Alphas in the Wild (28 page)

“Aw, shit,” she groaned, wiping her eyes. “Are Jake and I the only ones left?”

Stumbling to her feet, she dropped the radio transmissions in an untidy heap. It felt as if she were choking as she moved to the rear of the cabin and pried open the door to the subterranean cellar that was part of every ranger station. Realizing she’d need light, she retreated to scrabble through her pack, extracting her headlamp. Reassured somewhat by its warm, yellow glow, she let herself down the ladder to take stock of what Stuart had left.

It turned out he left pretty much everything. Sara let out a breath she wasn’t even aware she’d been holding as she shined her light over tidy rows of canned goods and dried, backpacking foods. In another corner of the cellar was a regulation chain saw and two five-gallon cans of fuel. Hefting first one, then the other, she was relieved to find them mostly full. Stuart likely hadn’t had too many fires this summer as it had been pretty warm.

Lucky for me,
she thought, realizing she was planning to stay at LeConte...at least for now. What choice did she have?

Sara checked the ammo shelf. “Damn,” she muttered under her breath. Her luck, which had been running pretty strong that day all-in-all, had just petered out. Stuart had taken his service revolver and virtually all the ammunition. She had her gun and about twenty shells, but it wouldn’t be worth much after she ran out of bullets. Scanning the floor for strays that might’ve fallen off the shelf, she lectured herself grimly about making every shot count when she went hunting.

She needed to eat before she could figure much more out, so she snagged two cans of pork and beans—one for her and one for Jake—some freeze-dried fruit, and a box of tapioca before heading back up the ladder.

Once her belly was full, really full for the first time in days, she dragged the big pot from the back of the woodstove over to the pump and filled it. As water heated on the stove, she stripped off her clothes, determined to clean nearly a week’s worth of sweat and grit off her body. Dumping her clothes into the pot once she was done bathing, she searched for a comb to untangle her hair. Stuart had one, along with a small hand mirror.

The face that stared back at her was disturbing. Familiar, yet not. The blue-gray eyes were the same, but her cheeks were sunken. Lots more lines radiated out from her eyes than before she’d left her cozy lair at McClure. Where had the fine gray streaks in her dark hair come from?

“Damn!” she sputtered. “I look five years older than I did a week ago.”

And that, sister, is the least of my problems.

“Thanks,” she told her inner voice. “You can keep your opinions to yourself.”

She hauled a change of clothes out of her pack, layered one of Stuart’s jackets over her long john top, and went to wring out her laundry. She’d spent enough of her life in situations where survival was iffy to know she needed to focus on the present. She had food and shelter for herself and her dog. It was more than she’d had that morning and, since she was flat out of other options, it would have to be enough.

...It’s been a week since Jake and I ended up here, and I haven’t been keeping this journal up like I meant to. I’ve been pretty busy. If winter comes early—and it could—I need meat for Jake and me and firewood. So far, I’ve cut and split about four cords of wood. I haven’t done as well with the meat side of things. I never was much of a shot at a moving object. It’s a bit late in the game for target practice, so I guess I just need to do better at finding animals that are standing still. I did set some traps I found in the back of the station. That netted us a few marmots. And I caught and salted some fish. If I could just get a couple deer, that would likely last us through the cold season.

I still try the radio once a day. It recharges via solar panels, so no worries about running out of juice. No one ever answers. Some days I’ve had to remind myself to do the radio. It would be a shame if someone was there, and I missed them because I got lazy. Still no backcountry travelers, but as the season grows later, I’m less and less hopeful. From time to time, I’ve tried to tell myself this whole attack thing was bogus, but I know that’s just a fairy tale to make myself feel better.

It took several hours to get things in order here at LeConte. I read through all the radio dispatches, then arranged them chronologically by the date and time they came in. I picked up everything, and the place is clean enough Stuart wouldn’t find fault with me if he came back.

I wish he would—come back that is. I always thought I didn’t like people very well, but when I let myself think about, maybe, being one of the only humans left on earth, it makes me crushingly sad...

