Destiny's Revenge (Destiny Series - Book 2) by Straight, Nancy (novels in english .TXT) 📗

text, or e-mail arrived, I wondered where Max was, and knew if he had gotten any of the messages, he would have found a way to get in touch with me.

An odd sensation rocked me for a second as I thought about Max. I had a feeling that he was okay. I didn’t know where he was, what he was doing, but somehow I knew he was okay.

Chapter 4

The days began to run together, so I got a calendar for myself on the wall. By the forty-second day after I awoke I had made serious progress. Instead of walking behind a walker anymore, I had graduated to a cane and hadn’t used the wheelchair for weeks. I was feeding myself, to include cutting some of those sausage patties at breakfast time that were the consistency of a shoe ’s sole. My coordination wasn’t all there yet, but I was less reliant on the staff and caught myself being hopeful that I might be finishing my recovery from my parents’ house rather than this nursing home.

At the end of the day, when I was by myself, my thoughts lingered on Max until sleep found me. I knew I was dreaming, but this dream was different from all the others. The sights, smells and sounds all around me were foreign. The sun shone bright in a clear blue sky, with nothing to filter the piercing rays beating down on me. Making it worse was a rocky landscape. The sun-baked terrain had long ago lost all its colors except beige. The terrain reflected the sunlight back at me, blinding me from both directions.

It was a dry heat, well over the hundred degree mark. As I looked in the distance, I could see the heat in the air with its ripples trying to trick me, trying to make me think even the heat itself was a mirage. I was standing on the side of a mountain, near the top and well above the shrubs that could offer some form of shade. I could see fires and smoke in the distance and nothing but fields of rocks and spiny desert vegetation around me. I’d never been here before. I’d never seen terrain like this. It looked nothing like the lush forests enveloping the mountains on the east coast or even the snow covered caps of the Rockies.

I looked in all directions trying to figure out what I was doing there. There were no people, nothing was happening; it just felt as though I were in an oven, slowly baking.

Off in the distance where I saw the heat waves emanating from the rocky ground, I could see a black plume of smoke. As I concentrated on this solitary vision, I looked to the left and right and saw a few other plumes of smoke. I stood there for a long while. I tried to force myself to wake up, but I was unable to. As I stared again into the distance, I could still see the smoke, but not what caused it. I didn’t see a fire, but smoke doesn’t just appear without a reason.

I took in a deep breath and could smell death all around me. The stench of rotting flesh, coupled with the absence of a breeze to dilute it, was overpowering. The stench made me feel faint, as if my legs were unwilling to hold me in place any more. This dream was vivid, making me question whether I was truly there, wherever there was.

Hearing footsteps behind me, I wheeled around quickly, only to see a family of mountain goats making their way to what little shade this mountain could offer. I watched them, but they paid no attention to me, my presence insignificant to their mission. The longer this dream continued, the more vivid the sights and smells became. I began to question what would happen if I attempted to touch the goats. They looked so real, but I knew I was still in the nursing home, still gaining strength before I could go out into the world again.

A dust trail appeared at least five hundred feet below me on the mountain. I looked down the treacherous terrain to see what had disturbed the earth. It was a man in full-combat gear, dragging another man up the mountain. I called out to them, but my voice was muted. I tried to clear my throat to yell again, but I made no sound at all. I squatted down to the ground and ran my fingers over the terrain. I felt the smoothness of the rocks, the warmth emanating from the ground and the sand all around, but I was unable to disturb it. It was surreal.

I continued watching the two men. One was injured, lying on his back as the second man, wearing two packs of gear on his back, was dragging him one step at a time, up the mountain. This scene went on for what felt like an hour before the men were close enough that I could hear one talking to the other.

“Hold on, Ski, almost there, just a little bit further.” The man doing the talking was hunched over with his back to me, but his voice unnerved me the second I heard it. I listened closely for another couple seconds. I could hear him grunt each time he pulled the other man’s weight. He paused for a second, stood upright, removed his Kevlar helmet and wiped the sweat from his brow. His back was still facing me, but even at fifty feet and only seeing him from behind, I knew exactly who I was looking at.

I screamed with every bit of force I had, “Max!” Again, no sound escaped me. I sprinted down the mountain to where he stood. He drank water from a canteen then leaned down and poured some in the other man’s mouth. Max replaced the canteen into his pack and again reached down