Sun Still Shining (Rain Must Fall #2)

by Deb Rotuno

  I kicked open the door, which pushed the zeaks back. Two of the bastards came at us, and Quinn and I took them both down, but only at the knees. From the look of them, they’d been an older couple. And fuck me, the stench! The room looked like they’d been trapped in there for some time, and I scowled at the two of them writhing on the floor.

  “Don’t end them just yet. We may need to…”

  My heart sank and chills broke out all over me at the sound of not only Sasha’s loud, deep snarl but my son’s scream of terror.

  “Sasha, no!”

  “Jesus,” Quinn hissed, and we both turned tail and bolted down the stairs right behind Sara.

  We landed heavily on the first floor, and Sasha’s growl ended with a howl of pain.

  “Fuck! Freddie?” I called, hurrying into the kitchen when Sara’s gunfire echoed around us.

  The hallway door that we’d left alone was open, looking rotten and shattered, a trail of blood leading all the way across the kitchen floor. The zeak had somehow managed to get out, but Sasha had placed herself between it and my son.

  Sara and I practically fell on Freddie, pulling him up off the floor. I cradled him, but he fought me.

  “Dad, stop!” he sobbed, pointing to the floor. “Sasha! Daddy, please! It…it…bit her!”

  Sara and I locked gazes as Quinn dragged the zeak out of the way and off the dog.

  “Here, baby,” Sara said, taking Freddie from me, and I knew she’d check every damn inch of him before she’d take another breath. “Did it get you? Bite you?”

  “No, Mom,” he promised with a sniffle, shaking his head and fighting her, even though she’d set him down on the counter. “Daddy’s gotta help her!”

  I landed on my knees next to Sasha, who was still on her side. Her whimper was soft, her eyes wide as she panted.

  “Aw, big girl…” I groaned, shaking my head and gripping my hair. “What’d you do?” I asked her softly. It had been her blood I’d seen trailing across the floor. There was a bite in her muscular shoulder, a tear in her skin.

  I looked up at Quinn. “Get me something to stop the blood. Towel, shirt, anything!”

  Quinn darted up the stairs, only to come right back with two towels. He pressed a folded one onto the wound, taking the other one to tie it tight around her.

  “She should’ve died…or turned by now,” he whispered to me. His face was pale, filling with fear.

  “I know,” I muttered back, glancing up at my wife and son. “He okay?” I asked, even though I knew she’d have said something, but I was fucking sick at the whole situation.

  “Not a scratch on him, except his hands where he fell,” she answered, but he was still a crying mess over Sasha, gripping at his mother.

  Looking to Quinn, I said, “Help me get her in the trailer. We’ll haul ass back to the lodge, but then I want you to bring Derek back here for those two upstairs. This shit comes first. Am I clear?”

  “Yeah, definitely,” he agreed, standing up. “But Jack…”

  I stood up, but my eyes drifted to my son’s heartbreak. “I have to fucking try, Quinn!” I hissed his way.

  “Okay.”

  We bent down and picked her up gently, apologizing to her when she whimpered in pain again.

  “I’ll get the door,” Sara said, but our son was wrapped around her. My Shortcake may have been petite, but she carried the strength of ten men when it came to Freddie.

  “I’ll drive,” Quinn offered. “She’d probably rather have you hold her, Jack.”

  Nodding, I crawled in next to Sasha, who, despite the pain, shifted to put her head on my thigh. I locked gazes with Sara when she got in across from me with our son in her lap. It was a tight fit, but it didn’t matter. We weren’t going that far.

  I had to give Quinn credit. He handled the four-wheeler like a damn pro, going as fast as he could without hitting too many bumps. He opened it up after we passed by a car or two, and when he pulled into the lodge’s driveway, he gave a sharp, piercing whistle.

  “Holy hell.” Derek ran up, opening the gate. “What the hell happened?”

  I shook my head as Quinn flew through the open gate, almost running into the front steps of the lodge. I heard him start to explain to Derek what had happened.

  “Dad!” I called, hopping out of the trailer and gathering Sasha up into my arms. She howled a little at being moved, and I looked down at her. “Sorry, big girl. Hang in there.”

  The front doors were slammed open by Tina, and I pushed by her, only to hurry down the hallway that led to the first-aid room. “Dad! Mom!”

