by Peter James
She looked out of the window. Flash bastard. His ultra-modern ski suit, a metallic green racing suit, and goggles pushed up on his head. Wonder if you ski as flashily as you look? Probably do, damn you.
It was snowing even harder. The wind buffeted them and the visibility seemed to be going as the weather closed in around them. The gondola juddered and she looked anxiously around, listening to the rattling of the cable and the patter of the snow hitting the windows, and caught his eye. He was watching her and smiling drily to himself.
‘The weather is not so good,’ he said, his eyes still staring, penetrating.
‘Not a nice day for boating,’ she replied.
He did not flinch.
She looked away. ‘Do you sail, Andreas? I should think Lake Geneva is a great place for sailing, or for power boating.’ She looked sharply back at him; still no reaction.
‘I am working too much. Skiing is my only relaxation.’
‘If I lived in Montreux, I’d be out on the lake all the time. Very exhilarating on a cold Sunday afternoon to roar across water, wouldn’t you think?’
‘I would not know,’ he said, turning towards the window as if he was bored with the conversation.
‘It was Ratty in The Wind in the Willows, wasn’t it, who said “There is nothing – absolutely nothing – half so much worth doing as simply messing about in boats.” The Wind in the Willows. Did you ever read The Wind in the Willows?’
‘I don’t believe so.’
She searched his face, trying to read it, trying to read the signs from the way he shifted his position, from the way he turned his head to look out of the window again, from the way he clenched his fists just a fraction.
‘Higher will be better. I think perhaps it will be above the cloud,’ he said.
She glanced up nervously again as the cable rattled loudly through the runners of a pylon, and the gondola swayed. Through the window she could see the tops of the fir trees below.
There’s more to come. So much further to fall. You’ve got the really big fall to come.
Who the hell are you, Andreas? Or is it me? She looked again at the fingers, then at his green suit; something seemed familiar about the suit.
The gondola stopped with a jerk, and swayed wildly. She felt the fear surge through her. A gust of wind caught them and tossed them sideways. The snow and the mist seemed to be getting even denser; she heard the wind wailing mournfully through a pylon, felt it shake them again and there was a creak above her head, then a sickening rending sound, like metal tearing. Andreas was smirking again, smirking at her fear.
The cabin lurched violently, twice, then the gondola began to move forwards. There was another tearing sound above them, and the gondola lurched again. There was a loud bang. A dark shadow fell across them and her heart jumped. There was an even louder bang and a tremendous jolt, and they swung backwards.
Then the doors opened with a hiss and a dull thump, and the banker stood up.
They had arrived at the station.
He lifted her skis from the rack and stood waiting for her. She swung herself out and jumped onto the ground. There was another bang as the next gondola arrived, crashing into their empty one. ‘Thank you,’ she said, and followed him over to Richard who was standing in the queue for the exit.
Richard turned around. ‘I thought you were right behind me. Got in a gondola with a bunch of Krauts. They didn’t speak a word of English. Did you have a nice chat?’
‘Your wife is very charming. Such a well-read lady.’ Andreas smiled again at Sam, and she looked away, up at the ceiling of the lift station, at the dark churning wheels of the machinery, listening to its rattling and grinding. There was a clang as the next gondola arrived and thudded into the rear of the one in front.
It was here, she knew. Here on the mountain. Waiting.
45
‘Sam!’
She heard Ken’s voice echo around the mountain and turned with a start, looking up, scanning the slope she had just skied down. But there was no one. No one but Andreas in his metallic green suit waiting to start his descent, waiting until she had stopped so she would be sure not to miss it. She looked at Richard, but he did not seem to have heard anything.
Clear.
It had sounded so clear.
Like a warning.
‘The sun’s trying to break through,’ said Richard.
She nodded and stared up again at the slope. At least they were in the lee of the wind here. Beyond the peak she could see the silhouette of the sun smouldering behind the clouds, like a cigarette burning through a tablecloth.
