by K. M. Fawkes
Blood Runs Cold
Stone Cold Fear Book Two
K. M. Fawkes
Contents
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Chapter 11
Chapter 12
Chapter 13
Chapter 14
Chapter 15
Chapter 16
Chapter 17
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Also by K. M. Fawkes
Copyright 2021 by K. M. Fawkes
All rights reserved. Except for use in any review, the reproduction or utilization of this work in whole or in part by any means, now known or hereafter invented, including xerography, photocopying and recording, or in any information storage or retrieval system, is forbidden without the explicit written permission of the author.
All characters depicted in this fictional work are consenting adults, of at least eighteen years of age. Any resemblance to persons living or deceased, particular businesses, events, or exact locations are entirely coincidental.
Chapter 1
At least we’ll be able to see, Peter Marshall thought.
After the time they’d just spent in a prison lousy with people who wanted to kill them—and no electricity—that was no small thing.
The post-avalanche Alaskan landscape was awe-inspiring and terrifying as it glowed beneath the bright, nearly full moon. The white of the snow caught the light of the earth’s only natural satellite and held it so that it seemed to glow from within.
But it wasn’t only the landscape that was awe-inspiring and terrifying. There was also Marie Simons, staring up at him, her expression caught somewhere between trust and horror as he dangled her out the window. Pete tightened his grip on her hand and repeated his promise. I will not allow us to die out here.
“I’m ready,” Marie said. “You can let go.”
But Pete wasn’t ready. Only now, looking down into the snow, which had to be two-and-a-half stories deep, did he wonder whether this was such a good idea. What if they sank so far into it that they couldn’t get out? What if they went right into it and…
If that happened, they might as well have been caught in the avalanche itself.
And there was literally no hope of rescue. No one to radio for help—even if they had a working radio, which they didn’t. All modern electronics had been fried by the electromagnetic pulse released by a solar flare of what had to have been biblical proportion. Anyone that was left of law enforcement, military, or government probably had bigger problems on their hands than a lone National Guardsman and a journalist who had been masquerading as a nurse at a notorious prison.
Suddenly, the convicts outside the warden’s office of Mueller Maximum Security Prison rammed the door again. And that was the end of that little mental vacation.
Pete let go of Marie. At first, she tensed as she fell—which was no good. Tensing led to bad landings, and bad landings to injuries. Even in what he hoped was at least sort of cushy snow. In a world where hospitals may or may not be in operation, an injury could be a death sentence. But he saw the exact moment she mastered her fear, the moment she forced her body to relax. Once again, he was reminded that Marie was resourceful and tough as hell.
It was a relief to see her effort pay off. She landed in a relatively flat position, which prevented her from torpedoing deep into the snow. Hopefully, he could do the same.
Bang!
This time, the explosive noise was accompanied by the sound Pete had been dreading—the doorknob giving way. He flung himself over the window ledge, aiming for a spot near where Marie had landed, but not too close, and made himself go limp. From above, her landing had looked like a relatively soft one. Like she’d just pressed right into the snow.
He hit the snow with a thwomp, and it wasn’t a fucking soft one. Sure, the snow gave way better than hard ground would have, but during the first moment of impact, it felt plenty solid. It took a second or two before his lungs were willing to inhale again.
“The landing was still a bitch,” Marie said.
“A total bitch,” Pete said with a wheeze.
Then a gun fired and a puff of snow kicked into the air two feet from his head.
“Jesus!” Marie exclaimed.
“Ted!” one of the convicts shouted. “Give me the fucking gun.”
Based on the yells coming from above, the convicts were, yet again, fighting among themselves. At least they could be relied upon to be their own worst enemies. Until they sorted out their pecking order, chaos would remain the theme of the day—and give Pete and Marie the break they needed to get out of there.
“Time to move,” he said, adjusting the pack and telling his ribs to shut the hell up.
He didn’t have time for their complaints right now. The two of them needed to get out of there, or they were going to have problems a whole lot more fatal than some cracked ribs.
Marie took his hand and they floundered down the slope, away from Mueller, their eyes on the landscape in front of them.
He hated that he couldn’t see what the convicts were doing behind them. Hated that he didn’t know whether they were under cover yet or not. But he didn’t have time to look back. Right now, they just had to keep moving forward.
“This stuff is like quicksand,” Marie complained, gasping for breath.
Another gunshot boomed, and they ducked.
This time there was no nearby puff of snow to say that one of them had been the target, and Pete hoped the convicts were losing them. Either that or killing each other off. At least that would keep them busy—maybe long enough for Pete and Marie to get out of range. So far, none of the prisoners had attempted to follow them through the window.
“Slow and steady. Don’t burn yourself out,” Pete said, hoping to raise Marie’s spirits. Or his own spirits. He wasn’t sure. The snow was too fresh and too soft. If it had had time to pack down under its own weight, the surface would have been firmer, and easier to walk on.
