The Drop

by Jeff Ross

  I sighed and stretched out in my sleeping bag. I hoped that would be the last time someone came out for wood before I was out of there.

  “Not human out there,” someone said inside the cabin. I heard the logs drop to the ground in a clatter followed by the bang of the woodstove door opening. “Call him and let him know that we might have to delay.”

  “We can’t delay,” someone else said. The voices were so muffled, I could barely tell one voice from another. “We might not have an option. If the weather doesn’t change, we’ll have to stay.”

  “We can’t stay,” a third voice said. “Call him, see what’s happening on his side of the mountain.”

  “You think it’s going to be any different over there?”

  “Just call and see.” I waited a long time to hear something else. But nothing came. I was extremely hungry. If my stomach made any more noise, the kidnappers would hear it. I quietly opened my backpack and dug through it until I found an energy bar.

  “It’s clear,” someone said. “He says it’s clear over there.”

  “Then we go. Call your guy and set the coordinates for a pickup spot.”

  “We still have to get out of here,” someone else said. “And what about the girl?” I hadn’t heard anything from Hope. But if they were talking about her, she must be all right.

  “We can just leave her.”

  “No, we can’t. She’ll follow us.”

  “Then we can tie her up in here.”

  “No. What if no one comes this way and finds her? You can’t control that kind of thing.”

  “I don’t know! When this is all over, we can call someone and let them know.”

  “It’s not that easy.” I still couldn’t really tell if there were two or three people talking. Before, I’d been certain I’d heard three distinct voices. Now I wasn’t so sure. “We shoot her,” a different voice said. Definitely three people, then. There was no response. Why was there no response? There were only two rooms: the main space and the bathroom. So Bryce and Hope must be locked up in the bathroom.

  I slipped out of my sleeping bag, rolled it up and stuffed it in my backpack. I kept my ear to the wall, waiting for an answer. No one was going to shoot Hope, I told myself. That wasn’t going to happen.

  The door to the woodshed suddenly shot open. I froze behind the pile and waited, but no one came in. The door slammed shut.

  “What was that?” one of the men asked.

  “The door to the shed. I must have forgotten to latch it,” another man replied.

  I sat back down and ate my energy bar.

  “…the storm is coming in…” I heard through the wall. “…says we have to go now or never.” The woodstove banged and there was a long hiss. I could smell smoke, and soon its wispy fingers were floating into the shed.

  “Leave everything here. Just get the boards ready.”

  “What about the girl?”

  “She comes with us,” came the response. Two other voices said, “No.”

  The door opened again. The wind howled in the shed, and I couldn’t hear anything from inside the cabin.

  I pulled my snowboard out from behind the woodpile and strapped my backpack over my shoulders, all the while waving smoke away from my face. If I stood at the door of the woodshed, I could see downhill. Whoever was inside would have to go out the door and then straight down. Especially if they were on boards. So unless they looked back, which no one ever really does on a snowboard, I would be fine to follow them.

  I strapped my board on and waited. About five minutes later, the first person popped into view and started down the hill. Close behind him was Hope. Then Bryce. Then another man.

  But where was the third kidnapper? I was pretty sure I had heard three male voices. I waited and waited. I couldn’t see the group anymore, and the storm was closing in. I had to go, or soon I wouldn’t be able to follow their tracks. I jumped forward. Then I grabbed the side of the house and shoved as hard as I could. I kept the board flat, which is never a good idea, but I keep my board well waxed, and this was the best way to pick up some speed in the deep powder.

  I crouched down, tucked as much as possible and waited for a bullet to go through my head.

  It took less than a minute to get into the woods. I glanced back and couldn’t see any movement in the cabin. Whatever the third kidnapper was doing, he wasn’t looking out the door or window. Or maybe he had been. Maybe he had seen me and was using a satellite phone to call ahead to the others. There was no way of knowing.

  The trail went through the trees in a kind of sideways shuffle. I followed, moving as quickly as possible but keeping my eyes peeled for the last man in the group. I suspected that they would be going fairly slowly. The weather conditions were bad and getting worse.

  The trail cut out of the woods and onto a steep, open slope. I came to the top of this section and stopped. The wind was blowing straight across the slope, making it almost impossible to see anything.

  Or anyone.

  I looked down at the trail in the snow. It appeared that the boarders had cut across the hill, back toward the other side of the mountain. But this didn’t make sense. The drop went from high to low. We were on the low side. It wasn’t possible to make it back up, was it? Or maybe the drop didn’t go all the way down the mountain. We had never asked Sam about this.

  I dropped into the downhill. I was trying to look as far forward as possible, but it was getting more difficult to see anything at all. The trail moved steadily sideways, every so often dipping into steep downhill rolls.

  Ahead of me there was nothing but white. Everywhere, everything was a solid white. The trail had disappeared beneath me. I couldn’t tell which way the others had gone.

  I stopped and listened for voices, but all I could hear was the howling wind. I cut back down again, figuring that they would keep going down and over until they came to the drop.

