by Meg Muldoon
It no longer mattered who placed first… all that mattered was that folks made it home safely.
People milled around the auditorium, looking overheated and tired and antsy. But amongst the bored expressions and crossed arms of impatience, Daniel was nowhere to be found.
I pulled out my phone and called.
He answered on the second ring.
“Cin?”
“Are you still here, Daniel?”
“I’m in the back,” he said. “Near the stage, looking to have a word with Julie Van Dorn.”
I scanned the auditorium again, narrowing my search range.
“Cin – I was just on the phone with Brett Arnold at the weather station over in Pendleton,” he said. “They’ve issued an emergency weather warning. We’ve got a serious ice system headed our way.”
“That’s why I called,” I said.
I swallowed hard.
“Daniel – it’s already here.”
There was a long pause on the other side of the line.
Then some regretful muttering.
“Aw, dammit,” he said. “This is all my fault. I should have stepped in earlier. I should have—”
“This isn’t your fault,” I said, cutting him off before he went down that road. “You couldn’t have known it was going to turn out like this.”
“Yeah, but I had a feeling, Cin,” he said. “I just didn’t listen to it. Someone had to be the adult here, and it should have been me. But I just didn’t want to ruffle any feathers. And now…”
He trailed off.
“I’ve been trying to find Julie so we can make an announcement about cancelling the event, but I can’t find her,” he said. “You have any idea where she is?”
My eyes suddenly picked him out of the crowd. I made my way down the steps, weaving through the masses to get to him.
“I don’t know,” I said. “I’ve been busy looking for Cliff.”
“Did you find him?”
“Yeah,” I said. “Though I guess it doesn’t matter much now.”
I thought back to the cold, emptiness in Cliff’s voice and I felt my skin break out in a wave of goosebumps.
“Well, I figure if I don’t find Julie in the next minute, I’m just going to have to take over things here—” Daniel started saying.
My voice suddenly caught in my throat as the walls of the auditorium groaned like a capsized ship on its way down to the floor bed of the Pacific.
A moment later, the room was filled with a collective, ear drum-bursting scream.
Chapter 22
There was nothing but shrieks and darkness.
A darkness so black, it was inkier than the winter woods of the Cascade mountain range on a moonless night.
The frightened screams echoed through the large room, and like an infection, it spread and soon the people around me were screaming too.
My blood turned to ice.
Then, came the sound of rustling.
Of mad, scared, panic-stricken movement in the dark.
Something bumped into me hard, and I stumbled forward. My feet struggled to find the ground, but it eluded them. A moment later, I was careening out of control. Down, down, down, sure that there was no way to stop what was going to be a long, hard fall down the steps of the auditorium.
I closed my eyes in the darkness and let out a scream of my own as I braced for the pain and catastrophic injury that awaited me at the end of the fall.
But just as I lost all control, I crashed into something large and soft.
I heard a deep-throated cry of surprise. Followed by a voice.
“Who’s that?” it rasped.
A pair of big hands suddenly grabbed a hold of my shoulders, steadying me, preventing me from continuing the bone-breaking journey that I had started.
I let out a sharp sigh of relief as my feet gripped the carpeted step.
I’d never been so happy to be on my own two feet in all my life.
“It’s Cinnamon—” I started saying, but was interrupted when the mass hysteria around me died down suddenly, giving way to a loud voice.
“Everybody stay exactly where you are!”
I looked over in the direction of the calm, familiar voice, and saw the faint electric blue light of a cell phone glowing in the air on the opposite side of the auditorium.
“This is Sheriff Daniel Brightman speaking to you,” he said as the frightened rumblings in the room died down even more. “Now, there’s no need to panic, folks. It’s clear that the power has just gone out, most likely on account of the storm.”
He cleared his throat, and started up again in an even louder tone.
“It’s not ideal, but we’re all still safe right now. Just so long as we’re careful not to hurt one another.”
By the silence, it was clear that Daniel had the crowd’s full attention.
“Now, we’re all going to get out of here. But it’s going to be in a calm and composed fashion. We’re going to evacuate starting with those closest to the auditorium doors. Those of you with cell phones or tablets on hand, use those as light sources to help you get to the exits. We all want to get out of here, but please take it slow and steady. Do not push anyone, and use common courtesy when moving through the aisles, folks.”
Daniel’s calm, yet firm voice, seemed to ease the mad hysteria that had taken hold.
I felt the man whose hands were on my shoulders loosen his grip. A moment later, the bright blue light of a cell phone brightened the air in front of me.
Within a second of seeing the big nose and deep set eyes, I knew who it was.
“Marty,” I said, letting out a sigh of relief. “Thank goodness they let just anybody into this event. If they hadn’t, I’d have a broken neck right now.”
Marty Higgins smiled a big toothy grin back at me.
In the faint glow of the light, I could see something dark running down the side of his face.
“Oh, Marty, you’re bleeding,” I said, my voice cracking. “Did I do that to you?”
