Supernova EMP Series (Book 3): Bitter End

by Hamilton, Grace

  All she’d known in that moment was that she had to get away from a question she’d never thought she’d be asked, and certainly not by Josh. She knew that her reaction was why Josh had grabbed at her arm. He knew her well enough to realize, based on that much, that she had something to hide. And then, as the rage and fear had enveloped her, she’d set her legs hard against the pavement and yanked herself out of his grip.

  In some ways, her collision with the barbecue had been fortuitous. It had stopped Josh dead in his tracks. It had stopped him asking her to explain herself, and given her some time for much-needed damage control.

  Telling Tally to go from the kitchen to find her father and tell him that Maxine didn’t want to talk to him had been the first act of that strategy.

  She felt bad about it. Of course, she did. If Josh knew the truth—well, if the truth was delivered in a way that he could accept and understand—she was sure that he would get it. In normal circumstances, that was. In this post-supernova world, when everything had been stripped away by the apocalypse, could Josh take—or maybe, better asked, did he deserve yet another loss?

  You’ve got to think of yourself.

  Not Maxine’s words, but her mother’s.

  Maxine had come back to the farm two years into her marriage to Josh, leaving him in Morehead with her head in pieces. She’d felt like minced meat, her emotions a tangle of shame, fear, and self-loathing.

  Maria had sat with her daughter in the kitchen where she sat now. She’d made coffee, and there’d been fresh cake, and there’d been hugs and there’d been tears. But Maria, at the time, when she’d heard the whole story and had listened without prejudice, had said to her daughter, “It’s going to be okay. But you have to think of yourself.”

  “How can I? Josh deserves better. He deserves so much more than this.”

  Maria had scratched her chin and looked through the kitchen window to the farm around them. Her eyes off to the horizon. The only sound that had drifted into the room from the outside had been a brief clatter of earthenware falling some distance to the ground.

  Donald had been out fixing tile on the barn roof after it had come loose in a recent storm. They’d had the ranch house to themselves. Maxine remembered vividly that there’d been forks of lighting in the distance against the then purplish sky, but over the ranch, as it fell towards evening, the sky had still been clear. The rain would come, but for the moment, it had been holding off.

  Maxine wondered if that was the moment when she’d decided on Storm’s name. For years after, she hadn’t been able to pin it down, but now the memory was unrolling across her mind like a rug that had once been bright and fresh and was now tatty and dull, and she put the two things together. For so long had she not thought about what her mother had said to her in that moment because it had been so truthful and so wise, it was almost as if she’d immediately discarded the memory because she hadn’t needed it anymore.

  And yet, with Josh’s question, here it was again.

  Maria had left her chin alone and put her hands on the table, looking Maxine directly in the eye. “My dear, if you really believed Josh deserved to know the truth, then you wouldn’t have come all the way here to get my permission not to tell him.”

  And there it was.

  The moment Maxine had decided that what Josh didn’t know wouldn’t kill him, and that she still had the chance to work at the marriage, to put herself bodily—heart and soul—into it, and forget this aberration. Forget her mistake and move on.

  In any event, Maxine’s and Josh’s home life, even though they’d been struggling financially, trying to buy their first home, was settled and felt like they were building something good together. Trying to improve their job prospects—hers at the hospital and his in the police department—through further training, doing as much overtime as they could manage, put an acceptable strain on the marriage, but nothing they couldn’t cope with. Their workloads meant that, although they were both exhausted by the end of the day, there would still be those important and loving moments of intimacy that they both craved and needed.

  You’ve got to think of yourself.

  “You can tell him if you want to, Maxine—if that salves your conscience. But what would that achieve?”

  “You sound like someone who knows telling someone the whole truth isn’t always the best option.”

  Maria had grinned a little and given a small laugh. “Little lies are the grease that lubricate a marriage. Any relationship, for that matter. Why hurt someone more than you have to if you can avoid hurting them at all?”

  “Have you… I mean… have you and Dad…?”

