After the Shift: The Complete Series

by Grace Hamilton

  He fired two shots toward the inn and then hooked open the rear door of the Taurus.

  Nathan and Mary, still tied and with ropes around their necks, sprinted toward the car. In the back, Donie was waiting with a knife. As Nathan bent his head, she cut the blue nylon around his neck and threw it to one side, doing the same for Mary as the other woman slid in behind Nathan.

  Nathan looked up as Free got back in the car and pushed it into drive. The car growled, the tires squealed, and they were off. A bullet twanged into the roof, making everyone duck, and Free turn the wheel savagely, but the car kept moving forward, making for the ramp back onto the highway.

  Nathan was breathless. His mouth felt stuffed with questions about how they had found him, or known that he needed rescuing, but there would be time for that later.

  On the highway proper, Free stamped on the brakes again. The Taurus slew to a halt by the top of the slope leading down into the parking lot.

  Lucy was there, laying in the grass, a Winchester XPR bolt-action long-range hunting rifle still pointed into the parking lot. She slammed the bolt back and forward, putting the next round in the chamber, and then put the telescopic sight to her eye.

  “No!” Nathan yelled from within the car. So loud it made Lucy look up. Nathan had seen that her next shot was going to be Blaine, still crawling across the tarmac at nearly no miles an hour, his huge backside working, his spine twisting, his hands grasping at the ground.

  Lucy looked at Nathan as he leaned across Donie to the window. “Wind it down!” he said to Donie, and the punk-goth complied.

  Harsh blustery weather blew in, sending the first of the flakes of new snow into Nathan’s face.

  “Leave him! Let him be!”

  Lucy’s face formed a pretzel of confusion. “He’s the guy who gave the orders to increase your height, Nate; surely, like any mean dog, you’d be fine with having him put down?”

  Nathan shook his head. “No, Lucy. Let him live with the shame. It’ll hurt him so much more.”

  It had been the walkie-talkie that had alerted the others to the danger Nathan was in.

  Dave held up his walkie-talkie counterpart. “When they took it from you, they accidentally turned it on, or maybe they were just checking that it still had a charge. I dunno. But we listened to what was going on best we could. Heard someone talk about a lynching at the ‘Ev’ry-1-welcome,’ so Donie found it on the map and we came to get you. Had to explain to these guys that we weren’t taking no for an answer, I’m afraid…”

  Dave pointed at Mary’s friends, who were laying in the road back at the first roadblock. They were trussed up like joints of beef, and not at all happy. Mary released them and took them to one side to explain what had happened back in Casper.

  Nathan was still rubbing at his wrists, and trying to peel Tony off of his body—the boy being stuck to him like a hard-glue limpet. “Well, I can only thank you guys. I thought… well… you can guess.”

  Free nodded, and Lucy, having taken Brandon from Tony as he’d rushed toward the returning Nathan, squeezed the top of the mechanic’s arm in a rare show of public affection. “We didn’t plan on only showing up in the nick of time, believe me. But once we got to the second roadblock and I saw the Winchester in the Taurus, I knew I could take them down like deer.”

  “Remind me never to grow antlers.”

  Lucy threw her head back and laughed. She’d lived a life of high privilege and had married well several times. Longrifle hunting was just one of her skills, and Nathan was more than grateful for her ability. It was a skill that had saved the day when everyone was hungry, many times, but now it had saved him from his own death. He didn’t think this sparky, spiky woman would ever stop impressing him.

  “What’s the plan, Kimosabe?” Tommy asked. His heritage was Texan and nothing else—whatever anyone said, he would insist on this, even though he was of the Diné people, a Navajo by birth; it was a heritage he didn’t identify with. A recent addition to the party, Tommy was boldly pragmatic and utterly no-nonsense. There wasn’t an ounce of waste on his frame or in his demeanor, and there was also nothing PC about Tommy, especially when it came to his own heritage. In fact, Nathan often got the impression he said things like that because he enjoyed the reaction more than he would like to admit. “If they have half a brain, whoever’s left back there is going to be after us, and pretty soon.”

