupied. No nurses were to be seen, but he wasn't alone. Grasping at his side table, he was relieved to find his glasses sitting next to a vase of flowers, and shoved them on for the two girls sitting on the bed next to him to come into focus.

Ashley was the first to look up, and her eyes widened. She tugged on Sam's arm with a small smile, and the other girl broke into a full-on grin as she met Chris's eyes.

"Hey there, sleepyhead," Ash teased, fingering the hem of her shirt. Her blood-spattered clothes from the mountain were gone, replaced with a fresh set of plain clothes from the hospital, identical to the ones Sam was wearing. Chris vaguely registered that he had also been changed into a simple white shirt and loose trousers. An uncomfortable shiver ran down his back at the thought of some staff member stripping him down while unconscious, but he didn't dwell on it for very long.

"Where are we?" Chris questioned immediately, one hand flying to his head. He winced as he touched the sensitive part of his forehead, where he had been knocked out cold with a single punch only . . . how long ago? "How long was I out for?"

Sam chuckled. "Careful there, buddy. I heard the doctors say you have a pretty bad concussion, not to mention your leg." She paused, tucking a loose lock of hair behind her ear. "We're in some hospital just outside of Blackwood. You've been lying there for about twenty-three hours. We were all starting to get worried."

"As soon as we got into the helicopter back on the mountain, you sort of passed out," Ashley supplied. "I guess it was all just a bit overwhelming."

You can say that again. Chris sat there for a few moments, trying to process everything. The mountain. Memories came flooding back, hitting him in a constant stream. His friends lying on the kitchen floor, and a gloved fist flying at his head. Josh, getting torn apart by a spinning saw. Underground chambers, suffocating and covered in horrific hooks and bloody walls. The cold kiss of a gun against his neck. The old man's head landing in a pool of blood outside the shed. Running through the snow, heart pounding as he shot again and again at the creature that couldn't be killed. Sam, being blasted out of the lodge as the place he'd been visiting since he was ten got blown to rubble in a burst of flame.

He was quiet, staring around at the empty wing. Eight friends had gone up the mountain that night. He counted six beds, including his own. "Where is everyone? The others?"

"They're okay, Chris. Don't worry." Ashley's smile softened. She gently put an arm around Sam's middle, and the other girl instinctually leaned towards her. "We just decided to stay behind in case you woke up. I guess that was a good call in the end."

"Guess so." Chris managed a small smile. "I just worried. Six beds, eight people. Though I wouldn't be surprised if Jess and Mike insisted on sharing a bed."

Both girls laughed, relieved to see that Chris was back to his usual humorous self so quickly. But tiny warning bells went off in Chris's mind, and he could see that something had switched in their mood. They seemed somewhat uneasy, their smiles a bit too forced. It felt . . . off. "Jess got her own room. That's where all the others are now – she's in recovery. Her injuries were the worst, but she'll be okay in time. A few broken ribs, multiple open gashes, internal bleeding, head trauma. It's pretty bad, but in the end she'll only come out with a few scars. The cuts were too deep for cosmetics." Sam shook her head a little, sighing. "Mike and Matt haven't left her side since we got here. Even Em's in there with her. I guess some things are more important than cat fights."

Chris laughed slightly with them, but tilted his head a little. "I would've thought Mike'd be one of the worst. You know, with the whole finger crisis."

Sam scoffed. "He's playing the brave little soldier again, as always. He and Em have matching infections now, though. Mike was using sixty-year-old bandages on open wounds, and it turns out Emily's bite was infected after all. Just in a less supernatural way."

Chris heard a small gulp, and noticed Ashley shifting uncomfortably at the mention of Emily's bite. Ah. Chris had almost forgotten that particular part of the night. He felt a twinge of guilt. Even he had added fuel to the flames back in the safe room, frozen by fear of the monsters. I've seen what these fuckers can do. I don't want to see it again.

A chill slipped down his spine, and he pushed away the memories before they would trigger even more. But in the silence after Sam's awkward slip, Chris had time to think about something else. He played back what she had said so far, and something was missing. He had a sinking feeling as he recalled the girls' uncomfortable expressions after he mentioned eight people, and how they had tiptoed around one subject.

"Josh," Chris breathed suddenly, and Sam's eyes darted to her lap. Shit. He looked to Ashley instead, who seemed to shrink in on herself. "Ash, tell me he's here, too?"

In the few seconds before she answered, he could feel the racing of his own pulse in his ears. And then, when she did speak, it felt more like his heart had stopped.

"No."

There were tears in Ashley's eyes, and even she couldn't hold his gaze. Chris didn't notice. He had looked away already, and stared ahead at nothing as jumbled thoughts crowded his mind, each worse than the last. He's already out of the hospital. No, he never came here. They will have thought he did everything, back on Blackwood. He's been arrested, or institutionalized, or . . . And then, the worst of all.

Sam finally looked up. She was taking deep, quiet breaths and keeping a calm front like she always did. Not that it fooled anyone now, but she had always been the one to stay strong for the others, and could be the most stubborn in their group of friends if she wanted to. She could see the unspoken question in Chris's gaze, and shook her head. "He's gone."

The words hit him like a blow. He swallowed, closing his eyes, and the room was filled with a heavy silence. He could hear the sounds of Ashley's quiet crying, and Sam talking to her gently. Nobody spoke to Chris, and that suited him just fine.

The girls left not long after that. They quietly slipped from the room, with little more than a murmured explanation of checking in on Jessica with the others. And Chris was alone.

In retrospect, he should have known that his stolen moment of peace wouldn't last long. As soon as the doctors found out he had woken up, some overworked nurse was barging in to check on him and fill him in on the situation. Even that wasn't the end, and he was barely surprised when a pair of police officers showed up to inform him that he was needed for questioning.

Because how could mourning a best friend possibly be more important than duties as a witness?

The worst part was when he walked – well, limped – into the tiny Blackwood Pines police station and saw the pile of clothes stacked neatly on a chair. On top was unmistakably the blue jacket he had worn on the mountain. After seeing Chris's eyes widen and him taking a step back as if it was some horrible, toxic thing, the officers had apologized, but told him that it would take less explaining later if the taped interview looked like it had occurred at the same time as his friends' did, while he had been passed out.

As he watched himself pull on that jacket in the cracked bathroom mirror, memories crowded his mind in a maelstrom of guilt and fear and loss. It was all he could do to keep them at bay by instead imagining the things he wished he could do or say to those officers waiting outside.

Inside the interview room, a camera was pointed at the far wall, where he was asked to stand by a tired-looking woman with a notepad. "Sorry we have to ask this of you, Chris. It's just standard procedure, and after . . . certain information provided by your friends, we consider it especially important to get every side of this story."

Chris nodded, unable to think of a better response. The woman reached over and clicked on the camera, and a small red light blinked on. "Please state your name for the record."

Unsurprisingly, the interview was a complete disaster.

He gave them the basic rundown of the night, not excluding any larger details. He was done with lies. When he got to the Stranger and the wendigos, he felt a strange sense of satisfaction. They pressed for more details, alternate ideas of what happened, even tried to pin the events on his friends or the Stranger. But Chris stuck to his word, and the police only got more exasperated. He had a feeling they had been through similar conversations six times already.

"Christopher, I don't know when or why you and your friends cooked up this little fairy tale, but you must realize how important it is that we know what really happened that night. If you're trying to cover up the actions of Joshua Washington, it's hardly helping his case that these events, including the violent murder of a man, are trying to be passed off as the work of – "

"His case?" The interviewer seemed irritated by his interruption, but Chris continued before she could respond. The implication that Josh had been responsible for all the horror and death had triggered something deep inside him, and his voice shook. "I'm going to say it one last time, because apparently you can't get the message. Josh didn't hurt anyone, no matter how much of a dick he was with that prank. That man got his head ripped off by a wendigo, the same thing that got Josh. You guys failing to notice an entire horde of cannibalistic monsters on the mountain has led to the death of three kids and an old man, but it's done now. There's nothing left to question people about." He paused, quietly swallowing and willing himself to stay in control. Don't cry. Not here, not now. His eyes darted up to look directly into the camera. "This interview is over."

A few people called after him as he walked out, but their voices seemed distant and unimportant. He shrugged off the blue jacket and let it fall to the floor behind him, left to be forgotten like so much else in this awful place.

Blackwood Pines was a small town, and it was only a few blocks from the station to the hospital. Chris's leg felt as if it was burning and his vision blurred as he approached the entrance, and he collapsed to his knees only a few feet away from the great glass doors. Heavy, broken cries filled the silence, and tears finally fell freely onto the cold and empty street.

The next time Chris woke up, it was dark. He rubbed at his eyes and sat up back in his hospital bed, looking around at a moonlit ward with all six beds filled. Four of his friends were deeply asleep, chests rising and falling slowly under the thin hospital blankets. Once, he would've laughed at the faint sound of Emily snoring. She had always hated when he pointed it out, and his teasing had earned him a fair share of pillows to the face over the years. Now he just felt empty.

He silently looked at the bed across from him, where Mike, finally back from his vigil by Jess, was sitting on the edge and staring at him. Hallway, Mike mouthed, jabbing his thumb towards the double-doors at the end of the long room. Chris nodded once, and didn't even bother to grab his glasses before pushing the covers away and swinging his legs around.

He paused as he felt a tug at his wrist, and frowned down at the IV. He slipped the needle out of his hand, pressing a bit of cotton from the side-table to the drop of red at the hole. After whatever had knocked him out the second time on the mountain, he was done with drugs of any kind for a while.

Chris winced as he put pressure on his weak leg, but made it out to the hall, where Mike was waiting for him by a large window with his arms crossed. The other boy followed his gaze, and he could see an all-too-familiar peak in the distance, beyond the small town of Blackwood Pines. Chris quickly looked away.

Mike turned his gaze from the window as well, and now that the moonlight fell on him, Chris could see the toll that night had taken. There were heavy, dark circles under Mike's eyes, and they were haunted with a distant and detached look, like he was still seeing the mountain instead of the polished hallway of the hospital. One hand subconsciously twisted at the doctor-issued band around his other wrist, where fresh bandages covered his two missing fingers.

He seemed to notice Chris staring, and chuckled. "Yeah, I know. I look like shit. You aren't the first one to notice." His hand paused, and he ran it through his mess of dark hair. "Hate to break it to you, but you aren't looking so hot either."

The taller boy shrugged blankly. If he could count on Mike for one thing, he didn't sugarcoat. That is, unless he was cranking up the charm for some hapless girl or any influential adults. But Chris was his friend, and he'd be getting no delicate tiptoeing around from their good old class president.

"Yeah, well." Chris swallowed, dropping his gaze. "Not every day you go through a living horror movie only to find that not everyone got out the other side."

Mike shook his head, wasting no time in getting to the point. "Josh isn't dead."

For the second time that day, Chris could feel the impact of his friend's words. His head snapped up, staring at the other boy with his mouth slightly ajar. He half expected it to be some sort of cruel joke, but Mike gave a rueful grimace. "As far as I know, he's still kicking, Chris. Not that it'll remain that way for long. They left him behind on that mountain, somewhere in the mines."

Words failed him. Breathe, Chris, the logical part of his brain reminded him, and he took in a shaky breath. He tried to focus on staying calm. Inhale, hold, exhale. The same advice he had given a thousand times to . . . No, thinking about that would only make it worse. Breathe.

Once the words had taken their toll and he was in control of his breathing again, a small stuttering sound escaped his mouth, and Mike shook his head again. "I know it's . . . a lot to take in. And I'm sorry, man. This one is on me." He took a deep breath as well, suddenly seeming very interested in the floor tiles. "I watched it take him down there. I couldn't move."

