"Damn it's cold as a ice factory out here!" Aria Blaze said as she fiddled with the control's for the heat in the car she was in. She was in the passenger side of a light blue dodge charger, the driver Rainbow Dash, they where tailing a black striker with a shield embossed on the hood, and a black van behind them. Outside the winds were blowing flakes of powdery snow at the three vehicles as they made their way up the roads of the mountains. "Would it kill you to turn the heat on in this thing Rainbow?" She asked angrily as even with the heat on it she, was only met with cold AC air. Rainbow only laughed at the chill made Adagio shiver as she angrily turned it off.
"I forget to restock on antifreeze before we left, just suck it up until we get there you drama queen." Rainbow said as she enjoyed seeing Adagio sulking in the cold. As a tough girl herself, the current conditions were nothing to her, she'd played ice hockey in worse conditions than this. Adagio however was still something of a needy neurotic type that would have really appreciated some damn heat in the car.
"I bet you did it on purpose, still have to get on my case since the whole battle thing don't you?" Adagio said as she huddled in her bright purple and blue trimmed jacket, a mirror of her usual attire for the colder weather. Not even the prospect of a nice warm cabin away from the hustle and bustle of Canterlot City, especially given all that had been going in her life as of late.
Meanwhile in the car just ahead of them, Sunset and Flash were quite warm in the Flash's car. Sunset had a large sunlight orange coat and matching earmuffs, Flash opted for his leather bomber jacket and a red scarf that would have billowed behind him had the window been open. "So why have us all up there why not just you and I?" Sunset asked taking her paper cup of coffee from the holder and enjoying the warm gingerbread spice treat they picked up on the way up.
"It's not a dinghy little one that's more than a shack you know? It's not like I'm taking you guys to an Evil Dead type place without heat." He said smiling and chuckling at his own joke. Flash had asked her up here just after the School Christmas pageant. After the little tribute to the girls he and the others had put on at the very end of the show. The reason he belied Sunset was less enthusiastic (though not ungrateful) now that there where other cars behind them, was because at the time, sunset had thought he meant it as a romantic vacation off for just the both of them.
"I guess, I just thought...you know we'd be doing more...things were it's just us...like the early days remember Flash?" She asked lovingly cuddling his shoulder. Flash smiled and, even though on an icy mountain road it was a very risky thing to do, he took one hand off the wheel and held her close to him as she cuddled his side. Sunset mhhhmed softly as she snuggled the soft faux leather of his jacket.
"I remember," he said as he lowered the radio, he wanted only her voice and cute little sounds she made to be his only noise until they got there. "I do wanna get back to just us, I mean...when we were...just friends." He paused to consider if he should tell her about that time. The girls he slept with, the booze that he took like NyQuil when you have a terrible head cold, and how none of it could make him stop thinking about her. Sunset was the only girl for him, no floozy from Salem academy or Alfea school for girls could ever replace her. IF he told her on one hand it might up upset her to know that's how he coped. on the other..."Sunset...I..."
"FLASH LOOK OUT!" She screamed snapping awake. Flash turned his head and slammed on the car's breaks, the winter chains adding the traction the tires of a car like this lacked on an icy road. He had just barley avoided a figure that hadn't even flinched as the car, then the others stopping in response, nearly ran them over. Their car screeched on the slick road way as the ones behind it swerved to avoid the pedestrian then the other cars before they all had finally stopped. looking at how they narrowly flattened, they could just barley make out a person in a heavy parka with a fur hood walking slowly in the roadway. The most unsettling about the figure being that their entire body, from the hood to the boots, was covered in snow and ice. White powdery fleck fell off the parka and pants with each step, fully formed icicles occasionally shaking from them and then shattering as they hit the black asphalt.
