EMP Catastrophe | Book 3 | Erupting Chaos

by Hamilton, Grace

  Allison could see why. As soon as she passed through the fence, she saw that the carefully dug rows of herbs and vegetables had been replaced with turned-up and ruined dirt. The rows looked as if someone had taken a shovel and dug up as much as they could. The tiny green shoots that Allison had cooed over were now limp and lifeless in the overturned earth. Allison wanted to scream, but instead, she walked up to Lauren and touched her gently on the shoulder. “What happened?” she asked.

  “I don’t know,” Lauren said. “I came out here and everything had been ruined!”

  “Did the rabbits get in here again?” Allison asked. It could be rodents or deer, honestly. The destruction was the same. The creatures showed up and ate as much as they could. They’d defecate and leave thoughtless tracks everywhere and made all their hard work turn sour. But ever since the fence had been erected, that problem had disappeared. “Maybe it was the deer? I’m so sick of them getting in here and ruining everything we’ve done!”

  “I don’t think it was an animal,” Patton mused as he leaned down to poke at the ruins of their garden.

  “I don’t either,” Lauren said. “The fence around the garden doesn’t look chewed on or bent out of shape. Nothing disturbed it. I didn’t find any holes under the fence or any indication that a herd of deer might have jumped over it.”

  “Yeah, that’s true,” Patton continued as he stood. He pointed to the ash perimeter they had laid down not even a couple of days before. It was undisturbed. “I don’t see any slugs or aphids crawling in. It’s so weird. If there was a chance that a rodent got in, they would’ve had to fall down into the garden from a tree or something.” Patton grinned as if he was imagining that right at this very moment. Allison huffed in fond annoyance. Patton was always getting lost in his imagination.

  “So what you’re saying is that nothing normal could have gotten in here to mess up our garden,” Allison said.

  “It’s like this whole thing was done on purpose.” Patton looked solemn. “Sabotage.”

  Allison stifled a sigh at Patton’s overenthusiasm. He was always throwing out suggestions that seemed to come out of left field, but in this situation, he had a point. She squatted down and touched the pale roots that had been ripped up out of the earth. They looked whole. Not a leaf out of place. “This wasn’t an animal,” she said darkly.

  “That’s what we’ve been saying, Allison.” Patton put his hands on his hips. “Keep up.”

  “No, what I mean is that if it were a deer or a rabbit, they would have chomped off the top part of the plants.” Allison pointed to the roots. “These look as if someone pulled them out intentionally. Deer just mill around and eat what they can, but they don’t twist and yank plants out of the ground. Even new growth like this. They’d eat what they want, but the roots would still remain. Look. Not even the leaves have been ruined, and those that do have damage still have their leaves. A pest would have eaten at least some of this.”

  Silence followed her words. She squinted up at Lauren. “Did you see if anyone came through here from the gun club recently?”

  Lauren shook her head. “No one but the guys restoring the well. Shawn and Wyatt were the last ones to leave last night. Nikki’s been staying at the hotel full-time.”

  “Why would anyone want to mess up our garden?” Patton asked.

  “That’s what I don’t get,” Allison said and bit her lip. “No one at the gun club would want to disrupt the garden. I mean, not just because we’re working together, but it would damage the trust and alliance we’ve built.”

  “The gun club needs water above all else,” Lauren said. “No way would any of us try and put that at risk.”

  “And no one in my family would do such a thing. They wouldn’t want to risk Patton going AWOL again.”

  “Hey, I resent that,” Patton said.

  Allison grinned weakly at him. “So it must have been an outsider. But we haven’t seen anyone we don’t know around here lately, have we?”

  “Nope,” Lauren said.

  “Nope,” Patton agreed.

  “Well, what if this mysterious stranger was trying to take a clipping?” Lauren suggested. “Like, what if someone wanted to take one of the roots and try to grow it in a new location? Maybe they were too shy to ask us or thought we would say no. Then this would make sense.” She looked around her in dismay. “I guess.”

  Patton guffawed. “Sure. ’Cause that checks out.”