  Nathan wiped the flurrying snow from his cheeks and hair. “Depends how much gas we have in the Taurus, I guess.”

  “Half a tank,” Tommy replied.

  “You can siphon anything else you want out of the other cars if you want.” Mary was coming back from her conference, her neck still red raw from the rope. Being much smaller and lighter than Nathan, she had been taken up higher and faster than him. She rubbed at the skin and then hugged Lucy, hard.

  “Thank you.”

  Lucy smiled. “My pleasure. I’m only sorry I couldn’t save your friend.”

  Nathan explained that Cal had already been gone by the time they’d strung him up, and that seemed to make Lucy less regretful. Mary went around to all of them, giving them hugs of gratitude. She finished with Nathan. “We’re going to go back to Casper, to see to Cal’s body and then figure out a way of getting things back to how they were before Blaine happened. It might be rough there for a while. I wouldn’t recommend it for you or your family and friends for a while.”

  “Yeah, I get that,” Nathan said. “You’re all welcome to come along with us, once we decide where we’re going.”

  For a moment, it looked like Mary was considering the idea, but in the end, she shook her head. “No, Nate, my friends and family are back there. We’ll go back, and take Blaine with us and show them what a scumbag his men have been following. You were right to leave him alive. His situation now will tell a more convincing story than we ever could.”

  And so, when the Taurus’ tank was full, and what supplies they had all transferred into the back of it, they prepared to leave. Mary also let them have a warhorse 2015 Ford F-350 with an enclosed utility body from the roadblock. It came with a near full tank, too, and space in its aluminum utility body for more supplies and Tommy riding shotgun. Lucy, Free, and Rapier would take the Ford with Tommy. Nathan, Dave, Donie, and Tony with Brandon in the boy’s lap would be in the Taurus. The gas would get them far enough from Casper in the short-term to outrun anyone coming after them from Blaine’s gang. From what Mary intimated, they’d have too much to deal with holding on to power to worry about Nathan and his crew.

  But which way to go?

  The snow was coming down heavier now. It reminded Nathan more of the Big Winter than anything had for many weeks. Was the Earth’s crust still slipping? Was the Arctic Circle encroaching ever westwards? When would this rolling disaster settle down and allow people to plan for even an uncertain future? A future that just a few hours ago Nathan had been convinced he would never see.

  Which direction?

  West into Casper was out, but so were north and east. Going back into the Big Winter would be a chilly suicide. That left south.

  South it would be.

  4

  For the third time, Nathan dropped the battery connector from his freezing fingers.

  The air was blue with cold. His breath billowed like smoke from a dragon whose fire had been extinguished, and his jaw chattered his teeth in a winter tattoo that had not been played on Nathan’s body for several months. The Big Winter was hauling its blanket back over America, further south than it had before.

  Nathan and his party had been moving down the country from Casper for a week now. The gas in the two vehicles Mary had gifted them had taken them well on their way to Denver—over 220 miles over the border and on into Colorado. The F-350 had dried up first, three miles outside Wellington on the I-85. Nathan had taken the Taurus with Tony, Brandon, and the others onto the forecourt of an abandoned Shell station. He’d left them there to build a camp inside the abandoned Burger King, and worked his way
back up the highway to fetch Tommy, Lucy, Free, and Rapier.

  The wind was scything across the prairie now, bringing frost and billows of icy snow that stung the face like needles. It wasn’t a full-on ice storm yet, but Nathan had experienced enough of them since leaving Glens Falls to know that one was brewing in the volcanic dust-chilled sky. Their journey into Wyoming had been one of near optimism, but the race out of it had been one of pure pessimism.

  Whatever hope Nathan had felt about temporarily moving out of the grasp of the Big Winter had totally dissipated now. Somewhere beneath the grinding tectonics of the Earth’s crust, the slippage that had moved the Arctic Circle to cover half of America and most of the Atlantic was continuing. The ice was moving south at a rate you could almost see before your eyes.

  As they had traveled west from Glens Falls, first to Detroit and then on past Chicago to Casper, the evidence had suggested a population who had mostly fled south, like migrating birds in winter—but that winter was following them hard now. It wasn’t going to let them go easily.

