Apocalypse Aftermath (35 page)

“We start with aces and go down to twos.” Jessica reminded her.  “I played kings, so that’s queens to you.”

“Can I play more than one?”

“As many as you want.” Austin confirmed.

“Okay.” Candice said slowly.  She shifted her cards around some more, then put down two.  “Two queens.”

“Hmmmm, alright.” Austin said theatrically as he waggled his eyebrows with mock suspicion at the girl.  Candice looked at him curiously, and he grinned at her.  “Two jacks.”

“Only two?” Jessica asked, eyeing the pair of jacks in her own hand
as he put his cards down.

“Two’s all I’ve got.” he shrugged.  “You
girls must have the others.”

“I see.  Well, three tens.”

“Nah-Ah!” Candice blurted as she stared at her hand.

“Remember, you have to pick up all the cards if you’re wrong.” Jessica told her.

“And you do if you lied.”

“Did I?” Jessica asked with a merry twinkle in her eyes.

“You must have, because I’ve got two tens.”

“Let’s find out.” Austin said, reaching and turning over the top three cards on the stack.  Two jacks and a ten went face up, and Candice squealed.

“I got you mom!” she exclaimed, then wrinkled her forehead up.  “Wait . . .” she reached for the cards below the ones already face up and flipped the next two over as well, revealing them as a jack and a king.  “You lied too!” she accused Austin.

“Too late girlie-girl.” he grinned.  “Mom gets the discard pile.  No one called Nah-Ah on me.”

Jessica scooped the cards off the table and started adding them to her hand while Austin took a drink of beer and Candice eyed him.  “You’re sneaky.” the girl finally decided.

“That’s why it’s called Nah-Ah.” Jessica told her daughter.  “The point is to be sneaky.”

“Oh.”

“Your turn.” Jessica reminded her.  “Nines.”

“Uh . . . one nine.”

“Nah-Ah.” Austin said before Candice had barely even gotten the card out of her hand.

“What?” she asked in surprise.

“Nah-Ah.” he repeated.  “Show it.”

Candice turned the card around to show it was a three, looking at him.  “How’d you know?”

“I’ve got my ways.” he grinned.  “Have to be sneakier than that.”  He waggled his eyebrows at her, then pulled two cards from his hand without seeming to look at them.  “Two eights.”

“Nah-Ah.” Jessica said.

He switched his grin to her.  “Are you sure?”

“Let’s find out.” she said, pausing her card sorting to turn his pair over.

“All yours.” he said as the two eights were revealed.

“Very sneaky.” Candice observed so matter-of-factly Jessica blinked.  “Wow mom, you’ve got a lot of cards now.”

“Yup, but that just makes it easier to get rid of them.” Jessica said as Austin chuckled.  “Three sevens.”

Candice opened her mouth, then hesitated.

“Yes?” Jessica asked innocently.

“Nothing.” Candice decided.  She looked at her cards and picked two out.  “Two sixes.”

“Two fives.” Austin said, flicking a pair of his own out like a Vegas dealer before picking up his beer again.  They landed right on the discard pile.

“One fou—” Jessica started to say, but Candice spoke quickly.

“Wait!”

“There something you want to say?” Austin asked, giving her his blank face.

Candice studied him for a long moment, looked at her cards, then back up at him.  “Nah-Ah.”

Austin let a little amusement leak into his expression.  “Nah-Ah, or Nah-Ah you don’t have anything to say?”

Candice leaned forward and flipped the cards.  A five and a six were revealed, and Candice dropped half her cards as she clapped delightedly.  “I got you!”

“Guess I’ll have to be sneakier.” Austin sighed melodramatically as he collected the discard pile.

Candice looked at her mother.  “Uh oh.”

The rest of the game only took another twenty minutes.  Jessica found she just had to dump a little in order to ensure Candice was in a good position to win.  She was unsurprised that Austin seemed to be pursuing the same goal without her even having to hint to him.  He managed to get caught lying every time his hand count went below seven cards, while Jessica hovered unobtrusively between ten and twenty until Candice was able to empty her hand without noticing the adults’ strategy.

The second game lasted most of an hour, and in the end Jessica was enjoying herself so much she lost much of her ability to lie convincingly.  Now that he seemed sure Candice had gotten the hang of it, Austin began to play more expertly.  He would lay something outrageous, like four jacks, which would turn out to be true.  Then, as cards began to accumulate in Jessica’s and Candice’s hands, he began dropping singles that Jessica finally started calling him on out of simple self-preservation.

Candice caught on to that tactic, and soon mother and daughter both were challenging nearly everything he played as he bounced around a hand count of five to ten cards.  Then
he
started challenging back, and the discard pile stayed mostly empty as the three of them shuffled cards back and forth.  This went on for quite a while before the three of them began to back off somewhat, and the discard pile slowly built to dangerous levels.

A telling blow was finally landed when Candice called Austin on a pair of twos.  He went from three cards to well over half the deck and shook his head ruefully as Candice cheered.

“I see you’re getting better at this.” he remarked as he picked everything up.

“I like this game.” Candice declared.

“So do I.” he winked at her.  “It’s like practice for poker.”

“What’s poker?”

Austin grinned.  “It’s a little like Nah-Ah, except when you’re wrong you have to pay money.”

Candice wrinkled her nose.  “That doesn’t sound like much fun.”

“Depends on who you’re playing against.”

“Well, I wouldn’t want to play poker against you.  You’re very sneaky.”

“Look who’s an expert now.” Jessica teased gently.

“Austin’s too good.” Candice protested.  “He hardly does anything at all when he lies.  Just a little bit, sometimes, but it’s hard to figure out.”

“Oh?” Austin inquired as he finished arranging his cards and cocked an eyebrow at her.

