by Logan Keys
FINAL
REFUGE
The Long Fall Series
Book 7
By
Logan Keys & Mike Kraus
© 2018 Muonic Press, Inc.
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No part of this book may be reproduced in any form, or by any electronic, mechanical or other means, without permission in writing from the publisher.
Table of Contents
Prologue
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Chapter 11
Chapter 12
Authors’ Notes August 24, 2018
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The Long Fall Book 8:
Frozen Collapse
Special Thanks
Many thanks to the awesome beta reading team, including Claudia, Glenda, James, Jonathan, Karen, Lynnette, Marlys, Robin, Sarah, Scarlett & Shari. You all rock. :)
Prologue
After the Fall
Most were dead. Some would pass very soon. Few would survive. But while the bodies fought to stay warm, wherever one landed in their final refuge, the heart was cold as ice.
Clinging desperately to the remaining humanity, there was so much lost. Brittany knew when she watched Chuck return to his bed that it was like hers: Filled with regret.
So why were they so different? She pondered this often. He could smile. He even laughed. He sat around the campfire most nights making everyone feel as normal as they could, but she would hardly say a word if she was forced to.
Brittany went through the day as if she were a zombie. She didn’t have to make friends. She pulled her weight. Especially now that she could hunt, a person who sat still as long as she did could bring in quite a few rabbits. Once, she’d returned so frozen that they were worried she might lose some digits, but she’d made it out whole. That was Brittany’s curse. She nearly seemed unscathed by everything, while on the inside, she was deeply marred by scars.
Perhaps it was self-preservation. Getting close meant it would cost a person later down the road if that friend died. If they got super close, it just hurt too much. She’d tried it a few times, even after losing Colton and the children, and where did that get her? More alone than she’d been when previously solo. Because something was missing. Someone was missing. And the body count just kept rising.
Yet. Everyone went on like they were not facing the same dread that she felt. Hope was like a leash on people. They kept letting it tug them back to their feet. So why not her?
The new ones, Michelle and Bob, they seemed nice. They went out of their way to include and speak with her, but they weren’t her friends. She wouldn’t let it get that far. Besides, they’d said they were headed to California and it was good in her opinion, because if they stayed, she might like them. She might become their friends. And then she’d have to lose them and the cycle would begin again.
“What is it in California that’s so important?” Chuck had asked them, only half-joking. Bob and Chuck had spent a week hunting. They could be friends, she could see that. Chuck looked lighter with Bob around, and knowing him, he’d wave them both off with a smile and not be sad.
That’s how he faced things. Cup half-full.
The beauty in that, Brittany could see her way to, just not feeling the ability to mimic it.
“We hope to find the end of our road is all,” Michelle had answered Chuck…albeit with a tad of weariness.
“And does it look like home?”
Bob had answered that question himself, “We hope so.”
Chapter 1
Mexico
Josephine shook her head and motioned to Danielle, who sat behind Terry on their own horse. “That arm was definitely broken. The shoulder was out this entire time,” she told Luckman. “That poor woman—every bounce must be agony.”
Luckman was still focused on the statement the Mayor had just said. “Who’s following us,” he asked, and Joseph shrugged then chuckled as Luckman spun in his seat once more.
“The bad guys,” Joseph offered as if they were in an old wild west movie.
Which fit, since they were in the desert just a few hours from the border with German tied over the saddle of one horse, the Mayor’s daughter, Josephine, on her mare, Jean settled on Luckman’s horse behind him, and Danielle and Terry struggling to stay on the extra horse.
They weren’t moving fast enough. They weren’t even trying, since not everyone could ride, plus, German was already in a dangerous position. And here Joseph swore someone was following them.
“What is that?” Terry asked, and Luckman glanced over and squinted.
“Its lightning,” Jean said quietly from behind him in the saddle.
“Storm’s coming,” Joseph said just as a loud boom thundered across the desert.
The horses shied to the side. Luckman clutched the saddle horn. The rain was returning, and the wind picked up. Bright light shot across the sky in a zig-zag, only, this wasn’t like normal lightning. It reached its long fingers every which way again and again until there wasn’t a spot of sky that hadn’t a strike slicing through.
“We better find some place to camp!”
They moved off the main trail and headed for a canyon. The horses were neighing to one another out of fear. Luckman’s mount was dancing in place, and he was struggling to keep her under control.
It darkened when clouds rolled in fast, blotting out the sun. They were only able to search for cover within minutes before the intensity was too much to bear. And they didn’t find a cave, just a shot of rocks that overhung a tiny area so at least some of the rain wouldn’t be pouring right down on them.
