The Cursed Expedition: Part Three

By Carter Nielson

Part Three: The Woman Returns

For part two, click here.

Cedric hurried back into the shelter to grab his camera. If there was some local out in this icy wasteland trying to scare them off from the site, then so be it. At least he would have a great story to tell when this was all done. It would probably make the findings of the site more worthy of mainstream media anyways, and that’s what he wanted. The bigger, the better. Cedric came out of the shelter as quickly as he entered, this time armed with his camera, ready to snap some pictures. Kurt was pacing in circles and scratching his head, muttering indecipherable words in a low whisper while Jared was standing next to the bloody rune, smiling from ear to ear.

“What are you smiling at?” Cedric inquired as he started taking pictures of the rune.

Jared answered while moving out of the way of the pictures, “Ah, it’s just nice to see the Gods have blessed this expedition.”

Cedric chuckled in response, and looked to his friend. Jared didn’t smile back. “Come on, man. You’ve been here only a short while and now you’re a pagan?”

At that, Jared broke the act and laughed. “I’m joking, man. This is worrisome though, who would put this here?” He looked over at Kurt, ensuring he was out of earshot. “Do you think Kurt did it? Maybe some local elder put him up to it to scare us away from the site again.”

“Maybe, but I don’t care,” Cedric said with vigor. “We’re going to the site today. Grab your stuff for the rubbing.”

Cedric told Kurt he could stay at the shelter so he wouldn’t have to get closer to the site. Once they were sure they had everything they needed for the trip over to the site, they headed out. The ritual site was only a bit over two miles away. As Kurt was the only one who knew how to operate their vehicle, Jared and Cedric had to trudge through snow higher than their ankles. After about an hour of walking through the snow, Cedric and Jared made it to the outskirts of the ruins.

It was eerily silent; the mountains shielded them from the harsh winds.The ruins were located in a nook on one of the snowy rolling hills that led up to a larger mountain range. They looked like a black stain on the pristine snow, unnatural. Cedric did his best to shake that unnatural feeling away; it would take more than this to spook him. It was good that the site was nestled in such a way. Being protected meant the site was relatively unscathed. The impressions would be easier to take, and the details in the stone carvings would show up better in Cedric’s pictures. It was a wonder these ruins hadn’t been discovered by other scholars beforehand. Actually, how had Jared even heard about the existence of this site? I’ll ask him later, thought Cedric.

The two explorers kept trudging onwards, now at the entrance to the site. There was a massive runestone to their right with red runes and knotwork carved in along the entire side. Past that runestone were large stone columns in a circle, some broken and worn down. But, all were still standing upright. Burrowed into the hill was a small entrance that led into the hill itself.

“Whoa,” Cedric said. “I can’t believe I’m finally here.”

“Well, this place has been waiting for you to get here man!” Jared replied with a broad smile.

Cedric was too excited at the thought of being at the site to notice how off Jared’s smile really looked.

“Well, enough chatting,” Cedric said, then took a deep icy breath. “Let’s get to work.”

For the next few hours, the two didn’t talk much as they focused on their respective tasks. Jared was doing rubbings of the smaller details on the pillars and various runestones while Cedric was taking pictures of the site from afar and up close. After a few hours of work, they decided it was time to go back to the shelter for the night.

Once they arrived at their camp, Kurt came out of the tent and looked relieved to see them.

“I was worried you two would get stuck out there at night,” Kurt said.

“Don’t worry so much, we knew when to come back. What about you, what have you done all day?” asked Jared.

“Just stayed in the tent, mostly. Some foxes came and picked at the bones, they didn’t find much to chew on,” replied Kurt.

While Jared and Kurt exchanged small talk, Cedric knew he had to go in and look at his pictures. He felt as though he had accomplished a lot on the first day and was excited to see what fruits his work would bring to the project. He plugged his camera into the solar powered generator they had brought with them, and started scrolling through the pictures. The first few were great wide shots of the site, but something caught his eye at the bottom right corner; one of the pillars looked crooked. He pushed the zoom button next to the camera’s small screen. Cedric felt like he was going to be sick. Standing behind the pillar was the woman from Qaanaaq, leaning on that same cursed staff. He scrolled through the rest of the pictures he took and a horrible chill settled over him: she was in every single one.