Fall of Man | Book 4 | The Tide

by Sisavath, Sam

Zoe disappeared from his view, only to reappear on his left side. There was a slight prick against his shoulder.

  “I see a lot of pricks,” the Voice said.

  That’s not what I meant.

  “What did you mean?”

  You know what I meant.

  It laughed.

  “What did you give him?” Dante, somewhere in the background. Or maybe closer. It was hard to tell. Cole couldn’t see the kid anywhere, probably because he was in his wheelchair and beyond Cole’s limited visual range.

  “Sedative,” Zoe said. “I have to knock him out again to fix his bandages.”

  “Man, he’s really bleeding,” Dante said.

  “He should be dead,” the soldier who wasn’t a soldier anymore said as he took a step back, brown eyes gazing at Cole intently. Measuring him. Maybe wondering if Cole was an asset or more of a hindrance at the moment.

  “I think we know the answer to that one,” the Voice said.

  Asset, Cole thought.

  “Um, that wasn’t what I was thinking.”

  Shut up.

  “Well, he’s not, and he’s going to stay that way even if it kills me,” Zoe was saying. She’d spoken with confidence and authority. Cole wondered how she could do that since he felt as if he were dying all over again.

  He closed his eyes, because keeping them open was just too damn difficult.

  “Make sure you wake up, chum,” the Voice said.

  That’s the plan.

  “And we all know everything’s been going according to plan these days, right?”

  The Voice laughed, but Cole didn’t. He was too busy trying not to die. It was a lot harder than it should have been.

  Humans.

  Then wolves.

  What next? Did he really want to find out?

  No, he didn’t. But he’d have to, because he needed to find Emily. To do that, he had to get better. And to get better, he had to stop bleeding. To that end, he remained on his back, trying to move as little as possible.

  He woke up once or twice (or dozens?) throughout the ordeal, and each time there was a different face hovering over him.

  Zoe. Her daughter, Ashley. Bolton. The soldier. Even Dante, leaning over the side, so not really “hovering.” They mostly ignored him and conversed with one another. That is, when there were more than one of them in the room at a time. Usually it was just one or two.

  Fiona never showed up. Or Savannah, the kid whom Emily had saved back at Arrow Bay. Maybe they were dead, like Greg. Or maybe they didn’t feel like looking in on him. Savannah, he could understand, but Fiona’s absence was surprising.

  “Maybe she doesn’t like you as much as you like her,” the Voice said.

  Maybe.

  “Or maybe she’s deader than a doorknob.”

  Let’s not go there.

  “Why not? Greg’s dead. Lots of people are dead. Why can’t she be dead, too?”

  I’d rather not think about it.

  “You should think about it, chum.”

  Why the hell should I?

  “Because this is the real world. And in the real world, people die. Even the ones you like. Like Emily.”

  No.

  “It’s possible.”

  No.

  “It’s—”

  No!

  A face appeared above him. Zoe. She looked older than the last time he’d seen her. There were a few more wrinkles, and he saw crow’s feet that weren’t there before.

  “Pain?” she asked.

  He shook his head. Or thought he did.

  “What?” she said.

  The Voice, he thought. It’s annoying the fuck out of me.

  But he said out loud (or managed to squeak, which was more likely), “Emily. Where’s Emily?”

  Zoe shook her head. “We don’t know. We thought you might have an idea.”

  Cole stared up at her. Why did she think he would know? He’d been unconscious…

  No. Not the entire time. He remembered…

  …what did he remember?

  “Cole!”

  Emily’s voice, coming back to him. Not now, but before. After escaping the wolves. After climbing up onto the rooftop of Anton’s warehouse. Emily was there with him, saving his life. Stanching his bleeding. Keeping him alive.

  Then she was gone.

  No, not gone.

  Taken.

  Emily had been taken from him.

  He remembered now. Flashes, with no details, but he remembered the important part. The vital takeaway: They’d taken Emily, and he’d seen it happen. Uniformed figures. Not quite BDUs. Something different. He couldn’t recall how different exactly, but just knew that they were unfamiliar. She’d called out his name as she was dragged away. Men. Strong men. More than one, because she’d fought every inch of the way, but they’d still taken her anyway.