  I did this for about two minutes until the slope flattened out. Then I went more directly down, picking up speed. I did a couple of quick turns, all the while trying to see through the storm. It felt like I was picking up too much speed, so I cut hard on my toe edge and shot back up the hill to stop and look. As I was turning, readying myself to drop in on my heel edge, I heard a scream.

  A girl’s scream.

  chapter fifteen

  I didn’t even think about it this time. I just dropped back in and tucked as hard as I could toward the sound. I hadn’t gone more than twenty feet when I spotted someone. It looked like one of the kidnappers. The one who had been at the back of the group. I decided I would try and run right into him. If I could take him by surprise, then I’d have the upper hand. I tucked hard and aimed straight for him. But just as I was gaining on him, he did a quick jump and steered himself down the hill. I got close, but the element of surprise was gone.

  I finally discovered what this area of the mountain was like. There was a split in the mountain, much like the drop, and we were on the low side of this. However, there was a massive wall of snow shooting up into the air at an extreme angle. It was like a launch pad that, if you hit it just right, would launch you up and over to the other side of the mountain. The kidnapper tucked at it, rode up the side and shot into the air. He just managed to clear the lip of the other side. I had no choice but to follow him. I shot into the air, pulling my legs up tight beneath me, and just managed to creep over the lip on the other side. I was so close behind the kidnapper that I almost landed on him.

  “What the…?” he yelled. I peeled off and cut up the mountain.

  “Where is Hope?” I shouted. “And Bryce?”

  “Another one!” he replied. “Your little girlfriend is hanging on over there,” he said, pointing back where we’d just come.

  “What?”

  He laughed and disappeared into the storm. I headed for it. I could just make out something pink on the edge. I headed for it. As I got closer, I could see Hope hanging on to a rock, her bottom half dangling over the edge. There wa
s no launch pad here. Just an open, immeasurable nothingness beneath her.

  I skidded to a stop, lying down as I did so, and dug my board into the snow. I grabbed Hope’s arms.

  “Stay still,” I said. I started to pull, and my board shifted forward. I dug it more deeply into the snow and pulled again. Hope didn’t weigh much, but with the board on her feet, it was like dragging an elephant up the side of a skyscraper. I pulled as hard as I could, and she moved another inch or two.

  “Is there anything you can get your board on?”

  “No, there’s nothing here.” Her voice was higher than normal.

  “Swing a little. Just try.” She shifted around, and it was really hard to keep hold of her. Her jacket was slippery, and so were my gloves. “Hold on to the rock again,” I said.

  “No. Don’t let me go.”

  “I have to get a better hold on you, Hope. Just hold the rock for a second.”

  “No, no. Please don’t let me go.”

  “Okay. Try this.” I was panting as I spoke. The strength was being sapped from my arms. “Grab the rock with one hand. I’ll still have a hold of you.”

  “No, no, no.”

  “Hope. You have to do this. I can’t hold on much longer.” She looked up at me. Her face was red. There were cuts on her cheeks and nose. Her eyes looked desperate and lost.

  “Trust me, Hope. It will be okay. Just trust me.” Tentatively, slowly, she let go of my arm and grabbed the rock with her right hand. I quickly shot forward and got my arm under her left arm. Now her face was beside mine, my elbows dug hard into the packed snow.

  I looked down and couldn’t see the bottom. Just a foggy haze of snow and rock.

  “How far is it?” Hope asked.

  “Don’t worry. Don’t look.”

  “How far?” Her breath was on my cheek.

  “Hope, you’re going to have to drop your board. It’s the only way I’ll be able to pull you up.”

  “But how will I get down the mountain?”

  “It’s the only way. Do it now.” She slipped a little, and I steadied her. She gasped in my ear. “Please, Hope, do it now.” She let go of my arm with one hand, reached down and undid the front binding. With a little wiggling, she was able to get the back binding undone. Somehow she managed to pull the board up and toss it over the edge of the lip. It dropped into some deeper powder, then slid down the hill.

  “How did you do that?”

  “Just get me up,” she yelled back.

  “Okay,” I said. “On three. One, two, three.” I pulled hard, and Hope came up over the edge. I pushed her forward, and she scurried into the deep snow. There were tears streaming down her face. She had more thin cuts on her face from where she had slammed into the edge of the cliff. There was blood coming from the cuts and dripping on the ground.

  “They tried to kill me,” she said. I was still lying on my front in the snow. It was difficult to even move. My arms felt limp, solid, almost dead.

  “What happened?”

  “I came over the edge there, and no one…”

  “What?” I yelled into the wind. Hope crawled over to me and put her face close to mine.

  “They came over the edge of that last descent, and everyone just shot for the ramp or whatever that thing is. No one told me I would have to jump. Alex, I wasn’t even close to ready.”

  “But everyone else made it fine?”

  “Yeah, like they’d done it before.”

  “Even Bryce?”

  “Well, you know Bryce,” she said. “It’s not like anything would surprise him.” The wind was pushing what felt like shards of glass into my face.

  “We have to get off of here,” I said. “Before we freeze.”

  “Where did my board go?” she asked. I couldn’t see it, but there was really only one option.

  “Down,” I replied. I looked at the slope beneath us. It was steep, and the powder was loose. I undid my bindings.

