by Tara Ellis
Another eerie strobe of orange and then blue punctuated his words, and Ethan wished they’d change the subject. It would be great if they could pretend that things were normal. Just for a little while.
Anna stood back up then and slapped at her thighs. “Come on, Danny.”
Danny looked surprised, and didn’t move from where she was on the stump, next to Tom. “Where are we going?”
Anna waved a hand in the general direction of the bunkhouse. “While I’m sure these men find the bunkhouse to be more than adequate, it’s no place for a lady. My daughter is gone with a hunting party so you’re more than welcome to her room.”
Ethan was confused by Danny’s reaction, as she sat there looking back and forth between their host, Sam, and Tom. If he’d been the one offered a private room with a big bed, he would have already been halfway across the yard.
The older woman, on the other hand, took it all in stride. “Don’t worry about your friends, we’ll be seeing them bright and early. Come on,” she took Danny by the hand and pulled her to her feet. “The invitation also includes a cup of tea and a good, womanly conversation.”
Danny finally smiled and laughed lightly. “Okay, Anna. How can I pass that up?” Breaking away from the other woman, Danny walked over and knelt down in front of Sam. “You doing all right?” When he nodded, she gave Sam a quick hug. “Be sure to take your last dose of antibiotics before you go to bed.”
Sam gave her a mock salute in response, and she batted his hand away playfully. “Be sure he takes it.” She added to Ethan while reaching out to give his arm a squeeze. He understood then why she was hesitant to go. They’d relied upon each other so much over the past ten days that it didn’t feel right when they were separated. It was the worst part about being at the FEMA camp.
Ethan watched as Danny waved goodnight to Jesper and then hesitated in front of his dad. He wouldn’t have thought anything of it, except for the way Tom looked at her. He started to lift his arms, but then seemed to catch himself and hesitated when Danny took a step back. His smile wavered as she continued past him to follow Anna.
Closing his eyes, Ethan moaned and leaned his head back against the log.
“What is it?” Sam asked.
Turning his head, Ethan rolled his eyes at Sam. “I don’t know if I’ll ever understand women.”
Sam laughed and elbowed Ethan lightly in the ribs. “That is a pipedream of every man who’s ever lived. Give it up now and save yourself a whole lot of grief.”
Watching Danny walk away, Ethan’s smile faded. He liked her. She was like an older sister or aunt, and he didn’t want anything to interfere with the easy friendship they’d developed. His dad had a bad track record when it came to relationships and Ethan didn’t want him to do anything that would keep Danny away once they reached Mercy. It would have been better if she’d kept despising Tom. Ethan wasn’t even sure when or why that had changed.
Danny paused then and turned back, whistling once for Grace. The retriever’s head snapped up and she leapt to her feet when she saw Danny. Grace offered a small whine as she licked Ethan’s hand and he patted the back of her neck. “Go on,” he said gently. “I understand.”
As the dog trotted after Danny, the unease Ethan had been feeling intensified. Once they got home, if Danny went her own way that meant he wouldn’t see Grace either…or Sam. Looking again at the older man, Ethan felt a surge of desperation. Since the flashpoint, he’d had to come to terms with the likelihood that he’d never see his mom again, or his home, or friends. His life before was gone. Now, Sam and Danny were an important part of his world and he wasn’t sure what he would do if they disappeared from it. He looked back in time to see Grace’s tail disappear inside the house and he nearly choked on a sob that threatened to tear loose.
“Sam?” Ethan stammered as another blue bolt of lightning lit the sky. “What’s going to happen when we get to Mercy?”
Sam looked nonplussed. “You’ll be reunited with your grandmother, and Danny with her dad. What else would happen, Ethan?”
