by Lissa Bryan
His confidence seemed odd, and she suspected it was false. He’d been squirreling away every weapon he came across since they left Juneau, trading food and other supplies for them with every person who came to Colby’s gates. And it wasn’t just his military training or his oft-repeated axiom of Lewis to have double the weapons he thought he’d need. He knew it would be a very long time—perhaps not in their lifetime—before guns were manufactured again. It was one of the reasons he encouraged the young men to learn to hunt with bow and arrow—weapons and ammunition that could be reused and crafted by a skilled and patient carver—and the slingshot. Kaden had one that braced on his forearm and was almost as powerful as a .22 caliber handgun.
Justin took the key from under the mat and unlocked the door. Hot, stale air billowed out. Carly stepped inside and waited for her eyes to adjust to the dimness. Sam pushed past her and went to sniff every object with intent interest—he’d be busy with that for hours.
The house had been built within the last twenty years or so. It had an open floor plan, with the living room flowing into the dining room, separated from the kitchen by a tall counter with bar stools along the side. Mrs. Sutton had liked blue. While the carpet and walls were beige, everything else was blue: the sofa, the easy chairs, the lamps, and even the art on the walls.
Justin looked at the long painting over the sofa and grimaced. “I remember one of my foster mothers once saying that buying art to match your decor was the height of bad taste, and I think I see what she meant. What is that thing supposed to be, anyway?”
“A Picasso-style whale?” Carly tilted her head sideways to examine an object in the corner that appeared to be very feminine eye, surrounded by long eyelashes. “I don’t get it.”
“It’s probably supposed to be a commentary on economic neo-colonialism, or something,” Justin said with a grin. “You know how modern art is.”
“Was,” Carly said, her voice soft.
His smile faded. “Yeah.”
They walked into the short hallway beside the kitchen and found two bedrooms across the hall from one another.
“Have a preference?” Justin asked.
Carly shook her head. They were both about the same size. They’d have to put Dagny’s crib in—Carly remembered they didn’t have one anymore. Yet another irreplaceable loss—the crib Justin had built for Dagny before she was born. The pain of it was a physical ache that made her wince, and she was glad Justin was peering into the rooms instead of looking at her. She started to ask him if he would go to the furniture store to get a crib from one of the storage rooms when he opened the next door and pointed his flashlight into the gloom. “Here’s the basement.”
She went into the bedroom to the left as he clomped down the stairs. She opened the closet door. Full of clothes. She’d have to clean it out before she could feel comfortable in here.
“Hey, Carly, come here.”
Turning on her own flashlight, she made her way down the stairs. “What is it?”
“Look!”
“Oh, wow.” The basement was finished. There was a spacious family room area and, as she shone her light around, she saw a bedroom through an open door. “It’s so cool down here.” Almost like it was air conditioned. She could have wept with joy.
Justin grinned and gave her a hug. “Great, huh?”
“Amazing.”
Most of the houses in this area didn’t have basements because of the high water table, and those that did were usually damp. This one must have been well-sealed or at a high enough elevation to avoid problems.
Justin pecked her cheek, and they both went off exploring their new domain.
A king-size bed stood in the middle of the bedroom, flanked by lamps on matching night stands. There were no windows, which normally Carly wouldn’t have cared about, but in light of the fire, she was conscious of the need to have an escape route. She backed out of the bedroom and shined her light around the basement, opening every door until she found what she was hoping for. There were a set of wooden steps leading up to a pair of slanting metal doors that presumably led outside.
Carly went back into the bedroom and opened the one door she hadn’t checked, expecting to find the closet, and saw a large whirlpool tub and a big tile shower with a glass door. She sighed wistfully. She’d always wanted a big tub like that. Now she had one, but didn’t have hot water to fill it. She reminded herself with a wry smile to be more specific about her wishes in the future.
“Shower’s nice,” Justin said from behind her. “Once I get the water hooked up—”
She frowned at the toilet. “Water pressure in the shower will be great, but will we be able to use the toilet? Is the sewer line connected below?”
