"And here we are," Sydney declared grandly, pulling her car into the packed parking lot atop the winding mountain road on Friday afternoon, "Welcome to Devil Mountain, Melanie."
"And I'd wish they'd have come up with a better name that that," Emily muttered from the back seat, "That's just asking for something to go horribly wrong for us."
"Looks like a halfway decent place," Melanie remarked, looking at the impressively designed hotel looming ahead of them. She had been hooked by her new friends into looking forward to the trip, and by now was eager to hit the slopes. She climbed out of the car once Sydney parked it and stretched...
...turning at the sound of a crash not far away on her right. Several luggage racks had spilled out of the back seat on another car parked nearby once the two girls standing by it had opened the doors. "Hey, need a hand?" she bustled over.
"Uh, sure," the slightly tall girl, with thick curly shoulder length brown hair, nodded, followed by her long red haired companion, "We just over packed a bit, I guess, and when..."
"Hey, speak of the devil, good to see the two of you right off the bat," Marti came up, smiling again, "Meet Melanie, we met her earlier in the week and asked her to come along with us. Melanie, meet Carol and Roxanne Parker from Robertsville; we met them skiing a few years ago and we hang out with them each time we go out since then."
"Well, pleasure to meet you, Melanie," the taller girl, shook Melanie's hand as best she could with the latter's hand full of suitcases, "I'm Carol, there's Rox, and we're glad to go skiing with you."
"Nice to meet you too. Marti and the others got me really interested in skiing, so I hope it meets my expectations now," Melanie said with a nod of her head towards Emily and Sydney, unloading their own car.
"You won't be disappointed," Carol assured her, handing Melanie one more suitcase, "And since there's a lake here too, we found, you'll have to join us skating too. Rox and I like doing that too; we hope to be professional figure skaters some day."
"Maybe," Roxanne finally spoke up, closing their car's back door with her foot, "First order of business is to finally beat Carol down an extremely difficult trail; she's always beaten me so far, but this year the race is mine."
"Not this year, honey; Carol the Crusher can never be beaten," Carol declared teasingly.
"Well this year, Ravishing Roxanne's taking the prize."
"But first, you're taking this," Carol playfully put her sister in a headlock and rubbed her hair wildly. "No, no, Carol, stop, stop!" Roxanne laughed.
"All right, if you insist. Race you all to the hotel," Carol started galloping towards the building. "They seem nice," Melanie nodded to Marti.
"Yeah, you'll never find a pair of sisters closer than Carol and Roxanne," Marti grinned at the Parkers disappearing into the hotel, "All the time I've known them, they've been absolutely inseparable, never do anything apart. I don't know how they'll handle it when one of them gets married. Well, shall we check in?"
"Guess so," Melanie agreed. They joined Sydney and Emily in following the Parker sisters towards the hotel. "Strange, I'd thought Debbie have been here by now," Emily frowned, glancing back into the parking lot, "She does live closest..."
"Another friend?" Melanie inquired.
"Yeah, she comes skiing a lot too, so we've hooked up with her as well. Hopefully it's just that she slept in."
"Hmm," Melanie mused, her eyes locking in at the door. There was Rick Lewis, his arm around Rhonda the cheerleader, leading her into the hotel. "Oh, I didn't know he was coming too," she mused, staring longingly at him.
"He skies every now and then. Hey, don't give up hope," Sydney encouraged her, "Rhonda's not the nicest person, so..."
"Don't get her hopes up, Sydney, there's no way he break up with Rhonda, unfortunately. Good afternoon, Mr. Chase," Emily greeted the distinguished man behind the front desk in front of them.
"Well, Emily, good to see you again," he greeted her warmly, "And a new friend?" he noticed Melanie.
"Yeah, this is Melanie, she's new to town, so we asked her along," Marti repeated again, leaning against the desk, "She agreed to help me write an article for the school newspaper for the resort; is Sophie available?"
"I think we can arrange that. Sophie, honey, it's Marti and her friends," Mr. Chase called into the back office. Still another girl appeared, this one having long blonde hair like Melanie, although it was straight rather than curly and her eyes were brown instead of blue. "Hi," she greeted all the girls warmly, "So glad you could make it to our grand opening."
"Good to come. I'm Melanie; I'm writing an article with Marti," Melanie introduced herself, "We figured having a teen's eye view of the report would add a lot of color."
"Sounds great to me. I'll take you on a tour of resort...if it's OK, Dad," she turned to her father.
"I'm sure someone else can take care of the office work for the time being. Go ski with your friends," he urged her, adding a kiss to the forehead for emphasis.
