DEAD ASCENT
Jason McPherson
Copyright 2016 by Jason McPherson
Chapter 1
November 8, 6:00 a.m.
Brayden James sat up gasping for air and slung the bed sheets from his sweaty body. His heart hammered against his chest, but slowly he realized he was at home now, in his bedroom, no longer fighting for his life in the inhospitable mountains of Afghanistan. His head throbbed with a heavy, dull beat. His breathing slowed, as did his frantic heart rate, and his cluttered mind slowly came to grips with the truth: another nightmare.
But the machine gun continued to rattle. Turning his head toward the sound, he watched his cell phone dance across the nightstand next to the bed, vibrating. Brayden reached for it and missed it completely, knocking over an empty bottle of Canadian Hunter before he finally grasped the phone and answered in a bleary, whisky-hazed voice.
“Yeah.”
“Brayden, sorry to wake you on your day off, but there’s a situation going on over at Camp Ole Indian. You awake, son?”
“Yeah, just…give me a second,” Brayden said as he fumbled with a half-empty pack of Marlboros. Holding the phone with his shoulder, he finally managed to light a cigarette, exhaled a long stream of smoke and tossed the pack on the nightstand. “What’s going on at Camp Ole Indian, Frank?”
“They’ve got a hell of a mess on their hands over there. That convention is ridiculously overcrowded, and now it seems like some kind of bug, stomach virus probably, has gotten everyone sick. Might have been something they ate. I’m not sure what’s going on. Hell, there must be a couple thousand folks crammed in at the pavilion, and the campgrounds, Jesus, you should see the mess. People everywhere, sleeping anywhere they choose.”
“The park rangers can’t enforce their own policies?” Brayden grumbled.
He knew where this conversation was heading. He’d been a game warden with the SCDNR for two years now, and the entire time he’d been there, every time one of the state parks in his region had encountered a problem, they’d called the DNR for assistance.
“Shit, you know they can’t,” Frank balked. “But that’s not why I need you. Three hunters haven’t returned from their designated campsites. They’re two days late as of now. The park rangers need our help finding these guys, and Brayden, I looked up the names. One of them is John Carl Cobb. I’m sure you’re familiar with that name.”
“They gave a permit to a known poacher?” asked Brayden.
“They don’t care who you are, as long as you pay their fees. He had a hunting license, which I’m sure was a fake. He’s poaching bear, I’m certain of it. One of the rangers drove out to the campsite, Number 34, I believe. The vehicle Cobb and the other guy arrived in was still parked there at the campsite, but that was it, no other sign of them. I’m sure they’ve headed for better hunting and they’re making camp wherever they see fit. That’s why I need you, Brayden. You know Glassy Mountain better than any of us. If you had to guess, where would you say they’ve relocated to?”
Brayden thought about it for a moment, his mind still a bit blurry. “Persimmon Ridge. I’d bet the rent on it.”
“I need you to find them, Brayden. They might have had an accident, but I’m sure they’re out poaching bear. Hell, none of this adds up.”
“It’s not like Cobb to draw attention to himself like this. He knows if his party doesn’t return before their sign-out time, the rangers will come looking for them,” Brayden replied, squinting against the pulsing throb in his head. He grimaced, looking down at the empty whiskey bottle. On the label, a ruggedly handsome fellow stood holding the leashes of two huskies in one hand and a rifle in the other, snowcapped mountains behind him, the great Canadian Hunter. Rot gut, bastard.
“That’s the thing. Who knows what’s happened out there. I don’t have to tell you what kind of men these are, so take care,” Frank warned him.
“I’ve dealt with worse, but yeah, I’ll be cautious.”
“I have no doubt, son. Hopefully, we can catch them poaching. I’d love to nail one of those Brownstone boys on our side of the mountain. We have the chopper for the next couple of days before they need it over in Pickens County, and Gary is ready to fly in and retrieve them. Wear your GPS beacon so we can find you out there. Hell, son, Persimmon Ridge is five miles deep in the ass crack of nowhere.”
