This time, I turned to a physical book by Darcy Coates called Dead of Winter. It was another recommendation I saw many times, and one that Devin gave me for Christmas. It looks great, and I love the cover! (I should have read this during our snowstorm a few weeks ago!)
This book focuses on Christa, who joins a tour group in the Rocky Mountains heading toward Blackstone Lodge. A snowstorm sweeps through the region, though, forcing the group to take shelter in an abandoned cabin. She thinks they’ll be safe. She’s very wrong.
Christa becomes trapped in the snow. She can’t find Kiernan anywhere. The snow and wind are too much. She had fallen through loose snow. She remembers Kiernan tried to grab for her, but where is he now?
She aches everywhere. Turns out, she’s in a cabin. And people from the tour bus are there. It’s a small cabin, too small for the 10 of them. And Kiernan isn’t there. Where is he?
And what’s worse, she has a premonition they’re not making it out alive. Nd apparently her premonitions are not to be dismissed. What does that mean? I can’t wait to find out.
They spend the night in the cabin, but one goes missing. It’s Brian, the guide. Christa and a few others go out to search. She finds his head speared onto a branch of a large pine tree. “We’re all going to die here” are the words she keeps saying to herself.
At some point, Christa sees human teeth on the windowsill. Yes. Someone put human teeth there. A warning? A scare tactic? It doesn’t matter. They have nowhere to go and are already frightened. And what’s worse, there are only 31 teeth. Kiernan only had 31 teeth. One of his premolars never grew in.
Next to die is Miri, Steve’s wife. Two people were supposed to keep watch, but they fell asleep. And during that time, Miri disappeared. Her body was found, and her head was in the same pine tree, just above Brian’s.
Christa, Simone, Denny, and Hutch decide to go out and search for help. They make it back to the tour bus. And not too far from there, they find Kiernan’s body. And he also has no head.
It’s not long before they have to turn back. They can’t figure out where the road is. Too much snow has covered everything. So they make it back to the bus and then the cabin. Steve and the crew have found a generator and, later, some heaters. But while people were out of the cabin searching for firewood and getting some fresh air, another was killed. This time, it’s Denny’s son, Grayson. Christa later finds his head in the tree.
I love how Christa is beginning to form opinions, especially after Alexis mentioned that Grayson had thought his dad may have had something to do with his mom’s death. It’s easy to start jumping to conclusions. And people are so cramped and getting on each other’s nerves. Not to mention that Steve found alcohol and is dutifully finishing as much as possible.
Christa and Simone take the first watch that night. Christa unwraps her bandaged hand only to find she’s got frostbite. Then she thinks back to August 8th. A date she’ll never forget. A date when a young man had a car accident right beside her and went into the river. A piece of his car went through her windshield and stuck in her arm. Christa still feels guilty about that night. The driver, Liam, who was 19, had a fight with his girlfriend and was driving erratically. He tried to overtake Christa, but she was irritated and sped up. She knows if she hadn’t done that, he’d still be alive.
Alexis can’t sleep and confides in Christa that her sister was murdered. Someone had sent Alexis a sympathy card saying, “You were right. I killed her. Let’s meet.” And there was a ticket for the lodge; the tour group was supposed to arrive at the lodge before being stranded by the storm. It explains her uneasiness and tenseness this whole time. She knew one of them was a murderer. And in her opinion, it’s Blake. Just then, the lights go out.
There’s a commotion in the cabin. People run outside. Alexis is found with a severe wound. And the ax is missing.
In the shed, Christa, Steve, and Denny look for more fuel for the generator. They find candles…and two bodies hidden below a tarp. A man and a woman. Most likely the owners.
Blake, a newly retired emergency dispatcher, tells a story. One too close to home for Christa. Apparently, Blake took Liam’s call when his car went into the river. She thought it was a joke and hung up on him. She realized he died that night. It was a real call. And she was forced to retire. Christa can’t believe it. But that’s not all. Hutch was there, a DJ coming back from a gig. And Steve and Miri were in the truck that hit him. Simone was a rescue worker at the time. Helped get the car out of the river. And Denny? He was a mechanic who serviced the truck Steve drove. The emergency brake had failed. This isn’t hell. This is revenge.
