“Have a seat,” he said. “I’ll get us some food.”
She sat down, propping her injured foot up on the adjacent chair. She did not think he would mind. The office was small, utilitarian. A desk, two chairs, and two beige filing cabinets. The windows were open, but it was stuffy. Her kingdom for an air-conditioned room.
Tim returned fifteen minutes later carrying two bowls, steam curling from the tops. He handed her a bowl and sat down across from her. It smelled delicious. As the aroma reached her nostrils, her stomach rumbled loudly. She had not eaten in a day.
“What is this place?” she asked, blowing the steam from the surface of the bowl. It appeared to be a thick stew of meat and potatoes. She took a bite. It was delicious.
“It’s a food distribution warehouse.”
Her spoon froze in between her lips and her bowl. Tim was grinning at her. She took another bite, savoring the salty flavor of the stew. She could not remember the last time she had enjoyed a meal this much. Newfound appreciation for life and all that. She probably would have been fine if Beatrice had not found her lying in the ditch, but it was best not to tempt fate these days.
“Yeah, we hit the jackpot here.”
“You’re not kidding.”
A food distribution warehouse was like gold. Better than gold, in fact. A full warehouse could hold many years’ worth of nonperishable foods and other sundries. Canned goods, dry goods, salted meats, cleaning supplies. And in a way, things had come full circle. In the days following the Pulse, Lucy had made a trip to a distribution warehouse similar to this one to secure supplies; in that case, however, it had been a trap. One that had nearly cost Lucy her life. That warehouse had long been empty and had been the site of a planned ambush of Lucy and her friend, Manny.
“It was almost full when we found it,” Tim said. “We hit it pretty hard in the early days, which was a mistake. Honestly, I kept thinking the lights would come back on, so there was no need to ration the supplies. Pretty dumb of me.”
He said it with a wizened look on his face. The look of a man who had seen things, who had learned things.
“Eventually, we made the supplies our backup. Like a strategic reserve. So we got to farming, and we’ve done okay in that department. But the warehouse has pulled us through some dark times.”
Lucy’s head was spinning. A twinge of jealousy shot through her. At first, she felt bad about it, but she accepted it as natural. Tim had been very lucky to find this place; she could not think of someone who deserved it more.
“That’s great,” she said, and she meant it.
The stew had cooled enough to eat. She took three large bites, which settled the hunger pangs down. She took a break, wanting it to last; there was no guarantee she would be offered more, no matter how tight she had been with Tim.
“So what happened to you?” she asked. “I really thought one day you’d show up at my door.”
His face darkened, and he set the bowl on his desk.
“You were right,” he said. “Things got bad in the city really quickly. I guess I was pretty naïve.”
Before they’d parted ways, she had warned him of the dark days that lay ahead if the power did not return.
“We held out at the school as long as we could,” he said.
A somber look crossed his face. He took a deep breath before continuing.
“Most of the kids were gone within a day or so. Their parents finally made it. Never saw any of them again. There were eight of us left. Three teachers and five students. Don’t know what happened to those kids’ parents, but it probably wasn’t anything good. It wasn’t too bad at first. We moved to the science wing. Large classrooms, interior of the school, windows that looked over the quad. We could light candles without worrying about being spotted from the street. We had food, water, at least for a while. We lasted three weeks.”
He paused for a moment, looked away, held a clenched fist to his lips.
“One day, I was out on a supply run, me and one of the kids. We always went out in pairs. There wasn’t much left by then, there wasn’t really anything left. Anyway, we made it back just before dark. That was our rule, we had to be back before dark because that’s when things got really bad.”
He shuddered.
“Anyway, we were cutting it close because we hadn’t found anything, but we didn’t want to come back empty-handed. Our supplies were starting to run low. I knew something was wrong right away. Just had a sense. Like the air had been sucked out of the place. The feeling that something terrible had happened. Maggie, the kid with me, went dead silent. Like she knew as well.”
“They were all dead. All six of them. Two teachers and four students. I’ve never seen anything like it, never even imagined what something like that could look like. There was so much blood. I don’t even think they stole anything. I think they just killed them because they could.”
He traced his lower lip with the tip of his finger.
“Seeing something like that, man, it just changes you.”
“I’m sorry,” said Lucy.
“We hit the road after that,” he said. “Maggie and me. She killed herself a month later.”
“I’m really sorry,” Lucy said. “I wish you’d made it down to the farm.”
He chuckled.
“I lost the directions you gave me,” he said, referring to the note she’d scratched out for him that last morning they’d been together. “I even came down to Goochland one time to find you. That is one big damn county. A lot of farms. I asked around, but I’m sorry to say that not a lot of folks were anxious to help a big, Black guy traveling by himself.”
“Yeah, we were a bit behind on the Black Lives Matter movement, I am sorry to say,” she said. “Things have improved in that department, though.”
