Barren Waters - The Complete Novel: (A Post-Apocalyptic Tale of Survival) (8 page)

She placed a finger on his mouth, and then replaced it with her warm lips. “I don’t need to think about it,” she murmured against his mouth. “My answer is yes.”

He pressed his lips fully against hers and breathed in the scent of her, his future wife.

“So, Colonel Custer” she queried with a smile as she sat back and sipped at her juice. “Have you yet thought of a place where we might plant our feet in the ground and make our last stand?”

He shook his head with no small amount of smugness. “Nope. I haven’t thought of it, Mrs. Colt. I’ve already purchased it.”

She let release a tiny gasp. “So are you going to tell me where I’ll be living out my last remaining days?”

“Sevierville,” he noted casually, “Sevierville, Tennessee. I purchased a cabin up in the Smokey Mountains, a spacious one that sits at the crest of a large hill, surrounded by thirty-seven acres of unpopulated forestland.”

She set down her juice, slid her body beneath his, and snaked her bare legs around his waist. Her warm, throaty whisper set fire to his body.

“A spacious one, huh?” She kissed his ear then the base of his throat. “That’s good. And does it have a nursery?”

He nearly choked. “A nursery?”

He felt her lips curve into a smile against his mouth. “A nursery,” she repeated with a low chuckle. “Come now. You know how much I love wine. Why do you think I’m not drinking any?

Courage is not having the strength to go on; it is going on when you don't have the strength.

—Theodore Roosevelt

“I’m telling you,” Jeremy warned with a shake of his head, “Professor Snape’s a Death Eater!”

“But he isn’t,” Sam insisted. She lifted her chin and stared down the bridged of her nose. “He’s really not. Besides, if Dumbledore trusts him then so do I.”

Jeremy turned his attention to his wife, his eyes twinkling with amusement. “Care to weigh in on this?”

She held up her hands. “Oh, no—I’m keeping my opinions to myself on this one. We’ve a whole volume left to read. The jury’s still out for me.” She swirled the wine in her glass then set it down with a frown. “How about some hot chocolate?”

“Extra powder,” Sam called out, her forehead and nose bent over the book in her lap.

Susan stacked their dirty dishes in her arms and carried them to the kitchen. She’d wash them the next morning in the water from the stream that ran behind their property. The water was more acidic than it should be, and though it wouldn’t kill them if they strained, boiled, and drank it, Jeremy still preferred that his family drink from the bottles and leave the natural water for washing and bathing.

“So after book seven, what do you think we’ll read next?” Susan asked from across the room.

Sam closed the thick tome and gathered her hair into a messy bun at the crown of her head. “The Twilight series I’m thinking.”

Jeremy grimaced. “You’re gonna put me through months of teen romance? That’s cruel, Sam.”

She shrugged and argued her points in a diplomatic tone. “I’m old enough. I’m twelve now. I’ll be a teenager next year.”

It was the same argument they’d muddled through countless times over the past few months—each time she’d begged him to give her the books. He watched her drum her fingers against the cover of the heavy volume in her lap and felt a lump rise in his throat. She stared him down, almost as if she knew she held him in the palm of her hand.

He had his reasons for withholding those books in particular. He and Susan had both tried to postpone the Twilight series for as long as they could. Not because they thought she was too young or too immature. Quite the contrary. His wasn’t the same fear or discomfort other fathers commonly dwelled upon as they watched their daughters mature. No. His was a different kind of dread, a deeper fear, not of an abundance of unworthy suitors knocking down their door, not of early sexual experimentation or of choosing the wayward path of teenage love over higher education. His was a fear of the possible void that awaited her. A deep anxiety choked him as he stared into the fathomless pit of loneliness that awaited her like a gaping maw. Jeremy would love for Sam to enjoy the kind of puppy dog romances he’d known as a young boy, but the simple fact remained that they hadn’t seen another person for years. He and Susan had had to venture out to find additional sources of disks, and in so doing, had run across small groups of people, but Sam wasn’t a part of that. For her the world was empty.

