After the Shift: The Complete Series

by Grace Hamilton

  Tony was there, throwing himself at Nathan, putting his arms around his neck and crying into his shoulder. Through his own tears, Nathan could see Brandon in Donie’s arms. Next to her, sitting on the ground with her hair full of dust, was Lucy, and then Dave beside her. Everyone was okay. Everyone was alive.

  Nathan cried into his son’s hair, smelling his warm skin and the aroma of fresh sweat coming up through Tony’s clothes. Both their sets of tears were mixing with salty clarity in Nathan’s mouth. It was the most precious thing Nathan had ever tasted in his life. The tears of his boy crying with relief.

  “I’m sorry, Daddy! I’m sorry! I should have said I was going to the car and then you wouldn’t have thought that I was going back to the room! There were no more diapers in the room, so I had to go and get them from outside—I’m sorry, Daddy! I’m really sorry.”

  “It’s okay, son, it’s okay. I was so scared you’d both been hurt. I’m just glad you’re okay. Truly, I am. Don’t apologize. It’s all okay. It’s gonna be okay. I promise. I promise.”

  The feeling was returning to Nathan’s body as the waves of immobilizing shock dissipated, and now his body began to get moving and his frozen blood started to circulate.

  Although Nathan’s party was only shaken and relieved, though, the wind farm crew had not been anywhere near as lucky. Michael, as attested to by Miriam, was dead, crushed beneath a falling wall. Rosa’s neck had been broken when the ceiling in the bar area had fallen on her. Larry had broken his ankle in the rush to get out of the building. Tyrone, Bill, and Miriam were basically unscathed, but Crane could not be found. Buried somewhere under the rubble, they’d guessed.

  When they eventually found him, he had already bled out from a jagged tear in his thin neck.

  Which just left Caleb, and Caleb was alive, but he was also dying.

  Miriam sat with his head in her lap, soothing his brow. He was crushed across the belly by a concrete block that, even if all those who were able strained at it, would not be moved. There was no point anyway, as Miriam explained to the others out of earshot of Caleb while Tyrone sat with him. “Even if we could get him out, his internal injuries are too great. The only thing keeping him alive this long is that the block is stopping the toxins from the lower, dead half of his body from coming up and flooding his system—the shock of that would kill him pretty much instantly. The best thing we can do is keep him comfortable. He won’t last more than an hour more.”

  In the end, Caleb lasted two hours. “Raise… a drink… for me, the next bar… you get to, eh? Nate?”

  It was Nate’s turn to sit with the engineer’s head in his lap, soothing away the sweat and the thin trickle of blood that now constantly came from the side of his mouth. “You bet, Caleb. I might even raise two.”

  Caleb smiled and coughed, wincing at the pain that was spreading up through his body. Caleb placed his hand on Nathan’s then; it was as cold as the Big Winter, and heavy as old iron. “You look after these people for me, Nathan. They deserve someone… like you… you’re a good man… amirite?”

  “I don’t feel so good right now, Caleb. In fact, I’m a hot mess.”

  “It just proves you… feel. And that’s no… no bad thing. Promise me you’ll look after them like I tried to. Please.”

  “You have my word.”

  Caleb smiled thinly and closed his eyes. For a few moments, Nathan thought the remarkable man had slipped away, but as he looked closely, he saw that there was a thready pulse still throbbing in his neck, and his chest was rising and falling gently.

  Miriam took over then, and stayed with Caleb right to the end.

  None of them heard what Caleb said last, or what Miriam whispered into his ear, but as he finally left his beloved wind farm, and the people he’d called his friends and colleagues, Miriam bent down and kissed him on the lips and gave him one last squeeze.

  A real storm was approaching now, and as they had no shelter to speak of, they would have to get into the cars. The military-green Land Cruisers had been driven up to the rubble field by Free and Lucy. Miriam, Tyrone, Bill, and Larry—with his ankle now splinted by Miriam, with help from Tommy—made their place to ride out the storm in one of the Toyotas. Lucy, Dave, Donie, Syd, and Tommy took the other. Free joined Nathan, the boys, and Rapier in the F-350. He hadn’t said anything of note to Nathan since chasing him down the corridor in the collapsing building, knowing that the boys were already safe outside and that their father was almost certainly running to his death.

