Something rose before him.

It was as if the tundra had come to life. The figure was streaked with whites and browns.

Others appeared behind it. Phantoms of earth and snow.

No. Not ghosts.

Crude oil caked one eye. Squinting with the good one, Brian Turski peered at the figure.

His dying lips formed a surprised O.

It was just a man. The blurry figure carried a smoking automatic rifle. The other white-and-brown shapes became men, too. They fanned out around the area, kicking over bodies with the toes of their boots.

Sitting in the shadow of their leader, Brian took his last deep breath.

This time, he didn't smell the cold or the crude or the hint of blood carried on the frigid air. He smelled chocolate-chip cookies. Hot out of the oven. With the gooey brown chips that burned his numb fingertips.

A growl.

The man above Brian was speaking. The pipeline worker didn't understand the language.

Tasting chocolate, Brian looked up.

An angry rifle barrel stared down at him.

It didn't matter. Death could come and claim him if it wanted. Brian had finally gotten his wish. His belly warm and full, he gently closed his eyes.

He was already dead before the bullet popped his head open like a paint-filled water balloon.

As his body slumped into the pool of black slush, the shadows slipped away. One after another the stealthy figures disappeared, swallowed up by the Alaskan wasteland until all that was left behind were the bodies of the dead and the endless, desolate wind.

Although Brian Turski hadn't understood the words that were the last to reach his living ears, the language was not new to the Last Frontier. If he had understood them, they would only have confused him in his final moments of life.

For the actual words spoken by Brian Turski's killer-loosely translated-were a notice of eviction.