Silence filled the hall. It held for a few seconds, and each boy could feel the tension in the air between them. "So you left him." There was a slight tremor to Chris's voice, once he found it; one which he was trying very hard to keep in check. "Not the rescue team. You."

Mike nodded stiffly once, still not meeting his eyes. "I was a coward. I didn't even try to follow. And I told the police, when they were interviewing everyone. Thought they could help, send someone in there to get him out." He laughed again, quietly, humorlessly. "They think we're all delusional, as I'm sure you've already found out. Not that I blame them. What kind of nutjob would believe in Native American cannibal monsters running around in the mines?" Bitter sarcasm dripped from his voice, but then he went silent for a few seconds. Chris kept watching him intently, waiting for whatever he was withholding. Mike pressed his lips together, and the next words were obviously a struggle. "They . . . Fuck, Chris, they aren't even sending in a rescue party. They don't want to risk men going into that death trap of a mine for a lost cause."

Lost cause. Death trap. Delusional. The words echoed around Chris's mind, but everything seemed wrong. He couldn't connect them to Josh, alone in the dark isolation of the mines. Surely they couldn't just . . . give up?

"No." His voice sounded tiny. His head was spinning again, and he leaned against the wall. Chris's eyes found the distant peak of the mountain again through the window, where he now knew his best friend was trapped. "That can't be allowed. He's alive up there! We can call the Washingtons, get them to insist. Bob'll sue the ass off anyone who challenges him, you know he will – "

"Chris," Mike interrupted, and finally met his friend's eyes. The two boys stared at each other in the low light, and Chris could see something in Mike that he wasn't sure he had ever shown before. All fire and fight seemed to be gone from him – he had the blank, tired eyes of someone who was completely defeated. Seeing that in Mike was terrifying. "It was the Washingtons who gave the order. No more search parties. No more false hope. They're leaving the mountain alone, for good. They've decided it's time to give peace to everyone who died there . . . including their kids."

To that, Chris had no response. He could barely process the information. He had experienced firsthand the Washingtons' desperation after Hannah and Beth went missing – they had searched for months and months, refusing to give up on the twins for so long, even when all hope seemed lost. And now, the second time they had lost children to the mountain, Bob and Melinda simply gave up. What made Josh any different from his sisters?

His sisters never masqueraded as psychotic killers for an elaborate prank, a nagging voice poked in at the back of his mind. His sisters never tortured their friends for a viral video. Hannah and Beth were normal.

Shut up, Chris snapped under his breath, and turned around, finally tearing his eyes away from Mike. He began walking quickly down the hallway, leaving his friend in the dust.

"Hey!" Mike hissed in a whisper-yell, jogging to catch up with Chris. "Where the hell are you going?"

"Blackwood Mountain." Chris walked a little faster, ignoring the sharp pain in his bad leg. His bare feet slapped against the cool tile of the hospital floor in an irregular pattern. "If they aren't going after him, I am."

Mike scoffed. "Christopher, it's fucking midnight. You're checked into a hospital with a concussion and a leg you can barely walk on. You aren't going anywhere any time soon." He grabbed Chris's arm to stop him, and the other boy wheeled around to fix a death glare on his friend.

"If you don't let go of me, Munroe, you're going to walk back into that ward with five fingers instead of eight."

"Thumbs don't count as fingers, jackass. And what are you going to do, bite them off?" Mike let go all the same, and the two boys stood staring each other down once more. "I know this is hard. I know what he meant to you. But this is a suicide mission."

"Is that what you tell yourself when you try to justify leaving him behind? That you would've been risking your own neck, so it was right to leave your own friend to die?"

Chris immediately regretted what he had said. Mike physically recoiled, taking a step back and looking incredulously at him. He had obviously hit a sore spot. Chris's shoulders slumped, and he ran a hand through his muss of blond hair. "Look, man, I'm sorry. But I can't just leave him up there. I can't."

After a moment, Mike sighed. His eyes wandered away, and he gave a tiny shake of his head. "I shouldn't have thought you would. And they think I'm the heroic idiot." A quiet laugh rang through the empty corridor as Mike's gaze flitted back to Chris. "Just . . . not now, okay? You need to rest, get help here while you can. You'll hardly be any help to Josh if you're limping around everywhere and passing out."

Chris's resolve wavered. As much as he wanted to argue, Chris was a realist. He knew that Mike was right, and he hated him for it. Every minute that he wasted in this hospital was another minute that Josh had to survive alone in those godforsaken mines, but there was literally nothing he could do. Not yet, anyway.

Once Mike saw that Chris wasn't going to go charging off alone anymore, he offered a small, tired smile and started backing away. "We should both get some rest, you know. You've gotta take care of yourself." He paused, and then added, "He'd want it that way."

That night, lying still and staring at the beams of moonlight falling across the floor, one thought repeated again and again in Chris's mind. A whisper, a hope, a promise.

He's alive.

And I'm bringing him home.

Chapter Text

It had been two weeks since the winter getaway, and snow was falling again as a sleek silver car sped down a lonely mountain road.

Mike was in the driver's seat, quietly mouthing the words to the alternative song blasting from the speakers while Chris looked out the passenger's side window, watching the familiar white and green landscape fly by.

From the second the group had been discharged from the Blackwood Community Hospital, Chris had been preparing for this day. Although, he supposed, he had really been mentally planning ever since the first night Mike told him about Josh. The morning after their midnight argument, Chris had dragged Mike back into the hall and warned him not to spill a word of his plan to the others. Naturally, he had gotten yet another stare that very plainly read you've gone fucking insane.

"You can't be serious."

"I am. You know they'll want to stop me or come with me or something, especially Sam. I'm not dragging anyone else down with me if this goes south."

Mike had argued a bit further, but, after a while of reaching no leeway from Chris, had given in with an almost incoherent grumble about stubborn, selfless idiots.

Surprisingly, after that, Mike had been his closest supporter. He helped him with research, gathered supplies, and, although reluctant to leave a still-recovering Jess, offered to make the long drive back to Blackwood when they realized Chris didn't own a car. Chris had a sneaking suspicion that all this had to do with a sort of redemption. Mike had always had a bit of a hero complex, and abandoning Josh had left him in a constant state of guilt. In his mind, helping bring him back would make up for that somehow.

After the night when Mike woke up in a cold sweat on Chris's couch after late-night preparations, gasping I'm sorrys about leaving someone behind, Chris couldn't find it in himself to hold a grudge anymore.

When they were less than an hour away from Blackwood, the car radio suddenly descended into indecipherable static and sputtered out. Mike sighed and bashed at the dashboard, but was only answered with a few sparks at the display.

"I'd appreciate it if you didn't blow us up before we even got there, Munroe." Chris's voice was dry, but he couldn't help his lips turning up slightly in amusement. "Then again, blowing shit up seems to be your specialty now."

Mike scoffed, but left the radio alone. A new silence filled the car, and the growing sense of awkwardness was palpable. "So, uh," Mike eventually glanced over at Chris, grasping at some sort of conversation. "How are you doing?"

"Peachy."

He let out a snort of laughter. "Jesus, man, where did all the bad puns and internet humor go? All this sarcasm is making you sound more like . . ." Mike suddenly fell quiet, and gripped the steering wheel just a little tighter as they weaved around the icy roads.

Chris turned to look at him, raising an eyebrow. "Like Josh," he finished for him, and Mike made a small sound of affirmation. "His name isn't taboo, you know. He's kind of the whole reason we're out here."

The other boy shifted uncomfortably. "I know. It's just . . . The closer we get, the more real this feels. I have a bad feeling that in the end, it's all gonna go to hell again. What if we're too late? Or if something happens up there, and we lose you for nothing as well?"

"It's not too late." Chris's voice was firm, and his hand tightened around something in his pocket. "He's not nothing, and you aren't going to lose me."

"Mm." Mike paused, eyes flitting over to Chris. "You know, you still don't have to do this alone. Even if we kept it from the others – which was still a majorly stupid idea, by the way – I'm here. You don't have to be some sort of hero."

Hero? Chris had never really thought of himself as being anything a hero was. He wasn't particularly brave, or strong, or impressive. He was no Mike, or Matt, or even Sam. He was the tech nerd with the glasses and nothing going for him but grades and a sense of humor. But now Michael Munroe – class president, co-valedictorian, and action hero of Blackwood – was sitting there and calling him a hero. Chris took it with a grain of salt, and laughed a little as he slid the thoughts to the back of his mind.

"Look, dude, I appreciate the sentiment, but I know how to handle myself. I know this mountain like the back of my hand, and the wendigos are gone after your expert pyrotechnics." He flashed a small smile at his friend. "I'll be back with the both of us in no time. Easy-peasy."

"Right. Easy." They slipped back into a more comfortable silence, but Mike didn't seem convinced. Chris closed his eyes and leaned back against the headrest, taking his last opportunity for rest as the snow whirled around them.

December, 2005

"We're here! Come on, Chris, look!"

Just over nine years before, light flurries of snow dusted the same winding road Chris and Mike had taken through the mountains. A ten-year-old boy with soft blond hair looked around at his best friend, his bright blue eyes not yet hidden by glasses. He scrambled over, practically crawling on top of the other boy and eliciting a huff from the preteen Josh.

"You don't have to squash me, man."

"Well, I can't see it out my window! Scoot over."

The older boy shuffled close to the car door, and two sets of eyes followed the finger Josh was pressing against the cool glass. The crest of a new mountain was peeking over the horizon. It was capped by snow, but the sun setting behind it gave a golden glow to the peak. "It's called Mount Madahee," Josh explained quietly, and his breath fogged the glass. "But everyone calls it Blackwood."

"It's beautiful," Chris breathed. A grin spread over his face. "Why do they call it that, though?"

"Easier to pronounce? Actually, the area at the bottom is called Blackwood Pines; there's a town there. And there used to be some hotel or something up on the mountain. That's what Mom and Dad converted to make the lodge."

Chris laughed happily. "It must be huge."

From the front of the car, Bob Washington glanced back to smile at the boys. "Sure is, kiddo. You're going to love it." When his son had first asked if he could bring a friend along to the family's annual winter getaway, Bob had been hesitant. A couple weeks was a long time for a kid to be away from his parents, and especially during the holiday season. But now that Chris was with them, the truth was, he had never seen Josh happier or more engaged on a trip. "Are you two ready? Not much further to go now."

"I'm fine, Dad." Josh turned to Chris, and he was smiling. It was so easy, so carefree. Almost unrecognizable as belonging to the broken boy of nearly a decade later. "Chris?"

The younger boy nodded eagerly. "Definitely."

They continue to chat excitedly about the mountain for the next half hour or so, and before they knew it, the base of Blackwood loomed before them. Beyond the sign that welcomed them, a single icy path led out into the woods, which Josh had told Chris led to the cable car station.

While Bob unpacked the car and Melinda woke up the young twins, who had fallen asleep a couple hours ago in the back of the eight-seater, the boys hopped out to look around. Chris stared in awe as he slung his backpack over his shoulder.

Josh noticed his friend's stunned expression, and smiled a little as he nudged his arm. "Cool, huh? Just wait 'til we reach the top."

Chris laughed, shaking his head. "I just can't believe this. I can't believe your family owns this place."

"One of the perks of having a rich and famous dad." He smirked. "Or a rich and not-so-famous best friend."

Chris opened his mouth, but before he could answer, a snowball hit him full-force on the back of the head. He spun around, shaking the snow out of his hair, and saw a tiny Beth Washington giggling from the side of the car. Her gloves were covered in powder. Hannah stood a little behind her, and even she was smiling sleepily as she rubbed her eyes.

