The Dying Time (Book 1): Impact Read online

  He shaded his eyes, not from glare, but from the freezing wind-driven snow that was slowly killing him. There? A dim shadow in the wind. A few more steps and the rocky cliff loomed clear. This was it. The cliff, seen from far below that morning, that marked the snow ledge he had to blast.

  Michael shrugged out of his pack and the sudden lightness almost toppled him. Frozen fingers fumbled with the straps, the pitons and rope, then the bombs, then the matches. He drove three pitons into cracks in the granite and wove a rope web between them. He’d need that safety harness later.

  He stumbled along the snow-packed slope, clumsy in thought and deed. Push a pipe bomb down into the snow, trail the flash cord, and tie it to the next one.

  His eyes watered and almost froze shut when he wiped them. What was he doing? Oh, yeah. He shoved in the last bomb and attached a fuse. It would burn ten minutes before reaching the flash cord. That should give him time to reach his safety rope and secure himself to the cliff face before the bombs blew.

  He struck a match to light the fuse but the wind snuffed it. He swore, wishing he still had his UCO wind and waterproof emergency matches but they were long gone. He put his back to the wind and cupped his hands around the next match, nursing the flame to the fuse. It hissed, sputtered and spit like an angry cat. He stood there, mesmerized for minutes as the fuse burned, wits slowed by the cold in his brain.

  Dummy! Get moving! He started, nerves shocked with adrenaline. Run! He dashed across the slope, slipping, falling, rolling, then back up on his feet, legs churning. How long until it blows? The cliff was so far. Arms pumping. How long? Cliff nearer now. Lungs wheezing. Almost there. How--

  Whump! BOOM!

  He launched himself at the rock face, hands scrabbling for the rope.

  Craaaack!

  The overhang broke loose and fell onto the slope below, which began to slide. A monstrous roar filled his ears as tens of thousands of tons of snow whooshed down the mountain like a fluffy white express train, ripping trees out by their roots, scrubbing soil down to bare rock. White death. Avalanche. It thundered down the slope, plucking blackened tree stumps like candles from a birthday cake, fanned out along the valley floor and ran up the far side before settling back.

  Huge clouds of powdery snow and ash billowed into the air closing off the view.

  Far across the valley, out of danger, Ellen and the scavenger teams waited for the snow to settle. This was the last slide area between them and Colorado Springs. They had watched Michael plant the charges and run for the cliff. No one knew if he made it.

  Ellen’s eyes were glued to her binoculars. Her heart almost stopped beating. Waiting…waiting. The lump in her throat was the size of a beach ball. She damned the fact they hadn’t been able to blow this slide with bombs from the Pegasus. The tactic worked with some avalanche zones and not with others, and when it didn’t work, Aaron or Michael planted the bombs on foot.

  Visibility slowly improved. The cliff-face showed dimly. Was that movement? There! A white spot twisted and spun against the dark gray granite, dangling like a spider on a web. Michael, dusted with snow, not moving.

  “Why isn’t he moving?” Randy asked from beside her.

  “He’s hurt,” she whispered.

  Up on the cliff Michael clung to the rope, fists and eyes clinched. The snow pried at him with ghostly fingers as it poured past, trying to pull him from the lifeline, trying to suck the air from his lungs. The rope was wound around both his arms. He’d managed to clip one strand through a carabineer. The force lessened, disappeared, and still he kept his eyes squeezed shut. Powdery flakes drifted gently against his face and he knew the air was clearing, the minute approaching when he’d have to look.

  At times like this he hated himself, despising the cowardly cringing that crawled up his guts and threatened his sanity. Sweat popped out on his forehead. Like lifting a mountain, he forced his eyelids apart, staring fixedly at the cliff-face. He swallowed the lump in his throat, thanking God he was facing the rock wall.

  His biceps twitched and he looked down before he could stop himself. Fifty feet or fifty miles, it made no difference. Vertigo!

  Eyes squeezed shut, heart pounding, hands gripping so hard his knuckles blanched white. Weightless stomach, inner ear lying. You’re FALLING! His senses screeched like a power saw hitting a nail.

