by Linda Mooney
“I have a couple of knives on me.”
“That’s all? No guns? No grenades? Nothing that could blow up?”
“No, sir.”
“Mind if I pat you down to check?”
“Go ahead.” For some reason, Mykail got the impression the guy had decided not to take his head off. But right now, his biggest concern was the fact that the man knew about Emlee. How?
“Lace your fingers together and place them on top of your head. Don’t make any sudden moves or Hogan’ll take your leg off. Hogan, heel.” The man made a clicking noise with his tongue, and the dog stuck beside him as he walked toward Mykail. Keeping the rifle trained on him with one hand, he frisked him with the other. He found the two knives in Mykail’s pockets, and confiscated them. All the while, Mykail eyed the stranger, taking in the man’s build as well as his authoritative demeanor.
“Why do I get the impression you’re either ex-military or ex-cop?”
The man snorted. “Maybe because I’m both. Eight years in the Army. Twelve on the beat. What’s your name, son?”
“Mykail Sinth. Please, tell me what you know about Emlee. Is she still alive? Is she with you?”
“This isn’t the time or place to have a discussion. Come with me. Hogan, guard.” The man turned and started walking away, toward the trees. The dog remained behind, never taking its eyes off Mykail.
“What about my boat?”
“It should be okay.”
Mykail stumbled after him, the bottles of water banging against his back and ribcage. “Where are we going?”
“Mossbeck.”
“Where?”
“Just shut up and follow me,” the man snapped.
Mykail obeyed, and trailed after the stranger as the sun dipped below the tree line. Behind him, the giant black dog kept close to his heels to make sure he didn’t try to get away.
Chapter Twenty-Two
Discussion
They walked quite a ways through the trees and brush. The man never glanced back to make sure Mykail was still behind him. He didn’t need to. Hogan made sure he was. Every time Mykail looked at the dog, it showed its teeth but didn’t growl as it kept a six to ten foot distance between them.
Since the man didn’t speak, he felt it prudent to remain equally silent. It could have been the guy wasn’t the talkative sort. Or it could have been they were in dangerous territory, and needed to remain as inconspicuous as possible.
At some point they stopped, and the man addressed the dog as they took a seat on a fallen tree. “Hogan, rest.” The animal dropped to its belly at the man’s feet, but it remained vigilant, ears perked up.
“Nice dog you got there,” Mykail whispered. “He’s well-trained. Rottweiler, right?” He removed one of the bottles from his collection and drank deeply. When he was finished, he handed it over to the man, who accepted it.
“Thanks. Yeah, he’s a purebred. Trained him myself to be a guard dog.” The man drained the rest in the bottle, then gave it back to Mykail. Mykail gave a little grunt as he reattached it.
“To think, we used to condemn all the plastic we disposed of.”
The man didn’t respond. Instead, he checked his shotgun.
Mykail glanced up at the approaching night sky. “How much farther?”
“Not far.”
He threw a thumb over his shoulder. “We’re quite a ways from the river. How’d you know I was there?”
“I didn’t. We were hunting in the area when Hogan caught your scent and led me to you. You were upwind from us.”
Mykail eyed the man’s outfit. “I take it you’re doing well, in spite of everything.”
“We’re making it. The aliens appear to be leaving the forested areas alone, and concentrating on the cities, the more populated places.”
“How did you fare when all this crap went down?”
For the first time, the man flashed him a grin. “To be honest, it was your girlfriend I have to thank for giving me a heads up.”
Mykail sat up straighter. “How’s that?”
“I used to be with the Port Meggin Police Department. Right after the first wave of attacks happened, I stayed on duty. Most of us officers did, even though we no longer had any way to communicate with each other. Hell, even our walkie talkies were inoperable. We felt we might be the only ones who could keep some kind of sanity in check.
“Anyway, I was patrolling the streets. I’d been working thirty-eight hours straight, with hardly any breaks. I was just about on my last legs. It was nighttime, and the power was off. Let me tell you, it’s downright terrifying to try and do your job in a total blackout.
“I drove by this mini-mart and noticed the windows had been blown out. I got out of my cruiser to see if anyone had been injured or needed assistance, when I came across this figure huddled up against the ice machine. It was this girl. Said her name was Emlee Dow, and she admitted she’d just stolen some items from inside.” The man shook his head. “I don’t know why, but something about her felt…”
“Different?” Mykail suggested.
“Yeah. Very different. On top of that, she warned me about what was to come. It was as if she was able to see into the future. So much of what she told me sounded absolutely crazy, but she didn’t give off any of those kinds of vibes. And, trust me, I’ve been around enough inebriated and drug-addled people to spot crazy a mile away. I asked what she was doing there, and she told me she was supposed to meet her boyfriend at the marina. It was raining pretty hard, so I offered her a ride there. She’d been going in the wrong direction and was quite a distance from it.
“Along the way she gave me some very good advice. Very good advice.” The man’s voice lowered as he bowed his head. A moment of silence passed, then he resumed. “When we reached the marina, I accompanied her down onto the pier, but the sailboat she’d told me about was gone. We found a note addressed to her, saying you’d be back at daybreak or sometime around then. I didn’t like the idea of leaving her there overnight, and offered to let her stay the night with my family, but she declined. I hated having to go, but before I left, she’d told me something that changed my life. Probably saved my life, too.”
