Flashpoint (Book 4): Decay

by Ellis, Tara

  The wind howled again, an eerie sound unlike anything Danny had ever heard before. She began to shiver, and it was in that moment that she realized how people died from exposure in the mountains. She didn’t know what to do except hold on and keep moving, so long as Tom didn’t stop in front of her. She could still see him, or rather, his form moving in the premature darkness. It was like the rain had brought the very clouds down with it, to encase them in a surreal landscape that didn’t exist only moments before.

  “Dad!” Ethan shouted from somewhere close, and Danny strained to see him through the torrential onslaught.

  “Keep moving!” Tom replied, his voice muffled.

  As abruptly as the rain had started, it disappeared, leaving Danny blinking rapidly in the aftermath. A mosaic of dark shadows glided over them and through the clearing they were in. The wind shifted again, intensifying at the same time.

  “What’s happening?” Danny cried. She knew her voice was shaking, but she didn’t care at that moment about being brave. The trail had turned to mud as the massive amount of rain pooled in any flat area, and her horse slipped, threatening to unseat her. Leaves and pine needles swirled around them, engaged in some form of dance normally reserved for an audience of fairies.

  Sam’s horse came alongside her, and Danny could see that her friend’s head was turned up to the sky. He looked around almost frantically, and the hairs on her arms stood once again.

  “I’ve never seen a twister out here,” Sam shouted to anyone who could hear him. “But this is certainly a storm cell capable of producing one.”

  “A tornado!” Danny repeated, flinching as another wild crack of lightning lit the trees around them. That one was orange and she briefly understood Ethan’s interest in how the colors were variable.

  A new sound began to develop under the roar of the wind, a plopping or ticking, like pebbles thrown against a window. Then, Danny felt the first sting as a sizeable piece of ice hit her bare arm. “Hail!” she moaned. Normally, she enjoyed a good storm and would often sit out on the roof of the fire station as the lightning developed. However, there was nothing normal about what they were experiencing, including the hail. It wasn’t your typical pea-sized pellets, but huge chunks about half the size of a golf ball.

  “Ouch!” Danny ducked as another struck her back, though there was nowhere to hide.

  “We need to get off the horses!” Sam yelled, already stopped and sliding out of his saddle. “Tom! We’ve got to find some shelter!”

  Danny didn’t think it was possible, but the wind continued to grow in strength. The trees groaned under the strain as the tops bent over and sizeable branches crashed to the ground. One clawed at her cheek, compelling Danny to follow Sam’s instructions. Yelping in pain, she threw an arm over her head in vain as she jumped to the ground.

  “We’re close to the campground.” Tom suddenly appeared next to Danny, and she was relieved to see he was holding Grace protectively in his arms. He led the way into the trees next to the trail, though they didn’t offer much protection. “The cliff Jesper told me about is just ahead.” Tom winced as a piece of ice bounced off his shoulder and he looked angry about it rather than concerned. Danny knew him well enough to figure he was already chastising himself for not going faster, or for taking too long for lunch. He always managed to find a way to blame himself for the things that went wrong, even when it was Mother Nature.

  “Where’s Ethan?” Tom shouted.

  A frenzied whinny drew their attention back to the trail, and Danny turned to see Ethan struggling to control Tango as he reared up in fright. She reached out to take Grace from Tom without him asking, and then watched as he raced out into the storm. Danny stood helpless, her hair whipping across her face and ice tearing at her arms.

  Before Tom could reach his son, there was a horrendous splintering sound, and dread filled Danny as she realized it was a falling tree that blocked them both from view.

  Chapter 15

  TOM

  Miner’s Trail, Central Montana

  The blur of movement confused Tom for a moment, until the sound of the splintering wood reached him. Desperately throwing his arms over his head, he leapt to where he’d last seen Ethan.

  He was met by a wall of foliage that clawed at him, pushing him back and pressing him into the ground at the same time. With the howling wind and blinding rain, Tom felt like he’d been trapped in the churning bowels of the earth.

  “Ethan!” Tom shouted, ignoring the new flashes of pain in his back and right thigh. He was still moving forward. All that mattered was getting to his son.

