by Emma Castle
“No. Please, just let them go.”
She couldn’t tell him, this stranger, what the sight of something so beautiful, still alive meant to her. With the harsh winter, she’d seen only a handful of crows, a few raccoons, and a couple of coyotes in the last few weeks. But those had been scavengers, signs of decay. Many of the bigger animals like horses had seemed to die along with the humans, according to the CDC. She had wondered if the Hydra-1 virus would make the jump to deer. There had been a lot of fevered panic talk in the final days about what the virus was capable of, but no one honestly knew. Seeing those deer still alive give her such hope she could barely speak.
The man shrugged off her hand. “You’ll be regretting that tonight when your stomach grumbles.” He handed her back the plate of food. “Now eat. You don’t want to waste the eggs, trust me.”
She ate the rest of the breakfast in silence and licked every bit of sugary juice off her fork from the peaches. This place was as close to heaven as she could have imagined, though her benefactor hardly seemed to be an angel. When he came to help collect her plate, their gazes locked.
“Thank you…” She struggled, hoping he would give her his name.
“Lincoln. Lincoln Atwood.”
“I’m Caroline Kelly.”
He nodded once, in a curt, military-like fashion.
“You live here?” She nodded at the house.
“For now.” He returned to the kitchen and rested his hands on a walnut chair at the kitchen table. Caroline couldn’t help but wonder why he had taken her from the store and why he was taking care of her now. It didn’t make sense. Maybe he still planned to use her in some way once she was feeling better. She pushed away the thought and the way it both frightened and excited her.
“Why did you grab me at the grocery store last night?”
Lincoln returned to the kitchen and began to clean the pot he had scrambled the eggs in. This place still had running water? That meant she could take a bath? Even a cold shower?
“I saw you and I wanted you. I also knew you wouldn’t get far on your own. In this case, it was worth the risk to double our numbers.”
“You wanted me?” The word sent a flash of fresh fear through her.
“Yes,” he admitted readily. “But I won’t force you.”
She frowned. “You drugged me. What kind of asshole does that?”
He turned off the water and set the pot out to dry on a dishtowel. He was being so calm and domestic while he was talking about sex between two complete strangers. She could only stare at him. He was clearly insane. Lincoln came back over to the couch. Caroline wanted to shrink back, but she held her ground.
“I’m the kind of asshole who knew what pain you were in after you sprained your ankle and that shelf fell on you and wanted to help you. So I gave you the last shot I had of some of the best medicine this world will likely never see again. You’re welcome.”
“I didn’t need your help. I had a plan, and I was doing just fine,” she shot back.
“Fine? I checked your bag—you had no food, no first aid kit, and no weapons. You were helpless as a kitten out there.”
“I was robbed a few weeks ago. I had everything I could have needed, but then some asshole cornered me and grabbed my bag from behind. I had to leave it to escape. I was working my way through the stores to restock when you found me. The smaller cities had a better chance of not being looted and I was doing my best to get what I could.”
“Yeah, well, your best wasn’t cutting it, sweetheart. You would have been dead within a week.”
At this she laughed bitterly. “Dead within a week? You have no fucking clue what I’ve been through. No clue at all. I survived the riots of Chicago. I walked out of there on my own, fully stocked and prepared for anything. I climbed the barricades with my bare hands, got through the barbed wire and all the bodies.” Those were memories she hadn’t wanted to relive, the smell of burning flesh, the bloody razor wire coiling in tendrils along the tops of the barricades, and the screams, so many screams, as people clawed their way up to escape. She’d helped as many over the wall as she could, at least thirty before she’d lost her footing and fallen twenty feet to the ground on the other side of the barricade. She’d looked at the other survivors around her, all standing helpless and unsure what to do next. Caroline had begged them to stick together, but they’d scattered like startled rabbits into the outskirts of the small cities surrounding Chicago.
Caroline stared hard at the man before her now, daring him to judge her weak.
