Whiteout

by Gabriel Dylan

  The German girl, though, was the one that Tara really couldn’t stand. Or was she Austrian? Tara didn’t think it mattered too much. Austrian or German, she was still a grade-A bitch. She might have helped them escape, but that didn’t mean she could talk to them like crap or order them around. It was a shame, thought Tara, that it hadn’t been Hanna that had been eaten first instead of Stefan, who had always been charming and polite. She wouldn’t have minded being trapped alone with him.

  While the rest of them waited, Hanna listened at the hostel door. Once she was satisfied that there was no noise other than the storm, she led them outside.

  Ryan took Tara by the hand and gently pulled her into the grey light. It was still snowing. In fact, Tara thought that the snow and wind might have been worse than ever. Her teeth chattered and she wrapped herself deeper into the folds of the old sleeping bag that Ryan had given to her, and that she now wore like a blanket.

  For a while, the group huddled near to the safety of the hostel, looking this way and that, making sure that the streets really were deserted. Once Hanna was happy that they were on their own, she pointed over at the ski shop that they had crashed into the night before and the rest of the group trudged after her.

  Tara didn’t like Hanna and she certainly didn’t trust her, with her threats and orders. She considered sowing the seeds of mutiny, but a far more pressing need to get out of the cold kept her jaw clamped shut.

  As they walked, Hanna kept her metal hockey stick in one hand, the battered tip covered in dried, darkened blood. Malachi and Jordan were half-carrying Poppy, and every few steps her foot caught on the drifts of snow, eliciting a cry of pain from her lips. She had been sobbing for most of the night, so much so that Tara was pretty sure none of them had been able to sleep.

  After a few minutes of trudging through the deepening snow, they reached the site of the crash the night before. Rather than go in through the back of the shop, Hanna took them round to the side, where the brick wall was interrupted by the front half of the minibus. She paused and looked back at the group, lingering for a moment on Ryan, who was still dressed in a shrunken hoodie and joggers. He shivered and trembled next to Tara, his hands stuffed into his pockets.

  “Get yourselves coats, gloves, trousers, whatever you need, but be quick. Hypothermia will kill you just as surely as anything else if you don’t get warm, but I don’t want us staying out in the open for too long. Move quickly. Once you’re ready, we’ll get food for the little princess and any others of you that are hungry.”

  Tara scowled at her through the falling snow. “Do you mean me?”

  Hanna ignored her question. Poppy rested her head on Jordan’s shoulder and stared fearfully into the gloom of the shop.

  “What if that thing … what if it’s still in there?”

  Hanna sighed, looked towards the shattered interior of the shop then raised her hockey stick. “Wait here.”

  She slipped into a space between the side of the minibus and the broken wall and vanished from view.

  “I hope she gets eaten,” hissed Tara. She nestled in closer to Ryan and felt him start to pull away. Tara realized that what she had been thinking had actually slipped out of her mouth, and she glanced up at Ryan.

  “I didn’t mean it. I’m scared. And I’m sick of being bossed around.”

  Ryan nodded dubiously and Tara glanced around the tiny village street. Now that it was daylight, now that they were out in the open, the night before felt even more like a dream. But she only had to look at Poppy’s mauled ankle to know it had been real.

  There was a noise from inside the shop, a gasping and hissing. Then there was a series of heavy thuds, one after another.

  Shiv’s dark eyes widened, and she took a step backwards. “Jesus, what is that? Do you think…?”

  Hanna’s head popped round the side of the wall and she eased her way out into the storm. “It’s clear. If you want to get warm, you need to get moving.”

  Ellie stood stock still. “What was that noise?”

  Hanna glanced down at the hockey stick by her side. Tara noticed that fresh blood dripped from the end of the metal on to the drifts of snow.

  “You don’t want to know. Trust me. Now get moving.”

  Chapter Fourteen

  “I’m going to get down the mountain. I’m going to make a break for it.”

