by Mark Romang
“That makes sense. I told you I jumped into some fir trees.”
Brooke took some tweezers from the first aid kit. “I need to pull out this splinter. So hold still.”
“I won’t cry, I promise.”
Brooke did her best to be gentle as she worked on removing the splinter. As she picked at it she asked, “So what caused you to jump from a cliff?”
“Thousands of snakes were chasing me.”
Brooke stopped what she was doing. “Come again?”
C.J. lifted his head and looked at her steadily. He spent the next few minutes telling her about his deer hunt, his meeting up with a mysterious old man, falling into a snake pit, and his desperate jump into the trees.”
“Well, I think I might have jumped too. Even one snake freaks me out, let alone thousands.”
“Brooke, these were no ordinary snakes. I believe the snakes may have been the very demons that tried to possess Tanner.”
“What makes you think that?”
“Their behavior was atypical. The snakes chased after me for several hundred yards.”
Brooke resumed work on the splinter as she digested C.J.’s last statement. It was an absurd speculation. But they lived in an era where the supernatural was beginning to become commonplace. “Well, you don’t act possessed, so I’m assuming the snakes were unsuccessful.”
“Thank God for that.”
Brooke held up the splinter. “I got it. Pretty big splinter. More like a stick than a splinter.” She grabbed some antibiotic ointment from her first aid kit and applied some ointment to the gash on her brother’s scalp.
“Am I going to live, Doc?”
“Pretty sure you are.”
“You must’ve been a fine nurse before the world fell apart.”
“I did my best. And I enjoyed being a nurse. But those days are long gone.” She patted C.J. on the leg. “Show me your ankle now.”
C.J. rolled up a pant leg, revealing a badly swollen ankle. Brooke shook her head. “I don’t know how you’ve been running on this ankle. It’s huge.”
C.J. shrugged. “Mind over matter, I guess. Fear and adrenaline helps too. And anger.”
Brooke took off C.J.’s boot and wrapped his ankle with an Ace bandage to give it support, the tape acting as a brace. “What are you angry about?”
C.J.’s eyes flashed. “The Antichrist and his UWC goons. Somehow and someway I’m going to take them on. It’s all I think about.”
“Are you serious? First Tanner, and now you?”
C.J. nodded.
“I’m not surprised. Red Dawn was always your favorite movie. You and Dad watched it too many times. Now you think you’re some kind of revolutionary. You probably want to start a militia, don’t you?”
“Red Dawn is a classic movie. The remake not so much. But yeah, a militia would be great.”
Brooke put her brother’s shoe back on and tied it. “I think you should leave the avenging to the Lord. And he’ll do just that in a few days.”
“But what if you’re wrong on the timing, Brooke? Did the seven-year Tribulation start with the Rapture, or did it start when Henrik Skymolt signed his peace treaty with Israel?”
“We’ve been over this a million times. I don’t want to rehash it again.”
C.J. got to his feet. He put his belt back on. “You’re right. We need to stop talking and start walking.”
Brooke slung her backpack on. “Which way?”
C.J. pointed east. “Quilcene and Tanner are that way.”
“That’s pretty vague. I think we need to be more precise than that.”
“Relax, Sis. Tanner and I navigated our way to the Olympic Peninsula all the way from Anchorage. I know I can find my way to Quilcene. Besides, I have a topo map and a compass I plan on using. And if we’re lucky we can use the zip-lines again.”
“Then I’m ready if you are,” Brooke said.
They began walking east, the helicopter nowhere in sight.
Chapter 28
Tanner had been climbing Mt. Deception for over four hours. A few minutes ago he left behind the Royal Basin, and his lungs were sucking wind. Cold wind.
He could hear the helicopters. They came and went. He knew their fuel windows were short: two to three hours. So when they left he assumed it was to refuel or be replaced by other choppers.
So far he’d managed to shake them. But it was getting harder.
His plan contained only one element: draw the helicopters to him, and away from C.J. and Brooke.
