Edge of Collapse Series (Book 2): Edge of Madness

by Stone, Kyla

  He could have won her back. He liked to think that he would have if he’d only had another chance.

  Noah shook his head. He’d lost himself in the spiraling vortex of self-recrimination and what-ifs a thousand times. It did nothing but drag the misery of the past into the present.

  He’d fought hard to make a life for himself and Milo, to create joy where it wasn’t deserved—not by him, anyway. He wasn’t going to let the specter of his own regret take that away from him, from Milo.

  Noah opened the drawer, found the socks, and retrieved the cash. If this event was widespread, stores wouldn’t be able to accept credit cards. Banks wouldn’t allow transactions since everything was computerized these days. Cash would be king.

  The money would get him some groceries to last them another week or so. And firewood. After he checked in with Chief Briggs, he’d run to Friendly’s Grocery and stock up on as many supplies as he could.

  If he could get there, anyway. His stalled Kia was still in the Bittersweet parking lot sixty miles away.

  And then what? What happened when the cash and the food ran out? He didn’t have an answer.

  He paused in front of Hannah’s dresser a moment more and closed his eyes. His hand strayed to his wedding ring beneath his leather glove. The wedding ring he couldn’t bear to remove.

  “I don’t know how to do this,” he said aloud. “I don’t know if I have what it takes to protect him.”

  Only silence answered him back.

  What did he expect? Sometimes he felt like she was watching over them, a benevolent presence keeping Milo safe. Now, he felt nothing.

  He was utterly alone against a faceless challenge bigger than he was, so big he couldn’t even imagine the far-reaching consequences.

  The sense of foreboding didn’t leave him as he quickly put on his uniform, checked his service weapon—a Glock 19—and holstered it across from his department-issued Taser.

  The hour or two he’d promised Milo might stretch much longer. If he needed to do anything in an official capacity, he should be ready.

  Within a few minutes, he and Milo were out of the house and trudging through the snow, Milo so bundled up that Noah could hardly see his face. The temperature hovered around ten degrees. The storm had ended last night, but snowflakes still drifted softly from the gray sky.

  Their neighborhood was older, the houses mostly brick ranches, split levels, two-story cape cods with dormer windows, and some colonials. Like many of the homes in Fall Creek, each house was set on its own one- or two-acre lot with a septic system and well.

  Noah’s house included. He had water in his well, he realized. He just didn’t have any idea how to access it. Another item to add to his growing list.

  All the to-dos piling up in his mind made his head hurt.

  Noah knocked on Mrs. Gomez’s burgundy front door, Milo standing beside him. He waited a beat, then knocked again, louder. Mrs. Gomez was a bit hard of hearing.

  “Mrs. Gomez!”

  No answer. A bright red cardinal hopped on a bare maple branch and chirped at them.

  He banged louder. It didn’t make sense for her to not come to the door. Her hunter-green Dodge Caravan was still in the driveway beneath a blanket of snow.

  No footprints marred the pristine yard and driveway other than their own.

  “Why isn’t she answering?” Milo asked. “Maybe she’s not home.”

  “I don’t know why she wouldn’t be.”

  Milo rubbed his mittened hands together. “We should check on her. Maybe she fell down the stairs again.”

  “I think you’re right.”

  He pulled on Noah’s hand. “What about her oxygen tank, Dad? She keeps it plugged in. What if something happened to it yesterday?”

  Noah’s stomach tightened. The memory of Mr. Dũng’s death after his pacemaker failed was fresh in his mind. Mrs. Gomez was seventy-seven and suffered from severe COPD. This last year, she’d carted her tank around with her everywhere.

  Despite her medical limitations, she loved Milo and spent hours putting intricate puzzles together or playing Legos with him, reading to each other, and teaching him poker and other inappropriate card games.

  Noah pulled out his keyring. He’d had a key to her house since she’d first started watching Milo, shortly after Hannah disappeared. “You’re right, Milo. We should check.”

