Hidden (Final Dawn) (16 page)

     His books went flying everywhere and he tumbled to the ground.

     Hannah, as sweet as she was pretty, stopped to help him pick them up. Their eyes locked, and both of them felt it at the same time.

     Hannah would spend the next few days trying to find out more about the mysterious man who captured her heart. She didn’t believe in love at first sight, and they’d only exchanged a “thank you.” But somehow she had to find out who this man was and see him again.

     Mark, for his part, told all his friends that he was in love. They asked him who she was, and he said, “I don’t know. But I’m going to marry her someday.”

     They were able to find each other, of course. And they did get married, eventually.

     And both of them shared the belief that God had brought them together for a specific reason.

     After all, it was Hannah, the scientist, who had found out that a meteorite designated “Saris 7” was going to come crashing to earth and destroy most of humanity.

     And it was Mark who’d bought a winning lottery ticket that enabled them to survive the damage that Saris 7 caused.

     Without the other, they each would likely have perished.

     They both believed that God had put them together to save forty people, so that they could help repopulate the earth once the thaw came.

     And to that end, they were more than willing to do their part.

     Little Markie was sleeping in his own bed now, such as it was. It was the couch at the front of their RV that folded out into a bed, but it still counted. It was a big step for little Markie, and made him feel all grown up. After all, he was five now, and would be starting kindergarten at the mine’s one room schoolhouse in the fall. He was certainly big enough for his own bed.

     But Mark was a doting father, and still finely attuned to the vestiges of babyhood that little Markie still possessed. When Markie began to toss and turn in the mornings, entering that state where one can’t decide whether to sleep longer or wake up, Mark almost invariably heard him and started stirring as well.

     Hannah heard little Markie start to stir in the RV’s living room. And she watched Mark’s eyelids as they fluttered a couple of times, and then slowly opened.

     “Shhhh,” she whispered to him. “He’s not awake yet. He’s just beginning to stir.”

     He looked down at her lying on his chest and wrapped an arm around her shoulder.

     “Good morning, gorgeous. How long have you been awake?”

     “Hi, handsome. Not long. I’ve just been laying here watching you. I so love you.”

     “Thank you, doll. I so love you too.”

     “You’d better,” she teased. “I’m the only one who will love you in your old age. Did you know you have a gray hair?”

     He looked at her with an expression best described as mild panic.

     “I do not!”

     She chuckled.

     “Do too! Right there in your sideburn, on the left side.”

     He crawled out of bed and went to the bathroom.

     While he was gone, Hannah took his pillow and held it close. She could still feel the warmth and smell the scent that his head left behind. She buried her face in it.

     Mark came back and crawled back in bed with her.

     “You were wrong. I don’t have a gray hair.”

     She drew back and examined him closely.

     “You plucked it out, you big cheater!”

     He laughed.

     “Yes, and next time I shave the sideburns are coming off, too. I’m way too young to be getting gray hairs.”

     She kissed him and smiled.

     “I never knew you were vain.”

     “I’m not vain. I just don’t want gray hair.”

     “Gray hair’s better than no hair. Maybe it’ll just all fall out and we can save some money on shampoo.”

     “You’re gonna get it.”

     “Ooh, promises promises.”

     At that moment the dinner bell in the dining room started to ring, indicating breakfast was ready.

     A sleepy eyed Markie walked into the couple’s bedroom.

     “Hi, Mommy. Hi, Daddy. Let’s go eat.”

     Mark looked at Hannah and said, “He’s getting bossy, just like you.”

     She threw a pillow at him, and Markie squealed, “Oh, boy! Pillow fight!”

Chapter 26

     Throughout Mark and Hannah’s relationship they had grown to be wary when things went too smoothly for too long. Good times for them had a tendency to end with strikingly poor results.

     The night Hannah was offered a very prestigious, high paying job with NASA, for example, she came down with rheumatic fever and was bedridden for weeks. She understood when NASA had to withdraw the offer and give the position to someone else, but it still hurt.

     The day after Mark bought Hannah a winning lottery ticket that made them multi-millionaires, Hannah made the discovery that Saris 7 was going to collide with earth and kill most of mankind.

     The day after Mark proposed to Hannah, he was involved in a car accident on a highway outside of
San Angelo. A long piece of angle iron slid off the end of a tractor trailer rig in front of Mark and came through his windshield. If he hadn’t been paying close attention at the time and quickly moved to the side it would have impaled him, through the chest and almost certainly his heart.

     It had always been that way. So it was easy to understand that whenever things seemed to be going well, Mark and Hannah had a very slight feeling of dread in the back of their minds that something, somehow, was getting ready to go terribly wrong.

     Hannah and little Markie sat at a table together in the dining room. Each of the tables were inlaid in various designs, and while mostly used for dining, each one had a dual purpose.

     One table near the front of the bay, for example, was inlaid with a Monopoly board design. A drawer underneath the table top held all the cash, tokens and deeds needed for a good game of Monopoly.

     Another table was inlaid with a Scrabble board, and its drawer contained Scrabble tiles, their holders, and a score pad.

     All twenty two of the tables came from the same manufacturing plant outside of
Pittsburgh and each had a different theme.

     The table where Hannah and Markie sat on this particular afternoon was inlaid with a depiction of several huge Crayola crayons.

     Inside the drawer were several dozen crayons in various stages of use, and a handful of coloring books.

