by Hunt, James
“Ben!” Liz shouted, her voice echoing across the river. “Are you all right?”
“We’re fine!” Ben’s voice echoed and sounded distant. “You?”
“We’re good!” Liz couldn’t conceal her happiness.
Liz set Tommy down, and the pair waited as Ben and Connor crossed the river. The current was strong, and Liz remained tense as Ben swam, finally relaxing when Ben could stand again.
The current took them farther south, and Liz and Tommy ran toward them. Liz scooped Connor up first, squeezing his wet body tight against her own.
“Oh thank God.” Liz held Connor close, then kissed his cheek. Connor reciprocated the squeeze as Ben scooped Tommy up in his arms.
“You made it!” Tommy said, lifting his arms triumphantly in the air.
“Yeah, buddy, we did,” Ben said, then kissed Tommy’s cheek.
Each of them holding their sons, Liz and Ben locked eyes. No words needed to be said as they walked to one another and embraced.
The four of them held onto one another, and Liz was thankful her family was intact. She understood the road ahead would be difficult, but she also knew there was nothing that they couldn’t face together.
Once they separated, the four walked down the river bank and rejoined Nancy and Margaret, though Margaret still lay on her side with her back toward everyone, shunning people like a child who hadn’t gotten their way.
“I’m glad you made it, Mr. Riker,” Nancy said.
Ben nodded. “You too.” And then once he realized Harry wasn’t with them, “I’m sorry about your father.”
Nancy lowered her head and then wiped her eyes. “Thank you.” She turned back and briefly looked at her mother and then faced them again. “So, what do we do now?”
Ben took a breath, and Liz knew their moment of relief was over. They were still fighting for their lives now, and every second counted. Still, Liz was glad she had her family back. At least most of them.
“We stick to the plan,” Ben said. “We were going to head to the fire training facility, so that’s where we’ll go.” Ben turned around and studied the other side of the bank. “I’ll go back over eventually to see if there is anything we can salvage, but I doubt we’ll find anything useful.”
“Is it all right if we come?” Nancy asked.
The innocence and uncertainty in Nancy’s voice caused Liz to reach for the girl’s hand. “Of course, you can come with us.” She knew how Ben felt about taking care of other people, but Nancy had proven herself to be useful. And when she turned to Ben, he offered no objections. At least not verbally.
“Thank you,” Nancy said.
“It’s at least another three hours until we get to the training facility,” Ben said, adjusting his shirt and revealing the pistol tucked into his waist. “Let’s take five to regroup, and then we’ll get started.”
Nancy nodded and then walked over to her mother, who Ben noticed for the first time.
“What’s wrong with Margaret?” Ben asked.
Liz explained the situation, and Ben’s expression softened when he looked back at Nancy.
“Poor girl,” Ben said.
“Will the fire academy have enough supplies for us?” Liz asked, turning her attention back to their current predicament.
Ben was quiet for a moment and the fact that he didn’t immediately answer made her nervous. “It should be enough for a while.”
“And what about Sarah?” Liz asked. “We’re already past the time we should have been to leave to meet her—”
“Liz,” Ben said, gently touching her arms. “Let’s take this one moment at a time, all right?”
Liz nodded, realizing they had more pressing needs at the moment. “Sorry.”
“Let’s both just take a few minutes to reset,” Ben said, sounding more exhausted than she had ever heard him before. “I know I need it.”
The pair found a shady spot and sat down with their two boys nestled on either side of them and glanced out across the river to the charred remains of the forest. It was hard to imagine that their home was gone, but Liz was thankful her family was alive and well.
SLEEP HAD ELUDED Margaret Simmons most of the night. The few times she did fall asleep quickly ended with a nightmare. It was the same nightmare each time, with Harry pinning her down, the blood from his wound dripping onto her bare stomach as he screamed and caught fire.
In the nightmare, Margaret would scream, but when she woke, the terror remained trapped in her throat. She would then lie back down and stare at the fires still burning across the river until exhaustion gripped her again and dragged her back into sleep to restart the cycle.
When morning finally came, Margaret didn’t move, pretending to be asleep. She didn’t want to move. She didn’t want to talk. All she wanted to do was lay there and be still. Granted her wish, she was forced to be with her thoughts.
It was a never-ending battle of fending off the guilt for leaving her husband and daughter when both needed her most. Margaret knew the act was cowardice, but what did they expect? What they were experiencing, what they were going through, it was beyond her capacity to deal with.
Harry had known that when they married. She could have had anyone, but Harry was the heir to a bank fortune, and Margaret was a beautiful woman who wanted a comfortable life. Both got what they wanted from the relationship, and it lasted for a long time.
But Margaret’s commitment to her marriage ebbed and flowed with their financial stability. And once that was taken away, Margaret left.
Deep down, Margaret knew she should be ashamed of herself, and while there was some guilt associated with what she had done, she felt no shame. It was far too easy for her to have walked away from her family in such dire circumstances.
What kind of mother would do that? What kind of wife? Had she always been this wicked? Cruel? Cowardly? Did she ever love Harry or her daughter?
