by AR Shaw
Removing the bindings made Yeager gag as well. He glanced at Rebecca as she settled in with the children in the far corner of the room and began telling a story, ushering the little ones ever closer to her as the older ones sat behind them, forming a shield against what was about to happen. It was an illusion he’d begun. He knew they would forever recognize the sound he was about to make.
Walt’s foot had blackened from the toes up to the broken ankle, where green puss indicated a nemesis that would only retreat one way. If he left the infection for long, Walt would die; no doubt about it. The infection would travel well beyond his foot, up through his veins and into his heart. As it was, he was already dealing with a life-threatening condition.
The thing Yeager hid by his side was a sharp piece of flattened metal from the fuselage of the Osprey. He’d laid it in the fire and sharpened the edge as well as he could. Pulling the sterilized blade out from its hiding spot against his thigh, Yeager first used it to make a slice several inches above the line of demarcation between living and dead flesh, well above the ankle. There was no other way. He’d lose his entire foot either way. “This is the only way,” he told himself repeatedly.
Taking a deep breath, Yeager looked up to Walt’s closed eyes. “I’m sorry, Walt,” he whispered as he cut a ring around the flesh on Walt’s shinbone.
After that, he pulled the hairy skin up several inches all the way around like a sock, using his finger to pry the dermis from the flesh below it. He gagged again, wiped his mouth on his sleeve, took a glance at Rebecca, and continued by making his first cut along the muscle tissue of Walt’s upper shin.
Rebecca’s story became louder…something about dwarfs and a sleeping princess in a forest much like the one they were in now, only not in the ice age. Little blue birds were fluttering around. She continued as he took the saw to bone. A time or two, he heard her voice waver, and then she caught herself and increased her volume.
Finally, he’d made it through bone, flesh, and thick tendons. When he lifted the dead, putrid foot away, Rebecca’s voice skipped a beat. He realized his mistake and pulled the thing out of anyone’s sight, placing it on the towel on his left in which he’d hidden the knife.
The next task, he wasn’t too sure of. He pulled the sock of skin down over the ankle and fitted one flap over the other. He had to trim away a bit of the excess, leaving enough slack for the eventual swelling but not too much. He then began sewing the wound together. It didn’t take long, but by the time he was finished, Walt had begun moaning something low and under his breath.
“I’m sorry, Walt,” Yeager whispered. “I had no choice.”
“The end,” Rebecca said, her voice shaking now, too.
There were blackened toes on many of the children, he remembered. Too many to count right now. Hastily, Yeager wrapped the dead limb, the makeshift saw, and his own guilt in the task and raced to the door, passing all of the silent witnesses to the gruesomeness they’d never forget.
Slamming the door behind him, he welcomed the numbing cold, the loss of all life-giving breath within his lungs, the stinging bite of cold upon his face. When he did manage to catch his breath, he opened his eyes and within the dark, beyond the veil of snow, a pair of glowing eyes met his. The animal was about twenty feet away. He intended to walk out to the fire pit and burn the damn bundle containing the foot, but those eyes meant a deviation from the plan. There was no way he’d leave the shelter unprotected and the children on their own. Not with predators around.
“Be gone, bear!” he yelled, not knowing if it was a bear or not. That was just a guess. “Yah!” he yelled, waving his arms, and another set of eyes appeared ten feet away. And then another. Then a long howl went up, one and then another joining in. Far away—yet too close—a howl answered, sending goose bumps along his spine, his arms, and his hairline. Yeager lifting the severed limb and without thinking, threw the putrid flesh at the first set of eyes. “Get out of here!” There was a thud. The animal yelped, and then they all began to growl.
“Oh hell.”
40 JAX
After refreshing the livestock and reloading the animals on the bus, Jax said, “There’s no way we’re going to fit all the snowmobiles and the livestock inside the same bus. You guys are crazy.”
“What do you suggest?” Austin asked.
Stone-faced, Jax replied, “What I said in the beginning. We have to lose either the snowmobiles or the horses. Either way, that puts one advantage down when the buses are no longer useful.” Jax motioned toward the overturned bus. “Case in point. So, I’d suggest abandoning some of the snowmobiles.”