"All right. Well, let's check you all in, and then we'll go hit the slopes," Sophie eagerly told Melanie and her friends, "I'll give you everything I can to help."
"So it's really your first time?" she asked Melanie several minutes later as they and Marti approached the ski lift, skis now on their feet.
"Like I told Marti earlier in the week, there's not much chance to ski in Nebraska," Melanie explained, "But I think I'm going to like it."
"I know it. Climb in and hold on tight," Sophie told her, waving her and Marti into a chair and pushing the lap bar down into place. "OK, first off," Melanie dug through her coat pocket and clicked on a tape recorder, "First off, what gave your dad the inspiration to build this resort?"
"He and I always enjoy skiing together, and he decided it was time we had one of our own. So you might say he built this resort for me," Sophie grinned in pride.
"Why did he choose here?" Marti chimed in with the next question.
"It was available for an easy price. There was an older ski resort here that burned down about a decade ago, so the market was still there. So most of the trails were still open, and only brief maintenance was needed to restore it."
"Do you have a favorite trail?" Melanie shifted around in the seat, staring ahead at the cars in front of them rising high towards the summit.
"Not really, at least not yet."
"What else can people expect to find here?"
"Oh plenty. There's skating on the lake not far from the hotel," Sophie pointed to it down below, "We have a full service restaurant, we have a bowling alley, we have an arcade, we're hoping to get a pool in eventually...oh, gotta point that out," she gestured at a large chasm below ahead of them, "That was an engineering marvel we pulled off, bridging that gap. We were able to get lift lines across that hundred and fifty foot gap, which the previous owners hadn't done before. So just be careful going over that; it's eight hundred feet straight down, so anyone who falls probably doesn't survive."
"No problem," Melanie leaned back in her seat, not wanting to risk acrophobia looking down at such a deep drop. In a minute, they'd reached the top of the mountain, where Emily, Sydney, Carol, and Roxanne were clustered together by the end of the lift, waiting for them. "Got a good interview?" the former asked.
"Yeah, a good one for starters, Emily," Melanie told her, glancing around, "Which trail are we taking?"
"Might as well start with the Evergreen Trail; it's only a circle green, so for a first timer, that should be good," Sophie trudged towards the nearest trail on their right.
"I really wanted to start with a double black diamond," Sydney lamented.
"We'll get around to it eventually, don't worry. That'll probably add meat to the article. But for this first one, how about this: last one down buys dinner for everyone else," Sophie offered.
"All right, a race, great," Sydney's face brightened. "Everyone take your marks," she announced loudly, waving the other girls up to the edge of the trail, "On your mark, get set, GO!"
She took off like a rocket. "Not this time you don't, Sydney Matthews!" Roxanne called out, pumping her arms hard to catch up. Melanie pushed off down the hill after the other girls, maintaining a decent pace. So anyway, tell us about the other trails on here," she asked Sophie, gently skiing alongside her.
"Well, we've got four easy trails, nine moderate, five difficult, and two extreme trails," Sophie informed her, "We hope to open more in the near future if we make enough money."
"What would you say to other high schoolers who'd want to come try it out here?" Marti zoomed on Sophie's other side.
"By all means come by. There's plenty to do, and we have a lot of skiing for both beginners and experts."
"Hey, you guys want to end up paying or what!?" Carol called from far below, where she was neck and neck with Sydney in the race to the bottom. "I've got you dead to rights!" she declared to the black haired girl.
"No, I've got you! More speed, more speed!" Sydney happily pumped her arms harder. "I think you're going to break a speed record, Sydney," Melanie called down with a smile.
"You only live once, Melanie, so you'd better live hard. Watch me go!" Sydney pumped towards a large mound of snow on the side of the trail and launched off it with an excited cry, doing a full spin upside down before landing on her feet. "Why not?" Melanie shrugged. She skied towards the mound and flew off the top, although she stayed upright unlike Sydney. A rush of air blew across her face, making her smile. This was fun indeed. She landed several feet down from the ramp...
...but suddenly ran into a bump in the snow and tumbled onto her face. "What happened?" she mumbled softly, stumbling onto her knees.
"Hey, you all right!?" Marti breezed to a stop next to her, concerned.
"Yeah, Marti, I'm all right," Melanie accepted the redhead's hand to be pulled up, "I just hit something..."
"Hey guys...!" Sophie spoke up behind her, and she sounded unnerved. Melanie turned...and gasped. For her impact with the mound had dislodged the snow from the top...revealing a dead body, with its glazed eyes staring straight up...