Sympatico Syndrome Trilogy Box Set

by McDonald, M. P.

  “What are they doing, Dad?”

  His dad laid on the horn even as he shook his head. After a good five second blast, he said, “I don’t know, but I sure as hell hope Sean is ready.” He pulled the SUV alongside the beach house—the makeshift barn—stopping with the vehicle driver’s side to the shore. “Get out. You can use the beach house to shield you almost all the way to the house.”

  “What about you?” Hunter drew the rifle inside, rolling the window up.

  “Give me my rifle. I’ll try to talk to them if I can. See what they want.”

  “I can’t leave you here alone!” He grabbed his dad’s hunting rifle from the backseat where he’d stashed it after loading it, and barrel down, leaned it against the center console.

  “I need you to fill them in on what’s going on.”

  “And what is going on? Do we even know?”

  His dad stared out the window. Three of the vehicles faced them, their headlights almost blinding. The other two flanked them, broadside to the island, their headlights shining east and west, respectively. “I have no clue, but I want you safe.”

  “I won’t be any safer up there. If anything, I can be more useful here. I can climb in the backseat and fire from that window if I have to.”

  His dad gave him a long look then finally nodded. “Be ready to take my spot. Keys are still in the ignition. Do what you have to do, Hunter.”

  Hunter stared at his father, confused. “What? Are you going in the back?”

  His dad tipped his chin to Hunter’s rifle. “Cover me.”

  Before he could object, his dad opened the door, left his own weapons on the driver’s seat, and arms raised, showed he was unarmed. His dad stepped away from the SUV and used his elbow to shut the door before Hunter could react and grab him. “Dad!”

  Cole spread his arms wide. “I’m not armed! I just want to talk!” His voice was snatched by the wind and absorbed by the snow. There was no movement from anyone in the caravan. Had they heard him?

  He braced for the impact of the bullet he expected at any second. Why had he impulsively jumped out of the car? His thought at the time had been to assess the situation. In Africa he had gone deep into the forests to look for victims of Ebola, and the first thing he had to do was establish trust with the villagers he met. That meant going slow and not showing fear. He licked his lips and processed the odd combination of dry mouth, shivering, and sweating at the same time. He waited a moment, his heart felt as though it was knocking against his ribs.

  He heard Hunter slide the window down behind him and the bump of metal hitting something. The rifle? He could only guess, not daring to turn to look.

  When there was no response from anyone in the cars, he started walking towards the group. Behind him, he heard yelling and recognized Sean’s voice, but he couldn’t make out what his brother said. Buddy barked and Cole prayed they had him secured. He didn’t trust the strangers. They’d already shot at Hunter and Princess. He didn’t doubt they’d shoot a dog.

  He counted the paces in his head and had a fleeting image of playing Mother May I as a child. At ten steps, a rifle sounded and he stopped, flinching. With sound muffled, he wasn’t certain where the rifle shot had come from. If it had been Hunter, he was sure it would have sounded louder, but it could have come from the caravan or the island. He had no way of knowing.

  Cole sucked in a deep breath and shouted again, “What do you want?” He considered bluffing and saying he had a hundred armed men on the island, but bit back the threat. It wouldn’t do any good at this stage.

  Finally, the door of the middle vehicle opened. A man dressed in camouflage but with a bright orange knit cap stepped out. Didn’t he realize the cap stood out against the white backdrop? Sean could pick him off from the island if he wanted but Cole hoped he’d hold his fire. For now.

  The man cupped his hands around his mouth. “Who are you?”

  Cole narrowed his eyes. “Who wants to know?” Damned if he’d give information first. They were the interlopers whose presence threatened his family.

  “Look, man,” the guy stepped towards Cole, burying his hands in his pockets, shoulders hunched. Was he hiding something or was his posture an attempt to stay warm?

  “Hold it!” Cole took a stride and made a stop motion. “Show me your hands!”

