Authors: Sam Hawksmoor
Even before he left the room the Newfie’s effects were being burned, all evidence that he had ever been there erased. He never even existed.
‘
G
o. Go. Go,’ Rian yelled, frantically paddling against the current. The roar of the river ahead was deafening, made more frightening by the extreme darkness.
The sound of the angry waters being forced into a temporary sluice at one corner of the river was deafening. They could hear but not see, and that scared them even more as it pulled them ever closer.
‘Faster, we’re not moving quick enough,’ Rian shouted, beginning to panic.
‘I’m telling you, there’s no waterfall on this part of the river,’ Renée insisted, paddling just as hard. Huge shadows surrounded them and jostling, bucking trees, some twenty-five metres long or more, nudged the rubber raft as they struggled to make headway.
Moucher barked, sure they were headed to their doom.
They were just moments away from the surging water ahead; if they got trapped they could be crushed and lost for sure.
They could see the shadows of massive trees at weird angles, all jammed up around them. It was as if a giant had sprinkled a complete forest on to the river and left it to its fate. A perfect log-jam.
‘Get ready to jump,’ Rian shouted. ‘Grab the dog, Genie.’
She already had Moucher in her grip.
‘You jump when I tell you,’ she commanded into Mouch’s ear.
Mouch’s eyes were on stalks, terrified. He so desperately wanted to be back on dry land.
The raft crunched against the rocks on the riverbank and Rian jumped out, nearly missing his step and falling.
‘Everyone, out now,’ he called.
Mouch flew in a perfect leap to safety, propelling Genie to the back of the raft. Renée gathered what little food and water they had and jumped clear. Genie picked herself up at last and followed.
Rian quickly hauled the raft out of the water, pausing only to catch his breath. Only when his vision cleared did he realize just how close to oblivion they had been.
He looked back up the highway towards Spurlake from where they’d escaped. Thought he saw a car, but it was a trick of the light. He didn’t want them exposed like this for long. Fortransco would soon work out they’d evaded the roadblocks.
‘We have to get the raft up over our heads,’ Rian told them.
Renée was nervous. She’d been thinking they were going to get away. Now they’d be on the road – the only road – carrying a raft no less, and with half of Spurlake looking for them.
‘We should have gone over the mountain,’ she said.
‘Snakes, remember?’ Genie reminded her.
‘Together,’ Rian instructed them. ‘Up and over.’
The two girls groaned, but it had to be done.
‘Heel, Mouch,’ Genie told the dog.
‘On my mark – one, two, three …’
They got the raft up over their heads, cold water dripping down their necks. Flipped it over and nearly got crowned by the paddles Renée was supposed to have stowed away. Rian bent down and got the paddles secured without losing his grip.
‘Keep up and stay in step,’ he told them as they set off, keeping right to the edge of the road on the riverside.
Genie reflected on why they were fleeing from Spurlake and the evil Fortress all over again. Why couldn’t they just forget them, let them go? But she knew, as sure as they faced certain death on this treacherous river, that the possibility of them being allowed to live was pretty remote. Especially now there was a ten-thousand-dollar reward on their heads for their capture. Times were tough; a lot of people would want that cash. Worse, Reverend Schneider was out of police custody and he’d be looking for revenge. What hurt most was the shame she felt that her whole town and all the people in it didn’t seem to care about the missing kids. They’d rather believe all the lies Fortransco told about alien abductions – anything rather than believe that thirty-six kids, probably more by now, had all been used in teleportation experiments by the Fortress and most had died in grotesque explosions.
A few people had helped them. Marshall back on the farm, but he’d been beaten and nearly killed for his efforts. And Officer Miller, his son, was probably going to lose his job on the force for all he’d done for them. Then old man Ferry at the gas station, who’d given them the raft to escape downriver to Vancouver once they realized they couldn’t get past all the roadblocks.
