Inquisition

by Marcy G. Dyer

  Pain squeezed Josh's heart. He'd never seen Randi so vulnerable. "No, He doesn't have a breaking point." He pulled her into his arms and kissed the top of her head. "It's hard to understand how He could continue to love us when we do horrible things, but He does, and He continues to forgive us."

  "I still don't get why He allowed all of this to happen."

  "Me, neither, but then we aren't God. He gives us free will and look what we do with it."

  "Not you. You're good. You and Ethan are the best men I've ever met. There's nothing evil about either of you." She swiped at her eyes. "I'm lucky to have you both as friends, but the thought of losing either of you is killing me."

  "Loss is part of life. You told me a little about your fiancé. He was a Christian, right?"

  She nodded.

  "Then you know he's in heaven. If Ethan doesn't survive his wounds, he'll be in heaven. If something happens to me, I'll be there."

  "But then I'll be left all alone."

  "You are never alone. The Bible tells us that God will never leave us nor will He forsake us. You're not alone, babe. Ever."

  She pushed out of his arms. "I wish I had the faith that you and Ethan do."

  Josh studied for a moment. He was almost afraid to ask her the glaring question.

  "Yes, I've accepted Christ as my Savior. Ethan's helping me work through so many issues." She gave a soft chuckle. "He started with my anger toward God." She shrugged. "He helped me see that I never really forgave Dad. I said I did, but not in my heart. I let my hurt and anger at my father spill over to prevent a relationship with God."

  "What about now?"

  "I'll forgive him for a while, then the old anger creeps back in."

  "And you have to forgive him again, and again. That's called being human."

  Her eyes went wide. "You, too?"

  "Of course."

  "Wow. Ethan told me some of his life and things he had to forgive. He said he still brings the old hurts out once in a while, but God always points it out to him, and he has to forgive again." Another shrug. "I don't get how God points anything out. I'm still struggling with the fact that He's involved in our lives and not just some distant God. It's still hard for me to accept He cares when we're going through tragedy after tragedy."

  "All of us struggle with that at times." Josh closed his eyes for a few seconds. "All of us. Especially when we're in the midst of something as horrific as this."

  She raised up on her tiptoes and kissed him on the cheek. "Thank you. I don't think I've ever told you how important you are to me. You know how to bring me down from my manic panic better than anyone."

  Nia walked in and broke up their conversation. "Hey guys. I'm hungry, and I know the children are, too. Should we try to scrounge up something for everyone to eat?"

  "I loaded the fridge in the RV with eggs, sausage, venison, and we have jerky stashed everywhere. Not to mention, we have a ton of those MREs."

  "Ugh, we're still going to ration food." Josh stretched a kink out of his shoulder. "We have more people, now so what food we have needs to stretch even further."

  Randi rubbed her neck. "Yeah, Mark and I brought back some survivors. Not to mention the kiddos you said Bryan brought back."

  Nia's eyes went wide. "More children? How are we going to do this? It's hard enough to think about traveling to the coast with our core group, but..." She dipped her head and closed her eyes.

  "We'll figure it out." Randi bumped her shoulder. "They may not all want to go with us, anyway. If they want to stay, we'll help them build a fence around the cabins, leave them with supplies, and head out without them."

  "Girl, we cannot leave children here to fend for themselves. Have you lost your ever-lovin' mind?"

  "No, but the adults may want to stay. If they do, the kids can stay with them."

  Nia crossed her arms. "We'll see. I'm not leaving a bunch of vulnerable children in the hands of one or two adults. Nuh-uh. No, way."

  Randi hugged her friend. "No one expects you to. If there are only a couple of adults staying, we'll take the kiddos with us. Fair enough?"

  "Yes. I'm sorry, girl, but I can't leave here with a bunch of children left behind. I'd worry night and day that the infecteds or some other opportunist group got to them. You know that Vixen chick and her crew's not the only opportunists around."

  Chapter 29

  Adriana's screams split the air. Reginald grabbed for the infected holding her down. Two shots rang out, but the guy didn't fall. Was it Cooper shooting or was someone attacking them?

