Isolation (Book 2): Going Out

by Jones, Nathan

  It was a surprise to hear the woman express a desire to leave, considering she'd previously been willing to starve with her kids rather than risk going outside. Ellie had to wonder if, in spite of Cara's open hostility towards her son, the woman felt like she and the kids needed him to survive. So much so that she'd risk the danger to stick with him.

  If so, Hal seemed to feel the same; he looked genuinely relieved about being able to bring his siblings with him.

  Besides, if things in Stanberry didn't pan out they could always just head back here. They probably would've anyway.

  He loaded the supplies back into the trunk, briefly paused on the way back to the stairs to plant a kiss on her cheek, and murmured. “I need to help the kids pack and make sure we have everything useful. Can you make room in the car for stuff?”

  “Sure,” she told him, resisting the temptation to urge him to hurry; he knew.

  As he bounded up the stairs Cara got her car unlocked and began rummaging around in the backseat, tossing various trash, toys, and other stuff on the ground behind her. Ellie supposed littering wasn't the most egregious behavior considering the world they lived in now, but it still irked her.

  The brittle silence as the older woman finished cleaning her car and stowed her suitcase was beyond uncomfortable, but Ellie immediately missed it when Cara slammed the rear passenger door shut and turned to face her, hands on her hips. “You think I don't see how you're looking at me?” she snapped. “I bet you think that now that I've been reduced to baggage on your hunt to find your kids, my only option if me and my children want to keep eating, I need to apologize to you for last night.”

  That was an odd perspective, considering the woman had demanded Hal bring her and the kids with them. But honestly, Ellie had a feeling it would be a cold day on the surface of the sun before Cara apologized for anything.

  Normally she wouldn't have engaged the woman. But knowing her family had been exposed to Zolos, and having no idea what their fate was, left her less able to deal with this sort of thing than usual.

  Besides, it was hard to resist the temptation to try to convince Cara of the error of her ways.

  “You pinned some very ungenerous motivations and intentions on me,” Ellie said coolly. “But since you don't actually know me well enough to make those sorts of judgments, that means all you have to go on is the sort of things you think and that you'd do, projected onto me.”

  The older woman blinked, processing that. When she finally got it Ellie thought she'd be mad, but instead she smiled almost triumphantly. “So the cat actually does have claws. But what does it say about you that you act all sweet until the tom's away, then bring them out?”

  Ellie opened her mouth to furiously protest that Cara had started this confrontation, then thought better of it and turned as calmly as she could to head inside, intending to see if Hal needed help with anything.

  Although she brought the car key with her; the older woman had no logical reason to ditch her own children to steal a vehicle when she already had one, but then again Ellie had thought the Nowaks had no reason to steal her car, either.

  Some lessons you only need to learn once.

  Infuriating as Cara was, the right move was never to rise to the bait. Ellie had met a few similarly poisonous people before, and had observed that their behavior tended to make others avoid them if they could, and ignore them if they couldn't.

  Introspective people would take stock of what was happening in a situation like that, and try to change their behavior before they ended up completely alone.

  But most people weren't great at introspection. Instead the ostracizing made them bitter, and that combined with their need for human interaction led them to viler and viler behavior, since that was the only thing that got a response from even the closest people in their lives anymore.

  They picked fights as an alternative to being alone. It was unhealthy for everyone involved, which was why unless the person turned violent the best option really was just to ignore them. Anything else just encouraged intolerable behavior.

  Ellie might be stuck with Cara thanks to her relationship with Hal, and apparently the woman was along for the ride to Stanberry, although thankfully in a different car. But whatever the circumstances, it didn't mean she had to be drawn into the woman's drama.

  Best make that clear right from the start.

  To her relief, Hal's mom didn't shout any taunts or insults at her back; maybe the older woman thought she'd won since she'd chased Ellie off. If so, Ellie was willing to give her that Pyrrhic victory.

  She found Linny in the living area, struggling to fit everything she needed in a little school backpack, and helped the girl sort things out and pack it all in. Then she sent Linny outside with her things and started moving the items Hal was piling on the couch down to the car, packing them in.

  Everyone worked quickly, even Cara, but in spite of that it was an agonizing ten or so minutes before they were ready to go.

  Ellie wondered if she should feel sorry for the older woman when all three of the kids begged their older brother to let them ride with him. Normally she would've volunteered to ride with Cara so the poor woman didn't have to drive alone, but the thought of spending over an hour with her was too awful to consider, even as a kind gesture that might potentially smooth things between them.

  Whether it was selfishness or self-preservation, Ellie couldn't handle that sort of ordeal while worried about the fate of her children. She didn't have that kind of strength and composure.

  In the end, Hal volunteered to drive his mom's car while she rode as a passenger, and Ellie and his siblings would follow behind in her car. The kids all seemed perfectly content with that, further supporting her suspicion that they wanted to not be around their mom more than they wanted to be around their brother.

  She tried to imagine what it would feel like to have a relationship like that with Ricky and Tallie. Sure, sometimes her kids hurt her slightly when they made it obvious they wanted to be around a friend or visiting relative more than her, but that was just kids being kids.