  Hanna processed Ryan’s words while she tried to block out how the end of her hockey stick had become such a grisly mess. She looked the stocky rugby player up and down, considering his usefulness, and decided that he was one of the few potentially valuable members of the group.

  “You’ll never make it. Not in this storm. Not with the visibility as it is. Out there in the open you’ll freeze to death in less than an hour. It’s suicide.”

  Ryan held the skis in front of his chest defensively, a pair of poles tucked under his arm. “I’d rather take my chances on the mountain than up here, with those things. And if I get down there, I can get help. I can raise the alarm, get a rescue party up here.”

  Tara shook her head in disbelief. “You … you’re not going to leave us, are you? You can’t.”

  Hanna ran a hand through her hair, pushing her fringe out of her eyes. “The little princess is right. You can’t. You’ve been skiing for what, a week? I wouldn’t even consider it myself and I’ve been on the mountains since I was a baby.”

  Ryan shook his head and zipped up the padded jacket he’d found on a rack. “I skied down to the valley a few days ago. It wasn’t that hard. Fast in places, sure, but I can handle it.”

  Hanna felt her eyes rolling in exasperation. “Since the day you slipped and slid on your way down to the valley there’s been at least a metre of fresh powder. Nobody’s been out there to piste it, to make it rideable. You’ve never skied in powder. It’s not the same. And the chances of avalanche at the moment will be astronomical, not to mention getting lost or freezing to death.”

  Ryan ignored her, sat down and started to clip into a pair of ski boots he’d found. “Stefan said I had tons of natural ability. He said I was the best beginner skier he’d ever seen. I think I can make it.”

  Tara shook her head desperately. “Stefan didn’t know everything. You … you can’t listen to what he said. He was friends with her, for God’s sake.”

  Hanna fought back an angry response and gave the other girl a withering look. She’d had Tara’s number the day she’d first seen the school party stumbling off the coach, with her expensive Burberry luggage, her perfect hair and nails, the haughty demeanour that stank of privilege and condescension. And maybe the teachers hadn’t noticed it, but Hanna had seen the way Ryan looked at Tara, the way his eyes lit up when they fell on her.

  Yes, Hanna had met dozens of people just like Tara before, striding around the mountain like they owned it.

  And the worst thing was that Tara had everything Hanna wanted. Friends. Belonging. A boyfriend. A life.

  Everything she’d turned her back on when she’d found herself dragged back to the desolate resort by some unfathomable yearning for answers.

  Hanna took a moment to calm herself before she spoke again. “It’s suicide to try to get down the mountain. It’s minus ten out there, at least. Visibility’s nothing. This storm won’t last forever. But if that’s what you want to do, then it’s up to you, I’m not going to waste my time trying to talk sense into you.”

  Malachi grabbed a pair of boots off the rack and nodded. “Screw it. I’ve skied before. I’m with you. And I’d rather freeze than have one of those things grab me and drag me into the snow and do God knows what with me.”

  Shiv nodded. “Me too. Let’s do it. Let’s all do it.” She grabbed a pair of skis off a nearby rack and took down a set of goggles.

  Hanna watched Charlie take a pair of snowboard boots off the shelf, slip them on, then move a step closer to Ryan. There was something about the dark-eyed boy, something she couldn’t quite put her finger on.

  But out of all of the
m, he was the only one that Hanna felt a flicker of compassion towards.

  Or saw as anything more than a chip to be gambled as she tried to make sense of all that was unfolding.

  “She knows what she’s saying, Ryan. She knows the mountain. You really want to die out there?”

  Jordan glared in Charlie’s direction. “What do you know, Mr Crim?”

  Ryan waved Jordan’s words away with a gloved hand and turned back to Charlie. “I’ve seen you snowboard. You’re amazing. You should be coming too, not trying to talk us out of it.” He looked up from where he was sitting and glanced around the group, his eyes blue and bright in his chiselled face. “You should all come. We’ll be quick! We’ll make it!”