“I’ll head out soon. If they relocated to Persimmon Ridge, it’ll take a while to get back there. I’ll go at it on foot. The four-wheeler would give me away, even with the muffler silenced. These guys are a wary bunch.”
“I’m taking Gary with me and heading over to Camp Ole Indian. I don’t see why they need our help. I’m sure it’s just the flu, not really our department.” Frank laughed. “I’m too old and feeble to get sick.”
“You’re too mean to get sick, old man.”
“You check in with me over the radio. I’ll be a-waitin’.”
“Will do, Frank,” Brayden said as he hung up.
Brayden rose from his warm bed and stumbled to the bathroom, flicked on the lights and looked in the grimy mirror. Bloodshot eyes stared back at him from under a shock of mussed brown hair. “Rise and shine,” he said grimly.
As warm jets of water splashed his face and steam engulfed him, Brayden thought again about his dream. He could still hear the whine of bullets, and could nearly feel the dry desert heat. For three days, the desert valley had been a deadly arena of gunfire and the smell of rotting corpses, some left with war cries etched on otherwise lifeless faces. He’d made a mad dash headlong into the maw of crossfire to the burnt husk of an overturned Humvee so he could man the big gun atop the ruined vehicle. His platoon had been pinned down after an ambush, trapped in a dilapidated adobe building.
His action had given the platoon an avenue of escape, but he couldn’t forgive himself for leading them into the ambush in the first place. He’d been awarded medals for his actions that day, but they meant little to him. They couldn’t bring back the dead. He felt as if he’d failed his platoon. A lot of good Marines had died that day, yet he had lived.
Like a starving animal, the guilt of it ate at his very soul. That animal had eaten well, every night, for two years and counting.
November 8, 8:00 a.m.
After calling several times with no response from Camp Ole Indian, out of pure frustration Frank Garman decided to drive down the mountain with his helicopter pilot, Gary, and see what all the fuss was about. It’s just the flu, he thought as he navigated the last steep curve. “They should have called the damn thing off if that many people were getting sick.”
“Money hungry,” Gary commented. “They’re not about to call it off and lose all that money. That convention is the biggest thing they’ve ever had at Camp Ole Indian. The pavilion has been rented out for, what, three weeks now?”
“Well, it’s certainly turned into a mess, by the sound of things.”
“Over four thousand people. It’s crazy,” Gary said, shaking his head. “I’ve never even heard of Rexnord Pharmaceuticals.”
“The word I got from one of the rangers is that this Rexnord fellow has created a cure for something, something big. It’s still in the development stage, and they’re extremely hush-hush about it, but that’s what this shindig is about. He has investors coming from as far away as Indonesia. At least, that’s what I’ve been told. I don’t know why they chose to have their hoopla way the hell out here. Camp Ole Indian is at full capacity at three thousand people. I don’t know how they got past the fire marshal with that one either.”
“Money,” Gary replied grimly. “It cures anything.”
“I reckon so.”
As they topped the hill that led to the pavilion and Camp Ole Indian came into view, Frank slowed the vehicle to a crawl and eventually stopped altogether as he struggled to understand what he was seeing down there. The scene was pure chaos. People wearing what looked like white hazmat suits were busily moving from one giant tent to another. “What in the hell is this?”
Gary was leaning over, gawking at the three huge white airtight tents near the Camp Ole Indian pavilion. “Those are CDC tents! Jesus, Frank, this is bad.”
Frank could only stare, dumbfounded by the huge white tents and thinking now of all those people. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention didn’t get involved with just any old flu. “Lord help them.”
He let off the brakes and the truck began easing down the mountain again, the gravel crunching underneath the tires, popping an occasional stone against the undercarriage. They drove alongside the campgrounds. It struck Frank that the once-overflowing campgrounds now resembled some strange ghost town, the abandoned tents and sleeping bags eerily silent. Normally he enjoyed the aroma of Camp Ole Indian, the smells of summer camp, of leaves, suntan lotion and clutter. Today, however, when the wind sighed it smelled somehow…foul.
