Exile to the Stars (The Alarai Chronicles) (9 page)

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The
smell of roasting grouse brought Jeff back from his reverie. Pulling on a wing,
he decided it was done and sliced off a wedge of meat. At the first bite, Jeff
thought he had died and gone to heaven. He ate slowly to prolong the moment and
wished he had knocked over two fool hens. While cleaning up he wondered in
passing, Why were Mom and Dad so upset? Were they afraid that Gaereth might
kidnap me?

A
sheet of cirrus clouds moved in from the west creating a beautiful sunset over
the mountains. Jeff admired the view and did a mental inventory of warm
clothing. He suspected that the unusually long period of good weather was at an
end.

Snug
in his sleeping bag, Jeff reviewed what a wonderful trip it had been. Let it
come, he thought placidly. It’s going to take a lot of bad weather to wreck
this hike. And Carl will probably show up tomorrow. It’s going to be great.

Cirrus
clouds were long gone when he arose. The sky reminded Jeff of aged pewter and
the temperature seemed to have dropped twenty degrees. He stared apprehensively
at the sullen overcast and decided to fuel up with a big breakfast. Before
leaving camp he pulled on a warm sweater. Securing equipment to the backpack
with a second set of straps, he stopped to listen.

“Where
are all the birds?” he muttered uneasily. “I don’t think I’ve ever heard it
this quiet. Must be one hell of a storm coming.”

Resigned
to the long climb ahead, Jeff set out toward his meeting with Carl near the
pass. He wasn’t long on the trail when rain mixed with sleet began to fall.
Having grumbled to himself about the nuisance of carrying crampons and
snowshoes, it now felt good knowing they were tied to the backpack. As the
elevation increased, rattling bursts of pure sleet lashed him.

“This
really sucks!”

Jeff
arrived at the tree line with light almost gone and in the middle of a
snowstorm. Unexpectedly, the wind had dropped to nothing. He felt his way
through the heavy snowfall looking for a campsite. Every so often he stopped to
listen, something he had done on numerous occasions since leaving camp that
morning.

“What
is it that’s making me so uptight? No doubt it’s too damn quiet, but there’s
more to it than that. It feels like something terrible is going to happen.”

Unable
to come up with anything other than the snow and unnatural silence, Jeff
continued searching for a tree to camp under. He stumbled across a big fir that
was perfect and was about to drop the pack when he paused to listen again. The
sense of unease had grown so strong he wanted to shout from the tension.

“What
are those goddamed mountains up to? This is crazy!”

It
was deathly quiet. No sound at all, not even a whisper of breeze. Just the
thick veil of gray-white sifting down around him and a gut-wrenching
premonition that the world was going to end any second. Another minute and he
was frantic.

“Oh,
God! It’s coming! I’m getting out of here!”

Before
he could move, the ground gave a sharp lurch and began shifting under his feet.
Within seconds, the sound had increased to a bass roar that was mind numbing.
The motion took on a circular pattern and Jeff was thrown from his feet, his
ears buffeted by the crashing roar of trees falling like dominoes.

Earthquake!
Jeff’s mind screamed. Sprawled on his stomach, he tried to hang on to a ground
that thrashed under him like a beast in its death struggle. Tree limbs, brush,
rocks; all were hurtling through the air, some striking him where he lay.

Terrified
at the thought of being buried in an avalanche, Jeff clawed downslope on all fours.
A wall of something roared by to the side, inspiring a cry of raw fear. The
earth lunged and he was rolled downhill, debris pounding his body. Another wall
engulfed him and he lost all sense of direction as he ripped down the mountain
head over heels, now buried in snow, now riding the crest like a body surfer.

Tucking
into a ball with arms covering his head, Jeff desperately prayed that the quake
would end. It did not.

