“I can see having a place with supplies in it, yeah,” I said. “But I have to admit that I’m really starting to wonder what you’re running from. What could be big enough that a huge house miles from town wasn’t enough to shelter you.”
He gave me a look, his eyes wide open and innocent. “Why, Randall, of course,” he replied, all exaggerated innocence. “What else could I possibly be running from? I am but a retired doctor, who now plays vet on some days.”
I stifled a smile, seeing it for the lie it was—and reminding myself that no matter how much I prodded at him, I wasn’t likely to get the truth. Not until he wanted to give it to me. I’d never been trained on interrogation, and even if I had, I wouldn’t have used it on this man, who was starting to feel like a friend.
“Of course,” I replied, allowing a smile to creep into my voice. “Just a retired doctor. Why would anyone ever be interested in you?”
An answering smile was his only response, and a moment later, he was on the ground next to me, the quilts tucked around us, and we were, to my surprise, discussing my time in Afghanistan, our eyes on the black and white scene before us.
By the time morning rolled around, Marlon and I had been through most of my background—including what it had been like to grow up in the care of a single mother who couldn’t quite manage to make ends meet—and absolutely none of his. Well, I knew that he’d been in the military, though he wouldn’t give me any more than that. That his father had flown Fortresses in World War II and made it home only because he’d been rescued by a French Resistance group when he was shot down over Paris. That he’d gone to medical school, wanting to be a doctor, and had then gotten sidetracked with the military.
That he had indeed had a practice in Detroit at one point. And that he’d closed it down and moved out here—for reasons he still hadn’t told me.
I, on the other hand, had opened up to him about absolutely everything, finding a certain sort of comfort in being able to talk about my background to someone who actually understood what it was like to have been there. To have those memories stuck in my head. To be unable to forget the color of blood on the pavement.
The scream of people dying.
It was way more than I’d intended to tell him. But while I might have foregone the training on how to interrogate people, he’d obviously had some sort of training in that particular art form. Either that or he was such a naturally good listener that he somehow made you tell him your entire life story without seeming to encourage you at all.
I was smiling when the sun came up, though, despite the immense pressure our day was about to impose on us, and I felt freer than I had in years.
“Thank you,” I told him genuinely. “For listening to me. For not judging.”
He put a hand on my shoulder and squeezed me in a fatherly sort of way. “There’s nothing to judge,” he said, his tone just as genuine. “None of us chose what happened to us in the field, or what we had to do to protect ourselves and those around us. Very few of us deserve to shoulder the blame for what happens during war.”
And I appreciated that too: the acknowledgement that though some people had gone out of bounds with their duties, most of us had just been doing our jobs. It was something that only a military person would have understood.
Whoever Marlon had been in another life, I wanted to know more about him in this one. But not yet. For now, on this morning, we had an entirely different battle to fight.
“To the river?” he asked, reading my mind.
“It’s the next logical step,” I replied.
Then I got to my feet and went to wake Angie while Marlon got started on what he was calling a breakfast of champions.
I hoped it was enough to see us through the day. By tonight, if we were lucky, we’d be in Ellis Woods and, if not warm or well-lit, then at least secure and surrounded by people we knew were friends.
19
It took me about half an hour to get Angie’s sled ready again, and by the time I was done, Marlon had what passed for breakfast ready. He’d managed eggs and toast, and God only knew how he’d done it. I wasn’t asking—and I wasn’t complaining. Angie and I wolfed down our share of the food, and I had no doubt that her mind was in the same place as mine was.
We had a river to find. And once we found it, we needed to figure out a way to get either over it or down it, depending on whether it was frozen or not already.
“What do you think our chances are of finding it frozen?” I asked Marlon as we packed up our goods.
“About fifty percent, max,” he replied quickly enough that I figured he’d already been doing the math in his head.
It was a disappointing percentage. I’d been hoping for higher. “That low?”
He snorted as he shoved things into his pack. “That’s a generous percentage, honestly. It’s early enough in the season that we haven’t had consistently low temperatures.”
“So you don’t think there’ll be enough ice to walk on, and even if there is, we’ll need to worry about whether that ice is thick enough to be safe,” I said, jumping to my own set of conclusions. The optimism I’d started the day with was quickly beginning to wane. “You’re right, those don’t sound like very good odds.”
He clapped a hand on my shoulder and gave me half a smile. “They’re not perfect, sure,” he said quickly. “But I’ve seen worse. Hell, I’ve lived through odds that were a whole lot worse than that. Whatever we find, we’ll figure it out. And that’s a promise.”
I decided to take him at his word, there, because what was the point of arguing? He knew the area better than I did. Hell, he probably knew exactly what the river looked like, how deep it ran, and what day it generally froze every year.
In fact, all of that information was probably, if I was reading him right, contained in a file that he’d been given when he moved to the area. With whatever reasons he’d been given for needing to move here.
Yeah, I liked the guy. Trusted him, even. That didn’t mean I’d stopped thinking there was a whole lot I didn’t know about him.
