Here We Stand (Book 2): Divided (Surviving The Evacuation) (20 page)

Chapter 22 - A New Day, A New Life

March 15
th
, Crossfields Landing, Maine

He was woken by the sound of children running down the wooden stairs. He didn’t move. He couldn’t remember the last time he’d slept so well. It was the smell of coffee that finally dragged him out of his warm cocoon. He searched for the candle he’d been given the night before, and then for the book of matches. By flickering flame, trying not to think about a past long before he was born, he dressed in borrowed clothes. The only clue as to whom they’d once belonged was that the label in the thick sweater was for a store that had gone bankrupt a decade before.

He found his way along the dark corridor to the bathroom. The sound of the flush was one of the sweetest he’d ever heard, even if the cistern then had to be refilled from a bucket. It was all so close to normal, yet so different. The man who stared at him in the mirror was unrecognizable. Grey poked through hair that had been dyed black a month before. Stubble had grown into a ragged beard that was more salt than pepper, and barely hid the deep lines that cut into sunken cheeks.

“You’re alive,” he whispered. He repeated the words, but found them hard to believe. They were still raw, but his experiences were becoming memories. He made his way downstairs, pausing by the partially open door to the living room. The children were inside, playing quietly. He listened, telling himself that whatever he might have failed to do, they were alive, too.

The door to the kitchen was open, the room brightly lit compared to the rest of the house. Flames crackled in a stove and flickered from a pair of candles on a kitchen table where Martha and Jonas sat opposite one another.

“It’s nice to hear them,” Tom said, nodding at the adjoining wall through which the children could be heard. “Reminds you what life’s all about.”

“You have no children?” Martha asked. “That’s a blessing in times like these. There’s oatmeal for breakfast. Sit down, I’ll fix you some.”

“And coffee?” Tom asked.

Jonas leaned back and picked up the old-fashioned pot from the stove. He poured Tom a cup. “Coffee we have a lot of,” he said. “And oatmeal. For now, at least.”

“For about a month, I think,” Martha said. “It depends on how many more people come. We can’t turn them away.”

“No, I suppose not,” Jonas said, in a tone that suggested that was what they’d been discussing before Tom had entered the room.

“That was our big concern,” Martha said, “that we’d be swamped by refugees. The stories Helena told us about your time on the road, and what Kaitlin and others said, turned concern into fear, but we’ve hardly seen anyone.”

“Where are Helena and Kaitlin?” Tom asked.

“On guard duty,” Jonas said. “They’ve got the midnight to six a.m. shift on the main road. We need steady hands and calm minds for that watch.”

“It’s because of the monsters,” Soanna said. Tom turned around. The girl stood in the doorway. “They come at night so Kaitlin and Helena watch for them. No one goes out at night. It’s not safe.”

“That’s right, dear,” Martha said. “Now go back and watch the others.”

Soanna gave a half-shrug as if she wanted to stay in the room, but then thought better of arguing. She left.

“They come all the time,” Jonas said. “Never as many as we saw yesterday, at least not in one go. At night you can’t see them. You hear them getting caught up in the razor wire. We burned through a lot of ammunition when people got nervous and fired blindly at sounds. Of course, the gunfire woke up the entire village. By the time we got a light on the road, we saw it was just one or two of them. So since then, we’ve had a new policy. Everyone stays in at night. The guards are to warn us if the zombies make it past the razor wire. That’s when we take to the walls. If the monsters stay beyond the razor wire, we deal with them at dawn.”

Martha smiled. “Monsters? The children are rubbing off on you.”

Jonas gave a noncommittal shake of his head. They knew each other, Tom thought, and for a long time. They weren’t a couple, but were clearly comfortable in each other’s company.

“How long until the candles are gone?” Tom asked, gesturing at the flickering flame.

“Another week,” Jonas said. “And then we’ll be using the batteries and the flashlights. We’ve been keeping them for when we have to patrol. Candles aren’t safe for that. But we’ll be out of batteries before the days get long enough that we don’t need them.”

