by Riley Flynn
Alex began to pack his bag. The Savage. Ammo. Binoculars. Packs of food but not too many. Water but not too much. He could refill one of the empty bottles in the nearby stream. The others needed the clean water more. Half the string they’d used for traps. Bits and pieces from various backpacks. Just enough to survive.
After he had taken what he needed, Alex began to repack everyone else’s bags. One of them was extra heavy. Sorry, Cam, he told himself, you’re going to have to deal with this. In Timmy’s bag, he found the trucker’s computer and the wind-up charger, a flash drive buried at the bottom. He hadn’t been able to leave it behind, even after everything that happened. Alex took it all.
Cam would be sitting in the woods somewhere. Leave him be. Whistling for the dog, Alex began to walk back down the path by which they’d arrived in this spot. He’d be heading back up the hill, back up to the top of the valley. It was important to remember the route exactly. Wagging his tail, Finn arrived.
“Come on, boy.” Alex’s voice was soft as he bent down beside the dog. “We’ve got somewhere to go.”
The dog stared back. Happy. Lucky. Oblivious. The only friend Alex had left. Perhaps it was time for a heart to heart with the dog. A moment of emotional clarity.
Finn just watched him, looking up with those big, baleful puppy dog eyes. Timmy had trained him well.
At the head of the path, on the cusp of leaving the camp, Alex turned around. He paused for a moment, watching. Nothing moved. The stream babbled. The morning birds chimed their chorus, fewer than there used to be.
Turning away, his foot crunched on a cold leaf, snapping a twig into the mud. A journey of a thousand miles starts with a single step, he thought. Cheap Hallmark wisdom. Better make the step count for something. Alex left the camp behind and started walking.
* * *
Not just walking. Alex’s eyes scoured the ground, the area around the path, and anything anybody might have touched while walking along this route the previous day. Any evidence must be removed.
As he made his way back up the side of the hill, Alex was surprised by just how much of a trail he and the others had left behind.
A candy wrapper dropped by Timmy.
One of Cam’s boot prints pristinely preserved in a patch of mud.
Snapped branches and torn grass where Joan had stepped away from the path for a moment.
Now that he looked for it – really looked for it – it wasn’t surprising that anyone was able to follow them.
As much as he could, Alex repaired the damage. He picked up junk, put it in his pocket. He erased footprints. He even covered any bushes or low-hanging branches which might have been altered by their presence. It might be impossible to remove everything but total erasure wasn’t the aim.
After two hours of walking, Alex started to look for a fork in the road. A place where their route might have changed, had they felt in a different mood. He found it, a spot at the crest of a small ridge where hikers could continue south or north. Yesterday, they had chosen south.
Today, he chose north.
At the fork, he left a candy wrapper, dropped purposefully beside the northern path. Then Alex began to walk. He moved fast, faster than he ever could have done if he hadn’t been alone. Every now and then, he redistributed the evidence he had collected in the previous hours and scattered it along his new route. He already knew where he was headed. Tinker Cliffs. Now it was time to drag his hunters up there as well.
The cliffs were just outside the Park, really. A frequent destination for the outdoor-minded people Alex had known as a youngster, they were part of some of the more famous trails. North of Roanoke, north of the farm, they offered views which weren’t available down in the flatter parts of the state. Familiar territory. Home field advantage.
For the first time in a decade, he really felt like he was home.
It would take a day, maybe more to reach the right spot. Alex could already see it in his mind. Right at the top of the cliffs, where a huge slab of stone jutted out into the horizon. The whole world was within sight up there. All of creation, bunched up under the same sky. Even better, the cliff face meant people could only approach from one direction.
Alex hiked all day. Any tiredness he felt seemed to have disappeared. Now, he was moving with a purpose.
Perhaps it was because every step he took dragged Root and Byrne away from his friends.
Perhaps it was the air around him, the fresh and free air of his familiar home.