Justin frowned. “I would think so, or they’d have to have some sort of pump to make the water go up to the pipe. I’ll check it out.”
He led her back out to the family room area. A big screen television sat there, as useless as a glass hammer, as her dad used to say. The furniture that went with it was useless as well. She couldn’t remember the last time she’d had the leisure to lounge on the sofa.
“There’s an exercise room right next to this one. If I clean out all of the equipment, it will make a great bedroom for Dagny.”
“What about Kaden?”
Justin shrugged. “He can camp out in the main room, but knowing how teenagers are about privacy, he’ll probably want one of the bedrooms upstairs.”
Carly gave a little shriek when an arm grabbed her around the waist and pulled her into the dark bedroom.
“We’d better test our room,” Justin murmured, his breath hot against her ear. “Just to make sure it suits us.”
It was a hard, fast test, because they didn’t know how long Kaden would be before he came to the house, but the results were very satisfying. Carly saw stars in the darkness as she came apart in Justin’s arms, and she was still dazed and wobbly while she pulled her clothes back into place.
As it turned out, they could have taken more time in the bedroom downstairs, because it was a long while before Kaden arrived. When he did, it was with Dagny in his arms, having gone to the Stan and Mindy’s house to pick her up before he came home. He still seemed distant, so after he put the baby down, Carly gave Kaden a big hug and a kiss on the cheek.
She didn’t often do that. Except for Dagny, Justin was jealous when Carly showed affection to others, although Justin struggled to hide what he saw as a shameful weakness. Carly knew he couldn’t help it, so she did what she could to avoid triggering it. This situation, though, called for a big hug. Kaden lingered for a moment in her arms, like a child after a thunderstorm. His eyes were moist when he backed away and said something gruffly about the horses, but he looked better. She looked up and saw that Justin had gone outside to where the wagon was parked. She could see him through the window, poking around in the supplies. She suppressed a sigh and followed Kaden out the door.
They began to unload the wagon. Carly unpacked the food herself, organizing it as she liked. Justin’s way of cramming everything in whichever spot it would fit drove her insane. She hummed as she worked, and Justin paused in hauling out the clothing from the closet downstairs to come into the kitchen and kiss her on the cheek. “Alphabetizing things always makes you so cheerful.”
She stuck out her tongue at him and went back to work. He was right—she did feel more cheerful getting things organized. It helped her feel like she was putting a stamp of her own on this house, though she knew it would take a long while before it felt like it was hers.
As predicted, Kaden chose one of the rooms upstairs, sacrificing the coolness of the basement for not having Carly and Justin walk through his room every time they needed to get to the stairs. He didn’t have much to unpack, just the few bits of clothing that had been brought by the townspeople after the fire. Carly wondered if he’d been back to his family’s house at all since the Infection swept through Colby. Were his childhood toys still there? He’d come from Miz Marson’s
house with nothing more than a small duffle bag. As far as she knew, he didn’t have any mementoes of his parents at all. Now, Carly was glad—he would want them someday, and the fire hadn’t taken anything precious from him.
She thought of her Lord of the Rings DVD and her throat tightened. She’d never be able to watch it again, of course, but it had been the last thing she and her father had shared. She’d lost her physical connection to that memory, and it hurt. She had no baby pictures of Dagny. There were no cameras, of course. Film cameras were becoming a rarity before the Crisis, so they couldn’t even revive the art of using a darkroom.
Justin had tried sketching Dagny as a present for Carly’s birthday, but he turned out to be much better at drawing animals than people. The results hadn’t been very good, but it had meant a great deal to her that he tried. And now, the only baby picture they had of their daughter was gone, too.
