by Hunt, James
Her eyes drifted to the control panel, and the needle in the fuel gauge hovered on empty. A lot of chances were slim.
Kate had saved time by flying directly over DC on her way north. It was an area that she’d wanted to avoid going down, but she knew she didn’t have the fuel to go around it on the way back. She kept as high as she could, but even so, she still heard the thundering booms from the fights below.
Curiosity got the better of her, and she tilted the plane to the side to get a better look at the capital. But most of what she saw from the air was nothing but blackened rubble.
There was movement below, huddles of men scattered about in small groups. The only recognizable building that was still standing that Kate could see was the White House. But it was thoroughly barricaded, with the bulk of the city’s resources and forces stationed around it.
Kate had worried that the sight and sound of her plane would cause attention, but with everything going on down below, she was the least of everyone’s worries. But even from her position high in the sky, Kate could still plainly see that the capital was plagued with the same problems that she had seen everywhere else. No lights. No power.
If the people who did this could cause so much trouble to her country, to a nation that was believed untouchable, then where would they stop? Kate shivered at the thought of this epidemic spread across the globe. It was a virus without a cure. Or at least that was what it felt like.
The present had suddenly become the most important aspect of everyone’s lives. There was no time to dwell on the past, no hope to think of the future. Everything had shifted to right here and right now. She glanced over at Luke.
Kate knew that his future would never be the same. No more college, no more schooling. With them thrust back into the Stone Age with zero law and order, his future was one of survival. It was a future that Kate’s entire family shared.
Phlegm formed in the back of her throat in the preparation of tears, but Kate forced them back. She had to stay focused. “One problem at a time, Kate.” She sniffled, wiping the cold snot from her upper lip.
Another fifteen minutes passed, and Kate knew she was close. She dropped her altitude and searched for a place to land, but she didn’t have many options. What wasn’t covered in snow was covered with trees.
She circled, scanning the terrain, her hopes wildly high that she would spot the cabin and there would be a clearing nearby. But the more she circled, the more those hopes sank.
Kate reached over and checked Luke’s pulse again, feeling the faint thump of her heart when the engine sputtered.
The old Skyranger jerked forward, the engine bucking the plane a few times before it finally died. The loud hum of the motor was replaced by the howl of the wind, and the propeller spun a few more rotations before gliding to a stop.
Kate gripped both hands around the stick, doing her best to keep the craft level, though it cost her every bit of her strength to do it. She scanned the ground, searching for any place that she could land, but still saw nothing but trees and snow.
The altimeter spun downward, the elevation dropping dramatically, and with the low visibility and the rolling hills of the terrain, the situation was growing from bad to worse.
Kate tilted the stick hard to the right, slamming her foot on the steering pedals, but the old bird whined in defiance. Her eyes glanced between the fast-approaching ground, the instruments that spiraled backward, and Luke.
The altimeter dropped to fourteen thousand feet, then thirteen thousand, twelve thousand, ticking downward faster and faster. Kate continued her frantic search for any suitable landing spot but still saw nothing that gave them a chance at survival.
And then, just at the altimeter dropped below nine thousand, she saw it in the top right-hand corner of her windshield. There was a straight cut through the trees. It was a road.
Kate straightened the stick, the plane wobbling left and right, her entire body shaking due to the growing turbulence and rough controls. She reached across to Luke’s seat and tightened the straps over his chest and waist, making sure he was secure. She wished she could have done something about his head and neck. The landing was going to be rough.
The tips of the trees and the ground grew closer. Kate leaned left, muscling the plane toward the highway. And when Kate finally had a good look at her approach, her stomach soured.
Abandoned cars, covered in snow, lined the highway, leaving zero gaps of flat land. She checked the altimeter—twenty-five hundred feet. She was out of options.
Kate tightened the straps on her belts and then let the flaps down on the plane as far as they would go to give her more control. She gripped the stick with both hands, the plane wobbling left and right despite her forced control.
“C’mon,” Kate said, whispering to herself.
Sweat broke out on her forehead, and her body flushed with heat. She tensed once the altimeter dropped below five hundred feet, and she could make out the models of the cars on the road.
Kate kept the nose up and pulled the stick back hard. She took one quick glance over at the altimeter, the numbers rolling into the double digits. Kate stiffened her arms and then looked at her son just before impact.
The pair jerked wildly in the cockpit, and the moment the wheels hit the top of the first car, Kate lost control.
The stick flew out of her hand, and the plane spun ninety degrees to the left. Both Kate and Luke were suspended in the air for a moment as the plane’s belly skipped between the roof of two cars, then it jolted down hard on the top of a van, and the thin metal sheeting ripped like a sheet of aluminum foil. Kate thrashed wildly in her chair, the cockpit a whirlwind of turbulence.
The pressure from the straps dug into Kate’s coat, and Luke’s left arm smacked her forehead as the right wing of the plane tilted and wedged itself between a front and back bumper before the pressure and speed of the craft snapped it off, and the plane finally jerked to a halt where the fuselage lay on its right side.
Kate’s vision blurred, and she shut her eyes, waiting for her head and stomach to catch up with the rest of her body in the cockpit, then looked to her son.
