by AR Shaw
“Are we ready?” Geller asked.
With the door of the aircraft closed and locked in place, it seemed so. No one bothered answering. He sat in one of the jump seats between two of his hired soldiers and strapped himself in the same way as the man next to him. The pilot flipped switches and called out tasks to someone he’d commandeered to ride shotgun. The craft made whirring noises, and soon Geller felt lift and more hydraulic sounds, and then they seemed to coast up and away. It was a bit like what he thought riding in a spaceship felt like, except that it was louder…though he wished the seats were a bit more comfortable. He was frozen through and knew that there was little in the way of comfort with this means of travel.
Finally, he no longer felt like his body was being pushed down as the craft fought with gravity. He looked around at the other soldiers in the darkness and was surprised at what he saw. These men were professionals. They’d fought wars, protected the elite in extreme conditions, dodged bullets, killed the enemy, and lived through the worst of conditions. Instead of bravery, he saw fear. Their eyes were round with questions, not somber as they had been before in the bunker during their briefing. They looked to one another for reassurance. Only one man at the far end gave them that, and Geller noted the man’s features: dark hair, nearly black eyes, and he never smiled. He would stick close to him. He was their leader. He was the one who kept them all alive in the worst of conditions.
4
Lingering by the window, she watched Bishop’s form fade into the white blowing wind. In her mind, she replayed their early morning events and tried her best to make Bishop’s every movement a memory, just in case he didn’t come back to her. The way he reluctantly pulled away from her, slid his pants on, she regretted every single movement. As he did every morning, he picked up his EDC (Every Day Carry).
She watched as he clipped his side arm on; slipped the metal chain of his neck knife over his head, landing them in the crevice of his neck beside his old dog tags; and put his folding pocket knife inside of his jeans and his tactical knife at his hip, knowing that once his outer gear was on, he’d slip that knife onto the side of his backpack for easy reach.
His motion was automatic as he performed this morning ritual except that he smiled at her when he caught her watching him. “I’m coming back, Maeve,” he’d said. His voice sounded raspy as he ran the back of his fingers down her cheek.
Maeve turned when she heard her name called from down the hallway. Everyone carried flashlights or candles or whatever they found to see in the darkened hallways.
“Maeve, when’s he returning?” asked Louna’s mother, Cora, in a loud whisper. Most of the third floor’s residents were still asleep, she assumed. Maeve never saw Cora without her daughter by her side unless the child was with her instead. And even now, with the heavy door of her room propped open, Cora bore the look of subtle terror. She rarely took her eyes off Louna. “I feel safer when he’s around here.”
Maeve sighed. “Yes, me too, but we can’t depend on anyone for our own safety. We need to depend on ourselves.” She’d always found herself trying to bolster the younger woman. Cora had been through a terrible ordeal, but they needed to learn to survive, each as a cog in a wheel, not one more dependent on the other. “Bishop will be back later today or tomorrow morning. He’s gone out to hunt again.”
“Seems they bring back less and less when they go out,” Cora said, her vision transfixed out the window on the wild frozen opaqueness.
Maeve found that the people of the hotel often did this…stared out at the snow beyond the glass. The sight of them struck her as a settled desperation. They were lost there on the other side. Their families mostly gone. Their spirits spent. She didn’t know how to help them. The truth was, if she’d lost Ben, she too would have that glazed look about her, trapped out on the other side.
Cora had lost her husband and two sons in the attack on her house while she was stuck in town that night returning from a church function. It was a mercy, she felt, that Bishop had saved Louna and barely at that. The girl was alive and well but weakened by the ordeal. She was a lithe child to begin with, and at times Maeve was worried she wouldn’t make it at all and that Cora’s fate would be doomed then. That, she had no doubt. The woman only held on for her child now by a mere fiber.
“He’ll find something,” Maeve reassured Cora. “Bishop never comes back empty handed.”
Cora smiled. “Yeah, you’re right.”
“I’m taking a shift down in the kitchen for dinner this evening. Could you watch Ben for me?”
“Oh sure. Of course,” she said, somewhat dazed. “I heard Cook saying they were running low on supplies when I helped with breakfast yesterday.”
Maeve nodded when she met her worried brown eyes. “Yes, Bishop says we need to go south soon. They’re trying to organize some kind of wagon train or something.”
Cora looked at her. “Out in the open? We won’t survive that for long.”
“They’re looking into going from structure to structure. We can’t stay here for much longer.” She only said these things to Cora…it was a way to prepare the woman for the inevitable.
“How does he know? Maybe this will all melt soon,” Cora said, her voice an octave more frantic than before.
Maeve recognized the signs of a coming panic attack when she saw one. She placed her hand on Cora’s shoulder to calm her rapid breathing. “Cora…believe me, he’s doing everything he can to help as many as he can. They’re planning things. We’re hoping to have it all figured out soon. There’s no need to get too concerned about this now. I think we should stay busy and work on how to make food last on a long trip that doesn’t require heating.”
After a few deep breaths, Cora said, “We can…ah…make jerky out of the elk the people of Rockford Bay brought in recently. I’ve made it before. I can help with that.”