  Nathan’s fingers slipped again, and he came up from under the hood of the Taurus, cursed, and stuffed his hands into his pockets to warm them. In a service block attached to the Shell station, Tommy had scored a new battery which had been missed by the usual looters and ne’er-do-wells. Those usual suspects who descended like locusts, taking anything and everything they could. Tommy had been pleased to hand the opaque cube over to Nathan after sloshing the contents around next to his ear to make sure it was full and hadn’t leaked. Meanwhile, Free had siphoned enough gas from the Taurus and trudged back to the F-350 to bring it into Wellington.

  Nathan had taken the battery, gone swiftly to the Taurus, and popped the hood.

  Anything to be on his own.

  Nathan took the old battery unit from the Taurus and tried to fix the new one into place. He’d charged it enough to start the Taurus—when it was in place—with Dave’s portable wind turbine setup, which he used to charge the mapping laptop and connect to the satellite system for patchy internet information. But the cold was biting, even with the Taurus out of the wind and snugged against the side of the Burger King.

  Cyndi wouldn’t have put up with Nathan pushing himself like this. She would have insisted that he come inside where the others were fixing food on the camping stove and get warm and fed before attempting to change the battery. She would have swiped him playfully across the arm, dragged his body inside, and made him sit and eat and laugh and…

  Nathan shook his head, wiping at a tear that had threatened to turn to ice on his cheek.

  There were days when he could cope with the loss of his wife and best friend, Cyndi. There were times when he could huddle up in a sleeping bag with Tony in the car, while Brandon snored and breathed like only a baby could, and Nathan could sleep soundly. Then there were times like today, with the constant shadow of anxiety and grief playing across his gut, when he just needed to be on his own, away from the Dave-and-Donie/Free-and-Lucy love-in axis. Times when there would be a secret tear, a hollow at his very center, and a blackness waiting at his shoulder to tell him dark things about his many failings.

  Free and Lucy were developing a deep love and understanding with each other. One that Nathan often had to check himself over, so as not to get covered in splashes of envy. Cyndi’s end hadn’t been easy or pleasant, and it hollowed him even deeper when he saw Free and Lucy, the two of them so easy and comfortable together. Because Dave and Donie were so much younger—near kids, really, who kept the party connected to the internet’s mapping systems, via satellite uplinks powered by wind turbines and police-issue laptops—Nathan was less troubled by their outward shows of love and affection for each other. He still got a pang sometimes, but he also got the impression they’d been toning their demonstrable expressions of love down around him since Cyndi had died. He could at least appreciate them for that.

  On days like today, though, Nathan would throw himself into whatever needed to be done, and he wouldn’t stop until the task was completed. It was his defense against the horror of losing Cyndi. Remembering holding her dying heart in his hands in her freshly opened chest. No man should have to do or see that. And sometimes, in his head, it was the only thing he could see.

  Head down. Get it done.

  Nathan sighed, blew ineffectually on his hands, and began working again on the connectors. No amount of dwelling was going to get the new battery in the Taurus.

  But…

  Why this? Why this damn battery? Surely, there were other more pressing things to do before changing a battery that was old and cranky starting in the mornings as the cold encroached south, but which was still working. Why insist on making the change now?

  Why so stubborn, Nathan? Why?

  He wished the run of thoughts would just race on past without catching in the filters of his head. Lately, Nathan couldn’t help second-guessing himself. Questioning his own decisions and plans. If he’d learned one thing since this whole venture had started, though, it was to make a plan and stick to it. Your first instincts were usually the best ones in any given situation. And now the only decision Nathan felt he could make firmly and correctly was to stay out of everyone’s way while he tinkered under the hood of the Taurus, in a killing wind, when he absolutely didn’t need to.

  The new battery in place, Nathan had to reach into the guts of the engine with a 5/16th socket to secure its locking clamp. Twice, the socket slipped before it bit into the metal, and twice, Nathan had to close his eyes, count to ten, and try to get the socket in place before starting to twist. It was on the second try that a cough came out of nowhere and racked his chest.

