Succinct (Extinct Book 5)

by Ike Hamill

  “Fantastic,” Wesley said.

  A small cluster of people rolled up to Janelle and were greeting her down on the lawn. The people seemed relieved to drop their bikes and stretch their backs. Brad could barely imagine how much effort it had taken to pedal all the way down from Donnelly. It was truly amazing that Lisa had ridden even farther on a bicycle.

  Their second night back in Gladstone, Romie had gotten one of her old bikes back in riding condition and tried to get Lisa to go out with her to survey the neighborhood. Lisa had responded with such an exasperated sigh that Brad had laughed for several minutes, barely able to catch his breath.

  “And you’ve seen nothing weird?” Wesley asked.

  Brad blinked and considered the question. Everything was weird, in a way. There were animals around that seemed perfectly normal even though they were slightly off. Ashley had brought down a deer and the antlers were just… wrong. Romie had made a joke, asking if Ashley had killed the deer up near Waterford.

  Robby ended up explaining the joke. “You know that big building that I’ve told you to stay away from? It used to be a nuclear power plant. Romie is suggesting that maybe this deer is mutated from exposure to radiation. Is that the joke, Romie?”

  Romie had given him a sour laugh and said, “Yes—it’s much funnier if you explain it like that. Thank you.”

  Brad didn’t want to scare Wesley away, but there was no sense in hiding the truth.

  “Things have changed,” Brad said, “but no more than they changed up north. And we haven’t seen anything I would think is particularly dangerous.”

  Wesley considered that for a moment. “I’ll go get the family then.”

  Until then, Brad hadn’t realized that the rest of Wesley’s family were holding back at the end of the path that led to the school’s entrance. Wesley walked part of the way toward them and then waved his arms. They looked relieved to join the others who were heading inside.

  Brad greeted several people with smiles and handshakes. He felt like he was congratulating them for making the trip. The kids looked happy to be back at their school. Apparently, it was easier for them to forget the one bad night they had spent there and remember instead all the fun lessons that Kevin had taught them. In the bunker, when everyone had settled in, there had been a funeral for everyone lost. Several kids had built a small shrine to their teacher, Mr. Burkhart.

  Some of the parents entered the building with narrowed, suspicious eyes. Wesley was one of those.

  “Hopefully,” Wesley said to Brad, “we won’t be here long.”

  Brad nodded.

  Wesley whistled to Tank and the dog went inside with his family.

  Janelle ran inside behind the last of the new arrivals.

  “I’ll go show them where we put everything,” she said.

  “Right behind you,” Brad said. He pulled up the rear while Janelle ran down the hallway to lead the march to the gym.

  Chapter 121: Lisa

  She worked in the yard until sweat was pouring off of her and she was practically panting for breath.

  “Take a break,” Romie said. The way she said it sounded mean, but there was kindness behind the sentiment. Romie handed her a tall glass of cool tea.

  “Thanks,” Lisa said after drinking half of it. A sprig of lemon mint gave it a bit of flavor but the tea itself was fairly flat. It was old stuff that she had dried and left in the cellar. It was one of the few things that hadn’t gone bad since they had left.

  “I don’t know if I can do it,” Lisa said, wiping her forehead.

  “The kids will help.” Romie surveyed the yard as she said it. Lisa had hooked up a winch to the maple tree so she could drag some of the bushes out by the roots. It was the only way to make the patch of yard back into a serviceable garden. Jim had dragged a lot of brush into the neighboring yard and they would have a giant bonfire as soon as it dried out.

  None of that was the issue.

  “I mean I don’t know if I can go through all that work again. Some of the seeds will still be good. They had the good sense to take a lot of seeds down into the bunker, so they didn’t age as much as the ones we left behind here. But all those varieties that we lost… We really depended on those,” Lisa said.

  “We’ll find new ones. You sound like all those people lamenting over the fuel. Old machines break down and we figure out which ones we can live without,” Romie said. “It’s not the end of the world.” She smiled at her own unintentional joke.

