The World After (11 page)

They had just shared a few dry biscuits when movement about two miles down the mountain attracted their attention. Five small dots were moving in their direction, and both men knew that something alive was also heading up the mountain. Taylor took binoculars out of his bag only to confirm their suspicions.

“Soldiers,” he said after watching the constantly moving figures for five seconds.

Jinhun got up and threw his rucksack back on. Before doing so, he drew out of it a Glock. The five soldiers from the Indian infantry, as their uniforms revealed, spread in a cup-shape and continued climbing up towards them.

“Now what?” Taylor asked.

“We have to head up. They must have detected us some time ago. While you were checking on them, I spotted two moving figures on the path in front. They're surrounding us and the peak seems to be our only option.”

Within ten minutes, the two runaways were already making their way through knee-deep snow, with grey clouds gathering around them and covering the peak from sight. The visibility was decreasing very quickly, and soon snow started falling from the sky. The five soldiers behind them kept a steady pace and, despite all the efforts by Taylor and Jinhun, the gap between the two groups was decreasing constantly.

About ten minutes later, the snowfall turned into a major storm, with very strong winds and much fiercer white dust coming from the sky making it almost impossible to keep moving. The open landscape wasn't providing any barrier against the hurricane winds and, in no time, the temperature dropped well below freezing.

“We can't keep going,” Taylor shouted over the roar of the wind. “We'll freeze to death.”

Jinhun also knew that, and he was the one that pointed towards the dark silhouette to their left. Assuming that it was some kind of a rock formation, they waded through the snow, which was already above their waist at times.

Halfway there, from the blur of the blizzard emerged an Indian soldier just ten feet away. He fired two shots in their direction. Luckily for the two men, the extremely difficult conditions worked in their favor and he didn't aim properly. Jinhun fired back, but he also didn't have any luck. With sharp snowflakes piercing their faces, visibility was near zero. Realizing this, the solider advanced quickly towards Taylor standing nearer to him. A few more steps and the Indian would be near enough not to miss with his next shot. Taylor leapt forward and, after two long strides, he lunged forward directly at the man, who was just raising his machine gun to fire.

Jinhun heard the shot just as the two bodies in front of him collided with great impact. The force Taylor applied caused the soldier to lose his footing. Entangled, the two bodies started rolling down the steep mountain slope, lifting clouds of snow along the way. Jinhun tried to hurry after them.

Taylor flew forward just as the man in front of him was lifting his weapon. The shot echoed loudly millimeters from his ear. He went deaf and then his head exploded in sound just as his body crashed heavily into that of the soldier.

As they were rolling downwards, Taylor managed to prize the gun out of the other man's hand. Using his training, the soldier's fingers found their way to his neck and started choking him. Taylor felt serious pressure on his throat as snow started entering his open mouth, stopping the air he desperately needed.

Suddenly their free fall down the slope stopped, and Taylor's knee involuntarily found the soldier's stomach with fierce force. The young man's eyes widened and a painful groan came from his lips. However, instead of losing his grip on Taylor's neck, the red-haired man felt the fingers tightening even more around his bruised throat.

Taylor was helplessly gasping for air as his vision blurred. His searching hand found the Indian's foot and something resembling a knife's handle around which his trembling fingers squeezed desperately. Unable to feel anything, Taylor thought he'd pulled the knife out and stabbed his opponent, but the fingers around his throat didn't loosen their pressure. A black curtain fell in front of his eyes and, just before he closed them, he saw the towering figure of another soldier running towards them. He didn't have time to contemplate because, a second later, the darkness took him.

* * *

At the same time on the other side of the mountain, a small group of people were slowly making their way through the swamps of Itanagar's National Park under the last rays of the setting sun. After they had jumped from the plane, Carolina and her companions landed as planned in a nearby valley, and now they were following the secret dry paths through the marshes that only the ones from the Yuyuan knew.

The chaos of the swamps that covered an area of over four thousand acres was making it almost impossible for an outsider to travel there, or even survive for more than a day without help. This hostile landscape was providing natural privacy to the last organized rebelling union against the New World Order.

