AllFreeNovel
Share Us
“The Last Chance?” Amelia screwed up her face. “Really? It’s so gross in there.”
“We’ve gotta go.”
“Join us.” Amelia gestured for me to come with them.
I felt my phone buzz in the pocket of Jack’s coat. “I’ll meet you there. I’ve got a few things to do first.” I waved goodbye to the girls and turned to answer my phone.
“No phones on set.” A man holding an overhead microphone growled.
“But we’re not shooting.”
The man turned up his palms, the stand to the microphone propped on his shoulder. “I don’t make the rules. That’s part of the contract you signed.” The man’s eyes were a crystal blue and he had a bushy white beard. “If you really need to take that, you can stand behind me.” His eyes sparkled and he pointed behind him with chin.
“Really?” I rushed behind him, but was too late. “Dammit.” I hissed. Stepping from behind my stocky shield I held out my hand to shake his. “I missed the call, but thank you for your bulk.”
He chuckled and his huge hand enveloped mine. “You’re welcome. I think.”
“Have you ever been told that you look like—”
He held out his free hand like a stop sign. “Don’t even say it. The director has been trying to get me to play him for years. I’m a grip, not an actor, and I’m definitely not Santa.”
“I was going to say Kurt Russell.” I smiled.
“Kurt Russell in Tombstone or Kurt Russell in The Christmas Chronicles?” I knew the right answer, and I also knew the best answer.
“Tombstone, of course.” I grinned.
“You’re a sweet kid.” He laughed. “I didn’t get your name.”
“Henri.” I thought about using a fake name, but I didn’t think that the Santa Claus grip would care that I’d trespassed on the set. It was also cute that he called me a kid. “And you are?”
“Shawn O’Barber. Grip extraordinaire.” He bowed dramatically. The crew of the movie were proving to be an interesting bunch of characters.
The phone buzzed in my pocket. Shawn pointed to the pocket. “Someone is trying to reach you.”
“It was nice to meet you Shawn O’Barber.” I pulled the phone from my pocket and waved with it in my mittened hand as I jogged off set in order to answer it.
“Hello?” I was slightly breathless as I answered.
Bob was on the other end and he didn’t have good news for me. In fact, the news was way worse than I ever could have imagined.
EIGHT
JACK
Changinginto fresh workpants was kind of pointless. The coffee pants were almost dry and I was going to be working in the garage anyway, but I pulled on new thermal long underwear and a clean pair of Carhart work pants anyway. They only had stains of the oil variety, not coffee. The drive home had been slow, the snow had accumulated to the running boards of the Bronco, but when I pulled into the driveway, the clouds cleared and the sun even made an appearance.
The sound of the helicopters echoed across the valley before I saw them. “Oh my God.” I whispered to myself when I saw they weren’t heli-skiing choppers, they were search and rescue, along with a medevac. They flew over the peaks to the west, the thwapping of their blades cutting through the air. That many choppers meant something big had happened. I waded through the knee-deep snow to the garage, where I tuned into Search and Rescue’s channel on the radio. Voices crackled through the speakers and I heard another round of choppers flying low overhead, this group headed east.
I listened in as the dispatcher, a woman with a calm voice, described the emergency – two avalanches, one on each side of Chance Rapids, had slammed over the highway. Several car accidents had been reported, but not one had been caught up in the river of snow that had released from high up in the mountains.
“Holy shit,” I whispered to the border collie named Lucky, who was sprawled on his side on the warmth of the heated garage floor in front of the woodstove. Avalanches happened from time to time, but most were intentional, done by professionals to keep the highway or the ski hill safe. Two natural avalanches on each side of town meant Chance Rapids was cut off from the world until they could be cleared.
My thoughts were interrupted by my phone buzzing in my pocket.
“Jack.” My father’s matter of fact voice barked out through the speaker. “Where are you?”
“I’m at home, Dad.”
