Dark Harvest
- eBook
- Audiobook
- Hardcover
- Book info
- Sample
- Media
- Author updates
- Lists
Synopsis
For fans of World War Z, a chilling mystery, an ancient threat, and a race against time to save humanity—inspired by the true events of the Dyatlov Pass incident
Russia, 1959. Nine members of a Soviet mountaineering team on an ambitious expedition into the Ural Mountains are found dead, victims of massive and bizarre injuries. The Dyatlov Pass incident, as this grisly event came to be known, remains unexplained to this day.Iraq, 2019. Ex-soldier-turned-mercenary Cameron Becker is escorting a Russian businessman named Luka Belikov through Baghdad. It seems like a routine job, until Belikov is abducted on Becker’s watch. After forming an uneasy alliance with WHO medic Lori Dalton, Becker sets out to uncover the truth behind the attack, and quickly realizes he’s caught in the middle of something far bigger and more dangerous. As bio-terrorists prepare to unleash a virus that causes humans to descend into ravenous madness, the pair are thrust into a desperate race against time to prevent a global plague that could wipe out human civilization. Who is behind the attack? What do they want? And how can humanity hope to survive? Becker and Dalton’s answers may just lie deep within the icy wastes of the Ural Mountains …
Release date: August 16, 2022
Publisher: Blackstone Publishing
Print pages: 406
* BingeBooks earns revenue from qualifying purchases as an Amazon Associate as well as from other retail partners.
Reader buzz
Author updates
Dark Harvest
Will Jordan
the life right out of her.
She carried no pack or shelter, no equipment or weapons, not even a stock of food to sustain her wearying journey. There had been no time to gather anything in the panicked chaos of her departure, fleeing from the reassuring security of her village, her home, her people.
Or whatever her people had become.
The girl shuddered from something far deeper than the chilling wind as her mind vividly recalled the horrors she had witnessed just a day earlier. The scenes of death and terrifying violence committed by people who had shown only love and loyalty toward one another. An entire village wiped out, an entire community destroyed. Everyone she had ever known and cared about in her fifteen years of life lost forever.
And all of it because of the object she carried with her, an object that weighed heavy in the small leather satchel slung over one shoulder, bumping painfully against her side with each step.
The spirit stone. A big shard of infinitely black rock, unlike any they had ever seen before, its multifaceted surfaces perfectly flat, its edges straight as an arrow, its bizarre crystalline depths drawing the eye and the mind in. The only imperfection in its strange form was the rough fault line along the base where it had been broken away from its place of rest.
The girl vividly remembered the excitement of its discovery a few days ago, when the hunting party she’d accompanied had chanced upon a hitherto unknown cave high in the mountains. Three of the strongest and bravest hunters had ventured inside, the flickering glow of their torches disappearing into the darkness.
When at length they emerged from the shadowy cavern, they brought with them an outlandish tale of fabulous caverns filled with stars, like stepping into a different world. And as proof of their discovery, they had brought with them the spirit stone, hewn from the wall of this strange subterranean world.
Failing daylight and poor weather had curtailed further expeditions underground, forcing them to return to their village with their curious prize. Still, they had been hailed as heroes and brave explorers, and soon there was talk of returning to the cave to seek more treasures.
Then the sickness started. It began with the young men of the hunting party, but all too quickly it spread to others until it became like a wildfire raging unchecked through their village. Even the village’s best healers could do nothing to halt its progress.
The girl couldn’t explain it, but on some deep level she sensed it: that this object that had been hailed as a gift from the spirit world, a talisman of power, was the source of their downfall.
Evil dwelt within it, and the dark malevolence that lived inside had leaked out somehow, infecting everyone and everything around it. Turning good people into murderous fiends.
Only she had been spared. She alone retained her sanity while the others descended into madness.
She was alive, and she knew what she had to do.
The spirit stone had to be returned to the cavern from which it had been taken. Only then would the spirits be appeased and the evil curse lifted.
She knew this as surely as she drew breath.
And yet everything now seemed to be conspiring to thwart her mission. Even as she threaded a path through the heavily forested foothills and ascended the mountain’s lower slopes, ominous gray clouds had rolled in from the north, the skies had darkened, and a cold wind had begun to rise. Winter had come early this year.