In the van that brought up the convoy's rear, a pink girl in a white jacket with a pink cupcake on the back and Sugar Cube Corner written in fancy script on the back above it, wiped away frost from the back window. "Hey! Who the heck is that?" Pinkie Pie asked as the others in the back of the van and the other cars opened their doors to get a better look as the figure got smaller as they walked away. Pinkie opened the back doors of the van, unfazed from having almost hit someone, yelled happilly to them. "HIIIAEE! HEY! buddy! You okay over there!?"
"Pinkie! don't rile someone in the middle of the road up like that!" Rarity said as she tried to pull her back into the van.
"Yeah what it's some escapee from the Half World Asylum or something." Her other friend Applejack said as she reached into the inside pocket of her flannel coat, a Bowie knife holstered safety inside, she didn't mean to imply someone might be dangerous, hell the person DID look like they needed help on second glance. Still, girl like her can't be too careful right? The other girl in the van, was more sympathetic. Fluttershy, saw the person like she did any other helpless creature, and wanted only to help.
"Oh MY!, someone like that out there in this weather? They're surely to catch their death out here." She said unpacking a few towels so they'd have a dry spot to sit on. The person was heading back to them. Slowly, with every step seeming to pain them as they got closer and closer. The other's could clearly see the person's face, clearly male, and deathly pale. Almost all the color in this person's face seemed to have flushed out from the icy subzero even, temperatures. Their hair had more bits of ice like welts in what they could see under the hood. Flash was the first to get close to him, he looked into their eyes with utter concern for him, this guy...he looked like he had seen death itself while being lost in the worst blizzard any human could be out in even though the conditions weren't that bad.
"Hey Mister? You alright?" He asked noticing that this person had a blank stare that seemed to go on. he turned his head to Flash, his lips parting ever so slowly as a dry whisper of a voice finally spoke.
"Dead...everyone's dead." He said shivering as if some terrible memory came back to them, which it was. The other's were a bit frightened, who would say something like that looking like the way they did and not mean it? This had to be some kind of sick joke, they hoped it was.
"Now just...call down sir, calm down and tell me what happened." Flash said doing his best not frighten them in any way, someone nearly catatonic and clearly traumatized the way this guy was, could turn dangerous out of fear or being triggered. The person only looked from the young faces to the road way back up the mountain he had descended from.
"Don't go...Up there...you'll die up there the way the other's did..." He said as he tried to turn around but flash held him.
"Hey look...pal, there's nothing to be afraid of up there, now just calm down and tell me, what happened okay?" He said letting the person go as they eight plus friends looked at them, they where worried if this person may have been a hiker with a group, maybe some stranded motorists that had gotten lost in the snow up there and they had started dying off from inexperience on surviving in the woods in the winter. A modern day lost Donner party, that had seen things and known sufferings that no one ever should. This far out, the city just ten miles away, service stations and civilization even closer once you got the main highway.
"Let him go Flash, he's clearly off his rocker." Twilight Sparkle said as they watched him walk away.
"Think we should call someone?" Flash asked turning to her slightly surprised by Twilight's response, "the Ever-Free mountains and woods are not the best place to be in this weather in that state you know." Twilight couldn't help but realize that was something that should be done, if only to make sure the person was okay. Twilight was just...initially shocked to not only see this person in this state, but also mentioning that others had died.
"I Just...this is starting to sound like an old horror movie, the hitchhiker that survived something, the drivers on the road that almost hit them, doesn't that all seem...I don't know very familiar? I may be a bookworm but I know the way people write, and this all starting to read like a rare novelization of say...Alien I read at the library the other day." She said adjusting her glasses.
"Twilight this isn't a novelization of anything, that's a lost person who may need help, now we need to do just that even if they don't want it." Sunset said as they began to get back in the cars leaving the poor sod to his fate, they all took out their phones only to see that they had no signal's not a single one.
