In her room, Audrey lay in her bed, fighting off a nap. She hadn't realized how tired she was during the drive, but laying face-first in the thick comforter, exhaustion nearly overcame her. As she lay there, taking long, deep breaths, she played through the conversation she'd had with her director about this trip nearly a month before.
"Look, Oddish, it's perfect," he'd said, pointing at his computer screen. "It's secluded. It's beautiful. There's enough to do so that you won't be bored, but nowhere near a major city. If you take a week, you'll be back in plenty of time for auditions for Oklahoma."
Audrey recoiled. "OKLAHOMA? You prick. What do we really have going up next?"
"Burlesque Oklahoma?"
"I will strangle you with a pair of nylons, put runs in them, and then have you buried wearing them," she said, smiling darkly.
"Eugh," he said, putting a hand to his chest and laughing. "You dark, horrible little goblin. But seriously. Take a break. Catch your breath. The theater will be here when you get back."
Audrey lifted an eyebrow at him, crossing her arms.
"I promise I won't mount canons to the wall and set the place on fire, okay? Tempted though I may be."
"It's not that I don't want to go do... whatever it is you're trying to get me to go do. It's just," she paused looking down at her small hands and chewed to the quick fingernails. "I've never really been on a vacation. I'm not so sure I'd know what to do with myself."
"That's my point, Odd. Go take a break. Take care of yourself. Figure out what it is you do outside of all this," he said, gesturing around his office in the catwalk of the theater.
From there, Audrey could see a few rows of the house and most of the stage. She'd looked down at the scuffed black flooring, in need of a coat of paint, the thick purple curtains, the way having all but a few lights off made the whole scene a bit surreal in its vacancy. It was hers. A place she had dominion. She'd worked hard to be hired by a theater, done hundreds of shows in Vegas before anyone would even look at her for the position. But here she was, stage managing for a small theater just off the strip and she loved it. She really did.
But Bryan was right. She hadn't been on so much as a single date since she'd moved to Vegas. She'd been so busy carving out a place for herself that she'd hardly noticed when she'd finally made it. Maybe a vacation was just what she needed. And god knew she had the vacation time.
"Look," Bryan continued. "I'll book it for you. Just promise me you'll get out of here and take a breather, yeah? We can make it without you for a week."
Audrey rolled over in her bed, looking out the lodge window, hauling half the plaid comforter up over her. Bryan had picked a hell of a week for her to be here, but the view was beautiful.
This might be a nice week for her after all, even if all she did was lay in bed. She rolled over, pulling a comic book out of her duffel. Propped up on her elbows and encased in blankets with Hellboy at her fingertips; it could definitely be worse.
Besides, if she went downstairs for dinner she might get to see Kenna again. Horny straight guys or no, this might be a matchmaking event for her after all.
............................................
Zach found the lobby quiet and empty before dinner. He checked the time on his phone. A little early, true.
He had been hoping to find Emma and apologize for earlier. Whatever the issue had been he definitely didn't want her to worry all week and he'd certainly feel better once he got to say something.
He lingered around the desk hoping to bump into the other guests or their cheery host, or else some sign about where dinner might be. Maybe he had missed where the dining room was on his own awkward shuffle up to his room.
Audrey came down the stairs slowly, still stiff from the drive. When she reached the bottom she saw Zach, hovering near the desk and flinched, remembering Kena's warning about the second male guest. But after her nap and freshening up a bit she felt better, more capable of handling these little awkward run ins.
"Hey," she called out as she approached the lobby. "No dinner yet?"
Zach turned to see her. Definitely not one of the people around earlier to witness the fool he'd made of himself. It was a bit of a relief, really.
"No, not yet, I guess. It was for about now, wasn't it? I'm Zach by the way."
"Audrey," she said, smiling, "and I thought so. Have you seen Kenna around anywhere?" Audrey stood on her tiptoes, trying to get a better look behind the counter, but saw no one. If anything it seemed too quiet for anyone but the two of them to be downstairs yet.
"We could always go check in the dining area if you know where that is." He shrugged and groaned. "Cause I have to admit I don't. I sort of missed if she said it at all."
Zach had definitely been paying attention to Kenna. For the most part, he corrected.
"Sounds like we get to go exploring," Audrey said, laughing a little. "I thought she said it was back by the stairs but I had sort of an awkward check in. I wasn't paying that much attention."
Audrey relaxed. This was going far better than her last run in with a male guest. Kenna's warning had helped. This time Audrey was prepared.
"Okay so back by the stairs..."
Zach headed back in that direction. The whole ground floor seemed completely quiet. Surely somebody else would be coming down soon.
"Awkward check in, eh?"
"Yeah," she said, following behind him, past the couches and fireplace. "I let my boss book my vacation for me and now I'm the only lesbian at a straight matchmaking event. But I will say, he picked a gorgeous spot."
Audrey waited to see if Zach would try to make eye contact and when he didn't, looked around the dining area as they approached it. Still no one. Maybe she wasn't the only one who'd been more fleeing to her room than anything else.