  The knowledge had lain inside him since he was a child, rotting his dreams into nightmares. He would die falling. Not in a car wreck, or riddled with disease. Not of bullet wounds, or starvation, burning or drought, nor frozen in a desert of ice--certainly not of old age. He would die falling.

  Raised by his Blackfoot grandfather to face and conquer his fears he fought all his life to free himself of its paralyzing grip.

  As a boy he climbed so far up trees the tops bent under his weight. He held on swaying in the wind, refusing to go down. It didn’t work, but he got good at pretending to enjoy it.

  As a young man he learned rock climbing and rappelling, and always in the company of others he showed no fear, nor the slightest hesitation. On mountaintops he walked to the edge of the precipice, daring fate to strike because he hated his fear more than he loved life. And every time he climbed his secret shame followed. The secret he never shared--not even with Ellen.

  As a man, he bought an open cockpit ultralight and flew it often, expecting to do battle with himself. But vertigo never struck when he rode the plane across updrafts or dove between the peaks. It puzzled him. And for a while he almost believed he had outgrown the terror. Then he climbed the ridges to blow the slides and it returned.

  His muscles twitched again and he knew beyond doubt if he didn’t move his arms would give out, his grip would fail and he would fall. Raising his head he forced open his eyes.

  Whirling clouds, gray fading to white. Lumps of clouds like mashed potatoes--a textured ceiling covering the world. He lowered his gaze slowly, painfully, and found not the edge of the cliff, but the edge of the world, the horizon, a mile away, across the valley. He had spun until his back was to the rock.

  Panic squeezed his heart, but Ellen’s face flashed across his mind and he knew she was watching, wondering why he wasn’t moving. The dread didn’t disappear. It would never disappear. He knew that now. But he could face anything before he shamed himself in front her.

  Arms quivering, he leaned back and let the rope slide through his hands, lowering himself and his pack to the ground fifty feet below now that the snow was gone.

  Ellen gasped. She could breathe again. Warm tears formed silently and froze on her cheeks. Michael always joked he had nine lives, but the way he was using them up he’d need ninety.

  *

  Colorado Springs

  Ellen stopped her snowmobile, stunned at her first glimpse of Colorado Springs. Aaron and Michael had warned her the West end had been devastated by quakes, fires and flash floods, but none of that was apparent. It was all covered with snow.

  “Worse than you expected?” Michael had slept in her sled all the way down Ute Pass. His question let her know he was with her again.

  “Yes…no…um, I mean, you told me, but the words just couldn’t convey…” She raised her arms outspread--speechless at the enormity of the disaster.

  He laid a gloved hand on her shoulder and hugged her to him.

  Her head turned back and forth as she looked out over the town, seeking a familiar landmark. There were the red sandstone formations of Garden of the Gods to the North. Didn’t that church steeple belong to Saint Mary’s Catholic Church at 21st and Colorado? Were those crumbled two story structures part of Old Town? She thanked God the air had cleared so much. Without good visibility this would be impossible. Even so…

  “How in God’s name will we find the Safeway? Or Surplus City, or the Walgreen’s pharmacy? We can’t dig up the whole town.” Her voice was soft and wondering.

  Michael pulled a phone directory out of the sled and opened it to the map pages. “It’s not as bad as it looks.” He was used to
doing this. “If you look close you can still tell where the streets are. See the depressions between the large mounds?” He pointed and Ellen nodded.

  “We can pick up Colorado Avenue here in Manitou Springs and follow it into town. By counting off the side streets we can get close. The Safeway was near the corner of 31st and Colorado, and 31st was as wide as Colorado. We’ll know it when we get there. Just takes getting used to.”

  She nodded and squeezed his arm. “Didn’t anyone from here make it?”

  “Not in this area. Or if they did they pulled out. Aaron and I’ve seen chimney smoke out on the East side, but Fountain creek did a number on this end of town. We’ll be lucky if there’s anything left of that Safeway. It was down in the flood plain.

  “I’m thinking we’ll do better at the King Soopers at 19th and Uintah. It’s up on a hill.” He shrugged. “If it didn’t burn.”

