Shit. I understood. Sometimes a man’s got to do whatever it takes to make things right, to restore justice to his corner of the world. Despite being dinged up, I’d no doubt my body would do whatever I demanded of it. Maybe Kyle shared a similar confidence. And if he over-estimated his endurance, I’d ditch him on the trail and come back for him later.
“All right.” If we had to do this, I wanted to be quick and efficient. “You got what you need, Doc?”
“Yes.” Sahdev held up his backpack filled with first aid supplies.
“All right. I’ll meet you and Kyle in the jeep in a couple of minutes. Wanna say goodbye to Mac first.”
Once they left, I crossed the room to Mac’s bedside. Her pallor and stillness—her fragility—made me swallow hard. Lips parted, she drew in shallow breaths. Her eyes moved beneath her closed lids, like she was dreaming, or trying to fight her way out of the stupor that held her prisoner. Hard to reconcile this frail, passive figure with the feisty woman who’d attacked me with pepper spray the first time we met. I dragged my knuckles across her cheek, willing her to open her eyes.
“C’mon, darlin',” I whispered.
No response.
I bent over and spoke in her ear, then pressed my lips against hers, willing her to return the kiss.
Nothing.
Squaring my shoulders, I whirled around and walked to the door. Hand on the knob, I glanced over my shoulder for one last look. I’m not a superstitious man, but I pay attention to hunches, to my back brain trying to punch a hole through my consciousness to tell me what I need to know. Primal dread crept up my spine. Logic and reason warred with instinct. My trepidations made no fucking sense, so why couldn’t I shake them off?
EIGHT
Kenzie
Hot breath tickled my skin and a deep voice rumbled in my ear. “Hate like hell to leave you, Mac. We’ll get back as soon as we can.”
He kissed me, and his mouth lingered over mine, as if by force of will he could compel me to respond to his touch. He sighed, and I sensed his frustration when he pulled back from my flat and seemingly indifferent lips. Frustration boiled in me, too. Why couldn’t I harness that powerful emotion to command my eyes to open, to coerce my limbs to move? If only I could tell him that I heard him, that I felt him, but I lay as inert as a mannequin.
His footsteps retreated from my bed. A door snicked open and closed.
Ripper. Wait. Don’t go.
A tear welled up in my eye, trickled down my cheek and slid over my chin. I was lost, trapped in a nightmare. Where was I? What had happened to me? Why couldn’t I move?
Damn it. Say something. Sit up.
I absolutely could not browbeat my feeble body into obedience, and the effort sapped the last of my energy.
No.
I lost the battle against the darkness.
Someone laid a hand on my cheek, pushed my head to the side, then swept my hair back.
“See. Just like I told you,” the strange woman whispered.
Ungentle fingers poked the bite mark on the side of my neck.
I winced, inwardly at least.
“Poor child,” a deep, unfamiliar voice said. “Clearly, she’s suffering abuse at the hands of that man. You were right to bring this to my attention, Nicole.”
“Thank you, sir.”
Poor child? Abuse? I struggled to piece together the meaning of their conversation, but my addled brain was firing at half speed.
“Would you bring me a glass of water, please?”
“Of course.” The woman—Nicole—shuffled from the room, leaving me alone with the stranger.
A heavy, damp hand descended on my forehead.
“Heavenly father,” he intoned. “Your wrath is mighty, but your blessings abundant. I thank you for the bounty that you have seen fit to bestow upon your faithful servant as we create a new Eden.”
He continued to pray, but his words lost their meaning and I fell, once again, into insensibility.
NINE
Ripper
Hector bounded up the trail ahead of us. His head whipped from side to side as he spied squirrels, birds, and other critters. Tongue lolling from his mouth, he kept looking back over his shoulder, like he couldn’t believe he was running free, like he expected me to call him back and clip on a leash, the way I always had when we’d hiked in the national forest.
Times had changed. Far as I could tell, there was nobody left to enforce law and order, no police, no government, no military. Sure as shit no park rangers. Just survivors, guided by nothing more than the quest for survival and whatever passed for their own moral compass. Hector was free to run, no kids or grandmas to scare, no citizens with sticks up their butts to bitch me out about keeping my dog on a leash. Yeah, times had changed and a man could ignore laws and regulations with impunity, but my moral compass—sketchy as it was—wouldn’t allow me to walk away from the man who might have blown up The Dalles Dam.
I took point, with Jerry behind me, followed by Sahdev, with Kyle on our six. We’d left the jeep and Jerry’s pickup at the trailhead, then hiked several miles into the wilderness, past tall Douglas fir and red cedar trees. A slight haze filled the midafternoon sky, probably from the fire consuming Portland. I’d gone noseblind to the smell of smoke, but my eyes itched, so it had to be fine particles of soot and ash discoloring the air.
Portland gone. A major city a smoldering heap. How many flu survivors had perished in the flames, unable to escape the conflagration? I had suspected that Caleb, the preteen pyromaniac, had started the fire, but maybe the same man who blew up the dam torched the city. I stumbled over a tree root, then cursed myself for my inattention, for losing focus during a mission. Got to stay on task and not let my mind wander. We’d haul Vince to safety, check out the cabin, then capture and interrogate its inhabitant.
“Cabin’s about a mile up ahead,” Jerry said. A heavyset man who looked to be in his fifties, he was red faced and huffing from exertion. Man better not have a heart attack. My knees protested at the prospect of slinging him over my shoulder and carrying him back to his pickup.
I signaled the group to stop, and we gathered in a small circle.
“Where’d you stow Vince?” I asked Jerry.
“Less than a quarter mile from the cabin. That’s as far as he could hobble, and no way I could carry him out by myself.”
“Tell me how he got hurt,” I asked.
“Vince stepped on some brush and fell into a hole filled with sharp sticks. One of the sticks went clean through his foot. I managed to haul him out, staunch the bleeding, then help him walk away from the cabin and hide behind a fallen log.”
“A Punji stake trap,” Sahdev said. “They were used against the British Indian Army in the late 1800s, and later by the Viet Cong.” He shook his head. “It’s a vicious and effective way to slow down an advancing army.”
I nodded. “If a man has the skill to build a Punji stake trap, who knows what other nasty surprises he has in store for us. We gotta be vigilant. Watch for tripwires as we get closer to the cabin.” I glanced at Kyle, whose face was as pale as Jerry’s was red. “How you holding up?”
“I’m fine.” Despite the pallor, he looked steady on his feet. Good enough.