“I can’t offer you honey,” Martha said, putting a bowl down in front of Tom. “We have to keep that for wounds. We’re sorely lacking in medical supplies. And I can’t offer you sugar, since we don’t want to waste it on sweetening when it can be used in baking and for preserves. We do have peanut butter.”

“This is fine, thanks.”

“It’s the wrong time of year,” Jonas said, refilling his cup. “If this had happened in April, the bars and restaurants would have begun stocking up for the summer trade. As it is, we’ve got what little Jimmy had in his storeroom and what we can find in the unoccupied houses, but most of the seasonal inhabitants emptied their larders when they went home last fall.”

“It should get easier,” Martha said. “When the zombies stop.”

“It’s been three weeks since it began. I don’t see why they should stop, not ever,” Jonas said. He looked at Tom. “Unless I’m wrong?”

“I’ve no better idea than you,” Tom said.

“Then that brings us back to the problem of ammo and food,” Jonas said. “But no,” he added, “we can’t turn anyone away. We’ll need people more than we need anything else.”

“Not many have arrived here, then?” Tom asked.

“There were a few who followed the coastal road, but most kept going,” Jonas said. “But that was only a couple of vehicles a day. I guess anything larger heading along that route detoured inland, and if they’d come this far, saw no reason to stop. We’ve had a few who came in on foot.”

“And by sea?” Tom asked.

“A lot of boats passed us by,” Jonas said. “Sailing ships, pleasure cruisers, trawlers, even a few tankers. Where the roads were quiet, the sea was abuzz. We’ve a shore-to-ship radio, and we broadcast a message saying that we’d been overrun, that we were trapped. Some would talk with us, but Martha was the only person who came ashore to investigate.”

“I thought this was your house,” Tom said to her.

“Who in their right mind would want to retire to a place like this?” she replied.

Jonas gave a snort. “It’s my house. Those are my clothes you’re wearing.”

“Oh. Right. Thanks. Um… you said you spoke to the people in the ships? Where were they heading?”

“Some were just trying to get as far away as they could. Those with a plan were heading to Canada or Greenland. I’m not sure why, except I guess a rumor started that it was safe, and it spread because people wanted to believe it. We saw people going north. We didn’t see anyone come back. We did hear whispers of a naval battle somewhere in the eastern Atlantic. The word mutiny was repeated a few times. Mostly we heard a lot of desperation.”

Tom found his bowl was empty. He reached for his cup. “Part of my original plan was to sail to Britain. I was going to make most of the journey on a fishing trawler, but I was going to start with the boat I have by my cottage.”

“It’s not there anymore,” Jonas said. “We moved it down to the jetty. We’ve got all the boats there. If we get overrun, we’ll take to the sea. That’s as much of an escape plan as we have. We stripped your cottage as well.”

“Did you find the hidden room?”

“No,” Jonas said. “The FBI didn’t either.”

“They came here?”

“At the end of January. Said the guy who owned the place was implicated in a series of bombings. There were only two of them, and they didn’t stay long.”

“It was Addison who was behind the bombings,” Tom said. “And no, I knew no one had found the room before the power was cut. I had an alarm set up that would have sent me an alert if anyone tried to get inside. I couldn’t rig the house itself, that would have been too obvious a sign that there was something valuable hidden there. Even so… no, they probably weren’t FBI.”

“Does that matter?” Martha asked.

Tom weighed it up. “No. But there’s some M16s and ammo in there, along with some long-life rations. More importantly, there’s a server to which I copied files on the outbreak, the conspiracy, and the collapse. I don’t know how much it will help, but it might fill in the details of everything that’s happened.”

“That’s of questionable value right now,” Jonas said. He gestured at the window. “Dawn’s coming. I need to check the perimeter. You fancy a walk?”

From the tone, it wasn’t a question. Tom finished his cup, took a longing look at the pot, and stood.

“You’ll need weapons,” Jonas said.

“My carbine’s in the truck,” Tom said, following Jonas out into the front hall.

