by Stone, Kyla
At least he had thick, insulating fur. He was born for this, his ancestors bred to withstand below freezing temperatures in the Pyrenees mountains.
He’d be fine. Liam wouldn’t.
Liam needed her.
“J-Jessa,” Liam mumbled. “I-I’m sorry. I-I’m s-so sorry.”
He swayed on his knees. He looked like he was about to pass out.
“I need you to help, Liam,” Hannah said firmly. “I need to get you to the mattress. You’re almost there. Let’s go.”
Hannah got hold of him beneath his arms and dragged him to the purple mattress in front of the fire. It took every ounce of strength she had in her and then some.
With a grunt, she rolled him onto his back. The man felt like he weighed half a ton.
Worse, every inch of him felt frozen solid. He was shivering violently. His lips were blue. Patches of his face were reddened, the tip of his nose white with frostbite.
Urgency gripped her. Liam was hypothermic. He was alive now, but if she didn’t act quickly, he wouldn’t be for long.
Only three weeks ago, Liam had found her weak and shivering in the middle of Manistee National Forest. He’d taken care of her. Now, it was her turn to take care of him.
The fire had gotten too low while she’d slept. She added a few logs and stoked the fire. Flames spit toward the flue. Sparks whirled.
The heat warmed her. It would warm Liam, too, but she had to get him out of those clothes.
As swiftly as she could, she unlaced his boots. It was difficult with only a hand and a half. She gritted her teeth in frustration as she yanked off each boot and stripped both pairs of his socks. The outer wool sock was damp, but the Ziploc baggies had kept his feet dry, thank goodness. Still, they were almost as hard to remove as his gloves.
“Sorry,” she whispered as she jostled and tugged at his upper body to get his coat off. He was practically dead weight. “Work with me, here!”
He yanked his arm out of her grasp and flailed wildly. She ducked. He nearly punched her in the face.
“No!” he cried. “Get away f-from me! J-Jessa, I’m coming! I’ll c-come for you!”
He was delirious, hallucinating. A sign of severe hypothermia.
She’d grown up in the Upper Peninsula. She knew what hypothermia and frostbite looked like. She knew what to do. She had to warm Liam’s torso and get his core body temperature up without sending him into rewarming shock.
There was no warm bath to stick him in, which was the best method but also the most dangerous. Applying heat directly to the skin was also a bad idea. So was massage, even though it seemed counterintuitive. Massaging the extremities could circulate the colder blood from near the skin to the core, shocking the body.
Instead, she needed to get him in a hypothermic wrap. A hypothermic wrap covered every part of the body with as few open spaces as possible. A sleeping bag and multiple blankets should do it.
But first, she needed him out of the rest of his clothes. He could hurt her if he wanted. Even if he didn’t mean to. He was strong and trained to kill. She’d seen him do it more than once.
She stared down at him, her hands on her hips. “Liam Coleman, take your clothes off, right now!”
He flinched, as if jolted out of his fugue. “J-Jessa—”
“This is Jessa.” A part of her hated herself for the lie. A bigger part was willing to do whatever was necessary to keep him alive. If he’d listen to Jessa, so be it. He could hate her later. “I’m Jessa. And I’m trying to save your life. For Pete’s sake, take off your damn clothes!”
He responded immediately. Obediently, he fumbled for his sweatshirt. She knelt beside him and helped. She yanked his arm out of the left sweatshirt sleeve, then the right. He was able to lift himself enough to pull off his long-sleeved layers.
She wondered briefly who this Jessa was; how it was that Liam obeyed her so quickly and completely. She’d never known him to be compliant. Not in the least.
Jessa was someone he clearly cared about. Someone he loved.
She swallowed. “Now, your pants.”
His fingers were too numb to undo his belt and other things. Her face burning, Hannah did it for him. She wasn’t embarrassed for him, but for herself. She didn’t even know why.
Ghost sat in front of the fireplace lintel, warming himself. He watched them, his head cocked in bemusement.
