To the Mountain by Erik Raschke

Author:Erik Raschke
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Torrey House Press
Published: 2020-10-15T00:00:00+00:00

***

The lower the elevation, the flatter the slope, the deeper the drifts became. The purled edges of the river came into view, cutting the rocky mountain crags. He saw a gray plume, far in the distance, snaking between the earth and sky.

He took out his binoculars and became convinced that the plume was from a campfire. The smoke might be from hunters or militia, but they rarely came up in the dead of winter and hardly ever during a storm. He lowered the binoculars and walked faster, encouraged. Soon, he was jogging, clambering through the trees and snow, trying to ignore the throbbing in his ribs, but the pain was acute. With each step, he could almost taste blood in his mouth and every so often he stopped, coughed, and hacked pink phlegm.

Twenty minutes later, he stopped and surveyed the clearing. The fire had died considerably. The trees had been blackened, the side of the mountain had melted into muddy channels, and whoever had made the fire had done so with enough skill to ensure that it would smoke for hours.

He leaned against the side of a tree, sweat pouring down his face and neck. He spotted footprints running through the trees and up the side of the mountain. The pieces were coming together, but not fast enough.

The side of the mountain was granite with wide veins of limestone. Over eons, water had dripped through the cracks and the limestone had eroded into caves.

Climbing upward, stopping every so often to call out, Jace recognized an unhealthy rankness in the air. An opening, a few feet wide, appeared. He climbed over, peered in, and discovered a water bottle, apple cores, and a juice box.

There was a sleeping bag, toward the back. He hesitated. A million felonious scenarios played through his mind. He touched the sleeping bag lightly, his heart pounding.

He climbed to the other side of the bag and was morbidly relieved when he saw Leslie’s pale face peeking out from the polyester. The inside of the sleeping bag was coated in a black burgundy and there were bits of flesh and hair dried to the polyester lining. Leslie’s skin was splotched and marked with deep bruises. One arm was bent so badly that Jace guessed it must be broken in several places. The other had been severed neatly near the joint at the elbow and the stump was a yellowish, crusty mass. The blood flow had been stopped with a vinyl tourniquet and capped with a plastic bag. There were vinyl strips everywhere on his body, applied as makeshift Band-Aids.

It took him several minutes to find Leslie’s pulse. It was soft, but the beat was rapid. He dug around in his pack, found a pen flashlight, and shined it in Leslie’s eyes. His pupils dilated slowly.

He went to the lip of the cave, cupped his hands around his mouth. “Marshall!” he shouted as loud as he could, unnerved by the alarm in his own voice. He waited, but there was no response.

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