Solstice: A Novel of the Zombie Apocalypse (23 page)

“Do they get out to run?” Tomas asked, stroking the mare’s nose, which felt like warm suede against his roughened palm. He thought he would maybe bring Christopher out there. The boy had ridden a pony once at a petting zoo in Gothenburg, but he’d been so young, Tomas doubted he remembered it. Of course, Tomas recalled every moment like photographs etched into his memory—the warmth of the day, the smell of the animals, the ringing laughter of the kids.

The sunshine.

“I try to get them out for exercise every few days. Otherwise, they have free run of this barn, for what it is,” Finn said. “I don’t know if those things out there have an appetite for horse, but I don’t want to take a chance.”

Tomas nodded. “What about food and supplies?”

“We’re good, at least for a while. Colleen is old-fashioned. She put away food, buying things on sale and stocking up. Tinned beef, tinned fish. Beans. Not the tastiest things, but we survive. Could always use more, but we’re not starving. Yet.”

Tomas nodded.

“When I was forced into ‘early retirement’ from the registrar’s office, Colleen and I used what savings we had and bought this place. It was a bloody mess, but we made it a home, didn’t we? We strove for self-sufficiency—gardens, the animals, a well, tons of wood for the hearth.

Tomas could imagine the quotation marks surrounding the words “early retirement.” He would’ve been happy to have had that same kind of situation back in Sweden. Money was good, of course, but happiness was better. Leila would never have gone for it, of course. She was hardly the Mother Earth type. Her idea of roughing it was skipping her weekly visit to the salon.

They moved outside, and the icy wind was biting after the relative warmth and shelter of the barn. Finn pulled on his toboggan and tugged it down to cover his ears. He flashed a grin, and for a moment, he looked like a chubby kid.

“Of course, when Colleen got sick four months ago, it was back to the city for us. Chemo took everything out of her. She couldn’t stand to travel; the nausea was just awful.” Finn led him over a low ridge away from the barn, his light cutting a ghostly glow in the darkness.

Snow fluttered down like ash. It had accumulated on the ground like a soft blanket. Smoke floated from the chimneys of the old house, filling the air with the scent of smoldering oak. The quiet of the country was unsettling. It seemed years since Stu had been outdoors without the need to look over his shoulder, and he wasn’t comfortable. He plunged his hands into his coat pockets and fingered the butt of his pistol, reassured by the cool touch of it. About fifty yards from the house was a slow, meandering stream. Steam rose from the warmer water like low, wispy clouds.

“You haven’t seen any Ragers out here?” Stu asked.

“Well, that’s the thing. There haven’t been any,” Finn said. “Well, except one.”

“Oh, yeah? What did you do?”

Finn barked a bitter laugh. “You tell me.”

He walked to the edge of the stream and motioned for Tomas to step closer. Finn shined the light directly into the water. “Look, but don’t get too close.”

Tomas leaned forward, squinting to see through the murky, swirling water. Slowly, a shape began to form. Tomas placed his hands on his knees and bent closer. “What the—”

Suddenly, a bloated, gray hand thrust upward from the water, spraying Tomas with chilly droplets. He jumped backward, stumbled, and fell on his ass.

“Dammit to hell!” he cried, groping his coat for the gun.

Finn giggled like a schoolboy and offered his hand to Tomas. “Don’t worry. He can’t get you. He’s weighted down with cinder blocks.”

Tomas crept back to the bank again. The man’s face pressed forward toward the surface of the stream as if peering through a smudged window. He appeared to be bloated to the point of bursting. His mouth worked angrily with teeth exposed. Wavy dark hair floated around his face like a halo of snakes.

“How did you manage to do that?” Tomas asked.

“Roped him, believe it or not,” Finn said.

It was a difficult for Tomas to imagine overweight, middle-aged Finn roping anything that moved. Maybe he was more agile than he looked.

“Tied ’im up and considered whacking him in the head to kill him. I guess I didn’t have the heart to do it. He was a neighbor, you see. Nick Mooney, that was his name. His wife and Colleen shopped together from time to time.” Finn moved the light around, as a child might do to tease a kitten. Nick Mooney grabbed at the darting light, gnashing his teeth like an animal.