  Both my parents stepped out through the doorway and immediately went into emergency mode.

  “Set her down, son,” Dad stated calmly. “What happened?”

  I laid Sasha down as gently as I could, soothing her with my hand. “She…” I swallowed thickly as he removed the towels. “She saved Freddie’s life. She…put herself between him and a zeak…but…it got at her.”

  “Freddie’s okay?” Mom asked.

  “Not a fucking scratch, except his hands where he fell down. She took it all.”

  The two of them assessed Sasha, talking softly to each other.

  “It’s not deep. We’ll clean it.”

  “No major arteries were severed. Some muscle tissue damage.”

  “We’ll have to numb the area…”

  “I’ll get the suture kit ready, but…”

  They locked eyes, only to turn to me.

  “Jack, how long ago did she get bitten?”

  “Several minutes,” I told them, making sure Freddie wasn’t in the doorway when I elaborated. “She… It should have killed her…or turned her by now.”

  My dad shook his head as my mother closed the clinic door. “Well, it didn’t, so we’ll do the best we can to get her stitched up.” He looked to my mother. “We may have found your starting point. Canine immune systems are different than human. She’s not even sick, Dottie. And it’s been much longer than it would take to turn her. Humans are turning in less than thirty seconds.”

  She narrowed her eyes at Sasha but nodded. “First things first, let’s clean her up.”

  “She’ll be okay?” I asked, suddenly feeling Freddie’s age. It had been a long fucking time since I’d found Sasha on the Army base in Florida. Not only had I grown attached to her, but she’d become an important member of my family. She was tough as nails, smart as hell, sweet, and gentle, all at the same time.

  “Jack,” Dad said softly, placing a hand on my shoulder. “If she hasn’t turned by now, she should be okay. We’re stitching her up, and we’ll give her antibiotics to keep down infections, but the wound isn’t all that bad, son.” He grabbed my face when I looked down at the dog who had saved more lives than she probably knew. “Jack, listen to me. Think, son. Have you—in all our time on the road—seen a turned animal?”

  Frowning, I froze for a moment, trying to remember, but finally shook my head.

  “Exactly. It’s something your mother and I have considered in our theories. Animals have died, yes, but they died due to their wounds, not due to the virus. If that were the case, then the birds would be all sick. They’re not.”

  Sasha whimpered, and I walked to her, running a soothing hand over her head. “Easy, big girl. Let them fix you up, okay?”

  “Jack,” Mom said, tying a stitch and starting the next one. When she met my gaze, she said, “She’ll be fine, sport. Just sore. Okay? You might want to go tell Freddie that. He’s a mess in the hall.”

  Taking a deep breath and letting it out, I nodded. I opened the clinic door to see my wife almost at her wit’s end with our son.

  “Daddy!” he sobbed.

  “C’mere,” I sighed, taking him out of my wife’s arms, only to drop a kiss to her forehead. I walked us down to the lobby, sitting down on the sofa, but I kept Freddie on my lap. “Sasha’s gonna be fine,” I told them but held my son’s face in my hands. His tears broke my heart, but I understood them completely. “What h
appened, buddy?”

  He sniffled, and I wiped his tears away.

  “I was… I did like you said! I was packing up the cans in the bag. I heard you guys shoot upstairs, but…but…” He took another deep breath, and it hitched a little, but he went on. “Sasha started growlin’, and there was a bang, but I thought it was you guys! I didn’t know, Dad…”

  “It’s okay, baby,” Sara soothed, running her fingers through his hair. “You didn’t do anything wrong. The door broke open, Freddie.”

  “She’s right, son.”

  “Sasha…she jumped at it. She…” He dissolved into tears again. “I’m sorry! I didn’t mean for her to do it!”

  “I know, Freddie, but you didn’t do anything wrong, and Sasha was just trying to protect you,” I sighed, hugging him to me. I pressed kisses to his head as he curled into me. Turning to Sara, I spoke softly. “She didn’t turn. And they’re stitching her up. She should be fine, but…”

  “She’s…immune?” Sara asked, narrowing her eyes.

  “It would seem so,” I answered her. “It looks like Mom has a starting point for her tests.”

