Ancient Echoes (44 page)

“You can't leave me,” Brandi shrieked. “I’m scared! You know
what they did to Vince.”

“Then keep quiet so they won’t find you!”

They shoved a hysterical Brandi behind some bushes and
covered her with brush, then hurried away. They lost so much time with her that
they were forced to push on at a punishing pace.

Soon, Lionel felt the effects of the altitude, the cold, and
the food and sleep deprivation. His fifty-one year old soft professor's body
had been driven harder than he thought possible. Charlotte noticed he was near
collapse.

She took Lionel's arm and let him lean on her as he limped
along, slipping and sliding on the grade. He was too tired to speak or protest.

When a half hour passed with no more gunfire heard anywhere,
Charlotte didn’t know what to think. If Melisse had stopped the mercs, why hadn’t
she called out to the group? Or caught up to them?

Charlotte had a good idea of the answer.

But also, where were Jake and Michael? She hated to
contemplate the possibilities, her fears too terrible to bear.

She knew better than to hope. Whenever she did, her life
took a turn for the worse. She no sooner thought that, than Lionel stumbled and
fell. She tried to hold him up, but he needed to sit.

“You and Rachel keep going,” Charlotte said to Quade. “Keep
her safe.”

“If Brandi could stay alone, so can I,” Lionel gasped.
“Leave me.”

“No, I won’t!” Charlotte said. “They’re getting us through
attrition. No more!”

Quade nodded and led Rachel away.

Lionel bent forward, breathing hard, and tried to stop his
light-headedness. Before long, they heard Rachel scream. Lionel
straightened,
his face white with fear.

THE EVENING BEFORE, Devlin Farrell
stared down at the empty village. He wondered what the villagers had done with
his classmates and the professor. He hoped the empty village meant they escaped.

He heard gunfire.

As more proof that he'd gone completely insane, rather than
running away from it, he ran toward it. Maybe if he found the shooters, he
would find his classmates and the professor.

He last saw them the day two strangers pulled them out of
the creek when flesh-eating beetles attacked. After the experience of being
duped by the river rafters, he decided to watch the strangers before putting
himself under their control.

Devlin watched them lead everyone into some sort of compound
where the men and women were separated. Something about the place, those men,
seemed wrong to him.

He had a knife, but no other weapons. As he watched two men
who carried rifles, bows and arrows, he decided to follow them. To his
surprise, they tossed the rifles into a cave. It made no sense to him. Why
treat good weapons that way?

He went to the cave after the men left, and found six HK-91
rifles, plus a few magazines. He had grown up hunting with his dad, and was a
crack shot. He silently thanked his cousin in the army who once showed him how
to release complex safety mechanisms. He took two rifles, as many magazines as
he could carry, and left.

Armed, he considered going to the compound to rescue the others.
But then what? Alone, he could travel fast, find help—real help. As an athlete
he trained for strength and high endurance. He decided to head south. Driving
himself relentlessly, he found a safe spot to cross the Salmon River. From
there, he reached the Middle Fork, and traveled along it. When the banks of the
river became too high, steep and dangerous, he moved inland. But he would
always find his way back to the river, clutching the hope that he'd turn a
corner and come across a gathering of friendly people.

But he didn't.

He found hot springs to soothe aching, weary muscles. He saw
shooting stars and, once, the aurora borealis to keep him company through long,
desolate nights. He experienced torrential cloudbursts and brief, near
hurricane-force winds. Twice, he backed away from a grizzly who was mercifully
more interested in its forage than in the tall, two-legged creature that feared
it.

Despite everything, he would not stop. Memories of his
friends, especially of Brian who he was sure had died, and of Rachel, who he
hadn’t given much thought to at all when she was near, but he now realized had
more spunk, brains and courage than most men he knew, drove him on.

Past the Middle Fork, he trekked southward, until he
recognized the headwaters of the Salmon River near the town of Stanley. He'd
been to Stanley many times.
Small and rustic with crystal
clear air, when there he felt as if he were standing at the top of the world,
the beautiful, jagged snow-capped Sawtooth Mountains in the distance.

