Exodus (29 page)

“It’s the warmth of the cabin,” Emily said with sudden realization, more to herself than Rhiannon. “These things are surrounded by snow and ice. They must be extremely sensitive to changes in temperature. That makes the inside of this cabin the fucking Ritz-Carlton for them.”

Whatever weird weather anomaly had caused the sudden warming of the air outside had increased the ambient temperature on this side of the mountain enough to thaw the creatures out. Now they were instinctively looking for a way off the mountain. That meant Jacob’s observation was only half-right. The
cold only stopped the effects of the red rain. It was going to take prolonged exposure to frigid weather to have the same effect on the creatures as she had seen with the aliens at the playground, back in Fairbanks.

The thought had no sooner entered her mind than Rhiannon screamed a warning, “Look!”

Emily followed the girl’s eyes. “Oh! Shit!” she hissed from lips that suddenly felt dry and cracked. Clambering over the sides of the big rig in front of them was another wave of spider-aliens. They leaped from the side of the rig, making a beeline for the stationary Cat, attracted by the plume of escaping warm air of the cabin.

Emily floored the accelerator, sending a spray of melting snow up from the tracks as the Cat began picking up speed. There were at least sixty of the little bastards heading toward them, Emily estimated. There was no turning back now, though; she had to keep plowing forward. Aiming the front of the Cat toward a space between the next two vehicles, Emily pushed the speed up to thirty-five.

“Hold on,” she yelled at Rhiannon over the roaring engine just before the Cat hit the leading edge of the onrushing aliens.

There were several resounding thuds as the machine met the monsters. The thuds were quickly followed by a series of satisfying pops and crunches as the tracks of the Cat crushed the carapaces of the first few unlucky creatures.

More tried to leap onto the Cat as it rolled over them, but they either bounced harmlessly off the sides or were caught by the four tracks and crushed to a purple pulp. One did manage to land on the gantry running alongside Emily, but it skidded and slipped along the metal surface, unable to find purchase, before sliding off the opposite end.

And then they were through the creatures. Emily gunned the engine, pushing the Cat up to forty in an attempt to leave the creatures behind. She gained some distance, but the things were persistent little buggers; she could see them streaming down the hill behind her even as the gap between them widened.

There was enough space between the next few vehicles that Emily didn’t need to slow down, and the distance between them and their pursuers grew even greater. One hundred, then two hundred, then three hundred feet separated them. But as she slowed the Cat to maneuver around a blind hairpin corner, she was forced to slam on the brakes again.

A truck, towing a thirty-foot flatbed, had come to a halt right at the apex of the turn; its cab took up the entirety of the center portion of the snow-covered road, leaving less than ten feet of space separating it from the right edge. Beyond the edge, an almost sheer drop fell the final sixty feet or so to the plain below.

Emily stared back through the rear window toward the summit. The creatures were still doggedly following her, swarming down the mountainside.

There was no time to lose. She had to risk it.

Emily reversed the Cat back until she was as close to the edge as she dared.

“Rhiannon, I need you to be my eyes,” Emily said, trying to keep the panic she felt from her voice. “Look out the window on your side and tell me how much space there is between us and the edge, all right?” Rhiannon stared blankly at Emily for a second, then nodded and scooted over a little until she was pressed tightly against the door.

“How much, honey? Quickly.” Emily could see the wave of creatures closing in on them in the side-view mirror.

Rhiannon turned and held her two hands up in the air to illustrate the distance. “This much,” she said. About ten inches. That gave Emily a little more room to edge over, just a couple of inches but no more. Rhiannon’s face was almost as white as the snow, and Emily could see a vein twitching convulsively in her throat.

As she edged the Cat closer to the lip of the road, Rhiannon reduced the gap between her hands accordingly. “We’re getting awfully close,” she gulped, glancing down at the drop just inches away from her side of the Cat.

Emily reassessed her angle of approach to the space between the stalled truck and the lip of the road. This was the best she could do without risking one of the tracks slipping off the edge. She wiped away a bead of sweat that had trickled into her left eye, then allowed her foot to caress the accelerator.

Gently, gently does it.

The Cat moved slowly forward, inching its way toward the gap.

The cab of the wrecked big rig loomed large on Emily’s left side as she eased the Cat gradually past it, the left rearview mirror scraping noisily against the front edge of the truck’s engine cowling. Emily ignored the screeching of metal against metal, focusing entirely on keeping the vehicle as far to the left as was possible.

The front two tracks of the Cat were clear of the cab now, safely on solid ground but with less than two feet of space left between the front of the vehicle and the curving edge of the road. She brought the Cat to a dead stop and turned the wheel as far to the left as she could until she could see the tips of the left track poking out from beneath the gantry. She eased the vehicle forward, ignoring the gasp from Rhiannon as the kid surely saw how close the back of the Cat was to the edge. Pushing down on the
accelerator, Emily glanced at the mirror on the right side of the cab; she could see the back right track was hanging over the precipice, spinning in midair above the drop-off.

