“Howdy,” Lucy said, keeping her distance.
“Lucy,” she said, nodding her head. She paid Jack little attention; the woman was not a fan of her brother. “What brings you by on this rainy day?”
“We need some meds for a possible Covid case,” she said. “Julienne around?”
“She’s in her office,” Vikki replied, taking a step backward.
There was little risk of coronavirus transmission outdoors and at a distance, but Lucy did not want to poison the well.
“Wait here.”
Vikki signaled to someone inside the gate; she relayed the message to a courier who scampered off to find Julienne. As they waited, Lucy and Jack dismounted and led the animals to a small creek running parallel to the road. The horses set to drinking, rehydrating after the long journey. Lucy soothed herself by stroking Pancake’s mane. He was a good horse; the stress of the morning drained away, if only briefly.
It had been a while since she’d worn the mask in public; it was uncomfortable and itchy, but they had proven to be quite effective in slowing down the virus during the pandemic.
Julienne did not keep them waiting long. Lucy recognized her footfalls on the gravel road feeding onto the campus from the main road. Accompanying Julienne was Marie-Anne Clarke, her second-in-command. Julienne was a formidable woman; she ran the Falls with an iron fist. She was in her sixties now; her eyes were a bright sky blue, the centerpiece of a fair face that had begun to show its age.
“Y’all must be in a bad way with bags that heavy,” she said. She had a lilting southern accent; her family was old Richmond, which was a fancy way of saying her ancestors owned slaves once upon a time.
“Need some medicine,” Lucy said. She didn’t need to say which one.
Julienne shook her head and scoffed.
“That cursed virus,” Julienne said. “Every time I think we’ve stamped it out, it comes back.”
“You don’t have to tell me.”
“Are you sure it’s corona?”
“The symptoms suggest it is,” Lucy replied. “Obviously, without testing, we’re flying blind.”
“Hmm.”
She turned her attention to Jack.
“You’re awful quiet today, cowboy.”
Lucy smiled behind the mask. Julienne was in a good mood. Okay, maybe not good, but better than usual.
“Oh, Julienne, your beauty just leaves me speechless.”
Julienne blushed, her cheeks reddening sharply against the white habit framing her face. Lucy had to bite her lip to keep from laughing; she could only imagine the penance Julienne would be seeking during her daily prayers after they’d left.
“We’re looking for fifteen doses,” she said. “We’ve got plenty of meat and produce to trade.”
Julienne coughed sharply and looked back at Lucy.
“Sorry, Lucy,” she said. “None to spare today.”
Lucy’s stomach flipped.
This was unexpected. The Falls was well known throughout the region for its deep repository of medicines; Julienne was one of the primary producers and suppliers of nightcress, an herbal medication that had proven very effective in managing the disease. And Julienne was always looking to deal.
“Nothing?” Lucy said. “Julienne, I’ve got a possible outbreak on my hands.”
“I wish I could help you,” Julienne said, her voice tight and low. “Believe me, if I had it to trade, I would.”
A ripple of fear flashed across Julienne’s face. It was quick, gone as soon as it had appeared, but it was there.
“Come on,” Jack said. “It’s us. You’re a fair woman.”
“I really wish I could help,” she said, patting a hand to her chest. “I’m afraid today is not your lucky day.”
She turned to leave; Lucy reached out and grabbed her by the elbow, a violation of social distancing etiquette. The former nun glanced over her shoulder, her face blank as stone. Whatever she was afraid of she feared more than coronavirus.
“Have we done something wrong?”
“It’s not that,” Julienne replied.
“Then what?”
Julienne wrenched her elbow free and turned toward Marie-Anne.
“Have a safe trip home.”
The women left Lucy and Jack standing alone at the entrance to the Falls.
3
The exchange with Julienne left Lucy filled with unease as they made their way back home. That was not the Julienne she was used to dealing with. Her tone, her demeanor, it was all very unlike the woman she’d come to know. And Lucy did not know what was driving it. Perhaps they were entering a new phase of this post-Pulse world, a world where scarce resources had become scarcer still.
It wasn’t like things had been easy in the five years since that terrible day in May. Even after forming their collective, it had been a struggle. There had been long days and nights with not enough food to go around. Nights they had lain down with empty, rumbling bellies, determined to make their winter stash last a bit longer. The toughest stretch was from the New Year through mid-March, when they had all but exhausted the fruits of their summer canning. When they were eating moldy onions and mealy potatoes lousy with sprouts.
But they were alive. They had figured out how to stay that way. Those who had not adapted had perished, she was sorry to say. And the loss of life had been catastrophic, almost unimaginable. Although the true casualty toll would never be known, Lucy would not be surprised if it were north of one hundred million in the United States alone. Worldwide, assuming the effects of the Pulse had been global, and that was something they still did not know, it would be in the billions.
Staying alive was a full-time job, and it required all their guile, their intelligence, their hard work. A life of barter and isolation had become their new status quo. But maybe the status quo was changing again.
Jack, who had taken the point, snapped his fingers twice and pulled back on his horse’s reins, breaking Lucy out of her rumination on the failed trade with the Falls. The finger snap was used to signal the presence of possible danger. They were still about eight miles from home. Off to the left was a faded billboard advertising a distributor of recreational vehicles. The road curled west here before beginning turning north toward Promise.
