A Wilderness Within

by Emma Castle

  She found Lincoln pacing across the kitchen, their sleepy ward propped on his shoulder. His eyes were half-closed, and he was humming…Metallica? She bit her lip to hide her smile. Ellie was going to be one bad-ass girl with a man like Lincoln for her father.

  “She okay?” Caroline whispered as she joined him.

  “Yep. Fed, burped, and out for the count.” He nodded at the folded crib. “You take her, and I’ll set up the crib in the master bedroom.”

  Caroline took her niece and followed Lincoln into the bedroom. She set up some lanterns and rubbed a hand up and down Ellie’s back while Lincoln set up the crib. Then they set Ellie inside.

  “Has anyone talked back to you?” he asked when she handed him the radio.

  She shook her head. “Not yet, but it’s just the first day.”

  “You’re pretty amazing,” he said, catching her hips and pulling her gently against him.

  “Yeah?” She curled her arms around his neck. “How so?” There was something about the way he held her, the way he looked at her. She felt like she could do anything in the world so long as he held her and looked at her just like that.

  “You believe in everything. I thought you were gullible and foolish at first, but now? Now I understand. Hope is a gift.” He leaned down, their lips inches apart. “You’re my gift.”

  They kissed, the hungry raw passion of the moment consuming them as they tumbled back onto the bed. You’re my gift. And hope to him was a gift.

  I think I’m falling in love with you, Lincoln.

  She kissed him back with desperation, tugging at his clothes even as he was tugging at hers.

  They made love hard and slow, as though determined to feel every bit of each other in intimate detail. Lincoln didn’t let her once lose focus on him or her pleasure. In the orange glow of the lanterns, they each made silent vows to one another. Caroline would never give up. She had everything to fight for.

  14

  @CDC: The governors of the following states have declared emergencies and will be closing major highways in and out to prevent the spread of Hydra-1. New York, Illinois, California, Texas, Michigan, Virginia, Massachusetts, South Carolina, and Florida. If you live in one of these states, you are federally mandated to stay in your homes except to secure food and medical supplies. Additional triage stations will be announced shortly in the cities in the above listed states.

  —Centers for Disease Control Twitter Feed

  January 14, 2019

  * * *

  The days passed slowly, the travel arduous and grim as they drove through Missouri. So many of the interstates and highways they would have used were road-blocked or so cramped with abandoned vehicles that they were forced to turn back. Each time this happened Lincoln’s face darkened, and Caroline did her best to ease his worry and frustration. No one was used to this, the end of the civilized world. The only thing that kept Caroline going was speaking on the radio each night, spreading words of hope that she hoped somebody would hear.

  Ellie chirped happily in the back seat, growing more each day, and it filled Caroline with quiet joy to see glimpses of Natalie and Rick in her little face. Whatever this new world held for them, Ellie was bringing her parents with her in some small fashion.

  Lincoln stopped the car at a mall outside of a small city in eastern Missouri.

  “I saw smoke on the horizon, could be wildfires. We need to get our supplies fast and keep moving.”

  “Got it,” Caroline agreed.

  Lincoln left Caroline alone with the baby and the dog while he siphoned fuel from the cars. They had used half their extra fuel supply in just seven days due to having to retrace their steps and find new ways to head east.

  Caroline picked up Ellie from her car seat and walked around with her, holding her up so she could look about. Kirby didn’t stray far; he marked a few trees by the edge of the parking lot before he trotted back to them. The chickens in the back were silent, clucking every now and then from their pet carriers. A breeze suddenly caught some tendrils of Caroline’s hair, tossing them around. She laughed as Ellie caught a strand and tugged hard.

  “Ow…ow!” Caroline winced as she extricated the hair from Ellie’s tiny but forceful grip. “You pull hair like your mama does.” She laughed again, thinking of all the times she and Natalie had fought as kids. Natalie used to pull her hair, and Caroline had been a shover.

  A hint of smoke was carried on the breeze, and she turned her head toward the western sky. Plumes of black smoke were billowing upward, blending deceptively with the clouds. If the wind hadn’t changed, she might not have noticed the smoke until it was too late. The sun began to set beneath the layers of clouds, and it looked as if it was wreathed in a crown of fire. The wind must have changed, carrying the wildfire their way.

  “Lincoln!” She shoved Ellie back in her car seat, strapping her in. “Kirby, up!” She pointed at the back seat, and the dog leaped inside. Caroline screamed Lincoln’s name again, not seeing him. What would she do if the fire reached them and she still hadn’t found him? She’d vowed never to leave him, but she had Ellie to think of now and—

  Lincoln vaulted over the hood of a Taurus fifty feet away.

  “Get the engine started!” he bellowed. Caroline got in the passenger side and started the ignition. Lincoln threw himself in the driver’s seat, and they shot out of the parking lot into the streets. Ellie started screaming in distress.

  “Lincoln…” Caroline turned around in her seat, watching the houses and businesses half a mile down the road being devoured by the flames. It was a sea of fiery horror behind them.

