On top of all that, she was losing her home with almost no chance of ever coming back.
She stood up straight, slammed the back door of the Suzuki and drew in a deep breath, then let it go as if to blow away the darkness. The past was gone and irrecoverable, and the future felt like a brick wall rushing toward an out of control car. All she had was now, and all she could do was continue the struggle.
Dany climbed up onto the passenger seat as Paulie double-checked that she hadn't left anything behind before getting behind the wheel and turning the key. As the car headed into the wooded slopes of the hills overlooking Arbroath, she kept her gaze on the road ahead and didn't look in her mirror.
Marvin was the first to greet her as she drove into the little compound. He'd run out with his shotgun when he’d heard the approaching car but had relaxed when he saw it was her. His expression changed from pleasure to resignation as he watched her come to a halt.
"They've come back, then," he said, holding the door open as she got out.
"Yeah, and in force this time. At least a hundred that I could see—enough to mean we have to move, and quickly."
Marvin let out a curse that he cut short as Luna pushed past him and into her mother's arms. Dany leaped out of the car, barking, and Luna knelt on the ground to embrace her canine friend. "I'm so glad you're safe," she said, burying her face into the long fur of the dog's shoulders.
"I'm safe too," Paulie said, with a smile. "Where's the mayor, Marvin?"
They found her in the master bedroom of the house at the center of the compound. Four beds had been squeezed in here and she was sitting beside one, holding the hand of the emaciated young woman lying there. Paulie stood in the doorway, not wishing to interrupt her, touched by her compassion and warmth. Eventually, Vogelbach noticed her and, with a weak smile, came to the door, taking Paulie onto the landing outside.
"I'm so pleased you're back. What's the news?"
"The Chinese have taken Arbroath, lots of them," she said. "Tell me, Mary, what's wrong with that person?"
The mayor's face dropped. "Nicky? She has type 1 diabetes and we ran out of insulin five days ago."
"That's not Nicky Friedman? Surely?"
Vogelbach nodded sadly. "She's lost so much weight."
"Isn't there anything we can do?"
"Not unless you can magic up some insulin in the next couple of days."
Paulie sighed. "It gets worse, Mary. We have to evacuate. The Chinese will be coming this way and soon. They're not here to garrison a town, they're here to occupy. How quickly can we be ready, do you think?"
"It took us a week to get everyone here from Arbroath," the mayor said.
"That's too long. They could be here in days."
"Where will we go?"
With a shrug, Paulie moved across to a window looking out onto the woods. "East. I think we have to prepare to be on the road for a while."
"Trouble is," Vogelbach said, "what are we going to do with Nicky? She can’t be moved, but she can’t be left behind."
Paulie shook her head. "I'm not giving up on her without a fight. Marvin and I will go look for some insulin. We'll take Dany along and leave Luna with you."
"Well, if you're going to do that, you'd better hurry."
They crossed the bridge over the Tacoma Narrows as the afternoon sun cast sharp shadows over abandoned vehicles and the remnants of a barrier that had been consumed by flame.
Marvin had barely said a word since they'd set off. Nicky Friedman had been their colleague and friend, and both felt they owed it to her to at least try to find some insulin. Paulie had piled all the weapons and ammunition they'd taken from the Chinese soldiers when she’d briefly liberated Arbroath in the hope they'd be able to use them as a bargaining chip.
The city of Tacoma looked as though it had been completely abandoned after the Long Night. Cars lay rusting in the salt-laden air. Most had been ransacked—smashed windows and doors left open to the elements.
"Don't look as though anyone's taken charge here, does it?" Marvin said as he sat, shotgun at the ready. "Maybe that's a good thing. Maybe it means there'll be drugs at the hospital still."
Paulie grunted her doubtful assent. Overall, she'd have preferred to meet with a local chief rather than navigate the wreckage of the local hospital, but it looked as though that was their only chance.
"Paulie," Marvin said, and she knew he was nervous about whatever he wanted to say because he rarely used her first name. "You know the best we can do for her is keep her goin' for a while, don't you? I mean, it's a stay of execution, not a cure."