  “I know,” Lisa said. “I just don’t know if I can do it. I think that someone else might have to take over the management of this garden. Maybe I can just do the weeding and stuff.”

  “If you’re thinking Ashley will do it, think again. That girl is good for finding, not cultivating.”

  Lisa nodded. It was true. Jim didn’t have the patience and Janelle hadn’t shown any interest either—at least for outdoor gardening. She liked the indoor stuff, but couldn’t be bothered with outdoor stuff.

  Romie seemed to be thinking along the same lines.

  “Ah, maybe one of the other families will take over this plot. The soil still seems really good,” Romie said.

  Lisa was surprised at her own reaction. The thought of someone else coming in and mucking up her garden made her bristle. She realized that maybe she wasn’t fed up with it after all.

  “Hey, Lisa?” a voice called from around the corner of the house.

  Lisa and Romie looked at each other. They both headed toward the sound, but neither of them called back.

  Lisa rounded the corner first and saw Corinna trying to walk through the loose dirt.

  “Corinna!” Lisa called, moving quickly to take her elbow. “Where did you come from?”

  Corinna’s response came word by word. She picked them out slowly as she picked out the next place to put a foot down as Lisa helped her around the corner.

  “I found a motorcycle,” Corinna said.

  Lisa and Romie helped her to a chair at the small table they had set up on the patio. Romie went in to fetch water while Corinna continued her story.

  “When nobody was looking, I stole some fuel,” Corinna said with a wicked grin. Her eyes still had a little of the madness that she had developed during her time alone, but Corinna’s smile made her look like a young woman again.

  Romie returned with the water and Corinna took a long drink.

  “Made it almost the whole way. I finally ran out at the top of the hill and I had to coast the rest of the way in.”

  “You have be more careful than that,” Romie said. “You could have killed yourself.”

  “I’ll do as I please,” Corinna said. Her eyes went hard with that statement and Romie put up her hands defensively.

  Lisa cleared her throat and tried to reset the mood.

  “So, what brings you down here, Corinna?”

  After another drink of water, Corinna said, “I’m done with Donnelly. Turns out I’m sick of living there after all that time. The sun might be behaving for the moment, but I just don’t trust it up there.”

  Romie opened her mouth to comment and then closed it again.

  “So I thought I would see if I like it better here, on the coast. If this doesn’t work, then I’m going back to the city. I was always happier there.”

  “You can stay with us,” Lisa said, seizing on the only practical part of the plan. “If you want to, that is. We have a couple extra rooms, but we would be thrilled if you would stay here with us.”

  Lisa gave Romie a look and a moment later, Romie seemed to get the point.

  “Yes,” Romie said. “Please stay here.”

  “I could give it a try,” Corinna said. “Just a try.”

  “The kids will be thrilled,” Lisa said. She wanted to take Corinna inside and get her tucked safely into a room before she could change her mind. Corinna had to be tired though. She looked worn out from her trip. It was almost funny to picture the old woman driving a motorcycle all the way down from Donnelly. A chi
ll ran through Lisa when she thought about everything that could have gone wrong.

  Lisa got up and headed for the kitchen door.

  “You must be starving.”

  “Yup,” Corinna said.

  Chapter 122: Ashley

  Before going inside, Ashley stopped to look up at the moon. The memory of the red spot was fading like a bad dream. She could barely remember what the shape had looked like, now that it was gone. Inside the house a burst of laughter rang out. Corinna would be in there—Ashley had seen the motorcycle and pieced that together. There was only one person who would have found a way to get fuel and drive a motorcycle down from Donnelly. Ashley had to remind herself that it would be the geriatric version of Corinna inside the house. It was too easy to picture the young version of Corinna in there, but that person was gone.

  Pushing open the door, Ashley was pleased at how the house was coming along. She kicked off her shoes and left them next to the bench. Everyone was gathered in the dining room with Corinna at the head of the table.