  Reginald grabbed the guy's shirt and yanked him backwards. He fell over onto his back, and Adriana scrambled up. The man had gunshot wounds to the abdomen. Adriana placed another shot to his head, and doubled over holding her stomach. "Did he bite you?"

  She groaned, but didn't answer. Reginald shook her. "Answer me. Did he bite you?"

  "No." After a long few seconds, she pulled herself upright. "I'll never get used to killing people."

  Cooper wrapped his arms around her. "I'd worry about you if you did." He gave her another squeeze then let go of her. "You're one of the strongest women I've ever met."

  She laughed. "No, that would be Randi."

  "True, she's strong, but it's because she stuffs her emotions down until she's almost robotic at times. You're just a woman who does what she needs, and then collapses."

  "Cooper, you know good and well that I've had some rough times of not dealing with life. Randi's the one who got the brunt of it."

  "I know, and for a while, I wasn't too sure about you, but when the times are tough, you've stepped up."

  She hung her head. "Not when Josh needed it."

  Cooper frowned. "What are you talking about?"

  "Never mind. We need to round up supplies. Let's get started." She turned and walked back toward the pop-up trailer.

  Reginald followed her into the camper and opened all of the doors. They were stuffed full of food. He yanked opened the fridge. Water bottles stacked top to bottom.

  "We hit the jackpot." Cooper handed each of them a large duffel bag. "I found these in the tents. They probably stored the tents in them, but they'll hold a ton of stuff."

  He yanked cushions off the table and lifted the seats. Reginald shrugged. He had no clue these campers had storage under the seats. Randi probably had all kinds of stuff stuck in the RV. The woman had almost emptied the house of MREs and bottled water. Not to mention a lot of his equipment. They stepped over stuff in the camper. He grabbed canned goods and dropped them in the duffel bag. He and Adriana dropped the last can into the duffle back. The door slammed open.

  "What do you think you're doing?"

  Adriana spun around with her gun held in front of her. Reginald watched her out of the corner of his eye. She kept her finger off the trigger. Good girl. They didn't need any accidental shootings. "We don't want any trouble."

  "You should've thought of that before you ransacked our place." A young hipster stared at him. He pointed outside. "And you killed Dave. Why did you have to kill Dave? We had him locked up in the tent where he couldn't hurt anyone."

  "He attacked me." Adriana lowered her weapon, but kept her hand on it. "I'm sorry. I didn't have a choice."

  "Who told you that you could open the tent? We've been living here peacefully for weeks, until you came along."

  "Not too peacefully." Cooper jerked his head toward the door. "You've had infecteds come through here, and they got your friend."

  The young man pulled his glasses off and rubbed his eyes. "Look, we need the food to survive. There are only two of us, and we're unarmed, so we can't force you to leave, but I'm begging you not to leave us without food or water."

  Adriana looked at Reginald, and he gave her a slight nod. "Tell you what, why don't we take you and the food and water back with us. We have a large group. There's safety in numbers."

  "That is, if you aren't infected." Cooper crossed his arms. "You'll have to be checked for bites or scratches. We refuse
to take any chances on bringing the infection into our group."

  "Let us talk about it?" The man motioned for them to leave.

  Reginald dropped the bag on the floor, and led the other two outside.

  "Do you think this is a good idea?" Cooper rubbed his hands together. Probably trying to keep warm since the temperature had dipped.

  After a few minutes, the hipster and his girl, a lanky blond walked outside. "We've come to a decision. "He took a deep breath. "If you turn out to be some kind of wacked out group, I'm going to regret this, but we'll go with you. We're tired of trying to survive on our own. To be honest, the only reason Dave was still suffering from this illness was, we don't have any weapons. She's never been too big on guns."

  "I always voted for the anti-gun platform." The girl shrugged. "They've always scared me."

  "I get that." Adriana holstered her gun. "I used to think they should all be melted down into scrap iron, and now I'm shooting like Annie Oakley. It's hard to reconcile with my values, but we have to survive. You'll both have to learn how to handle guns and how to protect yourselves."

