by Hakok, R. A.
www.rahakok.com
@rahakok
Copyright © 2018 R.A. Hakok
All rights reserved.
All characters and events in this publication, other than those clearly in the public domain, are fictitious. Any resemblance to real persons, living, dead or furied, is purely coincidental.
The moral right of the author has been asserted.
By R.A. Hakok:
Cody Doyle
The Children Of The Mountain Series
Visit www.rahakok.com to download The Shoebox and The Map, the free companion ebooks to the Children of the Mountain series.
If it’s been a while since you read Among Wolves or The Devil You Know you can click for a recap, or simply scroll to the end.
WE TAKE BENJAMIN’S ROUTE, south through the mountains. We have just the one pack between us and I’ve lightened it for the hike, but there’s the rifles, and where the drifts run deep the kid needs carrying.
I count off the landmarks we pass. The barracks at Fort Narrows. The veterinarian’s outside Ely, where I found Benjamin’s body. The Susquehanna Bank in Boonsboro that sheltered us from the storms after we fled Eden. We don’t stop at any of them. We have to make time now. Peck has a start on us.
The first day we make it almost to the state line before darkness and cold run us off the road. We crest a shallow rise and I spot a small church in the valley below, sitting right on the banks of the Potomac. It has little to recommend it, but we’ve passed nothing else for miles, and I can’t see anything better on the stretch beyond the river. I catch Mags eyeing it, weighing the shelter it’ll provide against the shrinking sliver of gray to the west that still separates earth from sky. She turns back to the road, like she means go on, but I pull the mask I wear down and call to her through chattering teeth. It’ll do for the few hours we mean to be here. I wait while she considers what I’ve said, hoping she doesn’t call me on the rest of it. Truth is we’ve pushed hard to get this far; I’m not sure how much more I have in me now. Eventually she nods, points her snowshoes in the direction of the chapel.
There’s no need for the pry bar; the door’s already hanging back on its one remaining hinge. She heads off with the kid in search of wood for a fire while I make my way inside. I shuck off my pack and start tending to our dinner. My fingers are numb from the cold; it takes longer than it ought to get the cartons open and our rations assembled. I’m still working on the last of them when she returns, dumps what she’s gathered on the floor and sets to work, stacking firewood and kindling with practiced ease. I add water from my canteen to the MREs, spilling as much as I manage to get into the cartons, then I shuffle myself as close as I can to the smoldering branches and listen as the chemical heaters do their work, hissing away as they slowly thaw our food. As soon it’s passable warm I tear the top off one of them and start wolfing down what’s inside. Mags waits a little longer before she opens hers, then starts poking around half-heartedly at the contents. When I’ve had the last of mine I throw the empty pouch on the fire. The foil shrivels and for a second the flames flicker brighter as it’s consumed. I hold my hands close for whatever heat they’ll allow, but already they’re dying down again.
The wind howls around the gable, rattling the door against its frame. I pull the parka tighter around me. I’m exhausted, bone weary, but it’s been worth it. We’ve come farther than I thought possible when we first set out this morning; farther than I ever hiked in a day with Marv. At first light we’ll cross the river and then we’ll be back in Virginia, with no more than twenty miles between us and the Blue Ridge Mountain Road.
I wonder where Peck is tonight. Angus said he’d set out with Kurt and the other Guardians yesterday morning. We didn’t run into him on the way up with Hicks, so he must have taken the Cacoctin Mountain Highway. That road is easier, but it’s longer, and he’s no reason to push hard. If we can maintain the pace we managed today there’s a chance we might yet overhaul him, make it back to Mount Weather before he arrives. I glance over at the rifles, propped against the wall. If we can do that maybe we can hold the tunnel, keep him out. For a moment I allow myself that hope. Truth is I have no other plan.
