by AR Shaw
“We need to come inside. It’s cold. Help us,” one of the men pleaded.
“No, I’ve told you there’s nothing for you here. It’s just me, and I’m not letting you in. Please go away. I’m sure you can find shelter somewhere else.”
It didn’t make sense to her. If they really needed somewhere to stay, why didn’t they hole up in the stable next door? Not that she wanted them to, but that’s what she would have done if she were in the same circumstances.
No, these people were up to no good. She could feel it. The leader’s voice made her skin crawl, and the others pleaded with her as if they were taunting her.
Louna was crying now in the back of the cave, and Ben was with her trying to calm her down. She motioned for them to keep quiet, but it was no use.
Through the slats, she saw one of the men eyeballing the inside. She picked up her mug and threw her water at him.
He growled, shaking the water off his face. “She’s got babies in there.”
Maeve’d had enough. “I said, leave! Leave now, or I’ll shoot.”
“Darlin’, we’ve got all the time in the world. We’re staying right here until you let us inside.”
Noticing that the leader was back and the other two were probably hiding out in the stable next door, she realized they were tag-teaming her, and then she heard one of them banging on the wall behind the woodstove. They were inside the stable now, doing their best to scare her. She had no idea where Bishop was or when he’d be back, and she was afraid that they’d shoot him if he showed up and didn’t know they were there.
“I have nothing for you here,” she tried again. “I have no food for you to take. Go away.”
“Oh, you have something for us, darlin’.”
She shuddered. These guys were the scum who hung out in the lowest parts of town. The ones who were picked up constantly for heroin and other such nefarious activities. Every town had them, even Coeur d’Alene, and in a time of crisis they always came out of the woodwork to take advantage of those who worked for a living.
She was in real danger. They continued to bang on the walls. There was no other exit to escape from, but they could break down the wood partition between the two structures where the woodstove stood. She’d have to shoot them before they could get to her, or they might hurt the children.
“Look, I’m armed. If you keep this up, I’m going to have to shoot. Do you understand?”
They didn’t answer, but they continued to tear at the wall. Dust fell from the ceiling. This was deliberate, and she couldn’t believe they would take advantage of a woman in a desperate situation. “Stop! I mean it. Stop the banging!”
They still didn’t heed her warnings. Then, the wood wall rattled near the woodstove. Vibrating with each slam of a fist, the planks jostled to the other side.
Terrified, she left the doorway to shore up the wall. “I’ve had it!” she snapped when a slate gave way just above her head. A large dirty hand shot through the opening suddenly and grabbed a handful of her hair. She pulled to the other side, but it was too late.
25
Roman sat at his desk in an office that most men would kill for just for the view alone, but Roman didn’t care about the view beyond its necessity. He couldn’t own the view of the lake so blue, like a sapphire serpent that sprawled into the evergreen forest. He paged through his tablet watching weather alerts. The boss wasn’t worried, but he was. This storm looked big, really big, and he’d never seen anything like it in the twenty-three years he’d worked for Mr. Geller. He’d given his life to the Gellers except for the stint he did in the war to serve his country. The senior Geller promised him compensation when he returned, and he kept his word to a point.
Roman despised David. He was a milquetoast master and wasn’t at all what his father once was. Roman knew the late Mr. Geller would have taken the big storm seriously. He knew him well enough to realize this was an exceptional emergency and that the old man would have insisted he ran the disaster preparedness for the whole town himself. Geller should be making disaster preparedness decisions, but he’d left it up to Roman to deal with as if it were any other seasonal storm.
Roman made a few calls. He ordered storm shutters for the windows and told the dockmaster to call all the boat owners and urge them to get their crafts put away immediately. “We’re not responsible for the damage to their boats if they’re destroyed in the storm,” he said to the manager. “I don’t care. Our insurance doesn’t cover it.” Another call came, and he knew it was probably the newspaper. He nodded to the guy on the phone. “That’s right. One call to each owner, then move on. It’s supposed to snow tonight…I don’t care, Jim. It’s their responsibility. All right,” he said and ended the call.
No doubt he’d hear about it when one of the multimillion-dollar boats in the marina sustained damage. He’d point them to their phone records. All that was needed was an attempt to contact, and even then they weren’t responsible, but it was a base he needed to cover.
By the end of the day, Roman had the storm shutters recovered from storage and ordered them to be installed overnight if need be. The guests would complain, but he had to protect Geller’s assets. The next major issue was Geller himself. He shouldn’t be here. Roman had work to do, and Geller was in the way. The last thing he needed was Geller here telling him what to do in a crisis. No, the man had to go, one way or another.
“Sir, the sheriff returned your call. He says they’re busy, but he’ll call back sometime tomorrow,” said his assistant.
“Busy?”
“Yes, sir. He’s on vacation in Rockford on his ranch. He said he’d come back into town next week.”
Roman nodded. “Then get his deputy on the phone. They need to get busy making preparations. I’m sure they don’t even have the sand trucks working or anything. Do I have to do everything in this damn town? Did you get the cruise boats into dry dock?”
“They’re working on it now, sir.”