The
Pacific Northwest was finally experiencing the big quake that had been predicted
for years. The Cascade Mountains rolled and pitched like a sea tormented by
hurricane winds with Jeff the merest bit of flotsam on its surface. Mountains
that would stand forever fell like mounds of gravel only to be pitched back
into the sky rumbling and roaring protest. Farther north, one slowly collapsed
into the reservoir behind Ross Dam.

A
tidal wave raced down the reservoir and thundered into the dam, thousands of
tons of water spewing over the top. The dam had a large safety factor built
into it and held, but was twisted and heaved by the earthquake like it was made
of soft plastic instead of concrete and steel. Sirens screamed their warning
and engineers raced to open spillways. They never made it.

With
a grinding rumble, the central section split open. In what seemed slow motion,
huge concrete slabs broke free to tumble into the river below. A wall of deep
green burst through the damn and arced far out over the river before crashing
down. Millions of cubic feet of water surged toward the break as another tidal
wave headed west toward drowsing farmland and cities, filling the Skagit and
Sauk Rivers with a force that nothing known to man could resist.

And
Mount Rainier shuddered.

Over
fourteen thousand feet tall and it shuddered like a leaf, opening wide clefts
that delved deep. Subterranean fires under high pressure gained nearly
instantaneous release. With a gigantic explosion heard as far away as Missoula,
the top of the mountain blew off. Uncountable metric tons of snow melted in an
instant under the lash of the pyroclastic flow that bellowed down the west
flank of the mountain at speeds approaching two hundred miles an hour.

The
superheated blast of gas, plasma and ash began to dissipate after thirty miles,
but the damage was done. A boiling cauldron of mud twenty miles wide raced for
Tacoma, filling and scouring every ravine. Then, in a chain reaction, Mt.
Baker, St. Helens and Adams spewed fiery death into the sky.

Far
up in the mountains, Jeff was aware only that he was going to die. Barely conscious,
he was spit out by the avalanche and slammed into a tree. A tremendous blow
hammered his mind and he felt himself dissolve into nothing.

A
mound of snow shifted, changing into the shape of a man. Struggling to a sitting
position, Jeff grabbed his head. The pain was so bad he thought his head would
split open. Heavy snowfall blasted by in horizontal sheets turning his world
into a white cocoon. Feeling disoriented and shivering uncontrollably, he
crawled to the rim of the shallow depression he was lying in. Bracing himself
against the wind, Jeff caught brief glimpses of barren snow and rock.

“What
happened?” Jeff gazed around in complete bewilderment. “Where did all the snow
come from? There wasn’t nearly this much on the ground. Where’s the forest?”
Memories of a head-over-heels tumble and roaring earth came to mind in a
terrifying burst. “Holy shit. The earthquake. I’m alive!” His teeth were
chattering and he unfastened the backpack harness. “Surviving the earthquake
doesn’t matter a damn if I freeze to death.”

Untying
one of the snowshoes, he assembled it with shaking hands. Using it as a shovel,
he hollowed out a snow cave. Crawling inside, Jeff dragged the pack after him
and located the ground cloth. He rolled the sleeping bag out on top and climbed
in, clothes and all. Jeff vaguely wondered if he would survive the storm. Screw
it, he thought, at least I’m warm.

He
awakened in darkness trying to get his breath. Groping about, Jeff discovered
that the mouth of the scooped-out cave had drifted over. Punching an opening,
he maneuvered the pack so he could see what was left on the outside.

“Where’s
my sword? Oh, please, not that!”

Jeff
tried to drag the pack outside for a better look but it was anchored in place.
About to force it, a shred of restraint led him to explore the cause. He traced
a strap and his hand fell on the saber. It was trapped under a knee and buried
in the snow. When he picked the saber up, a lone strap slipped through the
buckle without resistance.

“One
strap, and that one loose. No way should that saber have stayed with the pack.
What a break! I wonder what else is left?”

The
crampons and second snowshoe were still tied in place, but the ice ax, two
water bottles and his water filter were gone. Protected by his coat, the pistol
and survival knife were present and nearly dry.

