Apollo's Gates
an excerpt

The snow was coming down harder, cold and wet, as the boy ran across the field. His feet were bare and bleeding, his neck was torn and bloody, and it was a wonder that he had made it so far. All he could think about was putting one numb foot in front of the other, and of getting just one step farther away from his prison. So far it was working; he kept moving, kept running, kept going, but he knew he was getting weaker.
His breath came in short, painful spurts, burning his lungs and making his throat feel as though it were on fire, but none of that mattered much, not for when the first time a small, almost foreign feeling had been kindled in his chest; hope.
So he kept going. He pushed through the snow even when it came up to his knees and even when he stumbled and fell and felt like his body was going to give out. He pushed on through the trees, through the darkness, and it took him several minutes to realize what he was looking at when he came to the top of a hill and looked out over dozens of tiny lights below him accompanied by the sounds and headlights of cars and people.
No sound came out of his sore and battered throat, but a true, genuine smile spread over his face and his eyes blurred by the thankful tears that started pouring down his face. Stumbling, the boy made it down the hill and crossed the muddy road that had been cleared of snow. Not far away was a large, dimly lit parking lot. It was filled with mainly trucks and big rigs, and they sat outside a rustic looking building where beer, girls, and pool were advertised in the windows while country music blared out of the slightly open door.
His brain screamed at him to go inside, to get some help, but his body was beginning to shut down. It had taken him as far as it could on every ounce of energy it had to spare, and even more that it hadn’t had, so he looked around and managed to stumble towards the nearest vehicle. It was a truck with a camper on the back. He was extremely fortunate to find the back unlocked and dragged himself inside.
He sighed in relief as the cold, biting wind suddenly ceased and it was all he could do to lower himself onto the small bed in the front. He couldn’t even summon up the strength to draw the blanket over his body. In the calming darkness the boy finally felt a measure of peace sweep over him. He knew it would be impossible to hope that he would wake up later, his body was already too exhausted to probably recover, but that was all right. He had gotten all that he wanted, his freedom. As the darkness closed around him to become complete, he felt he could die happily with that.

“That’ll be all for tonight, Steve,” Vance Holloway laid the bills on the bar and pulled his heavy jacket on.
“You headed out?” Steve asked, wiping down the bar again and taking the money.
“Yeah, got a job in Texas,” he answered. “Might be back up here come February of next year though, so keep a beer cold for me.”
“Will do, bud,” the bartender answered.
Vance pulled a cap down over his head and buttoned his coat before leaving the heat of the bar and going out into the cold. One thing he wouldn’t miss about Montana was the damn winters. It was too damn cold, too much snow, and too long for his tastes. Though he would miss the great fishing, he was pretty glad to be going down south again.
The gritty gray snow crunched under his boots as he crossed the parking lot and got into his truck. The old Ford sputtered to life after a few minutes and he let it warm up before easing it out of the lot. He was aiming to hit the small town of Cooper by five o’clock if the roads weren’t out or anything and have a good sleep before hitting the road again. He would need to load up on some stuff from the grocery store first though, no way would he make it very far without some chicken soup in his thermos and a big supply of Cheese Nips to get him across the state line.
Vance cranked up the stereo to keep himself awake and took it slow down the winding mountain road. It was when he took a sharp turn when he hit a small patch of ice that he head a strange noise come from the camper of his truck. At first he thought it was probably just something rolling around in the back, which with his bachelor lifestyle was probably a good assumption, but the second time it happened it had the distinct sound of a human voice.
“Crap,” he muttered. Slowing, he pulled the truck off to the side of the road and got out. “Alright, Eddy, if that’s you I swear I’ll drag your drunk ass outta there and leave you here for bear bait!”
He’d caught the town drunk on two occasions trying to sneak into his camper for food and booze. The old fart was old enough to be his grandpa, so Vance had taken pity on him and just tossed him out, but if he’d broken anything in there Vance wasn’t going to stand for it. He had enough money to get to his next job and set himself up at a motel, but he would be screwed if he had to make any repairs.
The door came open and Vance clicked the flashlight on, but it wasn’t a drunk Eddy that he found back there.
“Jesus…”
A kid no more than sixteen was laying face down in the floor and blood seemed to be smeared all around him.
Vance climbed into the back and turned the kid over. His eyes were closed and his breathing was shallow. With a twist of his gut he saw a gash on the boy’s neck when his head tilted back; it was still oozing slightly and his skin was white as chalk.
“Kid, hey kid, wake up!” he shook the boy a little, but all he got was a moan. “Kid, wake up!”
The boy didn’t respond. The blanket was nearby, so Vance ripped it off the bed and wrapped the boy in it until he was in a cocoon with just his head sticking out. Picking the kid up, he set him back up on the bed and raced out and around back to the cab. He gunned the engine and pulled back out onto the road.
“Damn it, kid, don’t you dare die on me in my bed! You hear me? You keep breathing or they’ll be hell to pay!”
Shit, that kid looked awful. What’d he do, tangle with a bear or something? Glancing back over his shoulder at the kid, he made a U-turn and headed back into town. If the kid had luck on his side, maybe the doctor would still be awake and sober enough to take care of him. The lights of _______ appeared over the hill as the Ford groaned it’s way up the hill. He took it as slow as he dared down the road, but came rolling into the doctor’s driveway about five minutes later.
The doctor answered the door after a couple minutes of Vance pounding on his front door.
“What the hell is it?” he asked, blinking in the porch light and wrapping a flannel robe around his pot belly.
“I need help, I got an injured kid,” Vance said.
“What happened?” the doctor asked. He stepped into a large pair of boots by the door and came out into the yard.
“No idea, found him in my truck this way,” Vance answered and pulled the kid out of the back of the camper. He looked even worse than before, if that were possible.
“Crap, sonny, get him inside, I’ll see what I can do,” the doctor said, looking at the boy’s bare feet hanging out of the end of the blanket.
Vance followed the doctor inside and laid the boy out on the couch in the living room while the doctor rushed around and got his things gathered on the rickety old coffee table.
“Unwrap him, will ya? And then go to the kitchen and start a pot of water to boiling. Doesn’t look like we have time to get him to the office just yet,” the doctor said as he put on his glasses.
Vance did as he was told and unwrapped the boy. Now that he was in the light, the knot in his gut twisted worse when he saw the gash in his neck. That was no bear, if it had been the boy probably would have already died and been bear chow. It almost looked like he’d been choked with a wire or something thin that bit into his neck. And with his feet he must have run a good ways to have torn them up that good.
“Good Lord, poor kid. Go get that water to boilin’, I’ll be needing it soon,” the doctor said.

