Solar Reboot

by Matthew D. Hunt

  Wade snorted. “Getting real military around here.”

  “I’ll do it,” said Gina.

  “We’re not asking you,” said Cameron immediately. She looked into Gina’s eyes, trying to plead with her. Please shut up. I’m doing everything I can. Gina understood, or else she was hurt, because she looked back down at her boots. Either way, she wasn’t talking any more, and Cameron was grateful.

  “It’s gotta be for a long time, though,” said Jeremy. “At least … at least a month.”

  “I was thinking six weeks,” said Cameron. “It would be a lot longer than that in a court, since it wasn’t self-defense. But the courts also aren’t good at recognizing mitigating circumstances. And we can be better than that. I mean, tell me, Jeremy—if it had been Theresa, wouldn’t you have been the one holding the knife?”

  He wouldn’t meet her gaze. “Okay. Six weeks.” He said it guiltily, as though he’d pushed for the extra time instead of Cameron. That was good. If he had thought Gina was getting off easy, he might have been vindictive in the future. Guilt had a way of making men much more forgiving.

  “All right,” said Cameron. “Then everyone get back to sleep. Wade, take Gina’s spot on guard duty tonight.”

  “Yes, boss,” said Wade. Cameron didn’t correct him as she led Gina out of the clubhouse.

  CHAPTER 23

  Alex recognized Flathead territory almost the second they entered it. In an instant the land went from green and lush to brown, almost-desert, with only thin scrubs and trees clinging bitterly to the landscape. He shifted in his seat, suddenly a little uncomfortable.

  “Welcome to the reservation,” said Graham. “It doesn’t normally look this bad. Just in summer.”

  “I think it’s nice,” said Piper. Alex could hear the lie in her voice, and he suspected everyone else in the truck could, too.

  The truck was moving at barely a crawl, trundling along in four-wheel drive as it pushed its way through what seemed to be a solid wall of rain. Alex could have walked faster than the truck was moving—or at least, he could have in clear weather, if he didn’t think the wind might pick him up and carry him off.

  “Should we keep pushing on through this?” said Alex. “The wind’s getting pretty bad.”

  “I’d rather not stop here if we can help it,” said Graham. “We’re almost to the reservation, and it’s got much better protection against the weather. We’ll be a lot safer there if anything really serious hits.”

  “Really serious?” said Piper. “Like what?”

  “Like that,” said Denny from beside her.

  “Graham.” Willow clutched at his sleeve.

  Alex leaned over Piper, looking out the left-side window. There, just a few miles away, the weather had begun to clear. But the rain hadn’t ceased to fall—instead, it was being drawn into the whirling, sucking vortex of a tornado.

  It touched down, and Alex saw a great plume of dirt and rock erupt into the air. It rose, and then touched down again. It was moving west, following their course—but it was also coming closer.

  “We can’t be here,” said Graham. “Gotta get off the road. We’re dead in this truck.”

  “We’re dead outside of it, too,” said Alex. “It’s all open space. How close is the reservation?”

  “Not close enough,” said Graham.

  “The bridge.” Willow pointed through the windshield, and Alex saw it ahead through the rain. It was thick, four lanes wide, and looked decently new. Below it and off to the side was a narrow railroad trestle, running just a few yards above a rushing river below.

  “Okay, hang on,” said Graham. He stepped a little harder on the gas. The truck began to slip and slide, and he had to wrestle the steering wheel to keep them on course. But their speed increased, and soon they’d pulled up just in front of the bridge.

  “Hurry,” said Alex, throwing open his door. The twister was less than a mile away. “Come on, Piper. Max Come boy!”

  He took her arm and hustled her towards the bridge. The slope leading down was muddy and slippery, and he barely tried to stay upright, half-sliding down it. Beneath the bridge were huge concrete walls that extended out along its length, forming a sort of man-made cave protected on all sides but the front. From the second he stepped inside it, the wind lessened, and the air was almost calm.

