Dante nodded and put a hand on his husband’s waist. “I get that, I wouldn’t expect that from you. And he seems fine, it’s good for Bowie to have someone closer to his own age to socialize with.”
“Exactly! Plus, he’s already told me loads of stuff about the city which is really useful. The food stocks are pretty dire I have to admit; I couldn’t find anything. Miles says that rationing has been introduced across the city and that you can get daily allowances from food banks, rec centers and other places across the city. But listen to this,” Austin paused and lowered his voice, even though he wasn’t really hiding from anyone. Meghan was asleep in their room after a fitful night’s sleep [MP6]and the two boys were playing loudly in the kitchen. Still he lowered his voice, feeling like what he was about to tell Dante was secret information in some way.
“Apparently, there are people who are trying to split the city up into zones or something,” Austin paraphrased what Miles had told him on the walk back. “There are a bunch of cops still working and they want to limit the movement in the city so they can manage things better or something.”
“What?” Dante was confused. “How would that even work?”
“I’m not sure,” Austin looked over at Miles and Bowie again. “He didn’t exactly explain things in a lot of detail, but it could be good, I guess? If there are police officers still working and trying to sort things out, then they’re surely doing it for the right reasons?”
Dante furrowed his brow and thought back to the time he’d spent further north. “I don’t know babe, the guys in Poughkeepsie sure thought what they were doing was for the right reasons and look how that turned out. I’m not sure we can just openly trust people because they’re wearing a uniform anymore. Anyone could’ve stolen a cop’s uniform and started trying to run the show. I think we need to be more careful now that we’re back here.”
“Okay,” Austin nodded, understanding the logic behind Dante’s suspicions. “Hey, I’m sorry I couldn’t find any more food today. I’ll go out again tomorrow and look again. Maybe check out what’s happening with this rationing. There’ll be something we can use, I’m sure.”
“It’s cool,” Dante smiled, “as long as you’re back, I’m happy.”
Austin grinned, sidestepping slightly so he stood behind Dante and wrapping his arms around his husband. Things might not have been easy for the pair of them, and they both needed to put effort into their marriage and into their family. Being back in New York could be good for them if they made it so. Austin was determined to keep a positive outlook on their journey and not let the nightmare of the city outside ruin their future.
“I love you,” he whispered into Dante’s ear as he hugged him from behind. “Always.”
“Mom?” Dante placed a hand on his mother’s shoulder and shook her gently, trying to wake her up. Austin had been back for a good few hours now and he was starting to sort out something to eat with Miles and Bowie in the kitchen. Meghan hadn’t even met the new arrival yet, the elderly woman had slept well into the afternoon.
“Hey, mom? Are you okay?”
Meghan groaned and rolled over, opening her eyes. As the bright light pierced her green eyes, she snapped them shut again. Groaning again, she rolled over, and curled her legs up to her chest.
“What’s wrong?” Seeing his mother’s reaction to being woken up, panic started to rise in Dante’s voice. Something didn’t seem right. He gently put the back of his hand on her forehead and felt her skin; it was cold and clammy, a layer of sweat already formed on her brow.
“Mom, come on,” he urged her. “Open your eyes. Do you feel sick?”
“My head,” Meghan managed to mumble between groans, curling her body up further into the fetal position and wrapping the blanket around herself. “So cold.”
Dante breathed steadily, trying to keep himself calm. The apartment wasn’t cold at all, in fact it was probably close to eighty degrees. Their AC unit had been stolen and the apartment was growing stuffier and sweatier by the minute. His mother shouldn’t be cold. While fear threatened to break him inside as Dante worried about his mom, his training kicked in and he processed what needed to be done. His mom was sick – how he wasn’t sure – but there were certain things he could do.
“Okay, mom,” he soothed her. “You stay here. I’m going to get you a glass of water and another blanket. Try and go back to sleep if you can.”
“What’s wrong?” Austin asked immediately as he saw the look on Dante’s face, his husband heading straight for the closet where they kept the first aid kit.
“Damn,” Dante said as he discovered it wasn’t there, something else which had been looted during their time away from home. “There’s something wrong with mom,” he explained. “She’s clammy and is complaining she’s cold. I think she’s sick.”
“Oh no,” concern instantly filled Austin as well. “How?”
“Not sure. Maybe something she ate,” Dante tried to come up with an explanation. “Do we not have any drugs left here at all?”
Austin shook his head. “I can go out and try to find some if you want?”
“No,” Dante replied, “not now. It’s going to be dark soon.”
“I don’t mind. If you think it’ll help.”
Dante paused and looked back over to their bedroom where his mother slept, the shape of her body just visible under the blanket on the bed. “It should be okay for now,” he decided after a moment of thought. “I’m not really sure what the matter is, it might just be a passing bug or something. Let’s wait out the night and see how she is. I’m sure she’ll improve.”
“She’s a tough old bird,” Austin replied with a smile, trying to lighten the mood. Half a smile broke out onto Dante’s face, but Austin could tell right away it was forced. He was worried about his mom, the lines in his forehead more defined as he walked past Austin into the kitchen, and filled a glass with water.