  “I know, I know,” Lincoln hissed as he swerved around dead cars on the road. The wildfire raced behind them like a gathering storm. Caroline was torn between trying to keep her eyes on the flames and the now darkened streets as smoke suffocated the last of the sunlight. The car jolted to a stop as they hit a deadlock of cars blocking a tunnel.

  “Goddammit!” Lincoln shouted and slammed his hands on the steering wheel. Kirby barked and then whined.

  Caroline placed a hand on his arm. “Breathe, Lincoln.” She had no idea how she was calm in that moment, but something inside her told her that they couldn’t die today, not after everything they’d been through.

  “This is not where it ends, or how it ends.” She nodded at a side street to the left. It looked wooded, which wasn’t good, but it had no sign of cars. Lincoln swerved the wheel over, and they shot down the forested road, bumping over cracked asphalt. The fire was ever closer, pacing its cage like a tiger, seconds from breaking free. Caroline tried not to think about what would happen if the road they were on curved back straight into the blaze.

  The fire started to catch up with them, catching trees along the road on either side. Thick smoke began to cloak the roadway, and Caroline was terrified they would crash into something. But they couldn’t afford to slow down. The acrid smell of the wildfire seeped inside the car, and Caroline grabbed a spare coat to cover some of the vents, but she couldn’t reach them all.

  Orange embers began to shower down like glowing raindrops as the branches above them caught fire and the dry dead limbs turned to fiery dust. The street ahead was now invisible. The smoke was thicker than fog but lit with a dull glowing orange like hot coals in a blackened fireplace. The world outside seemed full of a heavy roar.

  Caroline put a hand on Lincoln’s arm, and their gazes locked for half a second.

  “I love you.”

  “I know,” he growled and slammed his foot on the gas, and they drove into the murky road ahead.

  Lincoln was sure they were dead. But then the skies cleared, and there was an open road free of cars and fires. They shot across a bridge, and a wide, fast-moving river flowed far below them. He lifted his gaze to the rearview mirror and saw the fire and smoke growing more distant by the second.

  What the…?

  He jolted out of shock and checked on Caroline in the passenger seat. Her eyes were closed, and she was whispering
a prayer, one hand still gripping his arm. Checking the plastic mirror attached to the headrest of the backseat which reflected against the car seat, he saw Ellie was sitting wide-eyed in her car seat, her little pink cheeks covered with tears. Kirby was panting, his head darting all around the cabin. The two chickens stirred but made no other sounds.

  “Jesus…we made it.” He stretched his hands along the steering wheel and felt each of his knuckles crack from the tension.

  “Honey, it’s okay. Open your eyes.”

  Caroline slowly looked around in shock and then turned halfway in her seat to look through the back of the car window at the inferno far behind them. “How…?”

  “A river—we crossed a fucking river.” Lincoln let out a pent-up breath, his lungs itchy from the smoke.

  “A river,” Caroline echoed and then buried her face in her hands. Lincoln wanted to pull the car over and hold her in his arms, but there wasn’t time. They had to keep driving. If the embers crossed the river and started a new blaze, they could still be in trouble. They had to keep going. He’d drive all damn night to keep his unit safe. He closed his eyes half a second, hearing Adam’s voice in his head.

  “You always need a unit, Lincoln. A family to protect. Never let go of that instinct.”

  He hadn’t. Having had a dick of a father and few friends in the town he grew up in, he’d come into the army unsure what it meant to be a part of something bigger than oneself. Once he’d discovered that higher purpose, he’d known he would be in a unit for the rest of his life. When Adam had fallen ill in the bunker, Lincoln had felt his world ending. The last life he had been trusted to protect had been ended by his own hand.

  Now he and Caroline, Ellie, Kirby, and hell, even the chickens fell under his protection. They were his unit now.

  “Caroline.” He placed a hand on her thigh, giving it a gentle squeeze. She dropped her hands and wiped her eyes. She checked on Ellie again before she looked his way.

  “I’m okay,” she said, her face getting some of its color back.

  Lincoln focused on the road again and then said the words back to her that she deserved to hear.

  “I love you too.” He cleared his throat and kept his eyes on the road.

  He’d never said that to anyone except his mother. He’d been around, but always kept things casual. That had been how he’d lived. But there was nothing casual with Caroline. She was making him break every rule he’d created to survive.

  Neither of them spoke for a long while as they drove through the fields and forests of Missouri and entered Tennessee. They passed through small towns, stopping for food, supplies, and gas. By nightfall there were no motels in sight, but Lincoln saw a sign, and he knew Caroline was going to love his choice of improvisation. She was asleep as they stopped in front of the building. When he woke her and she opened her eyes, she grinned in delight.

  “A library!”

  He nodded. “It’s as good a place as any to settle down without a hotel nearby.”

  “You could literally choose any house to stay in, Lincoln.” She seemed surprised by his choice.

  “Is any house going to be as cool as a library?”

  “Touché. I didn’t know you were a reader.”

  He chuckled. “I read. A lot.”

  “Seriously? What’s your favorite book?”

  “The Great Gatsby by F. Scott Fitzgerald. I thought you would have seen it when you snooped through my go-bag.”

