by Connor Mccoy
“And it doesn’t look like they’ve suffered any lasting problems.” As Lauren passed by Cooper, her smile turned crooked. “Yeah, sorry.”
“It is alright,” Cooper replied from his spot on the ground, with Karen sitting behind him. “I should be happy that everyone is doing better than I am.”
Lauren turned back to the crowd. “But we’re still missing a few people, plus Doctor Tran. I’m going after them.”
“Sweet.” Karen got up. “When do we go?”
“I said ‘I,’ not ‘we.’ You’re going home. You and Jamie and Nadia. You’ve got to get everyone back to Eagleton.”
“Whoa, wait a minute,” Nadia said, “You need help.”
“And you need more rest. You’re out of the worst of it, but you’re not ready to go take on the world again,” Lauren said.
“Well, I think I’ll be the judge of that.” Nadia stood up.
A young man raised his hand. “Let me come with you.” A few others stood up or voiced their desire to join.
“I will help you, too.”
That last voice turned everyone’s head. Kovacs stood at the doorway. “I will come with you, all the way,” he said.
Lauren exchanged looks with Nadia, Karen, and a few others. Almost no one else recognized him as a NATO soldier and didn’t know why he shouldn’t be included in a search party.
Karen looked around him. “Stark?” she asked.
“He and I have parted ways. He will find his own way in this world.” Kovacs took a step closer.
“I have nothing more to live for. All my friends are dead. I’m far from my homeland and I have no way to go back there. Perhaps, if I help you, I may find a new reason to live.”
Lauren looked to Karen, soundlessly asking permission. Karen just nodded. “Alright,” Lauren said, “Welcome aboard.”
The Criver home was just as Tom and Cheryl had left it. Nothing was disturbed. Lee had made sure to have some of Tom’s neighbors keep an eye on it while it was deserted.
Tom sank into the green easy chair in the living room. He opted to relax here, among his kids, and not in the den. He wanted to devour all their experiences since their parents had been away.
It’s weird, Tom thought. His eyes grew heavy after a while. Cheryl and I go off into the outside world where everything is still in ruins, but then we come home and it seems as though things are normal again. Except for the lack of electronics, he and Cheryl had a nice house in a small town with a bustling family.
No, Tom added to himself. It’s not normal like before. We’re building a new normal. Sure, large swathes of the world were wrecked. But there were new communities, new places where families could live and thrive again.
That’s what disturbed Tom about that work camp. It was one thing when he had accepted a ruined world. It was another when he and other people had reclaimed it for civilized use again. The fact that some people weren’t enjoying the fruits of that new life disturbed him.
He would have loved to get up and spend more time with his kids, but the events of the past week finally had caught up with him, and he dozed off. His mind fell into the abyss of dreams, eventually settling on the persistent image of that girl he had seen in the quarantine camp. He couldn’t stop thinking of that poor girl, all dirty and being made to labor under the oppressive hand of an unseen group of tyrants. She sported a black armband with a red cross on it, supposedly an identifying mark for the sick, yet it was clear she was healthy.
I’m coming back, Tom thought, I’m coming back to save you.
Nadia put the last of the ammunition clips in a small sack. “Looks like we have three guns and six clips.” She gave the fishing shop one last looking over. “We should get some sleep. Are we going to sleep in here, the diner, the boathouse, what?”
Lauren wasn’t paying attention. Instead, she was gazing into a small open wooden chest on the cashier’s counter.
Nadia walked up to Lauren and shouted. “Earth to Doctor Whittaker!”
“Whoa!” Lauren spun around, nearly hitting Nadia in the face.
“Good, your hearing works.” Nadia grinned. “I was about to ask you what we’re going to do with our prisoner.”
“Robby?” Slowly, Lauren turned back to the box. “I think we got everything we needed out of him. We’ll turn him loose and then get going.”
“You worried Kovacs will plug him like he did that other man?”
Lauren shook her head. “No. I don’t think he will this time.” She turned back to the open box in front of her.
