The next morning felt like a Saturday, what with the girls sprawled around the living room and the mess from the pizzas in the kitchen. No one had really cleaned up other than putting the last few slices in the fridge. I grabbed a couple of slices for breakfast, made myself a cup of coffee, and cleared some space at the dining room table to figure out what I was doing next.
I’d slept better than I’d expected. Dawson only woke me up five times.
Karen was alive, at least a few days ago. I wanted to make contact with her, but I had a hunch she wasn’t interested, or she’d have called back by now. But I felt like I owed it to Hannah to find out exactly what was going on with her. Granted, they weren’t exactly on good terms, but they still talked occasionally, and those conversations went well as long as they avoided talking about her relationship with Ciera.
I doubted Sarah, my second ex-wife, and Kevin’s mom, was still alive. Neither she nor my daughter Taylor had responded to any of the messages or voicemails I’d sent since The Event. I’d been hopeful in the beginning that they’d survived but been unable to reach me, but that wasn’t a realistic possibility at this point, I thought. I still wanted to head that way and see if I could find them, because in the back of my mind, I wasn’t going to be sure they were dead until I saw them. I owed it to them to be sure. Didn’t I?
Likewise, I was reasonably sure my sister was gone. It just wasn’t Cece’s style to be out of contact for so long. But in the back of my mind, I wondered what would have happened to all of the cruise ships that were out to sea when this happened. Weren’t a lot of systems automated? How many crew members did it really take to run one of those ships? She’d said more than once that most of the crew were hotel people, taking care of the guests. The guys who ran the boat, the engine room crew and those kinds of guys, made up less than twenty percent of the total crew, she told me once. If enough crewmembers had survived, the ship-smart guys could probably train the hotel guys how to do enough stuff to get them back to port. Probably. Maybe.
Gabe and Natalie were still a big question mark, but I wasn’t especially hopeful for them. Then again, while no one in my family other than Hannah had returned my phone calls, that wasn’t as big a deal for them as it was for the others. They still relied on a landline for their ranch because cell coverage was so spotty in their area of Montana. I thought too that out of everyone in my family, they were probably the most prepared for some kind of apocalypse. They had generators, firewood, land, water, and animals, or basically everything they’d need to survive.
If I was going to go check on anyone, it made the most sense to look for Sarah and Taylor. Portsmouth was more or less on the way to Paducah, where Rory has said they were going to end up if he and his daughter left Jasper, and he’d made it sound like I’d be welcome there if I was interested. It was tempting, at least for me. I had no idea what Hannah and Ciera were thinking of doing, and we had the younger girls to think of. Monica and Page were pretty much on their own, as far as I was concerned. I wasn’t necessarily angry about them leaving Hannah behind, mainly because Hannah seemed to have forgiven them. But it didn’t feel right to invite them along on the next leg of my trip when I didn’t really know where I was going or where I’d end up.
I started to call Joe Caughey, my Army buddy in Colorado, then realized it was still pretty early for him, so I called Rory instead. He was doing pretty well, he said. “Lacey seems to have started healing. She’s not crying as much as she did the first couple of days, at least. I ended up burying Tammy and Micah the other day, and that seemed to help.”
“Hey, have you given any more thought to what you’re doing long-term? You still thinking about Kentucky?”
“Sort of,” he said. “Uncle Steve’s been in touch with family here and there, and says quite a few of them are talking about moving. I’m just not sure I want to yank Lacey away from here right away, you know? Like how they tell people not to make any major decisions for the first year after a major loss?” He sighed. “Crap. I don’t know, man. I just don’t know.”
We’d talked about Jasper’s pros and cons before I left, and there were a lot more cons than pros, especially since The Event. But he knew that, and there was no point in my beating him up about it. “You talk to her about it at all?”
“Not really. I mean, in general terms, sure. I’ve talked to my uncle about every other day, so she knows they’re mostly okay up there. She’s visited a few times before, and gets along real well with her cousins who live up there. And it’s not like I’ve got to worry about yanking her out of school. We’ll see. And I told Steve y’all might be heading that way. He said you’d be welcome.”
I laughed. “Well, if I did go, it might not be just me.” I filled him in on the rest of the story behind finding Hannah. “So it could be just me, or it could be seven or more at this point.”
“You picking up strays?” He laughed.
I smiled. It did kind of feel that way. “So we don’t even really know what we’re doing today, let alone next week. Like I said, I need to at least check on Sarah and Taylor, and then go from there. How are things down there otherwise?”
He groaned. “Desilva’s getting stupid. He’s trying to rally people behind him, saying he’s supposed to be sheriff since he’s the only surviving deputy. But Rami got into the surveillance recordings and says he’s got proof that Desilva is guilty. It’s just that there’s no justice system beyond Rami right now, so he doesn’t want to arrest him yet.”
“And Rami isn’t one for vigilante justice, either. He’s going to want to rebuild the system as much as he can, or at least as much as practical. I just hope that doesn’t come back to bite him in the ass somehow.” I shook my head.
