Love in the Time of the Dead (22 page)

“Sure. Does that mean you are actually going to eat dinner with the peons tonight?”

“No, I mean at dinner. With me.” Sean smiled and looked at the ceiling as if he searched for inspiration. “What I mean to say is will you come over for dinner tonight? I think we need to talk.”

She tried to control the slow smile that made its way across her face and nodded. “That sounds nice.”

“All right, well I’ve got more work to do here.” His voice was dismissive.

If the man was anything, he was definitely confusing.

“Okay, can you tell me where to get a load of wooden stakes for the gardens before I go?”

“Of course. This way.”

After the stakes were loaded into the trailer, Sean waved his goodbye and jogged back to the warehouse, disappearing into the large building. How was she supposed to feel about their encounter? He had kissed her and invited her to dinner, but then he acted as if he couldn’t get away from her fast enough. Maybe he was just really swamped at the mill. She pointed the four-wheeler to the well-worn ATV path and headed back to the gardens.

“You’ll have to wait until tonight,” she told Vanessa and Nelson when she arrived back at the storage buildings. “Sean said it will take him a while to remember. I can bring you answers after dinner if you want.”

Vanessa looked angry and impatient, and when she didn’t answer, Laney turned and started unloading the stakes herself. When she turned back around, Vanessa was gone.

“It’s just…we know a lot of people at the Denver colony.
Knew
a lot of people,” Nelson corrected himself.

She heaved another bundle of stakes out of the small trailer. “I figured it was something like that or I wouldn’t have helped your crazy sister.”

Nelson mumbled his thanks and left her to her work and to her thoughts.

The nerves crept in as Laney checked her hair in the mirror for the third time. Without an option on clothes, all of her anxiety had gone straight into fussing over her hair, which hung long and straight across her shoulders and back. The nine millimeter was a comforting weight in the holster on her leg, and she checked the knife at her ankle out of habit. The drawer of the small dresser made a hollow
thunk
as she placed her Mini into it and slid it closed. Without her trusty rifle, she was as good as naked.

After bundling up in her jacket and shutting the door firmly behind her, she made her way to the main trail that led up the mountain. She didn’t know exactly where Sean lived, but she remembered Nick saying his cabin was near Mel’s. If she got lost, she would simply ask for directions.

The light was fading, and she was struck by how beautiful the foliage looked right before dark. It was her favorite time of day. The green of the ferns seemed to deepen, and a calm peace hung in the air. How could a place like this exist on the brutalized earth? If magic still endured in the world, surely it would be found in that forest.

Sean’s cabin was easy to find. Finn’s trailer sat close by and identified the log home as the right place. She knocked on the door and waited. A minute with no answer had her knocking again. She leaned back and checked around the corner of the house. A lonely ax stuck stubbornly out of a large tree stump surrounded by splintered wood shavings. No one was outside.

The door flew open, and Sean stood there pulling his jacket on quickly.

“Laney?” His eyes widened. “I forgot about our dinner. I’m so sorry. I just got word that a large group of Deads are at the gates. Mel wants me down there right away to identify if any of them are from the Denver colony. Since you’re here, can you do me a huge favor?” His words were clumped together and hard for her to keep up with.

“Uh, okay. What do you need?” she asked, making the effort to conceal her disappointment.

“Can you watch Adrianna until I get back? I shouldn’t be long. If you missed dinner there is food inside. Ade can show you where. I’ll be back soon. Thanks, Laney.” He squeezed her shoulder before he jogged off toward the main trail. “Oh! Almost forgot.” He ran back and slapped Vanessa’s list of names into her hand. “I didn’t see any of these people in the auditorium before we left. Sorry.” Sean left without a backward glance.

“Ms. Laney?” Adrianna said from the doorway.

She tore her frown away from the direction Sean had disappeared to. “Yeah, sweetie?”

“Where did Daddy go?”

“He just had to go check on something real quick.” She shifted her weight and glanced inside Sean’s cabin. She couldn’t just make herself at home without him in there. “Hey, do you want to go on an adventure?”

Adrianna nodded slowly. “Mm-hmm.”

“You want to go fishing?”

“Yeah!” Adrianna squealed as she jumped up and down excitedly.

Laney laughed. “Okay, let’s go check and see if Mr. Finn is home. See if he wants to go too. And then we’ll go get my pack with my fishing line in it.”

The girl was already tugging her hand down the steps. Laney slowed her down enough to retrieve her jacket from a hook in the front hallway and shut Sean’s door behind them. When Adrianna was all bundled up, they knocked on the door to Finn’s trailer.

He was home and opened it with a surprised but happy grin. “Hello, ladies. To what do I owe the honor?”

“Mr. Finn! We’re going fishing,” Adrianna exclaimed breathlessly. “You come too?”

“Heck yeah, I’m coming. A fishing trip with two pretty ladies? I’m in.”

“Heck yeah!” Adrianna repeated.

Laney burst out laughing. “That one’s on you. I’m not getting in trouble for it.”

“Did you girls eat already?” he asked them.

At a shake of their heads he invited them in to wait at the small table inside while he made three cheese sandwiches. With their picnic in tow they headed to Laney’s cabin and she explained Sean’s absence to Finn.

“Do you think those Deads could have traveled here from the Denver colony that fast?” Finn asked as Adrianna scrambled ahead to look at a huge exotic-looking plant that was growing on the edge of the trail.

