The Shuddering (7 page)

“Don’t screw with me.”

“It’s already sold,” Ryan confessed. “I checked the listing on a whim, called up the Realtor because I was feeling nostalgic. Someone’s already bought it.”

Sawyer stopped where he was, blinking at his best friend. “So, what, is it empty inside?”

“Everything’s still there. They’re waiting to close the deal—but once they do…”

“So, wait a minute…we’re, like, staying in somebody’s house right now?”

“Technically, no.”

“
Technically?
Dude.”

“Don’t say anything,” Ryan warned. “If Jane finds out…”

“If Jane finds out she’ll fucking flip. Maybe this isn’t a good idea. What if someone shows up to look at the place? Maybe we should get a hotel or something, play it safe.”

“A hotel? You mean a
motel
—one of those roach-infested ones. You don’t think Jane will flip out
there
?”

“Maybe, but imagine her in a jail cell.”

“Nobody’s going to jail,” Ryan assured him. “Besides, it’s an honest misunderstanding. The dick didn’t bother to tell me, and I still have a set of keys. How was I supposed to know?”

Sawyer considered the plausibility of Ryan’s story, then raised his shoulders in a shrug. “It’s your ass, not mine.”

“We’re a million miles from anywhere,” Ryan said. “It’s just us and the trees. Nobody will know, because nobody knows we’re here.”

T
he 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 snowboarding—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 snowboard 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. Hell, 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.”

“Goddamnit,” 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 fucking 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 snowboarding 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 damned 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 prickled 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 assured 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 snowboard 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 god, 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 snowboard, 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 assured 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 snowboarding!” 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 damnedest 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.