Cold Asylum: Book Summary
As Ryan awakens one of his greatest fears has come true. He finds himself totally alone in a new redoubt. Something had gone terribly wrong and the entire party got separated. He gets up to explore, to try and figure out where he is. The walls of this redoubt are a deep rich purple.
Exiting the gateway, he immediately catches the scent of stale human sweat, and knows for a fact that he isn't alone in the redoubt. Going a little further, he comes across a tourist group going through the redoubt! Sometime during the past, the locals found their way into the redoubt and decided to make an attraction out of it. He is discovered and is forced to kill several people before he makes it back to the gateway and triggers a second jump.
Mildred awakens to discover that, like Ryan, she is totally alone. The redoubt she is in is bitterly cold, and the walls are a light green blue in colour. Finding the temperature too cold to handle, she simply triggers the jump again and leaves.
When Krysty awakens, she finds Dean is fast asleep on her lap. The walls of this gateway are a brilliant scarlet in colour. She discovers that they are alone. She wakes the boy up and they leave the gateway. Inside the control room they find box after box of tampons. Krysty grabs a handful for herself and Mildred. Figuring that their best bet would be to jump again, they do just that.
As with the others, Michael awakens to find himself totally alone. The walls of his particular redoubt are a olive green in colour. He leaves the gateway and opens the sec door in the control room, attracting the attention of a hideous mutant. He nearly passes out from fright but is able to trigger the sec door, bringing it down on top of the mutant creature. It traps it and crushes it. While it dies, a tiny version itself escapes from it's dying mother. Michael crushes it with his boot and then jumps out again.
J.B. wakes up, finds himself alone in an orange coloured gateway, simply gets up and Triggers the jump again.
The walls of the gateway are a grey in colour, speckled with green dots. Doc awakens to find himself lying on a bed of cockroaches. He gets up to explore the redoubt, hoping to find a clue to what happened. He wanders around for a short period of time, lost in his own version of madness. He finally snaps out of it, and goes back to the gateway and jumps out.
This time around, Ryan finds himself in a redoubt with bright cherry red walls. He wastes no time in exiting the gateway and begins to explore the new redoubt. Almost from the start he notices a peculiar odour, much like that of an hospital. Inside the control room he finds boxes filled with surgical gowns, masks and gloves. Heading out into the redoubt, he eventually comes to a elevator. During the skydark, one of the redoubt staff wrote the code to call the elevator car on the wall. Using it he takes the elevator up to the main level.
Over an interval of twenty minutes, the rest of the group arrive one at a time, starting with J.B., then Mildred, who is suffering from another one of her migraines. She sits down in the control room and types her name and important information into the computer. When she hears the warning of another jump, she takes off. Krysty and Dean arrive next, followed by Michael. They all head towards the elevator and take it up to main level. Doc, as usual, is the last to arrive.
Ryan finds himself running into a ghoul. He kills it and then two others. J.B. hears the sound of Ryan's blaster and comes running, just in time to see another ghoul sneaking up on him, ready to kill him. J.B. saves his life by cutting the mutant down. Its only a short time before the entire group, minus Doc tanner are reunited. They discover that the redoubt is actually a mortuary. It was active just after the war and is filled with the corpses of thousands of victims. The redoubt is filled with warehouses that are air conditioned, keeping the corpses perfectly preserved.
Sometime during the past few weeks, the band of mutants broke into the redoubt and have been feasting off the dead for the entire time. They kill a number of the ghouls as they make their way through the redoubt.
Doc Tanner finds himself facing a large group of the mutants. He fights valiantly, but knows its only a short matter of time before they overpower him with their sheer numbers and kill him. He is most happy to see the arrival of his friends who finish off many more of the mutants, scattering the few survivors. Finally, the entire group is reunited.
They continue to head deeper into the redoubt and happen to find the corpse of a beautiful young woman who looked a great deal like Tanners dead wife, Emily.He sort of loses it and heads off on his own to find the control centre for the redoubt. He turns off the air-conditioning and cranks the heat up to its max. The corpses begin to decompose at an incredible rate. The stench is so overpowering that they quickly leave the redoubt.
