The Shuddering Part 4

"We're a million miles from anywhere," Ryan said. "It's just us and the trees. n.o.body will know, because n.o.body knows we're here."

CHAPTER THREE.

The guy working the ski lift held up his hands.

"Sorry, folks." He tried on his best look of sympathy. "No more going up today."

"Oh, come on!" Jake shoved the sleeve of his jacket up his forearm, checking the time. "It's two minutes till four, man. We've got sixty seconds until the cutoff."

Tara stood uncomfortably next to Jake, rubbing the back of her neck with a gloved hand, her eyes fixed on the board strapped to one of her feet. They were coming up on their two-year anniversary, but she still hadn't gathered the nerve to tell him she hated s...o...b..arding-hated everything about it, from the bitter cold to getting off and on the lift. Every minute spent standing in line to get on that confounded thing gave her an anxiety attack, because getting on the lift meant getting off, and getting off meant eating it at the top of the hill. This was only her second season, and she already knew boarding wasn't for her. But there was something to be said for keeping up appearances, especially for a guy who was as fanatical about winter sports as Jake.

"Hey, let's just go to the lodge," she suggested. "Get something to drink; I want cocoa."

But he wasn't satisfied with her suggestion. They'd paid good money for their lift tickets and he was determined. "I have a better idea," he said, pulling the glove off his right hand and shoving it into the pocket of his waterproof pants. "Here." He held out a crumpled twenty-dollar bill. "Get yourself a beer, huh? Let us on."

The operator frowned at the money, hesitating, and eventually gave in with a sigh. "Fine," he said. "But up and down, all right?"

Jake held up his hands, as if to say the operator had his word. Tara shut her eyes, trying not to groan. She'd have done anything to get that s...o...b..ard off her feet. Her pinkie toes had gone numb inside her boots hours ago. Jake grabbed her by the elbow and slid into place, both of them craning their necks backward, waiting for the chairlift to scoop them up.

Tara winced as the chair slammed against the backs of her thighs. The safety bar came down across their laps and she ducked into the scarf wrapped around her neck. It was cold, the sun having dipped just beyond the crest of the mountain, leaving the entire ski area in frigid shadow. And to make things worse, the slush of the day was starting to freeze into a slick of ice. She could hardly maneuver on fresh powder, let alone on hard-packed permafrost. The idea of catching the edge of her board and flying headfirst down the hill twisted her stomach into knots-but an injury wouldn't have been so bad. It would have put her out for the rest of the season. A broken wrist almost seemed worth it.

Jake was the first to launch off the lift. Tara always hesitated, calculating the least terrifying, least treacherous trajectory to take. But no matter how much she steeled her nerves or planned her dismount, she always ended up on her back, and this time was no different. She crashed a few seconds after shoving herself off the chairlift, clenching her teeth behind the woven wool of her scarf. At least there wasn't another group of boarders behind them to see her fall; at least the hill was completely devoid of people, all of those right-minded skiers at the base of the mountain, packing up their gear and getting out of the cold. Jake came to a stop a few yards away, snapping his left foot into his board as he waited for her to get up and join him. She sighed, shoving her boot into her binding.

"It's too icy," she called out to him. He lifted his hand to his ear, shaking his head at her. Pushing her scarf away from her mouth, she made a face at him. "It's slick. I'm going to kill myself."

Jake looked away, and she hoped he was considering the steep downgrade ahead of him. The hill was an intermediate blue, interspersed with a handful of well-camouflaged moguls-ones that were virtually invisible in the shade. If it had been a green trail it wouldn't have been so bad, but naturally he had to make their last run count.

"We'll take a detour," he told her, motioning to a line of pines. "There's a side trail just beyond those trees. It'll be less hard-packed there."

"Off the trail?" She shook her head. There was no way she was going off the trail, not when the slope was empty like this, not when there weren't any people to help them if they got into trouble. Jake looked away again, and she could feel him rolling his eyes at her. If worse came to worst, she'd unstrap her board and use it like a sled, sliding all the way down the hill until she was safe and sound in front of the lodge. h.e.l.l, that might actually be fun.

"It's a trail," he told her. "It's on the map."

"Are you sure?"

"Babe, come on. I'm sure."

"G.o.dd.a.m.nit," she whispered, securing the strap of her binding before rocking onto her feet.

The trail wasn't a trail.

