Retreat at the Camel Cove Lodge Part 2

Author's Note: This is the second installment in a fun little collaboration - ten authors, ten perspectives, ten different chapters in this murder mystery. You can find the first part, written by ATOMIC HISTORIAN, here:

Part Two

The bison had been staring at him for what felt like an hour. Except it didn’t look like a bison at all. It looked like some sort of winter demon - a creature made up of wind and snowflakes. Rationally, Kevin knew there was a flesh and blood animal under the snowy exterior, but tons of ice crystals had lodged themselves into its thick coat, hiding every bit of brown. He wasn’t really very superstitious, but… Well, spending the night alone in sub-zero temperatures in a wildlife reserve in the middle of nowhere, only a few meters away from a frozen corpse, was loosening his grip on reality somewhat.

He supposed he should be thankful that it wasn’t a bear. But were there even supposed to be bison in this part of the park? Was the Zone of Death within their territory?

The Zone of Death! Gee, he wondered why the Camel Cove Lodge hadn’t put that in the brochure. He’d only learned about this place’s macabre nickname when he had already been preparing to leave and he had shown one of his friends its rough location on a map.

“Duuuude! That’s the Zone of Death you’re going to!”

Kevin had blinked.

“The what now? What’s that, some local Native American legend?”

“Not even close. It’s actually called that because of some weird loophole in the law that theoretically lets you get away with murder. It has to do with borders and jurisdictions and the like… See, to have a murder trial you need a jury of people who are from the same state and district, but nobody lives in the Idaho part of Yellowstone. So getting that kind of jury is impossible. So if you commit a serious crime there, they can’t prosecute you legally. If you wanna murder someone and walk away, that’s the place do it.”

Kevin had laughed.

“Why would I want to murder anyone?”

The truth was, he wanted to murder everyone lately. But those weren’t real thoughts, right? He’d just been having a shitty couple of years.

Of course, they had been shitty for everyone, what with the pandemic… Kevin was willing to bet that most people probably entertained thoughts of murder. Husbands and wives going through their mid-life crises at the same time and having to isolate together had to be a lot more homicidal than he was. He was just… mildly murderous. For an aspiring actor and director in the wake of a pandemic which had tried its best to destroy the performing arts and film industry worldwide, he thought he was really rather sane.

After the Moldova production had been shut down, he’d been forced to look for any job with decent pay to cover his debts. That was how he had ended up in this corporate hell, even though he had once promised himself to never join any kind of rat race.

'Creative director'… Ha! He had completely bulshitted his way through the interview - the only useful thing he’d managed to do with his acting skills lately. He did have an undergraduate degree in graphic design, but he had only managed to get it by the skin of his teeth. He had figured out long ago that he had no future in that line of work. He really had no talent for design and couldn’t market for shit. But these idiots at KA apparently couldn’t tell. He had applied 'just because', with no hope of being invited for an interview. Then, when the interview had come, he had decided to just have fun, play the part. Surely they would know he was full of shit and not actually hire him! Well, they had. And then he’d realised Harpreet worked there…

Fucking Harpreet. He’d thought it would be okay at first - after all, she’d given him to understand years ago that she didn’t care what he did with his life, so why would she meddle now. But she’d made little comments here and there. mostly when they happened to bump into each other at the office and there was nobody else around. And since they’d gotten to the lodge she had just been an absolute bitch. Like she had any right to insinuate he was a loser and a fraud! He was pretty sure she was fucking the boss. Poor Finch, really. Anyway, Kevin had eventually snapped and sniped at her with the only real weapon he had - pointing out what a shitty mother she was.

They’d sort of reconciled eventually but the fight hadn’t been pretty, and everyone had heard. They’d agreed to talk somewhere a lot more private next time.

He glanced to his left, to a gloved hand sticking up from the snow drifts.

“How the fuck did we end up here, Harpreet, hm? You, me and a fucking bison. One dead, one probably about to freeze to death and one… well, one a member of an endangered species, I suppose. That can’t be fun either.” He raised an eyebrow at the bison. “Where’s your herd, pal? Are you supposed to be alone? I can’t talk, I guess - I left my herd, too. But, by God, are they all utterly unbearable!”

The bison didn’t answer. At this point, Kevin wouldn’t have been too surprised if it had answered.

The damned animal hadn’t moved since dawn. Kevin had woken up snuggled inside of his sleeping bag jacket. (It was probably the only thing that kept him from dying of hypothermia even now. And to think everyone around him had deemed the purchase of it an overkill!) He’d really meant to go back to the cabin last night. He had been pretty sure he remembered the way, but everything had looked the same in the dark, and after some wandering, he had eventually ended up back here. Back with poor dead-as-a-doornail Harpreet. At that point he’d known it would be wiser to sit tight and wait till morning.

So, yes, he had woken up to find at least a couple of centimeters of snow on top of himself and a forest spirit in the shape of a snow bison staring him down. It looked very judgmental but perhaps that was how bison always looked.

For the hundredth time Kevin contemplated shouting at the creature, but he didn’t dare. Whether it was some kind of cold-induced hallucination, a real animal or a supernatural entity, he was pretty sure that if he angered it, it would trample him. He was hesitant to try walking away for the same reason. Earlier, when he had slowly stood up, the bison had seemed to glare harder.

Still, they couldn’t just stand there forever!

He took a deep breath, 'let his balls drop', as his father used to say, and took a step backwards.

Nothing. No reaction from the mountain of snowflakes.

He tried another step. Still nothing.

Before he could start feeling relieved, a noise reached his ears. A prrr-prrr-prrr-prrr-prrr which grew rapidly louder. It was distinctly out of place in the frozen silence of the park. Kevin’s eyes darted around, searching for the source of the sound. Helicopters?

It was. They came into view from behind a hill, their racket intensifying.

At that moment, the bison spooked and charged at him. Kevin emitted an embarrassingly high-pitched scream, but the animal missed him. Instead of slamming into him, it darted to the side and ran right over Harpreet’s dead body. Kevin thought he heard a crunch. Then the huge living mountain of snow galloped away while the rhythmic mechanical noise of the helicopters filled up the entire world around.

***

Continue on to Part 3 here: