Chapter 53
Sometime Later That Afternoon...
When Troy suddenly came to as if startled from a deep sleep and found himself sprawled out on a hard wooden floor, the first thing he noticed was the excruciating pain which tore through his head like a searing hot knife. So intense was the sensation that he could barely focus his eyes at first but, when he finally did, the sight that greeted him sent a shiver of disbeliving fear through his entire body.
A few feet away, lying on the same floor as he, was an unconscious Sharpay looking like death warmed over, her skin clammy, its color a ghostly white. Although his vision was still somewhat blurred, Troy manged to make out a small ribbon of blood trickling down from her right ear letting him know that she had been injured. The only question now was if she were still alive.
Trying his best to focus all his energy onto his wounded friend, Troy forced himself, through his own misery, to slowly crawl over to where she was, calling out her name as he advanced.
"Sharpay! Sharpay! Can you hear me? It's Troy."
He was greeted with a chilling silence that caused his fear for her life to greatly intensify.
Growing closer to reaching her side, Troy began to hear the sound of soft labored breathing. In that moment since awakening, his terror began to subside slightly upon realizing that although hurt, Sharpay remained very much alive. When finally next to her body, he checked for a pulse and sighed when one was found, although it didn't ease his mind given that she still remained unresponsive.
He then began to take real notice of their surroundings and realized that they were in some type of room, everything about it broken, creaky, and thick with the stench of mildew.
There were fragments of old furniture all around: a 3-legged table with the legless edge against the floor, two ratty looking chairs without bottoms, a sagging mattress discarded in the corner, and a pot-bellied stove that looked like it hadn't been lit in years. There were also a few rickety shelves on a wall over a ring-rusted sink, one of which was dangling precariously on one side.
Troy turned his head and saw a door only a few feet away in the opposite direction of his initial focus, and for a brief second relief set in. There was a way out after all!
Then as he looked closer, he noted that there were two small windows on either side of the door. Both of them completely covered by a thick layer of snow straining against the grimy panes of glass, as if they would shatter from the weight against them at any moment. However, there still remained the faintest glimmer of light in the room, which Troy realized was filtering in from a partially snow covered skylight up above. It's errie glow fell down upon Sharpay's body like a murky spotlight.
"Where in the hell are we?" Troy called aloud into what he had figured out to be an old abandoned cabin.
He tried desperately to remember what had brought them here in the first place and what it would take to get them out, but the pain in his head prevented him from having a moment of real clarity.
Just then he was shaken out of his pain and frustration by the sound of a groan escaping Sharpay's lips, as she began to move her head from side to side, mumbling Zeke's name as she slowly came to.
"Shar! Shar!" Troy cried, grabbing her hand as he hovered over her with deep concern. "Can you hear me? Wake up. It's Troy!"
"Troy?" she weakly responded, bringing a hand to her head as her eyes fluttered open. "Is that you?"
"Yeah it's me. Are you okay?"
Sharpay struggled past her wooziness and attempted to gain her bearings, as her friend gently helped her to sit up. When she saw his face and how banged up it was she gasped.
"Oh my God Troy you're hurt!" she exclaimed. "There is a huge bloody gash right above your left eye!"
Reaching a hand up, he felt the moistness of blood on his fingertips and cringed, realizing that he'd been hit in the head by something, which explained why it felt like it was about to split in half.
"Forget about me how are you feeling? Are you hurt badly?" Troy asked, trying to divert attention away from himself to make sure she was okay.
"I feel like I just got run over by a truck and my head is killing me but otherwise I think I'm alright," Sharpay replied, trying to sound less afraid than she really was.
"Your ear is bleeding," Troy stated, pointing a finger at the side of her head. "Looks like something got you just like it got me."
"Yeah it does," Sharpay said, reaching up to press against her ear to feel blood just as Troy had when he'd checked his own wound.
Looking down at his clothing with an odd expression on his face, he suddenly ripped off a piece of his shirt tail that was hanging out, taking the makeshift rag and placing it against Sharpay's ear to stop her bleeding.
"Thanks," she said, grateful for his concern, equally as worried about him as he was about her. "But you better think about putting one of these on your own injury as well."
Troy nodded and did as she asked, ripping off another piece of the shirt and applying it with pressure just over his eye.
"Do you know where we are?" Sharpay asked, now able to concentrate on their surroundings, just as he had done before she'd come to.
Troy shook his head. "Not really. Only that we're in some broken down one room cabin God knows where. Do you remember anything about what happened to us?"
Sharpay nodded slolwy as a terrible trembling passed through her body that she associated more with fear than being cold.
"We got caught in an avalanche."
Outside...a quarter of a mile away...
