Exile to the Stars (The Alarai Chronicles)

by Dale B. Mattheis

  “What is it that’s making me so uptight? No doubt it’s too damn quiet, but there’s more to it than that. It feels like something terrible is going to happen.”

  Unable to come up with anything other than the snow and unnatural silence, Jeff continued searching for a tree to camp under. He stumbled across a big fir that was perfect and was about to drop the pack when he paused to listen again. The sense of unease had grown so strong he wanted to shout from the tension.

  “What are those goddamed mountains up to? This is crazy!”

  It was deathly quiet. No sound at all, not even a whisper of breeze. Just the thick veil of gray-white sifting down around him and a gut-wrenching premonition that the world was going to end any second. Another minute and he was frantic.

  “Oh, God! It’s coming! I’m getting out of here!”

  Before he could move, the ground gave a sharp lurch and began shifting under his feet. Within seconds, the sound had increased to a bass roar that was mind numbing. The motion took on a circular pattern and Jeff was thrown from his feet, his ears buffeted by the crashing roar of trees falling like dominoes.

  Earthquake! Jeff’s mind screamed. Sprawled on his stomach, he tried to hang on to a ground that thrashed under him like a beast in its death struggle. Tree limbs, brush, rocks; all were hurtling through the air, some striking him where he lay.

  Terrified at the thought of being buried in an avalanche, Jeff clawed downslope on all fours. A wall of something roared by to the side, inspiring a cry of raw fear. The earth lunged and he was rolled downhill, debris pounding his body. Another wall engulfed him and he lost all sense of direction as he ripped down the mountain head over heels, now buried in snow, now riding the crest like a body surfer.

  Tucking into a ball with arms covering his head, Jeff desperately prayed that the quake would end. It did not.

  The Pacific Northwest was finally experiencing the big quake that had been predicted for years. The Cascade Mountains rolled and pitched like a sea tormented by hurricane winds with Jeff the merest bit of flotsam on its surface. Mountains that would stand forever fell like mounds of gravel only to be pitched back into the sky rumbling and roaring protest. Farther north, one slowly collapsed into the reservoir behind Ross Dam.

  A tidal wave raced down the reservoir and thundered into the dam, thousands of tons of water spewing over the top. The dam had a large safety factor built into it and held, but was twisted and heaved by the earthquake like it was made of soft plastic instead of concrete and steel. Sirens screamed their warning and engineers raced to open spillways. They never made it.

  With a grinding rumble, the central section split open. In what seemed slow motion, huge concrete slabs broke free to tumble into the river below. A wall of deep green burst through the damn and arced far out over the river before crashing down. Millions of cubic feet of water surged toward the break as another tidal wave headed west toward drowsing farmland and cities, filling the Skagit and Sauk Rivers with a force that nothing known to man could resist.

  And Mount Rainier shuddered.

  Over fourteen thousand feet tall and it shuddered like a leaf, opening wide clefts that delved deep. Subterranean fires under high pressure gained nearly instantaneous release. With a gigantic explosion heard as far away as Missoula, the top of the mountain blew off. Uncountable metric tons of snow melted in an instant under the lash of the pyroclastic flow that bellowed down the west flank of the mountain at speeds approaching two hundred miles an hour.

  The superheated blast of gas, plasma and ash began to dissipate after thirty miles, but the damage was done. A boiling cauldron of mud twenty miles wide raced for Tacoma, filling and scouring every ravine. Then, in a chain reaction, Mt. Baker, St. Helens and Adams spewed fiery death into the sky.

  Far up in the mountains, Jeff was aware only that he was going to die. Barely conscious, he was spit out by the avalanche and slammed into a tree. A tremendous blow hammered his mind and he felt himself dissolve into nothing.

  Chapter Four

  Belief Dies Hard

  A mound of snow shifted, changing into the shape of a man. Struggling to a sitting position, Jeff grabbed his head. The pain was so bad he thought his head would split open. Heavy snowfall blasted by in horizontal sheets turning his world into a white cocoon. Feeling disoriented and shivering uncontrollably, he crawled to the rim of the shallow depression he was lying in. Bracing himself against the wind, Jeff caught brief glimpses of barren snow and rock.