"Bullseye!" Josh laughed, but a second later, snow exploded on his own shirt. "Hey! Traitor!"

More snowballs flew, and before long, it was an all-out war. Even Hannah got roped into taking her sister's side, and their parents watched from the car, smiling softly at the scene. In that moment, everything was peaceful. The sun slowly set behind the trees, and the cool night air was filled with children's laughter.

Present

"We're here. Come on, Chris . . ."

Chris slowly opened his eyes, and sat up straight in his seat. There was no Josh, no Beth, no Hannah. But the mountain was there, unchanged in over nine years.

Mike was watching him warily, and Chris could see that the place already made him uncomfortable. He couldn't blame him – a shudder ran down his own spine, and he knew it had nothing to do with the cold. He unlocked his seatbelt and shifted around a little to wake up his stiff limbs.

Both boys stepped out of the car, and they left footprints in the deep snow as they walked around to the back of the car. It was silent as they opened the trunk and did a last check on supplies, gathering everything for the trip up the mountain. Not even birds called out in the trees. Maybe they could feel the air of death surrounding this place, too. Chris would have avoided it with them if he could, but he had a job to do.

Only when everything was accounted for and Chris had put on his backpack did Mike break that silence. "So. This is it, then." He huffed and looked around them, up at the snow-capped trees and along the path heading away into the woods. "You're really doing this."

Chris nodded. "We've been planning for weeks, man. Of course I'm going. It's not like we can leave it any longer for him."

"I guess so." Mike paused, and he studied Chris's expression. "Are you afraid?"

"Fucking terrified."

There was a beat of silence, and then both of them laughed. "At least you haven't completely lost it," Mike chuckled. "But you still have one more chance to change the plan, Chris. You shouldn't be alone."

"Michael." Chris's voice was quiet, but final. "This is my responsibility. I won't risk anyone else."

Mike gave a resigned smile, and it fell quiet again. A few seconds later, he stepped forward and enveloped Chris in a fierce hug. Chris was shocked, and he heard the other boy murmur something near his ear. "If you die up there, I'll kill you."

"Don't worry. Dying isn't on the agenda."

They broke apart after a few moments and held each other's eyes. Something passed between them, and Mike nodded as he stepped back. "Bring him home, Chris."

He nodded in return. "See you at dawn."

Chapter Text

A strong sense of déjà vu hit Chris as he sat in the cable car, watching the sun set over the mountaintops. Only this time Sam was far away and safe, and he was alone.

If he'd told the others of his plan beforehand, there was no doubt in his mind that she would have been sitting here with him again, determined to help rescue Josh. But he had sworn Mike to secrecy, and he wasn't sure whether he regretted it or not. Wishing for the others to be here with him again, waltzing back into who knew what dangers, felt selfish.

After slipping the cable car key into his pocket – more thankful than ever that Hannah's notorious habit of losing things when she was younger had prompted the Washingtons to hide a spare in the lower station – he passed the time by rearranging his backpack one more time. He had to travel lightly, but after two weeks, he couldn't come with nothing for Josh. Who knew what state he'd be in when Chris got there? The bag was filled with a basic medical kit, simple food provisions, clean water, and an extra jacket. Plus, of course, a powerful flashlight and spare batteries.

Soon enough the cable car jolted into the station, and Chris zipped the bag shut as the doors slid open. He tried to avoid looking at the small room as he rushed through it. Since nobody had been there since the rescue teams, it was still destroyed and graffitied with red paint, evidence of Josh's plan to terrorize and trap them all. He didn't want to remember that tonight.

From there, it was only a short walk up the path to the charred husk of the Washington Lodge. When it first came over the horizon, Chris's breath hitched, and he had to pause and lean against a tree to close his eyes. Breathe. But even when he began walking again, his legs felt shakier than before.

It was hard to see that place reduced to scorched wood and ashes. So many memories were connected with it, the good and the bad, and he didn't want to lose any of it. Unfortunately, there was only one sure way he knew into the area of the mines he needed, and to get to that . . .

He slowly approached the ruins, and tried not to listen to the crunching of rubble under his feet when he passed over where the front of the house had once stood.

Even after the destruction, far too much was recognizable among what was left of the lodge. The couch he had sat in for countless hours watching TV and playing games. The chess table where he had beaten all three Washington siblings consecutively, only to be annihilated by Emily. The old painting Matt had thrown a football into, and the rug Jess had thrown up on the first time they got her drunk. The antique grandfather clock that had chimed in so many New Years, and one most memorably of all . . . All lost and destroyed in the fire, taunting Chris from the ashes.

It didn't take long to clear the blackened remains of furniture and decor enough to see what was left of the downward staircase, and then he was making the small drop down into the basement.

Miraculously, the subterranean levels of the lodge had remained intact after the explosion and fire. Sure, they were in bad shape, but some mildly illegal research into the post-incident reports had confirmed that the route he needed to take was still possible.

When he passed through the safe room, hurrying through to avoid the memories as he had everywhere so far, something in the corner of his eye stopped him in his tracks. There is no fucking way . . .

The old man's journal had survived the destruction, sitting next to the collapsed table where Ashley had left it. Chris laughed. Of all the things to make it out.

Of course, he didn't really need it. All it contained was information on the wendigos, and they were long gone. But Chris found himself slipping it into his bag anyway, and he had a strange feeling as he left the ruined lodge behind him and descended into the tunnels.

December, 2006

"You're sure we're allowed to be down here?"

"Not at all."

A young Chris rolled his eyes at Josh, who was smirking back at him. A year had passed since his first visit to the mountain, but not much had changed in Chris by the time he was invited back. He rubbed at his eyes, which were blurry and difficult to keep open. His own body seemed to be fighting the questionable decision of a midnight adventure, which his friend had shaken him awake for not ten minutes before. Josh, however, was powering on ahead, fueled by a combination of excitement and insomnia. "Are you even going to tell me where we're going?"

"That would ruin the surprise! Just keep pointing the flashlight ahead. I can't see a thing, and we've got tons of old junk lying around." Chris complied with a sigh, and continued walking slowly down the hallway of the lodge's basement.

He knew that Josh's dad directed horror films – what self-respecting sixth grader hadn't secretly watched at least one of Bob Washington's famous R-rated blockbusters? But that didn't lessen the fact that his 'old movie junk', as Josh called it, was creepy as hell in the dimly-lit middle of the night. He shuddered as they passed a mask resembling a skull, with only black pits where the eyes should be.

"We're almost there," Josh reassured him eagerly, and Chris smiled.

Not long afterwards, they stopped in front of a door. Josh pulled it open with a long creak, and dust swirled in the beam of light. Behind it, a very old staircase led down into darkness that even the flashlight couldn't reach. Chris gulped quietly, and the other boy laughed. "Come on, Chris. Scared of a little old staircase?"

"Ah, shut up. I don't believe in all that monster and ghost crap." But forced confidence couldn't hide the wariness in his voice, and Josh's smile softened. A moment later, a warm hand slipped into his and squeezed.

"You don't need to worry about it. Things aren't scary unless you're alone. Anyway, it's just this cool old place I found once. There's this whole – "

"Joshua."

A loud thump echoed around the basement as the flashlight hit the floor. Chris hurried to pick it up again as both boys wheeled around to see Josh's father standing behind them, arms crossed as he leaned against a wall. Now it was Josh's turn to gulp. "Dad?"

"You know you aren't supposed to be down here," he sighed, irritation plain in his voice. "Especially in the middle of the night, and dragging your friend along with you. What were you thinking?" Chris shrunk in on himself, and Josh struggled for an argument.

"I – I mean, we were just – "

"It was my idea, Mr. Washington." Two sets of eyes trained on Chris, both disbelieving. He subtly squeezed Josh's hand, and looked sheepishly at his dad. Trust me. "I couldn't sleep, and neither could Josh, and I asked if we could go explore. I'm sorry."

In the time after his lie, he held his breath, waiting for a reaction. Bob seemed to visibly relax after a moment, and rubbed his temple with one hand. "I get being curious, and restless. You're kids. But there are rules, and both of you should know better than this." He sighed again and waved them back towards where they had come from. "Go on, you two. Get some damn rest, and try not to wake the house at midnight again."

Chris nodded quickly, and pulled a slightly stunned Josh along with him as they walked past his dad. Once they reached the main floor again, where windows let in beams of moonlight, Chris clicked off the flashlight and they ran the rest of the way to the bedroom.

After closing the door behind them, he turned to see Josh standing in the middle of the room, staring at him. They held a shared gaze for a few seconds before Josh finally spoke. "Why did you lie?"

The other boy shrugged, unable to repress a grin. "People are easier on other people's kids. It's called quick thinking, Joshua."

Josh laughed as he shook his head. "Unbelievable. You're a genius."

"I know." Chris collapsed back onto his guest mattress, and reached over to click off the light. "Come on, let's get to sleep before he comes in after us."

"I knew there was a reason I kept you around," he teased. The room was filled with rustling as they both pulled on the covers and settled in, but the stillness didn't last long even after that. "Thanks, Chris."

Their hands found each other once again in the dark, and before long, they fell asleep holding on to one another. When the sunlight found them the next morning, they hadn't let go.

Present

That was one mystery solved, he supposed.

Chris had always wondered what Josh had planned to show him that night, but he had always shrugged it off as nothing when Chris asked afterward. Now he had an entirely different set of memories in the underground tunnels he had once been so interested in discovering, but standing at the top of that staircase he felt eleven years old again; young and vulnerable, afraid of the dark.

Things were less nostalgic when he passed through the tunnels and into the mines themselves. Those held nothing but darkness and pain. He was suddenly very glad about the habit of wearing multiple layers that had earned him so much teasing from his friends, but even through all his winter clothing, those mines had a way of chilling him down to the bone. He supposed that part of it was simply how much he knew about their dark history.

Ever since the first time he came to the mountain, he'd known about the incident back in the fifties. It was some of the most exciting local lore, and he and Josh had picked up bit and pieces of the story every time they went into town on the retreats. Some of the Blackwood locals were old enough to remember, but it took a while to get anything out of them. Nobody liked the mountain all that much, and even less all the old stories surrounding it. But they had put together the story eventually, and the disaster that had taken so many lives excited them. After all, they were only children, and once it had been nothing more than an interesting campfire tale to them.

They'd never been allowed into the mines, and with good reason. Much as Chris hated to admit it, "death trap" was pretty much the perfect description for them. Even now he hurried through the dark, weaving tunnels, eager to get in and out as quick as possible.

Judging by the set of instructions Mike had given him from as much as he could remember, Chris was getting close now. Yes, that was the underground lake, which meant . . .

Chris stopped. He became very aware of his own breathing, and his pulse thrummed through his body. Surely that couldn't be the normal heart rate? And . . . were his legs suppose to feel like they were moulded to the ground? Mobility seemed like an abstract concept.

Just go, you idiot. You don't even know if he's in there.

Slowly, putting one foot before the other, he walked forward into what used to be the wendigo's lair.

As soon as he'd entered the place, he wanted to leave. A primal instinct screamed for him to run, but he only walked further as goosebumps rose on his arms. The air still held a metallic tang from all the blood that had been spilled, and the cavern was damp and somehow even colder than the rest of the mining shafts. Stalactites were scattered across the ceiling, along with a series of horrible hooks and chains and cages that he didn't even want to think about the purpose of. But what drew Chris's attention was something off in the corner, barely visible against the cave wall until he got closer.

Not something, really. Someone.