Ethan huffed with frustration and repositioned himself so he was facing Sam. “No, I mean what are we all going to do? Where are you going to stay, Sam? Is Danny gonna go back to Helena once she checks on her dad? I might never see Grace again. You might leave—”
“Hey—” Sam interrupted, putting a hand on his shoulder at the same time. “I’m not going to lie and pretend I know how this is all going to play out. But the one thing I’m sure about is that I’m going to always be your friend. We’re family now, Ethan, and we’re in this together. Through all of it, and that doesn’t end just because we get to Mercy. Besides, your dad said there’s an extra room at the ranch and I’ve always wanted to be a cowboy.”
Relieved, Ethan smiled back at his friend and then focused again on the fire, afraid that he was going to get emotional. Through the flames, he saw his dad watching him, a look of concern on his hardened face. The sky strobed orange and then blue, casting their group into a melee of bizarre shadows and momentarily changing his father into an unrecognizable form.
Blinking rapidly, Ethan pushed at the ground with his feet, forcing his back painfully into the log behind him as he was plunged into a memory of the horrific night in Pocatello. As the light faded, so did the vision, leaving Ethan gasping for air. It was a vivid reminder that nothing was what it seemed anymore. Even in Mercy, he would never truly be home again.
Chapter 9
CHLOE
City Center, Mercy, Montana
Chloe had never liked crowds. She found it hard enough to pretend to be interested in regular conversations, and when you stuck a bunch of people together in the same space, all talking at once, it was enough to make her want to scream.
Sitting at the picnic table across from Sandy and Bishop, the hardest part for Chloe wasn’t so much the noise as it was the fact that everyone was trying so hard to act like everything was okay. Except it wasn’t. It never would be.
“Aren’t you going to finish your steak?” Trevor asked while lightly elbowing Chloe in the ribs.
Snatching the plate away, she slid it out of his reach. “Don’t you even think about it. I actually worked for this meal and I want to take my time enjoying it.”
Trevor’s face scrunched up as he grasped the not-so-subtle criticism. “Hey, I worked all day at the clinic, and then I spent the past four hours delivering water and meals to people who couldn’t come to the barbeque.”
“Never mind Miss Killjoy,” Crissy said flippantly. “She’s been grouchy all day.”
As was often the case, Chloe fought to keep from answering Crissy with an even snarkier remark. As much as the younger girl drove her crazy at times, she was the best friend Chloe ever had and was one of the few people in her life who could keep her in check. Besides, Crissy was right. She’d been looking for a fight all afternoon.
“I wanted to thank you personally, Sandy.”
Chloe was saved from herself by Patty’s well-timed interruption. The mayor was standing at the end of the picnic table, holding an honest-to-God apple pie. The night before, Sandy had been talking about how Caleb converted their woodstove into a working oven and stovetop. Sandy was pestering Bishop to come up with something similar for the ranch, and looking at the pie, Chloe decided to start working on her own design.
“I used your favorite apples,” Patty continued when nobody spoke. Setting the pie on the table, she looked pointedly at Sandy. “That steer is more than just a meal for the whole town, it’s a symbol of hope. A sign that together, we’re going to get through this.”
Chloe had been busy helping prepare the last of the food earlier, so she missed the speech the mayor gave to the people gathered in the city center. She had a feeling those two lines were straight from it, making them feel somewhat hollow.
“Thanks, Patty,” Sandy answered with a smile. “We all want the same thing. Let’s just work together to make sure we do it all the right way.”
Patty glanced o
ver her shoulder and then looked nervously at the nearest tables. Without saying anything further, she turned back to Sandy with a dejected expression and gave a small nod before moving on.
To be fair, Chloe didn’t envy Mayor Patty’s situation. There really wasn’t any way to win, and no matter what she did, there would be some people who disagreed with her methods. From the time Chloe had spent with her, she knew Patty was kind and was honestly doing her best under the circumstances.
The circumstances.
Chloe grunted at the thought while stabbing a chunk of meat. Placing the morsel in her mouth, she thought about what Patty said. Was it a symbol of hope? Had their lives been so thoroughly stripped away in two weeks that it all came down to a dead cow giving them inspiration?
