Elly sighed, afraid to voice the same fear as if acknowledging the fear would make it come true. Instead, she reached around Jake for the map, sat down and spread it across her lap. “We should reach the other side of the bay in a few hours, right?”
He nodded. “I think so. The island should be a little south of where the channel opens up.”
Elly stood. She couldn’t see across the bay yet, but they still had a few miles before they reached the end of the channel. Her stomach twisted with a combination of anticipation, excitement, and apprehension.
Hunter awoke early and checked on the horses. He breathed a sigh of relief that the swelling was down on Princess’s leg but worried it would come back. She still favored it a little, and that was without carrying a burden. What they needed was a horse trailer and a truck. He stroked the mare and checked to make sure they still had enough water.
Chances of eventually finding both a truck and trailer were good as there were farms all around this area, but they could zig zag across the county stopping at random farms without finding one. He wondered if there was a riding stable nearby.
To his left was a good-sized hill. He glanced back at the camp site wondering if he should let Sophie know where he was going, but decided against it. She’d been sleeping soundly when he’d left. They had a long day ahead of them.
He hopped the fence and jogged to the base of the hill, climbing it in a few minutes. The view was even better than he’d hoped. Below lay a beautiful green valley stretching for miles east. Roads crossed the land breaking it into roughly rectangular sections, and at least every third section had a farm. If they followed the road going due east, they would pass at least five farms, three on the north side of the road and two on the south. Compared to other roads, the one heading east didn’t have too many wrecks, although he saw a few dotting the roadway, there looked to be room on pass them without going too close. The shoulder of the road would be easy on the horses too.
When he returned to the campsite, he found Sophie had built a small fire and was stirring a pot of oatmeal.
“I thought this would be a good way to use up the strawberries before they get soft and mushy.”
“That sounds great and smells even better.” He put aside his misgivings about the strawberries. There were so many chances to get the virus, other than taking sensible precautions, they couldn’t let fear rule all their decisions. He rolled their bedding into a neat bedroll and gathered up everything that Sophie wasn’t using, packing it away. They’d be ready to go as soon as they were done eating.
By mid-morning, they had passed eight farms, and the hill he had scouted from was well out of sight behind them. Sophie rode Princess but had packed almost all the gear on Red to lighten the mare’s load.
So far, they hadn’t found any trailers, but they had found another strawberry patch and had picked a quarter bucketful and had found another farm with a hand pump that worked. They let the horses drink while they picked the strawberries. A few chickens clucked around that farm and at first, Hunter had held out hope that someone was alive at the farm, but the house had the familiar smell, although not as strong as others. Either the bodies had been dead so long that they were mostly decomposed, or they were still somewhat fresh. Either way, neither of them wanted to explore the house to find out and stuck to the outbuildings. Whoever lived here had freed their animals before succumbing, and Hunter had new respect for the deceased owners of the farm.
Hunter pumped more water to wash the sticky juice from his hands and splashed his face while he was at it.
“Hey, look!”
He swiped his face on his shoulder, he reached for the gun he’d taken from Sophie’s attacker, his hand resting on the handle as he spun.
Sophie stared at him for a second before shaking her head. “Down boy, I was talking about them.”
He followed where she pointed and saw two goats. They approached the trough, and one butted Hunter’s thigh, not the least bit shy with him.
Laughing, he reached down and ran his hand over the coarse coat. “Are you thirsty? I can pump some for you too.” The trough was too high for them, but Hunter spied a battered metal bucket in the weeds by the back door of the farmhouse. He jogged to it, trailed by the goats, and returned to the pump, filling the bucket. Both animals dipped their heads in at the same time although only one could fit. “Hey there, I’ll pump enough for both of you.”
Sophie laughed and took the shoulders of one of the goats and pulled him away. After a minute, Hunter did the same with the other goat while Sophie released hers to get his turn.
“They’re so cute!”
“Yeah, but we can’t keep them.” Hunter felt as if he was channeling his father.
“I wasn’t going to ask, but why not?” She shot him a petulant look.
“I don’t think they can keep up with the horses.”
“Maybe they can, maybe they can’t, but look how skinny they are.”
Hunter looked and shrugged. While not robust, he couldn’t see their ribs. They seemed okay to him. “I’m going to check out the barn over there.” The driveway led straight to it, and he hoped it doubled as a garage. Braced for disappointment, he stood back in shock when he found a large silver pickup truck. He ran to the back. And it had a trailer hitch. Perfect. Keys. He glanced at the house. It would be worth it to risk going inside if he could get the keys. They had to be here somewhere.
Leaving the doors open, he jogged back to Sophie. “There’s a truck, a good one. But I need to go inside to look for keys.”
She glanced at the house, then to the barn, her lips pursed to the side as though weighing the risk. “Okay, but be careful.”
“I will. I’ve done it before at the first farm I was at.” He ran to Red and dug a mask and gloves out of his pack. “I’m going to try not to touch anything except keys if I can find them.”
Hunter braced for what he’d see inside the home. He tried the doorknob, but it was locked. He grabbed a stone lining the flower bed and broke one of the small square panes. He worried about putting a hole in his glove so he turned to Sophie, “Can you grab that towel out of the pack—the one you gathered the strawberries in.”
