Sheryl walked along behind the group, stunned. Kerren, unconscious, was being carried by someone who she now realized was a famous author. Her own hand was being held tightly by a blonde woman who was a perfect stranger to her. She had never felt less in control of a situation, or more relieved that it was turning out this way, her responsibility being lifted away from her.
One moment, she had been alone, struggling to get Kerren out of the cocoon of fabric she had been entombed in, and next there was a searing shaft of light and a man who had dragged Kerren out from under the bed, expertly scooping her up and pulling her out from under the bed before Sheryl could do much more than utter some feeble words of protest.
Sheryl glided along the hallway, allowing someone else to take care of things for the moment. She didn't even notice the uneasy inconsistency of the floor under her feet anymore; she must have been getting used to it. The blonde was talking to her, asking her questions, and Sheryl must have been answering with some kind of accuracy, but she really was watching Kerren's hair. With each step her rescuer took, a little wave of movement rolled down through the strands as they hung halfway to the floor. That underwater-like little wave was the only thing that really drew her attention. When it reached the end of Kerren's hair, where did it go? And along the same lines, where was Kerren right now, exactly?
It was Kelly's voice that cut through this distracted reverie, when she spoke loud enough for the entire group to hear: "Should we be checking these other rooms, to see if anyone else is in them, maybe hurt too?"
Dale answered quickly, as if he had been thinking the same thing. "That's my next M.O., miss. But I'm going to get the four of you down to the lobby first. It's the only area that's been secured as of right now, and there's someone who also has some emergency training down there. Then I'm going to make a sweep of the rest of the rooms."
The celebrity, Sheryl noticed, was looking down at the woman cradled in his arms in a very peculiar way. "If you're taking volunteers," he said to Dale without looking away, "I'll come along with you. Provided this lady gets stabilized."
The security guard seemed to think about this for a moment, then grudgingly admitted, "Sure. I could use the help. There are twenty-four suites in all, and the quicker we can check them, the better off everyone will be." Dale's flashlight briefly played on Bruce's slippered feet, shuffling carefully but quickly along the carpet. "We'll see if we can get you some safer clothing."
Bruce shook his head. "I can't get back to my room. It's behind that deadfall of beams and debris back there. Honestly, I'm not entirely sure how I got out." He looked down at Kerren again, as if studying her. Did he recognize her or something? Sheryl wondered. She doubted he had been able to get a clear look at her wife's face since he had found them, but he seemed to keep trying. God damn it, was she going to feel jealous every time someone looked at Kerren for more than a moment? It was totally inappropriate at a time when they were being helped, she knew, but couldn't help it. It was kind of comforting, falling back on an old fear instead of focusing on the dozen new ones she had been handed.
"See?" Kelly said to Sheryl. "The worst is over. We'll get you someplace safe, and then figure out what to do." As the light around them grew, Sheryl was able to comprehend what was being said, at least enough to be comforted by it.
The beam of Dale's flashlight seemed to fade as it was added to by a growing paleness ahead. Sheryl was still in her head enough to know that they were getting close to the wide stairs that led down to the lobby. From what Dale had said about it, she had a picture in her head that it was going to be untouched, warm lighting and everything still where it should have been... She closed her eyes for a moment, in anticipation of walking back into the world as she had known it before...
Kelly had spoken over some raised voices that were coming from up ahead, and now there were thuds of people running. Coming up the stairs. Sheryl felt her hand being squeezed by the woman who had grabbed it, which sent a new shock through her own body as she sensed fear in the sensation. Her eyes flew back open.
"Manoj! There you are!" Kelly was crowing, and dropped Sheryl's hand as she ran forward. She met the young man -- dressed in a bathrobe identical to Kelly's -- at the top of the stairs, and they fell into a clutching embrace that made it clear they were a serious couple. Sheryl stood where she had been left, not having taken another step forward. She hadn't realized how much the grip of Kelly's hand had impelled her until it was removed.
There was a woman coming up the stairs, too. Much to the surprise of just about everyone there, she pushed right past the bathrobed couple, ran up to Dale and threw her arms around him. She had to literally jump up into the big guy's arms to plant a big kiss right on his lips, but that's exactly what she did. Dale stumbled backward, not just with the force the woman slammed into him with, but as if his immediate instinct was to push her away.
