Supernatural Fresh Meat

by ALICE HENDERSON

  She straightened up and moved away from the howitzer toward him. “Steve’s getting ready to fire. Susan,” she introduced herself.

  “Dean.”

  “You new to the ski patrol?” she asked, eyeing him dubiously.

  Hank spoke up. “Dude can’t find his friend.”

  “Oh, jeez. She’s not on the mountain, is she?”

  Dean shook his head. “No. Believe it or not, I lost her inside the resort.”

  Susan let out a short laugh. “Well, the place is a maze. ‘Luxury skiing at its finest.’ Lots of meeting rooms and places where guests can get a drink or sit by the fire. When the place isn’t empty, that is.”

  “Everyone clear!” Steve shouted suddenly, and Susan pushed Dean back with the others.

  With the help of two of the ski patrol, Steve loaded a massive four-foot bullet into the howitzer. When the others had moved away, Steve gripped a long cord trailing from the cannon.

  “Ear protection! Don’t forget to open your mouths so your eardrums don’t burst!”

  Dean slapped his hands over his ears as the howitzer went off with a deafening boom. Black smoke billowed around them. As Steven had predicted, the wheeled cart holding the howitzer shot backward, skittering across the ice, and lodged itself into a snow bank a few feet behind them. People coughed as the acrid smoke cleared.

  “Okay! Let’s do it again!” Steven yelled.

  Immediately, three of the ski patrol dug around in the snow bank for the cart. They found it and with great effort pulled it free from the drift.

  Dean looked up on the slope where they had just fired. He couldn’t see anything but low-hanging clouds. Haze and fog drifted across the mountain, completely obscuring it. Visibility on the ground had cleared a little, though, and he could see the loading area of the ski lift, where it wound around and people jumped on.

  “How can you know what you’re firing at?” he asked Susan.

  “Certain areas are more prone to avalanching than others. We obviously can’t do it by sight right now, so Steve uses the map and adjusts the sights on the howitzer as best he can.”

  “You mean he’s guessing.”

  She looked away, and he could see that despite her businesslike tone, she was afraid. “Yeah. Basically we are guessing right now.” She gestured toward Hank. “Hank’s been up on the slopes for two days, throwing hand charges. He got caught in a little mini avalanche while he was up there. He managed to swim to the surface as it swept him down the mountain, but he still lost his water, his pack, his compass. He wandered for a bit before he found us again.”

  That explained the condition of his lips and face.

  Hank and the others repositioned the howitzer and Steve started adjusting the sights again.

  Susan tugged at Dean’s sleeve. “You need to get inside now. What does your friend look like?”

  “Five-two. Short blonde hair. She’s a ranger.” He added, “If you see her, keep her around a group of people who can watch her.” Dean thought people would be safer in groups. “It’s possible she has concussion. I’m worried she may have passed out somewhere,” he said, giving more weight to his lie.

  “Okay. Will do. When we finish here, a couple of us will go inside and look for her.”

  Susan gazed out toward the ski lift.

  “What happens now?” Dean asked her.

  “We wait. See if this triggers a directed avalanche that will release some of the tension down a safe channel. Then some of us might have to go up on the mountain again and throw hand charges.”

  “Good luck,” he told her, and started off for the lodge again.

  As he passed through the door into the welcome warmth, a man’s voice called from across the room. “Dean?”

  He looked up to see Jason standing in front of one of the huge fireplaces.

  “Jason!”

  “No way! I thought you must have bought it on the mountain!” Jason sauntered toward Dean, clasping his hand warmly.

  “Thanks for the vote of confidence.”

  “Hell, I didn’t mean it like that! It almost got me.”

  “Where did you go?”

  Jason looked around nervously. “Anyone around?” His face was covered with red exposure wounds, his lips chapped even worse than Hank’s.

  “They’re all outside.”

  “That thing came in the night. Swooped down and grabbed me before I could even pull my gun.”

  Dean noticed torn holes in Jason’s parka, in the same places where the talons had ripped through Sam’s shirt.