  “What happened?” Jeff gazed around in complete bewilderment. “Where did all the snow come from? There wasn’t nearly this much on the ground. Where’s the forest?” Memories of a head-over-heels tumble and roaring earth came to mind in a terrifying burst. “Holy shit. The earthquake. I’m alive!” His teeth were chattering and he unfastened the backpack harness. “Surviving the earthquake doesn’t matter a damn if I freeze to death.”

  Untying one of the snowshoes, he assembled it with shaking hands. Using it as a shovel, he hollowed out a snow cave. Crawling inside, Jeff dragged the pack after him and located the ground cloth. He rolled the sleeping bag out on top and climbed in, clothes and all. Jeff vaguely wondered if he would survive the storm. Screw it, he thought, at least I’m warm.

  He awakened in darkness trying to get his breath. Groping about, Jeff discovered that the mouth of the scooped-out cave had drifted over. Punching an opening, he maneuvered the pack so he could see what was left on the outside.

  “Where’s my sword? Oh, please, not that!”

  Jeff tried to drag the pack outside for a better look but it was anchored in place. About to force it, a shred of restraint led him to explore the cause. He traced a strap and his hand fell on the saber. It was trapped under a knee and buried in the snow. When he picked the saber up, a lone strap slipped through the buckle without resistance.

  “One strap, and that one loose. No way should that saber have stayed with the pack. What a break! I wonder what else is left?”

  The crampons and second snowshoe were still tied in place, but the ice ax, two water bottles and his water filter were gone. Protected by his coat, the pistol and survival knife were present and nearly dry.

  “I can’t believe it. I am really in luck. That roll down the mountain should have stripped everything off. And I’ve got the crampons and snowshoes. Shit. With all this snow, Carl’s really going to need them if he was camped on the other side of the pass.”

  The possibility that Carl had not survived the earthquake was too painful to contemplate for more than a moment.

  Driven by intense hunger, Jeff set up the camp stove in the mouth of his burrow. Scooping snow into a pot, he tried to figure out where it had all come from. It wasn’t long before he was shaking his head with frustration.

  “This doesn’t make any sense! What does an earthquake have to do with snow? I don’t see the connection. Even if I was unconscious for an entire day, there’s still no way this much snow could have fallen!”

  He munched on an energy bar until the water came to a boil, then dumped in a pack of freeze-dried cereal. At that moment, the cinnamon oatmeal tasted as good as partridge. With food in his stomach, Jeff’s spirits climbed up from the soles of his feet.

  “Doesn’t matter where the snow came from, it’s here. Just saving my ass is going to have to take top priority.” He stuck his head out to check on the weather. The wind was down to a light breeze, and the snow had stopped. “May as well see how much things were torn up,” he muttered. “The forest must have really taken a beating.”

  At the rim of the depression, one glance told Jeff that the overcast was nearly gone. He looked north, stumbled back a step and drew in a strangled breath. An enormous mountain range dominated the skyline from east to west. Serrated peaks thrust so far into the sky that it seemed they must fall of their own weight and crush him like a fly. The effect was so overpowering and unexpected that he cried out. The mountains were so high that he had to tilt his head far back to see their cloud-capped peak
s. Mountains he had never seen before.

  “I don’t believe this. It can’t be real.” Jeff followed the range to the east. He abruptly dropped to his knees in shock and whispered, “God save me.”

  The mountain filled, blotted out, the southeastern sky and fully half of the horizon. Tier upon tier, it marched into the sky as if there was no ending. Struggling for a comparison Jeff dredged up memories of Mount Rainier south of Seattle, which overpowered everything around it.

  “No, not even close. Maybe Everest.”

  Struggling to come to terms with the mountain’s dimensions, he estimated its elevation had to be well over thirty thousand feet and its base a hundred miles wide. Hell, he thought, that elevation would put its peak in a vacuum!

