She let her words hang in the frosty air for a moment, then spoke again. “No help is going to come, not with the weather like this. We’re going to starve, freeze or those things are going to find a way in. And after what happened to Poppy, I think we all know what might happen then.”
Next to Nico, Tara had stirred and she yawned loudly. She stared up at Hanna with bleary eyes and shook her head. “Thanks for waking me up with such a bright, happy prediction. I don’t know what we’d do without you. It’s been four days now since anyone contacted home, since anyone’s heard from us. This will be the fifth. And we should have been on the way home by now. My mother will be having a shitfit. In fact, she’s probably over here, in Austria, right now, raising hell. Someone will come and find us.”
Hanna shook her head wearily. “And what can she do? Make the weather stop? Threaten those things out there with her Gucci handbag? Perhaps Mummy can jump on her broomstick and fly up here? You don’t get it, do you? They’re not going to let us go. They know we’re here. They won’t lift the storm until they’ve found us. And nobody can get a helicopter up here. Nobody can climb or drive and the lift is fragged. That’s why it’s cheap to get here and stay here, because it’s in the middle of nowhere, with one way in and one way out. We’re not in Zell am See, Mayrhofen or St Anton! We’re not getting rescued! Get that into your stupid empty head!”
Hanna was breathing hard after her rant and she reached out a hand on to the altar to support herself. “Think about what Poppy said. The caves where the rocks are kissed by diamonds. I know where that is. Poppy said that there were some of your friends there. That maybe they were alive.”
Tara shrugged. “Poppy wasn’t Poppy any more. She was going to kill us all.”
Hanna shook her head. “I’m going to go up there. I’m going to put an end to all of this.”
Her words sent a current of fear through Nico, and he stared at her, aghast, before he finally managed to splutter out a weak denial. “What, just walk up there and knock on the door of these caves? You must be out of your mind. There could be hundreds of those things there.”
Hanna smiled grimly. “I hope so. But even if there aren’t, what if there are people there? What if they’ve changed into those things? What if Ryan’s there, or Stefan? What if my brother’s there? You’re going to just leave them like that?”
Tara shrugged. “There’s nobody that I like enough to make me go out there and go looking for those things. Not even Ryan.”
Nico took a deep breath. He was terrified, but at the same time there was no way he wanted to stay on his own in the chapel.
Tara shook her head defiantly. “I’m not going. There’s no way.”
There was a long pause before Hanna broke the silence. “You can stay here and wait to die if you want. Wait for those things to find a way in. Wait for them to do to you what they’ve done to everyone else. But I’m not going to.”
Hanna turned towards Charlie questioningly. He looked her up and down and smiled gently. “You can barely stand.”
Hanna shrugged. “All the more reason to go now, before I fall over. I’ve just swallowed a load of painkillers. You don’t need to worry about me.”
Charlie sighed. “This place, these caves. How far away are they?”
Hanna glanced up at the stained-glass windows in the ceiling, as if she was measuring the daylight. “They’re walkable. Especially now we don’t have Poppy slowing us down. They’re not far from here and there’s a lift station, a big one, on the way, with supplies. Things we can use. If we go now, we can be at the caves before dark.”
Nico pondered her words, wondering exactly what might be in the lift station that would be of use for Hanna’s suicide mission. Over by the lectern, Charlie’s eyes were thoughtful. “Say we get there. Say we get to these caves and they are full of those things. Or there are some of the other students from our school, still alive. Or … like Poppy. What do we do then?”
Hanna rubbed gently at her bruised eye, and swore quietly in German. “I have a plan. That’s why we’re stopping at the lift station. At the very least, we won’t have to sit and wait for them to tear us to pieces.”
Tara rolled her eyes in disbelief. “The last time you had a plan you burned down the hostel we were hiding in and nearly killed us all.”
Hanna glared at her icily, and Nico braced himself for her eruption.
