Black SnowWe’d been nuts to tackle fifty kilometers for our first cross-country run, but we had it made now. A hop off the bluff and two easy klicks downhill to the Blazer. Simon Manz and I—both juniors at the University of New Mexico—were rated Alpine skiers, but this was something poles apart…different equipment, different skills, and different muscles.
Sim leaned on his sticks and downed sausage for protein and fortified chocolate for quick energy. “Damn, O, this place gives me the creeps. Never seen a forest so quiet.” O was his shorthand for my name, Owen Ohlren. He pointed at a black smudge lying across a bank of snow. “What the hell is that?”
“A log?” I was too tired to indulge my curiosity.
“Uh-uh. That’s no log.”
My flesh puckered from head to toe as the abnormality faded away