  Tina appeared in front of us, her face sympathetic, but she smiled softly. “Quinn and Derek left again—they wanted me to tell you—and they took Mose with them.”

  “Thank you,” I whispered with a nod before turning to Sara. “When they’re done with Sasha, we’ll need to know where Mom wants that damn zeak. I have no idea how she’s gonna work on it.”

  Tina snorted. “I’ll find out. You guys just…” She waved a hand to Freddie. “Stay with him. We can handle it.”

  I hugged my son closer, only to wrap an arm around Sara. “Jesus, I owe that dog everything.”

  “Me too,” Sara said, a bit of emotion in her voice, but when she looked up at me, she smiled into my kiss to her lips. “And soon, if your mom is right, the whole world may owe her.”

  Chapter 7

  SARA

  Klamath Lake, Oregon

  7 months & 1 week after Hurricane Beatrice

  SASHA’S DISGRUNTLED GROAN and heavy sigh met my ears, and I chuckled her way.

  “Be grateful, pretty girl. They could put the cone back on your neck,” I told her, kneeling next to her as she stared longingly out through the deck doors at Jack and Freddie playing in the snow that had fallen the day before. “Soon, Sasha. You can go play with them soon enough.”

  She lifted her head up at me, her pant making her look humorous with her doggie-grin and tongue hanging out sideways. She became still when I checked her shoulder. The fur was shaved down in a large area, and there were jagged lines across her skin with more stitches than I was willing to count. Most likely, she’d scar, but it was a small price to pay, and luckily she’d avoided any infections—from the wound or the virus. She’d be just fine, something that made all of us very grateful—especially my husband and son. Both had been heartbroken at the sight of her injured and hurting.

  Jack hadn’t been exaggerating when he said he owed that dog everything. He did. We all did. Sasha had kept Jack safe his whole journey across the country, only to do the same to Freddie and me when she arrived at Clear Lake with him. And she’d taken the worst hit imaginable by putting herself in harm’s way in place of my son. She’d saved Freddie’s life. The simple excursion, something deemed less dangerous than anything we’d done since the beginning, had gone terribly wrong very quickly. It was exactly what Olivia had talked about when she asked us to take care of her children. Anything could happen at any time, and I wasn’t sure I had words for the beautiful, brave dog in front of me.

  It was fitting that today was Thanksgiving.

  “Here, big girl,” I whispered, placing a bowl down in front of her. “I think you’ve earned this.” I ruffled the top of her head as she greedily ate the food I’d given her. It was venison and some eggs mixed in with the dog food that Derek had procured at the vet clinic.

  Millie, Margaret, and I had made a huge meal, and everyone was in various stages of play, sleep, or just plain laziness. It had been a good day, and by nightfall, the kids would be really excited with the surprise that Derek, Mose, and my dad were planning for them. Currently, they were off on a secret Christmas tree search.

  “How is she?” Dottie asked from behind me.

  “Bored,” I said with a laugh, pointing toward Jack and Freddie, who’d started a snowball fight outside. “She feels left out, I think.”

  Dottie grinned. “She’ll be able to join them in a few days. Right now, she’d rip those stitches.”

  “How’s the research coming?” I asked her.

  “I was just about to grab a sample. Come with me, and I’ll tell you,” she said, opening the deck doors.

  Nodding, I sighed deeply and reached for my coat, which I’d set by Sasha. Pulling it on, I stepped outside to follow her.

  “Mom! Grandma!” Freddie screamed in terror yet laughing hysterically at the same time as Jack carried him upside down, only to slap a handful of snow on his exposed belly. “Help!”

  “Oh, no… You’re on your own, Freddie,” I told him, smiling at the evil laugh Jack gave. Even better was the sudden assault of snowballs from almost every direction. “Oh hell…”

  Ava, Janie, Rina, Quinn, Mallory, and Josh all threw at just about the same time, nailing Jack’s back, legs, and sides. He collapsed into a snowbank with a growling laugh as Freddie scrambled away from him. Joel stood up from behind a snow barricade, and I saw he was leading the assault on poor Jack.

  “I don’t know which one’s the bigger kid,” Dottie muttered, snickering at my grin.

  “Me either.”