After using his ever present sextant, J.B. tells them that they are in Kansas, somewhere between Wichita and Topeka. Mildred Doesn't believe it because where they are all they can see is forest. Kansas is supposed to be filled with fields of wheat and grassland. They can actually see the prairies far below. J.B. has never been wrong. They head out to find some food and a place to camp for the night.
They spot a doe and her fawn. They kill the fawn for food and the doe leaves. After eating it, they settle in to relax for a bit. Much later in the day Michael spots a group of horsemen, being led by dogs. They assume that it is a hunt as a huge buck breaks through the forest near them. But, it turns out that it wasn't the buck the hunters were after. It is a man.
They watch as the man is caught, then executed using the flying eagle. The leader of the hunting pack is a beautiful woman with incredibly black hair, who also appears to be partially oriental. They hope to simply wait and allow the sec men to pass, but those plans are dashed as Dean slips and falls, nearly landing below the hoofs of the black haired beauties horse.
The encounter turns out to be peaceful and they are invited by the party to return to the ville of Sun Crest, under the rule of the Baron Nathan Mandeville. The beautiful young woman is his daughter, Marie. The head of the sec men is a man named Harry Guiteau. Ryan and Harry recognise each other. It turns out that Harry used to ride with Gert Wolfram.
On the way to the ville they are forced to cross a fast flowing river. Everyone except Doc Tanner make it across safely. Doc falls off the horse he's riding and is swept down river. Ryan dives after him and is able to rescue the old man. Sadly, Doc lost his Le Mat during his unexpected swim in the cold river.
Eventually they finally arrive at Sun Crest. They meet with Baron Nathan Mandeville briefly who invites them to stay and visit. They are given luxurious rooms. They are told to clean up and be ready for the night meal promptly at 8:30 that night. Ryan and Krysty enjoy a hot bath together and just barely make it to the meal on time.
They get a chance to meet with the baron again at the meal. He talks about his painting collection, his weapons and promises to show them the collections in the morning. After the meal they are locked in their bedrooms and are told that if they leave, and found, they will be killed.
During the night Ryan has a nightmare and wakes up. He goes to the window and looks outside. From where he is standing, he is quite certain that he can see Marie watching him from another part of the mansion.
At eight fifteen in the morning they are let out of their rooms and are taken to breakfast. During the meal the baron offers to take them to see his collect of paintings and weapons. He brings up the fact that he has a competition going on later in the day, and offers the group to join in.
They go to see the paintings. It is truly boring for most of them, and Dean nearly makes the fatal mistake of angering the baron.with his comments on the paintings. Doc is the one who saves the day.
After lunch, the competition begins. Michael offers to fight in the unarmed competition and the sec men are quite sure that their champion will tear the young man apart. He takes on the champion, a huge man named Jerico. He beats him in seconds, but the man pulls off a sneak attack. It angers the boy who repays the attack by killing the man. This brings Marie to a state of near sexual excitement, and she keeps the boy by her side for the rest of the day.
The next competition is on the firing range. J.B. wins the match with no effort. Harry warns them that it wouldn't be a good idea for the group to win any more of the competitions, as it would really piss off the baron.
The next event is a 'safe' knife fight between Ryan and one of the younger sec men. It turns out to be a draw, and the boy is angered by this. He tries to pull off the safety covering of the knife and attack Ryan. Ryan simply pulls out his Sig and is about to shoot the man when the baron puts an end to it, declaring a draw.
The finally match is between Mildred and Harry. They both use their pistols. Ryan notices that it appears as if Marie is giving Michael a hand job. The weapon that Harry is using is a Colt Whitetaler Mark 2. The match turns into another draw, but Marie isn't satisfied with it. She wants to see it continued, to the blood. Mildred flat out refuses to go along with it.
The final event of the day is a fight to the end between a family of five wild wooders, who were caught poaching on the baron's land. They are a family and are forced to fight. The last one standing would be allowed to live, and leave, but not until the survivor has one hand, foot, eye and ear cut off. The family refuses to comply and they kill each other. The father tries to take out the baron, and nearly succeeds when he tosses a knife at him, but Michael saves him, catching the blade right out of the air.
