Free Nightmare Mountain by Peg Kehret

Glendon. She slidacross the truck seat to the open door on the passenger’s side.
    She had just put her feet on the ground when the shot rang out. She whirled around but Glendon was still running. The man had missed him.
    The two young llamas galloped past Molly but she didn’t look to see where they went. Her attention was riveted on Glendon.
    He ran erratically, moving from side to side as well as forward. He was a fast runner and with this swerving motion, he made a difficult target. He was in deeper snow now and Molly wondered how he could run so fast when his feet sank into drifts over his ankles with every step. It would soon be worse, she knew. The mountain rose sharply from this point on and the snow just above them stood in drifts four and five feet high.
    What was Glendon thinking of? He was crazy to run like that, when he knew the man had a gun.
    The man shot again, and the noise reverberated from the side of the mountain.
    Glendon fell face down in the snow.
    Molly waited, not daring to speak or move. The gunshot echoed briefly in her ears and then she heard a sharp crack, followed by a low, deep rumbling, like distant thunder. It was an ominous sound and Molly instinctively looked at the man, wondering if he had heard it, too.
    The man bolted for the truck. He jumped in, started the engine and roared away, careening dangerously as he went around arrowhead boulder. The llamas cried out and tried to keep their footing.
    Molly stared after him in astonishment. He drove right past her! Surely he saw her standing there but he didn’t bother to make her get in or to tie her up. She was free! All she had to do was hike back home and call the sheriff.
    She turned back to Glendon and saw him scrambling to his feet. The shot must not have hit him; apparently he fell of his own accord.
    The rumble quickly grew louder—much louder. The noise seemed closer than before, and she knew that it wasn’t thunder. It was something worse, something far more threatening. She looked up the side of the mountain, and her breath caught in her throat.
    An avalanche!
    It slid toward her, oozing down over the boulders like thick whipped cream poured from a giant pitcher. She watched as the grove of fir trees, the last of the timberline, was completely buried. In less than a second, the trees disappeared and the slanted rays of the setting sun glistened off the smooth white surface where the trees had been.
    An enormous slab of ice crashed to the ground beside her, jolting Molly out of her shock and into action.
    “Glendon!” She screamed his name but her voice was drowned out by the deafening roar as more ice and snow cascaded toward her.
    She knew now why the man didn’t wait for her. He wanted to get down the mountain quickly, out of the path of the avalanche, before he was buried alive by the snow.
    Molly turned and ran. She took huge strides, nearly losing her balance as she plunged toward arrowhead boulder.
    Fine, powderlike snow billowed into the air around her ankles as she ran.
    The noise thundered in her ears. Louder. Closer. Every muscle in Molly’s body strained forward, trying to increase her speed.
    Glendon screamed. The piercing cry came from behind her and was immediately swallowed by the sound of the avalanche.
    Molly gulped the thin mountain air and willed herself to move faster. She looked over her shoulder as she ran. All she saw was a giant wall of ice and snow, speeding toward her. If Glendon was back there, he was already buried and Molly knew that she would soon be overcome, too.
    It was like the recurring nightmare she used to have when she was little. In her dream, a huge unknown monster chased her. Although she ran with all her might, she was certain it would catch her. She could feel it comingcloser, breathing on the back of her neck, grabbing at her hair. She always woke up just as the monster reached her and so she never found out what, or who, it was.
    This time, the monster had a name. Avalanche. This