Children Of The Mountain (Book 2): The Devil You Know

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Copyright
©
2016 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.

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Among Wolves
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recap
, or scroll to the end.

L
IGHTNING SPLITS THE DARKNESS
, and for a second I can see.

I grab the last piece of twisted rebar and haul myself over the edge. Beneath me the river has already disappeared; there’s just a black chasm into which the snow twists and tumbles. Ahead the storm drives the drifts in long, shifting ridges that snake across the road, clearing everything in their path. I tell myself that’s a good thing; soon my tracks will be covered too. But the truth is this is bad, far worse than I had counted on.

I’d like to rest after the climb but there’s no time for that now. I untie the snowshoes from my pack and step into them. It hurts as I ratchet the straps tight. I can no longer tell if it’s from the cold or the bindings.

I should never have let them take my boots.

I look down. The plastic I’ve used to wrap my feet still seems to be holding, but I can see the duct tape starting to fray where the straps have worked against it. That’s not good, but there’s not much I can do about it now. I lift my head and set off into blackness.

The wind blows hard, making me fight it for every step. My hood’s zipped all the way up but still it finds its way in, squeezing tears from my eyes that freeze on my cheeks, biting at the exposed skin there. I curse it for a bitch but it pays me no mind. It just snatches the breath from my lungs and gusts even harder.

I hug the parka tighter around me. The cold is raw now, relentless. Normally pounding the snow would keep it at bay but somewhere down on the river it’s managed to slip inside; I can already feel the icy chill from my sweat-soaked thermals seeping into my core. My teeth are chattering and I don’t seem to be able to stop them. I try to focus on the sound of my breathing behind the thin cotton mask, anything to shut it out. But I can’t. The cold is everywhere, and it’s overpowering. Marv used to say it was a vicious bitch, that it could mess with your thinking. I need to remember that. I don’t reckon it’ll be hard. Because the cold is an onslaught. It refuses to be ignored. It becomes all I can think about.

Bitch. Bitch. Bitch.

Bitch.

I lift a snowshoe up and place it down again. One foot in front of the other; if I just keep doing that I can make it. But the drifts are getting deeper. The crash barriers I was following earlier have already disappeared; all I have left are the mile markers. I use the flashes to search for them, but they’re getting harder to find. I need to hurry, before they get covered too. I can’t afford to get lost out here.

I pick up the pace. The snow senses it; it swirls around me, faster now, all I can see in the flashlight’s faltering beam. I wind the stubby plastic handle anyway, until it seems like somehow that’s what’s working my legs and if I keep turning it they’ll keep rising and falling, like it’s the key stuck in the back of some clever clockwork toy. I keep that up for what seems like a long time but might be less. Then I catch an edge in a deeper drift and drop the flashlight.

Bitch.

I lay there for a while, getting my breath back. At last I push myself up and kneel in the snow. I’m trembling quite badly now, long shuddering spasms that run up and down my spine and rattle my teeth together. I don’t think I was down for that long but when I set off again my legs no longer do my bidding. The muscles there seem to have stiffened; they don’t contract easily, and once I get them to work they spasm and won't relax, no matter how much I twist the handle. I give up on the flashlight and jam my hands up into my armpits. Maybe it’ll warm them a little. But it doesn’t seem to make any difference. Inside my mittens my fingers have tightened into claws.

The sky flares again, followed by a deafening crash as the heavens are rent asunder. The storm’s on me, the gap between lightning and thunder no more than a heartbeat now. In the instant before darkness returns a gap appears in the blizzard, revealing a small hut set back from the road among a stand of bare and blackened trees. I stare at it for a long moment. The shelter it offers is a gift and Marv would curse me for not taking it, but I can’t. I have to get back. Mags can't be another night in there. An image returns, the only one I can now summon, one I would burn from my eyes if I could. Forced onto her toes, her feet scrabbling for purchase on the smooth tiles as the noose tightens around her neck. The muscles along Truck’s arms bunching as he hoists her up. I hear him grunt with the effort of it but he holds her there and I would kill him if I could but there’s nothing I can do to stop it. I turn my head from the shack and face back to the road. The wind howls and the gray curtain closes around me again and it is gone.

How could I have been so stupid? I had been sure that the world that waited for us outside was empty; that once we escaped all we would need to concern ourselves with was staying out of Kane’s way. It hadn’t occurred to me that there might be others out here. Others worse than he was.

I try and put the thought from my mind. It won’t help me now, and I have other things to concern myself with. I don’t even know where they’re keeping her; I’ll need to figure that out once I get inside. First I have to find the blast door. I try and work out where it might be from what I know of the hallways and corridors above, anything to take my mind off the bone-piercing cold. It should be easy enough, but after a few minutes I give up and return to the simpler business of placing one foot in front of the other. Anything more complicated seems beyond me right now.

I trudge on, stumbling through the deepening drifts like some lock-limbed Frankenstein’s monster, searching the darkness ahead for the next sign. I think it’s been a while since I found one, although when I try and remember I’m not entirely sure. I’m beginning to worry I’ve strayed from the road but then the sky strobes again revealing a tractor-trailer that’s jack-knifed, its cargo strewn across both lanes. Did I pass it on the way out? I think so, but I can’t be sure. I stagger up to it, feeling for its outline so I can make my way around.

I leave the truck behind. I’m moving much more slowly now. My limbs feel like they’re seizing. Lifting each snowshoe has become a gargantuan task, requiring all my powers of concentration. At least my feet no longer hurt. Actually I can’t feel them at all. I realize I’ve stopped shivering. I wonder how long ago that was, but I can’t remember. I don't know if it’s a good or a bad thing.

Bitch?

Lightning strikes again, somewhere nearby, followed immediately by a crack of thunder. For a second the world around me is bathed in stark white light and in that instant I see something ahead, a small corner of metal almost buried under the snow. I stare at it absently. I know what it is, but right now it won’t come to me.

A mile marker.

That’s it.

The markers are important, I know that. I’m just not sure why. Maybe if I make my way over towards it it’ll come to me. My frozen fingers reach for the flashlight’s handle, getting ready to wind me forward, but there’s nothing there. That thought is troubling but eventually I let it be and focus on lifting one foot, setting it down again. One foot in front of the other; that’s the trick. But the sign seems to be further away than I first thought. I’m beginning to wonder if I’ve missed it when the front of my snowshoe catches something hard just under the surface. I trip and fall into a thick quilt of gray snow. I lay there for an unknowable amount of time, just listening to the pounding of my heart as it slows. My blood feels like it’s thickening in my veins, like when you tap the sump of an engine for oil to mix with gas for the fire.

Fire.

A fire would be nice.

For a while that thought occupies me but there’s another that hovers annoyingly at the edge of my consciousness, refusing to let me be. I can’t stay here. There’s something I have to do. Something important. I try to push myself up but my mittens just sink into the powder and it seems like far too much of an effort to extract them. I let my head fall forward again. The snow crunches softly against the hood of my parka and I lay still. Whatever I was worrying about recedes, washed away by a wave of cold exhaustion. If I can just rest here for a little while everything will be okay. The wind howls, pushing the swirling snow over me, slowly covering me up. I feel the last of my body’s heat leaching out into the thick, enveloping flakes.

It occurs to me that maybe I should be scared now. But fear is a concept that floats somewhere just beyond my reach, just like the numb hands that lie buried beneath me in the snow. Somebody I once knew called Martin (Marlin?
Marv
in) once told me something important. He said I had to mind the cold because it was vicious.

But Marvin was wrong.

The cold’s not really anything at all. It’s an emptiness; an absence of things. An absence of heat, of warmth.

An absence of caring.

Bitch.