  The man halted, clearly startled. “Whoa!” He withdrew his hands, spreading his fingers before he cupped his mouth again. “We’re from north of here about seventy miles. We were on our way south, and saw your fire. We haven’t seen anyone alive for… well, since they all died. We thought we were the last people left on earth. I’m glad we’re not, hey?” The man flashed a grin.

  Was he offering too much information? Cole felt hampered by the twenty feet that now separated them. He couldn’t get a read on the stranger. He needed to see his eyes up close. Cole gestured to his pocket. “I’m just going to take out a mask. If you have one, I suggest you do so as well.”

  The guy shrugged. “We ran out of them last summer, but we haven’t seen anybody since then anyway.”

  Cole closed half the distance to the man and made a beckoning gesture. “Come closer so we don’t have to shout.” He looped the mask over his nose and mouth. The other guy could go without if he wanted, but Cole wasn’t taking a chance.

  Glancing at his car and then over to the other vehicles, the guy made a subtle motion that looked to Cole like he was telling them to stay back even as he moved towards Cole. “Look, man, we were just curious. We saw the fire—”

  “What fire?” Had there been another fire on the island while he was gone? He was certain Hunter would have told him.

  “The one on the beach over there on the northwest side. It was blazing half the day. We didn’t know whether to check it out or not, but we couldn’t pass up the chance.”

  “The chance for what?” Up close, Cole saw the man was younger than himself, but older than Hunter. Probably right around thirty or so. His blue eyes and strands of blonde hair peeking out beneath his cap fit with the heavily Scandinavian ethnicity from the upper part of the state.

  The guy tilted his head, his expression puzzled. “To see if there were other people left alive. Jeez, man. We thought the whole world was dead.”

  “You really thought you were the only people left alive?”

  “Hell, yeah! Didn’t you?”

  “No. We’ve seen others.” Cole resisted the urge to rub his shoulder. The wound had healed well, but when he overused it, as he had the last few days, it ached.

  “Wow, really? That’s awesome!”

  “Yes, we really did, and no, it wasn’t awesome. People have changed.” Was the guy really this naïve, or was he trying to lull Cole into a false sense of security?

  The man nodded, his demeanor becoming somber. “Yeah, we saw people fighting and killing each other over supplies back when the virus first hit, but me and my buddies bugged out to our hunting trailers. We have property on the edge of Nicolet National Forest. We hung out, hunted, fished, and drank.”

  “Why did you leave?”

  The man paused, eyed Cole and then threw a glance over his shoulder at the caravan. “We ran out of beer and we’re almost out of gas. We found some liquor, and siphoned gas, but since there’s not much in the way of stores or houses up there we decided if everyone in the world was dead, we might as well head down south. Maybe Texas or Arizona. Some place warm.” He shrugged.

  Cole shivered as a blast of wind hit. Standing out on the lake wasn’t the best place to have a conversation, but he still didn’t trust the newcomers. It felt as though the man was hiding something. His answer didn’t seem complete. “What did you hope to find on my island? And why did you shoot at one of our men on horseback just a little while ago?”

  The man drew back. “Your island?”

  He gave the man a hard look. “Yes. My island.”

  “We didn’t know someone was on the horse. We saw meat. That’s all. And as for your island,” he made air
quotes, “some of us guys were hoping to find other people. We hadn’t seen anyone else for months, and we thought it would be cool to, oh, I don’t know—maybe talk to another living soul. Crazy, right? But a man can go crazy being holed up with the same people for months on end, especially without women around. We only have a couple in our group. And we also hoped to find—”

  “Whatever you’re looking for, you won’t find it on the island.” Cole cut him off as his instinct to protect his family kicked in. They didn’t have enough to share and had to protect what they had. Their lives depended upon it. “I don’t know what you’re hoping and I don’t really care. Keep moving.”

  The guy’s jaw tightened as he looked at Cole and then cast a glance at the island. “Really?” His eyebrow arched with skepticism. “I think you’re bullshitting me. I bet you have plenty of food and gas, but just don’t want to share.”

  “Keep moving.”

