Succinct (Extinct Book 5)

by Ike Hamill

  “I have an idea,” Pam said. She moved off, waving for them to follow.

  The stairway to the basement had railings on both sides. Brad was able to prop himself up with his arms and the descent was easy. He wasn’t looking forward to the climb back up, but that was a problem for later. He had only been in the basement a couple of times. He guessed that they were under the kitchen based on the pipes he saw above.

  “These were converted to wood when oil became scarce,” Pam said, gesturing at the furnaces. “It’s a two-stage system. A fire in the bottom chamber heats up the top and that wood burns more efficiently. The problem was always that it drew in too much air from the outside. Before we put in the vents, it would make the classrooms at the top of the stairs really drafty.”

  “I remember the drafts,” Kevin said, “but I confess that I don’t remember what the solution was.”

  “My point is that if we burn in the lower chambers, and close these vents, we will pull in air through the classrooms. We can open the windows and then mount filters in them.”

  “Turning the whole classrooms into giant filters,” Brad said.

  “Yeah,” Pam said.

  “And the fires will provide light.”

  “Won’t it get kinda hot in here?” Kevin asked.

  “Not too bad, I don’t think,” Pam said. “It’s always cool down here because we’re mostly underground. I suspect that most of the heat will go up the chimney. We can open the valves on the most remote rooms and send the rest of the heat there.”

  “Good,” Brad said. “What do we need besides a bunch of wood?”

  “I think that’s it,” Pam said. “There’s some already here. I have a bunch at the house that’s dry. I’ll contribute it to the cause. I only burn wood because I like the feel of the heat more. We can live without it.”

  “Perfect,” Kevin said. “I’ll see who is planning on staying and I’ll enlist them to move wood. We can fit enough cots in here to house people.”

  “It will be tight, and not very private,” Brad said.

  “And we’ll have to trek up to the locker rooms for toilets,” Pam added. “There’s a box of glow sticks at the post office. We can use those if the power goes out again.”

  They all nodded.

  “I’m going to see if I can convince Romie to move over here,” Brad said. “Then I need to get a few hours sleep before I pass out.”

  “No problem,” Kevin said.

  Brad caught a ride back to his house and dragged himself inside. He used the chairlift to get up to Romie’s room. The door was open and her bedside light was on. By the way the light was pulsing, he could tell that the backup generator was providing the power to the house. That meant the solar charged batteries were depleted. Brad tucked that information away as he moved to her bedside. She was under the comforter, still wearing her clothes.

  “Romie?” he asked.

  When she didn’t open her eyes, he touched her shoulder.

  “Rome?”

  “Jesus, Brad,” she said, pushing up. “What is it now?”

  “Everyone is gathering at the high school. Well, a bunch of them are gathering. A couple of people are attempting the trip to Donnelly while it’s dark out. They claim that some electrical stuff still works when it is dark. I don’t know—other people don’t agree.”

  “And why are you waking me up?” Romie asked. She pulled her pillow over her head and talked to him through that.

  “The ribbon isn’t out right now. If you want to go up to the high school, this would be a good time to do it. It’s better that than wake up with no power and that weird light overhead, you know?”

  “What part of staying home didn’t you understand?”

  Brad thought about it for a few seconds. Romie was so stubborn that she couldn’t be argued with directly. The only way to get her to revisit her decision would be to frame it in a different way.

  “Kevin’s staying, and Mandy. Pam is going to get a bunch of wood to burn for light, in case the power goes out again. Will and Harrison were headed north I heard.”

  “What’s your point?”

  “They don’t have anyone organizing things. You know how all those people are. They’re good workers, but not one of them can put their foot down and make a decent decision.”

  She didn’t answer him. Romie was so quiet and still that he thought that she must have fallen back asleep.

  “Romie?”

  “I know what you’re trying to do,” she said. “I told you I’m staying here, so there’s nothing left to talk about.”

  “What about Lisa?”