“You escaped the barricades?” he asked quietly, his gaze intensifying.
She nodded once, meeting him with a stony glare.
“Humph.” He made a noise of disbelief at the back of his throat and turned away.
When he stalked off, she expected to hear him stomping up the stairs like an angry child. But she heard only the barest hint of a creak of wood as he moved.
Great. She’d been kidnapped by a freaking ninja mountain man.
Caroline listened to the sounds of water moving through the pipes above her and let out a slow, shaky sigh. She examined the house, and then she carefully moved from the couch and made her way to the kitchen. The entire house was surprisingly sunny and warm. It probably helped that he had a fire burning in the main fireplace. The crackle and pop of the logs was a comforting sound in the silence of the house.
There was a still a hush throughout the place, like the owners had simply left for the day and would be back by nightfall. Pictures lined the fireplace, showing a smiling couple hiking in Colorado and lounging on a warm, white, sandy beach somewhere. Post-it notes clung to the wood cabinet just above the phone with numbers scrawled on them. A calendar hung from a nail by the refrigerator with holidays and birthdays written in colored markers. Caroline looked out to the backyard again. The deer had moved on now, but she could see twin mounds and a pair of rough-hewn wooden crosses. The happy, smiling couple was gone. Forever.
The world was full of ghosts now. The sighs of empty houses settling, the rasp of wind through the trees, the snow falling on graves, and the heavy, endless silence. When starved and cold, Caroline would slip into a state where she wondered if humanity had only ever been a vivid and wondrous dream. Everything bright and beautiful had vanished in three months. The earth and Mother Nature had reclaimed their world, and mankind was but a footnote in a book no one would ever write.
She explored the kitchen, careful to keep her weight off her bad ankle as she checked the cabinets. She almost squealed in delight when she found an unopened jar of peanut butter in the back of one of the cabinets. She unscrewed the lid and removed the cover. The aroma made her eyes brim with tears.
She rummaged around in the drawers for some silverware. Then, like she had done as a kid, she ate the peanut butter right off the spoon. There was a flicker of guilt at her actions, but who was going to judge her?
The depressing answer to that question destroyed the weak flutters of joy she’d felt. She heard the soft thud of a drawer closing somewhere upstairs. Caroline gazed about then, not seeing Lincoln anywhere, and approached the backpack he’d left on the kitchen table. The military backpack was a sandy brown and covered with pockets. She opened the smallest one, and her fingers brushed something hard and metallic. She pulled it out and studied it. A small flag pin, the kind a politician might wear pinned to his suit. It was such an odd thing to carry about, not that it took up any space. She tucked it back in and opened the next pocket. Small packets of birth control pills and condoms filled that area.
“Wow…a bit optimistic, are we?” She snorted and moved to the next pocket. More medicines. Acetaminophen, ibuprofen, naproxen sodium, EpiPens, and antihistamines. The pocket after that contained a Maglite, batteries, solar chargers, space blanket, rope, twine, scissors, a compass, laminated maps… Lincoln was a walking survival gold mine. She’d had all of these things in her first go-bag—well, everything but the condoms.
“Seriously?” The dark growl came from her left.
She froze, hand still in the bag as she turned toward Lincoln. Then she wished she hadn’t.
The man was naked except for a towel around his waist. And that towel was barely hanging from his hips. She blinked in a daze at the sight of the V indentations over his hip bones.
Oh boy…
She’d never seen a man who was actually that clearly muscled in her life. Did he live in the gym? Water droplets clung to his skin, and his hair, shaggy and wet, dripped onto his shoulders. He was some kind of walking sexual fantasy she’d never thought she’d experience.
Caroline pulled the peanut butter spoon clean from her mouth, and with her back still turned to him, she pulled her hand out of his bag and zipped it up, praying he wouldn’t notice.
“What?” she shot back.