The forest grew sporadically at this elevation. Soon he would be trekking across the open slope of the northeast chute. In the summer the slope contained large patches of slippery pillow lava. But now fresh powder covered the northeast chute, and bucking the powdery snow slowed him down.
But he kept at it.
Take a step. Take another step. Repeat. And repeat again.
Mind-numbing, booty burning repetition.
Tanner would almost kill for a set of snowshoes about now. He wore his snowboarding boots and sank deep into the snowpack with each step. Although Mt. Deception only rose to a little under eight-thousand feet, he didn’t plan on climbing to its summit. Soon he would strap on his snowboard for one final ride.
Tanner passed up a pair of scraggly fir trees not much bigger than him. They were the last trees growing on the northeast chute, and the runty fir trees served as gatekeepers to the summit. He would be climbing in the open from here on out.
He paused long enough to stop and pick up a handful of snow. He placed a portion of the snow in his mouth, reveling in its icy moistness. Most survival experts warn against eating snow. Snow can drop your core temperature. But he was burning up from exertion, and his throat felt parched.
He needed to hydrate.
The chute steepened, forcing him to contour his way across its breadth. Despite his dire circumstances he reveled in his beautiful surroundings. Tanner loved the high country. He felt especially close to God whenever he adventured in the mountains.
Although he could encounter God in any place and at any time, there was something about mountainous terrain that made Tanner more spiritually aware. Standing on a lofty crag and looking down at the world far below tends to put things in perspective for him.
No wonder Moses kept climbing up mountains. He always found God on mountaintops.
Finding God often requires the searcher to be still and to empty their mind of competing distractions. He thought about it some more, and came to a conclusion. Maybe it’s not the jaw-dropping grandeur of mountains that heightens my God awareness, perhaps it’s the silence. Other than wind noise, mountaintop silence is almost palpable. Civilization hustle and bustle is nowhere to be found. And Tanner found the absence liberating.
I would’ve made an excellent mountain goat, he thought.
He was thinking of mountain goats hopping from boulder to boulder when the helicopter flew over the summit on a course that would take it directly over him. Out in the open, Tanner was more like a sitting duck than a mountain goat.
He couldn’t run. And he couldn’t hide.
Tanner dropped to his knees and hunkered over, placing his head in the snow. From high up his cammo clothing would look grayish-black like the pillow lava. Every so often there would be windswept patches of the hardened lava, and against the brilliant white snowcap, he hoped to look like a boulder or a mass of pillow lava to the men in the chopper. Luckily the snowboard tied to his backpack was a dingy black color, as were his boots.
Lord, don’t let them see me. Make me look like a big rock.
Tanner’s heart pounded in his chest. The helicopter thundered overhead. Survival instinct urged him to flee. More than anything he wanted to bolt. But he kept his position, frozen in place in the snow. Fleeing would give away his position for sure.
The helicopter passed over him and headed west. Tanner inched his head toward his left and tracked the helicopter from his periphery. His fluttering heart dropped when the helicopter circle
d back toward him.
Somehow he held his position, his body trembling like a leaf. He tilted his head to the side another inch to track the helicopter. The chopper was perhaps two-hundred yards away but flying fast. Don’t move. Maybe they haven’t seen you, he told himself.
But then he remembered something C.J. said about thermal imaging cameras working in the daylight. Tanner’s skin crawled at the scary thought. His heat signature against the snowpack would be vivid and unmistakable. I’m lit up like a Christmas tree, he surmised. Whatever flagging optimism he still had at this point nosedived when the helicopter slowed to a hover.
The helicopter swung around its portside. The door on the aircraft’s portside had been removed. A man with a rifle stood in the doorway. The man brought the rifle to his shoulder.
Tanner sprang up from his crouch. He reached behind his back and pressed the quick-release tabs on his backpack. His snowboard dropped off the backpack. Tanner whirled and grasped the snowboard before it slid away from him. He locked his boots into the bindings and readied himself for the ride of his life.
He heard the rifle crack. The sharp report shattered the alpine stillness. Tanner hopped and pivoted in midair, pointing his snowboard downhill. The slope tumbled sharply, and it didn’t take long for him to pick up momentum.