  Completely dazed, he tore his eyes away from the mountain. Jeff exhaled in relief when he viewed mountainous country to the southwest that was not so daunting. Standing up, he searched the terrain in a slow sweep but recognized nothing. The sun broke free of a cloud lighting peaks to sparkling brilliance, and still he searched. Jeff came to himself feeling terribly lost and sat down in the snow. Try as he might, there was no way he could squeeze these mountains out of the Cascades. They were not only much bigger but ran east and west.

  “Maybe the earthquake threw them up?” That made as much sense as anything he had thought of.

  Jeff pulled the pack out of the burrow to inventory what food remained. The small pile that resulted frightened him. He was going to need five thousand calories a day just to stay on his feet, and the remaining food was worth no more than four or five hikes.

  “Shit! The Dodge is within reach, but I don’t have a prayer of getting to it through those mountains. Probably nothing left of it, anyway.” He glanced to the southwest. That was his only hope.

  Packing up as quickly as prudence allowed, Jeff fitted the crampons to his boots, strapped on the pack and hiked southwest into a westering sun. An hour later his eyes hurt so badly from snow glare he could only squint. Cursing his stupidity, Jeff fished out sunglasses. When he couldn’t force himself to take another step and made camp, the tip of one ear was numb and his face painfully sunburned.

  Setting out next morning he sank to his knees in soft snow. He strapped on the snowshoes and trudged off. Wherever he looked there was no sign of life or green, only the blinding expanse of endless snowfields and intimidating mountains. He closed his mind to that fact and concentrated on not falling.

  No more than a dot lost in a wasteland of snow, Jeff snaked down an ice-caked moraine. He picked his way around boulders with head down, resolved only to find enough strength to take a step and yet another. Seared by sun and frostbite, the skin on his cheeks had blistered, cracked open and was crusted with ooze. Picking at bits of food frozen in a stubble beard, Jeff tried to remember how many days he had been walking. He thought he had pitched the tent six times.

  Something wasn’t right. He stared at his legs and wondered why they wouldn’t move. He eventually concluded he had entered a snowfield and they were buried to the knees. Perched on a boulder, he made the switch from crampons to snowshoes then thought he might rest for a while longer. It felt so very good just to sit. When he decided to take a longer break, Jeff was surprised to find that he was on his feet and walking. Unable to fathom how that had happened, he concentrated on taking the next step in a world that had constricted to the patch of snow in front of him.

  Dusk was at hand when a snowshoe caught on an obstruction and he fell forward onto his face. Breathing heavily, Jeff lay there and debated whether he had tried hard enough now so that he could rest. On the verge of losing the debate for the first and final time, Jeff heard a voice in his mind that was both real and compelling.

  “Lift your head and live. It is not your time to surrender.”

  He gazed around stupidly for a few moments before becoming aware that he lay sprawled in a copse of trees. Somehow he had inserted himself well into a scrub forest before a snowshoe snagged a fallen limb. Hope discovered a foundation and sprang to life. The thought of a fire spurred him to tear at the snowshoe bindings in his haste to find tinder.

  By nightfall the tent was assembled. He heaped wood onto the fire until it was roaring, yet it never seemed hot enough. When he could function again, Jeff set a pot in the coals to heat water. He found one packet of food at the bottom of the backpack. Fool hens have to be around somewhere, he thought. The memory of his feast in what seemed like another life set his mouth to watering.

  The water came to a boil and he stirred in the packet of food. When he had scraped the pot shiny-clean, he sank down on a log near the fire and stared into the flames. Sometime later Jeff awoke lying on his side.

  A degree of vitality had returned by morning. Holding his hands over new flames, Jeff attempted to piece together the last six or seven days. He was about to mark it off as a lost cause when a shot of anxiety hit him. He still had not seen one feature of the land that was familiar. Jeff felt like yelling with frustration but was too tired.

  “I don’t care how big an earthquake there was,” he savagely said, “it couldn’t be big enough to create that mountain chain in one throw. And what about that big bastard?”

  Tired or not, he couldn’t hold it in. “Screw this place! Screw the goddamed mountains!” He felt better after that. “What I have to do is keep heading southwest. There has to be a highway somewhere nearby. Someone must be moving around by now.”