Chloe chewed slowly, mulling over the meaning of that. She’d been afraid she wouldn’t even be able to stomach the meat, after helping lead the steer to the spot near the creek where he was met by a bullet to the head. She had then watched, with a sort of morbid curiosity, as a group of men and women butchered it right there, stripping away the layers and dismembering it.
Like their lives.
Closing her eyes, Chloe sighed and dug deep to find a remnant of joy to grasp onto. While she’d willingly thrown herself into the busy work of survival, the distraction was wearing off. She missed her parents. She missed her room, with its obnoxious purple glitter rug and pictures of the universe taped to the walls. She missed her early morning jogs. Chloe missed her life.
Several people laughed at an unheard comment at the next table over, causing Chloe to open her eyes and take in the reality of where she was: the city center in Mercy, Montana. Their second weekly town barbeque, complete with a stage for entertainment, which consisted of a guitar-wielding cowboy singing ballads, a row of smoking BBQs, and enough picnic tables to seat half of the town’s population.
The rest that could attend had to find random seating that spilled out onto Main Street. She half expected to see a clown emerge with a bundle of balloons, but that would just be weird.
The prep time for the meat had taken longer than expected, so the festivities had gotten off to a late start. Jerry-rigged oil lamps hung from hooks on the steel lamp poles, hooks that Chloe suspected were normally used for hanging flower baskets. They were surprisingly efficient and afforded a decent amount of soft light in both the picnic area as well as on Main Street.
When combined with the old-fashioned western storefronts that adorned most of the buildings on Main Street, it was as if they’d been transported back through time. Horses were tied to the original hitching posts in front of City Hall and the post office. The wagon was constantly rattling up and down the roads, hauling either water or food, or sometimes both. With the water station at the south end of town and the farmer’s market at the other, the borders of Mercy were smaller than ever. People waved at each other as they passed on the street and they all had the same, makeup-less, raw uninhibited look to them.
They were moving on. That was what bothered Chloe. No matter how much sense it did or didn’t make, she was furious that while the rest of the world fell to pieces, the people of Mercy were simply…living.
“Sandy told me you’re going to start jogging the Miner trail,” Bishop said, interrupting her dark thoughts.
Chloe blinked a couple of times at Bishop, her eyes narrowing. Her initial reaction was irritation that the two of them had been talking about her, and that only caused her anxiety to grow. She could feel herself slipping back into the angry, sometimes violent girl who had landed her in the Trek Thru Trouble club, and she was determined to overcome it.
Her problem was that she wasn’t sure how. Actually, that was the whole reason behind the jogging. At home, when Chloe was feeling overwhelmed and her emotions were unchecked, she ran. The physical exercise helped to ground her and she currently needed a whole lot of grounding.
Forcing a smile, she swallowed a bit of mashed potatoes. “Yeah, Sandy said it goes for over a hundred miles, so I figure I won’t run out of trail.”
Bishop grinned at her joke and then began to cut up the apple pie. “When do you plan on going? Maybe I or Crissy could join you. Being out there alone might not be the best thing right now.”
Her smile fading, Chloe lost her tenuous hold on restraint. “Being alone is the whole point, Bishop. I don’t need a babysitter. Do you know if Caleb managed to get a hold of anyone in Washington State yet about a survivor list?” she asked, pointedly changing the subject.
“I haven’t had much time to sit at the radio with him.” Bishop said, shaking his head. Sliding a piece of pie onto Chloe’s plate without asking, he then stared at her with his intense blue eyes. “We’ll get word to your parents. If we can’t find them, I’ll take you home next year myself. I promise.”
Chloe knew he meant it. Her view of the apple pie blurring, she didn’t trust herself to say much. “Okay,” she murmured, knowing he would understand and not push for something more.
A new chorus of exclamations and loud chatter arose near the entrance to the courtyard. Chloe strained to see what the commotion was about, half-expecting the clown, after all. Instead, she saw a middle-aged, handsome stranger. He was led by Patty, and Father White was trailing behind him, not looking too pleased. Chloe guessed he was just released from quarantine. She’d heard very little about him, except that he saved one of the Pony Express riders, and traveled nearly five-hundred miles to keep a promise to a dying man.
