by Paul Moxham
“I don’t want to end up like that man on the dirt outside,” Molly said.
“I say we wait until the craft can no longer be seen, and then we’ll make a decision.” Derek jogged over to the barn doors and peered out of a crack. “There’s still one Conqueror above Redding, so as long as that stays there, I’m not going anywhere.”
“Neither am I,” Logan said. “I just hope it doesn’t stay too long. I know I can survive the night in this barn if I have to, but I’m not sure Lucy can.” He dashed over to the van. “Kenneth, can you help me get her out of the vehicle so we can lay her down on this pile of hay over here?”
“Sure,” Kenneth replied.
The two brothers carried Lucy out of the van and placed her on the hay. As they did so, Logan bent down and traced a finger across the necklace around her neck. “Where did this come from?”
Kenneth frowned. “I didn’t know Lucy was wearing a necklace.”
“Me neither,” Molly said.
Logan gently unclipped the necklace and examined it in his hand. “I wonder what this key is for.”
“Maybe she found it amongst the rubble somewhere,” Derek said
Logan shook his head. “No, Lucy doesn’t do that. She’s also not a hoarder. Whoever gave her this necklace was important to her.”
“Maybe it was from her father, then, as a wedding gift,” Kenneth suggested.
“Possibly. But I’m …” Logan hesitated and sat down, thinking deeply.
“What is it?” Molly asked, seeing the confused look on the face of her friend.
“I was talking to her earlier today, and I could have sworn she wasn’t wearing it then,” Logan said. “Before I went to sleep, we had a small talk. I remember gazing at her and thinking how beautiful she looked, even when she was angry.”
“She was angry?” Kenneth repeated.
Logan laughed. “Well, frustrated, actually. She wanted to know when was the first time that her father and I met.”
“What has that got to do with anything?” Molly asked.
“I don’t know,” Logan admitted. “I thought she was just scared and was letting her emotions get the better of her, but now I’m wondering if this necklace had anything to do with it.” He studied the key once more. “The thickness and weight of it is quite different from a car key.”
“Let me have a look.” Kenneth held out his hand and took the necklace that his brother offered him. For half a minute or so, he didn’t say anything. Then he looked curiously at Logan. “I might be wrong, but there’s something about this key that is strangely familiar. As you said, it doesn’t feel anything like a car key or a house key, but I still believe that I’ve seen a key that is like this.”
Logan frowned. “You have?”
“When?” Molly asked.
“I can’t recall,” Kenneth stated. “But it was some time ago, back when Mom and Dad were alive.”
Logan sighed. “There’s no chance of me remembering then. You’ve got the better memory out of the two of us.”
“But you’re two years older than me,” Kenneth stated.
“Yes, that’s true,” Logan admitted, “but that doesn’t help. Now if I had a photographic memory, I would be able to tell where this key came from.”
“Well, I’ll keep thinking, but Lucy can tell us when she wakes up,” Kenneth said.
“Maybe.” Logan knelt down next to Lucy and felt her pulse. He listened for a minute as he calculated her heart rate. He grimaced.
“Is it worse than before?” Molly clasped Lucy’s hand.
“Yes, it’s dropping.” Logan felt the woman’s forehead. “She doesn’t seem to have a temperature, and I can’t see any other symptoms.”
“It’s almost as though she’s in a coma,” Derek piped up.
“Looks that way. However, to test that theory, I should pop over to the farmhouse and see if I can find some water. If she doesn’t respond to that—”
“But what about the Strikers?” Derek interrupted.
“I’ll see if they’re gone.” Logan hurried over to where there was a small hole in the door and looked through. “I can’t see a Striker, but a Conqueror is still above Redding.” He opened the barn door. “I’ll be back soon.”
~*~*~
Sunset swooped in fast as Kenneth gazed up at the sky. “You’ll have to fly out tomorrow morning.”
Logan shook his head. “There’s a chance no one in the Conqueror will see me.”
