Light of Dawn

by Vannetta Chapman

  She thought Max wouldn’t answer her. He wore that thoughtful, analytical expression that she’d seen so often when he was in the middle of a case. Maybe he was trying to figure it all out too. Why would she think that Max Berkman would hold the answers to her questions? Why had she always been so sure that he grasped things more quickly and more thoroughly than she did? There was an appeal in that fantasy—a strength she found immensely attractive. Which proved that she still harbored a little of the teenage crush she’d agonized over so many years ago—agonized over until they’d become a couple, and then they weren’t. The memories seemed to belong to another millennium, and they seemed to spring up from yesterday.

  Max turned to her, reached out, and cradled her face in the palm of his hand. Something in her heart tightened. She wanted to run far away as fast as she could and put an immediate and immense distance between them. She wanted to melt into his arms and let him whisper that everything was going to be all right.

  She did neither.

  Instead, she squeezed his hand and pulled back into her seat, adjusting the seat belt as she did so. Not that it would protect her much if they crashed. But that seemed like a remote possibility here. They would see anyone coming toward them from miles away.

  Max gave her a knowing smile, and then he returned his attention to the road. “Sometimes the best place to start over is where there’s no one and nothing to remind you of the past.”

  “You think our government was running from the past?”

  “I think they needed space.” He nodded toward the surrounding hills. “Plenty of that here.”

  They were too committed to turn around and look somewhere else. Plus, Gabe’s assignment had been the Flint Hills of Kansas. Other personnel would have been sent to the South Dakota Badlands, the vast plains of Wyoming, the remote Cascade Mountains crossing from Washington through Oregon and into northern California. Their group had made it here against tremendous odds, and now they merely had to confirm that the government had or hadn’t established a presence in the area.

  They drove three car lengths apart. Gabe was at the rear of their convoy, with Lanh and Carter helping him to maintain a lookout behind them. No use being surprised by someone who had decided to follow them. Max and Shelby were in the middle because the Dodge seemed to be in the worst shape of the three vehicles. Patrick and Bianca were in the front, setting a slow pace that the Mustang could handle given its damaged condition.

  Patrick signaled, and then he pulled over at the next gas station.

  He popped the hood on the Mustang before they’d come to a stop on either side of them. Steam poured out from the car, and Shelby could hear a hissing sound from where she stood. Gabe and Max joined Patrick staring down into the engine.

  “They’re making manly grunting sounds under there,” Bianca said.

  “Always a cause for alarm.”

  Lanh and Carter trooped into the convenience store. They returned shaking their heads, hands empty.

  “Nothing,” Carter said.

  “At least there weren’t bodies this time.” Lanh stretched, arching his back and reaching his hands high up over his head. Suddenly, remembering his stitches, he dropped his arm, stared at it a minute, and then shrugged.

  “He reminds me of a cat,” Shelby said, laughing at the scowl he sent her way. “A masculine, brave cat, of course.”

  “More like a lion,” Lanh said.

  “If you say so.” Bianca reached up and tussled his hair. “Lanh the Lion.”

  He shook his head in exasperation, but Shelby could tell he was pleased. It was good to feel normal and tease, if only for a minute.

  Patrick slammed down the hood, and they all met together on the south side of the building. The day wasn’t hot or cold. It was a pleasant March afternoon. But the wind from the north had a bite to it. Shelby wouldn’t be surprised if they saw snow in the morning, though there was no sign of clouds. But that northern wind worried her. She had the overwhelming feeling that something was headed their way.

  “What happened back there?” Carter asked. “And do you think they’re going to follow us?”

  “No reason for them to. Easier for them to stay near their base and ambush the next person who drives through.” Gabe stared back toward Caldwell. “They’re bold. I’ll give them that.”

  Shelby had an urge to drive back to Caldwell, arrest every one of them, and leave them for the authorities the way they had Hugo. Only where were the authorities in Kansas, and could they afford to sacrifice the time?

