Impact (Book 2): Bounce Read online

  As he slouched back behind the fallen oak, he noticed it was warmer when he got close to the bark. The unusual presence of heat prompted him to study the tree.

  “This ain’t good,” he said quietly.

  “What’s up?” Butch replied.

  “This tree is smoldering,” he said matter-of-factly.

  Butch laughed. “After that rain last night? No way.” But as he said it, Butch craned his neck to look under the fallen tree. A large crack had been created when it hit the ground. The innards of the massive trunk were filled with hot coals. “You’re right; it is.”

  Ezra looked around, remembering the fires he’d seen in the area last night. The meteorite impact must have torched the forest before the rains managed to stop the spread. If the fire was waiting inside the trees, it could spring to life again.

  “We’ve got to keep moving.”

  Once they were sure the motorbikes were well down the trail, they lugged their bicycles back over the tree. It was too muddy to ride them. The red clay soil caked up on the tires as soon as they tried. The bikes had come at a high cost, so he wasn’t ready to toss them aside. If they could reach the road again, or find a dry section of dirt trail, they’d be thankful for them.

  They slogged along, doing their best to walk on rocks, leaves, and other debris. They followed the checkerboard-pattern tire imprints of the cycles for about fifteen minutes. It had become much darker, and a fine mist gradually became a light drizzle. They halted once to cut up the tarp into rain ponchos for them and smaller coverings for their Bushmaster rifles.

  “Do you hear that?” Ezra said, stopping on the trail. A series of motors revved repeatedly from deeper in the forest. Though many of the trees had fallen, their tall branches made it impossible to see more than a hundred yards or so into the forest. The vehicles making the commotion weren’t visible. All he could say for sure was they were full-sized truck engines, rather than motorcycles. “I think those are Jeeps.”

  “What are all these people doing in the woods? Don’t they know what’s happening?” Butch pointed to a fallen tree with small puffs of smoke coming out of a hole on its side.

  They walked for a few more minutes, careful to avoid getting closer to the engine sounds. The rain increased to a steady drizzle, which tapped on their makeshift ponchos with loud pops. When they came over a small rise, all the distractions slowed his reaction time. Ahead, the four men stood in the middle of the trail with their bikes, as if talking about where to go next.

  “Butch!” he hissed. The big man walked a few extra steps before halting. About fifty yards separated the two parties, but the sudden stop seemed to call attention to themselves. One of the bikers looked in their direction.

  “Run!” Ezra said quietly, even though it was too late for stealth.

  The motorcyclists started their engines, signaling the start of a race. Ezra’s heart seemed to pound against his rib cage as his flight response took over his brain. “Ditch the bikes!” he ordered as he left the trail and nearly slid down a muddy hill.

  Butch followed until they went into a small creek bed, then he took the lead. “Follow me, E-Z.”

  Along the way, they both pulled the rifles from their shoulders. He flicked off the safety at the first opportunity, then he held it with both hands as he ran, sure he would have to use it.

  This can’t be happening.

  The motocross guys easily caught up, and soon shadowed them as they ran down the creek bed. Butch was unperturbed, however. He kept up a brisk pace as the terrain became steeper. The pursuit had to drive around downed trees, or jump over smaller ones, but they had engines to keep up. Eventually, Ezra realized they were toying with them, keeping pace but not overtaking.

  The rain picked up as they went down the hill, and the nearby whine of the motorcycles made it hard to hear anything else, but there was a new sound: Jeeps.

  He immediately thought of two competing directives.

  Get to the Jeeps to find help.

  Stay away from the Jeeps; we might get innocent people hurt.

  He had a third directive as well: to save Butch, no matter the cost. The young kid was his responsibility. “Run for those sounds!” he shouted, knowing he couldn’t be heard by the guys with the helmets.

  Butch got them to a low point as the creek leveled out into a small valley. The taillights of vehicles were a hundred yards away. All they had to do was outrun the engines, who still had to contend with snaking around the fallen trees.