  Maria had fixed Maxine with the hardest of her hard stares. “Is this going to happen again?”

  “No! Of course not. I didn’t want it to happen in the first place!”

  “Then that’s not a question you need to ask because we’re never going to discuss this again.”

  Maria had poured more coffee into Maxine’s cup and pushed a slice of cake towards her. “Have the child together. Love the child together. Bring up the child together. I’ll hold the secret for you. You get on with living your life.”

  Maxine had gotten up and walked to the other side of the table. The side of the table where she sat now, in the same chair, and she’d hugged her mom tight. The smoke of her love rising around her burning heart.

  Outside, Donald had finished on the barn roof and come down to jog back to the ranch house, getting in just as the first fat raindrops started to fall.

  Maxine wished she could hug her mother now. She wished, even though the secret had not been kept—and she forgave Maria for it, too—that her mother was there now. Secret or no secret.

  She would deal with Josh in the morning before they set off for Cumberland. Maria, in her dying moments, had thought the time was right for him to know, and Maxine resolved to honor that. At first light, she would tell Josh the truth about what had happened between her and Gabe Angel.

  6

  “What?” The disbelief in Josh’s voice was raw and urgent.

  Tally had shaken him awake. “Dad! Dad, it’s Gramps. He’s gone!”

  Wiping the sleep from his eyes and pulling on his pants from where he’d dropped them by the side of the bed, Josh walked from the bedroom and followed Tally along the corridor. Maxine was sitting on her father’s bed looking at a scrap of notepaper in the candlelight. The first smears of dawn were showing around the boarded gaps of the window, but there still wasn’t enough natural light to read by.

  Maxine passed the note to Josh. “He’s gone to Pickford. He’s going to kill Creggan.”

  The words in the note, in Donald’s strong and over-emphatic script—the lines written by a man who had thought deliberately about what he was going to do—were as strong and emphatic as the handwriting.

  He killed Maria.

  I’m going to kill Creggan.

  Go to Cumberland.

  I’ll join you there.

  Dad.

  In his spare and stoic way, Donald had said everything that he’d felt needed to be said.

  As he looked up from the note, Josh saw the dressings on Maxine’s face for the first time. Her face was pained and her eyes were red-rimmed. He didn’t know if it was from crying or lack of sleep.

  Maybe both.

  They went to the barn to rouse Karel and the rest of the Defenders. Before they were halfway there, Tally caught them up. She’d been to the stable to check on whether or not Donald had taken a horse.

  “He’s taken Laurent’s mount. Left Tally-Two and the buggy for Storm.” The horses Josh and Poppet had ridden to the M-Bar had both been killed in the raid. Either in the crossfire or by Creggan’s men out of spite.

  Karel’s first question, once Josh had told her what had happened, was, “How long has he been gone?”

  Josh didn’t know, but he looked to Maxine. She shook her head, and only answered, “I couldn’t sleep. I was passing his door and saw that it was ajar. I guess he d
idn’t want to make a noise closing it. Found the note on the bed.”

  “Has he taken weapons?” Karel was in military mode. “Keysell, check the inventory in the house. See if we’ve lost anything.”

  A dark-haired Defender with sunken cheeks and wide gray eyes nodded and jogged out of the barn back towards the ranch house.

  “Tally. Go find Henry,” Josh said. “Get him to check our stuff, too.”

  Tally nodded and headed back to the house.

  As it turned out, Donald had taken a shotgun, Josh’s Remington, a SIG, and one of Henry’s knives. A quantity of ammunition from the store had disappeared, too. Not enough to finish a war, but enough to start one.

  “How far across country to Pickford?” Karel was looking at her watch.

  “By horse?” Maxine responded. “Between two to three hours. Depends how fast he’s going. There’s no moon. So, I’d say he’s traveling slow, or will until the sun’s fully up.”

  Karel dropped her wrist and looked up to the sky. It was still washed gray, but there were signs of sunrise out to the west. A yellow line of light was spearing its way across the plain. She looked to Josh like she was weighing up the options. At last, Karel spoke. “I’m sorry, Maxine, but there’s no point in us going after him.”