Toward the end of their second week at LeConte, Sara took stock of the fact that she and Jake had been out-of-doors for hours nearly every day. There hadn’t been even one ship in the sky. She hadn’t seen any since leaving Muir Pass, and she’d certainly looked. The first few days she’d been so focused on the sky, it had been difficult to get anything accomplished.

She wondered if being well below timberline in a thick, evergreen forest might be the reason, and decided to try the radio once again. This time, to her amazement, it crackled to life, and Lonnie’s voice came over loud and clear.

“Sara, that you, sweetie? We were all wondering what happened to you. I sent someone to McClure, but they came back and told us it looked as if you never returned there. Where are you, anyway? We need to clear out the forest before winter.”

“Lonnie? Oh, Lonnie,” she managed, before dissolving into tears.

“Sara, what’s happened to you?” Lonnie’s gruff voice was filled with concern. “I’ve never heard you cry before, pumpkin.”

“I...I...” She didn’t know where to begin, so she started with the simple questions. “What happened to Stuart?”

“Uh, his wife was in an automobile accident. He raced out of there in a godawful hurry since the doctors weren’t sure she was going to make it.” A long silence, then, “Is that where you are? LeConte?”

She stiffened. An accident wouldn’t have been a reason for Stuart to take all the ammunition. Rangers used their guns so infrequently, she’d been known to leave McClure without a weapon. A hard, cold edge of suspicion bit deep.

Divulging just where she was seemed like a bad idea. A very bad idea.

“Sara?”

“Yes, I’m still on the air.”

“So, where are you?”

“I—I’m not sure I want you, or anyone else, to know.” Silence sat heavy between them for so long, she checked the bars on her radio to make sure they were still connected.

“Okay-ay,” Lonnie said finally in a probing, single, drawn-out word Sara didn’t like much.

“I, uh, I’m going to sign off for now,” she said, severing the connection and turning off the set. It had an emergency override. She stared hard at the radio, half expecting Lonnie to engage the emergency frequency to call her back. But the only thing she heard was the sound of her own ragged breathing. Even though she hadn’t told Lonnie where she was calling from, she was sure he could figure it out. It had been incredibly stupid of her to ask about Stuart. Nothing like a dead giveaway.

Riding on intuition, she gathered up Jake, a jacket, and her gun, then went to a tree she was using for a hunting blind about a hundred yards away.

Sure enough, within half an hour she heard the
whump
of helicopter blades. Resisting an urge to just shoot the chopper out of the sky when it got low enough, she forced herself to wait. What if she was mistaken? What if there was something wrong with her, and this past month had been some bizarre mental breakdown on her part?

Nope. That doesn’t explain the radio transmissions, or Stuart’s precipitous departure with all the ammo.

The helicopter banked, hovered, and then finally landed. What came out of it made her breath catch in her throat and almost stopped her heart. Pulling Jake close, she motioned the big dog to silence. Lonnie and Stuart stood in the yard in front of the LeConte station looking about. Lonnie even called out, “Princess?” When she didn’t answer, the two bent close, talking with one another.

There was something grotesquely wrong with them. Their faces were the same, but those familiar heads were attached to reptilian bodies with short, squat rear legs and long tails. Sharp red-tipped talons glistened on dinosaurish forelegs, and the pale autumn sun shone off copper-colored scales covering their trunks and extremities. How the hell had they managed to fly the chopper? She swallowed down bile. The low hum of their voices was so chilling, she fought an almost irresistible urge to run.

Finally understanding the reality of what she was facing, Sara gave Jake the hand sign that meant stay. Jaws clenched so her teeth wouldn’t rattle and give her away, she scooted silently closer to the two men—or whatever they were. It was easy because they faced away from her. Taking two deep breaths, she raised her Colt, clasped in both hands to shooting stance, and aimed for their heads. She’d have to be fast and sure. Whoever she didn’t shoot first was sure to rush her.

As first Lonnie’s, then Stuart’s, heads dissolved in twin sprays of gore, Sara shut her eyes against the horror of what she’d just done. Gulping down air, she strode to the helicopter, with Jake hard at her heels, growling. Thank God he’d stayed put while she was shooting. Unsure whether the two abominations had been the sole occupants of the chopper, she kept her gun up, ready to annihilate anything that moved.