The youngest members of the group, David, Danielle and Corrine, all thankfully uninjured, were huddled together under a towering Redwood tree, crying uncontrollably and terrified out of their minds.
All around them, grown ups were lying unconscious in the snow. Not a single one among them was moving and the longer they remained that way the more fearful the children became. In the distance, they could see that three of the four sleighs they'd all been riding in had tipped over onto their sides, the horses nowhere in sight.
It had been close to a half an hour since the accident had occurred where a wall of snow and falling rocks had decended upon their group without warning, causing people to jump from the slow moving sleighs and scatter in all directions in an attempt to get out of harms way.
The children now waited anxiously for they had no idea what, when they finally began to see the first signs of movement by a few of their loved ones. An agonizing relief overcame them, and the tears they were shedding from the terror of the unknown, quickly turned to those of hopeful joy.
"Taylor! Taylor!" Danielle and David yelled in unison, as they watched their sister coming to, managing to sit up with a dazed look on her face, unsure of her surroundings.
A few feet away, both Chad and Gabriella began to stir as well, although Zeke, who was in close proxmity to them, remained unresponsive along with the other adults.
"Chad! Chad!" Corrine screamed, suddenly bolting away from the fragile safety of the huddle and racing to her brother's side, where she threw herself into his arms sobbing happily.
"Hey...hey...," Chad said, mommentarily caught off guard by the force of Corrine's terrified hold on him, as he attempted to ease the shaking of her tiny body. "I'm alright. Everything's going to be okay."
"No it's not!" Corrine wailed into his shoulder. "Everyone's mommy and daddy are hurt."
Shaking his head to clear the grogginess from it, Chad took in the scene around him and shuddered. He saw Gabriella next to them struggling to gain her balance as she tried to stand up, and then he spotted an unconscious Zeke. His eyes immediately began searching for Taylor whom was a few yards away holding her head in her hands. Chad's heart leaped in his chest.
"Corrine...baby...I need you to let me go so I can do what I can to help people okay?" Chad said, pulling his sister's arms from around his neck, which was met with resistence.
"No! No! I dont want you to leave me!"
He kissed her forehead tenderly. "I'm not going to leave you I promise. I just want to see if I can help mommy and daddy and all of our friends and I can't do that if I'm holding on to you. Understand?"
The little girl looked up at him with big fearful eyes wet with tears as she slowly nodded her head.
"Unerstand," she said in a quivering voice that broke her brother's heart.
"That's my baby. Now I want you to go back over to where David and Danielle are and not move from that spot until I tell you too okay?"
"Okay."
"Good. I won't be long," Chad said, standing up with Corrine in his arms.
He placed her down on the ground and watched her run back over to where Taylor's brother and sister were, both of whom pulled the girl into their protective embrace once more.
"Chad?" came Gabriella's voice from behind him where she now was on her knees in the snow by Zeke's side. "I think he's hurt pretty badly."
Still watching Taylor from out of the corner of his eye, desperate to get to her, Chad held off on his impusle and went to see about his other friend first. He noted that Zeke didn't look good at all and his breathing seemed to be raspy in nature.
"I think he's got a concussion but I can't be sure," Gabriella said in a shaky voice. "He won't seem to wake up."
Chad had no clue what to do about Zeke but he figured her guess about his condition was as good as any they were going to get for the time being.
"Look...you stay here with him okay? I'm going to see if Taylor's alright and then I'm going to check on our folks."
"You make sure Tay is alright and I'll start making the rounds of our parents since there's really nothing either one of us can do for Zeke right now," Gabriella suggested as an alternate plan, her eyes now searching for any sign of Troy and her mother.
"Okay. Once I know she's okay we'll come help with the others," Chad stated, feeling helpless in the face of all of this unexpected chaos that he wasn't sure how to handle or even that he could.
He then moved quickly to get to Taylor whom he could see was trying to stand on her own, but was falling back onto the snow unable to get her bearings. Chad's need to get to her grew stronger with each step he took until he was finally at her side, where she fell into his arms and they clung to each other just happy to be together and alive.
Gabriella left Zeke's side reluctantly and made her way over to the bodies that were closest...those of Troy, Taylor and Chad's parents, and saw with relief that all of them were beginning to stir, none appearing outwardly injured.
Suddenly, Lisa Danforth shot straight up in the snow and began shrieking like a mad woman.
"My babies! My babies! Chad! Corrine! Answer me!"
Lee Danforth, though still dazed, immediately reached out for his wife and took her into his arms trying to calm her down, as he too began frantically looking around for their children.
