D Carpenter - Infertile Grounds

Arthur looked at Jerry for a long moment and then shook his head, “I don’t think so.”

“What!” Jerry exclaimed raising his pistol and stepping aggressively toward Arthur. This motion was followed by a soft hiss and then the hard, wet sound of a bullet impacting his chest. Jerry lurched backward, his pistol fired as he tumbled over and Arthur cried out.

Chris dropped to the deck as several more silenced slugs slammed into the wood wall of the lodge, chasing Sarah as she sprinted around the corner of the building.

Arthur was moaning and Chris scrambled over to him.

“Arthur!” He said as he leaned over him. The man was in obvious pain but Chris couldn’t see a wound. “What—”

“Stop her,” Arthur said. “She can’t get away, Chris. Stop her!”

“Who took that shot?”

“Fucking sniper. Go get her. Now!”

“Is he going to shoot me?”

“No, he works for me. Go get her!”

Chris stood in a crouch and ran in the direction Sarah had taken. He rounded the edge of the building. The bright, full moon lit the landscape and he immediately saw her one-hundred-fifty yards away running along a ski trail that went to the left.

“Sarah!” Chris called out as he ran after her. “Stop!”

In the lodge there had been a trail map painted on the wall and Chris had studied it in case he was able to escape. This was the one direction he wouldn’t have taken. The trail was called The Bluffs and it led to steep cliffs, forcing you to the loop back along them to the main trails with no other egress. She was unwittingly forced into a specific direction. This bit of knowledge gave Chris confidence as he ran along. He could see her take a tumble in the distance and then get up and continue on, slower now. Avoiding rocks and irregularities was difficult and he almost fell several times as well.

As he rounded a turn, the trees that lined the right hand side disappeared and the view opened up across a deep valley. Sarah stood on the stone edge, her arms out to her side. As Chris approached, she turned around to face him. A cool light breeze blew up the cliff wall swirling her hair into her face and she pushed it back behind her ears.

“Don’t come any closer,” she said.

Chris slowed and walked to the rocky edge of the cliff ten feet to her right. He stayed a foot back from edge as he leaned over and looked down. It was a shear drop, hundreds of feet. His stomach instinctively tightened and he pulled back.

“You ran the wrong way,” he said.

“No I didn’t.”

“It’s over, Sarah.”

“We had it solved,” she whispered. “It’s unsustainable and we had the perfect cure.”

“It wasn’t perfect. Far from it,” Chris said. “You’re too close to it, to invested to see that what you created, while it had noble roots, it was too drastic, too risky.”

“But it wasn’t risky.”

Chris shook his head slowly. “You’re the only person in the world who would think that.”

“No I’m not,” she replied. “I’m the only one who could actually do it and I was so close.”

“Pride can be a blinding emotion.”

“You think that’s what it is, pride? Honestly? You think I invested eighteen years of my life to create an elegant solution to the single biggest threat to our planet out of pride?”

“I’d be willing to bet that it wasn’t pride that got you started but right now it’s pride that’s keeping you from seeing the reality.”

“Bullshit. It’s small minds that don’t see it.”

“Or big egos,” Chris replied as he stepped toward her.

“Don’t come closer,” she said.

“Fine, so what? You going to kill yourself now?”

Sarah didn’t respond.

“You heard Arthur, he could make you a deal.”

“Whatever they would want me to work on would certainly not be noble. Not in any sense of the word.”

“Probably not.”

“Absolutely not. They’d have me doing the exact opposite and you know it.”

“But at least you’d be alive.”

She pushed her hair behind her ears again, looked over her shoulder and took another small step back. Her heels right at the granite edge.

“Bide your time and then at some point in the future you could escape.”

She laughed. “Do you think they’d let that happen?”

“People get complacent over time. Do a good job, lull them into a false sense of security and then bolt.”

“Then what? Spend my life running?”

“Could you get more Gen96?”

She squinted her eyes and then nodded, seeing where he was going.

“Could you?” Chris prodded.

“Yes, I’ve got some in cryostasis.”

“What’s that?”

“Frozen. In a specialist facility.”

“So you could relaunch your plan then. Like I said earlier, it’s just time.”

Sarah stood frozen, unblinking. The breeze picked up, freeing her hair again and rustling through the trees. Chris shivered. Sarah opened her mouth, then shook her head and shut her eyes. She bent down slightly and spun to her right.

Chris saw what she was about to do and he lunged forward to grab her. Sarah pushed as if she were on a diving board, her body angled over the edge. Chris snagged her belt with his right hand as he crashed to the ground and skidded. He frantically reached out with his left hand to stop himself from careening over the lip.

Her weight and momentum pulled him over the edge up to his chest. His left hand found a crevasse in the granite and he held firm. Pain roared up his arm as the sutures ripped open but he forced his fingers to clench as he screamed out in anguish and anger. She kicked and squirmed. Chris could see the rocky base of the cliff down below.

“Let me go. You sonofabitch! Let me go!”

Her feet kicked him. She squirmed and pushed violently against the cliff face threatening to pull him to his death but he didn’t feel anything, not the kicks, not the incomprehensible pain in his broken left arm, not the fear of a long fall to a certain death. He was in a zone he had never before experienced. Everything slowed.

David Rose dying, Pell professing his sobriety, Karen realizing she had been caught, Mark the second Chris pulled the trigger, all of their faces flashed before his mind’s eye and right in front of him, Sarah’s hate filled face howled at him as she flailed like an animal against his grip. He had been through hell this past week and it had changed him.

“Stop!” He roared as he jerked Sarah violently several times.

Slowly she stopped moving and went limp. Then she turned to look at him over her shoulder.

“Let me go,” she begged. “I can’t be their whore, Chris. Please.”

The pleading woman he held in his hand was either going to be a pawn for the government, creating God only knows what kind of deviousness they would dream up in the future for undoubtedly nefarious and despicable purposes and, as if that weren’t bad enough, her ultimate goal was to escape and restart her plan to sterilize the world. Or, she was going to die here. Tonight. Now. On this mountain. By his weakening hand.

The graveside service had been short and sweet. Less than a dozen mourners. Chris stood alone watching the casket disappear into the ground as everyone else filed quietly away.

The man running the winch that lowered the casket retrieved the thick canvas straps and looked at Chris. “Do you need a few minutes?” He asked, obviously wanting to get on with his job. While these events were traumatic for everyone else, to him it was just routine and he undoubtedly had more to do today.

Chris shook his head, “No, thanks. I’m good.”