  She blushed. “I didn’t get all the way through your bag, just half of it.” Caroline brightened again. “So Gatsby? Really? Why that one?”

  “I suppose…” He paused. He’d never before really voiced what drew him so deeply into that particular book. “I feel a bit like Gatsby reaching for the green light at the end of Daisy’s dock across the water. The belief in something pure, wishing forever that I could have my deepest dreams come true, yet knowing that in those final moments I’ll face reality, that what I long for is forever out of my reach, forever in the past.”

  Caroline’s eyes widened, and her lips parted as she drew in a breath of surprise. “A lot of people think it’s a love story, how Gatsby spent his entire life trying to be good enough for a silly woman like Daisy, but it isn’t.”

  “No, it isn’t,” he agreed. “It’s a story about hope, about never giving up on one’s dream.” He smiled ruefully, realizing only now that perhaps he was more like Caroline than he’d wanted to believe at first. Perhaps he was a dreamer after all, and no matter what, he’d be like Gatsby, waiting by his pool for the phone to ring just as autumn leaves began to fall, signaling his death was imminent. But would he die still full of hope? Or would he live and have that hope whither?

  Caroline quoted his favorite passage by heart as though she’d written it herself. “And as I sat there brooding on the old, unknown world, I thought of Gatsby’s wonder when he first picked out the green light at the end of Daisy’s dock. He had come a long way to this blue lawn, and his dream must have seemed so close that he could hardly fail to grasp it. He did not know that it was already behind him, somewhere back in that vast obscurity beyond the city, where the dark fields of the republic rolled on under the night. Gatsby believed in the green light, the orgastic future that year by year recedes before us. It eluded us then, but that’s no matter—tomorrow we will run faster, stretch out our arms farther . . . And one fine morning— So we beat on, boats against the current, borne back ceaselessly into the past.”

  The fine hairs on the back of his neck rose, and his skin broke out in goosebumps.

  “What’s your green light, Lincoln?” she asked softly, her gaze so ancient in understanding that, he couldn’t doubt that his entire life had led him to this moment with her where civilization lay in ruins and he stood on the steps of the library speaking of dreams drifting endlessly back into the past.

  “My green light?” He swallowed thickly. “It’s you.” He wasn’t sure what he expected her to say or do after he’d just laid bare part of his soul. Perhaps he expected her to kiss him, or to confess that she felt the same, or that she might laugh it off and speak of his foolishness. Instead, she merely spoke a single line from The Great Gatsby to him, the line that had never seemed to make sense to him until she said it right then.

  “Life starts all over again when it gets crisp in the fall.” Reflected in her gaze wasn’t hope this time, but knowledge. Knowledge that whatever the winter had stolen away, spring, summer, and fall would bring back to them. Life, however small and fragile, would still be life, and they would cling to it and defend it with everything they had.

  They broke into the locked library by using a pair of bolt cutters to take the chain off the door. Caroline carried Ellie and her crib inside while Lincoln and Kirby explored the rotunda of the library’s interior, making sure it was completely empty. Despite the lock on the door, there were plenty of ways someone could have broken in. But all was quiet, all was empty. The sun set, leaving them in darkness except for the lanterns they’d brought in. He used the gas stove top to make a pot of beans and to warm up the formula for the baby.

  He let the chickens run about the restroom and scattered the corner of one stall with chicken feed he’d gotten along with the extra dog food. They use the rolled-up sleeping bags from the sporting goods store back in Omaha and made up one large sleeping bag for them to share.

  Caroline curled into him, her warm breath on his throat as he wrapped one arm around her. “Lincoln…”

  “Yeah?” He waited, feeling her settle against him after a long moment.

  “We almost died today.”

  “But we didn’t. Just like we haven’t a dozen other times.”

  “I know… But today was so close. I didn’t want to make you say you love me too. I know you thought you had to say it back, and I’m sorry.”

  He couldn’t resist chuckling. “For a brave, intelligent woman, you sure are dense sometimes.”

  “What?” She pulled away from him, but he dragged her back into
his arms.

  “I didn’t say anything I didn’t mean. There’s nothing you could do to make me say something like that unless I wanted to.”

  “You mean that?” she asked.

  “I do. You’ve made me feel love is possible. You are my hope, Caroline. Always.” He wished he could make her understand what was in his head and in his heart.

  “Can we take some books with us tomorrow?”

  “Sure, it’s not like some librarian is going to get angry if we don’t return them,” he replied, mentally rearranging the space in their vehicle to accommodate a box of books.

  Caroline laughed, and the sound made his blood hum. He’d never considered himself a funny guy, but whenever he managed to win a laugh from her, he felt like a hero.

  “Thank you.” She kissed him and tucked her head under his chin, quickly falling asleep. He lay there holding her for a long while before he followed her, drifting into dreams. Dreams filled with chaos, blood, and regret.

  January 2020

  He sat in the passenger seat of a Humvee, assault rifle propped against his shoulder as he watched the line of military tanks and vehicles form a convoy on the outskirts of Washington, DC. Congress and the Senate had all been given orders to remain in the Capitol. Families were notified that the representatives would not be coming home until things were declared safe.