It was a bad time even for experienced travelers to venture far, never mind a skinny, frightened girl of barely fifteen years. She was no adventurer who craved danger and excitement. Her short, sheltered life had been centered around family and belonging.
She might have been an unworthy guardian, but there was no one else. She was all that stood between the evil spirits and the unprepared world beyond.
So onward she went, rallying her flagging strength and resolve, each trudging step carrying her further up the slope, fractionally closer to her final goal. She would follow the route taken by the hunting party until she located the cave, and then she would rid herself of this hateful burden.
She was caught by a sudden violent gust that knocked her right off her feet. Stumbling, she clutched at the ground scoured clean by the biting winds, the sharp stones cutting into her hands.
Eyes streaming in the freezing wind, she looked up at the great peak visible only briefly through gaps in the cloud cover. The mountain towered over her, impossibly high and unassailable, glowing angry red in the dying light. Darkness would fall soon. The bone-numbing cold was deepening as the day retreated.
Her time was running out.
Forcing herself up, the girl stumbled onward, staying to the lee side of the ridge where the rock walls offered some protection from the bitter wind. By the time the ridge flattened out to rejoin the main slope, she was shaking and gasping for breath, each lungful of frigid air searing her throat.
Her feet and hands were numb, her body aching with fatigue. Her foot caught on a rock hidden beneath the snow, and she fell to her knees, letting out an exhausted and defeated sob. Tears tracked across her cheeks and froze to the skin. She had been foolish to come here, naive to think she could summit this mountain in the middle of a winter storm, ignorant not to have foreseen the fate that awaited her.
And then, in one of those curious changes of fortune that come at the most unexpected of moments, the clouds broke for a few seconds, affording her a wider view of the mountain around her. She saw the ridge she had struggled up with such effort, saw the darkened forests and lakes dizzyingly far below, saw the steep hillside sweeping off to the right, leading to . . .
She let out a gasp as she spotted an abrupt break in the windswept monotony, a narrow ravine that looked as if some great blade had hacked into the side of the mountain, leaving behind a deep, raw gash in the slope.
It was just as she remembered. She was almost there!
Renewed strength flooding her body, the girl scrambled to her feet and hurried toward it even as the clouds closed in again and the storm renewed its onslaught. Her body was weary, but her spirit had been reinvigorated. She pushed on, clutching her heavy burden and finally stumbling into the head of the ravine.
The change was profound and immediate, and she almost sighed in relief to be out of the searing wind.
There was no vegetation. No bushes or grass, not even moss or lichen seemed able to grow here. The mountain was as barren and dead as any place she’d seen.
Steep walls of rock rose high on both sides, obscuring what remained of the daylight so that the narrow, twisting pass was bathed in shadow, forcing her to slow her pace and proceed more cautiously.
Hugging one side of the canyon and using her hands as much as her eyes to move, she stopped suddenly when the rock wall abruptly fell away to her right. Frowning, she looked over at this inexplicable void and let out a startled cry.
A dark, narrow fissure in the rock opened before her, partly hidden by fallen rocks and shadow. She could easily have walked by without even noticing it. But noticed it she had.
Against the odds, against even her own expectations, she had found the cave! Now there was only one last task to complete.
Taking one last look around, she advanced into the darkness and left the world behind.
The violent howl of the wind receded to a distant, haunting moan as she crept forward. Her hands stretched out, one feeling the rough stone by her side and the other reaching ahead.
She had brought no flint and tinder, no torch to light her way. There hadn’t been time. And she was in uncharted territory now. She had not accompanied the hunters when they ventured in here, and so knew little of the cave’s layout.
With her vision diminished, her other senses soon sharpened to compensate. She inhaled, tasting the air. It was cold and very dry and smelled faintly of dust and great age but little else. No smell of animal dung or rotting flesh; caves were natural dens for predators, and children in her village learned from a young age never to venture into them alone.
The floor was scattered with loose pieces of stone that had fallen from the roof over the millennia, and sloped gently downward into the side of the mountain. She advanced, carefully feeling her way, the sound of her breathing echoing off the walls, until she had covered a good twenty paces.
More than deep enough.
Reaching down, she gripped the satchel at her side, feeling the heavy weight within. Soon she would be rid of this burden, and she could leave this cursed place forever.