“You and me both, my friend. Give Hannah a hug for me and be careful up there. Stay in touch, okay?”
Hannah wandered out not long after I hung up. “Who was that? And what did you have for breakfast?”
“Rory Wilson in Jasper, and cold pizza.”
She made a face. “Ew. Cold? Seriously? So gross.” She poured a cup of coffee and joined me at the table. “How’s he doing?”
I wiggled my hand. “Tammy and Micah didn’t make it. Lacey took it pretty hard, he said.”
She didn’t answer right away. I wasn’t sure how well she remembered Rory. “What’s in Kentucky?”
I smiled. “How long have you been awake?” I filled her in on the basics of Rory’s offer, which were pretty darned basic. “I haven’t talked to his uncle yet, and don’t even know what they’ve got to offer down there. But it wouldn’t take much to go on to Paducah after swinging through Portsmouth.”
She sipped at her coffee. “What about Mom?”
I thought for a minute about how to answer that, then shrugged. “We know she’s alive, or at least was. But I can’t make her talk to us, not if she won’t even answer the phone. She knew when they left their place that you and I were alive.” I shook my head. “I’m sorry, kiddo. I don’t know what else to tell you.”
She nodded slowly, then the tears started, and she collapsed against me. “I’m sorry, Daddy. I’m sorry I’m such a disappointment to you guys.”
“Whoa, hold up, kiddo. When have I ever said that to you, or made you think that?”
She didn’t answer.
I picked her chin up to make her look at me. “I mean it. Have I ever said something that made you think that?”
She finally shook her head.
“Have I ever made you question my love for you?”
She shook her head again, squeezing her eyes tightly, trying to keep the tears in. “I just want her to be my mom. I just want my mom to love her kid.” She wrapped her arms around my neck and buried her face in my chest, and I held her like that for a long time.
Ciera peeked around the corner just then, one hand over her mouth, the other wiping her tears. I waved her over with a nod of my head. The three of us huddled there for a while. I didn’t know what to say. I felt like I was supposed to say something deep and philosophical, because I was the dad, and the oldest adult in the room. But I couldn’t think of anything that didn’t sound Hallmarky and shallow, so I settled for silence.
By one in the afternoon, I’d called Joe Caughey and talked for a while, and I’d sent him an email with information about Gabe and Natalie, and Cece. He would forward that on to his amateur radio contacts and see what people could find out. In return, he was going to try to find a ham operator near me or my proposed destinations and see if they could get some equipment installed in my truck. I’d also emailed a summary of what I knew and my basic plans to Gabe’s and Cece’s email addresses, just in case. Then I committed the shopping list I’d been keeping in my head to paper, thinking that late today or sometime tomorrow I’d actually get around to picking up the things I needed. I finished all of that just in time for the meeting we’d scheduled.
The “North Hills Girls” looked way better than they had yesterday. Everyone had showered and put on clean clothes, and that alone seemed to have done wonders for them emotionally. Renee, the youngest, had woken up a couple of times during the night, but Samantha had been able to calm her down and get her back to sleep. Meriah had apparently become Minion’s new favorite human, because he didn’t let her get more than a couple of feet away before getting up and following her.
After everyone got settled with sandwiches and drinks, Hannah looked over at me. “Okay, Dad. This is your show.” She had a serious tone, but she was smiling.
I shifted in my seat, suddenly nervous. “I don’t know about it being my show. I’m not really in charge of anything as far as I know, and I don’t want anyone thinking I’m taking charge. I’m just laying out what I’m planning on doing, and helping everyone else figure out what they’re doing.” From there, I recapped what I knew about my family. “So my immediate plan is to try and find Hannah’s mom while I work my way down to southern Ohio and look for my daughter and my other ex-wife. From there, I’m not sure what I’ll do.”
“Does that mean you’re not coming back here?” Samantha sounded confident, but it didn’t carry over to her expression.
“Not really sure, sweetie. Part of that is going to depend on what Hannah and Ciera decide to do. I’m not sure anyone should really stay here though.” That led to a twenty-minute explanation about the risks of a bunch of dead bodies in a confined area along with the basic human demands for food and water.
Paige looked annoyed. “But once the government gets going again, aren’t they going to take care of us?” Hannah and Ciera looked at the floor quickly, but I still caught their smiles at Paige’s naiveté.
I pointed to Ciera. “She’s half of the law enforcement in the county right now. My whole trip from East Texas to here, and all through yesterday, I didn’t see another cop moving anywhere. As near as I can tell, about ninety percent of the world has just dropped dead, and that includes the cops, the firefighters, the dogcatchers, and everyone else in the government you can think of.” I was getting worked up and took a deep breath to slow down. I knew Paige knew what had happened at one level, but I wasn’t sure the enormity of it had hit her yet, and it sounded like this was going to be a major wakeup call for her about a lot of things. “When you guys were coming back up here, did you see anything like an organized government effort to fix anything?”
