“You’re not a vegetarian, I hope?” Simon glanced over his shoulder at her as he reached into the top compartment of a double oven and slid out a tray with a steaming roast. The smell was just overwhelmingly delicious, and Emily knew that even if she had been a vegetarian, the aroma of that cut of meat would have convinced her of the delights of being a carnivore, without a doubt.
Simon sliced the roast with practiced aplomb, then pulled a second dish from the bottom oven.
“Fresh from the garden,” he said, nodding to the roasted potatoes, carrots, and onions.
“You seem very self-sufficient?”
“The nearest supermarket is about ten miles away, so I like to keep a decent stock of food. You know…just in case,” Simon explained as he spooned the food onto each plate. “The vegetable garden’s a pet project of ours. It was something we started after my wife died. The kids and I like to work out there. Don’t we, kids?”
Both Ben and Rhiannon nodded, their mouths already full.
If the shower had been heaven, the taste of roasted beef and potatoes was nirvana.
Emily said nothing about the death of his wife; the statement had been made so offhandedly that she assumed it must have happened well before the red rain appeared. Emily wasn’t sure how much Simon would want to discuss about the red plague that had swept across the world in front of the kids, so she kept the conversation light.
“So, how long have you lived here?” she asked.
“All my life,” said Ben, which brought a burst of laughter from both adults.
“Almost fifteen years now,” Simon said, playfully mussing his son’s hair. “Elise, my wife, and I moved in right before we were married. I’m an architect, so this was the perfect location for me. Close enough to the city that I could get in when I needed to.” He paused to chew and swallow a piece of meat before continuing. “We lost Elise just over two years ago, and I decided I’d spend as much time with the kids as possible, so I left the firm I worked for and went freelance. It gave me the time I needed with the children.”
“I’m sorry about your wife.”
“It was cancer,” said Rhiannon, her head bowed. “Pancreatic cancer.”
“Cancer sucks the big one,” whispered Ben to a lone carrot skewered on his fork.
“Yes. Yes, it does,” replied his father.
After lunch, Simon insisted Emily sit at the table until he and the kids had finished washing the dirty dishes and stacking them on a plastic draining board next to the sink.
“It’s a family ritual,” he explained. “Besides, you’re our guest.”
With the chores out of the way, Simon joined Emily back at the breakfast nook table.
“Rhia. Why don’t you take Ben outside and play for a little while?” The little girl looked as if she was going to object, but she resigned herself with a deep sigh and shrug of her shoulders. As the kids pushed away from the table, Thor jumped to his feet and padded alongside them before stopping and looking back toward Emily.
“Go ahead,” said Emily with a nod toward the children. “If that’s okay?” she added, looking at Simon.
“Well he doesn’t seem like the killer I first thought he was, so why not? Just don’t get him too excited, kids. Okay?”
Both children promised they wouldn’t, then rushed out the door, Thor leaping alongside them. Within a couple of minutes, the two adults could hear the joyful screams of the kids accompanying the playful barks of the malamute.
“I know it’s a little early, but can I get you a drink?” Simon’s voice had lost the playful tone it had assumed around the kids.
Emily shook her head. As much as she would like to, alcohol would go straight to her head, and she wanted to keep her wits about her. Simon poured himself a shot of whiskey and sat back down at the table, sipping at it occasionally as they began to talk.
“The day the red rain fell, we were all here at the house. The kids were off school for the day. I don’t even want to think what I would have done if…well, best not to think about how blind luck could save your life, the life of your kids. I like to think keeping them alive was chance’s way of making up for taking their mom. Stupid really, don’t you think?”
Emily smiled gently and allowed him to continue.
“Have you ever heard of a microclimate?”
She shook her head.