“What was that?”
“She told me to go home and take care of my family. To stop playing the cop and get my hands on as much non-perishable food as I could, even if I had to break into a store myself and do it, and then prepare myself for the worst. She kept pressing the fact that I needed to protect my family more than protecting the rest of the world.” He ran a hand over his beard. “Smartest damn advice I’d ever been given. If she hadn’t told me to do that, I honestly believe my family and I wouldn’t be here now.” He gave Mykail a questioning stare. “Did she tell you the same thing?”
“Yeah. Pretty much.”
“So that’s why you decided to get on a sailboat and move away from land?”
“Yeah.”
A frown appeared on the man’s face. “Wait a sec. You said she told you to get ready before the aliens arrived?”
Mykail didn’t hesitate. “Yeah.” Seeing the guy’s mounting confusion, he decided to tell him everything. “She knew it was all going to come down because…she’d already lived through it.”
“Run that by me again.”
Mykail started to explain when the man held up a hand as he glanced at the sky. He then waved at him and got to his feet. “Hogan, come. We need to get to the camp before dark. You can tell me the rest of the story along the way.”
“I don’t suppose you could tell me your name?” Mykail ventured.
The man stopped and held out a hand. They shook. “Dan Apsteen. Now, tell me about this Emlee woman.”
“I hope you’re willing to suspend belief, because I damn sure had to.”
“We got aliens destroying our world. Trust me, it won’t be much of a stretch to believe anything you have to tell me,” Apsteen remarked.
They continued toward what the former cop called a campsite. Hogan the dog took point, l
eading the way. Mykail told the man about how he met Emlee, including her attack on him and the police coming to the house.
“Do you remember the names of the officers?” Apsteen inquired.
“I know one of them was Nim. I’m not real sure about the other one.”
Apsteen nodded. “Go on. So you told the responding officers she was your girlfriend who’d surprised you, and it was all a big misunderstanding, right?”
“Right.”
“Even though she was feeding you what sounded like a plot for a science fiction movie.”
“I can’t explain why, Dan, but I believed her. I mean, there was something about her. She didn’t rant or rave. She sounded on the up and up. I couldn’t help but believe her. Yeah, there was this small percentage of me that still doubted her, but once the news telecasted those first images of those scout ships, I was dead certain she was the real thing.”
“The real thing?”
“Yeah. From the future.”
Stunned, Apsteen paused in his tracks. “You actually believe she traveled through some kind of space time continuum, or whatever the hell those science fiction geeks call it, and returned to the past just in time to witness this shit all over again?”
“How else do you explain it?” Mykail countered. “How else could she know everything that happened before it happened? And I mean right down to the last detail!”
“How far from the future did she come?”
“Six years.”
Apsteen whistled softly. “So how did she get here, back to this time?”
“I don’t know.” Mykail shrugged and shook his head. “She went into the bathroom to change clothes, and when I went to check on her, she was gone.”
“Gone?”
“Yeah. I think she went back to her time.”
“Why would she do that?”
“I don’t know!” he admitted, frustrated. “I honestly don’t think she intended to. Maybe whatever brought her back to this time decided she had to return. Fuck.” He dropped his voice and shoved his hands into his pockets.
“You fell pretty hard for her, didn’t you?” Apsteen gently asked.
“Kind of obvious, right?”
“Well, to be honest, even though she didn’t tell me she was from the future, I got the sense she had some kind of prior knowledge that I needed to listen to. I can’t explain why I took her at her word. Guess it’s because of my sixth sense. You know, that sixth sense we guys who’ve been in the military, and those of us who wear the shield develop?” Apsteen tapped his temple. “That sixth sense told me to heed her warning. So after I dropped her off at the marina, I hit several of those little convenience stores, and I cleaned them out of food and water, and bottled drinks, and anything else I felt I might need. I stuffed the trunk of my squad car, and both the back seat and front passenger seat. And then I took it home and told my wife and kids we were leaving the city.”
“So you brought them to this campsite you mentioned?”
“Sort of,” Apsteen replied enigmatically.
They continued further on foot. By now darkness had almost completely swallowed their surroundings. Apsteen pulled a flashlight from his pocket and shone it ahead of them as Hogan remained no further than a dozen feet in front.
It wasn’t much longer when Apsteen halted and played the light over a structure in front of them. It was a wall made of lumber and split logs. Mykail figured it had to be at least twenty feet or more in height. They followed it for several yards until they came to a set of double doors. Apsteen pounded on them with a fist.
“Open up! It’s me, Apsteen!”
A light from overhead shone down on them, and a male voice called out, “It’s him. Open the doors.”
There was the sound of a lock or something being disengaged, and one of the doors swung outward. Hogan happily bounded inside as Apsteen waved for Mykail to enter with him.
“Come on in and make yourself at home, Mr. Sinth. Welcome to Mossbeck.”
