Narrator: Nathan G. | Alaska, USA
We were close enough to the truck that we considered packing up when the wind changed. My friend Scott had already got the stove going, and neither of us wanted to hike back hungry. That’s the sort of little decision you keep returning to afterwards.
Our tent was orange. So was the one I saw on the slope above us when I went out to pee.
I hadn’t noticed anyone arriving. There was no light inside it, no cooking gear, no footprints I could distinguish in the crusty snow. I called hello. Somebody coughed, a short, painful cough, and I asked if they needed anything.
Scott called from our tent. I went back and told him about the other camper. He said he’d heard me speaking but hadn’t heard an answer.
Later the coughing started again. Closer. Scott opened the door and the orange tent was perhaps fifteen yards away, on a patch of ground I had walked across ten minutes before. We hadn’t heard anyone moving equipment.
I was annoyed now. I thought someone was trying to scare us. Scott put his boots on and went over while I held a light. Halfway there he stopped. The far tent had the same gray repair patch as ours, beside the entrance. He had repaired that tear himself the previous summer.
The zipper began opening from the bottom.
There was a sleeping bag inside, a water bottle, a boot with a red lace. My boot. I was wearing the pair with red laces because one original lace had broken and I’d replaced both. I could see the stupid knot I used instead of tying a bow.
Scott backed away. Inside the other tent, somebody began struggling for air. It sounded like me. I could hear my own odd little whistle between the breaths.
We left our tent standing. Took our packs and walked to the truck without collecting anything else. Every so often Scott looked behind us. I made myself keep looking at his shoulders.
We returned with two other people the next day. Our tent was where we’d left it. The other patch of ground was bare.
I have nightmares about somebody being in there and needing help. Scott says it was a trick, whatever made it, and that we were right to leave. He sounds completely certain until I ask why he always insists on driving when we go anywhere together now.