Carly felt her eyes sting and took a couple of deep breaths to compose herself. She listened for a moment to the sounds of her family. Justin cursing as he dropped something. Kaden bumping into everything in his path as he carried a cardboard box. Dagny jabbering to herself as she sat in her new playpen the townspeople had brought the night before with the other supplies in the living room and played with some pots and lids. She had everything that was important, Carly reminded herself. Everything that was precious and irreplaceable was right here.
With a smile, she headed into the kitchen and opened another box.
The house had an electric stove, and it didn’t it have a chimney. Justin would have to install one once he found a wood-burning stove. He hadn’t mentioned it, but Carly had no idea what they were going to do. Justin had already scoured the countryside and had been fortunate to find the one they had. The smoking ruins of their house had not cooled enough to check, but it was doubtful their stove had survived the fire. It would have been crushed by falling timbers, or warped by the intense heat. Wood burning cook stoves were somewhat of a rarity down here in the Deep South. If they found one, it would be in a museum or rusting away in the back of someone’s shed somewhere.
They ended up cooking supper on the grill on the porch, using charcoal briquettes, but Carly thought they might end up having to go over to Mindy’s house to share cooking, as Pearl was doing. Carly once read that was what people in Victorian England had done. They’d taken their raw food to a cook house if they didn’t have a kitchen in their home. Perhaps they should set up something like that here, a communal place for cooking, like they had done with the laundry.
Carly made some grilled-vegetable shish kebabs and found that cooking on a grill was even trickier than the wood-burning stove. She took off the cover and smoke billowed out. Coughing, she moved the kebabs to the edges, where it was a little cooler. Her family was getting used to scorched meals, she reflected with a grin. She’d never win any medals for Best Chef in the Wasteland, that was for sure.
She was still coughing when they all sat down in the dining room to eat. She wondered if the charcoal smoke had something in it, some kind of irritating chemical. More reason to take their food over to Mindy’s to cook.
Justin patted her back. “You okay?”
“Just fine.” He was such a worrier. Carly kissed his cheek, and when she looked back at the table, she saw Kaden watching them with a smile as he chewed.
As they ate, Justin told them a story about a time he’d once been in Cambodia and had fallen asleep while his dinner was cooking over the campfire, and by the time he woke up, it was charred to the bone. He’d eaten it anyway because he was starving and too tired to hunt something else. Kaden and Carly listened, rapt, because it was so infrequent that Justin mentioned anything about his days in the Unit. He must have noticed their alert stillness, because he stopped, finished the last bite of his dinner, and dropped his plate in the sink. “I’m going down to the Wall.”
Carly frowned. “Is it your night?”
“No, but they can always use an extra pair of eyes.”
Carly took her own plate to the sink. “I think you should stay home tonight. You should spend some time with Dagny.”
As if to punctuate her words, Dagny said, “Dada hug.” She wriggled out of Carly’s arms to a standing position on Carly’s leg, and thrust her arms up in imperious demand to be lifted.
Justin laughed and picked up his daughter. She squealed as Justin kissed her cheek. “Not tonight, Carly. There’s just too much going on.”
Carly took a deep breath. “There will always be something going on, Justin. If it were only me, I’d come with you and we could have some time together while you patrolled, but we can’t take the baby with us past her bedtime. She needs routine. She needs her father.”
Kaden had paused with the last bite of his dinner poised on its fork halfway to his mouth. He dropped it to the plate with a clatter. “Um, I think I’ll … um.” With that, he bolted, leaving his plate behind on the table.
Justin didn’t call him back. “Do you think I’m neglecting her?”
“I wouldn’t use that word. I’d just say you need to spend a little more time with her. She only sees you at breakfast and supper, and that’s on days you’re not scouting or teaching or having meetings.”
Justin’s black eyes flashed. “You’re the one who wanted to live in a community, Carly. This is what it takes to keep it going, to keep it safe, to keep us all fed.”
“Justin, please don’t get angry. I’m not trying to imply—”
“God damn it, Carly, I’m trying—” Dagny let out a little cry and Justin stopped. “I’m sorry.” He pressed a kiss to Dagny’s head and then one on Carly’s cheek. “Tomorrow, okay?”