She looked like she was thinking for a moment. “No. But that doesn’t mean they weren’t working somewhere else.”
I nodded. “True. Completely valid point. But they’re going to be just as overwhelmed as everyone else is. Think about it. There’s, what? A million-and-a-half people in Philadelphia? Let’s be generous and say ninety percent of them died in this Event, or whatever you want to call it. That’s going to leave about a hundred-and-fifty thousand people alive. There’s not a city in the world that’s prepared to deal with over a million dead bodies all at once. And that doesn’t even take into account all the wrecked cars and trucks, and damaged buildings, and fires.” I scanned the room to see how this was affecting everyone and got a bunch of blank looks from the kids. “I could go into a lot more detail if you want me too, but I’m not sure I should right now. What I’m saying is that I don’t think it’s unreasonable to say we’re going to be on our own for years at this point.”
Nobody responded.
“The main reason I’m thinking of going to Kentucky is that Rory’s family seems to have something of a gathering place. He told me they’ve got a bunch of land, and plenty of room for people. But I haven’t talked to him yet to see if they’re just letting everyone and their brother move in, or if they’re looking for specific skillsets.”
“Like what?” Meriah asked.
“Well, Ciera is a deputy sheriff, so she’s got some legal knowledge, some tactical knowledge, that kind of thing. She could help a town set up security or rebuild their legal system. Same with Hannah. She’s an attorney. I bet Paige has some medical knowledge, from taking care of her sister over the years. She’s not a nurse, but she could help a doctor or a nurse with lots of things.”
“What can you do?”
I smiled. “That’s a good question. I’m a writer, or was last week. But I was a supply guy in the Army, so I could help organize and track supplies for a town. I’m probably going to call Rory’s uncle here in a bit to see exactly what he’s got going.”
“When do you think you’re—” Hannah looked over at the window. “Does anyone else hear horseshoes?”
We all strained our ears. Monica was more practical and went to the window. “There’s some woman on a horse out front, and it looks like she’s looking for an address.” Minion joined her at the window, then started barking.
We all moved to crowd around the window. Hannah got there first, then sprinted for the door. “Mom!”
I pushed my way through, but the woman was already under the awning at the front door, the horse tied to a streetlight. Hannah squealed happily downstairs. Ciera did not look happy. “Has she ever actually met you?”
She shook her head. “Haven’t even talked on the phone. Didn’t think I could stay polite. This could get ugly.”
I grabbed her arm. “I’m not sure what’s going on, but she’s up here without her husband, so something may have changed. Let’s see what develops first.”
She gave me a shaky nod. Bet she’s jonesin’ bad for a smoke right about now. A minute later, Hannah and Karen came through the door, arm in arm, both of their faces red and wet from tears.
I hadn’t seen her in a couple years, at least, but she looked much older than I would have expected. I was six months younger, but there was a lot of gray in her long ponytail for a forty-three-year-old woman, and her face was well-lined. I didn’t see a hint of make-up either, and that had been a big thing for her when we were married. Just as beautiful as ever, though.
Minion was torn between the new person in the room and the horse outside. He went back and forth a few times, barking at each, then stopped in front of Karen, wagging his tail. Karen said hello to him, then took a couple of steps into the apartment and stopped, taking in the crowd. She smiled at me briefly, then fixed her gaze on Ciera, who stood up straight, her shoulders almost defiantly squared. Hannah opened her mouth, but Karen hushed her, gently. “You must be Ciera. I don’t know how I know. But I know. And we’re going to have a long conversation, the three of us. The only thing I want to say right now is ‘Thank you for taking care of my daughter.’”
Ciera rocked noticeably before shaking Karen’s proffered hand.
Then Karen came over to me and hugged me softly. “I’m so sorry about Kevin,” she whispered against my cheek.
My “Thank you” caught in my throat twice before I got it out. “Where have you—”
“Shh. Not right now. Maybe it’ll be the four of us talking.” She pulled away from me, turning to face the rest of the room. “You may have figured out by now that I am Hannah’s mother, Karen Walters.” I flinched. She’d used her maiden name. “I apologize for the interruption. I wasn’t able to call ahead. I’m going to the bathroom to freshen up, and then I’ll meet everyone.” She looked around for a moment, then headed down the hallway.
Nobody moved for a solid fifteen seconds. I wasn’t sure I was even breathing. Paige finally jumped up. “Hey, why don’t you girls come over to our place? Let’s see if Netflix is still working.” She ushered Monica and the other girls out the door, mouthed a wide-eyed “Good luck,” and closed the door quietly.
Copyright © 2019 Bob Mueller
All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, distributed, or transmitted in any form or by any means, including photocopying, recording, or other electronic or mechanical methods, without the prior written permission of the publisher, except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical reviews and certain other noncommercial uses permitted by copyright law. For permission requests, contact the publisher.
Share your thoughts!