There were no hazy visions or bloody brothers coming to me this time.

I was out cold like the dead, so I had no way of knowing how long it was before I got my eyes open by a tiny sliver. The fact that they opened at all was a big enough shock, but as I drew in a ragged breath, I was abruptly aware of how little pain I was in.

I knew I’d busted a few bones before I got thrown from the shattered window, and the boulders I hit on my way to the cliff gouged my back open right through my jacket, but somehow, I’d survived the drop down hundreds of feet to the frozen river. Now, I was lying here with only a stiffness in my muscles and a dull ache at the center of my chest. But my boots shifted slightly, and I could clench my hands into fists, so I wasn’t even paralyzed.

Then I realized I wasn’t freezing my ass off either, and I forced my eyes to open a little more.

The day was light again, but I wasn’t lying shattered on the banks of the Matanuska. I was actually surrounded by a thick forest of red trees, and none of them had a foot of snow piled on the boughs.

“What the hell?” I wheezed, and I strained to sit up as I clutched at my aching chest.

The woods around me were like nothing I’d ever seen in Alaska, and while the trees almost resembled pines, they were huge and gnarled like ancient oaks and bore hefty clusters of scarlet needles. The bark was a strange ashy gray that broke apart here and there, and wherever it split, the wood peeled back and turned black like charred paper. The air out here was crisp and damp in a way that reminded me of fall mornings near the southeast coast, and as I twisted my neck around to look up, scarlet needles and winding branches formed a dim, glowing blanket above me. Under me, there was a soft bed of rusty dry needles everywhere, and angry-looking brambles with glossy black stems and thorns grew around the base of the red trees.

Overall, it wasn’t a very welcoming scene, and I briefly wondered if I’d gone colorblind during my fall. When I looked down, I was still wearing the same dark blue jeans and black boots, and my Carhartt was black as well with no sign of wear or tear on it. Then I unzipped it, and my shirt was the same shade of slate-gray it had been during my tumble down the cliff.

I wasn’t imagining the striking sight surrounding me.

I craned my neck above the closest thorny hedge to find the foreign wilderness stretched out endlessly as far as I could see, and there was nothing but ashen trunks twice as wide as I was tall, and angry brambles beneath a blanket of red. Then my gaze landed on a dull brown creature that would have been a weasel if it didn’t have pincers for teeth.

Its beady little orange eyes stared back at me while the pincers snipped together a few times, but then the creature suddenly whipped his head around and scuttled off under a bramble bush. A moment later, I heard it viciously attacking something that gurgled its way toward death, and I nodded slowly at the thrashing thorns before I dragged myself up onto my feet.

“Where… the fuck is my truck?” I mumbled as I turned full circle.

I was half-sure I’d died, but I was positive I wasn’t alone when it happened. My baby died right along with me, and she’d tumbled over the snowy cliff moments after I did. She had to be here somewhere, but the forest floor was sparse enough between the trees to give me a decent scope, and no battered GMCs were in sight.

“Come on, baby, stay with me,” I muttered as I began searching the area for any sign of her.

I knew I’d never be able to revive her after a fall like that, but everything I needed was in that truck. My phone was probably long gone after all those rolls, but my survival kit was locked down in the bed along with my camping gear, and I also stowed a heaping tub of moose jerky back there. The two thousand dollars’ worth of tracking equipment wouldn’t do me much good, but if by some miracle I was alive, everything else my baby carried with her was essential.

Including my last six beers and the Remington 700 I never left home without.

I circled a hundred yards around the spot where I’d woken up, but after multiple passes, I didn’t find so much as a scrap of fender. No broken glass, no studded tires, nothing. I was completely alone, and I rifled my hair as I paused to consider this.

Then I checked my belt, and my grandfather’s knife was still in place beside my Leatherman tool. When I dug into the inside pocket of my jacket, my six-inch sharpening stone was in there as well, and just under it, I found my fire striker.

“Well, that’ll do,” I sighed.

I had my jacket for warmth, a more than decent blade, and the ability to make a fire, so I knew I wouldn’t die out here.

If I hadn’t died already.

Either way, I just needed to locate a water source, and given how damp the air felt, I figured one couldn’t be too far off. I found a spot within sight of where the creepy weasel guy was still gnashing through his meal, and I sat down with my back against a tree that didn’t have a bunch of thorns around it.