Roman’s cell phone rang then. It was Geller’s assistant, Austin. “Ah, damn. I don’t have time for him,” he said but flipped the phone on anyway. “Yes?”
“It’s Mr. Geller, sir. He noticed the cruise boats going into dry dock, and he wants to know why?”
Roman blew out a frustrated breath. “Tell him the storm is coming and it’s worse than we thought. Tell him I’ve called for his helicopter to take him to the airport. His plane is waiting. He needs to get back to Arizona where it’s safer before the storm hits. This is an emergency. Tell him because I don’t have time to talk to him right now.”
He ended the call and ran out of the office. There was yelling coming from the lobby of the hotel, and he’d had about enough of people not doing what he’d ordered them to do the first time.
26
They had a hold of his mother’s hair.
Too late she’d realized that when the man grabbed her from the other side of the wall, she’d dropped the rifle she was holding. The rifle landed on the floor in front of her. She screamed when they yanked her against the wood so hard her head slammed into the wall, and dirty hands clawed from the hole the bad men had made in order to break another section free so that they could gain further entry.
“Mom!” Ben yelled and ran partway into the room. His eyes were on the rifle.
“No, stay back!” she yelled, crying out while she reached her arms toward the rifle. Ben tried to run inside to retrieve the rifle but each time he attempted to do so, she waved her right hand at him and screamed, “Please stay back!”
Another piece of the wood broke free, and his mother screamed out as another hand reached around and grabbed her around the neck. She fought them, trying to pull away, but they scratched and tore at her skin. There were three arms through the hole in the wall, and Ben didn’t know what to do.
He had to do something. He looked back at Louna screaming on the bed behind him and something in him snapped. He ran for the rifle as his mother’s eyes widened and she screamed in horror. Time
seemed to have slowed down. He scrambled for the rifle and shook as he lifted the heavy weight of the Ruger Mini 14 rifle with his small arms and pointed the barrel end beside his mother’s head.
In the hole, a man’s face appeared, sneering at him and laughing. He levered the rifle against his slight shoulder. His mother kicked and screamed but couldn’t pull free. She was choking with the effort to free herself.
Ben aimed at the man like he’d seen Bishop do trying to balance the weight of the barrel. His mother’s red hair flew all over struggling—he pulled the trigger.
A blast shuddered behind the wall. Suddenly all the screaming ceased with the loud explosion. Then his ears began to ring loudly. One of the arms dropped down.
Another blast sounded, though Ben wasn’t aiming at all this time. Then another and the sneering man disappeared from view. His mother then fell to the ground. Ben dropped the rifle and skittered over to her side. She clutched her son in her arms. Blood trailed from scratches in her neck, and suddenly he realized he must have shot her. “Did I shoot you?” Horror spread over his face. He was confused. He heard the shots but never felt the blast.
“Hey, you guys all right?”
Ben stood up. “Bishop!”
He’d unlocked the door and quickly come through. “I saw their trail. I came as soon as I could.”
Ben watched as Bishop looked from his mother on the floor to the hole in the wall and dropped to his knees. Bishop picked up his mother easily from the floor and brought her into the cave. “Ben, get some water and a towel.”
He put her down gently on a cot and then picked up Louna, who was hysterical, and brought her over to his mother’s side. She automatically began soothing the girl.
Ben brought the water and towel to Bishop. The big man soaked the rag and wiped his mother’s neck and chest where they’d left gouges in her skin. “You’re going to be all right, Maeve,” Bishop said.
“I couldn’t do it,” she said, looking at him and then at Louna. “They would have killed us all.”
“Yes, they would have, but they didn’t.”
Ben felt guilty he hadn’t been the one to stop the men from hurting his mother after all. The rifle didn’t work. He didn’t know how to use it, and that was something he never wanted to happen again.
He couldn’t use the words. His throat felt thick and dry suddenly. He patted Bishop on the thigh.
“What is it, buddy?”
“I…I want to use the gun. Show me.”
Bishop regarded him for a second.
Ben looked to his mother and then back at Bishop. He needed to help protect them. They’d almost killed her. He’d have to know these things to survive.
“I’ll teach you. Don’t worry.”
27
“Come home, please!”
“I…I am. I feel like I need to stay here and supervise, though.”
“I’m sure Roman has it under control, dear. There’s nothing you can do there that you can’t do from here. He’s only a phone call away.”
Geller’s wife was frantic after she’d heard the news broadcast. Everywhere there was a news blitz about the coming winter storm and unusual weather activity. He watched the television as a scientist tried to explain the Maunder Minimum.
“But if this was such a big deal, why are we just learning about this phenomenon?” the news anchor asked.
The scientist pushed his glasses up the bridge of his nose. “That’s a good question. The science has been around for decades. This phenomenon just wasn’t a popular notion.”
“What do you mean? Are you saying most scientists didn’t believe in the Maunder Minimum?”
“What I’m saying is that since climate change is accepted science the theory of Maunder Minimum just didn’t sell. I mean, we went from global warming to climate change, and the Maunder Minimum was at the other end of the explanation. That the world was not getting warmer but in fact getting colder due to the lack of sun activity was less popular than the notion that man was destroying the earth’s atmosphere.”
