The Fog of Dreams
Page 86
CHAPTER THIRTEEN
It felt liberating. Completely and totally liberating. The initial rush of rage had threatened to consume William Strickland, but he stopped fighting and embraced it, and it was the best decision he could have made. The white-hot fires of anger had diffused throughout his body and turned into a warm embrace of adrenaline and motivation. His muscles surged, his senses focused, and his mind sharpened, yet he had managed to keep it under control. With a singular focus in his mind, one last memory tugged at him. With only one place he could go to prove it was a memory, or just a bad dream, he wasn't sure he wanted the answer. But really, he had no choice? he had to go back to that cabin.
The trees and branches whipped at his face as he ran through the thin Vermont woods, running at speeds he didn't even think possible. With uncanny dexterity, he wove in and out of thick trees that shot up from the ground, often unexpectedly, yet he managed to slip past them with surprising ease, even with the black backpack strapped to his back. As he ran, artfully dodging branches, stumps, and full-grown trees, he wondered if this was really a story he wanted to be told. But on the other hand, he knew recent events were leading up to this point of discovery, and the only way he was going forward was to uncover what had happened to his family, even if the news wasn't good.
As he ran, he lifted his legs up in a runner's hurdle, soared above a large rock cropping, and landed gracefully. He kept running at full pace, ducking just under an extended branch. His mind had wandered slightly as he ran, so he couldn't picture exactly how long the voyage had taken, but for a several-mile run, he felt like he was close to his destination.
Bringing himself to a skidding halt, he dropped to one knee and drew his backpack from over his shoulder, dropping it to the ground in front of him. He removed the SCAR, unfolded the stock, and double-checked the condition of the weapon. It looked to be okay. Next, he pulled out his UMP, but that weapon had suffered a more grisly fate. When his pursuer on the motorcycle had shot him in the back, it had apparently been the smaller submachine gun that had saved his life. Bullet holes marked the weapon, punching out chunks of its surface that floated around loose in the backpack. Strickland tossed it aside, loaded the magazine in the larger assault rifle, and prepared to make his move.