The day of rest was good for everyone. Swimming in the pond was such a treat. The river was too cold and swift-moving for swimming, and there was always the danger of being spotted while out in the open along the shore. Here, there was no danger of unfriendly eyes. Here they were surrounded by family. Sean strung a rope off a strong tree limb, tying an old tire to the end. The kids took turns on their new swing, their swim clothes drying as they played in the sunshine, the adults talking drowsily as they watched from a comfortable distance.
Mattea wanted to find a secluded place to fish the Peace. His argument — if he fished away from D.O.A., and took a convoluted path back home, they didn’t risk being discovered. It was a shame they had all that fish swimming on by and didn’t dare throw in a line. Nicola suggested night fishing, with night goggles. Close to home and out of sight. The idea died off as Mattea fell asleep under a tree, his face relaxed and unlined, his hair shifting with the breeze.
Dan wanted to build a go-to hut up here by the pond in case of emergency. He’d already paced out the perfect location. It had a natural spring for water, they could build a decent outhouse safely away from it, build bunkbeds along the walls, throw in a little airtight stove and stock it with some dried foods. This was greeted with general assent. Why not? They were well on their way to fully stock for the winter, the two cabins were set, the barn was set up for the animals, including access from the chicken run when the weather got real cold. The alfalfa could be harvested within the next couple of days, ensuring the animals would be well fed ‘til next year. Dan added, “Mini round of applause to everyone, for working so hard to make this all happen. It was tight, but we did it.”
Sean wanted to fence in the meadow between the two cabins which would allow the goats, horses and Mike the Mule to run free, no hobbling or staking necessary. Missy and Junior could go in there in a pinch as well. Everyone cheered at this suggestion — even if it meant stealing fence posts and wire from neighboring abandoned farms. The shepherding of the animals was a chore the kids would like to be free of, though in truth, Ol’ Henry did much of the herding for them. The good news was Ninja was proving to be a good student and was picking up Ol’ Henry’s skills. Xena had fallen into the habit of roaming the edges of the homestead. What she was searching for they couldn’t tell, but it kept her busy and the predators at bay. Hero was all about the kids and stuck with them twenty-four seven. Wherever the kids played, that’s where you’d find Hero, their faithful shadow. It was a great comfort, knowing the German Shepherd, who’d bounced back from his injuries in remarkable shape, was so attached and attentive, to little Rhea especially. The pair had a strong bond, with Hero sneaking into Rhea and Nicola’s bedroom to sleep at night whenever the opportunity presented itself. Which, Nicola had to admit, stroking Hero’s soft ears as he lay beside her and Rhea now — more often than not, she was guilty of encouraging his stealthy plans. He was a great comfort to Nicola as well.
By mid-afternoon, the kids trickled toward the laid-out patchwork of quilts as Sandy dished out the picnic lunch she and Catherine had put together. Deviled eggs, elk and tomato or cucumber and tomato sandwiches — they had an embarrassment of tomatoes in the garden at the moment — , potato salad, green salad, dilly beans and pickle baby beets, topped with Saskatoon muffins with sweet goat’s milk butter and raspberry jam. All washed down by cool mint tea.
After lunch Mattea led the kids through the nearby forest, cutting and collecting willow branches. He and Sandy then conducted an afternoon of basket weaving lessons, which resulted in some cringe-worthy containers and hours of quiet concentration.
Bill and Catherine went exploring, looking for evidence of some of the healing herbs featured in Wren’s Boreal Herbal book and came back flushed with success having located Sheep Sorrel, a fresh leafy green for salads, and a substitute for rennet, which they were running out of, to make cheese and ricotta cheese. They’d all taken to teasing Bill about the herbal book—his Bible, calling him “I Have an Herb for That” Bill.
Nicola pulled out her attempt at knitting an infant hat for Annie’s baby, feeling guilty about how pissed off she’d been with the girl lately. So, she’d developed a crush on Jarvis as he’d convalesced with his injured back? It wasn’t a crime. Maybe it was even cute.
