“You don’t need to worry about me anymore. That’s the whole point of staying here…is to stop worrying. I’m not the only one who needs to relax, or sleep for that matter. You should be the one lying down, not me.”
She was about to mount a rebuttal, when our conversation was interrupted by two people heading down the path. I tried to suppress the grin that was moving up my face at the sight of Jack, walking towards me. It wasn’t possible. And his smile was even bigger than mine. Even from a distance, I could see his dimples. He was carrying a large wooden box and walking along side him was a younger girl, maybe thirteen or fourteen, with hair as black as a raven hanging in a ponytail that stretched the length of her back. She had beautiful, tanned skin. She reminded me of the Polynesian people, from my parent’s honeymoon photos.
April wasn’t as thrilled at our company. While she liked Jack better than his brother, she still didn’t trust him. The fact that I had such an obvious crush on him, didn’t help matters. She was in full protective mother hen mode, anytime Jack showed up.
“What’s in the box?” she questioned before Jack could even open his mouth to say hello.
“It’s stuff my grandmother Sofia thought Summer could use, in order to get started working,” replied the young girl.
Jack set the box down in front of me. And to my delight I saw a variety of colourful yarns, of all textures and sizes, a long with a large fabric holder, filled with every different sized knitting needle I could imagine. I’d been forced for years, to modify projects because I only had one pair of needles to work with.
“My grandmother included a bunch of patterns, at the side of the bin. We weren’t sure of your skill level, so she gave you a variety of different difficulty levels. And Commander Tate included of a list of supplies we need made. It’s mostly blankets, winter hats, gloves, things like that,” the young girl said.
“And who are you?” My sister asked in a rather rude tone. I felt bad for the young girl. Her cheeks flushed a bright shade of red and I could tell by the way she backed up from April, that she was the timid type.
Jack, used to my sister’s mood swings, tried to calm the situation down. “I should have introduced Kaia sooner. I’m sorry. I ran into her struggling to carry this haul with her as she was heading to your place. She works with her grandmother as part of the knitter’s/sewing guild in our community. She’s quite talented. She was super excited when I told her there was another young woman joining the group. She insisted on meeting you right away.”
“It’s just that,” Kaia shyly added, “there’s no one really close to my age. At least no other girls. The next girl closest in age to me is nine. We don’t exactly have much in common.”
I opened my mouth, all ready to tell Kaia that I was looking forward to working with her as well, but before I could do so April started up again. “Well, she’s still healing and the whole lot of you need to back off and let her do so.” Jack looked almost like he was about to lose control, much like his brother often did. Kaia looked like she was on the verge of tears.
“Enough April,” I snapped, pulling myself painfully to my feet. “You need to stop picking fights with everyone you meet. I can work from home…” Home, that word was still taking some getting used to. “I can work from home until I’m healed. And in the meantime, I’d like to meet the people in the community. If we’re going to make this work, then we need to work with them.” I turned my attention from my sister to Kaia. “Ignore her. She’s perpetually grumpy.” Jack stifled a laugh. Kaia smiled back awkwardly. “It’s been a long time since I’ve had such wonderful materials to work with. Thank you for bringing them by. Working, will keep me from dying of boredom while I heal up. And I look forward to working with you as well. It’s been a very long time since I’ve had anyone even close to my age to hang out with. I look forward to getting to know you better.”
That seemed to lift her spirits. Her original enthusiasm came back to light up her face. “If you want, I could take you on a tour of our village. Jack says you haven’t seen much of it yet.”
I hesitated to respond. There was nothing I wanted more than to see around the village and figure out how they’d survived so long without encountering the monsters. From the one incident in the clinic, I gleamed that they’d had very few encounters with them. I was curious as to how they managed that. But as much as I wanted to explore, my leg was screaming in protest just from standing. My sister could see the pain on my face, and she wasn’t the only one. Jack appeared to notice I wasn’t doing so well either, judging by the look of concern he wore on his face.
