Danielle Kidnapped: A Novel of Survival in the Coming Ice Age

by John Silveira

  As the captain turned to leave, the colonel said, “I like that, though.”

  The captain paused and asked, “What’s that, Sir?”

  “What you called them, ‘La Crocks.’ These road pirates are crocks of shit.”

  The captain smiled a perfunctory smile and left.

  Chapter 36

  September 5

  Danielle woke to the sound of shuffling and groaning and sat up with a start. She saw Whoops was lying on the floor dressed in her pink snowsuit again. The sounds that had awoken her were Zach as he tried to make his way around the cabin using a broomstick as a crutch while dragging his bad leg, and groaning with every move he made.

  “What are you doing?” she shouted.

  “Trying to get you out of here.”

  “I’m not going anywhere,” she retorted.

  He stopped and looked at her. “The hell you aren’t.”

  “I’m not going anywhere.” She leaped from the bed and tried to lead him back to it.

  He pulled his arm away and she caught him as he almost fell.

  “You’re leaving,” he insisted.

  “No!”

  “You’re leaving,” he said louder.

  “Why?” she shrieked and started Whoops crying again.

  With sheer agony he pulled her to the window and pointed up the slight hill to the grave markers which just barely stuck out of the new snow. “That’s why.”

  It struck her, this was about her and Whoops—and it was about his family. He was trying to exorcise the beast that had been feeding on his soul since they had died—deaths he blamed on himself. And his redemption was to save her, but most of all, he had to save Whoops. Right from that moment in the field when he shot Barry and the others, it had been all about Whoops.

  And, Danielle realized, this was all that had kept her alive, too, ever since she’d been separated from the rest of her family: Whoops. If she stayed and the Bradys and LaCroixs came back, everything she and Zach had done could all be for naught.

  “If I could, I’d leave with you,” he said softly. “But you’d never make it with me.”

  She didn’t move.

  “You realize I don’t want you to go, don’t you?”

  She said nothing.

  “You realize it, don’t you?” he asked gently.

  She nodded.

  “But you have to, for your sister.”

  “I know,” she said.

  “Will you?”

  “Yes.”

  “Do you promise?”

  She nodded again.

  “I’ll help you get ready,” he said.

  “I can do it myself.”

  “No.” He got up again. He was unsteady on his feet.

  “Would you sit down,” she asked, “and let me do this? I know how I want to do it.”

  She quickly handed him some paper and a pencil. “Draw me the map to your friends’s place.”

  He nodded and began to draw the map, quickly and skillfully.

  “They’re last name is Short,” he said as he drew. “His name is Peter; hers is Margaret. They’ve got a baby boy. They’re good people. They helped me when Sandra and the kids died. They’ll take care of you, too.

  “You can come back when this is over,” he added.

  But she knew he was just saying that to make sure she left. After the Bradys and the LaCroixs arrived, there would be nothing to come back to.

  “Do you have the Model 60?” he asked.

  She patted her pocket.

  “Take the Colt.”

  She slung the AR-15 over her shoulder.

  “Get the flashlight,” he said.

  “I have it,” she replied and bit her lip. She was starting to have doubts about leaving. She was losing it.

  “Get some of the extra batteries I charged.”

  She nodded and did as she was told.

  “Take some food,” he said and tears started running down her cheeks

  “Take enough for at least a day—in case you get lost,” though he was sure she wouldn’t.

  “Are you ready?” he asked.

  She nodded.

  “I want you to leave, now. I want you to find the Shorts before it gets dark. I’ve written a note on the back of the map that will explain who you are.”

  “They can come back and help you,” she said.

  “No! Don’t let Peter come back here.”

  “Why?”

  “There’s nothing he can do alone.”

  She realized Zach wasn’t going to let his friend come into a situation that could cost him his life. She, herself, wouldn’t do that to a friend, either.

  “Okay,” she said.

  She came and sat on the edge of the couch. Their eyes locked.