  The far back corner of the property was the greenhouse, but Mose and Derek had done an amazing job at adding to it quickly. Not only had they created a small area for the chickens, including a coop, but they’d built a small stall for the goats and hutch for the rabbits…and a holding area for Dottie’s specimens.

  The mere sight of them made me grimace. I hated the idea of them inside the grounds, but they’d been rendered harmless. A few hours after Sasha had been stitched up, Quinn and Derek brought back the two zeaks from the upstairs bedroom of the lake house. The one from the basement was dead—for good. I’d been unable to stop myself from killing it because it was trying its damnedest to get to Freddie. Before tossing them into the four-wheeler’s trailer, Mose had removed their arms and somehow broken their jaws. They couldn’t get to anyone now.

  The snow started to fall lightly again, and I pulled my hood up as Dottie opened the enclosure. The zeaks were tied to a tree, sitting down on the ground since Jack and Quinn shot off their legs. But we now knew what they’d do in the snow.

  Just as the rain made them keener, more animalistic, the snow did as well, but the cold slowed them down. So, while they snapped and lunged and sensed their food nearby, their bodies simply wouldn’t cooperate. They slowed down tremendously. My only thought was that it would give survivors everywhere an advantage, and I hoped people were using it, cleaning up quickly. I wondered for a moment how long it would take to rid the world of the infected.

  Dottie pulled on rubber gloves, the kind used to wash dishes, and then she reached into her coat pocket for a few long, scary syringes. Pushing the zeak’s head to the side, she ignored the growls, the grunts, and slipped a needle into the soft spot behind its ear. She moved carefully, meticulously, drawing her samples. She took from both zeaks and from different portions of the brain but spoke softly to me.

  “If I move too quickly, I’ll kill it,” she muttered, glancing my way. “It doesn’t take much to cause damage. Despite their consistent state, the brain is—and always will be—the key.”

  She tucked the now-full syringes back into her pocket and took out small containers and a scalpel, taking samples of their skin and saliva. It was disgusting, but she did it all with no expression on her face. Dottie was on a mission.

  “What are the chances you’ll find something?” I asked her.

  She smiled, looking
over at me with eyes that matched her son’s. “I’m not sure. I’ve studied everything the military left behind that day in Florida. I was lucky they backed up their computer data on paper. I’d heard rumors about such bioweapons, but unless you’re directly involved, it’s top secret.” She closed the lid on the last container and put it in her pocket, standing up in front of me. “They had no idea what they were dealing with. And I don’t think they knew it would mutate.”

  My eyebrows shot up at that. “Mutate?”

  “It did.” She nodded, gesturing for me to exit the holding area. “Come. I’ll show you.”

  We managed to avoid getting nailed by friendly snowball fire as we walked across the backyard, and she led me through the lobby and into the clinic. Rich was sitting on a stool in front of the counter. His eye was pressed to a microscope. He smiled when he glanced up at me.

  “Hey, sweetheart,” he greeted, leaning into my kiss to his cheek.

  Dottie handed him the containers and syringes, only to pull out the big, fat file folder I’d seen them reading on many occasions. She set it down on the examination table, flipping through the pages.

  When she found the picture she was looking for, she pointed to it, saying, “This is how the virus looked when they first got ahold of it.”

  The picture in front of me was of a cell, all spiky and red and angry-looking. When I looked up at her, Rich shifted the microscope to me.

  “And this is the virus now,” he added.

  I peeked through the thing, noting that the cell looked about the same except for a slash of yellow running through it.

  “What’s the change?” I asked them, knowing they could truly obliterate me with medical terms and knowledge, but I also knew they wouldn’t do that. It just wasn’t their way.

  Dottie flipped slowly through the file, finally looking up at me. “The day the hurricane hit Florida, it caused a serious amount of water damage, not to mention tornadoes. When the lab was destroyed, it released the virus. It had been in containment, and when the lab techs tried to salvage the samples, it went…not necessarily airborne, but it found its first host.” She held up a finger. “If I had to guess, I’d say that the technician wasn’t protected enough. At the time, their samples were highly concentrated. Lethal. Just sitting in the vial, it would’ve been deadly. With all that wind, damage, glass, and chaos, my theory is that the person accidentally allowed the sample to enter an open wound or their eyes or something that would give the virus a chance to latch on.