Grant Us Mercy

by D C Little

  The extra time he took harvesting the apples began to creep into his subconscious. A tent rustled through the trees and he froze.

  Soon the rustling quieted and the camp lay still once again. Blake took that as his cue to get moving.

  In a matter of moments he was opening the hatch and easing down the stairs. He already missed the fresh air and expanse of the sky. A heaviness filled him. Then he made a vow. After winter, he would get his family out of there. By then things should have settled. They could look forward to spring and breathing in the fresh scent of Kris’s favorite season.

  ~*~

  Kris met Blake at the door. She had started to pace in front of the dark screens. She couldn’t see anything and it had drove her crazy.

  “That took longer than I expected.” She watched him, wondering what he saw, wondering what it was like to see the stars and breathe fresh air...or walk into a camp with people who could shoot you without a chance for explanation.

  “I got these.” Blake pulled a few apples from his pockets.

  Kris hungrily took one. It had only been slightly more than a week, but that apple represented something she couldn’t get right now—freedom. The crisp bite sent sweet and sour juices down her throat. She moaned in pleasure.

  “That good, huh?” Blake chuckled. “How’s our boy doing?”

  “Good,” she said and walked toward him realizing he had been sleeping peacefully. She reached out and touched his forehead. It was wet. He was coated in sweat. She met Blake’s eyes. “His fever broke!”

  “With the meds?”

  “No, I didn’t give him any tonight. It broke naturally! He’s made it past the worst.” She felt the smile tease her mouth as relief filled her. She took a breath, and it felt freer than it had in several days. Tucker would make it through.

  Blake sat next to her and felt Tuck too. “It’s a miracle.”

  “Maybe it’s a show of mercy for your act of mercy?”

  “That could be reading into it a bit much, but if it makes you smile like that I’ll agree to just about anything.”

  “Anything?” Kris leaned into him.

  “Just please don’t ask for something you know I can’t give you...something that would be unsafe.”

  As much as she wanted to go above ground, she knew that now wasn’t the time with the people camping right on top of them. She could bade her time.

  “I wouldn’t do that to you.”

  “Then how about we get back to bed now.” The hint of suggestion in his voice caused her heart to race and a warmth to fill her. It was good to have her husband home, in more ways than one.

  ~9~

  Over the next few days Tucker slowly improved. His cough still clung to him, and he carried a pillow wherever he went, but his energy grew each day. In fact, as his energy returned to normal Kris racked her brain on ways to keep him busy and quiet. By a week after the night his fever broke, she was exhausted and close to losing her mind.

  “Daddy, tell me again about the night you left the box by the apple trees,” he requested for the third time that day.

  “Again, Tuck, really?” Blake asked, wiping a hand down his face.

  If Kris was exhausted, Blake was near death. She saw the internal struggle within him day after day as he realized just how active and demanding their six year old could be.

  “Yeah, act it out like this.” Tucker took long steps on tiptoe and hid behind a chair.

  Blake chuckled lightly.

  “You got the footwork wrong. You want to move your foot like this.” He followed Tucker, landing his heel silently on the ground and slowly rolling up to his toe.

  “Oh!” Tucker retraced his steps and barely made a sound as he carefully walked across the bunker.

  “That’s great, Tuck.” Kris watched him, admiring his natural skill set.

  “Told you I could do it. Then you hid behind the trees.” He slipped behind a chair.

  “Yep, just like that.” Blake eased against the wall, a smile lingering on his lips.

  “And when you woke up, the box had disappeared.”

  “Yep.” Blake nodded.

  Kris saw her husband’s mind working. She wondered who had found it too. Did Marvin even know it was there? Did he know that it was from them?

  The camper’s actions hadn’t changed since that night. No evidence of the food or the blankets surfaced. Kris watched Blake stride over to the cameras again.

  Tucker followed him, using the silent walking skills he had just learned. “What do you see, Daddy? Can you see the things you shared with them? Are the kids playing with the cars I gave them?”

  “Tuck.”

  “Maybe they hid them. Or they can only play with them in the tent. Or they could be keeping them in their pockets and never take them out because they’re so special. Or...”

  “Tucker.” Blake finally broke through to the boy who looked at him with wide eyes. “There is a reason you have two ears and one mouth.”

  “Oh, yes, I know this one. We have ears on both sides of our head so we can hear all around us. Can you imagine if we only had an ear on one side of our head? We could never tell where the sound was coming from. It would be like...”

  “Tucker.” Blake’s irritation lined his voice and the gruffness of it stopped Tucker mid-sentence.

  Kris’s heart went out to the boy, and yet the constant ongoing chatter without a break wore on her nerves too.

  “Hey, Sweetie.” She grabbed a notepad and a pencil. “Do you know what scientists do when they study something and they have so many questions?”

  “They observe.”

  “Right. And do you know how they record what they observe?”

  Tucker eyed the things in her hands. “They write it down!” He reached for the notebook and pencil. “This can be my scientist notebook.”

  “That’s right.” Kris kissed him on his head and then met Blake’s eyes. He nodded with a sideways grin and blew out a breath.

