Containment (21 page)

Maggie ate her meal quietly but did smile at the frivolity and generally good moods that everyone seemed to have. After having eaten, she chose to open a Bible and read from it rather than join in any of the games or discussions.

When it came time for everyone to go to sleep, Charles retreated to the bedroom down the hallway and everyone else tried to make themselves comfortable on the couches and floor around the main room.

Lying on the floor next to Meghan, Neil stared up at that the dark ceiling. His mind was filled with images, memories, and waking dreams that became harder and harder to control as sleep began to overtake him. His last coherent thought was,
I hope this can last
.

The next morning, Jerry woke with a start. He shot straight up and sat there on the floor for a moment or two while he tried to remember where he was. He looked down at Claire, who was still curled up next to him and holding onto his hand. His chest warmed as an involuntary smile spread across his face.

The room was still filled with the sound of deep, sleep-filled breathing. Someone’s nose was buzzing slightly with each exhaled breath. He looked around at the others, trying to distinguish everyone in the dim light of the early morning. He stretched and yawned, thankful for feeling rested again. He smacked his lips together loudly and rubbed the sleep from his eyes. He looked around again and realized that something seemed slightly amiss. He immediately looked around in a panic but found Malachi still leaning against a wall in the corner, still asleep.

Jerry stood up, lying Claire’s hand back at her side, and wandered over to the small window looking out across Charles’ front lawn. The light outside was faint but growing stronger by the minute. He didn’t see anything that stood out to him as being wrong out front. Maybe it was just his imagination. He found his water bottle and took a short drink from it, mindful of preserving whatever water they still had.

Standing in the kitchenette, he realized what was wrong. He could see the soft glow of the rising morning on the wall of the staircase leading down to their room, which meant that the door at the top of the stairs was open. He felt his heart skip a beat and his skin went cold. He held his breath for a few seconds as his eyes darted back and forth across the room again. He didn’t want to make too much noise in case there was some threat lurking upstairs, so he tiptoed through the sleeping bags and their occupants until he found Neil.

He shook the other man slightly. “Neil. Neil. You’ve gotta get up,” he whispered urgently. “Neil!”

Neil opened his eyes, saw Jerry looking down at him, and knew immediately that something was wrong. He leapt up to his feet, grabbing the pistol that was lying next to him in the process.

With a whisper he asked, “What’s wrong?”

Jerry motioned toward the stairs and said, “The door upstairs is open.”

Neil looked around. “Maybe Charles and Mowgli went out for a walk and decided not to wake us.”

“I don’t think so. I don’t think he would have done that to us. Besides, he would have at least shut the door at the top of the stairs. Don’t you think? I mean, he wouldn’t just take off and leave everything open like that. He’s smarter than that.”

“You’re right. Get a gun and let’s get everyone else up. Quietly.”

Jerry nodded and did as he was told. Neil crept over to the stairs and looked up. Sure enough, the door at the top of the stairs was open. It wasn’t just ajar like someone had forgotten to latch the bolt into the locking position either; it was wide open.

“Shit.”

As Neil made his way up the stairs alone, he was reminded once again that he was not cut out for the hero business. He didn’t really think of himself as a coward but he also couldn’t believe for a moment that a hero’s heart would be beating as quickly or as loudly as his was at the moment. The sleek automatic pistol clutched in his right hand was visibly trembling and offered little comfort to him. He stopped on the last stair before emerging into the room above. He held his breath and leapt through. He spun around right and then left, trying to see everything at once so as not to be surprised from behind. He could smell the cool morning air in the house and then realized that the front door was standing wide open as well.

He ran over to the door and slammed it shut, spinning again on his heels terrified that his latest move might have drawn unwanted attention to himself. His breathing was coming in very quick, shallow breaths, like a fish out of water struggling for air.

Coming up the stairs, Dr. Caldwell asked, “Neil. How are things looking up there?”

Neil looked around the living room and didn’t see anything necessarily out of order. He appeared to be alone. Of course, he hadn’t checked down the hallway or even out in the kitchen and dining room.

“Neil?” the doctor’s voice this time was a bit more concerned than before.

Forcing his voice to raise louder than the whisper that it wanted to be, Neil answered, “So far so good. The front door was open too, though. We better look around and make sure.”

“Okay. We’re coming up. Hang tight.”

Neil let out a long breath that he could clearly see due to the cooler outside air that hung in the room.
What the hell happened?
It was just a scant few seconds before Jerry’s and Dr. Caldwell’s faces emerged from downstairs. They looked around slowly and nodded to Neil, who was still standing with his back to the now closed front door.

Jerry said, “It’s cold.”

“Yeah. The backdoor might still be open. We should go check that next. How is everyone downstairs?”

Dr. Caldwell answered, “Alright, I think, but a little shaken. Maggie’s gone.”

“What?” and then Neil pivoted over so that he could see out the front window. Her car was gone too. “Son of a bitch. What about Malachi?”

“He’s still down there.”

Neil nodded. “Let’s figure out what happened after we check the house. I want to make sure that none of those things is wandering around up here lookin’ for breakfast.”

They checked the back hallway. Luckily, Charles had chosen to close the door for the bedrooms and bathroom on the main floor, so the checking didn’t take very long. The backdoor was as wide open as the front though. Despite the status of the doors, the house still seemed to be clear and was secured again almost immediately.

Standing in the kitchen, Jerry looked out a window into the backyard and saw that the van’s doors too were standing wide open and some of their supplies had been removed and dumped on the grass.

Standing next to the van a few moments later, Jerry said to the other two men, “It looks like she took what she wanted and left the rest. What about the extra guns under the seat?”