Perhaps it was the night’s sleep he’d taken in the tent.
Perhaps it was the opportunity to walk alone, at last, not having to think about tending to the others.
Alex didn’t want to overthink it. He just wanted to walk. It felt good.
Finn seemed happy to walk with him and he had a part to play in the plan. When there was a bush that needed to be flattened or a path of grass that needed to be disturbed, throwing a stick was the solution. The chasing dog flattened everything.
“That’s it, boy.” Alex watched the dog bursting through the undergrowth. “Let them see where you’ve been.”
The farther they walked, the less clues there were to leave behind. The candy wrappers and gum packets were dropped with precision but soon Alex’s pockets were empty.
All part of the plan.
Noon passed and then a few hours more. He had reached the edge of the Park. Cross over the road and on to the actual cliffs.
Not knowing was the worst part of the walk. There was no way to check where the agents were, whether they’d fallen for his tricks, or whether the others had used the time to escape. A full day to hike for them. Judging by their previous speeds, that likely meant they were halfway out of the woods.
Once they were through, they might be able to find a car someplace and drive on to the farm. Alex had no such luxury. He had to draw the hunters in, away from the others. He had to get higher. He had to move on foot.
Once over the road, Alex had moved more carefully. The trail he had been leaving all morning began to dry up.
“Let them get comfortable,” he told the dog. “We’re going to keep moving. Come here.”
He kept Finn close to him, the dog’s tongue lolling between his teeth. Sharp teeth, Alex thought. The dog was bigger. Still growing. Still eating. He was as high as a man’s thigh now, maybe six feet from nose to tail. Getting out of that locked room had been good for him.
“Yeah, you’ve grown up, haven’t you? I remember when you were just a pup.”
The words didn’t mean much to the dog but they helped the man.
After so much time spent pressed up against the same few people every single day, it felt strange to be alone. The only contact Alex had with the world was the trail he was trying to leave behind. Even that had dried up. The dog helped.
“You’re going to like the farm, Finn. I’m telling you. Rabbits to chase. Big open spaces. We’ll grow something. Whatever the hell Timmy has in that seedbank. Something to eat, hopefully. As long as he doesn’t just have hemp and tobacco.”
The words didn’t matter to the dog. Just talking in the right tone of voice seemed to do it for him. Even if everything Alex said was a lie, even if he was painting far too rosy picture, the details fell on deaf ears. Finn was just happy to be there. For that, Alex loved him more than ever.
The trail up Tinker Cliffs was familiar. Alex had walked it enough times to not need a map. The area had hardly changed in centuries. Another decade wasn’t going to change much. Still moving fast, his thighs burning with the strain, he looked up at the sun.
“About four hours left, I think. What do you think? Yeah, you agree.”
They passed by the plaque dedicated to a dead man. Alex remembered the location more than the name. A man who had come up to the cliffs to get away from it all, maybe.
Just a name, now. No one left to remember. But it told him he was nearing the top.
Alex reached the cliff with three hours left in the day. He threw down his bag on the ba
re stone and looked out across the world. It was wider than he remembered, stretching out in every direction.
“You forget how much of everything there is.”
The dog didn’t listen. Alex split open a bag of food for them both. He’d made sure to take the easy options. Crackers and pureed fruit. Power bars. Leave the hot food for the others. The sun was beginning to dip and he sat with the dog and watched it gather in pace, sinking faster and faster. Just before the bright edge hit the horizon, Alex got to work.
First, he took the laptop and the wind-up generator. Turning the handle until his arm hurt, he plugged everything in. Timmy had slammed the laptop shut, leaving the session active. He remembered the password all too well, entering in the license plate details.
The screen flickered and, suddenly, there was everything. Just as it was. The list of names, medical records, and all the rest, the words CONNECTION INTERRUPTED covering most of the screen.