“I’m not so sure she’s up for that just yet,” Jack replied gently to Kaia.
“I’m in agreement with Jack,” April added, in calmer voice than she’d used before. She wore a look of guilt on her face, that wasn’t common for her. But even she felt bad for making a young girl nearly cry. “You should rest.”
Kaia looked disappointed by this response. She wasn’t the only one. I really did want to explore, and I was interested and getting to know someone new. She was young, but at least she was closer to my age than a lot of the other people I’d spent time with. The few groups we’d been a part of, had all been adults.
“I could probably manage a mini tour,” I offered. Even as I made the offer, my leg felt like it was about to give out on me. I had to lean on the deck railing for support, digging my nails into the wood as discretely as I could manage.
“That’s not happening,” April said, trying to get me to sit back down. “You can barely stand. Don’t you think by now I can figure out when you’re trying to hide pain from me?”
I didn’t bother responding. “She doesn’t have to walk to have a tour,” Jack offered. “I still have another forty minutes of my break time. I could grab one of the golf carts and we could all ride along.” I smiled back at Jack. I had been positive he’d been about to suggest a wheelchair, but he knew that I wouldn’t go for that. My pride was way too strong for that.
Kaia clapped her hands excitedly. “I can go get the golf cart,” she said and before anymore protests could be made, she ran off in search of the cart.
April huffed as she collapsed on the bench crossing her arms across her chest. “Don’t be such a sourpuss,” I teased. “This will be fun.”
Chapter Eight
I tried to convince April to stay behind and rest; but she wasn’t having it. She insisted on tagging along to make sure I didn’t overexert myself. The only way I was letting her come, was if she promised to be on her best behavior. The last thing I needed was for her to embarrass me anymore or make poor Kaia cry. She agreed rather easily, which was never a good sign. There had to be some ulterior motive to her coming with us, besides her wanting to protect me. Jack wouldn’t let me hurt myself. He was nearly as protective as her when it came to my recovery, and she knew that.
Kaia drove up in an old golf cart, that looked like it had seen better days. If I weren’t mistaken; I was pretty sure they’d dug it out of some sort of water hazard, judging by all the rust on it. But it drove nicely, so I wasn’t worried. April, on the other hand, looked like she was expecting to catch some sort of contagion just by coming into contact with the thing.
Kaia was hoping to drive us around on our tour; but Jack suggested that it would probably make her grandmother feel safer if he drove. The fact that she’d driven it the short distance to our cabin, was apparently enough for her grandmother to have a freak out. Okay, so I wasn’t the only one with an uber protective family member.
While I felt bad for Kaia being forced to sit next to my sister in the back, I was grateful to be so close to Jack up front. As Jack pushed the gas pedal and we bumped up and down over the uneven terrain, I could see April hanging on for dear life. “Are you sure we should be going this fast? This thing can’t be safe.”
“It’s perfectly safe, I can promise you. But I will slow down a little if that would make you feel better.” Even though I could tell he didn’t like the snail pace w
e were now at, he was trying to be considerate of my sister, which was more than she’d ever done for him. My sister relaxed a little behind me. “What should we show you first?” he asked more to himself than anyone else in the cart. “I guess we should start with the residences on this side of our village and then make our way around.”
Most of the cottages looked a lot like the one I now shared with my sister. They ranged in size, most being on the smaller side, but there were a couple off in the back that were at least three times the size of mine. The larger ones looked like they also had a loft area, if not a second story. Jack told me that the larger cabins were for bigger families. The biggest cabin had ten people living in it, three brothers with their wives and children. Most people here were just like April and me. They’d lost most of their family as well, so they only needed the smaller cabins.
We’d only gone seven homes over from our cabin, when he stopped. “Why are we stopping here?” I asked. This cabin didn’t really stand out. It looked nearly identical to mine, except that the porch wasn’t covered and instead of a bench on the porch there was a porch swing hooked up to two metal poles.
