Edge of Collapse Series (Book 1): Edge of Collapse

by Stone, Kyla

  A jolt of electric fear shot through her. She went absolutely still.

  He came through the woods across the road, through a break in the trees. The man trudged closer, his head down, hands stuffed into his pockets, a navy scarf wrapped around his neck and the lower half of his face.

  Not him. Someone else.

  Relief didn’t flood her veins. Other than her captor, he was the first human being that she’d laid eyes on in five years. He was still a man. And men were dangerous.

  Especially strangers. Especially strangers on a lonely back road in the middle of nowhere, with no one else around to hear your screams for help.

  She knew all too well how that scenario played out.

  Panic clutched at her with steel talons. Fog filled her brain. She couldn’t breathe. Could barely think straight.

  He stopped fifteen feet away, startled, and stared—maybe as shocked to see her as she was to see him.

  “Go away!” she mumbled, her voice still hoarse and raw.

  He watched her for a moment without speaking. He was a big guy, maybe in his early thirties. Broad shoulders and muscular arms evident even beneath his thick, fur-lined parka.

  He wore a gray beanie on his head. A faint chestnut stubble filmed his square jaw. His eyes were an arresting gray-blue.

  He didn’t look evil. But then, neither had the man who’d imprisoned her. She’d learned never to trust appearances.

  “What the hell are you doing out here?” the man asked.

  Instinctively, she shifted so her deformed hand was hidden, her arm shielding her belly. Hopefully with all the bulky clothing, he wouldn’t be able to tell.

  Her condition only made her appear weaker, more vulnerable.

  She struggled to hide her fear. Predators preyed on fear, on weakness. But it was useless. Her terror took over, and she was helpless against it.

  She felt faint. A rush of dizziness flushing through her, blackness hovering at the edges of her vision. Her mind threatening to go away.

  “Just leave,” she begged through chattering teeth. “Please.”

  His thick brows furrowed. “Lady, are you okay?”

  He wore a large, bulging pack slung across his back. His hands were out of his pockets. He carried a gun. It was held low and down at his side, not pointed at her, but it didn’t matter.

  He could shoot her dead right here if he wanted. She had no defense other than a pathetic kitchen knife. Overwhelming helplessness washed over her.

  What had she been thinking earlier, hoping for someone to come rescue her? As soon as she saw another person, she was reduced to a quivering mess.

  “Are you lost?”

  She could barely hear him over the blood rushing in her ears. She rocked back and forth, clutching her head with her hands. A low moan escaped her lips.

  The darkness was coming.

  She had to fight it, had to stay present. She focused on the ridges in the bark. Started a desperate count in her head. One, two, three…

  “You got somewhere to go? Did you get stranded in the snowstorm? We’re a long way from any trailhead.”

  Fear paralyzed her, froze her in place like a deer too entranced by a wash of headlights to save its own life. Eleven, twelve, thirteen…

  “I’m not gonna hurt you,” he said slowly, “if that’s what you think.”

  She was weeping, shaking, her whole body shuddering with terror. Twenty, twenty-one, twenty-two…

  Another long moment of strained silence passed. She could feel his eyes on her, studying her, analyzing her weaknesses. Figuring out how best to strike.

  “Okay,” he said. “Don’t worry. I’m going now.”

  Footsteps marching away. The soft crunch of boots through snow. The swish of a body brushing against branches and underbrush.

  Thirty-three, thirty-four, thirty-five...

  She didn’t dare move for a long time. It took even longer for her heart to stop bucking against her ribs like a frantic jackrabbit. Seventy-six, seventy-seven, seventy-eight…

  Eventually, she reached one hundred. She closed her eyes, opened them open. Forced herself to sit up, take a steadying breath, and look around.

  The man had disappeared. Not by the road, but through the woods. That’s how he’d snuck up on her.

  She saw the path through the trees now that she hadn’t noticed before. A blue rectangle-shaped blaze marked the trunk of a thick pine a few yards off the road. It was some sort of official trail.