I’d learned a while ago not to waste my energy wandering around without a plan of action, and if the weasel and his prey were out here, there would be other wildlife in the area. The trick was not to startle them away before I could find out which direction they were headed, and I sat silently as I scanned the strange forest around me.

I couldn’t hear any water flowing, and it was just as quiet in these woods as in most of the places I spent my time in, but I could hear the distant squawking of birds and the occasional rustle of brambles. I didn’t have to wait long before a large bird flew overhead, and I eyed the speckled brown feathers that lined its three foot wingspan. It sort of resembled a hawk with a sharp hooked beak and inch-long talons, but it flew on silent wings like the great horned owls we had near Talkeetna.

I noted the direction of its flight as it kept a steady course, and within a few minutes, two others of a similar species, but smaller, followed the same path.

Once the weasel followed suit as well, I got up and set off behind him and the birds, and I kept my ears and eyes alert for any other creatures along the way. Based on the weasel, I had a feeling the wildlife in this area wouldn’t be very similar to the sort I was used to, and while seeking out food was one of my top priorities, so was identifying the predators I might be dealing with.

I’d worry about where I was and how the hell I got here after I handled the more immediate concerns.

I kept my path direct while I passed by one massive ashy trunk after another, but within an hour, the landscape began to change a little. The same red blanket of needles seemed to cover the whole region out here, and the glossy black brambles grew denser with stouter thorns the longer I walked, but the terrain got more rugged, too.

Instead of only a flat bed of needles underfoot, stark white sheets of stone jutted up through the turf, and they got larger and more numerous within another half hour. What struck me most about the landscape was that nothing else seemed to grow in this area. Only the brambles and the ashen trees flourished, but the sunlight wasn’t so diluted to warrant the barren wilderness. The soil around the white stones was moist and a rich dark brown, but the air was crisp like fall weather, so that could have had something to do with it.

Unfortunately, there weren’t many herbivores in the area from what I could tell. Based on the placement of the eyes I saw in the rodents who scurried away from me, they seemed to all be of a predatory nature. The creepy weasels were the most abundant species I saw, but whatever they were hunting lived deep inside the glossy brambles where I never got a good look at them. There were also creatures who looked like a cross between a honey badger and a crested porcupine, but these guys weighed about fifty pounds, and they were the ones hunting the weasels.

Aside from these three species, I only saw birds during the walk, and the majority of them were hawkish, which didn’t bode too well for my hunting prospects. I wasn’t about to start eating carnivores without knowing anything about what kinds of diseases or parasites this forest was abundant in, but so far, it looked like I might be roughing it foodwise.

Things started looking up soon, and I heard the call of a bird up ahead that was more like a songbird than a hawk, and the call was answered by a few others just like it. I started walking more lightly as I slowed my pace so they wouldn’t fly off before I could get a look at them, but as I got closer to the sound, the ground began to rumble under my boots.

It was a subtle vibration at first, but it was rapidly building into a shudder, and when a roar suddenly split the air to my right, I lunged onto the nearest shard of white stone. Then I took note of a couple geographical points so I wouldn’t lose track of which direction I was heading, and I caught hold of an ashen branch to haul myself up out of range. I climbed a few more limbs until I was about thirty feet into the red boughs, and the whole time I climbed, the roaring drew closer as the needles on the ground bounced around like little pins.

I kept my eyes scanning the surrounding forest floor, and whatever birds had been calling to one another were silent now. I heard their wings flapping frantically within another few seconds, and I’d just crouched down on a two foot wide branch when a flash of white streaked through the forest below.

The white creature was so swift that I hardly got a look at it, and it could have been as large as a horse, but it didn’t seem to make a sound. I guessed it was the prey, given the ground was hardly disturbed by it, and only a moment later, this guess was confirmed.

The beast who barreled past next was twice the size of a grizzly with thick gray fur that was striped with black, and its shaggy paws had to be as large as my torso was wide. The black claws tore the ground up while the beast pounced clear over a fifteen-foot shard of stone, and after two more bounds, I heard a pained screech.