“No,” he said. “Somebody else pushed me right before I stopped your fall. But it’s nothing.”
He reached for my hand.
“C’mon, cupcake,” he said. “Let’s get out of here.”
He held his phone out in front of us and led the way out of the darkness.
Chapter 23
“Are you sure you’re okay, Marty?”
A thin stream of blood ran from a nasty-looking gash on his forehead. In the fading afternoon light spilling from the hallway’s windows, the blood was the color of fresh cranberries.
“Oh, this little bump? I hardly feel it,” he said.
He reached up and touched the wound, wincing as he did.
It didn’t seem like he hardly felt it.
“Somebody just must have nicked me. You know, some folks just lose it in a crisis. Without your husband diffusing the situation in there, I think I might have been trampled to death.”
The hallway, which a few moments ago had been mostly empty with only those nearest to the doors coming out, was now getting crowded as more and more people escaped the auditorium. And while most of them looked relived once they had made it out of the darkness unscathed, that look didn’t last long once they caught a glimpse outside.
That glistening layer on the snow drifts, as shiny as a finishing coat of clear nail polish, had only become thicker and more deadly.
And I knew I wasn’t the only one feeling a pit in my stomach at the looks of it.
It was damn near impassable.
I focused my attention back on Marty, choosing to concentrate on what I could control.
“We should get that wound cleaned up,” I said, holding out a hand. “C’mon, the restrooms are this way.”
“No, I’m okay, sweetheart,” he said. “I’ll be just fine.”
I stopped, and gave him a hard look.
“Don’t be difficult now,” I said. “You helped me out a few moments ago. Now it’s my turn to return the favor
.”
I could tell he was still hesitant about it, but after a long pause, he seemed to realize that I wasn’t going to let him stand in the hallway bleeding from his forehead.
We weaved in and out of the mass of people, many of whom were so disoriented by the power outage and the way it looked outside that they had to be gently nudged to get out of our way.
Marty’s eyes drifted past me, out one of the windows.
“Things got real bad real fast out there, didn’t they?” he said.
I nodded in agreement.
“This event shouldn’t have even been allowed to take place,” I said. “It should have been cancelled this morning. Because now…”
I trailed off.
I felt frustrated and angry, suddenly. At Julie Van Dorn. At the Christmas River Police Department. At the City of Christmas River. At the Chocolate Championship Committee.
All of them had become blinded by greed. In their zeal to host the city’s biggest-ever tourism event, and to get all the money that came with that, they had put a heck of a lot of people in danger.
Getting out of here was going to be—
I stopped dead in my tracks and felt the hair on the back of my neck stand straight up on end.
A muffled, bloodcurdling howl sounded down the hallway.
And it wasn’t on account of the power outage – that much I could tell immediately.
Because I’d heard a scream like that before.
And I knew exactly what it meant.
Chapter 24
I ran down the hallway, leaving Marty and the rest of the stunned crowd behind me.
A moment later, I busted through the metal front doors and out beneath the covered veranda of the building. An icy burst of air cut right through my clothes and bit at my cheeks, but I couldn’t afford to think about how much it hurt. My legs pumped hard through the snow that had gathered on the concrete despite the covering, pure adrenaline fueling my run. I hit ice, and almost lost my footing at one point, but somehow, miraculously rebounded and continued on.
I saw her pressed against the cold brick wall of the building, her feet moving as she tried to back up even further. Her voice had gone hoarse, and her hands were clamped over her mouth tightly, as if she was trying to stop a voice she had no control over.
Something dark stained the sleeves of her wool jacket.
Her eyes bulged with fear as she looked at me, and then down to the thing on the ground.
The thing that had caused her screaming.
I paused a moment before looking, trying to prepare myself for what my eyes were about to see.
People only screamed the way Holly Smith was screaming about one thing – I knew that from experience.
It was only a question now of who was lying there.
I took in a deep breath of the cold air, feeling it freeze in my lungs. I peeled my eyes away from Holly’s lily-white face and bulging eyes.
I looked down.
And even though I had tried to steel myself, the sight still sent shock waves through my soul.
He lay on his side, his arms and legs splayed out unnaturally. Ice pellets were accumulating on his black coat. His head tilted off to one side, his dark hair dusting the cold layer of ice beneath him.
A small pool of blood spread out, turning the area around his head the color of a dark cherry snow cone.
There was no movement. No breath. No sign of life.
And while I couldn’t see his face, it took me only a second to figure out who it was lying there, dead.
It was the boots. Those expensive, fashionable, but impractical boots which he had complained about the night before. The ones that couldn’t grip worth a damn.
“What happened?” I managed to squeak out.
Holly’s hands were still clamped over her mouth and those light blue eyes held a look of complete terror.
She shook her head, lowering her hands slightly.
“I was just… I was just coming out of the ladies’ room and I saw him lying here,” she muttered. “And I checked his pulse and… he’s dead. My God, he’s dead!”
I looked down at the man, a numb sadness overpowering me.