  “I guess I owe you an apology,” Free said eventually, sitting in the cab next to Nathan with the boys and the dog in the crew cab just behind them. Nathan hadn’t wanted to waste fuel running the heaters, so they were all wrapped in blankets and deep in their coats. Tony sat behind Nathan with Brandon in one arm, and his other, in thick woolen gloves, resting on his daddy’s shoulder, as if he couldn’t bear to not be touching him.

  Nathan didn’t really know what to say to Free at this point. There had been so much to deal with in the last few hours, he really couldn’t organize his own thoughts, let alone guess at his friend’s.

  “I’m lost, Free. What’s on your mind? Spit it out…”

  “You’ve always done right by us, Nathan. If you hadn’t listened to us, you might still be back in Glens Falls, and Cyndi might still be alive.”

  Free and Cyndi had been adamant about getting out of their hometown, though Nathan hadn’t wanted to give up his business and had been resistant for a good while. But, in the end, when news came from Stryker Wilson and the supposed paradise in Detroit he promised (which never materialized), he had relented. In many ways, Free was right, but of course, Cyndi had been keen to get out, as well.

  “That isn’t just on your head, Free. Cyndi wanted to go, too. Just as hard, and I gave in. And who knows what might have happened if we’d stayed behind? Gangs, no gas, complete breakdown… At least we had a chance out on the road.”

  “Maybe. Maybe not. But all along the way, you’ve stuck by me. You’ve pulled me out of the fire on more occasions than I can say….” Free’s voice trailed off.

  “Spit it out, Free, come on.”

  If Free was about to tell Nathan that, after all they had been through together, that he and Lucy were splitting away because they didn’t want to share the team with Tommy, or just because they’d had enough of traveling—and now that Nathan was a clear target in Brant’s sights from afar, they felt it was just too dangerous to carry on being around him—then he just wanted Free to get it out of the way and say it.

  “Free, I get it. Staying with me is too dangerous, and you’ve got your own life to think of with Lucy. I get it. Really, I do. You can take the Ford or the Taurus if you want one of them, and we’ll share out the guns, ammo, and provisions….”

  Free held up a sudden hand. “Whoa there! Whoa!” There was high color in Free’s cheeks that wasn’t just about the chill in the weather. “Don’t go saying…”

  “It’s obvious, Free. You’ve wanted to break away since we got here. I get it. I understand.”

  “Nathan, sometimes you can be the biggest damn fool on the planet!” Free thumped the dash in exasperation, and then let loose a heavy sigh. “Man, I was going to apologize for letting you down by even suggesting we should have stayed here. Lucy and I have been talking, Nathan, and we feel like real slimeballs. You’ve given up almost everything for us, and at the first sign of something better, we were ready to cut you loose if you didn’t agree to stay with us. That’s what I want to apologize for, man. We’re not leaving you. We want to stay with you and see this through. All the way. No doubt.”

  Nathan let that sink in for a few seconds and had to look away because of the prickling he felt at the back of his eyes. Free was basically good people, and for all her affectations and artifice, Lucy was, too. He’d said that he understood why they might have wanted to go, and he’d meant it, but it didn’t stop his heart welling over with pride and friendship for Free being able to do the decent th
ing and come through like this.

  As Nathan looked out into the falling night, the first snowflakes from the new storm began to whip around the Ford and the other cars parked next to the destroyed power station. He saw in the nearest Land Cruiser that Lucy was looking pensively through the window, toward the Ford. When Nathan caught her eye, she looked straight at him and mouthed a silent ‘Sorry’ in his direction.

  And that was that.

  The steady snowfall became a blizzard, with buffeting winds and drifting snow. Soon, the windows on the Ford had silted up with a white crust, and Free decided it was better he stayed in the cab with them until the storm had passed. There was very little sleep to be had in the gnashing teeth of the storm, and several times, debris blown up from the demolished buildings crashed against the side of the truck, shaking their teeth and startling them awake if they’d been on the edge of sleep.