Normally he rode with his weight divided 50/50 over his back and front foot. But there was so much fresh powder on Mt. Deception that he applied a fraction more weight over his back foot to keep his board tip up. He didn’t keep much pressure on his edges either. He wanted all the speed he could get.
If he could get back to the tree line, maybe he could lose the helicopter again.
Tanner rode with abandon. He didn’t carve at all. Straight down the mountain he flew. It was almost suicidal how he rode. He was either going to die at the hands of the men in the chopper, or he would fall spectacularly and this mountain would kill him.
Tanner experienced a sense of déjà vu as he fled. Before the Rapture he and C.J. had been chosen by a snowboard company to shoot an extreme video. A helicopter had dropped them off on a summit in the Cascades, and then filmed their ride down the mountain. During their ride they had performed all kinds of aerials. The video eventually made a public debut on You-Tube. He guessed the video was still there. He hadn’t been on a computer in seven years.
The last Tanner knew, the speed record for a snowboard was a partial tick over 126 miles per hour. His current speed wasn’t anywhere near that impressive. In fact, Mt. Deception wasn’t tall enough for him to reach a speed that insane. But he guessed he was going at least 50 mph, possibly more and picking up speed rapidly.
Yet the powder was so deep it slowed his descent. Conversely, the powdery snow helped him stay in control. Regardless of his dicey situation with the helicopter, he couldn’t stop smiling. A grin stretched his face. He couldn’t remember riding powder this good.
The snow was pure and undefiled—brilliant white and fluffy and the texture of down feathers. For sure the snow didn’t belong in a world this messed up. It was as if Heaven had opened up its storehouses and dropped its best snow right here for him to ride.
No matter what happens, this snow is a gift, he thought. Thank you, Lord, for this snow. It’s amazing. Even when evil paints the world with ugly brushstrokes, there is still breathtaking beauty to be found somewhere on the planet.
Tanner only wished he wore goggles. He had some goggles, but they were tucked away in his backpack. He’d been wearing sunglasses ever since he started his climb, but the sunglasses couldn’t stop the billowing snow from flying into his eyes and collecting on his lenses. He could barely see what lay ahead.
He kept close watch for a green line. A green splash against white signified trees. But he was still almost vertical. The trees were likely growing on down the mountain where the slope flattened out a bit and spilled into a basin. But it was only a guess. He could be wrong. And smashing into a tree at this speed would definitely end his mortal life.
The UWC helicopter sounded like it flew directly over his head. The chopper’s blade slap echoed off the mountain.
Tanner wondered why they didn’t shoot at him again, and as he raced down the mountain he braced himself for a bullet entry. But a bullet never came, at least not yet.
Curious, Tanner risked a brief look up. He wished he hadn’t. His enjoyable ride just lost its fun. The helicopter flew in a lazy circle about 200 feet up. And dangling from the aircraft’s belly was a large blue canister connected to a long cable. The canister looked a bit like a space capsule and dangled perhaps thirty feet over the snowpack.
Somehow he hadn’t seen the canister before. He could only guess that the men inside the chopper had just lowered the canister.
Tanner’s stomach churned. He knew the canister’s capabilities, what it would do to him. The canister was called a Daisy Bell, and it was used to trigger avalanches over high-risk avalanche regions. The Daisy Bell eliminates the need for explosives and emits precise blasts of a hydrogen/oxygen mixture to loosen the snowpack.
They intend to bury me, he thought. The thought had barely left his mind when he heard a blast, followed by three more blasts spaced only seconds apart. And then he heard an ominous whump sound as the snow gave way.
Chapter 29
Tanner lowered his body into a crouch, making himself more aerodynamic. The avalanche nipped at his heels and threatened to overtake him. He needed more speed. Lots of it.
He didn’t know for sure the average speed of an avalanche flow. But he did know dry snow avalanches travel much faster than wet ones. And this magnificent powder definitely qualified as dry.