Carl piped up. “Some of the fellows aboard want to ride them. Would that be a problem? They’re sick of the buses.”
“We already have lookouts riding ahead of us.”
“Yeah, but why not have a few more trailing?”
Jax shook his head. “It’s their choice. I don’t give a rat’s back what they want to do. But don’t come crying to me when they get frostbite.”
“Why are animals more sustainable than engines, Jax? I just want to understand,” Austin asked.
Breathing deeply, Jax replied, “Because the cold is any engine’s worst enemy. Things seize up. Whereas an animal has a heart and determination, for the most part. It’s alive. I’d trust a horse any day over a battery-operated engine in these conditions. A horse isn’t much different from a dog…it wants to please you. Horses are loyal, whereas a battery engine just doesn’t give a flying fuck.”
He walked away then, but not before seeing Carl arch his eyebrows at Austin as if to say, “He’s got a point.”
“Let’s salvage the rest of our supplies from the bus and get out of here by whatever means necessary. If they want to ride the snowmobiles as far as they can, that’s fine with me. Just take out the batteries and other supplies before they decide to abandon them. Jax went aboard the horse trailer then. He found Jake, his own horse, and rubbed hay along his body to remove any accumulated sweat. It was habit, really. He did it now more out of affection, saying melodically, “I won’t let them leave you. No. Not yet. Bunch of idiots.” Then he spotted something black in the corner of the trailer. “Jet! How you doing there, kitty? Won’t Ben be happy to see you.”
The cat came out when he heard Jax’s voice. When he did, he stretched low into a “downward dog” impression and headed over to where Jax knelt. Scratching the cat along his side, Jax said, “You stay right where you are, buddy. No reason for anyone to know you exist.”
The cat was thin and no doubt starving, but he was surviving. Jax suspected he was getting little food, but that didn’t matter. He’d either make it, or he wouldn’t. Jax took no special care of him. He had to learn to survive on his own, just like the rest of them.
After he stood, the cat lumbered back to his spot, and Jax left the trailer, shutting the door behind him. There was always a caretaker in the trailer when they traveled, and he doubted that even that person knew there was a cat on board for the ride.
He’d enabled Jet’s stowing away, but that was all he was responsible for. All he would lay claim to. Hoping Ben would meet his cat again someday but not caring a lick if he did not…nope.
The engines began again at once when Jax reached his assigned bus. Saul smiled at him when he boarded. He counted all the lives aboard before they left. Despite losing one life three days ago, today was a good day so far, and they were able to travel on, since the wind wasn’t blowing at the speed of a category 5 tornado. As he looked out the window, a few snowmobiles zoomed by them.
“Onward,” he said. It wasn’t as bad as it could have been, but it was much worse than he wanted it to be. And yet, that wasn’t so awful. They began moving, and through the blowing snow, he and the others watched as they passed snow-laden trees. He gazed longer at the one with an ice mound beside it than he did the others. It was a cold reminder that no one predicted or promised each mile they achieved.
41 MAEVE
“What do you intend
to do to him?” Maeve asked as Cassie and Morrow geared up.
Smiling, Cassie said, “Shut. Him. Down. Finally. This is all my fault. Bishop said to make sure he had no access to a computer once he gave us what we wanted. I cannot believe I let Donovan talk me into doing maintenance before he gave it up.”
Morrow nudged her. “Hey, good cop, bad cop. Try to remember that you’re the good cop.”
Cassie slipped her Glock 19 into a right-handed chest harness with a thud. She said, “It’ll be a pleasure to put an end to him staring me up and down. I’ve put up with him long enough.”
“Be careful. He might enjoy it too much,” Maeve said.
“No, he won’t…trust me. I’ll make sure he regrets the last month of visually undressing me,” Cassie said as she strapped on her thigh sheath and shoved the blade home with a hard push of her palm. She pulled her hair into a tight ponytail.
