Snowed In

“Well my phone’s dead,” I declared sadly. “Not that I had a connection anyway, but it sure was nice to have a flashlight.”

“Same with us.”

I sighed heavily. Things were going from bad to worse. Two whole days! Two days and no one had come for us. Then again, we were holed up tight in some long-forgotten hotel. A place that was all but buried in snow even before the avalanche.

I started to wonder if staying put was a good idea.

“We’re getting some firewood together,” Shane said needlessly. “If you want to help you could—”

“If you want to help you could come with me,” Jeremy intercepted quickly. Shielded from his friend’s view, he turned his back to Shane and winked. “I was just about to go scavenge around the second floor. Maybe scare up something to eat or drink.”

“Shit yes,” I exclaimed. “That sounds amazing!”

“Once we get the fire going we can always melt snow for drinking water,” Shane added, kicking at a broken coffee table. “Food isn’t really a priority. Rescue is.”

He had a point, of course. Even so, Jeremy didn’t care. He grabbed my hand and led me in the direction I’d just come from — the staircase.

“We’ll be back in a few,” he said. “Hopefully with a lighter or matches or something.”

Shane scoffed at him. “If not, you’re the asshole rubbing two sticks together.”

I paused on the staircase. “Or I could make a bow drill.”

They both stopped to look at me again. I shrugged.

“You can do that?” Jeremy asked.

“Uh huh.”

“And it works?”

“Oh yeah.”

Shane still looked a bit skeptical. “Girl scouts?” he asked. “They give you a badge for that or something?”

“Nah, nothing that glamorous,” I snickered. “I just grew up with a dorky dad. Watched too many of those survivalist shows. And the ones about… what the hell’s it called…”

“Doomsday prepping?” asked Jeremy.

“Yes! That’s exactly it!”

Shane dropped more wood on the pile and shook his head. “We sure could use some of that right about now.”

In a way it was calming, just making small talk. Being actually useful instead of focusing on the elephant in the room: what the three of us had done together, the night before. I guess I believed them when they said it had been their first time. It was certainly my first time…

“Let’s go then, dork,” laughed Jeremy, pulling me up the stairs by my wrist.

“It takes one to know one!” Shane called after us.

Somewhere behind his back, Jeremy flipped him off.

Fifteen

MORGAN

The rooms upstairs were mostly stripped and empty — at least the ones we could get to. Halfway around the upper landing the roof had collapsed, creating a slippery blockade of ice that looked just as dangerous as it would be to climb.

“I’d crawl over it,” said Jeremy, “if I knew there was something good on the other side.”