“It’s not. Kaitlin has it. She cleaned it last night and took it out with her. We’ll have to get those assault rifles from your cottage later.” He took a key from a hook and unlocked a metal cabinet that was completely out of place amidst the faded wallpaper and ancient paint. “I take it those M16s are fully automatic?”

“Yeah.”

“You mind telling me why you have them?”

“In case of the end of the world,” Tom said. It wasn’t true, but now wasn’t the time to explain the quest for revenge that had consumed much of his early adult life.

“Huh. A month ago, I’d have called you crazy,” Jonas said. “I guess I now have to call you prescient.” He opened the cabinet. The first thing Tom noticed was the framed badge and ID.

“You were a cop?”

“I was. Ten years as a detective in Florida, ten years in… ah, but what does that matter? Here.” He held out a hunting rifle. “We’ve plenty of 30-06. What we’re lacking are people who know how to shoot.”

“I thought there would be plenty of hunters around here,” Tom said, taking a bag of ammunition.

“You don’t hunt cod with lead. In the summer, it’d be different. In the winter, you have people who retired here. Since you do that for the scenery rather than the weather, we’ve a lot who know how to wield a paintbrush and not much else. Here.” He gave Tom a .45 and a bowie knife, already hanging on a belt. “You seen much action?”

“Enough,” Tom said, slinging the belt around his waist. “All I’m missing is a ten-gallon hat.”

“How things change,” Jonas said with no trace of smile. “How they stay the same.” He locked the cabinet, and placed the key back on the hook where it was just out of reach of a child’s hands. “Moved the cabinet in from the shop when the children arrived. Stopped hanging the key around my neck last week when the zombies got past the wire. Security versus safety. What a world. Martha, we’re leaving!” he called.

The children appeared in the doorway.

“Where are you going?” Luke asked.

“We need to have a word with Kaitlin and Helena,” Jonas said. “We’ll be back soon. You know the rules?”

“Stay inside,” Amber whispered.

“We always stay inside,” Soanna said. “But we will, I promise.”

“Hot coffee,” Martha said, passing Jonas a flask. He put it in a satchel, and gave Martha a nod. Tom gave the children a smile. Only Soanna returned it. The others had anxiety written clear across their faces.

“What a world,” he murmured.

Dawn added a soft glow to the dark streets as they walked out onto the road. There was an expectant air to the dark houses as if people were already awake but putting off facing the horrific reality around them.

“You were a detective in Florida,” Tom said to fill the silence. “Is that why Martha came all the way up here?”

“There’s no short answer to that question,” Jonas said. “But I didn’t want to exchange pleasantries. Do you know of any reason things might get better than this?”

Tom took in the dark streetlights, the parked cars gathering dust, the wood and metal barrier blocking off an alley between two silent stores. The flickering candle in the window of the restaurant gave him the answer. “I don’t see any reason they should get any worse.”

“The radiation. That’s the reason things will get worse,” Jonas said. “Los Angeles and Houston are far away, but the Canadian border isn’t. You don’t know where that bomb was dropped?”

“No,” Tom said. “I should have asked them, but I was so grateful to find people who were alive that most questions slipped my mind.”

“What about elsewhere? Other countries?”

“I’ve no idea,” Tom said. “I’m reasonably certain that Addison wanted our missiles to fire, but whether they did, or what targets were hit, I don’t know. If Helena’s still got my sat-phone and tablet, I might be able to find out.”

“What I’m asking is whether there’s somewhere out there in the world, somewhere safe. If we get overrun, if the radiation increases, if we have no choice but to take to the sea, where do we go?”

“Britain? They’re meant to have a vaccine for this, though I’m suspicious as to whether there’s any truth in it.”

“Unless I can see it, I won’t believe it,” Jonas said. “And we didn’t see any boats coming back this way. I doubt they found refuge in Canada or Greenland. For those that still had fuel, Britain and Ireland are the only logical destinations. They’ll be as overrun as anywhere else. Besides, I doubt we’d make it that far. I don’t think we’ve got the fuel, not for all of us. I thought you might have heard about an aircraft carrier at sea, or a brigade that had disappeared somewhere in the Rockies or… something.”