“If they made it there,” I said looking away so she didn’t see my frown. “If we make it there.”
Leah reached over and touched my arm briefly. “We’ll make it, okay? I know we will. And if they’re even half as tough as you, they’ll be there.”
The bike chain clunked several times, causing the pedal to move awkwardly. The thick metal hunk of metal slipped away from my foot and spun around, hitting me in the back of my leg.
“Ow,” I said coming to a stop. “Shit. That really hurt.”
“You okay?” Leah asked. Her brakes squealed as she came to a stop next to me.
“Yeah. I think so anyway. Not so sure about the bike though,” I said kneeling down and pinching the oily chain between my fingertips.
My hands went to my head as I let out a frustrated sigh. I didn’t know the first thing about fixing a bike.
“Dammit,” I said pounding my fist into my thigh.
“It’s okay,” Leah said. “We’ll just go back to walking.”
I stood and pushed the bike down to the ground. It splashed into a puddle and sprinkled muddy water all over my face. It was like I was seven again and having a tantrum because I didn’t get my way.
“We covered a lot of ground thanks to these bikes,” Leah said petting hers like it was an elderly cat. “We’d still be miles away if it weren’t for the bikes.”
“I know,” I said. “But I still wanted to cover many more miles with them.”
“Yeah, I know,” Leah said. “I did too. But we can’t be too far off, can we?”
I ran my fingers through my hair so she didn’t see my hands shake. “Honestly, I don’t know. If my ex wouldn’t have robbed me of the address and all my things, I’d have a better idea.”
“Come on,” Leah said grabbing my hand. “Lots of daylight left. Might as well get moving.”
We walked but I kept my head down. If I looked at all of the emptiness in front of us, I’d get disheartened. There was so much ground to cover. Not to mention the fact that we could potentially be going entirely the wrong way.
Even with the address, I wouldn’t have been sure without a map. What choice did we have? With or without the bikes, we had to keep going. We had to keep searching.
It couldn’t have been more than ten minutes when Leah aggressively tugged my arm. “Holy crap, Adam! Look!”
3
Stevie
It was hard to believe that we actually found a place where we could stay. A place that would keep us out of the rain and dreary weather. A place we were finally safe.
The loss of Brooklyn and Teddy weighed heavily on all of us. Of course, we didn’t have a choice. All we could do was to keep living.
Gage was suffering most of all of us but for our benefit, he pretended everything was fine. The sadness in his eyes was hard to miss. His heart had been broken.
We’d found Josh, Kieran, and their daughter, Lucy, not long before finding the massive ranch. Lucy was dealing with anxiety both before and after The Reset and luckily, it was better inside the house. But still, she had her moments.
We’d all been through hell but none of us talked about it. All we talked about was how we were going to make things better. Continually working to come up with plans and ideas to make our new place a better place. A safe place.
I had no idea how long we’d be at the ranch. There was a good chance it was going to be a long time. I didn’t believe help was out there. No one was coming for us. We were on our own.
The ranch was several buildings scattered about the property — barns, cabins, sheds, a trailer, and several decent-sized houses. It was like one of those religious compounds I’d seen pictures of where giant families would all live in one place.
The six of us all stayed in the biggest house on the ranch. There was more than enough room for all of us.
Fences surrounded the entire property but some sections were broken or completely missing. The fields they contained were mud pits where nothing would ever grow, at least not for a long time. Not that anything would grow without sunlight anyway.
We’d been at the ranch for about a week and it seemed as though we were still finding new things. After we’d first arrived, we’d found a small chicken coop with several thin chickens that were barely still alive.
They’d been surviving on what was left inside a bag of chicken seed. Lucy loved tending to them. She was determined to nurse them back to health in the hopes that maybe they’d eventually lay eggs for us.
“Where should I put this?” Shawn said lugging in a box filled with rice. “Cellar or pantry?”
“Pantry,” I said looking back out the window. I quickly turned. “Wait. Maybe the cellar. How is the water down there?”
“About the same,” Shawn said. “I could put it on the table down there, though.”
I offered him a small shrug. “You decide. We’re going to have to start putting stuff in one of the bedrooms.”
“Good thing there are plenty of rooms in this place. The other buildings have so much more stuff,” Shawn said. “It’s like the people living here were planning for the end of the world.”
“You think if that were true, they would have stuck around,” I said.
“Good point,” Shawn said with a soft chuckle. “Guess they probably weren’t prepared for what happened. Well, I mean they were but also, it must have been unexpected or they’d still be around.”
I nodded as I gazed out the window. “Who knows what they went through around here.”
“There’s a good chance that it wasn’t good,” Shawn said before leaving the room. He returned after a few minutes and wiped his brow with the back of his hand. “Should we head out and get more?”
“Does Gage seem tired to you?” I asked.
“Seems okay to me but you know he wouldn’t let on if he were tired,” Shawn said kicking at an invisible dust bunny on the floor.
Shawn wasn’t wrong about Gage. The only time he’d really shown what he was feeling was when he hadn’t been able to save Brooklyn and Teddy. And even then, it wasn’t long before he hid his feelings again.