She nodded and raced across the yard to where the horses were hitched and found the towel. Before he could take the towel, she elbowed him out of the way. “Let me. If you slice your gloves without knowing it, you could get sick.” She shook out the towel, folded it, and set it inside the window frame, then made a motion to say it was all his now.
He nodded, and reached inside, found the deadbolt and gave it a twist. The lock on the doorknob was still engaged, and he leaned on it, just able to grab it and give it a twist. The door opened. It had been easier than he expected and even though he knew the people inside were dead, he felt guilty for breaking into their house.
The kitchen was neat. Much neater than he expected. He paused. Maybe the owners weren’t dead. What if they had just abandoned their home to escape their virus, just like his dad had done? What if someone was breaking into their home right now?
The counters were clear, and he looked beside the door to see if there was a key hook, but there was nothing. Just a plaque that said, “This Home is Built on Love and Shenanigans.”
Hunter closed his eyes briefly. He hadn’t been raised to be particularly religious, but if he knew a prayer, he’d say one for this family. Drawing a deep breath, he moved into the dining room. A layer of dust coated the dark table. It felt wrong, like the dust shouldn’t be there and he would bet anything that it never had been before.
The well-kept home made it easy to search for the keys, but making his way through the first floor, he came up empty. Hunter stood at the base of the stairs, willing himself to climb to the second floor. The smell of death became stronger with each step, and he stopped on the landing. Dread flooded him, but he took the rest of the steps quickly, just to get it over with.
He opened the first door on his left. It had a single bed tucked under the
eaves. Monster truck posters decorated the walls, and a few dusty football trophies stood on the dresser. A red and blue tassel hung from the arm of one of the little plastic football players on top of a trophy. The bed was made, and the room empty. He guessed the usual occupant of the room was away college. Or had been.
The next room was white, with a yellow canopy over the bed that billowed when he opened the door. This room was also empty, the owner of the room probably a teenage girl from all the makeup littering the dresser.
Two more rooms to go. He stepped across the hall and found a plain room. Clean, but no personality. Probably a guest room. That left one more, and as he opened the door, the stench almost knocked him out. He found the family. They were all in the room. Three were laid out neatly on the bed, their hands clasped as though they had died taking a nap on the sofa. Except for the holes in their foreheads, they might have been.
The prescription bottles on the dresser told the story. Sleeping pills. The other bottle had pain killers.
The fourth body was sprawled on the floor, a dark stain beneath the head. The wall opposite the bed had a matching stain sprayed across it. It appeared the family had chosen to take their own lives, with the husband and father making sure they all went painlessly, while he died last, at his own hand. The gun lay beside the body.
He started to back out when a glint of metal caught his eye. There, on the night table on the far side, was a set of keys. Shit. He picked his way around the father and grabbed the keys.
Sprinting from the room, he flew down the stairs, gorge rising in his throat. He tried to swallow it, knowing he couldn’t take his mask off inside the house.
Hunter burst through the door onto the porch, tore his glove off and was about to reach for his mask when Sophie stopped him. “Wait!” She squirted hand sanitizer into his palm, rubbing it all around with her glove clad hands.
The scent of alcohol when he ripped his mask off made the nausea he’d tried to hold back impossible to contain. He turned away from Sophie and retched until his stomach was empty and sore.
While he stood bent, waiting for the dry heaves to stop, Sophie took his other hand and repeated the process of sanitizing it, taking the keys he held and dropping them onto the grass.
She gave him a water bottle. “Rinse, and then just take small sips.”
He followed her suggestions and felt better in a few minutes. “Sorry.”
“It’s okay.” She retrieved the keys and doused them in hand sanitizer.
If the keys hadn’t been for the truck, Hunter didn’t know what they would do. He didn’t think he could go through something like that at another house, but the keys worked, and even better, the truck had almost a full tank. The cab had a second seat, and they piled the gear inside. “We’ll go to a few more farms near here and see if we can find a trailer. If we can’t, we have to go.”
Sophie looked out the window at the horses, now unsaddled and grazing in a small paddock. “We have to come back and free them first.”
Hunter agreed. He couldn’t let them die of thirst.
Their luck stayed with them, and the second farm down had a small horse trailer. Hunter and Sophie had to take a few minutes to figure out how to hitch it to the truck, but once they did, they laughed and gave each other a high five.
It was already noon by the time they arrived back at the farm and managed to get the horses into the trailer. Hunter checked the empty barn and found several bales of hay. There were only three bales and a few sacks of sawdust. He grabbed the bags along with the hay. They could use the sawdust if they found a stable for the horses.
The farmer must have been running low on hay or maybe they had set it out for the horses they had freed. He felt like he knew the family and that they probably would have done that. These bales were tucked way in the back of the loft.
Red and Princess must have been in a trailer before because they didn’t balk when Hunter led them in to the trailer. He got them settled and lifted the gate, unable to believe they could be at the island by evening.
As they drove down the winding drive, the goats raced alongside them, and Hunter stopped. “I’ll be right back.”