“I don’t know. I guess it’s enough time. Do you want to go check to see if you know any of them?”

Finn shook his head vigorously. “I don’t even want to know. I wouldn’t want to see them like that. I just want to remember them like they were when they were human.”

After she had grabbed her pack and lantern, given a swift tour of her room, and latched the Mini securely to the strap across her chest, she followed Finn and Adrianna to the widest part of the stream. It had a small gravel beach, and they ate their picnic just as the setting sun kissed the horizon.

She didn’t know anything about night fishing for trout, but even if they didn’t catch a thing, Adrianna would still have fun.

Finn found a long, sturdy stick while Laney showed Adrianna how to unroll the line and tie a fly on the end. Adrianna picked a tiny yellow feathered fly, and Laney complimented her fly-picking abilities. It was her favorite too.

They tied a substantial length of the line to the end of the stick, and she showed Adrianna how to flick it back and forth so the fly landed on top of the water for a few seconds at a time. The little girl needed constant help and supervision, but she stayed focused enough and was rewarded with a small cutthroat trout. They didn’t have a reel, so when the fish was on the line, she helped Adrianna back up the bank until Finn was able to pull the remaining line out of the water. Adrianna was elated, and Finn couldn’t seem to stop grinning. The little girl giggled and screamed happily as she held and dropped the flopping fish in the grass.

“We’re going to cook this up back at my place,” Finn told Adrianna. “Have you ever tasted fish before?”

Adrianna shook her head, her little black ringlets bobbing and her grin infectious.

“Come on,” Laney said as she wrapped up the line and put it in her pack. “Let’s go see if Daddy is home and then we can show him your fish.”

The threesome headed back to Adrianna’s home with their catch, but as they approached the cabin, an eerie calm came over Laney. Something was off.

Sean barreled toward them off of the porch he had been uneasily pacing. He scooped Adrianna up in his arms.

“Where were you? I was worried to death! I asked you to take care of her, Laney. Not kidnap her.”

A cloud of anger seemed to waft from his very skin, and she was shocked into silence.

“Whoa, whoa, whoa,” Finn said with his hands out in front of him. “We took Adrianna fishing, not across state borders.”

“Daddy, I caught a fish,” Adrianna said quietly. The child seemed confused over the fuss.

“Surely you can understand,” he spat. “There were Deads at the gates. Twenty of them! I thought Adrianna was safe inside my cabin, but she wasn’t.”

“I trusted you guys to handle the Deads,” Laney said. “Deads outside of the gates are a constant thing, Sean.” Her own anger was a slow boil in her gut. “Do you honestly think I would let anything happen to her?”

“How would I know that, Laney?”

“Because I brought Finn and a small arsenal with us. And because I have already thrown my body at a Dead to keep Adrianna safe. Twice!” She turned and stalked off. She didn’t have to listen to his ridiculous accusations.

Sean sighed loudly. “Laney, wait.”

She quickened her pace to escape him. Unnecessary as he didn’t come after her.

Why on earth she let that man get to her was beyond her comprehension. Sean’s reactions always left her disappointed, yet she always hoped the next time would be different. Was she insane? Einstein had once said that the definition of insanity is doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results. Maybe her habitually bad taste in men did in fact confirm she was crazy.

She knocked at Vanessa’s door. If she was lucky, she wouldn’t be home. Her luck hadn’t changed. Vanessa opened the door almost immediately.

She handed her the list of names and shook her head. “He doesn’t remember seeing any of these people in the auditorium.”

Vanessa’s face fell.

The girl’s sadness reminded Laney of her own. She knew all about loss at the Denver colony. “That doesn’t mean they didn’t survive somehow, though,” she said sympathetically. “We were only in the room with the survivors for a minute and some were still coming in.”

“They’re dead, Laney. Spare me your pity.” Vanessa slammed the door.

The force of it pushed cold air into her face and rocked her weight back on the heels of her feet.

“Cow,” she grumbled before retiring to her room for the night.

Gunfire woke her from a deep sleep, and she lay there in the dark listening to the pepper of ammo as it made contact with the herd of Deads scratching to get into Dead Run River gates. She lay awake for a long time. What had taken the guards so long from the initial realization that there were Deads outside of an unfinished gate to taking care of the problem? Colony defense strategies were always drastically different from her own views. It was simple to her. See Dead. Shoot Dead. Colonies, however, always seemed to want to study them, their behaviors and patterns, as if it would give them the upper hand to know their enemy. Maybe this time was different though. From the way Mel spoke, it seemed like they were taking descriptions of the Deads at their gates. What they looked like and the clothes they wore. Maybe Mel was trying to give closure to people who might have known them.

Morning came quickly, and as she sat down with her tray of food, she was quickly joined by Guist, Eloise, Finn, Mitchell, and Vanessa—the latter of whom was giving her the beginnings of an impressive eye twitch with her snide remarks. She did her best to ignore the girl. There was no point in engaging with a personality like that one. She was one part wolverine and two parts rabid badger.

Finn didn’t mention the night before, and she was grateful. She in no way wanted to rehash the Sean debacle in mixed company.

“Laney,” Sean said in a quiet voice behind her. “Can I talk to you for a minute?”

She froze in mid-stab of a piece of sausage link.

“I have to get to work,” she said without turning around.

“Can I walk you to the gardens, then?” he asked.

“Look,” Mitchell said through a cold glare, “it doesn’t sound like she wants to talk to you, so piss off.”