Chapter Twenty-Three
Chase
The winters were the most brutal times of the year. During those days when the blowing snow heaped up into mounds taller than a man, and ice coated the remains of towns and cities in blankets as strong as steel, she’d take refuge wherever it seemed the safest. Although finding enough to eat was always a challenge, finding warm clothing wasn’t. With the planet’s population cut by three-fourths or more, there was always a store where she could rifle through the racks for something to wear. Better yet, most stores had an employee lounge for their staff. And those lounges usually included a snack machine and most people didn’t know about those secret little treasure troves.
At the top of her list of stores to avoid were supermarkets and sporting goods. Those were the ones most frequently ransacked. She also included restaurants and bars on that list, as people went through them in their search for food, as well as absconding with as much alcohol as they could. However, certain restaurants and bars were also good places to find matches or fireplace starters, not to mention the odd baseball bat or handgun stored underneath the bar or in a back office for emergencies.
Emlee pulled out the pocket package of tissues from her coat pocket, extracted one, and blew her nose. She huddled in front of the small fire she’d built inside the oven of a cottage she’d come across just as it was growing dark. The place had no fireplace, but ovens were the second-best place to start a fire. If things looked to be getting a bit out of hand, all she’d have to do was shut the oven door and wait for it to extinguish itself.
Unfortunately, what wood she could gather outside was too wet to use. Fortunately, the woman had several floor-to-ceiling bookcases filled with hardback and paperback books. Finding them surprised her, considering how people tended to read electronically. “Well, the electronic days are over. Back to the old-fashioned ways, which time usually shows us are the best ways, anyway,” she’d remarked. After perusing several of the titles, she pulled out an armful and took them into the kitchen to use as kindling.
There was nothing edible in this place, but she didn’t expect there to be. Neither was there a basement that might contain a stash of preserves. The last time she’d eaten anything was a shriveled up orange she’d found on the ground two days ago. She had no idea where it had come from, as there weren’t any orange trees anywhere in the area, but she didn’t question her luck. She’d ducked into a nearby culvert and devoured it.
She’d been a bit luckier when it came to finding fresh water. With the abundance of snow, she filled a pot and set it inside the oven until it melted. The best part was being able to heat some water to where she could take a spit bath. Bathing was a rare luxury, and something she always took advantage of whenever she could.
Gosh. When was the last time I completely immersed myself under a warm spray?
“Best bath I ever took…” she began, then stopped. It was the shower she’d taken in Mykail’s apartment. After years of depravation, of sometimes having to spend weeks wearing the same clothes when she was traveling between towns, a fresh change was the second best thing after a bath.
Thinking of Mykail threatened to bring on fresh tears. In the few short months since she’d returned to her time, she never stopped wondering what had happened to him. There were times she’d have nightmares about him being caught and killed by one of the roaming bands of militants. Groups made up of men like those boys who’d chased her at the marina. People who delighted in being able to do anything to anyone without repercussions.
The murderers. The rapists. The torturers.
The cannibals.
A shiver went through her. Sometimes she wondered why she didn’t find one location to stay in, rather than roam from city to city. She’d seen small pockets of people gathered in an off-the-road location. People who were well-armed and didn’t take kindly to anyone approaching them, even if it was just a lone female. But common sense told her that being a lone female was a death wish if she chose to bunk down permanently som
ewhere on her own.
“Fifty-fifty chance,” she murmured, staring at the small flames that licked the paper inside the oven. “Set up residence somewhere and wait for someone to eventually find me, or stay on the road where someone could see me.”
The fire was getting low. She reached for the next book on the stack she’d placed against the cabinet behind her. It was a cookbook. She stared at the photo of a chocolate cake on the cover, then flipped through several of the pages featuring colorful and delicious looking food. On impulse, she tore a page with a steak on it and stuffed it into her mouth. The moment she did, she burst into tears, but she doggedly chewed it until it was nothing but a hard bit of pulp and swallowed it. Angrily, she shoved the rest of the cookbook into the stove to watch it burn.
She shouldn’t have ventured this far into open land this time of year. She should have stayed closer to one of the towns, and tried to make do until the worst of the winter weather was over. But those roamers were becoming more frequent. If she didn’t know any better, she’d swear they were deliberately hunting for other people. They weren’t interested in continuing to subsist on long-expired canned goods. They needed fresh meat, and it didn’t matter if their prey walked on two or four legs.
No, she had no choice but to make her way through brush and forested acres of land running parallel to the main roads and highways, but staying far enough away from the thoroughfares so that she wouldn’t be seen.
Between her exhaustion and the warmth coming from the oven, Emlee felt herself growing sleepy. Leaning against the cabinet, she closed her eyes and allowed herself to drift off.
It was barely morning when she awoke. At least she thought it was morning. The pale sun peeked between the window blinds at sill level.
The fire was cold. So was she. Getting up off the floor was painful as she moved stiffly over to the windows to peer through the blinds to see what it looked like outside. As she’d expected, it had snowed during the night, but not a lot. She estimated an inch or less. Just enough to leave a fine layer of fresh powder covering the ground, glittering like sequins in the sunlight. All indications predicted a good day, weather-wise, which meant she needed to take advantage of it. “Time to hit the road, Em, whether you want to or not.”