  "I'm Desiree and this is my boyfriend, Atticus."

  "Is your last name Finch, Atticus?" Reginald couldn't resist asking. He doubted the kid would have a clue who he was referencing.

  The boy's eyes lit up. "No, but he's one of my heroes."

  "Who's Atticus Finch?" Cooper asked.

  Reginald and Atticus laughed. Reginald looked at Cooper. "Next time we're out scavenging near a bookstore, I'm going to find you a copy of, To Kill a Mockingbird, then you'll understand who Atticus Finch is."

  "Okay." Cooper frowned. "I'm Cooper. This hyena is Reginald, and the woman is our fearless Adriana."

  "Fearless?" Adriana shook her head. "He has me confused with my sister. I live most of my life in abject terror since this plague hit. I know you two don't like guns, but do you know how to shoot?"

  Atticus nodded, but Desiree shook her head. "I've never held a gun."

  "Then you stick with Atticus." She pitched her long gun to the man. "We need to find as much food and water as we can. Somehow, our little ragtag group keeps growing, and we don't have enough supplies to last more than a day with as many people as we have."

  They headed back toward the van. Shots pierced through the air. Reginald jerked around. Cooper walked toward a buck laying on the ground. "Sorry about that, guys. If I had said anything, he might've taken off. I know we can't make sausage, but we could at least have some meat tonight."

  Adriana smiled. "Randi told me the day would come when I would be very thankful to have venison. I told her she was crazy, but guess what? That looks like steak on the hoof."

  Desiree blanched. "Guess there's no way to stay a vegetarian in the apocalypse is there?"

  Atticus put his arm around her. "We have to stay alive. I told you earlier, that means eating whatever we can find."

  "I know, but canned meat is bad enough. Eating fresh...." She shuddered. "I don't know."

  "We'll see what we have at the camp. Maybe I can find you something else." Adriana smiled. "But sooner or later, you'll have to get used to eating whatever."

  "Do we have any rope? I need to field dress the deer so it won't spoil on the way back to the cabin."

  Adriana opened the underneath storage on the van and found a rope. She tossed it to Cooper. "Hey, Reginald, check this out. We found all of the supplies from the Boy Scout camp."

  The belly of the small bus was filled with canned goods and water.

  Atticus's eyes went wide. "Uh...you stole this from children?"

  "No." Reginald waved his hands. "They'd been attacked. We went through the group, but there were no survivors. There is no way we would've left young boys alone." He swallowed at the memories of the children. "I lost my boy to an infected. You have no reason to trust us, but I promise you there is no way I'd hurt a kid. If there had been any survivors, we'd have taken them back with us."

  Josh walked into the sick room. Randi sat on Ethan's bedside talking to him in hushed tones. They hadn't looked up. Maybe he could get out before they saw him. He grabbed the doorknob and twisted, but Randi looked at him.

  "Hi, Josh." Randi smiled. "You're looking a little more rested."

  "Yeah." He stretched his aching hip. "I'm feeling much better. How are you, Ethan?"

  "Oh man, I think I'll live." He grinned. Ethan was sitting up leaning against the headboard. "Randi was telling me about the plan to head for the coast."

  Josh nodded. "What do you think?"

  Ethan put his chin in the crook of his thumb and forefinger and thought for a moment. "It's a good plan, except I don't know how we can get all of these people there safely." He motioned to Gabriele's bed. Xever had helped her into the kitchen for a while, so it was empty. "You've got a woman missing a leg. She doesn't even have crutches." He frowned. "Not to mention all of the children in our crew."

  Josh leaned against the wall and crossed his arms. "I know. To be honest, I can't figure out a safe way to make it happen. The thought of traveling with this many people overwhelms me."

  "Maybe we should have a meeting with everyone. I doubt all of these people want to go with us."

  "Can we leave them here without worrying about them?" Randi kicked off her shoes, and pulled her legs up until she sat cross-legged. "They'll be vulnerable."

  "We have fencing supplies." Ethan flicked a bug off the bedspread. "Why don't we build a fence around several of the cabins? It won't be as safe as a compound, but we're back here a ways, Bryan took care of Vixen, and if we leave enough weapons and food, they should be fine."

