by Penn Gates
“I'll bet,” Nix says. She remembers Gramps telling her how folks were grumbling about what all the chicken manure might do to the ground water.
“The farm had a good, solid dairy barn already,” George continues in a dreamy voice. “And my father was thinking when I married—“ he blushes again. “I would take over the dairy business and he would be running the egg barns.”
“You're engaged?” Nix asks, startled.
“Not yet. But there was a girl back in Pennsylvania.”
“How long have you lived here exactly?” Nix asks. She doesn't want to hear any more about marriages between children.
“For only a few weeks,” George says, his eyes filling with tears. “We left our old home and walked right into—”
“—chaos,” Nix finishes for him. “Yeah, I get it. It sucks." She won't let herself be distracted. Whatever information she can gather could be the difference between surviving or becoming another victim of that same chaos. “See or talk to anyone other than Gramps since you left your farm?"
“We have not seen anybody on the road—but I have not gone looking. I think we have plenty of troubles already." He glances at Nix to see if she thinks he's a coward. “I want to go home to Pennsylvania,” he says desperately.
Nix rubs her eyes. “George, we all want to go back. Problem is, home isn't home any more, you know what I mean?”
He doesn't respond to this assessment of the new reality. He stares straight ahead, his gaze firmly fixed on something only he can see. The silence grows longer, stretches into uncomfortable. Nix wonders if he's coming back to the here and now any time soon.
Finally she says, “Hey, I'm a cop up in Cleveland. Been on my own for twenty years. But when things got crazy, I headed back to the one place I'd always felt safe." It's her turn to pause for control. She hopes he doesn't notice her momentary surrender to emotion.
George surprises her by nodding in agreement. “Everyone needs a place to come home to— even if you are leaving home to find it.”
Nix thinks this sounds like a Mennonite bumper sticker, but she doesn't say so. Maybe her knee jerk response is what was wrong with the whole freakin' mess even before the virus hit. Genuine sentiment was ridiculed as corny. Laugh at everything so nobody can say you're not cool.
“But things aren't like I thought they'd be,” she says. “And both you and I have to deal with that. What else can we do? We can't give up. We’ve got people counting on us.”
She can almost see George shaking himself out of his hopelessness. “What is happening in the city? he asks. “It must very bad if you walked all the way down here.”
Nix runs her fingers through her hair. “Something was going on with the electric power. Overload, human error. Who knows? A lot of people believed it was deliberate—it always seemed to be working when they wanted to make announcements about the quarantine, or stores closing, but it was mostly down otherwise. There were all sorts of rumors floating around, but that particular one sounded like a gold-plated conspiracy theory." She weighs her words because she knows they're likely to cause George some pain. “You know how people with the virus get. At first, they're cranked up, and then boom! They crash and they die just as fast. I think a lot of folks running the systems we take for granted made some serious mistakes before they finally couldn’t function any more.”
She looks into her cup and realizes it's empty. And that was the last of the pot. Damn.
“The cities are now under martial law." She sees that he doesn't understand the term. “The United States military has moved in and taken charge. And those guys aren't fooling around. Any one violating the quarantine risks getting shot.”
She's not sure George is getting the big picture, but he grasps enough to ask, “How did you do it then? Get away from the city, I mean.”
“I did an end run,” Nix says, then realizes George probably doesn't watch football. “While they were concentrating on road blocks, I headed toward the lake and stole a row boat. I figured the Coast Guard would be concentrating on bigger craft with engines.”
“Bottom line, it was just dumb luck,” she says. “I happened to end up at the exact spot no one was watching for a few minutes. There was a storm front coming in. They probably didn't think anyone would risk Lake Erie in bad weather. And it was a suicidal thing to do. I admit that. If a squall had come up while we were on the water, we would never have made it to shore.”
George looks at her. “It must have been bad in the city for you to take a chance with your son's life.”
“Martin’s not my kid,” Nix says. “When I found him, he was about to get, uh, hurt by a gang of crazies. You might say I handled an explosive situation with a little explosion of my own.”
George looks horrified.
“Oh I didn't kill them,” she says. “But I would have if they hadn't run away. They were going to do very, very bad things to Martin. Probably would have ended up killing him.”
She studies the conflicting emotions flickering across his face. “How about you, George? Do you think you could shoot someone to protect your family?”
“That would be a sin.”
“You pointed an empty shotgun at a stranger today,” she says harshly. “A weapon isn't a magic wand you wave at someone to freeze 'em in their tracks. The only power it has is your intent to use it. Believe me, bad buys can smell fear and indecision. They'll take an empty gun away from you and beat you to death with it.”
“And you, Miss St Clair? Could you have shot me?”
“Without a second thought, George." She studies the shocked expression on his face. “You had a deadly weapon aimed at me. I had to assume you meant to use it." She rubs at her eyes again, which feel like they're full of sand, and shrugs. “It's what I’m trained to do." She forces herself to smile at him. “I didn't get to be one of the oldest people on the planet by giving bad guys the benefit of the doubt.”
George rests his elbows on his knees and covers his face with his hands. “It is not supposed to be like this,” he groans.
