by A. R. Shaw
“He’s dead.”
Shining the light on Austin, he asked, “You sure?”
“Yes,” he said and climbed out, landing with a thud next to Jax. Then he promptly bent over and threw up, heaving the contents of his stomach into the snow.
“Ugh…can you warn a person before you do that?”
Between heaves, Austin said, “I’m…sorry.”
“What happened?”
Austin took a breath and looked like he was going to answer the question. Instead, he retched again. After he wiped his mouth with his arm, he said, “He was crushed. His head…snowmobile…”
“Ah, damn. All right. Go back to your bus. Radio when you get there. We’re here for the night. We need the equipment inside this thing. We’ll see in the morning if we’re able to set it straight or salvage what’s inside.”
Austin nodded and turned on his journey back to the front of the convoy.
Jax watched the kid make his way through the snowy veil until he disappeared from his light’s reach. Then he kicked snow over the steaming vomit. “Not a good damn day.”
35
Maeve
“Any updates?” Maeve asked Morrow, who was monitoring the communication efforts in the office.
“Yes. A text this morning from Bishop. He said they’re making progress. Should reach the search zone today.”
Somehow, her heart raced just hearing those few words. Bishop was still among the living. There were no personal messages. They knew they couldn’t monopolize the system to send messages such as I love you. Please be safe. All they had was a way to text in and out. The weather and wind made voice messages too difficult to hear. He gave simple status reports to ensure that the messages reached their destination.
“Maeve, you look like you’ve lost weight. Did you get breakfast for yourself this morning or only for the kids?”
She’d felt his eyes linger over her before. She wasn’t surprised that he’d noted that she looked thinner.”
“Yes, I did. I’m fine, though.”
He cleared his throat, sounding a little frustrated, and rose from his chair. “I’ll let you take over while I grab a cup of coffee and get the status from the nursery. Do you want anything? Oh, and I have a concern with our buddy, Donovan. I’ll tell you about it when I get back. Don’t let me forget.”
She only nodded as he brushed past her on his way to the door.
The warmth from the cushion made sitting in the chair seem too personal. Suddenly standing up again, Maeve looked over the surveillance equipment before her. Then she noted Morrow’s scrawled handwriting on the notepad nearby. His pencil lay askew over the wording, blocking out the message.
“Hurry, Bishop,” she whispered as she moved the pencil away, freeing it of the veil.
When Morrow returned, he held a steaming cup of coffee and a granola bar. “Here,” he said, handing the offering to her. “Eat this, please, Maeve.”
Shaking her head, she said, “I’m fine. Really. I don’t need anything.”
“I’ll wait you out, Maeve. You might as well take it.” His arm didn’t budge. He continued to hold out the cereal bar, leaving her no choice but to take it.
“You’ve got to eat, Maeve. None of us can afford to lose weight right now. There’s plenty for your daily intake. No need to sacrifice yourself.”
She knew she should do something…say something to regain the subtle control he suddenly held over her. She saw in Morrow’s pale-blue eyes that he seemed to sense this too.
He sat down while she stood. “I’m sorry,” he said. “I’m just trying to look out for you and everyone else. I know how easy it is to forget your own needs while you’re worried about others.”
When he reached for his coffee cup, she noticed the blue tattoo peeking out from under his right sleeve again. She wanted to ask him about it…how he got it, what design was so important that he would imprint it forever on his skin.
He noticed, watched her eyes glance at his wrist. He shook his sleeve down.
“You were going to tell me something about Donovan,” she reminded him before he could mention the obvious.
“Yes,” he answered. “He’s worked in that computer room for an awfully long time. We’ve already gotten what we need from him.” He switched screens on the desktop to view the room in which Donovan sat. He was indeed doing something on the laptop that Cassie had provided him the credentials to use. Geller’s son had his attention well focused on the screen. He was typing away. Whatever he was doing, it was with intention.
“And you’re worried about what?”
“We already got him to help locate the missing party’s approximate location. The team is on its way there now. Donovan’s not contributing to guard duty, to the kitchen staff, maintenance, nothing. What’s he doing in there?”
Raising her shoulders, Maeve dared to say, “I don’t know. Do you?”
Morrow shook his head. “I don’t know, either. He could be burning daylight, just playing games on that thing with someone in Japan, as far as I know. I say we shut him down now. Put lover boy to work. Idle hands and all…”
“Why do you call him ‘lover boy’?”
“Oh, tell me you haven’t detected his love crush for Cassie. He gets all dewy-eyed. She seems to know this but pays him no mind.”
“No, Cassie is not interested in Donovan at all.”
“I didn’t think so, but that doesn’t matter. He’s got a crush, and he’s awfully busy doing something in there. I’m a little concerned. He seems to be working and not playing games to me. What if he’s trying to reprogram the silo’s electrical system or security system or something else? If nothing else, he’s using up precious generator capacity.”
“Can he do that? You mean like turn off all the lights?”
“That’s just it. I have no idea. Too much idle time for a computer nerd led to a bunch of anarchist hackers aiding in the downfall of society and war in China to begin with. I say we shut him down. Right now.”