  “Be serious, Patton,” Allison said, entertaining the idea, even if it did feel like they were grasping at straws. No one wanted to believe someone would do this intentionally. “That would make sense. Sorta.”

  “Or maybe they were trying to plant something in our garden and messed up?” Lauren suggested. She, too, seemed desperate to find an answer that fit the pieces of the destruction. It didn’t make sense. Allison thought she was more level-headed than that. Lauren continued. “The ground is super fertile and nutritious. Most plants would grow fantastically in these conditions. Maybe they were trying to make something grow without telling us first.”

  “By why would they do it without asking?” Allison asked. Trying to figure out the reasoning behind what was, frankly, a ludicrous destructive act was just frustrating to her. “Everyone knows we’ve been working ourselves to the bone trying to get this garden off the ground. We’re here almost all day every day. Why wouldn’t they just come over to us and ask if they could grow something in our garden? There would be plenty of room and no need to destroy what is already there.”

  Silence fell again as the three of them looked at each other and then at the destroyed garden.

  “We should tell Dad and Wyatt,” Patton said in a soft voice.

  “Yeah, they should be aware of it,” Allison said, feeling moody. She felt as if everything was two steps forward and one step back. “They can ask the well restoration group if anyone accidentally walked through the garden or were trying to mess with it somehow. I’m mad, but I’d rather know why it was done.”

  “It all seems weird,” Lauren said, as if speaking Allison’s thoughts out loud.

  “Too weird. None of it adds up,” Allison finished.

  “You’re in luck,” Patton said, pointing over their shoulders and into the distance. “Here they come right now.”

  Allison glanced over and saw Wyatt’s broad shoulders and her father’s familiar gait. Between them, with his arms over both of their shoulders, was Uncle Max. He looked sopping wet, like a fish pulled from the river. His face was pale and screwed up in pain.

  “Or maybe not,” Patton said with a frown. “Uncle Max looks awful.”

  Allison stood up. People would always be getting hurt. It just seemed to be the name of the game in this new backwards world they lived in. Uncle Max might be in pain, but he’d be in pain if they ended up starving because she couldn’t get the garden off the ground. She waved at her father. “Dad!” she called out. “Something’s wrong with the garden. Can you come here and take a look?”

  Matthew gave her a frustrated glance. Allison shrugged and used the two words that would make her father do just about anything for her. “It’s important!” she said.

  23

  Matthew couldn’t believe their bad luck. Their crappy, no-good luck. Whenever it seemed like things were turning around for the better, something like this would happen that would shake Matthew to his very core. He couldn’t help but imagine what would have happened if the situation had been different and he had been the one in the well. He knew beyond a shadow of a doubt that the rigging would have snapped sooner. He would have fallen to the bottom from a longer way up and most likely would have broken a leg. It would have taken way more time and effort for the well restoration crew to get him out. He might have suffocated from lack of oxygen.

  The whole situation could have gone from monumentally dangerous to tragic disaster.

  So while he despised that Max had gotten hurt, Matthew couldn’t help but be grateful that Max had been the one to take the r
isk. Max had been right. He was smaller and leaner, and as much as Matthew hated to admit it, things could have been way worse if he hadn’t listened to Max’s reasoning.

  It reminded him of what his father had told him while they were on the porch. He resolved to listen more in the future and not be such a stick-in-the-mud when other people contradicted him.

  Max shuddered with chill. A twist of worry filled Matthew’s stomach. He really wasn’t looking forward to explaining this one to Kathleen. In all honesty, he wasn’t looking forward to explaining this whole situation to Nikki, either. But they needed her expert medical opinion on Max before anything else happened. She’d be able to tell if he had a concussion or internal bleeding. Something like that couldn’t wait.

  “Dad! Can you come over here?”

  Allison’s voice cut through all of his inner worries. He looked up at the sound of his daughter’s call and saw her waving to get his attention. He didn’t have time to settle whatever problem was pitting his children against each other. He gave a short shake of his head. He didn’t have time for this. He had to help get Max back to the hotel.

  “It’s important!” Allison cried.