Luke’s head lolled to the right, the straps of the belt still snug over his shoulders and chest. Kate gingerly unbuckled herself and reached her fingers over to him.
“Luke?” Kate asked. “Luke, can you hear me?”
She didn’t think he’d answer, but the questions came out regardless of the likelihood of his response. His skin was still cold to the touch, but when she pressed against the artery on his neck, her own heart stalled.
Nothing. No pulse. Kate frantically inched closer, crawling over to Luke, and quickly unstrapped the belts. “Luke!” Her voice grew more frantic when she saw the fresh blood oozing from the gunshot. It had torn open during the vicious landing.
Kate grabbed the old bloody gauze, brittle and sticky from the cold, and pressed it hard into the reopened wound. Blood oozed over her gloved fingers, and the tears froze to her cheeks as they fell from her eyes.
“Stay with me, Luke,” Kate said, reaching for his neck again to check his pulse. “Please, hang on.”
A thump pressed against her finger.
Kate’s eyes widened with hope, and she steadied her hand where she felt another light bump. She sobbed and kissed Luke’s forehead, his skin icy against her lips. He was alive, but she’d need to move quickly if she wanted him to stay that way.
Kate unbuckled Luke from his seatbelt, then reached for the door handle on his side, but with the way the plane landed, it jammed against the hood of a car, preventing escape. Kate turned, looking back toward her door, and climbed upward.
Kate protruded from the cabin of the busted Skyranger and was smacked with the frigid cold of the north. She heaved herself out of the cabin and nearly tumbled down the other side before catching herself on the plane.
Kate planted one foot on either side of the open door, and then squatted, reaching her arms into the cabin and grabbing hold of Luke�
��s arm, then pulled.
The first tug barely budged Luke from his seat. Kate repositioned her grip then tried again, exploding upward with enough force to thrust Luke’s torso from the plane before she lost her grip and tumbled backward into the snow.
Kate landed hard on her ass, but the snow was deep enough to cushion her landing. She wallowed to the left and right before she finally got her legs beneath her, and then she climbed back up to the plane’s cabin door.
She removed the rest of Luke carefully from the cabin as he dangled over the side. Despite the thick cushion of snow, she lowered him down gently, making sure that she didn’t break his neck.
Kate nearly had Luke all the way down when she heard a rustle in the woods behind her. She jerked sharply at the noise and then quickly leapt off the plane’s side.
Voices drifted onto the road, followed by heavy panting.
“It was over here,” a man said. “Damn thing fell right out of the sky.”
“I thought everything was broken.” A second man’s voice drifted toward her, gruffer but just as breathless. “How the hell did someone get a plane working?”
Kate grabbed Luke beneath his arms and pulled him, staying as low as she could. She made it a few feet before she realized she was leaving a trail in the snow. They’d be able to follow it right to her. She scanned the area and spotted a van two cars down. She pulled Luke toward it and prayed that it was unlocked.
Kate tugged at the handle, and she breathed a sigh of relief when it opened. She lifted Luke inside, her legs shaking from the exertion, and he landed with a dull thud. Quietly, she shut the door then erased the tracks that led to it from the plane.
“There! See? I told you I saw a plane!”
The voice was closer now, and Kate’s heart thumped wildly in her throat. She darted in the opposite direction of the van, her footsteps leading whoever those people were away from Luke. She kept low behind the cars but stopped when she heard the hurried crunch of boots in the snow.
“Shit! You see that?” The man’s voice squeaked in excitement.
“Would you shut up?” The second man hushed him angrily. “You want to give our position away?”
Kate lifted her head to the rear driver side window of a sedan and peered through the frosted glass. The two men passed, and it was here that she saw the rifles in each of their hands.
“Get your gun up,” the second man said. “We don’t know if they’re still alive.”
“Well, they won’t be for long.” The first man giggled in the same high-pitched tone as before.
Kate quietly ducked beneath the window and waited for them to pass. She darted a few more car lengths away from them but then stopped at a truck near the edge of the road and waited. She wanted to make sure they took the bait and followed her tracks.
The distance caused their voices to muffle, but from her vantage point, she could see them circling the plane. The cramped space between the cars offered only glimpses, but Kate did see one of their heads fall to the ground, the man pointing to what had to be her footprints.
But then, just when the loudmouth took a step to follow, the man’s friend pulled him back to the path that Kate had tried to cover up, and her heart sank like a stone into her stomach as they began to follow it.
Kate began to stand but then thought better of it. She stared at the car door in front of her and cocked her arm back, curling her fingers into a fist. She punched the door, and a dull thud rang out. She looked through the icy window and saw both men turn at the noise. She punched the door again, and this time both men started back toward her.
Kate kept low, shuffling backward, banging on doors every few cars that she passed, leading the gunmen away from her son. She kept it up until they broke out into a jog, and then Kate darted for the forest.
“Hey! I see ’em!”
Snow and branches smacked Kate’s face and body. The snow deepened the farther she traversed into the forest, slowing her pace. She glanced behind her, watching the fragmented images of the men chasing her between the trees. Then she lowered her eyes to the trail she’d cut in the snow. A trail that they could follow right to her.