  He was gone.

  It didn’t mean he wouldn’t circle back. Didn’t mean he wasn’t still a danger.

  Her mouth tasted metallic. She’d bitten her tongue. She spat blood onto the snow.

  She sagged against the oak’s trunk, breathing hard, her body still trembling. She pulled her knees up to her belly as close as she could and tried to rest her arms on her knees, but she couldn’t reach. Her stupid stomach was in the way.

  A primal scream of frustration, fear, and anger shrieked inside her head, filled her chest with an immense unrelenting pressure.

  Furious with herself, she struck the ground with the palm of her damaged hand. It only hurt more.

  Her ankle still hurt. She was still lost in the woods in the dead of winter, slowly freezing to death, out of water and nearly out of food. Her captor was hunting her.

  And this man, this stranger, was a dangerous unknown.

  When the tears came, she couldn’t stop them.

  19

  Hannah

  Day Three

  Ghost stood at the edge of the tree line across the road, not twenty feet away.

  Hannah didn’t know when he’d arrived. He might’ve been standing there for an hour while she sat in the snow and bawled like a baby.

  She sniffled and wiped her face, her chest still hitching. “Hey. Hey, boy.”

  He tilted his head, watching her.

  She strained her ears and listened. She heard no sounds other than her own breathing and Ghost’s panting breaths. Maybe the stranger wouldn’t come back. Maybe he’d leave her alone like he’d said.

  She dug inside her pocket with stiff, fumbling fingers and pulled out the last piece of beef jerky. She still had one more package stashed away in her pack.

  She tried to throw it to him, but her arm was so weak, it landed a yard from her feet. “Sorry, boy. Sorry, Ghost.”

  To her surprise, he trotted across the road, his oversized paws sinking into the snow. He didn’t stop until he was a few feet away. He slurped up the jerky.

  He didn’t turn and run like she expected. He gave a soft whine. And he stayed.

  Up close, he was huge. Taller than she was sitting down. His hot dog breath struck her face as he crept closer, his brown eyes never leaving her face.

  He looked different. Stronger, healthier. Less haggard. Great Pyrenees were noble, brave, and incredibly smart. She saw all that and more as she watched him watching her.

  She didn’t move. Instinctively, she knew that any sudden movements might scare him off. She stared at the huge sharp teeth protruding from either side of his lolling tongue, imagined those powerful jaws sinking into tender flesh, shredding muscle and bone.

  She should have been afraid of him, but she wasn’t. This dog was the one thing in this wide terrifying world that she didn’t fear.

  She held out her unbroken hand, palm up. “That’s it, Ghost. That’s it.”

  He inched toward her fingers. Sniffed her gloves.

  “You’re okay. Come on.”

  Curiously, he nosed her left boot. He snuffled along her pant leg, to her belly.

  She longed to pet him, but she wasn’t sure if he would let her. He hadn’t been touched in kindness in a long, long time.

  He towered over her. He whined again, soft and almost sad.

  Her gaze settled on his collar. The fringe of red staining his beautiful white fur. He’d worn the ugly, tight collar for so long that it’d rubbed his neck raw.

  “I won’t hurt you,” she whispered, even t
hough he was the one who could tear her face off. “I would never hurt you.”

  She reached out and groped for the buckle with her good hand. Ghost stood silent, watching her steadily. He didn’t growl or snap at her. All good signs.

  It took her a minute to unbuckle it with her stiff gloved fingers, but finally it dropped to the snow beside her thighs. She picked it out and hurled it into a snow drift several yards away.

  Ghost shook himself a few times and chuffed.

  “How does that feel? Better I’m sure.”

  He lowered his huge head and pressed it against her chest. Like he was grateful, like this was his thank you.

  She released the breath she didn’t remember holding.

  Hesitantly, she reached out and touched the thick bristling fur ringing his neck, careful to avoid the raw ring where the collar had been. He pressed his head harder into her chest. She felt the warmth of him even through her coat.

