America Falls (Book 3): Cold Comfort

by Medbury, Scott

  I half expected to see Ragg standing over me, perhaps waiting for me to regain my feet. It was then I realised how hard he had hit me. He was also on the ground about six feet away. Like me, he was on his knees as one hand reached blindly over his back, trying to grasp the knife that was embedded deep in his right lower shoulder blade. Just out of the reach of his desperate fingers.

  He stopped trying when he noticed me. Apparently, it could wait, and with implacable determination he again rose to his feet. He still held his knife and I was now weapon-less. He knew he had won. I could see it in his eyes. Very slowly, almost casually he began to walk towards me, the knife tapping out a tune on his thigh.

  “No!”

  Indigo again, this time her voice a mix of disbelief and horror rather than encouragement. I made one last effort and pushed myself to my feet.

  He wasn’t wary now. He was relaxed and in control. I saw my last hope in his confidence and swayed a little more drunkenly than I had to.

  “Run Isaac!” screamed Indigo.

  Ragg smiled, he was enjoying this.

  When he was only a few feet away I burst to life, throwing the golf ball sized rock I had hidden in my hand at his face. Even though I had been a decent little league pitcher when I was a kid, the ploy was an attempt to distract him more than anything else and I ran at him. Sometimes attack really is the best form of defense.

  To my utter surprise the rock hit him dead centre of the forehead with a loud crack. He stumbled backwards like a drunk, trying to keep his feet as I hit him. We crashed heavily to the ground. And he screamed as the knife embedded in his shoulder was driven deeper by the heavy fall and my added weight.

  I began to rain blows upon his face, already bloody from the gushing wound the rock had made. I didn’t stop until his eyes closed, and he went slack under me. I sat on his chest looking at the grey sky, my chest heaving for breath.

  I was exhausted and about to roll off my defeated quarry when one of his hands shot up and grabbed me by the throat, squeezing my windpipe. I only just managed to grab his other hand as he brought the knife up to finish me. We struggled, and spots began to cloud my vision. I fought to stay conscious as his knife hand slowly inched towards my eye, the point of his blade filling my quickly darkening vision.

  BANG!!!

  Ragg’s head snapped viciously to the left, blood spattering the ground beside his head. The last thing I saw as the hand around my throat slackened was Ben, his chest heaving, dropping his gun.

  22

  When I came to, a circle of faces was looking down on me. Indigo was on the ground beside me, wiping my face with a damp handkerchief. Everything hurt.

  “He’s waking up!”

  They helped me into a sitting position. I looked for Ragg’s body. It wasn’t there. My eyes followed a scuffed trail that led to the cliff.

  “We threw him off…” Allie explained, needlessly.

  I nodded and looked around. Beau was resting against a rock, Ava tending to him much in the same way Indigo was looking after me. Toby’s body was against the rock wall to my left. His coat had been removed and placed over his face. Brooke was busy ripping a garment of some sort into rough strips. I realised after a second that it was Ragg’s suit jacket.

  A short time later I was patched up and feeling relatively okay, if a little cold. Luke was quiet, but managed to tell me, “Well done dude…”

  “Do you think he was alone then?” Ben asked.

  I nodded as I took a gulp of water from the canteen Allie offered me. “Yeah, if he wasn’t we’d already be on our way back to the facility now, or at the bottom of the cliff. I think he thought Mr. Ragg might be able to do the job.”

  “He nearly did, but I can’t believe they didn’t send more after us.”

  I shrugged.

  “I think the Professor had more pressing matters to attend to.” Like a hole in the hand.

  “Or maybe Randall wouldn’t be a party to it? Doesn’t matter. I think Leahy will try and deploy the virus as soon as he can now. He knows if the Chinese capture us we would crack more easily than the captured soldiers might,” said Luke.

  “Well, we can’t stop him releasing the virus, but we can make sure we aren’t captured by the Chinese. We need to get moving. Luke, are you okay to walk?”

