Monster Mayhem on Mystery Mountain

Chapter 7

We left Rodney and John and the monster hurtling down the hill!  Let’s catch up with them!  And then on to the unmasking of the culprit!

A small, detached compartment of Rodney’s massive brain was busily attempting to rationalise his heart-stoppingly rapid descent by calculating just how many times faster than this he’d actually travelled in the past.  Having spent considerable time progressing between galaxies at faster-than-light speeds, the multiple was an entertainingly large figure and the little group of grey cells were chuckling to each other about how best to express it, when the most important part of his brain, i.e. the part concerned with his potential, imminent demise, exercised its casting vote to tell them to shut the hell up and do something useful or, alternatively, get on board with the blind panic that was whiting-out most of its synaptic connections.

Rodney wasn't sure what had happened in the rapidly-thickening cloud at the top of the hill. Had the monster pushed him, or had he been standing too close to the edge?  It didn’t matter.  He had slid toward the terrifying drop, slowly, inexorably, so that he had plenty of time to think about what was about to happen.  

Rodney had waved his arms, shifted his weight and tried to fall down into the snow so that he could dig in and cling on and generally maintain an acceptable altitude, rather than plummet to his death.  It hadn’t worked.  His skis had tipped over the point of no return, sneered derisively at friction’s tentatively raised hand, and rapidly picked up speed, not caring that he was facing the wrong way and was sliding, backside first, out and down, faster and faster.  

Rodney’s arms flung wide of their own accord, his poles catching the air and swinging and banging together.  One hit the snow, briefly dug in and he pivoted and was suddenly facing the right way down the slope; or the wrong way, because when he burst out beneath the cloud he had a ringside seat for his own bone-snapping, hurtling descent, to ultimately, inevitably, brighten the red roofs far below with his own, very personal brand of paint.

The snow fell away beneath him, he flew and then smacked down hard, flew again and landed unevenly, switchbacked across the slope, his skis skidding out of control.  Rodney, leant into the move, regained something which might loosely be described as balance and then the slope curved in a tight, banked sweep, forcing him round, like a bobsled rocketing down a twisting, jinking course.

Then the monster was there, next to him, its form blurring and shimmering.  Rodney couldn’t tell whether it was sliding on its icy butt or did it have skis too?  Had it fallen, like him?  Had it meant to plummet down the mountain, like a yeti representing Tibet in a bid for Olympic glory?  What Rodney could see of its amorphous face looked as blindingly terrified as him.  Serve it right.

Rodney’s knees were on fire, his thighs and calves beginning to cramp as the slope battered at them from beneath his skis and he fought back, desperately trying to maintain his posture.  His arms shook with exhaustion, tucking in against his sides and then whipping out left and right as he fought for balance.  

There was something black ahead: a rock, projecting from the smooth blanket of snow.  The monster had spotted it too.  Its arms were pinwheeling, it fell and tobogganed on its back.  Rodney leant sideways into the slope, trying to turn, to pick up a different current in the flow of the mountain and slide past the thing, but the rock was like a magnet, pulling him in.  He hit it, one ski point was suddenly wrenched back, something snapped and, flying through the air he braced himself for more snapping and cracking and pain.  But he landed, wobbled, realised he had only one ski, and that it was the foot bindings that must have snapped rather than his vulnerable bones.

This was it.  He might as well face it and choose between silent terror or its blood-curdlingly screaming counterpart; there was no possible outcome in which Rodney could realistically retain his balance, dignity or, let’s face it, his life.