Hills of Shivers and Shadows

During a tour with Wolfson,⁵ Frankie¹ fakes a panic attack, knocks him unconscious with an ax handle, and steals a snowmobile. She races south toward a distant hunting cabin she spotted from the plane, hoping someone lives there. Her flight ends when the machine launches off an unseen drop-off.

She crashes onto rocks below, the snowmobile pinning her lower body. Agonizing cramps seize her abdomen as blood soaks through her jeans. She knows immediately: the impact has killed her unborn child.

Hours pass before Kodiak⁴ finds her, aiming his crossbow at her chest and offering to speed her death. Wolfson⁵ arrives with a rifle, stopping him. Leonid³ carries her broken body ten miles back to the cabin. For three weeks, she lies in Kodiak's⁴ bed, begging to die, while Denver² nurses her back to health.

On her first run after recovering, Frankie¹ ignores warnings and heads north toward the river. She discovers a stone fireplace near the cliff, too large and ornate for a simple campfire. Climbing onto the hearth, she digs through layers of ash and charred logs until her fingers touch something smooth and white.

She exhumes a partial human skull, its jawbone unmistakable, along with femur fragments and ribs. Kodiak⁴ appears behind her without sound. He sweeps the skull back into the pit with casual indifference and tells her the bones are just old remains, that people die here.

He refuses to answer whose bones they are or how many. Then he sends her to pick blueberries with a canvas bag, warning that Denver² expects her at dinner and the consequences of disobedience are not worth suffering.

Frankie¹ dumps the bag of bones and blueberries across the dinner table, demanding to know who Denver² murdered. In response, Denver² calmly grips Wolfson's⁵ wrist and positions a fillet knife above his hand. He explains the family rule: when one person transgresses, another pays the price.

Before the blade can fall, Kodiak⁴ slams his own hand onto the table. Denver² drives the knife through flesh and muscle until it bites into the wood beneath. Frankie¹ screams apologies, but the punishment cannot be undone.

Kodiak⁴ endures the pain in silence while Wolfson⁵ retreats into a catatonic state on the floor. Denver² kisses Kodiak's⁴ temple with pride, then announces he is flying out that night for supplies. He tells Frankie¹ to patch Kodiak⁴ up and prove how sorry she is.

In the cellar, Leonid³ produces a crate containing children's clothing and five driver's licenses belonging to women: Helena Weiss, Kaya Knowles, Gretchen Stolz,⁷ Jasmine Noel, and Alyssa Yang. He demands Frankie¹ undress in exchange for answers.

When she removes her shirt and bra, he reveals that he and Kodiak⁴ arrived at Hoss as toddlers, kidnapped with their mothers. They are not biologically related to each other, though Denver² claims they share blood. The licenses span twenty-five years, the oldest expired and the newest only two years old.

Frankie¹ learns Gretchen⁷ was Wolfson's⁵ mother, the woman who stabbed Leonid³ when he was fifteen. The woman who then died at eight-year-old Wolfson's⁵ hands when he turned the same knife on her to protect his brother.

Late at night, Frankie¹ follows the sound of a woman's moans to the library, where she finds Leonid³ watching an old video. On screen, a teenage Leonid³ lies motionless while Gretchen⁷ rides him, her dark hair swaying.

Young Wolfson's⁵ voice interrupts from behind the camera before the footage cuts out. Leonid,³ now a grown man, sits with his erection in his hand but does not stroke himself. He explains Gretchen⁷ started abusing him when he was eleven and continued until he was fifteen.

She was fearless, cruel, and the only woman he has ever been with. When Frankie¹ asks if he wants her to leave, he demands she stay and watch him climax. Afterward, instead of fleeing, she wraps her arms around him. He falls asleep in her embrace for the first time in memory.

Denver² returns from his trip with a bouquet of fuchsia roses and a memory card. He loads a video on the television: Monty⁶ in his office, bent over his twenty-two-year-old office manager Aubrey,⁸ having sex on his desk. There is no audio, but the footage is explicit and unmistakable.