The beam of his flashlight found the shadowy figure, and a huddled mess of dark hair and ragged overalls came into view. Chris could hardly choke out what he had been so desperate to say ever since the first night off the mountain, from the moment he learned the truth. But his voice rang through the cavern a moment later, shaken and filled with a cautious sort of hope.

"Josh?"

Chapter Text

Winter, 2008

Chris had always loved the stars.

Even beyond his normal tendency to love anything scientific, the night sky had always been something more to him. Something strange and wonderful and constant; unchanged since the distant memories of his parents taking their tiny son to a hill outside the city and watching the silent stars go by.

And from the Washington Estate, at the top of a remote mountain, he could see every constellation in the northern hemisphere lighting up the night.

Chris opened his eyes. Lying next to Josh with only the sound of their breathing to hear, it was so easy to nearly drift off there and then. But he rubbed at the corners of his eyes and pushed his brand new prescription glasses up the bridge of his nose, and he heard Josh shifting beside him.

"You ready to go in yet?" The other boy raised an eyebrow as he propped himself up on his elbows. Light powder dusted his hair, which he ran a hand through absentmindedly.

"Already?" Chris grinned as he sat up, wrapping his arms around his knees. His fingers were ice cold when they brushed against each other. The two boys were only wearing jeans and sweaters, but Chris figured that when you spent enough winters in Canada, the cold sort of faded into the background. "It's only, what, one AM?"

"Only."

"It's our last night," he pointed out, eyes wandering back to the stars. "You don't get these kinds of views back home."

Josh smirked and nudged his arm. "And you thought the roof was a bad idea."

Chris rolled his eyes, unable to repress a smile. Okay, so the views were spectacular. But he was still sure there was a fifty-fifty chance of him slipping on the icy patches and falling to his doom.

They sat in the quiet for a few minutes more, gazes flitting over the patterns of light against the inky backdrop of the sky. Then Josh looked over at his friend curiously and softly bit his lip. "Do you think you could name them?"

"Name what?"

"The constellations." He smiled and lightly punched Chris's arm. "C'mon, here's your opportunity to show off your famous nerd trivia! You've even got the glasses for it now."

He laughed as Chris shoved him over with a halfhearted mumble about glasses jokes.

"I'm more of a tech guy," the younger boy protested, but soon enough he gave in with a sigh and grin.

Josh gave a joking salute when Chris told him to shut up and focus – the faux-seriousness ruined by his unyielding smile – and settled down as his friend began to paint a vivid picture for them. He stretched a finger towards the sky to connect the stars and galaxies across millions of miles, and slowly began to recite the old mythology he'd memorized over years of listening to the stories. The other boy watched Chris in wonder, gaze trailing from the bright light in his eyes to the soft upward curve of his lips even as he spoke.

By the time they stopped, most of the stars above them had a story behind them; invisible lines connecting them across the universe and bringing the ancient world to life. Chris fell quiet eventually, and he turned to Josh with a sheepish smile. "That's as much as I know."

"That's fantastic," Josh laughed incredulously, shaking his head. They looked back upwards, both smiling serenely and imagining the connections forming the constellations. After a moment, Josh reached out to point towards a particularly bright set of stars. "Which one was that?"

"Orion. The Hunter."

Josh wrinkled his nose. "Doesn't look like a hunter to me." He tilted his head, looking closely at the sky. "If you look at the two triangles and the line in the middle, it looks almost like a butterfly."

Chris laughed lightly. "I guess it does." A yawn worked its way up his throat, and he reached under his glasses to rub at the corner of his eye again. "As fun as renaming constellations is, maybe you were right about going in."

Josh nodded. Neither boy made an effort to stand up, though. Chris took one final look at the grounds of the lodge far below them, untouched snowdrifts twinkling in the moonlight. For half a second, he thought he saw something moving between the shadows of the forest.

And then they heard it.

They hadn't noticed just how close they were sitting to one of the ice patches, and when Chris jumped back so violently he lost his balance, he began to slide down the incline with a yelp. He was halfway down the roof by the time Josh grabbed onto his arm, catching him just in time to let him regain his footing.

"Oh my god," Josh huffed, pulling a little to help a stunned Chris back up to their spot near the top. "Never get me to catch you again, bro. You're too goddamn heavy for me to pull back onto a roof . . ." Once Chris was safely back on dry panels, looking back out towards the mountain with wide eyes, Josh watched him warily. "What the hell just happened?"

"Tell me you heard that," Chris breathed, finally making eye contact. "I thought there wasn't anyone else on the mountain?"

"There isn't." Josh hesitated. "You heard something?"

Chris nodded. "I think it was a scream, but it was . . . weird. Kind of wrong, somehow . . . I don't know."

The roof was silent again for some time. Josh frowned and glanced at the forest, appearing to think hard about something. "It's nothing," he decided eventually, forcing a small smile that looked just a bit too uneasy for Chris's peace of mind. "You're not the first. I've heard my sisters say they hear things sometimes too, but Dad says not to freak out. The mountain is pretty spooky at night, so our minds make stuff up to fit that."

When Chris still looked ambivalent, Josh smiled a little wider and lightly nudged him. "Forget it, Chris. The creep factor fucks with your mind."

Chris nodded, but he looked thoughtful as his eyes flitted over the tree line. "You said your sisters heard it. Haven't you?"

The smile faltered. ". . . yeah. I've heard it too. I'm just not the most reliable for that kind of thing." When Chris shot him a questioning look, he shook his head. "I'll explain one day. Not now."

For the first time that night, the mood had shifted. The very air between them felt heavier somehow, darkened and forming an uncomfortable barrier.

It was a long time before Chris broke the silence. He spoke quietly, hesitant but completely serious. "Josh?"

"Mmh?"

"Do you believe in monsters?"

Another pause. Josh turned to meet his friend's eyes with one eyebrow raised. "Monsters? Are we still nine?" He chuckled, but the cavalier façade quickly fell away. Visibly uncomfortable, he shifted around a little, swirling one finger around to trace patterns in the frost of the roof.

"I mean, you don't have to say," Chris added hastily as the pause held. If the chill in the air hadn't already made his cheeks turn a brilliant pink, he was sure he would've flushed. "It was a bit of a stupid question, anyway."

Josh shook his head. Half of his mouth twisted up in a grimace as he swept his hand across the frost. Some of the powder caught in the air and scattered in the slight breeze, turning his patterns to dust with almost a sigh in the wind. A few seconds later, he answered.

"No, Chris. The only monsters in this world are us."

Chris didn't respond. Quite frankly, he didn't know how to respond. After a few moments, Josh broke the uncomfortable atmosphere, shifting to a comfortable position and shooting Chris a more genuine grin. "Why are you asking about monsters, anyway? Afraid the screaming thing will come get us in the night?"

A smile finally managed to tug at Chris's lips again. "Maybe I'd let it take you," he teased. "At least then I'd be able to steal your game collection."

Josh scoffed, rolling his eyes. "You're the worst, Chris Hartley."

"But you know you love me." At the moment he finished speaking, the two made eye contact. Josh quickly looked down and away, and Chris watched him curiously. Something had passed between them, but he let the moment slide, a strange feeling settling in his stomach. With an exaggerated sigh, he turned to the winter scene below them. "Okay, I take it back." Chris glanced back over his shoulder, his smile softer, more sincere. "I'll always come back for you."

Josh's eyes flitted up, and a small smile came to his own lips. "You're such a softie."

"You know it."

It had been a long time since they first came up to the roof to stargaze. The two boys strolled back up in the darkness – fingers almost touching in case either had to catch the other – and clambered through the access hatch into the warmth of the lodge, already talking about the beds and rest they were long overdue for.

Neither noticed the second screech or the great burst of fire, flickering to life deep in the forest below.

Present

Chris was beginning to think that the mountain's curse went far beyond anything the old man had told them on the night of the Incident.

If somebody had told him three weeks ago that there were monsters in this world, he would have laughed. Probably come up with some quip that would make Ash chuckle and Sam smile and Josh elbow him with a groan. But he wasn't the guy he'd been three weeks ago. When he passed by a mirror, it was like everything had been shifted just enough to make him recognizable, but simultaneously different in every way. It was strange and wrong and awful.

Chris of three weeks ago would never have understood New Chris's thoughts as he stood in the quiet of the cave, holding his breath with rushing head and pounding heart.

He'd never been the type of guy for sappy trips down memory lane. But that night, it seemed like every way he turned, the mountain held something for him. Days and nights he thought he'd forgotten long ago, echoing across the years so vividly it was staggering. It began to cross his mind that this was part of whatever lay at the heart of Blackwood. Something old and deep and dark was there for sure, and it already crept into people's minds with spirits and whispers. Why couldn't part of its power be reviving other ghosts of the past? Chris could think of stranger magic.

Whatever was wrong with that place, he just wanted to get the fuck out before he learned by experience again.

Now, as he looked down the beam of his flashlight at the shadow by the wall, one part of the last memory he'd been gifted played back like a broken record.

The only monsters in this world are us.

Were you ever right, Josh?

When the real monsters are gone, what's left?

Seconds passed as if they were hours. Chris's chest stilled, coming to a complete halt as he held his breath. He could hear the rush of his own blood along with the tiny rocks that skidded across the ground when the figure in the shadows turned.

The first thing Chris noticed was his eyes. Particularly bright in the darkness of the cave, their soft, familiar green tone was recognizable anywhere. If he focused only on them, he could still see the easygoing and unburdened little boy he'd met so many years ago.

But that boy seemed to be gone.

The same eyes Chris had loved were wide and sunken, filled with fear and anger as he looked down the bright beam of the flashlight. His skin and clothes alike were covered in a thin layer of dust and dirt. What little muscle he used to have had disappeared from his lower arms below the rolled sleeves of his undershirt, leaving nothing but ashen skin and bone. Bruises and scratches peppered all parts of him that Chris could see, and there were rust-colored stains on the faded overalls. But he rose slowly on weak legs, and he was there, and he was Josh, and he was alive.

"Josh," Chris repeated, and his quiet voice echoed slightly. "I . . ."

"Go away."

Chris stopped short. He stared at his friend, and suddenly he could see the alarming intensity of Josh's glare. His face was twisted in an exhausted sort of anger that didn't quite reach his eyes, which only seemed . . . blank. "Get out of here," Josh had begun shaking his head. "You can't fucking hurt me any more. I know you aren't him."

A rock came flying Chris's direction, forcing him to duck before taking it directly to the face. His glasses clattered to the ground, and he watched them roll over on the stone. His gaze flitted back to a slightly out-of-focus Josh, watching the other boy incredulously. Crap. The meds . . .

"Josh, I'm not a hallucination." He bent down carefully to pick up the fallen glasses, never taking his eyes off of Josh. "I know you're not gonna believe me. I wouldn't." One step forward, holding his hands up slightly in a non-threatening stance. "But I'm here." One more step, and Josh's entire body was tensed. He stepped back warily from Chris, but his foot hit the cave wall with a small crumbling of dust. Caught in a corner, he was pressed tightly to the cave wall as Chris came close enough to feel his breath; close enough to touch.

So he did.

The flashlight fell forgotten to the floor, leaving them surrounded only by soft moonlight creeping into the cave. Chris reached out towards his best friend, whose eyes had closed tightly. His lips were moving quickly, forming words to himself that Chris couldn't make out. But Chris's hand moved upwards against the tight feeling in his throat, and came to rest cautiously on the older boy's cheek. Something all too familiar.

The atmosphere switched in an instant. His breath released in a long sigh, and Josh's eyes flew wide open. A thousand different memories flashed across Chris's mind, of warm summer nights and friends' laughter and whispers in the dark. Josh's skin was still strangely soft to the touch, and all anger had gone as quickly and silently as smoke in the air.

