“My Dad,” answered Shiloh grimly. “Someone I didn’t see make it here.”
“He’s a tough son of a bitch,” said Derek. “I have no doubt that he did survive… it’s just where we’d find him and if we even manage to find him in the first place.”
Everyone looked up at Sheridan. “Don’t look at me… the only people I knew were here and unfortunately didn’t survive the winter.”
“Do you know anyone else?” asked Marissa.
“Again, one of the few I know was—as Derek said—Uncle Garrett. He’d be clear to the other side of Sudbury and a world away now,” Sheridan answered and she turned to Jeremy. “What about you?”
Jeremy shook his head. “Not engineers. In a pinch I could suggest a few good electricians... and one fella I knew was part of that mess that killed Helen in the winter,” he answered.
Derek leaned back in the pillows. “That’s still a good place to start. There’d be tools and equipment we could use.”
As he was about to say something else, his lungs decided that this very moment was a good time to act up and throw him into a coughing fit.
Sheridan shooed the others out and grabbed a bucket. It was a good precaution, even if he was not about to throw up he still had so much crap coming out of his lungs.
Marissa returned with Emilie, holding a steaming cup of tea—something he was getting really tired of very quickly even if it did help—out to him. As sick as he was, he still took the cup from her, breathing in the vaguely minty vapour as it eased the spasms in his lungs.
“Better?” asked Marissa as Derek nodded his thanks. “When did you say he would be over this?”
“Not for another week,” answered Sheridan.
* * * * *
Thankfully, the week passed quickly. Derek found that each morning became progressively easier to handle as his breathing became less of a fight.
Once he was helped up the stairs to his shared room with Marissa, he slept far easier. His health steadily improved until finally he was able to get himself dressed and down the stairs into the living area.
Derek’s movement alerted Lorraine. As she noticed his presence, she looked up and smiled broadly. “It’s so good to finally see you up and around!” she exclaimed. “How are you feeling?”
“Better, thank you,” he answered.
Lorraine handed him a cup of tea.
First my cigarettes ran out in January—thankfully Sheridan and Marissa were patient—now, apparently, it’s the coffee. What next?
With an even heavier sigh he accepted the tea. “Thanks Lorraine,” he said.
It just did not have the same pickup as coffee did, but he supposed it was better than nothing at all. The warmth of the hot tea really did do wonders for his lungs and throat. He leaned on the bar counter side of the kitchen island while he perched on one of the stools.
It could be worse, he thought. Far, far worse… but still—it’s like every day we run out of something else. It’s a game of ‘what next?’ What they now needed had to be either found and scavenged or built from scratch. Not just of ‘what’s next to run out’ but what’s next for me? For Reese, and the others?
Old roles and jobs in their former lives held little to no meaning.
Life was quickly being utterly and completely rewritten, and it had not even been four months since civilization fell. Friends and family had died in front of him.
That still bothered him intensely as did the other problem that ate at him.
He was a man who liked to know where he stood and why he stood there. Not knowing for certain why civilization fell ate at him in a way that he could not fully explain—it just did. Derek, you really don’t need to know why. It just bugs you that your life changed and you need something to quantify it—but that’s just it.
Where do I fit in in all this? Money doesn’t exist anymore. Everyone just asks for what they need—no one needs a bit of convincing.
It was the other reason that being so ill had greatly upset him to begin with.
I could go into Sudbury itself—there has to be some place that has some clue as to why we’re all sitting here wondering what to do next. Why did our own government leave us to fend for ourselves… and what can we do to move on…?
…Not to mention I’m pretty sure I could find something in the city we could use, and maybe that will make all the difference. He honestly did not think it would but he was feeling a familiar itch on the bottom of his feet to do something.
Marissa came down shortly after he did and sat down beside him, watching while he leaned his head on his crossed arms. She laid a hand on his neck and he looked up and sideways at her. “You look like you’re tired again.”
“I think I am,” he admitted. “Getting up, dressed and down the stairs on my own took everything I had.”
“Why don’t you sit on the couch in front of the fire for a bit and see if you can get a second wind?” asked Marissa.
Derek got up, and was a bit alarmed at the slight wobble to his knees. Getting down here had taken more of out of him than he thought it would and now he suspected his recovery was going to be rather protracted. He made his way over to the couch and slid into the cushions Sheridan had bought a few years ago. The couch was one that had an extension that turned one end of it into a settee so he could stretch out his legs and lie down without taking up the entire couch. The fire crackled pleasantly as he put his feet up. Lying on the settee he stared up at the beams that criss-crossed the cathedral ceilings and wound around at the internal breezeway on the second floor which connected the two halves of the manor house.
With a sigh, he let the snap and pop of the fire lull him down into an early morning nap as Marissa threw a furry throw blanket over him. Things would be picking up later and the sleep would help him regain his strength for keeping up with the meetings he would soon find himself running.