Jack Bolton was giving his hand to Lucy who stared at him with eyes of total confusion, as if she had no idea where she was. He took her into a protective hug and began to rock back and forth. Recognition began to slowly set in and they both turned their attention to their surroundings, desperately seeking out signs of where Troy might be as they clung to one another never wanting to let go.
Robert McKessie arose at the sound of Lisa Danforth's screams, filled with unspeakable fear. He began looking around franctically and was relieved when he saw his own wife lying only a few feet away. Then he caught sight of his younger son and daughter in the distance beneath a tree and sighed. His eyes quickly began roaming around to find Taylor whom he was relieved to see cradled lovingly in Chad's arms. Glenda McKessie stirred and called out to her husband softly, which was met by his pulling her close and thanking God that she and their family had been spared from near death.
There was still no sign of Mr. and Mrs. Evans, Carla Montez, Vincent, Troy or Sharpay.
When Danielle, David and Corrine saw their parents rousing in the snow, the three children bolted from their place beneath the tree and ran to them with tears of happiness stinging their eyes. The McKessie's and Danforth's clung to their babies now with their own tears of joy spilling forth, while the Bolton's were growing anxious at having yet to locate Troy.
"Gabriella...sweetheart...are you okay?" Glenda McKessie asked, reaching out a hand to the girl once she was at their side, and then pulling her into a hug as well. "Is Taylor okay?"
"Yes Mrs. McKessie. I'm okay. Chad went to take care of Tay. I think she's alright too," Gabriella replied, her eyes still scanning the terrain for any sight of her own mother, Vincent, Troy, Sharpay and her parents.
"And what of everyone else?" Lee Danforth asked, his arm about his wife and daughter. "Carla, Vincent, Zeke, Troy, and the Evans family?"
"Zeke's over there," Gabriella stated pointing a finger in the direction of where her friend still lay unconscious. "I think he's seriously hurt. Possibly a concussion. I haven't been able to find any of the others although they have to be close by as well."
"Robert go and check on Zeke to see how he's doing," Glenda McKessie prompted her husband. "We'll start looking around to see if we can't find everyone else and help those who need it."
"I'll stay here with the children," Lisa Danforth offered, as she could see that Jack and Lucy Bolton were about to lose it if they didn't start searching for the whereabouts of their son.
As the adults began to rise to their feet, they all suddenly heard the sound of an engine approaching. Turning, all eyes caught sight of two large rescue vehicles heading in their direction, honking their arrival as they came.
"Baby look," Chad said, turning Taylor around so she could see what had everyone else cheering...that help had arrived. "Everything's going to be okay after all."
She smiled up at him weakly, her head still swimming with dizziness.
"Do you see Sharpay and Troy anywhere?" Taylor asked, watching her parents and siblings in the distance, grateful that they were alright. "What about Sharpay's folks or Brie's mom and her boyfriend?"
Chad shook his head. "No. I haven't seen any of them yet. But I'm sure we'll find them, especially with a rescue team here to help and take us back to safety."
Taylor leaned into him with a sigh wanting to hold him close forever. "I hope so."
Back At The Cabin...
"You doing okay?" Troy asked, not liking the ghostly pallor of Sharpay's skin, as they sat huddled next to one another on the floor beneath the skylight.
She nodded. "As okay as can be. How about you?"
"The same. I just wish I knew how we're supposed to get out of here," Troy stated. "Chances are that nobody knows where we are and even if they did, how are they going to get through all the snow this place is buried under?"
Sharpay looked at him quietly with a pained expression but no reply.
"Come on Evans...help me out here?" Troy implored, wishing for one of her witty comebacks filled with their usual trademark of confidence. "Surely you can humor me with some hope that things aren't as bad as they seem right?"
"I'd love nothing better," Sharpay finally replied. "Hope should never be lost in any circumstance. But I have to tell you Troy this is a pretty big deal for us and I'm not sure how things are going to go."
"So are you saying we've got no chance in hell of getting out of here?" he asked nervously.
"Of course not. Now that my head is a lot clearer I can recall this place from when I was a kid. It was once occupied by an old timer named Mr. Greely. He lived up here for years. I remember my father telling Ryan and me stories about how he saw himself as some sort of mountain man who lived off the land and had no use for people or modern life. We'd even passed this place before during sleigh rides up here in the past. I never saw the man but I remember this cabin of his and how spooky it always seemed to me. I think he died around the time I was 14 or so. Since then, I guess this place has been standing here abandoned until now."
"Do you think there's a chance your father might believe we're in here?" Troy wondered, glad to at least hear that the cabin was known about by someone other than themselves.
"He might or he might not. It depends."
"On what?"