Of course, they would have had to land on that firmer surface so…
The bigger problem was that they couldn’t stay on the surface. Without that pack, they were sliding down into the stuff, their legs completely submerged. Before long they were both gasping with effort. Pete told himself the noise he was making was more like grunting, because “gasping” sounded weak and he needed to be strong if they were going to survive.
He knew he was lying to himself. In more ways than one.
It took an enormous effort to move through the snow which, ironically, became their saving grace. Exertion heated their bodies from the inside, and prevented them from bowing to the cold. Yeah, Pete still sensed its sharp teeth nipping at his extremities, looking for an opening to get in and give him a real bite. But as long as they stayed warm on the inside, that heat would radiate out.
If they kept working this hard—and it didn’t actually kill them—it would keep them alive.
Marie stopped and leaned over on the snow, coughing. “I think this must be hell,” she gasped. “We’ve done something so bad that we were sent right to hell, and it turns out everyone else was wrong and it’s not hot. It’s fucking cold. Cold and snow for eternity.”
He almost laughed at the gallows humor, but then he looked down and saw the tears starting to run down her cheeks. Tears of exhaustion. Tears of fear. It didn’t matter. Tears meant giving up—and they couldn’t afford that right now.
He got to her side and folded her in a hug, keeping his mouth shut. Back
when things were still great between him and Theresa, she’d taught him a valuable lesson. Comfort and commiseration, Pete. That’s what women are usually looking for. They don’t need someone telling them how to fix the problem.
After a moment of silence, Marie pulled away, slipped one of her gloves off, and wiped her face. “I’m okay now. Let’s get going.”
They started slogging through the snow again, one foot in front of the other—and again and again until time lost meaning, as did suffering.
The wind picked up, and the cold finally found the opening it had been looking for and started gnawing on Pete. It was the wolf and he was the bone. How soon before he cracked under its teeth? His theory about being saved by being warm on the inside was starting to look really freaking stupid, and then he noticed that Marie was shivering as well.
She was right, he thought. Hell wasn’t fire and brimstone and burning heat, it was subzero cold. Cold enough to make your toes ache and your fingers scream and each breath burn your lungs.
In front of them, gusts of wind sent crystals of snow flying in fits and starts. The crystals stung when they hit his face, and blunted visibility, and he immediately revised his opinion. This wasn’t merely hell; it was the ninth circle, or maybe one even deeper than anything Dante had imagined. The tenth. Or twentieth. One hundredth.
Maybe it would be easier to give up. Give in. Was it even worth surviving in this newly remade world?
Buck up, Marshall, he lectured himself. He’d made a promise, and only hours later he was ready to renege? Bullshit.
Marie had come to a stop and was standing there, just shivering, and he took her hand again and pulled her along. She didn’t fight him, which was good. He wasn’t sure he had enough in the tank to have to drag her the rest of the way to wherever they were going.
Assuming they got there before anything worse happened. Like those convicts deciding to come after them—with their guns.
Suddenly, he realized the snow was only just above his knees. He’d been so mired in misery, so convinced they were stuck on a snow treadmill in hell, that he hadn’t noticed the progress they’d made.
“We made it,” he tried to say, but his face was stiff with cold and the words came out slurred and unrecognizable.
“What?” Marie asked, then stretched her mouth wide and made faces, trying to get her lips to work. “It’s really hard to talk.”
“Too bad Andersen didn’t have snowshoes in his office.”
“No kidding.” Marie shook her head. “That man. I guess he got what he deserved, but still.”
When David Clyde, America’s most notorious homegrown terrorist, got a hold of the warden, he and his fellow convicts had made Warden Andersen suffer. True, Andersen had been a sadistic prick, abusing the prisoners in all sorts of ways, but there was an enormous gulf between wishing someone would die suffering, and seeing it happen right in front of you.
It was even worse when you hadn’t actually wished for someone’s death, and you’d seen it anyhow. Been completely incapable of stopping it.
Pete shook his head, pushing that thought away. He needed to think of what was coming up, not what they’d been through. They’d made it out of Mueller alive. Now what were they supposed to do?
“Shelter,” Marie said. “We need to find shelter.”
“I never even looked at a map of the area.” Pete flapped his hands, trying to send blood to fingertips that, ironically, felt like they were being held too close to a heat source.
Besides, he didn’t need a map to see the forest that loomed to one side of them, vast and majestic. Under the moonlight, the spruce and fir, hemlock and pine trees weren’t green so much as varying shades of charcoal.
“Let’s get into the trees,” he said. “They’ll break the wind.”
“Or we could try to get back inside,” Marie countered. “Walk around the perimeter and find a way in. At least we’d have shelter then—and be away from the guys who were hunting us.”
