Isolation | Book 4 | Holding On

by Jones, Nathan

  Ellie laughed, leaning over to give Hal's little sister a hug. “It was a joke, sweetie. Sometimes we show our love by actions instead of words, and when someone you care about is exhausted and has a long day ahead, the best thing you can do is help them however you can.”

  Ricky nodded solemnly. “That's why we were extra quiet this morning, to let you sleep.”

  She gave her son a hug, too. “And I appreciate it, honey.”

  Hal shooed the kids back to their schoolwork as Ellie sipped at her coffee and munched trail mix from a bag. As she was finishing up he wrapped an arm around her. “Ready to get back into it?” she murmured, leaning her head against his shoulder.

  “We'd probably better.” He sighed. “Hard to believe our wedding is tomorrow . . . I haven't even had a chance to think about it for the last couple days.”

  Ellie grimaced; she'd completely forgotten tomorrow was the date they'd set. The time had really flown thanks to all the chaos Jay had caused. “We're going to have to postpone it, aren't we? There's no way we could find time to do it tomorrow, and it would be tasteless to try to make a big event of it under the circumstances.”

  Hal rubbed her shoulder. “So we'll postpone it.”

  She leaned up and pressed her lips to his. “Not a second longer than necessary,” she murmured. “We've waited long enough.”

  Stuffing a last handful of trail mix into her mouth, she went and fetched her radio from its solar charger by her tent. Then, bracing herself, she turned up the volume.

  There was a constant stream of discussion going on, people giving reports and asking for help. From just the few seconds Ellie heard while she waited for a lull to speak up, she guessed that the outbreak hadn't slowed thanks to their containment efforts, like they'd hoped.

  Just the opposite, from the sound of things.

  Well, that was to be expected; all the people falling sick now would've been exposed to Zolos days ago, before they even knew the danger and tried to nip it in the bud. Which meant they could expect at least another day or two of surging cases before, fingers crossed, the outbreak petered out.

  She cleared her throat and cut in briskly. “Feldman here. What's the situation?”

  Johnny moved her to another channel to reply, quickly filling her in on what had happened while she was resting. As she'd feared, the number of cases had surged to over a hundred, and the quarantine efforts had become even more chaotic and confusing as entire sections of the camp were closed off, while sick patients still needed to be moved to the survivors' camp and supplies needed to be handed out.

  Ellie grimly plunged into the thick of things, smoothing out shift rotations and insisting that people who'd kept working when she wasn't there to tell them to get some rest do so now. She also spent some time updating a crudely drawn but detailed map of the camp with all the new zone changes and quarantine areas, then stared at it for a few minutes and did her best to adjust borders and mark Zolos-safe paths so people could still get around.

  One good idea the camp's leaders had had while she was asleep was having people do their best to decontaminate the areas around their own tents. They wanted to make sure that the “safe” areas really were safe, at least as much as they could be made under the circumstances, and that Zolos didn't spread any farther than it already had.

  It was something they probably should've done right at the start, but better late than never.

  She was in the middle of brainstorming with Betty in the survivors' camp for ways to more efficiently house the increasing number of sick, making sure they were properly sheltered and that the volunteers caring for them could get to them all easily, when the radio went nuts.

  It was the patrol to the south, warning them that an entire convoy of vehicles was roaring towards the town. At least twenty, an eclectic assortment of cars and trucks and minivans.

  Ellie's immediate assumption was Jay, since everything seemed to involve that bald psychopath these days. If so it was reminiscent of when he and the other Wensbrook survivors had first stormed up to Stanberry to yell about their town being scavenged.

  Only she had no idea why they'd be coming now; if Darby and the other leaders hadn't been willing to meet their demands before, they certainly wouldn't after everything Jay had done.

  Sure enough, the Wensbrook leader's voice soon crackled over the radio. “Darby! Darby, you need to come out and talk to us! Come out and talk face to face, now!”

