Yamagata prefecture, Japan

Liz doesn't know exactly how cold it is -- she never did get good at the Celsius to Fahrenheit conversion -- but it's definitely under 15° and the wind is stinging the exposed skin of her face. It's cold and dark; they left the lights of the nearest ski resort behind in the forest a good twenty minutes ago. She's got one gloved hand holding a heavy industrial flashlight and the other momentarily jammed in her parka pocket with the thermal sensor. Which hasn't been lighting up, because it's January in the mountains, it's snowing lightly, and all the smart little animals are safe at home inside their burrows or holes, or wherever else animals live.

Liz isn't a nature person.

Even she has to admit, though, that the "snow monsters" that Mount Zaō is famous for are very cool. They may be fir trees that were coated with wet snow and ice and then frozen by the jetstream, but they definitely look like monsters. She started at them a couple times before she started getting used to them; they're eerie and ominous, looming out of the tight circle of light cast by her flashlight. They don't look like trees -- they look like setpieces on The Grinch Who Stole Christmas, or like something that's going to come to life and be very unfriendly.

But they're just trees, and they're definitely not what has attacked four skiiers in the last two weeks.

"Anything?" she calls over to Red.