"Yeah. And it gets worse, Marvin. Insulin must be kept cool, so we better hope the hospital still has power or we might be wasting our time."
Marvin nodded and went back to scanning the streets as they picked their way through. "But we gotta give her a chance. We gotta."
One look at the hospital told Paulie that this place hadn't had electricity for a long time. As they'd driven into the parking lot, they could see that most of the windows had been smashed from the inside, and a fire had been set that had turned the upper two floors into sooty ruins.
"Oh, darn it," Marvin said as they came to a stop. "Is it worth even goin' in?"
"I'm not leaving without taking a look," Paulie said. "Let's hope they've got a storeroom in the basement."
Paulie moved the Jimny so it was sandwiched between two delivery trucks looking, to a passerby, like just another abandoned car. Dany jumped down and padded after them as they picked their way through the rusting wrecks and toward the door.
It was like a war zone in there. Paulie had seen footage from hospitals in Syria where doctors tried to treat people in the bombed-out ruins, but she never thought to experience it for herself in her own country. Those pictures had been a decade and a half ago and in another time and place, but she felt as though, here and now, she was living them. There could be no coming back from this. The America she'd grown up with was gone. She'd known that, of course, since the very first night, but there was an essential difference between knowing something intellectually and feeling it in your heart.
"Hey, get outta here!"
Paulie snapped back into the nightmarish present. A figure in a white coat was shambling along the corridor, looking like a leftover extra from the movie 28 Days Later.
"Step back, pal," Marvin said, raising his shotgun.
The man stopped and held his hands up. His arms wobbled as if he were a weight lifter. "Not cool, man! Don't go heavy on me."
"High as a kite," Marvin said to Paulie.
"You won't find no gear here," the man said. His hearing was obviously not as impaired as his other faculties. “It's all gone. They took it, tried to burn the whole place down. 'Cept they didn't know about the…" He stopped, clasping his hands over his mouth.
Marvin stepped forward and grabbed a handful of the man's filthy white coat. "They didn't know about what? Is there a medical store down here that hasn't been raided?"
Shaking, he nodded. "Yeah, but it won't do no good. It's down in the basement. Got flooded on day one. I saved what I could."
"Do you have any insulin?"
"Any what?"
Marvin rolled his eyes as he turned to Paulie. "If we could save Nicky with amphetamines, then I reckon this scumbag would be able to help us."
But Paulie was running along the corridor, pulling the flashlight from her coat.
The basement door was wide open, and she could see water reflected as she ran her beam down the stairs.
"Well, he wasn't lying," Marvin said as he arrived beside her, puffing.
"The wall's lined with metal racking," Paulie replied. "Don't you see? It's been flooded, so if there's insulin down there, it might still be fresh enough to use."
Marvin grabbed her shoulder in his excitement. "Now that's why you're the sheriff and I'm just a grunt who follows orders."
Taking off her coat, Paulie was about to remove her belt when Marvin interrupted her. "Sorry,
boss, but I gotta insist. I'll go in."
"Don't go all sexist on me, Marvin," she said.
But Marvin was already half undressed and, by the time he'd gotten to the last dry stair, he was wearing nothing more than a pair of boots, his thermals and a smile. "Don't judge me, Sheriff," he said with a smile. "Dany, get outta the water!"
"Be careful where you put your hands, Marvin—if you get a cut in there it could turn nasty."
Marvin spent the next thirty minutes painstakingly going around the metal shelves, calling back the names of the visible labels. "I don't know what I'm lookin' for." The dog was similarly clueless and had climbed back out of the water to sit next to Paulie.
As he disturbed the water, foil packets floated to the surface and he bent down and grabbed one. "Amoxicillin? No, that's an antibiotic ain't it?"
"Throw it over," Paulie said. "We can use all the antibiotics we can get."
They built up a respectable haul of usable meds, but Paulie's flashlight battery was beginning to dim when Marvin pulled a plastic box from where it had been pinned beneath a shelf. He lifted it close to his eyes and squinted at the faded label. "Nov…novolin. Hey, it's a vial! Is this it?"
