by Krista Wolf
“No, no,” said Shane. “Not like that at all. It was big and steel. Old.”
“How old?” Boone cut in. “Older than cellular phones?”
“Yeah, definitely…” Shane’s brow crossed, as he realized what he’d just said. “Oh shit! I guess it couldn’t be a cell tower then. Could it?”
I grabbed Jeremy by the shoulders, almost like I was interrogating him. “Was it latticed?”
“Latticed?”
“Did it have a steel frame that looked like metal strips on an angle, forming diamond shapes and—”
“Yeah, yeah! That’s it!”
I let go of him as a rush of adrenaline flooded through me. A smile curled its way across my mouth, big and bright.
“It’s a radio tower!” I said, turning and smacking Boone in the chest.
My excitement must’ve been infectious because suddenly he was smiling too. “Could we use it to boost the signal?” he asked excitedly. “Does it have an antenna or something?”
“You don’t understand,” I grinned. “The whole thing is an antenna!”
I let out a sigh of exultation, then turned to look over my shoulder. The big ugly box of the ham radio was still there, staring back at me. Daring me to lug it all the way outside, and into the snowstorm.
For several long moments, no one spoke.
“Ummm…” Jeremy began meekly. “Does this mean no peaches?”
Forty-Six
MORGAN
“I’m going,” said Shane. “I’m the one with the best chance of survival, so…”
“And how do you figure that?” Boone asked, crossing his arms.
Shane looked at me for help. “Did you not tell him of the amazing snow shelter? Of how I dug you out of that avalanche and—”
“Your hand.”
He looked down into his palm. So did the rest of us. Though the makeshift bandage looked clean enough, the skin around it was an angry red.
“You can’t dig a snow shelter with an injured hand,” I said. “You can’t hook the radio up to the tower, either.”
Shane’s face twisted into a mask of displeasure. He looked like he wanted to kick his hand’s ass.
“I’ll go,” said Jeremy. “I’ve already been to the tower. I know the way.”
“You only know the way because I led the way,” said Shane. “In fact—”
“We’ll all go.”
Everyone turned to look at me. I shrugged.
“I need to go for the radio. Shane needs to lead. No use in Boone and Jeremy staying behind, especially with Shane’s bad hand. And we’ll need to take turns carrying the radio anyway, it’s kinda heavy.”
It made too much sense to argue. There wasn’t a single word of protest.
“We can’t leave now,” said Shane. “It takes three or four hours to reach the tower, and today is already shot.”
“That was three or four hours two days ago,” Boone pointed out. “Who knows how much snow has fallen since then.”
“Fine,” I said. “Then we leave first thing in the morning. As soon as it gets light.”
Once again, silence signaled their agreement. It was pretty strange, really. These three big strong guys had been running things the whole time we’d been here, and now all of I sudden I’d just sort of taken charge.
“Tomorrow then,” said Boone. “Dawn.”
Shane nodded. Jeremy pulled at the end of his goatee.
“So… what do we do until then?”
The other three of us laughed as we spoke the same words, all at the same time:
“We SLEEP!”
Forty-Seven
MORGAN
I didn’t get much sleep, through no fault of anyone but myself. I was just too wound up. Too preoccupied with my own thoughts, as a thousand different possibilities ran through my brain.
We were leaving this place tomorrow, and there was a good chance we weren’t coming back. For better or for worse, we were betting all our chips on a single shaky horse:
My radio.
You could be the hero tomorrow, Morgan. For once.
The idea thrilled me. I was almost certain using the radio tower as an antenna would work. It would amplify the signal a hundred times over, casting it from the very top of the structure.
You could be the one to get us all killed, too.
That part was grim… but no less grim than wasting away in the old hotel. Already I could see differences in the way we looked, even the way we moved and carried ourselves. Where at first the guys had boundless energy, they were dragging a little now. Taking slower steps wherever they went. Yawning a lot.