“Maybe…maybe we shouldn’t go down there, Frank. I mean, we don’t know the situation yet.” Gary’s eyes were wide, his stubbled face pale. “What do you say we head back?”
“We have to help if we can, Gary.” Frank cast a look at him. “You know that.”
Gary sighed. “You’re right, Frank. I just…”
“I understand.”
As they approached the road leading into Camp Ole Indian, Frank slowed to a crawl when he saw what looked to be two military vehicles blocking the narrow gravel road ahead of them. Two armed soldiers wearing gas masks stood in front of the green trucks. Frank rolled down his window as they neared the blockade.
One of the soldiers approached the truck, pointing back up the road. “Turn your vehicle around and go back the way you came. The area is quarantined.”
Frank barely acknowledged him as he stared down the only road out of Glassy Mountain, the entrance road that eventually connected to Highway 11, and realized there was now no other way off the mountain. “I’m Warden Garner, with Fish and Game,” Frank said as he scanned the pavilion in disbelief. “I received a call last night from the rangers’ office asking for assistance at the Rexnord convention.”
“Turn your truck around and go back the way you came, sir. The area is under quarantine. That’s all I can tell you. This site is under quarantine.”
“Yeah, we’ve established that much, asshole,” Frank growled.
Screams erupted from the area near the pavilion. The soldier spun around and they all stared as the large CDC tents shook violently and people poured out of them like piss ants after a lawnmower had decapitated the hive. They moved in strange starts and stops, like a group of drunkards staggering through a strobe light, awkward and clumsy.
“What in God’s name…?” Frank’s eyes widened as a blonde woman in a white lab coat burst from the pavilion, screaming. She tripped on the last step and spilled face-first to the ground as another crowd of staggering, groaning people stumbled out right behind her and immediately converged on her. Frank and Gary both gasped in shock as a man bit into her face, then twisted his head with a chunk of her flesh in his blood-covered mouth. The others piled on top of her, and her screaming ended abruptly. Moments later, military personnel opened fire on the bizarre hoard pouring out of the pavilion and the tents.
The gunfire seemed to only draw their attention. Bullets staggered them backwards, and geysers of blood danced across their bodies, but they just kept coming, followed by even more of them pouring out of the pavilion and the big white tents.
Chapter 2
November 8, 4:00 p.m.
Brayden James gazed upon the ridges and hollows of Glassy Mountain as he crept along a narrow ridge, following a faint trail that he believed would lead to the campsite of the gone-astray bear hunters. Bearing the heavy weight of his shotgun and ammunition, the sling dug deeper into his shoulder with each step he took. He had hiked for hours and his game warden uniform was soaked through with perspiration, a foul, sour, whiskey sweat. It was early November, and still a humid eighty-eight degrees. He had activated his GPS beacon, but wondered if the thing would prove as useless as his radio and cell phone: no signal, only blaring static.
The thick green canopy of the white oak, maple and poplar would soon burn with the fire of autumn, but these hills would remain thick with vegetation and foliage until late in December. While winter doesn’t arrive early in the southern ranges of the Blue Ridge Mountains, when it finally arrives, it does so with sheer, icy misery. Brayden swatted a mosquito from his sweaty neck, wishing winter would hurry.
He paused long enough to reposition the shotgun and was digging in his pocket for his smokes when movement caught his eye somewhere below the twisting red dirt trail. He slowly took a step backwards and knelt low in the shadow of a tall white oak, using the tree for cover. Gripping the stock of the shotgun with sweaty hands, he readied himself to take the poachers by surprise. Could it be this easy? he wondered. He watched intently…and then the thicket along the trail erupted with movement as a doe and two spotted fawns leapt out onto the path. Brayden felt a little foolish.
The doe stiffened upon catching his scent, stomped her hoof and bobbed her head as she eyed the figure in the shadow of the white oak. The doe then exhaled a loud whoosh of breath and bound away through thickets of laurel, her white tail raised and flashing in the sunlight, her two fawns close behind her.