Simon leaned forward in the chair, illustrating his words with his hands. “It’s a localized weather effect. The weather in a microclimate area can be absolutely opposite from that surrounding it. So, it could be raining where you are and, just a few feet away, completely dry. Amazing, really, when you think about it.” He took another sip of his drink. “This whole valley is in a microclimate zone, something to do with the trees and the lake at the base. Last winter it snowed, we got nothing here. Dry as a bone.”
“Actually, I think I saw it in action yesterday,” Emily said. “I only stopped at the house across the valley because it had begun to rain, but it seemed to stop almost right at the driveway of the house.”
“It rained yesterday? Well, that’s a perfect example. I never even noticed. The day the red rain came, it was much the same. We saw it on the news after it had happened, and by the time I went outside to check, there wasn’t any sign of it except for a few puddles down the hill toward town. Then of course I saw what happened on TV…” His voice trailed off. “I think I saw a couple of bodies on the street the first day. It was hard to be sure, though, and I didn’t want to risk going down to look. Then of course there were dead birds almost everywhere. The next day, they were gone. I made sure we all stayed inside for a couple of days, just in case, but there seemed little reason to keep them in after that. I called everyone I knew, everyone in town. I even called the Pentagon. There was no answer from anyone.”
He leaned forward in his chair and looked her straight in the eyes. “I was beginning to think we were the only ones left. Again, I’m sorry for the reception I gave you. It was just such a shock to see the dog…then you.”
“How about Ben and Rhiannon? How did they take it?”
“I’ve done my best to keep the truth from my kids,” Simon said. “Ben is too young to really notice, but Rhiannon, she’s old enough to know that something very serious has happened. But I’ve managed to keep them both distracted.” He took another sip from his whiskey, and Emily realized that he was steeling himself for the answer to the question he was about to ask. “So, why don’t you tell me what’s going on out there?”
Emily recounted her story: how the rain had come from nowhere; the dead birds falling from the sky; the mass panic; and, finally, how everyone in New York, and probably around the world, had died.
Simon sat in shocked silence for a while. Then: “Everyone? They’re all dead?”
“As far as I know, yes. But there’s a group of survivors, scientists, in the Stockton Islands in Alaska. That’s where I’m heading. They think the cold has some kind of effect on the rain, which is why they survived.” Emily went on to explain how she had been contacted by Jacob and why she was traveling north.
It was only when she began to explain how she had witnessed the dead transformed into the spider-aliens and how they had in turn created the strange forests of alien trees that she felt Simon pull back. He was still nodding attentively, but his energy had turned from sympathetic to politely cautious.
“Look,” she said. “I know it sounds insane, and I know that you probably think that I am crazy, but I’m not. You must have noticed the way the weather is changing? I mean, it’s almost permanently red out there now. I think the dust I saw being released from the trees is spreading and changing everything that it touches. You didn’t see the rainstorm yesterday, but if you had, you would have seen how red it was. That’s how it’s spreading. And it’s not just humans that it’s changing—there are new animals out there, too…look.”
She stood and unbuttoned the first three buttons of her blouse. Simon’s eyes went wide, and he glanced away.
“You can look now,” she said as she slipped the blouse off her shoulder and turned to show Simon the still-healing wounds on her back.
“Jesus! How did that happen?”
She explained how she had been attacked by the creatures in the forest, how she had nearly died and would have if it had not been for Thor showing up and saving her butt. “I know it’s hard to comprehend,” she said as she buttoned her blouse back up, “that this is some kind of alien attack, but I’ve seen them and they’re real. And it’s spreading…fast.”
“But I thought…I thought it was a terrorist attack. You’re telling me there’s nobody left out there?”
She shook her head. “Apart from the group in the Stocktons, no, none that have made contact with us. But look at it this way—they survived, I survived, and you and your children survived. The probability is that there are others out there, too.”
Simon slumped back in the chair and gave her a long appraising stare, then he finished what was left of his whiskey in one swig, refilled his glass, and downed that in one go, too.