She frowned. Nah — it wasn’t cute at all. Watching those two together had set her teeth on edge. Sitting here in the late day sun, warm and relaxed after a wonderful day with her new family, she regretted those feelings as well. Annie was pregnant, and living … Nicola dropped her hands into her lap, needles still poised. What did they say? “May you live in interesting times”? There was a mouthful. She snickered under her breath and continued knitting. If this hat ever landed on that baby’s head, it would be a stone-cold miracle.
When the shadows grew long and the children tired, they reluctantly packed up to return home. The horses seemed ready to return home as well, retracing their steps without urging, the Beast, piled up with lunch leftovers, quilts and wonky willow baskets bringing up the rear, the dogs matching its speed, their tongues hanging out, their eyes bright. The perfect day.
After rounding the garden, and stopping to converse about the practicality of fencing this meadow, they trailed to the main cabin, the horses into the barn to be freed of their tack, the Beast to be unloaded. Pulling up to the surrounding porch, Nicola stared at the silent cabin in disgust. “What, no welcome home? I’m shocked, Annie, shocked.” She climbed out and gathered an arm load of quilts.
She saw Mattea was laughing silently at her.
“What — you’re okay with Annie sitting on her butt all day? Frankly, I’m sick of it. Yeah — she’s pregnant, but she’s not in a coma.” Her arms full, she turned and stepped onto the deck.
“She might be… napping? And it’s my guess, she’s not alone.”
She stopped and whirled to face him. “What? I thought he had a ‘bad back’!
Mattea smiled. “There’s bad, and then there’s bad.”
“Eew!”
“Some people like that sort of thing.”
“‘Some people’ are crazy!”
Mattea stepped up and relieved her of her burden. “So, who’s going to go find out — you or me?”
“How can she even consider …” She stopped, flushing at what she was about to say. This was her issue, not Mattea’s.
Mattea dropped the quilts into one of the Adirondack chairs and took her by her arms. “I know how you feel. I was worried when Jarvis first showed up here. It seemed he had eyes for you. That lasted about ten minutes.”
She gazed down at his feet, not wanting to face him with her fears.
“I get it. I know what you went through.”
She jerked from his hands and blurted, “You have no idea. None.”
“A woman doesn’t end her life with a sharpened tent peg across her juggler without reason.” Mattea’s tone was gentle but insistent. “I know you need to rebuild who you will be now, in this world.”
Surprised, she looked at him then away.
“Annie. Well, Annie’s becoming who she’ll be in this world in her own way.”
“She hardly knows Jarvis. They’ve been together barely a month.”
“You and I haven’t known one another much beyond that, and I know you well, Nicola Zamora. You are a worthy person and well worth knowing.”
She flushed at his words, a curl of gratitude and warmth winding itself through her heart. Mattea admired her? He thought she was worthy… not a cast off from another man… other men?
She dared to face him, and was surprised to see acceptance in his expression. “You …” She licked her lips and tried again, forcing a laugh. “What makes you so smart, Mattea Greyeyes-Appsassin?”
“I spent three month in the forest, alone, drying out, meeting my own demons. I had a vision. You. Coru. Wren. This place — these people, all these things were my vision.”
In her former life, Nicola would have laughed at this. Visions? Wishful thinkin
g.
But that was before the virus, before Topher, and before Wren. She had witnessed and experienced things over the last several months that tossed all her smug, preconceived ideas out the door with civility itself. Now she knew anything and everything was possible. There was no depravity to which some men would not stoop. And there was no limit to the healing powers of friendship and love.
Mattea had had a vision. Looking into Mattea’s earnest dark eyes, she believed him. And in that belief, something hard inside her body let go, freeing her spirit.
She reached out and grasped his hand. It was warm and large in hers and gave her strength. “Mattea—.”
A shout from the barn. Everyone streamed out, alarm on their faces, Deklin and Rhea crying, Malcom and Wyatt’s faces white with loss. Dan emerged, his face flushed and angry. He ran behind the cabin.
“What’s wrong?” Mattea shouted, his grip on her hand tightening.
“They’re gone!”