  Slowly, the procession of snowmobiles wound through the snow-clogged streets. Cars and trucks, burned and abandoned gave them no problems, being buried so completely they wouldn’t become obstacles until the snow melted. But semi’s and building debris and huge drifts formed large obstacles forcing detours.

  Their first break came at 27th where Surplus City was largely intact. The roof had caved in, bringing down the West wall, but under the snow and charred ruins of the first floor lay a basement storage area filled with rotting cardboard boxes full of Mountain House and Alpineaire freeze-dried food. Racks of sodden ski parkas, boots, and more clothing lined the walls. More camping gear lay next to lightweight two-man tents and sleeping bags. A set of shelves filled with waterproof matches, match holders, lanterns, Coleman fuel and other assorted goodies stood against the far wall. Boxes of ammunition in assorted calibers were stacked in the corner next to what looked like a gun vault, but Michael didn’t have the combination and forcing it was out of the question.

  Under a pile of nylon ponchos was a case of Folger’s Instant coffee. Michael was in heaven.

  Twelve sled loads of life giving treasure they pulled from the store and sent back up the pass. They built a fire and camped there overnight, exhausted from the days efforts.

  That special click that signifies a weapon being cocked woke Michael. He sat up, eyes taking it all in. A dozen men and women surrounded the campsite. All armed.

  “Having a good sleep are we?” The man’s voice was calm, self-assured. It matched his steady, cornflower blue eyes. The accent sounded British or maybe Australian. Michael was no linguist. The man’s long, chestnut brown hair was neatly tied in a ponytail, and his beard was so tidy it looked...trimmed. Highly unusual. The rest of the group was similarly well groomed.

  “Saw your fire last night, and since this area’s more or less ours now. We thought we’d pay a visit and see what you are up to.” He looked around at the goods they had piled on a sled, one it had been too late to send up the pass. “Pretty obvious you’re after food and such. Knew right where to look, too.”

  His eyes locked on Michael’s. “Locals?”

  Michael’s gun was in his sleeping bag, was, in fact, in his hand now, but his instincts weren’t screaming for him to act so he bided his time.

  “Not exactly,” Michael admitted. “But we know the town.”

  Ellen unzipped her sleeping bag and stood up.

  “Easy there,” Ponytail warned, his pistol swiveling toward her.

  “You won’t need that,” Ellen said, then totally surprised the man by holding out her hand and announcing, “Ellen Whitebear.” She nodded to Michael, whose eyes were fixed on the man’s gun. “And this is my husband, Michael. Would you like some coffee or hot chocolate?”

  Ponytail stared at her outstretched hand for a tense second. These people had his group outnumbered four to one, even if they were at a momentary disadvantage, and that lump in her husband’s sleeping bag had nothing to do with testosterone. In the end though, it was the simple civility of her greeting that won him over.

  Slowly, he holstered his pistol, then shook her hand.

  “Chad Bailey,” he said. “And if you have coffee I’m very pleased to meet you.” He smiled, revealing slightly crooked front teeth and a mild overbite. “Funny, but I still feel guilty preferring coffee over tea. Not very British, wot?”

  Ellen dug a jar of coffee out of a box and handed it to Chad. “Keep it,” she said. “You’ve earned it by teaching us to post a guard even when we think it’s too cold for anyone else to be out and about.”

  Fifteen minutes later, over steaming cups of hot black Folger’s, Chad told his tale. To the news-starved Freeholders it was like having the internet restored.

  Chad slurped at the hot cup and sighed. “I was a Starbucks junkie,” he said. “Hard to believe instant coffee could taste like heaven.”

  Michael, a former news junkie and coffee addict, began to like the man.

  “We’re a bunch of communications engineers.” Chad said. “Worked graveyard for MCI in Denver until The Dying Time.”

  “Good name for it,” Ellen said with a shudder.

  “Isn’t it though.”

  “And now here we are in a bloody ice age.” He blew softly on the cup and took another sip.

  “If we hadn’t been in the basement break room clustered around the radio, we’d’ve all been killed. Close enough even then. Blasted sound like nothing I’ve ever heard shattered all the glass. Then the quakes hit. Well, I rather expect you’re familiar with all that.” Everyone was nodding.