"Oh... oh damn," Zach responded a few beats too late to avoid being awkward. He looked over at her as she wove in and out of the dining room tables. Whatever he had expected to hear, that wasn't it. "I'm sorry. That's gotta be hard. If it makes you feel better, my friends booked this trip for me, too. They don't trust my taste in men. I'm bi," he added. "I'm pretty sure the snow was so I couldn't hide outside from everybody."
Audrey stifled a giggle as the two of them made their way to the kitchen.
Zach peered past the tables and chairs and into the glaringly clean kitchen. "So, obviously nobody's been cooking"
Audrey looked around the kitchen, perplexed.
"I guess not. That's so strange. Do you think we should go look for her? I was sure by now she'd be in here icing cookies or something."
She paced the length of the kitchen counters as she spoke, panic starting to build like rising water in her chest.
"You think? No, you're right we should. She was far too excited about us being here not to be cooking or anything. I think she's got a cabin of her own or something."
Not that he really wanted to deal with the snow. Or the cold. He'd have to layer up all over again.
It was obvious, though, that something was wrong for Kenna not to be here.
"Christ," Audrey muttered. "And I was really hoping to not have to go out in this mess."
She walked over to a window and looked out. The snow was still coming down hard and there were a solid six inches on the ground already.
Still, she felt she owed it to Kenna. In all likelihood she'd simply fallen asleep in her cabin, and after all she'd done to make Audrey more comfortable at the Meltwater, waking her up from her nap before any of the other guests noticed was the least she could do.
"Wanna go suit up and meet back down here in ten?"
"Sounds like a good plan."
Zach nodded and ducked away to find his jackets. Oi. Out into the snow and cold? It looked terrible out there.
Bundled as much as he could be against the horrible weather he waited in the lobby for Audrey. The place was still quiet. He could only half see through the frosted windows.
Audrey came down the stairs in a pair of boots, two pairs of pants and her thickest leather jacket. It was the warmest outfit she'd had, but even so she'd had to supplement with two pair of men's socks underneath it all, just to be sure.
When she saw Zach in what looked to be eight layers of jackets she laughed. "You must be from somewhere southern, too, huh?"
Zach had to laugh a little himself about it. "Not quite. A little warmer. Just mainly a winter hermit when I'm allowed to be. I do every possible ounce of work at home when I can during the winter months."
Before he could talk himself out of it he edged the front door open. The first step out onto the porch was brutal. The first slap of wind made him hunker down further into his coat. He gestured for Audrey to go ahead of him.
She did so, gasping as she took the lead.
"I really, really should have stayed in Vegas," she said, stomping forward in her boots. "This is ridiculous."
Vegas? She had come here from Vegas? Now why couldn't his friends have set him up with something in Vegas?
Audrey headed in the direction of Kenna's cabin, feeling more certain than ever that after walking through cold like this, the warmth of her cabin must have been overwhelming, and she'd simply fallen asleep. That's what she was hoping for, at least.
God forbid she was out somewhere in this.
"So what do you think?" she called to Zach over the wind. "Cabin first and then surrounding areas? The cabin seemed the most likely place to me. Hopefully she just dozed off."
He struggled to follow after her. The snow was going to end up in his boots. It was higher and deeper than it looked from the porch hitting Zach at his calves and Audrey nearly at her knees.
"Cabin sounds like a plan! Safer anyway!"
With his hermiting from snow and her living in Vegas neither one of them were really equipped to track through the snow to find Kenna. Hell, he thought, identifying the cars in the lot might be too much of a challenge.
Audrey wrapped her arms around herself, trying to keep out the cold. Why would Kenna leave the Meltwater in this? With the wind and the terrible visibility, it was far too dangerous. Which of course begged the questions what were two people, ill equipped and unfamiliar with the weather and terrain, doing making that same attempt.
At last they came to the door of the cabin. She checked to make sure Zach was still behind her, not wanting to have two people MIA at once, and seeing that he was, knocked loudly on the door.
When there was no response she knocked again, looking back at Zach nervously.
This was bad.
Zach peered over Audrey's shoulder. There were no signs of lights or activity.
She could still be there, of course. Maybe asleep with the lights off. He hesitated to suggest the pair of them do anything else though. They couldn't very well barge down the door or anything. Kenna would have to get furious over that.
"Would it make me a creep if I suggested we walk around and figure out if we see in at all?"
At least it sounded better than trying to break in or something.
Audrey sighed, internally bemoaning the fact that she'd left her multi tool in the lodge. It would have been so much easier to just pick the lock.
"Not at all. I think that's the best bet we have. And then I guess we take a different way back and keep our eyes peeled," she shrugged. "That's really all we can do."
She sighed as the two of them started their trudge around the cabin.
"I just hope she's okay. I keep thinking that if she fell in this or got hurt..." she trailed off, not wanting to think about it further.
The pair of them walking around in high snow and wind to find a missing host... well that sounded like the start of some horror story. If this were a movie he'd be currently yelling at the characters for being so stupid. He bit back the absurd chuckle. Zach didn't think it'd be the sort of thing Audrey would appreciate at the moment.
"I'm sure she's fine though. If she ran into any trouble at all, I mean, she's from here, right? I bet she's used to this weather all the time."