  The house was as dark and cold as their own. He could barely make out the floral wallpaper, the oil lamps and doilies decorating her coffee table, end tables, and fireplace mantel.

  The living room smelled like potpourri and something medicinal.

  “Sit on the couch and wait for me,” Noah said to Milo as he flicked on his flashlight. Milo obeyed.

  The silence pressed in on Noah as he made his way down the hallway to Mrs. Gomez’s bedroom. He shone his flashlight over the slight lump beneath the ruffled bedspread.

  The oxygen tank sat beside the bed. Clear tubes snaked beneath the covers.

  “Mrs. Gomez? Are you okay?”

  The shape didn’t move.

  Gently, he moved back the covers. Mrs. Gomez lay curled beneath the blankets in a lacy white nightgown, her gray fluff of hair spread across the pillow. Small tubes from the portable oxygen machine beside the bed crept around her slack, waxen face and fed into her nostrils.

  She was stiff and far too cold. His stomach sinking, he checked her pulse to confirm his suspicions. Mrs. Gomez was dead.

  He always told Milo that things would be better in the morning. However terrible a day had been, a good night’s sleep solved a world of problems.

  This time, he feared he was wrong.

  Things weren’t better this morning. They were far worse.

  17

  Noah

  Day Two

  “Dad!” Milo called from the living room. “Someone’s outside!”

  Noah snapped off the flashlight and hurried back to the living room. He glanced out the window. A snowmobile idled next to the driveway.

  Julian Sinclair climbed off, removed his helmet, and lifted his snow goggles to his forehead. He waved.

  Noah moved toward the front door.

  “Is Mrs. Gomez okay?” Milo asked.

  Noah cringed. He had no idea what to say to his son, who loved the old woman as a surrogate mother. Milo had watched two people die yesterday. What did that do to an eight-year-old kid’s psyche?

  Another dead person might be too much for him to handle. It felt like too much for Noah to handle.

  “She’s out,” Noah lied. He’d figure out the right words later. “A friend must have picked her up for the day so she wouldn’t be alone on Christmas.”

  Milo smiled. “That’s nice.”

  “I think so, too. Come on, let’s say hello to Uncle Julian.”

  “Hey, Little Man!” Julian called as they exited the house. He turned to Noah. “Merry freakin’ Christmas. Can you believe this mess?”

  “So it’s that bad then?”

  “It’s bad. What happened yesterday? You said you were coming in. Figured you got stuck without a working car like the rest of us.”

  “We got stuck on a ski lift.” Noah didn’t feel like rehashing the specifics, not in front of Milo. “It sucked.”

  “Damn. I guess so.” Julian ran a hand through his short blond hair. He was tall and fit, charismatic and handsome, with a charming smile that ladies loved—although he could never commit to one long-term.

  Noah leaned in close and lowered his voice so Milo couldn’t hear. “What about the vic found yesterday? Any leads or evidence?”

  Julian rolled his eyes. “I told you. Just another junkie. We’ll figure it out later. The vic is on ice at the morgue in St. Joe. Hope their generator is still working. He’s not going anywhere, at any rate. We’ve got much bigger problems now, brother. Come on. We gotta go.”

  “Go where?”

  “The old courthouse. They’re waiting for us. My mother wants the cops there. The sooner we get through this eme
rgency council meeting, the sooner we get back to doing our jobs.”

  Julian Sinclair had an impatient streak. He was a man of action. He hated meetings and committees; he’d much rather be doing something, anything, other than sitting around. Still single and without the responsibilities of a family, he spent his time downhill skiing and snowmobiling, hunting, and gambling.

  “I have Milo.” Noah cleared his throat. “His sitter is . . . unavailable.”

  “Just bring him. It’s important.” Julian rolled his eyes. “Besides, he’s a good kid, and you know my mother won’t mind.”

  Fall Creek was governed as a charter township, with a board of trustees who served on the township council. Rosamond Sinclair, Julian’s mother, was the township superintendent; she acted like a mayor, though that wasn’t her official title.

  She liked Noah—and doted on Milo. He was the grandson her own two sons had never given her.