“Are you insane?” he whispered eventually. It was a question asked by a man who Emily thought was doing his best to understand what was surely the most ridiculously crazy story he had ever heard. She stood up and walked to where he was standing, staring blankly into the kitchen.
“No,” she said. “I’m not crazy.”
“You have to understand,” he said in the same soft whisper. “It’s all a little too much to take in…in one go. But what am I going to do about the kids?”
Later, after Simon had settled the children into their beds for the night, he joined Emily in the living room.
“I hope you don’t mind, I helped myself,” she said, raising a quarter-full glass of brandy. Simon nodded, picked up a glass, and poured himself a double before sitting down in the chair across from Emily.
“So,” he said after taking a sip, “what do you think our options are?”
Emily considered the question, sipping from her brandy. “I don’t think we have any options other than to get out as fast as we possibly can.”
Simon seemed unconvinced. “You have to see this from my perspective, Emily. My kids and I are safe here. We have enough provisions to last us for a couple of months. That should be more than enough time for any federal rescue to reach us and”—he paused choosing his next words carefully—“I don’t know you. Until today, I’d never even met you. You show up out of nowhere with some crazy story about people turning into alien monsters and constructing giant trees that are churning out this red dust.” He paused as he let the words sink in, more for himself than her benefit, Emily thought. “And now you’re asking me to leave the one place that has kept us safe and follow you to Alaska. I mean, come on, if you were in my position, taking care of two kids, I’m sure you’d be just a little skeptical. Right?”
Emily could, of course, empathize with his position. In just the few short hours she had known this family she had become fond of the kids. They were just adorable, even Rhiannon with her blasé response to almost every situation and her almost continual state of ennui.
“I’m not asking you to follow me,” she said eventually. “I’m asking you to protect yourself and your kids. Of course I understand how crazy it all sounds. I’d be less than convinced if I were in your position, but look at it like this. If you’re right and everything I’ve told you is nothing more than some elaborate, crazy joke, then you have nothing to lose by coming with me.” She let the words sink in for a few seconds. “You have to take the risk, Simon. Please.”
She saw a flicker of anger, possibly fear, cross Simon’s face. “I really don’t appreciate you using my kids as bargaining chips.”
Emily placed her drink down on the table, reached out, and took both of Simon’s hands in her own. “I’m not trying to bargain with you, Simon. Whatever you decide, I’m still leaving tomorrow and heading north again. If I’m right and you stay here…you, Rhiannon, and Ben are all going to die. And you better hope to God that you die first because I would not want you to witness the agony your kids will go through in their final minutes.”
Simon met her gaze, pulled free of her hands, and swallowed the remaining brandy in a single gulp. He walked back to the wet bar and poured himself another double. When he turned to look at her, Emily could see that the dilemma was tearing at him: Did he stay where he thought he could keep his kids safe? Or did he listen to this stranger who had suddenly materialized in his life and head north into the unknown?
“Can you guarantee that if we leave here, the instant we set foot outside of the valley we won’t die? Will you look me in the eyes and guarantee the safety of my kids?” His words were delivered without emotion or anger, but as a simple question that he already knew the answer to.
“I can’t guarantee anything other than everyone else is dead. There will never be a rescue party. But whatever is happening out there”—her hand fluttered toward the darkened window—“will reach in here at some point and snatch away the lives of you and your kids. Just like it did to everyone else on this planet.”
Simon placed the glass onto the wet bar, its contents untouched, and looked into the darkness beyond the window. “If Elise was here, she would know what to do. It would be simple for her. She would have liked you.”
Emily allowed a smile to part her lips, put her own glass down, and walked over to stand behind Simon. She placed a hand gently on his shoulder. “You know what you need to do, Simon. You have to leave here because it’s your only hope. You have to take the chance because soon you won’t have any choice left.”
Simon turned to face her, his eyes glistening with tears. “This is all just so damn hard to take in,” he whispered. “Jesus. How am I going to explain this to the kids?”