  Jordan shook his head and looked mournfully at the captain. “I can’t ski for shit. What am I going to do? Run after you?”

  Ellie wiped at her nose with the back of her hand. “Neither can I. And she definitely can’t.”

  Hanna followed Ellie’s gaze to Poppy, who was slouched down in a chair in the corner, blood starting to seep through the rough bandages that Shiv had applied.

  Tara nodded firmly. “I can’t ski either, or at least not very well. You’re not going to leave me, are you?”

  Hanna felt a perverse sense of satisfaction when Ryan barely wavered.

  “I’ll make it. We’ll get help. It’ll be OK, baby, I promise.”

  Tara’s eyes started to brim with tears.

  A few minutes was all it took for the three of them to fasten their boots and get themselves kitted out with goggles and helmets and a succession of layers. Hanna didn’t bother to try to stop them, the gears in her mind still struggling to process exactly what had happened the night before.

  Whatever she had expected from Matthias’s garbled warning, it wasn’t this.

  Outside, the storm continued to scream and howl, the clothes on the racks rattling to and fro in the wind that whipped into the shop.

  Tara called to Ryan imploringly one last time. “Please, Ryan, please. Don’t leave me.”

  He glanced down at her through orange-tinted goggles and smiled. “I’ll come back for you. I promise. Before it even gets dark, we’ll be back.”

  He lifted his scarf up over his mouth and started towards the street beyond.

  Hanna found herself calling his name before she could stop herself. “Ryan. Wait.”

  “If you’re trying to talk us out of it—”

  “I’m not. If you want to go, it’s up to you. But take the blue, up by the lifts. It turns into a red after half a mile, then a black. That’s the bit you need to watch. That’s the bit that’s going to be loaded with snow. That’s where you need to take care. And don’t stop or you’ll freeze to death out there.”

  Ryan nodded. “Thanks.”

  He stared in Charlie’s direction. “You coming?”

  Hanna felt an odder flicker of relief when he shook his head slowly. “No. You go. Try and make it. Get help.”

  Ryan gestured towards the others, and the three of them picked up their skis and poles and started to clump towards the lifts, their heavy snow boots making their progress slow and laborious.

  Hanna stood at the door and watched them go, wondering what would get to them first – the cold, the deadly pistes or the creatures. It was less than a minute before the storm swallowed them up, their fading footprints the only evidence that they had ever been there at all.

  Chapter Fifteen

  “Why didn’t you go with them?”

  Charlie ignored the question and took another bite of his Mars bar. Now that there was food, he suddenly realized how hungry he had been. He hadn’t eaten since lunchtime the day before and his stomach growled at the sudden presence of food. He reached out and unwrapped another chocolate bar, a Snickers this time, and found Tara still staring at him.

  He glanced around at the empty chairs and tables and shrugged. “I don’t know. It wasn’t because I particularly like any of you, that’s for sure. I just didn’t want to leave everyone up here.”

  Tara eyed him suspiciously then poured herself a glass of milk from a bottle inside the fridge. Despite the lack of power, the contents of the café’s refrigerator were still fresh.

  “But you … you’d be the last person I’d expect to stay. After the things you must have done, you’d be the last person I’d expect to care about anyone other than yourself.”

  Charlie stared at her for a moment, considered a range of possible responses, then decided none of them would make things any better.

  After Ryan and the others had faded like ghosts on the road out of the village, Hanna had brought the rest of them to this small café a few doors down from the Panoramic Hotel.

  Charlie knew the place. Stefan had taken the group there for cake on the second day. There hadn’t been many customers then, just the students from Charlie’s school and one or two other hikers, but all the same the owner had been flustered and hassled, something Stefan had remarked on as being strangely out of character.

  Today, no one had looked towards the Panoramic as they walked to the shop, and Charlie had been more than relieved when Hanna had tried the café door and found it unlocked. The last thing he had wanted to do was stand out in the open and revisit what had happened the night before. In the frosty air of the café, those that hadn’t left with Ryan slumped in chairs around the room and salvaged what they could from behind the counter. Poppy sat in the corner, her wounded leg propped up on a chair, while Ellie and Jordan stared at the wall.