No, this was the way to go. We’d leave the hotel. We’d get rescued. And then…
Yeah, Morgan. What then?
I sighed miserably into my sleeping bag. Honestly I was no closer to making a choice than I was before. Sometimes I was sure I wanted Shane, strong and gorgeous and confident. Other times, I could envision myself enjoying a very happy, very geeky relationship with Jeremy.
As for Boone, well, my body wanted him most of all. Badly. So badly it was constantly arguing with my mind… which if I were being one-hundred percent honest, wanted him too.
Maybe you don’t have to choose…
“Hey…”
I turned over, and Jeremy was staring at me. He looked bright and beautiful and wholly awake.
“What’s the first thing you’re gonna do when we get back?” he asked.
“Brush my teeth,” I giggled.
“Yeah, me too.”
We shared a quiet, secret laugh together. The kind you could only have at midnight, when everyone else was sleeping.
“You still worried that we’re all going to ditch you once we get out of this place?” he asked.
“No.”
“Then what?”
“I’m more worried I’ll be forced to make a choice,” I admitted. “And disappoint someone.”
He smiled and snuggled in closer to me. We were face to face now. Staring at each other like a couple of teenagers at some sleepover.
“I don’t want to disappoint someone,” I said frankly. “I don’t want to disappoint anyone.”
Jeremy shrugged. “Then don’t.”
“Don’t what?”
“Don’t choose.”
He leaned in and planted a single, sensual kiss that left me absolutely breathless.
“I—I…” I was still in a daze. “What do you mean don’t choose?”
“Exactly what I said. Instead of choosing, instead of dating one of us, maybe you just date us all.”
My heart was racing. I couldn’t tell if it was from the kiss, or—
“Maybe we just keep doing this,” Jeremy offered, pointing at the floor. “Maybe it all works out.”
I opened my mouth, but he silenced my protest with a smoldering look. Then he kissed me again, this time even more deeply, more passionately.
Just keep doing this…
Could I? I mean, could we? Certainly the guys wouldn’t be interested in sharing me amongst themselves. Not back in civilization. Certainly not back on campus.
Maybe it all works out?
It was so preposterous, I pushed the idea away. Shoved it into the darkest, most fantastic recesses of my mind.
Even so, a tiny corner of the idea kept peeking out…
Jeremy’s body was molded into mine. Our arms and legs entangled sexily, and I found my hands wandering his body of their own accord.
He looked a shade or two redder now. I could tell he was holding back.
“Look, I… I just wanted to talk,” he murmured silently. “I wasn’t trying to… you know…”
My hand pierced the waistband of his boxers to settle over his cock.
“Get with me?”
He gasped half a breath, then let it out as a hiss. “Yeah. That.”
I stroked him, and he grew hard in my hand. It made me feel potent. Powerful.
“So you’re saying if I did this…”
I pulled
him closer, throwing one leg over his body. Jeremy’s cock was pressed right up against the fabric of my thong. I yanked it to one side, watching his eyes change as we were suddenly flesh to flesh.
“Or this…”
Taking control of the shaft, I rubbed the head up and down through my warm, wet furrow. He went breathless as I slipped him inside.
“That you’ll actually object?”
He sat utterly motionless as I shifted forward, bringing him all the way in. My hand closed over his face and I kissed him like a lover, like a girlfriend. Screwing him face to face, just watching his eyes.
“Should I stop?” I asked teasingly. “Would you rather I—”
“God no.”
We lay there interconnected, mouth against mouth, our eyes buried in each other’s soul.
He’s so beautiful…
He really was. All sharp, angular features. Soft, full lips. He had a European look about him too, either Greek or Italian, one that lent his handsomeness an exotic edge. And those brilliant blue eyes…
A week ago I’d have been so intimidated by a guy like this, I would’ve been immediately forced to turn away. But now I was staring unapologetically into those eyes. Kissing those amazing lips while holding his perfectly-formed, gorgeous face…
Oh yeah. While fucking him.