“This is my place…well and Billy’s,” he said with a smile. “Just thought you should know where I live in case you get bored.” I could practically feel April’s eyes rolling. I couldn’t help but smile back at Jack. I’d been wondering where he lived and hoping it wasn’t too far from my place. The cabins spread out throughout the village. He could have just as easily lived on the far side, making visits, in my condition, impractical.
“Tell me,” April said twisting around in her seat, “did they at least give you guys separate beds?”
“Yes, but they’re singles, and Billy’s feet stretch way over his. He always has to curl into a ball to sleep, which he complains incessantly about,” Jack said with a smile aimed at me. “I try to remind him it could be worse. We could be stuck in bunk beds like when we were kids.” I tried to imagine Billy sleeping on the top bunk with his legs dangling over the end, his arm hanging over the side. Yeah, that would be worse.
“Well, I would take bunk beds over sharing a queen size any day,” my sister replied.
“Are you seriously complaining about sharing a bed with me?” I questioned half teasing as I twisted around to face her, giving her a perturbed look. She really had no right to complain. I put up with a lot, sharing a bed with her over the years.
“I’m not the one who kicks,” she replied with irritation.
I smiled. “I’m not the one who snores.” A look of realization came across her face.
“Are you saying you do it on purpose?”
“You snore really loudly. Trust me, if you could hear yourself, you’d know you deserve it.” Jack burst out laughing. Beside April, I could see Kaia turning away trying to conceal her own chuckles into her shoulder. April huffed and turned back around. “We should probably move on with the tour,” I said turning back around. April’s mood was only bound to go downhill from this point on.
We moved on through the village, past the shower house I’d been to earlier, along to the main kitchen/dining building. It looked like some sort of grand lodge you might see at a ski resort. It was made from large logs. Even though dinner wasn’t for a couple more hours, there were still people busily working inside. I could see smoke coming out the main chimney, which was apparently located in the middle of the seating area. Jack told me the inside was even more beautiful than the outside. He would have given me a tour if I weren’t going to be coming back later. Outside the building were several picnic tables. They weren’t being used much these days, with the weather getting colder.
Just on the other side of the kitchen lodge, there was another log building similar in size to the larger homes we’d seen. “That’s where you’ll be working when you’re better,” Kaia said excitedly. She hadn’t done much talking on the tour. I didn’t know if that was because she was shy or because her proximity to my sister was making her extra nervous. Maybe a bit of both, I thought.
“You share the building with the childcare centre,” Jack added.
“My grandmother is still irritated with that. She says it was crowded enough when it was just us working with our equipment. Now we’ve lost a third of the building. And it gets noisy and distracting,” Kaia replied.
“Hopefully, it won’t be for too much longer. We’re working on the new childcare centre and we’re hoping it will be done before the first snowfall,” Jack said hopefully.
“That doesn’t leave much time,” I said. “What have we got, a couple more weeks at most?”
“We had a mild summer. We’re hoping it will be a mild winter also. Maybe we might even make it into December before the snow sticks to the ground,” Jack responded. I raised my eyebrow at that. It was very unlikely we’d be so lucky. The frost was already starting to stick the grass for hours in the morning, before finally melting. The last winter I’d spent in Montana had seen plenty of snow and the summer before that had been very dry. It wasn’t like back in the days when we had Farmer’s Almanac and meteorologists. We just couldn’t predict these things anymore. You needed to be prepared for anything.
“Wow, this conversation has gotten dull indeed, if we’re forced to resort to topics of weather for conversation,” my sister said dryly. I was ready to turn around and smack April, but Jack only laughed in response.
“You’re absolutely right. I’ve completely run out of topics for discussion. You could probably help us out with that April,” Jack offered.
