Mark jumped back as Alec yelped in surprise.

“Hurry, get us up in the air!” Mark called out.

“What do you think I’m doing?” Alec rushed his efforts even more, focusing on the central panel of the controls, holding his finger above a bright green button on the screen.

Mark looked back at the window just in time to see the hammer come down again, breaking all the way through with a horrible crunch and a shower of glass pellets across the controls—the hammer itself followed, bouncing off a panel and hitting the floor. Then a man’s face appeared at the opening he’d created, followed by hands and arms as he started to climb in.

“Get rid of that guy!” Alec yelled. At the same time he tapped the green button and the Berg lurched off the ground, the sound of thrusters filling the air like the roar of angry lions.

Mark caught his balance and reached down for the hammer. Just as his fingers closed around the handle someone grabbed a handful of his hair and yanked. An alien screech tore out of his mouth at the pain and he dropped the hammer, beat his fists against the hand and arm that had taken hold of him. But the man held firm and quickly slipped his other arm around Mark’s neck, then pulled back, bringing Mark with him.

Mark’s head smacked the top edge of the missing window’s frame and slipped through it, out into the hot air of the morning. Then half of his body was out, up to the waist—he gripped the window frame to stop himself from falling completely. All he could see were the tops of the trees and blue sky beyond, and he realized with a wave of horror that the man was literally hanging off of him, still holding on to his hair and neck. For the second time that day, Mark couldn’t breathe.

The Berg was rising toward the sky and Mark caught a quick glance of Alec looking at him through the window, his eyes wide in shock. Alec moved out of sight, leaving the Berg to hover just a few dozen feet above the ground; then Mark felt the man tugging on his legs, which only made the pain in his neck and head worse. A strangled, wet bark—a sound that scared Mark more than the pain—somehow escaped his own throat.

Alec pulled on him from above. The man hung from him below. It felt as if his body had been put into one of those medieval torture racks, stretching his bones and sinews. He wondered if it was possible for his head to pop off, like a cork from a bottle. He realized that with Alec holding him he could release his grip on the window frame; he beat at his captor’s arms, beat at them, clawed them. The world was upside down, the valley floor like an earthen sky.

Mark slipped out the window several inches—a thunderbolt of pure terror flashed through him like an electric shock before his progress stopped again. Something dark blurred past his vision. A black lump followed by a thin shaft of light brown. The hammer. There was an awful thump and a crack and a scream. Alec had thrown the weapon at the guy’s face.

The man’s arm slipped from its grip around Mark’s neck and he plummeted to the ground. Mark gasped for breath, sucking in the sweet air.

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Alec slowly pulled his body up and up, back through the window, then crashed to the floor. Still heaving to get his breath, Mark touched his sore neck.

The old soldier looked at him carefully. Then, seeming to have decided Mark would live, he stood, returned to the controls and lifted the Berg toward the sky.

CHAPTER 45

Mark’s stomach didn’t do so well with the sudden movement of the Berg. Alec took it straight up until it cleared the walls of the canyon, then sent it hurtling forward like it had been launched from a slingshot. Mark’s insides turned over with a surge of nausea; he crawled on his hands and knees until he finally found a bathroom. He pulled himself inside and threw up. Nothing but bile and acid. His throat burned as if he’d swallowed corrosive chemicals.

He sat for a while, until he was able to walk back to the cockpit.

“Food. Please tell me there’s food,” he croaked.

“And water?” Alec asked him. “That sound good, too?”

Mark nodded even though the old man couldn’t see him.

“Let me get this thing landed somewhere first. I’d just hover, but we can’t afford to waste all our fuel. We’re gonna need it. But I bet there’s something to shove down our throats in this hunk of junk. Then we’ll go searching for our bonfire friends.”

“Please,” Mark muttered. His eyelids drooped, and not because he was tired. He knew he was on the verge of passing out from low blood sugar. It seemed a week had gone by since his last meal. And the thirst. His mouth was a bucket of sand.

“You’ve had a rough go,” Alec said quietly. “Just give me a minute or two.”

*

Mark sat down on the floor again and closed his eyes.

He never quite lost consciousness.

But the world felt disconnected, as if it were a play Mark was watching from the back row, lying on the floor. With a few blankets over his head. Sounds were muffled and his stomach ached from hunger.

Finally the Berg slowed, and then there was a rough bump that shook the ship, followed by silence and stillness. Mark had a long moment when he thought for sure that sleep was coming. And with it, the memories. He fought it, didn’t know if he could handle reliving the past at that moment. He heard footsteps from far away. Then Alec was speaking to him.

“Here ya go, son. Pretty much a standard military meal, but it’s food and it’s full of nutrients. Gonna perk you right up. I flew us to an empty neighborhood between the bunker and downtown Asheville. All the crazies seem to have fled the fire and headed south.”

Mark opened his eyes, the lids so heavy he almost had to use his fingers to lift them up. Alec was blurry at first but then came into focus. He held out a silvery foil that had chunks of … something on top. It didn’t matter. It didn’t matter at all. Mark grabbed three of them and shoved the delicious—beautifully delicious—morsels into his mouth. Salty and beefy. But when it came time to swallow he could barely get them down.




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