  He didn’t answer, just made his way gingerly to his feet and nodded grimly. I tried to avoid looking at his hand, but it was difficult not to.

  We made the decision to leave the body of Toby. We couldn’t bury him in the hard, rocky ground and none of us could stomach throwing him off the cliff like Ragg. We settled for leaving him where he was, we didn’t have another option. Indigo went to him and took his coat, replacing it with the remnants of Ragg’s suit jacket before coming over and handing it to me. I started to say no but she cut me off.

  “He won’t be needing it, Isaac.”

  I looked at her for a second then nodded and took the coat. I asked Paul if he wanted to say a few words for Toby and was surprised when he said no, his voice hitching. It was fair enough, I know what state I would have been in if it had been Luke, Ben or any of the girls that had been killed. Even though I didn’t know Toby that well, Paul, Beau and Ava did, and I thought it was right to say a few words, so I gathered everyone around.

  I recited a poem I knew by a poet called Mary Frye. I knew it by heart because I had read the same poem at the funeral of my Mom, Dad and sister. You could say the words were burned in my memory.

  We started moving not long after. The hike was much easier now that we had daylight. I had a splitting headache and started to wish that Indigo had wrapped a bandage around my skull too. While the back of my head was not bleeding, it throbbed with a hot intensity that made it feel like my brains were leaking out. It took us another hour, but finally the path wound its way into a valley and we were able to see the lodge in the distance.

  It perched on a rocky outcrop overlooking the valley. A silent sentinel. I estimated it would be about another twenty minutes walking time, so I called everyone to a stop, so we could have some water.

  No one spoke as we passed the canteen around. I think we were all too exhausted both mentally and physically from our escape and the final confrontation with Ragg. We were just picking up and getting ready for the final stretch of our hike back to the lodge when Allie pointed to the sky, back in the direction we had come from, and asked with wide eyes, “What’s that?”

  At first, I didn’t see what she was pointing out, and then I saw the black specks. My first thought was that it was a flock of birds or bats, but they weren’t flying in quite as distinct a pattern as those creatures normally do. These ones appeared to be dispersing in all directions. I estimated there were about a hundred all up.

  Luke joined me, then Indigo, and we stood shoulder to shoulder and watched the phenomenon in the morning sky together.

  “Drones,” my friend whispered. “That’s how he’s deploying the virus…”

  “Bastard. Why now?” Indigo asked.

  I shrugged. “Why not, I guess. He’s probably just been waiting until they had manufactured enough, although I think our escape probably prompted him to get it out quicker, he couldn’t risk us being captured and giving their position away to the Chinese.”

  “I still don’t get how he was able to make it so quickly. Doesn’t it take years to make these things?”

  “You’d be surprised,” said Luke. “When there is money or war involved, things happen almost magically fast. Look at the Ebola virus a few years ago. When it was killing poor people in Africa for thirty years no one gave a damn, but as soon as it spread to a few different countries and it was clear that governments would pay for vaccines by the ton, they managed to produce one almost overnight.

  “I’ve even heard that a cure for nearly all cancers is… was possible, but it was only small underfunded labs trying. The big companies wouldn’t touch it because they made so much profit from all the drugs used in chemo and other medication and pain mana
gement. A cure is a one off that would have dried up their income.”

  “That’s pretty fucked up.”

  My eyes widened to hear those words come from Indigo’s lips, but her sentiment mirrored mine. The drones flew on, heading to all points on the compass. One flew almost directly over us. It was high but even from a distance looked like heavy-duty hardware, definitely not the kind of toy drone I used to see for sale in Wal-Mart.

  “It doesn’t look like there are enough to me,” I said.

  “If it’s as contagious as the Professor made out, they won’t need a lot. Just enough to infect a few soldiers and then it should take care of itself.”

  “I wish there was a way we could warn Huian.”

  “Yeah… too late now.”

  We watched the drones until they had disappeared from sight and continued our hike. We came to the lodge twenty-five minutes later. We didn’t waste time exploring, the place was a little bit creepy and I don’t think I was the only one who thought so.

