“You’re in luck,” Matthew said. “We just had a vacancy. The best room, just for you.”
31
Matthew lent a hand to help Jade brace herself against the metal door of the freezer just outside the gas station’s front door. On the freezer’s side, white and light blue lettering advertised that they sold bags of ice for two bucks. Shaking his head, he knew that if he opened up that freezer he’d find nothing but plastic bags floating in a sea of water. Max rested against the freezer beside Jade. The two of them looked the worse for wear, and Matthew knew it was important to head back to the hotel, but he had to make sure they didn’t overexert themselves in the process. At least Jade’s wound wasn’t mortal.
Matthew walked back over to Wyatt, who was crouched next to Colin and inspecting his pockets. As Matthew got closer, Wyatt held his hand out and dropped a handful of unused bullets into Matthew’s palm. Matthew paused before voicing the concern growing inside of him.
“Can we do this? I mean, scavenge from these people like this?” Matthew asked as he inspected the bullets. Some were stained with blood but others looked to be in tip-top condition. He felt a little uneasy about taking things off of the dead cartel members, but at the same time, he didn’t want to pass up usable items that would help make their lives easier in the future.
Wyatt shrugged and handed Matthew the handgun Colin had carried. “In my opinion, I wouldn’t usually do such a thing, but in times like these, resources are and will be difficult to come by. We should start thinking of our items as things that should be passed down to others instead of kept with us when it’s our time.” He paused and surveyed the rest of the gas station. “Plus, I don’t think I could leave all this ammo and weaponry for someone else to take. Puts me on edge. Don’t you feel the same?”
Matthew laughed. “I do, unfortunately. At least our priorities are aligned.”
Wyatt grinned as he stood. “Glad to hear it, Riley. I heard a couple of good guns going off while we were fighting. You take one side of the gas station and I’ll take the other and we can divvy up what we find. How’s that sound?”
Matthew nodded and again felt that sensation of partnership fill him. It was the same feeling he’d experienced while they were walking to the gas station. As if he was finally in the presence of people he could learn to trust and have that invaluable respect returned. Maybe they could create something special. Maybe they wouldn’t have to get through the apocalypse alone.
Walking over to other fallen cartel members, Matthew checked all their pockets and the surrounding area, keeping his eyes averted from the worst of the injuries. He felt remorse for what he had done, but at the same time, it felt as though it was a necessary evil. He hadn’t wanted to hurt or kill these people, but the life of his son was far too important to have those kinds of thoughts get in the way. “I wish we could have worked something out,” he said out loud as he pocketed a fresh supply of ammunition and a pocket knife along with a new handgun. He stripped holsters off the bodies and took anything that might be helpful. Standing up, he surveyed the area and imagined how things could easily have gone sideways and not in their favor.
The gas station looked horrible. The onslaught of bullets had left the concrete pillars with a gnawed appearance. Holes pockmarked the ground. The plastic and glass displays had been shattered, leaving the pieces glittering on the ground and crunching underfoot. The shadows cast by the setting sun gave it an ominous ambiance. Behind him, the shield of cars that had protected their lives looked like dented and blasted hunks of metal. The glass windshields looked as though they’d gone through an asteroid field, leaving white crater impacts across them. Side mirrors dangled off the doors, barely held on by wires. The gas station itself had suffered immense damage as well, its bulletproof front windows dented and marred. The front door had been busted in at some point and now sat off-kilter in the frame. Matthew saw Patton moving inside the gas station, looking for any kind of supplies they could bring back to the hotel with them as well as items that could help treat Jade.
Matthew hauled his newfound supplies over to Wyatt, who had spread out his finds on the dented hood of a car that had been caught in the middle of their gunfire. The mirrors and lights had been shattered, but the bumps on the hood allowed Wyatt to create two separate piles that wouldn’t roll off. Matthew dumped his stuff down.
Wyatt nodded in appreciation. “Lots of good stuff here,” he said as he began to inspect everything.
