A Wilderness Within

by Emma Castle

  3

  @CDC: We have confirmed that the virus in Beijing has spread to Shanghai and New Delhi. Two WHO workers did not properly dispose of their working clothes and have carried the virus out of Beijing. The CDC and the WHO are trying to trace all movements of these two individuals in order to determine where the virus may spread. Sign up for alerts on Hydra-1 via our website.

  —Centers for Disease Control Twitter Feed

  November 16, 2019

  * * *

  Caroline couldn’t escape in the morning. Her ankle wouldn’t let her, nor would her body. After that shelf collapsed on her, everything hurt. Each little move forced her to groan, but she couldn’t stay in bed next to that…mountain man. Any movement she made where she put weight on her ankle shot pain straight up the rest of her leg. She valiantly attempted several times to get away from the bed. Each time she crumpled, the mountain man’s strong arms lifted her up and carried her back to bed.

  “I’m not going to hurt you,” he murmured as he settled her back onto her side of the bed and covered her with blankets.

  “Then let me go.”

  “No.” He sighed and closed his eyes again. “Now go back to sleep. You need to rest your body after that fall.”

  By the time morning sunlight was streaming through the windows, she had given up. She lay in bed, feeling the heat of the sun on her face, trying to make sense of what had happened. After her last attempt to escape, the man seemed to realize she was done with her efforts and had risen from bed and left her alone to sleep a little longer, but she was too nervous.

  She could hear soft domestic sounds from the kitchen downstairs, the murmur of water moving through pipes in the walls, the occasional bang of pots or pans. And then she heard something else. Music.

  Caroline stared at the ceiling, mystified. Music. How was that possible?

  Determined to get to the source of the noise, she got out of the bed again, but this time she gave her predicament some thought. She hopped on one leg, using the wall for support. Silly, yes, but far less agonizing. She reached a short stairway that had one small landing before the stairs turned perpendicular. She scooted down the steps on her bottom with her bad leg aloft, careful not to bump her ankle. When she reached the bottom, she slowly started to limp toward the kitchen. She froze when she caught sight of her mysterious mountain man in the early sunlight.

  He was just as tall as she remembered. Well over six feet and muscled. He was built like a rock, with broad shoulders that led down to a narrow waist and hips. He wore jeans and a gray sweater with the sleeves rolled up. He should not have looked sexy to her, not under these circumstances, but there was something about the way the sun hit his arms and how his muscles flexed that made her want to reach out and touch him.

  On the counter he was cooking something in a pot on a small camping stove. A delicious smell rolled through the kitchen toward her. She focused on his face. The noble profile that was somewhat hidden by the scruff of his beard, but she could see he was totally gorgeous. Caroline swallowed hard. Damn, did her captor have to be completely hot as hell?

  Beside the stove, a smartphone sat on the counter, connected to a battery pack and a portable speaker. She’d had lost hers when she’d had to give up her last bag.

  The sound of 70s rock ’n’ roll came through the phone’s speaker. After months of silence, the music sounded like heaven. She’d thought she’d never hear any of it again, the drums, the harmonic voices, the guitar riffs. Who would compose music now that the human race was drawing its last breath?

  Her lips trembled as she listened to the sounds, emotions riding through her like a summer storm. Whoever this man was, he had brought music back to her world.

  “Stay right there,” the man said. She jolted, unaware that he had known she was in the room.

  “I”

  “I’m going to carry you to the couch.” He looked at her and then waved toward a nook with two couches set perpendicular to each other with a large ottoman in between. He paused in front of her, and she swallowed hard at his massive size and how small and fragile he made her feel. She wasn’t all that short, but she’d never been aware of anyone like she was of him and his towering height right now. His eyes were just as dark as before. Dark pools of rich brown that seemed to draw in the light rather than reflect it. Her skin flushed with heat as his gaze swept slowly over her, taking her in.

  Then, without a word, he scooped her up carefully and carried her over to one of the couches and laid her down on it. Then he covered her with a blanket.

