That was where he was wrong.
Max took careful aim. He ignored the chaos and the commotion. He ignored Josh’s grunts and the scream that had come from Mandy.
He wasn’t ignoring the possibility of hitting Mandy.
But he knew that he was capable of hitting Josh and Josh alone. He’d spent enough time at the target range to know his limits and his abilities.
Max squeezed the trigger.
The noise stopped all at once.
Both Josh and Mandy lay still.
But Max knew he hadn’t hit Mandy. It wasn’t possible.
“Mandy?”
“Help me get this asshole off me,” came Mandy’s muffled voice.
Max leaned down and grabbed the dead man’s weight, pulling hard at the shoulders. He got the corpse off Mandy, shoving it off into the snow.
Mandy sat up, breathing heavily.
“You OK?”
Mandy nodded.
Max offered Mandy his hand, pulling her to her feet. She tried dusting the snow off her, but it had gotten in everywhere.
Max bent down and examined the corpse. He’d shot from the side, making sure that the bullet’s trajectory would leave Mandy safe.
He took the warmest clothing off the corpse, and handed it to Mandy. There was blood on some of it.
“Here,” said Max. “You’d better wear this.”
Mandy hesitated before taking the heavy jacket from Max.
“You should wear it, Max. You just have that light jacket on.”
“I’ll be fine,” said Max.
He knew Mandy tended to get cold more easily than he did.
Mandy nodded.
“Come on,” said Max. “We’ve got to get a move on. We’ll warm up as we walk.”
They kept up a good pace at first, even though the snow was thick on the ground. But soon the constant slogging, having to really lift their boots, tired their legs out.
“We’re going to have to slow down,” said Mandy. “I can’t keep this up.”
Max nodded.
The wind blew fiercely and they had to shout to be heard by each other.
“Storm’s only getting stronger,” shouted Max.
“What’s that?”
“Storm’s getting stronger.”
Mandy nodded vigorously.
The going only got harder. Soon they were too exhausted to talk, to raise their voices above the noise of the wind.
They had to walk close together, so as not to get lost.
Max couldn’t see the sun, and his sense of direction was getting confused. He kept consulting his compass to make sure he was heading in the right direction.
Max’s toes and fingers were starting to feel numb, despite the vigorous walking. They’d need to get back soon if they wanted to avoid frostbite. They didn’t have the right winter gear to be out in a situation like this.
If there’d been such a thing as a weather report, this whole mess could have been avoided. But Max knew nothing of predicting the weather. His whole life he’d relied on the weather reports from the TV, radio, and computer. Obviously he couldn’t rely on them anymore.
In city or suburban life, a blizzard was often met with a sense of annoyance or mild panic. And while there usually had been the occasional car crash or brief power outage, the overall result was usually that everything was fine. A day or so later, things were back to normal. The city plows would come in and make the roads passable again, and soon everyone would be back at work.
But now, after the EMP, everything was different. Who knew how long the snow would remain on the roads, let alone here on the ground. Max didn’t know, but it might become harder to find food. They’d have to deal with the potential of plummeting temperatures, and all the physical maladies that came with that. They weren’t going to be sitting out the blizzard in the relative comfort of their centrally-heated homes. No, they’d be totally immersed in it. The tent and the van provided minimal protection.
Max checked his watch. It felt like hours had passed. But it’d only been twenty minutes since he’d last checked his watch.
The hands of his analog watch gave a comforting glow in the dim light of the blizzard. It was a tough mechanical watch, Russian made, originally designed for the Russian military.
Before the age of the quartz watch, the Rolex Submariner had reigned supreme for divers. It was the only watch tough enough to hack the great depths and constant abuse of the navy divers. But the Rolex manufacturing required extremely tight tolerances that the Russians couldn’t replicate in their own factories. So in typical Russian fashion, the engineers had come up with a way to achieve the same depth ratings and overall toughness of the Submariner, but for a fraction of the cost.
A wider seal, along with a domed acrylic “crystal,” not to mention a robust gearing system, gave the Vostok Amphibia what it needed to compete with any other tough dive watch on the planet.
Max had always favored the watch over other, less robust modern pieces. Sure, it wasn’t stylish, but it did the job. And it wasn’t expensive. Max liked that about the watch.
The watch was entirely non-electronic. But Max didn’t know if the standard quartz movement watches, powered by batteries, had lasted through the EMP or not. Watches weren’t as popular as they had been, and no one else in his party wore one.
“You OK, Max?” said Mandy, giving his arm a tap with her fist.
“Huh?” said Max.
“You’ve got a glazed look on your face. I was worried I was losing you. You still with me?”
“Uh, yeah,” said Max. “Just thinking about watches.”
“The cold is getting to you,” said Mandy. “This isn’t the time for daydreaming. We’ve got to keep with it.”
“You’re right,” said Max, trying to snap himself out of the little reverie he’d gotten lost in.
“Check the compass,” said Mandy, pointedly.
“Right,” said Max, using his numb fingers to get the compass out of his pocket again.
He didn’t feel quite right, but he couldn’t put his finger on what it was.
“I think the cold’s affecting my brain,” said Max.
“Me too,” said Mandy. “And I can’t feel my fingers. I hope we’ll be back soon enough.”
Max looked at his watch. Two hours had somehow passed. Was he losing track of time?
Max looked out into the swirling snow. He looked down at his boots, which were sunk down into the snow that reached well above the top laces. He could feel it around his socks, which were soaking wet.
“Are we headed in the right direction?”
Max checked the compass again. He felt like he was doing everything over and over. He felt like his memory was going somewhat.
He reminded himself it was just his mind playing tricks on him.
“I think we’re lost, Max,” said Mandy.
“No,” said Max. “We can’t be lost. We’ve been heading the right direction.”
“We must have gone right past the camp,” said Mandy. “We can’t see anything.”
A particularly strong gust of wind came, and snow blew in around them. Max braced himself against the wind, his boots planted firmly in the snow. Mandy lost her balance, and her body fell into Max’s. He caught her in his arms, and held her to keep her from falling into the snow.
9
Lying on his back in the snow, James took aim and squeezed the trigger. He got off two shots.
Another man fell.
But there was more shouting. More men. James didn’t know how many, but there were a lot.
James scrambled to his feet, sprinting off again.
He didn’t know in which direction he was headed in. All he knew was that he had to get out of there. He was outmanned and outgunned. Severely.
In the back of his mind, James knew he shouldn’t get too far away from the camp. In this snow, it was likely he’d freeze to death before he found his way back again.