The underground city of the Yuyuan, which most members referred to as 'the Base,' was situated near the middle of the swamps, and it was a safe haven for everyone that needed it. Their pace was slow as Ian MacGeady and Ademar Gamejro couldn't be rushed after their recent surgeries. The air around was thick with the suffocating smell of rotting vegetation. At times, Wong Wei, who was leading them through the tough terrain, had no choice, and they had to wade up to their knees in sticky brownish water. Despite all this, their group was making steady progress further into the marshes and with every step they were getting closer to their bastion – the Base.

As they stopped for one of their frequent breaks, Carolina looked towards the mountain tops behind. They were invisible as thick grey-black clouds covered them almost entirely. She said, “Awful storm is raging there, I don't envy anyone in the middle of it.”

“I wonder how Jinhun and this Taylor are doing,” Fabiana said.

“They'll be fine,” Wong Wei cheered the atmosphere. “Might have even reached the Base already. Come on, we shouldn't stay for much longer out in the open.”

He turned and led their party through a winding narrow dry patch of land; but after only a short distance, he froze on the spot, with everyone behind him doing the same. From a cluster of small trees in front of them three gun barrels appeared. They were all pointing at them.

* * *

Taylor opened his eyes, but he was surrounded by darkness. Despite the impenetrable blackness around him and the pounding in his ears, he was clearly able to hear the ravaging wind. He tried to breathe, but a sharp pain went down his throat as if he had swallowed a dozen razors. He felt a hand on his forehead. He was cold, very cold.

“Are you okay?” Jinhun's voice came from the dark. “By the time I reached you, you'd already stabbed him but he tried very hard to choke you before that. Your throat is all blue.”

Taylor tried to lift himself to his elbows. On the third attempt, he succeeded with a bit of help from his companion, who most likely had saved his life when getting him out of the open, where a major snowstorm was gathering strength. Despite the darkness, he was able to recognize that they had taken shelter next to a tall pointy rock, maybe the one they were heading towards in the first place.

“I managed to drag you here before the other soldiers came. I think they went lower down and are waiting for the storm to ease off before coming for us.”

“What are we going to do?” Every word caused a serious amount of pain to Taylor.

“The cold is unbearable, and we're at least six hours away from the new day, which means that it will only be getting colder. It's nearly impossible to be out in the open in this wind. The moment the storm passes, they'll come for us.”

Taylor helped himself to a few gulps of freezing water, which eased the pain a bit in his throat, and then asked, “Do you know the area?”

“Nope, I haven't been this high before.”

“Where exactly are we going?”

“Pretty much directly on the other side of this peak. There we have to go down through a similar pine forest before we reach the ravine and there start the vast swamp in the middle of which is our Base.”

They stood in silence for a few minutes. It was broken by Taylor. “This storm may continue all night. I think we should try and make it to the other side of the mountain. I prefer to die trying than to be caught alive and tortured after that for years.”

He couldn't see Jinhun's face in the darkness but heard his resolute voice. “You have much more experience surviving in the wild. Lead the way.”

The two men spent the next quarter of an hour wrapping themselves carefully, making sure not to expose any part of their body to the well-below-freezing temperatures. Taylor used the fat left in the small pan from their last meal to grease their shoes to keep their feet as dry as possible. They also shared the last few gulps of cold coffee they had left in their thermoses.

Ready to stand against the fierce storm, they walked out of their shelter only after Taylor used a rope to tie Jinhun's waist to his. Once they stepped into the open, the snow flying vertically blinded them and, only using their footing as guidance, they headed up. Jinhun noticed the thermometer on Taylor's backpack; it was showing minus 34 Celsius.

After half an hour of a nearly impossible fight with nature, the two men were already on the brink of their energy limits. Taylor was convinced that only God's will could get them out alive from this storm. He had his torch lit, but the snow coming from the clouds around them was so thick that it could hardly help them. With their feet freezing, Taylor decided to stop climbing up and headed left in an attempt to go round the mountain.

