“I estimate twenty feet over my head,” Ted said. “And I’m ten feet over you.”
“We’re lucky to have survived the fall.”
“So far,” Cid said from the floor before shutting his eyes.
~
“Did you hear that?” Mia asked Murphy.
“The doors?”
“No, this was different. A clunk from below us.”
Murphy tried to sink through the floor and couldn’t. “Iron below this carpet,” he said.
Mia ran her hands around the edges of the hall floor. She jumped back as the floor disappeared. Murphy caught her from falling when she lost her balance.
She whipped off the shield and jammed it into the mechanism that was already trying to close the trapdoor.
Murphy descended quickly, using the light from below to guide him.
“Hello down there!” Mia called. “Murph’s on his way down.”
Murphy noted Ted’s desperate condition on his way down. Cid was on the ground, unable to rise, Mike and Audrey were mobile, and Burt had a broken leg. Murphy came back up quickly to inform Mia.
She ran to the nearest house phone and found that the line was dead. No surprise there. She ran back. “Guys, it’s a no-go on getting any help here. My cell has no bars now. How the fuck can that be? Anyway, all you have is me. I think the first thing is to get you guys out of there. Give me a moment. Ted, I need you to use your genius mind to tell me what I can get to help you.”
“Mia, be careful. Whoever did this to us may still be in the hotel,” Mike called.
“I will.”
“Mighty Mouse, you will need to gather some things together. There should be ski patrol supplies somewhere. There, you will find rope, hopefully, a rescue litter, and trauma supplies. Get them here as fast as you can. Burt’s got a serious fracture.”
“I’ve sent Murphy to find the stuff first. I don’t want to leave this opening unguarded,” she explained.
Murphy found the equipment in a side shed. He checked out the quickest route for Mia and returned.
“I’ll be back. Hang in there,” she said.
The ones that could make eye contact looked at each other and prayed that Mia would be successful.
“I bet whomever did this planned on the little lady up there getting hysterical,” Burt started.
“But not our Mia,” Cid finished.
Ted was concerned for what she might be facing up there alone. If the architects of this trapdoor had also put into use an illegal cell phone jammer, then they meant business. He closed his eyes and prayed.
Chapter Eight
Mia had gotten halfway across the yard towards the ski patrol shack when the outdoor lighting quit.
“Damn, that’s not a good sign. We still have an active human on the premises,” she said to Murphy. “I bet the plan was to get rid of the investigative team and then proceed to scare the remaining member out of her gourd.”
“Are you scared?”
“No, because you’re here,” Mia said honestly. “If I were alone, then yes, I would be scared. I would still function, but it wouldn’t be as much fun.”
Murphy looked sideways at her. Did she really think this was fun? His idea of fun had to do with events that did not include people almost falling to their deaths, phony ghosts, and being trapped up on top of this hill.
Mia didn’t bother to try and pick the lock on the shed door. She took her sword and sliced it in two. “Cover me. I expect this would be as good a place as any for an ambush,” she said.
Murphy stood with his back to the door, looking out into the dark. He heard a few curses, along with a few crashes, but Mia managed to arrive back at the door with the asked for equipment. She had several mountaineering ropes looped over her shoulder and a bag of trauma supplies fixed to her scabbard. She carried a litter out of the shed. “Come on, we have to get back before whoever this is figures out what I’m doing.”
They moved quickly through the darkness. The hotel was quiet. Gone were the sounds of slamming doors. Mia approached the open trap. She nodded to Murphy who drifted downward and returned immediately.
“They are still there,” he said.
Mia walked into the bar and looked around. She smiled when her eyes landed on a solution to a problem. She walked over, taking her sword out, and cut through the end supports of the bar’s brass-covered steel foot rail. She then sliced it in two and dragged it to the trap. She carefully lifted the heavy rails over the hole, pleased by the surplus of metal on either side of the opening.
She next fixed two sets of ropes to the rails. To one set she tied the litter. The other she fed through her makeshift harness. Stepping into the harness, she looked at Murphy and said, “I need you to watch for intruders. Do not let anyone get by you and close the trapdoors. No matter what you hear below, you must stay here and keep watch. I’m counting on you.”
“I won’t let you down, Mia,” Murphy promised. “Try not to fall on your head.”
“I’ll do my best, but no promises,” she said and grinned.
Mia took the litter and shouted, “Mike!”
“Yes?”
“I’m going to lower a litter. Tell me when it hits the floor.”
“I will!” he called back up.
Mike watched the black rectangle above and saw an open, silver sarcophagus, sans skis, being lowered. It was briefly hung up on the beam that had broken his fall, but the uneven weight distribution of the litter made it slide off the beam. He caught it and dragged it over between Cid and Burt, calling, “It’s down!”
Mia nodded to Murphy as she eased herself over the edge and lowered herself into the