After we’d found the ranch, Gage had informed me that his vision had improved. It wasn’t back to normal but with the glasses he wore, he could do all the same things he had been able to do before he’d lost his vision.
The light that had flashed the night of The Reset had been so blindingly bright, he was lucky he hadn’t lost his vision completely. But that wasn’t the only bit of luck we’d had since that night.
“How is the water situation?” I asked before pulling in a breath.
“We refilled every container on the property,” Shawn said. “Boiled the water from the well just to be safe too.”
“How many day’s worth of water do you think we have?”
Shawn’s nose wrinkled. “Um, at least thirty day’s worth for all of us.”
“That’s great.”
“Water isn’t something we’ll need to worry about,” Shawn said his lips curling at the ends.
“I want to be prepared,” I said.
After everything we’d been through, I couldn’t not think about all the things that could go wrong. It frustrated me that no matter how much we had, it still felt like it wouldn’t be enough.
There were just so many threats that were out of our control, such as the rising water levels. The ocean could wipe us all out like it had back in Florida.
“Have you been sleeping okay?” Shawn asked as I muffled my yawn.
“Not really,” I said. “Are you?”
“No, not really.”
I sighed and looked down at my feet. Shawn placed his hand on my shoulder.
“Why don’t you go take a nap? I can hold the fort down for a few hours,” Shawn said.
“Nap?” I asked. “It has only been daylight or whatever you want to call this grayness for a couple hours.”
Shawn laughed. “There was a time when I slept until noon.”
“I wasn’t really ever ab
le to do that?”
“Why not?”
“I had siblings to take care of… and my mother,” I said. There was a tugging in my chest. I missed them. It was hard to talk about them even though that felt like a completely different life. “Maybe I will go back to bed.”
We all slept on the second floor. Josh, Kieran, and Lucy slept in the master bedroom. Gage, Shawn, and I each had our own rooms. I stayed up most nights, staring out of the window. Gage, Shawn, and Josh all took turns but it never felt as though it was enough. The more eyes, the better.
No one had come around the ranch since we arrived. It had been quiet, except for the constant rain, which, of course, was a good thing.
Gage had found two loaded shotguns in a chest. We placed one at the front door and the second at the back… the ammo was stored close by.
Lucy and Kieran hated having the guns in the house. They both walked around them as if they were afraid they’d jump out and bite them. If we ever needed to use them, it would be up to me, Gage, or Shawn but that was okay.
“Go on,” Shawn urged. “I can handle things. Don’t you trust me?”
Did I trust him? I bit my lip to stop myself from yawning again.
I turned to take one final look out the window. A nap was going to have to wait. Two people were heading straight for the house.
4
Joss
The young man held an umbrella. He looked at us for a few moments before he looked down and wrote something in a small notebook. His eyes flicked up several times before he dropped the mechanical pencil in the breast pocket of his striped button-down shirt.
He waved again, calling out something I couldn’t hear. The man stuffed the notebook into his backpack and started toward us.
“What do we do?” I asked, my words melting together like bits of melted chocolate.
“I don’t think we can run,” Caleb said. “He’s already seen us.”
“He waved,” Jenna said as if that somehow made everything okay. “Bad guys don’t wave, do they?”
Robby exhaled. “Guess we’ll find out.”
The young man was within ten feet when he stopped his approach. It seemed as though his eyes were resting on the gun Robby was holding loosely across his chest.
“I’m Liam,” he called out. “Please don’t shoot. I’m not armed. And… and…,” he stammered. “I can help you.”
“Help us?” Robby asked.
“Yeah,” Liam smiled. “I know a place. A safe place. I’ve been living there.”
Robby and I exchanged a quick look.
“It’s safe,” Liam repeated. “It’s a bunch of us, people like us, survivors. Sorry, that thing is making me a little nervous. I’m not good with guns, which is why I’m out here.”
“What do you do out here?” Robby asked his brow wrinkled.
Liam grinned. “Map things and look for survivors. We want to know where everything is.”
“Don’t you hate being out in the rain?” Jenna asked.
Liam twirled his umbrella. “Yeah, but I like to think I’m pretty good at my job. Well, I’m good at drawing but I get turned around a bit much, which is why I have a compass and usually a partner.”
“Where’s your partner?” Robby asked. His eyes flicked around our surroundings.
“We usually spread out for a while. Easier to cover more ground that way,” Liam said.
“How far away is this place?” Robby asked.
Liam looked back over his shoulder. “Unfortunately, it’s a rather long trek back. The more we map, the further away from the town I go but I can get you there, no problem.”
I studied Liam, trying to determine if he was telling the truth. It was hard to know for sure but the story seemed to fit.
“It’s just so cool that I found you like this,” Liam said. “We haven’t seen others in quite some time. In fact, we were starting to think that we might be all that’s left.”
“We haven’t seen many people either,” Robby said.
He didn’t care to share that the last people we did see, we killed most of them then left the others for dead. That probably would have freaked Liam out, considering it still freaked me out.
