I blink at the torrent of information and listen to more before she finally fizzles out. “Was I out for a month? How did so much happen?” I ask, and she giggles. “I’m glad you like it here.”
Margaret squints through the steam with a small smile. “You will, too. Don’t worry.” A few days here seems to have done wonders for her. Or maybe it was the journey here.
Jamie has been playing Safe Zone nurse again, as well as doing guard and taking care of Jasmine. She tells me that they have a ranking system—First Guard, Second Guard and Third Guard. First Guard does patrol along with the usual guard duties.
“We’re all on First Guard,” Liz says. “No test needed. We told Bernie that you probably wanted to do guard and kitchen when you’re better.” She leans her head against the tub’s edge and sighs. “Guard’s cool, but there’s no action. The Lexers to the north are frozen and we’ve only had a few at the fence.”
“That’s fine with me,” I say. “I’ve had enough action to last me a lifetime.”
People enter for the other tub, Tara and Patricia among them. I flash a quick smile instead of sinking under the water the way I’d like. Tara comes to the edge of our tub, her auburn hair piled on her head. “Cassie, you’re up. That’s great! Philip and I have been waiting to visit you.”
“Sorry if I was, um, a little…” I’m not sure what I was. Crazy? Weird? Out of my flipping mind?
“You and Peter saved me and Philip. With a collapsed lung, no less. No worries! We owe you a ton of beers when you’re up to it.”
She walks to her tub, leaving Patricia standing with her arms behind her back and eyes on the wall. “Sorry I was…not very nice.”
I get the feeling Patricia doesn’t like to apologize for anything, so this is probably a huge deal. “That’s okay.”
She raises a slim shoulder. “No, it’s not. I was looking for Corey the whole time, and when I saw him I…sort of lost it. He was a good friend. I’m usually better than that when we’re outside. I’m on First Guard.”
She’s more concerned I might think she can’t fight zombies than I might dislike her, which reminds me of Ana. They might’ve been friends, which would’ve been very interesting for the rest of us.
“I could tell,” I say. “Before that, I mean.”
“I like your tomahawk, by the way. Oh, and thanks for helping me out with…Corey.”
“Sure.” I hide my amusement that the last part was added as an afterthought. But it’s not that big of a deal. That’s what we do, and why having people you trust is so important. I’ve saved people, and I’ve been saved plenty.
“If you ever want to practice or whatever, that’d be cool. I run every morning if you want to come. When you’re feeling better.”
“I might,” I say out loud while thinking I might never.
Penny waits until Patricia’s in her tub facing the other way before she shakes her head. “How do they find you?” she whispers. “You’re like the crazy person den mother.”
“It’s a gift,” I say. “You know how cats flock to people who don’t like them? The ones who love exercise always find me.”
“They know you’re a sucker,” Liz says. I splash her.
“You mean lollipop,” Bits says to Liz. “Oh, Cassie, I wanted to ask if there are any lollipops at the cabin. Nelly said he couldn’t find them and we ate all of his.”
“Why don’t you come look? Rich says you and Hank should sleep at Nelly’s for a while longer in case there are germs lingering, but you can visit. There’s a lot of candy to sort through.”
Bits licks her lips. “I love you.”
“Are you talking to me or the candy?”
“Both,” she says, and dunks herself before I can splash her.
CHAPTER 58
I’m on my fourth day in the cabin. Rich says he let me out for a bath as a morale boost, which might have been a nice way of saying I stank, but now I’m back on bed rest. I’m allowed visitors, though, and there’s been a steady stream of people who must be so bored they stop by to hang out. I’ve met almost everyone, and I’ve sent them all home with something from the boxes. That’s probably why they visit.
There’s a knock at the door and Peter opens it on Terry, who lugs in a big box and sets it on the floor next to the couch. “There’s more, but I picked the stuff that looked the newest.”
I don’t try to contain my excitement as I pick through the art supplies. The tubes of paint are like old friends and the brushes are the highest quality—the kind I would splurge on when I had the money. “Thank you so much. I love it all.”