It only took a few seconds to determine Lonnie and Stuart had been alone. Relief that she wasn’t going to die—at least not today—spilled through her as she walked toward the bodies. Pushing at one of the strange corpses with a booted foot, she muttered, “Here’s food for us, if I can find something to cut through those hides.”

As if to test her assumption about the bodies being edible, Jake was already licking up blood and nibbling at a thread of something that turned her stomach if she looked too close.

Spinning abruptly in the other direction, so she wouldn’t have to watch her dog eating what had once been her friends, her gaze landed on the Park Service helicopter. A wobbly grin split her face. She was rusty, but she remembered how to fly. The chopper meant freedom. Not to leave LeConte, because she’d decided to remain there just as long as she could. But it sure enhanced her ability to gather things she’d need to survive...and to move on if she had to.

Sara focused her thoughts as she stood in the sun-drenched clearing next to the ranger cabin, gun still clutched in her hand. She had to do something about the bodies, so they wouldn’t draw every predator in the area. After that, she’d fly back to McClure where there was a stash of aviation fuel and plenty of dried meat, not to mention all her things and kibbles for Jake. She could fly really low, only a hundred feet or so above the ground, pick up what she needed, and fly back to LeConte. It’d take less than ten minutes to cover the sixteen trail miles between the stations. Surely that small amount of time wouldn’t alert one of the alien ships.

Besides, they seemed to have moved on. Or was that wishful thinking?

Whistling a chirpy tune to calm her jangled nerves, Sara went into the cabin, raised her gun, and then lowered it. Engaging the safety, she set it aside. No point in wasting a bullet, even though she had lots more at McClure. Picking up an axe off the hearth, she hefted it and brought it down hard on the radio. As her link to the outside world dissolved in a spray of glass and wires, she began to cry.

Alone. I really am all alone.

No doubt drawn by the crash of the axe, Jake padded into the ranger cabin, his ears pricked forward, snout red with gore. Hunkering next to him, Sara draped an arm around his thick neck. “The bastards may get us eventually,” she snuffled, pulling the dog close to her, “but we’ll give them a helluva run for their money.”

He licked her, smearing her with blood. Sara wiped her face. Before she lost her nerve about testing the skies, she straightened. “Come on, Jake.” She clucked to him. “We’re going for a ride.”

Sara strode outside and almost tripped over the bodies. She didn’t want to take the time to butcher them. The scaly hide looked like it would be a bitch to cut through. Nowhere to secure them, either. The thought of tossing them in the cellar beneath the cabin didn’t play well.

“Shit.” She chewed her lower lip, and finally settled for dragging them a hundred yards from the cabin. If predators got to them first, she couldn’t do much about it. Her main priority was making a run for McClure—before something happened, and she couldn’t.

J
ared Donovan’s foot slipped on an ice covered piece of granite, shooting his heart into hyper drive.

“Gotta stop and pull myself together,” he muttered, casting about for somewhere out of the wind. He was close to the top of Glacier Divide. Supposedly, the other side, the western one, was easier. He hoped it was true. More of a backpacker than a mountaineer, he felt woefully out of his element.

Two more dicey steps put him in the lee of a huge boulder, and he hunkered in its shadow, shaking from more than the chill breeze. He scanned the sky, watching clouds close in. At least he hadn’t seen another of the ominous ships since day before yesterday. He drew a long, shuddering breath and crossed his arms around his body, shoving his hands into his armpits to warm them.

He’d tried this ascent with gloves on, but didn’t have the grip he needed. Consequently, his fingers were white from cold. Because he’d stopped, he dragged his cell from an inner pocket and thumbed it on. Still no signal, which was weird. He should have line of sight to somewhere from as high as he was. He double-checked the solar charger hookup and tucked the phone back into his clothing to keep it warm.

Not that anyone in particular was waiting for him back in San Francisco. He’d taken several weeks off from his biomedical engineering firm to tackle the two hundred mile plus Muir Trail. It was late season, but he moved fast, and he figured he’d be done well before winter set in. The solitude had been a welcome break from his usual urban craziness—until a couple weeks ago.