  Graham and Willow huddled together, sitting against the wall, and Alex pressed close to them with Piper in between. Denny sat, too, a few feet to Alex’s left.

  “No use getting shy now,” said Alex. He grabbed the hobo’s sleeve and dragged him closer. “Come on.”

  Denny gave a brief chuckle as he pressed in closer. They waited like that in silence, watching the sky’s fury rush by in the air just outside their little shelter. The hail was like a sheet of tiny bullets constantly firing, almost horizontal with the strength of the wind.

  Then the wind increased even more, screaming like a demon from hell. The tornado was close. Maybe right above them. Alex clutched Piper closer, and held tightly to Max’s collar. He could feel the wind tugging at him, at all of them, almost strong enough to pick up one of the adults. He shuddered and tried to banish an image from his mind: Piper, out in the gale, swept away by the fury of the storm.

  A blast of sound struck them, and they all jumped. There came a great rending scream of steel, and then another crash. Alex recognized it the second time: it was the truck. The twister had picked it up and flipped it over—twice, from the sound of it. Another great screaming, scraping shriek, and then silence.

  THOOM

  Across the river, the truck came careening down out of the sky. It struck the bridge’s very edge and spun, tumbling far, far down into the river below. It only barely missed the railroad trestle, which extended out almost from the mouth of their little cave.

  “I’m sorry,” said Alex.

  “Don’t be,” said Graham. “It was a piece of junk. And if we manage to survive all this, the insurance payout’s gonna be great.”

  Alex knew it was funny, but he couldn’t bring himself to laugh.

  * * *

  The tornado passed, and the wind began to lessen slightly. But when Piper asked Alex if they should move on, he shook his head.

  “Now that we’re here, and since the truck is gone, we should stay. There might be another break in the rain, and when there is, it’ll be safer to keep going.”

  Willow nodded. “If the rain lightens up, we can reach the town in just a few hours. But with the weather like this, it could take a few days.”

  “And what if it doesn’t stop raining?” said Piper.

  Alex shrugged. “Then I’d rather try to make that journey after a good night’s sleep.”

  Of course, a good night’s sleep wasn’t going to happen. But as the day waned, and the sun’s pale glow through the clouds began to vanish, Alex readied himself to build the two tents. He realized he wouldn’t be able to stake them down, here in this concrete cave, and he briefly considered pitching them out in the open instead. But then he realized that the wind would be worse out there, canceling the benefits of the stakes. They’d have to rely on their body weight to hold them in place.

  Just as he’d slung the backpack off his back and started to dig through it, he looked up and noticed Denny. The hobo was sitting up straight, his brow furrowed, head cocked like he was listening.

  “Denny?” said Alex. “What is it?”

  “Sky,” said Denny. “Sky, and the … do you hear something?”

  Alex froze. He listened, but he couldn’t hear it. Yet now that Denny had spoken, he could almost sense something—a rumble underfoot. His mind flashed back to Broadus.

  “Flood,” he said.

  Piper clutched his arm.

  “We have to cross the bridge,” said Graham.

  “We should climb up,” said Willow. “Let’s go back where it’s—”

  “The bridge could get wiped out,” said Denny. “Then we’re stranded. Come on. The railroad trestle.”

&n
bsp; Alex’s eyes went to it. It was just a few yards away. He saw Denny’s point immediately: climbing up the hill to run across the bridge would take minutes they didn’t have. But they could book it across the trestle in no time. He snatched Piper’s hand and pulled her forward.

  “Dad, wait!”

  He stopped, and she reached for her backpack. She’d taken it off and put it on the ground. He shuddered, realizing he’d almost left half her meds behind.

  “Come on!” he said, pulling her on again. Max running ahead and running back to them.

  They all ran like hell, their feet slipping in the mud. Somehow Alex remained upright until he reached the trestle, and then there was a low railing he could clutch. A wild, insane part of his mind said they shouldn’t be walking on railroad tracks. But the trains were dead now, and maybe would be forever.

