When William appeared around the side of the ranch carrying their rucksacks, Maxine felt even more convinced that was where their transport was being stored.
“So, he was already dead when you found Freddie?” Nan was saying was they walked, after Maxine had explained again how they’d come by the buggy and horse.
“Yes. Perhaps an hour. Maybe two. Not a lot more than that.”
Nan rubbed at her chin. “That won’t satisfy the Klanes’ none, that’s for sure. Even before this change in the world’s circumstances was visited upon us, they were… shall we say, a difficult bunch to get along with. They’ve tried to raid us twice already, but we’ve fought them off.”
“That’s why they turned around at the top of the hill,” Storm realized as they went inside the ranch.
Nan nodded. “Just the two of them. Under-gunned and outmanned. But you bringing the buggy here is going to make them even more convinced we’re the black hats in these parts.”
Inside, the ranch wasn’t any more in the twenty-first century than the outside. There was one huge family room inside, from which doors and short corridors let out to other rooms and the kitchen. There was washing hanging from lines in the ceiling, and a good fire burned in the grate.
Two bench tables ran down the middle of the room, and chairs that some people would have called artisan, and others just called ugly, were lined down each side of it. There were perhaps fifteen adults and seven children in the room. From the toddler Terry right up to a woman who could only be described as wizened, and who had the whispery paper-like quality to her skin that you mostly only saw in mummy movies.
“I’m sorry if we’ve caused you more trouble. We were just trying to get off the road after they started firing at us.”
Nan shrugged as she motioned them to sit down, and one of the other boys, who Nan identified as Luke, brought them steaming black coffee in earthenware mugs.
The only sop to modern technology in the room was an old cathode ray tube TV in a wooden box as shiny as a coffin, with dials as brassy as its handles. There were papers and magazines piled on top of it, and bent out of shape indoor aerials on top of the pile of papers, along with a power line that Maxine followed to the wall and found, to her not complete surprise, didn’t end in a plug, but in bare wires that had been left to curl on the unvarnished wooden floor.
Next to it was a dog of indeterminate breed, which could have been half wolf and a quarter greyhound. It was shaggy and rangy, and once it had decided that neither Maxine nor Storm were any kind of threat, it put its head back down and ignored them while they drank their coffee.
Nan did a series of introductions of the people scattered around the room, and while there were too many for Maxine to take in fully and remember, it seemed the make-up of the group was fifty-fifty, with half being Nan’s close and extended family, and the others being people from the local area who had gravitated towards the Childs’ property since the disaster and decided to stay.
“Safety in numbers,” said Nan as the coffee in front of Maxine and Storm was replaced by plates of steaming stew. The food was as rough and as artisan as the furniture, and depending on which restaurant you’d confronted, it would have cost anywhere between seventy cents and thirty dollars a plate. There was a distinctly timeless authenticity about Nan’s group that showed hers was a family who would always have been well-placed to survive events the like of the ones they’d experienced. An overwhelmingly low-tech vibe accompanied the whole set-up, which suited the prevailing conditions. Perhaps before the supernova, there would have been ATF agents staking out the place, with legions of social workers ready to roll in and pluck the children out of the real-world remake of the Grapes of Wrath, but not now.
“Safety in numbers?” Maxine asked with genuine curiosity.
Nan chewed and spoke at the same time, her mouth working around hunks of stew with yellow and blackened teeth. “Yah. I figure the government ain’t gonna ride over the hill like the cavalry and save us. We’ve seen nothing of police or authorities. Everyone is shell-shocked. And confused. Up in Wilkes-Barre they’re too busy killing each other and setting fire to their own houses to think about where the next meal is coming from. We were already pretty much self-sufficient here before the change. Now, I reckon we’re in good shape to continue and provide for our family, and anyone who wants to join us. And, I think, the more people we get to stay here the better it will be for all of us.”
The people around the table who were listening nodded.
“Your set-up here strikes me as one that was already in place. Prophetic even,” Maxine said.