Tara nearly screamed when she found herself knee-deep in a snowdrift. Jake was hopping in front of her, trying to dislodge his board from an impossible depth of powder while she silently raged behind him. After a few minute of fruitless effort, she was the first to throw in the towel.

"This was on the map? I swear, sometimes you just..." drive me f.u.c.king nuts. She bit her tongue, trying to keep herself from boiling over. This wasn't his fault. He hadn't purposely led them into a snowdrift. She continued to echo his innocence inside her head, trying to keep her anger in check, but the cold was making it difficult to stay quiet. The snow, which had found its way into her boots and was now melting against her socks, was making it hard not to launch into a tirade that would end in a statement she'd been wanting to make since last season: I'm never going s...o...b..arding again. She reached into the snow and unsnapped her bindings, struggling to step off her board without toppling over. "I'm walking," she announced through clenched teeth, hefting her board up by its leash and tossing it onto her back.

"Are you serious?" He looked surprised, but his little laugh of disbelief only made her angrier.

"I'm serious," she snapped, shoving one foot into the snow ahead of her, the knee-deep powder sucking her leg down like quicksand. Less than ten steps forward and she was already gasping for breath. She held back her tears, pressing on, determined to get off that d.a.m.ned mountain so she could never return.

"Look, we'll just get back to the main trail, okay? It's not far." Jake unstrapped his own board, but rather than following her downhill, he turned toward the trees. She stopped, watching him waddle toward a thick grouping of pines, their branches bent low with snow.

"And if it's deeper in there?" she asked. "People die in snowdrifts, you know."

"Well, what do you want to do? Freeze up here?"

"Yeah," she said. "That's exactly what I want to do." Sighing, she relented, begrudgingly turning to follow him into the thicket. "This is...your fault...you know," she said between gasps for air. "We...should have just...gone...to...the...lodge." Each word punctuated another exhausting step, but Jake continued forward, not saying anything. After a few minutes she had to stop; bending at the waist, she tried to catch her breath. "Wait," she said, lifting a hand to signal she needed a break. "I can't." Her lungs were on fire. Every inhale of icy air felt as if she were swallowing fire. Her feet ached with numbness. Her fingers p.r.i.c.kled with pain. For a second she teetered on the brink of panic. What if they didn't get out of here? What if they did get swallowed by a snowdrift as soon as they set foot in those trees? There were signs posted along the mountain to stay on designated trails-there had to be a reason for those. What if people died doing this? "Hey," she said, wincing against the pain in her chest. "Hey, maybe we should go back the way we came."

"What?" He shook his head at her. "I thought you wanted to get out of here." He hovered just beyond the trees, extending an arm outward to push a snow-laden branch to the side.

"I do," she insisted. "I just...I don't know. I have a bad feeling."

"It's called first-degree frostbite," he told her, ducking his head to peer into the wooded area.

"Great," she said as she continued forward. "That makes me feel so much better."

"It looks fine," he a.s.sured her. "Totally cool. We'll be back on the trail in a few minutes."

She looked up just in time to see him duck into the trees. And then he quite literally disappeared. Her eyes went wide as his s...o...b..ard stuck in the snow. "Jake?!" Her heart launched itself into her throat. She tried to run forward, terrified that her worst fears were being realized. It looked like he had fallen straight down, like the snow had swallowed him whole as soon as he breached the perimeter of those pines.

"Oh my G.o.d, Jake? Can you hear me?" No reply. Tears sprang into her eyes, hot against the bitter cold. Her board slid out of her grasp, sliding down the slope of the hill as she ambled forward, panic choking her every breath. But when she reached his s...o...b..ard, that panic bloomed into terrified confusion. His tracks ended abruptly. He was nowhere to be found.

She stumbled headlong into the woods, turning around in an attempt to face every direction at once. "Jake?!" His name was little more than a hysterical shriek. "If this is a joke, it isn't funny!" But something about the situation a.s.sured her that this wasn't a prank. It was too cold. She was too freaked out for him to pull a stunt like this. Catching the toe of her boot on something beneath the snow, she pitched forward and crumbled to her knees, her tears coming freely now. "I just want to go home," she wept. "Jake, I'm cold and I want to go home."

Nothing.

"I hate s...o...b..arding!" she screamed into the pale blue silence. "I've never liked it! I've only been coming along because you expected me to." Her words faded into a whisper. She blinked, swiping a gloved hand across her cheek. "Jake?"