With German tucked underneath the driest part, after mumbling incoherent phrases in Russian, he promptly fell back asleep, weak and growing weaker. Luckman growled his frustration at having been waylaid once more on his way to getting his friend help. The heavens opened as the last of them made it inside, but Luckman wasn’t worried about the sheets of rain. Or the lack of visibility. It was dark as night now outside. No, he was worried about the people tailing them, and now in their vulnerable position, what might happen.
“Do you think they saw where we went?” Luckman asked.
Joseph shrugged. “Let’s just not start any fires and hope they had to hightail it out of here with the weather.”
Josephine checked on German’s side, pulling back the layers of dampness from rain mixed with blood. The wound was angry looking, bright red and seeping discharge that seemed to denote an infection.
The doctor tried to clean the wound as best she could and repatch it, but they’d run out of dry supplies.
“How far are we?” Luckman asked but he already knew. They were hours still from the border. Maybe ha
lf a day still, at this pace.
“Once this passes, we’ll head right out,” Joseph said, patting his arm. “He’s going to make it. Have faith.”
But Luckman didn’t miss the grimace the man’s daughter made at his statement. She wasn’t so sure.
Luckman tried not to think of Holtz. How he’d betrayed the betrayer and left him in the desert alone. Was he dead? Had he made it? Was he the one following them?
“There was a man,” Luckman confessed, blurting out what was on his mind as things spiraled to a head. “I left him before. He won’t be happy about it.”
Jean’s gaze snapped in his direction. She hadn’t asked about Holtz, probably thinking the worst. And now it was confirmed. Yes. He’d done the monstrous thing and ditched the man, alone…in this.
Joseph stared at Luckman long and hard. It was as if he was weighing his options for leaving them all behind but decided that he’d stay. “I don’t think this is one man. If it’s him, he’s not alone.”
Somehow that was worse.
The lightning started to light up the sky as a flash on top of flash effect. The booming sounds overlapped and made Luckman nearly deaf. He had to cover his ears after a time, it was that painful. He’d never in his life heard a storm as loud. Above, the sky was being ripped apart as if Mother Nature was having a tantrum at the mistakes of mankind. The weather was turning more lethal by the second. Perhaps it would kill whoever was out there and they wouldn’t have to worry.
Then he felt a creeping guilt at wishing death on Holtz.
“Danielle!” Terry cried, and Luckman turned around to see she wasn’t with them. “She went to get her bag!”
Just as Luckman faced the open desert once more bolts began to pummel the ground. Now he was blind as well as deaf. Terry pushed past him out into the storm. When he could see again, with spots dotting his vision, he watched her dodge the strikes until he couldn’t simply stand by any longer. He rushed into the storm too and followed Terry to where the horses were huddled under another rock overhang.
Danielle was there, wrapped in the fetal position. Luckman grabbed her by the arm, asking her if she was okay. She nodded that she was, and they began a mad dash back to where the rest were camped.
The darkness between the blinding light was disorienting. They were running across the desert in the direction he thought was right but time stretched and shortened and everything looked the same. His eyes were filled with blurry dazzles of light, his vision poor. When the strikes paused, it was like being doused by a black blanket. There were no stars or moon tonight. He turned one way and then the other. Terry pulled in one direction and he followed, but felt it was the wrong one.
“No!” he finally called, stopping her. “It’s this way.”
She finally relented and they turned around. Luckman wondered if he was wrong just as he saw the group waiting beneath the overhang through the rain.
A strike hit his and Danielle’s spot, and he flew over the ground as if a bomb had gone off. Luckman lost his grip on Danielle and Terry as he somersaulted backwards into the snow and sand, sliding to a stop.
His arms and legs tingled. His nose filled with the stench of burned flesh, and he couldn’t see anything but the outline of someone rushing to his side. It was Jean. And then Josephine. Luckman could tell by their voices.
“Lucky!” Jean called. “Can you hear me?”
“Check your sisters. I’ve got him!” Josephine said in her usual firm way. “Luckman are you able to stand? Can you move? Can you feel my hand?”
She was having to shout over the storm. Luckman worked his jaw, but found his voice far away.
“Go back,” he whispered, knowing she couldn’t hear him. He didn’t want her to be out there, to get hurt.
He regained his senses over the next few seconds and glanced around. There were still spots but he could see, and he could stand after he’d rocked into a sitting position. “I….the girls?”
Josephine helped him keep his feet and they went to where both Terry and Jean stood over Danielle. She was on her side and very still. Her eyes were open in surprise, but she didn’t move, or even blink. Blood trickled from her nose and ears.
Josephine rushed to her side. “Move. Get back.”
More lightning hit, and Luckman ducked, putting himself over Josephine and the others as best he could. The doctor shot him an irritated look, but he ignored it as he pressed closer. “Lets move her!” He called but Josephine’s meaningful glance stopped him in his tacks.