“I
can’t believe it. I am really in luck. That roll down the mountain should have
stripped everything off. And I’ve got the crampons and snowshoes. Shit. With
all this snow, Carl’s really going to need them if he was camped on the other
side of the pass.”

The
possibility that Carl had not survived the earthquake was too painful to
contemplate for more than a moment.

Driven
by intense hunger, Jeff set up the camp stove in the mouth of his burrow.
Scooping snow into a pot, he tried to figure out where it had all come from. It
wasn’t long before he was shaking his head with frustration.

“This
doesn’t make any sense! What does an earthquake have to do with snow? I don’t
see the connection. Even if I was unconscious for an entire day, there’s still
no way this much snow could have fallen!”

He
munched on an energy bar until the water came to a boil, then dumped in a pack
of freeze-dried cereal. At that moment, the cinnamon oatmeal tasted as good as
partridge. With food in his stomach, Jeff’s spirits climbed up from the soles
of his feet.

“Doesn’t
matter where the snow came from, it’s here. Just saving my ass is going to have
to take top priority.” He stuck his head out to check on the weather. The wind
was down to a light breeze, and the snow had stopped. “May as well see how much
things were torn up,” he muttered. “The forest must have really taken a
beating.”

At
the rim of the depression, one glance told Jeff that the overcast was nearly
gone. He looked north, stumbled back a step and drew in a strangled breath. An
enormous mountain range dominated the skyline from east to west. Serrated peaks
thrust so far into the sky that it seemed they must fall of their own weight
and crush him like a fly. The effect was so overpowering and unexpected that he
cried out. The mountains were so high that he had to tilt his head far back to
see their cloud-capped peaks. Mountains he had never seen before.

“I
don’t believe this. It can’t be real.” Jeff followed the range to the east. He
abruptly dropped to his knees in shock and whispered, “God save me.”

The
mountain filled, blotted out, the southeastern sky and fully half of the
horizon. Tier upon tier, it marched into the sky as if there was no ending.
Struggling for a comparison Jeff dredged up memories of Mount Rainier south of
Seattle, which overpowered everything around it.

“No,
not even close. Maybe Everest.”

Struggling
to come to terms with the mountain’s dimensions, he estimated its elevation had
to be well over thirty thousand feet and its base a hundred miles wide. Hell,
he thought, that elevation would put its peak in a vacuum!

Completely
dazed, he tore his eyes away from the mountain. Jeff exhaled in relief when he
viewed mountainous country to the southwest that was not so daunting. Standing
up, he searched the terrain in a slow sweep but recognized nothing. The sun
broke free of a cloud lighting peaks to sparkling brilliance, and still he
searched. Jeff came to himself feeling terribly lost and sat down in the snow.
Try as he might, there was no way he could squeeze these mountains out of the
Cascades. They were not only much bigger but ran east and west.

“Maybe
the earthquake threw them up?” That made as much sense as anything he had thought
of.

Jeff
pulled the pack out of the burrow to inventory what food remained. The small
pile that resulted frightened him. He was going to need five thousand calories
a day just to stay on his feet, and the remaining food was worth no more than
four or five hikes.

“Shit!
The Dodge is within reach, but I don’t have a prayer of getting to it through
those mountains. Probably nothing left of it, anyway.” He glanced to the
southwest. That was his only hope.
 

Packing
up as quickly as prudence allowed, Jeff fitted the crampons to his boots,
strapped on the pack and hiked southwest into a westering sun. An hour later
his eyes hurt so badly from snow glare he could only squint. Cursing his
stupidity, Jeff fished out sunglasses. When he couldn’t force himself to take
another step and made camp, the tip of one ear was numb and his face painfully
sunburned.

Setting
out next morning he sank to his knees in soft snow. He strapped on the
snowshoes and trudged off. Wherever he looked there was no sign of life or green,
only the blinding expanse of endless snowfields and intimidating mountains. He
closed his mind to that fact and concentrated on not falling.