  The thought of seeing another human set him in motion. Although he felt stronger, Jeff moved cautiously. He had encountered numerous grouse earlier in his hike, and there was also the chance he would run across a porcupine. With grouse in mind, Jeff picked up a stout limb. As the day passed he saw no evidence of grouse, porcupine or any other game. As fatigue mounted, so did his worry concerning food.

  Jeff had been following a ravine for some time. While nothing more than a shallow gully that morning, it had spread out and become deeper during the day. Snow levels gradually decreased until there was more bare ground than snow, and he gratefully removed the snowshoes. Trees that had been sparse and short were growing tall and so thickly that he used the ravine as a natural highway.

  The ravine eventually broadened into a narrow valley that meandered along to the south. Deep in the valley, Jeff could not see much of the surrounding land until it abruptly took a sharp turn to the southwest and opened up.

  “Now that is some kind of country,” he breathed.

  Viewed from his perspective in the valley and still at high elevation, mountainous forestland spread out in a vast wedge. While the scale of the land was familiar, the scope was not. It faded toward the horizon with no indication that it would ever end. Jeff gazed around for a spell, enjoying the declining sun’s warmth, the view, and the return of all the forest smells. He stiffened and studied the terrain with an eye to detail.

  “What the hell? There’s no sign of an earthquake!”

  Forest cloaked the land, and the only bare rock appeared to be weathered and above the tree line.

  “Not even logging clear-cuts. Is that possible? And where are the Cascades? There has to be something left that I can recognize.” Jeff blanked out for a moment. “This just doesn’t make any sense!”

  Whipping out a topographic map, his eyes flicked back and forth between it and the terrain.

  “Nothing. Not one bloody landmark matches.” He searched the immediate area. “Shit. Not even a beer can or scrap of plastic. That is not possible!”

  Search as he might, Jeff discovered no evidence of human presence. Not a smoke column or vapor trail from a jet, much less a highway. Optimism that had been making a comeback earlier in the day failed completely. Slumping to the ground, he stared off across a forest wilderness that truly seemed to have no end. The wind sighing mournfully through the trees as if to say, “You’re all alone, all alone,” and the sun neared the horizon, casting long shadows across the land.

  The magnitude of the forest, the scale of the mountains behind him, and the la
ck of anything to pin hopes of redemption on threatened to crush him. Taking no note of the time, Jeff waged a losing battle with a primal sense of desertion.

  Just inside the trees to his right, an indistinct form the size of a pony observed the slumped-over figure. Motionless as a statue, the form seemed a part of the forest. In the blink of an eye it was gone.

  When it became dark enough that Jeff could no longer avoid thinking about what he was going to do for the night, he levered himself upright with his staff and trudged down the valley. Two or three steps along the way, a mournful howling came drifting across miles of shadowed forest. Jeff stopped to listen. Although a powerful song, the eerie wailing nearly overwhelmed him with despair.

  It was hard to see when he noted a ravine opening into the valley. Jeff hiked into the ravine where he discovered a creek meandering along the base of a rocky bluff. Snow cover had essentially disappeared, and it took only a few minutes to set up camp. Extracting cartridges from the Colt, Jeff pulled a scrap of oil-damp cloth tied to a piece of string through the barrel and cylinder bores. Reloading, he held the Colt in the palm of his hand to look at it.

  “This is the only thing that stands between me and starving to death. I don’t know who runs things, but God or whoever, I could use some help.” Testing his small camping flashlight, he hiked up the ravine.

  It was a dark night but he used the flashlight sparingly to avoid scaring off game. Happening across what looked like a game trail, Jeff found a seat cushioned by pine needles and slipped into the spell of silence that was on the land. Gradually, he became aware of every sound.

  In spite of that awareness, he missed a clinking sound on two occasions. Some inner sense was more alert and brought him to attention. When he heard it again, Jeff felt a surge of excitement. That sounds like pebbles rolling down the hill, he thought, or maybe hooves!