“That’s the new priest who made it here all the way from Wyoming,” Sandy said, her excitement obvious. “He came a different way than Tom and Ethan would,” she added, “but if he was able to get here on a bike, then I have no doubt my son will make it.”
Chloe didn’t point out the fact that the other man traveling with the priest had been killed along the way. It was still hard to comprehend the sort of violence and destruction happening outside their valley, but as more reports from riders and visitors correlated with what Caleb got from the radio, there was no denying it.
“I certainly hope Tom gets here soon. Maybe he can talk some sense into Patty and shed some light on what’s really going on with our government,” Gary said. The councilman sat down at the table on the other side of Bishop, directly across from Chloe.
She noticed the man’s graying hair was still well groomed and that he was clean shaved. Most of the men were allowing their beards to grow out, since they were forced to otherwise use regular razors. It was an aspect of being without power that Chloe had never considered until she’d noticed Bishop’s stubble was coming in gray and she’d teased him about it. Clean underwear was another. She had always thought doing laundry the old-fashioned way would be hard because of having to hang it up to dry. Turned out that was the unexpectedly pleasant part, because she loved the way her clothes smelled after drying in a fresh breeze. However, hauling water, boiling it, and then washing the laundry by hand really, really sucked.
She wasn’t sure why the observation of Gary the councilman troubled her. Perhaps it was also the tie he wore with the blue dress shirt, and the strong cologne that was burning Chloe’s nose. It felt…disrespectful. Like his proper appearance was a mockery of their current existence.
Sandy sighed heavily and leaned forward so she could see around Bishop. “Politics, Gary? We’re really going to talk about politics right now?”
Gary’s countenance shifted and his lip twitched. “Certainly, you of all people must see what’s happening.”
“No, I’m afraid I don’t,” Sandy said, her back stiffening.
Gesturing to the steak left on Chloe’s plate, Gary wrinkled his nose at it. “You know this is only the beginning. Tell me, were you given a choice? Or did Patty and one of her supporters tell you it was time to, um…donate your stock? The question you need to ask yourself is if that conversation would have played out any differently had Tom been there.”
Sandy bristled, but she didn’t try and deny it.
“Anyway,” Gary sai
d, waving a hand dismissively while standing slowly. “None of it might be necessary if Patty hadn’t unilaterally decided to cut us off from our own government.”
Bishop frowned at the councilman. “What do you mean by that?”
Bishop’s voice was harsh and it had the desired effect on Gary, as he flinched and took a small step back. “You two are such good friends with the good mayor, you should ask her yourselves.”
Chloe watched Gary scurry away, and she had a strong feeling he was very much the weasel he appeared to be. However, he’d successfully planted seeds of doubt. She could see it plainly on everyone’s faces, including her own. A Fourth-of-July-themed balloon drifted across the grass and Chloe watched as it passed in front of where Patty and the new priest stood, laughing with Sheriff Waters.
Was Mercy not the oasis it seemed to be?
Chapter 10
TOM
Miner’s Trailhead, near Red Bluff, Montana
Tom had to admit to some relief when Jesper Duke finally raised a hand, signaling for the group to stop. They’d been riding hard for the past two hours, since before sunrise. Tom knew that if he was getting sore, Danny and Sam must be miserable.
Ethan, on the other hand, was apparently as resilient as Tango. The two galloped past them after they had stopped and the teen fought momentarily to turn the gelding around. “Are we at the trail already?” he gasped, his breath showing in the cool morning air.
Jesper dismounted while chuckling at Ethan’s enthusiasm. “Close enough, son. Before I see you off, I want to show your father something.” Looking at Tom, he handed his reins over to his son before gesturing up the road. “On foot from here so we don’t make too much noise. Just a mile or so.”
Curious, Tom followed suit and jumped down next to the older man, his legs protesting when they hit the ground. “What is it I need to see?”