  The realization came rushing back in a tidal wave of shock and anguish and misery.

  Cole opened his mouth and screamed, and probably tore his stitches all over again.

  “Dammit. Back to square one,” the Voice said. “Let’s try this all over again, shall we?”

  Chapter Ten

  “Tell me everything.”

  “There’s not much to tell.”

  “Tell me everything anyway.”

  Zoe was sitting in an old wooden rocking chair that had probably been through hell and back but had managed, somehow, to remain in one piece. She had given him a bottle of lukewarm water and got up to help him drink from it every now and then. He wanted to tell her he didn’t need her assistance, but that would have been a lie. Just breathing hurt.

  He had lost track of time and didn’t know how many times he’d awakened to be fed or, like a wilting plant, watered. He only knew that he got stronger every time he saw Zoe. Eventually, he was able to sit up on the cot they’d laid him on and rest his head against a cold, hard wall. It was better than lying down. There was never anything quite like being flat on your back and unable to do anything about it that really drove home just how useless a man could be.

  They were inside an office of some type, with a large battleship of an oak desk to the right. (Zoe sat to his left.) During a couple of his waking moments, Cole had seen one of the others sitting watch behind that desk. The soldier, Cameron, and Bolton. Sometimes it was Zoe’s daughter, Ashley. Dante also did his share of sitting watch over him. There was an M4 rifle lying across the desk, with backpacks and pouches that were speckled with dirt and blood.

  The room was chilly because the walls didn’t have any insulation. He knew they were inside some kind of warehouse the first time he could keep his eyes open for longer than a few minutes. For a moment, he thought they were back at Anton’s, but that wasn’t the case. Bolton had landed his chopper on the rooftop of some kind of machine shop, one that they were able to barricade themselves inside. According to Zoe, they’d had some trouble with a few stray crazies, but not the kind of full-scale attacks they’d endured back at Anton’s.

  That was pretty much all Cole knew of his current surroundings, but the fact he was still alive, and so were the others, meant they were safe. (Mostly.) Besides Zoe, her daughter, Bolton, Dante, and Cameron, there was no one else. Both the young women, Fiona and Savannah, had died outside of Anton’s. The rest of Cameron’s former grunts, too, had perished, but Cole didn’t know their names and didn’t care to find out.

  He should have been sad about the loss of Fiona (not so much Savannah, whom Cole didn’t really know that well), but he wasn’t. He was too occupied with other things, like staying alive and finding Emily.

  “There’s not much to tell,” Zoe was saying. “After we left, we took a vote and decided to go back for you and Emily. I guess after what happened to Fiona and Savannah, we didn’t feel like losing you two, too.”

  “And Emily?” he asked. He knew what had happened to her—she was taken—but he wanted to confirm it anyway that watching her being taken from him wasn’t some part of a fevered delusion as he lay dying on th
at hot rooftop.

  “We don’t know,” Zoe said. “When we got there, there was just you left. Emily was gone. Bolton…”

  “What?” he said when she didn’t finish.

  “He thought she might have fallen down and the wolves took her away.”

  “She didn’t. She didn’t fall.”

  “No?”

  He shook his head. “No.”

  Zoe stared at him, the unspoken question on her face as clear as day: “How do you know that?”

  “She didn’t fall,” he said. “She was taken.”

  “Taken?”

  “Yeah.”

  “By who?”

  “I don’t know. Men. They took her.”

  Zoe didn’t say anything.

  Again, he could see it on her face: “How do you know that?”

  He didn’t blame her, given his condition. He was almost dead. More dead than alive, if he wanted to be perfectly honest about it. He accepted that now, once he had some time to think about it and, more importantly, seen the wounds on him. Or most of the wounds, since the majority of them were covered up with bandages. The heavy stink of medical ointment lingered in the room, and every inch of his limbs tingled where the medicine had been applied, which was most of him.