Then the mauling started, and the ground shook from the force of the prey being caught and thrown against the soil repeatedly. I listened for a while until the beast finally let up, and as its low growl rippled through the forest with every juicy bite, I carefully turned and began making my way along the branch.

My heart was slamming into my ribs like I’d just drank a gallon of Vicky’s sister’s sugar-coffee. Every scrap of common sense I had was screaming for me to stay where I was and not even breathe until this animal moved on, but I needed to know what I was up against. I’d only seen the beast from a top view, and based on that, I couldn’t decide if it was more like a bear or a wild cat.

Which would change a lot about where I set up camp out here.

I worked my way inward toward the trunk as quietly as I could, and I climbed from one sturdy branch to the next as the sound of ripping flesh continued nearby. Once I reached a point where the branches of the next tree sprawled into this one, I slowly headed out along the thickest limb I could find, and I willed myself not to lose my balance as the bough bobbed under me with each step. I made it into the next tree without falling, and as I headed inward toward the trunk, I caught a glimpse of the gray-and-black fur beyond a shard of stone.

There was blood splattering every nearby rock, so the white stones dripped with splashes of red, and even the upper branches around me had a few sprays on them. An actual pool of blood was spilled across the forest floor, and I noticed long strands of hair like a horse’s mane tangled in a wad of torn flesh.

I had to kneel down at this point, because as soon as I had a full view of the beast, I lost all feeling in my legs. It was even bigger than I’d thought before, and it must have been twenty feet long from nose to rump. Its tail added an extra seven feet, but it was crouched and tearing into its prey, so I couldn’t tell how tall it was upright. Its head was twice as large as any grizzly I’d ever seen, but the structure of the face resembled a lynx’s more than anything else. Thick tufts of black fur plumed from the pointed ears, and its bloody maws had eight-inch long canines in them.

Definitely not something I ever thought I’d find myself looking down on.

I swallowed hard while I watched the cat tear through bones and sinews one chomping bite after another, and as I considered the utter carnage surrounding it, I wondered if this species actually enjoyed the mauling process. Usually, predators were as swift and to the point as possible about the take down, but there was no way its prey required this much of a thrashing to be killed. Whole limbs were torn off and chucked ten feet away, and the head had been wrenched from the shoulders before it landed on a bloody stone. There were sheets of flesh strewn all over the place too, and in the middle of the bloodbath, the beast prowled around gnawing on its kill as a low growl gurgled in its chest.

I decided not to move a damn muscle from here on out, and I gathered any information I could from the scene while I tried to ignore the hint of fear in my gut. The severed head was one of the last things the beast ate, so I was able to confirm his prey was most likely an herbivore, or an omnivore at the very least. Its lower jaw had snapped open on impact, and I could tell its teeth were broad and flat rather than pointed. Its blank blue eyes were placed far apart on either side of the head as well, and while it did have a long white and silky mane, the face structure reminded me more of a young cow.

I took this as a good sign that I might be able to get by on some decent game here, but then the beast devoured the severed head in one bite, and I let out a shaky breath.

This was the only noise I made in all the time I’d been observing him, but one small exhale was enough to send the beast’s yellow eyes darting straight to me, and his piercing stare made my stomach drop.

Then the beast lunged, and I nearly tipped off the limb I was crouched on as his bloody jaws parted. His massive paws caught the limb ten feet below me, and despite how thick it was, it snapped like a twig under his weight. The tree shook from the force as the cat crashed down hard, and I shot up to grab onto the trunk and steady myself.

“Holy shit,” I panted as he flipped back around, and his yellow eyes flashed when they found me again.

The whole scarlet tree shuddered from the force of his next pounce, and this time, his claws swiped the branch I was on before he dropped through two limbs and landed on the ground.

That’s when I started climbing my ass off, and I didn’t look back down as the cat’s growls got more vicious with every attempt to catch me. His claws tore limbs apart below me while I lurched and tried to keep hold of the tree, and every time he crashed to the ground, I’d hustle upwards through as many branches as I could before his next pounce.

He was prowling circles around the base while I tried to get out of view, but it wasn’t until I was eighty feet above the ground that he finally stopped tearing the tree apart. My breath grated in my throat while I clung to the upper limb and stared down through the red boughs, and I could see the flashing yellow eyes still glued to my position.

