Only the Dead by Vidar Sundstøl

couple of times, just to make sure he still had it in him. He wasn’t entirely convinced he would get into proper position, but of course he did. He’d handled a rifle since he was eight and gone out hunting from the age of thirteen. He went on his first deer-hunting expedition with his brother as a twenty-year-old. He wasn’t particularly interested in guns, but he liked the focus and the precision a perfect shot demanded. The correct line between his eye, the scope, and the target. Ever since his father first taught him to shoot with an air gun, he’d enjoyed hunting and felt it was something he was good at. But not once in all that time, at least as far as he could remember, had he ever raised his rifle to his shoulder because he was uncertain about whether he still had it in him.
    Andy had not crossed the open plain at the bottom of the valley. At least not while Lance was watching. What if he’d gone straight over the ridge and was on his way here from behind? The post was at the base of the slope, and the terrain rose up steeply behind him. There were a lot of trees up there, relatively speaking, mostly aspen and birch, but it wouldn’t be impossible to find a spot, maybe fifty yards away, with a clear sight down to him. Lance turned halfway so that he could alternately keep an eye on the clear-cut and the slope. The temperature must have dropped below freezing, because now the leaves were crunching under his boots. That would make it more difficult for Andy to sneak up on a deer, but also easier for Lance to hear him. He listened for the snapping of a twig, the crackling of almost-frozen leaves, but he heard nothing.
    The cold had begun to seep inside him again. A faint trembling was spreading through his torso, his breath was white with frost. He felt an urge to jump up and down or to flap his arms, but it would be best if he didn’t make a sound. He was just going to have to let the cold eat into him.
    Again he raised the rifle into firing position. He was still able to manage it just fine, but he had no idea how much longer he could do it. Soon the cold inside his body would start to hamper his movements. That’s when the deer will show up, he thought. When I’m no longer capable of taking a precise shot. That’s when it will suddenly be standing right there. Either the deer, or Andy. His brother would appear when Lance could no longer defend himself. Yet he was also the only one who could release him from the cold. As soon as Andy turned up, Lance would be free to move about as much as he liked. Until then, he was at the mercy of the cold, which was penetrating ever deeper inside him. If I stand here long enough, I’ll freeze into ice, he thought. Just like at the bottom of the lake. And it’s 1,332 feet up to the surface.
    HE JUST BARELY REGISTERED the vibrations against his numb thigh. He opened the pocket flap and took out his cell phone. It was Andy’s number on the display.
    “Yep?” he said, but his voice was almost inaudible. He cleared his throat and tried again. “Hello?”
    “I’m right below you,” said his brother.
    “Good.”
    “See anything?”
    “Nothing. Did you?”
    “Nothing,” said Andy.
    “Hmm . . .”
    “Well, I’ll be there in a sec.” Andy broke the connection before Lance could say anything more.
    Lance leaned his rifle against a tree trunk and began flapping his arms. His brother soon emerged from the edge of the woods.
    “Are you cold?” asked Andy when he came closer.
    “Naw.”
    Lance slung his rifle over his shoulder. They avoided looking each other in the eye.
    “So you didn’t see anything?” he asked.
    “No deer, in any case.”
    “Something else?” said Lance.
    “I don’t know . . .”
    “What?”
    “I saw a man,” said Andy.
    “A man? Where?”
    His brother looked at him. Lance thought he held his gaze a little too long, and finally he had to look away.
    “Up on the ridge.”
    “Well, at least he won’t cause any trouble up