  Ellen probed gently. “You said you were in Denver?”

  Chad’s mouth set in a grim line. “Bloody hell going on in Denver. Riots. Wholesale murder. Craziness. Some very well-armed Black Satanic cult wiped out the white and Latino gangs. I guess they got organized first. They’re enslaving people.

  “We kept a very low profile. Even then we almost got nicked a time or two. Still, we found enough tucker to stay alive. But when we overheard one of their patrols talking about eating slaves, we got out.”

  He held out his cup for a refill. “Been here almost six months now, I’d guess. Got a house a bit north of here we patched up. It’s not much, but you are welcome to stay there while you rummage around.”

  “Thank you, Chad,” Ellen accepted for all of them. She looked over this well-kept group again and couldn’t resist any longer.

  “Chad, do you mind my asking how you keep yourselves so neat? We bathe regularly in the Freeholds, but my hair’s been a rats nest so long I’m about to cut it off.”

  Most of Chad’s group chuckled at that. Chad pointed to a slender young man in his early twenties. The kid had tidy wheat-blonde hair and a small diamond stud in his left ear.

  “Josh, over there is a man of many talents. Fortunately for us, one of them is doing hair.”

  The young man smiled at hearing his name.

  Michael had a question. “Many other locals around?”

  “Couple thousand east of I-25,” Chad said, pointing in the general direction. “And a few individuals and family groups near here. Most of them survived the early days in NORAD, under Cheyenne mountain. Seem friendly enough, but we’ve kept to ourselves. You know how it is,” he said with an apologetic shrug. “Everyone greets you with gun in hand. There’s a doctor over there trying to keep a hospital running though.”

  Now that’s good to know, Michael thought, but it was time to get moving. “We were going to check out a grocery store on Uintah next, Chad. Know anything about it?”

  Chad looked around his group. Heads shaking. “No, we’ve been getting our supplies from a Safeway up on Rockrimmon. Not much left there, though. Most of it burned.”

  Ellen spoke up. “Well, you’re welcome to come with us, and share. We’re from the Freeholds, by the way.” Seeing his blank look, she added, “It’s a small community up in the mountains.”

  Interest showed in his eyes. “You mean you’ve managed to hold yourselves together?”

  Several Freeholders chuckled.

  “More or less,” Ellen said. She expla
ined about the Freeholds while the snowmobile engines were warming up.

  Three days later, the ruins of both grocery stores and one pharmacy had been emptied and Chad and his people had become Freeholders.

  *

  Hollywood

  Sacrifice

  “I’m telling you, we have to stay hid,” Will Benton hissed. He was so gaunt he looked like an extra in a holocaust movie.

  “We need to find more food, Will,” Lola said. “If we don’t we’ll die!”

  “I know,” Will agreed. “But that Scarlatti bastard has his men everywhere. I don’t know what or who they’re looking for, but if we’re not careful they’ll find us.”

  “Scarlatti?” Lola’s pulse hammered. It couldn’t be the same man.

  “Joseph Scarlatti,” Will said. “His name is all over down in the ruins. Some people say he’s a devil, others a savior. All I know is he and his men eat people.” He stopped. Lola was looking at him strangely.

  Will snapped his fingers. “That’s right! You went out with him, didn’t you?”

  He began laughing. It started as a low chuckle and gained strength and volume until he was on the floor. Clarissa and Trish joined in from pure contagion. Even Lola managed an anemic smile.

  “This is so rich,” Will gasped. “We’re…” He stopped to grab a breath. “We’re starving,” gasp, “afraid to show ourselves,” wheeze, “and you used to date the King of California.”

  He dissolved into tears of laughter.

  Three days later the King’s men began a house-to-house, or more appropriately, ruin-to-ruin search in their area and they had to move.

  *

  Will peeked around the corner and gestured them back. Swiftly they hid behind piles of rubble while a column of men marched past. Two at the end detached themselves from the column and walked into the alley, guns at the ready.

  One man’s face looked like it was carved from a pumpkin. The other man was short and stocky, built like a fireplug.

  Behind her, Lola saw another column march by the other end of the alley. They were surrounded. Discovery imminent.