He flashed a mocking thumbs-up and paired it was an over-exaggerated smile, although her statement was laced with a good deal of truth to it. These days, you didn’t trust anyone you didn’t know, regardless of the color of their skin. And if you had someone you trusted, that bond was like gold, again, regardless of skin color. The foundations of white supremacy had collapsed in the wake of the Pulse, putting virtually everyone on equal footing.
“So you’re the boss now,” she said. It wasn’t a question. He was clearly the leader here.
“If you want to call it that,” he replied.
Just as she remembered. Humble. He would not have sought to lead. People had naturally looked at him to do that. As the folks at the school had.
“So how about you?” he asked.
“We made it a year at the farm,” she said. “But it became clear we couldn’t defend it by ourselves. There were just too many refugees from the cities. They were like locusts. My brother and I couldn’t keep up.”
After that first encounter with the suburban couple, Lucy had hoped that such a thing would be the exception and not the rule. But it wasn’t. By the Fourth of July, just six weeks after the Pulse, America’s pantries and cupboards were empty, and the supply chains had totally collapsed. By the first of August, starvation was a thing that was happening in the United States of America, or what was left of her.
Millions fled the cities, setting their sights on America’s farms and hunting grounds. This triggered massive unrest and brutal violence. It couldn’t even be described as war. It was elemental, not a fight over religion or politics, but a fight to simply exist. Once there were many more mouths to feed than there was food to put in those mouths, a spasm of violence and terror swept the nation from coast to coast until the new status quo settled in.
Lucy and Jack had merged their farm with the La’Moon family farm half a mile away. The La’Moons had two teenaged sons, and together they kept a twenty-four-hour armed watch over their land. Eventually, the two families combined with a group of homesteaders, friends of the La’Moons, and the seeds of Promise were planted.
“But you’re doing okay now?”
She hitched for a moment, reluctant to tell h
im the truth. But she couldn’t lie to him. And they needed allies.
“Yeah, we hooked up with a decent group. On an old Boy Scout campground. It’s been fairly copacetic. Until recently that is. We are having a bit of an issue.”
His eyebrows went up.
“Bad?”
“Not great.”
“Tell me more.”
“You come across a group called the Haven?”
“Name doesn’t ring a bell,” he said. “But we’ve heard some chatter about a new player in the area. Up toward Fredericksburg. I’ve got scouts out every day looking for trouble. We haven’t found anything. I’ll ask around before you go. Could be your guys.”
She placed a hand on his forearm.
“Stay frosty,” she said. “These guys don’t mess around. They’ve killed four of ours already.”
“I will,” he replied somberly.
They talked late into the evening, but eventually, the oxycodone that Lucy had accepted to control the pain in her ankle worked its magic, and she was unable to keep her eyes open. Tim took her back to the medical trailer, where she quickly fell fast asleep. She did not even remember him bidding her good night. She woke with the sun. A test of the ankle revealed continuing misery and limited mobility, but it would be enough to get her home.
After a quick breakfast of flatbread and jam, Tim put Lucy on a trusted horse and he paced them on her bicycle. He would return home on horseback. She was normally anxious about revealing their location, but she trusted Tim without hesitation. Forget the fact that she had saved his life on that very dark evening half a decade earlier. He was a good man, and it seemed like the years had not changed that part of him. It was like that old saying: adversity didn’t build character. It revealed it.
The ride home passed quickly; she’d forgotten how easy he was to talk to. She found herself stealing unnecessary glances at the man. She remembered thinking that she was not particularly attracted to him when they first met. Now, however, she found herself dreading their arrival in Promise. It meant that they would part ways again, and there was no way to know when or if they would see each other again. She was already thinking of ways to keep him in her loop, a task made more difficult by their banishment from the Market.
Before she knew it, the outskirts of Promise came into view. The three-hour trip had flashed by in the blink of an eye. He would be on the road again soon, and she was already thinking of ways to delay his departure. Her heart fluttered.
What the actual hell is wrong with you, Lucy Goodwin?
There had been little time to think about personal relationships since the Pulse. Too much to do, too much to worry about. And any bond could easily be ripped away from you. Best to keep your distance and look out for yourself and those around you. It wasn’t that the people of Promise weren’t family. They were. But it was a collective love. And when you lost someone, it didn’t hurt quite as badly because you loved the group, not any one person.
Harsh, perhaps.
But that was the way things were.
There were relationships, naturally, there always were. People often did things that were not in their best interest. After all, the apocalypse hadn’t turned off human desire or the longing for family. A handful of children had been born in the community. Some relationships endured; most did not. But there had been no romantic entanglements for Lucy. She didn’t want to risk it.
She took the lead near Promise’s outer perimeter, waving to the sentinel on duty. It looked like Betsy.
Betsy waved back enthusiastically when she recognized Lucy. She hoisted her rifle back up onto her shoulder and clasped her hands in prayer, looking to the sky as she did so.
“Looks like you were missed,” Tim said, chuckling.
“Well, I am the school nurse, so it’s probably not my charming personality they miss.”
“You haven’t changed much,” he said. “Good to see.”
God, if you’re out there, if I am blushing right now in front of this man, let this horse throw me and stomp me out of this embarrassment spiral.