“No problem.”
As much as I’m tired of sitting on the couch, I don’t yet have the energy to do much else. The painting of Holly will have to wait or it’ll be terrible. I point at the boxes that still litter the room. I made Nelly hide most of the coffee at his house, and now I only need to find a stovetop espresso maker for Peter’s Christmas present to be complete. “Will you take this stuff back already?”
“I hear you keep giving it away. You could trade for it.”
“I’m a terrible capitalist.” I think of Dan saying those very words, and I laugh when Terry does. “They’ll stop coming once I’m out of the good stuff.”
“You’d be surprised. People here love to visit, especially when the dark and snow set in. Well, I should go.” He puts his hands in his pockets but doesn’t move. “Did Patricia apologize?”
“She did,” I say, and grin when I remember how foreign the whole process seemed to her. “Why, did you make her?”
“Sometimes she has a little difficulty with…feelings. I didn’t make her, though. Anyway, she wants to be friends, but she’d never ask.”
He tugs at his dark ponytail and keeps his eyes on a moose painting, which I’ve just renamed Painting Project Number Two. I think he wants everyone to like Patricia as much as he does, and I’m beginning to think he might like like her a whole lot.
“Of course,” I say, and pray this doesn’t mean I have to take up running.
“I’m sorry about Frank. I just wanted you to know we all don’t feel the way he did.”
“I know. No hard feelings.”
“All right, good. Feel better and get some rest.”
Peter closes the door behind him. I keep telling Peter to go do something, but he’s a worse mother hen than Penny. He crushes a few empty boxes and says, “Terry’s a nice guy.”
“He seems it. He has a thing for Patricia.”
“How do you know?”
“You know I know these things. That’s going to be a tough one, but I think I can make it happen.”
“You’re already trying to pair people off and you’ve only left the cabin once,” Peter says.
“People like to be paired off, and I like to pair them. It’s win-win. I’ll live vicariously through them.”
“What do you mean?”
I was trying to keep the conversation light, but I’ve blown it. “Just that I’m not looking…I don’t want to lose—”
I break off at his grimace. In the past days, all the loss has hit him full on. Blindsided him, really. Maybe he thought he’d already mourned enough for one lifetime, but it seems there’s always more to mourn.
“Yeah,” he says. “I’m going out for a bit. Will you be okay?”
I have nothing profound to say, so I go with silly: “I’ll be fine. Run free like the wind!”
To call what he gives me a smile would be a stretch. I watch him leave, my heart breaking for him. I feel all the losses, but I haven’t fallen apart as I thought I would. What Peter needs is time, something we seem to have plenty of right now. Time may heal you, but it also gives you space to think about the things that hurt the most.
***
Peter comes through the door two hours later looking much better than when he left. He sets a bag on the counter and holds up a canning jar of white liquid. “I got potatoes and carrots. And cream. I’ll make soup tonight.”
“You could
get food from the brewery. You don’t have to cook.”
He picks out the vegetables and slams them to the counter one by one. “I like to cook.”
“I’m not complaining,” I say softly. “I just don’t want you to go to all that trouble.” I pick up my book and try to reread the same line twenty times. I’ve been trying hard to tiptoe around his feelings and I’m not sure what I’ve done wrong.
He sinks to the couch and puts a hand on my knee. “It’s not trouble, that’s all I meant. I’m sorry.”
I take his hand. It’s rough and still cool from the outdoors. “What’s wrong?” he asks. I’m sure my eyes are pink, making it obvious I’m trying not to cry.
“Talk to me,” I whisper.
“About what?”
“Anything. Everything.”
His eyes dart around the room. “I’m okay. This is—it’s hard to go from survival mode back to normal. Or our new normal, I guess.”
“I know. I miss her, too.”
“She loved you,” he says. “Quite possibly more than she loved me.”
I laugh through my tears. Ana was my little sister, my friend and my partner in crime. There’s a gaping hole where she once cajoled me into running and watched over me in her brusque and bossy way.