  “Ashley!” Lisa said. “Where have you been?”

  In response, Ashley removed her backpack and unzipped it. All eyes were on her as she reached inside. The plant was a little droopy from the trip, but the leaves were in good shape inside the plastic container.

  Lisa drew in a surprised breath.

  “Where is it from?” Lisa asked, reaching out both hands. She took the tomato plant carefully and set it on the table to remove the plastic bottle. Lisa leaned close to blow on the leaves.

  “That greenhouse near the river,” Ashley said.

  “You walked all the way over there?” Romie asked.

  “Rode a bike, actually,” Ashley said.

  Lisa made a sour face and the table laughed.

  “Have a seat,” her father said. “We’re waiting on dinner. Should be ready any hour now.”

  This brought a fresh burst of laughter from the table.

  Brad rolled his eyes and pushed up from his seat to head toward the kitchen.

  “You’re the one who said that the stove was loaded,” Brad said.

  “I never said that wood would burn,” Robby said with a big smile.

  Ashley took a seat next to Corinna.

  “I’ll help,” Janelle said. She jumped up and ran after Brad.

  “What else did you find in the greenhouse?” her father asked.

  Ashley glanced around. All eyes were on her. “Nothing special. I’m out of the loop. What brings you to Gladstone?”

  Corinna frowned and shook her head. “Ants in my pants—same as usual.”

  “She’s test driving Gladstone,” Lisa said.

  “We’re going to need all the help we can get,” Romie said.

  Jim rocked back in his chair. “I told you guys we should have stayed in Donnelly. We’ll be going back there before long.”

  “Liam’s coming,” Corinna said.

  “What?” Lisa asked. “You didn’t tell us that.”

  “Didn’t I mention? He wouldn’t come with me, and he refuses to ride a bicycle. I don’t think he ever properly learned. Plus, he has that dog with him,” Corinna said.

  “He’s walking?” Romie asked.

  Corinna nodded in response.

  “That’s going to take him a year,” Romie said with a wave.

  “Maybe,” Ashley said. On the march from the bunker back to Donnelly, Ashley had seen a side of Liam that nobody else seemed to recognize. They still saw him as the shy recluse that they had known all along. Ashley thought that he had changed since she last saw him, and she felt sure of it when she had seen the way he made the journey. Some people had considered the hike to be a grind. It was a necessary evil that they were going to survive because they had to get home. Liam had seemed to get some enjoyment out of it. With each leg of the trip, he had grown more cheerful and energetic, at least in Liam terms.

  “What are we doing tomorrow, Dad?” Jim asked.

  “Well, let’s see,” their father said. He rubbed his chin and looked up toward the ceiling. “We could try to scrounge some more batteries. There have to be some that will still hold a charge somewhere around here. We could try to hunt down some more pumps. If we find some with the right kind of rubber, I’m pretty sure it can be reconditioned.”

  “That’s boring stuff,” Jim said, waving his hand.

  “What do you want to do?”

  “Catch a horse,” Jim said.

  Ashley sat up a little straighter. “Horse?”

  Her father nodded. “Yup. Over behind the mall. We saw a band of them this afternoon.”

  “How many?”

  “I only saw three. Your brother claims that there were more than a dozen.”

  “Fourteen,” Jim said. “Three fawns and eleven adults.”

  “Foals,” Romie said.

  “How are we going to catch them,” Ashley asked Jim.

  Her father interjected. “You can’t just catch them. We need to get them used to us first. Maybe we can collect some apples and leave them in a spot so they will get used to our scent. Then, slowly, we’ll let them catch sight of us and learn that we’re not a threat.”

  Ashley dismissed her father with a wave and turned back to Jim.

  “How do we catch them?”

  “I read this book,” Jim said, leaning forward. “You herd the horses and separate one out. You get that horse into a round pen. Then, you speak horse language. It’s all about driving them away from you until they give in. Once they accept that there is no use in running, they’ll try to join up with you.”

