“It’s worth a shot,” suggested Thom.
“Guys, this is ridiculous. We need to find another car—” began Jay.
“There’s no harm in trying, is there?” asked Leah.
“Give me the keys,” Thom said, holding out a hand to Hunter. “I’ll go check it out and if it doesn’t work, we’ll at least know.” He turned to Jay. “Can you tell me where you found it, sir?”
Jay told Thom where to find the squad car and watched him leave. More importantly, he watched Leah’s face as she watched him leave. He felt at once angry and jealous that his little girl looked at another man the way she’d only ever looked at him, with complete hope and trust in her eyes. Then Jay thought of what she’d said had happened on campus. Between the riot at the dining hall, the mugging, and the dorm assault, Jay was relieved beyond measure that Thom had decided to stick with his daughter.
We’re still going to have to talk, you and I.
CHAPTER 2
KATE FINISHED TYING HER shoes after replacing her socks for the third time that day, and stuffed her hands back in her pockets. The wind had kicked up that afternoon, biting and cold out of the west. The dry desert air sucked the moisture from her skin—her knuckles were already cracked and bleeding from just a handful of hours of walking.
She looked around the bleak landscape. She'd been walking since sun up, and it was now just an hour or so after noon. Her eyes shifted to the murky soup of clouds above and spotted a general brightening in the sky that revealed the position of the sun. Kate frowned. She only had a couple hours of daylight left, and she knew it would be much colder at night. She'd have to spend precious time setting up camp and finding fuel.
Brushing her hands on her jeans, Kate stood and picked up the wire cordage she'd made from the guts of her car, which she’d lashed to her improvised sled. Wincing as the wire rope slipped over her neck to rest on her shoulders, she tucked her fingers under to protect her throat, leaned forward, and walked.
The rhythmic scraping and grinding of her car’s floor mat on asphalt dulled her senses after only a few miles. The only other sound she heard was the whistling of a lonely wind crossing the desert plains.
Man, there really is nothing out here…
A slight dip in the road provided her a view across the expanded horizon. Something immediately caught her eye in the distance: A beige, boxy shape parked on the side of the road. Nestled behind it like a duckling was a tiny, bright red car. A smile spread across her face.
Well, well, well—look who had to stop after all? Serves you right.
Kate trudged forward, muttering under her breath about the paranoia of old people. Step by step, she crunched and dragged her way across the half-mile or so it took to reach the stalled-out camper.
Kate couldn’t shake the feeling she was being watched and the entire time as she approached, she half-expected a bullet between the eyes. With her head down, staring at the unending cracked pavement in front of her feet, Kate failed to realize she’d walked right up to the RV until she heard a door slam and a gravelly voice called out for her stop.
Kate did just that. She slipped the wire rope over her head and sighed as the pressure points on her shoulders ached with relief. For the moment, she ignored the old man who’d barked at her, instead focusing on her curled, chapped fingers, tinted pink and red. She flexed her hands, gently opening and closing them before seeking her pockets.
Then the smell hit her. Gasoline, sharp and pungent, filled her nose. She glanced at the ground by the rear tires on the massive vehicle, expecting to see a spreading pool of liquid gold, but found nothing except dry, cracked asphalt.
"That's far enough," the old man barked.
The reassuring heft of the chef’s knife tucked underneath her emergency windbreaker gave Kate no small measure of confidence. She noticed immediately the old man in front of the camper had armed himself with a pistol.
Kate assessed this new threat and concluded as long as she didn’t provoke him, it didn't seem likely he’d shoot. He stood before her, decrepit and hunched over, needing a cane to support his bulk. The more she examined his quivering hand, the more she wondered if he even had the strength to lift the gun any higher.
"What do you want? We don't have any supplies to give."
Kate took a long deep breath, letting the cold air burn in her lungs almost as much as the gasoline fumes before she exhaled. Well, you've got fuel, that's for damn sure.
A dark blue bandana hung loose around his neck. He wore a stained undershirt and what looked like dress slacks. The cuffs of his pants rode at least three inches above the tops of his black loafers and she saw a thin strip of pasty white flesh when the wind ruffled the slacks hugging his skinny legs.