Nan sucked the juices off her spoon and indicated to William that she wanted more stew. “We weren’t what you’d call a traditional family here anyways. The hunting hereabouts is good, and the locals kept out of our way mostly. We didn’t have much in the way of income—we sold goat’s milk and cheese to a few stores in town. We worked the quarry in a small way. There’s not a lot left in it, which is why it was abandoned, but there’s enough hardcore for us to dig it out and sell it to building companies… but that was never more’n a sideline. I know it don’t look much, but we can wash our own faces food-wise, and we have our own water supply. The lack of ‘lectricity since the change means we miss the services on TV and radio on Sundays, but other than that, we were set up already. The only thing we’re going to have to go looking for is ammunition for our guns, and oil for our lamps. Other than that, we don’t need to leave the quarry at all.”
“And the Klanes’?” Storm asked.
Nan sighed. “We’ve been disputing with them for many years. They want the land; they want the quarry. They want it all. They have a similar set-up as us over on the other side of Wilkes-Barre. Was a time when we rubbed along just fine, but the change has… motivated them to bring things to a head. You may have noticed there’s not a lot in the way of law enforcement around here right now. Klanes’’ve coveted our set-up for some time, and now they don’t need to be fighting anything through the courts—because, well, there are no courts anymore, and I don’t think they’ll be coming back anytime soon. Numbers will help us to defend and grow.”
She pointed to a tall, thin man who sat away from the table on a sofa that had seen better days. His hands were clasped around his knees, which were drawn up in front of him. His face was pale and his eyes spoke of great pain. “Take Ralph here; before you guys, he was our latest convert to the cause. Ralph doesn’t have much in the way of skills in farming or hunting. On his own, unless he could loot effectively, he’d be dead in a month. Here, he’s got the space and time to learn how to handle a gun or milk a goat. Ralph was an accountant. Not much need for them anymore. Right, Ralph?”
Ralph gave a thin smile that looked like it had been painted on by a child with no artistic ability. It didn’t convince Maxine at all, but that wasn’t the sudden focus of her thoughts. “Before us? Converts? What do you mean?”
“Well look, honey. You’re one woman, and your child is sick. Your medications will run out soon enough. How long do you think you’re going to survive out there? If Freddie Klane hadn’t done you a favor by dying, you’d still be walking. I can see your boy don’t have much hair under that cap. I’ve seen the cancer and what it can do. The cancer took my John, God rest his soul. You keep drivin’ that boy west, and you’ll be killin’ him as sure as the cancer would. Face it, Maxine, you need us.”
Nan’s eyes sparkled, and meat juice dripped down her chin.
In the corner, the dog snarled at little Terry, who’d begun pulling his tail. The toddler ran into the arms of the young woman, who Nan had called Mary.
Ralph looked away; the room silent.
Beneath the table, Maxine felt Storm reach for her hand and squeeze it.
“Get out of here as fast as you can. Get out of here and get as much distance between you and Nan as possible before she realizes you’re gone.”
Ralph had unpacked his thin limbs and climbed off the sofa like a mantis t
o join Maxine and Storm in a quiet corner of the huge room, while Nan had corralled the others to get the children bathed and into their beds, as well as parceled out the work details for the next day to the others. Ralph had hissed the his words out of the side of his mouth while he’d amplified his kindergarten smile, clapped Storm on the shoulder, and nodded his head vociferously, giving the impression to anyone who might be watching from the other side of the communal space that he was telling the new arrivals how damn blastin’ great it was there in the Childs’ set-up.
Maxine understood the rules of keeping the deception going, and she nodded along, and smiled and laughed, but inside of her, a black blade of concern was slicing up out of the pit of her stomach. Between smiles that snagged painfully against the emotions she was really experiencing, she asked Ralph in a normal tone innocuous questions about division of labor and what the plans were for the future, and then when the opportunity arose, she hissed, “I don’t understand. You’re here. Why haven’t you left?”
