Sabotage (Powerless Nation Book 3) (9 page)

They unloaded their gear and covered the snowmobile with several fallen branches and a sprinkling of powdery snow. “I don’t know if that will hide it completely, but at least it will make it harder to spot,” Mason said.

They decided to get a better look at the gate where the trucks had turned in. It was slow going in the dark, and they had to be careful not to trip on tree roots or walk into branches. Even though the footing was treacherous, the woods provided cover, and they were safer there than on the road.

As they got closer, Dee began to discern the outline of a large, block-shaped building. The sharp scent of freshly cut wood filled her nose.
 

Mason stopped abruptly and Dee walked into him. “I know where we are,” he said softly, steadying her. “The lumber mill. A lot of men from Lookout Falls and Louisville used to work here. It’s probably been shut down since the EMP.”

“It’s a strange place to keep prisoners,” said Dee.

“Not really. It’s got a fence all the way around it, and that big gate.”

“How do you know the fence goes all the way around?” Dee asked. She was surprised to see Mason’s cheeks darken. “Are you blushing? Now you
have
to tell me.”

“It’s nothing. Some friends and I snuck in one night.”

“Friends?” asked Dee, watching Mason with narrowed eyes.

“Okay, one friend.”

“A girl?”

Mason gave a minuscule nod.

“So you and a girl sneaked into the mill in the middle of the night?”

“I guess,” said Mason, shifting his weight uncomfortably. “It’s not as bad as it sounds.”

Dee folded her arms. “I don’t know. It sounds pretty bad to me.”

“It was no big deal. We got a flat tire not far from here and couldn’t get cell reception. My mom’s car didn’t have a jack and I figured I’d borrow one from a lumber truck inside.”

Dee pressed her lips together. She wanted to ask what he was doing in the middle of the woods at night with a girl. “What was her name?”

“Amanda.”

“So did you and A-man-da,” Dee said, enunciating each syllable, “find a way into the mill?”

“Yep. There’s a good place to go over the fence around back. There’s also…”
 

“Also?” prompted Dee.

“An equipment shed outside the fence in back. It would probably make a good shelter tonight.”

“I suppose you found that with Amanda too?” Dee bit off the words. “Never mind. Whatever. Let’s go.”

Mason looked like he had more to say, but Dee didn’t wait to hear what it was. She stomped through the snow, following the perimeter of the fence but keeping her distance from it, staying in the cover of the trees.

“So this is the love shack,” she said ten minutes later when they came to a rundown, windowless hut made of weathered planks.

“Why are you getting so worked up over this? I didn’t even know you then,” Mason said defensively.

“I didn’t know you either, but I wasn’t going on dates in the middle of nowhere and having secret hook-ups in my own private love nest.”

“You’re blowing this way out of proportion,” Mason said, shaking his head.

“You said you didn’t even
have
friends in Lookout Falls.”

“Technically I didn’t, she was from Louisville.”

“Technically?
Technically?
You want to argue about where she’s from?”

“I don’t want to argue at all,” said Mason, resting his hands on Dee’s shoulders. “I met her at a tri-school science fair, we hit it off, and I took her out a few times. It didn’t work out, and I quit calling her. That’s it.”

Mason was backlit by silvery moonlight, his sad eyes almost lost in shadow. Maybe she was overreacting. A bit.

Silence crept between them until a loud grumble from Dee’s stomach broke the mood. “Come on,” said Mason, “Let’s get inside and see what Angela packed us to eat.”

The shed wasn’t locked, and a carefully wielded flashlight showed several wooden crates and a wall lined with shelves. Stiffened work gloves, pieces of fencing, empty plastic bottles, and other odds and ends gave it a neglected look. Although it was dusty, Dee was grateful to be out of the wind.
 

She sat on a crate next to Mason, leaving a wide distance between them, and fished out an apple and a stick of beef jerky from the pack then handed it to him. They sat munching in the shed, and Dee wondered what to say. She felt slightly awkward about her outburst, but was still too riled up to apologize.