CHAPTER TWENTY-NINE
With a sigh, Derek rolled over and found he was no longer alone in the living room. When he had settled down for some light reading he had been alone. No meetings were planned that day so the living room was now just a common area. It was no longer a private living area but more of a comfortable community meeting place where town meetings were now held.
Other times people just spent what little free time they could here while Lorraine would hum and go about her business making sure they had light nibbles and never ending tea.
Sheridan’s living room had become the central cafe of their swiftly developing town and Lorraine ran the kitchen. Derek could see that this did not bother the older woman one bit. But Lorraine—being raised on a farm before working as a professional cook for mining and other work camps before ‘retiring’ to raise three sons and numerous foster children—was at home running all this. If she needed something by way of supplies—and those supplies were available—she had them.
It was a very homey and welcoming ‘cafe’ and reminded him far more of those old style Irish or English inns on the road—the ones always seen in movies or television. Given Lorraine was Scottish—with a great deal of English—by descent she was in her element. If someone came by for dinner it was whatever she had cooked that day. The days of the short order were now dead and gone. Lorraine spent the entire day in that kitchen making what would become the evening meal and also making sure it was enough to feed anyone that happened by.
What rooms on the main floor that once were private like the living room now were semi-public and their original purpose lost to whatever they needed now. To the right and closest to the front doors was Sheridan’s examination office and clinic. This took up the entire south side of the house, including the entrance from the double sided garage.
To the left were various rooms where people could meet. One had become a sort of war room with a table top model overlay set up to look like the immediate area using modelling foam and wood. Maps of the area, what ones they had found or had drawn, were pinned up on the walls. Another one of those rooms was a library
full of books that Sheridan did not mind sharing. Immediately beside that was a room that really did not have a set use outside of a private meeting room or a quiet place to read and study.
However, today those he needed to talk with had decided to hold their meeting in the common area. Perhaps it was so that he did not have to move himself out of his warm cocoon. No matter what their reason, right now he did not care why they had decided to sit around the fire so long as he did not have to move.
“Good morning, Derek,” said Jeremy. “You look a hell of a lot better than you did a few days ago.”
“I feel it,” he answered. “Better, but not right, yet.”
“Sheridan did say it would be a few weeks to a few months, so you’re doing well,” said Jeremy and then he motioned to the others. “I filled in what I could but we all agree that the only way to do this properly, without causing major damage to the panels or the lines, is by finding someone who knows what they’re doing.”
“I had the feeling that was the case,” mused Derek, scratching his chin.
* * * * *
It could have just as easily been the south shore of Lake Ramsey. While he did not have his brother’s same gift with paints, or his other brother’s gift with photography, Russell found words to be his art. He had no idea if Daniel had looked on the same scene as he now did.
He lived on a south shore and a brother died on a north shore.
They could have been the same lake and it still would not have mattered. With how quickly it happened even if they had been able to get across and been on the same lake all he could have done was see to his brother’s burial. The only grace he had was being there—even if over a radio— so he was not alone.
I have no idea if I’ll ever see Sheridan, or anyone else, again and I have no idea how long the radios will last… For all I know I’m the last of my brothers.
Adrienne came out and sat beside him on the rocks. Here the stones were shades of greys and pinks—sometimes even the quartz within made veins of white. The soot of the earlier smelter stacks had, for some reason, never quite stained the area around Long Lake as dramatically as it had closer to the core of the city.
Russell was a bit surprised when she leaned her head on his shoulder in silent support. Adrienne knew his pain—had already experienced the sharp sting of loss this winter—and instead of falling head first into it came to him in comfort.
His arm wrapped around her back and she leaned in closer as he drew in a shuddering breath.
“I’m sorry,” she said.
Russell blinked before responding. “So am I. You knew him—worked with him. Were friends, by the sound of it.”
“Well, working friends,” she answered as she sat back up. “We didn’t run in the same social circle outside of work. He was your brother.”
“I feel as if I saw the glimpse of hope only to have it snatched away again,” he said and then laughed. “He said I always had the touch of poetry. I don’t feel much up to it now.”
“Then don’t,” said Adrienne.
He pulled her back to leaning again him, resting his chin on top of her head. “Thank you,” he whispered.
* * * * *
A few weeks later Derek followed Sheridan into her makeshift office and examination room. He hopped up onto the sturdy oak table and opened his shirt. He had a few layers on but thankfully she only ever needed to see the inner layer.
Sheridan stood for a moment, observing him as he sat on the table. “You haven’t experienced any shortness of breath?” she asked. “No chills or other signs of illness?”
“Nope,” he answered.
“All right,” she acknowledged said as she rubbed the contact of her stethoscope to ease the coldness he might feel. “Breathe in as deep as you can and hold it.”
“Okay, you can put your shirt back down,” she advised at the end of the examination.
He settled his clothing back comfortably and buttoned up his shirt. “Well?” he asked.