Frankie¹ watches in silence. When it ends, she demands to see more. She learns Denver² has destroyed the other videos, that Monty⁶ had multiple affairs, that Aubrey⁸ was only the latest. She watches the same clip five times, draining glass after glass of bourbon until Leonid³ cuts her off.

She loses count of how many times she replays it. By the end, she is hollow-eyed and slurring, a deadness settling behind her green eyes that Denver² misreads as acceptance but that is really the final severing of her connection to her former life.

Five nights after Kodiak⁴ and Leonid³ leave on a hunting trip, Wolfson⁵ walks into the bedroom to find Frankie¹ naked and tied spread-eagle to the bed, a gag in her mouth. Denver² stands over her, waiting. Wolfson⁵ drops his towel, draws a Glasgow smile on his face with a sharpie, and offers himself in Frankie's¹ place.

Denver² accepts, bending Wolfson⁵ over Frankie's¹ spread legs and assaulting him while Frankie¹ is forced to watch. Wolfson's⁵ hand grips her thigh throughout, his fingernails drawing blood, his eyes locked on hers. When it ends, Denver² leaves and tells Wolfson⁵ to enjoy her as his reward.

Wolfson⁵ unties Frankie¹ and holds her while she sobs. He asks if she will have sex with him now. When she refuses, he walks out, devastated. She follows him to his room, where he finally tells her the truth: Denver² has been assaulting his sons since they were children.

After learning the full history of Hoss, including that all five previous women died and Denver² intends to breed more children, Frankie¹ loads an unloaded revolver and confronts Denver² in his bedroom. She pulls the trigger repeatedly at his groin, each click a bluff that terrifies him.

Then she lays out her terms: he will never touch his sons again, and in exchange, she will come to him willingly. Denver² agrees but adds a condition: she must also have sex with his sons, particularly Kodiak,⁴ and come to Denver's² bed while their semen is still inside her.

That night, Denver² takes her anally while she dissociates, her mind floating elsewhere to survive. Over the following sixteen days, she endures his routine assaults, drinking heavily and withdrawing into a robotic numbness that Wolfson⁵ cannot penetrate.

Kodiak⁴ finds Frankie¹ running alone at night and follows her into the valley. Under the aurora borealis, he spanks her for her recklessness, then holds her while she finally breaks down and cries. On the walk back to the cabin, a massive wolf, seven feet long with blood-stained fur, attacks.

Kodiak⁴ wrestles it bare-handed, his thigh torn open by its jaws. Frankie¹ cannot cock the crossbow fast enough. She grabs Kodiak's⁴ knife and stabs the wolf over and over, fifty times, until the beast collapses dead atop Kodiak's⁴ bleeding body.

She fashions a tourniquet from his belt, fires a flare gun into the sky, and begins dragging him toward the cabin. Leonid³ arrives on the snowmobile, following the flare, and finds her covered in gore, still pulling Kodiak's⁴ unconscious form through the snow.

In the cabin kitchen, Frankie¹ works for hours to save Kodiak's⁴ life. His thigh wound is catastrophic; he has lost too much blood and is slipping into hemorrhagic shock. Frankie¹ sets up a direct transfusion, using Denver² as the donor because he shares Kodiak's⁴ A-negative blood type. She inserts an IV catheter into Denver's² arm and runs the line into Kodiak,⁴ refusing to let Denver² sit despite his growing pallor.

She cleans, sutures, and bandages wounds from his face to his legs. Wolfson⁵ and Leonid³ assist, following her commands without question. When Kodiak⁴ wakes briefly, he refuses a urinary catheter with characteristic gruffness. Frankie¹ monitors him through the night, sleeping beside him in the bed, her hand on his pulse.

Winter arrives with a blizzard that makes the plane unflyable. Denver,² having lost his leverage after Frankie's¹ bargain and Kodiak's⁴ recovery, refuses to make the final supply run that would stock the pantry until spring.