I take a final swig from the canteen and announce I’m turning in. But when I go to stand the muscles in my legs have stiffened; I have to reach for one of the pews to haul myself upright. I glance over at Mags while I steady myself, but she’s busy fixing herself a coffee and hasn’t noticed. On the other side of the fire the kid’s focused on a HOOAH! he’s liberated from one of the MRE cartons. I watch as he pushes the candy bar up inside its wrapper, then takes to gnawing away at the end of it with those little teeth of his. I’d gotten into the habit of tethering him while we slept; it feels a little strange to have him roaming free now. He looks up at me for a moment, like maybe his thoughts have run that way too, then he turns his attention back to his meal.
I undress quick as I can and climb inside the sleeping bag, pulling the quilted material tight around me. Mags is still sitting by the fire, swirling her coffee as she stares into the flames. When we set off this morning I thought she looked better; that the shadows under her eyes had faded a little, that maybe the angles of her cheekbones were a little softer. But now I’m not so sure.
I tell myself it’s just the firelight. Besides, it’s early yet; barely a day since she came through the scanner. She didn’t get the time inside it it’d been set for, but there’s no way she’s still sick. I’ve seen firsthand what the virus does to a person. Marv had been strong, and by the end he hadn’t been able to lift a boot from the snow. When she took her turns breaking trail earlier it was all I could do to keep up.
I hold on to that thought for a while. It should bring me comfort, but somehow it doesn’t. My mind keeps returning to the image I have of her, bursting out of the pedestrian tunnel. The way she had moved had been…unnatural. She had dealt with the soldiers, each in turn, without so much as a break in her stride. Even Hicks; she’d been on him before he’d barely had time to twitch.
I lie there for a while, trying to work out what it might mean. But it’s no use; sleep’s already plucking at my thoughts, unraveling them before they have a chance to form. I feel my eyelids growing heavy. I reach up for the dog tags I lifted from Boots. It’s too early to tell yet, I know. I run my fingers over them anyway, testing for imperfections that weren’t there this morning. Other than the letters pressed into the metal the thin slivers of steel are still smooth.
I close my eyes.
I’ll check hers later, when she’s sleeping.
*
WE’RE ON THE ROAD AGAIN before dawn. Mags takes the pack and rifles while I follow behind, carrying the kid on my shoulders. If breaking trail tires her she doesn’t show it; her pace doesn’t slacken, not even on the inclines. My legs are longer, and I have years of pounding the snow to my name, but I feel like it’s me who’s holding us up now.
We make good time, but it’s already stretching into the afternoon before we catch our first glimpse of the Harry Byrd Highway. I set the kid down at the top of the on-ramp and search the snow for signs anyone’s passed while I get my breath back. But there’s nothing, far as the eye can see. The wind’s been squalling all morning, however; if they came by more than an hour ago it’d already have wiped their tracks clean.
Mags adjusts the straps on her pack and sets off again. I hoist the kid back onto my shoulders and follow. From here it’s a long steady climb and for the next hour I focus on her boots as they rise and fall ahead of me, following a tireless, mechanical rhythm, like she could do this all day. At last the road levels and off in the distance I see it: a faded blue sign
announcing the turnoff to the Blue Ridge Mountain Road.
I catch up to her by a stand of spruce-fir that still clings stubbornly to the embankment and pull the mask I wear down to gulp in air. The thin cotton’s iced up where I’ve been breathing through it, and for some reason that sets spidey off. Mags asks if I’m ready. I don’t have my wind back yet so I just nod and she takes off again.
I’m about to follow when I spot something out of the corner of my eye: a length of chain, tangled up in one of the branches that poke through the snow. The old steel crucifix I used to wear, the one I placed on Marv’s grave. Mags is already halfway to the first crest, but I just stand there, staring at it. I don’t know what waits for us ahead, but I get the strong sense that whatever it might be, I won’t be passing this way again.
I hesitate a moment longer then reach down, pull it free. I shake the chain to clear the powder from it, then I slip it into my pocket and take off after her.
The mountain road climbs sharply from the highway and soon my thighs are burning. When we reach the ridgeline it flattens enough that I consider setting Johnny down, but ahead Mags has picked up the pace so I just tell him to hang on. We follow the road along the spine of the mountain range, picking our way through the lifeless trunks that push up through the snow on either side.