On their way, they passed a few rocks that provided some sort of shelter, and there they stopped for a minute or so. Both knew that keeping still for long, they would freeze to death. Jinhun was losing strength much quicker. He was much smaller than Taylor, and walking through chest-high snow wasn't something one could do for long.

A few times, they had to stop out in the open as Jinhun collapsed and refused to move; but, supported by Taylor, he kept pushing on. After two more hours of stumbling and falling in a lost battle with nature, they had made good ground but the resource of energy was gone. Jinhun was able to move on only because Taylor was holding him upright and, using his body, was trying to provide him with at least some cover from the wind. Only the unbreakable and illogical will of Taylor made them keep going step after step.

Suddenly, a threatening roar overpowered the whistling wind. The sheer air around them moved and with it the snow under their feet. They desperately tried to scramble up and not follow the tons of white powder into the black abyss below. In a split second, the whole mountain became alive as an avalanche started. Luckily for them, it had started just below them, most likely after a heavier rock had fallen under the weight of all the new snow.

They used all their remaining strength to stay above the slowly moving snow, and a few times only risky jumps up into the unknown saved them from following the loud sound of the descending mass of snow. In no more than ten seconds, things around them calmed and they were lying on thick snow; but Jinhun waved his hands in the air, saying that he was done.

Taylor leaned to his ear and had to shout to be heard, “We must reach solid ground and then we'll stop. It's not safe here. Any minute another avalanche can hit.”

Jinhun got up very slowly and literally dragged himself after Taylor, his lips cracked from the cold. In the next hour, they hardly covered more than five hundred steps. With the storm not showing signs of easing, defeat had to be accepted.

Taylor was suffering very badly too, but he was in better shape. With very slow movements, he started digging a hole in the snow. After twenty minutes of torturous labor, the hole was big enough for both of them to crawl inside. Away from the wind and with the temperature at least twenty degrees higher under the snow, they had a slim chance of survival. The two men were so exhausted that they didn't have the strength to worry and simply fell asleep.

Their sleep was disturbed and haunted by nightmares, but it continued for four and a half hours. Taylor woke up first and immediately felt a change in the weather outside. He couldn't hear the roar of the wind. Jinhun opened his puffed eyes too, but he was still too weak to do anything else. Taylor dragged himself out in the open to see that the storm had passed but serious snowfall made visibility almost zero. Huge snowflakes were calmly coming from the sky and, in the minute he was out, Taylor's head and shoulders were covered.

He crawled back inside and got out the last piece of dry meat left in his rucksack. He split it in half and handed the bigger portion to Jinhun. They were too exhausted to talk; even chewing proved torture for both men. The new day was going to start soon, and Taylor knew that they must keep moving. Despite the snowfall, he knew that the moment dawn broke the Indian soldiers would start searching for them.

“How do you feel?” he asked Jinhun.

“I think my toes are frozen, but I should be able to walk.”

“The wind has dropped, but there is no visibility at all because of the heavy snowfall. It's impossible to tell where we are. I suggest we walk a bit further ahead and then descend down towards the forest.”

“As you say. Without you, I would have never made it this far.”

They finished their miserable breakfast and, after taking a long time to pack with their frozen hands, continued left around the peak that was hidden behind the thick blanket of snow dropping from the skies. Taylor was making his way through the huge amount of fresh snow, which wasn't easy as he was sinking very deep with every step. After about an hour, they decided to change direction and headed down, towards warmer weather and the shelter of the trees.

This proved an even more difficult task as they had to stop numerous times to help each other after one or the other had fallen in a tract of snow, disappearing almost entirely under it. They also had to be very careful not to cause an avalanche.

Suddenly, Taylor stopped and waved his partner to do the same. Jinhun was able to see him trying to listen to something in front of him as their eyes tried to penetrate through the steadily falling snow. The Chinaman drew his gun; but despite having all their senses on alert, they were unable to see the figure that emerged less than five feet away from them.