Thank God for Denis’s warning phone call. They’d got out of Spurlake just in time, but it begged the question as to what had happened to Denis, or Cary Harrison or Julia? They’d be hunting down Miho, too, all of them, one by one, grabbing them back to do yet more vile experiments. Herself and Renée were probably the only survivors, the kids who had lived through teleportation and hadn’t died. They were valuable. Like Renée said, as important as the first men on the moon. They should be on chat shows – hell, given a parade at least and huge movie deals. Only it was all supposed to be a big secret and no one knew, no one even believed all they’d gone through it. The Fortress didn’t want them outside, free to tell tales of their abduction, the horrible crimes committed against children – and worse, no one was even prepared to consider the evidence. Officer Miller had shown the Vancouver investigators the bodies of kids who didn’t make it and the half-dog in the freezer, but they weren’t buying it. It was incredible to her that people would rather believe in aliens or mass hysteria than the truth, that there was a billion-dollar business in their town making kids vanish into thin air.
Genie stumbled and quickly corrected herself. ‘Sorry,’ she mumbled. It was hard to keep in step and her shoulders ached.
‘Not far now,’ Rian shouted from the front, praying the road would stay empty.
Rain began to spatter them again, picking up strength.
The moon peeped from behind the rain-heavy clouds briefly and they could finally see across the river. The log-jam was huge. The biggest Genie had ever seen and it was forcing all the river water to one side as the dam built up. Hundreds, thousands of clear-cut fir trees dumped into the river and sent downstream. They were all supposed to go by road or rail; it was the law to protect salmon and whatever. All were now snagged on a bend in the river. It was part of the landscape in these parts that whole forests got cleared on maturation, but she’d never seen so many in the river at one time. It was choked. She guessed the flood in August must have had something to do with this. Once they were in the river they were hardly likely to fish them out, might as well let them float their way down the Fraser like the old days. She felt sorry for the salmon; how would they get through?
Renée was rubbernecking as well. ‘I can’t believe this. You sure we want to be in front of this? If the dam breaks we’re going to get creamed.’
Rian’s arms ached. He was glad he had made the decision; the churning sluice of water that escaped downriver was way too violent for a raft like theirs. They would have been smashed to pieces. This rain was falling like crazy now, beating hard against the road and there would be more of it before the night was done.
‘Like the flood all over again,’ Genie remarked.
‘Don’t even think it,’ Rian called back. To this day he couldn’t believe he and Genie had lived through that, let alone wound up in the exact same place with a pig in tow. ‘Keep going. We’re going back on to the river about a hundred metres further up. That log-jam won’t break without someone forcing it apart. Might have to blow it up.’
‘I hope you’re right,’ Renée said, still not convinced.
‘Keep up, Mouch,’ Genie called. ‘Mouch, where are you?’
Mouch appeared at her side and she wasn’t sure but it looked to her as if he’d managed to pull off one sock. ‘Mouch? Where’s your front left sock? You’re supposed to be wearing socks.’
Mouch looked up at her as if she was crazy. It had taken him almost ten whole minutes to get just one sock off. Dogs were not supposed to wear socks. End of story.
They saw the headlights coming towards them. It sounded like a big truck, its noisy engine echoing off the canyon walls.
‘We hide?’ Genie asked from the rear.
‘Move to the edge and crouch,’ Rian called out, trying to be heard over the crash of the water beside them. Rian didn’t want the driver telling anyone in Spurlake about some people carrying a raft by the side of the road at midnight. Just the kind of stupid thing someone might overhear and realize it was the kids they were looking for.
They crouched, Genie grabbing Mouch to her side. All four welcomed a moment of rest under the raft as the truck hurtled past, bits of gravel and spray spattering them.
‘Up,’ Rian instructed.
Renée and Genie followed him up and they began walking again.
It started to rain even harder.
‘Oh joy,’ Renée exclaimed. ‘Couldn’t we live somewhere warmer and drier?’
‘We’re on our way to Mexico, remember.’
‘Yeah, but like we could win some sort of prize for the slowest way to cross the border,’ Renée replied.
‘Getting colder too,’ Genie said grinning. ‘Come on, girl, we’re still ahead. Least you’ve still got hair to keep you dry.’ Genie still resented the Fortress had shaved her head before transmission.
‘OK, we’re here,’ Rian announced. The girls stopped behind him. ‘This is the tricky bit. We have to move forward as one and flip the raft on to the river. Got that?’
‘Aye-aye, Captain,’ Genie replied.