  Pushing aside a final branch, Tom broke loose from the fallen cedar tree and staggered out into what remained of the clearing. He splashed through pooling water as the hail turned back to rain. Wiping it from his eyes, he searched for a sign of Ethan. Tango was standing nearby, his ears back, pawing at the ground and turning it to mud.

  “Ethan!” Tom yelled again, his voice sounding more frantic, even to himself.

  “Dad, I’m okay!” Ethan’s voice was faint but close by. “I…I think I’m okay, but I can’t really move.”

  “Tom!” Danny called.

  Tom looked up to see Danny and Sam running around the massive mound of fresh dirt the fallen tree had uprooted. He waved a hand at them, unsure if they could see him through all of the branches. “We’re over here!”

  When Danny reached him, he saw that her arms and neck were peppered with red welts from the hail, and there was a large, raw scratch across her cheek. “Where’s Ethan?” Her eyes were wide with fear, and she had to shout to be heard over the wind.

  Tom pointed at the cedar and shook his head. “In there, somewhere. Sam, can you get your flashlight?”

  Sam didn’t even acknowledge the request before he ran away, and Tom turned back to Danny. “Help me.”

  Nodding silently, she moved up next to him and together, they began pushing through the limbs, heavy with long cedar boughs. “You’re bleeding,” she said, leaning in close so he could hear her. When he stared at her uncomprehendingly, she paused long enough to pull the cloth headband from her hair. Using it like a rag, she wiped the blood from his right eye and then pressed it, hard, against the wound on his forehead that he’d re-opened.

  “I’m fine,” he protested, trying to pull away.

  “Hold on!” Grabbing his forearm, she kept the compress in place for another ten seconds. Pulling the cloth back slightly, she was satisfied enough then to let him go.

  “Here!” Sam was back with the flashlight, and held it out to Tom. Racked by a coughing fit, Sam stepped back and then sat down hard on the wet ground.

  “Where’s your inhaler?” Danny demanded.

  Tom snapped the light on as the two of them talked, and he turned back to the tree. He knew Danny would take care of Sam. Ethan was still his main priority, but the branches seemed impenetrable.

  “I’m here, Dad!”

  Tom could hear his son calling to him, but couldn’t see how to get any closer to where he was nestled under the vegetation. The tree was simply too gigantic to even think about moving.

  Woof! Woof!

  “Grace!” Spinning around, Tom saw the retriever was running back and forth between Danny, Tango, and the edge of the tree. “Grace! Find Ethan!” Tom had no idea if the dog would understand the command, but she seemed to respond to it. Whining, she ran faster, and started to paw at the ground.

  “Find Ethan, Grace!” Danny also shouted. She was kneeling down next to Sam, helping him with his inhaler. The rain was so heavy that Tom had to blink against it, and his vision blurred.

  Grace barked again, this time with more excitement, and then she lunged in between the branches. Within a few minutes, the pitch of her bark increased and she almost sounded like she was being tortured.

  “Good girl!” Ethan shouted, his voice barely audible over the wind, rain, and barking. “She found me!”

  Tom looked back at Danny to discover that she was gone. Sam was t
rying to stand, the inhaler still in his hand. “Sit back down, Sam,” he ordered.

  Danny reappeared around the end of the tree again, and she held something in both of her hands. As she ran toward him, Tom realized she had the axes. “Here,” she ordered, thrusting one at him. “Let’s get to work.”

  After an hour of clearing away the largest of the branches from that section of the tree, they finally exposed where Grace was furiously digging in the mud. Tom dropped to his knees next to her and shone the flashlight into the cluster of boughs. “Ethan, you still doing okay? We’ll have you out in a minute.”

  The whites of Ethan’s eyes shone bright in the flashlight, and his teeth flashed when he smiled. “My arm just hurts a little. I’ll bet I’m a lot drier than you guys!”

  Laughing, Danny pushed in next to Tom, pulling at the cedar with her bare hands to make a larger opening. “What’s got you trapped?” she asked, already trying to work through the problem.

