by Sean Platt
“Guess we should have brought some ropes.” Piper fished into the dusty canvas shopping bag she’d found in the barn and tied to her saddle, pulled out a blue and white rope with a clip on the end, and handed it to Cameron.
He met her eyes. A small smile turned up the corner of his mouth. And just like that, Piper realized it was over. She was forgiven. He took the rope, secured his horse, then held out his hand to help Piper dismount and secured her horse to the same tree as his with a second rope. Both animals were close enough to drink the water.
“What else you have in there?” He nodded toward the bag. They weren’t speaking when she’d loaded it.
“Some treats.”
“Anything that’s not for the horses?”
“I tried the water spigot, but it wasn’t working.”
“Probably had city water. I don’t know that I’d trust it anyway.” Cameron knelt beside the stream.
“You trust that?”
He smiled up at her. “It’s literally a mountain stream.”
“But … ” She gestured. “Dirt. Rocks. Moss and stuff.”
“The moss is on the bank. The water is moving too quickly to stagnate. You’ll get some dirt, I’m sure.” He scooped up a double handful. “But think about it. This is what Coors brags about using for their beer.” He took a sip.
“What if you get parasites?”
“Good enough for them.” Cameron nodded toward the drinking horses. “Besides, whatever’s in here,” he took another sip, “is better than dying of thirst.”
Piper knelt, dipped her cupped hands into the water, and lifted them to her lips. She drank. It was cool and fresh, different than the water she was used to. She was a nature girl now. Soon she’d be milking cows and drinking raw milk from the teat.
“I guess we’ll find out,” she said.
After they’d had their fill, Cameron stood and tipped his chin toward the west.
“I’ve been thinking.” He patted his horse’s side. “We have two great rides right here. Maybe we don’t need a car after all.”
“You want to ride the whole way?”
He nodded. “I didn’t want to say so earlier because it seemed depressing while we were on foot, but I’d thought that from the beginning. We had a car — ‘we’ meaning me, Dan, Vincent, and Terrence — on our way to your place, coming down from the Dakotas. Sometime after we diverted away from Moab and toward Vail, we started running into military blockades. Kind of like that one we saw yesterday morning but much bigger. At first, it was just one, and we turned around and retraced our steps. But then we hit another and detoured again. It became apparent pretty quickly that they had a method to their madness, and sure enough we started to pick up what sounded like military chatter on one of the open frequencies. They were using some sort of a code, and as good as we are, none of us are able to crack military codes, but to me it confirmed what we’d been seeing.”
“What?”
“Cordoning off. Maybe even quarantining, though I doubt it’s that. Likely just making a bigger effort to control the roads.”
“Control or block?” Piper asked.
“We were carrying a bunch of weapons and didn’t want to find out. Besides, there was no real guarantee that any of them were military. Another thing we’d heard a lot about and run into a time or two were … how to put it? ‘Land grabs,’ I guess. The real estate version of looting. Vincent and Terrence are good with maps and hiding. Dan and I are good at following directions — ”
“So you aren’t in charge? I thought you were the leader.”
“It’s complicated,” said Cameron, moving on. “We never got stopped, but we saw a lot of people in Jeeps and pickups with a lot more guns than we had, on patrol. Fewer pro blockades. One guy had strung up razor wire. Regardless, between the military and … ‘people staking their claims,’ I suppose … we started to realize the roads were no longer a smart place to be. But we were close enough by then, so we ditched the car and walked the rest of the way.”
“I thought we’d be driving. ‘In Moab by nightfall’ and all that.”
“It was a possibility. But not one I ever really liked. Best-case scenario might have been motorcycles because they can get around most of the roadblocks, so if they’re unmanned it’s easy. Problem is, once you get past one barrier, you might have just gone into something. Like into someone’s land, in the middle of a circle of roadblocks. So really, if we’re wishing, I’d say ATVs would have topped my Christmas list for this trip. So we could cut through the brush.”
“ATVs,” Piper echoed.
“Or even snowmobiles, which will run on dirt in a pinch if you don’t mind destroying the works with sticks and stuff. I’ll bet a lot of these places up in the mountains have snowmobiles.” He looked around, but there were no houses to be seen, then patted the horse again. “But even ATVs and snowmobiles don’t have a horse’s advantage.”
“They’re quiet.”
“They’re also good on uneven terrain and don’t require gas.” Cameron patted the horse’s neck then looked toward its rump. “Though they do tend to emit gas.”
He untied his line then mounted the horse and coiled the rope around the saddle horn. Piper, following his lead, did the same.
She looked west then turned to ask what was on his mind. Cameron answered as if he’d known the question was coming.
“I’d guess it’ll take us a week.”
“A week.”
He nodded. “Best get started.” He nudged the animal’s side, and the horse started walking.
Piper’s mind drifted with the animal’s motion. She kept thinking of Lila, Trevor, Raj, and Heather. She’d left them alone with Cameron’s men. Even if everything went perfectly, a there-and-back trip would take half a month. That assumed they didn’t run into delays or problems, and it didn’t account for the time they spent at the lab Cameron kept mentioning but hadn’t yet fully described. She might be gone a month, and she’d led them to believe it would only be days.