  “Hmmm,” Ashley said, trying to picture it.

  “Donald would know,” Lisa said.

  “Doesn’t do us much good,” Ashley said.

  “If we can domesticate some horses,” Jim said, “then we could hook them up to a cart and have an easy way to get back and forth to Donnelly.”

  “Wouldn’t it be easier to go up and talk to Donald?” Robby asked. “He said he was going to catch the herd that Ashley saw on her way north.”

  “He does already have the experience,” Lisa said.

  “And those horses up there are likely descended from ones that were already domesticated,” Ashley said.

  Jim gave her a sideways look. “Where do you think these horses came from? Do you think that they just popped up while we were away? They must be the babies of horses that were domesticated at one point.”

  “Not necessarily,” Romie said. “I remember going down to North Carolina when I was a kid. They had wild horses down there.”

  “I was actually thinking of some other source,” Ashley said. “What if they’re from some other place.”

  Her father looked at her and raised his eyebrows, waiting for her to go on.

  Before she could finish her thought, Brad and Janelle pushed through the door, carrying a big tray between them. There were several small roasted birds on the tray, surrounded by a ring of new potatoes.

  “Wow!” Lisa said.

  Romie clapped her hands together.

  “They’re done on the outside,” Brad said. He glanced toward Romie. “We can’t completely attest to the insides. And, to your question from earlier, they taste fine.”

  Jim ducked out of the way so that Brad and Janelle could put the tray of food in the center of the table. Brad began to cut the meat and offer slices around while Janelle stabbed at potatoes and doled them out.

  “When I was a kid,” her father said, “if there was even a hint of red inside a bird, my father would say…”

  Jim finished it for him. “Sarah, I do believe you’re trying to kill me.” The table laughed again. Jim did the thick accent almost as good as their father did, and he had never met the man. None of them had. Their dad was the only witness to their ancestors. Sour sadness rushed through Ashley as she remembered that Janelle hadn’t even gotten a chance to know their mother.

  “Wait, what was the question from earlier?” Ashley asked Brad.

  “Huh?” Brad asked.

>   “You said they taste fine?”

  “Oh. There was some debate earlier over what kind of quail these birds were. Romie and Lisa didn’t recognize the feathers.”

  “They almost had a blue tinge at the edges,” Lisa said. “Corinna said she has seen them before.”

  “Yup,” Corinna said through a mouthful of potato.

  “But in all my years, I’ve never seen anything like it,” Lisa said.

  “There,” Ashley said, pointing to her brother. “That’s my point.”

  “You had a point?” Jim asked. He was examining a piece of meat that Brad had given him.

  “About the horses. You’re so smug about where they came from. The truth is, we can’t know precisely where they came from. That long-tailed bear up near the bunker, and these quail. There are plenty of examples of animals that we’re not completely sure existed before. The horses that you saw could be the same thing.”

  Jim made a face.

  “She has a point,” their father said.

  “So we’ll find out by catching one,” Jim said. “Wouldn’t that make more sense than ignoring them just because they might be different?”

  Ashley shrugged.

  “If nobody dies from eating these weird birds,” Romie said, “then you can try to catch a horse.”

  Epilogue

  Chapter 123: Janelle

  On the morning of her eighteenth birthday, Janelle woke up at dawn. Someone had left Jim’s old door open and the morning sun streamed in. Through her window, across the back yard, she saw the moon beginning to descend below the trees on top of Terrace Hill.

  Janelle wriggled a hand out from under her blankets and pulled it back in. With her window open, the air felt soggy. She wasn’t ready to deal with it yet. Her eyes were drifting shut again when she heard footsteps coming down the hall.

  Her father’s head poked around the doorframe.

  “Morning, birthday girl,” he said.

  She smiled.

  He came in and sat at the foot of her bed, finding her ankle through her blankets to give it a squeeze.

  “When I was a kid, eighteen was a milestone,” he said. “It was the age when most people graduated high school, and you could vote.”