"Now before Ms. TV Tropes says anything," Adagio said as she got back in the striker with Rainbow Dash. "This kinda thing always happens this far up in the mountains, they didn't build any cell towers up here since Ever-Free is a national forest. So this isn't some contrivance that bad horror writers shove into scripts." Her words almost mockingly as if she had made a huge jackass of herself. Adagio didn't mean to sound so meant to her, rather she had seen what had happened and was really trying to lightening things up, still...time and place for everything right? Even Pinkie had known to dial back her usual wacky self to assess the seriousness of the situation.
"Lay off her Adagio, She's just looking out for us." Pinkie said as she began to dig in her backpack. "Good thing I came prepared." She said with some of her perkiness returning as the person was now just a speck in the distance. She had taken from her backpack a radio that could work were the phones had lost their signals..."Hello? Hello? This is...User RR453," she said using the serial number on the radio as a name. "We have...a bit of a situation out here in....Hey anyone know the coordinates out here?" She asked the others as they began to get back on the road back up the mountain side. Their trip went on, the attempt to call help for that other guy aside, trying to forget what just happened.
They didn't see the lost hiker now far behind them, he turned to look back up the mountain...a living embodiment of the mountain of madness to what he had seen up there. The lost hiker hoped they wouldn't stumble on what he and the others had, and took his last tool from the parka pocket, a straight razor. He ran it over his wrists and stood there as the icy cold winds made his blood freeze as it stuck to the roadway. When he finally lost consciousness and fell over dead, it was the best feeling he'd felt in what seemed like a lifetime.
"There it is...My own little home away from home...okay it's my uncles but I made copies of the keys after that house sitting job he made me take, but still you get the idea." Flash said pulling into the driveway. The "cabin" ahead of them was at least three stories, with a glass bay-view window on the second floor giving those present could see through it too a an open indoor patio. The entire structure had a very eastern influence, the roof was the jagged slants and that jutting beam at the front of a pagoda or older Japanese structure. complimented by the paneled red clapboard walls.
''You sure he'll be okay with us using it?'' Sunset asked as she opened the door and stepped out into the snow. It crunched under her boots soft as pure powered sugar.
''It'll be fine babe, he won't even know we're here, he doesn't even even use it himself until like the Forth of July and it's January!'' Flash said drumming on the hood of his car cooly.
''You mean you didn't even ask to use it?!'' Sunset asked in concern.
''Awww quite worrying Sunset, it's the winter break...relax.'' He said wrapping her in his arms tighly and embracing her.
''Ohh Flash.'' Sunset said giggling as she huged him back. meanwhile, Pinkie pie was still fiddling with her transistor radio trying to see just what she could pick up on it. She turned the dials ad tried every channel, but clearly she wasn't the type to go messing with technology of this caliber. She approached Beaker Tubes, the resident science nerd at school who rode in the large van (im talking church van with the seats removed) with her. He was a shy and kinda socially awkward boy with pale never seen the sun ivory skin and a dorky sweater and khakis, topped off with his thick glassed and messy brown hair.
''Hey Beaker!'' She happily shouted in his ear as he opened the cabin door, making him jump in shock at the pink, peppy party girl making him jump.
''Gah! Pinkie! you know I hate that!'' He said taking an asthma pump from his pocket and breathing from it deeply, unknown to him, the so called asthma medicine was camphor and hydrogen dioxide, in other words, Beaker Tubes ''asthma medicine'' was medicine flavored tap water. If he had asthma, then Pinkie was the rightful princess of England. Pinkie giggled and ruffled his hair playfully.
''Oh, sorry beaker, I just was wondering if you could help me with this do dad I brought up here.'' She said as she showed him the ham transistor radio, quite an advanced model, one could only wonder what a girl like her was doing with it. Beaker sighed as he took the radio in his hand adjusted his glasses.
''Pinkie Pie, this isn't a 'Do Dad' as you put it, this just happens to be a GMcS model...''
While that was going on, Trixie crossed the hardwood floor threshold of the cabin, she took every detail of the living room, from the genuine Persian rug and hickory table, to the big screen tv and soft, comfy fabric couches. she placed a plastic pet carrier on the loveseat and took a seat beside it. Her coat and winter wear neatly placed on an end table. Trixie opened the cage door of the carrier and said sweetly.