  Romie sighed. “Did she weigh in from somewhere a thousand miles away in the jungle?”

  “No, but it occurs to me that you don’t have anyone fulfilling her end of the pact.”

  “Pact?”

  “You guys made an agreement, remember? She was quoting something that she heard a million years ago about why married people live longer than single people.”

  “Because of spite?” Romie asked.

  “She said it was because they nagged each other to take care of themselves. A person on their own will put off going to the doctor, year after year, but when they have a partner who nags them, they go.”

  “Now you want me to go to the doctor?”

  “No. I’m nagging you to stay alive, so that when Lisa comes back she doesn’t lose her mind with guilt.”

  Romie sighed again.

  “I’ll be the designated haranguer until she returns.”

  “You made that word up.”

  “Maybe. Come on,” he said, shaking her shoulder through the comforter.

  To his surprise, the ploy worked. Invoking Lisa’s name had gotten her out of bed. He was glad that she would be weathering the storm with the others. She was a steady, stabilizing force in the town. People listened to Romie and she was good at calming people down.

  “What time is it?”

  “I don’t know,” Brad said. “Middle of the night?”

  “Would you be a dear and go put on some water for tea?” Romie asked. “I’ll be right down.”

  Brad nodded.

  He rode the chair lift back down to the kitchen and filled the pot. It had been dry since Lisa had left. Brad wondered if maybe Romie wanted to drink tea because he had reminded her about Lisa. If that was true, then Romie would probably be in a foul mood for a bit.

  Once the burner was lit, Brad moved back toward his own rooms. He began working on a mental list of the things he would take over to the high school. They wouldn’t need food or first aid supplies, but he would be on his own for hygiene and clothing. It might be a while before they were able to launder clothes, so he figured he would have to pack heavy. Storage space at the school shouldn’t be an issue.

  His big duffel was about half full of clothes and shoes when the power went out. Brad reached for the flashlight on his dresser. Before he flipped the switch, he waited for a few seconds. When the generator shut off, there was a brief delay during the switch to batteries. Brad held his breath and hoped that the lights would come back on their own. If they didn’t, there was little chance that the flashlight was going to work anyway.

  The lights didn’t come on.

  Brad fumbled with the light and found the button with his thumb. The flashlight didn’t work either. He ran his hand along the top of the bureau for his matches and the candle. Before he found them, he froze at the sound of the scream.

  “Romie?” he called. “You okay?”

  Her next scream was cutoff by the explosion.

  Chapter 55: Ashley

  “What do you think?” she asked Penny. The dog didn’t even hear her over the sound from the falls. The water was roaring over the rocks and the noise enveloped each word that left Ashley’s mouth.

  A tree had been washed over the rapids and had wedged itself in the rocks. Most of the water passed below the thick trunk. Only a little splashed over it. On Ashley’s side of the river, another tree had been undercut
by the current. It was leaning at a steep angle over the water. Ashley grabbed a branch and tugged on it. The tree took all of her weight without even swaying. It was leaning, but it was solid enough for her.

  With a little length of rope, she figured she could climb from one tree to the other, cross the river at the narrowest point. Of course, the narrowest point was also the spot where the water rushed and rumbled with the most ferocity. One slip, and she would have to transit the falls again. They had barely survived the first trip. Ashley wasn’t eager to be thrust into that water again.

  “You better stay here,” Ashley said. “I’m going to see if it’s feasible.”

  Again, the dog didn’t even seem to hear. Penny watched her with a worried expression as Ashley put a leg over the tree and started to climb. She walked it like a balance beam until she got over the tumbling water. Then, confidence eroded like the bank of the river, she lowered herself down to straddle the trunk. Slowly, she worked herself over to the other tree before she tied her rope.

  It wasn’t much of a drop, but she needed something to hold onto in case the other tree wasn’t quite as stable. Ashley felt the rough bark against her skin as she tried to gracefully lower herself down.