In the last hour, since lunch, the snow had stopped and the mist was starting to clear. They had gone higher at Andreas’s suggestion, up to the top of the glacier to get above the worst of the weather, and he had been right. She heard the drone of the piste basher grinding up the glacier behind her, close, too close, and she turned and watched the huge red machine with its caterpillar tracks and rotating blades chomping through the snow. PISTENBULLY was emblazoned in large letters on its side. An orange warning light flashed on its roof, and its siren wailed, a short, monotone pulse, like a door hinge creaking in the wind.
Andreas launched himself off the top of a mogul, crouched low, dug his pole in, straightened his legs then bent them again, turned neatly, too damned neatly, straightened and bent his legs again, repeated his pole action and turned again, neat, snaking, even turns, his body flowing, rhythmic, exaggerating each movement as if he was giving a lesson. He headed down towards the rotating blades of the Pistenbully, in zigzagging tightly carved turns, his speed staying constant, keeping his head down.
As if he had not seen it, she thought, with a tremble of horror and excitement.
He turned again, accelerating hard away from it, then back again, straight into its path.
Straight towards the blades.
Then at the last moment he made one sharper even more stylised turn, crouched down low into a racing tuck and accelerated out of its path, straight at her, grinning demonically.
She stepped sideways, crossed her skis, lost her balance, and flailed out with her poles.
He swung into a sharp braking turn and skidded towards her, showering her with shards of cold snow.
She fell on her side with a jarring thump, and heard him roar with laughter. She dug her ski poles into the ground, and pushed herself upwards. Her skis slid away from under her and she fell back down, hard. Bastard; she glared up at him, then at Richard, who was standing with his glove off and his finger up his nose.
Andreas seemed to have come alive here on the slopes; as if he could make up for what he lacked in conversation by a virtuoso performance on his skis. He pushed his goggles up onto his forehead. ‘Here, I help.’ He leaned over, grabbed her arm in a vice-like grip, and heaved her back up. ‘Hurts, doesn’t it, to make the fall?’ He stared, a piercing hard stare. ‘We make a traverse here, into a very good powder bowl I will take you down. Not many people know it.’ As he replaced his goggles, she looked at the hand he had used to pull her up, his right hand with the three useless fingers, and she remembered another time she had felt a grip like that, only once in her life, a very long time ago. He stretched his hands behind him and pulled the green hood up over his head, then launched himself off down the mountain and disappeared into a bank of mist.
Sam dusted the snow off her trousers. ‘I don’t want to ski with him any more, Richard.’
‘He’s a good skier,’ he said defensively. ‘Knows this area well. It’s good to have a guide with this mist.’
‘I don’t care.’
‘Actually, I think he rather fancies you.’
She stared at him in stunned silence. ‘What am I, Richard? Part of your deal?’
He blushed, and scratched his ear. ‘Don’t be ridiculous. Just keep him sweet, that’s all.’
‘God,’ she said. ‘You used to be such a proud man.’ She turned away, unable even to look at him, and began to ski down following the direct
ion of the banker. She made a stiff, awkward turn, then another and stopped, her eyes smarting, anger and fear churning her up, fuzzing her brain.
She watched Richard hurtling down too fast as usual, in his hunched, slightly out-of-control style, and disappearing into the mist. She heard the rustling of more skis, and watched another couple ski past, the man slightly stiff, the woman elegant, flowing. The mist swallowed them as well, then there was silence. She was alone, suddenly, on the slope.
She looked around nervously. Her thigh hurt from the fall, and she was cold and wet. She wished she was home, in front of the fire, with Nicky playing on the rug.
Home was a cosy place. A safe place. Somewhere that no longer existed.
She blinked hard, pushed herself forwards halfheartedly, made a poor, jerky turn, then another, trying to get the rhythm, trying to get the enthusiasm. She felt the jar of an edge catching, and her skis crossed. The ground raced up towards her and hit her hard in the stomach, winding her.
‘Shit,’ she said. She was lying face down, one leg still in its ski jammed behind her, the other free. She crawled back to her feet, put her ski back on, and stared down into the mist that was fast rising up towards her.