Surely if Margaret did love Harry and Nancy, then she would have found a way to help them back at the Riker house. Right?
The answers eluded Margaret, and the more the questions piled up, the harder it was to drown them out. The voice in Margaret’s head grew so loud that she started to shake and mumbled to herself.
“Mom!”
Margaret opened her eyes and saw Nancy staring down at her. She immediately recoiled, and it caused Nancy to jump back. Like an animal that had been disturbed in its den by an intruder, Margaret remained defensive while Nancy looked at her with bewilderment.
“What is wrong with you?” Nancy asked, the disgust in her tone prominent.
Margaret looked behind her and saw Ben Riker and his oldest son had made it across the river. They had somehow survived the fires that had taken her husband. She stared at them the way she might stare at a ghost.
Their presence sparked a thought that Harry was somehow still alive, and he would appear out of nowhere, burnt and charred, but still alive. Margaret quickly stood, feeling everyone’s stares, which compounded her guilt. It was like she could hear all of the nasty things they were saying about her in their minds.
“All of you think you’re better than me?” Margaret asked, growing angrier. “You’re not!” She lurched forward, spitting as she pointed an accusing finger at each of them in turn. “You don’t know me, none of you!” She turned and marched away before any of them could reply.
Margaret stomped through the woods, her head down, muttering angry words to herself. She didn’t know where she was going, only that she needed to get away from people. People couldn’t help her, at least not those people.
She would be fine on her own. She would be able to take care of herself. There were surely other people she could find.
The gun in her waistband slipped out, landing precariously between her feet, the barrel pointed at her, which froze her in her tracks.
It had been Harry’s pistol, the one he had used to threaten Lester Percy. Margaret had picked it up before they had carried Harry to the Riker’s house.
&
nbsp; For a very brief moment, Margaret thought the gun would shoot her, the trigger pulled by the ghost of her husband to send her into the depths of hell where she would burn like the man she had left behind.
But the gun remained between her feet, harmless without a hand to use it.
Margaret bent forward and picked the pistol from the grass, dirt, and leaves with both hands. She had never used it before. Harry had bought it because it was one of those things that men thought they were supposed to have but didn’t understand why.
Harry himself probably only used it twice. Other than that, it stayed in the safe back in their house. It had been years since Harry had taken it out until yesterday.
“Fool,” Margaret said, staring down at the weapon. “Stupid fool.”
Margaret gripped the weapon hard with both hands, squeezing it so tight she thought she might be able to snap the metal in half, but she was unable. She wasn’t able to do many things. In fact, she knew she was useless. She had been married as a trophy wife with no discernable skills save looking pretty. And she was years past her prime, lost in a world where she didn’t even think something like that mattered anymore. She couldn’t survive on her own.
Just before Margaret was about to put the weapon back in her waistband and turn around to head back to the Riker’s and her daughter, she heard voices ahead in the woods.
At first, Margaret stepped back in fear, but as the voices grew louder and more familiar, she stepped closer to investigate.
Margaret walked through the trees, keeping near the riverbank, and she eventually stumbled upon the Percys.
The sight of them, all of them alive, boiled Margaret’s blood.
It was their fault Margaret was in this current position. They were the ones responsible for Harry’s death. It had been Lester Percy who had shot her husband. The man had taken everything from her. And as she tightened her grip on the pistol in her hand, she decided she would take everything from him in return.
18
J ane Percy kept hold of her son as Gray fought to stay alive. He was still damp from crossing the river the night before, but Lester had constructed a small fire, an irony that wasn’t lost on her, to help warm him, and everyone else up.
Gray’s heartbeat was steady but weak, and his breathing was shallow. But the boy was a fighter, and Jane knew her son wouldn’t give up so long as there was a single breath left in him.
Jane kissed the top of his head, rocking him slowly in her arms the way she did when he was a boy. She used to sing to him, once upon a time, but it had been years since she had stretched her vocal cords. And she wasn’t in the mood to sing right now.
The truth was she hadn’t been in the mood to sing for years. She had enjoyed it as a girl through her high school years.
Lester never admitted it, but she knew he always liked her voice. It was how they had met so many years ago. She had been singing in the woods, and he had followed her like the call of a siren. At least that’s what he used to say.
But Jane never sang to attract attention. She sang because of how it made her feel. She knew she had anger issues. All of it stemmed from her childhood and the bastard father who used to beat her and her mother. She supposed her father’s violence was the source of her own and the reason why she had always attracted dangerous men.
Jane always thought she had a good voice. It wasn’t anything that would make it big on the radio, but she had some talent.
It had been a long time since Jane had thought of singing, of music, of her childhood. But she supposed that when your world was crumbling to the ground, people tended to think about all of the things they used to have. It probably distracted her from the fact that her home was gone.
Gray groaned, and Jane stiffened. It was the first noise her son had made, and when he started to move, Jane kept him still.
“Whoa, Gray, take it easy,” Jane said, keeping her voice calm.
But the more Gray slowly came out of his stupor, the more he moved. He reached for the bandage on his neck, where Ben Riker had stitched him up. “What’s happening?”