To Sheryl's eye, this was clearly an unexpected greeting for the security guard. It brought her closer to laughing than anything had in the last hour (or however long it had been since the world had collapsed on itself, she had no real idea). It was a fleeting joy, however, when she realized that the love of her life was still unconscious and mangled in the arms of the familiar stranger in front of her, and at least a whole stairway descent was between them and comparative safety.
This thought impelled her to look down over the railing they had just reached and look down into the lobby. Her heart sank when she saw that apparently no part of the world she had known escaped this cataclysm unscathed. The lobby, which she had thought so inviting and homey when she and Kerren had first walked in and been greeted by the smiling woman who was amorously assaulting Dale, was now rendered in bruisy blues and blacks. If there had been any other place for them to go, she wouldn't have even wanted Kerren to be taken down those steps.
But that was where they went. The security guard, once he had managed to pry the desk clerk off of him -- with a surprising sense of delicacy and politeness, Sheryl thought -- the group picked their way down to ground level and assessed the situation. First things being first, she stayed right by Bruce's side as he tenderly placed Kerren down on the couch. Other than the pillows being in a little disarray -- and she was quick to rearrange them so that Kerren could recline but not entirely lie down, as well as have one left over to support Kerren's limp, twisted-looking knees -- the couch looked like the most stable, comfortable place she could be put. She knelt down next to her wife's head, and stroked her hair while she finally started to tune back into the conversations that had been swirling around her since the top of the stairs.
The desk clerk -- was her name Glinda? Like the Good Witch of the North? -- was saying something about an intercom that wasn't working, which the security guard seemed supremely upset about. "Manoj and I were actually on our way up to the roof access," she finished by saying. She was staying right by Dale's side, who clearly wasn't as keen on her idea as she was.
"Hold on," he jumped in. "We don't know where Harmon actually is--"
"West of the service road," the man who Kelly called Manoj said, extending a walkie-talkie as proof. He seemed excited just to have anything to add. The device in his hand was making some odd clicks, then fell silent.
Dale, irritated, turned quickly to him. "That could mean almost anywhere, sir. The service road is seven miles long. And we still don't know if there are people like her--" he gestured to Kerren, unconscious on the sofa "-- right here in the Lodge with us. What we've got to do is secure this area, and then we can see about getting out of here."
"But he'll freeze out there!" Glenda -- that was it, Sheryl could finally make out her name tag -- was saying. "We're only at half occupancy tonight, and how many people are actually here?" She quickly began to count with her fingers, but it was clear that Dale was right. There must have been two or three times as many people as there were present in the lodge when the avalanche hit.
"No, We're going to check for them first, Glenda. I'm sorry, but we've got to. I want to find Harmon just as badly as you--" a dissatisfied huff came from the woman who so recently had been leaping to kiss him, "-- but we've got to take first things first. Mr. Casey here has already volunteered to help."
"Bruce," the author said. "Just Bruce. No need for formalities now, I think." He was still looking down at Kerren in a way that Sheryl didn't like, mostly because she didn't understand it, like the sleeping woman were the celebrity and not him.
Dale nodded, incorporating this information. "Right. Bruce. So we've got two hallways to cover... and what staff are still in the building?"
Kelly, who had selected a midpoint between Manoj and Sheryl around which to hover, gasped aloud. "The room service guy!"
Glenda couldn't help but roll her eyes in frustration. "Yes... Carlos and that other one..."
"Benny," Dale answered confidently. "They're usually here until two or so, prepping for tomorrow's breakfast. We'll have to check the kitchen too. So that's three areas." Without looking up from the spot on the floor that was taking his concentration, Dale threw his thumb in three different directions behind him: top of the stairs to the left, top of the stairs to the right, back toward the first-floor dining room/bar. Everyone else was watching Glenda, who raised her own hand and pointed an accusing finger out the front windows, daring Dale to raise his gaze and meet hers. He didn't.
-5.2-
Bruce Casey was having a hard time paying attention to the admittedly crucial conversations going on around him. He found he couldn't pull his focus from the woman lying on the couch directly in front of him. He felt he knew her so intimately, and she him, but he had never touched her before. He had never even come close, because in his dreamworld she was always enshrouded in her swirling robes, and forever outside the circle of Sounding Stones that he didn't seem able to leave.
After all that time, all those nights he spent in wonder of the gift of inspiration that she gave him over and over again, he had found her with broken legs, under a broken bed in a broken ski lodge that he had expressly come to in order to regain his thread of mental connection to her. He had ended up getting so much more than dreams, and now he wasn't exactly sure what he was supposed to do.