“Let me think, was that the time that it was probably your bitching and whining that gave us away? The time those things would have surely torn you to pieces if I hadn’t incinerated dozens of them before they could get to you? Is that the plan you mean? The plan that saved your life?”
Tara shrugged, beaten, and Hanna pressed on.
“You sit here if you want to, sit here and freeze and starve and wait to die. Maybe you’ll get lucky and whoever finds you one day might find you frozen solid rather than turned into one of those things. But I’m not going to sit here and wait.”
Hanna was angry now, tears of rage glistening in her one good eye. She turned to face Charlie and chewed at her scabbed lip. “What about you? You spoke to that old man with me. He knew what was going on, he was part of it, he could have done something about what happens here. If we don’t try to find those things, try to put a stop to this, we’re just as bad as he was. If we die here, then five years from now, ten, it will happen again. And what if there are some of your friends up there, changing? You want to make it up to your father, like you said you did, then there’s no better time than now.”
Nico reckoned that Charlie bristled at Hanna’s words, but he swallowed down any angry reply. “They’re not my friends. Nobody even spoke to me before a week ago. But I’ll come with you. I don’t have any better ideas.”
Hanna glanced around at the three of them that were left. “Well, I do. And if they’re down there, if they’re in those caves, I’m going to pay them back for everything they’ve taken from me.”
Chapter Forty-one
Hanna felt Charlie’s eyes on her as she filled her tatty rucksack with the small, cylindrical yellow-and-red tubes. They had an almost comical appearance and a strange, sweet odour, reminiscent of confectionary.
Hanna paused in her actions and glanced up at him. She noticed that her hands were shaking slightly, traces of blood under her nails, an unwelcome reminder of the night before.
Charlie pointed down at the red tube that poked out of the bag. “You’re sure they’re safe?”
Hanna nodded slowly. “Perfectly. Until you take the cap off. And then…”
Hanna didn’t need to finish the sentence.
She had dragged them across the mountain, to the lift station she knew waited there. It had been locked, bolted, but Hanna had used her hockey stick to smash the glass, fished through a series of keys to the containers inside, and found the explosives she was looking for. She tried to mask how fragile she felt, but she wasn’t sure she was convincing anyone, least of all herself. Before they’d left the chapel, Hanna had dug a pack of painkillers out of the first-aid kit and taken as many as she dared. She wanted to numb the pain, but at the same time she needed to think straight.
“We need to get moving. It’s not far now, but we need to be there before dark.”
She transferred the last of the tubes of dynamite to the rucksack then passed it to Charlie. He took it off her nervously, and peered inside. “So how does this stuff work?”
Hanna shrugged. “With this, you don’t even need a match. Pull off the end, it lights automatically. And down goes the snow.”
Charlie eyed her warily. “You used these before?”
Hanna thought back to a life gone by. “Once or twice. I’ve been on ski patrol a few times, across the valley, last year when the snow was really heavy. We went up in helicopters, picked out the slopes that were most dangerous, and set them off. The patrol, they fly over, drop these. There’s no mystery to it.”
“And you think it will work?”
“Those things burn. So I t
hink it’s safe to assume dynamite will work, too. And if not, if they are in those caves, we can bury them so deep they’ll never come out again.”
Charlie nodded, then reached down onto the floor next to one of the containers. There was something else there, a red plastic pistol, more like a child’s toy than anything of use. Hanna had dismissed it, but Charlie picked up the flare gun, checked that it was loaded and placed it carefully into the rucksack.
Hanna was about to ask him if he knew how to use it when she was interrupted by Nico’s voice by the door. Behind him, the redundant lifts rocked back and forth in the gale outside, a mournful reminder of the world far below.
Nico stood next to Tara, a CB radio clutched hopefully in one hand. Hanna shook her head dismissively.
“Don’t bother. There’s no way the signal from that would cut through this storm. You might as well attach a note to a rock and throw that down into the valley.”