  As he had guessed during one of his earlier conscious moments, it was Zoe that had kept him alive. When he’d asked her how she’d managed it, she had been very honest: “Mostly luck. No, that’s not true. It was all luck. And Dante helped a lot.”

  “Dante?” he’d said.

  “The kid knew more about cleaning wounds and all the other life-saving stuff than any of us. Even more than Cameron.”

  Cole had nodded. That made perfect sense. Not only was he a sponge for knowledge, as he himself had confessed when they first met, but Dante’s guardian, his aunt, was also a nurse who regularly brought work home with her. It was also thanks to Dante’s aunt that Cole wasn’t squirming in pain at the moment. Cole was half-asleep even now, swimming in the gentle waves of calmness afforded him by plenty of painkillers the kid had squirreled away before they left his apartment.

  “We didn’t see anyone,” Zoe was saying. “We only found you on that rooftop.”

  Cole didn’t try to convince her. The truth was, even he had some doubts. Had he actually witnessed what he thought he did? Maybe he was wrong—

  No. I’m not wrong.

  “You sure, buddy?” the Voice asked. It’d kept quiet all this time, and only now spoke up. As always, at the most inopportune time.

  Yes, Cole answered himself.

  “You were pretty out of it. Bleeding gallons of blood tends to make one see things.”

  I saw it.

  “You’re starting to doubt yourself.”

  I saw it. She was taken.

  “Are you trying to convince me or yourself?” It laughed. “Oh, my bad. I am you.”

  Cole ignored it and said out loud to Zoe, “The wolves…”

  “They were gone,” she said. “There were no signs of them.” She paused again.

  “What?”

  “They took the bodies.”

  “The bodies?”

  She nodded. “All of them. Even the ones inside the warehouse. That’s why Cameron was able to retrieve the weapons and medical supplies. They didn’t take those with them.”

  “The wolves took the bodies?”

  “It must have been them. There were signs they were dragged away.” She cocked her head slightly. “The crazies don’t do that, right?”

  “Not that I know of.”

  “That’s what we thought. So it has to be the wolves.” Then, “What do you think they want with them?”

  “Food.”

  “Oh.”

  By the surprised look on her face, she hadn’t thought of that. Cole wondered why. What else would the animals want with bodies? Even crazy, they had to eat.

  “That’s a disturbing thought,” Zoe said even as she shivered noticeably.

  “What did you think they did with the bodies?”

  “I’m not sure. I guess…” She shrugged. “Maybe I just didn’t want to think about it. Those wolves… I thought the dogs were dangerous, but those wolves…” She paused again. “You saw them, right?”

  “I fought them.”

  “Right. I forgot.”

  I didn’t, Cole thought. I won’t. Ever.

  He didn’t think he would ever forget about anything that happened at Anton’s warehouse. LARs had been a bust, their best shot at shelter gone up in flames. While he was underground, trying to get back up to the surface, Emily was fighting for her life. It wasn’t exactly what they had planned when they brought everyone over.

  “More amazing examples of understatement, chum,” the Voice said.

  Cole heard the sound of wheels on a steel floor before the office door opened and Dante rolled himself in.

  The kid beamed at the sight of Cole. “Look who’s up and wakey! Thought you were gonna die on us, my man.”

  “Dante,” Cole said.

  “That’s my name, don’t wear it out.” The teenager stopped at the foot of his cot and leaned back in his chair. “Man, I for sure thought you weren’t gonna make it. Bolton and me had a bet and everything. I lost.”

  “Thanks for the confidence, kid.”

  “Hey, you were mostly dead and bleeding all over the place. I didn’t know a guy could bleed so much. I’m still in shock you’re alive.”

  “Zoe tells me I have you to thank for that.”

  Dante grinned. “Meh. She did all of the hard work. I just sat around and blabbed until my gums got tired.”

  “He’s being too modest,” Zoe said. “I really couldn’t have done it without him.”

  “Meh,” the kid said again.

  Cole managed a smile. “Thanks, kid.”

  Dante nodded and might have actually blushed. Of course, that could have been the sunlight coming through the room’s high window flashing against his dark skin.

  “Where are we exactly?” Cole asked.