It was several hours later before the doctor finally finished wrapping the boy’s feet and announced they’d done all they could. The old man had cleaned and bandaged his neck as well as he could, but said the boy would always have scars and it would take a while to heal. The feet, too, though they weren’t as bad as they had first seemed.
“Well, thanks for the help, doc, but I’ve got to hit the road. You think the kid will be all right here?” he asked, hoping he could drink enough of the doctor’s coffee to stay awake until he hit Cooper.
“Not so fast sonny, you can’t just leave him here like this,” the doctor said. “I’ll need you to come over to the hospital with me in the morning and fill out some paper work.”
“The kid ain’t even mine,” Vance protested. “I just found him.”
“Yeah, well, doesn’t matter. You still need to come with me and you’ll need to tell the sheriff what happened, too, so he can file his report, then you can be on your way. Sorry, son, that’s just the law nowadays.”
“You got an extra room then?” he asked. He would have been just fine sleeping in his truck, but the kid had probably bled everywhere in there.
“Yeah, got one in the back that’s got a good heater. Go make yourself at home,” the doctor said, waving his hand.
Vance nodded and downed the rest of his coffee. Oh well, the doctor made a weak pot anyway, it probably wouldn’t have gotten him any further than where he’d noticed the kid.
Grabbing the extra blanket the doctor pointed him to, Vance made his way to the back of the small house and settled into the warm smallish bed. Maybe he’d be able to hit Cooper by tomorrow afternoon.

Dr. Larry Morgan checked the boy one more time before dimming the lights and going back to the kitchen. There was a little coffee left in the pot, so he poured it in his cup and went back to his rocking chair in the living room. He would stay up and check on the boy periodically, just to make sure he made it through the night. The boy had lost a pretty significant amount of blood, but he seemed to be stable at the moment. If he were any worse then he would have told the handyman to follow him over to the hospital, even with the snow coming in, but it looked like the boy might make it until morning.
Easing himself into the rocking chair, Dr. Morgan looked over the boy again before settling back into the chair. He drained his cup just before two AM and checked the boy’s vitals every half hour. He was glad to see they were staying steady.
Sometime during the early morning, Dr. Morgan finally succumbed to sleep, only to be awakened not much later by a crash.
He jolted out of his sleep and looked around, only to find the couch next to him empty and the blanket on the floor. His over sized lamp near the foot of the couch was on the floor and the boy was hobbling away towards the kitchen.
“Hey, easy sonny, easy,” Dr. Morgan said, coming up behind the boy. He was not prepared for the boy to swing around and hit him in the chest.
Dr. Morgan went down with a cry, coughing as he held his chest and landed hard on his arthritic knees. Out of nowhere the handyman came out.
“What’s wrong?”
With an animal-like snarl, the boy turned on him and the handyman narrowly dodged a fist coming toward his face. The boy pulled back to swing again, but the handyman got his feet under him and caught the boy’s arms before twisting them around behind him. The boy struggled and squirmed, but his burst of strength was fading away.
“Get him back to the couch,” Dr. Morgan wheezed, a hand on his chest.

“What the hell did you do, stick him with a needle or something?” the handyman asked, getting the boy back into the living room. Dr. Morgan shakily got to his feet and followed.
“No, he just woke up on his own,” he said, and began checking the boy’s vitals again while he was still being subdued. The boy’s eyes were slightly unfocussed when he lifted his eyelids, then they cleared.
“Who are you?” the boy’s voice was nothing but a high pitched whisper.
“It’s ok, son, I’m here to help you,” Dr. Morgan said. “My name is Larry Morgan, I’m the doctor for this little town. This man here found you and brought you here to me.”
The boy looked up at the handyman for a second before focusing back on Dr. Morgan.
“You were injured pretty badly, son. Do you think you can tell me what happened?” he asked.
The boy just stared at him for a few minutes, utter confusion written across his face.
“I-I don’t know,” he answered. “I can’t remember.”