“So, what’s got you so wrapped up? I thought we cleaned out all the ammo from that box.”
Lauren peered back into the chest. “I found this weird cloth in here. It was lining the bottom.”
Nadia picked up the cloth and unfolded it. It was pitch black. She picked it up and let it hang. It had a symbol on it—a velvet cross.
“That’s a bit freaky.” Nadia looked at Lauren, who had no thoughts about what her friend was holding, what it represented, anything.
Chapter Eleven
Tom shielded his eyes from the sun as he watched Theo Park and a couple of other young men finish fitting the latest solar panel on the roof of the Criver home. Beside him, Obadiah Stone kept watch on the work taking place above their heads.
“Amazing how beautiful it looks.” Tom averted his eyes from the roof. “Still, I don’t like the idea of getting our panels before everyone else has had a chance to get theirs.”
“Lee and the boys already worked it out while you and your lady were gone. They actually wanted to test these boys out on a few homes before they gave the okay to spread them out to all the folks. It’s okay. No one seemed too peeved about it. I think we’re all well-adjusted to life without power.” Stone rubbed his shoulder. “Besides, not everyone’s so keen on getting electricity back. Some folks wonder if it’s all just a curse, since our great technology did so much damage, killed so many.”
Tom understood Stone’s sentiment. It was hard not to wonder if the wonders of their age had been the Pandora’s box that, once opened, ravaged the world with all the plagues and horrors contained within. Still, Tom couldn’t bring himself to condemn their advanced technology so broadly.
“Machines aren’t the problem, Obie, it’s the people. Machines don’t have minds. They’re not good or evil. It’s just the hand that uses them.” He glanced at his older friend. “Maybe we’ll have a chance to start things over again, not repeat the same bullshit all over again.”
“That’s a tall order, Squirrel. Human nature is what it is.” Stone massaged his shoulder again.
“In a few hundred years, we may be back to the same old nonsense again.” He chuckled. “Makes me glad I’m getting older, you know? I figure I’ve already lived through the worst of my lifetime.”
“Speaking of getting older,” Tom said, but very quietly, not loud enough for Stone to hear. Then he raised his voice. “You doing okay? You’re rubbing your shoulder a lot.”
“Just old war wounds,” Stone replied.
Of course, that was the shoulder that Stone took a bullet in during the first uprising against Volhein’s soldiers. Tom hadn’t thought about it a lot, but the ordeal had slowed Stone down somewhat. He was sure the man had gained a little more age in his face. Stone originally had shepherded a large group of survivors from up north, until they made their home in Eagleton. But Stone had seen a few tragedies along the way, particularly when Volhein killed Stone’s friend Hernando Ramirez and a number of other men from Stone’s “tribe.”
Before Tom could say anything, Theo lost his grip on a wrench. “Whoa! Watch out below!” The silver tool slid down the slope before dropping into Tom’s front yard.
“Sorry!” the teenager called.
Shaking his head, Tom hurried over and retrieved the tool. “I think we should stick caution tape around any place that has you working above head level.” He raised his arm as high as he could. One of the other young men climbed down to the lowest part of th
e roof and grabbed it. “That, and everyone below should wear hard hats.”
The sound of bicycle wheels drew Tom away from the home. He rejoined Stone at the sidewalk. “I know what that is. That is the sound of my boys and girls.” He clapped his hands as several of his boys slowed down on their approach to the Criver house.
“So, how was the first day of school?” Tom asked his boys, “And remember what I said about chasing girls?”
“Only do it during recess?” asked Fred with a big smile.
“And don’t fart around them.” Dominick, a boy with dusty blond hair, poked his finger in the air.
Tom pointed to Dominick. “That lesson will save you a lot of grief. Trust me.” Then he looked over the heads of his boys. The rest of his boys, plus the girls and Cheryl, were fast approaching. “Eh, we’ll talk about this later.”
