The Long Fall of Night: The Long Fall of Night Book 1 (50 page)

L
ove is
the only game that is not called on account of darkness.

—Thomas Carlyle

D
ONNIE WATCHED
THE PERIMETER as Roger knelt beside the injured man in the group of campers. “Campers” was a relative term, considering their equipment was demolished, one man lay dead, and another was in need of immediate transport to a medical unit. Add in a pregnant woman, a dog barking itself hoarse, a little kid who looked like he’d seen a ghost, and the rest of the entourage moving in a shell-shocked stupor, and it was clear these poor people had been through the wringer. Their haunted eyes told the same story.

Matt had found a clear patch for radio communications and was on the horn with patrol HQ, requesting a rescue chopper to their coordinates for immediate evac.

“No place to land, so we need a rescue winch, as well as a backboard and a basket. Two patients, one stabbed lower right quadrant and the other pregnant with labored breathing and sharp abdominal pains. Request medic on board. We need one body bag for morgue transport as well. Second chopper will be heavy five people, with rendezvous point on Highway 101 just east of the rescue coordinates.”

“Is this your whole group?” Ness asked the blond guy with the longer hair, who seemed the most in control of the situation.

“Yeah, what’s left of it,” he said bitterly. He looked so young.

If
he
was the one holding everyone together, Donnie was impressed. “What happened here?” he asked, his curiosity getting the better of him.

Chris backhanded his shoulder lazily. “You don’t ask it like that. You ask them if they’re okay and if we can get them anything, and
then
you say, ‘Are any of the events that occurred here relevant to the medical situation of your friends?’ Jeez, didn’t they teach you that in basic?”

Donnie couldn’t help but smile. He knew what his friend—lover? Partner? He had no clue—was doing, trying to make the guy, who frankly seemed about at the end of his rope, laugh.

“Sorry, West.” He said with mock innocence and turned his attention to the blond guy again. “What’s your name?”

“Asher Caine. Ash for short.”

“And his?” Donnie lifted his chin to indicate the geeky dude around whose shoulders Ash had a secure arm. The geeky guy didn’t quite seem as with it as Ash. The white dog kept contact with the geek at all times.

“Elliot. That’s Aaron, Jennifer, Brian, Riley, and Charlotte. That hunk of meat on the ground was Tim.” Ash pointed to each of their party in turn, his sneer at the dead man clear. “And the dog glued to Elliot is Ghost. Seizure dog; he goes with us.”

Donnie nodded. “Won’t be a problem.” He shifted his focus to the geek, Elliot. “You have seizures?” He got a nod. “Medication for them? Have you had any today?” A head shake. Real talkative, this one.

“Elliot, you probably need to get seen with Aaron and Jennifer.”

“I’m not going without you,” Elliot said. So the guy could speak. Good to know.

“What do we need to know that’s medically relevant?”

Ash’s eyes blazed at Elliot briefly, and then he said, “His epilepsy is triggered by stress. He needs to be on the medical ride in case the problems we had today cause a big one.”

“You leave me alone,” Elliot said, “and I might as well drop here and now with the shakes. I need you.”

“Hey, tell me what I need to know, and I’ll make the decision,” Donnie said, authority creeping into the words. Ash started to speak. While Chris and Donnie listened, Roger finished assessing the stab wound victim, and he and Ness moved to the others in camp. Ness got the little boy to smile and the dog wound down to a rhythmic chuffing.

Thank god, because Donnie had been going nuts with the noise.

“If there’s anything you want to take with you, or anything you can salvage, do it now,” Matt said, tucking away the radio. “We have half an hour for the rescue helo, and our transport is right on its tail.”

Ash tried to disentangle from Elliot, to no avail. “I don’t want us to get split up,” he said worriedly.

“Why would we split you up?” Donnie asked, genuinely confused.

“Well, I’m not fit for service, but he is, so you’re going to sign him up, right?”

Donnie tried to figure out where they’d got that idea and came up blank. “Well, we’re trying to get recruits, yeah, but as far as I know there hasn’t been a draft instituted. You’re free to join or not.”

“You mean you’re not making people enlist?” Aaron said, the effort to speak loud enough for the words to carry across the clearing obviously difficult.

“No, sir,” Donnie confirmed, more confused than ever. “We’ve been asking people to enlist, but if they say no, they go to a refugee camp for disaster relief support.”

“Oh, thank god!” Jennifer exclaimed, hugging the stabbing victim carefully around his neck.

“We could have gotten help so much sooner,” Charlotte grumbled as she dug through the detritus. “Oh hey, an undisturbed backpack,” she said, yanking the found item from behind a bush just beyond the clearing. Taking it to the log beside the wounded man, she dumped it out, and they went through the contents, which seemed to be a large amount of freeze-dried food pouches, a couple boxes of ammunition, clothes, a toiletry bag, a handful of LifeStraws, and one cooking pot. “Oh, son of a bitch!” she exclaimed, looking at the geek, an iPod held aloft in her hand.

