27
A bolt of lightning struck less than a klick away, and Chris was driving directly into the storm. Carefully watching the road in front of his headlights, he drove as swiftly as he dared on the slick dark asphalt, somehow managing to keep himself between the ditches. He had to find Xander, and fast. As Chris rounded a curve, he nearly rear-ended a white truck with its lights turned off.
Jackpot.
The road became straight again, and Chris accelerated, moving alongside the other truck, and got visual confirmation it was indeed Xander inside. Chris backed off a bit and used his bumper to tap Xander’s vehicle behind the back wheel. Then he pressed down on the gas pedal and turned the wheel hard into Xander’s truck, causing it to lose traction. Chris steered clear as Xander lost control and skidded off the road into a ditch. Chris was still going fast, so he passed him and circled back. Xander was attempting to drive out of the ditch when he returned, but he’d only managed to entrench his vehicle more.
Lightning struck, closer this time, flooding the forest with light. Xander leaped from his truck and ran into the woods. Chris pulled over beside the road, disconnected the ignition, jumped out, and gave chase. He ran for all he was worth, and then he ran faster still. A blinding flash of lightning struck, followed by a crack that sounded like a tree splitting open, and something heavy hit the forest floor with a loud thud.
The lightning will probably kill me before Xander does.
Branches whipped Chris’s face and the uneven ground made him stumble, but he didn’t let the obstacles slow him down. He ran until his lungs burned and his thighs ached, but Xander picked up his pace, too.
Chris wanted to avoid tall trees that would serve as a lightning rod and rebound the lightning out of the trunk and hit him. He glanced up, but all the trees were tall, and it would be impossible to avoid them.
The woods became thicker and darker as he ran, and Xander disappeared until a brilliant white flash of lightning spotlighted him. The forest thinned out into a clearing where a dacha — a Russian country home — stood. Chris thought he saw Xander enter it, and he ran across the clearing and attempted to open the door, but it was locked. He kicked it open and rushed inside. As he searched the living room for Xander, he also looked for any weapons of opportunity. When he passed through the kitchen, lightning struck again, and he spotted an ax embedded in a tree stump outside.
There’s a weapon of opportunity if I ever saw one.
A creaking noise came from one of the rooms down the hall. Chris checked the first room but only found a bed and a dresser — the closet was empty, too. He checked the rest of the dacha, only to find that no one was home.
Maybe the house is settling, he reasoned.
He exited the dacha through the back door. The sound of movement in the leaves came from around the house, and Chris followed the noise. A rat. When he turned the corner of the building again, he saw the tree stump, but the ax was gone. His stomach dropped.
A jagged streak of light descended from the sky, branching out toward the earth. Its white branches sprouted more branches, smiting a nearby tree and causing an explosion at the trunk. Chris had been under effective mortar attack before, but this lightning strike gave him pause to check if he’d pissed himself. Just then, he heard a noise behind him. He spun around to see Xander standing there wielding the ax.
“I did not realize you were alone,” Xander said.
Chris said nothing.
“You do not know when to give up, do you?”
Chris remained quiet. He hoped to grab Xander’s arm before he could swing the ax, but he swung before Chris could move in to grapple. Chris stepped back instead, the blade just missing him. Xander was too quick.
Chris positioned himself next to a tree, and when Xander swung again, Chris stepped outside of the swing. Xander missed, and the ax imbedded itself in the trunk. Before Xander could pull the ax loose, Chris kicked him in the crotch. Xander lifted to his toes with a grunt. Then Chris swung at his enemy’s solar plexus, but Xander released his grip on the ax, leaving it in the tree, and stepped back. Chris’s punch missed. He had put so much oomph into it, though, that he overextended himself. Xander blew at Chris like a squall, exploiting his awkward positioning, and iron-fisted him in the side of the gut. Chris’s air caught, breath ceasing to come as the wind was knocked out of him.
“Prepare to join Michael Winthrop,” Xander said.
He punched at Chris’s head, and Chris ducked, averting the blow. But Xander’s other fist was too speedy, and the follow-up smashed Chris in the face, throwing him to the ground. It hit him with such devastating impact that he struggled to lift his body from the dirt. It rained so heavily that he didn’t know if the stream running down his face was water or blood.
Xander retrieved the ax, his dripping hands clenched tightly around the handle. “You Americans are no match for Mother Russia. That is why you could not save Michael. You cannot even save yourself.”
“I agree with one thing you said,” Chris said.
Xander moved in closer with the ax. “What is that?”
“I don’t know when to give up.” Chris scrambled to his feet, but he staggered from the cast-iron aftereffect of Xander’s punch. His body reacted slower than he intended. He didn’t know whether he was about to throw up or pass out.
Xander’s shoulders and arms moved back, body coiled as he lifted the ax and prepared to deal the final blow. Lightning flashed. Rain poured down Xander’s face, and his eyes filled with insane rage.
Chris needed to move out of the way, but something was wrong, as if there was a disconnect between his brain and body. And there wasn’t enough time for the effect to wear off.
This is the end.
Crack! Lightning struck the tree next to Xander. Then his countenance changed as if an artillery shell had struck him. In the next instant, something struck Chris, too. His skin clenched his bones. The noise was so deafening he thought his head had exploded. His body felt like it had been hit by flaming shrapnel, knocking him off his feet, and his vision whited out.
The outline of trees appeared on a blank white canvas and the morning aquamarine of the sky seeped through. The lightning and rain had stopped. In fact, all sound was gone. Chris had lost his hearing, but he was thankful he could still see. He smacked his lips at the strange metal taste in his mouth.
Nearby, a gray squirrel sat up on the ground, watching him with big black eyes. Then there was a faint sound of birds chirping. At first, he thought he’d imagined the sound, but it became louder, and he thanked God his hearing was returning. The air smelled fresh, and the forest was peaceful.
Chris fought to sit up. He noticed one shoe had a hole in the sole, probably where the lightning had entered from the ground. His other shoe was missing, and there was a charred hole in the bottom of his sock. He looked around and spotted his missing shoe, crawled over to it, and noticed it had a hole in the bottom, too. The lightning had entered one foot, traveled through his body, and exited his other foot, taking his shoe off with it.
Groggily, and without thinking, he put his shoe on. His legs were unsteady as he stood. He wobbled a little and put a hand out, leaning against the tree nearest him. Its bark seemed to be intact, confirming that the lightning current had traveled from the bottom of the tree trunk over the surface of the ground, rather than exiting the tree’s side. Then he saw the ax in the dirt and picked it up. At first, the ax felt heavy, but as his strength came back, it became lighter.