“He told me all sorts of terrible things. Told me how he’d scooped his wife’s eyeballs from her skull with a grapefruit spoon then eaten them. He said he would do the same thing to my Colleen.” Finn sighed. “I thought I would drown him. I guess I was wrong.”

“How long has he been here?”

“Nearly two weeks, and if he could get out of that water, he would rip us all apart.”

Tomas frowned and chewed his lip for a moment. He couldn’t pull his eyes from the thrashing, submerged figure. “This means they’re dead, doesn’t it?”

“I reckon it does. Dead and pissed.” Finn looked at Tomas. “What do you think happened?”

“I’m still trying to figure that one out. Obviously, some kind of electromagnetic pulse killed the electricity and communication grids. But the Ragers? I’ve no idea. I’ve heard talk of a flash of light, but I didn’t see it. Some appear to be burned, so I wonder if it might have been some kind of radiation poisoning.

Finn nodded. “Maybe so. My Anne had burns.”

Tomas again peered into the water at the unfortunate Nick Mooney. He considered shooting him, but thought better of it. A gunshot might alert uninvited guests.

***

Tomas found joy in his son’s happiness. He sat on the floor in front of the fire, holding Christopher in his lap. Just the simple act of having his arms around the child made him feel that things just might be okay. That was, as long as he didn’t allow his mind to travel down the darker roads—Leila.

Christopher chewed on the ear of his “Blippy” bear, one of the few stuffed animals they had brought from Sweden. His eyes drifted closed, his long lashes nearly touching his pale cheeks, then fluttered open again. Tomas kissed the crown of his son’s head and felt his own eyes grow heavy. Behind them, Melanie cleared plates and put away leftovers in the kitchen. In only a couple of days, she’d embraced the domesticity of running a household, at Colleen’s side constantly. The mousy, shy girl had blossomed like a moonflower.

“Colleen’s found a second daughter,” Finn said quietly. He parked himself in the worn leather reading chair, a Sarah Waters novel in his hand.

“I think Melanie’s found a second mother, as well,” Tomas said. “She needs that.”

Finn grunted a reply, flipped the book over, and read the back cover. “Finished all my books. Now, I’m reading Colleen’s.” He sighed. “You know what’s the worst thing about the end of the world? There’ll never be another novel published.”

Tomas smiled. “You’re a barrel of laughs, Finn.”

“Sorry. I just find myself thinking of things like that too often, but of course, I reached a truce with ‘the end’ when Colleen became sick. Are things really over, or is it simply another kind of existence?”

Tomas snuggled Christopher against him, his large fingers playing with his son’s small ones. “I’m not ready to give up on this existence just yet.” He understood where Finn was coming from—his daughter had been infected and crazed, his wife ill. What little he had to cling to was slipping away quickly. Tomas didn’t dare put himself in Finn’s shoes. Some thoughts were too grim to entertain.

“Do you really believe there’s something out there? In America?” Finn laughed cynically. “Wasn’t much
there
to begin with.”

“Come with us, Finn. Maybe we can find some help for her,” Tomas said, lowering his voice. “Isn’t it better to try?”

Finn got up and poured a couple of tall whiskies. Taking a deep drink of his, he passed the other glass to Tomas. “I’d really prefer some ice. Suppose there's plenty outside, but who wants to do that?” He sat back in the chair. “Think about this, Tomas. I can’t allow her last days to be spent running and hiding, searching on some off-chance things might be better somewhere else. Look around here. We can sustain. We’re hidden from the Ragers, and even better, we’re hidden from those marauders. I have a generator; it just needs fuel. A greenhouse and a store of seed. With grow lights, we could have what we need. You’re welcome to stay here. Stay and keep this place after we’re gone. It’s yours.”

“Thank you, Finn. Maybe we will,” he answered, touched by the man’s generosity. Of course, he knew they wouldn’t stay, although he imagined living there, teaching Christopher to read and write and letting him be a real boy, not a frightened little creature afraid to exist outside, away from the safety of a roof and four walls. There was a warmth in the place he could learn to love.

Chapter 35

Folkestone, Kent, UK

Finn saddled up Chloe and Rusty, and he and Tomas rode toward Elham, the nearest village to the farm. Tomas had kissed his son and left him to play in front of the hearth, where Melanie stood as protective as a mother lion. Unable to bear leaving her unarmed, he had left the gun, also, although it meant he had nothing but a machete for defense.

