Melt (Book 8): Hold

by Pike, JJ

  Alice trotted to the faucet on the east side of the house and cranked the handle. The mouth sputtered, but nothing came out. Aggie had warned her that the water was off, but she’d short-circuited. No matter. Jo had rain barrels positioned around the property. Alice pulled the lid off the nearest barrel. Plastic. Not good. Hadn’t Jo been listening? She must have told her neighbors—she laughed; not accurate; she’d told anyone who would listen, not just the people closest to her—that plastic was leaching chemicals into their water and should be avoided at all costs.

  “They aren’t listening, are they, boy?”

  Reggie did a little doggie two-step for her, rocking from one foot to the other. Dogs were endlessly delightful. So much light and joy and friendship, delivered at no cost and with no obligation.

  There was no scoop by the barrel, no delivery system, so she cupped her hands and scooped some water out for Reggie. Not hygienic. She made a note to use that water to wash. She was gross and gritty and grimy and in need of a scrub down, even if it was a standing wash with only one cup of water. “Okay, two cups,” she said. “But only because we’ve been so good and made it back home.”

  She allowed herself a moment of unbridled pride. They’d made it. All six of them. Against tremendous odds. Her husband and children were safe. She deserved to wash. And eat well. And talk around the campfire, the way Bill did with the kids every time they came out to the cabin. How many of those cookouts had she missed? Too many.

  Reggie had drunk all the water in her hand-scoop so she went for a double dip.

  When they got to the mines that was the first thing they were going to do: sit down, together, and have a meal and talk. She didn’t care if there was a nuclear disaster a few hundred miles down the road. She laughed. “Of course I care, Reginald. I’m not an idiot. But the poison rains are going to come whether we laugh or not, so we might as well laugh. We’re going to take cover, because my brilliant husband and wonderful daughter have found a place for us to hide. We’ll let the storm pass…” He was done drinking. She wiped her hands down her pants. “And when it clears, we’ll move west.”

  The duo were almost done testing windows. There was no choice. Alice was going to have to go in via the doggie door.

  “Do you want to know a secret, Reggie?”

  He wasn’t panting any more, but he still had that goofy “tongue hanging out, tail on the move” look that said she was his bestest bestie.

  Reggie trotted beside her as she made her way to the back of the house. He waited as she crouched down to the doggie door. “Such a gentleman!”

  She could tell him what pressed heaviest against her heart and he wouldn’t judge her. “I want to get moving. We need to leave this place. Aggie’s right to be chivying everyone along. But there’s something I need to do before I go.” She kicked the door flap in the bottom of Jo’s back door. It was large enough for Reggie, so she’d fit through it easily. She laughed. “It’s a Labra-door. I need to tell Bill that one. He loves cheesy jokes. He can tell Midge. You know Midge. She’s my little one. When she laughs she lights up the entire room.”

  Reggie was looking up at her, his deep brown eyes scanning her face for clues. Was she about to tell him he was a good boy, give him a bone, find some food and get some meat on those ribs? She was not. She was about to tell him what had been eating away at her since she’d talked to Christine Baxter. She hadn’t told a soul, nor did she intend to. This was going to be strictly between her and the dog. “I’m most interested to talk to Christine about the possibility that our DNA might hold the key to protecting us from this terrible infection.”

  Alice threaded one arm through the flap in the back door, then her head, but as she put her other arm through the door itself creaked on its hinges and opened. The dang thing hadn’t been locked. Panic ran up and down her center like the little jolts she and the kids got when they were in their “here, Mom, lick this battery” phase. She wrenched herself free and huddled behind the flimsy wooden barrier. One shot and she’d be dead meat.

  Reggie padded around her and into the house. If there was anyone inside he wasn’t afraid, but then he made friends with everyone he met. There could be armed gunmen sitting in the front room and Reggie would be licking their hands and wagging his tail.

  “Hello?”

  No answer.

  “I’m coming in. I’m unarmed…” What choice did she have? She’d made a racket coming through the woods. If there was someone waiting they had the advantage. She might as well throw herself on their mercy and hope for the best.