But how did they all manage to converge in one place? Tickets were gifted, left, and raffled. No one bought their own tickets. This was planned.
Steve leaves the cabin, but Christa hears him scream. She rushes out to find Simone smashing him in the face with a rock. Denny and Hutch wrangle her off. Simone is the butcher.
Christa’s still trying to make sense of things. So she goes back to Alexis’s journal. Rereading it, she realizes that Alexis must have thought Steve was the butcher, and Simone, after seeing that, decided to kill him. That’s why his death was so brutal. Simone didn’t intend to hang him in a certain way or put his head in the tree like the others. But Christa has to be sure. She goes to the shed where Simone is tied up. Her head is missing!!
Christa realizes the butcher is close, so she runs to the cabin to try to save her companions. As she passes the tree, she sees Simone’s head has been placed in it. And the cabin door is open. There’s blood where Denny used to sit. But he and Blake are both missing. She finds Hutch crouched beside the table Alexis is on. He’s been sliced open. Still alive, barely, he pleads with Christa to run. And then there’s a creak behind her. It’s Denny. He’s standing in the doorway. He’s holding the ax.
Denny attempts to strike Christa down, but she gets away. With nowhere else to go, she starts running for Blackstone Lodge. She runs as fast as she can with Denny trailing right behind her. And in the woods, she spots Blake’s jacket. She’s lying face down. Her head is missing. Actually, it’s sitting in the path Christa must take to escape. So, she leaps over it without a second thought. She has to. Denny is still closing. Christa continues to run and then climb, ignoring the pain in her legs and chest. She finally comes to the top and, in the distance, sees Blackstone Lodge. She runs for it, and when she gets there, the doors are unlocked. She stumbles in. No cell reception. And very little battery. But she’s able to find the generator and get it running. She no longer hears Denny at the door with the ax. He must be inside.
Christa climbs the stairs to find a spot to make a quiet phone call. She can’t get into one of the rooms, but manages to find a spot where she can see if Denny is coming. She reaches a dispatcher who tells Christa that help is on the way. Christa manages to tell her about Denny and all the people he’s killed, as well as the ones still left at the cabin – Alexis and Hutch. But her phone dies before she can find out how long it will be before rescue comes. And now Denny is racing toward her.
Christa finds the fire escape and is on the first floor in no time, only to hear thudding sounds coming down the stairs. It’s a head! It’s Denny’s!!
Then she sees him – Kiernan. Kiernan had saved her! But there’s more to the story. The body Christa thought was Kiernan’s was actually Brian’s. And when Christa ran back to the cabin after seeing Simone dead, Denny saw her crouched in front of a dying Hutch. Denny chased her, thinking she was the killer. Thinking she killed his son, far from it.
Kiernan is Liam’s brother, the boy who died that night of August 8th. He promised his mom he would find out who did it and make them all suffer. Every. Last. One. Even Alexis’s sister, Janet, who was Liam’s girlfriend at the time. They had an argument, which caused him to drive too fast. Everyone was involved except for Grayson and Brian. Collateral damage, Kiernan asserts.
Kiernan didn’t expect to live, though. With all the people he had to kill, he figured he might not make it. But he did. And he wants Christa to beg. She does. He bends down to kiss her, and she plunges Alexis’s pocket knife into his chest. But it’s a small knife, and he forces her back, wrapping his hands around her throat. She uses her dead fingers to gag him, and she claws for the knife. This time, she slices at his throat. Again and again.
She leaves through the front door and hears the helicopter. The dispatcher came through for her. The book ends without knowing if Hutch or Alexis lives. I’m going to be an optimist and say they do!
This was a fantastic book from start to finish. I know I’ve said this numerous times, but I’d watch the hell out of this movie. Make it happen! The author does such a great job with vivid descriptions. You really feel like you’re there. And to see how each dealt with this situation, to see how people can start to trust or distrust one another, and to see how people can jump to conclusions, felt so real. Any of us would do those things if put in that position. But I love seeing how Christa was more than just a survivor. She was a fighter for herslef and for those still left in the cabin. Run, don’t walk to read this book!