  She buried both hands into his fur. Felt the strength of bone and muscle beneath all that softness. “I hope that helps you.”

  He whined eagerly—happily—in response.

  She lowered her chin and rested it on top of his head. She closed her eyes, inhaled the familiar, comforting scent of dog. His fur brushed against her numb cheeks. She could barely feel it. Could barely feel anything. “It’s you and me. We’re in this together, aren’t we?”

  Ghost flopped down next to her in the snow, his body radiating heat against her side. He placed his giant head on his oversized paws and gazed up at her. His bushy tail thumped the ground slowly, rhythmically.

  Her lungs were ice. Breathing hurt. The bitter cold bit into her flesh, her body racked by shivering. Her teeth chattered.

  She’d been so close to giving up, to lying there and surrendering to the unrelenting elements until the cold burrowed into her bones and froze her from the inside out.

  But she hadn’t. She was still here, still breathing.

  She’d made her own shelters. Created fire. Lasted three days in the freezing wilderness.

  And that counted for something. Every day she’d survived in that basement had counted for something.

  She thought of Milo, of Noah and home.

  “I have to keep going, don’t I?”

  Ghost’s ears pricked. His tail thumped in encouragement.

  She had Ghost. She wasn’t alone anymore.

  And the dog was right. It wasn’t in her to surrender. Not yet.

  She closed her eyes and said a prayer for the first time in a long time. She’d believed her faith, like hope, had betrayed her. But maybe it hadn’t.

  Hope seemed like such a fragile thing, but it wasn’t. It was still alive inside her. And maybe so was her faith.

  Hannah gathered the last of her strength and pulled herself to her feet. She swung the pack over her shoulders, tightened her hat and hood, and rewound her scarf to cover the lower half of her face.

  Her movements were slow and clumsy. Both hands felt useless, like they were already blocks of ice. The early signs of hypothermia.

  But she already knew that. She was balanced on the knife edge of survival.

  She tested her right foot. Pain shot up her leg, but the ankle held her weight.

  It wasn’t broken. Probably not even sprained—just strained. It was swollen, and hurt like the devil, but the rest had helped.

  She took a hesitant step. Sucked in a sharp breath. Took another step, her boots sinking deep into the snow. Every footfall difficult and strenuous and painful.

  “I don’t know how long I’m going to last out here, Ghost,” she said between chattering teeth. “I really don’t. But there’s no point in freezing to death here when I can freeze to death somewhere else, somewhere closer to home, right? An hour. I can make it another hour. And then, maybe another hour after that.”

  As if satisfied with her decision, Ghost leaped to his feet. He shook the snow from his coat and bounded out onto the road ahead of her, leading the way.

  20

  Liam

  Day Three

  Thirty-four-year-old Liam Coleman couldn’t get the damn woman out of his mind.

  He’d promised himself he wouldn’t stop for anything or anyone. Not after what happened in Chicago. Not after everything he’d lost.

  Liam had flown to Chicago to visit his twin brother and sister-in-law for Christmas. They were in downtown Chicago when the EMP hit on Christmas Eve morning, three days ago.

  He closed his eyes against the images of people running and screaming, the explosion, the dead bodies. The terrible memories intruded, threatening to unravel him.

  He pushed out the horror and kept moving.

  Moving was the only thing keeping him going, that kept the nightmares at bay.

  He ducked his head against the falling snow and cutting wind as he trudged through knee-deep snow along the North Country Trail that bisected the Manistee National Forest.

  Traversing the one hundred-and-thirty-nine-mile portion of the NCT through the national forest kept him far away from people, which was exactly what he wanted.

  Once he’d entered the Manistee National Forest, he’d only passed a few cottages, campgrounds, and bait and tackle shops—all empty and abandoned.

  He’d traversed miles and miles of endless stretches of savannahs and prairies. He’d traipsed along boardwalks over frozen marshland, occasional water plants poking through the snowdrifts, and crossed various creeks and rivers—Bear Creek, Cole Creek, Manistee River.

