The Ones Who Came Back from the Mountain Chapter 1

My entire family left for a ski trip to the Aspen mountains, leaving me behind.

“I didn't know you couldn't even ski or rock climb, Nora,” Sherry, the girl I was swapped at birth with, pouted. “If I’d known, I would’ve picked somewhere else.”

My parents and brother rushed to console her, saying it wasn't her fault—I was just too ‘uncultured’ for such things.

If only Sherry never came back, I thought, watching their car disappear down the drive.

Then the unthinkable happened.

An avalanche tore through the resort. My parents and brother returned home, looking like shell-shocked ghosts.

“Sherry didn't make it out,” my mother wailed, pulling me into a crushing hug. “Nora, you're our only daughter now.”

But I felt no relief. No joy.

Because a second earlier, a text had buzzed on my phone. It was from Sherry.

“Nora! Mom, Dad, and Leo are all dead!”

...

My mother must have felt me go rigid in her arms, because she slowly pulled back.

“What's wrong, Nora? We're back now. Don't be scared.”

Her voice was so gentle it was alien to me. She only ever spoke that way to Sherry. With me, her tone was always as cold and sharp as winter ice.

I stared at the three figures standing in the doorway. Though their faces were bruised and their clothes were stained with patches of what looked like dried blood, they were unmistakably my mother, my father, and my brother, Leo.

So why would Sherry say they were dead?

No, wait. If my mother was telling the truth, Sherry was the one who didn't survive the avalanche. So who sent me that text?

“Let’s get you out of those filthy clothes,” Leo said, his voice hoarse. He helped our sobbing mother into the living room. “Nora needs a minute to process everything.”

As they passed me, a wave of bone-deep cold washed over me, making me shiver.

A comment I’d seen on a news article about the avalanche flashed through my mind.

“A tourist caught in a slide that big? They’re gone. If your loved ones come home safe, take a good, hard look. Make sure they're still human.”

The commenter, who claimed to be a mountain guide, had tried to explain that victims of a disaster sometimes don’t realize they’ve died and are driven by a single, obsessive need to return home. He was relentlessly flamed and deleted the comment.

Something that bizarre…

Could it be happening to me?

As if on cue, the last ray of sunlight vanished below the horizon, plunging the living room into a deep, oppressive twilight. Or maybe it was just my imagination, but the temperature in the house seemed to drop several degrees.

“Nora, what are you doing just standing there? Close the door,” my father’s voice rasped from the shadows.

The way he turned was… wrong. He didn’t just turn his head; his entire torso rotated with it, stiffly, like he was frozen solid.

The hair on my arms stood on end. I took an instinctive step back, my hand fumbling behind me for the doorknob.

My phone buzzed again, a frantic vibration against my palm.

It was Sherry. She’d sent a picture.

Three black body bags, lined up neatly in a row.

A new text followed. “They just flew the bodies back. Where the hell are you, Nora? I told you to get a car and meet me.”

BANG!

An arm slammed the door shut behind me.

I snapped my head up, my eyes meeting my brother’s. He was looking down at me, his face unreadable.

“Nora,” he murmured, his voice a low whisper, “who are you texting?”