“So, though we know this has happened in the past, the theory was disputed in favor of climate change.”
“Well,” the scientist said, “climate change is something that encompasses the Maunder Minimum. The earth heats some years and cools inexplicably during others. We’ve had years without a summer in history as well. The notion that overall the earth is heating instead of cooling is just more popular without muddling society’s take on climate change. We just don’t try to confuse them with things like the Maunder Minimum.”
“This is crazy,” Geller said and switched off the TV. His wife was still talking on the phone, though he had no idea what she was going on about. “I’m coming home, dear. Apparently, I have no choice. The decision was made for me. Roman ordered the helicopter, and the plane is waiting. I’ll be there in a few hours.”
“They said it will snow here too. Here, in November, in Arizona?” his wife said.
“Well, it won’t stick for long. We might as well enjoy it. I’ll see you soon,” Geller said as Roman came through his bedroom door.
“Ready, sir?” Roman asked as Austin picked up Geller’s packed luggage and headed out the door ahead of them.
“Yes, though I wish you’d consulted with me first, Roman.”
“I thought it was important, sir, to make sure you were safe. They may not allow planes to fly in a few hours—that’s what they’re saying at the airport.”
“I’m leaving Austin here. He has family nearby. I want you to look out for him. He’ll use my office to work on my memoirs while I’m gone.”
Roman nodded that he understood.
They walked the short flight of stairs to the roof where the noise became deafening. The helicopter’s engine roared in the high winds; it was suddenly very cold when Roman opened the door. Though the day was beautiful before with the sun shining on the lake, Geller was shocked now to see formidable gray skies looming in the distance.
He looked toward the lake with his hand shading his eyes. The waves were choppy. Geller’s forehead creased. He had never seen such a swing in conditions in one morning. Where he’d sat earlier in the morning, the chairs were turned over and lying on their sides. The table lay at an angle.
“This way, Mr. Geller.” Roman urged him toward the helipad.
He walked against the force of the wind, his shirt rippling against his skin. Geller stopped before getting into the helicopter. He’d suddenly realized how drastic things were. He looked at Roman’s determined face and grabbed his hand. “You’ve got everything under control?”
“I do, sir. You go on. I can handle this.”
Their hands parted, and Geller nodded and then scrambled inside the copter. He knew he was more of a hindrance than a help and trusted that Roman had everything under control. He should get out of the way so the man could do his job.
Roman cleared the helipad and watched briefly as the helicopter lifted and flew west toward the airport. Hopefully Geller would reach his destination, but then again, Roman didn’t give a damn if he did or didn’t.
28
“What’s it like down there?” Maeve asked the man who had saved her life yet again as he applied antibacterial ointment to the many scratches around her neck.
“It’s a mess. The lake is completely frozen over, which is good and bad. We can cross the ice more easily, but I’m pretty sure the nonnative fish are most likely dead since it froze over so fast, and that limits our water sources.”
“Well, we have all this snow we can melt for water,” she said as Bishop slid ointment with his finger over a long scratch. She sucked in a quick breath.
“I’m sorry. I don’t have anything to apply it with, but my hands are clean.”
“That’s OK.”
He continued applying the ointment and talked as he did to distract her from the pain. “It’s true that we have water, but the town’s in danger. I don’t know who’s taken over, but the police are not running things. The
re’s a lot of shooting and bodies in the streets. I have to go back there, Maeve.”
She grabbed his wrist when he said those words she dreaded.
“Please. Please don’t leave us here alone.” She shook her head. “Please don’t,” she begged him. She shuddered at the memory of the men who’d attacked her.
He looked at her elegant hand wrapped around his wrist and placed his hand over hers. “Maeve, I have to go back. In order to keep you and the children alive, I have to get down there and stop whoever has taken over. People are dying down there. We can’t stay here forever. This is only the beginning. The weather is going to get much, much worse than it is now.”
Her eyes widened with fear. “How much worse can it get?”
He pulled away from her and stood. “The temperature will drop further, and it will stay that way for a long time. I doubt we’ll see another summer for a few years, in fact. There will be no crops next year to harvest, nothing to sustain people. They’ll starve to death after they run out of supplies. There’s not enough insulation here. I need to get you and the kids into a safer fortified building.” He turned away from her with his hands on his hips. “It might take me a few days, Maeve.”
“Can’t we come with you? What if…what if you get killed?”
“I won’t. I can’t,” Bishop said and grabbed his coat and went outside. He’d already disposed of the bodies of the three men who had tried to break in. He’d also repaired the hole in the wall from the stable side.
The snow had briefly subsided, so he took advantage of the visibility and went to the cliff’s ledge with his night vision binoculars to get a brief glimpse of the troubled town below. He couldn’t tell much from here, but the fires would tell him that either things were continuing to deteriorate or they’d stabilized.
By the time he made it to the cliff, he’d found that there wasn’t a big difference from the last time he’d checked. Where one house fire was out, another had begun. He could only imagine the pain and turmoil the people were in. Not only did they have to contend with this natural disaster, but some criminal faction had taken advantage of it as well.
