she called again, louder this time, as she finally turned on the light.
Was Amy home or was she still in the bar? Charli was about to get out of bed to look for her when the lights went out, engulfing her in darkness.
The noise hadn’t stopped, it had only intensified.
It was incredible. It sounded like a freight train, which was impossible as there was no train on the mountain. Her next thought was perhaps it was one of the snow-grooming machines. Had someone lost control? And then, cutting through the noise, she heard screams.
‘Amy?’
She leapt out of bed, stumbling in the darkness.
The noise was deafening now. Windows shattered and she heard glass hit the floor. Timbers were cracking and metal twisted and screeched, hurting her ears. She could hear bricks falling and over it all the noise of the wind and the screams continued.
Instinctively she threw her hands over her head as she took another step forward before her legs gave way beneath her. She didn’t realise that it wasn’t her legs but the floor that had disappeared from under her, and then there was nothing.
No light. No sound and only very slight vibrations. The wind had stopped as suddenly as it had begun and the room was no longer shaking violently, but she still couldn’t see and, much worse, she still couldn’t hear a sound. Even the screams had been silenced.
‘Amy?’
She coughed as she inhaled a mouthful of dust and it stuck on her tongue.
‘Are you there?’
There was only silence. Had Amy come home? Was she there?
Charli had no idea. It was awfully quiet.
Deathly quiet.
The room had stopped shaking and was now resting quietly in the dark. But the sudden silence wasn’t peaceful or calming, it was frightening. What had happened?
The air was frigid. The temperature had dropped and the floor beneath her legs was cold and damp. The bedroom was carpeted but the carpet was now flooded and icy water swirled around her. She could feel it and it chilled her to the bone, but she had no idea where it had come from.
‘Hello. Is anyone there?’ she yelled, choking on the thick dust that seemed to be hanging in the air.
She tried to stand up but smacked her head on something hard before she could fully straighten her knees. She swore out loud and rubbed her forehead above her left eye. A lump was already forming from the collision. She crouched down and reached up with one hand. She felt concrete under her fingers. Was that the ceiling? Why was it so low?
She squatted on the floor as she tried to figure out what had happened. Had the ceiling collapsed? God, she hoped not. Amy’s apartment was on the ground floor of a four-storey building.
What had happened? It was impossible to tell. The darkness made it impossible to get her bearings, impossible to work out what had happened and what was going on.
She reached out carefully, not knowing what she might find.
There was nothing in front of her so she crawled towards the door, or to where she thought the door was. Her hands were immersed in the freezing cold water and her fingers were going numb. She was dressed only in a T-shirt and knickers, clothes that were warm enough to sleep in while the central heating worked, but it offered no protection in her current situation.
She stretched her hands out and shuffled forward on her knees. There was an overpowering smell of diesel fumes and overflowing toilets. She didn’t want to know what she was crawling through.
Something sharp grazed her calf but she pressed on, hands outstretched in front of her.
It felt like she’d gone no further than a few feet before she ran into a wall. She was sure the door had to be there somewhere. She moved sideways, still calling Amy’s name, as she felt for a gap, her fingers searching for the door frame. She cried out as something pierced her palm, slicing into the flesh beneath her right thumb. The wound throbbed and she could feel blood running down to her elbow. She ignored the warm blood as she felt more frantically for the doorway but there was no gap. Instead she found herself wedged into a corner.
She was confused, disoriented but she continued to inch her way around the room.
She kept her hands outstretched, fearful of hitting her head again in the darkness. She breathed in the putrid, frigid air as she crawled through the darkness.
Her hands met more cold concrete. It was rough under her fingers, the smooth walls obliterated, leaving what felt like a pile of rubble. The ceiling pressed down on her head, making her feel claustrophobic. She fought back a wave of panic. Where was she? Nothing was familiar.
‘Amy? Are you here?’ She was sobbing now, crying salty tears that ran down her cheeks and mingled with the dust that caked her mouth.
She forced herself to keep moving. She couldn’t stay still. She had to find a way out of there before she froze to death.
She moved a few more feet and her fingers made contact with smooth metal. Was that the bed frame? Had she done a full circle? The bed had a high metal bed head. She traced the frame. The poles were bent, the frame leaning in towards the centre of the bed. She reached up and felt the ceiling. Somehow the metal bed head was supporting the ceiling. A concrete ceiling that should be five feet above her head, not several inches.
How had the bed not collapsed completely?
She was lucky she hadn’t been crushed, she thought, before she had a more terrifying realisation. But what about Amy? Where was her sister? What might have happened to her?
‘Amy?’ she whispered. Scared now of what she might not hear. Listening in hope for her sister’s voice.
Still nothing.
The carpet was sodden and sludgy under her knees. Crawling through freezing mud and water in the dark wasn’t getting her anywhere. She needed to see. She needed light. She felt for the bedside table, reaching for her mobile phone that had been resting on top. She desperately needed the flashlight function, but her hand met empty air. There was no table and she could only assume her phone now lay submerged in the vile water that lapped at her thighs.
She moved around the other side of the bed, only to find herself in another dead end. There was no way around this. She was trapped in a windowless, flooded tomb.
How had she ended up here?
What had happened?
Had a snow groomer crashed into their apartment? What had happened to the apartments above?
She had no idea.
All she knew was that she was trapped, buried alive.
She wanted to scream but the air was still so cold and so thick with dust she didn’t want to breathe it in.
Stay calm. Think.
She wanted to be warm.
Crawling back to the bed, she curled into a ball and tucked her injured hand under her armpit in an attempt to stop the bleeding and to warm herself up. She tugged the quilt over her, it was cold but dry and although she still wasn’t warm at least she wasn’t sitting in that filthy water.
She closed her eyes as she tried to figure out what to do. She wanted to get out of there but had no idea how she would achieve that.
Amy would know.
She let her tears flow as she lay in the darkness.
She wanted her sister.
* * *
Pat only had one thought as he ran towards Snowgum Chalet.
Charli.
He had to warn her. Had to get her out.
He skidded to a stop and gulped