  But to let things get to the point where her sweet children avoided her? It hurt too much to even imagine.

  With who'd be in which car finally decided, everyone piled into their respective vehicles and they made the last preparations to leave. Then, at last, Ellie followed Hal out onto the road and they turned north for Stanberry.

  Please be okay Tallie, Ricky, she thought as she stared at the car ahead, willing it to go faster in spite of the borderline unsafe speeds it was already moving at. Please, please be okay.

  ✽✽✽

  “Good job, Daddy!” Tallie shouted from well behind him, louder than necessary thanks to the earplugs she was wearing.

  Was it? Nick checked the target he'd just shot, then bit back a curse and holstered his 9mm in disgust.

  Low and to the left again, even though he was shooting from only 15 feet away. What was he doing wrong?

  Shooting a pistol seemed like it should be simple enough, just a matter of lining up the sights with the bullseye and pulling the trigger. But as with everything in the world, it seemed like things were more complex.

  First off, holding the gun with two hands had taken some figuring out, just going off what he'd seen on TV, and he still wasn't sure he was doing it right. Maybe that was why it was so hard to keep the gun perfectly still so the sights stayed steady on the target, and why it took him so long to recover from the recoil after he fired.

  Also, Nick had a feeling he was jerking the gun just as he pulled the trigger, overcompensating for the recoil. Although even when he squeezed it very slowly and carefully, his shots were still low and left. Maybe his finger wasn't well situated on the trigger, so when he pulled it he was inadvertently moving the barrel in the direction of the motion.

  Although when he shifted his finger around to try different positions, the shots were still low and left. Which meant he probably was jerking the trigger or anticipating the recoil,
so he'd just have to try a bit harder.

  That or the sights were off. If so, the solution was to either fix them or just get used to aiming high and right. But if he was missing because his technique was off, tinkering with the gun or compensating by shifting his aim would only encourage him to keep using the same incorrect technique.

  Nick made a frustrated noise. This would be a lot simpler if they had a qualified instructor to teach them. Maybe he should ask Darby if there was someone in Stanberry who could give them pointers.

  Although with their luck, that person would probably be Darrel.

  Oh well. Even if he wasn't getting the absolute most out of his practice, he was confident that if he kept at it he'd improve. He was already shooting tighter groups than when he'd started, and while his bullets kept consistently missing the bullseye, he was getting steadily closer to it.

  He sighed and glanced back at Tallie, seated a safe distance away from the range under the shade of a tree. She waved weakly, giving him a big smile, and he smiled back and gave her a thumbs up; the sight of her moving even that much was very encouraging, and hope at the progress of her recovery did a lot to ease his frustration at his lack of progress in shooting practice.

  With a last wave he turned back to the rest of his team, who were still focused on shooting their own targets.

  In yesterday's scavenging they'd had a stroke of luck and found several guns in the houses they searched. Or maybe not really luck, since he supposed finding a decent number of firearms was statistically likely in the US.

  Lila had immediately claimed a pump-action shotgun they'd found, determinedly practicing with it in spite of the fact that it was clear the recoil was taking its toll on her; an ugly bruise peeked out around the collar of her shirt, which no doubt covered the rest of her shoulder as well. But her hard work was showing results, since the buckshot she sent downrange at her target had torn apart the bullseye.

  Ben had claimed a hunting .30-30 with a scope, while Chet had snagged the next rifle they found, a military-looking thing he identified as an AR-15. Aggravatingly enough, even though the brothers had both set up their targets at roughly 50 yards, what felt like a mile away through the sights of Nick's 9mm, they were consistently hitting the bullseye using a table as a firing stand.

  Did they both have more shooting experience than they'd let on, or were rifles really that much easier to learn than pistols?

  Probably the latter, since Val and Charlie were also both struggling with their pistols. Nick would've thought the smaller caliber of the auburn-haired woman's .22 would've made the recoil easier to handle, and it seemed to, but she still had trouble getting on target. As for the older man's revolver, which shot .357 magnum, it looked smaller than Nick's 9mm but apparently packed more of a punch.

  From the looks of things, until the pistol users managed to get in more practice they'd be depending on the farmers to watch their backs. That, or his team needed to find more rifles or shotguns so they all had one.

  Nick waited until everyone had finished their current round of shooting, then clapped his hands sharply. “All right, I'm afraid that's enough fun for one day. Let's get to work.”

  The brothers groaned, and Lila looked frustrated, but nobody voiced a protest as they packed up their weapons and shooting equipment and got ready to move out. They were all aware of how tough their first day and yesterday had been, trying to get two full truckloads done before dark.

  They hadn't managed it yesterday either, since they'd had to catch up unloading the first day's truckloads, and last night had only managed to unload half the trucks before full dark, agreeing to call it a day and finish up in the morning.

  At that pace, if they worked fast today and kept going until dark they might just finally catch up. Then tomorrow's work wouldn't be quite as strenuous, especially since they were getting in the swing of things.

  And from here on out, Nick had a special reason to look forward to getting home every day; Ellie should've gotten out of the quarantine camp in Colorado yesterday. While it had been optimistic to hope she'd find them last night, he'd still been a bit disappointed to get home and have no news from Gen or Ricky.