After the events, they are allowed to clean up in their rooms before supper. Ryan wants to talk to Michael, and warn him to stay away from the young woman Marie. But he doesn't get a chance as Marie and Michael are dining together.
Marie has Michael naked on her bed and has sex with him four times. She tells him that she wants him to stay with her once the other are gone, and he tries to get her to elaborate on what she meant. She says that it was nothing. During the last time she shows him several porno videos, which keep getting more and more depraved. It gets so bad that he hits the woman to get her off him and throws up in her face. He barely manages to gather up his clothing and runs out of the room, as Marie promises that he is just as dead as the rest of the group.
Ryan and Krysty manage to comfort the young man and get him to relate the story of what happened. When they learn what the baron has planned, they try to escape the mansion. They are nearly out when they are caught by Harry Giteau and a squad of sec men. They have no choice but to turn over their weapons and surrender.
They are allowed a good breakfast and Ryan comes right out and asks if they are to be hunted like the man they saw two days before. Harry confirms that is indeed what is going to happen. After breakfast, they are allowed to keep their blades and are given a fifteen minute head start. A heavy rainfall begins, and that will aid them in trying to keep the hunters off their back.
Ryan knows that there is no way they can outrun the hunters, or even manage to make it to the redoubt, so he decides that they will try to get back into the ville, since the vast majority of the sec men will be out hunting them. They make their way to the river, where the PowerStation is located for the ville. Slipping in, they kill the two technicians and disable the turbine, throwing the ville into darkness.
Ryan takes the overalls of one of the dead technicians and bluffs his way into the ville, killing the young woman who let him in. The group makes their way up to the tower where their weapons are on display.
At this time Harry Guiteau smells something funny. It hits him and he knows what is going on. The baron doesn't believe him for a second, but his daughter Marie agrees. They head to the power station to see what happened, and discover the dead technicians. They then head towards the ville itself. Find the entrance barred and they are forced to blow the doors off the hinges.
At the top of the stairs they encounter guards. But because Ryan is wearing the uniform, it catches them off guard and they are able to dispatch them quickly and enter the armoury. Inside, they locate their weapons and Doc is happy to discover a gold plated Le Mat, to replace the one he lost in the river. Ryan and J.B. then use explosives and oil to set up a bomb to take out the sec men who are about to break in.
Marie demands that both Ryan and Michael are to be taken alive. Once the doors are opened, she sends in the sec men. The bomb detonates, killing no less than six of the sec men and setting the ville of Sun Crest ablaze. In the confusion they make it out of the building.
Outside, they run into Guiteau, Nathan Mandeville, and Marie. Doc kills Baron Nathan with his new Le Mat. Harry Guiteau manages to capture Dean and is holding his Armalite to his chest, threatening to kill the boy. Mildred makes once of her best shots ever, blowing off the mans index finger and the trigger of the weapon. She then puts another round through his forehead, killing him.
Michael goes after Marie. He demands to finish her off for what she did to him. As he advances on her, she fires off all six rounds from her weapon, missing him completely. She throws the empty weapon which Michael catches and tosses over his shoulder. What he says to her will never be known, but in the end he snaps her neck, killing her.
With Sun Crest on fire, the inhabitants are in total disarray. Any surviving sec men are too disheartened to be of any threat and they leave unmolested.
By late afternoon they arrive at the redoubt. Most of the ghouls are dead, having been poisoned by eating the rotting flesh. The few that are still alive stay away from the group, all except for one who tries to attack as they enter the elevator. The mutant has his arm cut off and they make it down to the gateway and jump out.
While this was taking place, Abe finds himself in a small ville called Andromeda, near the ruins of Seattle. Three local toughs set upon him, and they are killed. Abe turns around to see himself facing his old boss, Trader. They are reunited finally! They leave the ville and continue on towards Seattle. They find themselves several days later in the ville of Everette, about thirty miles away from the city. Here a woman sends her six boys to try and rob the pair. They are killed quickly and violently. Trader finishes off the woman, and a young whore who played along with it. Its from here that they begin to send out the notes to try and locate Ryan and the others.
End of Cold Asylum
A total of 3 days passed in this novel.