“How far do we have to go, do you think?” Angie asked suddenly. She had her exoskeleton brace already strapped to her leg and was doing up the belt by herself, having actually thrown my hands off her when I offered to help.
She was nothing if not stubborn, that woman. But I was glad to see more color in her cheeks today, more spunk in the set of her shoulders. I knew she was in a lot of pain—more than I would ever want to experience, myself. That leg was still broken and uncasted, and though Marlon had stitched up her wound, she was doing all of this without pain medication. I was shocked she wasn’t delirious with it, honestly.
But her will had always been stronger than anyone around her realized. And she was putting it to good use now. I would be very lucky if I kept her in the sled until we got to the river. After that, it was going to be an absolute battle.
“We’ve still got around two miles ahead of us,” Marlon answered. “It’s a straight shot from here to the river, and I know there’s a trail that will take us there. No new snow last night, so we should be able to travel at least as quickly as we were traveling yesterday. Two hours, I think, and we’ll be there. Two hours and we need to be there. This night out has cut into our lead time, and I don’t want Randall and his men to catch us when we’re in the middle of some tricky crossing-the-river operation. I don’t want them to catch up to where we entered the river until we’re long gone.”
“That makes three of us,” she said bluntly. “John, let’s get me into that sled. The sooner we’re gone, the better off we’ll be.”
“Hear, hear,” I answered, going to lift her up and carry her to the sled, where I’d already piled several of the quilts as a bed for her.
I took the sled first, and Marlon had been right about us making quicker time this morning. We left the cave with the sun barely peeking over the horizon, and this gave us two advantages: First, the semi-darkness made it easier for us to move without being easil
y seen, and second, the early hour meant that there was a layer of ice across the snow—which made it easier to tow the sled. I was able to nearly run in some places, the toboggan sliding quickly across the ice behind me, and when we decided to switch jobs after an hour, I barely felt like I’d done any work.
“Good,” Marlon said when I mentioned it to him. “Conserve your energy. We’re going to need it for crossing the river.”
He started running forward without saying anything else, leaving me to bring up the rear and keep my eyes and ears out for anyone following us.
Within an hour, we were getting close to the river, according to Marlon, and I could hear the relief in his voice.
“I’d hoped we’d make it here by this time, but I honestly hadn’t been counting on it,” he huffed. “If we assume that Randall and his men had to stop and find shelter last night, like we did, and we further assume that they’re at least half a day behind us, and we further assume that they’re lazier than we are and didn’t get such an early start…”
“Then we get to hope that we’ve got at least some breathing space,” I finished. The relief I felt at that—even when the statement was full of assumptions—was akin to warm water suddenly washing over me, and I breathed out fully for the first time in who knew how long. I’d been chased before, yes. And chased by people a whole lot more dangerous than Randall and his men.
But I hadn’t had Angie to worry about in Afghanistan. I hadn’t been protecting the love of my life. That made it feel a whole lot more important out here. And a whole lot more frightening.
At that moment, we broke through an opening in the trees and found ourselves quite suddenly on the banks of the river, the land dropping steeply down toward the water itself. Marlon and I came to a quick halt, and Angie slid to a halt behind us a moment later.
I almost jumped for joy when I saw the river.
“It’s iced up,” I breathed out, nearly afraid to say it too loudly in case something suddenly changed. Ice was what we’d been hoping for. It was what we’d needed. Because it would make our escape so much easier.
Yes, we would be leaving footprints. But thanks to the lack of snow last night, Marlon was right: There was no snow on the ice of the river. Or very little, at least. Not enough to show footprints.
Not enough to mark the path we took.
If we did things right—if that ice was thick enough—our footprints would lead right to the river…and then disappear. And Randall and his cousins would have absolutely no way to know whether we’d just gone straight across it or gone down—or up—for a ways before getting off the ice. Sure, they’d be able to go across to the other side and check for our footprints over there, but it would take a lot of time, increasing our head start.
And even if they didn’t find footprints over there, they wouldn’t be able to know for sure that we hadn’t gone that way and found a way to disguise our prints after we went through there.
Even better, we’d be able to make quicker time on the ice of the river. We’d be able to get to Ellis Woods faster this way.
“This river leads right toward Ellis Woods,” Marlon said, already unstrapping himself from the ropes of Angie’s sled. “It makes a hard turn here and flows almost into town.”
“This must be the river that flows right past our backyard,” Angie said, excitement coloring her voice. She turned to me, her eyes shining. “John, we might be able to take this river right to our home!”
I laughed at the thought, which was both ridiculous and at the same time, warm and fuzzy in a way that made me feel almost giddy. I’d been cold, scared, and worried for days now. My wife had been attacked by a bear, my own life had been threatened, and we’d almost died of hypothermia. We also had a bear-man chasing us, intent on kidnapping Angie and using her as some sort of trade with her uncle.
But suddenly, and unexpectedly, there seemed to be a clear, straight shot from here to our house. Something that was actually doable. For the first time in days, we had an actual answer to everything. And hope that we might get home, even with everything that had gone wrong.