“Yeah, I keep hoping this is all a bad dream, too. I think maybe I'll wake up and get dressed and stop at Starbuck's on my way to work."
Nix suddenly snaps her fingers. “Hey George! Look at at me!”
He slowly raises his head and she stares into his eyes for a long second. “Like I said, I'm trained to use deadly force. I don't have to decide if I will or I won't. I made that decision a long time ago the first time they gave me a gun." She touches his hand lightly to hold on to his attention. “But when I saw that shotgun pointed at me, all I could really think of was what would happen to Martin if I wasn't there to keep him safe any more." She can feel him drifting away again from the reality of her words. “Don't you think you would be willing to kill to protect your family, George?”
He swallows hard and shakes his head, but it's hardly more than a wobble. She can't tell if he's agreeing—or denying the truth of her words.
“I hope you would,” she says harshly, “Because for the moment, all of us here are family. And I'm willing to do whatever it takes to keep us all alive.”
“What about the Commandments?” he asks. “The Bible says, 'Thou shalt not kill'.”
“It does,” Nix agrees. “But I truly don't believe it means to let yourself be killed instead. If God didn't want us to defend ourselves, why did he give us the instinct for self-preservation? Why did he give most of us the desire to protect our young and those weaker than ourselves?”
“I don't know,” George whispers. “Our preacher never talked about things like that.”
“That's the trouble with most religions,” Nix says bitterly, “They give easy answers to the easy questions and ignore anything that doesn't fit into their cozy view of the world." She stops, realizing suddenly that she's talking to a kid. Oh what the hell! It's time George starts thinking about difficult answers to hard questions—because in this new reality, if you come up with the wrong answer, you don't just get a failing grade. You get
dead.
“Hey, let's wind this up and get some sleep. Peter told me you guys get up at four to do the milking. I wouldn't be much help at that job, but I'll go over to your farm tomorrow and bring back the generator. That should cut your work load in half—providing I can find more gas somewhere.”
“You do not know where to go,” George points out, “But if you did, you would need to take the horse and wagon—which has not run out of gas. Do you know how to drive that?”
“Both good points,” Nix admits. “Who do you recommend as my guide and driver?”
“I will come with you,” he says.
“I don't think that's such a great idea, George. You need to keep things running smooth here. I mean, we have a sick old man and a lot of young kids.”
“Then you should be staying here. I know where everything is. I will be faster.”
“Because I want to see what's out there for myself,” she answers—which is true as far as it goes. But he's already proven that he can't think three moves ahead. She wants to nose around and find anything else that could be useful.
“So, who?” she insists. “How about your brother, uh, what’s his name?”
“Michael?”
She thinks about the impassive face, giving nothing away. “Yeah, him.”
“Well, I suppose—”
“Great! It's settled. I'll see you in the morning." She turns in the doorway leading to the dining room. “Wake me up, will you? I'm dead on my feet. I'll sleep two days straight unless you do.”
Chapter 4
George checks the horse's harness. “Do not worry. Michael has been driving a wagon since he was seven, and Racer is used to him.”
Nix glances at the black horse, staring at her out of the corner of his enormous eye, and then up at the slender boy on the wagon seat. “I never had much to do with horses.” she says. “Always seemed like temperamental beasts—not nice and easygoing like cattle.”
“Depends on whether it's a cow or a bull,” Michael comments, and somehow he makes it sound like an insult.
Nix climbs up beside him and lays Gramps' shotgun across her knees. “How about we get this show on the road?”
He nods curtly and flicks the reins.
Once they turn onto the road, the clip-clop of the horse's hooves on pavement is hypnotic. Nix wills herself not to fall asleep. She didn't get near enough rest last night. She kept waking to check on Gramps, and once she thought she heard a strange noise.
“A woman shouldn't carry a shotgun,” Michael says suddenly. “You can hurt yourself if you don't know what you're doing.”
“Did you give the same advice to George?” she asks sarcastically.
“He's a man,” he says. “Men know about such things.”
She raises her eyebrow. “Really? Then what was he doing with an unloaded shotgun?”
She can see this news surprises him, but he remains stubbornly silent.
“Anyway, you're just a kid, and kids shouldn't criticize their elders—isn’t that how it goes?" As soon as the words are out of her mouth, she realizes she sounds like a third grader on the school playground.
How old are you?” he asks. “How come The Sickness didn’t take you?”
“I've wondered that myself,” she says, hearing his accusatory tone. She reminds herself that this boy's parents are both dead because of the Geezer Flu, and he may wish she had died instead. In his place, she'd feel the same way.
“That's only half an answer,” Michael comments, staring straight ahead.
She shifts on the wooden seat, resisting the urge to punch him in the arm and tell him to shut up. “I'm forty-two. How old are you?”
“That makes you almost as old as my grandmother,” Michael says, and this time she catches him smirking. “You don't look as old as she did, though. Don't even have any gray hair." He glances at her dark hair with curiosity. “Do you dye it?”
“Math's not your strong suit, is it Michael?” she snaps. “Your grandmother would have been about your age when she had your mother, and your mother the same age when George was born. I know your people marry young, but that's ridiculous.”