With the power on, Alex inserted the flash drive. It happened again. The files opening up by themselves, the names and records scrolling past like a mountain river when the snow melts. Rushing hard and fast. The tracking program took hold, the computer warned him. They were coming.
It would take time to hike up Tinker Cliffs. Even if they knew where he was, Alex gave himself at least an hour. An hour to prepare for their arrival.
That meant sharpening stakes. It meant wrapping bullets in aspen bark and planting them in the ground. He stepped away from the cliffs and solid stone and found as many paths as he could. Any way the agents might approach him. They wouldn’t have it easy.
The sun was half set by the time he was done. Most of the bullets buried in the ground. The knife blunted from all the hard work.
Alex walked to the edge of the cliff and looked over. Just a long, quiet drop. Nothing at the bottom but more rocks, trees, and the forest floor. He kicked a loose stone over the side. He didn’t hear it hit the ground. He turned back toward the computer.
Still tracking. Red light still flashing.
That’s long enough, he thought to himself, shutting the device down. Give them a hint, lest they think they’re walking into a trap.
Sitting on the flat stone, Finn beside him, Alex turned his back on the whole world and waited. Let them come.
Chapter 39
The night took its time to fall. They would be coming. Days, hours, minutes, seconds. It didn’t matter. With the computer whirring, clicking, and grinding away, advertising the location, Alex Early knew the agents would arrive.
Nothing to say. Alex was worried, unwilling to talk. If he started talking, started discussing the plan with Finn or himself, it might reveal the cracks. The problems. The failings. The entire idea was constructed on the flimsiest of foundations. He didn’t want to examine his footing.
The ground was cold. Raw stone, worn smooth by the wind and the rain. Every year, a fresh layer of atoms was skimmed off the top. Once maybe every thousand years, an act of God might leave a more permanent mark on the cliffs, changing their shape and size forever. There was no warmth left here, just the hard, flat stone.
Behind him, the skyline ate the sun. Alex used the dying light to take an itinerary of his possessions. He knew what he had. But he had to check again.
The rifle, the Savage they’d pulled out of the cabin floor.
The dog, Finn, who had been locked away to keep him safe.
The knife, the edge dulled by all the sharpened sticks Alex had left out in the woods.
Enough food to make it a few days, if he made it. A computer screaming silently for assistance from the CIA. Half a plan and no way to be sure it was working.
Finn began to growl.
“Can you smell something?” Alex gripped the fur on the dog’s head. “Wait here. What do you smell?”
He picked up the Savage. Alex didn’t know guns. He knew the basics. Where to point, what to pull. But even he knew this was a beautiful tool. A laser-cut kitchen knife. A smith-forged sword. A hammer of the gods. Put together with care and meticulousness. He made sure it was loaded.
Root’s face loomed up in his mind. Root had been the sensible one. The quiet, considered one, who had preached caution while Alex had watched from the barn roof. But when he had been tied up, his arm in a sling, there had been a different side of him on show. Fervor. Belief. Determination. Alex knew the face and he was worried.
These men would do anything, he knew that now. Not for the first time, he felt regret. When he had the chance, when he had Root tied up and helpless, he hadn’t ended it. Now, he was being made to pay. Another mistake.
No quarter. There could be no hesitation. He had to shoot. He would have to kill. His chances of getting out of the situation alive were already paper thin.
These men threatened his friends. They threatened him. Whatever they wanted, they were prepared to cut through anyone in their way.
Alex had to be the same if he wanted to live. Either kill or be killed.
Finn growled again. A flutter of birds burst out above a tree.
The dog lurched forward, remembered his orders, and sat back. Alex held on tight. Tightened the grip. He picked up the rifle and began to walk through the woods, being careful where to tread.
A scream. Pain.
Alex didn’t walk along the path. He pushed his way through the dead leaves and thickets between the trees, the places people rarely walked. He aimed for the sounds of pain.
A scream again. A single person.