  There it was again: Alice hoping for the best.

  The mud room was empty, the door to the living room ajar. What a mess. Not the usual “Jo mess” which included piles of papers and the occasional opened jar of PB with a knife sticking out of the top, but papers on the floor and couch cushions ripped open and batting all over the floor.

  Alice took three minutes downstairs and two upstairs to make sure each room was clear of intruders before returning to the kitchen, where the worst of the destruction had taken place. It wasn’t until she did her second pass through the house that she noticed the paint—no, not paint, more of a grease stain that was designed to be seen by only those who were looking closely—on the back of the doors. Someone had daubed them with the X of an urban search and rescue team.

  No, not some-one. Some-three. Three teams had been through, searching the house.

  There were consecutive dates in the top triangle. The first team—she didn’t recognize their identifier, they weren’t Red Cross for sure—had signed themselves H/C. She checked the next set of initials. Same. And the next. H/C had been written in the left quadrant on three separate occasions. In the bottom, the dreaded 0-0; no corpses, no survivors. Did that mean they’d come looking for Jo? But then, why come back? She checked the dates and initials again. Yep, three visits by the same people.

  “Let’s put a pin in it and come back to that one, Reggie.”

  It was the far right that interested Alice most. Hazards present: F/W. She’d expect that after this much time. Food and water should be treated as active contaminants. Anything in the fridge would be going off and fresh food in the pantry would have molded or sprouted or turned to mush. EXT, meant they’d also done a search of the exterior. But it was the symbol outside the circle that caught her imagination. On every door, in lettering so small you might have missed it if you weren’t looking closely: Ag47, with a slash through the middle.

  She checked and doubled checked each door to make sure she was seeing what she thought she was seeing, a confused but eager dog by her side.

  “Do you know what this is, Reggie?”

  He panted. Whatever she wanted him to see, he wanted to see. Doubly. He wanted to please her so, so, so much. His tail thumped against the wall.

  “It’s the symbol for silver. But that symbol has been crossed out. Can you guess why?”

  Reggie barked, excited. Was she giving off pheromones? Could he read her body language?

  “Jo didn’t have silver on her property.” Alice strolled back to the mud room, lost in thought. “Or if she did, she kept it to herself.” Then again, she and Bill had never discussed their stash with anyone. Who’d come looking? Three times?! You might look once if you were hoping to find something valuable, but you wouldn’t come back three times unless you were fairly certain there was something to find. And these someone’s, H/C, had done a number on Jo’s house: room to room, cupboards, floorboards, cushion covers, mattresses. Nothing had been left to chance. They’d been looking for precious metals. Ag47 said it all.

  “Would you like to come with me, Reginald, and see if the Everlee family silver is still buried?”

  Reggie nudged her leg.

  “You would? That’s good, because I want you to come, too.”

  He turned away from her and crouched down, ears back, shoulders crunched forward, growling.

  Alice swept the room for a weapon, but there wasn’t going to be anything. The pl
ace had been stripped clean. Whatever Jo had left behind was long gone.

  What would her papa say? Look at the essence of the thing, my prickly porcupine. A string with a pretty bauble handing around your neck is just a string until… The sashes that held back the drapes: too thick to be effective garrotes. The cord to the fax machines—honestly, Jo; who has a fax machine anymore?—perfect, except for their length. Too short. She’d have to be close to someone to get it over their head and around their neck. She threw it to one side.

  TV. That would do. It was going to have a long cord, even though Jo’s television was a million years old. She pushed it sideways. The back was an enclosed box.

  Reggie was guarding the door. His head hadn’t moved an inch. There was someone or something out there.

  Alice grabbed one of the cushion covers off the floor and wrapped it around her elbow then smashed it into the TV screen. Good thing about old televisions: the screens are glass, not gel panels.

