Wolf Running (11 page)

Goosebumps rippled down her skin as the cold wind swept over her.
Get up.
She took a deep breath and instantly regretted it as her ribs screamed in protest.
Get up.
“It hurts.” she whispered to the uncaring sky.
Get up, now. Or you’ll die here.
She bit down on her lip and carefully turned onto her stomach. From there she got to her hands and knees, and then very slowly to her feet, using the dead antelope for support. By the time she was upright full night had fallen and she was sick with agony. By the light of a half moon Nowen could see the shadowy outline of the house against the black landscape. She began to pick her way over the stony ground toward it.

Nowen walked in a cold-and-pain fueled haze. The tiny breaths she was forced to take made her feel light-headed. The rough earth cut her bare feet and the light snow froze them. The fiery ache along her right side throbbed with every careful step she took, and the wind whipped itself into a frenzy that wrapped her in a bitter shawl. She stumbled over something hard, saving herself from a fall by wind-milling her arms desperately. Raising her head, she saw that she was finally at the house. Three low steps rose up to a worn wooden door. She tried the door-knob; it was unlocked, and the door swung open on a cold, dark interior.

All her limbs trembled with exhaustion and icy tears froze on her cheeks but a tiny piece of self-preservation exerted itself. She found a light-switch just inside the door and flipped it, hoping against hope for the miracle of light. No luck. She tried to yell but couldn’t make a sound louder than a gaspy whisper. She settled for slapping her hand against the wall and waited for a response.

There was no sound, no movement from inside the house.
I’m going to collapse. I have to take a chance.
Nowen stepped inside and pulled the door shut behind her. Her eyes burned for a moment, and then her surroundings became visible to her, all the colors faded in her sight. The house smelled stale and musty, as if it had been closed up for some time. Her eyes lit on an old couch that sat against one wall of the room and she made her tortuous way over to it. A blue-starred quilt lay across the back, and as Nowen sunk onto the shabby cushions she pulled it across her icy body. She huddled beneath the quilt and listened to the wind.

Chapter Eleven

Now

Nowen leaned on the ski poles and glared up at the fading sun. Her breath was visible in the cold air, pale streams that disappeared in the wind. She untied her heavy parka from around her waist and pulled it on as she watched dark clouds spill like ink across the sky. Withdrawing several folded sheets of paper from an inside pocket she studied them, the strengthening breeze tugging at the map pages in her hands as she tried to determine where she was.

I vastly overrated my skiing ability,
Nowen thought, as she traced her route with her finger. Since she had left Laramie yesterday morning she had only covered about twelve miles. The easy mile-or-less trips she had made on fresh powder back in Laramie had not prepared her for long slogs through slushy snow and over icy ridges.
Maybe I should have taken I-80 East.
According to the road atlas she had liberated from an abandoned car, there were two main routes out of Laramie. One was a major highway, I-80, that led east to Cheyenne. From there she could follow I-25 south to Colorado and Ft. Collins. The other way was shorter but the road, US 287 according to the map, seemed to be an older highway and would perhaps be more treacherous than I-80, but also less populated. Her desire to reach Exeter as fast as possible and the chance of avoiding both dead and live people made her choice for her.

Nowen placed a finger on a spot that was labeled ‘Tie Siding’. She didn’t know what it was, but the place was big enough to warrant being mentioned on the map, so that was her next goal.
Only about five miles away. Easy.
She tucked the pages back into her jacket and then took a drink from her water bottle as she looked around. The snow blanket here was mostly undisturbed, the highway just a slight dip in the white layers. The wind had cleared the road of drifts wherever the breaks in the tree lines allowed it access, and roughly paved patches dotted the snow. She capped and stowed the bottle and pushed off again, keeping the road on her left and using it as a guideline.

The wind died just as fat white flakes began to fall from the grey sky. Nowen stopped, tilting her head back to watch the snow drift toward her. The silence wrapped around her, so still and absolute that it was easy to believe that she was the only living person in the world. She held her breath, letting the immensity of the stillness fill her until it seemed she was made of the cold quiet winter.