“Lucy!” Betsy called out, jogging to meet them. “You’re alive!”
“Yeah, I crashed on my bike two days ago and absolutely wrecked my ankle,” she replied “This is Tim. He and his people looked after me.”
Betsy glanced nervously at him.
“It’s okay, Betsy,” she said. “If you can believe it, I actually knew Tim before the Pulse.”
She nodded slowly.
“I’m gonna tell everyone you’re here,” she said. “My goodness, people have been worried sick. Norah hasn’t slept in two days.”
Lucy’s heart caved in at this. In light of their fight, it was difficult to remember that they were family, that they loved each other. Furthermore, it was confirmation that Norah had managed to make it home safely when Lucy herself had not.
“Ma’am, I’m actually gonna be headed out,” Tim said to Betsy. “Just wanted to make sure my friend, Lucy, got home safely.”
Strangely, he seemed anxious to leave and anxious to stay at the same time. He kept glancing off toward the center of Promise, as though he wanted to learn more about the place Lucy called home.
“Nice to meet you, then,” Betsy said.
She turned back toward her post, leaving Lucy and Tim alone.
“You’re really just gonna head back, huh?”
He toed down the kickstand of her bike and helped her down from the horse.
She hugged him hard. When she leaned back, there were tears in his eyes.
“I’m glad I got to see you again,” he said. “Like Forrest Gump and Jenny when they were in D.C.”
She laughed.
“Don’t you want to see Norah?” she asked.
He frowned, scrunching up his face as he did so.
“You know, maybe that’s not such a good idea,” he said.
“Why?”
“You said she’s doing well?”
“Yes,” she replied. “Very.”
“Seeing me, it might drag up some bad memories.”
Lucy had not considered this. It reminded her of Jack’s warning not to tell her about Emma. In both cases, the men had been advising her to keep the past in the past. For Norah’s sake. But there was more to it here. Tim was telling her goodbye.
“Okay,” she replied softly.
“Tell her I said hey.”
“I will.”
He leaned in as though he were going to kiss her. She froze, but she didn’t turn away. Her eyes remained open, and at the last second, he changed course and pecked her gently on the cheek. He squeezed her arm gently.
“I hope we see each other again soon,” he said.
“Me too.”
He set a foot into the stirrup and swung the opposite leg over the saddle. He put a gentle heel into the horse’s right flank and set her moving. Lucy watched as they receded into the distance, wishing he wasn’t leaving but glad that he was.
15
On a Thursday night in mid-May, a massive line of thunderstorms swept across the region like a rolling locomotive. The day had started humid and hot; you could almost feel the air destabilizing. Shortly before sunset, the skies to the west darkened like a bruise. The wind picked up, blowing steadily across Promise. And when the storm finally blew, she did not mess around. It was a fantastic storm, one that Lucy stayed up watching. Slow moving, extremely electrified. Hundreds of lightning bolts fractured the night sky while sheets of rain swept across Promise. Lucy sat under the awning of the back porch of her medical clinic, absolutely mesmerized.
Her ankle was healing well, but a significant limp plagued her everyday movements. It had been two weeks since she had returned from her two-night adventure away from Promise. Upon her return, Jack had been none too pleased with either her or Norah. He had really let each of them have it, Lucy more than Norah. Lucy knew better; Norah, he was a bit easier on, his anger diluted by the stupid things teenagers did for love and the stupid things they did in general.
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It had been a dumb thing to do, thought Lucy, looking back on it as the storm buffeted the James River. But it had been a necessary thing. She couldn’t have Norah wandering off unattended. No, she should have not gone alone. Jack would have gone with her; in fact, his presence would likely have been a welcome buffer to the bone-on-bone experience that her relationship with Norah had become recently.
Not only that, but her solo mission had nearly cost Lucy her life. It would have been a stupid way to die, but people died for stupid reasons every day. She wasn’t immune to such a fate. Some good had come of it, of course. The reunion with Tim Whitaker had been an unexpected and pleasant surprise. She found herself reliving the few precious hours they’d spent together. She lay awake at night thinking about him, and that was how it slowly dawned on her that she did want him after all.
Besides, there were worse ways to pass the time.
But alas, there was no time for that now or maybe ever. He had his people to look over, and she had hers. And Promise had a mighty big thorn in its side right now. At least they had a potential ally in their back pocket. Westerberg was a silent partner right now. She hoped it stayed that way.
The storm weakened over the next hour; the blowing downpours tapered off to a steady shower before stopping entirely. Lucy shuffled back to her room and went to bed. As the storm pushed off to the east, there was no way for anyone to know that that would be the last rain they would see for more than a month.
It easily escaped notice at first, and only when the grasses started to yellow a bit did they start to wonder when it had rained last. That sent them scurrying for their weather journals to check the precipitation log. Indeed, by the time they checked, it had been thirty-four days since their last measurable rainfall. And it would be a long time before they saw their next one.
American Midnight | Book 2 | Nightfall Page 12