I laughed even though I was sure Jack had only irritated April even more. She shut right up after that. Not another sound came out of her mouth as our tour went on for the next half an hour. The rest of us had quite enjoyable conversations now that April didn’t keep ruining them with her mood. I was bound to pay for my traitorous behavior later, but for now I didn’t care. I was enjoying talking to new people. Since Andy’s death, we’d avoided all strangers. There was something really freeing about learning to trust again. I was already starting to let go of some of the fear.
The more we travelled around the village, the more confident I became. The thick stone wall they’d built around the village, looked strong. The fact that this place had been standing since near the beginning of the epidemic, seemed to suggest that the wall was secure. And beyond the wall, they’d chopped down enough trees to make it impossible, for even the monsters to jump the distance and the monsters could jump great distances.
At the far end of the village, past all the homes and buildings, were the fields and greenhouses. The greenhouses had only been finished in the last year. And they were a life saver, according to Jack. They had to make a lot fewer runs last winter thanks to the food they could grow. There were three greenhouses, and they were massive. It was no wonder it took them so long to finish them. Their priority had been housing and storage for the food they had grown. The fields themselves, took up a lot of space. By this time of year, the fields were mostly harvested already, all except a few rows of squash and pumpkins. There were a couple of people working on digging those ones up though, so soon the fields would be nothing but barren space.
We’d pretty much seen everything in the village, except for where I’d come in the day they brought me to their little clinic. April grumbled something about not seeing the point in wasting any more time. Jack ignored her as he drove past the clinic and up to the main gate, which was lying open now. Jack said they had a couple groups outside the walls now, scavenging up supplies. The runs would pretty much stop after the first snowfall. The one group wasn’t due back for another couple of days, but they kept the gate open during the day anyways.
The gate looked a lot like a draw bridge. That was exactly what it was. It was like it leapt out of the page of some medieval drawing. Beside the gate, was a sort of elevator system that led to the top of the wall. There were four men stationed up top. They all wore military fatigues and carried large calibre rifles in their hands. I saw my sister eyeing them wit
h envy.
“Last stop on the tour ladies,” Jack said as he turned off the engine to the golf cart. He hopped out of his seat and rushed over to my side of the vehicle. He held out his hand for me, “Trust me, you’ll want to see this.”
My hand had just brushed against his when my sister shot up out of her seat. “Have you forgotten that she’s still injured? The whole point of the cart was to keep pressure off her leg.” I guess it was too much to hope that April could keep her mouth shut for another ten minutes. Come to think of it, thirty minutes was impressive as it was. I probably shouldn’t have been so greedy with my expectations.
In the calmest voice I could muster I replied, “April I’ve rested my leg for hours. And this is just a couple of minutes of pressure on it. I can handle it. I want to see. I need to see. I need to know we’re truly safe here.” The intensity of my eyes looking into hers, was probably what pushed her to give in more so than the words coming out of my mouth.
“Fine, but I’m staying here. I’ve already seen it. And you already know my opinion about staying here.”
I rolled my eyes as I took Jack’s hand fully, letting him support my weight as I managed to maneuver my cane into its proper supportive position. Reluctantly, I let go of his hand once I felt steady enough on my feet. My leg wasn’t throbbing anymore, but it still didn’t like me putting pressure on it. Kaia was right by our side as we made our way to the elevator. It wasn’t like she needed to see this, but after all of April’s outbursts, I could hardly blame her for wanting to get away from her.
We’d just stepped up onto the steel frame when I turned to Kaia to apologize. “She wasn’t always like this. Things were hard for a long time. She had to get tough and then when she lost her husband…well, she lost herself. I’m sorry if she hurt your feelings.” I knew I was rambling out excuses, but I felt like it was important to explain April. April hadn’t always been like this. Things changed after she married Andy, which I think had more to do with my parents’ disapproval of the marriage, than anything else. And then when the outbreak happened, she was forced to become a parent to a pre-teen and it changed her.
Seeking Hope: Book 2 in the Seeking Saga Page 8