Deep Shadows (48 page)

“Like the gas explosion.” Shelby met his gaze.

He took another drink of his coffee. “Each new emergency seems to surprise them, as if they half-expect an emergency response team to appear out of nowhere. I'm not sure they've grasped that no one is coming to help, that this is their life now.”

“I suspect it will take some people longer than others to come to terms with that.” His father placed the lid on the jar of preserves.

“We've had our share of losses,” his mother said. “Howard Johnson died of a heart attack. His wife, Millie, had to move in with some neighbors. No one felt it was safe for her to live alone.”

They were silent for a moment. Max guessed they were each thinking of the people who had died already from this cataclysmic event. How many more? His mind shied away from the thought. The important thing was that Shelby and Carter were here. They were safe. His parents were fine. Even if the situation grew worse, they had each other.

“The Johnson land will still be farmed,” his father said. “And perhaps
some of Millie's boys will show up—though how they'll get here from the city I can't imagine.”

His dad stood, picked his cowboy hat up off the counter, and placed it on his head. He wore a long-sleeved cotton shirt and overalls. Max marveled that he'd ever worried about his parents. They seemed to be adapting amazingly well.

“We're glad you're home, son.” His father placed one hand on the back of his chair and the other on the back of Shelby's. “And glad you brought Shelby and Carter with you. We prayed, you know. Prayed each and every night that God would bring the three of you here. Together, we'll find a way through this thing.”

He walked out into the June heat. No doubt he would work outside until dinner, as he had done most every day since retiring from his job twenty-four years earlier. Max's mother rose to clear away the dishes, and Shelby stood to help.

“I'll change my clothes and go work with Dad.”

“You'll do no such thing.” His mother turned to face him, a spatula in her hand and a determined expression on her face. “Physical exertion is a trigger, young man. The day they diagnosed you with basilar migraines I promised the Lord that I'd do my best to help you through it.” She waved the spatula in his direction. “There is no need provoking another one of those episodes. Take it easy today. Stay out of the sun.”

“But he needs—”

“He does need your help, but the work will wait. It will still be there tomorrow. If you absolutely must be busy, I have some green beans to snap and purple hull peas to shell. Electricity may be out, but the vegetable garden is doing just fine.”

Max realized it was futile to argue with his mom. So instead he spent the morning helping to move Shelby's things into his grandparents' one-bedroom house, which was only a few feet from the main house.

“You don't have to do this,” he said. “There's room in the main house.”

“I think it will be better.”

So they dusted shelves and made the bed with fresh linen.

Max's mom reminded him there was an old cot out in the barn, so he found it and set it up on the screened-in back porch. It would give Carter a measure of privacy, at least until the weather grew cold.

Shelby was making up the bed when Max pulled a chair close to the cot and insisted that she sit down. He sat on the bed, causing the springs to creak, close enough that their knees were touching. “I want to apologize,” he said.

“You don't need to do that.”

“I do. I made mistakes—a lot of them since the flare.”

Max stared down at his hands, remembered holding the rifle and killing the man barreling toward them in the truck. “I thought that I could keep things going the way they always had. That's why I tried to reason with the teenager who staged the car wreck that first night.”

“You couldn't have known—”

“I should have.” He looked up at her. “I should have realized sooner that everything had changed. If I'd accepted that, maybe Mr. Evans would still be alive.”

“That wasn't your fault, either.”

“No. But I might have prevented it.” He rubbed both hands up and down his jawline. Finally he leaned forward, waited until she was looking at him, and said, “I won't make that mistake again. I'll do whatever I have to do in order to keep you and Carter safe.”

Carter showed up at lunchtime, with dark circles under his eyes and his hair jutting out in a dozen different directions. Before Shelby could ask, he assured her that his blood sugar was fine and proceeded to devour everything Max's mom put in front of him.

After they'd eaten, Max's mom showed all of them how to use the old wringer washer. “We didn't have one,” she explained. “But Millie Johnson did, and she was happy to exchange it for a promise of fish once a week throughout the summer. That will be one of your chores, Carter.”

Carter shrugged, but Max didn't think he'd actually mind walking down to the creek and spending an afternoon each week with a fishing pole in his hand.

“Why can't I have that chore?” Max pretended to sulk as they filled the old tub with water from the cistern, added a small amount of soap powder, and proceeded to wash their clothes.

By late afternoon Max had joined Shelby on the back porch, which stretched across the length of his parents' home. The view was toward the south, toward Abney. They sat facing one another, a small table between them, two metal bowls on the table. Beside Shelby was a large box of purple hull peas that were waiting to be shelled. Max held the box of green beans.

“My mom always did plant too much.”

“It's a good thing she did.”

They spoke of the drive from Abney, the dangers they'd faced, and their worries for friends back in town.