  “I don’t know, man. You’re hiding something.” He cast a speculative look over Cole’s shoulder towards the island and Cole prayed everyone was out of sight. “You know, there are more of us than there are of you—at least from what I can see.”

  The implied threat was not lost on Cole and he stepped forward. “Leave.” He detected movement in his periphery vision, and glanced to see a door on the nearest truck open. The long barrel of a rifle rested in the V created between the door and the frame. He returned his focus to the man. “I don’t want this to get messy. Enough people have died, don’t you think?”

  The man glanced at the truck, but didn’t signal the person with the rifle. Cole didn’t know if that was bad or good. Sweat trickled down his neck, chilling him when it met the frigid air.

  “Listen, dude, we don’t give a shit how many died—as long as we aren’t the ones dying.” The guy gestured towards the island. “In fact, the more who die, the more for us. We could kill all of you and take everything. In fact, we could probably kill you and whoever is in the car right now, and storm the island—taking whatever we want and nobody could stop us.”

  This kind of thinking went against everything Cole had worked his whole career towards. He forgot about his fear, he forgot about how cold he was, and he forgot about the men in the trucks behind the guy. He closed the short distance between him and the man until he stood only inches away.

  “No, you listen, dude, you may not give a fuck, but someone has to, for your children’s sake if not for your own. Humans—you know—our species—are teetering on the brink of extinction. It’s not going to take much to push it over the edge. A few droughts, floods or hurricanes—pretty much any natural disaster—would be like a foot planted in the ass of humanity, kicking us over the edge.”

  The man’s eyes opened wide but whether it was at Cole’s words or his manner that caused the reaction, Cole couldn’t tell and he didn’t give a damn as he continued, “I don’t give two shits about you personally, but if you ever find women and have children— and I honestly hope to God you do—your children and grandchildren will be inheriting a world that’s been hurtled back to prehistoric times.”

  “Prehistoric? Like… dinosaurs?”

  Cole stared for a moment and then dropped his gaze to the ground, shaking his head. His feet disappeared below the knee, buried in snow and his toes were beyond feeling the cold. He tried to wiggle them just to take his mind off the stupidity of the man’s question. Maybe he’d been joking? Or mocking? He wanted to give him the benefit of the doubt. Mankind was doomed but he couldn’t give up so easily. These men had skills to offer—he just didn’t yet know what they were.

  He pulled back his anger. Chances were this guy had probably been a decent person before the virus. After all, they could have shot Cole on sight, but they hadn’t. “Listen—what’s your name again?”

  The man hesitated, but finally answered, “I didn’t say, but it’s Steve.”

  Cole put out a gloved hand. “Good to meet you, Steve. I’m Cole.” He hoped the man wasn’t too far gone to respond to habitual courtesy, and to his relief, the guy clasped Cole’s hand.

  “How’s it going, Cole?”

  “Steve, I need your help. And you need mine. We all have to work to preserve as much knowledge as we can.” Cole swept a hand towards the caravan. “Because all of these are going to fail soon without gasoline. Those guns you have to help you hunt? How many generations are going to be able to use those when the bullets are gone? What good is money? Would you take a twenty dollar bill for five pounds of venison?”

  “No way!” Steve stepped back, arms flailing as he almost lost his balance on the snow-covered ice.

  “You see my point? We need every person who is still alive to keep on living as long as possible. It’s up to us to pass on our knowledge so the human race doesn’t fall back to the Stone Age.”

  29

  Steve looked at Cole, then at the island before he abruptly turned and retreated to his vehicle. Cole stood for a moment, wondering if he should follow him, but heard tires crunch over snow and ice, and turning, found Hunter easing up beside him.

  “Get in, Dad. Before you freeze to death.”

  Hunter had the car’s heater blasting on high and the heat enveloped him. It felt wonderful. He hadn’t felt warm since he left on his hunting trip.

  “So, what’s going on? Do I drive the car up on the island?”

  “Yes. Park on the beach for now.” Cole removed his gloves and flexed his fingers in front of the heat vent. “Ah… ”

  “What about those guys? I saw you shake that man’s hand. Does that mean everything’s okay?”