“You’re eating it straight out of the jar. That’s how pathogens like Hydra-1 spread. I’m sure you’re immune by now, but seriously.” He strolled over and plucked the spoon from her and set it in the sink. Then his gaze shot to his backpack on the table, and he tilted his head, studying it. She’d zipped it back up, but she must have missed something. Dread swept over her, and she backed up a step when he looked her way, one eyebrow arched.
“I’m sorry I snooped through your bag.”
To her surprise, he chuckled. “I’m not mad about that. I took a shower to give you time to work up the courage to look through the bag. I want you to trust me, to know that I’m not a threat.”
Caroline digested his words before replying. “So I’ll sleep with you?”
“You’ll sleep with me, honey. Basic biology. Once you get over the drama of how we met, you’ll see me as a providing alpha male, and you’ll feel the urge. When you do, I’m here.”
“What the fuck?” she snapped. “I’m not some ancient cave dweller. I’m a modern human woman with feelings.”
“And when you change your mind, I’ll be here.” He cleaned her spoon with soap and dried it off before putting it back into the silverware drawer.
“I wouldn’t have sex with you even if”
“Don’t say it.” Lincoln cut her off. “You’ll only be wrong later.” He walked past her, and damned if she didn’t catch the sweet clean scent of soap on his skin. And the way he moved… Her belly quivered, and she cursed herself. Hormones be damned—she would not let nature take over, not when it came to this. However foolishly impossible a dream love or romance might seem now, it was still a dream she hoped for. Maybe she would die alone, but at least she would have her dignity.
The thought was not as comforting as she’d hoped it would be.
Seeing as it seemed she was free to go where she pleased in the house, she limped over to the living room, eased down on the large, black, leather sofa, and stared at the blank TV screen. She’d never been obsessed with TV, at least not the news, but she would’ve killed for even a faint flicker of life from that black void of a screen.
She closed her eyes, and after a while she realized she must have drifted to sleep because when she woke, she was covered in several thick blankets. Lincoln must have done that. Damn him. She didn’t want him to be nice. She wanted to hate him. It was easier to not trust someone if you didn’t like them.
“You can take a shower,” he said.
She peeped over the top of the couch back toward the kitchen. Outside the sun was setting over a lonely winter horizon, leaving the claw-like branches of the trees to cast dark, sharp edges against the soft evening-colored skies. Time passed so quickly some days, and other days it dragged on for eternity.
Lincoln was dressed and seated at the table, a gun spread out in pieces on a cloth. He was cleaning a part of the barrel with another cloth. His large, capable hands were elegantly masculine as he carefully moved his fingers over the gun. She knew those hands were capable of gentleness too. For some reason that made her stomach flutter. Caroline forced herself to focus back on their conversation.
“I try to avoid icy baths except for every couple of days. If I can boil some water, I’ll just set up a sponge bath somewhere.”
“Who said anything about ice water?” he replied, still focused on his gun.
“What? This place has hot water? Are you serious?” she almost shrieked as she tried to get off the couch and went down on her bad ankle.
Lincoln was at her side in an instant, lifting her up into his arms with a smirk on his face. The asshole.
“You don’t need to carry me,” she huffed.
“I do when you keep flopping like a fish every time you try to stand too fast.”
She didn’t bother to reply, preferring the dignity of silence. He carried her upstairs to the master bathroom and set her down on the edge of the large tub by the shower. Then he let her go.
“Towels are in the closet.” He nodded toward a small linen closet nearby. “I’ll wait in the bedroom to carry you back downstairs.”
She waited a long moment after he closed the bathroom door before she began to undress. Part of her was convinced this was some insane dream she was having. There couldn’t be warm water. There couldn’t be an insanely attractive man outside the door waiting for her. She’d had a bad dream…or maybe this was a good dream. The first one she’d had in months.
Caroline shivered as she let the last of her clothes drop in a pile by the door. Then she turned on the water, cranking it hot. For a few seconds only icy water came through, and then she felt hot water burning her hand. She dashed into the stall and buried her face beneath the hot spray.
