Contracts, Matt Rogers [phonics reading books TXT] 📗

That gave him strength, despite the pain.

Four hours into the deep meditation, he shook himself out of it and tapped King on the shoulder.

The man sat up in an instant.

‘My turn?’ he said.

‘Yeah. I assume the ice melted?’

‘A while ago. But I can’t feel my foot. It’s brilliant.’

Slater almost scoffed at the masochism. ‘Glad to hear.’

He lay down, breathed in and out twice, and was asleep in seconds.

54

King had never been the meditative type.

Then he’d spent enough time with Will Slater for the man’s Eastern philosophies to rub off on him, and he’d been a converted disciple ever since.

He employed the same tactics Slater had taught him a hundred times over.

Sit up straight. Focus on the breath — in, out, in, out — and repeat ad infinitum. Don’t get mad at yourself if thoughts float into your head — instead, detach from them and let them drift on harmlessly by. Try to separate yourself from the concept of “I” — get rid of the ego, and recognise that you are the same physical matter as the rest of the world around you. It’s all consciousness. It’s all one and the same. And then, when you reach this inner stillness, do nothing but sit and exist.

Those were the basics. When Slater laid them out, King dismissed them as wishy-washy bullshit, but then after much reluctant practice he’d managed to achieve a full hour of silence, and it changed everything. He came out of it thinking he was capable of literally anything. There was something about the process of blending into his surroundings that flipped a switch in his brain. Suddenly the pain and suffering of training wasn’t part of him — it was something separate, something controllable. He found he could push his body harder in the gym every day, just by making his mind quieter.

Now he detached completely, and settled into a gentle rhythm as the multiple layers of clothing kept him warm. Feeling returned to his ankle, but there was less pain. Halfway through his shift, he took the opportunity to probe the joint with two fingers, and found the swelling had reduced.

Maybe it’d all be okay after all.

A couple more hours passed without incident, and then it was four in the morning, and he woke Slater with a tap on the side.

Slater cracked an eyelid open and said, ‘You need more sleep?’

‘Let me get another hour and I’ll be fine.’

‘You sure?’

‘I know my body.’

‘Go for it.’

King stretched out on the forest floor, draped himself in more layers, and with his mind quieter than it had been in weeks, went out like a light.

55

Slater woke King at five on the dot, and together they packed up their gear and scouted the trail for signs of life in the pre-dawn light.

There was nothing.

Not a soul around.

The birds came to life as light bled into the sky, and Slater used the opportunity to skirt up and down the hillside, patting down corpses that had long ago gone cold. He found several with identical Sig Sauer P320s and fetched every spare magazine he could find. He came back to King with another eight fresh magazines in total, and again they split them four apiece. With their guns fully loaded, they donned their gear with the newfound expertise of seasoned trekkers and set off before they could convince themselves otherwise.

‘You hungry?’ King said.

‘Somewhat,’ Slater said. ‘I don’t want to bother that guy again, and there’s a greater chance he’ll be spotted interacting with us in broad daylight. Besides, there’s bound to be somewhere to eat further up the trail.’

‘Agreed on all counts.’

They didn’t talk much, and there was no wonder. The calmness of the morning quickly wore off after the first major ascent, which left them gasping for breath at the top of a long and winding climb. Then they pushed harder, weaving along rock formations and over bridges that crossed glacial streams nearly frozen over. Snow cropped up with increasing frequency, powdering the sides of the trails until they suddenly found themselves surrounded by the stuff. There was no need to shrug on another layer — the intensity of the trekking kept them warm the whole way.

They stumbled into Machhermo — resting at roughly fifteen thousand feet — just after ten in the morning. The small village was situated in a flat basin, surrounded on three sides by stunning snow-capped peaks spearing toward the heavens. The giant mountains weren’t in the distance anymore. They were right there in their faces.

But Slater wasn’t exactly paying attention to the scenery.

He was in terminator mode, all his focus concerned with keeping up a measured pace so he didn’t drop from exhaustion. The number of miles they were racking up each day had finally caught up to him, and when he stopped to assess his condition in the warmth of a random teahouse’s foyer, he realised he was in worse shape than he thought.

King, it seemed, was in a similar boat.

They both doubled over to catch their breath, and when they met each other’s gaze they found a certain hollow emptiness in each other’s eyes.

King said, ‘Shit.’

‘Yeah.’

‘Let’s eat and drink and see how we’re feeling.’

‘Yeah.’

There was little left to be said. They zombie-walked into the dining hall, catching the attention of a handful of trekkers treating themselves to a late breakfast after a sleep-in.

One of the Nepali guides regarded the newcomers warily. ‘Where you walk from?’

‘Phorste Thanga,’ Slater said.

His eyes widened. ‘It’s ten in the morning.’

‘Yeah.’

They thumped down into the seats and dropped their foreheads to the crooks of their elbows in unison. A young Nepali woman approached them as they tried their best to recover.

She said, ‘What can I get you?’

‘Food,’ they muttered together.

It didn’t take long. They were the only trekkers the kitchen was cooking for when the last of the breakfast hangers-on trickled out to get their journey started. Gokyo was the only destination worth reaching further up the mountain. Machhermo seemed to exist solely as a pitstop before the final