  “They were bold,” Bianca agreed. “But they were also insane. Think about the way they dressed, like they were in an old movie. Those people were not right in the head.”

  “Regardless, we keep going,” Gabe said. “If we find anyone in a position of authority, we tell them what is going on in Caldwell and let them take care of it.”

  “We’re going to have to leave the Mustang,” Patrick said. “The engine’s sputtering, and I have very little power. I probably couldn’t outrun your old, beat-up Dodge.”

  “Hey. I think you just dissed my ride.” Max tried to look offended.

  “Looks like the manifold is cracked, and there’s no telling what else broke loose in there.”

  “Sorry, Patrick.” Max leaned against the building and crossed his arms. “I know what she meant to you.”

  “My first love…” Patrick pretended to be wounded when Bianca slugged him in the arm. “She was my first love. I have a new first love now, and she has a mean right hook.”

  He pulled Bianca into his arms so that her back was to him and his chin was resting on the top of her head. They looked so natural together, so comfortable, and for some reason it amplified the ache deep inside of Shelby.

  “So we pile into the other two vehicles.” Carter glanced around the circle. “What am I missing?”

  “The Dodge isn’t safe,” Max admitted. “Driving thirty miles per hour, it isn’t a real problem, but if we had to outrun anyone?”

  Lanh nodded. “God forbid someone starts shooting at you.”

  “You’d be like ducks in the shooting gallery at the fair.” Bianca looked puzzled when they all started laughing.

  Gabe let them get it out of their system, and then he turned their attention to more serious matters.

  “We go in the Hummer. All of us. Take what we can as far as supplies. Siphon the gasoline out of your vehicles.”

  “How are we going to find the government even if they are here? I doubt they set up on the side of the road. At least there doesn’t seem to be any indication of that.” Shelby repositioned her backpack. “There’s so much nothing. There aren’t even many crossroads.”

  “Which won’t be a problem with the Hummer.” Patrick nodded at the map Gabe was holding. “We set up a grid and crisscross the entire Flint Hills until we’ve checked it all.”

  “Exactly. Probably they wouldn’t be on a major road anyway—not if they want to keep their presence something of a secret.” Gabe hesitated, and then he added, “There’s one more thing we can do to increase our odds of finding them.”

  Shelby waited, sure she wasn’t going to like what he was about to say.

  “We travel at night. It’ll be more dangerous. We’ll have to run with our lights off…”

  “But any government facility is bound to have lights, and we’d see them from a long way off.” Carter pulled off his battered cowboy hat and rubbed the top of his head. “They’re bound to have lights.”

  “Nothing like what we knew before,” Gabe said. “I wouldn’t expect to see streetlights or blinking marquees, but yes, there will be something. There would have to be if the government is here. Given the state of the country, we can assume they’re going to be working in shifts, working twenty-four hours a day. Which means there have to be some lights unless they’ve gone underground, and I don’t see how they would have had the time or resources to do that.”

  “So that’s our plan?” Bianca squirmed out of Patrick’s arms
, squatted down, and retied her hiking boots, as if she needed to be ready for whatever came next. They all needed to be ready.

  “That’s our plan.” Gabe waited for each of them to nod in agreement. “First thing: I want to clean the cut on Shelby’s head and have a look at Max’s shoulder. Anyone who has a previous injury that needs attention, don’t hold back. Infection is my worst fear at this point, so let’s address anything that needs to be done medically now.”

  No one dared argue.

  “Afterward we get to work. Lanh and Carter, you’re on dinner duty. Make it a high-calorie meal because we’re going to be driving all night. Patrick and Max, siphon the gasoline out of your vehicles and into the containers we have. Shelby and Bianca, I want you to both go through the gas station, the fast-food joint, and the store. Look for anything we can use. Check storerooms, behind counters, and inside freezers. Whistle if you need help. I’ll work on the map—mark a grid over the area and determine the best way to explore it.”