Carly took a deep breath. “Fi—”
The gunshot made both of them jump. Justin knocked over his glass of water, but neither of them hung around long enough to wipe it up.
“Kaden!” he shouted as Carly scrambled to his side.
“I’m here!” Kaden pounded into the room. “I’ve got Dagny.” He took Dagny from Justin’s arms.
“Thanks!” Justin grabbed Carly’s hand. They paused at the coat closet beside the front door long enough for Justin to grab two rifles. He handed one to Carly as they ran from the house, Sam loping beside them, toward the source of the sound. She reached down to touch the .45 on her hip and then the extra ammo clip beside it, and she saw Justin doing the same, checking the two handguns he wore.
Just as they reached the town commons, there was a second shot. The report echoed off the buildings around the square, but it had come from outside town. Running past the gaping townspeople, they raced through the open gate. Others were running too, heading to their emergency stations. Carly hoped Justin noticed, because he’d surely be proud of them.
Justin veered their course as soon as they crossed the land bridge, leading them off the highway and through the narrow spit of soggy land to Carly’s hay field. They stayed close to the edge of it, following the small ridge along the border until they reached the slight incline leading to the oat field.
There—standing near the center of the stalks—was Jason, his rifle held in one hand as he stared down at something Carly couldn’t see.
“Shit,” Justin muttered, increasing his speed. Carly couldn’t keep up with him. She watched from a few paces behind as he dropped to his knees near Jason, disappearing into the oat stalks.
Huffing for air, she arrived at his side to see him rip open the shirt of a man lying on his back on the ground. In the center of the man’s chest was a single hole, streaming blood. Justin tilted the man’s head back, pointing his chin to the sky. Carly looked over to the other man lying on the ground, but Justin told her not to bother.
“He’s dead. Help me with this one.”
Carly started to protest because the other man’s feet were still moving, but then saw that the side of his head was missing. With a pang of regret, she turned away. Even if he was still alive, there was nothing they could do. They had to try to save who they could.
&nbs
p; Carly knelt. “What happened?”
“Sucking chest wound. Pressure here.” Justin’s voice was short and clipped. He took Carly’s hand and pressed it over the wound. The man’s chest rose and fell beneath her hands as he choked for air. Blood seeped from between her fingers. “Don’t move your hand. Press firmly and try to form an airtight seal.” Justin glanced up at Sam and said, “Sam, Mindy.” With a soft huff, Sam darted away, parting the oats in his path like a boat through a lake.
The man was filthy and he stank. In her old life, Carly might have called him a bum, because he had the unkempt hair and beard of a homeless person and his clothes were so filthy she couldn’t tell what color they had originally been. His skin was gray with grime, too, and it stretched taut over his bones, so thin she could count every one of his ribs.
“What happened?” Carly asked again, peering up at Jason.
“Goddamn retards attacked me.” Jason glanced at the rifle in his hand and slung it over his back by its strap.
Justin rolled the man onto his side to look at his back and swore. He slipped his fingers into the rent in the fabric and ripped, pressing his palms over the wound. “If he starts having trouble breathing, move your hand just a bit to let air out.”
Carly nodded.
“I had no choice.” Jason shuffled on his feet.
Justin took one hand from the man’s back and felt for a pulse, leaving a smear of bright red blood. “Fuck. We’re losing him. Carly, are you keeping pressure on that?”
“Y-yes.” Carly swallowed.
She looked up at the sound of pounding feet to see Mindy and Stacy running full tilt toward them. Stacy had the large toolbox that she used as a medical kit in one hand and a lantern in the other. Carly realized with some surprise that the sun was setting and the light was beginning to fade.
“Status?” Stacy asked as she flung herself to her knees beside them and placed a hand to the man’s neck.
“GSW, hemopneumothorax. Get me a needle with a flutter valve.”
Stacy began to dig in her tool kit. “Justin, he’s—”