  “Go for it!” he yelled.

  He and Butch did their best to hop over trunks and get around patches of mud. Everything had been doused by the rain the night before, and the tiny creek seemed to pick up more water every ten feet. Sometimes they had to run through the meandering waterway to keep on the direct path to the Jeeps.

  The motorcycles kept their distance from the creek, never straying too far. As they moved around the broken terrain, Ezra saw them as sheepdogs keeping him and Butch always within sight.

  A colorful green Jeep caught his eye ahead. Then a blue one. Finally, a yellow Toyota FJ Cruiser. He still didn’t like the idea of dragging the Jeepers into their escape from the bikers, but his life was on the line. He had no choice but to find safety in numbers. If they needed to use their rifles to defend themselves, then so be it. Maybe being with others would be enough to get the motorcycles to move on.

  The men around the Jeeps were doing an activity he recognized right away. One of their party was stuck in the mud, and the other two vehicles were trying to extract the third. Guys stood around with tow ropes, come-alongs, and muddy two-by-fours, like they’d been at it for a long time.

  “Help!” he called out as he neared.

  He and Butch were waved in by the weary-looking guys around the Jeeps, but they didn’t appear properly worried about the motorcycles approaching from different directions, like wolves converging on sheep. It was only when he got close enough to see several pistols—pointed at him—that he formulated a possible reason why.

  “Aw hell,” he breathed heavily. “They’re all together.”

  Chapter 10

  Beartooth Highway, WY

  “We never got snow like this in Denver. City snow must be different.” Asher kept his hands on the heater vent; the temperature had been dropping since they left Cooke City. The truck had almost no windows, and was missing a door, so it was a lot like riding in a convertible.

  “This isn’t typical for Yellowstone, either,” she replied dryly. “It’s black, for crying out loud.”

  The two-lane highway was already blanketed with the black, sooty snowfall, making it impossible to see the yellow lines painted on the pavement. There weren’t any tire tracks, either, suggesting the snow had recently started. As it fell on the rocky terrain around her, and as the cloud cover smothered the sky, the day seemed to turn into night.

  Asher shivered. “The meteorite debris must have gone into the atmosphere. We’re catching it here as it comes back down, along with the snow.”

  It got worse with each mile. At first, it was only the accumulation which raised concerns. Then, the extreme precipitation cut visibility to almost nothing, furthering the illusion of nighttime. When they reached a wide, treeless plateau below the final ridgeline of the pass, Grace thought she saw lights working their way up the switchbacks to the top. “There! Those are headlights.”

  Asher strained to see out the front windshield. The wipers managed to clear the snow, but the black soot left streaks with each pass, especially where the chipped glass of the bullet hole tore at the wiper blades. “Those must be the people who drove ahead of us. We’re catching up to them.”

  Grace desperately wished she’d thought ahead before she led the convoy out of the visitors’ center. Normally, she would have kept an NPS jacket in the truck, but hers was back at the Bay Bridge campground. In the Suburban, even with the heater at full blast, she was barely able to control the violent shaking caused by the frigid air. Even a light coat would have ma
de a huge difference.

  “I hate to say it, but I’m beginning to think taking this truck was a mistake. I’m going to freeze to death before we reach the pass. The sign said we’d be going up to 10,900 feet, and we’re still at least a thousand from the top.”

  “Should we get out and ask to borrow some coats?” he suggested.

  She laughed. “No way!” How would it look for the leaders of the convoy, the highly-prepared park rangers, to go around begging for warm coats? Her body shivered again—it didn’t care about professional image. “Well, I don’t know. Maybe we’ll have to if it keeps getting colder.”

  The lights continued to shine on the twisty road up the face of the mountainous terrain, and she tried to get a sense of whether they were on the move, or not. She didn’t know the road that well; at a guess, the people couldn’t be more than a mile or two ahead, and they should be close to the summit.

  A breath caught in her throat the instant she focused her eyes back on the road. “Oh no!” She hit the brakes as the dark shape came up fast, her truck slid on the black snow, then clanked bumpers with the parked car.

