by K. M. Fawkes
Anna couldn’t look him in the eye anymore. She walked out of rooms if he walked into them. She spoke to him mainly through Sammy, which was easy because she took such care to never be in the same place at the same time. He couldn’t understand it.
As far as he was concerned, they’d left things with a mutual understanding. The understanding wasn’t what he’d wanted, but he’d done his best to be back to his normal self the next day. Anna hadn’t. Even now, she was gazing determinedly down at the table rather than looking his way, and she’d only nodded in response to his explanation of why he’d needed the table.
“It’s not exactly a two-man job, buddy,” he said in response to Sammy.
The kid frowned and crossed his arms over his chest, clearly feeling like Brad had let him down. “There’s no point in doing this stupid school stuff,” he continued, his voice rising into a higher-pitched whine that Brad recognized as the precursor to a full-blown temper tantrum. He’d never seen Sammy behave this way, but he supposed everyone had their breaking point. For Sammy, it looked like that was math homework. “It doesn’t matter anymore,” he said.
“Of course it does,” Anna said, her voice tense. Sammy wasn’t the only one on the verge of a meltdown, apparently.
“Why?” Sammy asked again, turning his challenging gaze back to his mother, sensing with the weird accuracy that all kids develop that if he pushed her enough, it would become a fight and he would get out of at least some of what she wanted him to do.
Brad wondered at what age kids learned to be the master manipulators they were. Or were they born that way and then simply forgot over time?
“Why do I need to do this? How is it going to help me survive?”
Anna opened her mouth and then closed it, clearly looking for a reason. “I…” she floundered. “Because—”
Sensing that she was on the verge of the universally hated “because I said so”, guaranteed to prolong any argument, Brad cut in. “Because eventually, people will probably find a way to come together as a society again. You don’t want to be the only one who can’t do math, right?”
Sammy’s arms slowly uncrossed as he began to think about this new possibility. “Do you really think they will?” he asked.
Anna and Brad had talked about it a little when Sammy wasn’t around. Before things had gotten so stilted, that is.
Anna had agreed with Brad that the possibility was good. Even with such a small population, they were sure to find other survivors at some point. The existence of the soldiers pretty much proved that, even if they weren’t the ones they were planning to invite for tea.
Brad had agreed with Anna that talking about it in front of Sammy could be tricky. It would realistically be years before things settled back into any kind of normal routine, and that concept could be hard for a nine-year-old boy to understand. Neither of them wanted him thinking it could happen in a few weeks.
He needed a distraction now, though, and it was the only logical reason Brad could really think of for why Anna had decided Sammy needed to be back in school. Honestly, he thought that she was simply using it as an excuse to have something to do. Or, at the very least, something to do that didn’t involve him. But he would play fair and not sell her out by telling Sammy about that.
“I don’t know for sure,” Brad said. “But probably.” When Sammy looked skeptical, he continued. “Mankind has always had a way of seeking each other out. I mean, it will take a while, but I’d be kind of surprised if it doesn’t happen. There might even be schools again, and you definitely don’t want to be the only one that doesn’t know his multiplication tables.”
“I did really well in my math class at home,” Sammy said indignantly.
“Yeah?” Brad asked, making sure to look mildly skeptical.
“Yeah,” Sammy said, giving a very firm nod as he spoke. “My teacher always wrote ‘good job’ at the top of my homework and she usually gave me stickers, too.”
“Then this shouldn’t be too hard for you,” Brad said, looking at the problems Anna had written out on the chalkboard he’d found in the attic. “The threes are super easy. I bet you could move up the fours by bedtime, if you really tried.”
“It’s not too hard,” Sammy said quickly. “I’ll finish up the threes now. Mom, can you write out the fours on another piece of paper?”
Once the boy had worked out the equations and Brad had expressed a proper amount of surprise that he’d managed it so quickly, Sammy went on to the next one. He bent his head studiously over the page and began writing, his lips moving slightly as he calculated the answers.
Brad looked over at Anna, hoping for some kind of acknowledgement. She’d been looking at him, but she jerked her gaze away when their eyes met, going back to writing out the next set of multiplication tables on the back of the paper she’d used for the threes. He was glad that she was reusing the paper, but would it really kill her to look at him?
He bent his head over his own work, sewing more rapidly now. The feeling of the cabin closing in around him intensified until it felt like he couldn’t take a deep breath. He finished the last stitch and cut the thread. Then he stood up pushing his chair under the table so abruptly that both Anna and Sammy looked up at him.
“Here’s your new jacket,” he said to Sammy. “I’m going out to do that supply run.”
Anna stared at him, finally shocked into speech. “Are you sure? It’s been so cold. And it’s already past noon.”
He shrugged. He wouldn’t have cared if it was pitch dark outside. The tension in the cabin now that they’d spent time in the same room was so thick he could have cut it with a knife. He needed to get out of there before the walls closed in or before he said something he’d regret.
“I’ve got plenty of cold-weather gear,” he said. “And if I leave now, it won’t be too late when I get back. Is there anything you want me to keep an eye out for?”