Matthew grunted in response and watched the Marine work, hoping to learn something. Wyatt eyed the bullets, looking for any imperfections that might make them backfire in the guns. He double-checked the other weapons, opening them up smoothly the way Jade had once done when teaching the Riley family to shoot. When the guns were nothing more than a few pieces of metal and plastic and passed Wyatt’s concentrated examination, he slotted the pieces back together. The holsters got a cursory glance over—even marred or broken, they were still valuable and could easily be fixed. Then, he began to put items in the separate piles.
“Do you want to do it?” he asked Matthew quietly after a moment and Matthew realized he was splitting up the items.
A couple of days ago, Matthew would have insisted on doing it himself, convinced that Wyatt would try to palm off subpar goods or take the best of the best. Now, though, he realized he had to give a little and defer to Wyatt’s good judgement. Something David had been trying to get him to do for a while now. “I trust you,” Matthew said.
As the tension in Wyatt’s shoulders released, Matthew knew he had passed some kind of unforeseen test.
“My dad says you know a lot about the hotel,” Matthew said, turning to lean against the car. Over Wyatt’s shoulder, he could see Max and David trying to bind Jade’s wound with the minimal bandages and ripped T-shirts Patton must have found inside the gas station. Jade’s face was screwed up in obvious pain.
Wyatt nodded. “I used to play on those grounds when I was a boy. My own father was a tradesman and would sometimes do work on the hotel for the previous owners.”
“You know more about my own property than I do,” Matthew said. “My father said you know of a well somewhere.”
Wyatt smiled. “I do indeed, although I might have sold my ability to recall its location a bit hard. I was trying to strike a deal with him for fresh water and wanted to seem like I knew what I was talking about.”
Matthew’s heart sank. “So you don’t know where it’s located?”
“Not off the top of my head,” Wyatt admitted, matching bullets to the right gun and divvying them up between the piles. “I know I’ll remember if I’m on the property again, though. I’ll know it when I see it.”
“I’ve walked the property perimeter a hundred times this past week,” Matthew said. “I’ve never seen a well.”
“I know it’s there,” Wyatt said. “I know because I got scolded enough for playing around it. My old man was terrified I’d end up with my head on backwards at the bottom of it one day. I wasn’t the most careful of kids, always getting into trouble. Not the bad kind of trouble. Just the mischievous kind.”
Matthew laughed. “I think you and my son have a lot in common.”
Wyatt’s grin widened. “I’ll take that as a compliment. Kidnapping was never something that happened to me, though. Your boy handled it well. Just so you know, the well is most likely covered with vines and grass and debris by now. It had a wood or stone covering, so it might be well concealed, especially since it was a bit rough around the edges more than twenty years ago. You might have walked by it and thought it was a pile of rocks.”
“I’ll have to go back over the blueprints of the place,” Matthew mused. “It might be in the property files or listing and I don’t remember. Seems like an odd thing to overlook, though.”
Wyatt paused. “I’d be more than happy to help you look for it. If you wouldn’t mind my people using it from time to time.”
Matthew studied Wyatt and decided to take a chance on him.
“After what you did for me today, I’m sure we can come to an understanding. If we find it, and it’s that run down, will the water even be good for drinking? I don’t know the first thing about repairing a well.”
Wyatt finished his sorting task and looked at Matthew. “I know some, but the Carpenter Country is full of tradesmen that have most likely dealt with something like that before. The water should be good because it comes from the aquifer below and if that was contaminated, well, then we have a whole different kind of problem on our hands. Still, I have no doubt that with our combined knowledge, we can get the thing up and running again. Would you be okay with us making use of it?”
“Of course,” Matthew said. “You help me find and repair it and you can definitely have access to it. Thus, we’ll all have sustainable water.”
Wyatt looked relieved. He held his hand out. “Deal.”
Matthew took his hand and they shook on it. Matthew couldn’t help but grin. He had a feeling this wouldn’t be the only project he and Wyatt worked on together. The hotel had made its first alliance, and Matthew hoped it would last them a long time. Hopefully, until civilization got back on its feet. If that ever happened. Either way, the future seemed a little less bleak than it had at the beginning of the day.