Tanner could no longer hear the helicopter. The avalanche clamor drowned out the chopper’s blade slap. The eerie roar the avalanche made sounded like a mixture of rolling thunder and a waterfall. A big waterfall like Niagara Falls.
I’m only one insignificant man. Why are they spending so much time and money trying to kill me? Could his evangelical broadcasts over the HAM radio have reached so many people that he had to be taken out? It didn’t seem possible. Or had the Unified World Coalition figured out that he and C.J. were responsible for the deaths of two UWC officers, one being an executioner.
The slayings had been carried out in self-defense. One night he and C.J. had been discovered and chased into a saw mill in Canada. The UWC officer and the executioner backed them into a corner. He and C.J. climbed up onto a pile of logs to hide. But the UWC officer and his partner simply followed their tracks in the snow to the log pile. The lawmen had stood beneath their positions as they studied the tracks.
It had been evident at the time to both he and C.J. that this was a kill-or-be-killed moment. The zealous way the executioner gazed at his axe head, and the sick way he caressed the blood-splattered axe handle told them all they needed to know. So before the UWC goons spotted them atop the log pile, he and C.J. dropped a log onto their heads, killing both men instantly.
Maybe this is why they want me so badly. They think I’m a murderer. And maybe I am.
Even though he longed for more routine circumstances, Tanner had to admit he hadn’t felt this alive in a long time. Hiding in an underground bunker with nothing to do, isolated from the outside world is no way to live.
He’d almost forgotten that he was once an extreme athlete who performed high-flying, snowboarding aerials in front of cheering crowds. But now the familiar adrenaline rush, nearly snuffed out by the horrors of the Tribulation, boiled over in his limbs. He could feel it taking over. He and the mountain were becoming one.
Too bad the mountain is falling apart, he thought. Mt. Deception wasn’t really falling apart, but it sure sounded like it. The avalanche crept up on him little by little, and its powder cloud roiled over his head and out in front, reducing his visibility.
Tanner felt like he was snowboarding in the fog. And if he couldn’t see the terrain beyond his board he was sure to get hurt. Hazards lay hidden everywhere. He could easily fall into a crevasse
and never be seen again.
Despite the danger, Tanner pleaded with his board for more speed. He kept his feet balanced, his board flat. He didn’t want his edges to carve into the snow one bit.
He rode recklessly. Flirted with disaster. But he had no other choice. A suffocating death followed him.
The powder cloud settled over him like poisonous vapors in a gas chamber. Ice and snow spicules lanced his face wherever his beard didn’t grow. Practically blind, he almost didn’t notice he’d ridden up onto a cornice. His feet felt the overhanging snow mass before his eyes saw the immense cornice.
If this is it, I might as well go out in style. He popped his board as he reached the end of the cornice. His stomach lifted into his chest, and he realized right away he had big air. Mammoth air. In the next split-second he launched himself into a frontside rodeo trick.
He rotated his body counter-clockwise and into a series of spins.
Tanner managed to see the slope far below and determined he’d just sailed off an eighty-foot drop-off. This calls for a 900.
Of all the aerials he could do, the frontside rodeo 900 was his favorite trick. Although the trick didn’t always garner the highest score from judges, it was a beautiful aerial that Tanner could perform in his sleep. He always felt in control when he performed a FS rodeo.
Halfway into his nine rotations he grabbed his board with his right hand, placing his hand between his feet and holding it there for three more revolutions. Grabbing his board gave him a feeling of control, and it kept his arms from flailing. Staying in control would enable him to pull off a landing.
Tanner felt weightless as he flew. A peculiar sensation that didn’t jive with reality. He actually dropped like a rock. The slope rushed up at him. And as he entered his second to last spin he leaned his body slightly forward, brought his knees up and picked out his landing spot.
He wanted his back foot to land first. If his front foot hit first he would over rotate and end up tumbling head over heels down the mountain. Coming out of his last spin he dropped his board down. The back of his snowboard hit first—a jarring impact that caused his butt to hit the snowpack. But he popped back up in an instant.