sure of that, the guns will stop it, especially that Uzi. But if by
some chance, some one-in-a-million chance, that doesn’t stop it, fire
will get it for sure. Or at least drive it back. Fire could be just
what you need to give you time to distract the thing, hold it off, and
get out before you’re trapped.”
She stared at him dubiously. “Jack, why do you keep saying ‘you’
instead of ‘we’?” He hesitated. She wasn’t going to like this. He
didn’t like it much himself. There was no alternative. “You’ll stay
here with Toby and the dog while I–”
“No way.”
“–while I try to get to the Youngbloods’ ranch for help.”
“No, we shouldn’t split up.”
“We don’t have a choice, Heather.”
“It’ll take us easier if we split up.”
“Probably won’t make a difference.”
“I think it will.”
“This shotgun doesn’t add much to that Uzi.” He gestured at the
whiteout beyond the window. “Anyway, we can’t all make it through that
weather.” She stared morosely at the wall of blowing snow, unable to
argue the point.
“I could make it,” Toby said, smart enough to know that he was the weak
link. “I really could.” The dog sensed the boy’s anxiety and padded
to his side, rubbed against him. “Dad, please, just give me a
chance.”
Two miles wasn’t a great distance on a warm spring day, an easy walk,
but they were faced with fierce cold against which even their ski suits
were not perfect protection.
Furthermore, the power of the wind would work against them in three
ways: reducing the subjective air temperature at least ten degrees
below what it was objectively, pounding them into exhaustion as they
tried to make progress against it, and obscuring their desired route
with whirling clouds of snow that reduced visibility to near zero.
Jack figured he and Heather might have the strength and stamina
required to walk two miles under those conditions, with snow up to
their knees, higher in places, but he was sure Toby wouldn’t get a
quarter of the way, not even walking in the trail they broke for him.
Before they’d gone far, they would have to take turns carrying him.
Thereafter, they would quickly become debilitated and surely die in
that white desolation.
“I don’t want to stay here,” Toby said. “I don’t want to do what I
might have to do if I stay here.”
“And I don’t want to leave you here.” Jack squatted in front of him.
“I’m not abandoning you, Toby. You know I’d never do that, don’t
you?”
Toby nodded somberly. “And you can depend on your mom. She’s tough.
She won’t let anything happen to you.”
“I know,” Toby said, being a brave soldier.
“Good. Okay. Now I’ve got a couple of things to do yet, and then I’ll
go. I’ll be back fast as I can–straight over to Ponderosa Pines,
round up help, get back here with the cavalry. You’ve seen those old
movies. The cavalry always gets there in the nick of time, doesn’t
it?
You’ll be okay. We’ll all be okay.” The boy searched his eyes. He
met his son’s fear with a falsely reassuring smile and felt like the
most deceitful bastard ever born. He was not as confident as he
sounded. Not by half. And he did feel as if he was running out on
them. What if he got help– but they were dead by the time he returned
to Quartermass Ranch?
He might as well kill himself then. Wouldn’t be a point in going on.
Truth was, it probably wouldn’t work out that them dead and him
alive.
At best he had a fifty-fifty chance of making it all the way to
Ponderosa Pines. If the storm didn’t bring him down … something else
might. He didn’t know how closely they were being observed, whether
their adversary would be aware of his departure. If it did see him go,
it wouldn’t let him get far. Then Heather and Toby would be on their
own. Nothing else he could do. No other plan made sense. Zero
options.
And time running out.
Hammer blows boomed through the house. Hard, hollow, fearful sounds.