The Shuddering Part 8

"They found a body?"

April furrowed her eyebrows.

Neon guy shrugged. "Like they'll tell you that, right? Though I kind of doubt it. Seems like they'd have to shut down the entire run, if not the entire mountain."

"So how do you know it was wolves? They could have just hit a tree, right?"

The first guy lifted his paper cup of coffee as if toasting the lift at the base of the hill. "See that guy working the chair?" April tried to be casual as she glanced toward the lift. Jane and Sawyer were still in line. "He's got a mouth on him. Mentioned that the ski patrol found blood. A lot of it."

"s.h.i.t," the second skier responded. "But someone would have heard."

"Not if it was after hours, and you know how these guys go up at the last minute."

Skier One frowned, shaking his head. "Lesson learned..."

April cleared her throat softly and rose from the table, suddenly uncomfortable. What if there were wolves? What if Sawyer decided to be an idiot and go off-trail like those other people had? She stepped inside the lodge, considering waiting at the base of the lift to warn the group of possible danger. But that would just make her look like an a.s.s, like she was looking for excuses to ruin their good time. She frowned as she approached a long line inside, the noise inside the lodge nearly deafening with how crowded it was. She needed to soothe her nerves, and an overpriced cup of hot cocoa sounded good.

By the time she finally got her drink she had decided that no, she wouldn't say anything about what she'd heard. They only had two more days up here after this one, and she was determined to suck it up and be a good sport for Sawyer's sake. She knew the cabin was for sale, was well aware that Ryan was moving to Europe to be some fancy slope reviewer. For all she knew, she'd never see Ryan Adler again. And despite feeling bad for Sawyer losing touch with a friend, she couldn't help but feel a little satisfied. They were about to start a new life together, and she didn't need the poster boy of perfection hanging around and s.c.r.e.w.i.n.g it up.

It had become unbearably cold during their last hour on the slopes. The clear blue sky that had warmed the hills throughout most of the day had become overcast, clouds rolling across the crest of the mountain, settling over the resort, and blanketing it in frigid shadow.

"Just one more time," Ryan pleaded. "It'll be quick, I swear."

Lauren cast a glance at her friend while Jane stood next to her, her teeth chattering, her gloved hands pressed firmly over her hat-covered ears. "I feel like I'm dying," Jane whined. "Please, let's just go to the car, okay?"

"But Lauren wants to go up again," Ryan protested, shooting Lauren a look. "Right?"

Lauren gave both of them a guilty smile while Sawyer looked on, shoulder to shoulder with Jane. "Maybe a little," Lauren confessed. "But it is cold."

"You guys are ridiculous," Jane complained. "Give me the keys; I'm going to the car."

"Just go to the lodge," Ryan suggested. "You and Sawyer find April, have some coffee. Chill out for half an hour while we go up one more time."

Jane winced at the suggestion. Spending time with Sawyer and April was awkward enough, but having coffee with them, alone-she bit the inside of her cheek to keep herself from slamming her fist into Ryan's arm for even suggesting it. She tensed when Sawyer's gloved hand slid up her back and stopped on top of her shoulder.

"Come on," he said, "let them have their fun."

"The lift operator won't let you up anyway," Jane a.s.sured him.

"He will if I give him a twenty. Besides, who could resist this face?" Ryan caught Lauren by the cheeks and squeezed, her lips puckering up like a goldfish. Lauren smiled through her contorted face, and Jane couldn't help but crack a smile.

"Fine, whatever," she sighed. April would ask them if they had a good time and Sawyer would tell her how hilarious it was when they both fell flat on their backs and laughed into the sky, and April would just stare and scowl and shoot daggers through her eyes. Then Jane would shrug awkwardly and say, "Eh, it was okay," and April would know she was lying. There was no winning with this scenario.

Lauren faltered, noticing Jane's unease. She caught Ryan by the wrist just as he was about to slide back to the lift. "Hey, maybe this isn't that great an idea after all," she began.

"What? Why?"

"Let's just go home," Lauren continued. "Pop in a movie or something." Jane watched as Lauren gave her brother a wink, admiring the girl for knowing how to get exactly what she wanted. Ryan hesitated, his hand still in hers, and eventually caved to the proposition. If there was one thing Ryan loved more than snow, it was the provocative look on Lauren's face.

"Fine," he relented as Sawyer unstrapped his board from his feet.

"I'll go grab April," he announced, turning away from the group.

As soon as his back was turned, Jane sighed, her breath steaming ahead of her, wishing he'd just forget April, wishing that Sawyer were giving her a look-the kind that suggested they go back to the cabin, cozy up, and get warm together.