32
As Max walked back up the mountain road to the River Rock Hotel, he studied the orange and bright blue expanse of the sky. Summer months meant long days and short nights and Max felt as though he’d been transported to another universe…a universe where things had actually worked out for once. Where, if he blinked and pinched himself, he didn’t wake up in a hard bed in a tiny cell in the middle of Chicago.
Hours ago, he’d walked down this road trying to talk himself into accepting his own doom. He had prepared himself to face his impending death, or at least a long, drawn-out, unpleasant session with Colin. He had spent his walk focused on the pavement in front of him, trying to keep from hyperventilating and stopping his imagination from conjuring twisted ideas of what Colin would have in store for him when the cartel took him. Yet somehow, he had managed to make it out alive and even save his nephew in the process.
Now, he could study the sky in a wondering daze, thanking everyone and everything for his second chance at life. As he surveyed the tall greenery and the moss-covered boulders, he realized he didn’t want to do it anywhere else. Kathleen’s deal still lingered in his mind and he knew he would try to do right by her. No more secrets. He wanted them to trust each other. He wanted to be part of the Riley family, not just in the I’ll-see-you-every-other-Christmas way but in the I-need-to-ask-Uncle-Max-for-advice tight-knit kind of way. It made him smile, thinking of Patton dismissing Matthew’s cautious advice and coming to cool Uncle Max for the real answers.
They could even do fun things. He would spoil the kids rotten. Kathleen would have to give him a stern talking-to about boundaries, and Max would dismiss each of them while taking the kids out for ice cream in the middle of the night.
Well. Maybe not ice cream. Whatever the apocalypse equivalent would be. He’d figure it out. He had time.
Next to him, Jade made a soft huff of pain, and Max realized he’d sped up his stride in excitement. She was having a difficult time keeping up. He pulled back and let her lean on him, even if it made the bruises around his ribs ache anew. His hands were red with road rash from throwing himself to the ground to cover Patton. His head had started to get that swimming feeling again, but once they started walking, it seemed as if his mind had finally cleared. Ahead of them, Patton was talking a mile a minute and pointing things out to his grandfather, who listened attentively. Wyatt and Matthew were in deep conversation ahead of them, their hands mimicking each other as if they were having the same exact ideas. Max snorted, inclined his head toward those ahead, and said, “They left us poor wounded behind, didn’t they? Aren’t we the real heroes here?”
Jade didn’t smile at his joke. But her grimace lessened.
“I mean, you’re certainly the hero,” Max continued and wished he could figure out when to keep quiet. “My hero. If you hadn’t taken pity on me when you found me, I might not have even gotten here.”
“You mean gotten here at a cartel shoot-out?” Jade asked. “Might want to rethink that one.”
Whoa. Spicy. Max backpedaled. “What I mean is that I don’t know what convinced you to help some random guy lying face-down in the ground and comatose, but I’m glad you did nonetheless.”
Jade shrugged. “No biggie.”
“Seriously,” Max said, worried she might not be getting his brand of humor and deciding to go for genuine. “I’m thankful. You saved me big time and reunited me with my family. I couldn’t say thank you enough.”
“It’s not a problem,” Jade said, and pressed her hand against her shoulder with a wince. Her pony tail, usually high, had fallen down, and her dark hair brushed over her shoulder. “You paid me back in kind. Matthew somewhat trusts me now, so I consider that a win.”
“Meh, Matthew’s not that great.” Max winked. It was his duty to give his brother-in-law crap. That just came with the territory when Matthew married Kathleen.
“He made sure we saved you, so he can’t be all bad,” Jade said archly.
“You don’t strike me as the type who particularly cares what people think. Especially Matthew,” Max said, feeling like he’d made a big misstep and was trying to rectify it piece by piece. He remembered when he’d first seen her—post concussion, that is—when she’d been arguing with his brother-in-law outside his hotel room. “Honestly, it seems like he gave you crap and you gave it right back to him.”