Jeremy’s father had had the cabin built and outfitted with supplies. He’d planned for every possible need, every possible want; he’d given them a chance at life where millions of others had most assuredly faced death. And he’d provided them with all the basic requirements to sustain that life: food, water, and shelter. But what of companionship and love? What of intimacy and affection? As much as he and Susan hated to admit it, there would come a day in Sam’s future when she’d have to provide for herself. Hopefully it wouldn’t be for quite some time, but inevitably it would come. He and Susan would grow old and die, and Sam would remain. But what was life without the spice of human interaction to season it? Was it even a life worth living? Would Sam live out her days alone in this very cabin, tending her gardens, and reading her books aloud beside the fire in the hearth with none to hear the sound of her voice but herself? It was a lonely set of images indeed; images that he and Susan didn’t openly discuss. That was why he didn’t want her to read books. He didn’t want to invite the comparison of fiction to reality. Fiction or not, the sentiment behind the story was real, and it broke his heart to think that his daughter might be left to yearn for something she’d likely never have.

But he couldn’t protect her from certain truths forever. He examined the slim shape of his wife as she prepared mugs of powdered chocolate that could be heated over the fire. Would Sam ever know the depth of human connection the likes of which he shared with Susan? To Jeremy, marriage had been the point at which his life had finally found direction and hope. He supposed he should allow Sam the books and resigned to it with a sigh.

“Okay, Sam. Twilight is next then.”

Susan glimpsed at him sidelong and shook her head. “You’re a sucker,” she murmured quietly.

He stared down at his hands. Yeah, he supposed he was.

A sudden knock at the door drained the blood from his face. It was such a curious sound, the rap of a fist against wood, the thump of a palm against solid planking. It was the sound of a human, the sound of another, and he practically catapulted from his chair, his wild eyes seeking Susan’s. She met his gaze, frozen in mid-step, mugs of cold chocolate held before her.

“Jeremy?” she whispered in a tiny voice.

He whirled around and peered at Sam. The book had spilled from her knees, and she stood, sword-straight, arms wooden at her sides. Fear coiled in her eyes like writhing snakes.

“Dad?”

“Hide. Get behind the chair.” His voice came out harsher than he’d intended. “Susan, get the gun. Stay in the kitchen, but get the gun ready.”

He moved to the door just as Susan moved for one of the guns they kept on a high shelf above the cabinets. Only when he saw it clenched in her trembling hands, did he finally peer through the peephole.

“Doctor Jack,” he exclaimed breathlessly.

Although the image was tunneled and small, he could clearly discern tension in the man’s posture. What was he doing here? His lips were pressed into a thin line and the muscles in his face were taut. A thin trail of blood tracked the left side of his face. It began at the hairline above his forehead, and ran in a thin dark rivulet over the curve of his cheekbone, disappearing finally beneath the squared line of his jaw.

“Jack,” Jeremy spoke through the door, “What’s happened?”

The doctor shifted on his feet and the hairs on Jeremy’s arms lifted. His hackles rose. Something was off about the man. Doctor Jack’s eyes slid to his right, but his voice rang clear through the barrier between them.

“Jeremy. Please let me in. I’ve had…I’ve had an accident. I think I’m injured. I…I think I’m injured internally I mean.”

Jeremy’s hand was still frozen on the knob. How had the man made it to their house if he’d sustained an internal injury? Somehow the story didn’t ring true, and again, the tiny voice in his head hissed a warning.
Something isn’t right
.

“Jack, how did you make it to our cabin?” He shook his head, confused, then posed a different question. “I mean, how did you get that cut on your head?”

Jack lifted his palms to his temples and applied pressure, his eyes squeezing shut as if he were enduring a private torture. “I must’ve fallen on the way here. I can’t remember. At home I fell and knocked myself unconscious. I think I have a concussion.”

He lifted his eyes to the small piece of concave glass inside the peephole, and even though Jeremy knew he couldn’t see inside, he felt raw and naked beneath the man’s piercing gaze.

Before Jeremy could think to speak, Jack posed the question he’d so dreaded.

“Will you let me in? I just need someone to watch over me while I gauge the severity of this injury. I shouldn’t sleep alone.” He shook his head and contradicted himself. “I mean I shouldn’t sleep at all. Not with a possible concussion.”

Jeremy moved his gaze from the peephole and turned to Susan. He was torn, deeply conflicted. This man had practically saved his daughter’s life. How in good conscience could they turn him away?

“Susan?” Desperately his eyes traveled over her face. From her he needed an opinion, but the same indecision stared back at him. She shook her head slowly, unable to find her voice, and an inappropriate outburst of dry laughter bubbled from his throat. He ran a sticky hand through his hair.

“Good God, Susan. What’s wrong with us? Has it been so long since we’ve seen another person that we’ve forgotten simple neighborly courtesies?” He felt sweat gather beneath his arms. “Susan, are we being overly cautious here?”