  A second later, a vehicle tapped her rear bumper.

  “Crap,” she exclaimed.

  “You want me to take pictures for insurance purposes?” he mused, holding up his all-purpose watch.

  “I think we’re beyond that now,” she replied.

  The impact with the car ahead knocked the snow from it. Grace vaguely recognized the autumn-orange sports car as one of the many vehicles that had passed her near Gardner Canyon. It had been left in the middle of the lane.

  “I’ve got to check it out,” she said with disappointment in her voice.

  The door creaked on its hinges as she exited the truck. Behind her, other members of her convoy already stood by open doors, trying to figure out why she’d stopped. Their headlights barely provided enough light to see what she was doing.

  The wind almost stole her hat as she walked up to the sports car, so she held it tight while peering inside. No one was in the front or rear seats. “Thanks for parking it here,” she complained to the invisible driver.

  On the walk back, she noticed her front bumper was pushed down, as if it had tried to get underneath the other car. With the proper force, she could probably break it clean off the truck.

  “Why’d they stop?” Asher wondered aloud as she hopped back inside.

  “No idea. Maybe they ran out of gas. They also might have jumped into another vehicle when it started to snow. These rear-wheel-drive cars are terrible in slick conditions.” Her dad knew a thing or two about cars; he always told her to buy a front-wheel drive vehicle for that reason. It didn’t snow much in Kentucky, but they did get ice. Her first car was front-wheel drive as a result.

  “Should we keep going?” he asked, sounding like he wanted to turn around.

  She took off her hat and set it on the center console next to with Asher’s. The fire was far enough behind them it was no longer a threat. The terrain outside was bare and rocky, with nothing to burn. If they stopped in place, they might wait out the snow and the fire. Only a couple thoughts kept her from turning off the motor to wait it out.

  If the snow kept falling, the road over the top might become impassable. The strange weather might ensure it didn’t open for days, or even weeks. She didn’t want to risk a long delay in getting back to her parents. Not when she was already so close to the top.

  Plus, if she stopped, she’d have to deal with Misha. The blue and red flashing lights of Tessa’s truck seemed far away, obscured by the thick falling snow, but he was almost certainly in her truck.

  The decision to proceed was in her head when a bright crack of lightning crossed the sky. Though muted by the low-hanging clouds and oily snow, there was no doubt what it was. A moment later, the thunderclap roared by, amplified by her missing windows. The broken glass in the rear compartment rattled for a few seconds until it was done.

  “Thundersnow?” Asher said with wonder. “Think someone is trying to tell us something?”

  She put the truck in four-wheel drive, then pretended she wasn’t burdened with doubt about which was the correct path. She had no desire to go back. “We can’t stop now. Onward!”

  Land Between the Lakes, KY

  The AR hung limply at Ezra’s side as he put up his hands. “We don’t want any trouble. We’re only passing through.”

  A twenty-something young man wiped mud from his face with a small dish towel. He’d been one of the men helping get the Jeep out of the soupy quagmire. The others trained black pistols on him and Butch.

  “We don’t want any trouble, either. Why are you guys sneaking around in the woods out there?”

  “We aren’t sneaking,” Ezra replied. “We saw your biker friends and thought they were out looking for trouble, so we dove into the woods. We had a couple of bicycles and intended to go down the North-South trail, until we realized bikes don’t do so well in deep mud and over fallen timbers.”

  “Where you headed?”

  “Yellowstone,” Ezra answered without hesitation.

  The leader shared a laugh with some of his helpers, then turned back to Ezra. “And we’re headed to the Easter Jeep Safari…” His tone of voice suggested there was a punchline.

  Ezra had spent a lifetime working on trucks for the post office, though most of that was dealing with the newer Grumman models, rather than the older Jeeps. He did pick up some of the lingo, including knowing the Jeep Safari was always held in Utah, but he couldn’t fashion a reply before the man went on.