  Movement caught his eye, and he looked towards it. The river ran straight for a mile or more to the north, where it bent away west.

  Around the bend, a solid wall of water came rushing. In front of it came a storm of debris, torn trees and rocks and dirt. Alex saw a car in the mix.

  “Move!”

  They redoubled their pace, uncaring that it made them slip and slide as long as they kept moving forward. Alex was in the lead with Piper, with Graham and Willow just behind. Denny brought up the rear.

  He tried not to look at the river. So he didn’t see the tree until the instant it came crashing into the trestle.

  BOOM

  The whole trestle swayed, and Alex fell to hands and knees. The tracks bent till they were nearly vertical, throwing him into the railing, which had turned into a floor.

  Piper’s hand slipped from his. She screamed as she fell.

  “No!” he screamed, reaching.

  If she’d hit the water, she’d have been swept away in an instant. Instead, by some miracle, she landed on the edge of the riverbank. Her backpack wasn’t so lucky—it fell from her grip and vanished into the water.

  Alex’s outstretched hand was at least six feet above hers. He withdrew his hand and prepared to dive over the railing for her. It was a madman’s plan, but he had to try something.

  But Denny hadn’t fallen, and he moved before Alex could. The hobo dove over the railing to land on the riverbank beside Piper. Max at the top of the bank barking frantically.

  Just as she fought to her feet, he seized her under the armpits. Then, with a strength it didn’t seem like he should possess, Denny threw her straight up. She screamed and flailed—and Alex snatched her whipping hand. He heaved, and she landed on the trestle.

  And in the exact same instant, a rock came flying from the water and struck Denny in the chest. It was moving as fast as a cannonball—Alex could almost hear the ribs shatter.

  Denny fell beneath the surface. The river swept him away in an instant.

  Piper screamed. But Alex picked her up and dragged her on. The end of the trestle was only a few paces away. They reached it and fell onto the land on the other side, Graham and Willow only a second behind.

  The river struck the trestle. Its anchors were torn from the earth. Alex hid his face and put an arm over Piper as they went slicing through the air, but they were far out of reach. The metal structure vanished into the water and went rushing away south, following Denny’s corpse.

  CHAPTER 24

  Piper wanted to go find him. Even if it was just to find his body, she said. They should bury him, at least. But Alex put his foot down, even though he almost had to drag her away at the end. They’d never find Denny, and they couldn’t afford the time they’d waste trying. Alex knew it, and he pulled Piper away from the river knowing it—but he couldn’t help the pain he felt deep in his chest, or the lead weight of his limbs that seemed harder to move the farther they went.

  Less than a week, he thought. Less than a week we knew the guy. But Denny’s loss had hit him harder than most of the family he’d lost in his life, other than his parents.

  Graham and Willow led them down the road. The couple hadn’t been very talkative before, but after losing Denny they went dead quiet. Graham just walked on, head down and hands shoved in his jacket pockets, while Willow followed behind. Piper fell into step with Alex at last, though she kept crying long after the river was lost from sight behind them.

  Alex felt a little guilty about how quickly his thoughts turned to the road ahead, but he was filled with a sudden sense of urgency and dread at the loss of Piper’s backpack. He hadn’t put all his eggs in one basket—not all of her meds were in her pack, and he had some in his own. But he needed to count it up and see how long it would last. If he remembered correctly, he’d put enough in his pack to make it to the cabins—if all went well. But he’d long ago given up on the notion that nothing else would go wrong on their journey. That was a lie, and the evidence lay behind them, was maybe even now washing up on the banks of the river.

  At some point, Graham called them all to a stop. They stood outside a little home, and with some shock Alex realized it was Graham’s and Willow’s. Half-glimpsed through the storm, Alex saw the shapes of other homes close by, the scattered dwellings of some small town. He hadn’t even realized they were on the reservation. There had been no clear demarcation point, no line or border that marked this part of the land as being any different. Or maybe there had been, and Alex had just missed it. He’d barely looked up as they trudged along, and when he had, it was hard to see very far in any direction through the pouring rain and the mist.

