A Long Road Back: Final Dawn: Book 8 (13 page)

     “Wow! Like a Frankenstein monster?”

     “Yep.”

     Markie lay his little head against her shoulder. Hannah relaxed and prepared to enjoy ten minutes of silence.

     After five minutes she opened one eye and snuck a peek at her son, who was sound asleep and softly snoring.

     Her last thought before falling back asleep herself: kids are such suckers.

-24-

     An hour later those lucky enough to be in the main hallway and dining room were entertained by an amazing spectacle: Hannah, in a housecoat, walking stiffly along. Her arms were stretched out in front of her, her hands balled into fists. She dragged her feet on the floor as she went, and her upper body rocked from side to side. With each step she let out a loud grunt.

     Markie walked along beside her, giggling every step of the way. For those who gazed in curious wonder, he explained.

     “She’s a Frankenstein monster.”

     That seemed to satisfy the curious.

     Of course she was.

     They went about their business, and Hannah the monster led little Markie to the kitchen, where she handed him a homemade pecan sandie from the cookie jar.

     Then she magically went from monster mode back to Markie’s mom.

     A deal was a deal.

     “Okay, honey. Mommy’s back. You fix yourself a glass of milk and go find a table you like. I’m gonna fix me some coffee and I’ll join you in a minute. Okay?”

     “Sure, Mommy.”

     Hannah said hello to the women in the kitchen, and Karen tenderly hugged her.

     “How are you feeling, honey?”

     “Better, actually. I was worried that I might lose my foot, but the doctor told me yesterday it looks like I’ll be able to keep it after all.”

     “That’s good, sweetheart. We’ve all been watching you, and we’ve been worried. It was obvious that something has been bothering you, that you were under a great deal of stress. I’m glad your doctor has put your mind at ease, so you can stop worrying and focus all your efforts on healing.”

     Hannah hugged Karen a second time and said, “Thank you, Karen. I didn’t know it was that obvious.”

     She intentionally didn’t mention the foot wasn’t the only thing causing her stress.

     Hannah finished preparing her coffee and joined Markie at the crayon table.

     Each of the tables in the dining room were specially made to use as recreational as well as dining tables. Each seated four persons, and each had a drawer beneath the tabletop.

     Each table was inlaid with a board game of some type, or another activity.

     Markie had chosen his favorite table.

     Emblazoned across the table top were very large words,
Color Time!!!
in purple cursive letters. A large cartoon dinosaur held a red crayon in one three-clawed hand and a blue crayon in the other.

     The dinosaur was smiling, obviously kid friendly, and wearing a green hat.

     While he waited for his mom, Markie had taken a coloring book and crayons from the drawer and was practicing his artistry.

     “Well, that looks pretty good, Markie, honey. But I don’t think firetrucks are supposed to be purple.”

     “Sure they are, Mom. You told me that in my imagination anything is possible. Remember?”

     “Good point. Color away, little man. Did you enjoy your cookie?”

     “Yes. It was yummy. Can I have another?”

     “Nope. Daddy said he’d be here shortly after he got his shower. We’re gonna have breakfast then.”

     “Why didn’t we just wait for him? He didn’t get to see you when you walked like a Frankenstein monster.”

     “Well, because Daddy would have yelled at me for giving you a cookie before your breakfast.”

     “Oh. I don’t want Daddy to yell at you. So okay, no more cookies.”

     “Good job, dude.”

     Hannah felt a hand upon her shoulder and turned her head.

     “Oh hello, Frank.”

     “Hello you two. My, that’s a great firetruck, Markie. But I thought firetrucks were supposed to be black instead of purple.”

     Hannah slapped his hand, still on her shoulder.

     “You’re not helping, Frank.”

     “Mommy says anything is possible, Mr. Frank. Even purple firetrucks.”

     “You know what, son? Your mommy is absolutely right. And it’s a great looking purple firetruck indeed.”

     Frank turned his attention back to Hannah.

     “Are we still on for the ten o’clock meeting?”

     “Yes, sir. We’re waiting for Mark. We’re going to have some breakfast, and we’ll be there on time. You’re welcome to join us if you’d like.”

     “Well I’d absolutely love to, and thank you.”

     Frank took the chair beside Markie and directly across from Hannah.

     He studied her face.

     “The swelling’s gone down. You almost look like you did before the crash, except for the bruises. And they’re much lighter today.”

     “You mean I’m starting to look like a human again, instead of a big black and blue basketball head?”

     He smiled.

     “I wasn’t going to phrase it exactly that way, but now that you mention it…”

     She kicked him under the table.

     “Ouch! I thought your foot was bothering you.”

     “Only the left one. The right one works just fine. And you’re lucky I didn’t wear pointed toes this morning.”

     “I guess so. I guess Frankenstein would have looked pretty ridiculous shuffling down the hall in heels, huh?”

     Markie forgot the firetruck for a moment.

     “Did you see her? She was going ‘argh’ and everything.”

     “Yes, Markie. I saw her. She was pretty funny, huh?”

     “Yes. And she gave me a cookie too. But we can’t tell Daddy that, on account of Daddy might yell at her for letting me have a cookie before my breakfast.”