“But if they do, Strikers will be sent out after you, then you’ll have no chance,” Kenneth muttered. “It will be murder.”
“There’s no other option.” Logan pushed open the big barn doors. “If I wait till tomorrow, Lucy might not survive. Besides, who knows how long the Conqueror will stay above Redding.”
“Can people stay in a coma for a long time?” Molly questioned.
Logan made his way back to the airplane. “Yes, but the longer they stay unconscious, the greater the chance they won’t ever wake up.” He opened the passenger door of the machine, and after tossing out a few odds and ends that had been left in the craft by the owner, he walked over to Lucy. “Kenneth, can you help me carry her to the plane?”
“I don’t see how the Conqueror can fail to spot you, but it’s your decision. However, I think the teens and I should stay here.”
“But there’s room for two more people,” Logan argued as he and his brother carried Lucy toward the plane.
Derek looked at his sister. “I’m not losing my sister again.”
“And I’m not losing my brother,” Molly said. “Derek is all I have until our parents are found, and I wouldn’t feel safe flying in that plane with the Conqueror within view, but Kenneth can go with you.”
Kenneth shook his head. “I’m not leaving you two alone in this barn. Besides, Logan will have to come back regardless if I join him this time or not, so there’s no point in me leaving you unguarded. I said I was going to help you find your parents, and until that happens, you’re my responsibility.”
Logan chuckled to himself. “Like a dog with a bone, but okay, as you wish. I’ll leave Stinson Beach first thing in the morning.”
Kenneth stood back as he finished helping Lucy inside and watched as Logan did a last-minute flight check.
Suddenly, a gust of wind blew one of the barn doors closed. Logan stuck his head out. “Can you open it?”
Kenneth nodded, turning to the teens as he did so. “Make sure the other one doesn’t blow open.” He hurried to the closed door and pushed it back open while the teens held on to the other door.
As the engine started, Kenneth gazed up at the sky, astonished to see it had rapidly changed in just the last few minutes. Black clouds scurried across the sky. A change was afoot in the weather, and off in the distance, it was even raining.
As Logan taxied the machine out onto the dirt and headed toward the nearby field, Kenneth waved goodbye. The approaching storm might give his brother the break he needed to escape from the Seods. Then again, it might prove to be his undoing. He hadn’t flown a plane for some time, and to fly one in this type of weather would be hard.
Kenneth and the teens closed the doors and held their breaths as Logan taxied across the grass. The plane spun around, engines already redlined, and rocketed down the redneck airstrip.
As the wheels lifted off the grass, Kenneth gave a sigh of relief. The field hadn’t been that long in length, and without doing a trial run, there had always been a chance that Logan would run out of grass long before he got up to speed.
But that had been the easy part.
“Do you think he’ll make it?” Molly asked.
Kenneth nodded confidently. “Yes. If anyone can make it, it’s Logan. He and I have been through some pretty tough times lately, but we somehow always manage to get through whatever comes our way. Besides, there’s no point in us thinking that he won’t …” Something moved in the sky above. His face hardened like steel as two Strikers shot out of the Conqueror.
&n
bsp; They aimed directly for Logan’s plane.
Chapter 22
As red bolts lanced past Logan, singeing the paint with their heat, he glued his attention to the cheap civilian radar. Despite their head start, the enemy’s warbirds were closing in fast. Cursing, he stomped down hard on the rudder, slipping the plane out of the next burst’s deadly crosshairs.
Straining against the g’s, he forced his eyes open. The heavy rain off to starboard caught his attention. Without thinking, he dragged the control stick toward the storm. There was no way he could evade both Strikers in clear conditions, but if he could make it to the rain clouds, then he would have a chance. It was recklessly dangerous, but hopefully the murky conditions would be just as much a hindrance to the Seods.
As another red bolt shot toward him, he descended sharply. His aircraft sped across abandoned farm fields below tree height, kicking up a cloud of dust as they shredded corn and wheat. He weaved left and right, thankful for every second they defied the odds and edged closer to the storm.