"Chris?"

A muted laugh forced its way up his throat. "I tried to tell you."

Josh's mouth had fallen slightly agape as he stared at his friend, who had cracked a smile brighter than he had in two weeks. Joy and relief emanated out from Chris like a beam of light and warmth and hope. All resolve forgotten, he threw his arms around a stunned Josh, who was making small stuttering noises as he tried to find the right words.

"It's you," Josh breathed, blinking quickly and trying to take in every inch of the boy in front of him. "How is it you?"

After a few seconds, he took Chris by the shoulders and gently pushed him away. His eyes raked over his best friend, eventually coming to rest on the side of his face. "You're crying." He ran one dusty thumb across Chris's cheek, and it came away glistening.

"Ah, fuck." Pulling his glasses off, he quickly rubbed the heel of his hand across his eyes. "I'm sorry."

"Don't be." Josh's voice was hoarse after weeks of disuse, and Chris heard a weak shake to it. "You . . ." He glanced up to meet Chris's gaze. His stare was just as intense as before, if more confused than angry, as if he was searching his friend's expression for answers. "You came back."

Chris nodded. "I didn't mean to take so long. There was the investigation, and the hospital, and I had to make sure everything went right when - "

Josh cut him off with a shake of his head. "I don't care. It doesn't matter." A single tear of his own made a track through the dust on his cheek, and he choked out a laugh of his own. "I couldn't fucking care less."

And suddenly they were hugging, and they were laughing, and they were crying, and both boys were smiling brighter than they had in over a year.

"You goddamn idiot," Josh mumbled into Chris's shoulder, digging his fingers tightly into the back of his friend's jacket. "Why would you come back here? What were you thinking?"

"I was thinking of you, asshole. Constantly."

When they pulled apart - arms lingering half-linked as they gently held onto one another's forearms, unwilling to fully let go - Josh was shaking his head again as if in disbelief, running his eyes over Chris with a sort of desperate hunger. His lips were parted in the soft grin that lingered after a breathy laugh, and god, Chris hadn't realized how much he had missed this. Not even just after the mountain, but in the entire last year, when Josh's laughs and smiles had seemed infinitely harder to come by and never quite the same as before. It was like he had become two years younger in a snap.

But the illusion came to a halt when Chris's eyes settled on the hollow cheeks that made his friend's face impossible to mistake for his younger self, and he stepped back to swing his backpack off and around, dropping to one knee as he began to unzip it. "I, uh, brought some stuff. Thought you could use a few pick-me-ups before we head out of here."

A minute later, they sat together at the edge of the water, staring out at the still glass surface while Josh gently unwrapped a sandwich, the clink of the water thermos as he set it down on stone echoing quietly around the cave. Chris's gaze never wandered from the boy next to him, a soft smile tugging at his lips. He already looked less fragile enveloped in the thick green jacket Chris had brought, one of his old beanies he'd found left in a pocket wrapped snugly around his ears. Less 'frantic, starving survivor,' more 'winter day on campus.' Like old times.

Josh paused before biting into the sandwich. "So . . . how's everyone else? Sam, Ash?" His voice was hesitant, and he avoided eye contact as he spoke. Chris deliberated his response carefully - no specifically mentioning the events of that night. No making things awkward yet.

"They're all fine; all of us. Everyone's safe. Jess got the worst of it, a few pretty nasty cuts, but Mike's hanging out at her place most days to help 'til she's back to normal - "

"Jess is alive?" Josh cut in, now staring at Chris directly, searching his expression for some sort of tell.

So no avoiding this.

Chris sighed. "Yeah, turns out Mike was full of shit. Surprise, surprise. I think at the time, in the shed, he really did think she - that something worse had happened. But you know Jess, she's a fighter. A fall in the mines wouldn't take her out. Shouldn't have believed him for a second."

"That son of a bitch," Josh breathed, and a dry laugh escaped Chris. His expression was noticeably lighter after that, his posture more relaxed, but the mention of that night still hung in the air between them as they kept talking, Chris relaying stories he'd missed from the past few weeks to try to lighten the mood. Emily and Jess tag-teaming to pick a fight with a hospital worker when he tried to usher everyone out of Jess's room and Matt having to carry Em out ("She said she was breaking up with him while he walked out, but we all saw her laughing"), Sam falling out of her seat when she jumped at a loud sound at brunch one day ("I swear, she was blushing more than Ash at prom"), Mike absentmindedly trying to twirl a pen while still adjusting to his missing fingers and sending it flying into his own face ("He had a blue mark on his cheek for two days!").

When the conversation eventually slowed, Josh bit his lip as he lowered the thermos and screwed the lid into place. "You said Jess fell in the mines - that's why Mike thought she was dead," he began quietly. His brows were furrowed as he looked out at the water. "How did she get into the mines? They were going to the cabin."

Okay. Back to this. "Same thing that messed us all up that night," said Chris, shrugging. "One of the wendigos got to the cabin, dragged her off. That's what's up here; been up here for decades. We met an old man that told us about them - some Native American land curse fucks up anyone who goes cannibal on the mountain. It makes them a monster. The ones we met were from the mining accident, when they got stuck down here all that time without supplies."

Josh visibly recoiled. "They . . . you're telling me those things are made from cannibalism?" He fumbled for words, eventually shaking his head and standing up. Chris's brows knitted into an expression of concern as he rose to meet him, placing one hand gently on the shoulder of the older boy now facing away from him.

A few moments later, Josh took a deep breath and ran a hand over his mouth. He laughed, a little, breathily. It sounded more like a cry. "I wasn't sure if they were real or not, y'know. Whether I was actually in danger or it was just more of my head messing with me."

Chris focused on his friend's back, the folds of the jacket underneath his hand and the tangled, dust-streaked hair poking out from under the dark beanie. He couldn't look to the background, where the walls still had dark stains that lent themselves to the scent of old rust in the air, and the cave tapered out into the dark web of passages god knows how many had suffered and died and changed in.

Josh turned to face Chris, grimacing. "Hannah was one of them. The thing that grabbed me, dragged me away, it had . . . she had a butterfly . . ." His voice cracked.

He spit out a curse with enough venom to sound like a snarl. Josh sunk to the floor again as if his knees had given out, and squeezed his eyes shut with a painful intensity. Both hands dug into the hair just above his neck with a white-knuckle grip on the roots, and Chris's own heart felt as if someone had it in a vice grip when he sunk to sit beside him, hugging his knees. Hannah and Beth had been nearly as much Chris's baby sisters as Josh's.

Neither wanted to say aloud what they were thinking. They both knew.

"Sam told us," Chris eventually said softly. He fingered with a small, rough rock, running it over the soft pad of his thumb. The scratching didn't bother him. It was a good distraction. "She found a journal; Hannah's. She lasted a few weeks after the fall."

"So we could have found her."

He had thought so too, at first. He suspected that had been everyone's first thought when Sam dropped the bomb one night in their first week home. Everyone had gathered to stay overnight at her house, like one of their old sleepovers in high school, desperate for any shred of normalcy they could find. Nobody had mentioned Josh or the mountain. Then she whispered into the darkness about an hour after lights out, knowing none of them were going to sleep - none of them really had since Blackwood. The truth had spread through the air like a toxic gas, filling everyone up from the inside and killing some last little part of them that had irrationally held out hope through that hopeless, godawful year; shriveling it into some twisted, ugly thing until it turned to dust. Buried. Finally gone. Just like Hannah and Beth.

"Maybe," he admitted, and hated himself for it.

Chris skipped the rock it across the lake with a hard throw, watching the ripples spread out to cover the entire surface, warping the glass, making the moonlight dance. He looked away. The water was too good for this place, too beautiful and too gentle. It didn't belong any more than they did.

Neither boy could have told you how long the quiet lasted after the fact. Each was silently wrestling with far more than they could handle; far more than any nineteen- or twenty-year-old should have to. Chris wanted to focus, and he sure as hell wanted to get to business and leave the mountain as fast as he could, but images he never wanted kept flickering past in his mind. He saw them sending the search parties down to the mines and finding Hannah with her leg twisted and contorted sitting next to Beth's broken body, then he and Josh with an arm around her on either side in protective squeezes as they sat on a church pew in front of a coffin, a black dress covering the thick cast on her leg. He saw Hannah alone in the dark, barely strong enough to move as she clawed at a pile of recently upturned earth with a wooden cross tossed aside, crying and desperately searching for what laid beneath, because she had tried to wait but they'd never really been found, and Beth was her only hope.

Josh was the first to break the silence. "I guess it's over now. There's no point," he sighed, and ran the back of his wrist quickly over his eyes. "Doesn't do us any good in getting the hell out of here."

Chris nodded. "Yeah. Can't do anything now." He pursed his lips slightly, wishing there was more to it. But he was right - they had a job to do now. All of the grief and guilt business could be repressed for another day. "At least we'll be the last ones to worry about this. Now that the land's private property and the wendigos are gone, this little curse is as good as done. There'll be nobody left to feed on."

As they stood up, Chris instinctively reaching out to gently support Josh in case he was still unstable, the older boy's eyes narrowed a little, his expression somewhere between confusion and doubt. "They're all gone?"

"They chased us into the lodge that night, right at the end. We were sort of cornered, but Mike and Sam did some quick thinking and blew a gas pipe as soon as we were past the door. Those things were all still inside, and the whole place went down." He paused. "Sorry about the lodge, man."

Josh shook his head and gave a small, dismissive wave. "I haven't exactly been in love with that place the last year. Let it burn. But . . . you're sure . . ."

He didn't finish his sentence. He didn't need to.

The screech came from the tunnels, first, before it entered the cave and bounced around the walls, amplified by the open space and echoing tauntingly as the two boys in the middle met eyes with mirrored expressions of horror. That same primal, terrible, inhuman sound that had come from the woods all those years ago, and the night Chris would never forget a second of.

"You heard it too," Josh whispered. It wasn't a question.

There was still a wendigo in the mines.

Chapter Text

Honestly, looking back, he shouldn't have been so naive as to think it was over. After everything they'd already been through, he had finally started to believe that the worst was behind them, but apparently the curse or spirits or whatever-the-hell that ruled this mountain was determined to get the last laugh. No rest for the idiots.

"Shit," Chris breathed. Moments after the last echoes of the screech faded into the night air, he was moving, refusing to let fear paralyze him. Adrenaline rushed through his veins, lighting up every cell in his body as he shifted into mental overdrive. He could feel every hair standing at attention along his arm, each beat of his racing heart. They were in danger again - Josh was in danger. There was no time for anything but action.

"Come on, we need to move." He scooped up the backpack from the ground, slinging it onto his back and grabbing Josh's forearm in one fluid motion as the other boy continued to stare in horror towards the source of the sound. It only took a moment for him to snap out of it, seemingly as the gravity of the situation set it.

The sound had come from the direction he entered the cavern, and getting back into the mine shafts that way was easily the longest route out of the open space, not to mention the fact that it could be inside the very tunnels he came down. Not an option. There was the wall Mike told him that Sam had used to climb directly out, but Josh definitely wouldn't make it now if he couldn't then. Not injured and after weeks of malnourishment. Besides, those things could climb, and a hell of a lot faster than either of them.

Another piercing scream burst into the cavern, closer this time, and Chris was gripped by potent, unadulterated dread. He could barely process all the thoughts rushing to the front of his mind. He had genuinely thought this was all over - had allowed himself to think he was safe in the last few weeks and get so overconfident in coming back. If anything happened to them now, it would be his fault for leaving them vulnerable. For getting complacent. For coming unprepared to walk back into hell.