  “Stay. I’ve got eggs cooking and some fruit.” He returned to the kitchen, leaving her to gaze after him open mouthed. She’d just been ordered to stay like some border collie. A second later, the rest of his words caught up to her.

  “Eggs and fruit?” she echoed. Her voice was raw, unused. How long had it been since she’d actually talked to another being? A long time.

  He removed two white china plates from the cupboards and scooped eggs out of the pot on his burner onto one plate. Then he poured peaches onto it and brought it over to her, handing her a fork as well.

  “I have two chickens down in the basement. They have been laying decent eggs. It’s cold enough that I can leave them outside in a basket to keep them cool. The peaches… Well, the previous owners were quite the canners. The basement has a stockroom of pickled vegetables and canned fruits. Part of the reason I chose this place.”

  The man explained this all with barely a hint of emotion before he returned to the kitchen, where he began brewing coffee.

  Caroline took a bite of the eggs, and after that first glorious swallow she burst into tears. She couldn’t help herself; the sudden burst of taste had made her realize that the food was real. This wasn’t some weird dream where a handsome man rescued her and cooked her delicious food. This was reality. He was by her side in an instant, kneeling down by the couch as he set her plate on the ottoman.

  “What’s the matter?” Worry was evident in his gruff tone.

  It took her several moments to collect herself. “I haven’t…had real food in weeks. It’s all blurred together. Music…I never thought I’d hear songs again. It’s too much. I…” She wiped her eyes and looked out the window.

  By the creek, three deer wandered along the grass, dodging patches of snow as they nibbled on bushes and trees. There were two does and one fawn, old enough that the white spots were starting to fade on its coat. She watched their stately, delicate prancing walks as they studied the branches in the garden for something to eat.

  The man started to stand. “We could use some venison.”

  Caroline caught his wrist, marveling at the strength she could feel in his arm.

  “No. Please, just let them go.”

  She couldn’t tell him, this stranger, what the sight of something so beautiful, still alive meant to her. With the harsh winter, she’d seen only a handful of crows, a few raccoons, and a couple of coyotes in the last few weeks. But those had been scavengers, signs of decay. Many of the bigger animals like horses had seemed to die along with the humans, according to the CDC. She had wondered if the Hydra-1 virus would make the jump to deer. There had been a lot of fevered panic talk in the final days about what the virus was capable of, but no one honestly knew. Seeing those deer still alive give her such hope she could barely speak.

  The man shrugged off her hand. “You’ll be regretting that tonight when your stomach grumbles.” He handed her back the plate of food. “Now eat. You don’t want to waste the eggs, trust me.”

  She ate the rest of the breakfast in silence and licked every bit of sugary juice off her fork from the peaches. This place was as close to heaven as she could have imagined, though her benefactor hardly seemed to be an angel. When he came to help collect her plate, their gazes locked.

  “Thank you…” She struggled, hoping he would give her his name.

  “Lincoln. Lincoln Atwood.”

  “I’m Caroline Kelly.”

  He nodded
once, in a curt, military-like fashion.

  “You live here?” She nodded at the house.

  “For now.” He returned to the kitchen and rested his hands on a walnut chair at the kitchen table. Caroline couldn’t help but wonder why he had taken her from the store and why he was taking care of her now. It didn’t make sense. Maybe he still planned to use her in some way once she was feeling better. She pushed away the thought and the way it both frightened and excited her.

  “Why did you grab me at the grocery store last night?”

  Lincoln returned to the kitchen and began to clean the pot he had scrambled the eggs in. This place still had running water? That meant she could take a bath? Even a cold shower?

  “I saw you and I wanted you. I also knew you wouldn’t get far on your own. In this case, it was worth the risk to double our numbers.”

  “You wanted me?” The word sent a flash of fresh fear through her.

  “Yes,” he admitted readily. “But I won’t force you.”

  She frowned. “You drugged me. What kind of asshole does that?”