“As far as I can see you’ve recovered, but the only way to really tell would be a chest x-ray,” she answered.
“Which we can’t do without the machine,” he mused.
“Or some way to calibrate it,” she confirmed.
“That reminds me—I was thinking about heading towards Sudbury on some reconnaissance. See if I could find anything useful or any news of what might have happened... maybe some neighbours to trade with.”
“I don’t know, Derek,” she sighed. “You have a valid idea, but to head off on your own this soon after recovering from something that could have killed you? I know Marissa would have your head.”
“She knows what I’m intending,” he answered. “She knew before I got sick that it would eventually come to this.”
“How about you give it another few weeks for the ground to dry up a bit and not be so mushy?” asked Sheridan. “It would also give your lungs more time to recover and your body to get back to what it was before you fell ill.”
He nodded in agreement. “All right, all right, I’ll give it another week or so—so long as I can start training my people again!”
“On the front steps, yes,” conceded Sheridan. “Not in the bush… not for another few days.”
* * * * *
“After months of waiting, you finally did something stupid, old man,” came the voice behind Garrett.
Garrett closed his eyes and sighed as he turned and stood to face the three men who joined him over the spillway. One of the men was part of the original three but the other two were new. “I was wondering when you’d finally get around to it.”
He turned to walk away and noticed that on the other side of the dam were another three on the other side, this time it was the other two plus another. This other surprised him—it was Dane, the young man from the offices that had always been so helpful.
So damn nosey, now that he thought about it. “Well, I'd be surprised but now that I think of it I’m not,” said Garrett.
“Sorry, old man, but this new world belongs to the young and you did say you didn’t really want leadership,” Dane answered. “Kill him.”
Bracing himself and lifting his hands in defense, Garrett was ready for the first one. He knew one would be impatient. Old man, indeed. He may have more years on him but he was far from old—and if they had tried that with his father the results would have been more than amusing.
Garrett was his father’s son.
It did not take long for the first one to come in swinging the rebar and Garrett sidestepped him. Grabbing him by the scruff of his neck, Garrett yanked hard, pulling him off balance and into falling back.
He sidestepped again, grabbing the rebar from his hands as he pinwheeled and gave the man a further push off the dam and to the shorter drop off the deeper end.
The problem for the man now off the dam was that the sluice ways and spillways were in the full open. He was sucked through them in less than a second with no time to take a breath or to scream.
Garrett tapped his bar against the ledge while the others hesitated. “There’s one… I did tell you that if you came after me you were goin’ for a swim.”
“He’s one man against five of us… rush him!” yelled his former assistant, Dane.
Taking a short moment to point, Garrett shouted at Dane, “And you’re fired!”
With a roar of rage, Garrett swung the metal bar with both hands, catching the first man in the side of the head. Blood sprayed in an arc and bits of grey splattered as he fell in at heap at Garrett’s feet, making the others hop awkwardly to avoid him.
In a single handed back swing, Garrett caught another attacker in the face, breaking his nose and knocking him off the shallow part that gave High Falls its name. He screamed all the way down until he landed on the rocks below.
With his off-hand he grabbed a handful of the last one’s left jacket front and tossed him off his feet and over his friend on the walkway where he landed on his rear. He scrambled back in a blind panic, reali
zing that he was slipping in his friend’s blood and bits of brains.
The remaining two managed to bodily hold Garrett and lift him up and over the edge of the dam. Finally, once he was able to regain his feet, Dane got up as he breathed heavily. “Throw him over.”
For a moment all, Garrett felt was that sick feeling of weightlessness. Despite what he felt, reality would have told him that there was no long moment of hanging in the air motionless before he felt himself actually falling over the high side of High Falls, down the nearly one hundred feet to either the rocks, or the still icy water below.
CHAPTER THIRTY
It was a warmer morning than most, and this boded well for the weather. Granted, Derek had plainly seen the wall of snow and ice quickly disintegrate due to the melt. The ground was still soft, wet and mushy in the bush which made training his people that much more difficult.
Everyone was muddy, wet and cold and Derek knew they weren’t happy about it. “All right, we’re back,” he said as he kicked the mud off the bottom of his boots.
“I wonder if Lorraine has a fresh pot of tea on,” mused Abigail, who had since become one of his Seconds, or second-in-command.
His other Second, Gina, had already ‘graduated’ to leading her own teams and had not made it back yet as fare as he could tell.
“Clean up in the barn and I’ll go check,” answered Derek.
The forlorn group moved off towards the barn as Derek scraped off the dried and caked on mud from the leathers before moving into the inside foyer. He normally would use the mud room—which, given the weather right now, was now very aptly named—instead of the main front entrance. But they had always met on the wide stone steps leading into the house. He, however, did not move past that point, waiting until one of the girls that now worked within came by. “Hi, could you get Lorraine for me?” he asked.
“Yes sir!” she answered before running off. “Lorraine!”
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