The cat paced back and forth over the chunks of ashen wood as it glared up at me, and for a while I thought he’d keep me stuck up here all day. Then he circled around the trunk, and when his eyes found me again, the massive cat lifted its hind leg.

It sounded like he was pissing a waterfall at the base of the tree, and he looked me straight in the eye without blinking the entire time.

“Asshole,” I snorted, but a full minute passed before he was finally all out, and I knew there had to be a pond of urine down there by now.

Then the cat licked its bloody lips with an enormous black tongue, and he prowled back through the forest the way he came.

I collapsed against the limb I was clinging to.

“Fuck you, too,” I sighed.

I spent the next five minutes right where I was while I worked on getting the feeling back in my extremities, but after that, I still didn’t move for another ten minutes because once the cat was out of my line of sight, I didn’t hear a damn thing down there.

The massive beast had made the whole forest shudder when it pursued its prey before, but walking, it was as quiet as the creature it mangled near the rocks, and there was no way in hell I’d risk letting him have another go at me.

Unfortunately, the stench of his piss was so acrid that my nose burned when it started wafting up to me, and my eyes watered painfully as blood began dripping from my nostrils.

Even the beast’s piss was lethal.

On the plus side, I could see a glimmer of water from up here, and it looked like a river wasn’t too far off. I couldn’t stomach the idea of getting any closer to the acrid urine below, so I took my next best option, and I mopped my eyes a few times while I carefully inched my way to the branches of the next tree. I spat a dozen times along the way to get the stench off my tongue, and my throat burned almost as badly as my nose did.

Eventually, I was seven trees away, and while I could still smell the wild cat’s urine, it didn’t have as strong of an effect on me at this distance. I took a moment to pinch the bridge of my nose and get it to stop bleeding like a sieve, and then I climbed down through the branches and dropped onto the ground.

From what I could see, not a single creature was in the area now, but I walked at a faster pace than I had been earlier as I beelined for the river. The closer I got, the more I could hear the songbirds singing again, and I just hoped my luck was turning around.

That wild cat was like nothing I’d ever heard of or encountered, but I had no means of turning the tables on a predator that size right now. Hell, my rifle would probably burn through three magazines without bringing him down, and the thought made me check over my shoulder a few more times as I scaled a ridge of stark white stone.

Then I was looking down on a clear river that flowed through the forest from my left side, and the banks were far enough apart that I could see the sky without any red boughs obstructing the view.

Or at least, I would have been able to if it wasn’t a cloudy day, but still, it was nice to get a break from the constant blanket of red I’d been under for hours. I didn’t waste any time before I climbed down the other side of the stones to the riverside, and I crossed the rocky shore before I knelt to scoop up a handful of fresh, cold water.

I was so relieved to find a good water source that I was tempted to gulp down a dozen more handfuls in quick succession, but I held off for now. I needed to find out if I was gonna get sick as hell from this water first, but I did dunk my whole head into the current. When I came up for air, I worked on scrubbing the blood from my beard and moustache, and then I took one more dunk just to regroup. The cold water made my scalp tingle as a shiver rippled through me, but I was grinning when I resurfaced again feeling like a new man.

Then I chuckled and shoved my dripping wet hair out of my eyes, and as I heard the soft call of a bird, I turned my head to find I wasn’t alone.

The banks of the river were made up of all-white and rugged stone piled up in various heights, so I hadn’t noticed the dozens of creatures sitting around on them. Now, it took me a moment to decide what I was even looking at.

They looked like arctic rabbits, but they had no black or gray shading in their coats, and even their irises were almost pure white. The very slight hint of blue in their eyes was what initially caught my attention, but not for long, because one of the rabbits spread its snow-white wings soon after. Then it took flight, and it let out the call I’d mistaken for a songbird’s while a few others answered back and followed him.

“What the hell?” I muttered under my breath.

I stared as a flock of five flew gracefully to the opposite bank and landed on a stark white slab, and the moment their wings folded, I lost sight of them again. With their backs to me, I could hardly make them out at all, and I shook my head in disbelief as I tried to tally up how many of the winged rabbits were gathered over here.

I’d counted thirty-seven when I abruptly halted.

Someone had spoken nearby.

It was a man’s voice, and as I listened more closely, it sounded like he was coming directly toward the river from behind me.