She shook her head, looking back down at the table. Her voice was cool when she said, “You probably know what we need better than I do. I trust your judgement.”
“Popcorn,” Sammy said, looking up from his math. “I really, really, want popcorn.”
Thank God for that kid.
Brad chuckled. “Okay, Sammy. I’ll do my best to find some when I’m out.”
Brad headed up to his room and pulled his box of clothes up onto the bed, where he upended it so that everything spilled out. He took his time looking through them, figuring out the best way to outfit himself for the trip. He was eager to leave, but he wasn’t stupid. Dying on the road wasn’t an appealing prospect, and this was going to be the farthest away from home he’d been since finding Anna and Sammy again.
The thermal underwear was the obvious place to start, so he pulled it on. Brad wasn’t the biggest fan of the stuff, mainly because of how tightly it fit. He would feel mildly claustrophobic all day, but at least he’d be warm. Once he’d pulled that on and fidgeted around until he was reasonably comfortable in it, he selected a heavy fleece shirt and tugged that on as well. He laid out a waterproof coat, but he didn’t put that on yet.
An extra pair of wool socks went on before he pulled his boots back on. That might be another thing to look for. His boots were in good condition, but how long would they stay that way, with the constant wear they saw? He made a mental note to look around for a replacement, although he knew that the odds of finding a pair of boots in his size probably weren’t great. He laced his boots tightly and looked out the window.
Even though it wasn’t snowing, the sky was gray. The snow hadn’t melted, but it had iced over, leaving a hard look to what should have been a storybook scene. He pressed his palm to the glass to try to get an idea of the temperature. He guessed that it was somewhere between fifteen and twenty. For October, it should have been an average of forty.
Maybe something else was wrong. Realistically, he knew that an EMP wouldn’t affect the weather. This would have been a rough winter even if he’d had power. As he’d told Anna, we
ird weather happened sometimes. But still, he couldn’t escape the feeling of desolation that settled over him, and that desolation shivered right on the edge of fear.
He pushed back at the emotion, turning back to the bed and pulling on his jacket, scarf, hat, and gloves. Fear didn’t accomplish anything. Fear kept a person still when they should be moving and muddled when they should be clear.
The pep talk to himself didn’t help. He couldn’t push away the sense that he was trapped. A whole winter stuck here. A whole winter of Anna trying her level best to avoid him. He should have known better. Hell, he had known better—he’d simply ignored his better instincts. That knowledge was salt in the wound as he walked down the stairs, stopping only to tell Sammy goodbye and grab one of the big backpacks he’d hung in the hall.
He slung it over his shoulders as he stepped out onto the porch, loosening the straps so that it would fit over his winter coat before he headed down the walkway and plunged into the woods, turning left. He hadn’t ventured south of the cabin since he’d arrived, so he moved cautiously.
The woods were pretty much the same, but he’d expected that. He still knew them like the back of his hand this close to the cabin. Snow crackled under his boots as he broke through the icy top layer. The uncomfortable realization that he would be very easy to track occurred to him, but he pushed it away. Who would be tracking him, anyway?
There was a whooshing thud a few yards to his right and Brad had to hold back a yelp as he spun around to see what had caused it. He didn’t see anything. Then, it happened again, and he realized that it was snow falling from the branches in the wind that had kicked up suddenly.
“Get it together,” he muttered to himself, but he found himself walking faster and coming out of the woods sooner than he’d intended to.
There was a cluster of cabins on the lake that had all been owned by the same company. The majority of them were vacation rentals, so his hopes weren’t high that he would find much. A few of them had been privately owned, though, so it was worth a look through.
As he walked closer, he noticed something odd. The windows to each and every cabin had been broken. Not just the ones on the lower levels, either. Every single pane of glass was shattered.
Something about the deliberate destruction was frightening. Maybe because it was so needless. What had been the purpose? Glass was impossible to replace right now. Even if a survivor happened to come across these cabins, they wouldn’t be able to use them, now.
Brad walked up onto the porch of the closest cabin and looked into the house through the broken front window. It was the only one that had been broken from the outside. He could see the glass scattered over the oak floor on the other side. And that was pretty much all he saw.
The cabin was completely empty, from what he could see. Even the furniture was gone. Brad frowned. Was there someone out there who was super interested in post-apocalyptic interior design? Logically, of course, he knew it was more likely that the furniture had been used for firewood. That was no less unnerving, though, and it raised a few questions. He ducked in through the window and walked through the main room.
The only things left were things that wouldn’t burn. There was a computer lying on its side in the corner, which told him that this was probably one of the cabins that had been bought by someone. The big television still hung on the wall over the cold fireplace, but the screen had been smashed in. A sheen caught his eye and he saw a huge stack of DVDs to the side of the white brick. The cases that the discs had been in were there, too, but the paper inserts had been taken. Someone had literally taken everything that would burn out of this cabin.
They hadn’t burned it here, though; there was no sign that a fire had been kindled in that white brick fireplace. He hadn’t seen any evidence of flames on the grounds as he’d walked in, either. That meant that someone had carried it all away. And he didn’t think that one person, or even two, would be able to make a haul like that. Not unless they came every single day for months at a time. And who would do that?