  “I think I could push my way through most of this,” Ethan answered. “Except there’s one bigger branch laying across my back. The ground was soft enough that I don’t think it really hurt me, but I can’t wiggle out from under it. Guess my butt’s too big.”

  Tom smiled back. It was a good sign he was joking about it. “Hold on.”

  Standing, he reached out and pulled Danny to her feet. They were both covered with scratches from pushing through the cedar branches, and mud was caked onto almost every visible surface. “Let’s find that branch.”

  Working their way back from where they found Ethan, they were able to locate what they thought was the largest of the branches pinning him down. It was difficult to swing the ax effectively in the confined space, and Tom was grateful when Danny joined him on the opposite side. It was painstaking work, but together they managed to finally cut through it.

  “That was it!” Ethan shouted, and Tom could hear him thrashing around.

  Going back to where Grace was still digging, he reached in and was finally able to grasp Ethan’s hand. Grunting with the effort, he dug his heels in and leaned back, pulling with all of his strength.

  First one arm, and then the other came out into the open space they’d created. Danny got down on her hands and knees and grabbed Ethan’s belt, using it like a rope to help work the rest of his body free.

  “Oomph!” Ethan gasped as Grace lunged onto his chest and began to enthusiastically lick the mud from his face.

  Tom hooked him under the armpits and lifted Ethan to his feet. It had been awhile since he’d tried to pick his son up, and Tom realized he was almost the size of a man. Staring at the back of his child’s head, the one that reached above his chin, he was forced to admit Ethan wasn’t a child anymore. Tom rested his hands on Ethan’s shoulders and then turned him around. Holding him at arm’s length, he tried to determine if there were any serious injuries, but all he saw was mud.

  “I’m okay, Dad.” Even under the extreme conditions, Ethan still managed to sound put out by the concern.

  “This looks like it might hurt a little.” Danny was attempting to get a closer look at an obvious abrasion on his upper right arm.

  Rolling his shoulder, Ethan winced when he straightened his arm out. “Yeah, it’s sore, but I can still move it okay. No biggie.”

  “We were all lucky,” Sam said as he ducked under one branch and pushed aside another. He coughed and then pointed up at the sky. “Looks like the worst of the storm passed, and the horses are okay,” he added.

  Tom noticed it had brightened considerably and the rain was even tolerable. The wind still kicked up occasionally with thirty to forty-mile-per-hour gusts, but the sustained breeze was much less. “We should get moving, then. We still have a few hours of daylight left.”

  “Whoa!” Danny urged, stepping in front of him. “Don’t you think Ethan and Sam could use a rest? Maybe we should stay here for tonight and use this tree for a shelter.”

  Tom was rattled after the storm and with how close he’d come to losing his son. He was emotionally charged and on edge, so while he managed not to say the first thing that came to mind, he knew he didn’t keep it from his face. Danny frowned at him and took a full step back. Sighing, Tom ran a hand through his hair, realizing he’d lost his cowboy hat at some point. “Look,” he finally said, knowing he wasn’t going to do a good job of placating her. “We can cover another twenty miles tonight. It could make the difference between getting to Mercy in two days or three.”

  “I said I’m fine,” Ethan interjected. He was kneeling down in the mud with Grace and had finally managed to calm the dog.

  Danny crossed her arms over her chest, and Tom knew he was in trouble. “The storm caused a bronchial reaction in Sam. Either the cold or something in the air, but I don’t think he should travel.”

  “Danny,” Sam said. “I appreciate your concern, but do you really think it will make a difference? Since the storm is letting up, this might be the best chance we have to travel in the next couple of days. We have no idea what the forecast is.”

  Tom had always envied how easily the older man communicated with Danny, and he watched as the two of them had a calm, rational conversation. In the end, Danny agreed to two more hours of riding, and they’d stop immediately if his breathing got any worse.

  As Tom put his ax back on the packhorse, he resisted the urge to take the map out again. It wasn’t waterproof and although they were close to where the old trail ended and the one he was familiar with began, he didn’t want to take any chances with it.

  “Why does the rain taste weird?” Ethan asked. He was already back on Tango, and Tom saw that he was favoring his right arm by cradling it against his chest.