Relief washed through my veins as I realized I wasn’t completely alone in this crazy ass wilderness, which meant I might not be left to fend off those wild cats by myself, either. I could even figure out where I was, and how I could try to get back to Talkeetna from here.

I got up on my feet as I turned around to pinpoint where the voice was coming from, but the person wasn’t speaking anymore. I waited another minute while I tried to decide if I should call out to them, but I was hesitant to make my whereabouts known so soon.

The voice had been drawing closer at first, but now I couldn’t hear anything above the rushing water and the soft calls of the animals around me, so I narrowed my eyes as I scanned the high white ridges closing me in along the riverbank.

Something was off. Then again, everything was “off” about this forest. I wanted to at least get a visual of this person before I strolled up with all my cards on the table, but right now, I was anything but hidden. My black jacket and hair would draw attention in a heartbeat on the stark white shore, so I quickly found a ragged stack of stones nearby.

Then I moved as quietly as I could while I ducked behind and squeezed in deeper between two white slabs, and while I had a view of both banks of the river from here, I couldn’t watch the ridge I’d come down. Still, it was better than wandering around in the open without knowing what to expect, and I waited for someone to appear.

No one did at first, but then an arrow soared down and struck a winged rabbit, and before I could blink, three more were killed. The creatures were taking off in one huge, white flock now, but the bowhunter caught several more mid-flight, and as another batch fell from the sky farther down the bank, I fought the urge to let out a low whistle.

The bodies of the rabbits had all been pierced right through the chest regardless of the angle the hunter shot from, and I decided this was someone I should get to know as I counted the number of bloody rabbits by the shore.

There were at least twenty-five from what I could tell, but I thought I saw one drop into the river as well, and all of them had been taken down in under a minute.

I craned my neck to get a clearer view of the bank while I waited to see who had the stellar bow skills, but then my brow furrowed severely as a fucking Viking walked to the riverside.

That was the only way I could have described him: a Viking.

He was as tall as me, but shredded like a pro wrestler, and his bare arms were covered with strange black markings that must have been drawn on with coal. His dark brown hair hung down in a messy nest around his shoulders and blended into a bushy, unkempt beard, and a broadsword was sheathed on his belt.

I honestly didn’t know where to look next while I questioned my sanity, but another Viking much like him came over with identical markings on his arms, and I just gawked at the pair.

I knew there were some enthusiastic cosplayers in the world, but this was the most extreme getup I’d ever seen, and the pair even wore striped fur hides slung across one shoulder like a sash. Bundles of dead animals were strung to their leather belts, and they both knelt to wash off a pair of bloody daggers in the water.

Between all of this and their rough-hewn vambraces and vests, these guys looked like they’d walked straight out of thirteenth century Iceland. I couldn’t even close my gaping mouth while I stared at the men, but the longer I studied them, the more confused I got.

I recognized the pelts across their shoulders, and they actually matched the massive wild cat to a tee. That’s when I realized the broadswords they were carrying weren’t some novelty replicas. They were the real deal, and the blood the men were washing off their daggers had to have been real, too. Whether it was from the animals on their belts, I didn’t know, but their swords both had dried blood lining the blades.

Then one man turned a half-rotted grin to the other, and I raised my eyebrows at the weathered lines creasing his face above his shaggy beard. Only the most rugged outdoorsmen in Alaska looked as leathery as this guy, and the crazed glint in his eyes gave the impression he’d seen some dark shit in his day.

When a third burly man joined the pair though, I decided it would be best if I hung back from this group.

Because the third Viking dropped a dead man’s body on the rocks.

Just the body. The head had been removed.

The other two men chuckled as he knelt to rinse off his bloody two-bit axe, but as I took stock of how many weapons they all carried among them, I realized no one in this group wielded a bow.

I couldn’t be sure who was responsible for taking down so many of the winged rabbits, but I was mostly too unnerved to care at this point.

Vikings. I was looking at actual Vikings right now.

Ones who apparently beheaded people and could take down the twenty foot wild cat that liked to shred its prey to a pulp.

I shook my head in disbelief as I watched the men finish cleaning their blades, and they spoke in low voices to one another while they worked. I couldn’t tell what language they were using, and I was still trying to catch even a word of the conversation when the whole world just about stopped turning.