  Maybe tonight, though. Or tomorrow. That depended on whether Ellie found transportation, since if she had to walk it could take weeks or even months. And best case scenario with a bicycle it would take a week or two. All assuming she didn't run into any more trouble, which he seriously hoped but realized might be hard to avoid.

  No. Nick was confident Ellie would find a way to get to them quickly. She was great at solving problems and overcoming obstacles, and had even made a career out of helping others do the same. Just from what he'd heard of her progress, the few times she'd been able to contact them on her way home from LA before phone service cut out, she'd managed to conquer some real challenges and keep moving forward to reach her children.

  He wouldn't be surprised if she found the Norsons' house today. She might already be there, in fact. If so Ricky would be over the moon.

  As the group left the makeshift shooting range he'd created behind and headed towards the trucks to begin the day's scavenging, Charlie sidled up to him and nodded off to one side, an unspoken request to talk alone. That was a bit unexpected, since up to now the older man had mostly kept his head down and gone along with the group.

  Nick motioned to the others to keep going and continued towards where Tallie had watched the shooting practice. Charlie followed, lowering his voice for his ears only. “I wanted to talk about the McCleese brothers.”

  He perked up slightly at that. “What about them?”

  The Zolos survivor hesitated. “Nothing I can put my finger on. It's just that back in the quarantine camp they helped out with the recovering patients, sure, but they and their dad and Chet's girlfriend were always standoffish. Didn't really warm up to anyone. But they did make a lot of conversation prying into where everyone had come from, and how they'd made their way to Stanberry.”

  Some of that matched up with what Nick had observed himself, although he was baffled as to the brothers' motivations. “They lost a lot of loved ones. We're all grieving in different ways.”

  “Right.” Charlie uncomfortably scratched at the back of his head beneath his baseball cap. “And I can understand that. It's just that watching them around you, and even how they're starting to act with me, Val, and Lila now that we've worked together for a while, I get the feeling it's more how they really are.” He paused. “So why are they so cool, almost hostile, to everyone back in the camp?”

  Nick paused to clean any gunpowder residue off his hands with a wet wipe, then tossed it aside and leaned down to pick up his daughter, cradling her in the crook of one arm as he looked at the older man thoughtfully. “Have they caused any problems?”

  “Aside from making us feel like we need to tiptoe around them?” Charlie shrugged. “Just thought I should give you a heads up, that's all. In case it's trouble in the making.”

  “Fair enough. I'll have a talk with them.” He gave the Zolos survivor a clap on the shoulder and led the way to the trucks, where the others were putting away their shooting gear and getting ready to move out. He left the older man behind with their truck and headed over to where the brothers were already waiting in their cab.

  “What's up, boss?” Ben asked, glancing ahead at Charlie curiously; the man hadn't exactly been subtle about pulling him aside to talk.

  Crud. The last thing Nick needed was the two brothers resenting their fellow scavenger for siccing him on them. He decided to take a different tack. “Listen, could we change up groups today?” he asked, trying to pitch his voice to only be heard by the two men in the cab. “Charlie's doing his best, and so far he's done pretty good, but he's still weak and the work's taking its toll on him.”

  Chet and Ben exchanged looks. “Fine by me,” Ben said brightly. “You'll need the stronger of us to pick up the slack with him, right? Guess that's me.”

  “In your dreams, bro,” Chet said. �
��If you're so strong why do you only manage three trips loading things for every four of mine?”

  “At the end of the day, maybe, compared to the rest of the time when it's the other way around. And what're you doing keeping score, anyway?” The younger brother pushed open his door and hopped down from the cab, slapping Nick amiably on the shoulder as he passed on his way to the other truck. “Just watch, we'll get our truck filled before you, and our friend will be able to take a bit of a breather today.”

  Nick decided not to point out that that could be considered an insult to him; when the brothers started bantering they tended to focus completely on each other, so the rest of them sometimes got caught in the crossfire.

  He climbed up into the vacated seat, buckling Tallie in beside him while Chet got the truck going. “Thanks for being willing to change things up for the day.”

  The young man shrugged as he pulled away from the curb, leading the other trucks down the road towards the neighborhood they were searching today. “We're part of a team, we need to make sure it's running smoothly if we can.”

  “Glad you feel that way . . . eventually, if the women feel comfortable with it, I'd like to try to shift teams around so each truck gets filled at about the same time.”

  Chet shifted uncomfortably. “Or we could keep on helping the other teams finish their trucks once we're done with ours.”

  “That also works,” Nick agreed. That seemed a decent way to segue into what he actually wanted to talk about. “Just prefer working with your brother? I can understand that.”

  Or at least, he could understand why that would be a motivation, even if he had no personal experience with it. He'd never had siblings himself, aside from the ones his mom had had once she was out of his life, he supposed, although he'd never met them and had only indirectly heard them mentioned. And his dad might've ended up having kids, too, although when the coroner called with the news of his death Nick had been listed as next of kin, which made other family on that side seem unlikely.