Death #33:
The Cold Don’t Last Forever
By Julie
Whoosh! Lauren
skidded to a stop, spraying snow everywhere, and pushed her goggles up over her
ski hat. “Phew!” she panted, doubling over to catch her breath. “That was a
good run, huh?” She looked up at Nick, her cheeks flushed from the cold and
exertion. “You ready to call it a day?”
Nick eyed the slope they’d just skied down and
then turned his head in the other direction, looking toward the resort lodge.
The sky behind it was steel gray and getting darker by the minute, but he said,
“Aw, c’mon, let’s do one more. We’ve been on the bunny slopes all day; I wanna
try one of the harder trails.”
Nick was not a skier; in fact, it had been all
Lauren’s idea to go skiing for the weekend. She had grown up skiing with her
parents, and he knew she had to be getting bored of the bunny slopes, but she’d
stuck by him all day, helping him learn the basics. He thought he’d gotten the
hang of it pretty quickly; he hadn’t fallen on his butt at all in the last
three runs. He was ready for a challenge and knew she’d jump at the chance to
go down a steeper hill before they headed home.
Sure enough, Lauren smiled and said, “Well, okay…
if you’re sure you want to. Just one more.”
“One more,” Nick agreed, and they stomped over to
get on one of the ski lifts. Nick was happy to see that, for the first time all
day, there was no one in line, until the lift operator hooked a chain across
the entrance, blocking it off.
“Sorry,” he said, when he saw Nick and Lauren
approaching. “We’re shutting down. Snowstorm on the way.” He jerked his thumb
over his shoulder, gesturing at the darkening sky.
“We just wanted to do one more run,” said Nick.
“Any way you could let us on?”
“Please?” begged Lauren, batting her eyelashes and
giving the guy her more irresistible puppy-dog face.
The guy heaved a sigh and took a glance up the
mountain. Nick’s eyes followed; he saw the that lift was still moving, so there
must have been people riding it up, further ahead. “It’ll just take a few
minutes,” he added. “C’mon, man, let us on. Last ones.” When the guy still
didn’t look completely convinced, he fished his wallet out of the back of his
snow pants and offered him a crisp twenty dollar bill. “For your extra time.”
“Alright, alright.” The operator rolled his eyes,
but accepted the twenty, stuffing it into his pocket. He unhooked the chain
long enough to let Nick and Lauren through, then fastened it again behind them.
The two of them scrambled onto the next chair to come around. “Better make it a
quick run, though; weather’s gonna get bad,” he warned them, as they secured
the safety bar over their laps.
“We will,” Lauren assured him. “Thanks.”
The guy just grunted in response, as the chair
swung forward and slowly started to rise off the ground.
“They should make these things go faster,” Nick
complained, as they rode up the mountain.
“Why, you worried about the weather, too?”
Nick snorted. “Psh, no. Just ‘cause they’d be more
fun, then. Like a ride.”
“They are like a ride.”
“Yeah, but they’re like a Ferris wheel. It’d be
better if they were like a rollercoaster. Like the Batman at Six Flags or
something, you know?”
Lauren just laughed and shook her head.
“See, this thing’s too tame,” Nick said, leaning
forward and then flinging himself backwards to make the chair rock.
“Nick, don’t.”
“Aw, c’mon, it’s fun!”
“Yeah, it’s fun until you break the thing!”
“Chill; it ain’t gonna break. See?” He thrust
himself forward and back again to rock the chair some more, only this time, the
butt of his swishy snow pants slid on the icy metal chair, and as the chair
tipped forward, he slipped right out from under the safety bar. “FUCK!” He made
a mad grab for the bar, but it had pinned his forearms to his chest as his body
went under it.
“NICK!” Lauren screamed, and he could feel her
trying to hold him back, but before she could get a good grip on him through
his layers of clothing, he slipped clear off the edge of the chair.
For a second, he was freefalling, and the next
thing he knew, he hit the ground hard, landing flat on his back with a
sickening crunch.
But that wasn’t what killed him.
The impact knocked the wind right out of him, and
the shock of it caused him to black out for a few seconds. It couldn’t have
been long, because when he came to, he could still hear Lauren screaming, from
somewhere above him, his name over and over again. “NICK! NICK! NICK!”
“Boosa?” he called weakly, still dazed.
“NICK?! Oh, thank God! Are you alright?!”
Still lying flat on the packed snow, Nick looked
up. He could see the dark shadow of the chair over his head, the long thin
silhouettes of Lauren’s skis gently swinging. He couldn’t see her at all; it
was too dark, and she was too high. “I dunno!” he shouted back. “Hang on!” He
wasn’t in any obvious pain, but he would have to see for himself. He struggled
to sit up, but as soon as he tried to move, he felt it: excruciating pain,
radiating from his back. It was enough to suck the breath right out of his
lungs, and, gasping, he collapsed back down into the snow. “I think I’m hurt
pretty bad, babe,” he said shakily, through shallow breaths.