  "How do we decide who goes and stays?" Randi asked.

  "Let them choose." Josh pointed to Ethan. "He's got a great idea. We secure the group that stays here as best we can, leave them the tools to protect themselves, and provide them with food and water."

  "The Frio is close. If they run out of water, they can always get more." Randi furrowed her brows. "In fact, it would be better if we took the water, and left them with the purification tablets. Not to mention, they can easily boil the water on an open fire here. I think we find some large jugs for them, and let them schlep water back and forth from the river. We'll take the bottled water because who knows what we'll find."

  "She's right." Ethan patted her knee. "You know they'll be safe with the water from the Frio. It's swift moving. Mark can probably teach them to build filters."

  "Knowing him, yeah." Josh grinned. "Let me go find him and talk to him about that."

  He walked into the living room. Mark and Nia sat at a table playing cards. "Hey guys. Mark, do you know how to build a water filtration unit out of random supplies?"

  "Not really. I can probably figure it out, but we have plenty of water and tablets for now. That might give me time to find a book on it."

  Josh suppressed a sigh. That idea just flew out the window. They would have to divide the water and filtration tablets according to the number of people who stayed and those who left. "Sounds good."

  "What's going on?" Mark asked.

  "Yeah?" Nia gave him a playful punch. "What's up? Your mind's a million miles away."

  "We need to have a family meeting. Everyone from both houses needs to join us. Would y'all mind rounding them up? Be sure to include the children."

  Nia paled. "What's wrong?"

  "Nothing. I promise. It's so we can make plans for the future."

  She pushed her chair back. "Come on, Mark. Let's get to it." She turned to Josh. "We'll get everyone to join us out in front of the cabin since we don't all fit inside."

  "Good deal. Thanks." Josh walked back to the bedroom. "Mark and Nia are rounding everyone up so we can have a meeting outside and see who wants to go and who wants to stay."

  "Guess I'd better head outside." Ethan threw the covers back and swung his legs off the bed. "I'm still a little slow, but I'm making progress."

  The man was nuts. He hadn't been recovering very long and already trying to walk. "Uh, shouldn'
t you keep resting?"

  He shook his head. "Gabriele wanted me up and walking as soon as possible to prevent blood clots."

  "But you lost so much blood, I know you're weak."

  "Yeah, I am, but she said it was either walk and move about or risk having a clot go to my lungs. I survived a gunshot, no way do I want a clot to take me out because I was afraid to push myself."

  Made sense, but he had to be tough. Nice, tough, just an all-around good guy. No wonder Randi liked him so much. Josh grimaced and followed Ethan and Randi out of the door. He motioned to a lawn chair next to the front door. "Ethan, why don't you sit?"

  The last few stragglers wandered up, and Josh introduced himself. "We are planning to leave here in a few days." He motioned to Ethan. "As soon as Ethan is strong enough to travel. The journey we're taking is long, and may be arduous."

  He waited until the murmuring in the crowd died down. "We're going to the coast, to board a boat and head to the Boston area." He paused for a beat. "Uncle Reginald is a biomedical engineer, and he has some experience with the virus. We are going to try and reach USMARID, The United States Army Medical Research Institute of Infectious Diseases.

  "Our prayer is they are working on finding a cure this plague. Now, I realize some of you may not want to make the trip with us. I'm asking you to go back to your cabins, discuss this, and come back to let us know. We need an accurate head count of who's staying and who's going so we can make sure those staying here have plenty of supplies."

  "We also want to build a fence around any of the cabins that will be used to help protect those of you staying." Randi pointed to herself. "If you have questions, please come see me, Josh, or Ethan. Thank you."

  The three walked back inside and all took a seat at the dining table. Gabriele was sitting there already. She'd opted not to hop out to the meeting. "How did it go?"

  "Okay. We sent them away to make a decision." Randi pulled a chair out for Ethan and helped him into it. "I don't feel like we can tell any of them they can't come with us, but having that many people will make things quite difficult."