  “It flew over the trees, bee-lining for some cabin.”

  Dean knew now why the blood trail had been perfectly straight.

  “That thing dumped me by the door and went straight into the kitchen. It seemed desperate to check something—or maybe it wanted to get a knife and fork.” He laughed a joyless laugh. “Anyway, I took a chance and ran out into the storm. Then I just wandered. Got lost. One of the ski patrol guys found me and brought me here. There were times I wished I’d let that thing eat me.” He laughed again. “Well, not really. But there were times I wished I’d gutted that sucker in the cabin and stayed by that fire.”

  “You can’t kill it that way, anyway.”

  “How are your guys and the weapon? You got it?”

  Dean shook his head. “They’re on their way here with it, but they’re out in that.” He hooked a thumb toward the storm. “You ever meet Grace Cumberlin?”

  “She a hunter?”

  “Nope. A ranger. Supposedly. Patrols the backcountry where we fought the wendigo.”

  “What do you mean ‘supposedly?’”

  “Sam told me she didn’t check out at the ranger station. They’d never heard of her.”

  “Only ranger I ever knew was the one we left that family with.”

  “She helped me get here to the resort.”

  “So who is she?”

  Dean raised one eyebrow.

  “Oh.”

  Dean glanced around the room. “Anyway, she’s petite. Got short blonde hair. As soon as we got here, she went off for a change of clothes, and now I can’t find her anywhere. So if you see her—”

  Dean heard shouting from outside. He looked out the large picture windows overlooking the ski lift area to see the howitzer team scattering. He ran to the door, opening it and letting in an uproar of shouting. The whole ski patrol was running for the building, shouting and waving for him to move inside. Then he felt it. The ground shaking. A dull rumble from up on the mountain. The windows started vibrating and shuddering.

  “Get behind something solid!” Susan shouted at him. She reached the door and they rushed inside. “The avalanche didn’t trigger the way we thought! The whole mountain’s coming down!”

  Then Dean was running with the others, heading for an area with a large, interior stone wall and fireplaces on the far side of the room. He’d almost reached them when he heard the massive windows shatter. One of the ski patrol guys flew through the air beside him.

  When he was on the mountain with Grace, Dean had imagined getting swept up in an avalanche, being hit by a wall of snow. But it wasn’t snow or ice that hit him now. It was air. A powerful sheet of air traveling at the foot of the avalanche swung his feet up, twisting him around. It thrust him four feet off the ground, and as he flailed, he caught a brief glimpse of the avalanche as it poured in through the shattered windows. He saw the jagged metal of ski lift chairs, picnic tables, all roiling around in the unbelievably fast-moving surge of snow. Dean was hurled through a window and crashed down, momentarily at a standstill. He looked up in time to see the avalanche sweeping around the corner of the building.

  The moving sea of snow caught him, tumbling him head over feet. Susan’s words about swimming came back to him in a flash, and Dean thrust out in the snow, kicking as hard as he could and fanning out his arms, trying to stay on the surface.

  Suddenly, the snow covered his head, throwing him in a somersault, and he couldn’t figure out which
way was up. He tried to see around him. One side was darker than the other, so Dean swam for the lighter side. Something sharp scraped along his shoulders and then moved past him. He tried to gasp for air, but snow filled his mouth. He pushed it out with his tongue, gagging. He tried to suck in oxygen, but there was none. He kicked his feet out, reaching up with his arms and trying to breaststroke his way out of the tumbling cascade of snow.

  The rumble filled his body, thrumming in his chest. He couldn’t get a breath. His vision started to tunnel as he thrust his arms out, trying to reach air. Cold filled his nose and mouth. As his lungs burned, panic seized him.

  Then his head burst above the snow. He gulped in oxygen, his lungs filling with it, giving him a sense of euphoria and another burst of energy. He kicked harder, struggling to stay upright.

