nosleep

The fox stood absolutely still in the snow. I tried to lay equally still, inching my lens over one half-breath at a time until the animal was in focus. Her red riot of fur stood out against the whiteness around us like a candle in a dark room. I pressed the shutter and began taking pictures. Something startled the fox and she was gone in a moment.

I sighed and climbed to my knees. The wind was picking up; even with the best snow gear I could find, the Canadian winter kept forcing me to retreat into my tent every few hours. I glanced over at the sun. It was hovering just over the horizon, throwing purple light across the snow and the frozen lake next to my campsite. My camp was just to the north of Lake Athabasca, tucked between the shore and heavily wooded mountains. The land was quiet and isolated and perfect. The only disturbance to the absolute snowy silence was the occasional darting animal and the click click click of my camera shutter.

The wind was snapping at my tent as I gathered my camera and gear and scooted myself inside. Once the flap was closed, the volume of the wind was muted to a quiet whine. I peeled off my snowsuit and jacket, boots and gloves, then popped open an MRE. My plan for the night was to review footage from the day, plot my route north for the morning heading for the wildlands, then try to catch a few hours of sleep.

The blizzard had other ideas.

For the first time since I flew into Uranium City three weeks ago, I thought I might die in the Canadian wilderness. The snow just would not stop pounding against my shelter and, for an hour or so around midnight, I genuinely thought the wind might pull my tent from the ground. Eventually, the storm quieted down and my camp managed to survive. There was no way I would be getting any sleep, though, so I tried to make the early morning hours productive. I was just finishing my travel notes when something walked by my tent around 3 am.

My mind struggled to process the shadow as it moved around my camp. The clouds must have cleared after the storm because the world outside my tent was soaked in moonlight. So much brightness reflected off the snow that it seemed like dawn had come hours early. I saw the shadow clearest when it came close to the tent. It was roughly the size and shape of a man but it moved with a jerking limp. I saw all of its limbs were uneven, and its neck was bent so that one cheek was pressed against a shoulder.

I opened my mouth to say, “Hello?” like every idiot in a horror movie ever. Instead, I took a breath and slowly reached for my pack. My tent was murky, lit by a single LED camp lantern. The shadow was constantly moving, circling the tent and roaming around the perimeter of the site. I took two items from my rucksack: bear mace and a .44 Ruger Blackhawk.

My breathing was getting quicker the more I watched whatever was inside my camp. A second shadow joined the first. They stopped circling and moved away from my tent. A few moments later, I heard a banging sound as they raided my cooking supplies. Most of my actual food was two hundred yards away hanging from a branch in a dry bag. That’s where I should have left the remains of my MRE but the storm had kept me inside my tent. If my visitors were bears, they might be able to smell my dinner. Of course, if my visitors were bears, they were acting more human than any animal I’d ever encountered. And in two decades as a wildlife photographer, I’d met a whole Hell of a lot of creatures.

I couldn’t tell what the things were doing outside so I took a breath and clicked off the lantern. My tent became dark but the ambient moonlight coming off the snow was enough to show me that there weren’t two shadows nearby; there were at least half a dozen. And all of them seemed to be facing me now that my light was off. We were at a standstill for a long, lingering moment. Then one of the shadows stepped towards the tent. I cocked back the hammer of the revolver.

“Whoever is out there, you need to leave,” I called out.