Then she could turn her mind to the daunting task of reaching safety and perhaps even allow herself to grieve for everything she had lost . . .
It started with a tremor that seemed to shiver through the stone around her, the vibrations making her pull back from the wall. She turned instinctively toward the cave mouth, alerted by a gathering roar outside, far deeper and more powerful than a mere storm. Before she could even react, this roar quickly rose to a thunderous crescendo that burst across the distant entrance.
Oh, no . . .
The sudden rush of air caused by thousands of tons of snow cascading down the side of the mountain outside was like a hurricane inside the cave tunnel, literally throwing her backward.
She braced herself, expecting the painful impact of the rocky cave floor, only for her feet to catch on the edge of some void or gap hidden in the gloom, before they disappeared into nothingness. She threw her arms out, fingers reaching in vain for a handhold that didn’t exist, as a sickening feeling of weightlessness took hold.
Not like this, she thought in that final moment as she tumbled helplessly into the void, her screams swallowed by the darkness.
february 1, 1959
kholat syakhl, ural mountains
“Damn it,” Yuri Vladmirovich Gushkin mumbled, struggling to secure the straps on his rucksack with hands numbed by the cold.
The temperature had dropped sharply during the night, and though the sun had by now risen over the mountains, the weather remained bitterly cold as the hiking party finished packing up their camp.
“Come on, Yuri,” his fellow hiker Zinaida teased him. She was all packed and ready to go and looked annoyingly cheerful in the morning light, her eyes bright and cheeks rosy red. “It’ll be spring by the time you’re ready.”
Her gentle tease was accompanied by a smattering of laughter from the others. Some good-natured, some less so.
Yuri gave her an irritable look. “Very funny, Zinaida.”
“Take it easy, my friend,” said Igor Dyatlov, the expedition leader. “It’s not a race. The mountain isn’t going anywhere.”
Clenching his fists to get a little circulation going, Yuri attacked the straps with renewed determination and finally managed to secure them, earning himself some playful applause from the others.
In short order the group had struck camp and were on their way, striking out for the mountain pass that would lead them to the distant peak known as Otorten. All being well, they would make camp on the far side of the pass this evening and try for the summit the following day.
There were nine of them in total, mostly students from the Ural Polytechnical Institute, all experienced hikers and skiers who had summited dozens of mountains between them. Young, smart, and motivated people looking for adventure and new challenges.
One member of their party had been forced to turn back a couple of days ago due to worsening medical problems, but aside from this minor misfortune, the expedition had made good progress, with clear skies and settled conditions aiding their efforts. Spirits were high now that their destination was in sight, and their pace increased as they forged onward, trading banter and quips as they went.
This deep in the Urals, it was almost possible to believe they were the only people in all the world, and the thought stirred in most of them a sense of freedom and adventure that was rarely permitted in daily life.
It started innocuously enough, just a slight shifting of the wind toward the north. Nothing to be concerned about. The group would glance up occasionally and comment with mild interest on the gathering clouds, freshening breeze, and occasional snow flurries, but it was only when Semyon Zolotaryov, by far the oldest climber in the group, broached the subject that they really seemed to take notice.
“That sky looks ugly,” he remarked, surveying the overcast heavens with displeasure. He snorted a breath of cold air. “There’s a storm on the way, I think.”
Zolotaryov was a late addition to the party; he had heard about their plans to climb Otorten and begged Dyatlov for a place on the team. At thirty-eight, he was far too old to be a student like the others and remained very much an outsider who spoke little but always seemed vigilant and alert, particularly of other’s conversations.
His age difference, rugged appearance, and taciturn manner had endeared him to nobody, and there remained an unspoken suspicion that he’d been dispatched by some local Party official to keep an eye on them. After all, there was no telling what subversive thoughts a group of impressionable young people might give voice to with nobody to hold them in check.
Regardless, they’d learned to guard their words around him.
“It happens. We’ve hiked through storms before,” Yuri pointed out helpfully. He didn’t add that each of them was aiming for their Grade III hiking certification, the highest such qualification in the Soviet Union, and that failure would mean having to repeat the entire task.
Zolotaryov shrugged, saying nothing.
“You think we should turn back, wait it out?” Zinaida asked, a touch of concern in her expression now. She could certainly not be called timid, but neither was she inclined to take unnecessary risks.