  Maxine shook her head. “No, we can’t just…”

  Karel raised her eyebrows, making an expression of both apology and pragmatism. “He might already be there. He might already be getting himself in trouble—and we know what kind of trouble that could be—so my priority has to be getting Larry back to Cumberland where he belongs. I’m sorry about this, but our mission is clear.”

  “But you can’t just leave him!” Maxine pleaded. “I just lost my mom. You’re not going to stand by while my dad goes, too?”

  Karel was firm. “Maxine, we’ve helped you more than we should have. We got mixed up in this for Larry’s sake. But this isn’t our war.”

  “I’ll go.” The words had left Josh’s mouth before he’d had the chance to check himself. “I’ll go to Pickford. I’ll find him and bring him back.”

  Maxine stared at Josh as if he were speaking in tongues. “On your own? Are you crazy? We have a militia here. An armed militia. They have a hundred times a better chance of finding him and getting him out alive.”

  “But we’re not going to,” Karel reiterated. “That’s the point. It’s not personal.”

  “It sure feels like it.”

  Josh instinctively reached for Maxine—twenty-odd years of marriage came with its own emotional muscle memory. She was hurting, and he didn’t want her to hurt.

  But Maxine flinched away.

  “Don’t touch me. And don’t think you can change my mind by volunteering to go to Pickford. If you’re just grandstanding, Josh…”

  “I’m not.” And he truly didn’t think he was. If Maxine wouldn’t tell him what the score was with Storm, perhaps Donald was the only man alive who could. So, suddenly it was making all kinds of sense to go after him.

  Josh pressed his point home. “They don’t know me in Pickford. Greene killed the only men who could recognize me. I don’t know Creggan and Creggan doesn’t know me. I might be able to get in and find Donald without anyone at all even suspecting I’m looking.” He didn’t add his last thought, If he’s still alive.

  Karel nodded. “That’s an idea that does have some merit,” she admitted. “But you’re taking an enormous risk.”

  Josh looked at Maxine, as much to reassure himself as to reassure her of his good intentions. “Whatever our differences, I would have been doing this anyway. You know that.”

  Maxine wasn’t going to accede to his point, but she didn’t argue it. “So, will we be delaying leaving the M-Bar?”

  Karel shook her head. “No. Larry getting to Cumberland is what we set out to do, and that’s what’s going to happen. Sideshows like this are not our priority.”

  “My father is not a sideshow!” Maxine said to Karel with quiet fury.

  Karel shrugged. “Call it what you like, Maxine. I just work here.”

  Josh left the gaggle to go back to the ranch to prepare.

  He searched for a map of the area among Donald’s neatly appointed ranch office. The office held an ancient, dead-eyed CRT monitor attached to an age-of-steam PC tower, two filing cabinets, and pictures on the walls of Maria, Maxine as a kid, prize cattle, and Donald with his marine buddies—judging by the palms in the background, it had been taken in Vietnam. There’d been a lot of life stuffed into that old man’s body, and the office and its walls bore testament to it.

  Josh located a map and unfolded it across Donald’s desk. It showed the M-Bar and the route to Pickford across country. He found an old canvas rucksack stuffed under a corner chair and took a share of Henry’s magazines for an MP5, as well as a few more for a SIG.

  While he was packing up the bag, Tally came to see him. “I want to come with you.”

  “No. Out of the question,” he replied firmly, getting up and folding the map inside of his jacket pocket.

  “You can’t go in there alone. Creggan’s men will kill you.”

  “That’s not the plan.”

  “That might not be your plan, but it’s gonna be theirs!”

  Josh sighed and fixed his daughter with a compassionate gaze. He was at least heartened that, after Storm’s reaction to what had happened with Maxine, there was still one of his kids—his only kid?—who would stand alongside him in the corner. “Kid, you’re smart, you’re brave, and you’re fast—your mom and brother need you with them. And Henry and Poppet, too. Karel’s men are fine and all, but their focus—when the cow chips hit the fan—will be to protect Larry. I want as many people there who will focus on what’s truly important to me as possible. And that includes you.”