Maybe that was fine. Maybe that made it easier to go — and really, she did need to. The men would know it wouldn’t be a few days. Cameron’s explanation sounded thought out, and he’d spent a lot of time talking to Vincent and Terrence before they’d left, poring over maps that were now in the possession of the Nelsons. So they’d know. Maybe they’d already broken the news, telling the others not to expect their return for a lot longer than anticipated.
Cameron still had the radio. She might even be able to tell them herself, if they could manage to secure a signal and squeeze a few words into the crowded common frequencies.
Still, Piper couldn’t help but wonder if it mattered. In that missing month, Trevor would do fine, judging by the cold shoulder he’d been giving her for forever. Lila would cross into her second trimester. Maybe she’d be showing when Piper returned. She’d like that. It would let her pretend she’d have some sort of a role in the family, even though Meyer’s absence made that connection more tenuous than it already was.
Cameron stopped his horse. Piper, after a minute, stopped hers.
“Do you hear something?” she said, thinking of the tales he’d told of land grabs and controlled territories. She waited, listening for the crack of a stepped-on twig.
“No,” he said. “But I see something.”
He pointed.
And she saw.
CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE
Lila was sitting in the control room, flipping between views, pinching in and out to magnify one unhelpful scene after another. After the banging had stopped and her mother finally exhausted herself yelling at Vincent, banging on his muscled chest before stomping off to bed, the whole bunker settled into quiet. Now it was dark.
“See anything?”
Lila turned. Raj was behind her, holding his telephone watch in one hand.
“Almost. I found a shot from the kitchen where you could see out the window and there was … something. But it got dark, and nobody seems to be down there with lanterns
.” Lila nodded at his watch. “Any luck on your end?”
Raj shrugged and re-strapped the watch to his wrist. “Thing is useless. Maybe I should just get used to the fact that I’m here with you forever.”
Lila noticed two things Raj didn’t mention. The first was that for all Raj’s certainty that the watch was useless and that he’d never be able to use it to reach his family, he still put it back on. The second was that “I’m here with you forever” sounded resigned rather than cheery. Perhaps the alien invasion had plucked the bloom from their rose.
“You want to sit down?” she said.
“I was thinking I’d go to bed.”
“It’d be nice if we could spend some time together.” Lila wasn’t sure if she meant it. He’d been the apple of her eyes before this all started, but she wasn’t as in love with the man he’d proved himself to be. Raj had his moments of bravado, like when he’d slapped on a gas mask and prepared to battle their home invaders, but it was always misplaced and ended so poorly. Mostly, Raj complained. He’d been doing a lot less since Lila yelled at him, but hadn’t stopped. And Lila didn’t feel as bad about having shouted at him as she supposed she should, especially considering his baby inside her.
“Maybe you could come in, and we could spend some time together in the room.”
Lila looked up at him. He couldn’t possibly be thinking what she thought he was. But he was staring with a double meaning on his face, eyebrows slightly raised.
“What do you think?”
Yep. He really was thinking that.
“You’re kidding.”
“Why would I be kidding?”
“Because I share a room with my mom. And you share a room with Dan. And both are already asleep.”
“Exactly. Your mom is out.” He ticked his head toward the staircase as if to add, exhausted after her crazy little tantrum. He might even be right; she’d gone in looking defeated and drugged. If only HBO could see their great comedienne now.
“I’m not having sex with you in a cot beside my sleeping mother.”
“The shower then.”
Lila rolled her eyes. “Good night, Raj.”
He watched her for a minute then his face fell and he walked out, sulking. A moment later, his bedroom door slammed too loudly.
Lila returned her attention to the screen. It was pointless; if Terrence with all his tech knowledge hadn’t been able to pull a decent image from the surveillance feeds, she sure wouldn’t be able to. But the thudding noises had been loud enough that it seemed impossible to believe whatever had made them wasn’t visible somewhere. But no, she couldn’t see a thing. They’d watched the people topside scramble like ants until the light faded.
The cameras only showed evidence of people headed toward something out of sight. If they wanted to see what those people saw, they’d have to exit the bunker. But Terrence and Vincent wouldn’t let them. It was something Raj had, earlier in the day, seemed dangerously close to bitching about. He was holding it in, and probably thought he deserved sex for being a good boy and doing as she’d asked.
There was a knock behind her.
“Go to bed! I’m not going to scr — ”
But it was Christopher, not Raj.
“You’re not going to what?”
Lila had been about to say she wasn’t going to screw him in the shower. She turned away, feeling her cheeks burn. “Nothing. I thought you were Raj.”
Christopher sat with a mischievous smile — all teeth and charming green eyes. “Okay. What aren’t you going to do with Raj?”
“Nothing.”
Christopher made a tsk-tsk sound. “Well. Isn’t dating you full of perks?”
“Shut up, Christopher.”
“The guys usually call me Christopher. I kind of like it when you call me Chris.”
They’d been through this before. He was flirty. It was inappropriate, but he seemed to delight in her squirming. The only way to face him was head on.
“Fine, Chris.”