     Markie was a bit better than a scribbler now, but a bit short of DaVinci. He was putting the finishing touches on a purple dog, trying his best to stay mostly within the lines.

     “What are you going to name your dog, honey?”

     “Daddy.”

     She chuckled and said, “Well, that’s appropriate.”

     “Mommy, when can we go outside again?”

     “I don’t know, honey. Why do you ask?”

     “I watch TV sometimes. All the kids get to play outside. Climb trees and run in the grass. How come we can’t?”

     “We will soon, tiny sailor, I promise. Right now it’s just too cold outside. But in a couple of years, all the snow will go away and it will be warm again. And then we can be outside.”

     “Can I climb trees like the kids on the TV?”

     “Yes, sir, you certainly can.”

     “Mommy, will you do something nice for me?”

     “Sure. What?”

     “Will you not call me tiny sailor anymore? I am five now. I’m not tiny anymore.”

     She laughed.

     “Okay. But can I call you little sailor?”

     “Okay. That’s much better.”

     Both of them heard a commotion and looked up to see Brad running full speed through the mine, toward the livestock bay.

     Hannah was puzzled, but not overly concerned. Markie went back to his purple dog.

     Less than a minute later, Brad ran by again, going the other direction, with Mark by his side keeping pace. Hannah noticed that Mark was still wearing the blue rubber gloves he always wore when he milked Daisy the cow.

     This time she was concerned.

     “Mommy, why is Daddy running?”

     “I don’t know, honey. Let’s go find out.”

     They left the crayons scattered haphazardly on the table. Hannah grabbed her son’s hand and headed quickly to the east side of the mine, where the living quarters were.

     Hannah had a terrible sense of dread, and as soon as they turned the corner into Bay 5, her worst fears were confirmed.

    There, sitting on the steps in front of Phyllis Snyder’s RV, was
Debbie Bay, Phyllis’ daughter and Mark’s sister. Her face was buried in her hands. Helen Kenney had her arms wrapped around her, trying her best to console her.

     Mark was nowhere to be seen, but Hannah knew exactly where he was. He was inside, with his mother’s body, probably crying inconsolably.

     Hannah had to get to him. He needed her more at this moment than ever before.

     Hannah took little Markie over to Helen and Debbie. Helen broke away from Debbie and reached for little Markie.

     Hannah looked at her son and said, “Honey, I want you to go see Auntie Helen for a few minutes, and I’ll be right back, okay?”

     Markie had his own plans.

     “No. Wanna go inside and watch cartoons with Grammy.”

     Sarah and Sami came running too, attracted by all the commotion.

     Helen said, “She left the kitchen a couple of hours ago. Said she wasn’t feeling well and wanted to lay down. I came by to check on her and to bring her a bowl of hot soup, and I found her. I ran to find Debbie, and Debbie tried CPR. She even tried shocking her heart with one of those portable heart packs. But we both knew she was long gone.”

     Hannah fought back the tears. So did Helen, but she was losing the battle. Helen caught her eye and mouthed the words, “Go. He’ll be okay.”

     Hannah found Mark kneeling at his mother’s bedside, his face buried in her shoulder. He was trembling. She knew there was nothing she could say to comfort him. She knelt down beside him and placed her hand on the back of his neck. He collapsed in her arms and soaked her blouse. Neither said a word.

     After he composed himself, Mark kissed his mother on the forehead and said, “I love you, Mom. Peaceful journey to you. Take care of Dad and keep him out of trouble. I’ll see you again someday.”

     Then he pulled the sheet up and covered her face. He had seen her for the last time, save his memories.

Chapter 27

     Little Markie, being the youngest citizen of the mine, received plenty of attention in the days following his Grammy’s death. Everyone wanted to hold him and hug him, which he enjoyed. But he couldn’t understand all the sadness and tears.

     Death was a concept that he couldn’t quite get his hands around.

     “Grammy went to heaven to join Gramps,” Mark told him.

     “I don’t know Gramps. Is he Grammy’s daddy?”

     “No, he was my daddy. He was married to Grammy before he went to heaven.”

     “Oh. Are they going to come and visit us?”

     “No, I’m afraid not. Heaven is too far away.”

     “Then can we go to heaven and visit them? We can drive truck. It goes far.”

     “Someday we’ll all go to heaven and see them again. But it won’t be for a very long time.”

     They wrapped her body in white sheets and laid her gently on the floor in the back of bay twenty four. It struck Mark that this is what Jesus must have looked like when He was laid to rest. But he knew that she wouldn’t be coming back. Not now, not ever.

     The one thing they had never planned for was a burial while in the mine. Under the bleak circumstances, it should have been a basic requirement. Perhaps they had just been too busy to consider it. Or maybe subconsciously they just didn’t want to.

     They covered her body with salt from the tunnel. The burial mound stood a full three feet tall, and would compact over time.

     Mark knew that the body wouldn’t decompose into bones. He knew enough about the mysterious works of nature to know that the body would mummify as the salt absorbed the bodily fluids and protected it from parasites. This was good, because it gave them the option of moving the body later on, after the breakout, into a family plot they’d set aside in the compound.

     As usual, Karen was full of surprises. She’d stayed up all night the night before painting a piece of scrap plywood into the most beautiful of gravestones. She’d have loved it, and she’d have been very proud.