I stand on the steps and look around the yard in the early morning sunlight. There’s wisps of fog or maybe smoke clinging to the ground here and there but the glow from the flames is no longer showing on the other side of the main building. There’s just a small trail of smoke floating up into the sky so the fire must be mostly out. I turn away from the sight and step off the stairs and walk over to the hand pump. I need a wake-up jolt of fresh cold water on me before I can even think about facing what needs to be done next. I get the water pumping until it’s a steady stream and then just stick my whole head under it. The cold water is exactly what I need to clear the cobwebs from my eyes and mind and remove the ugly smell of smoke from my hair and skin. When my hair is fully saturated I stand up and wring the excess water from it and wipe it from my face. I don’t feel like a new girl but I do feel better so I quickly weave the wet strands into a braid and use a strip of fabric from my pocket to tie it off before heading toward the main building.
My steps falter when I see Jackson come around the building from the direction of where the fire was and realize he was the only person I didn’t see last night when the flames were roaring. My lips flatten and my eyes turn to slits of anger as I pick up my pace and march toward him. He looks up when I’m just a few paces away from him and his eyes go wide when he sees my expression. My hands reach out and slam into his chest to shove him back.
“Where the Frack were you last night?” I spit at him.
He backpedals a few more feet as he shakes his head quickly. “Skylar, I didn’t know. No one woke me up!”
I snarl. “Give me a freaking break! Are you trying to tell me you slept through all the yelling and commotion that happened last night? Or maybe you had a reason to stay away. Got anything you want to confess, Jackson? Maybe a little delayed revenge for what happened with your dad?”
The complete and utter shock on his face dampens my rage slightly but even if he isn’t guilty of setting the fire, he is guilty of not being there while the rest of us suffered through witnessing it. Even though Jackson’s been apprenticing with Ethan he still hasn’t made a huge effort to be a part of our group and it makes him an easy target for my frustration and anger.
He holds up his hands in a stop gesture. “I didn’t… Wouldn’t…” His face changes from denial to anger and he takes a step toward me. “Frack you, Skylar!”
I clench my fist and get ready to plow it into his face.
Chapter Fifteen … Rex
I step back from the pile of ashes in front of me, wipe my brow and readjust the bandana I have over my nose and mouth. The bitter stench from the remains of the fire causes my eyes to water. Marsh and I have been using rakes to pull the coals into a wider area to try and get them to cool faster. With the gasoline fueling the fire it burned so hot and quickly that there’s not much left of the shed and generator except for a few twisted metal parts. I’m just about to start raking again when I hear a yell from out in front of the main building. I turn and see Skylar and Jackson nose to nose and it’s clear they’re about to come to blows. I toss my rake down and rush toward them. I already have an idea of what this might be about because I had a similar negative thought about Jackson first thing this morning. When I reach them, I stick an arm between the two of them and haul Jackson away from Skylar, putting myself between the two of them. I turn to Skylar and hold up a hand.
“Whoa, whoa! Calm down, Skylar. What’s this all about?”
She glares at Jackson over my shoulder while crossing her arms in anger.
“I was just asking Jackson where he was last night. He claims he slept through the whole thing!”
I feel Jackson press up against my back at her sarcastic tone so I turn sideways and use a hand to shove him back with a warning look before turning back to Skylar.
“Sky, I understand why you would think that Jackson might have been involved with the fire because I had the same thought. I went into his cabin this morning to have the same conversation. He was dead asleep with earphones on and had no idea what had happened. He also didn’t smell like smoke.”
When her face sets into a stubborn scowl I shake my head and say pointedly, “Let it go, Skylar, he didn’t have anything to do with it!”
Jackson makes a sound of aggravation causing me to turn back to him. His face has a furious expression on it when he throws his hands up into the air in frustration.
“What the heck is wrong with you guys? I’ve never done anything to any of you!”
I look at him dispassionately and shrug my shoulders. “You’re right, you’ve never done anything to us but you’ve also never done anything with us either.” At his confused expression, I sigh. “Jackson, trust is earned and not just freely given in this world. You don’t spend any time with us. You don’t join in our conversations or join us when we play games at night or watch movies together. You’ve isolated yourself from everyone here except for Ethan. That means we don’t know you. If you want us to accept you, then you’re going to have to make an effort to be a part of our group more than just working with Ethan in the clinic. If you want us to trust you, then start building some with us.”
I turn my back on him and reach out for Skylar’s arm to guide her away from him. I understand her reasoning and frustration with him but until he makes more of an effort to have relationships with all of us, he’s going to be the odd man out.
It only takes us a few steps before I feel Skylar relax from her angry stance beside me and she sighs deeply.
“I’m sorry, I overreacted.”
“Yup, you did,” I reply neutrally.
“I totally could have handled that better,” she says.
I don’t answer other than to make a “mmhmm” noise.
She comes to a stop beside me, forcing me to stop walking too.
“Maybe I should go back and apologize to him?”