  “But…”

  “But me no buts, Tally. I promise that if I can’t find Donald, I’ll light out of Pickford and get to Cumberland as quickly as I can.”

  Tally’s chin dropped, and so he pinched it gently between thumb and index finger to lift her face up so that their eyes met again. “I need to do this for Mom, and I need to do this for me. But I’ll be careful. I promise.”

  Tally put her arms around him and gave Josh a hug which transferred a gigawatt of energy into his tired bones. It was the antidote to the sapping and sagging fatigue which had overtaken him. Since getting shot in the leg on the route into West Virginia, Josh had hardly had a moment where the high-octane nature of survival and conflict had abated. When he’d gotten to the farm, he had been pitched immediately into the battle with Creggan’s men, battling with Maria and then saving Tally from Greene up on the roof. It was only as Tally squeezed him, and held on tight, that he realized how low his own levels of energy were. He squeezed back and buried his face in her hair.

  She smelled like home and sleep and a full belly.

  Josh kissed her forehead, but eventually stepped back, keeping his hands on her shoulders. “We’ve gotten through worse than this already, and just knowing you’ll be there waiting for me in Cumberland is going to get me through this, too. Okay?”

  Tally nodded. “They’re getting ready to leave. I’ll get my gear and join them.”

  Josh smiled as she left Donald’s ranch office, and after a few more minutes spent packing, he followed her out to the yard. Although it was only just after six a.m., the day was already bright and promising a cloudless start. A pleasantly chill breeze moved across the plain, and it whispered about the approaching winter—but for now, it was just that. A whisper.

  Karel’s men had transferred Storm into the buggy. Tally-Two was the only horse they had left, and so the rest of the party would be traveling on foot. Maxine took the reins and hopped up to ride with Storm. The others would travel alongside. Henry and Poppet were weighed down with packs and weapons, and Larry’s arm was in a sling to keep his hand immobile. Tally kept checking on Storm from the ground.

  They all looked like ghosts.

  There were very few
words spoken. Just the bare minimum to get something done or acknowledged. The gentle rustle of the breeze was the loudest sound apart from the snuffling of Tally-Two and the breathing of Bobby, the Collie, who was sniffing around excitedly and seemed gloriously oblivious to the pervading anxiety of the moment. He would get the occasional scratch of the ears from a human, but Josh could feel the waves of tension emanating from the specters as they quietly assembled.

  Storm was being propped up with pillows and a blanket had been draped across his legs. Larry reached up to offer the boy more pills and Maxine held a water bottle to his lips so that he could swallow them. Josh could see that, in all honesty, Storm was not in the best condition to travel, but staying at the M-Bar would no longer be an option—that was abundantly clear, too.

  Josh tried to make eye contact with Storm, but the boy just turned his pale face away. That would have to be a conversation for another time. Maxine acknowledged Josh with a nod, but the set of her lips and the tightness of her chin told him that she still wasn’t in a place where they could communicate. There was none of the hatred in her eyes that Storm had shown, though; if anything, there was just an absence. That was just as discouraging.

  “You stay alive, you hear? That’s an order.” Poppet peeled away from Henry and approached Josh. “You’re doing a good thing. Well, also a crazy thing. But overall, a good thing. I don’t know Donald from a hole in the ground, but from what I saw of him over the last week, he’s a man worth saving.”

  “He is,” Josh agreed.

  Poppet grinned. “If you’re not in Cumberland by the end of the month, I’ll come back and spring you myself.”

  “How long is it to the end of the month?”

  Poppet shrugged and then winked. “I have no damn idea of the date, so I’ll just wing it. I’ll wait until I miss your ugly mug more than I can bear and then I’ll come. But first we’ll get your missus and boy to Cumberland. You have my word.”