Every breath I took brought me upward along the length of his thickness. Every exhale sank me deeper on his cock. We enjoyed each other slowly, so as not to wake the others, taking pleasure in the depths of our intimacy. Screwing our bodies tigthly together as a single, writhing being.
“Oh shit…” I whimpered, as I passed the point of no return. “Oh shit oh shit oh…”
“Shhhh!”
Jeremy’s hand clamped over my mouth. It only made me hotter. I screwed down one last time, squealing into his palm as I got myself off. My pussy erupted around him. I was so wet it coated his balls. So drenched it ran down the insides of our thighs…
“You’re going to kill me,” he said, his face contorted in pain. Only it wasn’t pain. It was raw nirvanic pleasure.
“The things you do,” he breathed, “you’re going to—”
His sentence ended in the flesh of my shoulder. Jeremy bit down as he exploded inside me, leaving teethmarks but drawing no blood. My toes curled as he kept squeezing and throbbing, pumping me full of his seed.
Someone shifted. Someone on the other side of me.
Oh Fuck…
My jaw clenched in pain as I rode out his orgasm, clutching my lover’s head to my chest. Eventually he stopped biting. He cock stopped twitching. We looked at each other and smiled, then kissed some more in the afterglow. All I could feel was heat and wetness. All I could smell was the cloying scent of sex.
We slid apart after our mutual climax, silently thrilled that we’d pulled it off. I was sure I could drift off to sleep now. Especially with Jeremy reaching out and slowly playing with my hair.
We both froze as someone cleared their throat.
“You guys had better not be tired tomorrow,” groaned Boone loudly, before rolling over and taking one of the sleeping bags with him.
Forty-Eight
MORGAN
Stepping through the opening was like stepping into a different world. Like trading the warmth and comfort of our familiar little womb for the raging, ice-covered chaos of nature.
I felt the wind at once, whipping at my legs. Finding every crack and crevasse of my torn ski pants, tearing away at every centimeter of exposed skin.
“THIS WAY!” Shane shouted, stomping off. “NEVER GO AHEAD OF ME AND KEEP MOVING, EVEN WHEN WE’RE CLEARING SNOW!”
Though he was out in front, he hung back enough to leave the bulk of the work to Boone and Jeremy. They slogged forward single file, leaving giant leg-prints in the snow that I used to follow behind them.
Memories came flooding back; the fury of the avalanche, the dark terror of realizing I was trapped beneath the snow. Recollections of being so bitter cold I stopped feeling it anymore, followed by the nagging worry of certain frostbite.
It was a miracle we’d made it — any one of us. And yet four of us had somehow found the same snowbound hotel, the same place that had saved us from the elements and kept us alive for the better part of a week.
But Faith…
My stomach churned. For a while I’d put my friend out of my head, convinced myself that she’d somehow been spared. But now that we were back outside? A fresh wave of doubt crept over me. It made me sick. Nauseous.
“IT WAS FURTHER THAT WAY!” I heard Jeremy telling Shane.
“NO IT WASN’T!”
“YES IT WAS! I—”
The wind picked up, howling through the jagged edge of the valley. Sweeping fresh powder over us in waves, tearing savagely at our bright red faces. It was absolutely brutal. Every time it got bad we had to stop and huddle up against one another, keeping our heads close to fight it off.
We forged on hard, making small course corrections every now and then but more or less moving in the same general direction. Boone and Jeremy switched positions often, giving each other a chance to rest and recover. Shane even took a shift too, holding his injured hand high overhead to avoid dragging it against the deeper snow.
I had no idea how much time passed. We couldn’t see where the sun was. All we could see was this ridiculous, ridiculous storm. One that had somehow raged on for days without letting up, and which was now dumping as much sleet down on us as it was snow.
“HOW MUCH FURTHER?”
Boone’s question died on the wind. Either the other two didn’t hear him, or they chose not to answer.
All we could do was push on.
