by Ellis, Tara
Dr. Olsen sat down amid yet another round of frantic conversation. She’d said what she came there to say and was clearly drained. Patty wanted to offer more support, but was at a loss for words. There just wasn’t anything to say that would make any of it better.
“We’ve already implemented a quarantine process for anyone wanting to enter Mercy,” Patty shouted, not caring who was or wasn’t listening. She looked to the sheriff to pick up the conversation. As he stood and began handing out their brand-new quarantine protocol around the table, she turned and walked out of the room without another word.
Several steps beyond the meeting room doors, Patty stopped in the dark hallway and leaned against the wall. She thought it couldn’t get much worse after the first couple of days following the flashpoint, but the past forty-eight hours had been a nightmare. With everything they tried to plan and prepare for, the illness still took them by surprise.
“It’s not your fault, Patty,” Sandy said from behind her, and rested a hand on her shoulder.
Patty was unable to hold back her tears as she turned and stepped into the embrace of her best friend. She’d missed Sandy, since the two of them barely spoke after their falling-out earlier in the week.
Sandy patted her back and then took her by the shoulders. Holding Patty out at arm’s length, the younger woman stared down sternly at her. “The Patty I know would never question herself like this. Ignore Gary and anyone else who questions you unfairly, including me.”
Patty grinned, accepting what, for Sandy, amounted to an apology. “You haven’t been unfair,” she countered. “You were right before about not turning people away, and in a way, Gary was right that I didn’t take enough precautions.”
Sandy gave Patty a gentle shake and continued to glare at her. “Stop it! You aren’t alone in this and you can’t take responsibility for not thinking of the inconceivable.”
“I’ve missed you, Sandy,” Patty said softly. “I’ve missed our talks.”
“Well, we were being two old fools with too much pride,” Sandy waved a hand and then took a step back. It was hard to make out her features in the dim light, but Patty thought she was smiling. “I heard you needed some help out at your place, what with all the time you’re spending here. I’ll send Chloe over this evening and you can put her to work doing whatever it is you need done. She’s small, but a firecracker and a good, hard worker. Sharp, too, so watch your tongue around her.”
Chuckling, Patty made a tsking sound. “Sounds a lot like us at her age. I’ll send some Honeycrisps back with her. I know how much you love those apples.”
“That would be more than a fair trade,” Sandy agreed. “They’re Ethan’s favorite.”
Patty’s smile wavered at the mention of her friend’s missing grandson. She knew Sandy would never believe they weren’t coming back, and she wasn’t about to try and say anything otherwise. Instead, she was happy to give her a piece of good news. “Your friend, Bishop, got back a couple of hours ago. He’ll be released from quarantine tomorrow afternoon.”
Sandy tried to hide her reaction from Patty, but she already suspected her friend had grown quite fond of the man. “Do you know if he found the guy, Hicks?”
Patty shook her head. After Sandy’s encounter with the missing teen up at her lake, Bishop left that same night for the resort they were supposed to have been holed up at. “He didn’t say much about what he did see at the resort, but apparently, Hicks wasn’t there. Sorry I don’t know more, but I wasn’t able to talk with him much, considering everything else that’s going on.”
“Guess I’ll have to wait and talk with him about it tomorrow,” Sandy said, glancing back at the closed door to the meeting room. Someone was yelling again. “I’d better get back in there. I need to give out my revised food requisitions list and I know there’s going to be some push-back.”
Patty shooed Sandy back inside but remained out in the hall to further regain her composure before facing the group again. They still had some hard topics to cover, including a mass burial and how to handle the memorial services. As difficult as it was, she reminded herself that at least in Mercy, they still recognized their dead and had the luxury of mourning them. Based on the last report they got that morning from the Pony Express rider, things weren’t nearly as civilized elsewhere. She shuddered, recalling his description of bodies rotting on the side of the road, and vowed to never let that happen in Mercy.
Chapter 4
CHLOE
Natural spring site, Mercy, Montana
Chloe curled her toes in the cool grass while studying the drawing she’d made. The notebook was nestled in her lap and she was hunched over it, pencil in hand. Looking up, she squinted at the unimpressive body of water before erasing and redrawing a portion of the sketch.
“It doesn’t have to be perfect, Chlo,” Crissy complained.
Chloe winced slightly at the nickname Crissy continued to use in spite of her complaints, and then twisted around to smile at her. Chloe had learned a lot about patience in the past two weeks, and fortunately for Crissy, she really liked her. “I know, but Bishop is going to need it to be as accurate as possible. It’s important, Crissy. The town needs this water, and we’ve got to figure out the best way to get it to them.”
“If it’s so important, then why are we the only ones out here?” Crissy asked, pouting.
“Not everyone even knows about this spring,” Chloe explained. “And those who do are too busy doing other things to stay alive. That’s why Patty assigned Bishop to it, and why it’s a great chance for all of us to show how useful we are. In fact,” she continued, turning her attention to Trevor, “if you could help me take some measurements, that’d be great.”
Trevor stood from where the three teens were sitting in the grass and spread his arms wide, turning in a circle. “I am here to do your bidding, madame. Just don’t make me smell any flowers and I’ll be golden.”