  He turned off the water and set the pot out to dry on a dishtowel. He was being so calm and domestic while he was talking about sex between two complete strangers. She could only stare at him. He was clearly insane. Lincoln came back over to the couch. Caroline wanted to shrink back, but she held her ground.

  “I’m the kind of asshole who knew what pain you were in after you sprained your ankle and that shelf fell on you and wanted to help you. So I gave you the last shot I had of some of the best medicine this world will likely never see again. You’re welcome.”

  “I didn’t need your help. I had a plan, and I was doing just fine,” she shot back.

  “Fine? I checked your bag—you had no food, no first aid kit, and no weapons. You were helpless as a kitten out there.”

  “I was robbed a few weeks ago. I had everything I could have needed, but then some asshole cornered me and grabbed my bag from behind. I had to leave it to escape. I was working my way through the stores to restock when you found me. The smaller cities had a better chance of not being looted. and I was doing my best to get what I could.”

  “Yeah, well, your best wasn’t cutting it, sweetheart. You would have been dead within a week.”

  At this she laughed bitterly. “Dead within a week? You have no fucking clue what I’ve been through. No clue at all. I survived the riots of Chicago. I walked out of there on my own, fully stocked and prepared for anything. I climbed the barricades with my bare hands, got through the barbed wire and all the bodies.” Those were memories she hadn’t wanted to relive, the smell of burning flesh, the bloody razor wire coiling in tendrils along the tops of the barricades, and the screams, so many screams, as people clawed their way up to escape. She’d helped as many over the wall as she could, at least thirty before she’d lost her footing and fallen twenty feet to the ground on the other side of the barricade. She’d looked at the other survivors around her, all standing helpless and unsure what to do next. Caroline had begged them to stick together, but they’d scattered like startled rabbits into the outskirts of the small cities surrounding Chicago.

  Caroline stared hard at the man before her now, daring him to judge her weak.

  “You escaped the barricades?” he asked quietly, his gaze intensifying.

  She nodded once, meeting him with a stony glare.

  “Humph.” He made a noise of disbelief at the back of his throat and turned away.

  When he stalked off, she expected to hear him stomping up the stairs like an angry child. But she heard only the barest hint of a creak of wood as he moved.

  Great. She’d been kidnapped by freaking ninja mountain man.

  Caroline listened to the sounds of water moving through the pipes above her and let out a slow, shaky sigh. She examined the house, and then she carefully moved from the couch and made her way to the kitchen. The entire house was surprisingly sunny and warm. It probably helped that he had a fire burning in the main fireplace. The crackle and pop of the logs was a comforting sound in the silence of the house.

  There was a still a hush throughout the place, like the owners had simply left for the day and would be back by nightfall. Pictures lined the fireplace, showing a smiling couple hiking in Colorado and lounging on a warm white sandy beach somewhere. Post-it notes clung to the wood cabinet just above the phone with numbers scrawled on them. A calendar hung from a nail by the refrigerator with holidays and birthdays written in colored markers. Caroline looked out to the backyard again. The deer had moved on now, but she could see twin mounds and a pair of rough-hewn wooden crosses. The happy smiling couple was gone. Forever.

  The world was full of ghosts now. The sighs of empty houses settling, the rasp of wind through the trees, the snow falling on graves, and the heavy, endless silence. When starved and cold, Caroline would slip into a state where she wondered if humanity had only ever been a vivid and wondrous dream. Everything bright and beautiful had vanished in three months. The earth and Mother Nature had reclaimed their world, and mankind was but a footnote in a book no one would ever write.

  She explored the kitchen, careful to keep her weight off her bad ankle as she checked the cabinets. She almost squealed in delight when she found an unopened jar of peanut butter in the back of one of the cabinets. She unscrewed the lid and removed the cover. The aroma made her eyes brim with tears.

  She rummaged around in the drawers for some silverware. Then, like she had done as a kid, she ate the peanut butter right off the spoon. There was a flicker of guilt at her actions, but who was going to judge her?