  “What do you mean?” Tom licked at his lips. It was hardly raining anymore, but he was still covered in it.

  Ethan shrugged. “I dunno…like, sour or something.”

  “I figured it was running out of my hair, and I just need to take a shower,” Danny offered with a grin. Tom was glad to see her smiling again, though she hadn’t said much to him as they prepared the horses.

  Sam gave Ethan and Danny an odd look, and then to Tom’s surprise, licked his arm. He frowned.

  “What is it?” Tom asked.

  Sam licked his other arm and then smacked his lips, his thick brows drawing together in consternation. “It tastes like metal.”

  “Okay…” Tom said slowly, not liking the way Sam was looking around at the trees and then the sky. He followed his gaze and saw that the bulk of the monster storm cell had passed over, and was moving to the north, toward Mercy.

  “Nitric acid,” Sam said, as if that explained everything.

  “Acid?” Danny repeated. “You’ve got to be kidding me.”

  “I’m afraid I’m not.” Sam licked his arm again.

  “Stop!” Danny said, moving closer to him. “If it’s acid, isn’t it dangerous?”

  Sam shook his head and then waved a hand up at the sky. “It’s part of the same process that stripped the ozone layer and is producing these storms. The conversion of nitrogen and oxygen into oxides. The nitrous oxide rises and then combines with other chemicals to produce the acid rain. But it shouldn’t be harmful to us directly,” he added as an afterthought.

  “Are you sure?” Ethan asked, not looking convinced.

  “You can swim in acid rain without any immediate effects,” Sam replied. “It’s a slight PH difference, although the fact that we can taste it indicates it must be at a PH around five, at the most.”

  Tom had no idea what that meant, but he was relieved their skin wasn’t going to melt off. “Can we drink it?”

  Sam rubbed at his chin. “My understanding of it is that yes, we could, but I wouldn’t recommend it long-term. It could lead to…complications. No, the greatest impact will be to the lakes and streams. Maybe even the plants.”

  Tom’s stomach clenched as he thought of the possible implications behind Sam’s words. “How?”

  “It’s caustic,” Sam said simply. �
�In a high enough concentration, or with chronic exposure, we could see large fish die-offs, as well as a cascading effect through the plants and food chain.”

  Tom closed his eyes against yet another obstacle he felt helpless to fight against. Forcing himself to look again at the retreating storm, he thought of home and the vast plains, lakes, and streams that made Mercy a safe haven.

  They had no idea what was coming for them.

  Chapter 16

  CHLOE

  Miller Ranch, Mercy, Montana

  The wind shifted, carrying with it the scent of dry pine needles and fresh hay. Chloe pushed her bangs out of her face and straightened from the hay she was bucking, turning into the breeze and closing her eyes.

  The silence was something Chloe welcomed. Her life had always been full of too much noise. Her first jog that morning had gone well and she already felt better. Like a small amount of the weight that was trying to smother her had lifted.

  Chloe missed her exercise app, which would have told her exactly how far she went, but she guessed it was around five miles. Well, maybe four miles of running and another of walking. She wasn’t in the best shape of her life.

  Opening her eyes, Chloe stretched her back and looked at the last of the hay that still needed to be moved. She didn’t pretend to get the whole system yet, though Sandy was doing her best to explain it. With the amount of cattle on the ranch, they were constantly rotating them through various fields, and also supplementing with hay. It was a continuous effort simply to keep the cows where they belonged and she understood now what Patty meant. They needed more people. It was that simple. The four of them might be able to keep up with the very basics of caring for the cattle, but it meant that almost every other aspect of the farm was suffering.

  Chloe always did a lot of thinking when she jogged, and that morning she brainstormed about the farm’s water problem and the woodstove conversion. Once the spring and farmer’s market were both running more smoothly, they could borrow the muscle they needed to begin on their water issue. However, when it came to the stove, if Chloe had her way, they’d apply her latest ideas to the work-in-progress after dinner, and she’d be baking a pie before midnight. Or rather, Crissy and Sandy would. She was embarrassed to admit she didn’t know how to make a pie.