“You’re right about that,” Jade said. “Just saying you shouldn’t talk badly about someone who came to your rescue.”
“I’m not,” Max said, bewildered. “I was just making a joke. I didn’t mean to offend you.”
“I’m not offended,” Jade said, sounding highly defensive. “I don’t care what you think. I don’t care what Matthew thinks.” She made a frustrated sound. “Can we just walk? It’s been a long day.”
“Sure,” Max said and cursed himself when he couldn’t resist adding, “I mean, Matthew definitely trusts you. From what I see. Just my two cents.”
“I don’t care,” Jade said. “All I care about is that it’s nice to be on the same side again. I’m just glad I can heal up at the hotel and Matthew’s not going to kick me out again and that’s thanks to you.”
“So now you’re thanking me?”
Jade rolled her eyes. “No. Whatever. It doesn’t matter.”
For the first time in his life, Max decided to hold his tongue. There was a lot of “not caring” in Jade’s speech that made it seem as though she felt the exact opposite. Even though she wanted it to seem like Matthew’s good opinion didn’t matter to her, the undertone to her words and even the stiffening of her posture made him think it did. Very much.
Max was no stranger to idols. He’d worshipped movie stars, models, and rock legends openly. But when it came to people he personally knew and respected? He’d drop dead before he let on that he cared. Just look at him and Kathleen, for example. If he kept revealing his soft parts, she’d think he actually looked up to her and he couldn’t have that.
Walk in silence, Max. No one wants to listen to your philosophical rambles that belong more on social media than out in the open. And since social media doesn’t exist anymore, you should just be quiet. For god’s sake, be quiet.
Ahead of them, Patton’s ongoing ramble came to a stop, and the young boy put his hand on David’s arm. David had stopped walking and looked hunched over. His hands moved in jerking motions to clutch his heart.
“Grandpa?” Patton asked in a high-pitched voice. “Grandpa, are you okay?”
“Oh god,” Jade whispered next to Max and shoved him off, limping as fast as she could toward David.
‘What’s happening?” Max asked uselessly even as David collapsed to his knees on the road.
“Dad!” Patton cried out, ma
king Matthew and Wyatt ahead of them turn around. Matthew’s eyes widened when he saw David on the ground, and he sprinted to his father.
Max tried to keep up with Jade as a sudden spike of dread drove into his heart. He remembered Kathleen talking about this—wasn’t David the whole reason they bought the hotel in the first place? Heart attack. The guy had had a heart attack, and it made all of them re-evaluate their life decisions. Oh god.
“What happened?” Matthew demanded as he sank to his knees beside his father.
“He started to breathe really heavy,” Patton said in a rush. “We were talking about making squirrel traps and then suddenly he started to sound garbled and he gasped and grabbed his chest. Dad, what’s happening? Dad?”
Matthew looked up at Max with terror. Even when Patton had been taken, Max had seen Matthew enraged, determined, smart, but he’d never seen Matthew look helpless. Matthew gripped David’s shoulder, and Max knew that Matthew’s worst fears had been realized.
“It’s a second heart attack,” Jade said. Her lips pressed into a thin line as if to contain her fear. “Isn’t it?”
“We need to get back to the hotel,” Matthew said, his voice trying to sound authoritative and instead coming out reedy with worry. “He needs to rest and get his medication. Wyatt—”
“On it,” Wyatt said, and dipped down to take the brunt of David’s weight. Matthew took David’s other side, and Patton slid in under their arms to hold up David’s waist.
“I can help,” Jade said. “We can lift him up and carry him together.”
Matthew looked back and shook his head. “You and Max can barely stand as it is. Help each other and meet us back at the hotel. I don’t want to leave you but—”
“It’s okay,” Jade cut in. “Get him home. Get his heart beating correctly. We’ll be right behind you.”
EMP Catastrophe | Book 2 | Erupting Danger Page 23