“That’s good. I have no idea how to prepare that. Why don’t you come with me? I’m in charge of finding ways to preserve what we have. I tried to look up ways to make hardtack, in the cookbooks from the kitchen, but no such luck.” She chuckled.
“That, I’ve only read about. I’ve never made it before, but I have some ideas,” Cora said, and Maeve thought for the first time that Cora might have a few more skills within her that they dearly needed; she just had to get her to focus. Now was not the time to lose her mind out of fear. If Maeve could channel the woman’s skills toward something useful, then she would not only survive but also save others.
“Mom!” came a croaky voice of a child from Cora’s room, which caught the mother with a start. She reached her hand out to Maeve and said, “I’m happy to watch Ben later; I’ll write down a few recipes. See you later!”
Maeve smiled at her as she rushed away to her daughter. Opening the opposite door of the hallway to her own room, where Ben slept, she took a longing look out the hall window to where Bishop had disappeared behind a veil of snow and remembered their early morning the day before. She missed him already. And what they shared together now had become something of a lifeline. Not that she’d ever forget Roger, but she couldn’t deny she loved Bishop. And if anything happened to him out there, she had no idea what would become of her and her son. And that vulnerability came at a price. She’d barely gotten over the death of Roger, when all of this happened. And now there was another man in her life, one she felt closer to even than her own husband, if she was honest with herself. It was confusing in a way. Bishop helped her become independent in a way that Roger never did. He taught her things, like shooting, made her pack a knife around her neck, and taught her how to defend herself and her son. Instead of just protecting her, in the ways Roger did, Bishop gave her the skills to protect herself. In that, she valued him, and the love she felt for him scared her at times late at night as she watched him sleep.
Fingering the leather chain around her neck that held the sheathed knife, she depressed the release and pulled the tiny sharp blade while standing in the dim foyer of the hotel room.
Knowing it was there made her feel safer. Bishop had taught her to slash instead of jab and that was something she’d never considered before; not that she ever considered she’d ever need to use an actual knife in a fight, but the way the residents were arguing over food lately, she knew violence wasn’t far off. After sheathing the knife, she felt the holster on her hip and the Sig Sauer that rested securely there—always armed and one in the chamber as Bishop taught her. She’d changed so much in the last few weeks. Instead of walking into a room blindly, she now identified possible exits and paid attention to the conversations around her. She was now vigilant, resourceful, and scared from the last few weeks. Everyone jumped when someone made a loud noise. Maeve would grab her son and make her way to the nearest exit. Before this, she was a bookstore owner and never considered this life she now lived. Her days now seemed like something she might have read in a dystopian novel. Now she lived the terror, but she also adapted to the danger. And that was something she had to thank Bishop for along with the love they now shared.
5
The flight was long and full of harrowing turbulence. They were all ready to land the Osprey. No one said as much, but Geller felt so, and by the look of the other occupants, he guessed they sensed the same.
They’d traveled over nine hundred miles so far, and there was only a few more to go. Soon he felt the craft descend. A shudder ran through the craft. Eyes looked up and around. Geller himself looked for answers on the faces of the other men. The craft dropped suddenly as if the bottom were yanked out from underneath them, causing Geller to grab on to his seat. An alarm went off somewhere in the cockpit. The shuddering increased a lengthy mere second, and then suddenly the craft stabilized again, and then someone yelled, “Geller!”
It was the man who rode shotgun with the pilot. He ran to his side and knelt down to be heard over the tremendous noise. “Sir! We’re here. We see firelights in the hotel. Looks like signal fires.”
Geller wasn’t sure what he wanted from him. He was still clenching his seat. He just nodded. That’s when the craft landed finally and seemed to settle down all at once. His own stomach seemed ten feet above him.
He was about to answer, when the lead soldier stood and yelled in a bellowing voice, “Team, Alpha, let’s go!”
Geller found himself hurried along with four of the soldiers. The rest acted on previous orders. Out of the cockpit door, the first thing that struck Geller was the change of scenery. Granted it was darkening outside, but for the many years he watched the winter landscape take hold of the Coeur d’Alene Lake, transforming it into a winter wonderland of sorts, he’d never seen anything like this. This was no wonderland of any kind. Snowdrifts piled high over a solidly frozen landscape. They’d actually landed the big craft on the solid ice before the grand hotel. There were hills of ice and snow. Debris blew in gusts over the ice, and there were many places with plywood or cardboard over what he suspected were holes in the ice with nearby charcoaled remains of fires. To Geller, this looked like a desperate place to survive, unlike the familiar resort town that his family grew over the decades, and he suspected many did not endure life for long. The desolation left him with the thought that he was glad he left when he did and more so that it was so dark that he suspected what remained in the line of oblong rags near Tubbs Hill were actually bodies. A shiver ran through him as he was hoisted down, and they began running at a brisk pace. Never getting used to the cold wind stealing one’s breath, Geller gasped for air. He slowed, not able to keep up with the men surrounding him in flanked column formation as he ran and desperately tried to keep his breathing in control at the same time.
“Slower…!” he shouted finally.
They moved in a half step to keep up with him.