Somewhere far behind clouds the color of gunmetal the sun’s already dipping towards the horizon, but we’re close now. We round a bend and I see a familiar sign, its dead lights hooded under black metal cowls, announcing we’re entering a restricted area. We continue upwards for another half-mile and then finally the road straightens and levels. The trees fall away and we find ourselves in a large clearing that straddles both sides of the ridge.
Ahead there’s the chain-link fence, the coils of razor wire above held outwards on rust-streaked concrete pylons. I stop and search its length for signs of a breach, but there’s nothing. Spidey doesn’t care for it, all the same. He starts pinging a warning, but like earlier it’s vague, non-directional. Mags has already found the section I opened with bolt cutters the day I arrived. She slips through, holding the wire back for the kid. I set him down and he follows her in. While he’s putting his snowshoes back on I unsnap the throat of my parka and lower the hood to listen. But the only sound’s the wind, rattling a faded No Trespassing sign against the bars of the gate.
Mags unslings one of the rifles and hands it to me. We leave the guardhouse behind us and make our way into the compound. I scan the perimeter, counting off the concrete cowls of the airshaft vents as we pass. The snow on top of each is undisturbed, but that means even less than the absence of tracks out on the highway. Kane had the codes to the blast door for each facility in the Federal Relocation Arc; Peck wouldn’t have planned on making his entrance the way I got back into Eden.
The control tower rises from the highest point of the ridge, its roof bristling with antennae. Dark windows slant outwards from the observation deck, staring down at our approach. The Juvies were supposed to post a watch while we were gone; if anyone’s up there they’re bound to have spotted us by now. I keep my eyes on the doorway, waiting for it to open. But no one comes out to greet us.
On the far side the helicopter landing pad, the tattered windsock snapping and fluttering on its tether. Spidey dials it up a notch as we hurry past. The temperature’s dropping fast now, but that’s not what’s quickening my stride. We’re almost at the portal.
The path curves around then straightens and at last I see it.
In the lee of the tunnel where the wind hasn’t yet had chance to smooth it the snow’s all churned up, a wide confusion of snowshoe tracks. Beyond I can see the guillotine gate. It’s been lowered, a last desperate attempt to keep them out.
It hasn’t worked.
The gate hangs inward at a defeated angle. The metal’s twisted, charred; on one side it’s jumped its runners. The bars that remain grin back at me, spare steel teeth in a gaping maw.
Behind the tunnel stretches off into inky blackness.
*
MAGS PUSHES HER GOGGLES up onto her forehead. She unsnaps her snowshoes and makes for the gate. I reach for her wrist.
‘Maybe you should wait out here, with the kid.’
She makes no move to withdraw her hand, but for a second the shadows around her eyes that yesterday I thought were fading seem to grow a fraction darker. She tilts her head.
‘You have a plan you’re not sharing with me, Gabriel?’
As it turns out, I don’t. I’ve had the last two days to come up with something, to figure out what we might do if Peck beat us here. But I’ve got nothing. Whatever hopes I had rested on us making it here ahead of him, finding a way to keep him out.
I shake my head.
‘Then you’re going to need me in there.’
She doesn’t say it like there’s much else needs discussing but she waits anyway, letting me work it through for myself. And the truth of it is she’s right. It wasn’t me who saved us, back in Eden. She took care of the soldiers, single-handed. All I did was let them in and then stand back and watch, for the most part of it slack-jawed, while she went to work.
She holds my gaze a second longer, then she just says Okay, and slips her hand from mine.
We make our way into the mountain. The darkness closes around us, swallowing us whole; soon I can no longer make out Mags or the kid in front of me. If not being able to see is a hindrance to either of them they aren’t showing it; their footfalls grow steadily softer until I can no longer hear them above the sound of my own breathing.