Nico ignored her and flicked up the switch on the central unit, a faded red light blinking into life to signify the presence of power. A low static buzz rose from the radio. Despite herself, Hanna felt her heartbeat quicken. Tara sighed and walked across to sit in the station’s single chair, spinning once then placing her feet on the wooden floor. Hanna had heard Charlie talking to Tara as they ploughed through the storm, and Tara had made it clear that her desire to not be on her own only just outweighed her reluctance to accompany them.
Nico lifted the receiver to his mouth, clicked on the button by his thumb, and started to speak. “If you’re out there … if you’re listening … please. Is anyone out there? Can you hear this?”
Hanna swore quietly and shook her head. Tara leaned forwards in her chair, her eyes locked on the radio unit. They waited expectantly, their hopes slowly eroded by the dead static. Nico stared at the receiver imploringly then spoke into it again, louder this time. “Is anyone there? Does anyone know what’s happening up here? They trapped us here with the storm. The teachers, the adults, they were gone, just … gone. And when the blizzard got so bad that we could barely open the door, those things came out. And they’ve been hunting us ever since. Please. There are only four of us now. They took the rest. And we’re not going to last another night. It’s going to be dark soon and they’ll come out again. If you can hear this, if you’re out there, please…”
The wind rocked the wooden building, the derelict lifts above them squeaking painfully on their wires in a vain attempt to break free. But the radio stayed silent. Hanna shook her head, walked over to Nico and gently took the receiver from his hand.
“We’re on our own. And if we don’t go soon, we’ll be gone, too. We need to move.”
Tara took a step away from the others, as if drawing an imaginary line to separate them. “I’m not doing this. I don’t want to do this. And you can’t make me.”
Hanna pointed away into the distance. “Those rocks over there, the cliffs. That’s where we’re going. It’s not far now.”
Tara stamped her foot on the wooden floor. “No. No way. No more. Ryan’s gone. They’ve all gone. And I’m not going any further.”
Hanna stared at Tara, the mixture of terror and fury on her face convincing Hanna that there was little point arguing. “You can wait, then. You can shelter here.”
She glanced at Charlie. “All of you can, if that’s what you want. But I’m going in. I haven’t come all this way to freeze and rot here.”
Nico rummaged about in his pocket and brought out a black plastic torch. He clicked it on and off then shook his head. “I can’t, I don’t think. Caves. Darkness. I know we should, but I don’t want to leave Tara on her own. And I wouldn’t be any use, anyway.”
Tara nodded gratefully, took a step closer to Nico, then glared at Hanna.
“I only left the church with you because I didn’t want to be on my own. Not because I’m going to help you. And the doors weren’t going to hold another night, not if those things came back.”
She touched the bare skin around her neck and ran shaking fingers through her hair. “And my cross. I know it sounds stupid, but I lost my cross last night, the silver one that Ryan gave me. So I’m staying. That’s it.”
Tears started to brim in her eyes, and she turned towards Nico. “We’re staying, right?”
Nico nodded slowly – glad, Hanna thought, of the last-minute reprieve offered to him, and forgetful of all the times Tara had insulted him. Hanna licked her frayed lips and stared at Charlie. The question was there, even though she didn’t speak.
Charlie reached out and took Hanna’s hand in his.
“I’m with you,” Charlie whispered. “I’m with you till the end.”
Chapter Forty-two
By the time they saw the entrance to the caves, the sky was darkening, the faint patch of light in the heavens fading away, as if the sun had never really risen at all behind the thick layer of cloud.
It hadn’t taken them long to reach the rock-face, their pace quickening as if in a desire to bring things to an end one way or another. They had staggered doggedly up across a deserted piste, pines on one side, a jagged rock-face on the other, a mountain peak high above them.
Even though she walked him right past the gap that led though the rocks, Charlie would have missed the hidden entrance if Hanna hadn’t paused and raised her glove to signal for him to stop. Charlie staggered to a halt, glanced to his left and saw the space in the rock-face, an entrance peppered with shining shards of rock like precious stones. As Hanna had said, no one but a local would know of the caves.