“Too much work,” he answered gruffly. “You want to go back in there with those convicts on the loose? Are you actually insane?”
“Going into the woods isn’t going to guarantee our safety either. Maybe, in there, we could find a way to call for help.”
Here was the maddening and stubborn Marie, the one that had caused him so many problems in the prison. She was also, he remembered, the one who had agreed with him about getting the hell out of the prison.
He was about to say something he’d no doubt regret, but a sound caught his attention.
The distinct creak of snow when it was compressed underfoot.
Adrenaline surged through him and he twisted his neck, scanning the surroundings as he looked for convicts.
“What was that?” Marie said.
“Shh.”
She looked pissed off to have been shushed, but he brushed it off; he needed to listen. The sound came again, and then he spotted sinister gray forms in the blowing snow.
Not convicts, but wolves. As though his earlier thought about being a bone had summoned them.
The wolves were between them and Mueller, and that effectively ended the argument of whether to go back into the prison or find somewhere else.
“Run!” he shouted, and grabbed Marie’s hand.
They took off, racing toward the forest, yips and growls following along behind them. Pete was sure he’d have to pull Marie along, but she was fast, and he found himself struggling to keep up with her.
His ribs had shut up for a while, or their complaints had been blocked by the more unpleasant sensations brought about by the unforgiving journey through the snow, but now they took to protesting. Each breath brought a new stabbing pain. He thought the ribs were only cracked, but just then it felt like bone shards had broken off and were knifing him from the inside out.
“Climb,” Marie huffed between breaths. “Wolves don’t climb.”
He scanned ahead, looking for a likely tree. The branches of the Sitka spruce were too close together, as were those of the Douglas firs. Too great a chance of the wolves being able to use them. A lodgepole pine or black spruce would be better.
What he really wanted to do was turn around to see how close the wolves were, but that would only slow him down. It was bad enough that he could hear them gaining ground, hear their paws cutting across the snow so much more efficiently than human feet encased in boots.
“There!” Marie called. “You take the left, I’ll take the right.”
He’d been looking at the lodgepole pines Marie indicated, but he hadn’t processed how perfectly suited they were for climbing. She might be better off without me, he thought, then reminded himself to do better.
He slowed his pace, thinking Marie would need a boost in order to reach the first branch and begin climbing, but she leaped at the tree and propelled herself upward. Using her momentum, she easily grabbed one of the lowest branches, and then kept her feet moving as though she was trying to run up the tree. That gave her the boost she needed to make it high enough to use other branches to continue the climb.
“Behind you!” she shouted as she came to a stop straddling a thick branch.
He turned to face the wolves. They were close. Too close.
Pete held out his arms and yelled as loud as he could, until his voice went raspy and then petered out altogether. The pack backed off a little, and he took the opportunity to turn back around and run toward the tree. He didn’t have enough space to build up the speed he’d need, but he also couldn’t take another stab at it. This was his one and only chance, and he had to get up that trunk.
Pushing himself as hard as he could, he asked his body for just a little more. Still uncertain about whether he’d make it, he nearly bailed, thinking that he could maybe keep running and just find a different tree. But then, before he could change his mind, he had jumped and was flying through the air. He grabbed the branch with one hand, then caught hold of it with the other and hung there, dangling.
The wolves began
to growl, probably sensing that victory was near.
Pete’s knapsack felt like it weighed a hundred pounds, though it couldn’t have been more than twenty, and even that was pushing it. His ribs were screaming, begging for mercy, and then the frontmost wolf got a hold of his foot. Luckily, the thickness of the boot—thank you Uncle Sam—prevented the beast’s teeth from sinking in. Pete kicked out with his other foot and connected with the wolf’s snout. It yipped and released his foot.
“God damn it, Pete!” Marie yelled. “Climb already!”
Ignoring the pain in his ribs, Pete pulled himself upward, using his feet against the trunk for leverage. He reached for a second branch and nearly missed, and in that fraction of a second, he vividly imagined falling to the ground and being torn apart by teeth and claws while Marie screamed. And then he had the branch firmly in hand, and the next, and one more until he was high enough to swing a leg over one of the thicker branches and sit there, wheezing the icy air in and out of his starved lungs.
“Will they give up?” Marie asked. “When they realize they can’t get to us?”
“I hope so.”
No matter what, it was a blessing to be in the trees and out of the wind. And sitting down. Had sitting down ever felt this good? If it had, he couldn’t remember it. Plus, for the first time in hours, he was completely warm, compliments of the adrenaline. It wouldn’t last, but he couldn’t stop himself from wallowing in the sheer, blissful comfort of it.
He looked over at Marie, and even in the gloom, he could tell she was experiencing the same thing. Tipping his head back, he rested it against the trunk. His eyes dropped closed… and he fell asleep without intending to.