I knew it was dark when the skies began turning a darker shade of grey. It was alarming. Jeremy and Shane had reached the tower and made it back to the hotel — all in a single day. And here we were, the day nearly up… and we hadn’t found anything yet.
Maybe we missed it…
The thought was horrific. It sent a spike of fear rocketing down my spine.
Maybe we’ll freeze solid out here.
No. I refused to believe it. Even if we’d missed our goal, the guys would come up with something. They always did.
They had to.
“HEY! RIGHT THERE!”
Jeremy was pointing, somewhere off to our left. He jogged forward a few steps on his own. Just by his level excitement, I knew he saw something.
“THAT’S IT!”
We all ran after him — or what passed for running in such conditions — and my breath caught in my throat. The dark outline of something tall and imposing faded into view, slicing its way through the driving sleet and snow.
“IS IT A RADIO TOWER?” Boone shouted into my ear. I couldn’t tell. Couldn’t see. But then we got closer, and…
“YES!” I was suddenly all warm again. Everything was right in the world. “YES IT IS!”
We scrambled up to the base of the old steel frame. It was enormous. The spire, however tall it might be, disappeared about thirty feet up into a thick, impenetrable cloud of grey.
“HERE!”
Boone thrust forward the sack containing the radio. He’d fashioned it out of half a sleeping bag, sliced through with the blunt edge of the multi-tool. I pulled it out and began hooking it up to the tower, which consisted of wrapping the extension coil of copper wire from the back of the unit to one of the tower’s metal legs.
“THAT’S IT?” Shane asked over the wind. “THIS IS ALL YOU HAVE TO DO?”
“YEAH!” I laughed loudly.
“WE COULD’VE DONE THIS!”
“SURE,” I cried, teeth chattering. “BUT THEN I’D MISS OUT ON ALL THE FUN!”
I had Boone hold the radio steady as I reached for the handle. I’d crank it a few times. Get it all juiced up… then grab the mic and transmit.
Suddenly I stopped dead in my tracks.
No…
My body froze, my eyes trying to reconcile what I was seeing with what was actually happe
ning. But it couldn’t. It couldn’t possibly be.
I blinked, then blinked again. My heart sank. Deep down in my lungs, I could feel the dark origins of a scream.
The radio’s crank handle wasn’t there.
Forty-Nine
MORGAN
“WHAT IS IT?” Jeremy shouted. They were standing around me now in a little triangle, shielding me from the wind. “WHAT’S WRONG?”
I was so destroyed I couldn’t even speak. All I could do was tap the back of the radio with one gloved hand.
For a good ten seconds, the only sound was the howl of the storm.
“WELL… SHIT!”
Shane grabbed the bag and reached into it up to his elbow. All eyes were glued to him as his fingers poked through a ragged hole, torn in the bottom.
“FUUUUUUUUUUCK!” he shouted.
I was suddenly dizzy. Like I’d been running on the fumes of my own adrenaline, and now that too was gone, and everything was hitting me all at once.
“DID YOU PUT IT IN HERE?” Boone shouted at Jeremy.
“YES!”
“WAS THE HANDLE ATTACHED TO IT?”
“I—I THINK SO!”
“WELL IT’S NOT NOW! AND IT’S NOT IN HERE!”
Shane shook the bag, then threw it downward in anger. “IT’S PROBABLY A HALF-MILE BACK IN THE MIDDLE OF FUCKING NOWHERE!”
As if we didn’t have enough problems, the wind picked up. It blew all new ice into our faces, obliterating our vision.
“M—MAYBE WE COULD GO BACK FOR IT!” Jeremy scrambled. “MAYBE WE—”
There was a sudden burst of static, as Boone flipped the radio on. The lights lit up! They were dim… and they weren’t nearly charged as much I would’ve liked…
But they were still on.
“HURRY!” I shouted. “GIVE ME THE MICROPHONE!”
I ripped my glove off so fast it went spinning off into the storm. I didn’t care. It didn’t slow me down for an instant.