“That would mean that Cassie would have to shut him down. She’s his friend and supposed ally, the only one who was able to convince him to work for us.”
Morrow twisted his mouth to the side in thought. “I can control him. Just give me the go-ahead,” Morrow said. He pointed at Donovan, who was working diligently. “Maeve, that guy…he’s not healthy. If we allow him to have his own free will in this place, he’ll have all of us serving him in no time. Trust me on this. I know what happens when a man has too much spare time. It’s not good.”
The thing was, Maeve didn’t trust Morrow either. Sure, she didn’t trust Donovan, but that blue ink hiding under Morrow’s sleeve told her that he wasn’t above breaking the rules, either.
36
Walt
An inordinary object lay there on its side. Its once-glossy dark eyes were frozen over in an opaque shadow. Yeager nudged the hind leg again with the tip of his boot. Nothing, not even a bounce. Frozen solid. How was he going to make this work? Anything he caught in the snares froze solid if it was left out too long and stationary. The small deer before him was mostly covered in snow. He couldn’t even tell how long it laid there or if it was safe to eat. He had no choice, really.
Amazed that nothing else had gotten to the meal before he did, Yeager clapped his frozen hands together again to shake away the accumulating snow. He couldn’t hear his own movements over the screeching wind.
What had become of them? It was a question he asked when he was alone. It was a trick his mind plagued him with when no one else was around. Them? Meaning not just himself, not the ones he risked his life to save. What had become of them? Not Bishop, whom he hoped was on his way to find them somehow. No, what had become of man himself? Of humanity? Of humans? And would they survive it all?
Just then, an icy breeze stole his breath. Yeager fought for the next one. “Dammit!” He coughed, annoyed. “Freezing constantly,” he said as he knelt down and untied the noose around the deer’s foreleg. He pulled the an
imal out from under its blanket of snow and dragged the frozen corpse down the hill, toward the shelter, totally unsure how he was going to thaw the catch. He took out a hatchet and chopped away, each blow sending a jarring rattle to his elbow. Finally, he had a few murdered steaks set aside and tore off the hide. He stoked his fire a little more and laid the steaks out neatly to thaw near the heat of the fire. Then he cut slits through the tendons of the deer’s back legs, threaded a paracord line between them, and tossed the remaining cord over a nearby tree. He hoisted the carcass up high and out of the way of predators. He didn’t trust the cougars, wolves, and bears. Especially not the bears. Keeping any and all smells of meat or kills away from their camp was essential.
After he’d cooked the steaks and fed a little to everyone, the relentless weather picked up again. Which left him no choice but to close the shelter door. Absolutely exhausted, he looked around for a space to lie down. Finding none, he collapsed near the doorway itself, where only a little room remained, and stretched his long legs out along the wall. He pushed more rags into the cracks in the doorway to help keep the constant blasts of wind from invading their shelter.
“Rebecca, stoke the fire a little, please,” he said as he leaned up on one elbow.
“Nothing in the snares, then?” Walt asked.
“Yes, there was, Walt. I gave you some a little bit ago. There was the deer we had, but the wind is so bad I can’t go out there to check the other snares. It’s insane out there. I don’t think animals dare leave their holes either. Conditions are deteriorating rapidly.”
“Give it time,” Walt said.
“Time, along with everything else, is in short supply right about now.”
There was no reply for a short time. Then Walt said, “Then what’s the point?”
Rebecca’s worried eyes met his own. This, Garrett Yeager knew, was hypothermia talking. He’d attended winter training before going to China last season, before nature decided to become the great equalizer.
Hypothermia played on the mind, body, and the soul. Walt was already injured. His mind was in jeopardy, and now, Yeager feared, so was his soul. The last thing he needed was to have Walt say things that would be the demise of those who listened. Walt’s mind was already telling him, What’s the point? It’s too hard to fight.
In subzero temperatures, many bodies were found stripped of their clothing. The victims had actually felt too warm in the freezing weather. The worst effect of Death’s desire is to have your mind as an accomplice in the task. That’s what was happening now. Death was winning this one. Yeager needed to stop it before the infection spread to the children. Like any plague known to man, this too would spread and kill them off just as swiftly as the cold itself would.
37
Jax
In the dim afternoon light, Jax looked overhead at the gray-blanketed sky. He knew it was noon without having to look at any device. The sun was just barely detectable. It was the brighter gray spot up there, like a dim beacon visible through a dense cloud of fog, just beyond the steep mountains of Lookout Pass. That was how they knew. No other time of day was even subtly detectable during an ice age.
In a brief break in the sideways snow, Jax looked at the sky. When he looked down again, the bus still lay on its side. Snow accumulated on its underside, sticking to the retrofitted tracks and gears. Carl lifted the body out. It was wrapped inside several layers of blankets, though even then, the brown oxidized blood showed through the layers.
“Damn,” Carl said. “Give me a hand, Jax.”
Walking over, Jax leaned against the tracks and held his arms high to help ease the dead body down to the ground. There was no dignity in handling the task, especially in the icy surroundings, though they did try.
