Fever

By Edward Myers

Seething with rage toward what he considers the sinful modern world, a survivalist named Cliff retreats to an uninhabited valley deep in the Colorado Rockies. He has outfitted a 1930’s-era miner’s shack at timberline and has stocked it with food, equipment, and weapons. In this aerie Cliff awaits the collapse of civilization and the End of Days. He is prepared for any and all calamities. Soon, however, it’s unclear whether the Tribulation that befalls him is happening out in the world or inside Cliff’s own mind.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Montemayor Press
• Release date: May 21, 2017
• ISBN: 9781370388097

Edward Myers

Edward Myers is the author of 20 books for adults and 12 for children, including Storyteller, published by Clarion Books  in July 2008, and two middle-grade adventure novels, Climb or Die and Hostage, published by Hyperion. He lives with his wife and two children near New York City.

Book preview

Fever

a novella

E. J. Myers

Published by Montemayor Press at Smashwords.com.

Copyright 2017 Edward Myers

Cover design copyright 2017 Montemayor Press

This book is also available in print from your local bookstore, online sellers, and many websites including www.MontemayorPress.com. The hard copy ISBN is 1932727175

For more books from Montemayor Press, see www.Montemayor Press.com

This is a work of fiction. All names, characters, places, and incidents are either the product of the author’s imagination or used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual events, locales, or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.

All rights reserved, including, without limitation, the right of the publisher to sell directly to end users of this and other Montemayor Press books. No part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any electronic or mechanical means, including information storage/retrieval systems, without permission in writing from the publisher or author, except by a reviewer who may quote brief passages in a review.

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Montemayor Press

P. O. Box 546

Montpelier, Vermont 05601

Dedication

For Sue Willis—

inspiring as a writer, editor,

publisher, and friend

Table of Contents

Chapter 1

Chapter 2

Chapter 3

Chapter 4

Chapter 5

Chapter 6

Chapter 7

Chapterr8

Chapter 9

Chapter 10

Chapter 11

Chapter 12

Chapter 13

Chapter 14

Chapter 16

Chapter 17

Chapter 18

Chapter 19

Chapter 20

Chapter 21

Chapter 22

Chapter 23

Chapter 24

Chapter 25

Chapter 26

Chapter 27

Chapter 28

About the Author

About the Press

Fever

1

Granite peaks mottled with snow rise to the north and east; to the south and west, a mile across the bowl of land, the valley tilts to form a jagged ridge. Surrounded by these fortress walls, Cliff’s shack stands on a slant of tundra where the fallen trunks of old fir trees, bare of limbs and bleached gray, have spiraled apart over the years. Cliff gathers wood from this ruined forest. He spends the short autumn days dragging poles across the slope, saws and splits the logs, and stacks firewood until the pile is four times wider than the shack itself.

It’s mid-October. September was brilliant, though its intense yellow sheen tarnished quickly, fading altogether within a few weeks. Aspen leaves now lie matted on the forest floor. Each day the clouds boil over the ridges, slide down the timberline slopes into the valley, and hurl sleet through the skeletal trees. Cliff notes once again how quickly the seasons change up here. Snow has already started whipping and sifting in the wind, and a few small drifts lie snugged against his shack.

The weather makes no difference. Cliff is confident of his preparations not just for the winter but for all of the coming hardships. He has left nothing to chance. Having worked all summer, he now stands in the dim light of the mineshaft near his shack and sizes up his supplies. Flour, sugar, salt. Cooking oil and powdered milk. Holding a clipboard, he checks each item off a multi-page list. Dried beans, lentils, unmilled wheat. Sacks of potatoes, carrots, turnips, and beets. Tins of corned beef, ham, and fish. Packets of beef jerky. Bottles of vitamins and minerals. This stockpile will see him through the hard times to come.

He has stored general supplies as well: pots and pans, cooking tools, knives. Flashlights and batteries. Two lanterns and gallons of kerosene. A big first aid kit. Never again will he let himself rely on the world below. Even Cliff’s clothes declare his self-sufficiency: six pairs of long johns, three wool sweaters, two down parkas, two pairs heavy boots, and assorted socks, caps, gloves, and mittens. Same with his choice of tools: picks, pikes, and shovels. Two axes, a hatchet, a splitting maul. A rip saw, a crosscut, and a two-handled logger’s saw. Weapons, too: an AR-15, a 12-gauge shotgun, a Glock pistol, and five thousand rounds of ammunition.

Of course he’ll need to sustain not just his body but his mind to survive the rigors ahead, so Cliff has brought a small library: a medical encyclopedia, a treatise on nineteenth century mining technology, a book about Rocky Mountain wildlife, a guide to edible plants, and a commentary on high-country survival skills. Magazines: Off Grid, Soldier of Fortune, Prepper, and Playboy. Some favorite books from his boyhood: Robinson Crusoe and My Side of the Mountain. Most important of all, a Bible. Finally—though he feels embarrassed even to own it—he has packed a cell phone.

Settled in with all his supplies and equipment, Cliff knows he can endure any challenge that man, beast, or God may set before him. He’ll make it through the cold months that will soon isolate him as totally as if he had crash-landed in Antarctica. Then, emerging in late April or early May, he’ll leave his timberline refuge, scramble over the rim, enter the next valley, hike down to the nearest road, and visit the world again.

If, he reminds himself, there’s any world left to visit.

2

Cliff strikes a match and holds it inside the Franklin stove. The wads of paper and the sticks waiting there catch fire at once. The paper shifts, unfolding, nudged by the flames; the sticks click and snap as they burn; yet the logs resting on the sticks fail to light. The kindling blazes and fades, but the firewood itself only smolders. Soon the flames shrink and flicker out.

Damn. Cliff peers into the stove’s belly not quite believing what has happened. He then wads up some pages from back issues of Prepper and prods them under the logs. He forces in more sticks as well: enough to set a stone afire.

Noticing that his match box is empty, he walks over to the bed, crouches, looks underneath the frame, and finds the watertight case among the guns and ammo. He pulls out the case and opens it.

Empty.

He can’t believe what he’s seeing. Despite all his preparations, despite the sheer quantity of stuff he has hauled up here, Cliff has already run out of matches.

3

Hiking out takes half the day. Climbing over the ridge into the next valley, Cliff works his way through scraggly pine forests to enter groves of mixed fir and aspen. Enough snow has fallen to slow his