Chloe’s smile faltered slightly when she thought of how close they might have come to losing Trevor. If he’d been working at the hospital that night, he probably would have been infected. Sandy was at the meeting in town, talking about the deaths from the freaky bacteria. With everything that had happened, Chloe probably wouldn’t be too shocked if the dead started rising…but she preferred aliens.
Closing her eyes, Chloe shook the thought from her head and tried to focus on why they were in the field, a few hundred feet above Mercy. Beyond the clearing, they were surrounded by dense evergreens that all butted up against a cliff. An old mine shaft was cut into the stone a couple hundred feet away, with ancient two-by-fours stuck across it in a lame attempt to keep curious kids out. Sandy had told Chloe that the whole area was originally settled as mining camps and the place was riddled with old shafts.
The natural spring well percolated above the surface not far from the entrance, off to the side of the mine. It formed a shallow, pondlike watering hole, before running in thin streams down the sloped ground behind them. The result was a marshy area of tall grass that Chloe would have never suspected as a clean source of drinking water, until she got closer. The water was, in fact, crystal clear. The town had already had all of the testing done on it, so they knew it was so pure right from the ground that it didn’t need anything more than basic filtering to remove dirt and debris. There had been some speculation about pollution from the mining process, but it came up uncontaminated.
The spot where the water permeated the ground was marked and Bishop seemed to think that if they were to dig out around it, deepening the retention pond, they could increase the flow and then perhaps even move the water towards Mercy with a sort of culvert. It was similar to the plan Chloe had for Sandy Miller’s ranch, except, of course, she didn’t have to worry about keeping it clean, since it was only for the cows.
Bishop should be getting back soon, and she wanted to have the diagram and measurements ready for him. Not only was it important to the town, but she needed to butter the older man up before laying on som
e heavy questions. He left the same night of their encounter with Jason and his new friends, so she didn’t get a chance to grill him about his ninja moves.
Chloe frowned, thinking about the very intense scene up at the lake. Bishop had tied all three men up, Jason included. He then marched them into town, with the help of Sandy’s rifle, right to the sheriff’s office. She and Sandy had followed on horseback, and then waited around for several hours while the town debated about what to do with the men and teen. In the end, they’d been stripped of everything but the bare essentials and escorted several miles outside of town, with the threat of imprisonment if they returned. That was after Bishop had taken several minutes alone with Jason, and then he announced he was leaving immediately for the resort where Hicks was supposed to have taken the boys.
Chloe tried to stop Bishop and get more information before he left, but all he would say was that he’d be back in a few days, and to work on the plan for the water system while he was gone.
“Do you have the measuring tape?” Trevor was holding his hand out to her.
Jumping up, Chloe grabbed the backpack she’d brought and pulled out several items. She tossed a ball of yarn to Crissy. “Can you tie this on to these stakes after I place them?” she asked, waving several pieces of thin wood in her hand.
Crissy grumbled about it, but obediently began to unroll the yarn and followed Chloe to the outer edge of the field. Chloe had been doing her best to keep the younger girl occupied and she was relieved when Trevor said he could go to the spring with them. Crissy always lit up more around him and she was slowly coming to terms with what was happening. Well, until a bunch of people died, which had made her afraid to go into town. The only reason she agreed to help with their current mission was because it involved a horseback ride on the hillside with a picnic lunch.
The sun was blinding as Chloe surveyed the downslope and she was a bit surprised to see how low it was in the sky. They’d need to hurry if they were going to make it back to the ranch in time to make dinner. Sandy wouldn’t be home from her meeting and whatever else she was doing in town until later, so the nighttime meal was up to her and Crissy. Funny how only a couple of weeks earlier, that would have been meant throwing something into a microwave for two minutes. Now, they would have to haul fresh water, get a fire started out on the back porch, pick some fresh vegetables from the garden, and use the eggs they’d gathered that morning to create some sort of protein-rich meal. There were a couple of fish in the smoker that they would add to some rice to round it out.
Chloe’s mouth started watering as she daydreamed about the food, and she sped up her motions of slamming the stakes into the ground. She was attempting to find where the marshy ground ended, and would measure from there, back to where the entrance of the spring was. That would give them an idea of how far they would need to dig the deepest part to create more of a reservoir, so there would be enough of a flow.
“So…” Trevor drawled. “What is it that I’m supposed to measure?”
“Here,” Chloe said, as she ran across to the far end of the field. After pushing around for a moment with her foot, she planted another stick. “Now, Crissy, let’s tie the yarn to all of the sticks, and then back to the main pole that’s already at the spring. Trevor, you then measure all the points between the sticks, and I’ll add the measurements to my drawing.”
Trevor raised his eyebrows, whether in admiration or mockery, Chloe wasn’t sure. She didn’t care, so long as he did what she wanted. At that point, she wasn’t concerned about being too bossy. It was important, and it needed to be done.
“Ugh!” Crissy moaned, pulling a sneaker up out of the mud with a sucking sound. “Great. My only shoes and now they’re going to smell like swamp.”
“Here,” Trevor ran like an awkward gazelle through the tall grass and knelt down. “Jump on my back.”