I quickly bit down on my lip as a laugh threatened to escape. Liam noticed and cocked his head.
Thankfully, he didn’t ask.
It wasn’t like I could tell him that in this particular situation, we were the bad guys. He was the one that should be worried, not the other way around.
“Back at the town, we have food, clean water, shelter, and the people are kind and helpful. We’re all just like you, people who managed to survive after the light,” Liam said. “I really think you like it there. I do. We all do.”
“Who’s in charge?” Robby asked.
“A good friend of mine, Rex Taylor,” Liam said. “But it’s not like you might think. He was in the military.”
Robby lowered the gun and scratched his beard. “Does he know exactly what happened? What caused all this?”
“Not specifically, no.” Liam looked down at his feet for a long moment. “That information was above him. It wasn’t our country that caused this. There were discussions on how to handle the climate issues we were facing. Some kind of device was created and this… well, because of the failed attempt to correct things, we all just have to manage to live with the aftermath. And back at the town, we’re doing pretty well considering. I’m confident you’ll be relieved when you see it.”
“What should we do?” Robby asked turning his head slightly.
Caleb shrugged. I pressed my lips together.
Jenna clapped her hands together and squealed with delight. “We should go, obviously! Why are we even asking this question? This is what we were waiting for, isn’t it? It’s like my prayers have been answered!”
“I was hoping you’d say that,” Liam said. “All the other scouts have found survivors. You four will be my first. Needless to say, I’ve been lagging behind the others.”
“Is it a competition?” Caleb asked chuckling.
“Nah,” Liam said. “I just don’t like feeling like a slacker.”
Robby scratched the side of his neck. “Probably hard for anyone to find survivors after all this time.”
“It has been,” Liam said. “Which is why I’m glad it’s me bringing you back.”
“Is there anything we should know about the place?” Robby asked.
“Well,” Liam rubbed his hands together. “It was a city that, for the most part, hadn’t been destroyed. Many of the buildings still stand and seem structurally sound. There are hotels, restaurants, some homes… you’ll likely get a room in one of the hotels. Probably one of the higher floors. You’ll have to walk up.”
I let out a breath and Liam looked at me. My fingers twisted nervously together.
“What about the people?” I asked.
“Everyone has been mostly kind,” Liam said. “I mean there have been some disagreements, mostly at first as things were settling. I think you’ll all fit in wonderfully. Of course, there is always an adjustment period.”
Caleb cocked his head to the side. “An adjustment period?”
“Takes time to learn to trust others,” Liam said. “At least that’s been my experience and what I observe from others.”
“How long have you been at this place?” I asked.
“I’m not sure,” Liam said. “I’ve been there a while now but I wasn’t one of the first.”
Robby looked down before meeting Liam’s gaze. “How did you manage to survive all this?”
“Came from the west. Didn’t have to deal with what I’ve heard others have dealt with,” Liam said. “Faced my own challenges, though. Enough death and destruction to last a lifetime.”
Liam's shoulders slumped. The smile he’d been wearing slipped away. He didn’t want to talk about what he’d gone through and truthfully, I couldn’t blame him. We didn’t want to talk about our experience either.
“I guess we’ll check it
out,” Robby said.
“That’s great. It’s going to be great.” Liam found his smile again. “You guys are going to love it. If you don’t, you can leave but I’m confident you will want to stay.”
“Has anyone ever left?” I asked.
Liam shook his head. “Nope.”
“Well, let’s check out this mysterious city then,” Robby said.
Liam pulled out his notebook. “Perfect. Just let me check my notes.” His eyes narrowed as he flipped pages.
“Pretty sure it’s that way,” Robby said pointing away from the water.
Liam laughed. “Oh, I know. But just want to make sure I remember all the twists and turns along the way. There are so few landmarks and after a while, everything starts to look the same.”
Liam nodded and started off, checking over his shoulder several times to make sure we were following behind him. We didn’t travel as fast as I would have liked. It made me nervous but everything made me nervous.
Jenna groaned every five minutes but she tried to keep the sounds quiet. If Liam noticed, he didn’t say anything.
We’d been walking for at least a half-hour when I noticed a tree stump that looked familiar.
“I think we’ve been here before,” I said. “Are we going in a circle?”
“I… I don’t think so,” Liam said consulting his notebook.
Robby stopped walking and threw his hands in the air. I heard the gentle waves before I saw them splashing the muddy shore.
“Is this some kind of joke? A trick?” Robby roared.
“No, I swear,” Liam stammered. “I… I just got turned around.” He hit his thigh. “Gosh darn it. I’m really sorry.”
Robby’s teeth were shifting together so vigorously it sounded like someone twisting a pepper grinder. His fingers twitched. It looked like he was trying to stop himself from socking Liam in the nose.
“I see where I went wrong,” Liam said. “Oh, geez, I’m so sorry. I’ll get us right back on—”
“Ow!” Jenna growled as she leaned forward, clutching her lower stomach.
The Reset Series | Book 4 | Swamp Page 2
