The thick snow makes this much less of an issue. But it gives me an urgent problem. Liz will be coming up behind, skiing in my tracks, where I have already pressed down the snow. She will be going much faster. And she has my tracks to guide her.
I have to go faster. But if I do, I could end up killing myself.
I give myself a shove with my poles, ski around a tight turn, my ankle screaming with protest, and then thump over what must be a concealed hummock in the snow. The shock of agony that runs up my leg makes me cry out, and I wobble, and fall with a crash, thumping painfully into the rocky side of the couloir. For a few minutes I just lie there, panting, hot tears running down my face. I cannot believe how much this hurts. I don’t dare open up the ski boot to find out what’s inside, but I can feel my whole leg throbbing with my pulse. I don’t know if I will be able to ski again, after this. I don’t know if I will be able to walk again.
But Liz has killed three people already. I have to keep going.
I take a deep breath, and go to push myself up on my pole. But I can’t do it. My muscles are shaking so hard, I can’t make myself do it—I can’t force myself to put weight on my leg again, it makes my whole body tremble when I think of doing it.
And then, from somewhere up the gully, I hear sounds. There’s a cry—the sound of someone who has just been hit in the face by an unexpected branch, maybe—followed by the rough scrape of skis being forced into an emergency snowplow.
Liz is coming. And she is very close.
I have to do this. I have to do this.
I force my pole into the snow, and heave myself upright, sweating and shaking.
And then I push off.
LIZ
Snoop ID: ANON101
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Where. Is. She.
Where. Is. She.
The words keep repeating inside my head as I twist and turn, doggedly following in Erin’s tracks. She cannot have been that far ahead of me, and her ankle is in a much worse state than my knee. I should have caught up with her by now. But I haven’t. And that fact is making me… not worried exactly. I am not at that point yet. But definitely frustrated.
Part of the frustration is because this is difficult skiing, more difficult than I had imagined it would be. Even after my eyes have got used to the moonlit dimness at the bottom of the crevasse, I can’t see very much except for Erin’s ski tracks, and I have no choice but to follow them blindly, as fast as I can, hoping that if she didn’t mess up or wipe out, I won’t either.
There is a long straight stretch coming up and I give myself a push with my poles and hunch down, making my body more aerodynamic. I feel the wind in my face, and then I thump into a mini mogul, invisible in the dim light. I feel air for a moment beneath my skis, and then I slam back down, all my weight on my bad knee in a way that makes me catch my breath. I ought to slow down, recover my balance, but before I can do so a tree branch comes out of nowhere, whipping me across the face so that I cry out.
I go into an instant, reflexive snowplow, the snow shushing beneath my skis, my heart thumping, and grind to a halt.
That was very close. If I hadn’t been wearing goggles, that branch could have blinded me. As it is, it has opened the cut on my cheek again. I feel a ticklish trickle of hot blood run down my chin.
I cannot afford to stop though. I just have to be more careful. I push myself off again, peering into the darkness. I must be catching up. I must be.
Then, just a hundred meters further on, I hear it—the hissing sound of skis on snow. Someone up ahead is whisking around a tight turn, throwing up snow with the backs of their skis.
My pulse quickens, and I race to catch up.
ERIN
Snoop ID: LITTLEMY
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It is very dark now, at the bottom of the gully. The rocky walls rise up so high that no moonlight makes it down, and there are tall pines leaning over the top, their canopy blocking out the sky. But I don’t dare slow down.
This is the part of the run I remember the best. The part just before it shoots you out into the village. I must be almost there. Here is the long sliding turn that takes you up the side of the couloir, between two scraggly little saplings. I shoot up between them, trying to ignore the scream of my ankle, and the trembling thumps of my heart, flooded with more adrenaline than it knows how to cope with.
Then a swerve to the right.
And then—oh fuck.
I’m almost on it before I remember. What looks like a sheer rock wall, and a breakneck left turn, at a point in the path so narrow it’s virtually impossible to slow yourself down.
Its blackness looms out of the dark, and I fling myself into a desperate sideways slide, my skis throwing up a glittering, hissing mist of crystals all around me. One ski catches on a rock and I almost lose control. My ankle is on fire with the pain, but I can’t stop the frantic attempt to brake—if I hit the turn at this speed I won’t just wipe out; without a helmet I will be dead.
I’m turning, I’m turning, my skis almost perpendicular to the slope—and then I’m round, and almost immediately I hit a tree root, my ankle gives way, and this time I do wipe out, in a tumbling flurry of skis and snow.
I have to get up. Liz is very near now. I can hear the hiss of her skis coming closer, the sound growing louder, funneled by the couloir. I have to get up. Only, when I try to push myself to standing, I can’t do it. My ankle won’t bear my weight. I try—and my knee goes out from under me. I try again, sobbing this time, no longer caring about the noise I’m making, and collapse into the snow, weeping and swearing.
She is almost here. She is coming, she is coming fast.
LIZ
Snoop ID: ANON101
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I am very close to Erin now—and then I hear it. A cry from up ahead, and a clatter of skis. Yes. She has fallen!
I feel a surge of triumph, and it quickens my pace. This is going to be okay. I am going to catch her up! I don’t think about what will happen when I do. Time for that later.
I crouch down again, I feel the wind in my face. This is it. I can do this.
I thump over a hummock, and I feel that same sense of exhilaration I did when I skied the black run, only this is even better. I am skiing by pure instinct now, like a bird, flying in a slip stream, wheeling and turning with effortless skill. It’s almost—
And then it happens.
A wall of rock looming out of the darkness, just feet away.
I think I scream, I’m not sure—someone does.
I try, desperately, to snowplow—but the path is too narrow, and I’m not slowing down, I’m not slowing, I’m—
ERIN
Snoop ID: LITTLEMY
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The sound when she hits is like nothing else I’ve ever heard.
It is the sound of skis snapping and bones breaking. It’s the sound of flesh hitting rock.
It’s wet and yielding, and it’s hard as stone all at once.
Was she wearing a helmet? Was she wearing a helmet?
There is silence. Total, unbroken silence.
“Liz?” I call shakily, but there is no answer, not even a whimper.