“I know it’s weird,” Hannah said as she pulled down Liam’s pants. “Believe me, I know.”
She grabbed the blankets from the couch and spread them across his naked, prone body. She didn’t have a sleeping bag to put him inside; hers had been left behind with her backpack in the library.
“I-I have to c-confess,” Liam mumbled. His beautiful gray-blue eyes were vacant, distant, staring off into some other place, with some other person. “I-I left him. I left him b-behind.”
“You can confess later,” Hannah said briskly. “Right now, you just need to focus on staying alive.”
She pressed the palm of her hand to his bare shoulder, his broad chest. Some part of her registered how well formed he was, the latent strength in those ropy muscles.
His upper torso was etched in scars. Scratches and bruises engraved his flesh. His was the body of a soldier, a warrior.
Her heartbeat quickened. Someday, she wanted to ask him the origin of each battle scar, but that day was not today.
His skin still felt like ice. Not even human.
Worry twisted in her belly. She could warm up some water bottles and put them beneath his armpits and against his groin. She could try to get him to drink something warm and sweet, but he was too out of it to get much down. She feared that wouldn’t be enough.
He balanced on the brink of unconsciousness. Maybe on the brink of death.
She needed to bring him back. She needed to do more.
This man had protected her, saved her, taken care of her. Strong, gruff, and reticent, but never unkind. Always thinking of her first—her protection, her safety, her comfort.
No one had taken care of him.
Not anymore. She was here. She would take care of him.
This time, she would save him.
Hannah settled back on her heels, bit her lower lip, and scanned the room, searching desperately for something that would help, for the answers she needed.
There was nothing. Nothing but herself.
“You aren’t going to die on me,” she whispered. “I won’t let you.”
The fire crackled. A log popped and spit. Heat radiated through the room.
Ghost looked at her. His tail thumped. Charlotte slept soundly in her drawer. They were warm. They were safe.
She rose to her feet. She lifted her arms and pulled off her sweatshirt. She let it fall to the floor. She removed her two long-sleeved thermal shirts and the tank top beneath it.
She tugged down her sweatpants and wriggled out of her still-damp wool socks. She stood for a moment, naked, feeling vulnerable and exposed.
She had been naked in front of Liam before. He’d helped her give birth. He’d saved her life. He’d saved her daughter’s life.
There was nothing untoward in this act. Nothing wrong. Not with her nakedness. Not with what she was about to do.
There was no hesitation in her when she moved toward the mattress. No doubt in her mind. She lifted the blankets and slid beneath the covers. She wrapped the blankets around the two of them, tucking the ends beneath their feet.
She fitted her soft body to his strong, muscled one, wrapping her thin arms around his, folding her legs over his thighs. She pressed herself against him, willed the warmth of her own body into his, her vitality, her life force.
She willed him to live with every stubborn, ferocious beat of her heart.
Liam’s eyelids fluttered open. He turned his head and looked at her.
He said, “Hannah.”
23
Noah
Day Twenty-Three
“What’s the news?” Noah asked.
Noah had taken an hour off from his duties to grab lunch out of a brown paper bag and visit Dave’s rural property just north of Fall Creek. Milo liked Dave, so Noah decided to give Quinn a break and take his son with him.
Dave’s fifteen-acre property boasted a massive forty-foot antenna that he’d had built a decade ago for his favorite hobby. His office behind the garage featured a big desk and shelves filled with machines bristling with wires, knobs, and doohickeys.
Even though Rosamond had given Dave a house in Winter Haven, he had a generator for his garage and pretty much lived here—only eating, showering, and sleeping at the new house.
Dave swiveled in his office chair, smiled grimly, and offered Noah a salute. “Hey, Chief Sheridan! It’s been a few days.”
Noah still wasn’t used to the moniker. It had been bestowed on him only a week ago when Chief Briggs had abruptly absconded from his duties.