“Don’t try to move!” Lauren’s voice called, from
somewhere up ahead of him now. The chair was still moving further upward,
without him in it. “Just stay where you are; I’ll get down as quick as I can
and get you some help!”
“’Kay…” Nick closed his eyes; his head was
spinning.
“I LOVE YOU!” were the last words he heard Lauren
say, before the lift took her out of hearing range. He didn’t have the strength
to shout them back to her.
She’ll be back soon, he
thought. She’ll bring help. He would
just have to lie there and wait for her; that was all.
If only it weren’t so cold…
He could feel the chill of the snow seeping
through his heavy coat, and soon, he was shivering. His head was cold, his face
was cold, his arms were cold… The only part of him that wasn’t cold were his
legs, and at first, he thought it was just because of the thick snow pants, but
it only took a matter of seconds for him to realize that he couldn’t seem to
feel his legs at all.
Breathing fast, he tried again to sit up, fighting
through the pain long enough to lift his head. He could see his skis sticking
up, his feet splayed out awkwardly from the spread-eagle position in which he
had landed. He tried to reposition them, but although he concentrated with
every fiber of his being, his feet didn’t even twitch. Oh my
God, he thought, as panic set in. I
can’t move my legs… I’m a fucking paraplegic!
But that wasn’t what killed him, either.
He tried not to hyperventilate, tried to keep
himself calm, thinking things like, Maybe I’ve just gone numb from the cold. But he
knew that wasn’t the case. He knew he had broken his back, damaged his spinal
cord. Maybe it’s just temporary. When they get me to a
hospital, they’ll be able to do surgery or something to fix it. He
couldn’t imagine himself paralyzed.
As he lay there, contemplating life in a
wheelchair, despite his best efforts to think positively, it started to snow.
He could see the white flakes drift down from the dark sky, and at first, the
sight was so pretty that it calmed him. The snowflakes were light as they
landed on his face, but when the wind picked up, they fell with more intensity,
stinging his skin. He started to panic again, shivering under the layer of snow
that began to accumulate on his useless legs and torso.
Within minutes, his teeth were chattering so hard,
he could barely concentrate enough to form a coherent thought, other than: I feel
so… c-cold. It crossed his mind that hypothermia had to be setting
in by now.
But that also wasn’t what killed him.
He lost track of time as the snowstorm raged
around him, and the snow grew wet and heavy as it piled up on top of him. He
tried to brush it off of himself, but he could only reach so far without
sitting up, and it didn’t take long for the lower half of his body to become
completely buried. Soon he couldn’t keep up with the snowfall, and it began to
build on his chest, making him extremely claustrophobic. The snow seemed to
push in on him from all sides, pressing down on his chest as if it were trying
to suffocate him. His arms grew numb and heavy, and before long, they were
pinned to his sides, useless under the weight of the snow. It continued to fall
on his face, getting into his eyes, his mouth, his nose. He was drowning,
literally drowning in snow.
But that still wasn’t what killed him.
He thrashed his head around as much as he could,
trying to shake off the snow, but it was becoming difficult to breathe. He was
going to be buried, buried alive, and he wondered, How
will Lauren find me again, if I’m covered in snow?
His whole body was numb now, but still, he was so
cold, so very cold, that he thought it might be a relief to give in to the
snow, to let it bury him and block his lungs so that he would simply drift away
to somewhere else, hopefully someplace warm.
He closed his eyes, imagining himself swimming in
a warm sea, far away from this freezing cold mountain, free of the pain, free
of the cold, free of the crushing weight of the snow. Weightless and free…
But he wasn’t lucky enough to succumb to
unconsciousness so easily, or to die so peacefully.
Just as he was starting to fade away, the snow was
brushed away from his face, and he felt something wet and warm on his
cheek. Lauren? he thought hopefully and forced his eyes open.
But the face hovering a mere inch from his wasn’t
his girlfriend’s.
In fact, it wasn’t even human.
His eyes, the only part of him still capable of
movement, darted back and forth, taking in the mangy beige fur, the pointed
teeth, the fierce yellow eyes. “Nice kitty,” he whispered, as the cougar licked
some more snow off his face.
Then, in a flash of movement so quick, he never
fully knew what hit him, the big cat pounced.
The last thing Nick felt, as it ripped out his
throat, was pain, followed by warmth, as the blood poured from his torn
jugular. The red snow would make it easier for Lauren to find him, when she
made her way back up the mountain with the rescue medics.
The approaching sound of human voices scared off
the cougar, who had just begun eating the frozen paraplegic. Denied of its
tasty treat, it slunk back into the trees, but not before its prey had bled
out.
That was what finally killed him, and for Nick, it
was a relief.
As they say (or, in this case, sing), when the
snow hits your skin, the cold don’t last forever… just until you’re dead.
***