  Matthew let out a frustrated sigh and pulled up short. “I’m sorry,” he said to Wyatt and Max who was starting to shake continuously from the cold. “I need to make sure she’s okay.”

  “Not a problem,” Max said with a cocky smile. He crossed his arms and rubbed his hands up and down his arms. “I think I can make it to the hotel on my own. I appreciate the escort, though.”

  “I’ll take you the rest of the way,” Wyatt said.

  “Please,” Max said. “Whatever is going on, I’m sure Matt will need your help to figure it out. I can get to the hotel on my own. It’s very close. I don’t want Jade to think I can’t walk a couple of feet on my own.”

  “You’re hurt,” Matthew pointed out.

  “Let me keep a little bit of my pride, yeah?” Max said.

  “All right,” Wyatt said. “If you’re sure.”

  “Make sure you get warm clothes and talk to Nikki,” Matthew said. “Don’t avoid Kathleen. She’ll be mad if she has to find out what happened secondhand.”

  “You mean you just want me to tell her so you don’t have to,” Max said with a laugh, and then punched Matthew lightly in the arm. “Fine, fine. I’ll take one for the team. This time.”

  “Thanks, Max,” Matthew said and felt a flare of friendship. He and Max had never gotten along like true brothers, but for some reason it seemed like they were connecting more than they ever had before. Maybe dangerous situations really did serve to bring people together.

  Max nodded and stumbled his way to the hotel, rounding the corner and disappearing from sight. Matthew turned to Wyatt with a shrug. “It seems like someone has developed a crush.”

  “Jade doesn’t seem particularly fond of him,” Wyatt said.

  “He’ll have to step up and prove himself, I suppose.” Matthew looked over to the garden. “Let’s go see what fresh insanity my children have gotten up to now.”

  “It’s always an adventure with you Rileys,” Wyatt said with a grin, and together they walked over to the garden that Allison, Lauren, and Patton had been working on so hard. Matthew was actually impressed with the whole thing. Despite his doubts about what the children could accomplish on their own because they simply didn’t know a lot, it seemed as if they had taken the garden task to heart and had exceeded any and all of Matthew’s expectations. Even though the fence was made of a mishmash of materials, it looked sturdy and tidy. As soon as they walked into the garden, though, he understood the anxiety radiating off of his eldest child.

  “What happened to the garden?” he asked, finally seeing the overturned earth and the uprooted plants. It looked as if someone had taken a rake and ripped up the roots, scraped up the careful planting rows, and tried to make as much chaos as possible.

  “We don’t know,” Allison said, looking grim, “but I’m pretty sure someone deliberately destroyed it.”

  Matthew glanced at Wyatt, looking for Wyatt’s valued second opinion. “What do you think?”

  “I think your daughter is right,” Wyatt said and frowned at the ruined garden. “No rabbit or deer could do anything like this.”

  “The fence is in tip-top shape still, and we don’t see any sign of other creatures that tried to ruin the garden,” Allison pointed out. “Dad, I’m serious. The three of us already talked it over. There isn’t any sign of abnormal entry. The roots have been pulled up and out of the dirt, when rabbits or deer wouldn’t be that destructive. Plus, it looks as if it was too meticulous, as if whoever this was knew exactly what they wanted to destroy and tried to do it as fast as possible.”

  Matthew glanced at Wyatt and it seemed as if the same thought ricocheted between them. If someone had sabotaged the garden, who was to say that the rigging wasn’t sabotaged as well?

  “Honey,” Matthew said, “Wyatt and I have to go and check on something. We’ll be right back to figure out what to do about this.”

  “Dad, you can’t just leave! This is a big deal. Someone could be out to get us.”

  “Sabotage,” Patton whispered in a dramatic voice that Matthew knew was not meant to sound that way. Patton and his imagination.

  Allison looked concerned as if she thought Matthew wasn’t taking this seriously. He wanted to convince her that her discovery had shone a light on a lot of things that had been going wrong lately. He wanted to tell her she might have just solved a mystery he hadn’t known he was looking for.