From Stanley, continuing south, he would reach Sun Valley.

But there was no Stanley. The area looked as if the place
had never existed.

With that, he knew his quest was hopeless. No sign of
civilization at all was found. For all he knew, he was dead, and this emptiness
some kind of purgatory.
Or worse.

He turned back toward the village to rejoin the others. They
were all he had left in the world, and he would do whatever it took to see them
again, to have companionship, to end this aching loneliness.

And then, the strangest thing happened. It only took a day
for him to reach the pillars. He shivered as a thought crossed his mind, a
thought he didn’t like one bit. The pillars appeared to be the center of this
new, unreal universe. He had heard about curvatures of time and space in a
physics class. It made no sense to him then, and still didn’t. But he was back.

He went straight to the compound, only to find it empty.

His debate over which way to go ended when
he heard gunfire.

He hurried to the area from which he heard the shots fired.
To his amazement, he had never seen any of the individuals involved in the
shootout before, two on one side, and three on the other. He had no idea who
they were, or why they were fighting.

The two were losing the battle. He crept near them.

One, trying to encourage the other, had to shout over the
sound of automatic fire. Devlin heard him give the names of his
friends...Rachel, Brandi, Melisse, Lionel...

He knew which side he belonged on.

He crawled around to the far side of the larger group of
shooters. One sniper hid behind a tree. Devlin snuck behind him, aimed, fired,
and immediately ran.

The sniper fell to the ground, dead.

Devlin snuck up behind the other two shooters and fired
again.

The two apparently thought they were surrounded, and ran.

Devlin followed them far enough to make sure they weren’t
going to backtrack, and then made his way to the two strangers. “Don't shoot!”
he called as he neared them. “I'm on your side.”

“Who are you?” Michael held his rifle aimed and ready.

“It's okay,” Devlin called. “You know my friends. Trust me!”
He stepped into the open, put his rifles on the ground and raised his arms
high.

Although his face sported a full beard and his hair was
shaggy, Michael recognized him from posters and news reports. “Devlin Farrell,”
he said as he moved out from behind the sheltering rocks.

“That’s right,” Devlin said. “But who are you? And who were
those guys shooting at you? And why?”

Jake had passed out from the gunshot. Michael used his knife
to remove the bullet and his shirt to wrap and bind the wound as he explained
as much as he could to Devlin. Devlin told him how he'd purposefully separated
himself from the other students to find help. He then told of the stark
emptiness he found.

As much as Michael hadn’t wanted to believe what he heard,
Devlin’s story made sense.

Michael then briefed him on all that had happened with the
students and villagers.

While Devlin stayed with Jake, Michael headed back to the
man who had been shot to search for IDs or anything to give a clue as to who he
was. He was young and hard-muscled, but carried no identification. His phone
and walkie-talkie were completely dead. Michael took his rifle, ammo, and
knife.

After Michael returned, Devlin went at night, alone, to the cave
where the villagers had hidden their rifles and picked up the remaining four,
plus clips.

The three set out at dawn. Jake's wound and blood loss
forced them to travel slowly. Michael and Devlin had to support him as he
half-walked, half-dragged himself while using a tree limb as a crutch.

When they heard gunfire a little later that morning, they
sped up as much as possible while still keeping themselves under some means of
cover. An hour passed before they neared the culvert where the others had
camped for the night.

There, they found Melisse's body.

Their elation at finding Devlin alive and having gotten away
from their
attackers,
sank into nothing.

Not far from her, two mercenaries lay dead. “Melisse did
this,” Michael said. “She gave her life to protect the others.”

They found no sign of Charlotte, Quade, or the others, and
Michael’s fear grew that they were dead or captured.

“We'll track them,” Michael said with determination, finding
where grass and weeds had been trampled. “We will find them.”

“They’ve got to be alive,” Devlin murmured.

The sight of Melisse lying dead, the need to find the
others, spurred the men forward.

Michael abruptly halted. He shot out his arm, stopping the
other two,
then
pointed at a bush. Jake and Devlin
aimed their rifles at the shrub. “Come out now, arms up,” Jake bellowed, “or we
shoot!”