Still nothing.

She swallowed against the lump in her throat, getting back to her feet. "I'm going down the mountain now," she told the forest. "I..." Hesitating, she looked around herself again. "I can't stay here. I'll send somebody, okay?"

Silence.

Then a phlegmy, guttural groan.

Fear speared her heart as she spun around, looking for the source. It sounded more like a wounded animal than a human, but it had to be Jake.

The moaning continued, now sounding as if it came from above her, as though daring her to turn her gaze skyward. When she did, her breath caught in her throat.

A creature loomed overhead, one long, angular arm clinging to a tree a good dozen feet up, while the other wrapped around a body wearing a familiar jacket and pants, the garments spattered with blood. She stumbled backward as its groan shifted from what almost sounded like pain to a full-on growl. The sound vibrated deep within the thing's throat, its canine teeth glistening with red. And then it looked like its gaping maw almost leered when the creature dropped what it was holding, Jake's body landing at her feet in a gruesome offering.

She opened her mouth to scream, her eyes wide as he turned his head to look at her. His face was virtually gone, eaten away, leaving little more than a skull wrapped in tattered, bleeding flesh. She reeled back, her cries stifled by air that simply wouldn't come. She was suffocating, stumbling backward. Blood bubbled from where his lips used to be, and that was when she caught enough of a breath to scream. He was still alive; his gaze silently pleading for her to save him. But she couldn't; she couldn't. That creature was perched in the branches above him, voyeuristic, waiting to see what Tara would do.

Her hands flew to her mouth as she backed up, the world spinning the wrong way around, vertigo threatening to lay her out. She turned, trying her d.a.m.nedest to run despite the depth of the snow. But her steps slowed when Jake tried to cry out behind her-a different sound from the one she had heard before, a wet, smacking gurgle like a kid blowing bubbles through a straw. When she looked over her shoulder she couldn't see him anymore. Two gaunt figures were perched above him. Their bodies were covered in scars, either from their prey or from each other. One of them shook its head back and forth like a dog, blood spraying from its mouth to either side. The other shoved the first creature away with its...its hands, like an annoyed little kid. Tara watched them snap their jaws at each other, her eyes wide, horrified. Jake was convulsing beneath them as if overtaken by a violent case of shivers. He was dying, but she was too terrified, too hopped up on adrenaline to stand there.

She felt like she was going to vomit, gasping for air as she clambered up a tree-dotted slope. The mountain went wavy behind her panicked tears, but she was sure if she kept going she'd find the main ski trail. Those things were distracted, fighting over their kill, and if she could just make it out into the open she'd be okay.

Her heart thudded in her ears as she threw herself forward, clawing at the embankment, scrambling up the incline as fast as she could. Panic having squelched her sobs, the icy slope of the blue run came into view, offering the hope of safety with its groomed, wide-open expanse. She struggled, trying to pull herself up to its surface from the s...o...b..nk, her legs stuck in the soft snow four feet below. Sucking in a steadying breath, she coiled the muscles of her legs and sprang forward, the front of her jacket kissing the iced-over surface of her escape route. Her gloved fingers curled into the ground as she crawled, kicking her legs in desperation, trying to find some leverage to get the rest of her body onto the same level as her torso and arms. Finally managing to get one knee up, she shoved herself forward. Overwhelmed with a rush of relief, she crawled out of the snow. She was going to make it.

But her heart stopped when her foot caught on something behind her. She shot a look over her shoulder, as one of those things coiled a huge hand around her ankle-almost human save for the wide flat of its palm, three crooked fingers and a thumb clamping around her foot so viciously that she could feel the pressure from inside her boot. She thrashed against its grip as she screamed, desperate to get away, but the more she fought it, the more it exposed those predatory teeth, the more she was convinced it was smiling as she fought. She pulled in a breath for another scream, but it soundlessly escaped her lungs when the creature yanked her backward, so quickly that the world became a pale blue blur. It pulled her back into the snowdrift.

Back into the snow.

Sneaking up behind her, Lauren rested her chin on Jane's shoulder. Jane was standing at the step that separated the kitchen from the living room, holding a steaming mug of tea between her palms, pretending to watch The Thing while the dual ovens worked away beside her. The scent of roasted meat that coiled through the house only reminded Lauren how hungry she was, not having eaten since breakfast. But Jane's seemingly steadfast interest in the TV didn't fool Lauren for a second; Jane hated horror movies. April and Sawyer were sitting on the couch together, Sawyer's arm looped around that dark-haired pixie's shoulders.