He swiveled in the chair. “What did you mean, before, about how it’s ‘all beginning’?”
“I wasn’t thinking straight. I don’t know.”
“When there were all those big booming noises. You said, ‘It’s all beginning,’ and it was like you knew something.”
“Well, I don’t.” And boy didn’t she. Lila didn’t know all sorts of things. Like, for instance, whether or not she was losing her mind.
“Did you have that talk with Vincent?”
“Forget it.” Christopher shook his head. “He says no one leaves the bunker.”
“Did you tell him that this is my dad’s house?”
“I did. He said your dad turned over control to Piper, and that Piper gave her blessing for Vincent to be in charge while she’s gone. He said you’re welcome to fight him for the leader role.”
“That’s not funny. He can’t tell us what to do.”
“You’re right.” Christopher nodded. “And if you really, really force it, he’ll cave. I know he will. Right now, he thinks he’s saving you from yourself. Your mom, too. He thinks you’re being emotional, not thinking straight. Get a good night’s sleep, get the crazy out of your eyes, and talk to him tomorrow. If you still really, truly want to risk going up there and getting us all killed, he may step out of the way, no problem.”
“How does it get us all killed?”
Christopher nodded toward the screen. The monitors had resumed their normal rotation, and now showed the sleepy, lantern-lit shantytown. The lanterns would die soon enough. There were only so many batteries left in the world, and Lila kind of doubted that Energizer and Duracell were cranking them out the same way they had half a year ago.
“They seem pretty quiet, don’t they?”
Lila shrugged.
“They were when we were with Morgan. A big, old vegetarian convention. But they’re all waiting for something. And I’d bet they’re afraid. Maybe some of them are getting cold feet. A lot of them have guns. And if they see that the door off the kitchen isn’t just a safe but that there’s actually a bunker down here filled with food and water and electricity and — ”
“You don’t know they’d force their way in.”
“I don’t know they’ll try to force their way in,” Christopher agreed. “But I do know that you can’t be sure they won’t.”
Lila sighed and shook her head at the screen. “It could be something about Dad.”
“How?”
“I don’t know. Cameron said this place was special, but he didn’t know why. Or whoever he talked to didn’t know. He also said that Dad was special. And that the ships came here. Don’t you think he’d want to know?”
“Call him. Tell him to come back and look.”
She’d already tried. But Lila didn’t feel like telling Christopher. She felt unhinged. Dad was still missing and didn’t know he had a grandchild on the way. Raj was no help. If Mom kept unraveling, Lila might end up raising this child by herself. She didn’t know the first thing about babies and had no way to find out what she needed to know. She’d have to deliver here, without a doctor. And worse, she was having phantom pains she’d only told her mother about (her crazy mother, maybe) and suspected — and yes, she knew how nuts it sounded — that her baby was somehow communicating with her. Warning her that something needed to be done … or undone. Showing her the future or what might someday be.
Lila buried her face in her hands.
“Hey … ” Christopher planted his hand on her shoulder.
“Do you know what today is?”
“I could get a cal — ”
“It’s my birthday.” Lila looked up, her vision blurred. She tried on a wry smile. “Not exactly the way I saw spending my eighteenth: underground, afraid, alone.”
“You’re not alone.”
“I’m more alone than you think.”
Christopher put his hand on Lila’s.
“Well. I’m here anyway.”
Lila tried to laugh, bu
t it came out as a half sob. She corrected, snorted, wiped her nose with the back of her hand. She was such a disgusting mess.
“Where’s my birthday present?” she said, hoping to waste seconds. She wished he’d go away — not because she wanted Christopher gone, but because she needed to be alone.
But why was she asking questions if she wanted him to leave?
“If it weren’t so late, I’d bake you a cake.”
Lila laughed again. “Hardly seems like a cake-baking world anymore. Maybe you should give me a gun. Maybe for your present, you could shoot your way through the crowd to get me outside.”
She looked up. Maybe that hadn’t been funny.
“I killed the bad guy for you. Does that count?”
The terrible thing was, it kind of did. Lila remembered screaming with Piper. The spatter of blood — one more threat leaving the world. Christopher behind the trigger. It was more than anyone else had done, other than her father and Piper. Certainly more than Raj.
Lila nodded. Christopher leaned closer. She answered his sarcasm, her voice stupidly serious, almost quiet. “That was very romantic.”
He reached out with his foot and closed the control room door. Lila found she didn’t mind. There was, it turned out, one place in here where two people could be alone.
His hands on hers felt strong. Safe. She just wanted it all to be over. She wanted to stop worrying. To stop being pulled in a dozen directions. To stop feeling so constantly unsure. She wanted someone else to make her decisions for a while. To make the ground stop shaking beneath her, both literally and figuratively. To give her some solidity and substance. To be her rock, at least for a little while.
For just a little while.
“Happy birthday, Delilah Dempsey.”
And for a little while, Lila forgot all her troubles, all her worries.
CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX
Cameron stopped his horse shy of the first huge gray mass. To Piper, he looked afraid.
They’d been on the edge of a large clearing when they’d stopped to take their drink. Once back atop their horses, it had been easy to see down the gently sloping hill and into the clearing.
