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The Crimson Jewel

alexgordonauthor

Updated: Jan 15

During those rare moments when someone, or something, wasn’t trying to kill me, my subconscious still tried coaxing me into false security. Relax. Everything will be fine. But I’d been fooled before.

I scanned the tree line along the riverbank and cocked an ear toward the sky as I listened for predators, in particular, the On-Grids. After the fall of the modern world, a militia occupied the old military base in Anchorage, Alaka. Joint Base Elmendorf Richardson or better known as JBER. Once a day—everyday—they sent out a scouting party in either a helicopter or a prop plane. For some unknown reason, they hounded our every move. It was difficult enough trying to survive in this post-apocalyptic nightmare without them hunting us.

When I didn’t see or hear anything, I sat on a log near our fishing hole. A beam of sunlight reflected on my brother’s copper hair as he pulled off his hat to adjust the fit.

“Kevin, you better hurry and put that thing back on before the neon glow sends out an SOS to the wrong people,” my best friend, Tee, said.

  As a man of few words, he reached over and messed up her hair, the colorful beads at the ends of her dark braids clicking together.

I opened the cooler next to me and dug through the bag of dirt, searching for a fresh worm. Sid, my dog, curled around my feet. His pointed ears twitched as he listened too. He was solid black and twice the size of a normal shepherd—and had twice the intelligence of most humans—so our best guess was that he was a German Shepherd-wolf mix.

A few years ago, I’d found him caught in an old, rusted trap while I was out hunting. Normally, I would’ve done the humane thing and put him out of his misery, but instead of growling at me like a normal predator, he wagged his tail and whined, as if excited that help had finally arrived. Despite my training, I couldn’t let him die. Something about the way he looked at me had penetrated my frosty heart. It was love at first sight. When I’d arrived back at our bunker carrying a seventy-pound puppy, Kevin nearly lost his mind. I convinced him that if the dog lived, I would train him to guard our camp. Eventually, he’d agreed that my plan held merit.

With a wiggling worm in my hand, I closed the cooler lid and reached down to pat the top of Sid’s head. We both jumped when Tee squealed.

“Ohhhhh! I got the first fish!”

The silver skin of a salmon flashed under the glacial-blue waters where Bird Creek met the Turnagain Arm of the Cook Inlet.

I dropped the worm and grabbed the stun stick off the ground, waving it in the air as I hurried down the bank. Tee reeled the fish out of the water while Kevin slid the net under her catch so it didn’t get away.

He reached for the stun stick, and I slapped it into his palm. With one hard whack to the head, the fish was dead, though it continued twitching.

“Yeah!” Tee clapped. “You owe me, Bea!” She pointed my direction.

Earlier, we’d made a bet as to who would catch the first fish. I was much more excited for her to win because she didn’t get to go fishing often.

All thirty-seven of us who had clustered together for survival had assigned jobs. I provided meat. Tee and a few others prepared our food for the long winter. Rarely did we get a break, but this year was proving to be more abundant, so this morning, Kevin had suggested that the three of us go together. Four if you counted Sid. And we did.

“I’ll go grab the other cooler,” Kevin said.

“No. I got it.” I took off toward the parking lot before he could argue.

Our parents had disappeared twelve years ago after going to work and never returning. I was ten at the time, and Kevin was eighteen. He’d spent most of his life looking after me, and then everyone else who subsequently joined our motley group. He never relaxed, so when the opportunity presented itself for me to make his life easier, I took it.

Sid dashed ahead, down the crumbling stairs, and waited for me at the bottom. Just as I opened the back of the Jeep Wrangler, my ears homed in on the faint sound of rotor blades.

Sid barked, confirming the threat.

“Go!” Kevin yelled from above.

“I’ll meet you at home!” I shouted.

Sid jumped in the back, and I slammed the tailgate before running to the driver’s side and hopping behind the wheel. The tires spun, kicking up dust, as I raced out of the dilapidated parking lot.