As they approached the building, a guard called out to them from the lower-level doors. “Halt! Who are you!”
As if his heart wasn’t already pounding enough, he suddenly feared he might die in a hail of gunfire. He soon felt a hand grip his shoulder, pushing him down to the ground below.
“We’re with Mr. Geller here. He’s the owner and proprietor of this establishment. We’re here to talk!”
The doors opened, and suddenly Geller felt himself propelled up and forward. In another twenty feet, they were at the doors, and the lantern light from within made him blink. This was his hotel, yet the inside looked completely different. Where there was once a grand foyer, there was now firewood stacked high in hallways, waiting their turn for the large gas fireplaces. It was as if they were tossed backward into a medieval time, with torches lining the walls to keep the interior lit. His breath became shorter, and suddenly he was burning up instead of shivering cold. He pulled off his facemask, and before him stood his bastard son, Austin.
Though he knew the truth, he could never really accept Austin as his heir. He wasn’t raised by him, and if everyone knew his lineage, he would serve nothing but an embarrassment to him, so he kept the young man close within the business. Keep your friends close and your enemies closer…that’s the way it went. There was no real telltale resemblance either. His mother was Hispanic, and he…well, he was as white as they came. The dominant genes did not win, but the result was that he didn’t really look like either of his parents. He had his height and a few of his facial features, but the rest was purely his mother, whom he promised to provide for, and he’d kept his promise.
He often asked himself if he loved Austin. In all honesty, he could not love him as much as his own son and daughter with his wife of twenty-eight years. It wasn’t in him, but he took the responsibility of Austin and carried him as far as the young man was willing to go. He at least had faith in Austin to become a competent professional.
And there he was again, Austin, standing before him, looking a little thinner than the day he had left him there. Honestly, he missed the young man, but he couldn’t say he loved him.
“Austin, it’s me.”
6
It took what seemed like hours for Bishop to cross the crusty ice against the wind. He’d considered bringing his horse, Jake, when he’d started out, but the blowing snow would have made him feel like his lungs were suffocating, and Bishop didn’t want the horse to slice his fetlocks and injure the canon bone like many of the injuries of the other horses that came back from hunting trips did. Jake was more than a horse to Bishop. He was his friend and the only companion he’d had for many years in a one-way source of conversation. Horses that broke their way through the crusty hard layer of snow often came back only to need weeks of recovery.
No; instead, he made the frigid trek himself, resisting even taking another man with him. Being responsible for another human in these conditions wasn’t something Bishop wanted on his conscience, either. As it was, he had to kill a man that day. Regret flooded him again at the recent memory, but it was either him or the other guy, and nothing would keep him from those he now loved.
The closer he came to the dim flames shining in the openings of the parking garage—as something of a lighthouse beacon for those who strayed too far from home—he heard a distant but approaching whirr. That sound was something from his past, something he recognized immediately, since he himself had ridden many times in the approaching vehicle a decade before—the same sound haunting his dreams on many nights and often his days, if he were honest.
How they were able to navigate in the weather was a mystery to him. He could barely see right in front of his face, as it was. Ducking out of the way, since he didn’t know if the occupants were friends or foes, Bishop quickly hid behind a wide berm of snow and used his scope to glass the area even though visibility was nil. It didn’t keep him from trying. That’s when the tilt-rotors turned, and the Bell Boeing CV-22 Osprey began to land vertically.
Additional firelights flashed on at the building where he was headed, and Bishop wished, instead, that they had the sense to douse the damn flames. These people didn’t know what they were up against, and there was no reason to put out a welcome mat for these strangers.
“Dammit,” Bishop murmured to no one but himself. Taking off at a run, Bishop held his rifle in one hand as the backpack slammed into his back repeatedly. He kept out of sight of the aircraft, glanced as he ran, and as the hatch door opened, black-suited men descended the stairs. That was all he took the time to discern. Of course, they were armed. He didn’t take the time to look. Men in black didn’t move like that and not have the means to kill sufficiently.
When he was nearly twenty feet from the parking-garage entrance, instead of yelling the expected password he’d tried to train the guards, he yelled, “Douse the damn flames!”
“Did you see the aircraft? Who are they?” the guard said with excitement in his tone.
Bishop had, on more than one occasion, attempted to inform Carter, the main guard on duty, of proper security procedures, but he never quite got it. The one thing that always kept him out there, though, was the fact that he was a large, easygoing fellow and could withstand the cold longer than anyone else. “That’s the point,” Bishop said with frustration. “We don’t know who they are. Kill the flames!”
“Why? Maybe they’ve brought help…”
“Carter…douse the damn lights. We don’t know who they are yet. You see?”
“Oh, okay,” he said and quickly extinguished the flames on either end of the lake-facing wall.
Bishop then dropped his pack and took up a position behind one of the heavy concrete pillars, and Carter handed him a pair of night-vision goggles.
“These will not work in the snowstorm, Carter,” he said, handing them back to the man.
Again he took out his bolt-action rifle and peered through the scope, switching it to the thermal setting, knowing he’d get a limited view with the blowing snow of the scene below, but it was better than nothing at all. Already he spotted five people running toward the front of the building complex.