Her fingers were pressed to Danielle’s neck. “She’s gone,” Josephine said and Terry screamed and Jean pulled her into her arms and started to cry.
“We have to get back under the protection!”
Together, they lifted Danielle’s lifeless body and made their way back to the rock overhanging. They gently laid her down next to German and Luckman took her jacket off to cover her face. Her arms that were covered in black streaks and blisters.
Terry sobbed, and Jean murmured things to her he couldn’t hear over the storm.
Joseph shook his head sadly, and his daughter let him hug her. They clung to one another because it was times like this that reminded you it could end at any minute for any one of them.
**
They decided to leave Danielle in the desert once the next day arrived. Although it wasn’t clear, it was still raining with cloud cover, the worst of the lightning had passed. The two remaining sisters had already left their brother in the plane, and now their sister too was wrapped in her jacket with a pile of rocks at her head as a sort of ancient looking headstone.
Luckman had offered his horse for them to carry Danielle back to the US, but the sisters had said no. They wanted to get out of the desert with their own lives, and each other, because they now seemed to feel like death had a bounty on their heads. They knew it would slow them down to have an extra horse and body. Terry had a family to get back to. She was determined to live for them.
And that depended on a few things at the moment. The weather. And if the people chasing them were dead from the storm already, like her sister was. Them or us, he thought. It was sad to be like that, but Luckman had felt the pure necessity of accepting death quickly, moving on, and….
His gaze drifted to German who was little more than breathing. Could he just move on then? Once German passed…as it was certain as the rain kept driving into his eyes, that German would not make it much further. An hour if they were lucky.
Josephine’s gaze had told him so more clearly than words. German was minutes---not hours---away from the pearly gates.
Luckman tried not to feel panic. They couldn’t go any faster in this weather. It was hard to see. They were picking their way up the trail as carefully as possible while trying to keep pace, so that whoever might be following couldn’t catch up in time.
Luckman glanced back and then did a double take. His voice cracked when he spoke. “We have to stop. Hold up! Stop!”
They did, and he jumped from the horse and rushed to German’s side. His face was blue. He wasn’t breathing. “Josephine!” he hollered.
She rushed to his side. “Help him,” Luckman pleaded. “Help him!”
Joseph also came to help as they pulled German down from the horse. “Don’t you give up on me. Don’t you do it!” Luckman’s voice shook with great emotion.
Josephine put her ear to German’s chest and then started compressions. She was performing CPR.
Luckman paced behind her, the rain pouring down in buckets on the scene.
“Please, God!” Luckman shouted at the sky, suddenly enraged. “Just give us a little help here!”
Lightening flashed in answer and the heavens opened some more. Luckman laughed maniacally and then hunched over Josephine to try to give her some protection from the weather while she worked.
She was still doing compressions on his chest, pumping quickly and with great effort with intervals of breathing into German’s mouth. Luckman knew this was it but he wasn’t rea
dy. He couldn’t say goodbye just yet.
“Lucky,” Jean said close to his ear. “Lucky,” she said again, and she pulled him into a hug. He let go of a loud sob and grabbed her hard to him.
“It’s okay,” she said quietly.
“No, it’s not!” he said, pushing back, wiping his eyes.
Luckman moved to lean over Josephine once more. “Save him. Please. Keep trying.”
“I am.” Josephine spoke through gritted teeth. She wasn’t giving up.
“Lucky,” Joe said pointing into the distance. Whoever had been following them had arrived. They were merely smudges in the rain at the moment, but they were on horseback and there were maybe ten of them.
“Oh hell,” Luckman said, and he ran to his saddle bags.
Squinting through the rain, he fumbled with his gun, pulling out the pistol as he waited for them to come closer. One eye on them, one eye on Josephine who was still trying to revive German, he braced himself for a fight.
The group rode up, all of them obviously native Mexicans. They had big sombreros on their heads, ponchos covering them and their horses. They had children with them who peaked out from the coverings instead of the guns he expected to find. One rode closer and he spoke in Spanish. It sounded like a question. Joseph answered fluently and pointed at German and at Lucky then back at the group.
The man turned to the people he was riding with and explained. They shook their heads sadly then quietly spoke amongst themselves.
Joseph seemed surprised at whatever the man said next.
“They’re offering to help us get back to town. They said they can make a sled to drag German in if…”
“If he isn’t dead,” Luckman said.
“Gracias, Amigos, Amigas,” Joseph said, and they all began to dismount.
Luckman returned to Josephine’s side, his stomach clenched in fear. She gazed at him a long moment, having stopped CPR. “I’m sorry,” she said.