For the first time, life flashed in the geek’s face and he let go of Ash to snatch the device from her, the gray headphones trailing from his hand as he checked it over.

“Battery’s dead.”

“We might be able to find you a charger back in Fort Collins,” Chris offered.

Seven heads snapped up. “There’s power?” Ash asked, awestruck.

Ness nodded and spoke carefully. “Some. We’re working on more.” Donnie knew she kept the information about the solar panels to herself in case these people had nefarious purposes. Donnie honestly didn’t think this ragtag group of survivors was responsible for any acts of terrorism. Hell, they’d barely lived through the politics of traveling together. Still, he hadn’t forgotten his sergeant’s admonishment about his disclosure to the two widowers. Donnie didn’t make the same mistake twice, so he kept his mouth shut. Chris clamped his lips together, too.

Oh, he’s going to be bitchy later.
And on the heels of that thought,
Bonus for me. He’s energetic when he’s bitchy.

The sound of chopper blades grew in the distance, and he refocused on getting these people to safety. Roger and Ness oversaw the chopper maneuvering into hovering position. It was carrying the Parks Department’s search and rescue team, who’d been pressed into service as more and more people were being intercepted at the borders, some of them incapacitated. One of the flight crew, the requested medic, rappelled to them from the aircraft with a backboard and extraction basket. The wind of the rotors whipped up the dirt in the clearing and scattered the tufts of sleeping bag, flapped the strips left of the tents and in general set things in a frenzy. Aaron and Jennifer were followed back up to the bird by the medic, who’d first shaken Ness’s hand, then assured the others they could see their friends in Fort Collins.

“We have a walk of a couple miles that way,” Roger said to the remaining group of survivors. “Think you can handle it?” He mainly spoke to the guy with seizures, who’d grabbed a pill bottle and clung to it like a lifeline.

“Puh-lease,” the little boy, Riley, answered with an exaggerated eye roll. “We walked here from Ohio.”

“Manners,” his mother snapped. “Yeah, let’s go. I want off this mountain.”

The five remaining hikers spread single file between the soldiers, while the dog walked beside Elliot, finally calm and panting as they went. The temperature was comfortable, and in all honesty, it was a nice stroll, if Donnie said so.

When they reached the highway, they found their Black Hawk hovering thirty yards away, preparing the set down. When the pilot spotted them, the bird landed at a point in the road where a collection of boulders prevented the roadside trees from growing too close, allowing for the full circumference of the spinning blades.

The ten of them climbed aboard, and Donnie grinned as Riley asked if he could wear a helmet. “Regs say all of you have to,” Donnie said, passing them out. The boy’s was so big his head swiveled inside it.

“Can you hear me now?” the kid asked, laughing.

“Never thought I’d hear those words again,” Ash muttered as the chopper lifted and turned south, toward Fort Collins and these survivors’ new home.

B
y appreciating
the darkness when you design the light, you create much more interesting environments that truly enhance our lives.

—Rogier van der Heide

A
SH LURKED
IN THE SHADOWS of the bunkhouse to which he and his family had been assigned, waiting for the last of those lurking around the base to clear out, go to bed, or otherwise get to their jobs for this last shift change before midnight. He wasn’t doing anything wrong per se; he just wanted a moment of privacy.

Living in a place where people slept in common rooms had shown him how nice he and Elliot had had it when they were living in a tent, let alone when they’d each had an apartment. To return to a place with a modicum of power, which he’d learned was due to the nearby solar field conscripted for the army’s use from Colorado State University property, had been a relief, though the crowded nature of the base grated on his nerves at times.

Steven Davenport had pulled some strings, and Elliot and their crew had been assigned to one of the first permanent sleeping quarters, surprisingly amid the service members. When Ash realized the civilians on base were kept apart from the soldiers, it piqued his curiosity why they were treated differently. Elliot had stayed surprisingly mum about it, but Ash had his suspicions Steven had wanted to come for his son, and Elliot had put his foot down about leaving Ash’s side. Since Elliot never explained what his first post-rescue phone call to his parents had been about, Ash could only speculate. Regardless, they’d each been given choice digs, jobs, and for Aaron, Jennifer, and Elliot, thorough medical care. And they shared the barracks now with Shockwave, the team who’d rescued them from that nightmarish mountain debacle. Sergeant Middler and her guys were good people. Ash liked them.

Aaron’s stab wound had been deeper than he’d wanted Jennifer to know up on that mountain, and he’d needed emergency surgery as soon as they arrived. Jennifer was put on a week of bed rest, and she’d raised holy hell about seeing Aaron after he was in recovery until they moved their beds side by side. As soon as she was released from “cot confinement” as she called it, they would be moved into the same barracks with Ash and the others.