And Josh had been alone for weeks with the monsters still here. In fact, probably actively hunting him. If Chris had come any later . . .

Nope. Not the time for that. Saving our asses now, dramatic teenage inner monologue later.

He pulled Josh along with him for the first few steps as he broke into a run, but their hands quickly slipped apart, and Chris tried not to think about how he felt a small rush of disappointment when the contact faded. And really, really not the time for that.

He had directed them towards a new tunnel, the one closest to them that led deeper into the mines, now that their one clear escape route was firmly out. He'd just have to hope that they could double back somehow. He didn't know the mines well enough to think of a second path to the surface - why would he have needed to memorize their layout when he had a direct way in and out? Three weeks preparing for this mission, and all of his planning suddenly felt worthless. What a rescuer he was turning out to be.

They rounded the corner of the new tunnel, and suddenly the dull note of each footfall on stone made Chris's heart creep further towards his throat. The uneven four-part beat of the two boys running in tandem was loud and clumsy and all too human, and it could get them killed if they were too slow, or couldn't skid to a perfectly still stop fast enough, or tripped on the rough ground. There was no way it couldn't hear them, but what the hell was he supposed to do now? They would keep going as far as they could. But Josh's breathing was already heavy, his steps slower than Chris was used to - he's in no shape for this.

When the sound came again, it was accompanied by a sort of scurrying. Small rocks hit the floor alongside a soft, eerie, rapid scraping along the rock. He was surprised he could even hear it over his own pounding heartbeat.

An offshoot appeared along one side of the passage and Chris made the snap judgement to dive into it, motioning for Josh to follow him and letting out a sigh of relief when his friend rounded the corner after him without hesitation. It was even darker than the last, lit only by moonlight filtering in from the opening they had entered through, but there was no way he was taking out his flashlight now - the screeching followed them, getting ever closer, and he could hear rockfall quickly approaching where they had been seconds before.

Chris grabbed onto Josh's sleeve and pulled both of them towards the wall only feet away from the tunnel's end, pressed as far back as they could go in the shadows. Chris didn't dare raise his voice above a whisper, barely an exhalation in the sudden stillness. "Don't move. It's the only way they can't see us."

With the good sense not to risk a nod, Josh's expression was the only acknowledgement of his warning. His mouth twitched slightly up in a smile that didn't reach his eyes before a sudden piercing cry shattered the air around them, and the wendigo emerged from the main tunnel.

Chris instantly knew that in some ways, it didn't matter that he hadn't prepared himself for the possibility of the wendigo's return. All the foresight and preparation in the world wouldn't be enough for this. It was like one of his nightmares had crashed through into reality after weeks of coping only by the reassurance that they were all gone, could never hurt him and his friends again - and somehow a thousand times worse. The first time he saw one he had been in the open forest with a shotgun in his hands, adrenaline fueling a race for survival and blocking out any other instincts. Now, defenseless and still in the tomblike dark and cold of the mines, his very bones cried out with dread as some deep part of him recoiled. Everything about the looming, wraithlike creature that skittered into the tunnel before them, scraping long claws along stone like nails on a chalkboard, was utterly, viscerally horrifying. That feeling of wrongness tugged at Chris's core - like it wasn't supposed to exist. Its very being went against nature. A sort of darkness permeated the area around it, a whispered promise of death following close behind. The stench of rotting flesh and a hint of iron drifted from it. The hairs rising on the back of his neck could have been from fear or the sudden drop in temperature. Probably both. All he could hear was ringing after the last shriek so close to his fragile human eardrums, and the low hum reminded him of just how small and breakable he was.

Chris wasn't surprised by the rush of revulsion and terror overcoming him, but another familiar feeling came surging in from that night weeks ago that momentarily caught him off-guard. Images of a chair and ropes and a lone wooden structure in the forest drifted through his memory, and for the second time, the threat of the monster in the mountain brought forth an overwhelming instinct to protect.

With death incarnate staring him in the face, all he could think about was the boy next to him. He hadn't been able to save Josh from it last time, no matter how hard he'd tried when he rushed into the snow with a shotgun he didn't know how to use and an old man declaring it a suicide mission (in retrospect, he seemed to have made a habit of those). This time, he wasn't letting it so much as touch Josh. Over his literal dead body. Not him.

It felt like the kind of courage he never really thought he had in him.

He tensed as it slowly looked around the tunnel with its haunting, clouded eyes, ready to jump it or distract it or do something - anything if it found them, to give his friend a chance of getting away. But they stayed in place, motionless save for the near imperceptible rise and fall of their chests, and after what could have been seconds or minutes - time moving strangely in the darkness and panic - it scuttled away as quickly as it had come, jumping between the walls and causing rockfalls that quietly showered the ground with fragments as it disappeared into the distance, screeches bouncing back around them in chilling echoes.

They didn't move again. Not at first. It wasn't easy to snap back into regular motion when moments ago it could have meant your own grisly death. So they stood together in the dark and the stillness, listening to the pounding of their own heartbeats as they crept back towards a normal rhythm. Chris was the first to break it when he slowly pushed off from the wall and turned to look at Josh again, shoving his hands into his pockets as he bunched in on himself and pulled the jacket close, desperate for some sense of warmth and security. The full weight of what had just happened began to settle in with the momentary adrenaline fading.

Oh. My god. Shitshitshitfuck it's here, it's actually here, we could've just - no, fine, breathe, breathe . . .

Josh had slumped against the wall, staring warily down the corridor towards where the wendigo had disappeared. Chris noted a slight tremor in his hands where he had crossed his arms tightly over his chest.

"You doing okay?"

Josh finally turned his head away from the dark end of the tunnel, straightening his posture. "M'fine. It's just that that was the first one I've actually seen since - " he cut off abruptly, taking a moment to restructure his line of thought; "Well, you know. I've kept to myself. I guess I was quiet enough not to draw attention."

Quickly pushing aside thoughts of Josh's weeks alone as a guilty tightness crept into his throat, Chris angled himself towards the light creeping in from the other passageway. "We, uh, should start heading back. That thing's off in the other direction now, but who knows when old Longlegs is gonna come back our way?"

"I vote let's not find out."

"Congrats on breaking your poor judgement streak."

"Shut up, Chris."

Chris felt a halfhearted shove at his arm as they began walking and laughed silently, huffing through his nose with a small grin. He willed himself to lean into the familiar ease of walking and joking with a friend, holding tightly to that tiny bit of normalcy as he tried to release the tension running through his body. He forced his shoulders to roll out into a more relaxed position, his hands to sit loosely in his pockets. They were both alive, for now. It was a better start than he could have been working with.

He slowed slightly to account for Josh's shorter stride and out-of-shape pace, and soon they were heading side-by-side down the main tunnel they had run through. Not long after, Chris furrowed his brow in sudden thought.  "Hey, so . . . is it just that one? I mean, are there any more we need to worry about?"

Josh raised an eyebrow. "If I'd gotten close enough to know that, I don't think I'd be here to tell you."

"Okay, yeah. Good point."

"But hey," he shrugged, "You said Mike took out most of them. With any luck, this one's just a fluke. There can't be many."

"Don't jinx it."

"Whoops."

Chris saw his friend start to smile just a little as they turned to look ahead again, and felt a satisfied rush of warmth. He'd missed that smile so much in the last few weeks - like a tangible ache. Like a part of him had been missing, too.

He was abruptly pulled out of his fond musings when they had walked far enough to reach a part of the tunnel that might just complicate his escape plans. The beam of his flashlight fell onto a dark corridor straight ahead of them - as well as two others branching out from the path on either side, none with any particular distinguishing marks. Each one was rough stone stretching into an inky black that the weak light couldn't reach from the fork, giving no help whatsoever in figuring out which led towards the cavern, or the mining shafts, or anything at all.

Chris swallowed. "Please tell me you remember which one of those we ran out of."

"I thought you didn't like it when I lie to you," Josh attempted in a lighthearted tone, but Chris could hear the nervousness creeping in. He stepped up to his side when Chris stopped just before the three entrances. In the corner of his eye, he could see Josh begin to shift his weight slightly from foot to foot in a familiar nervous tic. "We could just try one and come back to see the others if it's wrong?"

"Yeah, after it probably branches off three more times and we end up even more lost than before."

"Well, aren't you the optimist."

"Maybe I'll be happier when our lives aren't on the line," Chris snapped somewhat irritably, but guilt settled into his stomach when he saw his friend flinch slightly. He pressed his lips together and paused, gazing out at the tunnels. "We can't just guess. Think about when we were running, which ways we turned . . ."

They tried. They failed. Within a few minutes of jumbled thinking out loud and a lot of hand waving as Chris tried to remember their movements with some halfhearted input from Josh, it became clear that they were getting nowhere. Chris ran a hand through his hair as he stared ahead, completely at a loss. "Great. Just great. As if this night couldn't get any worse."

"Jinxing it," Josh mumbled, but there was little humor in the repetition.

Chris pursed his lips slightly. "Okay then, your plan: pick a tunnel and let's go."

They met eyes with a tired sort of resignation. Josh nodded and scanned over the three, skipping between them as if considering each, but Chris wasn't sure what for. They were practically indistinguishable. When he stepped forward towards one, Chris followed without second-guessing and they began walking again, quiet in the soft light of the torch reflecting off the stone walls around them. Both desperately hoping for the best.

Within a minute Chris was huffing as he came to a stop, shining the torch at the stone around them with a shake of his head. "Not it. No way." Reaching out with the hand not holding the torch, he brushed lightly over the rocky wall and came away with a thin sheen of grime, dislodging dust that fell slowly in the light. He regarded it for a moment before grimacing and brushing it off on the outside of his leg. "This one's drier than the ones near the water." He spun on his heel without waiting for a response. "One down, at least, right?"

"Seems damp to me."

"It's a mine. They all are, but this one's like . . . less."

"If you say so."

Chris tried to sound more confident than he felt. "Yeah, I do."

They were back at the fork and making a hard left into the next tunnel soon enough, Josh trailing now, and continued forwards in silence. But the further they walked, the less sure Chris was. It was no more familiar than the last, but with so few identifying features he was even doubting his own doubts, and had absolutely no idea if he was right or wrong or should have stayed on the first path or -

If Josh hadn't been there, he might have been stamping his foot and kicking the rocks by now.

Hesitantly, he stopped again and turned to his friend with a slightly guilty expression. "I really don't know if this is the one. We could be going anywhere right now."

"Is it damp enough?"

Chris huffed. "Okay, that was my bad. We probably can't tell them apart by that."

Josh paused, briefly glancing back the way they came. "Look," he said, "At this point it's pretty obvious we're running on guesswork. The way I see it, we've already started here, and this one can't be any less likely than the others. Let's see where it goes and - I guess work it out from there."

They hesitated. It wasn't a great plan.

"Good plan," said Chris, and they continued into the darkness for what felt like a very long time.

Worry nagged at his consciousness with increasing insistence as he stubbornly tried to shove it down. He pictured the hallway closet back at his apartment, leaning his whole body weight against it to squeeze the door shut against precariously balanced clutter that threatened to spill out. That fear of being lost and in danger that he knew would quickly translate to panic could just be another shoebox, just push it into that little gap and make the door-latch click and he could deal with it later - 

The small sound of Josh clearing his throat next to him broke the quiet again. "There's something I've gotta say," he started, and the serious tone of his voice made Chris pause. "It's about three weeks ago."

And there was the giant fucking vacuum cleaner that fell out of the closet and smashed the whole door open.

Blue eyes met green for a tense heartbeat before Chris was shaking his head and speeding up. "Look, I - no. I can't do this right now."