“As long as the ice is thick enough,” Marlon said, quickly dousing my rose-colored dreams. “If the ice isn’t thick enough to support us, we’re going to have the same problems we had yesterday. Without the hope of the river ahead of us.”
“What do you mean?” Angie asked immediately.
Marlon started down the slope toward the river, leaving Angie and me behind, and I took the ropes and started after him, working to keep the sled from moving too quickly. There was a large, flat beach up against the river right here, and I left Angie sitting on it while I followed Marlon out to the ice.
“He means that if the ice is too thin, we can’t afford to go out on it at all,” I said. “And if it’s thin enough that we can’t use it, then the river loses its value to us. We can’t take the chance of falling through the ice. Even if we didn’t drown or get stuck, we’d be soaking wet in sub-zero temperatures. If the river was running, we’d be able to use it, regardless, as long as the sled proved to be watertight. But as it stands…” I shrugged, allowing that shrug to communicate everything for me.
The silence behind me told me that Angie knew exactly what I was saying. The ice made it easier for us to travel down the river. It also restricted us, though—and if it wasn’t thick enough to hold us, then we were going to have to find another way to get home.
Five minutes earlier I’d been absolutely elated. Now, I was terrified that the plan we’d been working on since yesterday was going to need a drastic, immediate revision.
Marlon and I stood beside the river, staring at it for several minutes before I spoke—and when I did, it was because I had become keenly aware of the fact that we were standing there staring at a river when the bad guys were actively searching for us.
“So, how do we figure out how deep the ice is? And whether it’s deep enough to be safe for our little field trip?” I asked.
I wasn’t shocked at all when he pulled a long, thin saw from the side of his pack. At this point, I was pretty sure that pack had doubled for Mary Poppins’ carpetbag.
Marlon held the saw up and gave me a look that was part humor and part concern.
“We cut down into it and see how far it goes,” he said simply. “And then we determine whether we’re going to take the gamble or not.”
“Riiiight,” I said unsure of whether he was being serious or not.
Then we heard a gunshot in the distance. We both dropped to the soil, our eyes on the horizon as we waited tensely for another shot.
A few seconds later, another shot sounded out. Farther away, if my senses were telling me the truth.
“Five miles or so,” he whispered. “The second shot was further away.”
“Think it’s Randall and his men?” I whispered back.
“I don’t see how or why it would be anyone else. I’ve never seen anyone else in this area of the woods. It’s not a good hunting area, and even if it was, this weather hasn’t exactly been inviting. Not to mention that EMP attack. I doubt anyone else but them would be out here.”
“So the explosion didn’t kill them. And they’re definitely coming after us,” I finally concluded.
It wasn’t like we didn’t already suspect that. But there was something distinctly unsettling about knowing it for sure. Maybe I should have felt that it was a comfort to have a solid answer. I didn’t.
“The explosion didn’t kill them,” he agreed. “And they’re definitely coming after us. Which means our time is short.” He turned back to the river, his eyes on the ice in front of us. “The ice will be thickest at the shore. We’ll go in three feet, max, so that we make sure to stay out of the snow and dirt on the shore. That’s where we’ll break through.”
I was already on my feet again. “Let’s get it done.”
We walked several feet out, then dropped to our knees, and I watched as Marlon did something to what I had thought was a saw. Suddenly, the thing started ro
tating, and I realized that it was in fact a drill—which made more sense, honestly. It had to be battery powered, though, if it was working after the EMP, and I wondered again at the number of toys this man had managed to bring along with him.
This time, I didn’t bother to ask where he’d gotten it. It didn’t matter. I didn’t care anymore. I just wanted to get home.
Marlon turned the tip of his drill to the ice and started to press down, turning the drill on. Within moments, ice shards were piling up around the head of the drill, the machine pushing further and further down into the ice. Marlon pressed down even more on the drill, and in less than thirty seconds, the thing jerked downward, making him nearly lose his balance.
“There,” he whispered. He turned the drill off and carefully pulled it up out of the hole, then produced a measuring tape from his pocket. Looking up at me and taking a deep breath, he dropped the end of the measuring tape down into the hole and extended it downward.
I didn’t know how he knew when he got through the ice and into the water below, but when he stopped feeding it out, I ducked down to the ice and took the reading.
“Four inches,” I said, glancing up at him. “Is that enough? Does that make it safe?”
He bit his lip. “Well, four inches is the minimum that’s safe for humans to walk on when it’s clear ice, like this,” he said. “But with the weight of our packs and the sled, I was hoping for more like five to seven inches, to be completely sure, especially since we’ll be traveling—who knows how thick the ice will be further down the river.”
Another shot rang out, and we both jumped, then looked at each other, our eyes wide.
And in that moment, I knew that we were in absolute agreement. Five to seven inches of ice might have been ideal, but it wasn’t what we had. And we were out of options.
“I’m willing to take that gamble,” I told him quietly. “You?”
Bitter Cold Apocalypse | Book 1 | Bitter Cold Apocalypse Page 13