  “Go, before they get here” he said.

  She didn’t move.

  “Go,” he repeated.

  Instead, she got up and went to the sink.

  “What are you doing?” he asked.

  She hydrated another pouch of ceftriaxone sodium. She brought the loaded syringe, along with the bottles of cephradine and morphine and a glass of water, back to the bed.

  “You’ve got to leave,” he said.

  “Lay back,” she ordered.

  He complied and she injected him with the syringe. Together, they watched the syringe empty into his thigh.

  “I want you to take these,” she said, and gave him a pill from each bottle.

  He took them.

  “Leave,” he whispered.

  She hesitated.

  “Leave,” he whispered, again.

  “I will.”

  “Leave,” he said when she didn’t move.

  She rose from the bed without looking at him and picked up her sister.

  She slowly opened the front door. When she closed it behind her, she sat down and the girl who blew up the bridge at Pistol River started crying, again.

  But he was right. If she stayed, Whoops was at risk. Who knew how long it would be until the Army arrived? Or if they’d even deal with compounds this time. Staying here was fraught with danger and uncertainty. If anything had ever made sense in her life, it was to take her sister and run now. “You’re the most important thing in my life,” she whispered to Whoops, then hugged her and cried like there was no tomorrow—because she didn’t want tomorrow.

  Whoops watched her with concern. She didn’t like it when Sissy cried.

  Danielle rose to her feet. She had to leave before she made a mistake and changed her mind.

  Across the field she went and, when she reached the trees, she looked at her map. She was sure it was drawn well enough to find the Shorts. A few hours, at most, and she and Whoops would be safe. But darkness was going to be upon her if she didn’t make haste.

  She stepped off into the trees but hesitated to look back. If the Bradys and LaCroixs returned, he’d be alone, but she and Whoopsie would be safe. That’s what he wanted. That’s what she wanted.

  “I wish I hadn’t fallen in love with you,” she said to the cabin.

  Chapter 37

  September 5

  A second joint-party departed from the Brady and LaCroix compounds. This one was in search of the seven men and Abby Brady, who had left, days before, but who had not made radio contact in two days.

  This time Louis LaCroix himself joined the searchers. They travelled on snowmobiles over the new snowfall, going south on US 101 until they saw a distant figure staggering northward. They pulled up and LaCroix glassed the figure with his binoculars for several seconds until he exclaimed, “It’s Abby.”

  When they reached her they found a frostbitten and incoherent Abby Brady dragging the frozen body of Steven Ingram to whom she was still handcuffed. She was delirious and oblivious to the facts she was both naked and dragging Ingram behind her.

  Without a key for the handcuffs one of LaCroix’s men, Goodman, had to use a Bowie knife to cut Ingram’s hand off, so as to free Abby. After they bundled her in some jackets, one snowmobile took
her and Ingram’s body back to the Brady compound, while the other two, one carrying Louis LaCroix, went further south until they came to the bridge at the Pistol River.

  It was then that the enormity of what they witnessed fell instantly on LaCroix.

  The bridge was impassable.

  “This is not good,” he said as he surveyed the damage.

  “They’ll fix it,” Goodman said, referring to the Army.

  “I don’t care if they fix it or not. They’re going to blame us.”

  “But we didn’t do it.”

  “It won’t matter!” LaCroix shouted. “They’re going to blame us—and the Bradys…” He didn’t have to finish that sentence. Goodman and the others knew what it meant.

  “So, what are we going to do?” Goodman asked.

  LaCroix looked at something on the roadway. “What’s that?” he asked.

  “What’s what?” Goodman asked.

  “The thing on the piece of rubble, dammit,” he said pointing.

  Goodman picked it up.

  “It’s a used diaper,” he said.

  “A diaper?”

  “Yeah. Full of shit,” he said as he handed it to LaCroix

  LaCroix didn’t know what to make of it and threw it into the rushing water below.