They heard the sound of crying, and lowered their weapons.
They knew who it was. One student, at least, still lived.

o0o

Fish and Nose returned to Hammill’s camp. “We had two of
them pinned down when others showed up. We don’t know how many and they were
armed. They killed Dogman.”

The Hammer's jaw clenched. Fish, Nose and he were the only
survivors of the team. “I want vengeance. Those bastards have a lot to pay for.
And they will.”

QUADE AND RACHEL had barely gone an
eighth of a mile when Kohler and the other villagers stepped in front of them.
Rachel screamed. They tried to run, but Webber and Tieg caught them and tied
their hands behind their back.

The villagers led them back along the trampled deer path
Quade and Rachel had already
walked,
and found Lionel
sitting alone on a felled tree.

“Where is everyone else?” Kohler demanded.

Lionel looked around. Charlotte was gone.
“Dead.
Running.
I have no idea,” he replied wearily.

“We’ll go after them,” Kohler said, then turned to Sam
Black. “Black, take these three back to the village. When we return, we'll
teach them what happens to people who run away.”

About halfway back to the village, Quade slipped his thin
hands free of the ropes that bound them. He stuck his foot out and tripped
Rachel. As Black reached over to pick her up, Quade wrapped an arm around his
neck, forearm pressing the carotid artery. He pushed Black’s head and neck
forward with his other arm, and slowly lowered him to the ground as he lost
consciousness. Quade followed that with one quick snap of Black’s neck, killing
him.

Lionel and Rachel stood frozen with shock at the ease with
which Quade acted.

“Let’s get out of here!” Quade ordered.

“Which way?”
Rachel cried. “It’s
not safe anywhere!”

Quade hesitated only a moment.
“Back to
the pillars.”

o0o

 Michael, Jake, Brandi, and Devlin marched single-file
along the ridge of the mountain following the tracks of their friends. They
stayed above the timber line, the land bare of foliage.

Each time they came to a bend in the trail, Jake worried
that they would find their companions' bodies. He hated his own weakness from
the gunshot and pushed himself in defiance of his injuries and exhaustion. He
hated that he hadn't been there to protect Melisse and the students.
Hated that he'd failed.
Again.

And Charlotte—he couldn’t let himself
think
about Charlotte.

They moved fast, but even Brandi kept up. He suspected she
didn't dare mouth a single complaint for fear she'd be left behind again.

Before long, they came to a well-trampled spot. Clearly, a
confrontation took place here. But they couldn’t tell what happened next.
Footsteps seemed to go in all directions.

“Where are they now?” Jake asked, sitting to rest his painful
leg.

“At least they weren’t killed.” Devlin said as he sat down.
He wasn’t injured, but the constant travel and food shortages had taken their
toll on him.

“Let’s hope not,” Michael added. “Sometimes, I wonder if all
of us aren't already dead, stuck here forever.”

“Dead?”
Jake whispered. “What are
you talking about? That's goofy talk. There's a way out. There's always a way
out. Don't go defeatist on me.”

Michael's stern expression offered little room for argument.
“Unless this is Hell.
The
Hell.
If I understand my theology correctly, if you're bad enough to
have been sent there, there's no exit. Even Sartre, an atheist, in his own way
believed that.”

“Theology?”
Jake looked skeptical.
“I didn't think your taste went that way.”

“It doesn't,” Michael said. But perversely, a passage that
he read long ago by St. Augustine came to mind: that the restless heart of man
could only find rest in God. He wondered why he recalled that here, now.
Everything about Augustine’s faith was contrary to his nature. Yet, he
remembered how he felt the first time he visited the Gandan monastery in
Ulaanbaatar. He had found peace there, despite knowing that particular place
was not one he would ever fit into. But it possessed some quality that he
welcomed and felt welcomed by. Michael shook his head at the memory, and forced
his thoughts back to the surreal world that trapped him and the others. “We
should get moving again. We’ve got to assume there is a way out of this place,
and concentrate on finding it, and finding our friends.”