“She brought out the crazy in me,” I say. “I liked being with her, even when she drove me bonkers. She let me be whatever I needed to be that day, no questions asked.”
“She was good at that.”
“This isn’t what we expected,” I say, and wave my hand at our cabin. “But maybe months or years from now we’ll realize that we’re exactly where we want to be.”
“I know. It’s the getting there that sucks.”
“It does. Big time.”
Peter squeezes my knee again before he heads for the kitchen, where he picks up a vegetable peeler and says, “Thanks.”
“Remember how you would talk about Adrian even when I didn’t want to? Because you knew I needed to. It’s a taste of your own medicine. But it’s good medicine. It makes it easier.”
Peter nods and runs the peeler down a potato. I’m tired of watching him be productive while I sit on my butt. Enforced laziness loses all its fun by day four. “I’m not an invalid. Will you let me help?”
“You want to cut the carrots?”
“Sure.”
Peter adds our chopped vegetables to the broth, and it’s not long before we’re eating the best creamy potato-carrot soup I’ve ever tasted. “Do you have some sort of magic that you sprinkle in your food? Is it in your fingers?” I ask. “It’s crazy how good this is.”
“And you wanted to eat someone else’s food.”
“I’d never want to eat there again, but they’re planning to steal you away the second I’m well. I’ve seen them pacing around outside, peering in the windows, so I cough a few times to get them to back off. I can’t keep it up forever.”
“Where do you get these ideas? Eat your soup.”
I don’t need to be told twice. The fire crackles and in the soft glow of the lantern Peter almost looks happy. He has me in tears when he mimics all the people he’s seen skulking past Zeke because they don’t want to visit the dentist. Maybe this isn’t what I was expecting, but right now I can’t think of a single place left in the world I’d rather be.
CHAPTER 59
We’ve been in Talkeetna for almost three weeks when I pull my first guard shift. They’ve kept me in the kitchen thus far, and although I love it, I’ve been looking forward to guard. I said I’d had enough action, and it’s still true, but guard makes me feel as if I have some control over my surroundings, however mistaken that notion may be. This extended absence from the fence line has made me uneasy.
I’m leaving breakfast shift when the lunch shift comes in. We’re conserving the food that’s harder to find and using what’s fresh. That means salmon or some other fish has been on the menu every lunch and dinner. I may love food, but I hate seafood, and I’ve been doing breakfast to avoid being anywhere near the smell.
Peter, who’s been co-opted by the kitchen just like I’d predicted, inspects the catch of the day. “Are you going to try my salmon later?”
“Not a chance,” I say.
“Just a taste. It has birch syrup and garlic and all kinds of good stuff.”
“That sounds lovely. I’ll be sure to check it out.”
“Stop humoring me,” Peter says. “That is what you’re doing, no?”
“I’m sticking to reindeer sausage. Or moose or bear or whatever it is. Sorry.”
He pulls an evil-looking knife from a rack and begins to gut a silvery, slimy specimen. “I thought I had magic in my fingers.”
“There’s not enough magic in the world, let alone your fingers, to make fish taste good.” I hold my nose as he scrapes out the innards. “You shower today, right?”
“Nope, and I’m going to wipe my hands all over your pillow when I get home.”
I laugh and follow Nelly out the kitchen door onto Main Street. We wave to James, who’s doing something to the greenhouses they’re building beside the train tracks close to the river. The plan is to harness some power for the greenhouse lights, amongst other things. What they’ll do when the light bulbs die, I don’t know. James will probably figure out how to make them.
“Speaking of pillows,” Nelly says as we turn for the gate, “where is your pillow these days?”
“What?”
“Your pillow. Is it still in the same bed as Peter’s?”
I take in his smirk and slow to a stop. “Really? You’re going there? I have my own side. Bits and Hank wanted the loft.”
I’m blushing. I know I am. They begged for the loft, in fact, and we gave in. And then neither Peter nor I suggested looking for two twin beds to replace the big one. It would be weird to sleep in separate beds in the same room. Like we’d be saying we’re afraid we might jump each other in our sleep. And we’re not.
