T Connor - Bitter Cold Apocalypse 2

“We take it,” I told him firmly. “Get this little girl to your house the quickest way possible, Marlon, and then fix her. I don’t care what it takes.”

We shot forward into the glare of midday snow, and I had only one thing on my mind: I was going to do whatever I needed to do to make sure Zoe was okay.

I was right about the journey being difficult. And long. As we took off into the forest, in a direction that roughly echoed where the rest of the group was but wasn’t going to cross them exactly, I quickly went through what I knew of the local geography and decided that we must have around five miles left between us and Marlon’s house.

Five miles through ankle-deep snow and freezing temperatures. Five miles of carrying a ten-year-old girl who needed immediate medical treatment. And five miles that we had to cover as quickly as we possibly could.

It was a tall task, for sure. But I wasn’t willing to fail at it.

We charged into the trees, Marlon three steps in front of me—which was where I’d keep him. Yes, I wanted to get to his house as quickly as possible and it would be easy to make the mistake of creeping up on him. But I knew from long experience in the military that getting too close to the guy in front of you while you were running led to one thing, and one thing only: tripping on said guy’s feet and sending you both to the ground.

So I had to control my need for speed and keep a safe distance. The last thing I wanted right now was for us to go crashing to the ground. I had absolutely no doubt of what that would do to the already broken little girl in my arms.

“How’re you doing, Zoe?” I asked softly. “You still with me?”

“I’m cold,” she muttered, her voice sounding a little stronger now.

The girl had never been shy with her opinions as my neighbor, even going so far as to tell me that she didn’t believe I could actually barbecue in the snow at one point, and I wasn’t surprised to hear that attitude coming out now. In fact, I was thankful for it.

I ducked under a low-hanging tree branch, jumped the set of roots that were sticking out of the snow right after it, and gave her the lightest of squeezes.

“Cold is good. Very good. I know it sucks, but it means that if those wolves left any nasty germs on your skin, the germs are dying.” This wasn’t exactly true, but I didn’t feel like explaining how freezing temperatures make germs go dormant until thawed, not actually kill them.

“So the cold is my friend,” she guessed, her voice shaking only slightly.

“It is, but it’s also a friend that might get you in trouble. If you get too cold, so cold to where you can’t stand it, you have to let me know, okay? Promise?”

“Promise,” she replied, snuggling further into my chest.

I pressed my lips together, wondering if she’d know the difference. Because the cold would definitely stop the bleeding, and would potentially slow any infection. But there was also a good chance of it sending her right into shock.

And that wasn’t a risk I was willing to take.

“Marlon, hold up,” I said, lifting my voice to be sure he heard me.

He stopped immediately and turned, his eyes on the girl in my arms.

“She’s okay,” I told him quickly. “But we need to figure out how to keep her warm. I don’t want her going into shock.”

A quick nod from Marlon and he was stripping out of his snow coat and draping it over her body, then tucking it in around the edges so that it would stick.

“Good?” he asked, his eyes on mine.

“Good,” I replied. “But I want mine on her as well.”

It took a bit more maneuvering, but we managed to get my coat off, too, and Marlon did the same thing with it, covering the girl and making sure the edges of my jacket were secured around her.

Then we took off into the forest again, neither of us wasting time or effort on speaking.

By the time we got to the clearing around Marlon’s house, I thought I was probably very close to dying. Marlon and I had been switching off in terms of who carried Zoe, and not wearing my jacket meant that I’d been able to cool off in the wind around me, but my legs were burning, my feet were hurting, and I was starting to have trouble breathing the ice-cold air.

Getting to that clearing and seeing the house and outbuildings in the distance almost made me cry with relief.

“Thank God,” I said, pausing to adjust Zoe in my arms. “Zoe, are you still awake?” I asked the wrapped package in my arms.

I heard a grunt in the affirmative and smiled a bit.

“Good. We’re at a house where we’re going to be able to patch you up, okay? You’re going to be warm very soon, I promise.”

Another grunt, and I took that as all the motivation I needed to make good on that promise.

We dashed across the open area, and though it had to be faster this time than it had been the last time, courtesy of us being without the sled we’d been pulling before, I swore it took us at least ten hours to get to the front door of the house.

And there we found another surprise. The front door had been scarred by what looked like an axe. There were deep divots chopped out of both the door and the frame, but the structure looked like it had held, regardless of the abuse.

“Randall?” I guessed.

“Who else?” Marlon asked, slipping his glove off and throwing up a sliding mechanism that I hadn’t noticed before next to the doorknob. He put his palm on the screen he’d exposed, and the door popped open, seemingly none the worse for wear after someone had gone axe murderer on it. “Luckily, this door isn’t actually wood. Or rather, it is, but only on the outside. Inside, it’s solid titanium. Very light. Very strong. Stronger even than an axe.”

I glanced at him, both eyebrows raised. “I’m getting awfully tired of all the fancy toys without any explanation.”

He mirrored my expression. “And I’m getting awfully tired of having to keep secrets, believe me. I’ll tell you everything this afternoon, and that’s a promise. But first, let’s get that little girl stitched up.”

I accepted that offer and preceded him into the house, wondering briefly how long Randall had spent chopping at that door—and wishing I’d seen his face when he realized he wasn’t going to be able to get in.

The thought was immediately overruled by another as I tried to remember how to get down to the surgical suite.

“Give her to me,” Marlon said, appearing suddenly at my side. “And follow me downstairs. I’m going to need an assistant.”

We shuffled Zoe from my arms into his, and before he took off, I got rid of the coats, dropping them to the floor and counting on them to stay there until we got back. Then we were pouring down the stairs—Marlon more gently than me—and making for the surgical area of his house. As we went, I started taking stock of the house again, noticing things that I hadn’t noticed before, and remembering things that I’d forgotten. The long hallways with too many doors opening up off them. The sheer number of completely decorated and ready-to-live-in rooms we passed. The fact that even when Marlon had been gone for several days, and we’d just now come back inside, the house was well-lit and warm.

It was almost as if it had some sort of AI controlling things like that. Something that kept the house hospitable even when there was no one in residence. And the number of rooms still bothered me. This place looked more like a halfway house than a single man’s dwelling. A halfway house with incredibly strange decorations, and hyperactive heat and electricity—at a time when everyone else’s electricity had gone out.

I reminded myself that Marlon had promised to give me the information that I was craving this afternoon, and kept my mouth shut. Right now, surgery. This afternoon, answers.