A lump formed in Austin’s throat as he watched Dante return to his mother’s side, sitting softly on the end of the bed and stroking her hair tenderly. It was exactly the same sort of thing he did if Bowie ever got sick, his medical training and loving demeanor making him the perfect bedside companion. Under his breath, Austin found himself wishing for Meghan to be okay. Their family had been through enough, there wasn’t space for any more bad luck in their lives. For everyone’s sake, Meghan needed to be okay.
Chapter 8
Dennis curled his lip and snarled as the Asian man glared at him, waiting for him to break. With the number of men that surrounded him with automatic weapons, everyone, including Dennis himself, knew that he would break sooner rather than later. But that didn’t stop the man testing the guards every time he had a chance, refusing to give into their pressure and fall in line like everyone else on the island. Unlike the rest of his fellow islanders, Dennis wasn’t buying into the nice guy routine.
Ever since being ambushed at their camp on the northern tip of Kauai, Dennis had realized they didn’t stand a chance fighting back against the invaders. He watched one of his men get shot point blank range in the woods and left to die, without a single one of the Chinese soldiers even raising an eyebrow. These were trained killers and they were there to do a job – he wasn’t sure exactly what that job was – but Dennis had quickly understood that if there was even a slight prospect of getting to the bottom of it, he needed to fall into line and go along with the plan. That being said, he couldn’t resist creating a bit of tension every now and then, at least when General Xiao wasn’t around.
After no more than ten or twelve seconds, Dennis forfeited the Mexican standoff he’d entered into and handed over his water canister and newly issued identification card. While many could argue that life on the island was largely similar to how it had been before the large boat arrived in the harbor, it was the little differences like this that slowly but surely took away their freedom.
Everyone had been issued an identification card, stating their name, permanent residence and work det
ail. They had to report into a checkpoint first thing every morning and hand over their card to be signed in, Dennis would get it back at the end of the day, instead receiving a shovel with his now filled water canister.
“Thanks,” he muttered with a wry smile, turning away and following the procession of workers he had been grouped in with. They marched silently along the riverbank and towards the ocean, heading to the point where the river mouth opened up and flowed into Hanapepe Bay.
It was where Dennis had been coming for the last four days, the place where he, along with hundreds of the other islanders, dug away at the mouth of the river, widening it for some unknown reason. Although, for someone with half a brain, the explanation didn’t remain a mystery for very long. The mouth of the river which fed into the bay had never quite been wide enough for boats to travel down – the water wasn’t deep enough and if you weren’t careful, you would run aground on the sand and be stuck there for hours until the tide came right in. For days now, Dennis and the others had been digging there. Working to widen the river mouth and make it passable for ships. It was obvious what they were doing, the mystery behind it lay in the reasoning why.
“Another day in paradise, eh, boss?”
Casey greeted Dennis with a sarcastic chuckle when he saw his friend arrive, Dennis stepping out of the procession to go and work beside him. He laughed in reply, but it wasn’t a laugh filled with happiness or agreement, more a grunt that echoed his anger and frustration at the situation. Looking up as he did every morning and doing a head count of where the guards were, Dennis forced his shovel into the riverbank – water already seeping through his shoes – and began to dig.
“I’m not sure how much longer I can put up with this,” he grumbled to Casey after a couple of minutes, giving the guards a chance to see him doing his work and look elsewhere. They might be trained killers, but they lacked the attention span for much else and Dennis had very easily pinpointed a few weaknesses in their group. “Have you heard much from the others?”
Casey shook his head before speaking, Dennis kept his eyes down as the two of them conversed so to not raise any suspicion. “Haven’t been able to speak to anyone other than Jason,” Casey replied. “He’s still working in electrics, trying to get the grid up and running again.”
“What’s the point,” Dennis huffed. “I don’t know why they think they’ll suddenly be able to get things up and running again. They must want the power for something really bad.”
“Yeah, but what?”
“I wish I knew,” Dennis answered as he plunged his shovel into the grassy bank once more, a large chunk of it giving way and falling into the water below. He knew there had to be some explanation for the Chinese government sending a ship full of soldiers half way across the ocean to their small island. It wasn’t any coincidence. He knew there was also an explanation why they had waited off the coast for so long before one day deciding to come ashore. Something had to have happened to spark the timing of their arrival, but without news or knowledge of the world beyond Kauai, Dennis had no way of finding out what it was. He refused to give up trying though. In his own little way, he would fight back each and every day and stand up for his right to freedom, the life they were living might not be tortuous or deprived, but it was heading in a direction that Dennis wasn’t comfortable with. If his free will was threatened, then he would do anything to fight back against his oppressors.
Further inland on Kauai, Jessie found herself thinking a very similar thing. Life under this new regime wasn’t difficult, but it wasn’t a life she wanted to live. The schooling program for her children had been scrapped so while Art worked long hours trying to reboot the electrical grid, Jessie did her best to entertain Zayn and Axel while also farming crops in the unrelenting sunlight. Thankfully Martha was still on hand to help out and everyone who was assigned to the farmlands did a bit of extra work for her, so that she could stand by and look after the children. Looking over at her as she tried to control fourteen unruly and confused kids, Jessie knew she had gotten the good end of the deal.