He didn’t know if they would stay in the truck, but he threw one of his blankets in the area between the bales and spread it over the bed. He hoped they didn’t eat all the hay, but then shrugged. If they did, they did. It wasn’t enough to last the horses anyway.
Sophie came out to see what he was doing. She grinned and coaxed the goats into the bed.
Hunter closed the tailgate. “What if they jump out?”
“We can’t help it if they do, but I think they’re smarter than that.”
27
Cole lay in bed. When he remembered what day it was, he didn’t want to get up. Every morning, his first thought was of Hunter and where he might be. Part of him clung to hope, but the other part, the realistic part, knew chances were slim. Every day, the realistic side took another bite from the hopeful side, and now, there was just a tiny crumb left. When that was gone, what would be his reason to get up in the morning?
“Cole?”
He rolled his head. Sean. Draping his arm across his eyes, he wished he could pretend he was still asleep. It would delay the stab of guilt he felt when he looked at his brother. “Yeah?”
“I know you wanted to have the… the funeral first thing, but I wondered if we could do it this evening instead?”
Cole sat and swung his feet off the bed. “We can do it whenever you like. I only said morning because I thought that would be easiest for your family, but it’s your decision.” He stood and drew on the t-shirt he’d draped over the chair in the room. He’d planned to take a swim this morning to get clean for the funeral, but now he’d swim later.
Sean leaned against the doorjamb and nodded. “Okay, then later this evening. Jenna wants to bake a cake, and we’re not sure how it’ll turn out using the grill as an oven.”
“How can she make a cake without eggs?” Cole hoped to venture onshore and see if they could round up any chickens. While they had some powdered milk, he hadn’t thought to get powdered eggs. It was surprising how many dishes required them.
“We had a couple of cans of soda in the car. They must have rolled out during a grocery run sometime. Anyway, Jenna knows a recipe that uses soda instead of eggs.”
“Interesting.” When Sean remained in the threshold with the silence growing awkward, he asked the first thing that came to his mind, just to break the silence. “What kind of cake?”
“Chocolate. It was Trent’s favorite.”
“Hunter loved… loves chocolate, too.” He stumbled over the tense and Sean picked up on it.
“Cole, I didn’t know how to bring this up, but Jenna thought it might do you good if you laid Hunter to rest today, too.”
His gut reaction was anger. “No!” His hands clenched and his jaw tightened.
“Think about it, Cole. I know it’s hard—God knows, I know—but I’ve been watching you. You’re working yourself to death around here. We have enough wood stacked to last two winters.”
“No—” Sean exaggerated. Besides, they needed as much as possible to get through the winter for heating and cooking.
“Yes! We do. Joe even said so, and he knows more about that. He lived in a little cabin up north for a few years. Anyway, that’s not my point. You’re trying to keep your mind from worrying about Hunter and, as much as it hurts, admitting he’s not coming. He tried his best, but the world went crazy. Accepting it can help you move on.”
“Move on? To what? What do I have to move on to, Sean?” Cole’s voice sounded strangled even to his own ears. “I have no wife and if I give up on Hunter, no child.” He waved towards the mainland. “And with no hope of ever having either again. What’s the point?”
“The point is, we need you, Cole. I need you, and I’m going to need you a whole helluva lot more after today. I still have a daughter to protect and a wife. I can’t let anything happen to them, bu
t I’m not sure I can protect them all by myself.”
Cole tried to hang on to the anger because as long as he had that, he could hang on to hope too.
“Piper is like a daughter to you. You’ve said that before.”
Cole nodded, his throat working, but no sound came out when he tried to acknowledge Sean’s point. He loved Piper, but that didn’t mean he had to give up on his son. He wouldn’t do it. He straightened and drew a deep breath. “I can’t give up on Hunter. I may never give up unless I see his body, but I’ll be okay. I promise to be here for you and your family. They’re my family too.”
Sean sighed. “I understand. I’d feel the same if there was any way I could deny Trent’s death.”
He had to bite his tongue to hold back and insist it wasn’t denial. Today wasn’t the day to have this conversation.
“Are you sure this is the place?” Sophie leaned against the passenger door, her arms crossed. “Nobody’s here.”
Hunter shook his head. “Hell no, I’m not sure, but why would anyone be here? They’ll be on the island.”
“Where’s the island, and how do we get there?”
Kicking a rock, he watched it bounce down to the pier and drop into the river. “I thought there’d be a boat or something.”
“How do we get the animals onto a boat?”
“I don’t know! I didn’t expect to be here with horses and goats.” He turned to scan the area, hoping for a solution, but instead, he spotted his dad’s vehicle. “Look! There’s his car.” He jogged over to it, feeling vindicated.
Sophie followed him and spied the note before he did. She opened the door and handed it over to him.
“He says that they’ll be checking the docks every morning.”
“But it’s afternoon now.”
“Yeah. I guess we’ll have to camp out one more night.” He tried to swallow the disappointment. He’d been so sure he’d see his dad tonight. “It’ll give us time to find a place for the animals. One of these garages might work as a temporary stable. Let’s look around.”
Sympatico Syndrome Trilogy Box Set Page 25