  “I promise, this is all about the garden. We’re going to figure this out. Why don’t you check on your Uncle Max? He took a tumble down the well, and he had to get checked out by Nikki to make sure he didn’t have any internal injuries,” Matthew said.

  “That sucks,” Patton said. “Did he really fall down the well?” He guffawed. “I’m sorry, I don’t mean to laugh. It just sounds like a fairy tale. Humpty Dumpty.”

  “Go ask him yourself,” Wyatt said with a wink. “You should tell him that Humpty Dumpty theory.”

  Allison looked fretfully at the other girl, Lauren. Lauren motioned her on. “Go check on your uncle,” she said. “I’m going to try and replant what I can this morning before heading back to the gun club. I won’t be able to do anything else for the rest of the day until I try to save what we can.”

  “I should stay and help you.” Allison gnawed on her lip.

  “You can come back and help me later this afternoon, okay?” Lauren nudged Allison. “Go check on your uncle.”

  “Okay,” Allison said, and gestured for Patton to follow her back to the hotel.

  Matthew watched them go with dread. If someone was sabotaging their work around the hotel, it could mean so much more than a ruined garden. It meant that they couldn’t trust each other anymore. That old panic and suspicion began to rear its ugly head as he and Wyatt turned and walked back toward the well.

  The rigging looked lifeless next to the well, and now had a left-tilting slant to it that would need to be corrected before they used it again. Matthew grabbed the coiled-up rope that had snapped earlier. He inspected the frayed end, but he couldn’t see anything wrong with it. He put pressure on each side of the rope, stretching it tight and making it twang with tension, but it seemed as strong as ever. He couldn’t understand why the rope had failed them.

  Wyatt inspected the rigging, checking out the remaining lengths of rope and the metal pieces they’d used to construct the contraption. He ran his finger along the length of one of the other ropes, and his mouth downturned into a sharp frown. “Look at this,” he said to Matthew and motioned him over.

  Matthew walked over and peered at what Wyatt was pointing to. “I don’t get it,” he said. “What is it? It looks like normal wear and tear.”

  “Look closer,” Wyatt said. “The rope has been frayed intentionally. Like someone took a knife and weakened the strands by cutting through some of them but not all of them.” Wya
tt made a rubbing motion, as if he held a knife and was scraping the blade against the top part of the rope. “You can see the places where it’s been sawed into, because it’s too clean. It doesn’t look like it’s been ruined by decay, but no one would have noticed at first glance. That would affect the whole length.”

  “What does that mean?” Matthew asked, but in his heart he knew.

  “Someone did this intentionally,” Wyatt said. “This would ruin the integrity of the rope so that any extra weight or strange twists in tension would make it fray faster and snap. I bet that’s what happened to the rope you’re holding.” Wyatt stepped back. “Smart, actually. You wouldn’t be able to see it unless you were really looking for it. It wouldn’t raise any alarms. Once the rope did snap, you probably wouldn’t know what the cause was in the first place. Not by looking at the bad rope.”

  “Wasn’t it your job to inspect the rigging?” Matthew demanded. He couldn’t help it. Alarm bells in his mind were ringing, and everything just seemed too much like a coincidence. Would Wyatt really not see something like this? He was a Marine. Hadn’t he been trained to have eagle eyes on everything? “Wouldn’t you have checked over your work when you brought the rigging here in the first place?”

  “What exactly are you implying, Matt?” Wyatt asked. “You better think real hard about your next few sentences, my friend.”

  “I’m just saying that the rigging came from the gun club,” Matthew said, steering clear of a full-blown accusation.

  “Anyone from both the hotel and the gun club could have had access to the rigging,” Wyatt said, sounding sharp with anger. “It’s not limited to the gun club.”

  “My family would never put their own members in harm’s way,” Matthew said, feeling his temper start to rise in response. “No one in my family would put the garden that they’ve worked so hard on at risk. No one would sabotage the rigging to put me or Max in danger like that. It’s the Riley family that have been getting the short end of the stick. Not one of us is a killer or would have reason to hurt anyone in either our own family or the gun club.”