The Nissan's heater blasted them as they snaked down the mountain, stuck behind a slow-moving minivan, its rear end covered in dozens of b.u.mper stickers. Ryan amused himself by reading them aloud, then settled into grumbling each time the van hit its brakes ahead of the slightest curve. By the time they made it back to the highway, the sun was setting fast. The sky had grown dark around the edges, the sun casting long shadows across the road when it managed to shine through the gloom. Turning onto the road that would lead them back to the cabin, they rambled over weatherworn potholes, the Xterra catching a particularly brutal one beneath a front tire. Ryan cringed, muttering a curse beneath his breath as the car lurched. This road had always been bad, but it seemed worse this time around.

With a good three miles to go until the final turnoff, Jane leaned forward in the pa.s.senger seat, squinting at something against the glare of the sunset. Ryan slowed the car, seeing it as well: a stain in the snow, the exact same type of blot they had seen the day before-a swath of red, as though someone had taken a giant paintbrush and made a crimson stroke across the ground.

"What the h.e.l.l," Ryan murmured, the Nissan rolling so slowly they all but crawled past it.

"That's the same one from yesterday," Lauren said from the back.

"Can't be," Ryan answered. "This one is closer to the cabin, and it snowed last night. It would have been covered over. This is fresh."

Jane twisted in her seat to look at Lauren, noticing that April's eyes were wide.

"Holy s.h.i.t," April whispered to herself.

"What?" Sawyer asked, squinting at the dark spot against snow that was turning blue in the low light. "It's just some roadkill, right?"

"It's not roadkill," Ryan said. The car stopped. They all looked at one another before Ryan unbuckled his seat belt.

"Wait." Jane blinked at her brother, shaking her head in protest. "You're not going out there."

"Ryan..." Lauren was ready to join in Jane's campaign for staying in the car, but Ryan was determined. His door swung wide and he slid out of the vehicle. A moment later the back pa.s.senger door opened and Sawyer followed him into the dusk.

Jane rolled down her window. "Both of you," she said, her tone surprisingly stern. "Get back in here."

But Ryan was too intrigued to listen. He'd always been drawn to stuff like this, turning dead animals over with a stick when he was a kid, picking up bleached bones off the forest floor with his bare hands. And Sawyer had been even worse. He had scared his mother half to death when she found a dead bird stuffed in their freezer between two pints of Blue Bell ice cream, frozen solid in a ziplock bag. Ryan's boots sank into the snow, a good three inches of powder beneath the crust. He crouched down, only a few feet from the red streak that decorated the landscape.

"G.o.dd.a.m.nit, Ry!" Jane was livid, her irritation diluted by the occasional gust of glacial wind.

"We saw the same thing yesterday," Ryan told Sawyer, "farther down the road." He looked up, searching around the base of the trees for a carca.s.s.

"Animal?" Sawyer asked, his hands deep within his pockets.

"I guess." Ryan shrugged. "But where are the remains?"

"Better question," Sawyer cut in. "What the h.e.l.l are these tracks?"

Ryan straightened, shaking his head at the strange footprints. "What the f.u.c.k?" he said. "These would have had to have been made by something, I don't know..."

"Pretty d.a.m.n tall," Sawyer finished.

The indentations in the snow were distinct. The long, skinny tracks were suggestive of bare feet, but with only four elongated toes leaving deep rifts in the snow. Ryan didn't like it. From what it looked like, some mutant hillbilly was stalking the woods, killing whatever he could find to sustain himself through the winter. He'd have to keep Oona in the cabin, play it safe, but Oona would go nuts being cooped up like that. He had brought her out here so she could have a good time, and now he had this to worry about.

"Maybe someone was hunting," Sawyer suggested. "Isn't it some kind of season right now?"

"Turkey, I think," Ryan told him. "We heard a gunshot yesterday."

"Well, there you go." Sawyer dropped his hands to his sides, satisfied with that answer.

"But these tracks..."

"Weird shoes," Sawyer said.

"Are you kidding?" Ryan shook his head at that. "These aren't shoes, man."

"No." Sawyer took a backward step. "Haven't you seen those highly attractive Five Finger shoes people are wearing these days? Just because they aren't appropriate for snow doesn't mean some genius didn't wear them while hunting wild turkeys with his backwood chums."

"Really?" Ryan gave Sawyer a skeptical look. "A hillbilly in Vibrams?"

"It could have been Bigfoot," Sawyer said. "It could have been the abominable snowman."

"You know they have a show about Bigfoot?" Ryan asked, turning away from the tracks and back toward the car. "Like, these guys genuinely believe they're hunting the d.a.m.n thing. They think it's a science."

"But what if they're right?"

"What? That Bigfoot exists?"

"Sure." Sawyer shrugged. "Explain those tracks. Maybe it does. There's a logical explanation for everything."