Most of the cabin's curtains were open but he still didn't see their host anywhere. Not even signs that she had been there more recent than the morning.
Zach couldn't find an angle to explain this however.
"What do you think?" Audrey asked. "What do we do now?"
Audrey looked around them, seeing no sign of Kenna anywhere.
"I guess we could go the long way back into the lodge and see if we see her anywhere?"
Audrey hugged her jacket tighter, trying to warm up a little. It seemed hopeless out in this. But they were the only ones looking for her. What else could they do but keep looking?
They could go find the others, but Zach couldn't guess how long Kenna might have been out here already. By the time they had the extra assistance it might be dark. They'd have to be insane to try this after dark. There was no choice but to keep looking as a pair.
"Long way it is. Maybe if we don't see her she'll be there when we get back. Maybe she was up in one of the rooms." Zach looked around. "We could go by the maze on the way back. Go that way?"
He pulled his jackets tighter and buried his hands deeper in his pockets.
"Sounds good to me. Hopefully we don't freeze any digits off between here and there."
Audrey tried to smile at him but it seemed weak, forced. She trudged on behind him, hoping for the best but it seemed impossible. Of course Kenna could be somewhere in the lodge. There could have been some emergency in one of the rooms or else she might have been trying to contact emergency services about the snow. But why wouldn't she have left a note somewhere in the dining room or else told one of the guests? It just didn't seem plausible past the surface.
She thought of telling Zach all of this but felt he knew already.
And then up ahead she saw something in the snow. Something dark and slightly sunken in.
She tugged on Zach's sleeve and pointed at it. "Zach... What is that?"
He looked the direction she indicated. Even through the haze of snow and wind he could see it.
He stepped ahead of her by a few paces to get a better look.
Zach's stomach tumbled and anything he might have been about to say stopped completely. He forced a hard swallow. What could he even say, more importantly how could he say it?
Zach took a couple more steps forward.
"I... Audrey, I think that's Kenna." He could barely hear himself. No way she had heard it over the wind. He turned back to her, lightly touching her arms. "I think that's Kenna."
Audrey stepped past him, dropped to her knees and started brushing aside the snow until she had uncovered Kenna's face, her red hair and more blood than she thought possible. As she kept digging she found candy. Pieces of filled, chocolate candy, dozens of them strewn everywhere and the red cardboard box they'd come in a few inches beside her.
Audrey stood, took off her jacket and draped it over Kenna, then stooped to wrap it around her. She wanted to warm her up, to try and get her back to the hotel and in front of the fire. Just a little accident. Maybe a broken leg. Maybe a scalp laceration. Just enough pain to put her out, that was all. She'd be fine. She just needed to warm up and get something warm in her.
It hadn't hit her yet that every inch of snow she'd dug through had been thick with blood, that Kenna was dead already.
The flash of Audrey's skin and shirt drove Zach out of his stillness. He was currently wearing two different socks because he couldn't find a match. He was the most bundled, hopeless guest here possibly. The sight of her trying to bundle Kenna pulled the much more responsible part of himself free.
Okay, Kenna was dead. They could deal with that after they got back to the lodge and found everyone else. He could deal with his own reaction to this -- whatever it was -- on his own after that.
First things first, Audrey needed to be wearing a jacket. Their host didn't need one and wouldn't ever again.
"Audrey, you need put your jacket back on. She doesn't need it, okay? We have to keep you warm." He paused, looking at her leather jacket in the snow. "Actually, here, grab yours, but take one of mine. We can dry yours inside, okay?"
Hopefully she didn't realize he was talking to her like he talked to a toddler. Which was exactly how he talked to his son. Usually, however, this tone of voice had to do with either bath time or bedtime, not candy-strewn corpses in the snow
Audrey looked up at him, the impossibility of Kenna's recovery dawning on her slowly as she began shaking in the cold. Kenna wasn't blue because she was cold. She was blue because of how much blood she'd lost and because she'd died out in this snow storm. And there was nothing else she could do.
"Should..." she started, biting back the bile in her mouth. "Should we take her inside? Or leave her?"
"I... I think leave her?" He said, cringing. It sounded horrible. "We'll go back to the lodge and call emergency services. Does that sound alright?"
He thought about what it might be like to have to take Kenna back themselves. Lots and lots of dragging. Oh god.
Audrey stood, taking slow, intentional breaths. It hurt her to leave Kenna like this, but what more could they possibly do for her in the lodge? Besides, Zach was right. An ambulance would be more equipped for this.
"You're right," she said slowly, carefully articulating every syllable, trying to regain her composure. "Let's head back and call for an ambulance. And we'll have to tell the others..." She wrapped his jacket around her shoulders, giving him what she could only hope at this point was a grateful glance.
There was more, she realized as she started to process what had happened. They'd have to talk to the authorities. They'd have to find a way back down the mountain. Book flights. Pack. Explain to everyone back home what had happened. And then wait. Wait to find out what had happened to Kenna. What freak accident had ruined this beautiful, perfect place.
As the list ran like a ticker in her mind, she started walking, not thinking to see if Zach followed.
Zach lumbered after her. He left her to her own thoughts as he raced to keep up with his.
Telling the others.