"Well we're pretty close to the vicinity where the others no doubt got caught in the avalanche as well," Sharpay explained. "If our footprints in the snow are still visible, given that there hasn't been any new snowfall since we've been here, then daddy might consider that we sought refuge, remember the cabin's location to where we were last seen, realizes this place has been buried, and figure out where we are."
"And if he or someone else doesn't find our footprints or recall the cabin being here?" Troy asked, trying to calm the fear starting to rise in him yet again.
"Then you and I are will have to figure a way out of this this predicament on our own," Sharpay replied matter of fact. "Otherwise it will be our doom."
At the rescue site...
Gabriella, Chad and Taylor all watched silently as a pair of rescue workers strapped Zeke onto a stretcher and loaded him into one of the vehicles, that had now been joined by two others. He still had not come to and it worried them all greatly.
The fear and concern for the whereabouts of Carla, Vincent, Troy, Sharpay and her folks, was growing by the minute. Lucy Bolton was frantic with fear and it took everything in her husband's power to keep her calm, as people spread out in all directions contining to search for the missing members of their party.
Lisa Danforth, Glenda McKessie, and their small children were also being transported back to the house at the insistence of their husbands, who wanted to remain to continue to help look for the others still unaccounted for.
Both women had wanted Taylor and Chad to come with them, but they had declined, stating that they wanted to stay for Gabriella's sake since she was the only one who still had no word on what had happened to her mother and Troy. Their fathers had eached promised to keep an eye on them all, encouraging their wives to take care of the little ones and to make sure that Zeke was well looked after to include contacting his parents as to what had happened.
"I'm scared you guys," Gabriella said in a voice trembling with fear, as she watched Zeke being whisked away along with her friends' mothers and siblings. "The longer it takes to find my mom, Vincent, Troy, Sharpay and her folks the more terrified I become that they may never be fo..."
"Don't say it," Taylor stated, putting an arm around her friend, holding her tightly. "We're going to find them. All of them. You have to believe that Brie."
Chad nodded and put an arm around her too.
"Tay's right. We have to believe they'll be found and will be okay when we do."
"I still can't believe something like this has happened. Not after the past few days. Things were going so wonderfully and now this," Gabriella sighed, tears forming in her eyes as she laid her head against Taylor's shoulder.
Her two friends looked at one another feeling equally helpess and afraid, but determined to stay strong for Gabriella until this nightmare of waiting was over.
Just then they heard someone yell out from in the distance that they'd found something. Turning in the direction of where the three sleighs lay overturned in the snow, they spotted two of the rescue workers waving franctically for assistance. Jack Bolton, along with Lee Danforth and Robert McKessie, all ran toward the call, while Lucy Bolton was left standing alone to hold her breath in fearful ancitipation.
Seeing Troy's mother in such a distraught state, Gabriella left the warmth and comfort of the arms of her friends and went to Mrs. Bolton's side where they embraced.
"Dear God let it be Troy they've found," Lucy said, holding her son's girlfriend tightly against her, before realizing that her remark sounded insensitive since Brie's mother was still one of the missing as well. "I'm...I'm...sorry honey. I should be hoping that it could be Carla too."
"It's okay," Gabriella assured. "I know you want them both to be safe as well as Sharpay and her parents too."
"I do, I do," Lucy stated. "I want them all to be found and for this horrible incident to be over with."
A few feet away, Chad and Taylor stood arm and arm, holding their breath, awaiting news of the discovery that had been made. They watched their fathers lending a hand along with Jack Bolton to help pull two bodies from beneath a mound of snow. At first sight, Chad and Taylor could see from the clothes worn that the ones to be found were Mr. and Mrs. Evans. Now the question was if they were still alive.
"It's Sharpay's parents they've found," Gabriella whispered under her breath, as she felt the hold on her by Lucy Bolton grow tighter. "I hope their alright."
The older woman said nothing, as a storm of emotion raged through her mind in having to accept that it wasn't Troy who'd been rescued. Even though she couldn't see her husband's expression at realizing as did she that their son was still missing, she could feel his agonizing disappointment by his body language and it made her want to scream.
Gabriella, Lucy, Chad and Taylor stood there watching as the rescuers began attemtps to revive Mr. and Mrs. Evans and, shortly thereafter, sighed with relief when Lee Danforth turned and signaled that they were okay with a thumbs up.
"Thank God," Taylor sighed, looking over her shoulder to where her friend and Troy's mother stood clinging to one another. "At least two more have been found okay."
"Yeah...but that still leaves Shar, Troy, Brie's mom and her boyfriend out here in need of help," Chad said, relief and fear in his voice. "Until we find them this nightmare is nowhere close to ending."