  “Sit up here,” I said, pointing to a spot just in front of the front binding. Hope clambered over without a word. I got on behind her and started pushing. Once we hit the steeper bit of the slope, it was easy enough to slide down.

  Stopping was the only real problem.

  chapter sixteen

  I dug my heels in as we approached the trees, but it wasn’t enough. The snow just bundled up around my legs. Hope jammed her legs down as far as they could go, but that didn’t help either. We were heading straight for a large evergreen.

  “Jump!” I yelled, grabbing Hope by the shoulders and shoving her off the board. We both sank into the snow and came to a stop. My board, on the other hand, rode on top of the powder until it hit a tree. Then it did a giant flip and landed upside down.

  “That had better not be broken,” Hope said.

  “Just get into the trees,” I yelled. We scrambled through the waist-deep snow. It was like swimming in Jell-O. It had warmed a little, and the snow was already becoming spongier. We finally managed to get into the wooded area. Hope leaned against a tree, exhaled and began to cry. I looked around and found her board where it had stopped and put it at her feet.

  “Please don’t cry,” I said, before I realized how insensitive that would sound. “I mean, it’s all right, Hope. We’ll get out of here.”

  “How do you know that? We’re all alone up here.”

  I thought about that for a moment. “No, we’re not,” I replied.

  “Who else is here?” She looked hopeful.

  “Sam and Dave,” I said. Then, “And the third guy in the cabin with you.”

  “What third guy?” Hope asked. She had a glove off and was wiping the tears from her cheeks.

  “When I was in the woodshed, I could hear three people talking.”

  She shook her head. “No, just two.”

  “What?” I had distinctly heard three voices. “What about Bryce?”

  “He was there too.”

  “Just there? Not handcuffed or tied to a chair or anything? Did he say anything to you?”

  “No. The kidnappers stuffed me in the bathroom and tied me to the sink as soon as we got into the cabin.” That seemed strange to me. If Bryce had been kidnapped, wouldn’t they have tied him up like they had Hope?

  “So what are we supposed to…”

  “Shhhh,” I said, holding a hand up. I could hear something.

  Rumbling.

  Like giant rocks knocking together.

  Like an avalanche.

  “Hope,” I said. “We have to go.” My eyes must have been huge and filled with fear, because Hope immediately began to panic.

  “What? Why?”

  I grabbed her board and put it in front of her. “Fast,” I said. The rumble was getting louder. An avalanche takes out everything in its path. Depending on how big the avalanche was, this little forested area we were in could be flattened in a matter of seconds. The week before, we’d watched a video of an avalanche. When the video was over, no one said a word. It was one of the most frightening things I’d ever seen.

  “Avalanche, Hope,” I said, grabbing her foot and jamming it into the binding. She looked uphill.

  “Where?”

  “It’s coming. I can hear it.” The ground shook. “I can feel it.” We were in a spot just beneath a steep slope. With the angle of the hill and the weather, we couldn’t see much farther than a hundred feet up the mountain. The avalanche would be on us before we knew it.

  Hope got her other foot buckled in. I jumped through the snow to where my board had landed and quickly checked it for damage. One of the edges had popped out slightly, but it was at the rear and faced backward. As long as I didn’t do a 180 out there, I’d be fine.

  “Go,” I said. The rumble was getting louder and louder. I expected any minute to see a great wave of snow flowing down the hill. I gave Hope a push to get her started. She shot out ahead of me. I slammed my boots into the bindings, grabbed a tree, pulled myself back and shot forward. I went into a tuck right away and caught up with Hope
before we were out of the wooded area.

  “Tuck,” I yelled. She bent down over her board and leaned forward. I scanned the area beneath us, looking for a spot where there was some kind of tunnel in the ground. We’d been told to look for a ditch—an area that was lower than the rest of the mountain—if we were ever caught in an avalanche.

  And then to stay out of it.

  Get up on the top. As high up as possible. You cannot outrun an avalanche. It’s impossible. Your only real choice is to head for higher ground.

  This part of the mountain was a straight shot though. There was nothing we could do but go down. Hope did a wide turn, trying to slow down.

  “Hope,” I yelled. “Straight. No turning.”

  “I can’t!” she screamed back.

  “You have to. We can’t slow down.” The rumble was deafening. It sounded like a herd of buffalo chasing a mass of rhinos down the mountain above us. Hope cut back in front of me and settled into a tuck. I knelt, keeping as low to the ground as possible and leaning hard over the front of the board.

  And then I looked behind me.

  chapter seventeen

  The avalanche had crested the slope and was overtaking the wooded area we’d just traveled through. The trees bent to the ground as the great wave of snow washed over them.

  “Go!” I yelled at Hope again.

  “Where?”

  “Straight.” The avalanche was catching up with us. It was only a matter of a minute or so before it would be on us. All I could think of was all that snow on top of me.

  Forever.

  Not being able to breathe beneath its weight. Or being dragged down the mountain like a surfer dumped on a reef and then sucked into shore.

  I started scanning the area beneath us again, trying to find a spot where we could get up and above the wash of snow and debris.