Chief Briggs was a dour bulldog of a man who’d resisted the out-of-the box thinking and rapid-fire decisions required to effectively respond to the EMP crisis. It was better for Fall Creek that he’d abandoned his post to protect his grown son and daughter-in-law in St. Joe, a nearby town.
Noah wouldn’t abandon Fall Creek. He hadn’t asked for the responsibility, hadn’t wanted it, but once he’d accepted the mantle, he’d grown into it.
He straightened his shoulders, standing a little taller. “That last blizzard was nuts, wasn’t it? Just when we thought we’d catch a break.”
“Which one?” Dave grumbled. “There’s been so many I think I’ve lost count. It’s like the geomagnetic fields have shifted, and we’re actually in Antarctica instead of Michigan. Sheesh.”
“I know the feeling.” Noah settled into the creased leather office chair beside Dave. He motioned to a narrow table in the corner for Milo. “Set up your stuff over there, buddy.”
Noah had brought a backpack with an art pad and colored pencils for Milo. Since Quinn was a bit of an artist, Milo was suddenly interested in drawing.
For lunch, he’d packed a peanut butter and honey sandwich and Ritz crackers to dip in packets of applesauce. They were now officially out of cheese.
Once spring hit, Rosamond had assured them that the town would strike trade deals with local farmers to produce cheese, milk, and eggs. For the rest of winter, they’d just have to make do.
But Fall Creek was doing just fine, especially considering the state of the rest of the country. Thanks to Dave, the town council received regular updates on the cascading collapse of pretty much everything.
Dave offered Milo and then Noah an opened bag of Doritos. “Sorry I don’t have higher-class delicacies on hand to offer my guests. It’s been slim pickings lately.”
In his early sixties, Dave was a loud, boisterous white man who loved fishing, his ham radio, and sports cars. He served on the town council and owned Fall Creek Inn.
Rosamond had given him one of the houses in Winter Haven, which he’d generously shared with three of his long-time friends and their families. The Winter Haven homes started at five thousand square feet—there was plenty of room.
Noah took a handful of chips. “How’s the Inn doing?”
Dave made a face. “I’ll say this for those militia guys. They’ve brought me enough gas to keep the Inn’s ancient generators running. Right now, the Inn’s almost nicer than Winter Haven, since the solar panels are covered in snow right now.”
Dave had opened up the fifty-room inn to Fall Creek’s most vulnerable elderly and sickly—those with cancer, lupus, and other debilitating illnesses. Dave had offered a few rooms for volunteers and their families if they took care of the place and checked up on the new residents.
Dave Farris’s generosity was saving lives. And he wasn’t the only one.
A couple of dozen reserve officers were volunteering their time to take care of trash, help with sanitation, and other pressing needs. Annette King, the former Fall Creek High School principal, and the pediatric nurse, Shen Lee, both worked tirelessly along with several townspeople to run the shelter at the school for those who didn’t have fireplaces or woodstoves in their homes.
Noah had never been prouder of his town.
“Fall Creek owes you a great debt. I hope we can pay you what we owe you someday.”
Dave shrugged dismissively. “Right now, cash is useful for one thing—wiping my hiney.”
“These days, that’s no small thing.”
“You aren’t kidding.” Dave leaned forward in his seat and winked at Milo, who was half-listening to them as he drew. “I’m rationing toilet paper like there’s no tomorrow.”
Milo giggled.
“Oh sure, laugh it up,” Dave said, grinning. “It’s all fun and games until we run out.”
“Imagine what the history books will say about us,” Noah said.
Dave raised his pointer finger in the air like he was giving a pretentious, self-important college lecture. “And then the toilet paper wars commenced…”
They all had a good chuckle. They needed it desperately.
“You good, buddy?” Noah asked when they’d regained control of themselves. “The grown-ups need to talk now.”
Milo gave him a thumb’s up. “Got it, Dad.”
Noah and Dave turned to the ham radio and lowered their voices while Milo went back to his superhero drawings.
“Any updates on the rescue team?” Dave asked.