''Come on Oreo, we're only staying a few days, don't be scared.'' as a black and white Sylvester tomcat shyly poking his head out gingerly before looking up at his owner. ''Don't look at Trixie that way Mr. Trixie knows by the weekends end you'll be fighting not to leave.'' She said placing a few treats on the floor to coax the finicky feline out. Oreo looked from his owner to the treats and had only one thing to ''say.''...Meow.
Sunset Shimmer, Flash and Twilight went to the kitchen meanwhile, like a lot of thing's in Flash's uncle's cabin, it was top of the line. The fridge had a built in Ice/water despenser, the stove had a timer and a smart oven for the level of doneness for meat, and they had almost every kitchen gadget you could imagine on hand. Peter Page-turner and Twilight sat at the table while Sunset and Flash chopped zucchini and squash into slices while pasta boiled on the stove. Rainbow Dash entered a camera in hand as she turned to the occupants and said.
''So what're you four up too? Sunny and Flash whipping up some dinner?'' She said filming the two as they cooked.
''We're making a zucchini and olive oil sauce with Spaghetti.'' Sunset said adding the slices of zucchini to the simmering garlic and oil. Rainbow turned her camera to the resident ''eggheads'' as she so loved to call them.
''So what're you two up too?'' She said as Twilight looked uo from her book and lowered her glasses to Rainbow the way a librarian would.
''I'm reading that book I mentioned, it's and actual copy of the 1979 film Alien in it's novelization. A very rare and out of print book I'm very protective off, I brought a leather keep case to protect it in.'' She said cuddling her book closely. As she did, Peter Page-turner looked up from the comic magazine he was reading.
''Hey that's intresting, cause I'm reading Heavy Metal's comic adaptation of Alien, see there wasn't a market for comics based on films for older audiences at the time.''
''Really? Hey can I take a look?'' Twilight asked offereing to swap her novelization for his comic magazine.
''Uhhh sure Twilight.'' Peter said blushing as he handed the girl the magazine.
''Awww egghead love, how cute.'' Rainbow added making the both turn red in embarrassment.
Beaker Tubes watched as his friends began to adjust to the cabin, from the cats Opalescence and Oreo cuddling on the couch, to their owners Trixie and Rarity surfing the channels for something to watch.
''Oh my! The classic Love Story is on TCM! I just love that movie! The love, the loss the tragedy!'' Rarity said as sne began ''Vouging'' with her hands.
''Trixie wants to watch Predator 2, it's on the same time as your sappy romance flick though.'' Trixie said flipping the channel, she caught the movie smack dab in the opening shoot-out between the LAPD and the Columbians.
''ugh! Trixie! How can you watch dreck like this?!'' Rarity said as she recoiled at at the bloody gunshots. Rarity wasn't overly sensitive to these things, if Trixie liked it she had every right too, it just wasn't her thing.
''The great and powerful Trixie doesn't think it's dreck.'' Trixie said coyly as she kept the remote from Rarity, who was still peeved but placated. As he watched the events around him, and fiddled with Pinkie's radio, he couldn't help but be grateful everyone on this trip wasn't acting like total idiots or jerks to each other. They acted like genuine friends and not the unlikable class A assholes or cookie-cutter stereotypes in bad horror movies. Before he could really reflect on this though, Pinkie came back to him and tapped him on the shoulder.
''Hey Beaker, you find anything on that yet?'' She asked munching some pretzels from a bag, she offered him a few which he accepted and turned it on.
''Well...there is this one thing so far...it's a morse code transmission I THINK is coming from somewhere in these very mountains.'' He said as few beeps and notes came from the radio speakers.
''Really? what's it saying?'' Pinkie asked.
''Well, this kinda upsets me, but if my morse code is up to date, it's a three dot, three dash code. In other words, someone in the mountains...is sending out an SOS.
