I hadn’t been stronger to go more than one or two miles myself, at that time.
And that put Randall’s house far too close to our current position. It didn’t give us the padding that I wanted. That we needed. We were going to have to move as quickly as possible.
“It’s good,” Angie said, shifting around a bit and then giving me the ghost of a smile. She pulled one arm out of the sleeping bag and reached up with it to cup my cheek. “It’s going to be okay, John. I’m going to be okay. You focus on what you need to do. I promise I’ll let you know if I need anything.”
I nodded and kissed her softly on the forehead, then turned away. I had nearly moved on to the next thing on my mental list when I heard her next line.
“And I’ll let you know when I’m ready to walk on my own.”
I pressed my lips together, but chose to pretend like I hadn’t heard her. There was no way in hell I was letting her walk on her own—not while I had strength to pull her—but I was also smart enough to know that now wasn’t the time to pick that particular fight.
When I got to the end of the rope, I bent down and picked it up, then wrapped the length over my arms, across my chest, around my back, and to my stomach. It wasn’t the most sophisticated getup, and it was going to chafe like hell, but it would also give me the best leverage—and it would allow me to expend less effort when I was pulling. This way I could use my entire body to brace against her weight, rather than just my arms. Lean forward and really dig into the snow with my steps. And hopefully find some momentum.
“We’ll take turns,” Marlon said from beside me. “I’m giving you two hours, and then I’m taking over.”
I wanted to argue. I did. This was my wife, and she was my responsibility, not his. But then I realized how stupid that would be. I might have started this journey off as a lone wolf with a wounded wife, but that wasn’t true anymore. I had backup now. And only a fool would refuse it.
“Fair enough,” I answered. “You ready for this?”
“Readier than you know,” he answered, his tone indicating that the phrase meant more than it seemed.
I put it into the file marked Things to Find Out About Marlon Later, and leaned forward, digging my boots into the snow and starting us along the trail after our newly acquired ally.
The cold was bitter and made breathing hard, but my strapping system was working. We had already gone what I estimated to be half a mile, and I was barely winded. I glanced at the sky, though, and saw that the sun had gone farther across the blue than I’d expected.
We might have gone half a mile. But by my estimate, it had taken us two hours to do it. And that was going to make a ten-mile journey a twenty-hour long process. Which was definitely not good.
Marlon must have been reading my mind, because at that moment he turned around and met my eyes.
“Two hours, according to my watch,” he said. “That means it’s my turn.”
I stared at him for a moment, and then looked behind him at the forest. So far, we’d been crossing a large, flat area that led up to his house almost like an enormous lawn. We’d been making slow but steady progress due to the flatness of the land and the existence of the snow—deep enough to make pulling the sled easy, but not so deep that it made walking difficult.
Once we got into the forest, it was going to get a whole lot rougher. Starting with the fact that there wasn’t going to be a specific trail to use, and there was going to be a lot of underbrush and litter.
Also, wildlife. Wolves. Potentially bears.
“I can pull her for longer,” I told him quickly. “I’m not tired yet.”
“And you know as well as I do that you don’t work until you’re exhausted,” he snapped back, his voice tense. “You know you save at least twenty-five percent, and you recover your strength while someone else is doing the work. You do that, or you fail.”
My mouth snapped shut at the words, which were almost exactly what I’d heard in training for my first Special Ops mission, and I stared at the man.
“Who are you?” I whispered.
Yes, I’d told myself that I didn’t need to know. Not yet. I’d even been building a file of things that I would ask him later, when we had time. Once we were safe. Once we had shelter. But I couldn’t help it. The pieces were lining up too quickly now, and I had an idea growing in my mind—but I wanted confirmation of that idea before I went any further. I wanted at least a hint about who our new ally was.
Because I was starting to wonder how much we could actually trust him. And whether him finding us had been a mistake—or a plan.
I’d been in the military for long enough to know that very few things happened by chance. And being coincidentally found in the forest, nearly dead, by someone who happened to have a fully kitted-out house with medical supplies, food, and warmth was starting to feel a whole lot like something that didn’t happen unless someone had put a lot of planning into it. I’d retired from the military with full honors and an honorable discharge. And I hadn’t been anything that special while I was enlisted.
I mean, I had. But no more than anyone else who had run special ops. There was absolutely no reason for them to be keeping tabs on me. Absolutely no reason for them to send someone out into the forest to save me in case things went sideways.
Absolutely no reason to believe any of it had anything to do with the EMP or the solar storm.
I was officially going crazy. The snow had gotten right into my brain, or I’d experienced the first case of brain freeze so extensive that it had damaged my gray matter. Maybe I had frostbite of the brain. Or maybe I was just going crazy, experiencing some insanely delayed case of PTSD that made me paranoid rather than frightened.
Crazy. That was the only answer.
Besides, I could see already that Marlon wasn’t going to give me a response.
“Forget it,” I said. “I’m sorry I asked. If you are what I think you are, then you can’t answer me. And if you aren’t what I think you are, mark it down to me being temporarily insane. In fact, let’s mark it down to that, regardless of your answer. You’re right. I need to rest—even if I don’t want to. But I’m giving you one hour, and that’s it.”
He opened his mouth like he was going to argue with me, and I put a hand up to stop him.
“You’re older than I am, and the going in the forest is going to be rougher,” I said firmly. “Traveling on the flat terrain was easy. Unless we’re going to take the road…”—I pointed to the long, flat lane where the road passed through his property and headed for town—“…it’s the forest, and it’s going to be rough going. Take it or leave it.”
He gave me a slight smile and then nodded. “You’re right. An hour it is.”
I unstrapped myself from the ropes, pausing to stretch out the kinks as I did, and grimaced. “Chafing” didn’t even begin to cover what that rope had done to my skin, even through the five or so layers I was wearing, and I already dreaded what my skin was going to look like when I got out of these clothes.
But then I turned around and saw that Angie had fallen asleep, her cheek resting on her hand, and I realized that I wouldn’t have changed a thing. I would have dealt with chafing of my entire body for the sight of her laying there, comfortable and secure enough to sleep.