Tom greeted each boy as they brought their bikes to the lawn, exchanging some quick talk about school along the way. Finally, Cheryl approached him.
“So, school went off without a hitch?” Tom asked her quietly.
“It was a little hard with all the hammering. They’re putting in solar panels on the roof,” Cheryl replied.
“That reminds me.” Tom raised his voice. “Kids, don’t get too close to the house. Either go inside or go out into the yard or the garden.”
He sighed as he turned back to his wife. “Theo’s up there.”
“Give him credit, he’s helping out,” Cheryl said.
Tom approached the house, following the kids who were heading inside, though he kept an eye on the roof to make sure he wasn’t a victim of more falling objects. Cheryl kept close to him and spoke quietly. “I found out Lauren’s gone. She left town about the same time we did.”
“Holy shit!” Tom said, “Why?”
“To help out the other exiles. Nadia, Karen, Jamie, they all went with her. Doctor Tran also went that way. None of them have come back yet.”
Tom stepped through the open door into the kitchen. “Son of a bitch!” he said, “Where did they go?”
“They took the road on the other side of town, headed to a place near East River. I think it was a small rest stop, or somewhere near there, a couple of restaurants off the road,” Cheryl replied.
Tom stopped at the kitchen countertop. He leaned up against it. “If I’d have known that, we could have circled around and tried to find them.”
Cheryl reached out and held his arms. “Hey. We did what we had to. I’m sure Lauren and Nadia and Karen, they all worked something out.” She sighed. “I still wish Nadia had told me she was sick.”
“The same way you were toughing it out and didn’t let me know how bad off you were back when we started out?” Tom pushed a strand of red hair out of Cheryl’s face.
The redhead smirked. “Touché,” she said.
“No wonder you two are such good friends. You’re so much alike,” Tom said.
“She’s the sister I never had. She really came through with some good advice when I needed it.” Cheryl released her husband. “God, I hope she’s okay.”
“If you can whip this virus, I think she can, too,” Tom said gently, “You two are the toughest ladies I’ve ever known.” He smiled. “And besides, who’s going to be a better aunt to these kids?”
Abruptly, Kristin ran right into Tom’s left side. She held onto him tightly. “Hi Daddy! I want to show you what I drew in school today!”
Tom chuckled. “Hey, what am I doing letting this woman distract me when I have thirteen great kids to hear from!” Kristin released him as Tom leaned over. “Now let me see what you got.”
“Oh, I’m a distraction, huh?” Cheryl asked as Kristin showed both of them her drawing. It was the Criver home, with a cartoon Tom and Cheryl in front of it.
“Hey, that’s some serious talent right there.” Tom looked at Cheryl. “We have the best artists in the whole town right here.”
Kristin giggled. “It’s because you’re both back and we all can live here again.”
Tom glanced over Kristin’s shoulder. The kids were swarming about in the living room, or in and out of the hallway leading to their bedrooms.
Amazing. It was all back the way he wanted. The exile had not been in vain. He and Cheryl had braved the storm and were home again.
Tom relaxed in the easy chair. He sighed happily. A full afternoon of listening to his children talk about school, some tending to the garden, and a hearty dinner. Nearby, Stone slept on one of the couches.
Damn, Tom thought, I guess we’re all the family he’s got now.
In a way, Stone had become these kids’ grandfather. He now was spending much of his time over here. Tom worried at times that Stone neglected his own living space, which still was the same old tent pitched outside, a little cleaner now, but it wasn’t an honest to God house. Perhaps he didn’t care so much about building his own life and was content to just be a part of others’.
He might as well be their grandfather, Tom thought. This family was already made up of kids that weren’t sired by Tom and Cheryl, kids of different nationalities and ethnicities. And then there was Nadia, who so frequently looked after the children that she was basically “Aunt Nadia” to them. Who’s to say that Obie being their grandpa was any less legitimate?
