Invasion: Chapter 5: The Accident

Mika had made a considerable amount of ground in his runaway by midday. He kept the Norton Sound coast in sight ever since starting out nearly two days ago. As he pressed onward, he spotted something on the horizon that he thought might be of use to him. It was an abandoned native-style kayak. Mika looked around for anything else nearby that might be helpful. Finding a paddle, he decided the newfound craft might prove useful. "Well, it's too late to turn around," Mika said to himself, "but I won't get very far on foot." He then grabbed the paddle and pushed the boat out into the sea, at which point he hopped in. "And so I set sail for unknown shores," Mika said, again to no one in particular. His next words were directed at the ocean itself. "Oh, merciful Bering Poseidon! Take pity on this Suomi mariner!" Suomi means Finnish in, well, Finnish.
The sailing, however, was not so smooth. A few hours later, Mika encountered a storm with some major swells. Despite his best efforts to control the tiny craft, the kayak was still a handful in the rough sea. "Whoa! Whoa!" Mika repeatedly said throughout the ordeal, as wave after wave ran under the kayak. Each one seemed to get bigger and bigger. After one really big one went underneath him, it seemed that Mika was in the clear. But one look back shattered that notion. A monstrous, 10-story wave was barreling down on him. "CURSE YOU, MERCILESS BERING POSEIDON!!" Mika exclaimed, his lungs pegged at full boost with that scream as the wave swept him under.
Mika eventually washed up on shore, thoroughly soaked. But he didn't wake for another ten minutes. His backpack was nearby, as was the kayak. After clambering to his feet, Mika walked over to where his backpack was. Unlike Mika, it was dry. After making sure the contents of his backpack were okay, Mika pressed on. But he was soaked and cold, and was starting to feel run-down. He found another cave and decided to rest up there. And change his clothes.
Meanwhile, Balto, Boris, Stella, Muk and Luk were hot on Mika's trail. The search had begun at back door of the Finn's house. From there, Balto followed it out to a rendezvous point where he met up with the rest of the search party. By midday, Nome was out of their reverse view. The trail that Mika had left was still detectable, even though he had at least a one day head start. "So let me see if I've gotten this straight," said Boris, who was every bit as confused as everyone else in the search party was, "Kaj was attacked in an alley by three guys who swore revenge on him for a past incident. Next, Mika fends them off to save his brother, but ends up killing one of them and wounding the other two in the process. Then, he's accused of murder and is labeled a killer by some mob that surrounded his house. Finally, the house is vandalized, and Mika is forced to flee. Meanwhile, you, Balto, have night terrors about some mysterious force from the outside that might leave Nome in ruins. Did I miss something here?" "No, Boris," Balto replied. "You heard everything right." "Good," said Boris in response. "I still don't get why those people despised him in the first place," said Stella. "Me neither," Balto responded. "For all I know, it may be a case of xenophobia. I mean, Mika told me that when he was born, Finland was still part of Russia. And with the recent Red Scare, maybe he's viewed as a Russian, not a Finn, and feared because of it. I know he certainly views himself as Finnish." Things started to make a little sense to the others. "Look," Balto added, "as long as we stay on his trail, we'll find him." "And what about this threat you spoke of?" asked Muk, sounding very worried. "Hopefully the answer will be found as we go along," said Balto in response. Around one in the afternoon, the search party of five reached the rock face where Mika spent his first night on the lam. "So this is where he stopped for the night," said Balto, noting how strong the other surrounding odors were. "This is from a night ago," he added. "Come on, let's keep following his trail." Which they did. They were unable to make it to cave where Mika spent his second night away from Nome by nightfall. The progress Mika had made was too much for them. Balto and his comrades managed to find a tree to spend the night under. Unfortunately, it started raining. And the wind picked up and was getting cooler. The tree wasn't much protection. They would undoubtedly emerge soaking wet in the morning.