"Is watching movies about monsters stalking through an icy tundra while in an icy tundra kind of m.a.s.o.c.h.i.s.tic, or is it just me?" Lauren asked. Jane's mouth quirked up in a halfhearted smirk, as though she had been wondering the same thing. "When's dinner?" Lauren asked, turning toward the top oven. She cupped her hands against the oven's gla.s.s door and peered inside.

"About an hour," Jane told her, her gaze still focused on the living room, hypnotized by the couple that sat less than ten yards away, seemingly happy as could be.

"Is it weird?" Lauren asked, her words quiet enough to remain between only them.

Jane finally turned away from the living room and stepped to the kitchen island.

"A little, but it's good." She nodded as if affirming her own hushed words. "It clears things up, you know?"

"How's that?"

Jane lifted her shoulders, letting them fall a moment later. "You stop thinking about it," she said quietly, casting a glance over her shoulder to make sure the others weren't eavesdropping. "About the possibilities, you know? I guess it's kind of nice to know that the cards are off the table."

Lauren nodded faintly. She admired Jane for her ability to stay positive, sure that if she were in Jane's position, she'd avoid even looking at April, let alone occupying the same house with her. But that was Jane's nature. She took the good and discarded the bad; she was nice to everybody, even if they didn't deserve it, even if she secretly loathed their existence-though Jane would say that everyone deserved kindness and that she didn't really hate anybody. Lauren supposed that sort of compa.s.sionate patience came with spending five days a week with a gaggle of kids. Once you could handle that, you could handle just about anything-even a waif of a girl who, in Lauren's opinion, was trying to look way too French with her glossy jet-black hair and her flawless skin.

"Well, you're a stronger man than I," Lauren told her, grabbing an apple from a basket that sat on the island, biting into it before Jane seized it a second later.

"Don't," she said. "You'll ruin your appet.i.te."

"Okay, Mom," Lauren teased, then turned to the kitchen door when what sounded like something between a growl and a bark echoed from outside.

Jane padded across the kitchen to peer through the gla.s.s embedded in the door. "Is Ryan out there?"

"I think he's in the garage. I saw him dragging the boards through the hall a few minutes ago."

A snarl tore through the air before one of the trees just beyond the porch shuddered. Lauren blinked, shooting Jane a startled look, a jolt of anxiety lodging itself in her throat. But she laughed quietly when a young doe bounded into view. It looked panicked, terrorized by the husky that was nowhere to be seen.

Jane took a sip of her tea before abandoning the mug next to the kitchen sink with a frown. "She shouldn't be out there by herself," she said, marching across the kitchen and down the hall before hanging a right past the laundry room. Lauren followed.

Jane pushed the door to the garage open, the smell of hot paraffin wafting up from five feet below. Down a set of cheap wooden stairs that didn't match the cabin's character, Ryan had set up shop; four s...o...b..ards lay suspended between two pairs of sawhorses, their colorful undersides exposed. The workbench at his elbow was littered with wax blocks and tuning tools. He didn't look up, the melodic buzz of his headphones predictably blocking out the rest of the world. Lauren couldn't help but wonder what he was listening to, whether they had the same taste. They had listened to Jane's eighties stuff all the way up from Phoenix. He hadn't complained even once.

It was by her own avoidance that she hadn't met Ryan before this trip. She had evaded every get-together when she knew he was in town, sidestepped every invite she knew would put them in the same room. His accomplishments intimidated her. His ability to travel the world while she was stuck in 160 square feet of cubicle s.p.a.ce made her hate him a little. He was that guy: the one everyone secretly detested not because he was loaded, but because he was free. But the more time she spent around him, the more she wanted to know him.

Lauren bit her bottom lip as she watched him work on her board, the muscles of his arms rippling with each graceful pull of wax.

"Ryan." Jane tried to get his attention, but Ryan was dead to the world, intently focused on his task. Lauren pushed her hair behind her ears, wondering whether Ryan was thinking about her, wondering if there was a reason he had started with her board rather than his own.

Jane sighed and tried again. "h.e.l.lo? d.a.m.nit."