All eyes turned to Dyatlov. He was the leader of the expedition, the decision-maker. Each was free to put forward their opinions, but the final choice lay with him.
He was silent for a time, eyes turned toward the darkening clouds as if he could judge the threat they posed, before nodding to himself. “If we turn back now, we lose a day’s hiking,” he reasoned. “We stick to the plan. Push on, clear the pass, and make camp on the other side.”
He looked at the others, waiting for objections or questions. Nobody spoke. They trusted his judgment and were eager to move now that the decision had been made. Wasting no time, they shouldered their packs and set off again.
It was barely an hour later when the first strong gust of wind rushed through the pass, buffeting them head-on, flattening jackets against bodies and forcing the hikers to brace themselves as they moved. Their progress slowed as snow swirled past and visibility deteriorated. The high spirits of the morning now gave way to growing concern at the worsening weather.
They pushed on, expecting to start their descent to the far side of the pass and reach more sheltered, wooded terrain in which to make camp, but the ground continued to rise frustratingly upward. With visibility down to barely a hundred yards, it was difficult to navigate, and it soon became clear that they had veered off course.
Frustrated by their lack of progress, Dyatlov called a halt to their fruitless journey and had them establish a temporary camp at the entrance to a narrow canyon while he planned their next move.
“Which way is the pass?” Zinaida called out, leaning in close to speak in Dyatlov’s ear as he stood hunched over his wildly flapping map. “We should be descending by now.”
“Give me a minute,” he said without looking up.
Zinaida hesitated, struck by the change that had come over him. His voice was firm and even, but he seemed to lack his usual self-confidence. He was worried. Something was wrong.
“Are we lost, Igor?” she asked, lowering her voice as much as possible under the circumstances.
“No.”
She touched his arm. “Something’s wrong. Speak honestly.”
He looked up from the map then, and his expression confirmed her suspicions. “We veered too far west, up onto the shoulder of Kholat Syakhl,” he said, pointing to a peak adjacent to their intended route.
Kholat Syakhl—the Dead Mountain according to the language of the Mansi, the indigenous people of the region. Hardly an encouraging moniker.
The young woman stared at the map, her brows knitted in a frown as she considered the distance and quickly did the math. Retracing their steps to get back on track could take hours.
“This weather is getting worse. Can we make it back down?”
“We’ll make it,” he replied, folding the map and pocketing it. “It’ll be hard, but it must be done.”
Turning toward the others, who were hunkered down beside their packs to avoid the worst of the onslaught, he hurriedly explained the situation and his plan.
“Take five minutes, eat some food, and get your strength back. It’s all downhill from here, but we’ll have to move quickly. We need to get down off this mountain before nightfall.”
Yuri grunted in annoyance. Getting here had been an exhausting slog, and now they found out it had been for nothing. The prospect of having to hike all the way back down in poor weather conditions did little to improve his mood.
“We’ve wasted a whole day. How the hell did this happen, Igor?”
Dyatlov shook his head. “It doesn’t matter now.”
“What do you mean it doesn’t—”
He took a step toward Dyatlov, only for a strong hand to clamp around his arm. Spinning round, he found himself face-to-face with Zolotaryov.
“Easy, boy,” the man warned him. His voice carried the low, threatening menace of a man used to asserting his will on others.
Yuri’s first instinct was to yank his arm free, but the look on Zolotaryov’s face was enough to convince him otherwise. Even if he could best Zolotaryov in a fight (doubtful at best), there remained the fear that this man was more than he appeared to be.
“Fine. Whatever you say.”
The grip relaxed, allowing him to step back.
“Rest, catch your breath,” Dyatlov instructed the group. “We won’t be stopping again until we make camp.”
“I’m going for a piss,” Yuri announced, wishing to be alone.
Dyatlov looked at him, then reluctantly nodded assent. “Don’t go too far,” he advised. “We don’t need you getting lost.”
Yuri turned and slunk away without another word.
The wind was blowing hard through the narrow canyon, forcing Yuri to clutch at the freezing stone as he stumbled onward, moving farther from his fellow climbers than he needed to. He wanted to put some distance between himself and the others.
Rounding a turn, he unzipped his trousers, braced himself against the canyon wall, and gratefully relieved himself.