"We need to!" Josh ran forward to catch his shoulder, pulling and turning him slightly so they faced each other as they came to a stop.

No, come on, not now . . . Chris didn't want to deal with this. He absolutely wasn't ready, because quite frankly, this was meant to be an in-and-out rescue mission that didn't leave room for deep conversations. The memory of pure elation in that cavern was still fresh in his mind. Josh's disbelieving laughter in his ear, the rough denim of his jumpsuit under his fingers as he gripped him tight.

Why would he do this now? Couldn't they be somewhat happy, couldn't they pretend just for a night while they were still alone?

He focused on a point of the rock wall ahead as more and more spilled out of that stupid repression closet, biting his tongue. Josh's gaze burned from his periphery, and the hand had now slipped down from his shoulder to rest on the outside of his arm, maintaining contact. "I know you don't want to - don't think I didn't notice." There was a tentativeness to it as Josh continued, but Chris could tell he wasn't about to back down. "I'm not stupid, Chris. But I've had a lot of time to think, and what I am is really, really sorry."

Chris felt his entire body stiffen. Finally, with some reluctance, he made eye contact again, looking over to his friend warily.

It was still dark, but he could see the nervousness and sincerity battling with the other boy's attempts to control his expression. It was all too familiar - they hadn't done serious conversations well in a long time, and it was always uncomfortable when they tried. He softened, just a little, realizing how hard he must be trying.

He tried to think about his friend's vulnerability when he found him, the genuine love and joy they had shared - because that meant that whatever damage had been done was forgivable, right? The fact that he could push it all to the back of his mind at all and be happy to see him had to mean something.

But it wasn't enough. Not compared to everything they were about to dredge up.

"I think this one goes a little beyond 'sorry,' Josh." His reply was quiet, disappointed. Josh's grasp on his arm loosened as if ready to let go at any moment.

Josh opened his mouth, but seemed to choke on the words. Enough was passing in the eye contact neither had yet broken - Josh's almost pleading, Chris's hard. Then Chris watched as he winced and his eyes flitted over his right shoulder, quickly followed by his left, but it wasn't like he was just looking around or staring into space. It was as if he was looking directly at something in the empty air - multiple somethings that only seemed to upset him further. Chris didn't ask as Josh pulled away from whatever it was he could see to focus again.

"I never wanted to hurt you," he settled on, surer now. "That wasn't the point of any of it."

"Then you have a pretty fucked-up idea of hurt," Chris nearly spat, anger bubbling to the surface despite his best efforts. Fingers quickly fell away from his arm. "Do you still not get how messed up that was? You have no idea how much it's affected everyone, even now."

Josh bristled. It was almost amusing to realize that this wasn't how he'd expected this conversation to go, but Chris wasn't in much of a mood to be amused by anything anymore. "It was supposed to be funny at the end," Josh said. "Just some satisfying karmic justice that relieved the tension everyone else was doing fuck-all about in the last year. You know it was all fake now - and all the shit Mike got mad about when you found out wasn't even me, so what's the-"

"Don't you dare ask what the big deal is, Josh. There's a line between pranks and trauma, and you just used it as a fucking starting line!" He laughed humorlessly, stepping back and running a hand through his hair in disbelief. "You thought that was gonna help? What, that making Ash think she was about to die twice in a night would make her regret going along with the prank any more? That terrorizing Sam - who didn't even do it - would make you feel any better about losing them? You think Hannah and Beth would have wanted any of that?"

"I don't know what they would have wanted, because they're fucking dead!" Josh shoved out at Chris and he stumbled another step backwards, but there wasn't much force in it despite the burning emotion in his friend's voice. His last word bounced around the cavern walls in a horrible chorus: dead, dead, dead, dead . . .

"I know I took it too far, but I can't forget that. I wasn't- I couldn't let it go unpunished."

"Then why me?" Chris choked out, and cringed immediately at how weak it came out. Josh seemed to visibly falter, some of the anger simmering down into confusion. "I-" He paused, forced his voice to be steadier. Come on, get a grip. "You remember last year. I was with you the whole time, so why was so much of it aimed at me?"

Josh stared incredulously, looking very much like he was being forced to explain an obvious joke to a toddler. "You weren't a-a victim or whatever, not really. You were gonna be the hero. Remember the cameras, big audience? You got to make the decisions, lead the way, save the girl. Maybe it'd even get you and Ash to make a move before we all died of old age, which you're welcome for."

Chris clenched his jaw to stop his first reaction, because there was no way he was about to admit that saving Ash hadn't exactly been his strong point that night. Sure, he was willing to sacrifice himself in the end, but there was the earlier decision that still haunted him and popped up in his nightmares, and now the stupid idiot in front of him didn't even consider that he might have guessed wrong.

"You made me think I was about to kill myself!" he shouted instead, causing Josh to jump slightly. "Did you ever for one second think about what that was going to do? When you spent all that time planning your little revenge fantasy, did you stop and imagine the moment I pulled the trigger and thought I was never going home? Not to mention that all this came after I thought you got ripped to pieces right in front of me-"

"Okay, okay, but I wasn't thinking straight," Josh interjected. He sounded more serious again after Chris's outburst, and a hint of desperation crept into his pleas. "It's been tougher-"

"Oh, I know! I know exactly the kind of shit you've been through in the last year, because in case you forgot, I was there for most of it doing everything I could to help even when you told me to go fuck myself."

He knew he was quickly approaching a line, his subconscious screaming at him to stop and deescalate, but he couldn't. A year's worth of frustration and anger had burst through the barrier he built for his friend's sake. Josh hadn't been the only one dealing with grief and guilt. He wasn't the only person with a right to fuck up, and be upset, and need someone's help. Chris was nineteen years old. It wasn't his job to be a secondary therapist.

"And I made so many excuses for you, I wanted so badly to think that you were trying to get better, but just because you wanted to kill yourself doesn't mean everybody else does!"

Both boys went deadly still.

Oh. Shit.

The earlier fury and derision had disappeared completely from Josh's expression, as had . . . pretty much all visible emotion. He clammed up, rearranging his face into a carefully constructed, unreadable mask. It was the same one he used around his parents on the rare few occasions Chris had seen them together in the last few strained years, the one he had slipped into the morning after his sisters disappeared when he left the lodge without another word to the others. Chris knew him well enough to know that he only ever used it when he was resolutely concealing a deep, deep hurt.

"Well," Josh forced out, coldly. "Thanks for letting me know how you really feel."

He turned and began walking away alone. Chris felt a tightness in his chest when he noticed that his attempt to leave quickly only emphasized a slight limp that all of their walking must have made worse.

"Josh-" he started, but the other boy threw a hand up.

"Thanks for trying, Chris, but apparently I've got some dying to do."

Regret gave way to irritation. Of all the times to be petty . . . "Fine, if you don't want help!" He paused. Two could play at that game. "My life's in danger too, now. We wouldn't even be here if you hadn't been so selfish. I never should have come back!"

Josh didn't look back as he disappeared into the dark.

Summer, 2010

"Strike three! Sorry, Han, you're out."

Hannah sighed and pouted as she dropped the bat, Sam shrugging with a slightly guilty smile from the pitcher's mound as she called it. Beth, meanwhile, was less sportsmanlike, sticking her tongue out at her sister briefly from the outfield before her mother fixed a glare on her and she dropped it, still grinning. Hannah, for her part, actually seemed slightly cheered up by her sister's antics and giggled.

"Okay, switch out, our turn up to bat," Melinda Washington called out, and she headed towards home plate with her daughter and Sam as Hannah met Josh and Chris in the field.

"We're still ahead of you," Josh reminded Beth with a pointed finger as she strolled past him.

"Not for long."

Chris shook his head, stepping away from the second base he'd been waiting on with a smile. Now that Sam Giddings regularly joined the twins on their cabin vacations, between the five kids and the Washington parents they finally had enough to play a decent 3 v. 3 baseball game on the grounds even when Bob was called away to remote business concerns.

(Okay, so maybe six was still far too few people, but they made do. Being one of only two people in the outfield was a hell of a workout.)

He gave Hannah's shoulder a friendly squeeze when she caught up to them. "You're better at pitching than hitting, anyway. We'll get 'em this round."

"Too used to hitting with a racquet, I guess," she admitted sheepishly, but she still had an energetic spring in her step.

"You're the best athlete in this family; don't you forget it. Let's do this." He winked before backing away, and turned to Josh while Hannah ran to the pitcher's mound (which, in their case, happened to be a literal mound of dirt they had dug up elsewhere and packed tightly on top of the grass, which made for quite a lumpy surface, but they liked that they had put it together themselves).

Josh, who had been idly tossing his glove in the air and catching it, stopped to slip it on and looked up at Chris as he secured the velcro. "I think we've got this one in the bag."

"It's not over 'til we stop Sam and Beth."

Josh scoffed. "Please. We can handle a couple of freshmen."

"You're barely a year older!" Beth shouted indignantly from first base at the same time Hannah protested "I'm a freshman and I'm on your team," and both boys chuckled.

The two teams settled into place and Beth stepped up to bat first, confidently swinging it around before settling into a ready position.

Much to her chagrin, Hannah's first pitch flew by her in a strike, which seemed to encourage Hannah even further as her morale recovered from the setback at bat. 

The next one, however, made contact with the bat in a loud clang, and Josh had to run for it as Beth dashed through the bases. She had reached second by the time he secured the ball, and skidded to a stop instead of risking an out. Chris grimaced as Josh returned the ball to Hannah with practiced speed and force - she had been just as fast as he feared, and with Sam up next they had a good chance of making two runs on the next turn.

Come on, Hannah.

Sam, after throwing a cheerful double thumbs up to Beth at her base, picked up the bat and wound up with a relaxed focus.

To Hannah's credit, she made it through two strikes this time before Sam sent the ball flying into the outfield, and Chris watched its trajectory with determination. He'd get there first - Beth couldn't make it to home base.

He ran without thinking, pushing himself forwards as hard as he could across the grass field and jumping for the arcing ball, reaching- 

And slamming into Josh, who had also run for the ball that was hit directly between the two areas they covered. The two boys crashed to the ground with a double oof, and Chris felt the wind knocked out of his lungs when his friend landed heavily and awkwardly on his chest.

For a moment, his vision was out of focus, just light and blurs as he groaned from the ache of his head slamming into the earth. He heard Josh doing the same somewhere just above him. Luckily he could still feel the familiar pinch of his glasses, which had gone slightly askew but not broken or flown off.

Chris blinked hard and the world finally came back to him. Josh's face was only inches from his own, his friend bracing himself against the ground with both arms to slightly relieve the weight on Chris, but still pressed up against most of his body as they both caught their breath.

It looked a little like a movie shot, or a painting, Chris thought, the way the bright rays of the morning sunshine framed his head and caught the outline of his hair, making the edges of it appear more brown than black as the golden light filtered through. It suited him, matching the warm brown tones of his skin that had tanned a little more than usual since the start of summer. He had really nice skin for a fifteen year old, Chris thought, noticing the smoothness of it just in front of him, broken only by somewhat chapped lips; and then realized he was completely distracted. He shook his head a little to get back to the moment.

Having recovered from the impact, they met eyes and both laughed weakly before Josh rolled off of him and pushed up to a sitting position. "Fuck, they did it," Josh said, holding an arm up to block the sun and looking out in the general direction of home plate. "Two points to them. They're winning. I HOPE YOU'RE HAPPY, SAM."

"I am!" came a chipper reply, and Chris sat up to see Beth laughing gleefully and high-fiving Sam, who couldn't quite keep in a smug grin. Even Melinda was smiling, giving Sam's shoulder a quick, fond squeeze in support.

