CHAPTER TEN
Jeanell and Ric made it through the suburbs and back into the woods outside of Boulder. Jeanell’s legs ached, her mind spinning as she wound up headed in the precise direction she came out of just a day before.
She could only ask, “Where to now?”
Ric glanced around. “Not sure. They’ll be at the particle collider compound, for sure. But there are a few safe areas scattered through the woods where some of our survivors might be.”
“Then why did we go all the way into the city?”
“Safe areas could have been locked down, still might be. Thing is, right now we don’t have much choice.”
“Why don’t we head toward Denver? That’s where the nearest collider is, right?”
“Yeah, that’s a good point. It’s a long way to go.”
“But if we had a smartphone, we could just… what do you call it, hole there?”
“We call it? You invented it, Miss Glenn.”
“Then why don’t we use it? Go back to town, steal somebody’s smartphone—”
Ric said, “Steal? Is that who you are?”
“We gotta do what we gotta do,” Jeanell said. “What’s worse, stealing a phone or letting ultimate evil overrun the globe?”
Ric gave it some thought, nodding and shrugging. “How many times have you swiped somebody’s phone? They don’t just stand there and let you take it. Then we’ll have the local cops on our asses too. And phones don’t even function without thumbprint ID, which we won’t have.”
“Thumbprints?”
“If it’s protected, yes.”
“Then how are we going to get to this chancellor in New York and black hole him up or whatever if we don’t have any phone or anything at all?”
“Not your snotty attitude, that’s for sure.”
They walked on, the mountain seeming to get steeper beneath her aching legs as if out of sheer spite. Jeanell finally said, “I didn’t mean to be snotty, I’m… I’m sorry about that. You’ve gone out of your way for me, I know that.” Ric smiled, nodded, but said nothing as they trudged up the hill. She went on, “I know I’ve messed up your life. I’m… I’m sorry about that.”
“You didn’t,” Ric said, giving it some thought. “In a lot of ways, you’re the one to make my life right again, all our lives. I’m glad to have met you, Jeanell, and blessed to know you, whatever happens.”
“I hope that’s not as grave as it sounds,” Jeanell said, knowing that her hopes were in vain.
After a few tense moments and some slight progress, Ric asked, “So, how about you?”
“I’m sorry?”
“Well, you know about me, my past, my family. But I don’t know anything about you.”
Jeanell coughed out an awkward chuckle. “Not much to know. Born and raised in Encino, California, in the San Fernando Valley. Parents are still married… well, they were when I last saw them. I don’t suppose I’ll ever see them again.” Jeanell’s blood ran cold.
“Don’t despair,” Ric said. “Nothing is beyond us, Jeanell, not as long as we have each other.”
The words were soothing, creating a warm pit in Jeanell’s stomach, but it soon turned to stone. “Wait a minute,” Jeanell said, “if I’m so famous, you’d know all that, about where I grew up and so forth.”
But before Ric could answer, a bear roared and barreled out of the woods. It sent a shockwave of terror through Jeanell’s body. Her legs froze, body still and paralyzed as the mammoth beast shook its great head, jaw opened and teeth stabbing out of its drooling, pink gums.
“Run,” Jeanell said. “It can’t catch us both.”
“No,” Ric snapped back, “run and we’re both dead. We have to face it down.”
“Face it down? It’s a damn grizzly bear!”
Ric glanced around as the bear roared, sizing up its best first victim. Ric said, “Pick up that branch there.”
Jeanell looked down to see a felled fir branch near her feet. It was about four feet long and bristling with dying leaves and branches.
“That’ll never kill the bear.”
Ric pulled the stolen chancellery goon’s knife out of his belt. “You only need to distract it.”
Jeanell looked at the knife, then at the bear. “Ric, no!”
“We don’t have any choice! Now stab at the thing!”
“It’ll swat this right out of my hands, tear me to pieces!”
But the bear grew tired of their bickering and chose its target. It charged at Jeanell and she raised the tree branch, jabbing it in the bear’s face. It only slowed the animal’s charge, swatting its huge paws to knock the branch away and take its prize. Jeanell could sense the power of the beast, the strength of its paws as it swatted at the branch. She knew she’d be no match for it, and that it was only a matter of time before it made its way to her.
Ric prowled around the side of the bear, but the creature was hardly distracted. It fended off both Jeanell’s tree branch and Ric’s encroachment without much of a threat. Ric said, “To your right, Jeanell!” Jeanell followed his guidance, shifting her position and jamming that branch into the bear’s face with greater aggression.
“C’mon, you big stupid bear,” Jeanell shouted, securing the beast’s attention. “Look at me, dummy! Wanna eat some more tree bark, you fat dummy? Open wide then, open up!”
The bear roared its frustration, swiping at Jeanell again, finally pulling the tree branch out of her hands and leaving her unarmed and defenseless.
She was as good as dead.
Ric launched his attack, landing on the bear’s back and stabbing the hunting knife deep into the bear’s shoulder. The animal screamed in pain, shaking his head, fat rippling under its neck. The bear reared up on its hind legs, swatting and spinning to attack Ric on his shoulders. Ric pulled the hunting knife and plunged it down again, the bear screaming again, pitched both high and low.
The bear walked backward, pinning Ric against the branch of a pine tree. Jeanell could almost feel his spine cracking as the heaving creature crushed him between its own massive weight and the immovable tree trunk. Ric grunted in pain, the hunting knife falling out of his bloodied fist to the forest floor.
Jeanell knew she only had one chance, and that it was probably fruitless. But she also knew that she had no choice.
Jeanell scrambled on all fours to scoop up the hunting knife, handle greasy and slick with the bear’s blood. She wrapped her fingers around it, gripping tight before pulling her arm back and thrusting the knife into the bear’s belly. It howled and swatted its paw, striking a blow to Jeanell’s head that felt like a freight train. She flew back, legs pedaling in a vain attempt to keep her on her feet. But it was only a matter of time before gravity and momentum got the better of her.
Jeanell hit the forest floor with a hard thump, rolling and tumbling in the rotting debris. She forced herself to her feet even before she could fully stand, her instincts telling her that to be trapped on the ground would result in death.
She refocused on Ric, no longer on the bear’s back. He also climbed to a stance, but the bear had turned on him and Jeanell could see in that split second that the creature would reach him, and that it would kill him with one brutal swipe.
Jeanell grabbed the branch and stabbed at the bear, but it hardly took any notice of her at all. The knife was still sticking in the bear’s gut, and Ric tried to reach for it while Jeanell stabbed at the beast with her tree branch. But neither had much hope of prevailing, and all three seemed to know that it was only a matter of time until the bear got to one of them, and then shortly thereafter, the other.
Bang! Bam, bam! The shots rang out and the bear snapped to the side, turning to find the source of the blasts even as it was too late to save itself. The creature screamed, waving its massive paws fruitlessly while another two gunshots burst two bloody holes in the grizzly’s chest.
The bear collapsed with a death groan, whoever was in it rattling its fatty corpse as it escaped. Jeanell’s heart pounded in her chest, the branch falling out of her hand as Ric also looked on in relieved shock.
Reeves stood nearby, one of the chancellor’s automatic rifles in his hands. He wore a little smile and offered Jeanell a reassuring nod. “Miss Glenn.”
“Reeves!”