It was heaven. Forget all the food she’d dreamed about eating since Black November, forget all the little things like electricity, movies, and cell phones. Hot water was the only thing she ever truly needed to survive.
Caroline washed frantically at first but then started to take her time. She started to enjoy the experience and began to feel normal again. For just a brief instant, she could picture herself getting ready for work, seeing her coworkers and grumbling good-naturedly about their long commutes into downtown, getting home, having dinner, calling her sister, reading a steamy romance novel or a spooky thriller, and then turning in for bed. Normal life.
Then it was over, and she sat down in the shower, curled into a ball, and cried. Silent, shaking sobs racked her body until her bones hurt. When her body couldn’t take it anymore, she went still as the water started to turn chilly. She stood and turned the water off. Then she retrieved a bath towel and dried herself off and reached for her jeans and sweater.
Her clothes were gone, but a fresh set was stacked on the counter just by the door. Those definitely hadn’t been there when she had undressed. She examined the items. New, clean underwear, warm fleece-lined pajama pants, and a T-shirt and a fleece pullover, plus a pair of thick woolen socks. They weren’t hers, but they looked like they would fit her.
It frightened her to know Lincoln had slipped into the bathroom at some point and given her the clothes. But he hadn’t done anything to her. He’d left the items and vanished with her none the wiser. She dressed and then searched around the drawers for a comb. She couldn’t use a dryer, but she combed out the wet strands and plaited them into a braid.
When she glanced at herself in the mirror, she was glad to see her eyes weren’t red. Had Lincoln seen her crying when he had snuck the clothes inside? Unable to delay it any longer, she opened the bathroom door. Lincoln was lying on the bed, his hands folded over his stomach, his fingers on one hand tapping a tune like a drummer as he waited. Seeing him stretched out in bed, knowing how he looked almost completely naked made her blood hum with dangerous, completely foolish desire.
“Feel better?” He sat up on the bed, bracing his elbows on his bent knees.
“Yes,” she grudgingly admitted. Everyone always felt more human after a hot shower. “How do you even have hot water?” she asked.
“Same way the house is still warm. It’s gas powered.” He sat up, his eyes roving over her, and she crossed her arms over her chest.
“But I thought all the natural gas was shut off.
” When the power grid had failed, so had the gas.
“Not everywhere. Somewhere close by, someone is still alive and keeping the gas running. Most likely someone who worked at the natural gas company in Omaha.”
“Someone? Like another survivor?”
Lincoln rose from the bed and bent to scoop her up. She hadn’t been ready for him and had to throw her arms around his neck to keep her balance in his arms.
“Yeah. There are some out there. Last I heard, less than a fifth of the population was still here. The ones that didn’t die from the disease are being killed by people who are looting homes and stores. My guess is most are in hiding, which is why you don’t run into them that often. Everyone is running scared these days.” He didn’t speak further as he carried her back down to the leather couch.
“Have you tried to find this person, whoever it is?”
“No.”
“Why not?” If she’d figured out someone else was trying to get the world back up and running, she would have done anything she could have to help them.
“Didn’t see a point.” Lincoln’s tone was gruff again.
“You don’t see a point? If he’s keeping the gas running, he’s doing it for a reason, and not because he’s bored. We could be helping him.”
“I salute him, whoever he is, but it would be like finding a needle in a haystack, and he’s likely just one man. What good would it do?”
“What good would it do?” she echoed, a tightness gathering in her chest. “Lincoln, this is about survival. Not just for a few but for all of us. Don’t you get it? We need to be coming together.”
“You ran from me,” he reminded her softly.
“Because you scared the shit out of me, and I thought you wanted to rape me.” She stared at his face, but he didn’t meet her gaze. “There have to be good people still out in the world. Isn’t it our duty to find them?”
His jaw worked as he took a long moment to respond. “I’m done with duty. I served years in the service, lost good men, and none of it fucking matters anymore. I’m looking out for just me now.”