  The house was simple inside, and it felt warm, though that was only because the wind stopped blasting them the second they stepped inside. Graham went to turn on the heater while Willow went to the kitchen to make everyone food. Soon their bellies were full of sandwiches and coffee, and then they simply waited for the water to dry out of their clothing and hair.

  Before long there came a knock at the front door. Alex jerked up, instinct making him nervous. But when Graham answered, it was only another native couple on the other side of the door. They were surprised to see Alex and Piper inside, and they stayed on the doorstep. But Graham spoke soft words Alex couldn’t hear, and the uneasy looks of the other couple softened. After a few seconds of whispered conversation, they clapped Graham on the shoulder, waved to Willow, and left.

  The house was silent again. This time, it stayed that way for every longer.

  It was Piper who broke the quiet next. She shifted on the couch, frowning and blushing all at once. “Um, where’s your restroom?” she said softly. “I need to …”

  Willow jumped up at once. “I’ll show you. I have more pads.” Piper’s had been in the bag that went into the river.

  “Thank you,” muttered Piper, refusing to meet anyone else’s gaze as she followed the woman into the back of the house.

  When the girls were gone, Graham fixed Alex with a look. “You two can stay here if you want. As long as you need to.”

  “Thank you,” said Alex. “But I don’t think we’ll stay long. My wife’s still waiting. All of … this—” he waved his hand generally at the world outside the shuttered windows “—is only going to keep getting worse. I want to keep Piper safe, but I’m afraid for Cameron too, and I can keep them both safer if we’re all together.”

  “Of course,” said Graham, giving a slow nod. “You’ll need a car, though. I’ll hop on the HAM—phones are still down—and see if we can find anyone who’s got a spare they can lend you.”

  Alex shot up in his seat. “You have a radio?”

  * * *

  “Alex, is that—?”

  He’d been trying for fifteen minutes, and now he clutched the receiver like a lifeline. Piper had been sitting beside him, and she shot bolt upright in her chair. “Hello? Who’s that?” said Alex.

  “Alex, can you hear—?” The voice on the other end was shouting now—and suddenly Alex recognized it. He almost burst out laughing.

  “Bettie, is that you?”

  “You can hear me? I don’t know how this thing—”
r />   “Yes! Yes, I can hear you. You just—hold the button down until you’re completely finished talking.”

  “Like—”

  “A little longer.”

  “How about now?”

  “Yes, you’ve got it.”

  Piper took the receiver from his hand and pressed the button. “Hi Bettie!”

  “Lord above, is that Piper?”

  “Yes!” Piper giggled. “It’s me. How are you?”

  “I’m fine, honey, just fine.”

  “Piper.” Alex took the receiver back from her. “Bettie, is Cameron there?”

  “Not right now, but I can get her. She’s out with some of the others. I forget if she’s hunting or building a fence. I’ve mostly been keeping to the garden. It’s dang hard to grow anything in all this rain, and if I turn my back on those plants for a second they start trying to die on me. But heck, you don’t want to hear about me right now. I’ll be right back with Cameron.”

  The line went silent. Piper almost bounced in her seat. But the silence stretched long, until she was slumped in her seat and Alex’s feet were tapping with impatience.

  Almost an hour later, the radio crackled to life again.

  “Alex?”

  His eyes stung, and he tried not to let Piper see it. “Cam?”

  “Oh my god. Are you all right?”

  Piper snatched the receiver again. “Mommy?”

  * * *

  “Piper.”

  Cameron’s voice went thick, her throat constricting around the words, and tears sprang to life in her eyes. It wasn’t weeping, not quite, but it was close enough. Bettie had been standing in the doorway behind her. Cameron heard the slow creak of hinges, followed by the click of the door closing.

  “Mom, oh my god, Mom, I miss you.” Even through the static of the radio, Cameron heard tears in her daughter’s voice.