  The man continued for another half minute or so, cursing and making demands, before Mayor Darby's voice finally cut in. “Why would I do that, Mr. Corey?”

  “Because you just burned down half my town, and you need to answer for it!”

  Ellie shared a shocked glance with Hal and his mom Cara, who had made one of her rare appearances outside her tent to listen in.

  “You must be mistaken,” Darby said after a few seconds of heavy silence. “You know Stanberry's policy of closed borders. No one in or out, to defend against Zolos infection.”

  “Then maybe it was Statton or some of your other immune thugs,” Jay snarled. “But don't even try to pretend you're innocent of this. Don't even try!”

  “I don't need to pretend,” Stanberry's Mayor said coolly. “You may have a bunch of arsonists running around with you, but we're law abiding citizens.”

  “Then nut up and come out and let's talk about this face to face!”

  “We're not coming out to parley,” Darby said in a tone of finality. “You've proven you can't be trusted, or for that matter even behave in a civilized fashion. And if you try to approach the town to talk to us, no matter how peaceable your behavior, we'll assume it's an attack and respond in kind.”

  Ellie put her face in her hands.

  On the one hand the clear fury in Jay's voice didn't seem like a good sign he was here to talk about deescalating the conflict. But even so, no good would come from giving up on trying for peace. Even if it seemed unlikely, Darby couldn't take that option off the table, or this war would just keep on going and even more people would die.

  “I can't be trusted?” Jay yelled into the radio through a burst of feedback. “I can't be trusted? You seriously want to talk about trust after sneaking into our town in the night and burning down dozens of homes?”

  “Oh cry me a river, Corey,” Darrel snapped.

  There was a brief, knife-edged silence. “What?” Jay said quietly.

  “You heard me. You want to pretend you care about justice and decency now that you're getting a taste of your own medicine? You've terrorized us for weeks! You spread Zolos to innocent people! And who was the first to start burning down houses? Including my house, with my family inside!”

  “What about all the families in the Wensbrook houses you burned last night?” Jay said, a wild edge to his voice. “Are you saying Darby's lying and you did do it?”

  Darrel snorted. “Nah, none of us is leaving Stanberry to go to a place crawling with Zolos. But more power to whoever did.”

  “You think this is funny?” the Wensbrook leader snarled. “No sympathy, even a pretense of it to further peacemaking efforts like you always pretend you want? Those were our homes! Our hope for the future!”

  “And what do you think you're doing to us?” Darrel shot back.

  “Well if that's the way you want to play it, then you have only yourself to blame when you're standing over a mass grave of all your friends and fa-”

  “Not happening!” Darrel cut in, voice a furious roar. “Listen up, Jay and all you nutjobs running around with him. We've tried to be conciliatory every step of the way, and you SOBs just keep on doing worse and worse. Now you're literally guilty of an atrocity, spreading Zolos to over a hundred innocent people that we know of so far, and probably ten times that number before all is said and done.

  “So you want to keep fighting? Well Stanberry's through with extending the olive branch, so let's show you the stick. We might not be able to leave our barricades, but we've got a militia of over three hundred people
in town who've been training in target practice nonstop while you've been running around trashing abandoned houses like heroes. You're not sneaking in and catching us by surprise again . . . if you come within two hundred yards of our barricades we'll fill you full of holes, and no tricks or schemes are going to help you there.”

  Jay started to snap a reply, but Darrel shouted right over him. “Then in our quarantine camp we've got a hundred and fifty fighters who are equally determined. We're patrolling our borders, our security is rock solid, and we're fed up with your games. If you try to kill us like you're threatening, we'll shoot back outnumbering you at least five to one, and if it's our lives on the line we'll shoot to kill.

  “As for your stupid town, just remember that anything you can do to us, we can do to you. If you want to keep this fight going we can easily burn down the rest of Wensbrook. Or your camp. We can burn up all your food supplies and see how long you can keep this fight going.”