Chloe rolled her eyes at her two friends, but laughed out loud when Trevor fell flat on his face after taking only two steps. Crissy squealed and then started laughing too, when Trevor found his hands stuck in the mud.
“Help!” Crissy called to Chloe, pulling at one of Trevor’s arms. “It’s sucking him in!” Crissy sat down hard when Trevor’s muddy arm slipped through her fingers, and she laughed even more, a large smear of muck on one of her cheeks.
It was so rare for them to have an excuse to laugh and forget about the loved ones they missed so badly that Chloe couldn’t possibly ruin the moment by telling them to stop messing around. So what if dinner was late? She rolled her shoulders and forced herself to relax before moving up to Trevor’s other arm. “Take my hand!” she said dramatically, deciding to go all-in. “We’ll save you!”
As she and Crissy strained to free Trevor from the marsh, an odd sound began to fill the space around them. At first, Chloe ignored it, thinking it was a gust of wind, but when it intensified, she paused and held up a hand to silence the other two teens.
“Shush,” Chloe hissed. “Do you hear that?”
Crissy tilted her head, and her smile faded. “What is that?”
Trevor rolled over and sat up. His charade forgotten, he jumped to his feet and turned in a circle, seeking out the source of the increasing, odd hum. “I don’t like this,” he muttered, wiping at some mud on his chin. “This is like that scene in a horror flick where you yell at them to run, instead of standing there like idiots.”
Chloe ignored Trevor and squinted in concentration, trying to decipher what they were hearing. She could feel it almost as much as hear a low vibration that oscillated, underscored by what could best be described as clicking and humming sounds with occasional squeaks.
“Trevor’s right,” Crissy said, grabbing both Trevor and Chloe’s arms. “Let’s get out of here.”
“We need to finish this,” Chloe said absently, almost hypnotized by the sound that was still increasing in volume. It seemed to come from all around them now, echoing off the cliff wall and bouncing off the ground.
The horses, tied up on the far side of the clearing, were prancing anxiously and starting to whinny, clearly bothered by whatever it was. Trevor and Crissy began to run towards them, but Chloe hesitated, looking back at their things still spread out in in the dry part of the field. She needed to at least get her sketch-pad.
Before Chloe had a chance to move in either direction, a burst of blurred motion exploded out of the mine entrance. Frozen in shock while her brain tried to process what she was seeing, Chloe stood open-mouthed as thousands of bats burst out into the clearing and shot up into the sky, creating a sinuous black wave.
“Argh!” Crissy screeched while she ran away, waving her arms over her head even though the bats were nowhere near her.
As Trevor chased after Crissy, Chloe stood transfixed by the spectacle. It was still at least five hours until sunset, so several hours before the bats should be heading out to feed. And they weren’t keeping in an organized formation, like she’d seen them do in documentaries. These bats, once clear of the treetops, flew around in dizzying patterns before spreading out in every direction.
Several minutes later, as the last of the bats flittered out of sight, Trevor came to stand next to Chloe. “Think we spooked them?”
Chloe shook her head. “No way. We weren’t even that close to the mine. We’d have had to go inside and make a bunch of noise.”
“I hope it isn’t rabies,” Trevor said anxiously. “I read once that bats were one of the most common carriers. Oh man, what if some form of super bat rabies gets mixed in with the mutant diarrhea bacteria and creates some kind of—”
“Trevor!” Chloe shouted, having reached her limit of patience. “Now would be a good time to shut up.”
“I’ll finish getting the measurements,” he offered meekly before walking away.
Already regretting her outburst, Chloe focused again on the bats. Trevor had a valid point about rabies, but she didn’t think that was it. The whole thing reminded her of the birds that flew into the ground the day after the f
lashpoint. She wasn’t sure exactly how bats navigated or if they migrated or anything, but it would make sense that if the magnetosphere was messed up enough, that it could be messing with their radar.
Running her hands through her short hair, Chloe took a deep breath and prepared herself for a genuine-sounding apology to Trevor. As she walked over to her friends, she couldn’t help but think the whole bat encounter was a punishment for them daring to have a normal afternoon.
Chapter 5
TOM
Near Spencer, Idaho
“I’m going back!” Ethan attempted to pull his horse around, but the big gelding balked.
Tom pulled up alongside Ethan and then maneuvered Lilly in front of Tango, blocking his son’s way. “We need to wait! It’s still too dangerous.”
It had taken over two hours of hard riding to outrun the fire, as well as putting a river in between them after the wind shifted. While Tom had some limited experience with brush fires, Danny was the expert on fire behavior and was the one who determined when it was safe to stop. A half hour later, it was becoming obvious that Sam wasn’t right behind them.
“I’ll go.” Danny was already struggling to get her mare to head back the way they’d come, the horse having none of it. All of the horses were understandably skittish, and while Tom was impressed with how well Danny had taken to riding, she was nowhere near capable of manhandling one in a dangerous situation.
“No!” Tom shouted, his frustration at the situation coming out.
Danny spun towards him as if he’d slapped her and he knew he’d likely just deepened the rift between them even further. “I wasn’t asking for your permission!” she spat.