“Whose gone?”
Nicola’s skin crawled with apprehension. Here it was, that sensation of something, something she just hadn’t recognized…
“Missy and Junior! They’re gone.”
Mattea released Nicola’s hand and leapt off the deck, “The door, the gate? What?
Catherine sped across the yard straight to the cabin door, flung it open and ran inside. After a moment, she wailed, “Bill! Sandy!”
Everyone crowded into the cabin, then pressed closer still, filing into the utility room door, where Catherine stood. The pantry shelves were bare. The jars of preserved tomatoes, sauces, soups, stews, green and yellow beans, peas, jams, the neat stacks of dried and smoked elk, the dried berries, dried beans. The rice, the sugar, the flour. Their precious salt. All gone. Deklin’s honey, his carefully crafted cheeses — gone. Catherine turned, exchanged a broken, haunted look with Bill and stepped blindly into his arms and broke down completely, sobbing into his worn shirt.
The sound of practical, “get the job done” Catherine’s sobs, born in exhaustion and despair and betrayal broke Nicola’s heart.
Sandy whirled, pushed past the crowd of stunned survivors, the adults furious, the children crying silently, and stalked to the room she and Annie shared. Nicola and Mattea followed her. She flung the door open, revealing a stripped mattress; a stripped clean room. “They’re gone and they’ve taken everything.”
They stood rooted to the floor, looking at one another, listening to Catherine’s incoherent sobbing, “I can’t do it. The children. What will… will I feed them? I have to… Bill. The children… So much. I can’t. I just can’t —.”
Her crying stopped abruptly.
Bill called out, “Help!”
The shock’s spell broken, everyone rushed forward. Holding Catherine, lifting her unconscious body with many hands, they brought her out into the great room and laid her gently onto the sectional. Sandy ran for a cool cloth.
Dan appeared at the porch door, his face flushed with anger. “They took two trannies.”
“Oh, my God,” Nicola whispered.
Mattea murmured, “We’ll track them.” His expression was deadly.
26
THINGS CHANGE
ON, THEIR SECOND NIGHT IN RUSHTON, Wren and Coru slipped away from Charles Wood’s house, rested and in good spirits and wearing their night vision gear. They’d tagged six houses on Wren’s map to search for more of Bill’s meds between her father’s house and Beastette, the route taking them safely away from the downtown core, from where Wren judged the most mental chatter emanated.
The night was clear, the moonlight still slight, perfect for their plans.
Tonight, Coru took the lead, now knowing the layout of the town. Since he was insistent upon this, Wren shrugged and agreed. She heard him thinking this would protect her so she let it go. Coru was a bit of a man’s man she now knew, and this was his way to care for those around him. She found it funny, after all they had been through, that she was now one of Coru’s flock. She could do worse.
She’d scan ahead in any case, make sure things were good.
The first two houses gave them nothing, the third was a gold mine of pain meds, which they added to their packs, but had no heart meds. The fourth and fifth also nothing, just burnt out shells. If there had been meds, they were long since destroyed along with the house.
With only one house, one more chance between her and Beastette and D.O.A., she had to make herself stay the course as they jogged silently along the back lane in single file toward it. Coru was running farther and farther ahead, her own steps slowing. This wasn’t right. There was something wrong — she could feel it. She had an almost overwhelming need to turn away, run to Beastette, fire her up and race away from this toxic place.
She called to Coru as loudly as she dared. “Coru. Stop!”
He stopped and turned back. “What’s wrong?”
“I don’t like this. This seems wrong. I want to skip this one.”
He looked puzzled, but was instantly accepting. “Okay. We’ll skip it. Never ignore your intuition —.”
She cringed as a cacophony of minds burst across her mind, sending shards of pain behind her eyes. She squeezed them shut, fighting it, searching through it, needing to find the core … And discovered minds on the hunt. Like-minds; hive minds. Was this why she’d hadn’t heard them until now? They were operating low; there was a low common denominator linking them, locking them together, keeping them moving together. They were minds that had —. She yanked off her night googles and blurted, “They saw you!” She gripped his arm and stumbled from the lane, propelling him with her into the backyard of a broken down mobile home.