  She selected the largest shard of glass from the pile. It was a little less than eight inches, but sharp enough at one end to do real damage. She wrapped the wide edge with her cushion cover and tested it a couple of times to make sure she wasn’t going to slash her own hand open if she had to lunge at an intruder. It wasn’t foolproof, but it was better than nothing. What else might she repurpose. What was the new phrase? Upcycle? What could she upcycle into a weapon?

  A sneeze from outside.

  A human, then, and not a bear.

  Alice grabbed Jo’s modem. Seriously, woman, do you live in the Dark Ages deliberately? On second thought, she probably did. The older something was the less hackable it was going to be. Given what she’d intuited about Jo Morgan, there was every chance the dial-up modem was a deliberate choice. She slung it in another empty couch cushion and made herself a nice, boxy, heavy blackjack. She was ready for whatever was coming her way.

  Reggie stood, his tail wagging slowly. It was lying flat, parallel to his back, not saluting as it usually did, but it was moving and not tucked.

  The bottom step on the front porch creaked. Alice gripped her makeshift knife harder. The front door opened and Reggie took off.

  “You’re still here, doofus?”

  Alice didn’t recognize the voice. A woman. Young. At ease.

  “You should take off. Your human’s not coming home. Everyone’s heading west.” The young woman sighed. “Soon everyone will be gone. There will be no one to feed you. Man, dogs are so dumb.”

  Whoever it was seemed to know Reggie. Alice couldn’t make any determination as to whether they were friend or foe based on his reaction. He was Reggie, friend to all. She tried to peek through the slit where the door didn’t quite meet the frame, but the angle wasn’t right and she couldn’t make anything out.

  She turned in time to see a blur of black and khaki coming at her, but not who it was or what they were wielding. She slashed once, twice, three times but didn’t connect. She swung her modem-turned-blackjack hard, clipping the woman in the side of her head. Her assailant swore and fell back. Alice forced the door shut with one hand as she rushed the woman, kicking her calves and forcing her to the floor while she was still off balance. The woman’s scarf, wrapped neatly around her neck and tucked into her shirt, acted as a noose. Alice held her tight, forcing the wide-eyed intruder onto her back so she could tie her hands.

  The woman who’d been in the kitchen burst through the door and piled on top of Alice and her prisoner.

  CHAPTER NINE

  Not one of Alistair’s men had a weapon pointed directly at anyone in the convoy, but still they rounded up the soldiers, the officers, and a couple of civilians as they tightened the cordon around their leader. By the time they were done, Alistair counted twenty-eight new people in total. Twenty-five of them were in uniform, while three—Josephine included—were not. Of those in uniform, a small contingent held themselves off to the side like the general. He couldn’t see why they were different, but he understood that they were.

  “My people will not fire unless directed by me. Like the general, I have no desire to see further death. It’s a waste.”

  Jacinta stepped to Alistair’s side and whispered, her hand over her mouth as she’d been trained. You could never be too careful. There was always someone who could read lips. “There’s a child up front. She’s strange. Like, really strange. Like, covered-in-scabs-and-scales strange. The soldier guarding her said she was contagious, so I left the two of them in the truck.”

  “This is all of them, then? What I see in front of me is the totality? There are no more in the vehicles? Someone has checked?”

  “All but those two.” Jacinta stepped back so she was flanking her boss, rifle pointed at the ground, but ready to whip it up and take out any assailants, as always.

  “General…” Josephine spoke directly to the general. “I’ve known Alistair for years. He means what he says. They will not open fire on your people unless provoked.”

  “You will grant us safe passage,” said the general. “And you’ll do it now.”

  “Have you told them what’s happening, General?” Alistair raised his voice. Not so that he was shouting but to allow those who might be out of earshot if he used his “inside” voice, to hear him. “Do they know there’s a storm coming? That area of lower pressure hovering out in the Atlantic, that my man Widget mentioned, was a sign. There have been many more. We’d hoped for a reprieve, but it’s not coming. There’s a hurricane that’s going to make landfall off New Jersey in the next 48 hours, bringing with it nuclear rain.”

  Josephine gasped.