He waded over and handed the box to Paulie who took one of the glass bottles out. "It looks like it. Well done, Marvin. Now, let's get going."
The Suzuki stank of wet man and his best friend as they drove back. It was too cold to have the windows rolled down, so Paulie was forced to breathe through her mouth as much as possible to keep from gagging. But for the first time in a while she had hope. She said a silent prayer that Nicky would still be alive when they got home and put her foot down.
The hideout was along a narrow track that could only be approached by getting onto the highway and then looping back to pick it up at the foot of the valley. Paulie was looking out for the exit when Marvin yelled, "Hey! Look over there! Get off the road."
In an instant, Paulie swerved across the road as, in the distance, she saw a rectangular shape moving toward them. She jammed the Suzuki between two rusted station wagons, careful to make it look as though she'd crashed long ago.
"Get down!" she hissed as she ducked behind the driver's seat. Marvin climbed over into the back and grabbed Dany, pulling her down and out of view. Soon enough they felt a rumble through the floor of the car. Paulie sneaked a look through the rear window, careful to remain hidden in the shadows as, one after another, olive green military vehicles rumbled past.
"Is it them?" Marvin whispered from behind the back seats.
"Yeah. As soon as they're gone, we need to evacuate the farm. We can't wait another day or we'll end up behind them and we'll never escape. Washington State is now under Chinese control."
Chapter 5
Solly took the last crate of supplies from the Humvee in through the front door of the little house. Bella was on her hands and knees in the kitchen, scrubbing six months of grime off the floor. The doors of the kitchen cabinets—relics of another era—were all open as their interiors dried.
"Thanks, hon," Bella said, looking up as Solly put the crate on the oak table.
Solly held out his hand as she got to her feet. "Good grief, I'm sore. My knees are killing me," she said, absentmindedly rubbing her back. "I haven't had to make a home since before Jake was born."
It was as if a dark cloud had entered the bright kitchen and positioned itself above the two of them.
"I wish I could say something comforting," Solly said. It was late afternoon and sunlight flooded in through the main window. He noticed the lines around Bella's eyes. Lines of care and suffering.
They stood silently for a moment, neither holding the other's gaze as they shared the unbreakable bond of parenthood, and the constant fear it brings.
"I've cleared the spiders out of the bedroom, babe…oh." Skulls appeared in the doorway, took in the scene and turned to go.
"Hold on, Steve," Bella said, as the moment evaporated. "Come in. I'll fix us somecoffee. Sol's brought a kettle."
With obvious reluctance, Skulls came into the room and nodded at Solly. "Thanks. We appreciate your help."
Solly, who was similarly reluctant to hang around, put on a smile. "You can't have a home without a kettle."
"And you've brought a camping stove!" Bella said. "You are Mr. Wonderful today."
Solly shrugged. "It's my stove—it's just for a day or two. Gives you time to clean out the range and get it lit." He could sense Skulls grinding his teeth and began to suspect Bella was deliberately flattering him to aggravate the man. Perhaps they'd had a fight.
There was a bit of Solly—a tiny, childish bit he wasn't proud of—that liked the idea they weren't getting along. It wasn't because he wanted Bella for himself, though the sight of her on her hands and knees had brought back pleasant memories. Was it mere jealousy that her lover was alive and well when Solly was alone? What would have happened between them if Bella hadn't been in a relationship when they'd reunited? Solly was pretty certain he knew the answer to that.
Whichever way he looked at it, deriving pleasure from the thought that his ex-wife and her new lover were fighting was shameful and he resolved to rise above it.
"So, how's the cleanup going?" he asked, directing the question at Skulls, who reacted with surprise. Clearly, he'd also been brooding.
"Not bad. I've cleared the master bedroom and there's two other rooms up there. One's full of junk and the other looks like it had a kid in it thirty years ago. Should be ready for Al and Scott tomorrow. 'Course it'd go quicker if they'd help."