“I bet I know where they’re keeping everyone,” said Mason between bites of apple. “There’s a big warehouse where they store the wood after they cut it down into boards. It would be a good place to secure a lot of people. There aren’t any windows, and not many ways in or out.”

“What do you think Downey’s going to do with them? Why did he only take kids?”

“Personally, I think he plans to brainwash them. Younger minds are easier to influence. He could be trying to create his own personal army.”

“And then what?”

“It can’t be good,” said Mason. “Hopefully we can get them out before anything happens.”

Dee thought about her missing friends Hyrum, his younger brother Jeremiah, and Kade. She wondered what was happening to them on the other side of the fence. Suddenly she lost her appetite. She tucked her food back into the pack and set it in a corner. “Can we check out that fence now?”

“Yes, but first I need to know if we’re okay. I can’t do this with you mad at me.”
 

Dee felt terrible about the way she’d acted. Mason was right; she needed to let it go. It was a long time ago and Amanda was out of his life. She scooted until she was sitting right next to him. She glanced up and could just make out his profile in the reflected light of the flashlight. “I’m sorry I blew up at you.”

“And I’m sorry I got you so mad.” Mason put an arm around her and lifted her onto his lap. His lips were close to hers, and she could feel his warm breath on her face.

“Want to kiss and make up?” she murmured.

Too soon, they left the dilapidated building to inspect the fence enclosing the mill.
 

“This looks like a good spot,” Mason whispered.
 

“How can you tell?”

He pointed. “See those logs?” A few yards inside the fence was an enormous pile of tree trunks without any branches, at least fifteen feet high. “They’ll make good cover once we’re over.”

The plan was simple, similar to when they’d infiltrated the police station. They would scout out where the prisoners were being held, and get them out without being caught. Their main advantages were stealth and secrecy.

Mason gave her hand a squeeze and whispered, “Remember to wait until I’m over. I’ll give you the signal when it’s safe for you to follow.” He kissed her lightly on the lips and then wrapped her scarf around her mouth and nose before setting his hands to the chain links.

He was more than halfway up the ten foot fence when Dee heard voices. She froze, hoping Mason heard them too.
 

He clung to the fence like a bug on a white wall, completely exposed to view. If anyone came around the corner they would see him.

Don’t let them get any closer
, she prayed under her breath.

Suddenly two men rounded the corner and stopped in their tracks. “You there, kid!” one of them shouted.

Mason let go of the fence and dropped, rolling when he hit the ground. He yelped in pain, favoring his ankle when Dee helped him to his feet. She wrapped an arm around his waist and turned toward the forest. “Come on!”

The popping sound of gunfire seemed to be all around them and splintered wood rained down on them when a bullet hit the trunk of a nearby tree. They took off into the woods with Mason leaning on her for support.

*

After traveling for what felt like miles, the sky began to brighten until it was almost light enough for Dee to put away the flashlight.
 

“Where are we going?” asked Mason, breathlessly.

The guards had been unable or unwilling to climb over the fence after them, but Dee knew they could eventually go around and follow their tracks in the snow. She wanted to get as far away as possible.

“I have no idea,” Dee replied, not wanting to say the word ‘lost’ out loud. “Away.”

“Works for me.”
 

Most of their supplies were back at the little cabin next to the mill. All they had was a flashlight and the clothes they were wearing. They were without matches, a change of clothes, food, or water, and they were lost. And they had to avoid the only people that might be looking for them.

The effort it took for Mason to keep moving was starting to show. His face was covered in sweat and he was leaning heavily on Dee. She glanced down at his ankle, but he’d refused to remove his shoe. He was afraid the foot would swell up and he wouldn’t be able to get it back on.

“We should take a break,” Dee said.

“No, I can go on.”

“Well, I can’t.” She could, but it was obvious he needed a break. They stood for a moment to catch their breath.
 

“Do you have any idea where we are?” she asked, pausing to look around. They were hiking over uneven ground in the foothills of a larger mountain range.

Mason shook his head. “It’s probably part of the national forest. There’s not much else out this way.”