“Yes.” the girl nodded.  “Mom is pretty good, but she’s not as good as you.”

“How can you tell when to catch me?” Jessica asked curiously.

“Your voice does a thing.”

“My voice does a thing?” she chuckled.

“Yes.” Candice nodded again.  “It goes a little flatter, and you hesitate a little when you pick the cards out.”

“I see.” Jessica said, exchanging a merry look of surprise with Austin, who just gave her a grin.

“Don’t worry, I won’t tell anyone.” Candice confided.

Austin burst out laughing as Jessica shook her head ruefully.  “Busted by my own child.”

The end of the game came shortly after that, and Jessica collected the cards up as Candice yawned.  “I think it’s time for bed.”

“Awww.”

“None of that.  We can play some more tomorrow.  “Go take a shower and change your clothes.”

“I’m not that tired.”

“Scoot.  Bedtime.”

Candice obediently rose and disappeared into the bedroom.  Jessica squared the cards into a deck, taking her time until she heard the bathroom door close.  “Has anyone told you lately what a good guy you are?” she asked Austin.

“No, not recently.” he admitted.

“Well, you are.” she said, holding the deck out to him.

“Keep it, I’ve got two more tucked away for a rainy day.”

“There it is again.”

He picked up his beer, the third that he’d been nursing for most of the last game, and shrugged lightly.  “
It’s nothing.  My brother’s wife ran a daycare out of her house.  I guess I got used to how to deal with kids, on my visits.”

“Where was this?”

“California.” Austin said as he leaned back in the chair.  “He hated it around here.  Said it was hickville and he needed some proper civilization.”

“Georgia isn’t that bad.”

“No, it isn’t.  But he wasn’t interested.  Plus he’s . . . was, attached to the 11
th
ACR at Fort Irwin out there, so it wasn’t like I could talk him around.”

Jessica nodded soberly.  “No hope?”

Austin tipped his beer back, then put the can down on the cooler next to his chair and shrugged again.  “Not really.  They deployed into Los Angeles early Saturday morning. That was the last I heard from him.  You heard Vanessa yesterday.”

“Yeah.”

“I wonder about my dad a little, but I don’t think there’s much hope for him either.”

“Where does he live?”

“Kansas.  He moved there after my mom died.”

Jessica thought back to what she’d seen on the news
, and what Vanessa had turned up.  “Kansas didn’t get hit all that hard did it?”

“Hard to say.  The biggest city there is about the size of Macon, and the others on the notable list get small pretty quick.  So I like to think he might be okay, but I’ve called and left messages and he hasn’t returned any of them.”

“It doesn’t rule it out.” she said quietly.

“Maybe not, but I’m not holding my breath.”  Jessica wasn’t sure what to say, but he just sighed after a moment.  “He was ex-Army, and I’ll bet anything he fell all over himself to volunteer when the President called for all
trained bodies to sign up Friday night.  Seeing how
that
went . . .”  He fell silent.

“I’m sorry.”

“Lot of that going around.” he sighed again.

“I didn’t mean to . . . I shouldn’t have asked.” Jessica said awkwardly as she slid the cards into the box and laid them on the table.

“It’s fine.”

“No, I should know better.” Jessica said gently.  “Especially after everything Candice and I have been through.”

“Can’t learn if you don’t ask.”

“Some things need to be left alone.”

“It’s fine.” he repeated.  “There are no stupid questions, just stupid people.”

Jessica found her lips quirking into a half smile.  “That’s kind of rude.”

“True though.” he grinned.  “Oh the stories I could tell you.”

“I think I’ve got at least a few that might match anything you’ve got.”

“Somehow, knowing you worked in a doctor’s office, I believe that.”

“Dennis isn’t that bad.”

“No, I was thinking about the patients though.”

“They’re just scared.” she shrugged.  “They come in and are facing a serious issue, sometimes a life threatening one, and they get scared.  When people get scared . . .”  she trailed off.

“Yeah.” he agreed.  “Lot of
that
going around too.”

Jessica considered her thoughts for a few seconds, then told herself she didn’t have a choice.  “I need to ask you something.”

“Oh boy.”

“What?”

“I’ve got a sort of mental bet going with myself.” he replied.  “I’ve got it narrowed down to one of two different questions.”

“You’re really something, you know that?” she retorted, but couldn’t help but smiling as she did.

“One of a kind.”

“I’m serious.”

“So am I.” he said, resolving his face into a more attentive expression.  “Ask away.”

“Do you trust Tyler?”

He blinked at her, and she saw his eyes narrow just a touch.  “Trust him how?”

“To make the right decisions around here.”

He sighed.  “Damnit.  I was really hoping it’d be the other question.”

“Austin, I’m serious.” she insisted.

“I know.”  He gazed out into the early evening out beyond the balcony glass for a few moments, then looked at her.  His mouth opened, then shut as he hesitated, and finally he shrugged.  “Maybe.”

Jessica felt something inside her lurch, but she wasn’t completely surprised.  In fact, she was
relieved
to hear him say it.  “That’s what I was afraid of.”

“He’s got a lot on his plate.” Austin said quietly.  “We all do.”

“That’s why I need to know.”

“You already knew, didn’t you?”

Now it was her turn to hesitate, but she nodded after only a brief interval.  “I’m . . . look, I’m not saying I don’t . . . I’m just not sure if he’s really envisioning what’s happening here as a group thing.”  Austin cocked his head at her silently, and she resisted the urge to twist her hands.  “He’s smart, and he’s clearly interested in building this place up as a safe one, but I just wonder who he’ll choose if it comes down to the wire.”

Austin frowned, but there was recognition in his eyes.  Recognition and a lack of surprise.  “You picked up on that did you?”