“Fucking idiots,” he muttered, watching as the steaming liquid pattered off the stones at his feet, freezing within seconds. Hours of laborious climbing wasted, and all because Dyatlov couldn’t navigate properly. He’d be sure to make note of this mistake when the group submitted their report for official grading.
Lost in these petty thoughts of recrimination, he almost didn’t notice as the wind eased off temporarily and shifted direction. The first thing he became aware of was a low-pitched drone—a peculiar murmur that sounded for all the world like a human voice moaning in agony. Immediately he felt the hairs prickle on the back of his neck.
“What the hell . . .”
Scanning the recesses of the canyon, he happened to catch sight of a fissure in the rock wall nearby, partially hidden by shadow, drifting snow, and fallen stones. A cave or opening of some sort. Such was its unobtrusive nature, he might have stood mere feet away and not seen it were it not for the unusual sound the wind made as it passed by the entrance.
Intrigued, he cautiously approached, using his boots to push aside the snow that had accumulated around the entrance. It was a narrow opening, no more than five feet high and only a couple of feet wide, so that even a short man would have to crouch down to enter.
What was in there? How far into the mountainside did this mysterious cavern go? He couldn’t tell from out here. The only way would be to venture inside.
Caves and underground passageways had always held a certain fascination for Yuri—a boyhood interest that had never quite left him. They were a world unto themselves, untouched by weather or time, sometimes containing secrets that could sit untouched for years, even millennia. Time stood still in the deep caverns of the earth, and the thought that he might be the first human ever to set foot in this remote underground chamber roused that familiar childlike feeling of excitement.
But exploring an uncharted cave alone was not something to be undertaken lightly. Glancing back down the canyon, he thought to call out to his companions. And yet, he made no move to retrace his steps or summon help.
Most of the party was cold, tired, and impatient to be on their way, unlikely to waste time indulging his geological hobby. They would make their excuses, tell him he could return someday when the weather was more favorable, when there was more time, when they didn’t have to accompany him. And he’d likely never find this place again.
It couldn’t hurt to take a look, just for a couple of minutes.
Without stopping to debate the matter further, he removed his bulky pack and laid it on the ground at the cave entrance, took a breath, and advanced inside with his flashlight piercing the darkness ahead.
The passageway was low and narrow, forcing him to turn sideways so that cold hard rock pressed in ominously from both sides as he edged forward. But after about twenty feet, the passage opened out into a larger cavern, easily wide enough for him to stand with arms outstretched and disappearing into an unknown depth that his weak flashlight beam struggled to penetrate.
In fact, the light seemed to be growing fainter by the second. The bulb was failing, and he knew exactly why. He’d meant to swap out the battery before setting out this morning, but he had become caught up in the usual rush to break camp and had forgotten to attend to the task.
Irritated by his own oversight, he hit the light with the flat of his hand. The beam grew bright for a moment, flickered uncertainly, then went out, plunging Yuri into sheer and absolute darkness.
“Shit,” he sighed, knowing his little subterranean foray had come to a premature end. He could go no farther without light.
Turning toward the entrance, he reached out for the rocky wall, preparing to retrace his steps. But at the same moment, he experienced a moment of disorientation in the absolute darkness. Instinctively he took a small step backward to settle his balance.
But to his shock, his foot didn’t touch the dry, dusty floor of the cave. Rather, it simply continued to fall as if the floor had vanished beneath him. Unbalanced by his loss of footing, he toppled backward and fell, too surprised even to cry out.
“Damn it, Yuri,” Dyatlov muttered, glancing down the canyon. “How long does a man need to take a piss?”
“Maybe he’s relieving himself in another way?” Alexander grunted.
Dyatlov ignored the faint ripple of laughter, his mind troubled. This expedition was his responsibility, as was the safety of each team member.
“I don’t care what he’s doing,” Zinaida said, hugging her arms to her chest. “I just want to get out of here.”
Dyatlov thought for a moment, then made his decision. “Nikolai, Alexander, with me,” he said, standing up. “Let’s go find him.”
Yuri let out a groan and opened his eyes. He was lying on his back on a very hard and very uncomfortable rock floor, absolute darkness around him.
He had no idea how far he had fallen; all he knew was nothing seemed to be broken. Well, apart from his flashlight, which had slipped from his grasp as he fell. He’d heard the crunch and tinkling sound as the glass lens shattered on impact.