Tom studied the older man some more. The immediate aftermath of the war with Volhein’s men had sent Stone into a state of melancholy, but as the weeks passed, he seemed to snap out of it. He was never quite the same, though. His energy never fully recovered. Still, Stone was a man at peace.
Perhaps finding something to live for was the key to it all. Without this family, who knows what Stone would have done following the war?
Would he have turned out like Dad?
Tom imagined the sight of Jonathan Michael Criver in his bed, ill, lethargic, his dark hair long like a ‘60s hippie, not interested in much more than watching TV and downing a can of beer.
Jonathan Criver was a man with an up and down life. He was wild in his teenage years, then sobered up a lot after a friend died from a drug overdose. He married once, then lost his wife two years later in an accident. After spending three years piecing his life back together, he met and later married Sasha, and ended up kind of a combination of his youth and young adult years, not wild enough to take stupid risks, but still was open, exuberant. He frequently enjoyed riding a motorcycle with Tom’s mother.
After Tom’s mom died, Jonathan’s life went downhill. Sasha Criver had been such a source of life for him that losing her sapped him of his strength. It seemed the birth of Tom’s son Michael Christian was bringing him out of it, but after SIDS cruelly took his life, Jonathan just cratered. He couldn’t even help his own son with his grief. He was assailed by various illnesses such as gout and arthritis. One day he was so preoccupied on the road that he got in a car accident, which shook him up and landed another blow to his health.
He still might have come back from it all, had Tom not been so wrapped up in his own pain. Then, the EMP shock finished off Jonathan. With no working pharmacy or doctor’s office to provide him pills for his ailments, Jonathan wasted away in his home that couldn’t provide him any amenities except a shelter from rain.
When Jonathan passed, Tom returned to his own home and expected to waste away in there, too. It was only when he decided to find a new purpose for living that he left.
And then I found Amir, he thought.
His eyes closed. But instead of darkness, he saw the image of that girl he had met at the camp. His mind would not permit sleep.
Tom blinked his eyes. Dominick and Terry were chatting on the far end of the living room, and then Cheryl approached them. “You two need to hit the tub. It’s getting late and you don’t want to fall asleep in class.”
Tom smiled. Two of his boys. Two boys that he had plucked out of a hellhole governed by a sadistic warlord. Now he knew another child was in danger.
Damn, he couldn’t take it.
He tried again to fall asleep, but
it was all for naught. Even when he was in bed later on, his mind fastened on his brief time in that camp. He couldn’t think of anything else, even of the great progress the town was making in the aftermath of the outbreak. He couldn’t settle with the fact that even though Eagleton was making great strides toward its energy goals it wasn’t enough to distract his mind from that girl.
Damn, he thought.
Chapter Twelve
Tom approached the fishing shop, once again a gathering spot for a public meeting of concerned Eagleton citizens. The last time Tom was here, he was hidden inside the shop’s back storage closet so he could listen in on what the people were planning. It was here that he learned that many of his fellow citizens wanted to exile all those who were sick, including his own wife. But Cheryl had beaten the odds and was now home.
As Tom observed the uncomfortable stares from some of the people as he walked past them to the fishing shop, he wondered what they must be thinking. Did they expect him to berate them over throwing out Cheryl? Did they feel guilty at all? Or perhaps they were stubborn in their belief that they had done the right thing and expected him to accept it. They had no idea that Tom wasn’t going to rip them a new one, nor admit they were right. No, today Thomas Criver was going to turn some heads.
Soon he reached the doorstep of the fishing shop. Lee, Jake and Obadiah Stone were waiting for him. Jake gave him a friendly nod. Jake and Tom had vehemently disagreed on the exile plan, even coming to blows at one point. As far as Tom was concerned, that was ancient history. He wasn’t looking to settle scores.
The background chatter died down. Tom was ready to speak.
“Morning. You’re probably all wondering why I dragged you all down here. For those of you who don’t know, Cheryl is doing much better now, and she sends her best wishes. As you’re probably aware, I took a little trip out into the country.” Tom walked a little closer to the edge of the crowd.