He pulls me along by my arm. “It was just a question.”
“It’s never just a question. Barnaby sleeps in the middle. It’s not like we spoon all night or anything.”
“Oh, just at the beginning of the night? Or in the morning?”
I shove him. “Neither. You and I slept in the same bed for months. Stop trying to make it something it’s not. Why does everyone have to try to hook two people up all the time?”
“You, of all people, did not just ask me that.”
“We’re just friends. Please don’t say anything in front of Peter and make it weird.”
“Fine, fine,” he says, but I know I haven’t heard the end of this.
I don’t have nightmares every night, but the ones I do have are doozies. If Peter wasn’t there to pull me close in his sleep, I’d wander the cabin for hours trying to shake off my dream of John as a zombie or the back of a pickup in the middle of dark prairie; it’s what I’ve done the two nights he’s been on guard. And I can usually quiet him before he wakes so he doesn’t remember what a bad night he had. I can’t explain it to Nelly, who wouldn’t believe that it can be intimate and innocent at the same time.
The weapons are kept in the long row of buildings, once gift shops, that sits fifty feet from the main gate. Talkeetna is so spread out that most people wear their weapons in case they happen to be in an area when an alarm sounds. I haven’t yet heard the alarm, but I know which section of the fence to go to depending on the number of bells. It was all in the manual that was, unsurprisingly, penned by Patricia.
A green clapboard cabin sits beside the gate, smoke billowing from the stovepipe. It takes a lot of wood to warm Talkeetna in the winter; they cut it somewhere north and bring it downriver. They’ve lucked out here—the rivers and the Alaska Range serve as natural barriers. Glory has told me that at first it was all bloodshed and zombies, but she, Bernie and Frank managed to clear it of Lexers with the help of those who survived. I haven’t asked how or when they took care of Frank. I want to hate him for wanting us dead, but I kno
w it’s easy to lose your way, or your mind, from grief.
The guardhouse interior contains a desk with a logbook and radio, several desk chairs and a couch next to the woodstove. Terry stands when we enter. “Hi, Cass. I thought I’d walk you around the fences today so you can get your bearings.”
Patricia sits on the couch next to Clark, the man who opened the gate our first day here. He’s good at spotting Lexers, which is why they call him Eagle. He even looks like one.
“She’s already walked the boundary twice,” Patricia says. She folds her arms over her chest and nods in satisfaction at herself for noticing or me for doing so.
“I missed the tour when I was sick. But I’d like a real tour, too.” I walked the fence line to get a feel for what we were up against. It’s impossible to sit in the center of town and be told I’m safe without seeing it for myself.
“Let’s do it,” Terry says, and throws on a thin coat. These people are crazy—it’s barely above freezing and the nights dip well below. I’m still wearing my parka and positive I’m going to be living in it until next summer.
Nelly stays behind. The fence is much like Kingdom Come, made of whatever they had available—chain link, wood, corrugated metal—and parallels the dirt road to the river. Houses, some tiny and others a bit larger, sit just inside the fence. Terry explains that in order to live in one you have to be a guard.
“They have their benefits, though,” he says. “Like running water.”
“Before the pipes freeze, anyway,” Patricia says.
Terry looks to Patricia with a smile. “Patty and I are neighbors.”
“Patty?” I ask.
Patricia scowls but glances at Terry with something like adoration, which I find interesting. We hit the end of the road and follow the fence around the edge of a field. Leafy stalks stick out of mounded dirt in a few long rows, along with the lacy leaves of carrots. The rest of the field is dug up, but the overall size is impressive.
“That’s a lot of potatoes and carrots,” I say. “Glory said they grow well here.”
“You know your plants,” Terry says. “We’ll dig up the rest of them this week. They can overwinter, but now that we have that root cellar we’ll use that.”
Until the End of the World (Book 3): All the Stars in the Sky Page 32