"Poor Mr. and Mrs. Bolton and Gabriella," Taylor said helplessly. "This waiting has to be killing them worse than it is us."
"No doubt," Chad agreed. "But we have to keep believing that in finding Sharpay's parents, that there is still hope for the others."
Two of the rescue workers, along with their fathers began to move farther past where the Evans' had been found, who were now being escorted back to where the four of them stood.
When they finally reached the others, the first thing they asked about was Sharpay and if she were okay. Mrs. Evans nearly passed out again upon hearing the news that her daughter was still missing. Mr. Evans looked equally devastated, but managed to hold his composure in tact. He needed to remain calm to give his assistance where he could since he aside from the rescuers was the only other person that knew these backwoods as well as they.
Suddenly, in that moment, two things occurred simultaneously: Gabriella having one of her premonitions in broad daylight that she'd only ever had while sleeping, the other a cry of "Oh no!" from one of the rescuers who now appeared to be standing at the edge of a ravine, which brought Robert, Jack and Lee running like madmen.
Lucy Bolton felt the girl in her arms begin to tremble firecely, as if she already knew what was about to become common knowledge to them all and it filled her with pure undisguised terror.
Mr. and Mrs. Evans noticed the state that Gabriella was in and grew fearful of the expression they saw etched on her face.
Chad and Taylor turned at the sound of a loud gasp from Troy's mother to see the agony their friend was in which troubled them both greatly. Something was terribly terribly wrong.
Robert McKessie began running back in their direction, visibly upset, alerting the waiting group by the look on his face that whatever had been found was anything but good news.
"Daddy! Daddy! What is it?" Taylor cried fearfully when her father arrived, out of breath and struggling with what he had to tell them.
He looked at his daughter with sadness in his eyes and reached out to breifly caress her cheek. Then he turned his focus on Gabriella who seemed to have withdrawn into Mrs. Bolton's arms appearing small and child-like as she waited to hear what her mind knew but her heart wouldn't accept.
"What is it Robert? What have they found?" Mr. Evans asked excitedly, as he clutched his wife's hand bracing for what was yet to be said.
Taylor's father sighed as he leaned down in front of his daughter's best friend, his heart aching for her.
"Gabriella...it's...it's...your mother dear. She and Vincent...they...they...went over the edge of the ravine in the missing sleigh. I'm so very sorry sweetheart. They both are gone."
Everyone in the group gasped in horror. Tears began to fall instantly, as hearts clenched with grief for Gabriella's loss, their minds now filled with even greater fear that the same fate may have befallen Troy and Sharpay as well.
The pretty dark haired brunette looked out upon all the faces staring at her as if they were surreal images to her senses.
The horrific premonition of her mother and Vincent's deaths had been playing out in her mind in real time right up until the moment the actual words were spoken to her by Mr. McKessie. She saw them all standing there trying to reach out to lend comfort, but in the iterim had gone deaf to what they were saying, as if wrapped in a soundless bubble. The truth was still processing itself in her head and had yet to be released from within in the same manner in which was being agonized over internally.
Then...hovered over by those trying to reach out and snap her from the fog of shock she was clearly in, Gabriella startled them all when she opened her mouth and screamed out in a heartbreaking rage and sadness that echoed all around them, "Nooooooooooooo!"
Troy and Sharpay...
"What was that?" Sharpay asked looking at Troy with a curious expression. "Did you hear it?"
"Hear what?" He asked, not sure what she was talking about.
"That sound. It was like an echo. Like someone screaming no."
Troy tilted his head to the side to see if he could hear it too but there was nothing.
"Are you sure you heard something?" he asked, thinking that confinement in such closed quarters with waning hope of getting out might be playing tricks on his friend's mind.
"Of course I'm sure which means that somebody has to be close by," Sharpay answered abruptly. "Maybe someone has figured out where we are and they're coming to help us."
Troy looked at her with skepticism.
"Sharpay...I want to get out of here as much as you do but..."
"No buts Troy. I know what I heard. Now the question is how do we let someone know we're in here and alive."
"Good question. Unfortunately..."
His words were cut off in mid-sentence as a faint rumbling began to fill the cabin. He and Sharpay looked at one another fearfully, grabbing hands. They looked around trying to figure out what was happening.
Just then, the noisy rumbling grew louder and before either could say a word, both windows on either side of the front door shattered bringing a rush of snow tumbling inside, causing them to hurriedly back away further into the cabin trying to remain out of its reach.
In that moment, Troy and Sharpay realized that time was running out and their makeshift refuge/trap was faltering under the weight of their snowy captor toward a fate neither one wanted to think about but was nonetheless bearing down on them with each passing second.
