Snowed In

The wind picked up, howling through the jagged edge of the valley. Sweeping fresh powder over us in waves, tearing savagely at our bright red faces. It was absolutely brutal. Every time it got bad we had to stop and huddle up against one another, keeping our heads close to fight it off.

We forged on hard, making small course corrections every now and then but more or less moving in the same general direction. Boone and Jeremy switched positions often, giving each other a chance to rest and recover. Shane even took a shift too, holding his injured hand high overhead to avoid dragging it against the deeper snow.

I had no idea how much time passed. We couldn’t see where the sun was. All we could see was this ridiculous, ridiculous storm. One that had somehow raged on for days without letting up, and which was now dumping as much sleet down on us as it was snow.

“HOW MUCH FURTHER?”

Boone’s question died on the wind. Either the other two didn’t hear him, or they chose not to answer.

All we could do was push on.

I knew it was dark when the skies began turning a darker shade of grey. It was alarming. Jeremy and Shane had reached the tower and made it back to the hotel — all in a single day. And here we were, the day nearly up… and we hadn’t found anything yet.

Maybe we missed it…

The thought was horrific. It sent a spike of fear rocketing down my spine.

Maybe we’ll freeze solid out here.

No. I refused to believe it. Even if we’d missed our goal, the guys would come up with something. They always did.

They had to.

“HEY! RIGHT THERE!”

Jeremy was pointing, somewhere off to our left. He jogged forward a few steps on his own. Just by his level excitement, I knew he saw something.

“THAT’S IT!”

We all ran after him — or what passed for running in such conditions — and my breath caught in my throat. The dark outline of something tall and imposing faded into view, slicing its way through the driving sleet and snow.

“IS IT A RADIO TOWER?” Boone shouted into my ear. I couldn’t tell. Couldn’t see. But then we got closer, and…

“YES!” I was suddenly all warm again. Everything was right in the world. “YES IT IS!”

We scrambled up to the base of the old steel frame. It was enormous. The spire, however tall it might be, disappeared about thirty feet up into a thick, impenetrable cloud of grey.

“HERE!”

Boone thrust forward the sack containing the radio. He’d fashioned it out of half a sleeping bag, sliced through with the blunt edge of the multi-tool. I pulled it out and began hooking it up to the tower, which consisted of wrapping the extension coil of copper wire from the back of the unit to one of the tower’s metal legs.

“THAT’S IT?” Shane asked over the wind. “THIS IS ALL YOU HAVE TO DO?”

“YEAH!” I laughed loudly.

“WE COULD’VE DONE THIS!”

“SURE,” I cried, teeth chattering. “BUT THEN I’D MISS OUT ON ALL THE FUN!”

I had Boone hold the radio steady as I reached for the handle. I’d crank it a few times. Get it all juiced up… then grab the mic and transmit.

Suddenly I stopped dead in my tracks.

No…

My body froze, my eyes trying to reconcile what I was seeing with what was actually happe

ning. But it couldn’t. It couldn’t possibly be.