  Tony, Brandon, and Rapier remained curled up together, warm and snug under the dog’s fur and the blankets in the crew cab. There had even been baby food that Tony had fed to Brandon, cold, but the baby, who never seemed to complain or cry without reason, had accepted the food gratefully.

  Hunger gnawed at Nathan as much as the idea of what they might do when the storm eventually passed. He still hadn’t heard from Syd how it was that Brant, Stryker, and Price had tracked them. In the aftermath of the earthquake, and the deaths of their friends, it seemed like a question that could wait until they fully had time to consider her idea—and the implications.

  But it was a worry. How could they travel anywhere if they were so easy to find? Should they travel now under assumed names or find a place just for them that was as far from any roads or people as they could? And if it didn’t matter where they went because Brant’s all-seeing-eye would find them, perhaps the best form of defense was attack… Should they travel back north to Detroit, and have a final showdown with Brant and end this one way or the other?

  No.

  That didn’t bear thinking about. These ideas were all running free in Nathan’s head, and what he needed, first of all, was a sense that he could understand how Brant was getting his information, and then they could respond accordingly.

  When eventually the storm passed, and the dawn came brightly under the covering dust clouds, Nathan awoke, realizing that he had slept well enough after all. His dreams had been free of horror and strife, with no surprise Strykers or sign of Cyndi to make his heart hurt. Just a presence—a woman who was calm, stoic, and reliable. He hadn’t been able to see her face in the dream, but weirdly, Nathan had recognized her hands. The same hands that had been soothing Caleb as he’d died.

  Miriam’s hands.

  There was something very comforting about the woman. Her confidence, and her warmth and her skills. Nathan felt that she would definitely become a strong asset to the party, someone with the smarts and the knowledge to add real value. Nathan resolved to go to her first of all as he pushed hard at the frozen door of the F-350, breaking the ice seal and letting in the chill air. Rapier barked and leaped out over his shoulder. The dog was well Ford-trained by now and must have been bursting to relieve himself.

  Nathan got out into the strong sunlight, shielding his eyes against the low, harshly glowing orb beating down from the Colorado sky.

  And it was because his eyes were temporarily blinded by the brightness, once he’d gotten out of the snow-covered Ford, that he realized with a thump to his heart that the Land Cruiser containing Miriam and the surviving crew from the wind farm had driven away in the night.

  12

  “We didn’t hear them go,” Lucy said as they met up next to the second Land Cruiser.

  Miriam and the others must have left during the worst part of the storm if the lack of tracks or any evidence of their passage down from the ridge back to the road was anything to go by. Nathan was convinced, although he kept the notion to himself for now, that Miriam or perhaps Larry had forced the hand of the others. Nathan and his people were bad medicine. Anyone in their vicinity would get caught in Brant’s crossfire. Larry’s face, trembling with fear, begging for his life, was front and center in Nathan’s thinking.

  How could anyone want to risk going through anything like that again?

  He could imagine there had been a discussion, perhaps a heated one, that had reasoned out their best bet for getting away with at least one of Lieutenant Price’s trucks, its trailer, and half the provisions, guns, and ammo—and that that would be for them to make a break for it when Nathan and the others would be least likely to attempt to follow. It had taken real guts and not a little bravado to drive away under white-out conditions. It was still something that Nathan felt was too risky to attempt, but when you needed to get away from impending danger—more danger in the shape of men like Lieutenant Price—then he knew that could make you dismiss the risks and just go.

  And the blizzard had completely covered over the demolished building. Ghostly humps in the snow where the wrecked turbines lay were now the only obvious reminder of what had been there before. The surrounding landscape was a blindingly complete blanket of snow. Only the largest of trees dotting the landscape were sticking up through the cue ball-smooth whiteness.

  Nathan hadn’t experienced snow like this since before they’d made it across the state line into Wyoming. It reminded him of the weeks they’d spent on the road from New York State to Michigan. A constant, endless conveyor belt of nothingness, bleak and threatening. Nothing like the snows when he’d been a kid, when he would have snowball fights with friends, build snowmen, or go sledding down the slopes of the valley with his daddy. This snow wasn’t so much kissing the land as choking it. And as the Big Winter established itself this far south, they could expect a whole lot more of it.