  There was nothing left to do at the bridge. “We’ve gotta go back,” LaCroix said.

  They sped north to the Brady compound. When they arrived, it was clear Abby was dying. In her final hour, as she slipped in and out of unconsciousness, she recounted to LaCroix what had transpired on the expedition and the confrontation with Zach and Danielle: Hank was dead, Jerry was dead, and Steven was dead, as were all four of the men from the LaCroix compound. But she kept coming back to one name: Danielle. Danielle, she said, had killed everyone. Danielle killed Hank without a gun. She shot it out with Brian Peterson, and she won. “Danielle is Satan incarnate,” she said. “She killed the others and now she’s killed me.”

  “You’ll be okay.” LaCroix said.

  “No, I won’t” she said.

  She pointed a finger at those in the room and warned, “She said she’s gonna bring us down. She didn’t say how, but the devil’s in her. She’s gonna do something to bring us all down unless you stop her. It’s up to you, or yer all dead. My time’s over.”

  She seemed to stare off beyond them and said, “Hi, Sweetie. It’s granny-great…come to be with you.” Those were her last words. She slipped back into unconsciousness and, minutes later, she stopped breathing.

  Δ Δ Δ

  “So, who blew up the bridge?” Goodman asked. “That guy…what’s his name?”

  “No,” LaCroix said. “Abby said he’d been shot. It couldn’t have been him. From what Abby said, he’s gotta be dead by now.”

  “Then who?”

  He thought about the diaper left on the bridge. Was it a calling card? If the bridge was impassable, the Army was going to come after someone, and that someone would be the people at the LaCroix and Brady compounds. “It’s the girl. It had to be …what’s her name?” he asked.

  “Danielle,” Goodman replied.

  “She got a last name?” LaCroix shouted.

  Nobody knew.

  “It had to be that fucking…Danielle,” LaCroix said.

  “But they say she’s just sixteen.”

  “You should’a seen what she was like,” one of the Brady men said. “She wouldn’t back down from Abby or Hank. Even after the guys raped her, she kept comin’ at ’em. She said she was gonna get us. That’s why we had to get rid of her.”

  LaCroix considered other alternatives and other possibilities. Who else could have done it? he wondered.

  “She done what she said she’s gonna do,” the man said. “She killed the people we sent out there. Abby said so. She even killed Hank. Nobody could kill Hank. She killed your guy, Peterson. Nobody coulda killed him. Now she’s blowed up the bridge.”

  What kind of sixteen-year-old girl could possibly have killed Billy Raymond. What kind of girl could have killed Brian Peterson? Peterson was the most dangerous man LaCroix had ever met; even more dangerous than Hank. And what kind of girl could have killed Hank without a gun? His head was swimming in the possibilities, but he kept on coming back to Danielle. Could this girl he’d never seen, the one they were calling Danielle, have done it all? If not, then who?

  “We’ve gotta kill her,” LaCroix finally said. “But first we’ve gotta deal with the Army.”

  “But the Army don’t make deals,” Goodman said.

  “They’ve gotta. We’ve got nowhere else to go. “We’ve gotta make them see what really happened. Maybe they’ll kill her.”

  Δ Δ Δ

  He returned to his own compound and held an emergency meeting. First, he told the families of Bill Raymond, Fred Mayfield, Brian Peterson, and Jim De Angelis that they were gone, killed by someone named Danielle. They would try to recover the bodies, but first the Army would be coming because of the bridge. They had to deal with the Army before they could do anything else.

  However, within an hour there were those who were slipping out of the LaCroix compound. Further south, at least a dozen people stole out of the Brady compound. Some were heading north to Gold Beach where they hoped they’d be welcomed by the few who still inhabited the small town. Others went south toward the larger town of Brookings. They left because, like everyone else, they’d heard what the Army did when it arrived.

  But LaCroix was determined to reason with them. He’d be on their side. He’d explain to them what happened and help them find that bitch, Danielle, the girl who had killed so many of them, and then blew up the bridge.