"Yes," Ryan said. "I agree. Logical. Like hillbillies wearing toe shoes."

"Or maybe it's a Realtor wondering what the h.e.l.l we're doing in that cabin while the new owner is a state away or something."

"And they're hungry." Ryan grinned. "So they're hunting wild turkeys near the property, camping in the trees, wondering how to politely ask us to leave."

The car door slammed shut. Jane was coming for them. Sawyer patted him on the shoulder, encouraging Ryan to head back to the car. It was cold, and they were about to be reprimanded. Ryan stood there for a moment longer, his eyebrows furrowed at the swath of gore, before stepping back onto the muddy road.

"What are you trying to do?" Jane demanded. "You're an a.s.s, you know that?"

"It's closer to the house," Ryan told her. Jane snapped her mouth shut, blinking at the stain her brother had just been inspecting. She rushed behind him as he continued toward the car, crawling back into her seat and slamming the door behind her before he could get around the Nissan's front end.

They drove the rest of the way in relative silence. But Ryan couldn't get it out of his head. Something, or someone, was out there, and close to the cabin. It made him uncomfortable. It wasn't safe.

CHAPTER FIVE.

Ryan and Jane had only three b.a.l.l.s left on the table-the blue two, the red three, and the burgundy seven-while Lauren and Sawyer had six. Lauren leaned over the table while Ryan lined up a shot, a mischievous smile dancing across her lips. She tugged down on the hem of her T-shirt to distract him, her cleavage perfectly lined up with his shot. Jane chuckled as she picked at a slice of leftover chocolate cake, giving Sawyer a dubious look.

"Your teammate is cheating," she told him, licking a smear of frosting off a fork tine. "You should both be disqualified."

"It's okay," Ryan said, bending over the table, his chin close to the Kelly green felt. "I'm undistractable."

"Undistractable isn't a word," Sawyer told him.

"It doesn't matter," Ryan said, pulling back the pool cue before forcing it through his fingers. The cue ball cracked against the red three, forcing it into the corner pocket with a m.u.f.fled thump against the table's b.u.mper. He straightened, squared his shoulders, and made an announcement: "They're only b.o.o.bs."

"Only," Lauren snorted, s.n.a.t.c.hing her pool cue from against the wall.

"Once you've seen a few dozen pairs," Ryan teased, "you've seen them all. Now, if you don't mind, take your shot. I'm ready to win this thing."

Jane took a seat on the leather sofa that flanked the wood-paneled wall, her gaze shifting from the game to the girl at the couch's far end. April had been coiled into its corner for the last hour, not saying a word, looking forlorn.

"Oh, come on," Ryan complained, motioning toward Lauren. She was climbing on top of the table, her hair in a wild ponytail, her eyes br.i.m.m.i.n.g with determination. "Does someone have a rule book?"

"Shut up, boyo," Lauren told him, tossing her hair over her shoulder before squinting down the length of her pool cue, the tip of her tongue curling over the corner of her upper lip.

Jane bit back a laugh and glanced to the girl beside her. "Are you okay?" she asked. April wasn't Jane's favorite person by a long shot, but seeing her looking so down made Jane feel guilty for having such a good time.

April forced a smile and nodded faintly. "Yeah, I'm fine."

"Are you sure you don't want to play?" Jane motioned to the pool table. "You can take my spot."

"I suck at pool." April slid her hand across the leather cover of Dracula. Jane smiled at the book.

"Did Sawyer ever tell you that he read that book like a dozen times?"

"This one?" April peered at the novel in her lap.

"Well, not that one specifically, but yeah. He had this tattered paperback he'd take with him everywhere. He just about cried when the cover fell off."

"It was a tragedy," Sawyer told them. "I never did get a replacement copy."

"Take that one," Jane told him, nodding to the novel in April's lap. "There's no way you'll finish reading it before we leave here anyway," she told April. "It took me nearly two months to get through it."

"Is that the unabridged version?" Sawyer asked, stepping over to the girls to take a look at the hardback. "It is." He was pleased.

"It's an old copy, I think it has some Old English or Elizabethan in it or something..." Jane said.

"I guess that's why it doesn't make any sense?" April said, and Jane chuckled in commiseration. The old-timey language had given her a headache too.

"Hark, fair maiden!" Ryan sidestepped the pool table and saddled up to Lauren with a flourish. "Thou art beautiful, but a lousy cheat."

"I play to win, Count." Lauren batted her lashes at him.

"And I live to drink," Ryan shot back, "and must drink to live!" He seized her in his arms and she squealed as she fell back in a dip, Ryan exposing his teeth vampire-style before biting her neck.

Jane held back a laugh as Lauren tried to hide her blush, looking back to April with a faint smile. "Would you like some tea?" she asked.

April shook her head.