“Yeah, we’ll be getting back in the truck soon.”
Joyce nodded, but seemed to find it hard to look in Olivia’s eyes. “You still think we can find my Daddy?”
Because of all they’d been through, Olivia did not see the point of telling lies or even stretching truths to the point of breaking. So she answered as honestly as she could, and it hurt to say it. “I don’t know.”
Joyce ate another forkful of eggs and a piece of dry toast Olivia had tried to salvage with butter. She then got out of her chair and came over to Olivia. She climbed up into Olivia’s lap and rested her head on her shoulder.
“I love you, ‘Livia.”
Olivia closed her eyes and hugged the girl tight. “I love you, too,” she answered. And though she did not say it, one thing started to pulse inside of her head, a thought that in that moment seemed to become the very center of her.
I love you, too, Joyce. And I’m going to do everything I can to figure out a way to get you to your father even if it kills me.
***
Olivia assumed Paul had dug the grave shallow because he was already filling in the dirt as she and Joyce headed outside. It was barely after nine o’clock in the morning but the heat of the day was making itself known. It was an almost comfortable sort of heat up in the mountains, one that made her think of what it must feel (and smell) like in New York at that very moment.
Because Roosevelt had not been the sort of man to keep a garden or even flowers in a flowerbed by the front porch, they had to make do with the few wildflowers growing in the thicker portions of the lawn, just inside the tree line. After searching together for about fifteen minutes, they managed to pull together an abstract little bouquet of wilted morning glories, small daisies, and a rather pretty orange wildflower with tear-shaped petals. Olivia bound them with a flimsy rubber band she’d found in Roosevelt’s junk drawer and made a point to let Joyce know that they’d made this together—and that it would hopefully make Paul happy.
Paul was setting the shovel by the side of the porch just as Olivia made another loop with the rubber band around the fragile, snapped stems. “That’s incredibly sweet,” he said. “Thank you, girls.”
Olivia’s heart seemed to lunge towards him. He had clearly been crying and he was soaked in sweat from digging the hole. She couldn’t imagine starting a day out in such a way, especially a day that would place them back on the road to face only God knew what.
“Is it okay?” Olivia asked, nodding from the flowers to the freshly dug grave.
“Of course,” Paul said.
Olivia took Joyce’s hand and they walked down to the small rectangle of dirt where Paul had just laid his grandfather to rest. Olivia knelt down by the slightly mounded dirt and placed the flowers there, pushing down slightly to embed them into the soil.
“Did it hurt?” Joyce asked.
Even without the proper context, Olivia knew what she meant. Did it hurt when Roosevelt died? Apparently, Paul picked up on this, too.
“I don’t think so,” Paul said. “Maybe a little. But my grandfather…he was really old, you know? I think when he went, it was mostly peaceful.”
The three of them were quiet for a moment after this. Olivia did not want to rush Paul in his grief, so she waited for him to suggest that they pack up and get back on the road. Even if it was much later in the day, or even tomorrow, she’d let him have his time. She did not think it would come to that, though. He was just as eager to get Joyce to her father—if that was even a possibility. Who knew what new tragedies had befallen the world overnight?
As they stood there, two butterflies went fluttering by in a tangle. One was rather large, with bright orange and black wings. The other was much smaller, its wings black and purple. When Joyce saw them, her eyes lit up and she reached out for them. As they flew further away from the grave, Joyce gave chase. She laughed at them as she followed, but kept the sound quiet as if out of respect for Paul.
Olivia watched her at play, envious of her resilience and ability to still find joy in the moment. She nearly followed after Joyce to give Paul his privacy, but his voice stopped her. It was soft and broken—the weakest she’d ever heard him.
“I know it’s stupid,” Paul said, “but I feel like this thing is chasing us—this virus, all this death. Last night when he died, I tried to convince myself that this was my fault…that I had somehow brought the virus to Brownstone and killed him. Maybe we did have it but were just asymptomatic.”
“But you now know that’s not the case, right?” she said.
“Yes, I know it. But still…I can’t shake the feeling that this thing is following us somehow. When I was digging the grave, I saw it in my head; we were in the truck, speeding forward, and there was this wave of death behind us, following us like a tsunami or something.”
“That might not be too far from the truth,” Olivia said. “New York, then that place in Texas…it makes you think it’s not over.”
Paul nodded in agreement and said: “It makes you think it was all planned.”
“But what would—” she started. But she was interrupted by a sound that both chilled her and made her heart soar.
A very familiar, shrill ringing noise.
Her cell phone.
With hands that felt numb from shock, she dug into her pocket for it. She could remember thinking to herself as she and Joyce had left the kitchen that pocketing it was foolish—just a habit from a normal life that now seemed very far away. When she pulled it out and looked to the caller display, she let out a sound that could only be described as a cry of hope. She stared at the display for half a second before actually answering it, her eyes nearly unable to believe it.
It read: JOYCE’S DAD.
“Hello?” she answered.