For that matter, who would do this? If he was dealing with another small group of survivors, why had they taken so much? They wouldn’t need a whole houseful of furniture to burn, not when there were so many trees. It was a crazy amount of work for no good reason.
He glanced into the kitchen and found that the same thing had happened there. The windows that looked onto the back deck and the lake were shattered. Even the glass door in the gleaming stainless steel oven door was broken. So was the glass over the face of the clock that had hung on the wall near the kitchen table. He picked up one of the shards with his gloved fingers and looked at it. Why the hell had someone done this? It seemed almost like teenage vandalism, but it was just so damn methodical.
It could have been the soldiers, he supposed. They had mentioned the looting they’d done, and they’d had a big enough truck to carry a fair amount of stuff. There was also no proof that this had happened recently.
Snow had blown into the cabin during the storm. It piled in drifts at the baseboards in the kitchen. That would mean that the windows had to have been shattered at least a week ago, but it could have been even longer than that. There was no way to tell. Hell, it could have happened over the summer, before he’d even gotten anywhere near the place.
But somehow, he doubted it. He couldn’t put his finger on why, he just knew that he wanted to get away from this strange, empty house as fast as possible. The same feeling that had pushed him through the woods led him back through the largely unexplored house and out the cabin door, every hair on the back of his neck seeming to stand at attention.
Brad tossed away the shard of glass that he’d forgotten he was carrying and jogged back down the porch steps, getting away from the place as fast as he could without flat-out running. He had gone nearly to the edge of the woods again before he got himself under control. His heart was pounding and it wasn’t from the exercise. He’d come here to loot and he was being scared off by pieces of broken glass.
“Okay,” he said to himself. “Yeah, it’s weird as fuck. But it’s empty.” He scanned the tree line and didn’t see anything out of the ordinary. There was no excuse to leave empty-handed.
Brad turned and went back, approaching the next house determinedly. The windows there were smashed as well, but he’d expected that much, at least. Would the rest of the house be the same? If it was as empty, he didn’t know if he could stand it.
He swallowed hard and walked up, looking in. Relief filled him when he saw that there was still furniture in place. He listened carefully once he’d stepped in through the window. Not hearing any noise, he continued.
Out of habit, he checked in the kitchen first. As he’d expected, it was pretty much empty—people typically didn’t leave too many supplies in their rental or vacation homes. Anna was right. At some point, they were going to have to go into the city for a bigger looting trip. They could look for clothes and boots and more medical supplies. But that could wait until spring, for sure.
Something skittered across the floor in a breeze that blew through the broken windows and he stepped back instinctively. When he saw that it was just a candy bar wrapper, he should have felt better, but he didn’t. Another glance around the room showed more wrappers and two empty cans of beans. There were also several dented cans without pull tops. Someone had been trying to get into them, unsuccessfully. What was left on the sides of the cans that were open wasn’t entirely dried out. Someone had been here fairly recently. Maybe the crazy furniture-collecting looter was still around somewhere.
He pulled his gun out and began to walk through the house, cursing himself for not clearing it first. Lee would be furious with him for ignoring such a basic rule of staying safe. And Sammy and Anna would be all alone if he died out here.
Suddenly, he wished he’d dealt with his cabin fever and talked to Anna. Maybe she didn’t want to talk about what had happened between them. Hell, he didn’t either, if he was perfectly honest. But clearly, they
needed to get it out in the open. If they had, he’d be in his own cabin right now, instead of out here freezing while he looked through an abandoned cabin for a possible maniac.
He checked the rooms one by one, shoving the doors open and going in without trying to be quiet. It was sort of like hunting near a bear. Whoever was in here, he didn’t want to take them by surprise. He’d used the gun once. He didn’t want to have to do it again.
There were three bedrooms in the cabin. The master bedroom and the attached bathroom were empty. The mirrors over the sink were shattered and so was the one on the back of the closet door. Brad considered that a good thing; at this point, if he’d caught sight of his own reflection, he probably would have dropped dead of a heart attack.
The next room was smaller and just as empty. So was the main bathroom down the hall. His pulse rate was starting to slow down as he walked through and found no signs of life. There was only one room to go.
The last bedroom, overlooking the backyard, had apparently belonged to a boy around Sammy’s age. When Brad opened the closet door, he could tell that there were a few things he could take back to the boy. As he reached for a pair of jeans, he saw something that sent his heart pounding again.
Movement behind the curtains. He’d gotten distracted again. It was mostly annoyance with himself that made aiming the gun so easy this time.
“Get out of there,” he said, holding the weapon steady. The heavy drapes moved, but whatever was hiding in them didn’t appear. “Now!” Brad snapped. “Don’t make me hurt you.”
The curtains parted and he found himself staring at a young girl. She was around Sammy’s height, which made her about two feet shorter than Brad. Her eyes were wide and she was shaking so hard that the curtains were practically vibrating around her.
Shit.
Brad wanted to lower the gun, but he had to ask her some questions. “Are you alone here?”