The two Strikers split up and flew on either side of him. Then, as red bolts sped across the gap, Logan did the only thing he could do. Pushing the rudder hard, he spit in the face of gravity and tossed the plane into a tight loop. As the craft spun around, barely under his control, he climbed directly for the sun, praying the Seods would be blinded for just a few seconds more.
He didn’t have time to waste as black clouds scurried across the sky and hid the sun. With nothing better to do while waiting for death, he stole a glance behind him to check on Lucy. She was still unconscious. Lucky girl.
Out the corner of his eye, he caught sight of yet another red bolt. Spinning the machine out of the way, he dove for the rain clouds. It was now or never. He counted his heartbeats as they approached the rain drops. And as they splattered down on his windshield, he let out a sigh.
He wasn’t out of danger yet, but he now had a chance. And as long as he had a prayer, he would continue. With every passing second, he barreled deeper into the storm. As thunder rumbled all around and the radar fuzzed over, he craned his neck to peek out the viewport.
Logan couldn’t see his pursuers, not through all the blinding lightning strikes. It must have cut both ways, since he was still alive. Now it was time for the final touch. Shoving the stick to the right, he banked hard for the darkest cloud around. A red bolt flashed by him only milliseconds after he turned.
A moment later, he was engulfed in the cloud, struggling to maintain control in the near hurricane-force winds. Now that his vision was worthless, he wouldn’t be able to see where he was going. The terrain avoidance system blinked in and out, but as far as he recalled, there weren’t any mountains at this altitude, so he put the machine on autopilot and muttered a prayer.
As thunder crackled overhead, he was confident he had seen the last of the Strikers. In any case, there was nothing else he could do about it. He had tried his best, but now there were bigger problems to deal with.
He reached back and felt Lucy’s pulse. The beating was slow, but at least it was steady. It wasn’t good, but it hadn’t gotten worse. As much as he hated the fact that Lucy had inhaled the toxic chemicals that made her unconscious, he was glad she’d been the only one. If they had all been affected, they would still be in the house. There was only one way that would have ended.
Logan swiped Lucy’s hair out of her face and leaned back in his rocking seat. With Mount Shasta now obliterated, the toxic chemicals would soon be no more. Life could soon return, at least theoretically. There was still the minor problem of the damn Seod infestation though. For as long as they remained on Earth, there would be killing. He had seen his share of fighting in Syria, but this epic slaughter was on a whole new level. He punched the steering column and howled, “It has to stop!”
Looking into the beautiful face of Lucy, Logan made a promise to himself that he wouldn’t stop for any reason until she awoke. He stared at her necklace again and frowned at the earlier conversation he’d had with his brother. Why could Kenneth recall seeing a key just like that and not him? Sure, his brother had a better memory, but for the life of him, he couldn’t remember seeing a key like that in his entire life.
For the next ten minutes, he switched back to manual control and darted from one cloud to the next. He was suddenly torn from his thoughts as a bolt of lightning hit a part of the aircraft. As the machine shook, the control panel flickered and dozens of warning alarms beeped in his face.
Logan hit the fire suppression switch, but orange flames kept licking out of the right wing. “Damn!” It was fruitless to keep on flying. The sooner he landed, the better. He throttled back on the power and the plane descended.
Just as he regained visibility, a hill rose up in front of his windshield and he jerked the rudder to the left. As the aircraft swerved away from the trees, an idle part of his mind wondered what was going on. From what he had seen on the map, there shouldn’t have been any hills for miles.
He could only assume that the Seods had some device that had messed up the plane’s instruments. If this was the case, he could be anywhere. Fortunately, he hadn’t been traveling for too long, so he couldn’t be too far off target, but it was still troubling. Who knew what kind of magic tools these Seods had at their disposal? They clearly were more advanced than humans.
Pushing those grim thoughts aside, he concentrated on finding a good landing spot, which was proving harder with every passing second, as his altitude dropped and all he could see were trees, trees, and more trees.