“You stupid asshole, Yuri,” he muttered, sitting up with a groan of discomfort and quietly wondering how much his colleagues would berate him for his stupidity.
How foolish he had been to venture into an unexplored cave alone! It served him right that he had fallen and injured himself. It was sheer luck that the ledge he’d tumbled off hadn’t been too high. He could just as easily have disappeared forever into some great cavern or fissure, never to be seen again.
A quick glance around yielded no clues as to his environment. The darkness surrounding him was absolute. He waved a hand in front of his face but could see nothing. A faint ripple of fear passed through him as he realized that anything could be in here with him.
He inhaled through his nose, sniffing the air. It was freezing cold, of course, and extremely dry and stale as if it hadn’t been disturbed in many years. His violent arrival had apparently stirred up a layer of dust or grit that had settled on the floor. Whatever it was, it tickled his throat uncomfortably, prompting a coughing fit that took some time to settle down and forced him to pull up his thick scarf to cover his mouth.
He felt a knot of apprehension tighten in his stomach at the thought of being trapped in here, lost and forgotten until he eventually succumbed to hypothermia or starvation.
“Calm yourself, Yuri,” he said, his voice strangely hollow and disembodied in the empty chamber. He could almost hear the thump of the pulse in his ears. “Be calm and use your head.”
He needed to figure out where he’d ended up and, more importantly, how he was going to get out. But one thing he couldn’t afford to do was move position, at least until he knew his situation. For all he knew, he could be lying right on the brink of an even deeper chasm below, and one wrong move could send him tumbling over the edge.
One lucky escape was quite enough for today.
Removing one of his gloves, he gingerly reached out, feeling the floor around him. His fingers brushed against small stones, coarse rock studded with little inclusions, and occasional fragments of glass from the broken flashlight.
But aside from a few small cracks, he detected no great fissures or gaps he might fall into. On the contrary, the floor was surprisingly flat and smooth beneath the layer of rubble.
He was just starting to relax fractionally when his hand suddenly touched against something. Something cold and stiff and horribly familiar.
Something that made him recoil and cry out in fear.
Advancing down the desolate, windswept canyon with his head down and back hunched, Dyatlov felt his nerves growing more taut by the second. They could easily follow Yuri’s tracks in the drifting snow, but there was no sign of the man himself. Why had he ventured so far from the others? And where was he now? Was he hurt?
Dead?
He stopped suddenly when Nikolai called out from a little farther ahead. “Over here! I’ve found Yuri’s pack!”
Hurrying forward, the three of them clustered around the rucksack laid against the wall of the canyon, already dusted with a layer of white powder. It seemed to have been put down purposefully rather than dropped, but there was no sign of its owner.
“Yuri!” Alexander called out. “Where are you?”
There was no answer.
“He must be near,” Dyatlov reasoned, casting his gaze around the rock-strewn canyon. “Spread out.”
He paused, alerted by the faint, echoing cry that carried toward him on the breeze. A frightened, horrified cry that chilled his blood far worse than the winter weather.
“Did you . . . ?” he began.
Alexander, standing beside him, nodded. “Yes, I heard it.”
“There! It’s coming from over there,” Nikolai said, pointing to the opposite wall of the canyon, where a slumped pile of rocks and boulders had tumbled down from above. And behind it, a narrow fissure that had been hidden from view until now.
Dyatlov turned to the others. “Flashlights.”
Unhooking their electric lights, the three men advanced inside, obliged to abandon their bulky packs just as Yuri had and move in single file with Dyatlov leading the way. After slipping through a narrow crevice where the cave formed a bottleneck, they found themselves in a larger chamber beyond.
“Yuri!” Dyatlov called out. “Where are you?”
“Igor! Thank God!” Yuri’s voice echoed up from below. “Be careful, there’s a hole in the floor.”
They looked down and sure enough, their beams illuminated a wide void just ahead, apparently a crack or fissure that gave way to another chamber below. Clustering around the hole, they looked down at their friend who was standing in the midst of this secondary chamber, bruised and disheveled and distinctly shaken up, but very much alive.
“Yuri, are you all right?” Dyatlov called down to him. “What happened?”
“What do you think happened? I fell! Just get me out of here! ...
We hope you are enjoying the book so far. To continue reading...