  They broke up then.

  Headed to their assigned tasks.

  Each person praying that this, their ninth night since leaving High Fields, would be their last night on the road.

  SIXTY

  They ate, attempted to rest on the south side of the building, and waited for night to fall. Carter had thought that High Fields was as remote a place as he could imagine, but it didn’t hold a candle to the Flint Hills of Kansas. Starlight spilled across the sky. The only sound was the wind whipping around the building. He was willing to bet there wasn’t another soul for a hundred miles. They were truly alone.

  “Worried?” Max asked.

  Carter hadn’t even heard him walk up. “Yes. No. I don’t even know anymore.”

  “Which is exactly the way the rest of us feel.”

  Maybe it was the cascade of stars above him, or being so far from home, or what they’d been through, but suddenly all the questions that had been nagging at Carter—the questions he could push away when they were moving—spilled out into the cowboy-shaped silhouette that was Max standing above him.

  “Why did this happen? If God knows everything, if he can control everything, then why couldn’t he move the flare to the right or left, so that it missed us altogether? Why does it seem the good guys don’t make it, but the bad guys get stronger and smarter?”

  “Hey. We’re still here.” Max squatted, coming close enough that Carter could see his face dimly in the starlight.

  Frustrated, Carter sat up in his bedroll and wrapped his arms around his knees, turning his gaze out to the dark horizon. “I thought I believed in God when I was lying in the creek, sure I was going to die. I knew that my leg was broken and my glucose levels were bottoming out. I cried out to God—like that song we used to sing. And I thought maybe he heard me and saved me.”

  “He did.”

  “For what?” Carter turned to stare at Max now, half expecting that Max could and would answer all of his questions.

  “I don’t know, Carter. But God will show you your purpose. He has a plan for you.”

  Carter tried not to sigh or let his shoulders sag or do anything to let Max know how disappointing his answer was. Max was, after all, doing his best. He was also very observant.

  “You’re right. I don’t have the answers, and sometimes I struggle with the same questions you have. But there’s one thing I’m sure of.” He paused, setting one knee on the ground and bowing his head as though it were very important to him that he choose the correct words. Looking up, he said, “When you’re completely lost, when you have no idea what comes next or why things are happening, faith is what gets you through. Even if you’re not sure what you believe, you keep doing the things you know in your heart are the right things. That is faith, Carter. It’s not the absence of questions. It’s continuing, day in and day out, in spite of those questions.”

  Max left him alone then, to stare at the stars and wonder.

  He must have drifted off to sleep because, suddenly, Gabe was giving the signal, and they all stowed their bedrolls and threw their packs in the back of the Hummer. No one had slept much, but Carter felt surprisingly awake, especially with all seven of them crammed into one vehicle. Gabe drove and Patrick rode shotgun. Max sat directly behind Gabe, and Bianca sat behind Patrick. Which meant that Shelby, Carter, and Lanh were squished in the middle.

  In some ways, it was comforting.

  It reminded him of a litter of puppies he’d found when he was in middle school. His mother had let him bring them home, feed them, and together they’d found homes for each one. He’d spent hours watching them crawl over and tumble across each other. They’d seemed perfectly content and had eventually fallen asleep, crammed into a corner of their box, sleeping on top of each other.

  That was how he felt with Lanh’s elbow continually poking into his right side and his mom pushing into his left as she leaned forward and tried to peer through the front windshield.

  They were doing what Max had said—continuing, doing what was right—and suddenly, it was enough.

  The ride was bumpier than he’d expected.

  The Hummer didn’t have any problems with the hills and valleys, but they still felt every drop and climb.

  It reminded Carter of the Texas Giant roller coaster he’d ridden at Six Flags. His stomach was literally jostling around, and his hands began to sweat as he wondered if they’d eventually topple end over end. But the Hummer wasn’t going to roll. It was, after all, built like a tank.