Turning over the soil and planting more seeds, Jessie’s eyes moved away from the kids and out to sea. The large ship was still there, a few figures still on board that occasionally stepped out onto the deck and made themselves visible. Jessie remembered when she had first seen movement out there and the feeling of excitement that had washed over her like a wave. Thinking back to that moment, she wondered if she should’ve done anything differently.
It was hard to equate whether the arrival of the Chinese had been a good thing or not. Jessie certainly didn’t feel like she had the freedom she’d once had, she constantly felt like she was being watched and like if she took a wrong step, a guard would be in her face shouting in a language she didn’t understand. It was scary and it wasn’t a life she wanted for her children, but it was also impossible to deny the positives.
As an island, they had more food on the table than they’d had since the collapse first happened. The Chinese had brought huge sacks of rice which supplemented every meal and with their ship docked in deeper water, they were able to fish the waters with much more success than the islanders had been able to do from the cliffs and jetty. The division of labor was fair and with the hours they worked, there was constant running water back in everyone’s homes and – at certain hours of the day – even hot water.
But at what price did it come? Jessie weighed up the balance between better living standards and a lack of truly living. If she couldn’t make choices for herself or step away when she wanted to, what sort of life was that? Zayn and Axel were her main concern: the schooling was the only element of life which had taken a step back with the new regime, the Chinese believing that children of all ages should be able to work. Perhaps that was the mentality that worked in their culture, but children deserved the time without responsibilities and the stressors of working life. Jessie didn’t want her boys toiling in the fields or working in the kitchen. She wanted them to lead normal lives and with what was currently in place, the grip on normal was slipping further and further out of reach.
“Psst. Have you heard?”
Turning as she worked, Jessie looked up and saw Kitch standing a little way off, the young man glancing at her from the corner of his eye. Instinctively she looked around and checked to see if any guards were nearby, they always watched them working and didn’t like conversations to be struck up outside of their supervision. If there was one thing to say about the men who[MP7] had come down from the large boat, it was that they didn’t like things happening that they didn’t know about. Jessie shook her head in response.
Edging through the crops toward her, Kitch moved carefully and quietly, his small frame able to glide almost unseen. “People have started disappearing,” Kitch announced like a bombshell once he was close enough to converse without raising his voice. “No one has seen Jamie for two days.”
“What?” Jessie furrowed her brow in disbelief, immediately thinking there had to be some sort of misunderstanding. “Are you sure? They must’ve just moved him to a different work detail.”
Kitch shook his head, denying the assumption. “I’ve asked around,” he continued. “They’ve got people all over the island, but no one has seen Jamie. He’s not at the surf shack, he’s not at his mother’s old place, he’s just vanished.”
“What do you think has happened to him?”
“I don’t know,” Kitch replied. “But there are rumors. Some people think he might have been taken to the boat.”
“What?” Jessie’s voice rose an octave at the suggestion, the word catching in her throat and coming out much louder than she had intended. Immediately Kitch dropped into a squat position and hid as two guards looked over in Jessie’s direction, attracted by the noise.
“It’s okay!” Jessie called out, waving an arm in the direction of one of them who had started walking toward her. “I just pricked my finger on something.”
The man who’d been approaching stopped and sh
ook his head, clearly bemused by the situation. After a second he turned away and retreated to his post: seated on a chair in the shade, unable to withstand the beating sun that shone down on everyone else.
Jessie continued to look in his direction until she was sure the heat was off and then went back to her work, Kitch remaining crouched behind the rows of crops for even longer until Jessie spoke again.
“Where’d that come from?” She asked. “Did anyone actually see it happen?”
“No,” Kitch replied as loudly as he dared. “But they are going back there. At night. I’ve heard them. They wait until they think everyone is asleep and then row back out to the vessel. God knows what they’re doing on that boat, if no one has seen Jamie for days, I think it’s a fairly good bet that he could be out there.”
“Okay,” Jessie nodded, going along with her friend. “Say he is out there, say they’ve taken him onto their boat, what are we going to do about it? We can’t even relieve ourselves without asking permission. How do you suggest we get out there and find out?”
Kitch grimaced at Jessie’s words, though he knew what she was saying was right. There was very little any one of them could do. They might outnumber the new arrivals, but they far surpassed their capabilities when it came to standing up and fighting back. The Chinese had weapons, all they had was shovels and spades. It was like the Indians fighting back against the cowboys, they wouldn’t stand a chance.
“We have to do something,” was all Kitch could think to reply with. “I’m fed up of acting like this, pretending like everything is fine just because they put food on our plates at the end of the day. It’s not fair and they shouldn’t be allowed to just come over here and decide what stays and what goes. We shouldn’t let this happen.”
Wipeout | Book 5 | Foul Play Page 6