But Finn was full of surprises, climbing into Rusty’s saddle with a Sako Classic hunting rifle strapped to his back. He caught Tomas watching him and shrugged sheepishly. “Anyway, I didn’t want to mention this until I knew I could trust you. You understand.”

Tomas nodded. “Of course. I would have done the same.” He would have. Apocalypse or not, a man couldn’t trust another man inside his home without first getting to know him. “Can you use it?”

Finn laughed. “I used to be handy. Haven’t fired it in quite a long time, though.”

As they moved away from the cozy safety of the farmhouse, Tomas’s stomach clenched with anxiety. Snow flew into his face, and he squinted into it. The rhythmic clip-clop of the horses’ steps on the frozen ground and the gusts of wind were the only sounds in the otherwise hushed countryside. Aside from the gusting snowflakes, the night was a shroud of black. There were no fires marring the perfect darkness.

Tomas and Finn trotted side-by-side in companionable silence. Finn had tied two ten-gallon petrol canisters to his saddle. They would split the load if they managed to fill both. Tomas had three large duffel bags tightly rolled and secured on the back of his own mount, ready to be filled with whatever usable items he could find. Batteries, candles, tins of vegetables and soups. And enough Seconal to send an army to hell.

Chapter 36

London, England

There turned out to be more to Ken from Kent than Stu had originally assumed. He took Ken out through the back docking area, toward the parking area that adjoined the back lot to the Chinese takeaway and the coveted natural gas tank.

“I think I can get us connected,” Ken commented. “I hate to have those kids freeze in the middle of the Tesco.” He laughed cheerfully, blinking hard against the whipping snow.

Stu wrapped the scarf Tana had given him up over his mouth and nose to block the icy wind. He inhaled deeply, breathing in her scent, and wished he was back inside, curled up tight against her backside in the dark privacy of their tent.

The canisters were running low, and they’d started running the generator only a few hours a day. A few hours weren’t cutting the cold that permeated the walls of the supermarket. At times, he thought he felt the chill seeping through the soles of his shoes from the concrete floor. Too often, he imagined being home on the beach in Wilmington, the sun bathing his face and chest in warmth, his back pressed into the sand, the foamy Atlantic surf tickling his legs and sides.

“What d’you think, Stu?” Ken asked, reining Stu back into bleak reality.

Stu pulled down the scarf. “I’m sorry?”

“I said, the black chick is pretty cute.” Ken hoisted a line from his shoulder and knelt beside the propane tank. “Here, shine that torch over here.”

Stu held up the flashlight, brightening the gauge that sat just above the valve. “Yeah, she is.”

“Looks like we’ve hit the jackpot here,” Ken said, removing his gloves and stuffing them into the pockets of his coat. He twisted a small dial, then moved around behind the tank. “Here. Hold the light this way.”

“Are you sure you know how to do this?” Stu asked. “I really don’t feel good standing this close to something that might blow us to bits.” Holding the light steady, he scanned the car park, searching for any odd movements. Nothing but snow and darkness. He turned back to see Ken fastening the threaded end of the line onto a newly exposed valve.

“No worries. Besides, if it goes up, at least we’ll be warm. For a few seconds, anyway.”

Stu didn’t find that particularly amusing.

“So? She’s taken?” Ken asked.

“Taken?”

“You’ve got a line on her, I mean. You’ve claimed her?” Ken removed a roll of plumber’s tape from his pocket and wrapped it around the connection, sealing it tightly.

“Yes. I mean no. I haven’t claimed her. She can do what she wants.”

“Or who she wants.” Ken laughed.

“Shhh,” Stu hissed, flicking off the flashlight.

“Crap,” Ken muttered. “What happened to the light?”

“They’re coming,” Stu whispered, removing the pistol from this coat. He had caught the fleeting movement on the far side of the supermarket. Anxious, he passed the flashlight to Ken. “Can you manage?”

“I can try.” Ken flipped the light back on, tucked it in the crook of his neck, and went back to securing the line that led to the generator inside the supermarket stockroom.

“Hurry,” Stu said. He jogged toward the side of the store, gun ready, breaths like smoke puffing from his lips in the cold. He wished Tana had come out with them. He felt safer when she was there to cover his back. She was so strong, and he was nothing but a frightened, lost man. A frightened, lost man who needed a drink worse than anything in the world.