  “There.” His mom pushed her way in front of him, practically kneeling on the floorboard so that she could poke her head over the front seat. “There! Northwest.”

  They’d been following Gabe’s grid for three hours, back and forth, up and down. Carter didn’t know how she could tell which direction was northwest, but then he caught sight of the compass dial on the dashboard.

  “Northwest,” she whispered, and then she sank back into the seat and covered her face with her hands.

  Gabe braked and turned off the ignition. “Quietly,” he warned.

  They slipped out of the vehicle like water across stones and stood in a line, facing northwest.

  Carter had seen electric lights before. He’d grown up in the modern world. He hadn’t forgotten a single thing about it, or so he told himself as he stared at the wonder in front of him. It wasn’t a blaze of fluorescent light. No football stadium preparing for Friday night’s game. No lighthouse casting out a beacon.

  What he saw instead was starlight twinkling across the landscape.

  Pinpricks of light—hundreds of them.

  And the sight was so stunning, so overwhelming, that he understood his mom’s need to put her hands over her face, to hide from the hope that sparkled in front of them.

  Only Bianca had thought to bring her binoculars from the Hummer. She gazed through them for the space of three breaths and then handed them to Patrick. Each person peered through them, accepted that what they were seeing wasn’t an illusion, and passed them to the next person—like a canteen passed down a line of thirsty, weary travelers.

  Carter didn’t know how long they stood there or why. Maybe they were afraid that the lights would disappear. Possibly, they simply needed to drink in the sight of them. He didn’t understand the why or the how, but he did know that this changed everything.

  They turned and made their way back to the Hummer.

  Gabe led them to the far side, the dark side, and they naturally formed a circle.

  “This is it,” Bianca said. “It has to be.”

  “It’s more than I expected,” Patrick admitted. “It’s…wider.”

  Gabe had pulled a collapsible lantern out of his pack and set it on the ground. It cast a low beam of light. Enough for them to see each other by, but barely. “We can’t know exactly what it is until morning. I don’t want anyone getting their hopes up that we’ve found the New Jerusalem.”

  “What else could it be, though?” Max stuffed his hands into his back pockets. “Thos
e weren’t lanterns. I’ve stared at enough lantern light in the last nine months to know the difference. That was electricity—or something like it.”

  “Could be a town.” Patrick stood as if he were in a military lineup—feet inches apart, knees locked, posture perfect, hands clasped behind his back. “We don’t know how widespread the grid breakdown was. At the beginning, they told us that some places might have been hit more directly than others.”

  “That’s true, but our grid system is completely interdependent, or rather it was. Once it started going down, it all went down.” Gabe stared at the ground, his hands on his hips. “And a town wouldn’t be out here in the middle of the Flint Hills with no access road. It’s not remotely possible.”

  “So we agree.” Carter couldn’t keep silent any longer. “We agree it’s them. It’s the government, big brother, Uncle Sam, whatever.”

  Lanh was practically bouncing on the balls of his feet. “If it is the feds, what are we waiting for? Why don’t we walk up and knock on the door, or the fence, or…whatever.”

  Gabe glanced around the group, and Carter knew he was weighing a dozen different things—their safety, their need to know, Governor Reed waiting back in Texas, people dying due to lack of supplies. “We wait until morning, and then we run a reconnaissance mission. We do not get sloppy now, not when we’re this close.”

  It made sense. It wasn’t the easiest thing to do. Carter thought he could probably walk toward those lights and be on their front doorstep in a few hours. But walking across the Flint Hills in the dark wasn’t the smartest idea. It would be impulsive and foolish. The thing was, Carter wanted to be impulsive right now.

  What he didn’t want was to be bitten by a snake. Or sprain his ankle from stepping in a hole. Or come across a band of marauders.

  We do not get sloppy now.

  Patrick took the first watch. The Hummer shielded them from the worst of the wind, so everyone else made their beds behind the vehicle on the ground, with countless stars above them and man-made light to the northwest.