Once Jax had controlled the body’s falling momentum to the ground, Carl climbed down from the top side of the bus with a thud.
“It’s a mess in there,” Carl said. “Either we try to set the bus upright and keep going when we can, or we need to take out the snowmobiles and supplies and try to put them on the other buses.”
“Let’s bury him first while we have a break in the weather.”
Carl nodded and picked up one end of the wrapped body while Jax took the other.
“It won’t last long; that we know.”
“Predicting the weather, are we, Carl?”
“No…just wishful thinking.”
“That’s all right. That’s all we have now: wishes. And snow. An endless supply of the damn fluffy stuff.”
Holding the other end of the body, Carl began vibrating with surprised laugher.
“Grim up, man. Have some damn respect.”
“I’m sorry. I’m sorry…‘fluffy stuff.’”
Jax walked backward a few more steps. “It’s not that funny.”
Clearing his throat, Carl shook his head. “No, it’s not. But it was for a second.”
They walked the corpse toward the trunk of a pine tree and laid it out. After pounding the ice with their shovels, they had a shallow grave dug. Jax slid the body in and shoveled ice and snow over it, knowing the burial wouldn’t last forever. But that’s all they could do for the dead now. Not even a proper burial was attainable in an ice age. They didn’t even consider adding a cross. Spring was not coming, Jax thought. Not in his lifetime.
38
Bishop
In the frozen mist, Bishop pulled into a valley of icy grays—Death Valley noir, only this desert was frozen. It was as cold as hell was hot.
“We’re stopping here?” a gravelly voice asked through the mic.
The wind buffeted them. Unconsciously, they pushed back, their suits flattening and conforming to their bodies.
He chuckled into the mic. “Why not? You see a better place?” In Bishop’s current mood, he was tempted to add, “smartass,” but he refrained and instead cleared his throat roughly.
“That’s okay. Someday, we all have to die.”
Alyssa interjected then. “Can we not do this right now, guys?”
The others began to speak when Bishop said, “Hey, take off your helmets for a minute. Get some fresh air…that is, after you manage to catch your breath. I think we’re all getting a little squirrelly.”
He heard clicks as they complied, tuning off their communication links. Bishop also disconnected from his helmet, shielded his eyes from the blowing snow, and held his breath before he attempted to breathe.
After detecting which direction the gusts were coming from, he turned his back and took a deep, icy breath, and then another. With his goggles still in place, he looked around at the terrain. How could they possibly survive out here? That was his first thought, the one he kept to himself out of respect for Alyssa’s hope, though he suspected that she knew the reality of things, too. Any sign of smoke from a crash would be long gone by now. They simply had to explore the area from a higher vantage point to find the crash site.
After putting his helmet back on, Bishop interrupted the conversation already taking place. “Anyone detect any sign of wreckage here?”
“No. I don’t see anything,” one person said, and the others agreed.
“It’s been over a week, and with this weather, I’m sure most signs are essentially erased, but I would think a crashed Osprey would show itself. Let’s get over to that ridge on the left. We’ll be able to see more from a higher elevation.”
Moments later, the group disembarked from the snowmobiles and hiked further up the rocky incline. “Be careful in here. This wind will blow you right off your ass,” Bishop warned them.
Bishop climbed steadily and stood next to Alyssa at the ridgeline.
“See anything?”
Cupping her hands around her visor, she turned in a semicircle. Her breath came in short gasps. He could tell by the way her shoulders moved. She was nearing desperation. Anyone could see that, and he couldn’t blame her. If the tables were turned, he too would be tempted to lose it a time or two. But that helped nothing in the end. It only made those nea
rest you wary of your sanity.
“Alyssa?” he said calmly.
“I don’t see anything.”
Searching the gray terrain, he too had to admit that nothing stood out in the variations on gray and black. Then he stopped. It wasn’t much, but it wasn’t nothing, either.
“Instead of looking for something you can’t see,” he said, raising his hand and pointing below and to the left, “look for something you can. Check out that sign down there. The one leading down to the trailhead by the trees. Why can we see it at all?”
“Maybe…”
“Maybe’s all we’ve ever had. Let’s go check it out.”
39
Walt
Lifting Walt’s head, Yeager poured liquid down his throat. “Drink this. Now sleep. There you go.”
“What are you doing?”
Yeager jumped at the sound of Rebecca’s voice. He didn’t want anyone to see him do what he’d just done. No witnesses to the task.
“Just something to help him sleep, Rebecca. God…how do you sneak up on someone from across a crowded room?”
His eyes met hers. She wasn’t buying his attempt to divert her attention. Daggers blazed back at him. “He needs to rest,” Yeager said. “He’s just thrashing around. We need to put him to sleep so his body can heal.” His voice was pleading, and he wasn’t sure why he was trying to justify his actions to this girl.
“You’re the one who was trying to keep him awake.”
Shaking his head, Garrett didn’t want to have to explain anything to her. He was the adult here. She was just a kid.
“He’s beyond that now, Rebecca. He’s had a fever. Now he’s got an infection.”
Her shoulders relaxed a little bit. “Probably has gangrene in his foot by now.”