‘Yours to command, brother dear,’ Renée added.
They stepped off the road and then, keeping it steady, shimmied down the rocks and shale to the water’s edge.
‘We’re going to flip – that’s arms up, toss it up away from you and step back. On three. One, two, three.’
It sort of went right. Renée, being taller than Genie, maybe pushed too hard and Genie almost slipped, so didn’t push quite enough. The raft almost flipped three hundred and sixty degrees, but Rian caught it in time and it landed right side up with a smack in the water.
‘Lucky,’ Genie said. ‘I thought it was a goner for sure.’
Rian grabbed the raft, worried the current was still running fiercely. ‘Get in, guys. Renée, you got the stuff?’
‘I got it.’
‘Grab Mouch,’ Rian told Genie. He could see the dog was backing away. Moucher hated being on water. Didn’t mind swimming, just didn’t like boats.
‘Come here, you little beast. I can’t believe you lost a sock already. No walking around; your claws might puncture the bottom, OK?’
Mouch had no plans to walk at all, he was just planning on shaking with fear for the whole way down the river.
Rian jumped in and pushed them off, unpacking the paddles from the straps.
‘Finally we are on our way,’ he said, looking back at the foaming water behind them. It was too dark to see anything much, but you could hear it loud enough.
‘Damn it, I meant to pee,’ Renée declared.
‘Next stop,’ Rian told her. ‘You’ll have to wait.’
Renée was about to say something sarcastic but thought better of it. He was doing exactly what they asked him to do, keeping them safe, and she could wait – well, a little while at least.
It began to hail; freezing hard balls of ice pummelled their heads.
‘I guess we didn’t think to pack an umbrella,’ Genie remarked as she tried to calm Mouch, who was trying to burrow under her to get away from the stinging hailstones.
‘Just paddle, it’ll keep you warm at least,’ Rian told her. ‘We’ve got a very long way to go.’
S
trindberg surveyed the assembled employees of the Fortress, his face impassive. Everyone was severely peeved at him for making them meet up on the roof earlier and, of course, completely humiliated. It was the way he liked it; it made anything he had to say sink in a lot better.
They now stood in the Blue Room – the emergency assembly point, five floors below the surface, the stench of damp human beings giving the air-conditioning a hard time. Strindberg looked at the faces; sheer terror met his eyes. They knew that at least half of them were going to lose their jobs. He raised his hand for their attention.
‘I’m going to have some names called. All those called will go directly to the Green Room above here and meet with a Mr Yates.’
An assistant called out a lot of names and those called shuffled out of the room. Were these the ones
with
jobs or those about to be fired? Reverend Schneider looked over those remaining around him and noted with some concern that all the people departed were employees with family. It was just a detail, but significant, he thought.
Everyone remained silent, sitting and standing uncomfortably in their damp clothes waiting for something to happen. Strindberg finally smiled. That was the most disconcerting thing of all, as his teeth seemed to be made of neon white.
‘Congratulations. You all still have jobs. For now.’
You could hear quite a few people exhale with relief.
‘Let me put this nicely,’ Strindberg began. ‘Fortransco is a small research centre with a very large cash-burning capacity. Two point one billion dollars to be precise, in the last three years. Two billion spent and, until a few days ago, absolutely zilch to show for thirteen years of active research. Frankly that just isn’t good enough.’
No one said anything, they were still waiting to see what ‘punishment’ he was going to hand out. Strindberg had a reputation for being mean and vindictive.
Strindberg stood slightly on his toes in his two-thousand-dollar Italian leather shoes with raised heels to compensate for his lack of height. ‘So, when we learned of your minor miracle, an actual success of nine complete whole-body transmissions, it seemed to be a cause for celebration. Imagine my surprise to discover that you had no idea of how or why the transmissions worked.’
Still no one spoke.
‘In fact, were it not for the rapid actions of Reverend Schneider here, you may never have known you’d had a success at all. Nine successful transmissions and not one person here at the Fortress knew about it. Each one of those priceless assets was allowed to run anywhere they pleased, totally unobserved, unrecorded, unmonitored, able to communicate with the authorities, contact the press, expose Fortransco to unwanted scrutiny.