Bella chuckled. "Pop always was a lazy ass, and now he's found a new best buddy, I can barely get a word out of him."
"Hi, Dad," Maddie said as she wandered in from outside. She hugged Solly and balanced herself on his knee. It was painful but he wasn't going to admit that in front of Skulls. "Pop is asking when they can move their stuff across, Mom."
"Well, you can tell your grandfather that he can come over any time he likes. There's a shed out back for all his junk to go in."
"Once he's cleared all the trash in there," Skulls said.
The kettle began to whistle and Solly busied himself getting mugs out of one of the cupboards. "I'm still not comfortable with you being so far away," he said, looking at Bella.
"It's less than half a mile, Sol!" she said. "There's not enough room for us at the farmhouse. Everyone will breathe a little easier with us out of the way."
Solly said no more. It was a practical solution, except that this little riverside cottage was outside the roadblock and beyond Kuchinsky's camp. If trouble came from the direction of Hagerstown, they'd be first in the firing line.
And he was angry with Scott Lee. Granted, he had become more his old self since their meeting in his bedroom. The determination Ross had shown to fight back against the Corporation seemed to have freed him of the burden of decision. But when Lee had been introduced to Al, it had been love at first sight. The two of them had become the weirdest bromance you could imagine—the seventy-five-year-old Jewish former cop and his new best buddy, a thirty-something British computer programmer without, as far as Solly could tell, a religious bone in his body.
But since they'd met, they'd hardly parted. Solly could see why Lee would fascinate a tinkerer such as Al, but what the attraction was the other way he couldn't imagine. Maybe it was simply that the old man listened to his new friend. Perhaps it was companionship. Either way, they were working on something together and needed space away from prying eyes to do it. That had been the catalyst for moving into the old watermill.
There was also the Skulls factor. Solly could quite understand why Steve had felt uncomfortable at the farmhouse. Though he'd spent less than half the time since the Long Night at the place, the adoration the children had for him would make Skulls feel as though he was living in the home of his partner's former husband. He'd jumped at the chance to move to the Millhouse and had thrown himself into clearing it out and making it habitable. Solly found himself growing to like
the man, despite the complication that Bella represented, and his relationship with Maddie.
He looked up from his coffee and realized that Bella had been watching him.
"Penny for your thoughts?" she said.
"What? Oh, nothing." He looked down at his BonesWare. "Better get going. McBride will be calling in an hour."
Solly jettisoned his daughter and got to his feet. He gave her a quick hug and, as he reached the door, Bella embraced him. He lingered there for a moment, breathing in the scent of her hair, before pecking her on the cheek and leaving them.
As he reached the lane, he turned to see her standing in the doorway of her new home. He paused for a moment and then strode along the road back to his.
The back end of the barn had been converted into a meeting area by Kuchinsky's people, though it was pretty rustic. Straw bales had been arranged in a roughly rectangular shape around a military transceiver connected to a mast that had been erected on the slope above the farmhouse.
Solly sat down, balancing a metal plate of stew on his lap as he tried to finish his meal before the meeting began. Ross sat beside him. Colonel McBride had ordered them to limit the participants to the minimum, but there was no question of Ross being excluded, though Kuchinsky had only agreed if he didn't speak.
Kuchinsky was fussing over the equipment as Scott and Al came in and, with a nod at Solly, sat down opposite him. Lee still looked alarmingly thin, but he'd recovered much of his old energy and was fidgeting as he waited for the meeting to begin.
Bella was the last to arrive, appearing framed in the dark doorway. As she came inside, Solly could see Skulls head off to the farmhouse to wait. Just another small humiliation to pile on top of the others.
"This is Wilbur Station calling The Creek, if you're receiving, please commence handshake procedure."
Kuchinsky bent over the transceiver, consulting his notebook for the agreed encryption settings, before picking up the handset and responding. "Handshake confirmed. The Creek receiving."
Showdown: Book 6 in the Thrilling Post-Apocalyptic Survival series: (The Long Night - Book 6) Page 4