“They’ve found seven or eight residents of Fall Creek. A couple stuck in St. Joe that needed to get to Dowagiac. That’s all.”
Bishop, Reynoso, Perez, and a few others had been gone for two days. They were checking one more town—Watervliet—before calling it quits and heading back to Fall Creek for good.
Rosamond had sent them out on a goodwill rescue mission ostensibly for all of Fall Creek, but in reality, she was searching for her son, Gavin Pike. He’d vanished the day of the EMP and never returned home.
Dave lowered his voice even further. “So Bishop doesn’t know about the Crossway community pantry?”
Noah’s gut tightened. He glanced at Milo. “No, Bishop doesn’t know.”
“I imagine he won’t take it well.”
Noah dreaded having to tell him. As police chief, he’d have to deal with it, just like he had to deal with every other unsavory aspect of this job. As Bishop’s friend, it was going to royally suck.
“What do you think he’s gonna do?”
“Nothing. He’s going to accept it like everyone else.”
Dave pursed his lips. He studied Noah, hesitating for a moment before speaking. “It does seem a little…strict.”
Noah was tired of talking about it, tired of the complaining. “It’s simply about consolidating the supplies so it’s easier to keep track of everything.”
“It doesn’t have anything to do with those people getting killed at Winter Haven? Or with certain parties wanting to exert undue control?”
Noah blew out a frustrated breath. “Did you ask me here to berate me, too, Dave?”
Dave rolled back in his chair and raised his hands in a conciliatory gesture. “Hey man, I’m as laid back as they come. Just sharing some concerns. As a friend.”
“I know. You’re concerned. Everyone is concerned. They’ve made that abundantly clear. So have most of the town council.”
“Hey, can you blame the council for getting upset when the superintendent makes unilateral decisions without consulting anyone? We haven’t had a town hall or council meeting in a week.”
“She’s busy keeping this town from falling apart, Dave.”
“I’m just saying, the only people who’ve got the food now are the militia. A bunch of strangers with guns. People aren’t happy, man. I know that bothers you, too.”
Of course it did. But concessions had to be made to keep the peace. To protect the town. Noah was tired of defen
ding himself, tired of defending the superintendent.
People didn’t get it. They didn’t want to get it.
He didn’t feel like arguing with Dave Farris. He needed Dave’s help.
“Your point is noted.” Noah sighed. “Can we just talk about what you asked me here for? I’ve got to get back out there.”
“Sure, sure. Of course.” Dave wheeled to face the wall of ham radio gear. “Honestly, it’s pretty bad out there. We’ve been damn lucky.”
“Tell me what you’ve heard.”
“Like I told the council, I’ve made contact with most of the towns and villages within a hundred-mile radius. Thank goodness for rural radio buffs. Several of the gangs from Benton Harbor have abandoned the city and started attacking nearby neighborhoods. Most of Detroit has dissolved into gang wars.”
“Those gangs spreading out anywhere near us?”
“Not yet. But the reports about vicious attacks on nearby towns keep coming in. They do snatch-and-grabs. Hit one part of a town, then they’re gone before the town can muster a defense. Several days later, another neighborhood gets hit. Anyone resists, they get shot in the head, execution-style.”
“Any details on them?”
“Not much. They wear all black, with either black ski masks or grease paint on their faces. They’ve got semi-automatics and know how to use them. The only good news is since the attack on Niles, they seem to be moving away, not closer. Looks like they’re preying on the outskirts of Kalamazoo. The last report was from Paw Paw, forty miles northeast of here. Granted, not every town is in radio communication, though.”
Noah rubbed his face, scratched at his prickly jaw. He nearly had a full beard now. “Any other good news?”
“Some of the towns are working together to form a roaming security team. Volunteer police officers, fire fighters, military, and former military. If any one of the towns are attacked, they radio the team to defend them.”
“If they get there in time.”
“Yes, there’s that. Wouldn’t have helped much during all these blizzards.”