Kate shoved aside the wonderment that such spindly legs could support a vast belly like that and licked her lips. Walking in the dry desert air had turned her throat to parchment.
"I'm not going to hurt you," she called out in a raspy voice. "My name is Kate—I'm trying to get home to my family." She coughed. "You may have seen my car a ways back up the road last night," she said, half turning. Kate estimated her speed of travel at about two miles an hour—she’d been walking since at least 7 o'clock that morning. She figured she'd come a good eight miles at least. The blisters on her feet seemed to agree with that assessment.
"That you we passed last night? The car with the fire?"
"Yes, that was me," Kate said unable to keep the sarcasm from her voice.
The old man squinted at her and wiped the sweat from his face with the back of his pistol hand, then lowered the gun. "Well…you shouldn’t have had a fire that close to the road—there’s all manner of unsavory folk out and about just now."
Kate took another breath and tried not to cough. A gust of breeze brought a wave of gasoline fumes to her. Unsavory. Hah.
"Jonathan!" snapped an old woman's voice, sharp as a knife. He hunched his shoulders in response.
Kate's eyes shifted to the narrow door on the side of the RV, where a silvered head of short curly hair popped out. Wrinkled, liver-spotted hands adjusted thick glasses on a nose hidden by a bright pink paisley bandana tied around her face, bank robber style.
What the hell is this?
"Oh my word…she's just a child—I told you we should've stopped!"
Kate watched with no small amusement as the skinniest, smallest old lady she’d ever seen hobbled down off the steps wrapped in an enormous dressing gown. She tightened the robe around her thin shoulders as the wind tried to blow her away.
The old woman pulled the bandana down to her neck, peered at Kate through her coke-bottle glasses, and closed her mouth into a thin, disapproving line. Turning back to the old man, she said, "Heaven sakes alive, Jonathan, the poor thing is dragging food and water behind her like some kind of refugee."
“But—”
“And here you are, waving that blasted thing around like you knew what you were doing.”
Jonathan glared with one watery eye at Kate for a moment before he turned and muttered something over his shoulder. Whatever he said did not go over well.
The little old woman, Kate guessed, was lucky if she was 5 feet tall, pulled herself up to her full height and wrapped the robe even tighter. "No, I will not, and it's high time you act like the man you were when we first married. Crisis or not, I will not allow this child to be wandering around in the desert alone…especially in weather like this. You put that thing away and tell her to come inside," the old lady said with finality. She pulled the bandana back up over her mouth and nose, turned on her heel, and marched right back into the RV without so much as looking over her shoulder.
Jonathan sighed and half-waved, careful to not point the gun at Kate.
"You may as well come on over."
Kate slowly bent to pick up the wire rope for her sled and winced at the feeling of it against the raw skin of her fingers. Instead of slipping it over her neck, she walked sideways, dragging the sled. She was never more grateful
to drop the wire from her hands than when she stood before Jonathan, who blocked the door to the RV with his bulk.
Kate noticed immediately that not only was he sweating, but rather profusely, and Jonathan's gun hand trembled so much she took a half step back just in case the pistol went off. The smell of gasoline coming from inside the RV was more than strong right there at the doorway and she coughed involuntarily.
Jonathan caught her movement and a wry smile curled up one corner of his mouth. "You like this, huh?" he asked, raising the gun. "Desert Eagle—fifty cal—my son got for me. He's a Marine, you know."
"No," Kate said, trying to see around him. "The fumes—"
"Stop yapping out there, Jonathan, and get her inside where it's warm," shouted the mistress of the RV from inside.
Jonathan's broad, stooped shoulders scrunched up again like a dog beaten one too many times. He sighed, a heavy, wet sound, then turned to her.
He pulled the blue bandana up around his face. "Well, come on in, no use delaying the inevitable."
"Thank you," Kate said as she mounted the thin steps behind him.
Jonathan grunted. "Mmmphmm."