  The depressing answer to that question destroyed the weak flutters of joy she’d felt. She heard the soft thud of a drawer closing somewhere upstairs. Caroline gazed about then, not seeing Lincoln anywhere, and approached the backpack he’d left on the kitchen table. The military backpack was a sandy brown and covered with pockets. She opened the smallest one, and her fingers brushed something hard and metallic. She pulled it out and studied it. A small flag pin, the kind a politician might wear pinned to his suit. It was such an odd thing to carry about, not that it took up any space. She tucked it back in and opened the next pocket. Small packets of birth control pills and condoms filled that area.

  “Wow…a bit optimistic, are we?” She snorted and moved to the next pocket. More medicines. Acetaminophen, ibuprofen, naproxen sodium, EpiPens, and antihistamines. The pocket after that contained a Maglite, batteries, solar chargers, space blanket, rope, twine, scissors, a compass, laminated maps… Lincoln was a walking survival gold mine. She’d had all of these things in her first go-bag—well, everything but the condoms.

  “Seriously?” The dark growl came from her left. She froze, hand still in the bag as she turned toward Lincoln. Then she wished she hadn’t.

  The man was naked except for a towel around his waist. And that towel was barely hanging from his hips. She blinked in a daze at the sight of the V indentations over his hip bones.

  Oh boy…

  She’d never seen a man who was actually that clearly muscled in her life. Did he live in the gym? Water droplets clung to his skin, and his hair, shaggy and wet, dripped onto his shoulders. He was some kind of walking sexual fantasy she’d never thought she’d experience.

  Caroline pulled the peanut butter spoon clean from her mouth, and with her back still turned to him, she pulled her hand out of his bag and zipped it up, praying he wouldn’t notice.

  “What?” she shot back.

  “You’re eating it straight out of the jar. That’s how pathogens like Hydra-1 spread. I’m sure you’re immune by now, but seriously.” He strolled over and plucked the spoon from her and set it in the sink. Then his gaze shot to his backpack on the table, and he tilted his head, studying it. She’d zipped it back up, but she must have missed something. Dread swept over her, and she backed up a step when he looked her way, one eyebrow arched.

  “I’m sorry I snooped through your bag.”

  To her surprise
, he chuckled. “I’m not mad about that. I took a shower to give you time to work up the courage to look through the bag. I want you to trust me, to know that I’m not a threat.”

  Caroline digested his words before replying. “So I’ll sleep with you?”

  “You’ll sleep with me, honey. Basic biology. Once you get over the drama of how we met, you’ll see me as a providing alpha male, and you’ll feel the urge. When you do, I’m here.”

  “What the fuck?” she snapped. “I’m not some ancient cave dweller. I’m a modern human woman with feelings.”

  “And when you change your mind, I’ll be here.” He cleaned her spoon with soap and dried it off before putting it back into the silverware drawer.

  “I wouldn’t have sex with you even if”

  “Don’t say it.” Lincoln cut her off. “You’ll only be wrong later.” He walked past her, and damned if she didn’t catch the sweet clean scent of soap on his skin. And the way he moved… Her belly quivered, and she cursed herself. Hormones be damned—she would not let nature take over, not when it came to this. However foolishly impossible a dream love or romance might seem now, it was still a dream she hoped for. Maybe she would die alone, but at least she would have her dignity.

  The thought was not as comforting as she’d hoped it would be.

  Seeing as it seemed she was free to go where she pleased in the house, she limped over to the living room, eased down on the large black leather sofa, and stared at the blank TV screen. She’d never been obsessed with TV, at least not the news, but she would’ve killed for even a faint flicker of life from that black void of a screen.

  She closed her eyes, and after a while she realized she must have drifted to sleep because when she woke, she was covered in several thick blankets. Lincoln must have done that. Damn him. She didn’t want him to be nice. She wanted to hate him. It was easier to not trust someone if you didn’t like them.