Mika, on the other hand, had better luck finding shelter. He found a cave up on a mountain in which to spend the night. He then found a relatively dry spot on which to lay out his sleeping bag and rest. The storm swells had carried him a considerable distance from where he left the shore momentarily. He was almost at the tip of the Seward Peninsula. However, there wasn't much sign of civilization anywhere nearby. In his dream, Mika had a series of flashbacks of his old life back home in Finland. Among them, his early childhood - or at least as far back as he could remember - , the first time he picked up a hockey stick, his first actual game, moving up through the ranks and winning championships, carefree days with his brothers, a few just-for-fun rides in his dad's plane, going out with Rikko, and other assorted fond memories of his former life. Anything that happened to him in America was totally excluded. Most of which he'd rather forget. While dreaming, "Sahara", one of the songs performed at his latest Lapp Attack show, played in his head, and he couldn't help but sing along. But he didn't know whether it soothed him or made the pain worse. The two seemed to cancel each other out. By morning the rain had stopped. The spot that Mika picked to sleep was near the entrance so he could see when the sun was coming up. The Bering Sea was still in sight, and the view that greeted Mika upon exiting the cave was stunning. Perhaps even more so than yesterday's. A pod of killer whales were swimming at some distance out to sea. Mika had to get out his binoculars to see them. He even got out his Leica camera and used the binoculars as a zoom lens to take pictures. While he was snapping off one shot after another of the orcas, a humpback whale appeared in view just as clicked off a shot. Somehow, the humpback appeared in the shot just as it breached the surface. "Ah, whoa!" Mika said in surprise. He leaned in a little farther forward to get a closer shot. at which point he put his camera and binoculars away. "Look at that!" Mika said in astonishment as he took one step closer. Suddenly, the edge of the rock ledge he was standing on gave way under his weight. His backpack plummeted straight to the base of the mountain far below. Mika himself, however, fell only 30 or 40 feet before grabbing hold of a ledge with both hands. It was still a long way down from there. "I think I had a nightmare like this once," he said to himself. His hands then abruptly lost grip on the ledge and his fall continued. He bounced off of a few short ledges before rolling down part of the mountain. Then it was a near vertical drop before he landed head first on a sharp rock at the mountain's base. Finally, he fell over almost limp, ending up face down in the sand, unconscious. Blood trickled from the puncture wound located smack dab in the center of his forehead.
At the same time, Balto, Boris, Stella, Muk and Luk reached Mika's second rest point. But his trail vanished at the shoreline, where he went out in the kayak. Balto was becoming a little distressed by now. "Okay," he said, "he stopped for the night in that cave we were just at, and he made it to here. But now his trail is gone." Luk, meanwhile, was motioning frantically to the drag marks left by the kayak. "Luk says he's found something," said Muk. Balto, Boris, and Stella went over to where the two polar bears were standing. They, too, noticed the track, where Balto was again able to pick up the trail. "He must have taken a kayak out to sea," he said. "But there's no telling where he could have gone to. We'll have to follow the shoreline. Hopefully we'll pick up his trail again." So they pressed on. At some point in the afternoon, they reached the spot where Mika washed up on shore with the kayak. From there, his trail was traced to where he stopped to change clothes. "Stella," said Balto, "can you do an aerial search? We're not gonna catch up if we all go on foot." "Can do," replied Stella. Without hesitation, she took off, leaving the rest of search party to scour the area on foot. By evening, the ground team was closing in on where Mika spent his third night on the run. "How can one human cover this much ground in three days?" asked Boris. "It's impossible!" "I'm sure the time Mika spent out at sea helped push him such a great distance," Balto responded. "We still haven't found out what this threat is, though," added Muk. "Yeah, we haven't" replied Balto. "Whatever it is, it sure is elusive." Their conversation was interrupted by a high-pitched scream. The four instantly recognized who made it. Seconds later, Stella appeared in the sky overhead. "Over there!" she exclaimed, pointing towards the nearby mountain. "I saw Mika! He's lying at the base of that mountain! It looks really bad!" "Come on!" said Balto, frantically. "We've got no time to lose!" The five headed to the seaside base of the mountain, where Mika had landed from his nasty fall. What they saw shocked them witless. A dark red pool had formed around Mika's head. And it was growing larger. Approaching where his Finnish friend lay unconscious, Balto slipped and fell in the red puddle, leaving his fur coated in blood. After smelling it, he instantly knew what the pool was made of. "What

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