I hadn’t liked Cliff Copperstone.
In fact, I may have despised him.
But that didn’t mean he deserved to die like this: far from home, alone, in the bitter cold of a February storm.
I quickly glanced around, realizing what must have happened.
He must have slipped. The way he had the night before. Except this time, he hadn’t gotten off so easily.
The man must have hit the back of his head on the hard ice.
I cringed, thinking of him in the shadows of the hallway only minutes earlier.
You don’t know what’s going on here. You think you do, but you don’t understand a thing…
His words echoed in my head, and I shuddered.
A stiff, howling wind suddenly hurled sharp pieces of ice into my face, and railed against the windows behind us.
Holly let out a short muffled yelp in response, and I turned my attention back to her.
Her eyes were brimming with tears, and her hands, which she had clamped firmly over her mouth again, were red and raw from the cold.
I went over, putting an arm over her shoulder, nudging her back toward the doors.
“You’re just in shock right now, Holly, but you’re okay,” I said in the calmest voice I could muster. “Let’s just get you inside where it’s warm.”
“He was just… he was just there…” she muttered.
Her frail shoulders were trembling, and her purse slid off her shoulder and onto her wrist with the uncontrolled movement.
“I saw… and…”
But there was nothing more to it.
Another gust of wind howled into us, and her voice faded away with it.
But in the strange silence afterwards, I heard something.
Something faint and weak and hardly audible.
Something that could have easily been the cruel winter wind playing tricks.
But it wasn’t.
I turned around.
His arm flinched slightly, and I felt my heart jump in my chest at the sight of it.
“Cinnamon…”
I gasped.
Chapter 25
“Cliff?!” I shouted. “Cliff, can you hear me?”
The cold ice beneath me bled through my jeans, turning my knees numb as I knelt over the man who only a few seconds ago seemed lost forever.
I gently squeezed Cliff’s shoulder, and he groaned.
“Holly?” I said, looking quickly back at her.
Her eyes were as big as coconuts and she didn’t seem to hear me.
“Holly!”
That snapped her out of it. Those big deer eyes of hers focused on me.
“Go find the Sheriff,” I said. “Tell him we have a badly injured man here. Go quick.”
She nodded.
“I can… I can do that.”
She looked at me for a long moment.
“I can do that,” she mumbled again.
I was about to yell at her again, but a second later, she finally slipped inside the heavy metal doors, disappearing into the building.
I turned my attention back to Cliff, peering down at him, feeling my stomach turn as the small pool of blood grew in size, clouding the clear layer of ice beneath him.
A choking feeling of panic suddenly seized me.
With any other kind of wound, I knew that getting Cliff inside out of the cold would have been the logical move. But with a head injury, I’d heard that it was imperative not to move the injured person – no matter what.
But I had to do something, I realized. I couldn’t just wait there, watching as he slowly bled out.
I ripped my pink scarf off from around my neck, and scrunched it up into a ball. I pressed it against the back of his head, trying to stop the blood from flowing.
Cliff groaned again, which I took as a good sign.
&
nbsp; “Just hang on,” I said in a hoarse voice. “Help is on the way. You just hold on here.”
I glanced back at the doors as an unforgiving gust blew more ice pellets into me. I shivered in the bitter, frigid air.
Where was everybody?
When I turned back to look at Cliff again, he was stretching out his hand toward me.
I gripped it without thinking twice.
“It’s going to be okay, Cliff,” I said again. “Just don’t fall asleep, all right?”
“She…” he slurred in a voice barely above a whisper. “She ruined...”
I furrowed my brow.
“What?”
“She ruined me…”
The timber of his voice trembled, reminding me of the heavy, lethargic fluttering of a dying moth.
I felt fear course through my body.
He could die at any moment.
He could die right here, with me holding his hand.
I heard the sound of metal bracing against metal, and I turned around to see that the door to the building had opened with a large amount of force behind it.
A split second later, Sheriff Daniel Brightman burst through the building doors, a young woman I didn’t recognize following behind.
Daniel started running when he saw me, his stride slowed by the ice.
“How’s he doing?” he said.
I swallowed hard and shook my head.
“Bad, Daniel. Real bad.”
The pink scarf I had applied to the wound was being engulfed by a dark stain.
The young woman I didn’t recognize was beside me a second later, leaning over Cliff and pulling his lids open, scanning his eyes.
It scared me how vacant and empty they looked.
“This is Lacey Cooley,” Daniel said. “She’s the sister of one of the contestants, and she said she has some medical training.”
“I’m a first year med student,” the young woman said. “So I’m not terribly knowledgeable, but I’m better than nothing.”
She looked over at me.
“So he slipped and hit his head?” she said.
I nodded.
She studied Cliff for one moment longer, then took in a deep breath.
She looked up at Daniel.
“He needs real medical attention,” she said. “And soon. Head injuries like this can be incredibly dangerous. I’m not a doctor yet, so this is beyond my expertise. But I think that it’s absolutely critical that we get him to the emergency room.”
