Chapter 44 - Gage
I run longer than I should have been able to run with my injuries, but oddly, the ache in my ribs has almost disappeared.
Now I'm being slowed down by thick brush that I have to battle through. I’ve checked my phone multiple times in the last few hours, hoping for an updated map, but still nothing.
All I can do is keep heading south. The problem is just how fucking big Alberta is.
I could be passing small towns on either side of me within miles and never know it.
My province is almost the same size as Texas, with only a fraction of the population.
With just shy of five million people living here, there’s a lot of unpopulated nature to get lost in.
I tear apart a prickly bush in my way and wish for the hundredth time that there had been a pair of work gloves or a fucking machete in the plane’s storage compartment.
When I finally stumble through the tangled vegetation, I fall forward into a cleared space.
My chest tightens in relief at my first stroke of luck.
I’m in a cut line, a wide lane of forest that has been cleared, probably for a pipeline right of way.
Not only will I not have to fight my way through the bush, but this cut line should lead me to some type of civilization.
Hopefully, a staffed maintenance yard or at least to a lease road.
I take a minute to guzzle down another bottle of water and tuck the empty plastic bottle away in my pack.
I’ll need to refill it at a stream if I don’t find help or more supplies in the next day.
Tightening the spare t-shirt I’ve tied around my nose and mouth, I set off at a slow jog south.
The smoke in the air has gotten heavier in the last hour.
Forest fires have been an annual thing over the last few years but we had above-average snowfall last winter and the prediction was a better fire season this year. Looks like they were wrong.
The day goes by in a blur as the cleared terrain lets me move faster and easier.
I let my mind zone out to stop myself from getting lost in the worries and stress of what’s happening with Luna and the others.
I don’t worry about myself at all. I have full confidence that I’ll find my way out of here and make it back to her.
It’s late afternoon when there’s a loud crash of broken branches in the forest ahead of me that has me coming to a quick stop.
I pull the rifle sling over my head and bring the gun up to my shoulder in case it’s a bear charging my way.
What plows through the bush about five feet ahead of me is a huge bull moose instead.
It shakes its long head and then stands stock still when it spots me.
I breathe in, ready to pull the trigger on my exhale if it steps my way but luck is still with me when it tosses its head again and bounds away in the same direction I’ve been traveling.
I lower the rifle and roll the tension from my shoulders before slinging it again.
While less dangerous than a bear, a moose can still kill you.
This one was around seven feet tall and had to weigh at least fifteen hundred pounds.
They’ve been known to charge people, stomp on them, even spear them with their antlers.
I’m just thankful that apparently, he had somewhere to be.
I’ve only taken a few steps to resume my trek when a pair of deer flies past me.
I jump to the side in surprise and feel another animal brush past me.
My heart starts pounding hard when I spin around and see a herd of deer and three other moose galloping towards me down the cut line. They have to be running from the fire.
They’re coming at me faster than I can move out of the way back to the trees.
I’m in the middle of the cut line now and there is no way I’ll make it to cover before they reach me.
Shit! I’m going to be trampled over. My mind goes into panic mode as I throw my arms wide, hoping to look bigger than I am so that they’ll steer away and miss me.
There’s a rushing in my ears and a tingling races across my skin as I yank my arms up to avoid a deer that swerves too close to me.
There’s a grinding sound in front of me when the earth erupts into a solid wall in front of me.
What the fuck is all I can think over and over as I dive for the barrier and tuck myself up against the base of it as animals race around it and continue to the south.
My breathing is harsh as I try to make sense of what just happened.
I turn and pat at the earth wall protecting me from the stampede.
Where the fuck did it come from? How did it just erupt like that?
It's real, I can touch it. The animals went around it.
I sit there huddled behind it long after the last deer has charged past, trying to process and get my pulse back down.
I yank down the t-shirt around my face and use it to mop the sweat from my face, finally ready to stand and get moving again when all the hair on my body stands on end.
A flicker of movement to the left has me slowly turning my head and my pulse skyrockets again.
Standing to the side of the earthen wall is the biggest damn wolf in existence.
Scratch that, there’s no way this beast should exist outside of fairytales or mythical stories.
At six foot four, there’s very few men I need to look up to, but standing here in this surreal moment, I have to tilt my chin up a fraction of an inch to meet the predatory eyes pinning me in place.
I swallow past the dryness in my throat and think for a half second about reaching for the rifle on my back.
As if the beast can read my mind, its teeth peel back in a snarl and its eyes start to glow gold.