Where were they?
‘Richard?’ she called.
Silence.
‘Richard?’ she shouted louder, but the mist sucked in her voice like blotting paper.
She eased her skis downhill and made two more turns, then stopped again. She saw a figure a short way below her, a dim silhouette, and skied down towards it. She got closer and saw the metallic green of Andreas’s ski suit moving off again, turning sharply to the right. There was a shadow just below her, a piste marker post, with an arrow. She skied down. It was black, a black run, pointing the opposite direction to which Andreas had gone. There was something written on the marker, the name of the run, as there always was, and she peered closer.
AROLEID.
She stared, blinking in disbelief.
AROLEID.
The snow seemed to be swaying underneath her. Rocking her as if she was standing in a boat.
AROLEID.
Sweet Jesus, no.
AROLEID.
It was flashing at her, strobing, corning closer, closer, then it smacked her in the face and knocked her to the ground.
She lay there and stared up at it, numb with terror.
DIE ORAL!
DERAIL.
AIR DOLE.
OR I DEAL.
ORDEAL I.
REDIAL.
She heard a sound like a snigger and spun around. But there was nothing.
She scrambled back onto her skis and stared at the sign again.
AROLEID.
Pointing to the left. The solitary marker in the mist.
She stared into the mist, shaking. Terrified to stand here alone by the sign. Terrified to go. In any direction.
‘Richard!’ she shouted again, but no sound came out.
The cold gnawed at her fingers, her face, gnawed at her insides as if it was trying to eat its way through her. The mist was thickening and there was a weird dreamlike quality to it.
It’s OK.
Lucid dream.
I’m going to wake up in a minute.
Please God, I want to wake up.
She thought she heard a sound behind her and turned around. There was a silhouette just above her, like a person, but it seemed to disappear as she watched. The mist, she thought. Tricks with the eyes. ‘Richard! Is that you?’
Nothing.
The mist was thickening again and the green suit had disappeared.
AROLEID.
To the left.
The sign Slider had shown her.
No way. No which way, thank you. She turned right, pushing herself off after Andreas, pushing herself away from the sign as quickly as she could. She was gathering speed now down an incline, then felt herself jerk forwards and almost fell as her skis ran from the firm piste into deep powder snow.
The green suit had disappeared completely, but she could see his tracks, and skied in them. ‘Wait for me, you sod,’ she muttered, turning with difficulty and nearly falling again, trying to remember her powder technique, but the snow was heavy and she missed the tracks, heard a sharp scraping under her skis, and almost lost her balance as she went over a buried rock. Christ. Wait. Wait for me!
The slope fell away and she shrieked as she accelerated sharply. She turned frantically, then turned again, hurtling down a steep unskied gully. She heard the scrape of another rock then slewed on a patch of ice, peering ahead, trying to see where she was going, to see the next bump before it rose up under her and threw her off balance. She stopped, inches from a massive bare rock, backed away, turned, skied over a bump that threw her up in the air, and she came down into deep wet powder, and started shooting up the side of the gully. She tried to turn. She hit another bump and swung around, bounced up hard, then saw Andreas’s green suit just ahead. She turned again, then again and stopped, exhausted, gasping for breath, right behind him.
‘Christ,’ she said, panting. ‘That was steep. Are you sure this is right?’
‘Yes, this is right,’ he said. ‘But from here it gets even steeper. It’s a good run, but you have to be a little careful.’ He pushed his goggles up onto his forehead, and turned around.
Sam screamed.
The backs of her skis crossed and dug into the wall of the gully and she slid forward and jammed the points of her ski poles into the snow, gripped the handles hard, shaking her head, staring in wild disbelief.
Staring at the black hood with slits for the eyes, nose and mouth that he had over his face.
Staring at the metallic green suit.
Slider.
In the dream laboratory.
The metallic green suit.
That suit.