I had no fear for Tee. Kevin was the king of badasses and would have her safely home in our underground bunker in no time. But erring on the side of caution, I turned onto the Seward Highway going in opposite direction of home.

Tee, Kevin, and Sid were my everything, and I wasn’t about to lose them. Kevin was going to kill me, but I’d deal with him later.

I gripped the steering wheel with one hand, and the gear shift with the other. The off-road tires slipped, and the transmission whined as it struggled over the broken highway. Years of earthquakes, landslides, and volcanoes had left the pavement rugged.

My eyes darted to the rearview mirror and my heart mule-kicked before landing in my throat. The black helicopter, with its nose tilted downward, had finally spotted me. I wasn’t sure if the On-Grids were searching for me specifically, at least not this time. Though, because I often seemed to be their target, I yanked the baseball cap off my head and let my blood-red tresses fly. My hair was so bright, the man on the moon had to shield his eyes from the glow.

Kevin was literally going to kill me.

I dodged the chopper for a few more miles until the pavement disappeared, leaving a canyon to wide for the Jeep to navigate.

As we stopped, Sid launched out of the open top and waited. The thwap, thwap, thwap of the rotor blades grew louder.

Quickly, I threw the keys under the floor mat and tossed my rucksack over my shoulders. I adjusted the 9mm sitting on one hip and the machete in its scabbard on the other.

My heart pinched as I tapped the mud-covered hood before whispering a silent goodbye to the 4x4. My dad had promised to teach me how to drive her one day, but the task had fallen to Kevin. He’d wasted no time putting me behind the wheel. I was ten when he’d said, “Ruby Rose, I wish this could wait. But with the way things are going, you might need this skill sooner rather than later.” Unfortunately, he’d been right.

Concealed under the thick canopy of trees, I motioned for Sid to lead the way. He, like the rest of us, understood hand signals.

My worn hiking boots slipped over the crumbling asphalt, slick with moss, as I scrambled to keep up with Sid. Twenty feet ahead, he veered off the road into the northernmost tip of the Alaskan Pacific rainforest. Tiny shards of sunlight peppered between the branches of the spruce trees and paperwhite birch, but never found their way to the forest floor.

“What are you doing?” I hissed.

He barked. It penetrated sharply through the humid air.

I thrust my finger in front of my lips to shush him. He knew better than to make noise. While the people chasing us were bad—the things lurking in the wilderness were worse.

He barked again.

My nostrils flared as I shook my head fiercely. He was going to get us killed.

When I stepped off the road, his ruckus ceased. “What are you doing?” I whispered through clenched teeth.

He jumped over a rotted log and peered back at me, the whiskers above his golden eyes twitching.

A wildlife trail was a gamble. While it made passage easier, you never knew what might be lurking around the bend.

Grumbling, I unlatched my gun from its holster, but it wouldn’t do much good. After the downfall of civilization, only the strong and prepared survived. That applied to animals as well. Here in the land of the midnight sun, the bears, the wolves, the lynx, and the moose were bigger and badder and smarter than ever before. Humans were once at the top of the food chain—now, our ranking was debatable.

I unsheathed my blade and swiped at the massive fiddle-head ferns. Their fibrous stalks sliced easily under my sharpened blade and toppled to the ground. The plants were also bigger and some, like the cow parsnip, were badder. On a sunny day, one sting from its thorns could kill a person.

For added protection, I yanked the sleeves of my rain jacket down and pulled up the hood. A river of sweat poured down my back, soaking into the waistband of my cargos.

Our summers, though short, were almost tropical after the climate change disaster. The environmental destruction progressed slowly in the beginning, then like a boulder rolling downhill, picked up speed. First, the West Coast all but disappeared when it collapsed into the ocean after the giant quake. And what didn’t go, was washed away by a monstrous tsunami. In the plains and most of the south, temperatures plummeted and then skyrocketed, withering the land into a vast desert. The Midwest was now a swirling pot of calderas and burgeoning volcanoes, running the length of the continental divide.