  Rosamond was a busy, high-powered woman who didn’t have time for visits to John Ball Zoo or baking homemade cookies, but she never forgot his birthday or Christmas, always bringing by a bottle of wine for Noah and an elaborately wrapped gift for Milo—a new bike or extravagant Lego set.

  It was more than his own parents had ever done.

  Julian patted the seat of the snowmobile—an ancient Kawasaki Interceptor 550. “Come on. This is a two-seater, but Milo is small. He can fit between us.”

  It was only three miles from Noah’s house to the town hall. Noah hesitated, unsure, but quickly gave in. He was out of options.

  He helped Milo on. “We don’t have helmets. Go slow.” Julian didn’t know the meaning of slow. “I mean it.”

  Julian chuckled. “How fast am I gonna go on this rickety old thing?”

  “Where did you even get it?”

  “Only old stuff works now. Weird as hell, right?”

  “How widespread is this thing? Is it affecting the whole state? The entire Midwest?”

  “Hell if I know. My mother said she found someone who can tell us more.”

  Julian started the engine, and it coughed to life with a throaty growl, drowning out any response Noah might have given.

  Noah straddled the seat tightly and held on to Milo to make sure he didn’t fall off. They crossed the bridge over Fall Creek, which was not really a creek but a wide, deep river.

  The river almost circled the town in a wide, serpentine C-shape before feeding into the St. Joe River to the north and eventually emptying into Lake Michigan about fifteen miles to the northwest. Several miles to the south, a dam separated Fall Creek from Lake Chapin, a popular recreation destination for fishing, boating, waterskiing, and jet skiing in the summer.

  It was a short, cold drive into town. “Town” was a generous term. Most of the businesses were clustered along Main Street, with Friendly’s Fresh Grown Grocery just across the bridge on the southern end. The Fall Creek Inn, perched along the riverbank, bookended the town on the north end.

  Though it was Christmas day, a few dozen people dressed in winter gear were lined up outside Friendly’s Grocery. It was the same with Vinson Family Pharmacy across the street. Folks milled about outside, anxious to fill prescriptions even with the computer systems down.

  Past the grocery store, the sidewalks were mostly empty, the Christmas wreaths decorating the light poles swaying in the light breeze. Occasional cars and trucks had stalled in the middle of the road, though many had managed to pull off to the shoulder.

  They passed a few fender-benders, but nothing too serious. Everything was smothered in at least a foot of fresh snow, not counting the foot they had already had. Except for the grocery store and pharmacy, the stores were all dark. The gas station. The Pizza Palace and Patsy’s Cafe. Gundy’s Auto Repair and the Clothesline laundromat.

  The single stoplight was dark, too. To the east stood Main Street Apartments and a section of neighborhoods. To the west was the high school and combined elementary/middle school, Tresses hair salon, the Brite Smiles dentist’s office, and the post office.

  Julian roared into the old courthouse parking lot located in the center of town, just left past the stoplight. The historic Greek revival building featured large white columns inspired by ancient temples. It was built in 1846 and served as the county courthouse until a new courthouse was appointed in the nearby town of St. Joe in the mid-twentieth century.

  These days, half the building served as a museum and heritage site for local school children to tour, the other half was used for town hall and township board meetings.

  Noah helped Milo clamber off the snowmobile as Julian switched off the engine. He could just make out Crossway Church a few blocks north, along with Fuller’s Hardware, the bank, and Fireside Tavern.

  Noah turned to Milo. “Remember the museum area with the old-fashioned tables? You can sit out there by one of the windows and read some books on Michigan history. Fun, right?”

  Milo made a face. “Eww, no.”

  Noah managed a tense grin. “I know, son. I know. I have a lot to make up for.”

  Milo perked up. “Peanut butter sundaes?”

  “I make no promises, but I’ll see what I can do.”

  Five minutes later, he had Milo situated inside and was following Julian down a narrow hallway toward the main council room. The hallway was bright, the fluorescent lights buzzing overhead. Noah blinked. “It’s not as cold in here. And the lights are on.”