“Who saw me?”
“Many men. Curtis Mather’s men. There’s six, no, there are… there are eight of them. They saw you cross that last intersection! They’re spreading out, surrounding this block. There’s too many of them. They know you’re here, Coru!”
Coru glanced around, assessing their surroundings. Looking for a place to hide, she knew. She also knew it wouldn’t work. These men lived for the hunt—this was their favorite sport, right here, right now, tracking an interloper. They smelled a kill.
Coru pulled her toward an old shed and pushed her between it and a wood privacy fence. He shed his backpack and jacket, shoving them behind her.
“No!” she hissed. “There is no hiding — they think you’re alone — easy pickings. I know what they’re thinking — they won’t give up until they have you. We have to fight. The good news is, again, they think you’re alone.” Through gritted teeth, she promised, “You’re one of mine and I won’t let them have you. My bow will be a very unpleasant surprise. Not so easy pickings, after all.”
She dropped her pack and knelt beside it, pulled her crossbow free, prepared to hunt men for the first time in her life, then gasped, her head snapping up. She gaped at Coru. He was in full-on protection mode, not even trying to block her out of his head. He was thinking crazy!
He knelt before her and cupped her face with both of his hands. “Look in my jacket, Wren.”
She slapped his hands away and sprang to her feet. “Don’t you even think about —.”
“If it weren’t for me, you wouldn’t even be here, in danger.” He looked up at her beseechingly. “Wren.”
“Don’t do it,” she warned, stepping away.
He stood up. “Please forgive me.”
“Coru Wisla, I swear —.”
He punched her in the jaw. Her world went dark.
WHEN WREN AWOKE, blinking in confusion, she saw pink light streaking across the sky above her. What was she …? She looked down, saw she was tucked under Coru’s warming blanket. Turning her head, she saw he’d made a pillow of his jacket. And her jaw … She rocked it back and forth, testing, then remembered! She sat up, pushing aside the warming blanket, shivering at the sudden cold. Coru had knocked her out so he could face those men alone, so he could lead them away from her. He didn’t want her inside his head, reading his thought
s, afraid of what she might hear if he was captured.
She staggered to her feet, grabbing the edge of the shed to keep her balance. Peering around the corner, she saw the yard and the laneway beyond were empty. She cast out her sensors for nearby minds, and heard only sleeping, dreaming minds, all around her. People had indeed drifted back to Rushton, needing the familiarity of place, even if it was now ruled by Curtis Mathers’ iron fist. These people believed Curtis stood between them and an even worse fate at the hands of roving gangs. Outlanders was the name they had been tagged with. Outlanders.
She heard nothing from Coru’s mind, even though she was so tuned in with his and the other’s in her inner circle, she could hear them above all others and from farther distances. She tried for Catherine and got only emotion. Catherine was completely broken. Something had happened to her she could not recover from. Alarm sent Wren to search for Mattea and Nicola. Again, all she received from them was emotion — strong emotion. Nicola was seething, Mattea was deadly cold and focused. Something had happened back at D.O.A.
She could not race back. There was no helping — she had her own crisis here in Rushton.
She purposely placed D.O.A. out of her thoughts. There were more of them there — many hands made light work. They would handle whatever it was. Here, she was alone and needed to solve this alone. There would be no cavalry riding in to her rescue. Coru was missing, and if she did not hear his thoughts…
She was so afraid of the reason for Coru’s mental absence. Please, not dead. He can’t be dead. Maybe… maybe passed out? She both prayed that was so and dreaded the reason for it. Beat up was better than dead, wasn’t it?
It was getting light fast. It had to be close to 4 a.m. and she had to find shelter until dark tonight. She considered the broken down mobile home before her. It was empty, but would it remain empty? She had no choice. She grabbed up all her and Coru’s gear and slipped across the yard and through the gaping door.
Lost Sentinel: Post-Apocalyptic Time Travel Adventure (Earth Survives Series Book 1) Page 30