He gazed at Hanna questioningly. “Here?”
She nodded, and lowered her scarf. “This has to be where Poppy meant. It’s not far now, just through here.”
Hanna ducked down, vanishing through the gap, and Charlie wiped at his leaking nose before following her. The entrance widened into a short, straight passageway then into daylight a few seconds later. Charlie blinked at the bright light then caught up with Hanna, who was waiting in a snow-covered field, a frozen, craggy wall of grey rock behind her. A long powder trail led away, between two-rock faces, the blizzard hiding where its path lay.
“Sometimes, when I was little, my brother would bring a few of us over this way, into this part of the mountains. Nobody was supposed to come here. The old folk in the village said these paths were cursed, haunted, but that just made us all the more keen to come and ski through here. But I never thought…”
She shook her head, turned and stared at the wall of rock in the distance, then pointed to a jagged slash in the stone, just visible through the falling snow. “That’s where we’re going. The caves are just through there.”
Charlie stared at the opening and felt a deep, hollow fear gnaw away in the pit of his stomach, a desire to turn and run back to where they had left the others. “Did you ever explore them? Did your brother take you in when you were little?”
Hanna scratched at the bandage on her hand. “No. There was a landslide further down the mountain, and the caves here were always said to be very unstable, the rocks not steady. This was one place we didn’t ever go near.”
“Do you think they knew? Your parents? About those things?”
Hanna shook her head with certainty. “They lived here for a while, but they came from the north originally, near Salzburg, a long way from here. I think they suspected, perhaps, that this place wasn’t … right somehow. They never felt accepted here. The people in the mountains, they always kept themselves to themselves, they don’t pry, they don’t ask. I don’t think my parents ever really felt at home here, like they belonged, but for me, when I came back, it was perfect, for a while. Just me, the mountains and my memories of Jon.”
Hanna’s eyes misted up as she spoke her brother’s name and Charlie took her hand in his. There was no going back now.
They trudged the short distance through the waist-deep snow towards the entrance to the cave. The inky blackness inside was so complete that Charlie once again had to fight the urge to turn and run. Instea
d he looked up at the grey sky above their heads and pulled a torch out of his coat pocket, checking it one last time. Hanna watched him, a sad smile tugging at her lips.
“Last chance to turn back.”
Charlie bit his bottom lip. “I don’t have anything better to do right now. There are a million places I’d rather be. But there’s no one I’d rather be with.”
Hanna looked down at the snow. “A few days ago, when we sat in that bar together, I realized we were the same, you and me. And I suppose it’s because … I saw something in you, when we first met on the mountain. Something that reminded me of myself. A part of me that didn’t care any more. A part of me that was just sick of it all.”
Hanna reached out and took his hand. “I’m sorry for what I said this morning, the way I spoke to you. Your father would be so proud of you, you know. You put others before yourself, through all of this, that’s what you’ve done.”
Charlie glanced across at her. “And you haven’t?”
Hanna shook her head slowly. “No, not really. All I wanted was revenge. That’s why I stayed. I’d have done anything to get it. It’s almost the only thing that’s keeping me standing now.”
“Almost?”
Hanna stared at him for a moment, her one grey eye unreadable, then she reached out, grabbed the front of his coat and pulled him to her. Her lips were cold and rough, the fingers that brushed his cheek like shards of ice, but all the same Charlie didn’t want the moment to end. He kissed her back, and then Hanna pulled away and shook her head.
“I’m sorry,” she mumbled, “but I didn’t want to miss the chance to do that.”
Charlie smiled. “Neither did I.”
He shook his head. When he spoke, his heartbeat was a jagged lump in his throat. “Shit, I’m scared. If we don’t go now…”
Hanna nodded and took his hand in hers, and they slipped into the darkness.
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