  Luke collapsed when we finally broke in through a service entrance at the rear. It was as though he had used up all of his willpower to make it to the lodge and had nothing left to give. He wasn’t unconscious, just plain exhausted. Ben, Beau and myself picked him up and carried him up a flight of stairs and then into a hallway in what appeared to be the staff area of the lodge. He grabbed my arm as we walked.

  “You need to do it now, Isaac. If we leave it any longer I could lose the whole arm…or worse.”

  I looked up at Ben who looked a little pale at the thought. No help there. I looked back down at Luke and swallowed. “Okay buddy, just hang in there.”

  After a few more minutes walking, we passed a kitchen and ahead I saw a door marked Snow-Bunny Lounge. I sent the girls to look for food but called Indigo back before she disappeared through the door. “We need the sharpest knife you can find. And some towels… even alcohol, although I doubt there’ll be any left. We’ll be in the Lounge trying to make a fire.”

  “Make it two knives, one with a wide blade if you can find it,” Luke added weakly.

  “Sure,” she said. “See you in a minute.”

  We walked on and pushed through the double doors into a big, unlit room. It was just as you would expect the lounge of a ski resort to be, all dark timber and leather and, right smack bang in the middle, was an enormous fireplace.

  Thankfully it was the real deal and there was a stack of cut timber logs in a rack next to it. We gently placed Luke on a large, luxurious bearskin that lay on the floor in front of the hearth. I immediately went to work piling some logs and strips of an old newspaper that Beau passed me into the brazier.

  I surveyed my handiwork quickly when I was finished and then began to look around for matches or something to light it with. Paul, Beau and I searched everywhere but couldn’t find anything. I was about to send them to see if they could find a supply cupboard somewhere when the girls came through the door.

  They were mostly empty handed of course. The Drake mountain people would have stripped the place of any food and anything else they needed. Brooke did carry a pile of towels though and Indigo held two blades, one in each hand. One was a dangerous looking, wide bladed carving knife, the other a thinner serrated edged one. Behind her Allie triumphantly held up a small first aid case.

  “You guys rock,” I said.

  “Thanks. Here, watch out, they’re real sharp.”

  I took the knives from her carefully and she immediately dug into her pocket, pulling out a box of long matches.

  “Thought you might need these too.”

  Legend! Within a few minutes we had a blazing fire and towels spread under and around Luke. The blades of both knives were in the fire. There was no alcohol in the first aid box, but the flames would sterilize the steel almost as well. Luke, for his part, appeared to be calm, although he was pale, and a slight sheen of perspiration covered his brow. I knew the answer, but I asked anyway.

  “You sure we have to do this? I mean, can’t we…”

  “No Isaac, there’s no other way.”

  I took a deep breath. “Okay, how do I do this?”

  “First take the serrated knife out of the flames, that’s the one you’ll need to do the cutting with. Leave the other one in there. You’ll be using the flat of the blade to seal the wound, it needs to be red hot. By the way, you’ll need to get the boys to hold my arm still, so I don’t move.”

  I was amazed at the casual way he was speaking to us, amazed but thankful. His relaxed attitude also had the effect of calming me.

  I took the serrated knife out and rested it on the towel by his side.

  “Now, first you need to tie a tourniquet around my arm, here below the elbow. Make it real tight.”

  I pulled the tourniquet out of the first aid box and did as he directed. Indigo passed me a firm cushion and I placed it on the floor before lifting his injured arm up onto it. The injured hand dangled over the edge of the cushion. Lucky I hadn’t eaten in a while, because when I felt the unnatural way his hand moved under my touch I nearly threw up. Luke winced at the pain.

  “You girls might want to go for a walk…” he managed to squeak.

  Indigo nodded and took Allie by the hand. Brooke and Ava followed, while the boys gathered around Luke, looks of horrible anticipation on their faces.

  “Do it, dude. No matter what I say or scream, don’t you dare fucking stop till it’s off, okay?”

  “Okay.”