Suddenly, a flash of blue lit up his windshield. It was a lake. Small and very narrow, but it gave him hope. Any impact would be jarring, but unlike hitting the trees, there would be a chance of him and Lucy surviving. Slim, but a slim chance was better than no chance at all.
With his propeller still spewing fumes, he realized that as much as he would have liked to do a dry run to test the distance, he wouldn’t have time. He was already cutting it thin, as the fire had now spread along the wing and was almost touching the fuselage. Once that was on fire, it was a toss up on whether the smoke or explosion would kill them first.
Pushing down on the stick, he dived toward the lake. He would have to time the landing to perfection. Too steep and he would slam headfirst into the water, but if he didn’t go steep enough, he wouldn’t hit the water soon enough and he’d slam into the trees.
Never in his brief flying career had anything been on the line like it was right now. It was literally of matter of life or death. With Lucy still in a coma, he had stop the plane close to the shore since he couldn’t drag her too far in the cold water.
As the lake rose up to meet him, he gripped the stick with both hands and held on tight, waiting for the moment to push it upward. The seconds seemed to go like hours as the water got closer and closer.
Just as he nudged the controls down, the propeller exploded. The aircraft shuddered to and fro and dipped hard into a stall. Logan dragged the sick upward with both hands and roared out in anger.
The airplane hit the water, belly first, so hard that it flipped the plane off the water once more.
As the disintegrating craft careened toward the shore, Logan gripped his seat with everything he had, not wanting to smash his head on the glass in front of him. With an ear-splitting screech, the plane flopped over and crashed upside down into the icy cold water.
Before he could even unbuckle his harness, frigid water swooshed in from all sides. The remnants of the plane sank below the surface immediately.
Logan yanked his seatbelt off and swam over to Lucy. Grabbing her with both hands, he kicked open the door and swam upward. He kicked with all his might, his gasping lungs turning his vision red. With the state that Lucy’s body was in, any amount of water that entered her system would only make matters worse.
Gasping for air, he broke through the surface of the lake and sidestroked to the shore. He had no idea how he managed to even keep their heads above water, but with his strength failing fast, he rea
ched the embankment and hefted Lucy onto the grass. He tried to stand, but his Jell-O legs folded and he collapsed beside her.
Breathing heavily, he checked Lucy’s heartbeat. It was worse than before. “Stay with me, babe!” He pumped her chest and gave her furious mouth-to-mouth resuscitation in an attempt to get the water out of her body. It was hard work, but slowly and surely, a trickle of water spit out of her mouth.
He examined her heartbeat again and cried at the minor improvement. He continued working on her until he was confident that all the water had left her body. He then fell beside her, pure muscle failure finally taking its toll.
As he lay there, gasping for air, something snapped from the treeline. He was too exhausted to move, so he just tilted his head at the sound. Something rustled in the trees to his right, giving him enough motivation to at least sit up.
A moment later, two armed men emerged. They were tall and dressed in military fatigues. As they strolled toward Logan, weapons at the high ready, he felt around for his handgun or even his pocketknife … but everything was at the bottom of the lake by now. If these men meant to do him harm, there was nothing he could do about it. He balled his fists and tried to rise, but only fell back to his knees in exhaustion. As the men approached, he gave up and raised his hands. “Please help us. My fiancée is in a coma.”
“I’m Hugo,” one of the men mumbled as he lifted his baseball cap off his head and scratched his head. “What’s wrong with her?”
“She inhaled that green gas that came out of Mount Shasta,” Logan replied.
Hugo knelt down over Lucy and felt her heartbeat. “How long has she been like this?”
“Since early this morning. We have to get her to a doctor, or at least indoors.”
The man frowned and then had a quick chat with his companion. After several glances at Lucy and Logan, Hugo raised his shotgun.
“What’s going on?” Logan sputtered.
“Why are you lying to me?” Hugo snarled, his voice brimming with anger.
“I’m not lying!” Logan yelled. “She’s dying! Lucy inhaled the toxic chemicals after we fled Mount Shasta.”