  Considering that Ellie had just spent the last day dealing with people who'd effectively been given a death sentence thanks to Jay, she had a hard time disagreeing with any of that. Rationally she knew she should be trying to be the voice of reason here, continuing to try to speak for peace to end this conflict.

  But where had her efforts gotten them so far? Jay didn't care about peace, and even less now.

  A brittle silence fell after Darrel finally finished his tirade. Then Jay spoke, voice an infuriatingly calm drawl. “That Stanberry's official stance?”

  There was a brief pause, then Darby spoke up quietly. “You're the one pushing this fight, Mr. Corey. You can walk away at any time. But if you insist on continuing to terrorize us, we'll-”

  Jay cut in, voice a nearly incoherent scream. “We did walk away! We walked away and we were done! Then you burned down half our town and showed us this won't be over until we finish it!”

  From that point the man's tirade devolved into a stream of obscenities and threats, like usual. Ellie turned down the radio and shared a troubled look with Hal. “You think that's true?” she asked quietly.

  He snorted bitterly. “You think they went from smashing family photos and fouling beds in abandoned houses to calling it quits and heading home for good in the space of a day?”

  Yeah, he was probably right.

  Even so, she wished whoever had burned down those houses in Stanberry hadn't done it. What good had it done, other than give Jay even more justification to keep coming after them and probably do even worse in retaliation?

  On the other hand, maybe Darrel was right that the only way to get Jay to back off was to make this fight as costly for him as it was for Stanberry. But Ellie had a feeling he'd never back off no matter what, even if he was reduced to living in a hole and eating insects while he took potshots at them.

  Jay's ranting on the radio seemed to be over. She turned it on in time to hear reports from the south patrol that the vehicles were turning around and driving away, and Starr barking orders for the scouts to tail them and see where they went.

  Sure enough, she could hear engine noises receding into the distance. With a sigh she leaned her head against Hal's chest, inviting him to put his arms around her, which he did. “It looks like we were right to postpone our wedding,” she murmured.

  ✽✽✽

  Nick shaded his eyes and stared into the distance, grimly confirming what he'd seen: another wispy column of black smoke rising into the sky, joining the half dozen or so others visible west of town.

  Jay's response to the arson in Wensbrook had been swift and predictable, going around setting fire to every single house or other building within fifteen minutes of Stanberry. Including, from the reports of scouts northeast of town, the McCleese farm.

  With a sigh he dropped his hand and glanced over at the two brothers, who were waiting by their truck nearby. He felt bad for them, but at the same time a creeping suspicion had planted itself last night, when Aimee had intercepted him as he was preparing to head to bed to ask if he'd seen Chet.

  A suspicion that had only grown when he saw how they'd reacted to news of this newest attack on their house. Instead of the flash of incandescent rage Nick had been expecting, instead the brothers had looked sullen and almost guilty.

  As if for some reason they thought they shared some blame for infuriated Wensbrook survivors burning their house down, maybe?

  Well, he felt enough rage for all three of them, although not completely on their behalf; after everything he'd said yesterday about not escalating this conflict, was it possible they'd gone and done this anyway?

  Chet glanced his way, saw him staring, and looked back impassively. Was he innocent and afraid Nick would accuse him? Guilty and ready to lash out if challenged on what he'd done? Planning to feign innocence?

  What if the brothers had started those fires in Wensbrook? What was Nick going to do about it? Chet and Ben were already on thin ice with the Mayor after losing their cool and going after the Drydens, but this was something else entirely.

  Burning down half a town? Even if they could argue they'd done it for strategic reasons as part of this conflict with Jay and his thugs, they hadn't told anyone what they planned. Hadn't gotten approval to take such drastic measures.

  Assuming they were actually guilty of this, and he wasn't passing judgment on a blind suspicion.

  Chet opened his mouth and Nick tensed, wondering what he was about to say. But the young man just jerked his head towards something over Nick's shoulder. “I just saw the curtains move in the Norson house.”