  “They haven’t updated you. I’m sorry, Josephine. You deserve better.” Alistair meant it. She did deserve better than the lily-livered, spineless leadership who’d fled their posts leaving decent, honest, hard-working people like her flapping in the wind. She was one of the good ones, even if she didn’t see the world as clearly as he did. Case in point, she was brokering peace between his people and the United States Army. If it weren’t for her this whole situation might have escalated. But it hadn’t. Cooler heads had prevailed which was much to his advantage. He meant to honor that effort. He spoke, as one leader to another, with all the respect he could muster. “Here’s what’s going to happen, General. I’m going to offer your people a choice.”

  “I don’t like the sound of this,” said General Hoyt. “Who makes a decision down the barrel of a gun?”

  “There will be no coercion. I have no interest in people who have no interest in me.” Alistair could already see three prospective Ridgers; two men and one woman who were listening to him with great care. He didn’t often have to offer his way of life up to people in groups, but he’d done it before and with some success. He also had the advantage. He’d shown himself to be both a man of action and a man of his word.

  “My name is Alistair Lewk. I have the honor, I might even say the privilege, of leading a small group of men and women who are looking for a better way. We’re tired of the lies. Tired of rampant consumerism. Tired of our children dying in the streets. In short, tired to death of lawlessness, corruption, and greed.” He pointed to his man lying dead in the street. “This man killed one of your comrades.” He waited. He wanted them to see the blood and brains and gore. He’d aimed at the eye for a reason. It held a symbolic value, but it was also designed to deliver maximum shock value.

  He watched the blood snaking down the asphalt and seeping into the grass beyond. The man, whoever he was, had sworn an oath to uphold the laws and bylaws of Wolfjaw. He’d violated that oath on his first outing. He’d deserved to die.

  “You might ask yourself how he and I differ. Let me tell you.” He sought out another of the more attentive members of the crowd and concentrated his energy on her. Women were better listeners, more nuanced, more likely to be swayed, more likely to sway others. “He murdered. I meted out justice. One killing was lawful, the other outside the law.”

  She nodded. That was better than good, that was outstanding. She�
��d be among their number before the day was through.

  “Has anyone ever hurt you?” He waited. She wouldn’t want to be caught out by her peers, but she’d let him know if she was open to that line of reasoning. Her eyes smiled, though her mouth did not. Someone had done her wrong and then some. “Did anyone listen to you? Hear you? Stand up for you?”

  She gave the smallest shake of her head.

  “That’s right. No one heard you. You were allowed to suffer in silence. Or it might have been worse than that. You might have been heard and then told to hold your peace.”

  She was outright nodding now. He had her. Time to reel her in.

  “What if I told you there were people just up the road…” He pointed up the road. She followed his finger to the exit. She’d go now if he asked her to. “People who wouldn’t just listen to you but believe you. People who care about justice. People who care about honor. People who are willing and able to gather round you and lift you up, make you more, trust that you’ll be who you were always meant to be. I am one of those people. I want you to do what you were put on Earth to do. I want you to come with me and try a different way of living.”

  The general was unmoved.

  Josephine looked faintly amused, but not shaken as he’d hoped she would be. That didn’t matter. Once one followed, the rest would be thrown into confusion. Of the group assembled at least half would decamp with him before sundown.

  “We grow our own food, build our own houses, make our own laws, and live by our own justice.” In spite of Josephine’s coldness and the general’s indifference, Alistair was suffused with passion. He believed in the vision of Wolfjaw. He wanted to share his feeling and have them understand and join the movement. “We do not permit senseless violence. We’re a peaceable people governed by simple, common-sense rules which have been rigorously debated and collectively embraced. I delivered the sentence to this murderer because it was the only right thing to do. If you think about all the variables—the cost of a trial, the bloodsucking lawyers, the corrupt judges, the time taken from honest laborers to sit on a jury, the price of incarceration, the lack of rehabilitation, the lie that your justice system delivers anything akin to natural justice—you’ll agree that our way is cleaner, more cost effective, but most importantly drives home the message that we will not permit lawlessness. Ever. Not even among our own ranks.”