  “Bah, it’s a Jeep thing, you wouldn’t understand.” The guys chuckled at the stereotypical Jeeper catchphrase, then the lead man got serious. “Good luck, wherever you’re going. We haven’t even been able to leave our campsite, and we’ve been at it since first light.”

  The man gave him and Butch an appraising look. “I’m Colby. These people are members of our Jeep club.”

  “Jeep stands for just empty every pocket, right?” Ezra bantered. It was a joke he’d been saying since he was a teenager.

  “You can say that again,” Colby said, lightening up. He waved to his men and they pocketed their pistols and went back to their tasks.

  Ezra held out a hand, which Colby accepted. “Nice to meet you,” Ezra gushed. “We haven’t met anyone friendly out here until you all.”

  Colby was soaked to the bone, like his companions. He wore jeans, cowboy boots, and a black T-shirt with a picture of a Jeep Wrangler on the front. His grimy ball cap also had a Jeep on it. After shaking Ezra’s hand, he waved to the motorcyclists, and they roared off. “We’re trying to keep watch of the trails around us. A couple of our people used those bikes to cross the bridge to see if things were better over there. Apparently, they aren’t.”

  “We’re from that side of the bridge,” Ezra shared. “Your guys are right. Lots of people died when the meteorite came down. Everyone left is scared, and we confirmed there aren’t going to be any emergency services for a long time. They all went to Paducah and got trapped.”

  Colby motioned to the Jeep stuck in the mud. “I guess we shouldn’t bother calling 9-1-1 to help us get out, huh?”

  Butch spoke up. “Not unless you want to be disappointed.” He held out his hand. “Name’s Butch.”

  Colby shook hands with the ex-soldier and seemed impressed with the big man’s arms. “I guess you two wouldn’t be willing to give us a hand here, would you? We need some brute force like yours to push us out.”

  “Why didn’t your bikers help you?” he asked in a joking manner.

  “Those are our wives and girlfriends,” Colby answered, seemingly serious.

  “Really?” he said, impressed. The white jumpsuits of the riders had been covered in lots of brown mud and appeared sexless. He’d assumed they were all male.

  “We race the bikes,” Colby gestured to the men nearby, “but those ladies know how to ride them. A few race in the women’s divisions, too. They take care of each other as the
y keep an eye out for trouble. Not everyone is as well-behaved as you two.”

  “Well, they sure fooled us,” Ezra responded, glancing at Butch. “Though now that we’re here, we can definitely help you out.”

  “Good,” Colby replied in a businesslike tone. “When we’re out, we’ll all go back to our main camp and discuss where you can go next.”

  Ezra smiled with acceptance of terms but remained wary.

  The man was leaving something out.

  Isla Socorro, Mexico

  Petteri watched the TKM SUV pull up to the front of his villa, pleased one more piece of his puzzle had come together. When the woman climbed out of the back, she looked lost. Then, when she saw him, there was a flash of recognition.

  “Mr. Tikkanen?” she asked with astonishment. “You’re the one who brought me here?”

  Petteri walked to the top landing of the entry steps and waited for her to climb to him. Symbolism was everything. “Yes, of course,” he said in an untroubled voice. “Welcome to Isla Socorro, Diedre.”

  She came up and stood next to him. “Sir, what’s this all about?” She spoke quieter. “You’re the exact person I needed to talk to. There was a comms blackout between ops and the ship, sir. I think…”

  The woman looked around, perhaps checking for spies.

  “I think someone sabotaged the mission. I tried to tell my supervisor, but she didn’t know why our link was cut, either. She might have been lying to me.”

  Petteri pretended to be concerned. “I’m sure there has to be a reasonable explanation, but thank you for bringing this to my attention. Come inside. We’ll talk about that and much more.”

  The woman relaxed, then looked around the tropical entryway as if she realized she was at a luxury villa. “This has all been kind of amazing. Last night, I was in flight operations when someone from HR told me I had to get on a plane at that very second; I was in danger. Now, I’m meeting you.”