Lee Child - First Thrills

“Ah, hell.” The operator brought his walkie-talkie to his lips. “Marvin, come in…” Getting no response, he banged the squawking radio against his knee and tried again. “Marvin, you reading me up there?”

“Go ahead,” came a voice through thick static.

“Yeah, Marvin, you still up top? Got another asshole down here, wants to make a run. It’ll mean fifty… uh, twenty-five bucks to you if you’ll wait.”

Seconds passed before the radio squawked again and Marvin’s voice came back. “Yeah… go ahead.”

Freddy switched off the walkie-talkie with a shrug and cut his eyes back to Howard. “It’s your funeral.” He took his time approaching, but was quick to snatch the two bills from Howard’s glove. He unhooked the rope and allowed Howard to push past. “I’s you, I’d ski down with Marvin. He’s the best skier on the hill, knows every inch of this mountain.”

“I hardly need a babysitter,” Howard scoffed. “Been riding black diamonds for more than twenty years.”

“Yeah? In the dark? With weather moving in? We’ll be under an avalanche warning come tomorrow, mark my words.”

“Piece of cake,” Howard said, swishing through the maze of rope leading to the loading area.

“Just get down quick, fella, or it’s my ass.” Freddy waved him off and disappeared into the bull-wheel shack.

Howard allowed an empty chair to pass, then side-stepped into the loading space and let the next chair scoop his backside. The chair accelerated through a sharp ascent before rattling over the sheaves of the first tower and slowing into a smooth, quiet glide.

He closed his eyes and drew crisp air into his lungs, a grin tugging at the corners of his mouth. Snow began to flurry as the chair crept over a steep, pine-wooded peak. The terrain then fell away sharply, opening into a wide treeless valley already clear of all ski traffic.

Minutes passed.

The chair chattered past another tower and continued on for seventy- five more yards before the drone of the lift suddenly muted and the cable came to a gentle halt. Momentum swung the chair back and forth some until it eventually hung motionless.

Howard cursed under his breath. The clouds seemed to close in more quickly in the stillness. The base of the slopes and the resort village far below were already completely obscured.

Boredom set in immediately. He took out his cell phone hoping to check messages, but when he saw that he still wasn’t getting a signal, he set the phone down beside him, thinking he’d check again from a higher elevation.

The snow fell more heavily now, landing thick and wet against his goggles, stinging his cheeks. He huddled his arms across his chest to fight the chill that was seeping through his clothing like acid.

Christ, what I would give for a …

He paused, then fumbled into the breast pocket of his coat. To his relief there remained a crumpled box of Salems pressed against his monogrammed Zippo. Setting his gloves on the seat next to the phone, he tapped out the single remaining cigarette and thumbed the lighter until it sparked a flame. He drew quickly and heavily off the cigarette, burning it down to the filter.

Three minutes later, still chilled to the marrow, he flicked the dead butt away and cursed again. “Come on, Freddy, Marvin, you asshole, crank ’er up.”

Looking down to check his watch, he caught movement through the gauze of cloud between his knees-a lone skier, some two hundred feet below, swishing with perceptible skill down the slope. Howard watched the man until he disappeared under the chair.

Hell of a skier, he thought. Quite a pro.

Then he jumped, startled by the unexpected sound of laughter.

“I think your fate has just been sealed, Howard.”

Howard turned toward the voice and found sitting on the other side of the chair a man he’d watched die months before.

“Jesus Christ!” He yanked his goggles down to his neck and looked the man up and down, his eyes wide with horror, his jaw hanging slack.

Another liquid chuckle left the dead man’s throat. “Miss me, Howard?”

It was Terry Choate, Howard’s former business partner, in the flesh.

Only the flesh was gunmetal gray, slightly transparent, and peeling off of grossly mangled bones. The dead man’s smile was toothless and glistened red. His misshapen skull was split open at the crown. Gray liquid oozed from the ghastly wound and trickled down past sunken, ink-drop eyes.

Howard’s heart became a piston in his chest. He tasted a bitter sickness rising in his throat. “Terry, what are you… how can you be-”

“I’d say Freddy was right, wouldn’t you, Howard?” The corpse’s words slithered off a sluglike tongue. He aimed a thumb over his shoulder. “That Marvin might truly be the best skier on the hill. Certainly looked like an expert to me.”

Howard could only stare at the dead man, stunned with terror, until at last he blinked back to attention. “What… what did you say?”

Terry pointed toward the slope behind the chair. “Marvin. It doesn’t appear that he waited for you.”

“Marvin?” It took a moment for Howard to understand the corpse’s meaning. He turned slowly around in the seat. The skier he’d seen a moment ago had long since vanished under the cloud. “Marvin.” Howard blinked again. “Yes. Marvin. But… but he said-”

“ Yeah, go ahead, ” Terry finished. “I believe those were the exact words Marvin used. But the static coming through that radio was rather heavy, wasn’t it Howard? Couldn’t it be that Marvin’s words were not an instruction for you to proceed, but an indication that he was still awaiting a response from his coworker below?”

Howard’s stomach knotted, his terror now compounded. He spun around in the chair and screamed Marvin’s name until his voice went hoarse. In response he heard only a desperate echo. It wasn’t until he turned back that he realized he’d just knocked the gloves and cell phone off the seat.

“Looks like we’re in for a long, cold night, Howard.” Terry grinned with malice… then vanished.

Howard’s gaze darted all around. He called out to Terry, but heard only the corpse’s cryptic laughter, which seemed to come at him from all directions, taunting and threatening at the same time.

Darkness fell quickly then, even as time stretched out.

It wasn’t long before the weight of Howard’s skis began to pull painfully on his tired knees. Deeming the skis useless, he kicked them off into the night and listened, to no avail, for their contact with the ground.

Faced with the knowledge that he would never survive a drop from the chair, he was left to wait and listen and watch as the storm rolled in.

The dead man didn’t appear again until seven hours and nine inches of snow later.

“ I seeyou haven’t gone far, Howard.” The corpse’s voice snaked out of the darkness. “In truth, neither have I. I have always been with you, every minute of every day. Since the very beginning… or end, I should say, my end.”

Curled with his knees tucked under his chin, back pressed against the armrest, Howard lifted a trembling hand. With fingers made bloodless by the cold, he pried open an eyelid, sealed shut by frozen tears. Through his blurred vision he saw only swirling snow on a field of black.

“I suggest you reach into your pants’ leg pocket,” Terry said. “Down by your right calf. Go on, Howard.”

It was some time before Howard mustered the energy to do as instructed. Struggling with dead hands on the zipper, he reached into the pocket and came out with the plastic glow stick he had mindlessly tucked away three days before-a precautionary handout from the ski-rental shop in a place where avalanche warnings were not uncommon. Howard bent the stick until it clicked, bathing the space around him with its green luminescent glow. He hooked the stick to the shoulder strap of his bib, then raised his head to face the man across the chair.