Quadruple Duty: All or Nothing

We shoved on, pushing through the ice and snow. Every step was exhausting. Every ten or twelve feet we had to stop and rest.

I was sweating… sweating profusely despite my lack of a winter jacket. I knew the minute I stopped moving my sweat would turn to ice. My joints would lock up. The lactic acid would settle into my muscles, immobilizing me, rendering me totally useless.

Twenty minutes later things were even bleaker. There seemed to be no end to the snow-sheet the avalanche had dropped on the mountain. And now it was so dark, I could barely even see.

I pulled my snow-angel close. Set my lips right up against her ear.

“WE HAVE TO STOP.”

She shook her head. “NO! NO, WE NEED TO FIND HELP! WE NEED TO—”

I dropped, and immediately began digging frantically into the snow. My fingers were frozen. My lungs burned. But I had just enough energy left for one last feat: to make an emergency shelter.

Maybe.

And somehow… it would have to be big enough for the both of us.

Five

MORGAN

At first I thought he was crazy, digging in the snow. That the cute guy who’d rescued me from certain death had reached his physical and emotional limits, and was literally digging his own grave rather than go on.

I was wrong though. And thank God.

Darkness descended, and I held my phone’s flashlight out as my would-be rescuer clawed frantically into the snow. A small space began to form, then a larger space, then a cavity with room enough to call it an igloo or something. And then it hit me:

He wants to stay the night here!

The idea shattered me. That somehow we’d be left on the mountain overnight. That they’d find us frozen to death, clutching each other in the morning… like Jack Nicholson, in that terrifying scene from the end of The Shining.

No, the whole idea seemed ludicrous. We should’ve already been rescued. Or we should’ve at least made it down the mountain. There should be entire teams of people looking for us — and for Faith too! Searching for us quickly, to f

ind us before night fell…

And yet in all these hours I hadn’t seen a single soul. No rescue sleds, no St. Bernards with casks of rum, no helicopters.

Nothing.

I turned my attention back to my furiously digging hero. His stamina was incredible. So were his arms! In giving up his jacket I could see the strength and power of his thick biceps and triceps, churning beneath his long-sleeved thermal. His shoulders were magnificent, tapering down to his well-muscled back in a big, sexy ‘V’. I couldn’t believe I was staring. I should’ve been searching the horizon, or looking into the sky.

Only there was no horizon. There was no sky. There was only the icy wind, the blowing snow. And now that darkness had fallen? Sleet too.

Already I was shivering my ass off.

“GET IN!”

It was the last thing I wanted to do. The cavity was dark. It looked cold and uninviting. And yet the second I ducked my head inside, not having the wind ripping at my face made me appreciate it a lot more.

I crawled in, and the noise of the growing storm died off. It was almost quiet in the little igloo. And it wasn’t half as cold as being exposed to the wind.

“Its not the best snow shelter, but it will have to do.”

I turned and he was beside me, my frozen hero, already pulling armfuls of snow around the entrance to cover us up. Claustrophobia hit, and I was seized by a wave of panic. But then he left enough of an opening that we could still breathe, still get oxygen. Still look upward and outward to see a dark, churning swath of the nighttime sky.

“T—They won’t see us in here,” I said, the thought just coming to me.

“We won’t freeze to death either,” he replied. “It’s dark now anyway, and the storm’s getting worse. The mountain is still shifting too.”