The breeze returned, swirling around her and throwing snow into her face. Nowen pulled herself from her half-dreaming state as the breeze suddenly shifted to a gale. The wind roared, dragging the snow from the clouds in blinding sheets that wiped the landscape clean around her. She stood in the raw fury of the blizzard and fought the urge to roar back. Under her clothes a ridge of fur raced along her spine before sinking back into her skin.

Nowen raised the parka’s hood against the cold as she peered through the falling snow. She remembered seeing a sign for a rest area that should be just ahead.
I could find a car to take shelter in,
she thought,
or even the public bathroom will work, as long as it has a roof.
She raised the ski poles and pushed off.

Ten wearying minutes brought her to the rest stop, a large paved area with signs directing cars in one direction and trucks in another. A couple of battered picnic tables sat abandoned in the deepening snow, and Nowen could make out a concrete building near the tables that probably housed the restrooms. Even better, though, was the eighteen-wheeler tractor-trailer parked at the entrance to the rest area.

The cab was a garish purple that flashed at her through the blowing snow as she skied over to the massive vehicle. The driver’s side door seemed a thousand feet above her as she kicked loose of the skis, sliding them and the poles under the truck. A built-in step brought her up to the handle. She tugged on the lever and the door swung open easily.

The dead trucker behind the wheel snarled weakly, his yellow eyes rolling in his mold-colored face. Beneath the remnants of a reddish beard he snapped his teeth hungrily. Nowen gripped the large side mirror with her left hand and pulled the hunting knife from its sheath with her right. She drove the blade into the Rev’s forehead, the well-honed metal sliding through flesh and skull with ease. The Rev slumped, his body toppling forward. She leaned to the left and used the knife as a handle to twist the dead weight forward and out. As the Rev tumbled to the ground she yanked the blade free.

She stepped up into the cab and slammed the door shut. The roar of the bitter wind dropped to a low murmur. The interior of the cab smelled terrible, a cross between the decaying man and old fast-food bags. She grabbed a handful of napkins from a wrinkled paper bag and wiped the knife clean before re-sheathing it.

A thin curtain behind the driver and passenger seats concealed a little nook that was in better shape than the front of the truck. Most of the floor space was taken up by a bed. Small cabinets lined the walls above the bed, and there was even a tiny refrigerator that hung open and empty. A check beneath the forest-green blanket revealed clean sheets and a firm mattress.

Nowen shucked her backpack and sat on the bed with a sigh.
Damn,
she thought as she unlaced her boots and kicked them to one side,
this storm is going to slow me down even more.
Next to come off were the parka and then a crimson and black ski suit, dumped in a pile on top of the boots. Clad only in thick socks, a sweater and a pair of jeans she searched through the cabinets. She found spare blankets and took two of them up to the driver’s seat. She threw one over the seat and sat down, pulling the other blanket around her as she watched the snow fly in horizontal bands across the windshield.

Still so long a way to go. Whoever I was before, I definitely wasn’t an athlete.
Nowen retrieved the map pages from her parka and pored over them again.
Either I wait until winter ends and the snow melts, or I get some faster transportation.
A vision of worried blue eyes drifted through her mind.
No. I’m not waiting any longer. I’ll drive.
She smiled a little at that. The couple of times she had attempted to drive back in Laramie had ended disastrously. Her shattered memory was strange, she’d discovered. Some things, like fighting and killing, came very easily, her body moving through the motions automatically. Other things, activities that seemed normal and mundane, confounded her. She had tried driving both a stick shift and an automatic transmission and found that her coordination completely deserted her behind the wheel. After running a third car into a telephone pole Nowen had decided driving was not for her.

I don’t have much choice now.
A sudden gust rocked the cab. Beneath the blanket she’d grown warm and now she felt sleep crawling over her. She closed her eyes and tilted her head back, plans and options running through her tired brain. Just before sleep claimed her she saw, deep inside, a pair of amber eyes open in the darkness. The eyes looked at her, wild and knowing.
No
, she said, and turned away.

