Trapped with the Blizzard (26 page)

“Dani, come on!” Marie said right in front of my face. I hadn’t even noticed her standing there, practically nose to nose. “We need to distract everyone like Liz said.”

Oh, screw Liz,
I thought, but allowed myself to be guided. She sat at the old wooden piano and tinkled a few runs up and down the keys. She looked up at me expectantly, like she was waiting for a cue of some sort.

“What do you think? If we do
Twelve Days of Christmas
that should buy us a good ten minutes.”

“You aren’t seriously thinking of…”

Marie stood on the piano bench and called out. “Hey, everyone! Let’s do a little sing-along!” I don’t know if anyone else could hear the tremor in her voice, but she did get their attention. “Let’s get the little ones gathered up front, bigger kids to the back. That includes you Mrs. Gabble.”

The crowd laughed, and I watched in awe as she was able to push her fear away. No one would’ve suspected a thing was wrong. I took a few steps back as the children obediently fell into place and tried to inch away to the side before she noticed.

“My friend Dani here is going to get us started,” she gestured to me before I could get away.

“Hi,” I squeaked with a wave. Every fiber of my being wanted to run straight out of that room and scour the grounds for Miah, yet I remained rooted to the spot.

“Trust me, she sings better than she speaks.” Marie jumped back down and repeated the same run down the keyboard before diving into the beginning of the song. She had to repeat the first two lines before I caught on.

“On the first day of Christmas, my true love gave to me…”

And just like that, we suckered a couple dozen people into ignoring the terror knocking at their door. I ran on autopilot, the song coming from my mouth as though I weren’t the one singing. I felt like an animatronic girl, singing, smiling, full of fucking Christmas cheer. Inside, I couldn’t stop the dark voice.

It’s just like your father, you know. You yelled at him too, and look what happened. You’re cursed. You’re doomed. You should never get close to people because this is what happens. Why even bother anymore? You’ll just fail. You always fail.

As the songs slipped freely from my mouth, I watched the smiling faces of the children in front of me. I envied them more than I could ever describe. All they had to worry about was Santa coming tonight, sharing their toys, chicken nuggets in the shape of dinosaurs, naps. Life was simple for them. Life was still a good and happy thing.

And in that moment I put a word to the deepest emotion I’d felt since my dad’s accident.

Loss.

I’d lost my innocence. My childhood came to a halt like a slammed door and now I was trapped on the outside, unable to ever return. I’d lost my future. The anger and hatred that burned inside of me changed how I saw the world. I’d lost my family. My dad would never see me graduate or come to a soccer game. My mom was now an exhausted, weary caregiver with little time for me.

Being wrenched from my adolescence didn’t automatically thrust me into adulthood. I was bitter because people refused to acknowledge me as an adult. I fought for their respect, appreciation, all while resenting the fact I had to. Didn’t my experiences buy me a ticket into the club? Forget my age. Hadn’t I been through enough to warrant a shred of respect? To top it all off, if this is what being an adult was like, I wanted nothing to do with it. I wanted to be a kid, blissfully unaware and happily secure in a world that would never change.

And it was in that bizarre, detached moment I realized I didn’t belong to either side. Too much of this and too little of that. I’d hoped that’s where Miah and Marie and the others came in, a bridge between two lives, but I’d screwed that up as well. Surrounded by all those people, I’ve never felt so alone.

The girls’ singing was a good distraction for the children, but it was difficult to keep the search a secret from the adults. It’s pretty obvious when two dozen people en mass walk around the lodge with flashlights in various states of concern. But for the most part, we worked in secret. I ducked into the front hall, pressing myself into a corner and radioed Bryan.

“Bryan? Bry, it’s Liz. Anything yet, over?”

I held the radio to my chest to muffle the sound. Staring at the ceiling, I couldn’t shake that horrible sensation I’d felt too many times before.
This isn’t real. This isn’t happening. I’m having a bad dream and I’ll wake up soon.

Every other time though, I’d been alone in my stressful situation. The first time with Rick and Kayla, I had no way of knowing if Bryan or the police would get to me in time. And then in New Zealand, I was so helpless. First in the gondola and then not knowing what happened to Bryan. But now, I was surrounded by the entire town. It just didn’t seem possible that something horrible could happen to all of us at once.

The radio crackled in my hand making me jump. I fumbled around, actually pressing a couple buttons and missing Bryan’s message.

“Say again, over.”

I lifted the radio to my ear, the volume down low just in case he came back with any bad news. “We’ve searched the entire perimeter. Someone thought they might’ve spotted footprints leading out into the woods, but there’s no way of knowing for sure.” I shivered at both possibilities. Either the poor kid had wandered into the forest, or somebody was out there hiding.

“I think we’ve covered everything in here, over,” I said reluctantly.

“Liz, you don’t have to say
over
every single line. We are not in a movie or in the military,” he said with dry humor. “I’m heading out to the barns with Chris. We’re going to jump in two of the snowcats and do a wider search. It’ll be good to get the last of them out anyway.”

It made sense and I’m surprised we hadn’t thought of it before. The snowcats could climb through a significant amount of snow and the bright lights could show anything in their path. We’d used two to flatten the parking lot for the helicopter, but this would work as well. “Okay, I’ll hold down the fort here, over. Shit. Sorry,” I said quickly.

I checked with the other searchers and none of them came back with anything new. With my heart heavy, I had to make my way back to the Goldbergs. In this case, no news was not good news.