Brayden smiled despite himself. Busted…
From where he stood, Brayden could see the hazy blue form of Hogback Mountain, a much smaller rise with four wide ridges that ran outward from the main mass. From above, Hogback strangely resembled a sow with piglets suckling at the teat. As he gazed at Hogback and lit a cigarette, a cloud shadow crept across the land below. A breath of wind sighed through the towering, old-growth white oaks and the rustling leaves made a scratchy, slithery sound like the whispering of a thousand secrets.
Somewhere high overhead a startled crow balked and flew off through the evening sky, cawing loudly and leaving a single ebony feather to settle slowly through the air to the ground. Brayden ignored the crow’s ruckus and his lingering hangover and focused on the trail, wanting to find the three hunters’ camp before nightfall approached.
He needed Gary to remove the poachers from the mountain once he had things under control, but that would be a tall order for the chopper in the dark of night. Hell, it was a tall order for him as well.
For the next hour, he travelled upward, following the twisting red dirt trail deeper into the rocky hillsides. He believed the poachers had left their assigned area and had ventured much deeper into the rugged terrain of the Glassy, to the prime black bear hunting grounds of Persimmon Ridge. He didn’t know what to make of it yet, but he had a gut feeling that something had happened to them. Not that he valued their safety, or their hides for that matter. Since this would normally be the responsibility of the Glassy Mountain Park Rangers, he didn’t like having to investigate it, not one bit.
They picked a hell of a time for a convention, he thought as he trudged along the faint deer trail, remembering the hundreds of cars parked along the road leading to Camp Ole Indian at the foot of the mountain, windshields and mirrors sparkling in the sun like some bizarre snake that wound for a half mile along the road. The enormous influx of people had been more than Camp Ole Indian had expected, and the overcrowded confines were aiding the spread of this flu or whatever the hell was going on down the mountain.
None of which was Brayden’s problem, but here I am…
And now, six hours into his journey, the game warden peaked over the ridge and found himself looking down a long hollow at the rising smoke of a small campfire, nearly half a mile below his position. His suspicions had held true, as the campfire came from Persimmon Ridge. W
hen ripe, the abundant and fragrant persimmons drew in black bear, deer and game from miles around, and as he had guessed, the three poachers knew where to find them. The men he expected to find here were ruthless and dangerous woodsmen, outlaws in every sense of the word. These men weren’t poaching bear for their hides or meat. They were after the bear’s gallbladder, heart and other organs, which sold for thousands of dollars on the Asian black markets in the cities of Atlanta, Ashville and Charlotte, and Brayden knew all too well that they wouldn’t give up easily if they were caught.
From where he stood, he couldn’t see the hunters’ camp, just the faint tendrils of white smoke from their campfire drifting through the boughs of the tall pines and the thick, towering oak canopy. He carefully backed away and crept along the slope of the ridge, blending into the thick clusters of mountain laurel and honeysuckle, cautiously descending toward the hollow, placing the heels of his boots down easily, feeling for anything that could make a noise before allowing his full weight to settle. Eyes the color of cold steel scrutinized the land before him as he moved like a ghost through the harsh, unforgiving terrain.
He traveled along a ravine to mask his approach into the hollow, easing from one dry wash to the next, from one tangle of mountain laurel to a fallen dead tree, creeping slowly. As the small camp came into view, he immediately sensed something was amiss.
This doesn’t seem right at all, he thought when he spotted the camp. Then he saw the remnants of three destroyed tents. He scanned the scattered debris strewn about the hunters’ camp, beer cans and pieces of a Styrofoam cooler. Next to the tents, he saw a torn and bloody corduroy jacket lying amongst the scattered rubble, flies busily jostling for position on the sticky stains. His heartbeat quickened.
Brayden quietly unslung his shotgun, clicked off the safety, watched for a moment longer, and then decided to move in closer, listening as he slipped through the thick clusters of laurel.
The Zombie Apocalypse (Book 1): Dead Ascent Page 1