“They put a saw mill at the edge of a national forest?” wondered Dee aloud. “That seems like a conflict of interest.” Mason didn’t answer, and Dee noticed he was moving more slowly. “We really need to get you off that foot,” she said, trying to keep the worry out of her voice.

“What we really need is a way to hide our tracks,” he said. They both looked back the way they’d come. Now that the sun was up they could see the snow behind them was a white, pristine field of untouched snow except for the obvious trail they’d blazed through the center.

“I don’t think that’s going to be possible,” Dee said.

“Maybe we could backtrack in our own footprints.”

“That would mean twice the walking and we’d only be getting half as far,” she pointed out. “What if we head deeper into the forest?”

Mason agreed, and they angled their course directly into the dark woods. The trees were big and old, forming a heavy canopy of branches overhead. If they’d had leaves, she doubted any sunlight would have reached the ground at all. The sun wouldn’t be able to dry or warm them, even once it was fully up.

A brisk wind blew the powdery snow across their tracks, partially obscuring their passage. The lack of undergrowth in the forest should have made the walking easy, but Mason stumbled more than once.

“We’re lucky it’s windy today,” he said, teeth chattering. “It will hide our trail.”

“The wind will either save us or kill us.”

“It’s not
that
bad. I actually feel pretty good except for this stupid ankle,” Mason mumbled, in a direct contradiction to his optimistic words.

“We need to stop and get dry,” Dee insisted. “We won’t survive long in these wet clothes.” They’d worked up a sweat in their initial flight from the mill, and the clothing right next to their skin was wet. The chilly wind against their sweat-cooled bodies was a dangerous combination. “If we don’t get out of the wind and dry off we could get hypothermia.”

Sweating caused body heat loss, and the first stages of hypothermia were hard to detect. They might already be experiencing them. She ran through a mental checklist of the early symptoms of hypothermia:
 

Changes in personality, abnormally quiet.
Check
.

Shivering.
Check
.
 

“The Umbles”— stumbles, mumbles, and fumbles.
Check
.

Dee gave Mason a sideways glance. “Did you hear about how I almost burned down the library?”

“Let me guess. You were trying to cook?”

“Very funny.”

After she filled him in on the fire, Dee told him how the class she’d been teaching had studied cold weather camping. She wished she had some of Harvey’s fire starting materials right now.

“I don’t know why they never taught us stuff like that in school,” said Dee. “Basic survival skills, you know? I’d give anything if I knew how to treat a sprained ankle in the field, or if I could identify an edible plant right now. What good are physics or history in a situation like this?”
 

When Mason didn’t comment, she knew she needed to find or build a shelter soon.
 

The scouts in her class had told her the best way to stay warm in the snow was to make a pile of snow, hollow it out, and crawl inside. She didn’t think she had the energy or enough snow to build one, and she was skeptical it would work anyway. It sounded like a lot of work that would only make her even more tired and sweaty. However, there didn’t appear to be any other options.
 

Just when she decided to look for a place to start digging, they came to a trampled down path in the snow.
 

“Do you think deer made this trail?” Dee asked nervously. She remembered that bears hibernated in the woods in the area, and even though they were supposed to be sleeping right now, she worried she’d turn a corner and come face to face with a grizzly.

Then she remembered her tracking lessons with her class. “Hold up a minute,” she said. She scoured the ground for animal footprints, praying she wouldn’t see the five-toed-with-claws tracks of a bear. The snow was so packed she couldn’t make anything out at first, then to the side of the cleared trail she saw something. She squatted down to get a closer look. It was a tennis shoe print, smaller than her own foot, the edges already eroding in the wind.

“I bet there’s a cabin or house around here,” she said, wrapping her arms around herself. “The people might not be friendly though. Maybe we should avoid them.”

Mason looked at her, concern clear in his eyes. “Your lips are turning blue.” He fumbled with her scarf, trying it drape it around her. “Come on, let’s see what made this path.”

Mindful because of Mason’s booby traps back at Grandpa’s house, they watched their step carefully, but didn’t see any tripwires. The trees opened up on a small clearing.