  With an outstretched toe, Ashley pushed on the lower trunk. It had no bounce at all. The thing was wedged tight.

  Ashley looked back to the bank to yell a useless command at Penny. The dog wasn’t there.

  “Oh, shit,” she whispered, looking frantically around. She hoped that the dog was only upstream a little, or maybe working her way back downstream to Lisa. The sinking feeling in her stomach was confirmed when she saw the bobbing head of the dog in the river as she was swept away. Penny had tried to follow and was swimming for her life.

  “Shit,” Ashley said again. The word was swallowed by the water. Using the rope to balance, she put her full weight on the wet trunk and began to walk across. When she had to let go of the rope, she kept her arms out to the side, teetering left and right as she put one foot in front of the other. There were places where the wet bark was as slippery as ice. When her foot slipped, Ashley simply kept moving forward. She didn’t have time to fall, and forward was the only direction that she wanted to go.

  Ashley practically collapsed into the branch that stuck vertically up from the trunk of the tree. She still didn’t stop to catch her breath, swinging around the branch and picking up even more speed.

  Her foot slipped on a naked part of the log where the bark had been peeled away by the rocks or water. She got lucky. There was a rock just below the surface and Ashley caught herself with her hands on the tree before she could tumble too far. Her confidence was gone. She crawled for a few moments, soaked again by the spray from the rapids. Glancing downstream, there was no sign of Penny. Ashley increased her speed. Getting closer to the edge, she got back to her feet, and realized that she was being reckless.

  It didn’t matter. She had to get to the opposite bank and make sure that Penny was okay. If not for her, Penny would have stayed safely on the other side. Ashley jumped the last few feet and landed in the water. It only looked to be a few inches deep, but she hadn’t counted on how steep the slope was. Before her hands even touched down, Ashley knew that she was slipping into the current. She grabbed handfuls of dirt and clutched at the waterlogged grass and branches.

  Clawing and pulling, Ashley pulled her way onto the bank.

  There was no time to rest. In a mad dash, Ashley worked her way downstream. The river swirled and churned on her left. On her right, there was very little terrain before the rock face of the cliff. More than once, she had to leap to get to the next section. Her heart soared when she saw Penny again. The dog had paddled most of the way across. The little panicked eyes poking out of the water were locked on the bank just downstream from her.

  “Penny!” she shouted, immediately regretting calling to the dog. When Penny heard her, the dog turned and began to struggle upstream toward her. It was a mistake. Penny was now headed against the current and toward a much worse place to try to extract herself.

  Ashley lowered herself to the mud and reached out a hand.

  Penny was so close.

  With one idiotic lunge, Ashley extended beyond her balance and caught the dog’s collar. She pulled with all her strength to get them both back up to the rock. By the time that Penny’s paws were scrabbling at the bank, they were both breathless and panting. Once Penny was safe, Ashley collapsed back.

  She burst out with a laugh when Penny shook water everywhere.

  “We’re both stupid,” she said. “How the hell are we going to get back?”

  Ashley looked downstream. The cliffs bordered the river for another twenty yards or so and then it looked like there was a bank they could actually walk on. The first priority was to go downstream until she could yell across to Lisa. Then, they could figure out how to reunite on the same side.

  Penny stayed right behind Ashley—her nose at the back of Ashley’s knees—as they picked their way down the bank to the place were it leveled off and they could walk side by side.

  The more Ashley thought about it, they would be better off on the north side. Instead of Ashley and the dog returning, it would be best to find a way to get Lisa across. There was a short section of rope she had left on the tree—that was expendable. Maybe Lisa could get across there, but they would never get the raft across the falls. The only thing that made sense would be for Lisa to try to pole or paddle her way across.

  “Lisa!” Ashley yelled when she saw the raft across the way. “Lisa!”

  There was no movement and no answer on the other side of the river.

  “Where’d she go?”

  Penny looked up but didn’t have an answer.