  The surge plowed him down into the parking lot, engulfing the cars there. He barreled headfirst toward a silver SUV. At the last second, he pivoted his body so his feet were in front. His boot struck the bumper on one side, deflecting him away, but the speed of the snow bent him at the waist, forcing him back under the surface. Dean flipped onto his stomach, swimming once more toward the light, his lungs aching for a breath. Panic crept in again, but Dean forced himself to think. He let the snow continue to flip him until he thought he was on his back. He kicked and did the backstroke, letting the snow continue to turn him until he flipped back over onto his stomach. Now he used all his strength to swim up to the surface.

  His head broke through into sweet, fresh air. All he could hear was the roar around him, and the sounds of twisting metal as the avalanche picked up cars and shattered windshields.

  Then the motion started to slow. Dean kept swimming, trying to free his entire body from the snow. He was still waist-deep when he came to a standstill. At first, he felt relieved, thinking he could just pull his legs out, but the snow had settled into a solid force as impenetrable as concrete. Dean managed to work his hands free and pushed as hard as he could at the snow crushing his legs and hips. He didn’t have the leverage.

  The wind howled around him, and for the first time, Dean looked back toward the lodge. What he saw didn’t resemble much of a building anymore. Twisted timber and the empty frames of devastated windows jutted from the ruins of the shattered building. The west wall and part of the roof had managed to stay standing, and Dean saw a door leading to the interior. Snow spilled out of all the broken windows. The east side wasn’t so lucky. The roof had caved in, staircases knocked over. Miraculously, one crossbeam still hung, a massive chandelier swinging from it.

  Trying to twist around, he looked to where the howitzer had been set up in the parking lot. There was no sign of it now, and the cars that had been parked out there were completely buried.

  “We got someone here!” Dean recognized Susan’s voice, calling from nearer the lodge. “Get a shovel! Anyone who can hear me, turn on your avalanche transceivers!”

  As Dean thrashed around again, trying to pull his lower body free, he saw a pale hand sticking out of the snow a few feet away. It waved weakly. Dean knew the person was suffocating and had only minutes to live, if that.

  With renewed vigor, he started digging around his waist, desperate to free himself.

  FORTY-SIX

  Sam shifted sideways on the cliff face, finding a handhold to his left. He dug in with the ice axe, making sure his grip was firm before moving his feet to another section of the tiny lip he perched on. If it weren’t for the axe, Sam had no doubt his hold would rip free of the cliff and he’d plummet to his death, taking Bobby with him.

  Below, Bobby hung on the rope, no longer swinging now, but too far out to grab the rock wall himself. He was dead weight, pulling heavily on Sam.

  “I can’t get close enough to the rock!” Bobby yelled up. “Do you have a good enough grip for me to swing toward it?”

  Sam felt the narrow little lip that his left hand clung to pathetically. He’d crammed his toes into little holes in the rock, but not more than an inch or two. The weight pulling on him made it hard to talk.

  “I don’t think so, Bobby. Don’t try it!” he yelled down.

  The vampires had moved to a ledge just up and to the right of Sam. The female drew closer, as the male lowered her down. She kicked out, landing a blow right in Sam’s face. Pain exploded in his nose, stars erupting across his field of vision.

  She kicked out again, this time trying to dislodge the ice axe. Her boot landed solidly on the handle where Sam gripped it, and he felt it shift a little. A rain of pebbles cascaded down from where he’d driven it into the rock. She kicked it again, and Sam searched to his left for another place to move to. He found a hole about two feet away, pushed his fingers into the tiny crevice, then felt around with his feet for another perch. She kicked the axe again, and this time it moved outward so quickly that Sam’s heart pounded in his chest. As it slipped out of the crevice, he swung it up and to his left. The toothed end drove into a crack in the rock, but it wasn’t enough to hold Sam’s weight. He strained against the incredible downward force of the rope.

  His searching left foot found a tiny lip of rock and stepped over to it while his left hand gripped the tiny crevice with everything in him. Only his fingers and sheer will held him to the cliff face. He felt like his grip would slip off as he swung the axe out again, this time finding a bigger crevice to sink into. He felt the axe catch and shuffled his right foot closer to his left.