  The NCT would take him north all the way to Mackinac Island and into the UP. The 4,600-mile National Scenic Trail stretched over eight states, from North Dakota to Vermont, but it was only the northern Michigan portion that concerned him.

  Once the stolen 1984 Toyota Corolla had run out of gas—just south of White Cloud on 131—he’d purposefully avoided the highways. Before then, he’d hugged the coast through Saint Joseph, South Haven, and Holland and stayed west of Grand Rapids.

  Very few gas stations remained open. Their pumps needed electricity to function. Most of those with working generators or hand pumps were closed to the public, only providing fuel to first responders, law enforcement, and the government.

  Those still open were hotbeds of simmering violence as people desperate to get home to their loved ones argued and fought over ten gallons of gas. He’d already witnessed rioting and looting.

  The chaos was beginning.

  He’d read once that the nation was only nine meals from anarchy. In a bitter winter like this, with temperatures well below zero and the threat of freezing to death in your own home a real possibility, it was happening even faster.

  Things would be different if only electricity was unavailable, and only regionally. People could pack their kids and family dog in the car and head upstate to Grandma’s, or travel a hundred miles to stay at a hotel for a few days.

  Residents of rural Michigan especially were no strangers to power outages lasting several days. They could handle the discomfort and hassle.

  But millions of stalled cars? All the dead phones? People couldn’t communicate with family members. They couldn’t travel. They were stuck where they were. Trapped with what they already had on hand.

  That sense of helplessness and isolation quickly bled into panic.

  The emergency briefings he’d listened to on the car radio kept claiming this was a temporary issue and would be resolved soon. Liam didn’t believe it. Pretty soon, no one else would either.

  He hiked through towering forests of red pine. The huge rows of red pines had been planted by the Civilian Conservation Corps in the 1930s. Many now stood over seventy feet tall. He felt like an ant among giants.

  He paused on a high ridge overlooking a scenic view of rolling hills forested in pine, spruce, and fir. The Little Manistee River snaked below him, frozen and glittering.

  He took in the stunning scene, breathed in the crisp air. He found solace in nature. It had always calmed him, eased his stress and anxiety.

 
; He loved it all. The brutal winter; the harsh, inhospitable landscape. Even the cold.

  Nature was what it was. It wasn’t cruel. It wasn’t filled with malice, not like humanity. It was beautiful in its hardness.

  But it didn’t matter how spectacular his surroundings. Nothing could heal the hollow emptiness where his heart used to reside.

  Liam took a minute to rehydrate and adjusted the straps of his go-bag across his shoulders. He took the pack with him everywhere, along with his everyday carry case.

  His Gerber MK II tactical knife was sheathed at his belt along with his Glock 19.

  He wished he had his AR-15 with him. He preferred a long gun to his pistol in these woods. He made a mental note to acquire one as soon as possible.

  He rechecked his compass and the paper map of Michigan he always carried in his pack. It was about sixty miles to his homestead outside the tiny township of Mayfield, just south of Traverse City, and located outside of Traverse City State Forest.

  His only goal was to make it back to his homestead. He didn’t have much, but he had enough seasoned firewood to last the harshest winter. He had twelve months of supplies and woods chock full of deer, wild turkey, and rabbits to hunt.

  His isolated five-acre property had a well with a hand pump, a wood-burning stove, a generator, and a few solar panels. His house was filled with items he’d built himself—kitchen table and chairs, bookcases, a coffee table. He made his own soap and knitted his own blankets.

  He was prepared. He had everything he needed.

  He just had to get there.

  Liam folded up his maps and tucked them back in his go-bag. It had taken him three days to travel almost two hundred and forty miles.

  He could make it the rest of the way in four days of trudging through heavy snowfall—less if he could find a working snowmobile or UTV sans its owners.

  Liam would never steal from anyone outright. He wasn’t a thief. But he had no qualms about taking what he needed from the numerous empty houses along his route. He’d found the Corolla in the driveway of an abandoned home in the Chicago suburbs.