  Kris hoped it worked for at least ten minutes, but she knew long-term focus was not Tucker’s specialty, unless he was hyper-focused. She watched him carefully write down a few words and then turn his eyes toward the screens again.

  She took the moment to rest on the bed and soak in the much needed peace.

  Blake joined her minutes later.

  “He’s really intent,” Blake said while watching their son.

  “Yes, when he wants to be. He has the brain of a scientist, always observing and making conclusions.”

  “That type of thinking will help him survive this new life.”

  Kris’s shoulders fell. She hated being reminded of the long-term aspect of this situation. “When does it become more than just surviving, Blake?”

  Blake turned to her and searched her eyes. She knew he struggled to find words that weren’t harsh. He had always been good about not talking to her like she was one of his special ops buddies, well, at least when they weren’t out-running a fire or scrambling over dangerous scree slopes.

  “I’m not sure, Kris. I wish I could say...”

  “He can’t grow up without other kids. It’s not fair.”

  Blake’s brows scrunched together. “What are you saying?”

  The way he looked at her caused a strange stirring to awaken inside of her. She pushed it away though and focused on the conversation, one she had been formulating in her mind for the last couple weeks.

  “Have you put any thought to what Hannah and her dad might be doing now? Or even the group above us?”

  “You mean joining a mob of roving people?” Blake’s features contorted in an expression of disgust. “I thought you understood that your and Tuck’s safety is my number one concern. I can’t keep you safe if we are surrounded by other people all the time.”

  “You have such the lone wolf mentality.” Kris rolled her eyes. “Look at the history of humanity. People didn’t evolve by living alone. They formed groups, small communities that brought different skills together in one place
for the benefit of all.”

  “They also brought wars, death, and the corruption that led to this collapse.”

  “You are so pessimistic!” Her frustration raised her voice.

  “And you live in a make-believe world!” Blake said as he stood up.

  “Shh,” Tucker narrowed his eyes at them. “I’m trying to be a scientist here.”

  “Oh great, now I’m getting shushed by a six year old.” Blake growled low and the muscles in his jaw pulsed.

  He dropped and began doing push-ups. The abrupt change almost caused Kris to burst out laughing. Almost, but her anger kept it blocked. How could he really think they could survive the rest of their lives with just the three of them?

  ~*~

  Blake blew out his frustration with each push of his arms. How could Kris not understand he was just trying to keep them safe? People represented danger. The more people, the more danger.

  He thought about Tucker’s lack of socializing too. He hadn’t decided on a solution yet, but many ideas ran through his mind. Maybe the solution would just drop into their laps, like an orphaned child that needed a home. Now he was thinking like his idealistic wife. He pushed faster until sweat dripped from his head, spattering on the floor, and his breath came in gasps.

  When he couldn’t push any more, he squatted and wiped the sweat from his brow. Kris watched him with an amused expression. Well, at least it wasn’t the dagger eyes she had been shooting at him before.

  “I think we need a routine.” Her words crashed into his ponderings.

  He mulled over the idea before nodding his head. That’s what they had been missing since Tucker got sick. A routine. “You’re right.”

  The smile that spread across his wife’s face lit up the room, and instantly his frustration melted away. They had months to figure out what to do, and looking at his wife, maybe, just maybe, he thought, the solution would find them.

  He sat up on the bed next to her. “What are your thoughts?”

  “That’s the problem. I have too much time to think, and so do you. Tucker doesn’t have enough focused outlets. Now that he’s feeling better, he needs to be kept busy.”

  “He also needs to understand how to be silent and still,” Blake interjected.

  “Yes, those are good skills too, though I wish you luck teaching him them,” she whispered on an airy laugh.

  Blake watched her. She amazed him. Her mental strength and undying positive attitude left him in awe. It was one of the many things about her he had fallen in love with all those years ago. They could be hovering over death’s doorstep on one of their adventures, and yet she always found something beautiful about the situation, whether it was a tiny flower holding onto life at the top of a barren mountain, or the stark contrast of the snow on the black scree of granite. She always found something to appreciate.

  “I love you,” he whispered, pushing a stray red lock behind her ear.

  She blinked several times before a smile warmed her face. “I love you too.”

  Nothing else in the world mattered to him. He had his family. He had their love, and he would protect them with his life.

  ~10~

  The next couple months crawled by with their days broken up by routine. The constant time-table helped them to keep their minds from going places they didn’t need to.

  Kris watched her family. They had five more minutes left of their morning quiet time. As much as she wanted this day to be special, she understood Blake’s reasoning to keep to the routine as close as possible. It could be easy to lose it again, and when they lost routine, they tended to lose their minds. So they decided that today, rather than the normal combat training they did for an hour before lunch, they would celebrate the day they believed to be Christmas.

  The break from the monotonous days felt so needed. Kris sat up and then hung her head as the world went black for a few seconds. She worried for her health. The last several weeks she had been feeling off, light-headed, and a bit nauseous. It was probably a lack of sun, fresh air, and fresh fruit and vegetables.