I take her arm again to get her moving before replying. “No, you shouldn’t. Yes, you overreacted and could have handled it better but it was the same reaction I had when I realized Jackson hadn’t been around last night when the fire was going. If he wants to stay here with us, he really needs to start trying to be a part of our group. I’m not talking about just doing the work that we all need to do to keep this place going either. I’m talking about having relationships with us. Having conversations, jokes, fun even. We’ve all tried to include him at every turn over the last month and none of us except for Ethan has had any success. The bottom line is, we can’t trust him if we don’t know him and we can’t know him if he doesn’t let us.”
She leans against me so I let go of her arm to put mine around her shoulders.
“Okay, I’ll leave it alone for now but I need to apologize to him. It wasn’t that long ago that I had my own trust issues and wouldn’t integrate into your group.” She kicks at a small stone in her path. “This really sucks! Everything was going so well and now we have missing chickens, a destroyed generator, and a huge gas shortage.”
I give her shoulders a squeeze in comfort. “Hey, this isn’t a game changer for us. It’s more like a game tweak instead. We’re still living the good life here. We’ll just have to change a few things up, that’s all.”
Just as we reach the doors to the main building, Lance pushes through them. I frown in concern at the pure exhaustion wearing his features down. His eyes are red and swollen from spending the night in the smoke monitoring the fire to make sure it didn’t spread to any of the other structures.
“What are you doing up? You need to go get some sleep, man. We got everything under control here. There’s nothing left but coals and ash and Marsh is watching over it.” I tell him.
He gives me a grim smile. “Yeah, I’ll catch a nap in a little while but right now I’d like to get everybody together in the dining room for a meeting. Can you gather everybody up for me and send them in?”
I nod. “Sure, just give me five minutes and I’ll get everybody in there.”
He gives my shoulder a pat and sends a
tired smile Skylar’s way before turning around and going back into the building. I’ve never seen Lance so worn looking before. He’s been such a pillar of strength for us for the last seven years that I’ve never really thought about the toll living in this destroyed world would take on him. I turn and drop a quick kiss on Skylar’s forehead and move to go but she stops me.
“Is it just me or is Lance calling a lot of meetings lately?”
I look back at the building with a frown while considering her words and then turn to her.
“Well, they’ve all been about things we needed to discuss. I think the role of leader is starting to weigh on him a bit. He never seems to stop worrying about the future. Hopefully, things will settle back down again after this and he can relax for a while.” I pull away from her. “I’ll meet you inside.”
“Ok, I’m going to go and check on the boys. They should be waking up any time now and they’re going to be looking for us and their breakfast. I’ll see you in there.” She says and starts walking toward the cabins.
I jog around the corner of the building to find Jackson and Marsh standing a few feet from the burnt-out area leaning on the rakes we had been using to spread the coals.
“Hey guys, Lance has called a meeting in the dining room and he wants us all there.” I tilt my head toward the wreckage. “This looks like it’s safe now to leave unattended. Let’s head in and see what’s up.”
Marsh pulls the bandana off his face and uses it to wipe some of the soot from his cheeks and forehead before throwing a disgusted look at the pile of ash and cinder.
“Yep, definitely done like a very badly burnt dinner. Just give me a few minutes to soak my head under the pump and I’ll be right in.”
Jackson doesn’t say anything but nods his agreement. I’m sure after the conversation we just had he doesn’t have a whole lot to say to me so I just nod back before turning and going to see if Sasha and Belle are up yet. Their cabin is empty so I assume they must already be in either the kitchen or the dining room. Skylar and the two boys meet me halfway across the yard so the four of us head to the dining room together.
Lance and Ethan are sitting at one end of the long table drinking coffee and having a quiet conversation. Joslin’s a few feet away from them tapping away at her tablet but she looks up when we come in and gives us a sleepy nod before going back to whatever is on her screen. Skylar waves us into our seats and heads into the kitchen to rustle up some breakfast for the boys. It’s quiet in here with just Ben and Matty chatting. Everybody’s tired and feeling the effects of the long night with little sleep.
I blink my gritty swollen eyes and wish I had taken the time to stick my own head underneath the hand pump to try and clear away some of the smoke that clings to me while trying to pay attention to whatever the boys are saying. Thankfully, Skylar, Belle, and Sasha come in from the kitchen with large pans of food for breakfast to distract them. I leave the table to go grab a stack of plates and a handful of utensils for everybody and quickly make up a plate for Matty and me while Skylar makes hers and Ben’s. I’ve only taken a few bites when Marsh and Jackson come in and grab their own plates of food. The meal is almost silent with nobody having any conversation including the boys. They’ve picked up on the tension in the room and keep sending nervous glances our way. I swallow down the bite of biscuit I’m eating and send them both a weary smile of reassurance.
“Everything’s okay guys. Everyone’s just super tired from being up most of the night. There’s nothing for you guys to worry about. We all just need a nap!”