I found Dani and Marie sitting beside them at the small table, usually used for staff breaks. All of them clutched fresh cups of tea. Four pairs of eyes looked up as I approached, and I could feel them collectively hold their breath. Not wanting to extend the moment any longer, I just shook my head.

“We haven’t found anything yet,” I said. “Everybody is still searching, I’m sure we’ll find him soon.”

“You said he was drinking, right? Did he try to get you to drink, too?” Mr. Goldberg asked his daughter. The way he asked it sounded weary, as if it were something they had battled many times before. She seemed like such a vivacious girl. It wouldn’t be a surprise if she’d given them trouble.

Marie looked at her hands, picking flakes of polish from her nails. “He had a flask of something, but honestly, I didn’t realize how much he’d had.”

Dani snorted in derision but remained quiet. I thought the reaction odd but Mrs. Goldberg started sobbing again, and I simply couldn’t bear to watch. I made a quick apology that I needed to check on Jack. As I made my way through the main room, a hand was at my elbow, pulling me around. I came face-to-face with Dani with an expression like thunder.

“Is that the truth?” she spat.

I was taken aback by her rage. “Of course it is. Why would I keep anything from them?” I defended indignantly.

“Oh, I don’t know, because that’s what you fucking do?” she whispered harshly, flinging her hands up into the air.

Under the circumstances, I did not have the patience to deal with her little temper tantrum. I understood she was under more stress than the rest of us and wasn’t coping very well, but I wasn’t about to let her take it out on me. I faced her fully, squaring my shoulders and coming to my full height. She may not have known a lot about me, but I was willing to give her a quick lesson.

“You might want to rethink your tone,” I said tightly.

To her credit, she stepped right in my face. “Or what? What could you do to me that hasn’t already been done?”

“I’m not the enemy here.”

“No? 'Cause you certainly aren’t the fucking hero this time, Liz.” She was shouting now, drawing the attention of many around us. I tried to guide her back into the kitchen, but she tore her arm free.

“I’m not trying to be…”

Dani gritted her teeth as her eyes narrowed. “I hate you.”

Before we took anything further, Walt stepped between us. He put his arm across Dani’s waist as if breaking up a possible fistfight. “Okay… why don’t we come over here for a bit. Let’s go play with the baby…” he said as he tried to lead Dani away. She glared up at him, almost as if she wanted to hit him, too, until storming off in the opposite direction.

I took a few steps back and just as I was about to apologize to the Goldbergs for her outburst, the lodge went black. It wasn’t as noticeable as it was the first time, because most of the lights had been turned off to conserve energy. It was subtle. I noticed the Christmas tree go dark, the hum of the walk-in coolers stop. The howl of the wind outside grew louder in the absence.

“Shit, that’s not good,” I muttered to myself.

Dani whacked my shoulder with hers as she stormed past back into the kitchen. I blinked a few times in shock, numbly bringing the radio to my lips and calling for Bryan.

“Bryan?”

“Hi, yeah. We just saw it. We’re on the far side of the lodge now, we can swing around and go check. Is everything okay?” Bryan said.

“I think so.”

“Chris? Are you there, Chris?” Bryan replied. After a moment, the radio crackled.

“Here, boss. I’ll go check the gennies, see what’s up.”

“Good man, thanks.”

I breathed a little better knowing Chris was on top of it. Honestly, I didn’t know what we would’ve done if we hadn’t had his help through all this. Keeping this lodge together was not a two-person job.

Still reeling from my altercation with Dani, I walked into the Great Hall. More and more people were noticing the power was completely out now. A handful of kids were crying, which of course, got others crying too. As I tried to check on Walt and Jack, Ellen from the hair salon stepped in front of me, her hands on her hips.

“I think you owe us an explanation,” she declared indignantly. Standing behind her was her twin sister, Annie. Her voice carried loud enough to gain the attention of everyone around us.

“We’re having a problem with the generators, yes. Bryan is out right now with one of the maintenance crew trying to…”

Annie huffed, stepping past her sister and practically yelling in my face. “That’s the least of our worries, if what people are saying is true.”

I felt practically every pair of eyes on me at once.
Jesus, they all know
. My mind raced, quickly fighting to figure out how to subdue their fears. “I don’t think this is something we really should talk about in front of the children,” I said slowly.

Like some sort of sick tag team ambush duo, Ellen pushed in front of Annie. “Stop brushing us off. We should talk about it right here. It’s the secrets that’ll kill us.”

I looked around to see pretty much every person within earshot staring at us. I didn’t see any other option. I took a step to the side and faced the crowd at large.

“I would be happy to answer any questions anybody has. But please,” I said, looking around the room, “keep in mind there are children here. I don’t want anyone getting too alarmed and…”

“When is the power going to come back on?” a man from the back called out.

“As I said, Bryan and a few maintenance workers are outside right now checking on it. We’re doing the best we can considering the conditions outside. We are at the height of the storm.” Almost as if proving my point, the huge gust of wind blew around the lodge, battering the windows with pellets of snow.

“Why was there a fire?”

“We’re looking into that.”

“When is the storm supposed to end? We haven’t heard any weather updates,” an older woman yelled.

“The last report I heard wasn’t good. We’ve already received somewhere in the neighborhood of five to six feet of snow…” The room gasped followed by a few mumbled whispers. “This might seem unbelievable, but the report we last got said that we were going to get the same again through the night into tomorrow.”