“I can’t,” came the whispered reply. “Mary’s my daughter, and Terry’s my grandkid. Nan has a rotation of her boys watching them at all times. We’re stuck here. My advice to you is to get out before they start following Storm in the same way. Nan’s got some good ideas, but she also is a spider in the center of a nasty little web here.”
“So why did you come?”
“That’s just it,” Ralph whispered. “I didn’t. They took Mary and Terry from our house, and told me that if I didn’t follow, William would shoot them down like dogs.”
17
Josh made his way through the interconnecting corridor between the two sides of the Empress, his heart knocking in his ears like a woodpecker trying to peck through a concrete block. As he came out onto the starboard side of the liner, he caught sight of the Sea-Hawk. Not much more than a dot now. Sails full, heading away from the liner at a speed that would soon take her over the horizon so that she’d be lost to him forever.
There was a click behind him, and then he felt the cold metal of a gun barrel pressed into the nape of his neck. A voice with a heavy Bronx accent, all acutely emphasized ‘ois’ and three words running into each other like they couldn’t get out of the mouth fast enough, demanded, “Hold it right there, Mr. Interloper. I don’t want to open up a new mouth in the back of your head. I’d kinda like you to turn around and use the one on the front of your face to tell me everything I need to know. Hands up, as they say in the movies.”
Josh did as he was told and turned. The business end of a Colt Government was pointed unwaveringly at the middle of his face. The man holding it was grey-haired, perhaps in his mid- to late- sixties. His knuckles and fingers dripped with gold, and a golden chain heavy enough to strangle an elephant hung around his neck. He wore an open white shirt from which gray chest hair exploded like stuffing out of an old armchair in a dumpster. His eyes were the thing, though. They held Josh’s gaze like eagles’ claws in the flanks of a leaping salmon. They just wouldn’t let go. This guy may have had twenty years on Josh, and be six inches shorter, but there was nothing insubstantial about his physical presence, or inauthentic or disconnected between his words and his ability to carry out his threat.
“We saw your Pirates of the Caribbean boat, and we saw you come aboard with the two spooks. We saw you looking in the cabins, seeing what you could lift. We saw you, Mr. Interloper. Now, whaddya doing, and who are you? ‘Cause I get the feeling you ain’t here to rescue me or my boys. I get the feeling you wuz gonna take what you could and leave us here to fend for ourselves. Now I tell you this for nuttin’, Mr. Interloper, I’m done with fending. I want off this boat.”
Josh’s eyes flicked to the diminishing silhouette of the Sea-Hawk. “You and me both.”
The man pushed the gun against Josh’s forehead and pushed it in. “Talk like your life depends on it because, let’s face it, it does.”
Tally struggled against her bonds as the stanchion in the side of the Sea-Hawk’s deck bit into her back. Her wrists were tied, and her ankles were lashed together so tightly that she wondered if her feet would die.
Her head was groggy from the blow it had taken when Ten-Foot had pushed her away from the wheel. She’d stumbled backwards, and tripped and landed in a daze as her head had thudded into the deck. Goober had come forward to take her arms while Ten-Foot had gotten to work with his lines on her legs.
“Now you be quiet and act like a good girl, and I won’t throw you over the side,” Ten-Foot had said, his eyes blazing with a fury that had stopped any attempt to argue in Tally’s throat. Then she’d watched as Ten-Foot had taken the wheel and barked out orders to the crew to draw in the sea anchors, get the sails unfurled with the winches, and set them to run with the wind, such as it was.
Tally’s stomach turned, and burning nausea worked its way into her mouth. She didn’t know if it was because she was concussed, or because of the anxiety of watching the Empress swing out of view and got out of sight at the stern of the Sea-Hawk.
Tally closed her eyes and shook her head. Ten-Foot had learned well enough how to control the clipper, and had obviously taken the view that leaving her father and the boys behind on the ocean liner was the best course of action. Her father, she knew, had been trying to keep Ten-Foot on their side because of his volatility, at least until they got back to land, but she could also see that Ten-Foot was once again filled to the brim with paranoia and hatred. The probationers were as scared of him as they were of the situation they were in, and so they were following his orders.