“Don’t worry about it tonight,” she answered. “Just get a good night’s sleep and we’ll deal with it all in the morning, okay?”
Emily woke with a start.
In her sleep-fogged mind, she thought she had heard something. Had she? Or was it just an already forgotten nightmare?
Seconds ticked by, and the only sound was Thor’s deep rhythmic breathing as he continued to sleep, undisturbed.
Only nerves, she told herself eventually, allowing her chest to sink as she inhaled. She was no stranger to bad dreams, she reminded herself. Not since she’d left Manhattan, at least.
She had just begun to allow sleep to claim her once more when she heard a scream, shrill and sharp. It sounded like Ben.
Her eyes flickered open again. Disoriented, heart racing, she fumbled for where she thought the lamp was, cringing as she knocked over the glass of water she had placed there. It didn’t smash, but she heard the water slosh over the carpet.
“Damn it,” she cursed just as her probing fingers found the switch and flooded the room with light. Smarting at the sudden assault on her eyes, she glanced around the unfamiliar room just to make sure there was nothing in there with her. The place was empty except for Thor, who, in the space of a couple of seconds, had somehow managed to go from sleeping to standing with his nose pressed against the crack of the bedroom door, his hackles raised and his back ramrod straight. The malamute glanced at Emily as she swung her feet out of the bed and stumbled toward the door. The instant she opened it, the dog slipped through the gap and padded quickly toward the sound of the commotion as Emily stumbled behind him.
The screaming continued, but now she could hear Simon’s voice echoing down the corridor as he called out to his boy, “Ben! Ben! It’s all right. Daddy’s here. It’s just a dream. Ben, it’s just a dream.”
By the time Emily reached the child’s bedroom, Ben was clinging to his father, tears streaming down his face as Simon rocked the child back and forth, cooing gently to his son, “Hush! Hush! It’s all okay.”
Ben looked up as Emily entered his room, his hazel eyes moist with tears. “Monsters,” he cried, choking back more tears. “The monsters are coming.”
Thor l
ay on the bed next to Ben, his head resting gently against the child’s arm. It had taken a quarter of an hour for Simon to quiet his hysterical son, but with a mixture of soothing words and gentle rocking, Ben’s sobs had gradually grown fainter. Finally they faded to nothing but a trembling upper lip. His eyes had begun to droop as Simon laid him softly back down on the bed.
Thor nuzzled in beside the child. Ben opened his drooping eyes momentarily and looked at the big dog. “Love you, For,” the child whispered, throwing an arm around the malamute’s neck. Moments later the child fell back to sleep. Emily didn’t have to tell the dog to stay; she knew there was no way Thor was going to move from his spot unless she commanded him to. Emily, Rhiannon, and Simon retreated into the corridor and quietly closed the door behind them.
The house was quiet again except for the distant muffled thrum of the generator. Simon sent Rhiannon back to bed with a kiss on the cheek and the reassurance that her little brother had just had a nightmare and was going to be fine.
“I think this is all finally beginning to take its toll on them,” Simon whispered once they were alone, as he walked with Emily down the hall, their bare feet falling silently on the carpet.
Hoping she wasn’t pushing her luck too far, Emily spoke her mind. “All the more reason for you all to come with me.” She caught a glimpse of a smile cross Simon’s face through the dimness and saw his eyes flit momentarily to her legs before looking back to her eyes. She couldn’t be sure, but she thought she caught his cheeks flush; then she realized why. In the rush to get to Ben’s room, she hadn’t even thought to throw on her pants; she was only wearing a tee and panties.
Embarrassed, she crossed her arms across her chest and tried not to blush. As the light from her bedroom caught them both in its glow, Emily could see Simon’s cheeks had turned a deep crimson, and she couldn’t help but notice his overt attempt to keep his eyes fixed firmly above her shoulders. She felt her own cheeks burn even more fiercely.
Exodus Page 5