Neil answered, “She didn’t know about those, I don’t think, because the tub is still under the seat.”

And then, from the back of the van, Dr. Caldwell said, “She took the extra gas and the empty cans.”

Not willing to believe the heartless actions, Jerry asked, “Are you fucking kidding me?”

Dr. Caldwell came around the van and asked the other two men, “What about the gas in the tank? Did she leave us anything?”

Neil answered, “I’d have to go get the keys to start the engine. I think that’d be a helluva lot easier than anything else. I’ll be right back.”

“Agreed,” said Dr. Caldwell.

Just a minute or so later, out of breath from having run downstairs and back again to retrieve the keys, Neil was sitting behind the steering wheel of the van. He turned the key in the ignition and nothing happened. He tried again and again nothing happened. Nothing; not even a single attempt at coming to life.

Neil looked up and noticed that the dome light overhead wasn’t on despite his door being open. “Curious.”

“What?” asked Jerry.

“I think it’s the battery.”

“The battery?”

“Yeah, I think she might’ve drained the battery because the car is dead. It’s not even turning over and it’s never had problems like that in the past. Maybe she turned on the headlights or something. Hell, she left the doors wide open, maybe that was enough to do the trick. We don’t know how long she’s been gone.”

“Yeah. Why don’t we take a peek under the hood? Either of you guys know anything about cars?” Neil asked as he pulled the latch to release the hood.

Both Dr. Caldwell and Jerry shrugged their shoulders and then disappeared behind the raised hood.

Dr. Caldwell said before Neil had even gotten out of the driver seat, “I’m no mechanic but I can see at least one problem.”

“Oh yeah?”

“Yeah,” and he held up several of the cut and slashed pieces of a wire. “She killed the battery cables and it looks like that wasn’t all. We’re missing some other parts and there are definitely some pieces of something other than battery cables in here too. Shit, she took all the spark plugs too!”

“What are you sayin’ Doc?”

“Like I said, I’m no mechanic, but I’d say that we’ve lost this patient and there’s no bringing her back.”

The kidding, in fact all the humor from each of them, melted away with the realization that statement engendered. They were going to be on foot now.

“You folks are more than welcome to stay here. Me and Moe don’t have much to offer but we’re willing to share.”

Meghan looked at Neil, wanting to hear his ideas. He was a good man and a smart one too, and she trusted him. She doubted any of them would have made it this far if it hadn’t been for him. He was always so doubtful of himself, but when he made a decision things tended to work out. Meghan knew that Kim blamed Neil for Tony’s death but she couldn’t see how it possibly could be laid at Neil’s feet. It was precisely because of Neil’s planning that they all hadn’t ended up that way. If it was left up to the rest of them, they would have probably stayed in the house until those things got in and then it would have been over for all of them quickly.

“You are too kind,” Neil said to Charles. “Your generosity is greatly appreciated. I just think that we would end up being a bigger burden on you than you know. When winter hits and supplies are really scarce, you aren’t going to want to have as many extra mouths to feed.”

“Don’t think of yourselves as a burden to us. We’d like the company.”

The offer was very appealing. It would be so nice to just stay and hope for the best, but Neil knew deep down that staying just wasn’t the right thing to do. For one thing, Maggie knew about the house and what was there to stop her from leading back an army of those things like some perverted Pied Piper? Maybe if Neil and his group were to move on, she would just leave Charles and Moe alone. For a moment or two Neil thought about the prospect of leaving Jules and perhaps even Danny with Charles but then he saw an image of Charles keeling over from a heart attack and Jules and Danny being left to their own devices to survive. He just couldn’t do that to them. There had to be help somewhere out there; some vestige of civilization that was still clinging to survival. They just had to find it.

He was all set to say that when Jules said quietly but to all of them, “I wanna go home. I don’t wanna be here in Alaska anymore.” Quiet tears and gentle sobs followed her words. “I want my Mommy and Daddy and Martin. I wanna go home and have everything be the way it used to be.”

Emma lifted Jules in her arms and hugged the crying child to her chest. Everyone wanted to hug her and tell her that it would be all right.

Charles saw that they were resigned t leaving, and that it was futile to convince them otherwise. “What can me and Moe do to help you folks get ready to move on then?”

“I don’t know why we don’t try and find another ride before we leave. It’s safe here and Charles doesn’t seem to mind us being here. Can someone please explain it to me?” pleaded Claire.

Almost apologetically, Jerry replied, “Really, this place only
seems
safe. Sorry, Charles. Safety is a bit relative at this point. This place isn’t any more or less safe than anywhere else. I mean, there’s just a single bolt lock on the door at the top of the stairs. If those things got in upstairs, there wouldn’t be any holding them back. They’d just slam themselves against the door until it gave and then this refuge would become a trap without a way out. Charles has just kept a low enough profile to keep himself from being noticed. In fact, I wouldn’t be at all surprised to learn that we...that our being here has actually threatened his...anonymity. More of us in one spot means more sounds and more smells. We could be acting like a stronger and stronger magnet to the zekes still wandering around town.”

Meghan had never considered that a possibility. They could actually be ruining this nice old man’s last refuge. She was suddenly feeling a little guilty about the sanctimonious attitude she had assumed when Neil decided to give the majority of their pillaged supplies to Charles. It wasn’t even that she didn’t necessarily want to give him the cans of food and other supplies. It was just difficult to part with anything these days and she was afraid that they might give away the wrong thing. Of course it didn’t make a lot of sense to tote around all that canned food on their backs. Her knowing that didn’t really make it any easier though. She had helped carry all of it inside nonetheless.

And now, with Jerry’s latest postulation, she was glad that she hadn’t said anything about which she would be publicly embarrassed.