This sends Benny into a fit of giggles causing Skylar to smile my way.
“You guys aren’t babies. Only babies nap!” Ben declares.
Marsh leans forward to look down the table at us. “That’s not true! I’m a champion napper. I’ve been known to nap for hours and hours. Just ask my dads!”
The boys erupt in laughter, breaking the tension in the room, as everyone smiles at their reaction and we finish the meal in a better state of mind. As soon as the boys have finished eating, Skylar takes them out of the dining room and gets them set up in their bedroom with a movie on one of the laptops to keep them busy for a little while so we can have our meeting. They’re already on edge with the fire last night and everyone’s moods this morning so they don’t need to be worrying about whatever we talk about at this meeting. Everyone pitches in to do the breakfast dishes and as soon as they’re all clean and put away we settle back down at the table.
Lance scrubs at his face before sighing deeply and looking around meeting each one of our gazes.
“I’m not going to lie to you, losing the generator and most of our gas was a real hit to our future plans. The solar panels and windmills will keep the fridge and freezer going but with those as our only power source, we will have to be very conservative with how we use them. What it really affects is our travel plans. We had decided to go scout and scavenge in the city for one, the wood pellets for the stoves we set up and two, for possible relocation options. Right now both the trucks have full tanks of gas in them because we always top them up every time we use them. They also each have one five-gallon can of gas in the back but that’s it as far as our fuel goes. That means I don’t feel comfortable burning the gas to scope out the city. Getting the wood pellets would have been nice but we can just burn wood instead. It will mean we will all have to step up in that area to make sure we have enough to get us through the winter and we will have to start now to get it done.” He pauses to take a drink of his coffee before going on.
“We hadn’t made any kind of decision on relocating to the city because we were going to scout it out first so here are our options on that. We can stay here and keep going as we have been. Yes, losing the generator sucks but we went seven years without one and we managed to make it through. The other option is to wait until harvest, then pull everything, get it canned or dried and then loaded up into the trucks and just go for it. We can find a defensible position in one of the buildings in the city and then scope things out on foot. I’m positive there will be a lot of supplies in that city that haven’t been touched that would really help us out in the long run. But, we’d be going in blind so we need to take that into consideration.”
“As far as staying here, we would only be able to do a few scavenging runs in the area before we would be out of gas and most of this area has been pretty picked over as far as any food goes so there might not even be any point to that. Also, keep in mind if we do stay here and we use up the gas that we have and then something goes really badly wrong, we’d be stuck in place. Other than the resort, there’s nothing else out here that we could set up as a defensible shelter. At least in the city, if we were forced to move we’d have more options on where we could go. Even if it was on foot. So there’s the pros and cons of both staying and going. I want us all in agreement on what we decide. Let’s hear what everybody thinks.”
Chapter Sixteen … Joslin
I start running the numbers on my tablet for how much gas we have and how far it will take us while everyone else gives their opinions on whether we should relocate. I listen with one ear to the debate while opening up the folders that I have stored on my tablet with Calgary’s data that I had compiled before leaving the bunker. Belle and Sasha are firmly on the stay put side.
“I haven’t changed my mind. I just don’t think it would be smart to move. We’re settled here and comfortable. We put in a lot of work to make this our home. It just doesn’t make sense to me to go into the city where we don’t know what we can expect or even who we can expect there. We have the wall and the gate here to give us security so we’re safe,” Belle says.
Lance shakes his head and counters that. “Yes, and again, we have the wall and gate but that doesn’t mean we’re safe. We don’t have enough people to defend this place properly. And yes we did put in a lot of work to make this camp comfortable for us but who knows what winter will bring. We have no idea how long or how harsh it will be. If anything goes wro
ng here, we would have limited options for finding more supplies or even a new location. The city would give us way more options for both.”
Sasha shakes her head violently. “I don’t want to leave! I’m tired of everything changing and never knowing what’s going to happen next. I want to stay here!”
Lance looks away from her, exasperated with her whining tone. “Rex, Marsh what do you guys think?”
Marsh shrugs. “Honestly, I could go either way. Belle and Sasha are right in that we’ve put a lot of work into this place and other than the bunker, it’s the best setup we’ve had since this all started. As far as safety goes, we’re fairly isolated here so we don’t really have to worry about roaming bands of scavengers stumbling on to us. The wall and gate do give us a level of protection but you’re right, Dad, when you say that we don’t have enough people to defend this place if we were hit by a group of people. We have very few options for what we can scavenge around here especially now that we have limited gas so I’m fine if we stay but I’m also open to relocating to the city where we have more opportunities. The bottom line is, we can go around and around on this issue but it’s pretty equal either way so we just need to make a decision and do it.”
Lance nods and looks to Rex for his opinion. Rex mimics Marsh’s shrug.
“I’m with Marsh. I’m good to stay but I’m also good to go.” He turns to Skylar. “What do you think, Sky? What do you want to do?”
Endless Winter Box Set: Books 1 - 4 Page 63