  I picked up the knife and nodded to Paul, Ben and Beau. They placed their hands on Luke and I placed my hand on his wrist about two inches above where I would start the cut. I’m not going to describe in gory detail what happened, suffice to say it was one of the most horrendous experiences of my life. I’m not sure which was worse, the sensation of the knife cutting through my friend’s flesh and bone, the blood, or his screams and shrieks of absolute torture. Thankfully, by the time I placed the flat of the glowing blade against his bleeding stump, gagging at the smell of cooking meat, he had passed out.

  23

  In typical Luke style, he was making jokes about getting a hook within a few hours. We allowed him two hours to recover before eating a meal of jerky and water which we had been able to replenish from the lodge’s faucets.

  I was still conscious of time and didn’t think I would feel safe until we had put a lot more miles between us and the facility. Luke hadn’t lost a lot of blood, and in fact now that his hand was off, seemed to be almost back to his old self. The painkillers that Indigo and the girls had found while on their ‘walk’ might have had something to do with that though. Even more importantly, they had also found a packet of anti-biotics in the same guest room.

  Less than three hours after we had arrived, we were leaving the lodge. Luke had wanted to look for vehicles in the car park, but I overruled him, and we set off on foot. A vehicle would only make us more of a target.

  We had only been walking for ten minutes when we heard the all too familiar rumble of helicopters coming from the direction of Lincoln. We quickly scrambled into the trees beside the road and crouched down. Five of them went over, all heading in the direction of the lodge. We all looked at each other and I wondered aloud if it was the smoke from the log fire that had drawn them.

  “No way dude,” said Luke. “Those things were carrying about twenty-five troops each. If it was just the smoke, they would have sent one chopper at the most to investigate.”

  “He’s right,” Ben agreed. “I think the Professor’s luck may have just run out. Maybe they detected the drones?”

  I didn’t think it was that. More likely they had finally broken the soldiers and discovered the location. Still the facility was almost impregnable, so perhaps they were wasting their time. Just then, two fighter jets shot overhead. They were really low and the sonic boom that followed caused us all to clap our hands over our heads. Less than thirty seconds later we heard distant explosions. The target had almost certainly been the facility.

  “I th
ink it’s time to go,” I said, trying not to think of all the people back at the facility who hadn’t asked for any of the trouble the Professor had brought down upon their heads. They should be safe, even from missile strikes, in the short term. Question was, would the Chinese find a way in before the virus neutralized them?

  The trip down the mountain, while filled with anxiety, went relatively smoothly. We stayed in the trees as we travelled but didn’t see the ground vehicles or troops we expected might follow the air assault. By nightfall we had made it back into Lincoln. We broke into several houses before settling on one that appeared to have been vacant before the disaster. Thankfully, we found a small selection of goods in the pantry and the girls managed to put together a cold meal for us.

  We were all exhausted, so after our cold canned peas, corn and Spam (much tastier than I remembered) we made plans for the next morning. Allie had found a tourist map of the area back at the lodge but had forgotten about it until we began planning. It made things a lot easier. We decided we would leave at dawn and make our way down to Plymouth then onto a small town called Moultonborough.

  Paul assured us that Moultonborough was nice and that we would be able to find a farm there.

  “There were lots and I remember it had a few lakes and… well it was just really picturesque.”

  Moultonborough gave me a good vibe and I thought that its rural location, while only 23 miles out from Plymouth, meant that we would probably have little chance of running into Chinese once we managed to get off the 93.

  We set off after a breakfast of more Spam and a can of crushed tomatoes (disgusting).

  As it was, apart from sighting a few choppers in the distance and avoiding one convoy of vehicles, we made it all the way down to Plymouth by mid-afternoon. There was a large Chinese presence in Plymouth, we could tell by the increasing number of vehicles as we got closer. We made the decision to avoid it completely and skirt the town rather than going through and trying to pick up more supplies. We stuck to the back roads, and even then, had a close encounter with a Chinese jeep, only just managing to hide behind a hedge as it zoomed past.