Imagine for a second that it's April in the White Mountains of New Hampshire.

You're an employee of the Appalachian Mountain Club.

Your name is George.

Your job today sounds simple on paper, but in practice, it's a grueling test of endurance.

You've been sent alone to the lakes of the clouds hut, a stone shelter nestled

in the high saddle between Mount Monroe and Mount Washington, to assess the winter damage before

the hiking season begins. The hut sits at over 5,000 feet. Up there, the wind doesn't just

below, it screams. The summit of Mount Washington

looming above you holds the record for the highest wind speed ever observed by a human, 231

miles per hour. It is a place that the local tribes called the home of the great spirit,

and for a thousand years, they refused

to summit it, believing that to do so was to trespass on the dwelling place of the gods.

But you're there just to check the pipes and the roof.

Night falls. The windows of the hut are still heavily boarded up with thick plywood to

protect from the winter gales.

It's pitch black inside, save for your flashlight.

You decide to hunker down in the dining hall for the night.

You've checked in via radio earlier, but as the hours tick by, a strange sensation begins to crawl up your back.

The distinct, prickly feeling of being watched. Now, you're alone

in a stone bunker. You know that. You're miles from the nearest human soul and you're surrounded

by a frozen wasteland. You scan the room with your light and nothing. But then you hear it.

The soft sound against the boarded up windows.

...