Wolfson⁵ calculates their food inventory and determines that even with strict rationing, they will run out two months before the thaw. The brothers begin eating half-portions. Frankie's¹ weight drops dangerously. Leo³ takes her on a desperate wolf-hunting expedition that yields nothing but a rabbit, which he releases rather than kill.

The snowmobile breaks down during a coal run. Denver² disables the hydroelectric generator, plunging the cabin into freezing darkness. He tells Leo³ where to find him when the cold becomes unbearable. The implication is clear: surrender, or freeze.

Leo³ spends weeks secretly welding a steel-barred door for the generator room in the workshop. When the power fails and Denver² confirms he disabled it, the brothers act. Leo³ strikes Denver² twice with his pistol, knocking him unconscious, then carries him to the cage.

They lock him inside with blankets, clothes, and a bucket. Leo³ keeps the combination to himself so Wolfson⁵ cannot be manipulated into freeing him. Frankie¹ confronts Denver² through the bars, demanding he restore power.

He quotes movie lines and taunts her, refusing to cooperate. Kodiak⁴ takes shifts guarding the cage while the cabin grows increasingly frigid. Denver² seems content to freeze to death rather than yield, his final act of control being the refusal to save his own life or anyone else's.

After days of worsening cold, Frankie¹ finds the workshop door barricaded from inside. Peering through the window, she sees Kodiak's⁴ clothes discarded on the floor and glimpses him inside the cage, his hands bound with a leather belt to a pipe.

He has made his own devil's bargain: his body for electricity. Denver² stands fully clothed, gloating that Kodiak⁴ requested the restraints himself because even willing, he never submits easily. Frankie¹ fires her shotgun through the door, shattering the barricade.

She aims her pistol at Denver's² leg and shoots him in the femoral artery when he touches Kodiak⁴ inappropriately. Bleeding out, Denver² taunts her with the secret of the generator, quoting a movie line about flux capacitors. Frankie¹ beats his face with a lead pipe until he finally speaks.

As Denver² bleeds out on the cage floor, he gasps out a confession: Monty Novak⁶ is actually Montgomery Strakh,⁶ one of his brothers. Denver² claims Monty⁶ ruined his life, so he took everything from Monty⁶ in return, including Frankie¹ and her unborn child.

He says there are two brothers, implying a third sibling exists somewhere. Frankie¹ desperately tries to save him, performing chest compressions and demanding he explain how to restore the power. Denver's² final words are a riddle: 'Beneath its wings lie the answers you seek, in a cage of ice and echoes.'

Then he dies. Frankie¹ collapses into hysterical grief and guilt, realizing she has killed their only source of knowledge about both the generator and the plane, potentially condemning them all to death.

In the aftermath of Denver's² death, Wolfson⁵ sinks into hopelessness. He tells Frankie¹ they are all already dead, that starving or freezing slowly is worse than a quick end. She wakes to find him gone and tracks his footprints to the cliff's edge where she once stood contemplating suicide.

He holds a pistol aimed at her chest, asking her to die with him so they can be together. Before she can talk him down, Kodiak's⁴ arrow pierces Wolfson's⁵ arm, ruining his aim. Leonid³ trains a rifle on Wolfson.⁵

In the chaos of shouted threats and pleas, Wolfson⁵ spreads his arms like a crucifix and steps backward off the cliff into the river rapids below. Kodiak⁴ runs along the edge, searching, but the current has carried the body away. There is nothing to bury.

The three survivors kneel together on the frozen porch, huddled in grief. Kodiak⁴ weeps openly, a rarity for a man who has spent his life suppressing emotion. Leonid³ howls into the dark, a primal sound of loss that echoes across the tundra.

Frankie¹ sits between them, too gutted to speak, her guilt over both Denver's² death and Wolfson's⁵ suicide crushing her chest. Kodiak⁴ is the first to find words, declaring that tonight they mourn, but tomorrow they will search for the answers Denver² promised: 'Beneath its wings lie the answers you seek, in a cage of ice and echoes.'

As if in response, the black horizon begins to glow. After months of polar night, the sun is returning. A sliver of light touches the hills of shivers and shadows, a promise that winter will end and the hunt for survival will continue.