He forced his gaze away from her, to where Dale the security guard and Glenda the desk clerk -- who clearly had some kind of entanglement of their own going on -- were having a passive-aggressive war about whether to risk going outside to rescue someone they both clearly cared about. Bruce had already opened his mouth and said he would help with the search for others, but now he wished he hadn't spoken so hastily.
He looked around the room, tallied the numbers, and then spoke up. As he had hoped, the other conversations going on about what should be done, and how, died off as he spoke. He had long known that celebrity had its small advantages. "So I think we're agreeing that we need to split up." No objections to this immediately came up, so he went on. "Well, take a look around. Even if we divide into pairs, we've only got enough people to check three places at once. And that's if we leave this young lady --" he gestured to Theda/Kerren sprawled across the couch, "-- all by herself, which I personally don't think is such a good idea."
Of course, this immediately got Sheryl on board with him. She crouched right down beside him, trying to show that she cared for Kerren's fate just as much as he did. "We can't do that," she said softly.
Meanwhile, the others were all looking at each other, doing the same calculation. There were only six able-bodied people present. Either some of them would have to go off alone, or they would have to prioritize where they searched first.
Bruce reached out and put his hand on Sheryl's arm in solidarity, responding to her concern. "And that's why I think you should go back up to your room," he told her. The look she gave him was fearful and incredulous. Pretending to care about this, Bruce stood up, bracing his hands against the small of his back and grimacing. "Boy, I'm starting to wish I hadn't carried her all that way." He said to Dale, "I should have taken you up on your offer to help, but I thought it would just be easier..."
"Back's hurting?" Dale asked sympathetically, apparently eager to take Glenda's focus off of him.
"Yeah, a bit," Bruce said, grimacing again toward the security guard. "I don't actually have a room to go back to, anyway. I thought maybe you'd be willing to escort Miss Sheryl here back to her room, try to see if there's anything salvageable in there." He turned back to Sheryl. "Maybe see if you can't get your friend something warmer to wear."
"She's my wife," Sheryl said, standing back up, a slight defensive bite in her voice. Bruce was a little surprised. To be honest, he hadn't thought about Theda having any kind of romantic notions at all. He had always pined for her, but he knew it was more for her creative powers, and anyway he had never seen any hint of reciprocation. He ended up figuring she was beyond such human aspects as love.
Dale jumped in, nodding. "I'll go with you. That area seems the most dangerous." He turned to Glenda, stammering a little. "We, we-we'll have to make sure that everyone's safe in here before we can go outside. We'll get everyone dressed warmly, and then -- I promise -- we'll find a way to get to Harmon."
Glenda looked at him incredulously. "It will be too late," she said, her voice flat. It was the sound of a woman who had no conviction left.
Dale said, "He's tougher than he looks, Glenda. He can hang on a little while longer while we help the others. You know he'd say the same."
Silence fell then, and the walkie chose that moment to start clicking out its message again. Manoj, the young man holding it, didn't seem sure whether he should dampen the volume or let it ring out. Either way, he seemed to realize he would be choosing a side of the arguing couple. He ended up not moving, and the group listened to the flurry of clicks, pretending they knew what was being said.
The message stopped, and Kelly spoke up. "I'll stay here with Kerren," she said. She was looking around at their surroundings. "I think I can find something to splint her legs with, at least temporarily."
Manoj looked at Glenda, who was returning his gaze incredulously. "Our room's not that bad, all things considered," he was telling her. "I'm sure we could find something up there that we can use. We could use some real clothes, too." He gestured to his and Kelly's bathrobes. No one had said anything about it, but everyone had come to their individual realization that the pair were naked underneath.
Glenda gave out another huffing sound and whirled around, heading for the stairs. Once Manoj realized that she meant to lead him, he gave a quick look to Kelly, who nodded reassuringly, and rushed after the desk clerk. Dale watched them go, seemed like he was about to call something after them, then stopped himself. He extended his hand to Sheryl. "Ma'am? Can I escort you to your room?"
Sheryl, clearly reluctant to move, looked at each of the remaining occupants of the lobby, her eyes lingering on Kerren's closed eyelids last, before standing and moving toward Dale's towering form. His hand eclipsed hers, and he turned toward the stairs as if he were leading her to a formal dance.
Bruce watched them go, silently smiling to himself. Now he had Theda to himself. He was still crouching, still trying to figure out what to do next. He wondered if this was always the way she found him when they met in his dreams, looking down at him and wondering when he would wake up.
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