They were moving as individuals. One of them hurt, cut off. The other out hunting. If they were here, then Timmy and Joan and Cam were away somewhere else. Anywhere else. The brief instant of joy twitched Alex’s lip up into a smile. It vanished immediately, replaced by the cold, harsh reality. The fear. The doubt. The regret.
The screaming had stopped. But Alex was close enough to hear the labored breathing. Someone was hurt. Damaged. He crept quietly through the trees, looping around the unseen victim.
Alex edged forward from behind a tree. Root. Alex recognized him. One of the man’s arms was still in a sling, the other was tracing a line of string across the forest path. A trip wire. Tied just taunt enough to make a man stumble. Red stains on Root’s chest. His injured arm would have been no help as he fell on to the stakes.
“B-Byrne.” Root’s teeth were chattering. “Watch the ground. They’ve laid… there’s something here.”
Alex didn’t hear the response. He stepped out on to the path, raised the rifle and walked toward Root.
“Lower your hand. Take that thing out of your ear.”
Root turned his face to Alex. His eyes were bulging and wet. Not tears. The man wasn’t crying. It was almost as though the whites of his eyes were sweating.
Alex looked down at the agent’s chest. The red blood stains, he saw, were all from one wound. Just above the collarbone, beside the windpipe, above the Kevlar vest. The scarlet stains had run down the man’s chest and pooled on the armor while he lay on the ground.
Root wheezed. He coughed. Blood splatted across the dirt.
“You’ve never… never done this before, right?”
Every syllable was labored. Pained. Just listening made Alex’s skin crawl.
Alex shouldered the rifle, pointing it at the space between Root’s bulging eyes.
“I said lower your hands.” Alex was shouting. “Do it now.”
Root laughed, a wet hack which shook his shoulders.
“Byrne, he’s here-”
Alex pulled the trigger. The echo rattled through the trees. Root slumped over and hit the ground.
Dead. Alex reached inside the man’s jacket and pulled out the radio. The tangled twirl of cord popped out of the ear. The white wire was stained with blood.
Alex’s hand was shaking. He closed his eyes, only for a moment, and jerked them open. No, he didn’t want to see any images in his mind. No imagined faces, looming out of the dark. He’d killed a man and he had to face the reality of the world in front of him.
<
br /> A pain in Alex’s stomach made him bend in two, a dry heave jumping up his throat. It turned into a splutter and then a cough. It felt like his whole body was rejecting the action, flooding every artery with regret and pain.
Shaking his head, dragging in deep breath after deep breath, Alex forced himself back to reality. This wasn’t the cougar. This wasn’t the rabbit. This wasn’t even the virus victim, pleading for death. These men wanted to kill him. They wanted to kill his friends. It wasn’t a time to be overcome by emotion. He had to stay strong. He had to fight back.
“Come on, Finn.” Alex slapped his hand against his thigh and the dog followed.
He needed a new position. Wherever the hell Byrne was, the men weren’t together. But the other agent would have heard the gun shot. He would come searching.
Alex pressed his back up against a tree. He’d left Root behind. Fitting the radio into his ear, he tried to look at the device. The earpiece was silent.
“How the hell does he talk into this thing?”
Finn lay down at Alex’s feet, pressing his head against the dirt. The sleeve microphone. Still attached to the body somehow.
“Damn.”
Alex checked in every direction as quickly as he could. Nothing. He looked at the radio. Timmy had been using one like it in the car. Had he gotten it talking? Probably not. That didn’t mean it was impossible. He looked closely at the radio.
A small hole. Alex spoke into it.
“Byrne?”
Nothing. One hand on the rifle, one hand holding the radio to his mouth, Alex walked through the forest. Finn slipped along at his heels.
“Byrne?”
A murmur of static. Alex trained his eyes on the forest. Starting on one side, moving slowly across. Byrne was out there.
A clap. A sound like half a gunshot. One of the buried bullets. It had to be.
But no scream. No shout. No bellow of agony. Something had gone wrong.