     “Mommy did what?”

     The question came from behind Markie, in his father’s voice.

     Markie sheepishly said, “Uh-oh.”

     Hannah sheepishly said, “Busted.”

     Mark kissed her on the scruff of her neck.

     “A cookie before breakfast, huh? That sounds like something
I’d
give him.”

     Hannah said, “Yeah, well… I beat you to the punch today.”

     “You guys ready to eat?”

     Frank and Hannah stood.

     Frank replied, “I’ve been ready, slowpoke. Just been waiting for you.”

     Hannah told Markie, “You stay here and finish your firetruck, little sailor. Would you rather have bacon and eggs or pancakes?”

     “Pancakes please.”

     The three left Markie and went through the serving line, then returned and ate a leisurely meal. Not a word was mentioned about NASA, Cupid 23, or the meeting that would follow their breakfast.

     All three were chomping at the bits to get to the matter at hand, but were held back because they wanted to include several others in the discussions.

     And because little Markie was the world’s worst secret keeper. If Markie caught wind that another meteorite might be heading toward the earth, everyone in the compound would know it within a couple of hours.

     And without any details regarding the odds of a strike, many would panic.

     For none of them wanted to have to survive another frozen world. Not for seven more years, or for seven more days.

     As they ended their meal Frank looked at the clock on the dining room wall. It was a large Mickey Mouse clock, placed there in a moment of fancy by Sami the year before.

     According to Mickey’s gloves hands, there was still half an hour before it was time to meet.

     Frank excused himself.

     “I’m going to go and write down all the questions I have. There’s about a zillion of them, give or take a few. Then I’ll round up the others and meet you in the lounge.”

-25-

     The six of them gathered, stone faced and solemn. Hannah had told each of them only that there was a chance of another disaster coming. And she’d asked the same thing of each of them: to keep it from the others for the time being.

     Not because the others didn’t have a right to know. But because they needed a game plan of sorts before they told everyone else to prevent panic and chaos.

     These, for the most part, were the core of the group. The people who’d been there from the beginning. The people who’d set up the mine they’d used as shelter from the cold for seven long years.

     The old timers, for lack of a better term.

     Even Bryan was there, having left Sarah’s side for a few hours to take a break from his bedside vigil. 

     Hannah took the floor as soon as the last person arrived.

     “I’ll save you all the particulars, but there’s another meteorite out there in space. It may collide with the earth and it may not. Sarah and I knew about it before Saris 7 struck the earth, and even back then nobody at NASA could agree whether it was an imminent threat. All the focus was on Saris 7 and what to do with it, and Cupid 23 got forgotten. By me, by Sarah, apparently by everybody else.

     “But meteorites don’t just disappear. It’s still out there and it’s still moving. It’s still moving in the direction of earth. We have no way of finding out whether it will hit earth or when.

     “And it’s entirely possible that it has already passed us by. That it’s now heading away from us. My question to all of you is, do we want to tell the others? Do we want to risk a panic for something that may be absolutely nothing? Or do we just leave things as they are and hope for the best?”

     There were several seconds of stunned silence.

     Karen was the next one to speak.

     “The mine… we’ve had it in caretaker status for three years now. If the meteorite hit today, how long could we bring it up to operational status again?”

     Bryan, the engineer of the group and the one who’d been maintaining the equipment in the mine, answered.

     “We could crank it back up immediately and evacuate everyone over there. The generators are still in working order. I overhauled the backup a few months ago and we overhauled the primary right after we left the mine.

     “The problem is the fuel. We exhausted most of the diesel reserves when we were in there the first time. If we were to go back in for seven more years we’d run out. We have enough for two years, three tops.”

     Mark spoke up.

     “Same for the food supplies. We’ve still got ten pallets of MREs over there, but they expired last year. They’re probably still edible, but we don’t know for how long. At some point people might start getting sick from eating them.”

     Frank Woodard wasn’t part of the original forty people who’d gone into the mine just before Saris 7 hit. Hannah invited him because he already knew of the problem. And because, as their security expert, he might be able to lend some advice and share his knowledge.

     Frank asked, “What about the security systems? All the cameras and monitors? Are they operational?”

     Brad answered, “I haven’t checked them lately. I think some of them have stopped working. We’ve got a couple of dozen backups in the stores over there though. I can check them out and replace the bad ones by the end of next week.”

     “Any chance we could replace all of them? At least the cameras outside? We could take the old ones that are still working and make them the spares. I only suggest that because if any of them are on their last legs and getting ready to go out it’ll be easier to get to them and replace them before the world freezes over again.”

     It was a valid point.

     Brad said, “Good idea. I’ll start work on it.”

     Mark said, “I’ll give you a hand with them, Brad. Let’s focus on the cameras first. They’re all outdoors. We can replace the monitors after we reoccupy the mine if we have to. Frank, are there any other concerns from a security standpoint?”

     “I can think of at least two. There are people out there who know about us now. Specifically Marty Hankins and Lenny Geibel. And the United States Army. If the world gets black and cold again people will be desperate to survive. They’ll do things they wouldn’t ordinarily do. Like try to break into our compound.”