  “Somewhere in Colorado,” Dante said. “Bolton looked for a place to touch down, and this was the best we could find. It’s not completely in the middle of nowhere, but there wasn’t a lot of crazies around.”

  “You guys fought them off?”

  “Well, Bolton and Cameron did. I mostly just chillaxed.”

  “How long have we been here?”

  “Zoe didn’t tell you?”

  “He didn’t ask,” Zoe said.

  “Two weeks,” Dante said. “We’ve been surviving on the stuff we found before we reached Anton’s place and the rations Cameron’s guys brought with them from their base.” The teenager leaned forward slightly. “Can’t believe you’re actually alive, dude. I swear, you’re more bandages than skin right now.”

  “Dante,” Zoe said.

  “What? It’s true.”

  “Two weeks?” Cole said to Zoe.

  She nodded. “How do you feel?”

  “Good.”

  “That’s a lie.”

  “Better.”

  “That’s more believable.”

  “Kinda hard not to feel better after how we found you,” Dante said. He looked over at Zoe again. “Does he know?”

  “About what?” Zoe said.

  “The others.”

  “Fiona and Savannah.”

  “Yeah.”

  “He knows,” she said somberly. Then, looking back at Cole, “What about Greg? Did you see what happened to him?”

  “Last we saw him, he’d run back into the warehouse for you guys,” Dante said.

  “He’s dead,” Cole said.

  “You saw it?”

  “Yes.”

  “Dang. We figured he’d died, but we weren’t sure. I mean, people have survived worse. Look at you, for instance.”

  “He didn’t.”

  “How—” Zoe started to say, but stopped herself.

  Maybe, like Cole, she came to the same conclusion that how someone died didn’t m
atter; they were just gone. It was for that same reason Cole didn’t bother asking how Fiona and Savannah, or Cameron’s fellow ex-soldiers, had lost their lives. Because it didn’t matter; dead was dead.

  Dante went suddenly quiet, but didn’t look away. Cole waited for the kid to say something about Emily. Cole wouldn’t be surprised if the teenager and the others had discussed this subject already and decided not to broach it unless he did so first. They would have done it for his benefit, trying to spare him further pain.

  “The soldiers,” Cole said. “The ones I saw in the warehouse. Only one of them survived?”

  “Cameron,” Zoe said. “The others didn’t make it.”

  “We barely made it,” Dante said. “Fiona—” He stopped short, before finishing, quietly, “We barely made it.”

  “But you still came back for me,” Cole said. “Why?”

  “Why?” Dante said.

  “Yeah. Why?”

  “You really have to ask?” Zoe said. She sounded almost hurt.

  Cole shook his head softly. “No.” Then, “Thank you.”

  “You did the same for us,” Dante said. “We were just returning the favor.”

  “Oh, if only they knew just how many times you almost left them behind to fend for themselves,” the Voice said, its loud, cackling laughter reverberating inside Cole’s head.

  Chapter Eleven

  Emily.

  He whispered her name to himself and thought about her whenever he opened his eyes and just before he drifted off each night. And in many cases, during the day. Sleep came and went, along with everything else.

  But especially Emily.

  She was out there, somewhere. Someone’s captive. That same someone had come to Anton’s warehouse, climbed up to the rooftop (or however they’d gotten up there), and taken her from him. Someone had done that.

  Who? Why? When?

  The when was the only thing he could even remotely begin to make an educated guess on, thanks to Zoe.

  “There was about an hour from when we took off and came back,” she’d said when he asked.

  She’d also told him about the vote they’d had about returning but hadn’t elaborated, and Cole didn’t ask her to. He already had a pretty good idea. Zoe and Dante would be for returning; Bolton and the soldier, Cameron, might not have been. He didn’t blame them for whichever way they voted. Bolton had seen Fiona and Savannah fall, while Cameron was the sole survivor of his ragtag military unit. So it was a fifty-fifty duel; that is, unless Ashley got a vote, too. He could see something on Zoe’s face that looked like relief when he didn’t ask for details. Maybe he’d been wrong about her? Had she voted No?