  Now he was just out of reach of the vampires on the ledge to his upper right. His hold felt a little more secure.

  “Okay, Bobby. Swing!” he shouted.

  He prepared himself for the movement, his heart racing, then he felt Bobby start to move back and forth, building up momentum.

  When he looked down, he saw the challenge facing his old friend. Up near the top, where Sam clung, the rock face was littered with holes, albeit tiny, to cram fingers and toes in, but where Bobby hung was only smooth granite, weathered away by a glacier in the distant past.

  The vampires moved up the cliff face, returning to the top, and started searching for another way down. Bobby swung heavily on the rope below, and Sam felt the weight jerk as he hit the cliff face.

  “God damn it!” Bobby cursed, his grasping hands not finding anything to hang onto.

  He swung out again, fingers and feet scraping along the granite for any hint of a crevice. Sam gritted his teeth against the weight, feeling his left fingers start to slip. He couldn’t readjust with Bobby swinging like a pendulum below him. It would tear them right off the rock. He had to hang tight, hope that Bobby could grab hold of something.

  Bobby swung back and forth three more times, each time colliding with the rock and not finding purchase.

  “I have to adjust,” Sam called down, straining against the pull of the rope.

  Bobby slowed the swinging, and when Sam felt the back-and-forth reduce to a straight-down weight, he readjusted his fingers in the little crevice.

  Small rocks rained down on his face, and he looked up to see Black Overcoat lowering his partner over a sheer section of rock. In another second, she’d be in range to kick Sam squarely in the face again, knocking him clear off the rock face.

  FORTY-SEVEN

  With what felt like infuriating slowness, Dean shoveled out snow from around his waist and hips with his hands.

  He shouted up to Susan near the lodge building. “There’s another one here!” But she didn’t turn. He waved at her, but she was busily digging someone else out and couldn’t hear him. Dean looked around for anyone else, but Susan was the only person he could see out and moving. It was up to him to save this guy.

  The bare fingers flexed, grasping for help.

  “Hold on,” Dean shouted, not even sure if the guy could hear him.

  He dug down to the tops of his thighs, throwing up snow around himself. He reached his left knee, and suddenly he was able to lift his leg. He tore it free from the snow, then used the resulting hole to pull out his other leg. He heaved himsel
f up and out and staggered over to the clasping hand.

  He squeezed the fingers to let the buried man know he was there, and started digging. But doing it by hand was just too slow. He had to find a shovel, fast. Throwing off his parka to mark the spot, Dean ran toward Susan, who was crouched over a foot sticking out of the snow.

  “I need a shovel,” he told her.

  She dug hurriedly, trying to find the victim’s head to get them some air. She pointed to her left without looking up.

  “Try that pack there.”

  A blue avalanche control pack lay on its side above the snow. He grabbed the shovel lashed to the outside. As he straightened up, he spotted Jason, digging in the snow a few feet away in the gale.

  Dean turned around, locating his coat’s color in all the white. When he saw the expanse of the slide, he was grateful he’d thought to mark the spot, or he might not have been able to find the guy again.

  He ran back, squeezing the guy’s fingers again to let him know to hold on. But this time, the fingers didn’t grip back. Dean estimated where the guy’s head should be, and started digging down. He found another hand, and worked upward from it. Throwing shovel after shovel over his shoulder, Dean dug as fast as he could, his fingers going numb in the howling wind. When he unearthed a crown of brown hair in the snow, he planted the shovel to his side. He dug down in front of the face with his hands, his fingers reaching past the forehead and freeing up some space in front of the nose and mouth. He was rewarded with a loud gasp of air. The man looked up, and Dean instantly recognized him as Hank, the ski patrol guy who’d suffered from exposure.

  “Thank you,” Hank croaked. “Get my arms free. I’ll dig myself the rest of the way out while you help others.”

  Dean nodded, grabbing the shovel again and digging out Hank’s arms and torso.

  “You sure about this?” he asked, handing over the shovel. “You can get out?”