  “The generator is still working. Fall Creek Inn still has their generator as well. So does Friendly’s and Vinson Pharmacy. Lots of other generators don’t, though.”

  Noah nodded as they entered the board room.

  “Welcome to the ‘End of the World’ Club,” Chief Briggs said dourly. “Since that’s apparently what everyone thinks this is.”

  18

  Quinn

  Day Two

  Quinn shifted her position. The oak tree’s bark scraped against her chilled cheek, but she barely noticed.

  With her legs wrapped around the thick tree branch and crossed at the ankles to hold her in place, she leaned forward along the branch, twigs poking and scratching her belly as her coat rode up.

  She leaned down precariously, focusing all her concentration on the slingshot in her hands, the bands pulled taut as she drew to her right cheek, her anchor point, and aimed at the squirrel perched on the oak branch twenty feet away.

  She settled her breathing, focused herself as she canted the fork at a forty-five-degree angle, the pads of her finger and thumb pinching the ammo ball inside the pouch. She reached her max draw length and released the bands.

  The three-eighths-inch steel pellet shot toward her target at around two hundred feet per second. It struck the squirrel in the side of its head below the ear, punched through its skull, and pierced its brain.

  The animal didn’t make a sound as it fell from the fifteen-foot-high branch and tumbled tail-first into the snow. A soft pfft broke the muted stillness.

  Quinn didn’t scurry down from the tree immediately. She lay still, breathing shallowly, watching the puffs of her breath cloud the frigid air. The cold buried itself into her bones.

  It was late morning. The lethal cold hovered just above zero, the day overcast like every day before it, but at least the epic snowstorm from last night had subsided.

  Little creatures scurried through the underbrush—chipmunks and squirrels, mice and rabbits. A crow cawed from somewhere nearby.

  She should go inside. And she would, in just another minute. There was something about winter the artist in her had always loved. The stillness. The whiteness.

  Everything perfect and beautiful and unbroken, even if putrid, rotting things lay beneath. For a little while, one could almost forget the ugliness just beneath the surface.

  Behind Gran’s property was a thick tangle of woods that lay between their street and the village proper and Main Street. The river wound a few hundred yards to the east.

  The engine of an ATV broke the stillness—coughing and rattlin
g like it was on its last legs.

  Quinn heaved a sigh. She could get used to a world without the rumble of engines and machinery. To be fair, she only thought that when she didn’t have somewhere she wanted to go. Skiing and snowshoeing everywhere would royally suck.

  Thank goodness for the Orange Julius. Though it would run out of gas eventually. Good

  thing Gramps had stored a few jerrycans of fuel in the shed.

  Quinn thrust the slingshot into her coat pocket. She gripped the branch with both hands, uncrossed her ankles, and swung down, letting her legs hang beneath her.

  The drop was only four or five feet. Nothing she hadn’t done a hundred times. She breathed in, breathed out, the hairs in her nostrils stiffening from the cold, her throat raw.

  She closed her eyes for a second, remembering last night. The chairlift. The driving snow and brutal cold, the anxiety and fear. How those twenty-five feet had felt like a thousand.

  How her grandfather had looked frozen. His eyelashes crusted with snow and ice. His opened eyes glassy as marbles. His whole vibrant life drained away in an instant.

  She snapped her eyes open and dropped to the ground, her boots sinking deep into the snow, her bent knees absorbing the impact. She straightened and trudged to the fallen squirrel.

  Once, she’d been squeamish about death, hated killing living things.

  She still hated killing, but she did it because she had to know that she could. Because Gramps and Gran had taught her how to be a survivor.

  And she’d needed that in more ways than one.

  Don’t ever kill for fun, Gramps had instructed her. Then you deserve that shame. But killing to sustain life is part of nature. Always respect life. And death.

  A savage ache swelled in her chest. The loss of Gramps was so enormous, she hardly knew how to quantify it. Tears started in her eyes and immediately froze. She brushed them away fiercely.