  “I don’t know. I hope so. He went back to his car without saying. His name is Steve.”

  “He told you his name? That has to be a good sign, right?”

  Cole shrugged. “Maybe. I didn’t get a crazy killer vibe from him, but who knows?”

  Hunter drove towards the island as Cole watched the vehicles on the ice behind him in his side view mirror. The vehicle Steve had climbed into started following Cole’s SUV. “It looks like they still have something to say.”

  Hunter drove up beside the makeshift stable. “There’s Princess!”

  Cole took his eyes off the mirror and spotted the mare at the door to the stable. “I told you.”

  With the car in park, Hunter turned to Cole. “What do you want me to do?”

  “I think it’ll be okay if you take the horse in and see to her.”

  Hunter glanced in the rearview mirror, his eyes narrowed. “Those guys shot at me. I don’t think I trust them.”

  “I don’t trust them much either, but he claimed they didn’t know a person was on the horse. I don’t even know if they knew Princess was a horse. I think some of them have been drinking.” He thought of the liquor they’d found. He wouldn’t be surprised if Steve had been drunk too, now that he considered it. Maybe he was brighter than he’d seemed.

  “They’re coming up beside you, Dad.” There was a note of apprehension in Hunter’s voice.

  The hairs on the back of his neck prickled and he said, in a low voice, “Be ready to gun it in reverse.” Cole rolled his window down halfway as the other car drove up.

  Steve had his window down as well. “Cole, we’re gonna be on our way, but you made me think.”

  Cole raised an eyebrow and waited.

  “We’ve all been acting like we’re on one big old hunting trip—at least—that’s how we’ve been acting to each other, but it’s been bothering me. I didn’t think we had a chance of rebuilding, so why not just party until we die, right?”

  Assuming the question was rhetorical, Cole remained silent.

  “But I guess that means we might as well have died with all the rest.” He motioned to the guy in the passenger seat. “This is my cousin, Adam. He might not look it, but he’s real smart.”

  Adam shared his cousin’s blond hair, but he looked younger. He nodded to Cole. “I was a programmer before. Not much good that’ll do me now.”

  “You solved problems, r
ight? In your line of work?”

  Adam shrugged. “Sure. I guess. I found bugs in the software and worked to fix them.”

  “That’s exactly the kind of mind that will be needed.” Cole smiled. “You guys will do all right.”

  Steve nodded, but glanced at one of the other cars, his expression worried. “The real reason we headed to your island was we hoped to find some help. You guys got a doctor with you?”

  “What’s wrong?” Shit! What if they had the virus? He felt around his neck and tugged his mask up. He’d dropped it when he’d entered the car. Hunter wasn’t wearing one at all.

  Steve interpreted Cole’s worry correctly. “No, dude. Nothing like that. It’s my buddy, Mike. He sliced his hand a few weeks ago when we were butchering a deer and now it’s infected. He’s the main reason we left the forest. We wanted to find something to help, but none of us are doctors. The only thing that took his pain away was the alcohol. We saw the bonfire, and it was the first sign of living people we’ve seen since leaving our cabins.”

  Cole searched Steve’s face looking for signs of deception and seeing none. He looked worried but also hopeful. He sighed. “We have a nurse, but I can’t promise she’ll want to risk treating your friend. I know a little bit though, and have some medication that might help.” He glanced back at the other cars which had inched closer towards the island. “We don’t have room for all of you, but you and the injured guy can stay in the third cabin. It has a stove to keep it warm and I trust you have your own blankets and things.”

  “What about the rest of the guys?”

  “There’s a whole town two miles up the bay. You must have seen it when you circled around it. Pick a house and bed down for the night.”

  “Sounds good. I’ll be back with Mike in a little bit.”

  “Cole, what the hell is going on?” Sean rushed up to the car as Steve drove off, beeped some kind of signal to the others, and as a group, they headed back to the mainland. Cole breathed a sigh of relief.