  All thoughts of arson in Wensbrook fled and Nick spun around, gripping his gun as he peered at the house a hundred or so yards away.

  He was especially protective of the Norsons' place, and for more reason than because Bruce and Winn had taken him and his family in when they were desperate and had nowhere else to go, or because Gen was living there and they were dating at a distance at the moment.

  All other considerations aside, it was where the caches were that the entire Norson group, including his and Hal's families and his scavengers, needed to survive this crisis over the next few months.

  Nick didn't see any sign of movement in any of the windows now, but even so he motioned to his patrol. “Come on, let's check it out.”

  They all followed without questioning; the Zolos survivors with him who weren't part of the Norson group didn't know about the caches, but they did know the relationship Nick and his people had with the Norsons.

  The modest house was outside the barricades Stanberry had set up outside their town, and so vulnerable. But it and the other houses on this street were also close enough that Jay would have trouble messing with them without coming under fire from Darrel's people in the barricades.

  Which was why they weren't currently on fire.

  Nick stopped a safe distance from the front door, wanting to keep the house Zolos free so Gen and and her son and the Norsons could return when this trouble with Jay was over. Assuming the bald psycho's thugs weren't currently in there trashing the place and contaminating everything.

  “Whoever's inside, come out now!” he called firmly, rifle held at the ready. Behind him he noticed Chet and Ben and the rest of his patrol seeking cover, weapons also aimed at the house; probably a sensible precaution that he should be taking himself.

  Before he could the door opened slightly. To his vast relief he saw Gen peeking through the crack. “Nick?” she asked uncertainly.

  “Gen!” he called back with a genuine smile, hastily slinging his gun over his shoulder. “What are you doing here?”

  “It's been three weeks since you closed off the stash in the basement for its quarantine period,” she replied, edging outside with a cautious look around, as if expecting Wensbrook attackers to suddenly swoop in and start shooting at them. “We figured we should get it moved into Stanberry before Jay worked up the nerve to loot this place and take it all.”

  Nick was glad they had, because he'd barely given the cache a second thought since loc
king it away for its 21 days until they could be sure it was safe. “Good.” He gave her a rueful smile and motioned to his patrol, who were emerging from hiding to join him. “I wish we could lend you a hand.”

  She smiled back wanly, and he was struck by the marked change in her since she and her son had moved into town for protection against Jay; she'd visibly lost weight and was pale and drawn, obviously exhausted from fear and stress.

  It physically pained Nick to see signs of her suffering. He wished he could go to her, hold her tight and give her some comfort, some reassurance. Tell her that things would work out okay and they'd make it through this.

  But at the same time it lifted his heart to see how her smile turned more genuine after a moment. “I wish you could too,” she murmured. “But mostly because then we wouldn't have to stay fifteen feet apart.”

  That smile absolutely melted him, and not just because of the obvious affection in her expression; talking to him seemed to lift some of the burden of care from her shoulders, reassuring him that in spite of everything they'd been through, she remained the cheerful, kind, and above all optimistic woman he'd first befriended and then fallen in love with.

  She was beautiful in that moment.

  That is, she was always beautiful of course. But seeing her drawn and pale with stress from their current situation, but undaunted and still so full of love and hope, he knew he'd remember her as she looked now for the rest of his life. A memory he'd treasure of the woman he loved.

  He hadn't realized just how fierce his feelings had become until that moment. “I love you,” he blurted without even thinking, then felt his face heat when behind him Chet and Ben both snickered.

  Gen's eyes softened, although her cheeks also reddened as she glanced at the people with him. “I love you too,” she said without any other sign of embarrassment. She glanced at his patrol again. “Do you have a few minutes to talk? It feels like it's been forever since we've been able to, with me trapped behind the barricades and you busy dealing with Jay.”

  It had felt like forever for him too; she'd been able to get a few notes to him, all of which were currently folded carefully in his pocket. But of course he couldn't pass any notes to her in return, and any messages he gave her through others would be awkward if he wanted to say anything romantic.