And then the creatures hit the almost stationary Cat like a tsunami, and Emily felt the vehicle slide farther sideways on the slushy ground. She couldn’t see a thing now as the creatures hammered into the vehicle, fighting each other to get to the already open hole in the windshield.

Emily cursed and pushed harder on the accelerator, but it was useless. She couldn’t see a thing, and, as more of the creatures joined those already jostling for position, she felt their added weight finally prove too much and gravity take hold.

Emily instinctively threw an arm out across Rhiannon’s chest as she felt the front of the Cat begin to slowly tip skyward.

They balanced for a second on the lip of the cliff, and Emily thought that maybe, just maybe, the tracks would find some traction, but that thought quickly disappeared as she felt the Cat begin to slide over the edge. And then it was all too late.

It was over in a matter of seconds. But it felt like minutes.

Inside the Cat the cabin was dark, every inch of the exterior covered in the crawling horrors. That was probably a godsend. It meant Rhiannon wouldn’t see the fall. But that didn’t stop the girl from screaming as the massive vehicle began to pick up speed, sliding backward down the cliff toward the valley floor below.

Emily felt the Cat begin to turn, the weight of the engine compartment dragging the front of the vehicle sideways, and for a moment she thought they were going to tip over and roll the
remainder of the way. But the big vehicle remained upright as, now facing forward, they continued their slide.

One by one, the spider-aliens either leaped clear or were thrown from the Cat as it bounced and slid over the escarpment. Emily saw flailing forms of aliens bouncing past her, followed by an avalanche of snow and other debris.

The Cat hit something hard, maybe an outcrop of rock, and the right side lifted off the ground, dislodging more of the aliens into the air. The tracks came down again with a ringing of strained suspension springs that jarred the occupants and snapped Emily’s teeth together painfully.

A rush of cold and snow entered through the windshield, filling the cabin with freezing air.

Emily had a clear view of the onrushing valley at the base of the escarpment as they hurtled toward it. Glancing over at Rhiannon, Emily could see the girl was pushed back into the support of her chair, her eyes pinched shut in terror.

“Hold on. It’s almost over,” she tried to say, but the words were lost in the rumble of the Cat’s headlong fall.

Then came a bone-jarring shudder as the Cat thudded deep into a snowbank at the base of the cliff, sending a cascade of white powder high into the air. The Cat rocked three times as it settled back on its four creaking tracks.

All was silent.

“Are you okay?” Emily asked Rhiannon as she tried to unlatch the girl’s safety harness.

Rhiannon opened her eyes and gave a weak smile, accompanied by two thumbs up.

Thor peeked his head back through the gap between Emily and Rhiannon, whining quietly. He was fine, apparently.

The Mossberg lay at Emily’s feet. She picked it up and cradled it to her as she looked around the exterior of the cabin. The front of the Cat was buried almost up to the windshield in the snowbank that had finally brought them to a stop. But to the left and right of her, she could see an occasional broken limb sticking up from beneath the snow or the shattered carapace of an alien.

The only sound was their breathing. That meant the engine was dead. If it wouldn’t start, then they would be as good as dead themselves out there. The temperature could drop to minus thirty in a heartbeat. There was no way they could survive and no hope of rescue.

Emily said a silent prayer to whatever gods might be looking over them and turned the ignition key. The engine fired up instantly, and Emily raised her eyes skyward in an equally silent thank-you.

She moved the gear stick into reverse and began to edge the Cat out of the wall of snow.

They had landed at the base of the ravine. On the right was a wall of rock that might just as well have been Everest; on the left was the final curve of the road. Beyond that was the open plain of snow that would lead them to their next destination.

Emily accelerated the Cat slowly, listening for any noises that might indicate a problem with the engine or a broken track. The only sound was the roar of the engine and the whistle of wind through the hole in the windshield.

“We’ll have to do something about that,” she said to Rhiannon, nodding toward the hole. “Or we’re going to freeze to death in here.” There was no way even the powerful heater could keep up with the freezing air that was rushing in.

They had lost the left mirror on the driver’s side during the fall, and one of the supply boxes had broken open and spilled its contents over the back row of seats.

They left the ravine behind them, zagged left a few hundred feet across a field of white that seemed to stretch out to eternity, and then bumped up onto the road.

Emily put another five miles behind them before she finally felt safe enough to stop the Cat and jury-rig a repair for the gaping hole. She emptied the remaining cans of food from the spilled cardboard box, then pulled it apart at the seams, taping the cardboard to the windshield with medical tape from the first aid kit.

“It ain’t pretty, but it’ll have to do,” she said to Rhiannon, staring at the repair.

With nothing but clear road ahead of them now, the Cat picked up speed and roared down the road toward Coldfoot.