"It's like they planned it," said Chris as he grabbed Josh's outstretched hand to stand up. Josh frowned.

"Did you plan that?" he shouted back to base.

Sam shook her head with a smile. "Sort of, you guys are just predictable. Send a ball right between the two of you in the outfield and you'll both go all in without looking around you."

"Don't tell them!" Beth whined, nudging her arm with her elbow. "Now they'll know for next time!"

"They'll forget," Sam shot back without hesitation, and Chris was a little offended. Josh made a small noise of indignation beside him.

"Maybe if you want to win you should spend more time catching the ball and less rolling in the grass," Beth teased with a punch to Josh's shoulder the next time she passed him.

Privately, Chris thought as Josh shoved back and it devolved into a small scuffle between the siblings, he actually kind of liked rolling in the grass.

The game went on, and by the final inning, the two teams were neck-and-neck. Hannah went to bat first, and Chris pumped his fist in excitement as Josh cheered when she got a solid hit in and began running - only for Beth to snatch it from the air before it hit ground. Chris swore under his breath as she started walking back out of the field, throwing an apologetic shrug their way.

A friendly nudge prodded at Chris's arm. "It's fine, we've still got the two of us." He turned to meet Josh's confident smile, and his friend's assurance made him want to believe it.

"I'll try not to fuck it up too badly."

"Think about it this way, win this for us and you can make up for the library incident!"

Chris rolled his eyes as he picked up the bat. "That was not my fault."

The face Josh made as he waved a hand noncommittally got a chuckle out of him as he turned to face the pitcher.

Chris was pleased when his very first swing got a hit in, but he only just managed to come to a stop at first base before the ball went flying back to the pitcher's mound. Shit. At this point, he wasn't convinced either he or Josh would make it back to home to get the points they needed.

But Josh was all cool focus as he hopped up to bat, mouth still set in an easy smile and rolling out his shoulders into a comfortable ready position. Chris shuffled his feet in the dirt, ready to shoot off at any moment.

First pitch - swing - miss.

Second - swing - CLANG!

There was no time to stop and marvel as Chris pushed off to begin running through the bases, but from what he'd seen, it had been a hell of a hit. Hope rose in his chest, growing as he passed second base, then third, then crossed home and slowed to a stop, laughing and turning to see Josh not far behind. It was hard to tell whether the ball made it back to the pitcher's hand before or after Josh slid into home, but it didn't matter either way - Chris had made it, and they had the point they needed.

He helped pull his friend to his feet and they were both grinning ear-to-ear, clutching at each other's forearms and jumping like little kids.

"Did you SEE that?"

"I can't believe it - home fucking run!"

Hannah came running in next to them with her own excited congratulations and Josh swung an arm around his little sister's shoulders with an affectionate squeeze. She fixed a glare on Chris when he ruffled her hair, but the faux-annoyance was betrayed by the clear joy in her eyes.

"Nice playing," Sam acknowledged as they finally all broke apart. She was smiling too as she jogged over, tugging her hair out of a ponytail in a cascade of gold. Chris noted the way Beth fumbled with the glove she was trying to take off as she didn't look at it once, eyes trained on her friend's hands running through her hair before shooting downwards almost guiltily.

She was decidedly not looking at Sam when she shrugged and chimed in. "Yeah, okay. I guess you guys can pull off a good play or two after all."

"What can I say?" Josh looked over his shoulder at Chris, sunlight framing his face once again with a smile that shone just as bright - and seemed to make his heart beat one step faster. "We're a winning team."

Present

The mines felt colder when Chris was alone.

Ashley's insistence that he stay with the group three weeks ago when he'd hurt his leg retroactively seemed like a better decision the longer he trudged through the dark now, icy air piercing his lungs and cheeks and the shuffling of his clothes as he walked mixing with his labored breath in the still air. It was a lot easier to focus on seeing through the task at hand when you had the encouragement of company and other people's well-being to worry about.

Well. Not that he wasn't worried.

He wanted to go after Josh. He wanted to run back the way he came and shout for him until he found him and drag him along, kicking and screaming if he had to, and tell him he was a goddamn idiot for trying to go it alone and did he not remember the last time they split up on this godforsaken mountain?

But Chris knew his friend, and he knew that once Josh was in one of his moods and stuck in his own head, he wasn't going to come along with him until he had time to let off steam on his own terms. Which wasn't ideal when they were being hunted in a mine by a supernatural killer, but Josh was pissed and didn't seem to care much when he left.

Stupid, vindictive asshole. Willing to get both of them killed to make a point.

Except this time it's your fault as much as his.

Chris huffed a strong breath through his nose and pulled off his glasses to rub at his eyes.

His surroundings had grown less natural and more industrial the further he walked, so at least he knew vaguely which way he was going. The site of the old company and disaster were the exact opposite direction from his original goal, but maybe this way he'd be able to stop at a certain point and orient himself more confidently. Maybe Josh had found the right direction when they parted ways, and would find his own way out before Chris and wait for him aboveground.

Everything came back around to Josh, and the mission he'd already failed.

Taking a deep breath, he replaced his glasses after a quick rub of the lenses on one of his inner layer shirts and looked up. It was a wide open space, which at least eased the feeling of claustrophobia the cramped stone tunnels tended to induce, and he was surrounded by pieces of mining equipment - long since rusted and covered in layers of dust probably older than Chris himself - that he couldn't identify if he tried. More of that dust danced in the beam of his flashlight as he moved it around. A repeated company logo stood out in a couple of places, worn with time but recognizable to anyone who'd looked into the stories of Blackwood. It sent goosebumps along his arms and the back of his neck to think that this was the same area so many people had lived and worked and, eventually, died in all that time ago. He and his friends were damn lucky not to have shared the same fate; up til now, at least. For all he knew, those old miners could be in new company by first light.

No. He wouldn't let them.

There's no Sam or Mike here to save us this time. I'm all we've got. I need to be stronger than before.

With renewed determination, Chris set aside the ache in his bones crying out for a chance to just sit down and rest and started looking around more closely, surveying the area for anything that could help. Surely they had to have maps, right? Probably not the big obvious signs with YOU ARE HERE dots you get at malls (I mean, you never know, I'd say the universe owes me a bit of luck like that right about now), but if he could work out just where he was and where he needed to be, he could find Josh and - somehow, whether he liked it or not - get them both to the surface. It wasn't a question of whether he could pull it off, he just had to. There was no other option. Giving up or slowing down now wouldn't help either of them.

He was beginning to think he could run a Masterclass in reluctant perseverance when he got out of here.

Several worn wooden boards were erected around the area, rotting at the edges and splintering off into sharp points that cast dark, jagged shadows when Chris's light fell on them. He tried to ignore the tiny motions of some insect or another scuttling out of sight to the back of it as soon as the beam approached.

These boards meant something when they were put in place all those years ago; countless eyes had run over them as men lowered into the darkness day after day to work those abandoned tunnels and stations. Maybe once they held instructions, or diagrams, or danger warnings. Maybe the information on here had saved someone's life once. Maybe, if he was very lucky, the faded, fragile-looking paper still fixed to the one he approached and obscured by decades of dust had the map he needed, and the ghosts of history in this mine would unwittingly save somebody one more time.

Chris ran the side of his forearm over the old wood with a moment's thankfulness for the thick protective layering of his coats and waved away the resultant dust cloud with a short cough before his arm fell mid-motion, current action forgotten in an instant.

A muffled cry from somewhere behind him had his stomach dropping like a stone in water.

The animalistic shriek that followed had him spinning on his heel and running without a second thought, dashing as hard as he possibly could without a care in the world for the amount of sound he was suddenly making.

That was Josh.

It had found him.

Skidding around corners and pushing himself off of walls, he moved fasted than he had even earlier that night, every thought devoted to a singular purpose that made the burn in his lungs completely irrelevant.

It was exactly the same as before, they'd been separated and it was his fault, but this time he would get there in time. No empty shed.

No shotgun, either. That could be problematic. He'd deal with that when he got there.

Light at the end of the hall he ran down expanded into another open cavern, still in the heart of the mining sector and scattered with aging signs of human presence. Chris burst into it still running full-tilt, and his heart could have stopped in his chest when he saw the skeletal figure of the wendigo crouched low to the ground across the space, its back to him and staring ahead with an unnerving chittering sound.

Directly across from it was Josh, standing in the open with no support and clearly trying to stay still, but swaying slightly. One hand clutched at the opposite arm where the jacket's fabric frayed around a slash as though it had been cut open with a knife. Touches of red bled through the opening and between his fingers. Josh's eyes locked on Chris when he came into view, wide with alarm.

He didn't stop running, because he knew in an instant that it wasn't that this thing couldn't see Josh - it was holding back. It was hunting, playing with its food.

About halfway across the space, Chris crouched down to scramble for the largest piece of debris he could find scattered on the floor, clenched around a jagged chunk of metal, and launched it in an arc towards the thing's head.

"HEY!"

It found its mark at about the same time he shouted with all the bravado he could muster, and the creature screamed again as it whipped around in his direction, blind eyes searching for the new annoyance. Josh seemed to visibly deflate in the corner of his eye, openly wincing now at whatever it had done to his arm, but Chris had to fall back into his more convincing statue act, biting the insides of his cheeks and trying to control the breathing through his nose as it began to scurry around on the hunt.

He . . . did not have a plan for this. He was good at holding still - better than Josh - but he couldn't hold it forever, nor did he have any guarantee this thing would try to find him for long before going back to easier prey.

Chris didn't know what to do, or how to save them.

But Josh was moving again in his periphery, and Chris had to bite back the urge to frown in confusion as his friend began tugging at a pile of debris near him. There was nothing there big enough to hide either of them, and he'd love to be optimistic right now, but he figured the odds were fairly low of a flamethrower lying around in the dirt - 

Oh. Maybe they didn't need a flamethrower, he thought, as Josh pulled something from the wreckage and they met eyes again. The beginnings of a tired smile tugged at his friend's lips.

Their last meeting forgotten for now, recognition passed between them the way it had for years; no words needed, minds in sync. Partners in crime.

Chris knew the plan.

Josh kicked a box at his feet, and the hunter's focus was drawn back in its original direction just in time for it to see a metal bar flying past it through the air. Chris had to step to the side to catch it and was briefly thrown by the weight, but settled it into a familiar grip as a screech shook the cavern and the monster leapt towards him.

This is how we die, the rational part of Chris's brain moaned.

Batter up, his last shred of optimism countered, and he swung the improvised bat with everything he had.

The impact slammed up his arms as metal hit flesh and bone, razor sharp claws narrowly missing his throat as he leaned back for the swing and the wendigo was launched off-course to his left. It crashed into a partially collapsed section of floor, long limbs tangling in twisted metal remains of machinery and smashing through splintered wooden boards.

The two boys wasted no time, using its momentary diversion to sprint for a double-doorway at the opposite side of the room. Josh reached it first, holding one door half open as his gaze flitted anxiously between Chris and a point over his shoulder. He didn't dare look back, hearing the scrambling behind him and knowing it would be coming any second now.

When he practically dived across the threshold, Josh had slammed it shut and was fumbling with internal locks without delay. Chris turned and slid the metal bar through the double handles for good measure.

They stepped back, breathing heavily, and waited.

Moments later, a heavy slam rocked the door. They flinched, and Chris felt Josh's fingers clutch at his wrist.

The doorway rocked again. Loud scratches were followed by another screeching roar.

Then, silence.

The door held.

Chris exhaled shakily and turned to wrap his friend in another long, tight hug.