Maeve noticed the upturned edges of Morrow’s mouth, which made her chuckle.
With glee, Cassie said, “You have no idea how long I’ve waited for this.”
“Well, don’t get too enthusiastic. Remember; you’re the good cop.”
“I’m still a cop,” Cassie said with dead seriousness.
Morrow put his hands up in surrender. “All right. I’m with you. Follow my lead, even though you’re more qualified. Just try to make it look like I’m in charge. We both know you are.”
“And don’t you forget it,” Cassie said, leaving the room to engage Donovan.
Maeve nodded at them. She would monitor the situation on the display screens on the desk before her, though she wouldn’t be able to hear the conversation.
In no time, she watched the grainy image of Morrow walk into the room, his hand on his weapon. Donovan quickly slid his chair back with his feet and raised his hands into the air.
Open mouths indicated shouting. Donovan tried to stand. Morrow shoved him back into his chair and pointed the weapon at him. Cassie entered the room then. She appeared to be talking to Morrow, and he seemed to be shouting at her.
Suddenly, Donovan lunged for the computer and hit the keyboard with his fist.
“Oh no!”
Cassie pulled her knife from its sheath and jumped on top of Donovan, her blade poised on his neck. Morrow had plastic handcuffs out. Then Donovan kicked him away and, despite the knife to his throat, he managed to hit the keyboard again. Maeve doubted that Cassie and Morrow even detected that movement or his intentions.
Maeve hit the intercom. “Get him out of there!” she yelled, though she doubted they heard her over the chaos in the room.
When Morrow and Cassie tackled Donovan to the ground and Morrow began to put the cuffs on him, everything everywhere went black.
42 JAX
“Where the hell are we now?” Carl asked as the buses tracked on, making their rhythmic drone, through a light blizzard. He’d just mixed cups of instant coffee for Jax and himself. They were sitting across from one another, just as they’d done when they were high school teens, wiped out after a long game away from home. Most of the other refugees of Coeur d’Alene either slept or were in a dreary daze.
Jax rubbed his coated elbow on the opaque window, wondering the same thing. He scratched the frost off a small, circular spot. Not as steep as Lookout Pass, the terrain was more rolling hills of snow that met up against steep mountains above. Innocent clouds, really…or that was the deception. They seemed to go on and on forever. He looked out there, blinking several times. Even dim light beat the dark, but the constant grayish white burned his eyes.
“Ah…somewhere between Borax and Tammany, I’d guess, but it all looks the same anymore. Just a sheet of white.”
“We’re in Montana?”
“Well, yeah. We crossed over Lookout…that’s the border.”
“Ah. I usually stick to my own backyard…or did. As slow as we’re going, I never thought we’d crossed the border.”
“A backyard was enough for any man back then, but welcome to the wide world, Carl. Or what’s left of it.”
“If we’re there, then the Northern Pacific Trail runs to the north and the Saint Regis River, to the south.”
“Yeah, what does it matter? Frozen like everything else beneath twenty or more feet of compacted snow and ice. Might as well be nothing there at all. Might as well be completely paved over for some future archaeologists to discover fifty years from now…if it ever melts, and if there are any witnesses to discover what’s left of it.”
“Seriously, you think this damn thing will last that long?”
Jax took in a deep breath. “We were due for an apocalypse. I just didn’t expect to lead a survival group of ninnies through it all. Ahhh, I didn’t expect to survive one for long, myself. Not saying it’s over, not by a long shot. I’m just saying this is going to last quite a long time, and I doubt you or I will feel the warm rays of the sun on our bikinis as we sip beer and flip burgers in the backyard ever again.” Pointing to the south, he said, “Those kids, that funny girl of yours, what’s her name? Rebecca? She will. But I have a feeling that she’ll be telling her grandchildren about playing outside in the warmth of the sun and running through the sprinklers when she does.”
“That’s near thirty years, you figure?”
“I do. Or more.”
“Damn.”
“Damn is right.”
