The Beyond Read Online Free PDF

buck broke into the clearing just as the hunter was drawing back on the bowstring. As the stag got its footing and crouched to dash off to the left, he saw his other arrow jutting from the animal’s thick neck and aimed lower. The new arrow hit the mark, directly between shoulder blade and ribs. The animal went down hard, sending up a shower of new snow. Kicking its back legs, it squealed miserably in a strange, near-human voice, and thrashed back and forth.
    In an instant, Cley had the stone knife in his hand. As soon as the stag rested from its death throes, he approached it from behind. The legs of the creature gave a few more quivering kicks, and then the hunter lunged in and sliced it across the throat. The life had barely left it before Wood lapped at the blood-dyed snow.
    The carcass was too heavy to carry back, and it was a certainty the wolves would devour it by morning. It was as big as a small horse, with a rack that numbered ten points on either side. Cley had no choice but to take whatever he could carry. There was no telling if the Beyond might serve them venison again until spring. He cut two enormous steaks from its flanks, enough for a week’s worth of meals, and they trudged back toward the cave.
    It took all of his remaining energy to build another fire, and he heaped on their entire store of kindling and branches so that he would not have to tend it through the night. With his hunting cloak and mittens still on, he wrapped himself in the blanket and passed out by the shaft at the back of the cave. He slept hard, without dreaming, for what seemed an entire day, before waking to the sound of his own voice, shouting. Immediately, he fell back to sleep again.
    He came to, late in the morning, but of which day he wasn’t sure. His leg and arm muscles ached fiercely, but he was pleased to find that all of his toes and fingers had survived exposure to the storm. Wood approached and he put his arms around the dog.
    â€œVenison, for you,” he said, and laughed at the thought of having beaten the Beyond one more time.
    Passing the cooling embers of the fire, he walked through the entrance of the cave and into the day. The sky told him that snow would fall again before night. He dropped to his knees and began digging through the ice-crusted white in order to uncover the meat he had hastily buried. The lack of tracks indicated his kill had been safe from scavengers. After digging to the frozen earth in one spot, he found it wasn’t there, and realized he had misjudged the hiding place. He set to digging in another spot a few feet away. Again, nothing was revealed. Frantically, he worked in spot after spot with twice the vigor. An hour later, the entire area of a six-yard arc in front of the cave mouth had been exhumed. Throughout the entire excavation, he found not a single drop of blood, not a single hair from the hide that would have covered one side of each steak.
    Cley cursed angrily. The dog came out of the cave and stood in front of him, but turned to the side, looking out of the corner of his eye.
    â€œDid we not kill a huge buck last night?” he asked Wood.
    The dog didn’t move.
    He thought back to the scene in the moonlit clearing—the shadow of the creature, its breath turned to steam, the perfect accuracy of his shots, the sound of its last breath when he cut its throat. Reaching down into his boot, he retrieved the stone blade and inspected it for any evidence of a recent kill. It was spotless.
    From all through the forest came the sound of branches cracking beneath the newly fallen snow—the sound of the Beyond, laughing.
    Wood recovered fully from his wound, though it left a jagged scar across his chest. The days came and went with a lethargic monotony—tending the fire, hunting, sitting through long hours in the cave, staring out at a perfectly white world. Wild imagination was more abundant than food, and the companions’ diet consisted of hunger