“Through here!” The voice huffed loudly, and Kate saw the man pointing down at her tracks.
She slowed her pace, trying to let her brain catch up with her body. She shut her eyes hard, breathing, panicking. She turned left, then right, looking for solid ground.
“C’mon!” the voice said excitedly. “She couldn’t have gone far!”
“Slow down, you asshat! Hey, stop!”
And at that command, Kate darted behind a tree, peering around the side until she saw the second man walking to catch up. They were close, but with the thick tree cover and the cold, any distance was made three times as long.
“We’re supposed to be scouting for that town, not running through the woods.”
“That’s what we’re doing!” the high-pitched voice complained.
“You’re just chasing ass.” The man gripped his friend by the collar. “And I’m not gonna freeze my ass off out here just so you can go and chase through the woods some woman who doesn’t want anything to do with your dick.”
“But all we have to do is follow—”
A heavy thud preceded a groan, and Kate saw the high-pitched wailing man buckle at the hips, hunched over and clutching his stomach.
“Enough fucking around!” the big man roared, his cheeks reddening. “I don’t want to be out in this frozen shitstorm longer than I have to! Dennis wants us back soon!”
Kate furrowed her brow at the name, and hollowness carved out her innards. She was lightheaded, and she pressed her back against the rough bark and slid down into the snow with a soft crunch. She shook her head.
“That’s impossible.” Kate whispered to herself, her eyes searching the blinding whiteness of the snow. Dennis was in prison. And that was where he was going to stay for the rest of his life. He couldn’t have gotten out. Could he?
The parole hearing was scheduled for what, yesterday? Two days ago? Kate’s eyes widened. It was the day of the EMP.
Institutions were failing, and basic services were cut off. She had flown over the capital herself and seen the fighting and destruction that ravaged the city. Plus, she was in the northern New York wilderness, close to Dennis’s prison. It was possible he was out. But that didn’t mean he was coming for her.
Kate relaxed. Of course he wasn’t coming for her. He had no idea where she was. If anything, he’d go to New York and discover the chaos that she’d escaped from. She peered from behind the tree trunk, finding both men gone.
Clumps of snow fell from her legs and back as she carefully and slowly approached the road. She kept her eyes peeled. The men could have been talking as a trick. But the closer she moved to the forest’s edge, the more confident she grew that they were really gone.
Kate hurried back to the van where she’d left Luke, praying that he was still alive. She ripped open the doors and struggled to pull his body closer to her. She checked his pulse. She sighed in relief at the light thump. But it was faint. Too faint. It was only a ghost of a heartbeat.
She hurried back to the wreckage and found the map but was unable to locate the coordinates that she’d written down. It didn’t matter, though. She knew them by heart. She used the nearest mile marker on the highway to check her location on the map. She was close. Only ten or twelve miles.
Yeah, ten or twelve miles through snow and hills with a one hundred and sixty pound kid to carry. Kate leaned forward, her body and mind exhausted. She lifted her head and looked to the north. The storm clouds were growing closer. She wouldn’t be able to move him fast enough by herself. She couldn’t carry him farther than ten feet before collapsing.
Kate stuffed the map inside her jacket and searched the vehicles on the road, praying she’d find one sooner or later. She figured that most of the people were traveling up here on vacation, hitting the slopes, which meant—“Yes!”
Kate found a s
led, a pair of skis, and poles in the back of a van. She grabbed the gear and dragged it back over to Luke. She strapped her son to the sled, found some rope and cord in the van where she’d stashed him, and then slipped into her skis.
She tied the rope around her waist. She had to be quick. She had to get to the cabin. She planted one of the poles firmly in the ground and then glided her left foot forward.
It was slow going at first, but once she had some momentum, she was cruising. She kept to the shoulder of the highway, which was mainly clear of any obstacles. She pushed through the burn of her muscles, and past the fatigue, and fell into a rhythm. She was almost there. She was so close to the finish line.
11
The sounds that echoed through the dark hospital hallways were dreadful, hopeless noises. If it wasn’t someone crying, it was someone screaming. Pleas and prayers intermixed with the wailing cries of those who had survived longer than their loved ones, but after a while, they became nothing but background noise.
Mark kept his hands clasped together tightly. He had gotten up from his seat in the hallway and paced the floor repeatedly. But after a time, the strength had disappeared from his legs, and he collapsed into a chair.
Rodney had remained seated once Mark calmed down, but Mark noticed the light bounce of the young man’s knee.
Footsteps inside Holly’s room triggered both men to look toward the door, and Mark stood as the doctor finally emerged. It was a second, maybe less before the doctor spoke, but Mark watched the man’s face carefully, studying the doctor’s stoic expression. The moment dragged on for an eternity, and Mark’s entire body ached with distress he’d never experienced.
“She’s alive,” The doctor said.
“Thank god,” Rodney said, exhaling and then collapsing back in his seat.
But Mark just stood there, frozen. He wanted to speak but continued to watch the doctor’s face. Despite the good news, he still looked worried. “What else?” He stepped closer, prompting the doctor to take a step back. “What’s wrong?”