“Do you have any kids?” Michael persists.
“Nope,” Nix says. “No wonder I look so young." She watches a couple of dead leaves blow across the pavement, like two mice playing tag. “By the way, you didn't answer my question.”
“I'm almost fourteen—and I've been hunting for three years. I never miss,” he says so casually that Nix realizes he's not bragging, just stating a fact.
“So you've got the dead eye,” she says mysteriously.
“What's that?” Michael asks, sounding interested.
“You always hit what you aim for. That's an ability you're born with—a God-given talent, you might say.”
Michael actually laughs. “Better never let George hear you say that! He'd be sure it comes from the devil.”
Nix looks at George's younger brother with interest. Obviously he has a mind of his own. “I bet you've put lots of meat on your family's table, haven't you?”
He just nods, inexplicably reverting to the Mennonite habit of humility.
“I haven't hunted for years,” she says. “Well, I never really did, but I used to shoot woodchucks with Gramps.”
“You can shoot a gun?” he asks.
She knows if she looks at his face, she'll see smug disbelief, so she opts to study the road ahead for any suspicious movement. “Didn't George tell you I’m a cop?” she asks casually.
Michael shakes his head in amazement. “A lady cop?” he asks in disbelief.
“I don't know about the lady part,” Nix says, “But I can shoot all kinds of weapons, and believe me, I've hunted animals a lot more dangerous than the kind you go after.”
Michael glances at her as if she's some strange species he's never even read about. “But why aren't you married? Why don't you have kids? What's the matter with you?”
Nix has wondered the same thing more than once, and the answer she gives Michael is the same thing she tells herself. “Being a cop and having a family isn't a good fit - too much overtime, too much stress, too much ugly to let go of at the end of the shift. I chose to concentrate on the job and forget the rest.”
Michael shakes his head. “Hard to figure. I never even seen a woman go hunting.”
Nix realizes that he's still deliberately trying to provoke her. Does he feel that much anger that she's alive instead of his parents? She changes the subject. “Are we getting close, or what?” she asks. “Feels like we've been traveling all morning.”
“Right here,” Michael says, as he flicks the reins to the left and the horse obediently turns into a gravel drive.
The house is neat as a pin, but it has a deserted air. Nix wonders why there's such a difference between the way a place feels when its occupants are simply out somewhere and the sense of lifelessness when no humans inhabit the space. It's not logical, but it's true.
“Nice place,” she comments. She sneaks a peak at Michael from the corner of her eye. His face is blank. He sits immobile, waiting for her to indicate what she wants done.
“So where'd the cows go?” she asks, indicating the long structure built to contain a dairy herd.
“We hadn't gotten 'em yet,” Michael mutters. “The barns were filthy and my father had us scour the place from top to bottom before he'd allow one of his cows inside it. They were gonna be trucked in from Pennsylvania in a couple of weeks." He swallows hard and points to a spot some distance away where a bulldozer sits abandoned. “They were already grading the land for the chicken barn. He was hoping to get it under roof before the weather got bad.”
“There must be enough egg barns in Ohio by now to cover the whole state in scrambled eggs.”
Michael gives her a disgusted look. It looks like he's going for the get-angry option instead of giving into his grief.
Nix has a thought. ”Michael, where's your rifle?”
“Dummkopf wouldn't let me bring i
t along when we left. Guess he was afraid I'd shoot somebody.”
There it is, that sibling rivalry thing again.
“Would you? If somebody attacked you?”
He considers the question. “I know I'm supposed to say resisting evil is wrong,” he says finally. “But God help me, I would. I would if I had to.”
Nix nods, satisfied. She knows she should feel ashamed of herself for encouraging a kid his age to think about shooting someone, but she doesn't. If it ever comes to a fight, it won't be one on one. Coyotes always travel in packs.
She jumps down from the wagon. “Go get your rifle, and all the ammunition you can find – now - before we go into the barns.”
Michael studies her face for a second and smiles for the first time. “Won't be long,” he says, and heads for the house.
Holding the shotgun, she wanders around a little. She figures the generator is probably in the milk house or near it. Gramps always kept his ready in case of a power outage. When you were cooling hundreds of gallons of raw milk, you couldn't afford to—
“Nix!" Michael is more animated than she's ever seen him as he runs full tilt toward the barns. “Somebody broke in!”
“Calm down,” she says, as he pulls up in front of her, breathing hard. “And keep your voice down. They might still be here.”
She chambers a round and hands him the shotgun, then pulls her gun from its holster. “Let's go back to the house. I want to take a look around.”
It's chilly inside, and slightly damp, the kind of conditions that wreak havoc on old plaster walls and uninsulated windows. It won't take more than one winter for the place to start moldering away. The refrigerator door hangs open and there's an empty food container on the floor in front of it. Looks like whoever broke in was searching for food, not valuables to steal.
“I hope this happened awhile back,” she comments, “Or whoever ate that got sick as a dog.”
“I hope they died!” Michael says viciously.
“I'm going to look through the rest of the house," Nix says. She points. “Is that the door to the basement?”