The three men had a woman with them, and I actually forgot to take my next breath when she strolled onto the banks of the river.

Her back was to me, but this gave me a full view of her half-packed quiver of arrows, and she was slinging a longbow across her chest as she came to join the others. Then she shifted her blonde hair over her shoulder, and the dense crop of braids and dreadlocks tumbled all the way down to her bare waist.

She wore the same fur and leather as the men, but her vest was cropped short, and she carried only a rugged-looking dagger on her belt. Her vambraces were as well-worn as the others, and she had a few dead rabbits already strung in place.

Then the woman gripped the fur of the hulking man with the axe, and she hauled him up and shoved him toward the dead rabbits with a surprising amount of strength. The other two men swiftly got to work without needing the same treatment, and once the Viking woman was sure they were focused, she stepped over the dead guy to join them.

After that, I just tried not to blink, because she dropped into a splayed squat when she pulled her dagger out, and this only accentuated the ratio between her cinched waist and flawless ass.

She sliced the wings off her kill and severed their heads in just two quick swipes, and each time she finished, she’d deftly string them to her belt and let the blood drip down her leather-clad legs. Then she’d squat down to retrieve another catch, and every time, my eyes dropped to the two little dimples above her perfectly sculpted back end.

The Viking chick also managed to string the bulk of the rabbits up faster than the three men finished ten, so I was practically drooling all over my beard by the time she trudged into the river up to her thighs.

I silently prayed she’d turn in my direction and give me a glimpse of her face, but the woman’s thick blonde braids fell forward to block the view as she bent and snatched a drenched rabbit from the river bottom. Then she wrenched the arrow free, propped it under her arm, and handily clipped the rabbit’s wings and head.

Once she tossed the scraps onto the rocky shore, she stooped to rinse her arrowhead off, and I was admiring the feline shape of her pose when she abruptly halted her work. The honed muscles in her arms tensed beneath the fur sash while she slowly straightened up, and she turned her head ever so slightly to the side.

I could at least catch her profile from this angle, and she may as well have been a Nordic goddess.

The woman’s pale cheekbones were high and sharp, and her jaw was set firm while her lips puckered naturally in a soft pink. Her blonde hair was coiled in small, tight braids against her scalp on the sides near her temples, and where she piled the top half into a messy knot, I could tell some kind of animal bone was holding it all in place. My gaze was just drifting down the slope of her long neck when I noticed her nose twitch a little, and I wondered if this Viking chick was actually sniffing something out.

Only a split second later, her bow was in hand with the arrow strung, and she flipped to take aim at me.

I ducked back just in time, but I didn’t know if she’d still caught sight of me. I could hear the men’s swords unsheathing as the woman trudged back to the bank, and she spoke so quietly to them, I could barely make out the murmur of her voice.

Then the group suddenly fell silent, and my heart pounded heavy in my chest while I shifted to hide myself deeper out of sight.

I couldn’t believe this woman had just sniffed me out from thirty feet away when all I could smell was river water and crisp pines, but that arrow had zeroed in right on the cropping of rocks I was hiding inside of.

Whether or not she would have loosed the arrow if she’d seen me, I didn’t know, but considering her lethal aim and the decapitated man on the rocks, I wasn’t willing to take a chance to find out.

No one made a sound on the riverbank for several minutes, and I waited a painful amount of time for the band of four to close in on me. Any second now, an arrow or a blade could slice through the opening in front of me, but more and more time passed without anything happening. I must have stood stock-still in the rocks for nearly thirty minutes before I finally inched forward again, and I tried not to dislodge any stones under my boots along the way.

When I reached the edge of the stone slab, I slowly tilted my head so I could get just a sliver of a view, and what I could see of the riverside was deserted. I crept out another few steps while my hand slid to the bone handle of my knife, but then I came around the side of the stone, and I froze on the spot.

No one was out on the stark white bank anymore, and the upper ridge was as deserted as it had been when I arrived.

But the decapitated body was propped up against a pile of stones to face me, and every severed rabbit skull that had been discarded was now neatly arranged in a trail leading to my hideout.

The eyes were gouged out of the soft white skulls now, so a line of hollow, bloody orbs stared up at me, and right where my boots stopped, someone had written the word “run” in blood.