One by One
“I don’t know,” Inigo says, and he looks for a minute like what he is—a PA who has failed to get the result his boss wanted. “They said they’re under enormous strain, there are people trapped on lifts and stuff. I’m not sure—” His voice falters a little at Topher’s expression. “I’m not sure that people with food and shelter are their priority right now. They’ve got my number. They said they’d be in touch as soon as possible with more information.”
“You mean we’re fucking stranded?” Topher explodes. “The fucking funicular’s down, Eva’s missing, and we’re trapped in this godforsaken chalet with an injured woman—” He indicates Erin. “We should be their top priority!”
Inigo says nothing, he just shrugs helplessly.
“Could one of us ski down?” Rik says, but Inigo shakes his head.
“No, they were really clear about that. We should stay where we are. There could be more falls.”
“Well, we can’t just stay here,” Topher says angrily.
“You won’t be skiing on that piste, mate,” Danny says, looking up from where he’s tending Erin.
“I’ll have you know,” Topher says, “I’m a boarder, and a damn good one.”
“You could be Shaun White, mate, you still wouldn’t be going down there. You didn’t see it—it looked like a boulder field. There’s no piste left.”
“So we’re stuck?” Topher says, furious disbelief in his tone. “And they’re doing nothing at all, while Eva could be out there under a thousand tonnes of snow?”
No one answers. No one wants to say the fact that is obvious to all of us—if that is the case, there’s nothing he or any of us can do.
ERIN
Snoop ID: LITTLEMY
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I’m sitting in the kitchen, shaking. Danny has gone to get the first aid kit, and in truth I’m grateful to be alone for a few minutes. It gives me time to get myself back together.
That noise—that horrific, deafeningly soft roar that has haunted my dreams for three years—for a moment I thought it was some kind of flashback, like PTSD. And then I glanced over my shoulder and it was real. A wall of white engulfing the valley.
And the strange thing was, I felt nothing but peace, as it came towards me. It felt like justice. It felt like retribution. It felt completely right.
For a moment I thought about opening my arms and letting it swallow me. Only it didn’t. It didn’t swallow me. It spat me back out. To this.
“I’m gonna fucking kill them all.” The swing door bangs back, and it’s Danny, stomping in with the first aid box in his hand. “Fucking wankers every last one of them. You could’ve been killed, and he’s busy worrying about when his airlift is coming. You know he’s out there right now trying to get through to a private helicopter firm?”
“They won’t do anything, even if he gets through,” I say. I change my position on the makeshift footrest Danny has set up in the corner of the kitchen, trying to ignore the pain shooting up and down my leg as I move it. “They can’t—not in this weather. Look at it.”
I wave a hand at the window, where the wind has picked up into a full-blown blizzard.
“Get those peas off your ankle,” Danny says brusquely, “they’ve defrosted anyway.”
I hold out my leg meekly as he lifts off the soggy bag of peas and straps an ice-pack sleeve around my throbbing ankle. It hurts, but in a weird kind of way, I welcome the pain. It anchors me, reminding me that I’m here, alive.
Danny has found an old FM radio, and while he cooks, I sit quietly, listening to the accounts of the rescue attempts. The realization that keeps shivering up and down my spine is how incredibly lucky we have been—all of us. At least eight buildings have been totally crushed by the avalanche. Four were lift stations that were confirmed empty, since the lifts had been closed earlier that day. Two were cafés that are believed to have been closed at the time the avalanche hit. The remaining three were chalets. One, much farther down near St. Antoine le Lac, has been evacuated. Minor injuries, no fatalities. No one knows about the other two. Amid questions about responsibility and whether the resort authorities should have acted earlier, the newscaster emphasizes again and again how fortunate it was that so many pistes and lifts were shut. Even the funicular had only four people in it, and they have been safely evacuated down the smashed, glassed-in tunnel, but the announcer has already said, ominously, that it is going to take “many days to assess the repairs.” Not even complete the repairs, assess them.
Given that, a mangled swimming pool seems like getting off pretty lightly. If it wasn’t for Eva, we would be counting our blessings. But the knowledge that she’s still missing is like a dark, spreading poison, gnawing at the edge of everything. When I shut my eyes, I can see her—buried in darkness, growing colder and colder with every moment that passes, wondering if anyone is coming. If she’s lucky, the close-packed snow will suffocate her quickly. If she’s not…
The thought makes me feel suddenly weak with fear.
“How much food have we got?” I ask Danny, trying to distract myself from my thoughts, and he shakes his head dismissively.
“Plenty. Don’t worry about that. Tony Stark down there might have to go without fresh milk for a few days, but the store cupboard’s got enough in it for a siege.”
There’s always the possibility that Eva got bored of waiting for everyone, skied down into St. Antoine hours ago, and is absolutely fine, just unable to contact us. But as the hours tick on, that’s starting to look more and more unlikely. The landline and the internet are still both down, and the mobile reception has only worsened since the avalanche. The remaining masts presumably buckled beneath a hundredweight of snow, but Inigo’s phone continues to get a few erratic bars every now and again. He’s had a text from home—just one—and managed to reply saying he was okay. Wouldn’t Eva have texted to say she was all right when all this kicked off? Wouldn’t she have found a way, somehow, to get word through?
LIZ
Snoop ID: ANON101
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It is 3:11 p.m. when the electricity dies. I am sitting up in my room, trying to shut out the noises from downstairs, when the room is suddenly plunged into darkness. I fumble for my phone, wondering if a bulb has blown. Then I hear shouts of annoyance coming from up and down the corridor. It is not just me.
“Did your electricity just go off?”
It is Topher’s voice, right outside my bedroom. For a moment I think he’s talking to me, but then I hear an answering deep rumble: Elliot.
“Fuck,” Topher says, in response. “That’s all we need.”
I open the door to find the rest of the group congregating on the landing, discussing what to do by the light of their mobile phone torches. In the end, we traipse downstairs to consult Erin and Danny. I hang back as Topher knocks irritably on the kitchen door. He is grumbling under his breath about the fucking arse end of nowhere.
“What?” Danny answers. His expression is belligerent.