In Girdwood, Alaska, the earth still shook—quite violently at times—the volcanoes still erupted, and the snow still fell, but I wasn’t sure anywhere else in the world was safer.

In front of me, Sid stopped short and lifted his nose into the air. Shiny black hackles rose all the way to the tip of his tail. The overpowering scent of rotten fish oil and ripe urine surpassed the smell of damp earth and lush greenery. Dread coiled, waiting to spring as I stood motionless.

Deep inside the quiet forest, a branch snapped, echoing eerily and shattering my hopes that the bear had passed through a while ago.

Adrenaline spiked, sending pain to my fingers and toes. I gripped the machete tighter, and we bolted, ducking and dodging ferns, devil’s club, and tree limbs. They slapped me across the face, leaving stinging welts behind. My ankle rolled over an exposed root and I faltered. My free hand caught me on the muddy ground, but I managed to stay mostly upright and keep going.

A roar thundered so powerfully that it reverberated inside my ribcage. The hairs on the back of my neck and arms prickled. Exertion cramped my muscles, but terror propelled me forward. Running was the only logical choice. There was no standing your ground with these bears. Shooting them made them angry. Playing dead entertained them.

Somewhere up ahead, hidden from my view, Sid yelped. My heart froze. When he started barking again, it resumed beating. I could only assume he was making noise so I could locate him.

With my arms pumping, I almost shot past him.

Right past the strange staircase hidden in the middle of the forest. It was a wonder. A black behemoth. Like finding a lost altar in the middle of an uninhabited jungle. Massive obsidian steps with matching stone walls ran in a straight line upward, cutting through the underbrush. It went up, up, and up until it disappeared into the fluffy white clouds.

A split second WTF flashed in my brain, but with the bear hot on my heels, I didn’t have time to contemplate the oddity.

I slid to a stop and dashed inside the entrance. An electric shock zapped my skin. I flinched violently but scrambled up the stairs until my legs collapsed, and I fell next to Sid. I spun around to see if the bear would follow. On my butt, I scooted upward one step at a time, putting more distance between us. A hundred-yard head start wasn’t sufficient for a creature that dangerous.  I tried holding my breath to stay quiet, but my lungs scorched, begging for oxygen.

A huge shadow of an Alaskan brown bear, measuring six feet tall at the hump of his shoulders, paused in front of the staircase. Tiny slivers of light dappled his russet fur. His nostrils flexed and flared, searching for our scent. He huffed and chattered his teeth like he was trying to taste the air. Trying to taste us. His ears twitched and his beady eyes drifted past as if we were invisible—as if he couldn’t hear, see, or smell us. A frustrated bellow tore from his mouth and drool flung from his six-inch yellow canines.

I slapped my hands over my ears to muffle the noise.

After a long, few seconds, he shook his enormous skull, then padded away silently.

My head sagged, and I breathed a sigh of relief before turning around to check on Sid. I scratched behind his ears. His tongue lagged while his sides heaved. I slipped off my pack to pour him a splash of water and took a sip myself. As he drank, I slid my machete into its case and tied my rain jacket around my waist.

Then, I turned my attention to the strange staircase. I briefly questioned whether I’d been stung by the thorn of a cow parsnip plant. Its toxins not only hurt like a mother but were hallucinatory. I rubbed my eyes. Perhaps I was high? Maybe dead? Was this the stairway to heaven?

The polished obsidian slabs, so shiny and glasslike they looked wet, were three times the depth of a normal step. They reached toward the sky, beyond the towering canopy of trees, past the wispy white clouds until they disappeared. The volcanic stone, prevalent in Alaska, flanked the entire stairwell but didn’t enclose the ceiling. I laid my palm on the surface expecting it to be hot under the direct sunlight. It was as cold as ice.

I was confused, and though I felt physically fine, was I? I touched my forehead—no fever and I wasn’t clammy either. No funny taste in my mouth, and besides the strange staircase, no weird visions. All motor functions intact.

I wanted to investigate the enigma further, but my need to see if Kevin and Tee were safe overrode my curiosity. I’d bring them back later because they weren’t going to believe me unless they witnessed this thing themselves.

