The Omega Project Read Free Page B

literally starving to death.
    “I was on my way home from the chaos in Washington the day our neighbors struck. My parents and sisters were butchered for three bags of brown rice and a bushel of apples. The rest of our supplies were still hidden in the garage attic.”
    “I’m sorry.” She lay back down, her hand draped across my chest. “After they murdered your family … what did you do?”
    “First I buried my family behind the orchard wall. Then I used the rest of our gasoline to burn down the murderers’ homes while they slept. I’ve been alone here ever since.”
    “You’re an angry little bastard, Eisenbraun, but you’re no longer alone.”
    She climbed on top of me and kissed me, her tongue harsh as it probed my mouth, her hand stroking my loins until I entered her again.

 
    3
    There is love of course. And then there’s life, its enemy.
    —J EAN A NOUILH
    SIX MONTHS LATER …
    The August sunrise lit the sheer gray vertical cliff face into a canvas of gold, causing my heart to race. “Andie, I really don’t feel good about this.”
    “You’ll feel better once we get started.”
    “I don’t want to get started. When you said you knew how to cure my night terrors, I thought we were going for a hike.”
    “We are going for a hike—straight up to the summit.”
    “Without ropes and harnesses? This is crazy.”
    “It’s not crazy, it’s called ‘free soloing,’ and you can do it.”
    “No, I can’t.”
    “Yes, you can. You have the physical strength, what you’re lacking is the psychological control needed to stay on the wall. It’s all about learning to control your fears through Buddha breathing—in through your nostrils, filling the belly, then slowly exhaling through your mouth. Commit to the climb. Focus your fingertips on the rock; be light like a spider monkey. And whatever you do, Ike, keep looking up.”
    *   *   *
    Andria and I had been living together just over five months when I began suffering severe anxiety attacks. She had kidded me about feeling the pressures of being domesticated, and in a way she was right. Worrying about my own survival had been far different than protecting the woman I loved from the murderous gangs that roamed the countryside.
    Fear entered my dreams in the form of night terrors. Ghoulish men would break into our home, the faceless demons raping and torturing Andria as they pinned me down and forced me to watch. Each night terror ended with her death, followed by my bloodcurdling scream.
    Things grew so bad that we had to sleep in separate bedrooms again.
    When my anxiety grew into a severe depression, Andria decided we needed a change of scenery. Claiming she knew the perfect mountain hideaway that would be free of the sociopaths, we packed supplies and rode all night on my battery-powered motorcycle, arriving just before dawn at the foot of Buzzard Rock, a 1,145-foot-high mountain located in Loudoun County, Virginia.
    As she pointed out our route, I felt the blood drain from my face. “Relax, Ike, I’ve climbed this face a dozen times. I’ll go first, do what I do and you’ll be fine. And remember—”
    “I know, I know … keep looking up.”
    We began our ascent. I carefully measured the first fifty handholds, my body trembling in fear as I learned to balance myself on a rock wall. After a while my fingers, hands, and feet became fleshlike pinions, adhering me to the cliff face. I learned to cleave to inch-wide grooves between the slabs of slate; the toes of my running shoes sought the tiniest of perches to bear my weight as I flattened my body to the unforgiving mountain.
    Ten feet turned into fifty; fifty became a hundred, each arm length accompanied by controlled breathing and the occasional “I’m okay” in reply to Andie’s query. We paused, poised on a three-foot ledge 372 feet above our starting point that offered us a treetop view and a place where we could rest and eat.
    I bit into a ripe pear, my body tired, my muscles