“But you're good here, right?” Max sat back and watched as she split open another pod, dumped the peas into the pan, and dropped the shell into a bucket. It would be used for slop for the pig that his father had recently traded half a dozen chickens for.

“We're grateful, Max. This has always been a peaceful, healing place for me. I'd forgotten that. It's… well, it's been awhile since I've been out to visit.”

“We're safe here, Shelby. As safe as we can be, and I think the work will be good for Carter. It will give him less time to dwell on what has happened. Not that he should forget.”

“No. I don't suppose he'll ever forget Kaitlyn or the last few weeks, but maybe…” She stopped shelling and gazed out over the Texas countryside.

It was scrubby land, marked by a few hills and too many cedar trees. But families had carved out a living on it before, and Max was sure they could again.

“Maybe here he can have the time and space to heal. That's what I pray for.”

They didn't speak of their last night in Abney, when Max had asked her forgiveness or how she'd shown up at his door and admitted that she needed him. That was the past. Everything that came before the solar flare was the past. As deep shadows crept across the vista, Max understood that they would have to turn all their attention toward the present and the future if they were going to survive.

For the moment, his family—all of his family—was safe. He would be on his knees before bed to thank God for that. As for tomorrow, he would have to trust that the grace and protection that had helped them reach High Fields would also see them through the days to come.

E
PILOGUE

One week later

S
helby waited until the sun was a giant ball of red touching the horizon before she began preparing for her journey. After dinner, while Georgia did the dishes and Carter and Roy played a game of checkers, she walked over to their little house and pulled out the three boxes of supplies she'd carefully packed and repacked the last four nights.

Food, first aid kit, blanket, money, and valuables for bartering. Her hand paused over the handgun and ammunition, which she would rather not carry with her. But what if she needed them? What if she had to protect herself? She stacked the three boxes one on top of the other and picked them up. Not that heavy—considering they carried any hope for her son's future.

When she stepped outside, Max was waiting. At his feet were three five-gallon jugs of water—the kind that some people once took to the grocery store to refill.

“Thought you might need these.”

“What are you doing?” she asked.

“Helping.”

Instead of arguing, she tightened her grip on the boxes and followed him to the side of the house where she'd parked the Dodge Ramcharger earlier that afternoon.

“Where did your parents get the water jugs?”

“When they lived in town, Mom went through a spell of digestion problems. She read online that bottled water might help.”

“What happened?”

“She was better in six months, and Pop had accumulated quite a few empty jugs.”

“Waste not—”

“Want not. I filled them with water from the spring out back. It's fresh.”

Max set the jugs on the ground and raised the back hatch of the Dodge.

“I don't need this much water, Max.”

“We do.”

She dropped her stack of boxes on the ground, half-hoping one would land on his foot. “We've been through this before.”

“And there's no need to go through it again.”

“You're not going with me.”

“Yes, I am.”

She pushed each box into the back of the Dodge. Max added the jugs of water and closed the hatch. Instead of walking away, as her heart told her she should, Shelby turned and leaned against the old SUV. The mileage would be terrible, but she wasn't going that far. A tank of gas, which she had, should be enough. It wasn't the distance that was the problem, it was what she might encounter in Austin that worried her.

Max moved beside her so that they were both staring out at the Texas landscape—the Hill Country, where people travelled to vacation and experience the good life. Only that life had been ripped apart, and now they were picking up the pieces.

“I can't believe your dad is loaning me this car.”

“Are you kidding? With a V-8 engine, four-wheel drive, and storage that you can access from inside the vehicle, it's the perfect urban disaster machine.”

Shelby laughed. She wanted to cry, but she laughed. That might have been her exhaustion peeking through.

“You're not going without me, Shelby. Accept that, and we can move forward.”

“You don't think I can do this alone.”

“I don't think you
should
do it alone. God put us together for a reason. We grew up as best friends for a reason.”

“Our past is—”

“Irrelevant? It's not, because you can trust me.”

She heard the frustration in his voice, but she didn't yield.

“You've heard the same reports I have,” he said. “Austin isn't going to be easy.”

“It's a two-hour drive.”

“It was. It isn't anymore. Two days down, two days to find what you need, and two days back—if things go well.”

She'd done the same math in her head, but she hadn't wanted to admit it—not out loud. Six days alone in a world gone dark, a world filled with increasingly desperate people.

“I'm going with you.”

“And if you're killed?”

“If I'm killed I'll be dead, so it won't bother me much. If you're killed and I'm here enjoying the easy life…” He nudged her shoulder with his. “I couldn't live with that.”

She closed her eyes, willing her tears away. When she opened them, the last of the sun's colors had faded from the sky. “Carter will barely talk to me.”

“He's a teenager. He'll get over it.”

“Your mother thinks I should wait to see if supplies show up in Abney.”

“She worries about you.”