Blocking the road ahead was a horse-drawn wagon, flanked by two men on horseback. Lucy’s heart began to race, but she did not panic; this was not her first rodeo with highwaymen. Jack would be calm as well. He feared nothing and no one. It was a good attribute to have in an older brother hellbent on keeping you safe.
Lucy drew up abreast of Jack, and together, they stared down the three strangers. Although they were too far away to get a good look at the men, she did not recognize the wagon. She wondered where they had come from; Promise was not far from a number of trading routes that had evolved in the intervening years.
Crossing paths with other travelers was not an uncommon occurrence. These encounters usually passed uneventfully. People normally kept to themselves on the road, exchanging simple pleasantries. It was a big thing these days, telling a stranger that you meant them no harm. But Lucy’s alarm was blaring right now. As though these men had been waiting on them. She couldn’t shake the nagging feeling that they were in for a fight. If these men had meant to pass by, they would have fallen into a single line. These three had blocked the road intentionally.
It was a hell of a thing, facing your own mortality on a regular basis. Every trip beyond the borders of Promise was fraught with danger. There was always the possibility that you would not make it back alive. It was just how it was.
They’d lost a few folks over the years at Promise; folks who’d left for the Market or on a day trip and had never made it back. The one that still chilled Lucy to her core was the murder of a young woman named Abby. A marathoner before the Pulse, she had gone for a long run one chilly winter morning. When she didn’t return that afternoon, Lucy and Chris Dobson had gone looking for her. A cluster of vultures circling a meadow about
ten miles away from Promise led them to the grisly find—the poor woman’s head at the base of an old oak tree. They had never found her body, much less the person responsible.
“Y’all blocking the road,” Jack called out.
In the immense silence, his voice carried, echoing off the asphalt, bouncing off the trees lining the road.
“Ain’t you the observant one?” called out the man in the middle, presumably the leader of this merry band. His voice was deep and flat, no accent that Lucy could detect. He was white, his features ruddy and weathered, almost Nordic. A thin layer of straw-blonde hair covered his head.
“We don’t want any trouble,” Jack said. “Just passing through.”
Jack liked playing it soft. Playing possum. Let the others think that he would be quick to roll over. Lull a potential attacker into a false sense of security.
“Well, it’s gonna cost you today,” the man said. “Think of it as a toll.”
Jack cut his eyes to Lucy. He had no intention of paying any toll to these men. The trio approached slowly, the two flankers leveling their weapons at Jack and Lucy. The one on the left was tall and thin. His teeth were extremely white, which was unusual these days. He looked like a lawyer or a banker. The third member of the crew was African American, heavier set.
“How much is the toll?” Jack asked.
“How much you got?”
“Well, that doesn’t seem very fair,” Jack replied.
As Jack engaged the group, Lucy reached inside her denim jacket and rested her hand on the butt of her gun. Many firearms were still functioning in the aftermath of the Pulse, particularly older ones. Newer weapons, especially heavier armaments that relied on advanced circuitry, however, had been rendered useless. Lucy was careful to keep her movements concealed behind her horse’s large head. She had always been a quick draw and had become more so over the years; she spent time each day working on her draw, honing it until it was a single flash of movement. Her weapon could go from safely holstered to being open for business in less than a second.
“Who said anything about fair?” the man replied. “These here times are anything but fair as I’m sure you’ve noticed.”
Lucy was ready to fire, but she held back for the moment. It was still two versus three, and it was unlikely she could pick off all three before taking return fire. She needed more time to find an advantage to exploit. The three men had drawn within thirty yards. The leader was about Lucy’s age. He looked relatively healthy; his face was full, and his eyes were bright. His comrades looked equally robust. These were not men who went hungry.
“Trust me,” the Nordic man said. “It’s in your best interest to cooperate today.”
“Why is that?” Jack asked.
“The winds of change are blowing,” the man said.
“Meaning what?”
“Let’s just say this area is under new management.”
Jack fell silent as Lucy continued to assess the situation. If these men had wanted to kill them, they easily could have ambushed them in the curve in the road. Which meant there was a longer game at play here. This was more than a quick hijacking; their assailants would be interested in the source. So these weren’t your ordinary smash-and-grab highwaymen. Maybe not the brains behind the operation, but a step up from your basic street mugger. That said, they weren’t terribly bright. Their first priority should have been to disarm their prey. Perhaps they had gotten lazy in their skullduggery. Perhaps they had gotten used to people folding at the first sign of force.
“And if you’re good boys and girls,” he went on, “we’ll put a nice gold star in your file.”
While Jack engaged the men, Lucy settled on a plan to extricate themselves from their situation. Sadly, all the viable solutions required a certain level of violence.
“Okay,” she called out. “You promise to let us pass?”
“Oh, you betcha.”
“I’ll get the stuff out for you,” she said. “We’ve got salted meat and some produce.”
The man rubbed his belly in an exaggerated show of appreciation.
“Untie the bags and leave them by the side of the road,” he said. “Show me what’s inside first though. Real slow like.”