I reach in my pocket for the flashlight, but then stop; it’d only mark us out to whoever might be watching for our approach. Instead I shoulder the rifle and shuffle over to the elevated walkway, groping for the guardrail. My fingers close around it and I set off again, lengthening my stride, anxious not to slip any further behind. The tunnel runs true for a ways and then I feel the rail start to curve. When it straightens again I start the count. For a long time there’s nothing but my footsteps and the occasional drip of melt water, rendered distant by the darkness. At last I think I catch a glimpse of something: the tiniest grain of light, and soon Mags’ silhouette once again separates itself from the darkness. She’s farther than I had imagined, but at least now I can see again. I relinquish my grip on the guardrail and take off after her.
With each step the light grows, the mote becoming a sliver, then a slender shaft, until at last I can make out the blast door ahead. It juts into the tunnel at an unfinished angle, as though it has come to an unexpected halt, its trajectory interrupted. A pale glow spills out from behind, casting soft brace-wire and rock-bolt shadows over the roughhewn granite.
Mags moves closer to the wall, leaning forward to peer around the massive steel frame. She stays like that for a long moment, then disappears inside without saying a word. I shuck off my mittens and unsling the rifle, whispering to the kid to wait. I guess he mustn’t care much for that plan, however, because he squeezes past me and takes off after her.
I follow them through the series of antechambers that lead in from the tunnel. Mags stops at each doorway to listen, moving forward again only when she’s satisfied there’s nothing waiting behind. When we reach the entrance to the main cavern she suddenly holds up a hand and I freeze, my nerves jumping like bowstrings. For long seconds she just stays like that. Eventually she whispers back at me over her shoulder.
‘Hear that?’
I close my eyes, trying to quiet the pounding of my heart while I strain for whatever it is she’s heard. But it’s no use; I can’t make out a thing. I shake my head.
I watch as she slips silently into the cavern. I take a deep breath and scurry across the street after her, my eyes darting this way and that for any sign of Peck or the Guardians. When she reaches the first of the buildings she stops. The kid crouches next to her. He angles his head up, one mitten cupped to his brow against the glare of the arc lights. His mouth opens in wonder and for a second I see this place as he must
, as I did when I first arrived here. The huge, domed roof, the high vaulted tunnels; how much bigger it is than what we had known before.
Mags sets off again, keeping tight to the buildings for the thin shadows they provide. We pass the mess and cross to the infirmary, and now for the first time I hear it, too: a soft sound, intermittent, like water splashing. It echoes faintly off the cavern walls, in and out of the tunnels, making the source hard to pinpoint. There’s only one place it can be coming from, though.
As we get closer to the lake the sound gets louder, and now in the space between there’s something else, almost too soft to hear, like a gasped breath. I tap Mags on the shoulder and point. She nods, like she’s already had the same thought. Mount Weather’s tallest building, Command, is right there. From up on the roof we’ll be able to see everything in the cavern laid out beneath us.
We hurry over to the entrance. I sling the rifle onto my shoulder and gently press down on the handle, feeling for the mechanism’s biting point. There’s a soft click as the lock releases and then we’re inside. A sliver of red light pulses intermittently from underneath a door at the end, but otherwise the corridor’s dark. The air smells fusty, stale, like it hasn’t been disturbed in months. Mags pushes by me, making for the stair. The kid follows, padding silently up the steps behind her.
I follow, my boots squeaking softly on the tread plate. When I get to the top floor she’s standing on tiptoe under the access panel that leads to the roof, the fingers of one hand reaching up for it.
‘Wait, let me.’
I rest my rifle against the wall and undo the latch. The hatch swings down with a groan and a narrow metal ladder slides out on rollers. She already has her foot on the bottom rung before it reaches the end of its travel; in a few quick steps she’s disappeared through. The kid squints up after her, like he doesn’t much care for the lights burning from the brace-wired roof. And for a second I think I catch a glimpse of something; something I thought I saw earlier, in Eden’s cavern, when he came back to us from wherever the scanner had sent him: a flash of silver, there and then gone again, like a fish under water. I feel the breath catch in my throat, but when I look closer his pupils are dark. It was just my own eyes playing tricks with me after the gloom of the stair.