"I'll get him," Lauren offered, descending the stairs, trying to give Ryan a wide berth so as not to startle him. She stepped around the other side of the sawhorses and waved. Ryan blinked at her before pulling his headphones from his ears.

"Hey," Lauren said.

"Hey," he replied. "What the h.e.l.l did you do?" He drew his fingers across the gash she'd acquired two seasons ago when she just about Sonny Bono'd it into a tree. Lauren blushed as she considered another "accident" if only to have him tend to her wounds.

"Nearly died," Lauren said lightly, a little embarra.s.sed.

"Oona's outside," Jane said from atop the stairs. Ryan glanced up at her, then shook his head as if to ask what the big deal was. "You think that's a good idea, letting her be outside on her own? What if she gets lost?"

"She's not going to get lost."

"Right, until she gets lost," Jane said. "Besides, it's annoying." She motioned toward the door, the barking not only continuing, but growing more incessant by the second.

"Then why didn't you let her in?" Ryan asked, dropping the block of wax onto his worktable with a frown. "Too difficult? You'd rather come bother me about it?"

"She's not near the house," Jane told him. "She's out there chasing deer."

"So?"

"Seriously?" Jane's tone went edgy, and Lauren blinked up at her from the garage in surprise. It was rare to see Jane annoyed, but Lauren supposed that if anyone could push her, it was her brother.

"I'll go find her," Lauren announced, trying to alleviate some of the tension. "Janey's making a five-course meal up there. I just need to grab my coat."

"Don't be a jerk," Jane said from atop the stairs, her gaze still dead set on Ryan.

"What?" He looked perplexed, unsure of what she wanted from him.

"Do not make Ren go out there on her own."

"It's okay," Lauren insisted. "I don't mind."

Lauren slid a finger across the bottom of her board thoughtfully, fresh wax warming her fingertip. She tried to make out the whispered melody from the buds hanging around Ryan's neck. It sounded tw.a.n.gy, Jack White or the White Stripes or the Raconteurs. She looked up when the tone of Oona's bark shifted into something more serious. Ryan straightened, his attention wavering from his sister.

"Would you go get her?" Jane asked, irritation dancing around the edge of her words. "It's driving me crazy."

Ryan's face twisted in concern as the bark grew more frantic. "What the h.e.l.l?" Stepping over to the cheap pine staircase, he pressed a b.u.t.ton on the wall. The garage door whined as it rolled up, cold air unspooling across the bare floor, instantly turning the room into a freezer. Lauren coiled her arms around herself and followed Ryan outside, wincing against the wind. Ryan stood in the chill, seemingly unfazed by the cold as Oona went crazy somewhere. "Oona!" He yelled the name into the trees, and for a moment the barking ceased. But the silence wasn't rea.s.suring. When Oona didn't appear a few seconds later, Ryan marched past the driveway toward the steep slope of the road. Lauren shot back a look to a now obviously concerned Jane.

"G.o.dd.a.m.nit," Jane snapped, then pivoted on her socked feet and rushed through the door behind her back into the house.

"Oona!" Ryan's voice was carried in the wrong direction by the wind. Lauren pulled the hood of her sweatshirt over her hair and braced herself and walked farther into the bitter cold, her bare fingers clamping the hood closed beneath her chin as storm clouds swirled overhead. She wondered whether the dog could even hear him-Oona could be a mile away and they would still be able to hear her, but Ryan's call would never make it far enough to reach her ears, carried upon the cutting gale. Lauren's stomach twisted at the idea of it-their first official day at the cabin and Oona was missing.

Ryan was a quarter of the way down the road when Lauren saw a streak of black and white bound from the trees. She sighed with relief as Oona bolted up the road toward her owner, Ryan crouching down to greet her. But she'd spooked him, and instead of welcoming her home with a ruffle of fur, he grabbed her collar and gave her a stern "no." Releasing her a second later, he pointed toward the cabin, barking an order as Oona ran past Lauren and skidded into the garage, her tail between her legs.

Lauren had grown up surrounded by dogs; a lazy yellow Lab was waiting for her back in Phoenix. But it didn't take an expert to see that Oona was scared, and it wasn't because she'd just been scolded. When Lauren crouched down and took one of the husky's ears between her finger and thumb, a whine rumbled deep within Oona's throat, those stunning blue eyes searching for understanding.

"What is it, girl?" Lauren whispered, soothing the animal by pushing her fingers through Oona's fur.