Kate took in the neatly appointed RV and noticed with a smile that the place look like a grandmother's house on wheels. Crocheted doilies covered just about every surface of the small kitchenette table protruding from the far wall. She noticed pictures of children and grandchildren tacked up all around the RV, along two overflowing boxes of picture frames and dusty scrapbooks in the far corner. The rest of the vehicle, which looked big enough to house a family of six let alone two old people, had been packed to the gills with gasoline cans.
Red plastic ones, red metal ones, big ones, small ones, even two 50 gallon drums toward the back—Kate had no idea how they'd managed to get those inside—there were too many to count. Her eyes began to water.
Holy shit, you guys are sitting on a goddamn bomb!
"Don't mind the mess, dearie," the old lady said with such kindness in her voice that Kate’s smile couldn't help but widen. She handed Kate a yellow bandana, stained a dark brown at one corner.
"Thank you," Kate said, taking the bandana and immediately tying it around her own face. It didn't help much, but made a difference.
"With all the troubles, we thought it best to pack up everything we could and head to our son’s place. He's a Marine, you know," she added.
“I already told her,” Jonathan complained, his voice muffled from his bandana, leaning over the table trying to catch his breath.
"I was in the Air Force," Kate offered, trying to get used to talking with the cloth tied over her face.
Jonathan collapsed into a chair, wheezing. His eyes held a certain sparkle as he looked Kate up and down. "Air Force, huh? You a pilot?"
Kate nodded.
“One o’ them big sons-a-bitches or a fighter?”
“Jonathan! Mind your language.”
"I flew the F-22," Kate replied evenly, rubbing her hands in the relative warmth of the RV. "Two tours overseas," she added, accepting a steaming cup of tea from the old lady.
"Well, that's nice," the old woman said. She slipped the cup under her bandana and watched Kate as she sipped, blinking her owl eyes.
Kate closed her own eyes and took an awkward sip from her own cup under her face covering. She wrapped her abused, frozen fingers around the china to absorb every scrap of warmth she could.
"My name is Margaret, by the way," the old lady said. "But you may call me Maggie. And you've already met my loquacious husband, Jonathan," she said, gesturing at the wheezing old man on the chair.
Kate nodded, swallowing the warm tea and feeling heat spread through her empty belly. The sensation of heat in her core was so strong after being out in the desert wind, she almost forgot about the gasoline smell.
Almost.
"My name is Kate—Kate Cantrell—it's very nice to meet you." She coughed again, her eyes watering. "I can't thank you enough for letting me step inside for a minute."
"Well, we would've stopped last night when we drove by your car, only it was so dark and we couldn't tell if you were by yourself or not."
"You had a fire going, so I figured you weren't that bad off," Jonathan grumbled by way of apology. "We don't like to be near fires."
"I get that," Kate said with a smile. "That's all right…you stopped now."
"Not by choice, I assure you," Jonathan grumbled.
"What my ever-so-tactful lout-of-a-husband means," Maggie said as she waved a paper-thin hand at her husband, "is that we’ve had a flat. And he's in no shape to fix it."
"I can, too," muttered Jonathan.
"Then why haven't you?" snapped Maggie.
"I just need to catch my breath."
"Oh, bother," Maggie said, dismissing her husband with a wave. "He won't admit these cursed fumes are killing us."
"Well, they are! If you'd let me open the windows—"
"Then we'll freeze to death, like this poor thing here," Maggie said, indicating Kate with one skeletal hand.
"Ma'am?" Kate asked quietly, interrupting what looked like the regular afternoon argument. "If you'd like, I can take a look at it. It's the least I can do for letting me get out of the wind and giving me this tea."
Besides, I need some air.
"Oh, would you?" the old lady asked, sweet as honey. "You're ever the dear," she added.
Kate took another sip of tea and relished the warmth as it spread to her stomach. "This tea is lovely," she said. "Thank you again."
"Oh, never mind that," Maggie cooed. She turned a stern gaze at her husband and snapped, "Jonathan, go on out there and show her where the tools are."
Jonathan grunted and heaved his bulk to his feet. In the process of keeping his pants around his waist, he dropped the huge gun from his hand.