She turned around looking for Richard. Christ, where are you? Then she stared back at Andreas afraid to take her eyes off him, afraid in case—
He was smiling, enjoying himself, enjoying watching her shake. He touched the hood with his ski glove. ‘Silk balaclava – very good for keeping the face warm. We go into deep powder soon. It sprays up and makes the face cold.’
Calm down.
For Christ’s sake, calm down. Just a balaclava. Lots of skiers wear balaclavas.
Only a bloody balaclava!
Only a green metallic suit.
Coincidence. That’s all.
He tugged his goggles back on and beckoned her with his hand.
She stared, not wanting to move, but her skis began to slip, and she had to jam her poles into the snow again to stop herself from skiing straight into him. She turned her head, staring back up the gully.
Richard. Please come.
The mist lifted a little and she could see how steep and narrow it was.
‘It’s lucky for you I stopped here,’ he said, still smirking. ‘You could have had a nasty fall.’
She saw a shape appear at the top. It was Richard. Her heart leapt with relief.
He started down, turned, crossed his skis and fell head first. She watched anxiously as he lifted his face out of the snow, then he waved at her.
She looked back at Andreas. Was this a dream? Was this a lucid dream?
I’d really like to wake up now. Except she knew this time she was awake.
‘Come!’ Andreas said. ‘Come slowly, be very careful. I want to show you.’
I think it is possible that he’s someone in the present, now, who is bothering you, worrying you – someone that you are associating with this Slider.
She edged forward, unable to take her eyes off his face, until she was beside him.
‘Now look.’ He pointed down.
She peered over the ledge she was now standing on; the gully opened onto a narrow couloir which dropped away almost vertically. It was filled with rocks and loose snow, and its sides were rounded and covered in smooth ice, like the barrel of a cannon. It became narrower as it went down, finishing in a sh
elf that she could not see beyond.
‘You must be very careful down this couloir, and not fall,’ he said, grinning again. ‘You won’t stop if you fall. There is a bad drop at the end. You must turn immediately right and make a traverse. If you fall, you will go three hundred metres onto rocks.’ He jump-turned and skied gleefully down as if he was on the nursery slope, swaying his arms, pumping his legs, leaping almost like a dancer, gaining speed, ignoring his own warning.
She turned and saw Richard getting ready to start down towards her again.
‘Richard, be very careful here,’ she called. ‘Stop where I am – don’t go too fast.’
He raised a hand in acknowledgement, and she set off down, slowly, petrified, turning awkwardly through the rocks and the rubble. She halted at the bottom, and froze. The slope below her became a sheer ice wall that fell away down into the mist below; she felt her head swim with vertigo, and inched back, away from it, turning around to warn Richard. He had stopped several yards above her. ‘All right?’ he shouted.
‘Be careful. Be really careful here, it’s a sheer drop.’ She edged further backwards, afraid to turn around until she was several feet back up the couloir. Richard was still waiting for her to get clear. Silence, she thought. A frightening, terrible silence.
Where the hell was he taking her, this man? This creature. This thing. Whoever he was? She stared back up at the couloir. Christ, it would be a nightmare to climb that. It was four o’clock. The light would be going soon, particularly if the mist got worse again. The runs would be closing, and the pisteurs would be making their sweeps of the pistes. But not here. This wasn’t a piste. They’d never get back up there before dark. The only way was to keep going down.
You have to meet your monster, Sam.
I’m meeting him, she thought, starting the traverse across the icy narrow ledge, with the sheer drop to death two feet away. She was gathering speed, she realised, and the ledge was too narrow to turn. She stemmed the skis outwards in a snowplough and began to slide out towards the edge.
She eased them back, parallel, and the icy ground was hurtling past faster, the wind whipping her face. Out of the corner of her eye she saw Andreas, laughing through his hood, then the ledge opened up into a huge slope and her skis ran off the ice into deep soft powder snow. She stopped and looked down. It was steep. Far steeper than she normally skied. The slope went down for several hundred feet then eased into a more gentle gradient, down to a lip. Beyond that seemed to be another sheer drop.