Not one to let a mystery go unsolved, I sighed. But we’d lost enough friends and family out here that I didn’t want Kevin and Tee to worry.

Sid barked again.

“What?” I snapped. My patience was waning. I was tired, and hungry, and sweaty.

He bounded further up the stairs, his nails clicking on the smooth surface.

“No!” I slapped my arms to my side.

He responded with a single bark. And people said animals didn’t talk back. Obviously, Sid missed the memo.

“We need to go!”

Sid ignored me and continued upward. It wasn’t like him to disobey, so I assumed he knew something I didn’t. Maybe the bear was loitering?

 There was no way I was leaving him behind, so I followed. Sid was family. Plus, Kev was probably back at our bunker by now, safe and cozy. He wouldn’t come looking for me because we were bound by a promise not to. Well, he’d wait a few days before he started his search.

As we ascended, I expected the air to get heavy and damp, like when you hike a mountain into the clouds. But instead, it got lighter and sweeter, like clean sheets hung on a cloth line. About a quarter of a mile into the climb, we discovered a door off to the side of the staircase. It was made of the same black stone carved with foreign symbols. I traced my fingers over the ciphers to see if it would open. I pushed, but the door didn’t budge. I pushed harder and then slapped it for good measure. Nothing. I hopped up a few more steps and patted Sid on his ribs.

“Haven’t you had enough? It’s gonna take at least a day to reach the top.” It was a never-ending journey. I certainly wasn’t going to make it today. My legs had already filed a complaint with the boss.

He sat down a few feet above, facing me, and barked. His tail wagged rapidly, dusting over the surface.

“You’re not welcome here, human,” a deep voice said from behind.

My nerve endings flared, and I muffled a scream. Instinctively, I reached for my gun.

“That’s not going to help you here, human.”

I spun around locking eyes with the coldest set of irises I’d ever witnessed—the color of menacing thunderclouds.

He stood three treads away with his hands draping loosely at his sides. His hair was short, almost military style, and dark. I assumed he was near my age, somewhere in his early twenties.

I’d seen pictures of handsome men in my mom’s old magazines, but never to this extent. Gorgeous didn’t cover it. Flawless. Ethereal. Angelic. Even as he glared at me with those cold steel eyes.

He stepped up another rung. I estimated each riser to be a foot high, and I was 6 feet tall so that made him around 7 feet. I gripped the handle of my firearm tighter, but I didn’t pull it from the holster. Yet.

His gray eyes darted to my weapon before meeting my gaze. A dark brow quirked in a dare. “Feeling lucky, human?”

What was with this guy calling me human like it was an insult? He looked human too: two eyes, two ears, a nose, a mouth, and ten fingers. Yup, he appeared human down to his utility pants and the white t-shirt that pulled tightly across his chest and abs, leaving little to this girl’s imagination. No judgement. We had slim pickings when it came to eligible men.

He joined me on my step, invading my personal bubble, and scowled. A vibration in the air tickled my bare skin. I wanted to swat the sensation away like a mosquito.

“I’m going to ask you this only once. How did you get in here?” he snarled.

I saw no reason to lie, it’s not like we broke down a door or knocked out a window. “We were being chased by a bear.” I gave him a once over. He wasn’t a threat, just some overgrown dude with an attitude. I spent my days competing with crafty predators to provide food for my friends and family. This guy was nothing.

His eyes narrowed, intensifying the lines between his brows. “You’re not supposed to be here,” he said almost as if I was bothering him.

I shrugged. “I don’t know what to tell you, pal. Sid got in. I followed. I figured it was safer in here than out there.”

He threw his head back and laughed, covering his mouth with a hand. The sound was as cold as his eyes. “Don’t be so sure about that.”

“Well, let us go by,” I glanced down the stairs past him, “and we’ll leave. No harm, no foul.” I raised my left hand as a white flag.



He crossed his arms, bulging muscles straining against the sleeves. “You’re not going anywhere, human.”
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