Kate took a half step back as the Desert Eagle clattered to the floor.
Maggie laughed. "Oh, don't worry about that, dearie, it's not even loaded," she cackled. "If he fired that thing in here we'd go up like a Fourth of July celebration."
"Dammit, Margaret, you're not supposed to tell anyone that!"
"I'm sure she's well aware of all the gas cans and fuel we're carrying, Jonathan. Besides, I'll tell anyone whom I please and don't you dare use that tone of voice with me," Maggie replied, looking down her nose at her husband.
Kate turned to hide her smile and stepped outside to wait for Jonathan. She took a deep breath of clean, cold air and sighed in relief. Another few minutes in there and she'd have fainted.
I don't know how the hell you two are still on your feet! Christ, that's insane.
Jonathan grunted as he stepped off the little fold-out stairs. "It's not as bad as you think," he said, pulling the bandana off his face. "You get used to it after a while, and while we're driving, we keep the windows down so the air circulates. Makes it cold," he said. "So we dress up like eskimos, but so far, we're still rolling while everyone around us runs out of gas."
"How much gas can you carry in that thing?" Kate asked. It was genius and suicidal at the same time.
"Enough. Best get to it," he said, nodding at the tool kit on the ground by the front tire. "Ain't got much light left."
"Oh. Of course," Kate replied. So, it's going to be like that, huh? Fine.
It took almost an hour of grunting, sweating, and cursing—with a constant stream of supervisory notes, anecdotes, and suggestions from Jonathan—but Kate eventually switched out the RV's massive front tire.
She stepped back in the failing light and used a rag to wipe the grease and grime from her fingers. "I've never used two jacks at the same time to lift a vehicle before. That was…something."
Jonathan grunted. "Well, I didn't think you had it in you, but that's a fine job," he said by way of complement.
"Thanks," Kate replied with a newfound respect for Bluewing’s maintenance crews. It had been no easy task to change that tire, adding a few pumps on each jack and going back and forth between the front and rear on
e—she cringed inwardly thinking how difficult it must be to swap out the wheels on a 747.
"Gonna be dark soon," Jonathan muttered as he glared at the overcast sky. He turned a rheumy eye on Kate. "I suppose you want to be on your way, then," he said.
Kate’s shoulders slumped as she stared at the tire. She couldn't bring herself to look Jonathan in the face.
That's gratitude for you. I could have spent this time building a fire for the night…
"She'll be doing no such thing! Jonathan, as the Good Lord is my witness, I haven't seen you this unmannerly since my sister's wedding. Kate dear," Maggie called from the doorway, as she pulled her bandana down. "Come along inside and get warmed up. I've got dinner waiting for us."
Kate offered Jonathan the filthy rags. "Thanks," she said to him as she walked toward the door. She paused long enough to pull the yellow cloth up over her nose and mouth, then gritted her teeth and climbed aboard. The fumes didn't seem as bad as before.
"Come in, come in…here, sit down next to me," Maggie said from the little fold out table set for three.
The thin soup and stale bread may have been a recipe straight out of Depression Era cookbooks, but Kate didn't care—it could have been plain hot water and still it would've tasted like ambrosia. She had two helpings of the watery gruel before she leaned back from the little table, full of hot food for the first time in a week.
"That was amazing, Maggie." She coughed again.
The older woman tittered, blushing under the praise. "Oh, it wasn't anything special, just a little something I whipped together. It's the least I could do to pay you back for helping us out. If you hadn't come along, well, I just don't know what we would've done."
"Fixed the tire myself," muttered Jonathan between mouthfuls of soup.
Maggie waved her husband off with a snicker. "Oh, don't mind him, Kate—he gets grumpy when he's been too long without insulin," Maggie said with a smile.
"Margaret," Jonathan muttered, still bent over the soup bowl and glaring through bushy eyebrow.
"Oh, forgive me…I've broken your precious rule about talking to strangers again, haven't I?" Maggie said. She winked at Kate. "The fumes must be cooking my brains."
Solar Storm (Season 1): Aftermath [Episodes 1-5] Page 32