Lucy gently tapped the horse’s left side three times, a sign to Jack that it was time to make their move. She dismounted, keeping her left foot in the stirrup, swinging her right leg over the saddle and shimmying down to the ground. She was standing in between the animals now, the air ripe with their scent. As she rifled through the saddlebags, Jack dismounted as well, remaining on the far side of his horse, where the three men could see him.
The bandits would be focused on him, of course; invariably, men were always perceived to be a bigger threat than women. They would assume that Lucy was a dutiful little woman posing little danger to them. The two flankers had lowered their weapons, seemingly confident that they had the situation well in hand. Another successful hijack. Probably thinking about the war story they’d be telling later. She detached the saddlebags and carried them to the side of the road; then she removed the contents and held them aloft for the men to see. They had chard, kale, and strawberries along with a few pounds of salted pork and beef jerky. Items that traveled well. The leader clapped his hands slowly, which only served to piss Lucy off.
She retreated to the cover of her horse, gently rubbing his flank, hoping he’d still be alive a few minutes from now. As she set one foot in the stirrup, using the horse’s mass for cover, she drew her weapon and came up firing. The assault took the men by surprise. Before they could execute a defensive action, Lucy’s opening fusillade caught the man on the right full in the chest, blowing him off his horse and sending his body cascading to the ground. A second wave missed the leader. She slid back down to the ground, anticipating the horses’ panicked reaction to the gunfire. The man on the right returned fire. His rounds whizzed past Lucy’s ear, close enough to send her heart into her throat.
Her horse whinnied, rearing back on his hind legs, and then ran directly toward their attackers. Jack’s horse had bolted for the woods lining the road, leaving her exposed. She ran for the trees, the gunfire chewing up bits of asphalt as she fled for their cover. So focused on her attack had the men been, however, that they appeared to have forgotten about Jack. He had moved west along the tree line and then burst forth on their left flank.
He circled behind the bandits’ spooked horses and killed the leader, the Nordic man, with a close-range shot to the back of the head. The third man, still astride his thrashing horse, raised his arms in surrender.
“Throw your gun down,” ordered Jack.
The man tossed the weapon to the ground. It hit the grassy shoulder with a heavy thud. Jack grabbed the man by the arm and wrenched him down off the horse. He crashed to the ground in a heap, lucky to avoid a head or spinal injury. Jack, virtually steaming with fury, violently yanked him into a seated position. His nostrils were flaring, and a sharp crease had formed in the middle of his forehead. Lucy stepped toward him and placed a hand on his back, silently reminding him not to execute their prisoner.
She knelt down next to the man, taking his chin in her hand. Jack trained the gun on the man’s head, his finger gently massaging the trigger guard.
“Now you listen to me good,” she said. “My friend here wants to shoot you very badly. Very badly. And I know him pretty well. So I suggest you answer the questions we’re going to ask you.”
“Fuck you, bitch.”
He reared his head back and spat at her; he’d telegraphed it enough to give her time to duck out of the way of the massive loogie. Lucy eyed him for a moment and then delivered a right cross to his cheek. The punch flattened the man on his back. This stage of the interrogation had come to an end.
“Guess what, chief?” Jack asked.
The man looked up at Jack with hate in his eyes.
“You’re going on a little field trip.”
4
Lucy was up before dawn.
She was not a great sleeper, and this night had been no different. She normally fell asleep quickly, but she was often up two or three times a night. Her mind would race, careening between days behind her, the days ahead, thinking about Emma, thinking about all the dangers that surrounded them. And her accommodations were not particularly conducive to deep rest. The acoustics in the cottage were not great, even though each woman had her own private cubicle they had retrofitted the lodge with. There were a few heavy snorers, and depending on the airflow, it could sound like they were right in bed next to you. And rue the nights punctuated with romantic encounters, couples trying hard not to make noise, which somehow made it that much louder. It wasn’t frequent, but it did happen.
She climbed out of bed, rubbing the sleep from her eyes as she got moving. It was awkward, but it wasn’t like they had many options, especially in the colder months. She dressed in jeans, a long-sleeve T-shirt, and a fleece pullover. Spring was in the offing, but the mornings were still quite chilly.
She had agreed to meet Jack for another interrogation session with their prisoner before reporting for her shift at the clinic. It had been three days since they had returned with him, and he had not said a single word. That was frustrating, but they had gleaned quite a bit of intelligence in the aftermath of the short but fierce battle with the three bandits.
After the man had made clear his intent not to cooperate, Lucy inventoried their supplies while Jack watched over the prisoner. The sheer quantity suggested the men must have been on some kind of long-range patrol. They were carrying nuts, dried fruits, beef jerky, and a few canned goods. They had a tent, matches, cooking fuel. Even some ground coffee. Coffee! Coffee was a luxury these days. Altogether, it was enough to keep them fed for at least a week. The men were healthy and well fed. Heavily armed. Four nine-millimeter pistols and two semi-automatic M4 rifles. Military grade. Their horses looked healthy, their coats shiny, their bodies sleek and strong.
American Midnight | Book 2 | Nightfall Page 3