  “Let’s get higher, if we can. Maybe we can see her.”

  They backtracked east a little to where the cliff started to rise up. The rocks were climbable and Ashley and Penny both managed to get a good fifteen feet above the river’s edge. From there, she could see where she had spread out the clothes and packs to dry.

  “She wouldn’t have gone far. She was feeling weak,” Ashley said.

  After waiting on the ledge for a sign of Lisa, Ashley grew restless. Back at home, Romie said that she had ants in her pants. Romie wasn’t wrong. Sitting still wasn’t one of Ashley’s skills. There was always something to be done, and sitting around made Ashley itch with nervous energy.

  The problem was that she couldn’t forage or try to gather firewood while she was up on the ledge. And down on the banks, it would be difficult for her and Lisa to spot each other.

  Ashley compromised. She worked down on the bank for several minutes, gathering some ferns and greens that could be eaten in a pinch. Then, she climbed back up on the rocks, tenting her hand over her eyes while she scanned the opposite side of the river.

  “Lisa!” she yelled. There was no way of telling if her call even made it to the other side of the river. It could have been masked by the rumble of flowing water.

  Penny was laying in the flattened grass where the floodwaters had receded. She panted in a way that would have looked like a smile if not for the white at the edges of her eyes. The dog was either nervous or still recovering from her swim.

  “If I left you here, would you stay put until I could get the raft back across?”

  Penny didn’t answer except to close her mouth, swallow nervously, and open it again. In a way, it was an answer. Ashley knew that the dog was going to follow her no matter what. When Tim wasn’t around, Penny preferred to follow Ashley until he returned.

  “That’s a good point,” Ashley said, glancing up the hill behind her. “We’re supposed to be looking for Tim.”

  The cliff would be a tough climb, and impossible if she was worried about Penny trying to follow her up the rocks. Downstream, where the slope was gentler, she would lose her view of the river pretty quickly as she passed beneath the limbs and leaves. It couldn’t be helped. She had to do something, and foraging up into the woods wa
s the thing she wanted to do most. Food and signs of Tim were the top priority. With Penny on her side of the river, and the bags on the other, she would have to provide for the dog as well.

  “Come on,” she said to Penny. “We’ll hike up a bit, see what we can find, and then come back to see if Lisa has returned.”

  On second thought, before they climbed Ashley broke a couple of saplings off at their base. She pulled them over to one of the rocks and set them up into a leaning triangle. If Lisa happened to look over she would see signs of life.

  “Okay,” Ashley said. “Now we’re ready.”

  By staying close to the rock ledge, they made good time. This forest wasn’t nearly as dense as the jungle had been. It almost reminded her of the woods of inland Connecticut. There were tall pines above and places where the only ground cover was a thick bed of fallen needles. It made for good walking, and it felt nice to lean into a hill and climb. Ashley’s legs were glad for the task. It beat sitting on a raft.

  A couple of times when the trees were thin enough to let sunlight through, Ashley turned to see if they had a view of the river. It was no good. The ground fell away too fast and there was too much undergrowth down there. The most she could see was the hill on the other side of the little valley. The river cut through the bottom and the sides rose pretty quickly. Ashley wondered if maybe they were in a section of what used to be called the Blue Ridge Mountains.

  “Can’t be,” she told Penny. The dog looked up at her with pricked ears. “I think we’re already west of the Blue Ridge Mountains. At least I hope we are. Seems like we’ve been traveling forever, and we had to be making good time on the river.”

  Penny swung her head around and looked up the hill. The dog stood up. It would be easy if she were better trained. When they were growing up, Janelle and Jim had taken up the task of training one of the dogs, Clint, for tracking. He had taken to it naturally. Dr. Matthew had said that he likely contained a good bit of bloodhound in him, based on his ears and jowls. The kids had taken turns hiding and tracking after school for months. Eventually, it got to the point where Clint would race along, following their scent while barely lowering his nose toward the ground.