  So surprising and deep was the explosion of ragged breath in his body that Nathan dropped the socket. It clattered on down through the engine, coming to rest against the base of the battery. Nathan’s chest heaved again, and he felt his eyes bulging in their sockets. His knees weakened and his calves felt like lead.

  “I told you to take a break, didn’t I?”

  Nathan looked up, covering his mouth as another cough ripped out through his lips.

  Lucy was standing next to him, holding out an enameled, blue-rimmed camping mug full of steaming coffee. “I’ve put brandy in it, natch.” Nathan took the mug with trembling fingers. “You’re so stubborn, Nathan. You’re not going to make it to your next birthday at this pace. You have to slow down. I’ve been telling you about your chest for days.”

  Has she?

  More evidence, if it were needed, that Nathan was in his own little world of grief and withdrawal.

  “We’re out of antibiotics. We’ve got some of Elm’s witchcraft nonsense, and the universal medicine of brandy mixed with coffee, but that’s it. Look at your forehead, Nate. You’re sweating like a guilty man waiting to be searched at the airport. You need to come inside.”

  Nathan ran his hand over the skin above his eyes; even in the cold, it was damp with sweat. The warmth in his cheeks might well have just been a reaction to the stinging wind, but Lucy was intimating that he was ill. Or at least not one hundred percent. But it just wasn’t important right now. The car wouldn’t start without the battery fully in place, and that’s what Nathan wanted to get done, and get done now.

  “Lucy, come on, I’m okay. The car needs the battery.”

  “And you need to recharge yours. I’m worried about you. Free’s worried about you, and it’s only because Tony doesn’t want you to think that he’s talking behind your back that he’s not saying he’s worried about you…”

  At the mention of his son, Nathan looked up and around. He could see the boy across the concrete with Donie, going through some broken crates to see what they could salvage. Rapier, Tony’s huge, furry fury of a sled dog was sitting patiently by, head cocked, looking at the boy expectantly. The dog wanted to play and have some fun with his young master, but Tony was intent on other things. Things that would allow him to keep his eye on his father.

  Before Cyndi had taken the bullet meant
for Nathan, Tony had been happy to play alone with the malamute. The hound had been a part of the dog teams which had pulled them out of Detroit. Once the snows had eroded in the rising temperatures and the improving ground conditions had meant that sled travel was no longer a viable method of transport, Rapier had become a pet, Tony’s closet friend. But even that connection wasn’t sufficient to keep the boy feeling safe or self-assured. Nowadays, Tony didn’t seem to want Nathan to be out of his line of sight. Which was understandable under the circumstances.

  There was a rising warmth of anger now in Nathan’s belly. He didn’t need this now. He just wanted to get on with the damn car. “Don’t put words in my son’s mouth.”

  “I’m not. I can just see them unspoken in his eyes. You might think all that my head is full of is Jimmy Choos, features in Cosmo, and which Caribbean island I plan to winter on next year, but I know men. God, I’ve married enough of them, and over the time we’ve been together, I’ve come to know you, Nate.”

  Nathan didn’t want to hear it. He took a mouthful of brandy-infused coffee and then passed the mug back to Lucy, shaking his head. “Thank you for your concern, but I have things to do.” Nathan turned away, expecting that to be that, but Lucy’s stubborn streak could give Nathan’s a run for its money and then do a lap of honor.

  “You don’t have to listen to me, Nate, but I’m telling you your boy is worried. You’re too wrapped up in yourself right now—and yes, I get why, Cyndi was your life as well as your wife—but she’s only memories now, Nathan. You’ve got two boys who need you to not only be well, but operational, too. How are you going to protect them if you’re falling apart?”

  Nathan would have thumped his fist down on the Taurus’ engine if his lungs hadn’t buzz-sawed up his throat and brought a fresh mess of tears in to smear his eyes and degrade his vision.

  Lucy put a hand on his back. “Please, Nate. Come inside, out of the cold. Free can finish this off later. We’re staying here tonight and you need a rest.”