Chapter Twelve

Now

The blizzard had blown itself out in the middle of the night. As fast as the cold weather had moved in it moved out, and Nowen walked through a bright warm morning. The snow was melting, the tops of the dunes and drifts that slumped across the road getting soft, and the skis were turning into more of a hindrance than a help. When she hit a long bare stretch of pavement she eagerly kicked free of them and left them stranded in the snow.

The highway hugged the base of steep hills on one side and fell away into wooded gorges on the other. White-frosted pines marched away toward the horizon on every side, and the heavy ‘whump’ of snow falling from the trees echoed through the quiet morning. There were surprisingly few cars here. Most were still covered in snow or had been wrecked sometime in the past. Nowen could see Tie Siding ahead, a junction where the highway joined with smaller rural roads. A sprawling two-story building with a high peaked roof sat in the middle of this little web, and the sun sparked off a large blue pickup truck parked just in front of the building. Just behind the truck was a brick-red SUV. In the small parking lot were other vehicles and Nowen thought her chances of finding something she could drive would be better there.

By the time Nowen reached the building, which advertised itself as a post office/flea market/convenience store, she was warm enough to shed the heavy parka and unzip the top of her ski suit. She tied the parka around her waist and approached the pickup.

Despite the dirty water that spattered the front and sides the truck looked to be in good shape. A snowplow blade was attached to the front, and a boxy camper was hitched to the rear.
Dirty water?
She thought suddenly, and placed a hand on the hood. The metal was warm, but whether that was from the sun or the engine she couldn’t tell. She looked over the parking lot and realized that only the truck and the SUV were completely snow-free.

I’m being watched
. The feeling was abrupt but sure. Nowen looked back at the post office. It sat with shaded eyes staring back at her. A faint noise, at the range of her hearing, drew her attention to the camper. It was off-white, with a blue swirling stripe down the side and an elk-head silhouette near the roof. The window curtains were drawn, but the sensation of being watched was stronger than ever. She reached back and yanked the hatchet free from the straps that held it to the backpack. Wrapping a hand around the smooth wood handle she walked toward the camper. The hatchet head swung next to her leg, in time with her steps.

“Hey!” A man shouted as he burst through the front door of the post office. He jumped down the few steps that led up to the building’s porch and headed toward Nowen, one hand outstretched. In the other he held a shotgun, barrel pointed at the ground. Behind him, two more men came through the door.

“Oh, man, I don’t believe it! You’re not a dead-head!” The man said, smiling widely. Nowen studied him as he stopped in front of her. The clothes he was wearing-jeans, red flannel shirt, sleeveless puffy vest - looked brand new. He was a couple of inches shorter than she was, with crew-cut brown hair and a beefy build. He reached his hand out to lay it on her shoulder and she took a half-step back, just out of reach. Her avoidance didn’t seem to bother the man; if anything, his smile grew even wider. The sun threw rainbow sparks off the mirrored shades he wore.

“Wow, just incredible, huh? Seen nothin’ but dead-heads for a while, and then here you come just walkin’ down the highway!” His manner was affable but his unending grin and hidden eyes were putting Nowen on edge. The other two men, dressed in a similar fashion and wearing similar sunglasses, joined him. They, too, were armed.

The first stranger spoke. “I’m Matt, and my buddies here are Tuck and Oliver.” Tuck was shorter than Matt, with thinning grey hair and a slight build. He carried a long-barreled rifle. Oliver towered over his companions and Nowen by almost a foot. His massive shoulders strained at the seams of his shirt, and his shaved head glistened in the sun. “So what’s your name, honey? And where did you come from?” Matt said. Nowen ignored him to look over his shoulder at the camper. She thought she’d seen one of the curtains twitch.

“Hello? Cat got your tongue?” Matt snapped his fingers. “What’s your name, sweetie?” When she didn’t reply he continued, the broad grin never leaving his face. “No problem, I can do the talkin’ for both of us! Headin’ south, huh? Colorado? Well, hell, that’s where we’re goin’ too! Why don’t you ride along with us? Plenty of room in the camper.” He motioned back over his shoulder.