  Hanna stood by the window, watching the falling snow through a tiny crack in the blinds. She had locked the front door behind them and dropped the blinds, but all the same Charlie felt far from safe. After a while, Hanna walked away from the window, stared at the counter and its empty glass cabinets then parked herself down next to Charlie and Tara. Her silver nose-ring caught the dim light that sneaked in from outside, and she had a cup in one hand, a half-eaten pastry in the other. She glanced back at the storm then shook her head dismissively. “They shouldn’t have gone. They’ll never make it.”

  Tara stared at Hanna bitterly. “If I could ski, I’d have gone, too. I wish I could have gone. Better that than being stuck up here with those things and you.”

  Hanna took a sip from her cup of milk. “Well, don’t let me stop you from joining them. It would certainly make my life a little more pleasant without you tagging along like a lost little puppy, bitching and whining.”

  She took another mouthful of her milk then looked up at Charlie, her grey eyes boring into him. “So. I’ve seen you snowboard, and you know what you’re doing. And it doesn’t look like you’re the most popular student here. I know you’re not scared of getting caught in an avalanche out there. So why didn’t you go?”

  Charlie shifted uneasily and scrunched up the wrapper from his chocolate bar. Hanna’s piercing gaze never left him, and he realized he wasn’t going to get away without giving an answer. He shrugged and looked back at her.

  “My dad was a lifeguard. Well, he was a lot of things, but he was a lifeguard when he was older. And he always said that you should do whatever you can to help others. Selfless, I think he said. You should be selfless. I think its pretty fair to say I haven’t exactly followed in his footsteps. But this morning, when Ryan and the others were leaving, I couldn’t get my dad’s words out of my head.”

  Tara snorted. “Oh, so suddenly you’re all about helping others? Didn’t sound that way from what I heard the receptionists saying back at school. Or when the police came in to mop you up.”

  A gust of wind made the door rattle and Tara shook her head ruefully. “Sorry. I didn’t mean that. I just can’t believe he went. I can’t believe Ryan left me. I mean, what if those things get in here? Who’s going to protect me now he’s gone?”

  Hanna shot her a dismissive look. “Not me. That’s for sure.”

  Charlie tried to slide between the two girls before their relationship deteriorated any further. “Those things have gone, whatever t
hey were. You’d hear them if they were still here. You’d see them.”

  Tara swore, stood up abruptly and stalked off to sit by the others at the furthest table from the door. Both Jordan and Poppy were looking lost and desolate, Ellie trying and failing to comfort them. Out of the corner of his eye, Charlie watched Tara lean in towards the others, her fingers gesturing in Hanna’s direction. He suspected that whatever she was saying was far from pleasant.

  With Tara out of earshot, he glanced back up at Hanna. “What did you find in there, in the shop?”

  Hanna stared at her drink for a moment then looked back up at Charlie. “That thing. The one that took a chunk out of Poppy. It was pinned under the wheels of the minibus last night. And when I went in there today, it was still there. Still moving.”

  She took another sip of her drink, and seemed to suppress a shiver. “So I stopped it moving.”

  When Charlie spoke again, his voice was barely a whisper. “What the hell happened last night? What are they?”

  Hanna took a deep breath. “I don’t know. That thing under the wheels of the bus, whatever it was, it didn’t look … normal. Or maybe I imagined it. It was dark in there.”

  Hanna shuddered. “Part of me thinks we should have made a break for it, like the others. But I know we wouldn’t have made it.”

  Charlie studied her, the gears in his mind rolling and shifting. “You know something, don’t you? Something you’re not telling us?”

  Hanna shook her head quickly. “I’m just as scared and confused as you. And if I knew anything, I’d have told you.”

  There was something in Hanna’s eyes that suggested otherwise. “So what do we do?”