Sato took a few steps to the right, hoping to see a more reasonable trail he could follow, but the jutting slice of rock ended in a sheer, knife-edge cliff, as if a recent earthquake had sent a huge chunk of the mountain falling to its splitting, crumpled death far below.

There was only one way to go.

Securing his pack, he started up the ancient stairway. He placed his feet very carefully, bracing them against the small vertical slab of stone marking the next step. Just when he thought he had the hang of it, his left foot slid backward, throwing his whole body forward; his chest slammed into a jutting edge of rock. Holding back a cry of pain, he chastised himself and took more care, leaning forward to grip the stairs above him with his hands, as if he were climbing a ladder.

The wind picked up, throwing spurts of snow into his face like cold, rough sand. The sun, though unhindered by clouds above him, failed to provide even a spark of warmth. He had to stop every few minutes to blow warm air into his cupped hands, rubbing them together to create friction. His ears and face grew numb. He looked up, hoping to see signs of life, a building, anything. Nothing.

He kept going, step by frigid step.

A half-hour went by. Sato started to worry that George had made a serious mistake, sent him to an abandoned nowhere by accident.

“George,” he spoke aloud, though the wind seemed to snap his words out of the air and whisk them away. “If you can hear me through the nanolocator—what’s going on? I’m freezing to death!”

Half-hoping he’d be winked away, Sato kept moving up the stairs.

Forty or fifty steps later, he finally saw the end of the staircase—a place where the stone stopped and all was white, a wall of snow and ice reaching for the sky. His heart sank at the thought that he might’ve reached a dead end.

Legs burning, limbs aching, skin frozen, he reached the uppermost step, which led out onto a small landing that faced a solid wall of dark granite, crystalline icicles hanging from the brief canopy of rock that protected it. In the middle of the wall was an iron door, ridges of rusty bolts lined around its outer edges. On the door was a sign, faded letters barely legible in the awful weather conditions.

Sato took a few steps forward to read the sign, his eyes squinted. They widened when he realized what it said:

End of the Road Insane Asylum

Mountaintop Exit

To Be Used for the Execution
of Inmates Only

Chapter

25

~

Cotton Ears

No one said a word, their eyes glancing at the clock every few seconds. In eight minutes, it would be nine o’clock—when they expected the visitor.