Read Chapter 22: The Hidden Valley

The roar came again, closer this time, rattling loose stones from the cliff walls around them. Declan pressed the map flat against his knee, tracing the ink line with a gloved finger. Lindqvist's handwriting had been careful, almost obsessive, marking a route that cut between two ridgelines where the contour lines bunched like scar tissue.

"There," he said, pointing to a thin gap in the rock face ahead. "The pass should be just beyond that scree field. Half a klick, maybe less."

Maya didn't answer. She stood motionless, head tilted, the pendant hanging from her fist. The faint amber glow had faded to nothing, but her eyes were fixed on the high ridge above them.

"Ansel?" Declan asked.

"Gone quiet." She tucked the pendant beneath her jacket. "That's worse. When they're quiet, they're moving with purpose."

Another cry split the air, but it came from behind them now, from the direction of the trapper's cabin. Declan's stomach turned. Jules had a gun. Jules had supplies. But Jules was feverish, bleeding, and alone.

"They're not coming for us," Maya said, reading his expression. "They're circling the station. Whatever's waiting there, it's got their attention."

"That doesn't make me feel better about Jules."

"It shouldn't. But it means we can move."

They moved.

The scree field was brutal, ankle-deep stones that slid with every step, threatening to send them tumbling into the ravine below. Declan kept his eyes on the gap in the ridgeline, a dark notch against the pale afternoon sky. The wind picked up, carrying a warmth that felt wrong at this altitude, like breathing through someone else's lungs.

Then they were through.

The pass opened into a bowl of green that stopped Declan cold. Steam curled from vents scattered across the valley floor, hissing from cracks in the earth like the ground itself was exhaling. Moss clung to the rock in thick mats, and despite the snow dusting the ridgelines above, the air here was almost temperate. A stream ran through the center, its water steaming where it pooled.

And the walls. The walls were covered in carvings.

Declan stepped closer, his breath catching. The stone was etched with figures that shifted shape mid-stride—human legs flowing into animal haunches, arms reaching up into antlers, hands curling into claws. The carvings were old, worn smooth in places, but the images were unmistakable.

"This is it," he breathed. "This is the place from the journal."

Maya moved past him, running her fingers over a carving of a spiral. She said nothing, but her face had gone pale beneath the grime and windburn.

"Howls," Declan said. "Do you hear them?"

She nodded. The sound came from every direction, echoing off the valley walls, layered and wrong. Somewhere below, deeper into the valley, something answered.

They followed the stream. The carvings grew denser as they walked, the figures more frantic. One panel showed a group of humans kneeling before a great spiral, their heads tilted back, something emerging from their mouths like smoke. Another showed the same figures scattered, broken, half-beast and half-human, tearing at each other.

Declan's hand drifted to the cylinder in his pack. Through the layers of cloth and insulation, he could feel warmth radiating from the tissue sample, a steady, pulsing heat that had never been there before.

"Declan." Maya's voice was low. "There."

The camp was set into a natural alcove in the valley wall, sheltered from the steam vents by a ridge of volcanic rock. A tent, collapsed and half-covered in frost. A fire pit, cold for weeks. A steel cache box, its lid hanging open.

Elias's camp. Declan recognized it from the photographs in the journal, the same battered cookware, the same faded orange tent.

But Elias wasn't here. And the ground around the camp was littered with bodies.

Declan forced himself to look. Skeletons, but not like any he'd seen in recovery work. The pelvises were too wide, sitting at the wrong angle. The spines curved forward, the ribs flared outward. Some had skulls that still held a hint of human shape, but the jaws were elongated, the canine teeth thick and curved like daggers.

Half-transformed. They'd died mid-shift, frozen in the snow, their bones scattered by scavengers.

"Jesus Christ," Maya whispered.

Declan knelt by the nearest one. The clothes were still partially intact, a torn parka twisted around the thorax. He reached for a tag on the collar—the same black tag Jules had worn, the kind of durable identification the company issued to its expedition teams.

"These are corporation people," he said. "Jules's team. Some of them, at least."

"Did they kill each other?"

"Or something killed them." Declan stood, scanning the alcove. The cache box was empty except for a battered tin cup and a bundle of moldering papers. He lifted them carefully—field notes, pages of the same tight handwriting as the journal. Lindqvist's, or Elias's, or both.

He was about to set them back when he noticed the last page. A single line, scrawled in pencil, the handwriting more hurried than the rest:

*They found the center. It calls to them. If you read this, do not sleep inside the ring. The change takes root in sleep—*

The writing cut off mid-sentence. The next page was blank, save for a dark brown smear across the bottom edge.

A howl erupted from directly behind him.

Declan spun, dropping the papers, his hand going to the flare gun holstered at his hip. But the creature that stood at the mouth of the alcove wasn't charging. It stood motionless, backlit by the steam, breathing in thick bursts.

It was humanoid, tall and gaunt, its skin stretched tight over bones that bent at unnatural angles. Its arms hung too long, its fingers tipped with blackened claws. But its face—its face was still almost human, the features slack and dreaming, as if the thing wasn't fully awake.

Maya made a sound, barely a breath. "Ansel."

The creature twitched at the name. Its head tilted, and for a moment, Declan saw recognition flicker in its eyes. Then the dreaminess sharpened into focus, and the recognition twisted into something hungry.

It took a step forward.

"You need to run," Maya said. "Declan, you need to run *now*."

But Declan wasn't looking at the creature anymore. He was looking past it, to the far wall of the alcove, where the carvings had been spaced widely apart. In the gap between two panels, etched deep into the stone, was a spiral.

And it was glowing.

The spiral pulsed with a faint, warm light, like banked coals. Declan felt something in his chest answer it, a pull he couldn't name, a desire to step closer, to lay his hand on the stone and let—

*"Declan!"*

Maya's scream snapped him out of it. The creature was moving now, not charging but loping sideways, cutting off their exit. Its mouth opened, and the howl that came out was the same sound they'd been tracking all day, the same layered, wrong sound that had echoed off the cliffs.

But now Declan could hear something beneath it. A word. Almost a word, buried in the scream.

*Finish.*

The creature lunged, and Declan fired the flare gun. The phosphorus bloomed between them, blinding white, and the creature shrieked, recoiling into the steam. Maya grabbed Declan's arm and yanked him backward, away from the alcove, away from the bodies, away from the glowing spiral that still pulsed at the edge of his vision.

They ran. The valley walls blurred past, the carvings blurring into streaks of half-formed shapes. Behind them, the creature found its feet, and the howl that followed wasn't alone.

It was joined by others. Dozens of others.

Coming from the direction of the station. Converging on the valley.

On them.