“Please,” Tally croaked. “Don’t leave my dad on that ship. He’s our best chance of getting home.”
Ten-Foot threw his head back and laughed as he steered. “Best chance, little girl? Don’t make me laugh. As soon as we’re back on shore, he’s gonna take me down. With him here, I’m going to prison for a million years, we get back to where we came from. No. We’s going in the other direction now.”
This hit Tally like a sledgehammer. “The other way?”
“Yeah, little lady. All dis fighting the wind is getting us nowhere. We’re going to Africa.”
Tally wasn’t going to give Ten-Foot the satisfaction of painting her face with the panic she felt inside. “You can’t do that. You need my father. We won’t survive without him.”
“You and Spackman taught me good, little lady. I can get this ship across the Atlantic. I can get this ship to Africa, and when we’re there, I can disappear.”
Tally tried to sit up. This trip had been a disaster even before the sky had exploded in the heavens and inside their brains. She hadn’t wanted to be here. She hadn’t wanted to be with her dad, or be the “female cover” for the non-male probationers. There were a zillion other things she could have been doing while trying to compensate for the fears she had over her brother’s health, not to mention the dislocation she felt over the imminent break-up of her parent’s marriage. It felt like it was only hanging together by the threads of Storm’s chemotherapy, and once he was over that—because, oh please, let him be over that now—she knew the family she had grown up in would implode. She hadn’t known who to blame for holding their family below the waterline and causing it to slowly sink, but she was certain her dad’s misplaced sense of civic duty, and her mom’s inability to accept that not everything could be seen in terms which were black and white, no gray areas to be seen, had been the major contributing factors.
Sure, she had to admit to herself that, since the change in everyone, she’d been impressed by her dad’s handling of the desperate situation, and the way he’d worked with the kids and not gone to pieces, but she was still kicking herself for not putting up more of a fight over getting on this damn boat.
And now it was going to fall to her to her to get the Sea-Hawk turned around before the Empress was over the horizon and her father was lost to her forever.
Thing was, bound hand and foot, and on a boat sailing in the opposite direction of where it needed to go, under the command of a maniac, she
didn’t have the first idea about how she was going to achieve that.
“Joey! Joey! I ain’t got no more sham-pag-nay! I want more sham-pag-nay, Joey! Get the boys to find me some sham-pag-nay! Now!”
For the first time since Josh had started to explain what had happened to him on the Sea-Hawk with the crew and the probationers, how they had found the Empress and why they had come aboard, the gun the gray-haired New Yorker was holding wavered, and his eyes closed beneath a furrowed brow.
A woman, perhaps in her fifties, bottle-platinum blonde, pneumatically enhanced and tottering on ludicrously high heels, and wrapped in a satin evening dress that left very little to the imagination, was stepping over the storm seal through a door some twenty feet away. She had a champagne glass in one hand, and an empty bottle of Dom Perignon in the other. Josh knew it was empty because she was holding it upside down, and shaking it to prove that she really had run out.
Her cheeks were flushed, and she walked with the overwrought precision a woman trying not to show that she was drunk.
She was failing.
“Poppet,” said the man who answered to the name Joey. “Go back to the cabin. I’m busy. Stay there where it’s safe, and I’ll be back with all the booze you could wish for in just a little while.”
Poppet, if indeed that was her real name, was a woman who was used to getting her own way in such matters. She stood still and stamped her foot. “I want sham-pag-nay, Joey! Don’t you try and deny me! Sham-pag-nay or no con-jool-gals. And you know how much you appreciate your con-jool-gals, Joey. Capisce?”
Joey flicked his eyes back to Josh. “You even think about smiling and I’ll shoot it right off your face, you get me?”
Supernova EMP Series (Book 1): Dark End Page 17