  Once her vision cleared, she let her gaze linger on Tucker again. He read a book, a finger in his mouth and eyes roving back and forth over the words. The instated quiet time had led him to become an even more voracious reader. She sent up a silent thank you, for he hadn’t even had the slightest sniffle since he recovered from the respiratory flu he had succumbed to a week after being in the bunker, and neither she or Blake had caught it either.

  Blake stirred neared the screens. He spent less time over there since the group left with the first snow. Ever since they left a few weeks ago, her family had felt a little adrift, almost as if they had lost friends. A good part of their day had been spent observing that group prepare for winter.

  Kris shivered. Could she actually be grateful for the bunker now? Up on top, with almost a foot of snow, and no real protection...she shook her head. Hopefully that group moved lower down the mountain where it would be warmer, for the children if nothing else.

  The timer dinged and Tucker quickly put down his book, Blake stepped away from the screens, and they both turned toward her. She smiled at her boys, feeling blessed to have her family all together. Tucker blinked a few times, and she knew he was trying to come back to the world after being lost in his book.

  When he did, a slow, huge grin lit up his face. “Is it Christmas now?” He bounced and jumped all the way to her. She couldn’t help but imagine a grasshopper being trapped in a small box. He had become good at controlling his super high energy, at least most of the time. The routine had really helped with that, especially the exercise and training Blake instilled.

  “Yes, Sweetie!” Kris brought him into her arms. “I’m sorry we don’t have a Christmas tree, or music...”

  “Or decorations, or presents...” Tucker added with a small pout. Then he brightened. “I did make you and Daddy something!”

  He bounded away toward a little cupboard full of his toys, art supplies, and school materials. While he dug around in there, Blake came over and slipped his arm around her.

  “Merry Christmas, Wife.” He kissed her tenderly and pulled her into his arms.

  “Merry Christmas, Husband.” She smiled and snuggled deeper into his warmth.

  “Here they are!” Tucker came to them, his hands behind his back. “Merry Christmas, Mommy and Daddy!” He handed them each a drawing. They were almost identical. Each one had Blake, Kris, and Tucker standing together with stick arms around each other. In the background each picture also had a sun, trees, and a house.

  “This is beautiful. Thank you, Tuck.” Kris brought him into her arms and kissed his head.

  “I like how you drew us all together,” Blake said and ruffled his hair.

  “That’s how we belong.” Tucker grinned.

  Kris looked at hers a bit closer, her tendency to critique children’s artwork taking over. Tucker had drawn him and Blake with block bodies, but hers with a round circle. She went through the child development theories in her head in attempt to decipher the reason behind the difference.

  “I have some presents too.” Blake stood up, interrupting Kris’s thoughts.

  She watched him curiously wondering how her two guys had become so thoughtful. Blake rummaged around in his gun cabinet and produced a long object wrapped in paper. He handed it to Tucker.

  “Merry Christmas, Champ.”

  “Really?” Tucker bounced with the wrapped object that could only be a gun.

  Hopefully a bb gun, Kris darted her narrowed eyes at her husband. He only shrugged with a sheepish smile.

  “A real gun! It is real, isn’t it, Daddy?”

  “Yes, son, it’s real. It was mine when I was your age. I stashed it in here when we first installed the bunker.”

  “Yes! Thank you! I can’t wait to shoot it.”

  “That will be a couple months, but I’ll teach you everything you need to know about it so that when you do get that chance, you’ll know exactly how to shoot and care f
or it.”

  Kris watched the exchange. As much as she didn’t like guns, she couldn’t disagree that knowing how to use them might be a good idea. The image of that man, who now was no longer, aiming that rifle at Marvin caused shivers to run down her spine. She hoped that Blake didn’t have a surprise gun for her in there. She would have to learn to wrap her mind around that thought.

  “I didn’t forget you,” Blake said as he wrapped an arm around her.

  “I don’t know how you two pulled this off anyway.” She smiled. She actually had thought about it sometime ago and had stored a few special treats she came across, hiding them where they would never think to look.

  “It’s snowing again. Pretty heavily and looks like it will be for some time.” Blake smiled.

  “Are you asking me for a thank you?” she teased.

  “No, though living up there would be miserable right now, especially since having a fire would give our location away...”

  Kris shook her head. “I do appreciate the warmth here.” She nudged him, biting back the nausea the movement caused her.

  “I know it’s been difficult for you down here. More difficult by the day it seems.” He looked up as if he could see the land and sky above them. “With the snow coming down like it is, tracks would be covered in minutes.”

  Kris tried to follow his meaning, but it took her a moment before dawning hit her, causing her to grin. “Really?”

  “Would you like that?” he asked, almost shyly.

  “You know I would!”

  “Like what?” Tucker asked, watching them curiously, finally not fully focused on his gun.

  “To go above ground.” Blake stood, helping Kris up. “Dress warm.”

  Less than fifteen minutes later, they stood at the bunker door in full winter gear. Tucker bounced up and down. Kris wished she could show the same enthusiasm. A part of her feared getting her hopes up only for them to not be able to leave.

  Her family had been stuck under the ground for two months now—two long months. Creating a strict routine had been their saving grace. They learned many skills from that time as well, skills that would help them survive this next stage in their lives. Skills they would need above ground.