Even from hearing her own voice, she knew the connection was poor. The beat of silence following her answer made her think the connection had already broken. But then she heard a male voice, very thin and far-away sounding.
“Olivia? Are you there? Can you hear me?”
“Yes! Are you st—”
“Is Joyce okay?” he interrupted. “Is she still alive?”
“Yes. She’s fine. She’s here with me.”
“Where are you? Still in New York?”
“No. There’s a cop with us. He helped us get out of New York and we’re trying our best to get to you. Are you still in Minnesota?”
“Yes. At the airport, actually. The government sort of took it over when all flights were delayed. They think it’s…safest place with no one infected…so we…and then it’s more of the same. So…not going anywhere.”
The connection was breaking up now. Even when she could hear words, they were faint and ghostlike.
“So you’ll be there for a while?” Olivia asked.
“Seems that way. No one…or the other.”
“You’re breaking up. Can you—”
“Can I…to her? Just to…voice.”
She knew he was asking to speak to his daughter and she nearly called out to Joyce to make sure it happened. But the moment she started walking towards Joyce, she heard the click on the line, followed by a double-beep as the line died.
Olivia muttered a curse and tried calling back. But even before she heard the silence of her phone, she saw the three Xs where her service indicator had showed one lonely bar just thirty seconds ago.
She turned to Paul as her wide eyes leaked tears for what felt like the billionth time in the past three days. “That was her father…”
“He’s okay? Still alive?”
“He says he’s at the airport. Apparently the army or the government or someone has locked it down, assuming it would keep all inside safe. I don’t know. But we have to…Paul, we have to get her to him.”
“We will,” Paul said, already turning from his grandfather’s grave and looking back up to the house. At first, it sounded like an empty promise but then she saw the absolute fire in his eyes as he looked to Joyce. It not only made h
er feel incredibly hopeful, but it also made her feel quite bad for anyone that might dare to get in his way.
Chapter 32
Terrence had not gotten any message from Kettle in over twelve hours. He instantly started to worry that Kettle had died or that some very brave and insightful arm of the government had found him and currently had him locked up in an interrogation room somewhere. The lack of communication had caused Terrence to lose sleep; he refreshed the screen every few minutes, hoping Kettle had something to say—that maybe he’d had a change of heart and had decided to stop what was still to come.
And Terrence, knowing even the most basic concepts of what Kettle referred to as Chaos Dawn, knew the worst was still to come.
With no true light source to speak of, Terrence had to rely on the news feeds still coming across his screens for some semblance of the passing of time. He’d started to rely on ones out of Los Angeles, watching how city officials were doing everything in their power to keep new people from entering the city while also working diligently to locate any threats within the city.
The feed he was currently watching was talking about the death toll in Fort Worth, Texas. More than one million for sure and there were already reports of the virus spreading outside of the city, heading north.
The east coast was slowly deteriorating and now the virus was starting to consume the land from the south. As per the blueprints of Chaos Dawn, soon one half of the country would be pretty much cut off from the other as the result of the spread of the virus.
And that was just Stage One.
When the time in the bottom of the news screen right along the same ribbon that reported that the virus had now shown up in Baltimore read 10:51 Pacific Standard Time, Terrence reached out and refreshed the unsent email he and Kettle had been using.
Lo and behold, there was finally a response. As usual, it was not very long.
Might be best to stay where you are for a few days. Stage 1 complete. Stage 2 coming.
It was loaded with deadly little hints. And while Terrence didn’t think Kettle knew the entirety of the timeline and scale of events, he did think he knew enough to heed his warning. Stay where you are for a few days…
“Stage Two,” Terrence said. He thought of those first interrogations with Kettle and of how even then, he’d only dropped little hints rather than give the whole story. Back then, when he’d been fishing for any avenue to shorten his sentence and punishment, it had made sense. But now, it just seemed cruel.
As Terrence placed his fingers to the keyboard to respond, he recalled those meetings and remembered the single word Kettle had used for Stage Two: Decimation.
Terrence started to type but only got one word into his response when the lights flickered and then went out. He sat in the darkness for a moment, only the glow of his laptop screens shining light into the bunker. Then, with a minor thrumming noise, his generator kicked on. Installed in the far back of the bunker behind a false wall, it was almost a soothing sound.
Still, he knew that if the power was out, things must be getting tense and out of hand in Baltimore—which meant the virus was wreaking havoc an hour or so away from him. And as he sat in the bunker, lulled by the sound of his generator, he felt trapped. More than that, he felt foolish for not having pushed on George Kettle a little harder all those years ago.
Terrence did not bother going back to the message he’d intended to send Kettle. For now, he had no words. He reached out, closed the lid on the laptop, and watched the news feeds out of LA. The news scrolled along the bottom of the screen and concerned newscasters reported the increasing demise of the east coast. Terrence took it all in from underground and wondered if it might just be best to sit there until the generator gave out, to give up his attempts at swaying Kettle, and watch from the darkness as the world fell apart above him.
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It Falls Apart Series | Book 1 | It Falls Apart Page 27