Jane knocked his hand away, preventing Gray from opening up the wound and causing more damage. “It’s okay. You’re safe.”
Gray eventually calmed down, and his breathing slowed to a normal rhythm.
Lester and Donny returned shortly, weapons in hand, but when Lester saw his son awake, he propped the rifle up against a nearby tree and dropped to a knee next to Gray.
“Hey, son,” Lester said, taking Gray’s hand. His voice caught in his throat, and his eyes watered slightly from the emotional moment. “You missed a hell of a lot last night.”
Gray cracked a quick smile and then swallowed before he spoke. “What happened?”
Jane caught her son up to speed, explaining the fire and what happened at the Riker household. But of all the details that Gray had latched onto, the only one he followed up on was the incident at the grocery store.
“What happened to Larry?” Gray asked.
Lester’s face hardened, reverting to his default anger position.
“He’s dead,” Jane answered.
Gray simply nodded, though she could tell the news troubled him.
Jane carefully laid down Gray and then kissed his forehead. “Rest. You’ll need your strength for later.”
Gray didn’t resist, and he shut his eyes. Watching him sleep reminded Jane of the way he looked when he was a boy. But she had spent enough time strolling down memory lane. There were other things they needed to worry about.
“What did you find?” Jane asked, turning to her husband.
Lester’s expression didn’t offer very much hope in the way of good news, but Jane waited to hear it from him first hand.
“We walked at least two miles up the river,” Lester said. “Everything’s burned. The whole mountains side. We saw the smoldering remains of the city, and what was left of Bear Ridge. I’m sure the house is gone too. There isn’t anything left, Jane.”
Jane bit her lower lip, and then chewed the inside of her cheek. “So anything that is left probably won’t be useable.”
“I saw game tracks heading farther west,” Lester said. “We can hunt for food, at least until we run out of ammunition. But until we have a concrete destination, then I think we should stick close to the river.”
Jane knew Gray needed shelter and probably medicine. They wouldn’t find either of those along the river. “What about the facility Ben was talking about? I might have been eavesdropping on him.”
Lester scoffed. “You really think they’re going to let us in after what happened back at the house?”
“I’m not talking about asking for permission,” Jane answered.
Lester smiled, revealing his teeth in a wolf-like grin. It appeared whenever he like done of Jane’s ideas. “So we take it from them.”
“If we have to,” Jane said, not wanting to jump the gun too early. “We both know Ben Riker isn’t a pushover. But he might be vulnerable right now. If all of our stuff is burned, then so is his.” Jane glanced out to the river. “Everyone is starting over now. Which means we’ll need to act fast if we want to be able to take advantage of the situation before everything goes to complete shit and we’re left looking for scraps.”
Jane turned to Lester. “This is our chance. It’s going to be like the wild west again. The whole countryside is up for grabs.”
Lester wasn’t a smart man, but he had his wits about him, and Jane saw the wheels turning in his head. “We’re going to need more people if we’re going to take back the land.”
Jane tilted her head to the side, intrigued by her husband’s sudden ambition. “And how would we go about that?”
“My father used to tell me stories about our ancestors who came here and took these mountains from the Indians who lived here,” Lester said. “They found another warring tribe to help drive the Indians out and forged an alliance.”
“And what happened when the enemy was pushed out?” Jane asked. “
I don’t remember any Indians sticking around here. Not from any tribe.”
“During all the fighting my great-great-great-great-great granddaddy made sure to rally more people to his cause,” Lester said. “More people of his color and background. And because the Indian tribes were so busy with the war, they didn’t realize they were slowly being outnumbered as the war raged on. And when it was all said and done, and the common enemy was turned out, my ancestors wiped out the only remaining threat and claimed this land as their own.”
Lester stomped his foot on the ground, the earth hard and unforgiving against the heel of his boot.
“My family thrived for centuries out here,” Lester said. “They had wealth, influence. They were important people. But they let it all slip through their fingers. They grew soft.”
Lester lifted his head and looked at Jane in a way that made her feel like she was vulnerable. It was rare for anyone to make her feel like that and even rarer for her to allow it. But of all the men who chased her, it was Lester who she chose. And it was times like this that reminded her why.
“The people running guns,” Lester said. “They could be a common enemy for the Rikers and us.”
Jane arched her eyebrows in surprise. “The people we had a deal with. You want to break that? You do remember who they work for, right?”
“I don’t think it matters who anyone works for these days,” Lester said.
Jane chewed the inside of her cheek. “We’ll think about it.”
Lester hesitated, and Jane sensed he wanted to say more.
“Spit it out,” Jane said.
“If we need the numbers, we could always reach out to your sister—"
“No!” Jane shouted, slicing her hand through the air with a force that caused Lester and Donny to step back. “You don’t know them, Lester. Not like I do.”
Lester hesitated a moment and then stepped closer. He moved within a breath’s distance, staring down at his wife with an intensity he usually reserved for strangers and people he didn’t like. “They’re your family, Jane. They’ll help us if we ask.”