  But when the Humvees and armored personnel carriers appeared at the compounds, men garbed in head-to-toe camouflage, armed with M16A4 rifles, and wearing body armor poured out of the vehicles, as low-flying helicopters swooped in over the trees. And though there were those who thought they could reason with them, including Louis LaCroix who greeted them with a white flag, there was not one among the officers or enlisted men who had orders to reason with anyone.

  Not a man, woman, or child was left alive at either compound.

  Epilogue

  April

  It had been a hard winter and the spring that followed came even later than the spring of the year before. But the springs were going to come later and later, from here on out.

  Zach worked beside his cabin in the April sun carefully putting the fiberglass panels back on the soon-to-be-resurrected greenhouse. This year it was going to stronger so he could leave it up year-round. He’d already started his tomatoes, potatoes, beans, squash, and several different fast-growing greens inside the cabin some eight weeks before. Now, with the weather changing, it was time to finish putting the paneling up and move the plants out. There was still snow in the forest and in the field and, as he limped about, he had to be careful of his footing. He was never going to walk normally again.

  Yet, he considered himself lucky. According to UN estimates he’d heard on the radio, almost a billion more people had died in the last six months. The world’s population had been reduced to less than two billion and no one was sure when it would bottom out. Yet, he not only survived, he had actually put on five pounds over the winter.

  Stupid suddenly growled and started across the snow in the three-legged gait he’d perfected.

  Zach looked and there were three skiers far off in the upper field. The lead skier was waving.

  “Sit,” Zach ordered, and Stupid sank to his haunches but he was tense, alert, and awaiting the command that would send him through the snow.

  Zach grabbed his M1 Garand in his left hand and his binoculars in his right.

  But even without his binoculars, he could tell one of skiers was a woman carrying a child. There was also a dog with the group.

  He brought his binoculars to his eyes and glassed them. It was the Shorts.

  He set the rifle down, raised his left arm, and waved them in.

  Stupid had s
een the dog and got off his haunches, “Sit,” Zach repeated, and the dog did, but he whined. He hadn’t seen one of his own kind in over seven months.

  “Quiet,” Zach commanded.

  But for the first time in memory, you’d have thought Stupid was being tortured and he let out intermittent and impatient squeals.

  Zach began to walk across the melting snow to meet the visitors.

  When they reached him, he shook hands with Peter Short who asked, “How you doin’, Zach?”

  “Fine,” he replied. “And you?”

  “Great,” the man said.

  “And how are you doing, Margaret?” Zach asked the woman holding the child.

  “I’m wonderful,” she replied and she unconsciously hiked the little boy higher in her arms as if showing Zach one of the reasons life was so good.

  Margaret was a “serious” woman and she and her husband, Peter, had been married almost six years.

  “Is little Peter doing okay?” Zach asked as he reached and patted the boy on his cheek. But the child shyly turned away into his mother’s arms and buried his face into her neck. It had been so long since he’d seen him that he didn’t remember Zach.

  “Getting’ ready to get your garden in again?” Peter asked.

  “Oh, yeah. If we have another good year, I’ll have enough tomatoes and squash…”

  “What happened?” Peter asked nodding to Zach’s legs. The limp couldn’t be hidden.

  “Nothing serious,” Zach said.

  “I can look at it,” Margaret said.

  “It’s okay,” Zach responded.

  “We’d also like you to meet Helen Russo,” Margaret said.

  Helen was a beautiful woman in her mid-twenties with straight black hair cut off at her shoulders. She had a smile that could have melted the snow and even in her winter clothes it was obvious she was athletic and trim. She removed her sunglasses and her eyes were as deep and as green as emeralds.

  “It’s nice to meet you,” Zach said and reached to shake her hand.

  She removed her glove and placed her hand in his. It was warm and soft. She confidently made eye contact and smiled a smile that could make flowers bloom.