She started to speak, yet her voice cracked. With a slight cough she cleared it and held the gun higher. “Let him in, Jeremy. But I’m not dropping this gun.”

Jeremy nodded and moved back to the peephole. “Okay Jack, please take three steps back, away from the door, and hold your hands up in the air.”

The man obeyed, yet again his gaze mysteriously slid to the right. He had the appearance of a doe caught in the lights of a Mack truck and Jeremy’s eyes tracked him as he backed away from the door. Jeremy strained to see each area to the side of the man, though the tunneling of the peephole set limits to his field of vision. There were no visible packs, no supplies or traveling gear. Jack had apparently forgotten to bring anything of value at all, which seemed to grant further credence to his story. Perhaps he really
was
in need of aid. What person would brave a walk through the woods in the half-light of burgeoning night without even a bottle of water or scrap of food? And with a head injury?

Jeremy cast a last glance over his shoulder at his daughter’s chair. He could see the rounded shadow of her slight form crouched behind it, but he couldn’t see any part of her poking beyond the outline of its framework. He disengaged the lock, set his hand to the knob, and turned it slowly, barely opening it a slim crack. Peering through the blade-thin aperture he gave his orders.

“Jack? We do this slowly if we do it at all. Keep your hands up–“

Time seemed to move in ponderously slow increments as several things happened at once. Jeremy was simultaneously thrown backward as three men burst into his field of vision. They leaned into the door with a combined force that ripped the knob from his fingers and slammed the wood against the wall behind it.

Two of the men thrust into the room, guns raised. “Hands up. Up where I can see 'em. Jeremy is it?”

Jeremy willed himself to keep his gaze fixed on the men in front of him. Susan hadn’t had time to hide, but with any luck Sam was still crouched in her corner between the back of the overstuffed chair and the wall. He wouldn’t betray her location with a shift of his eyes.

“I’m unarmed,” he choked as he lifted his hands high above his head.

The two pushed further into the room and surrounded him while the third seized the doctor’s arm and pulled him through the door. Jack’s eyes met Jeremy’s own as the man jostled him into a chair. His voice was a thin whisper; edges rimmed black with guilt and self-condemnation.

“I’m so sorry Jeremy.” He hung his head low. “So sorry. I should’ve let them kill me.”

One of the men raised the barrel of his gun level with Jeremy’s temple, and settled his gaze upon Susan. “Drop it lady,” he demanded of her. His tone was businesslike, well practiced as he motioned Jeremy to the sofa.

No Susan
, Jeremy thought as he lowered himself to the cushions. He mentally willed the word to his wife over and over again. She mustn’t show weakness. They were three adults against three adults, and all wasn’t yet lost if one of them still had a weapon. Her eyes darted between the three intruders, and then snagged on the Doctor’s head wound and widened. She grimaced. She wasn’t prepared for something like this. None of them were. Jeremy’s dismay deepened as his wife’s gaze settled on the barrel of the gun that was trained a few short feet from his temple, and all at once he knew they’d won.

Beaten, she let the gun fall from her fingers to the floor with a clatter. Her eyes were deep pools of fear as she raised her hands above her head.

The man with the gun nodded and shouldered Jeremy onto the sofa. “So. Where’s the room?”

Jeremy found his voice. “What room? What are you talking about?”

“Don’t play dumb. We haven’t the time or the patience. I mean the supply room. Take us there.”

With two of the men covering Jeremy and Jack, the third was left to Susan. He grabbed her by the shoulders and pushed her onto the sofa beside Jeremy. He then began a slow wandering of the room, his eyes wide, the whites large circles that framed deep brown irises, and Jeremy noticed their disheveled appearances for the first time. Clearly they were refugees of the great dying, their clothing tattered and soiled, shoes split and peppered with holes. All three were thin and scraggy. They had the look of bandits who’d appropriated their mismatched garments from a world where nothing new was made anymore. Jesus, he thought miserably, this must seem like some presidential suite in a Las Vegas casino to them.

“This place is amazing,” the third man muttered to himself as he ventured closer to the fire and examined the family portraits that lined its mantel. Reflexively, Jeremy’s hands knotted into fists as the man veered closer and closer to his daughter’s hiding place. “This place is impressive, Sturgeon,” he repeated as he extended his hands over the warmth of the fire and rubbed them together briskly. “Very impressive indeed.” He turned and cocked his head. “Like some place I might like to live.”