When Aaron was better, he would go to work in the base’s growing medical facilities, where they would see patients from all over the Midwestern US until they were well enough to return to their families or needed more permanent care in a place with full power. There was a hospital in Arizona accepting the more serious cases, and regular flights had begun between Fort Collins and Tucson, serving as supply excursions, too. Charlotte had been given duties as a nurse’s assistant and was getting a hands-on education like no other. She wasn’t allowed to actually tend to patients, beyond changing their bed linens and bringing them food, but she was given the opportunity to observe, and as time went on, her duties would expand. She was excited, had hugged Ash when she’d learned the news. No more shitty diner with prison guards pinching her ass like she belonged to them.

Brian, of course, was taken to the National Guard Headquarters off-base to find a way to get their computer systems up and running again, with the help of his two “engineers,” Ash and Elliot. They’d spent the better part of their first week on the base, assisting with extending the reach of the solar power, outfitting the building with its own panels, and learning how the electricity was harnessed. When they were done with that, they’d move on to helping construct the rest of the base.

Jennifer, once she had the baby, would help out in the base’s growing daycare facilities, where she could tend to the children as well as her newborn. Even Riley had been given a job—as a student finishing out his fifth-grade year.

No one was being split up. No one was being forced to enlist.

That rumor had cost them so much, but Ash wouldn’t let himself think about that.

Instead he concentrated on the last laugh fading away in the night as people got where they were going and bedded down. When it was clear he could move without detection, he slipped out of the shadows toward the Horsetooth Reservoir. He didn’t go all the way there. There were perimeter patrols, and he didn’t want to explain what he was doing, which would only make him seem suspicious. In the darkness beside a half-constructed equipment shed, he sat on the ground and pulled Brian’s sat phone from beneath his shirt. While the soldiers tended to Aaron and Jennifer up on the mountain, Brian had found his phone and slipped it down his pants, keeping it out of sight until they’d been given their sleeping arrangements. When Ash eyed him curiously as he’d shoved it beneath his pillow, Brian just shrugged.

“We’re not prisoners, right? I want to be able to talk to Steven whenever I feel it’s necessary.”

Ash couldn’t argue with that. He dialed Uncle Marvin’s number, knowing it never mattered what time of day it was or if the man was sleeping or awake. Marvin would answer. The call connected, and Ash found himself falling into code speak again.

“Hey, old man. Destiny showed up but we’re getting off to a rocky start. I’m not bringing her home to meet you. Not yet.”
We’re delayed, maybe permanently.
Ash hoped Marvin would get the reference to the Rockies, but that was pretty obscure. He had coordinates to pass along, anyway.

“She have a few surprises up her sleeve?”
What happened?

“She has brothers in brown clothing, and they’re protective,” Ash answered. “They like to run around in the woods and play tag and King of the Castle.”
We’re with soldiers, and they’re watching the borders. They have a say in whether or not we get across.

“Are her brothers nice?”
How worried are you about your surroundings?

“Yeah. Truthfully, I like them better than her. They sneak me beer and let me play with them a little, too.” Ash laughed at his own joke.
They’re fine. They’ve put us to work.

“Well, maybe that’s something. Think you can all be friends?”
Can you find things out from them?

“Yeah, I think we can. We get along for now.”
I’m not sure what I can get, but maybe something.

“Good. Friends are good at times. I’ve got a few myself, with some interesting stories to tell. Maybe you can meet them next time we see each other.”
I’m still digging, and if possible, I’ll let you know what I find out.

“That’ll be fun,” Ash agreed. “My lab partner and his parents say hello.” Marvin knew who Elliot was, and his pedigree.
We have others helping us. Friends in high places.

“Hello back. Give me a number where you can be reached?”

Ash rattled off numbers, not for the phone but coordinates for their location. Marvin would at least be able to contact them if there was trouble of which they needed to be made aware.

“Okay, old man. I’m going. I’ll let you know if I decide to visit later.”

“Do that, son. Stay alert.”

They disconnected without much in the way of goodbyes, and Ash sat for a minute, chewing over everything that had happened in the last seven days. Spying for Uncle Marvin was something he could do, especially since he was tasked with working on the computer systems. He didn’t think he could hack anything, nor would it be wise, but watching who came and went from the buildings with access to the networks would be valuable. He’d tell Elliot to be watchful, too. While he wasn’t thrilled to be waylaid, perhaps this wasn’t a bad strategic place for whatever Marvin wanted to know.

And no more bear traps.

Standing and brushing dirt from his jeans, he moved from shadow to shadow back to his family. For a long time, he sat on his cot and studied Elliot’s face while he slept, the dog curled up beneath him on the floor. He was peaceful now. They had purpose again, and safety, and regular meals. The absence seizures still happened, but so far, no big ones. Perhaps, in a few days or weeks, those would stop, too. Elliot’s meds were plentiful for now.

Ash brushed his lips over Elliot’s forehead, then pulled the headphones from his ears, picked up the iPod, and returned it to its place beneath his pillow before the battery ran out. Elliot had a charger, but they were all more frugal with their power usage. It was a good habit to get into.

He crawled into his own bunk after shedding his jeans, pulled the covers up, and lay for a long while, thinking. Eventually, though, as it did to everyone, the darkness grew close and insistent, and before long, swallowed him whole.