The droning continued while Jax settled back into his spot, and they both sipped their warm coffee. There was no silence when you lived life this way. Jax missed his home. He missed the sound of running water, of crickets chirping in the night, of the occasional trespasser, now that he thought about it. It wasn’t that he hated people…he just saw their stupidity as a challenge.
It was fun to meet one who crossed his camp every once in a while and test him to see what he was made of. Like the time he dealt with Bishop and knew right away that the young soldier had seen too much in war. He’d watched out for him and soon learned there was little need to do so. Jax had never had a son, but Bishop came the closest to being called one. He missed him and hoped for the man. Hoped that he was well and wasn’t fooled by anyone. There are few things in this world you miss more than your child when he’s absent. You long for his safety. Even though Bishop was capable, strong, and reliable, life had a way of undermining the best of men. And that was the only reason he’d let him go. It was the reason he’d agreed to help these parents get back to their own children. He understood that bond now. And that was why he was haunted. Some fathers betrayed that trust. It was a conundrum that never ceased to disturb him.
These thoughts were thrumming through his mind when all of the coffee in his cup suddenly sloshed toward him in slow motion. The liquid mass held its form except for the tiny droplets speeding past the main undulating body, a dull shine on the brown river coming toward his chest. Carl, too, seemed airborne for a fraction of a second. Then the white billow of snow that usually remained outside the bus cascaded in, chasing Carl. Jax’s last thought before the avalanche threw them like a Tinkertoy convoy was, This is not a good day.
43 WALT
“Make them stop!” one of the children pleaded as the pack of wolves outside their door continued to howl.
“Rebecca, keep them quiet,” Yeager yelled.
“I’m trying to,” she whispered harshly. “Can’t you just shoot them, please?”
Shaking his head in frustration, Yeager said, “Every bullet I use on them means a loss of hunting for us. We have a limited amount of ammunition now. We have to preserve what we’ve got.”
“Then fire? We have to do something,” Rebecca said.
With his body barring the door, he peeked outside through a crack again. There were too many of them. “The more noise we make, the longer they’ll stay. Once they figure out that they can’t get to us, they’ll leave. We need to wait them out. Besides, whatever we use to divert them means a negative for us later. We just need to be patient until there are fewer of them so I can take more precise shots.”
>
“Now that they’ve found us, they’re not going anywhere. And you know that!” Rebecca said.
“Calm down. I know it’s frustrating. Just trust me. We need to wait at least until there are fewer of them. They’ll tire soon, and they’ll look for food elsewhere. When that happens, I can take the stragglers out, and then we’ll build a fire to drive the rest of them off from the outside. If I get injured or die…the rest of you are doomed. I’m trying to play it as safe as possible. You understand me, right?”
“Yes…it’s just the howls. They want to eat us. It’s driving me crazy,” she said. There was a primal fear in her eyes, one he felt himself. He could not deny or calm that fear. The howling cadence continued.
44 BISHOP
The wooden sign hung there stationary, its wide wood grain bared. The engraved letters didn’t concern him. They held no meaning now. The curved arch above them did. That was a sign that the middle finger of a flat hand had swiped away the ice. “There are no tracks because of the snow, but someone definitely uncovered these signs,” Bishop said. “That means we have no idea which direction they headed, but we do know where they were. We can only look for wreckage. I see no signs of tracks in the snow.”
“But it could take longer to find them that way. I think we should split up,” Alyssa said.
Shaking his head at her, he said, “Please stop. That’s how we lose people. We don’t have enough equipment or people to split up. We have to do this my way, Alyssa. Or you can just wait here. Your choice.”
Holding his hand up to stop her protest, he said, “I know…I know, but this is the only way. We find the wreckage, and then we find them. That’s all there is to it. They haven’t gone more than five miles in this. We will find them now…it won’t take much longer. We’re close.”
Ignoring her glowering stare, he pointed to the south and said, “I think it’s reasonable to assume they came this way. The opposite direction is all forest. At least there’s open space here. If they had a chance at landing and surviving, I would bet it’s out in the open. Let’s head there first. They may have sent out a few people to find help or shelter. We might run into a group and find out more then.”