  God knew what conditions were like back in Detroit or Chicago now, but he could imagine that they weren’t getting any better. The people in the Greenhouses of Detroit would be okay with their utilities and their hydroponics, but the people outside the elite space—their hellish life may have taken a terrible turn for the worse.

  The snow was thigh-deep in places, so Tommy and Free set about digging the vehicles out of the drifts and making a space between them where at least enough ground could be cleared for people to stand without risking frostbite. There were no longer fires burning in the wreckage of the building, but some small clearing away of the snow revealed enough spars of wood from the roof to build a fire in the clearing. They used the fire to cook a few dead chickens Rapier retrieved from Rosa’s coop. Where they found bodies that they could move—and the aforementioned Rosa, Crane, Price, and his men were located quickly—they laid them to rest as best they could under bricks and broken concrete.

  They couldn’t move Caleb, and so they covered his body where he’d died and Lucy said a few words, which were solemn yet warm. She’d quite taken to the dapper engineer, and to see him die in such a senseless way had affected her. Free pulled her close as they moved back to the clearing.

  “So, Syd,” Nathan said, when the last offices for the dead were complete, “how did they find us, and how do we stop them finding us again?”

  Syd threw a look at Donie. “Over to you.”

  Donie nodded and reached into a backpack, pulling out the cop satellite laptop they’d been using to plan routes and keep in touch with whatever was left of the internet running across the nation.

  “Syd thinks Stryker put some kind of spyware onto it when we weren’t looking.”

  Syd cut in. “A couple of times after you left, I saw him looking at maps on his computer, that he closed down pretty quickly when I walked into the room. I think every time you turned the laptop on to plan where you were heading, and what homesteads and buildings off the beaten track you could spend the night in while traveling to Casper, it sent a signal to Stryker. I guess he used that information when the time was right to get himself back in with Brant, and maybe that was why he was sent out in the helo to bring you back.”

  Nathan’s spirits, such a
s they’d been, sank even lower. Every move they’d made had been available—first to Stryker and then to Brant. As soon as his pneumonia had kicked in and Brant had seen they were stationary and there was a chance they might be caught, Price and his men, with Syd in pursuit, had been dispatched.

  Nathan looked up at the blazingly blue morning sky. Up there, in geostationary orbit, hung the GPS satellites they had been using for months to plot their course, while at the same time allowing the mouth of the net around them to be drawn ever more closed.

  “So, what do we do?” he asked.

  Donie flipped open the laptop. “Dave and I think we can find the spyware payload and either disable it or get it to send bad data back to Detroit. But we reckon just turning it on further down the trail will tell Brant wherever we are.”

  “And that’s problematic,” said Dave.

  Nathan grimaced. “You think?”

  Donie carried on. “If we can wait here another twenty-four hours, say, and have a good chance to investigate the laptop, then when we move on, we think we can go dark.”

  Nathan considered it, but then asked, “Why not just dump the laptop here and leave now?”

  Dave shook his head. “We considered that last night, but wouldn’t it be better if they thought they still had us in their sights? I reckon, if we can work on it, we can make Brant at least think the laptop is traveling back toward Detroit. That might keep him out of our hair for longer.”

  “That’s a high-risk strategy.”

  “Isn’t everything we’re doing high-risk?” chipped in Tommy, and around the circle, heads were nodding.

  “Amen to that,” Lucy said with a sigh.

  Nathan surveyed the snowfield around them. “Okay, while you guys work on the laptop, we’ll get everything else we need ready. The Taurus was okay while there wasn’t this level of snow, but we’re going to have to leave it here and carry on with the F-350 and the Land Cruiser. Lucy and Free, you consolidate the supplies and the trailers; Tommy and Syd, you and I are gonna go through the wreckage of Caleb’s place and see what we can salvage. Let’s find the kitchen under that mess first and see what we can dig out.”