Ground Zero (10 page)

She raised her eyebrows and waited. Gilles seemed to be chewing his own tongue. He was pissed, but she was right and he knew very well that he and his family would have been dead if they hadn’t taken them in. Finally he spoke.

“That’s pretty much what we were already talking about,” he said, his tone full of grit. He cocked his head to the side and glared at her.

“Then obviously my ideas aren’t for shit, and you should respect the fact that Billy and I are supposed to be handling things. We don’t know everything, but we need to cooperate for our own safety, and the safety of our families. We can’t have everyone thinking they’re in charge, because nobody will be cooperating then, and that’s when we’re going to end up with gaping holes that could put us all in danger. Billy and I are the ones who are supposed to make sure everyone is okay, which means we need to know everything that’s going on. Alright?”

“Understood,” Gilles said, his tone only slightly less antagonistic. Chuck, meanwhile, was shuffling his gigantic feet.

“Sorry, Cam. Your mother and Neil did make it clear that you and Billy were in charge when they left. I guess I was thinking you were too young to handle it, but you’re a lot like your mother. She would have told us where to stick it, too.” He gave her a sheepish smile, and Gilles turned his glare toward him, as though Chuck had betrayed him.

They finalized the details of who would be doing the actual patrolling, and at what times, and by the time all that was settled, Gilles had lost most of his snotty attitude. He wasn’t used to having his authority questioned by anyone, from what Cam could tell, but the fact remained he had no authority here.

She also had a sneaking suspicion there was something of the chauvinist in him, but it wasn’t consistent if that was the case. He treated her mother with respect usually, and the rare times he slipped up she called him on it, but then most people showed her mother respect. She’d earned it. Cam had yet to prove herself to everyone on the farm, and it hadn’t helped that she’d been stuck in her own head for so long. Nobody here knew her, and they didn’t know what she was capable of, any more than she knew what Gilles and Chuck were capable of. She needed to acknowledge that.

“Look, Gilles, you don’t know me any better than I know you. You’ve got no more reason to trust me, either. For the time being you’re stuck with my decision-making, and I’m sure it’s not easy for you to entrust the safety of your family to an unknown. Especially after I’ve made one mistake. But I learn from my mistakes, and usually right away. So, how about we try to give each other the benefit of the doubt and work together. If we share our ideas, then we can see whether or not those ideas will work, and whether or not we can trust each other. Okay?”

She didn’t hold her hand out for a shake, because that just seemed stupid to her. Besides, she’d made all the concessions she was willing to make for the time being.

“Like Chuck said, you sure seem a lot like your mom right now. That’s a good thing, so I think we can make this work while they’re gone.” He nodded and clapped a hand on her shoulder, then left with Chuck to make the arrangements with everyone who would be getting security duty for the first shift. Cam went back inside the greenhouse with Billy, her hands shaking, and immediately bent over at the waist and took a few deep breaths.

“Cam? You okay?” He sounded worried. She just held up a finger to ask him for a minute. After she’d taken a few more breaths, she stood up.

“I’m okay. I just hate confrontations like that. I don’t entirely know what I’m doing, but I knew I needed them to take us seriously or we’d lose all control. By the time our parents got back, we’d either have chaos, or Chuck and Gilles would have taken over, and that is not something I’m willing to let happen.”

“Well, I think you did great! I know Gilles can be a bit full of himself. I’m not sure if I like him very much, to be honest. I do like Chuck, but he’s a pushover with this kind of thing, not a leader. You’re better at this kind of thing than I am, so I appreciate you making sure they knew it was both of us they had to listen to. It’ll make things easier for me, too.”

“Yeah, I’m sorry we didn’t get a chance to go over any of that stuff before we got out there, and I didn’t want to talk about it outside where someone else could hear us. I took a bit of a risk just talking to them, because if Gilles had decided to be an asshole and ignore what I said, and someone else overheard that, every bit of authority we were trying to lay claim to would be gone.
Nobody
would bother listening to us then. And then I had to get his temper to back off. Probably the French in him,” she said with a laugh.

“Isn’t your dad part French?”

“Yeah, which is why it’s sort of a joke around here. Mom and I tease him about it, and I’ve heard her do the same with Gilles.”

“Oh, okay,” Billy said, nodding his head in understanding. “Yeah, my dad and I didn’t really know a lot of people around here, other than with the knife store. I mean, they came in, bought a knife, and left, so we’d nod or wave on the street. That kind of thing. We know Jim, of course, because he ran the gas station, but we didn’t know his son, or that John was married to Gilles step-daughter. Not until they came here. It’s kind of weird how everyone just sort of knew each other.”

“Not really. Not if you think about it. This is a small community, with large families. My mother comes from one of those families, though not in this community, so she’s told me what it’s like. She said when she was growing up that it was damn near impossible to find someone to date that wasn’t related to her,” Cam said with a laugh.

“Ewww.”

“Yeah, and the worst of it is, there are actually cousins that are married to one another. First cousins, no less. My mom told me about one little kid that was actually born with teeth. I mean, that’s just gross. The idea of having a baby inside you that already has their teeth is pretty fucking freaky. I can’t even imagine being pregnant, and that’s kind of like some sort of parasitic monster to me. I’m probably being mean, but it gives me the creeps.”

“Yuck. I don’t think we need to keep talking about that. We need to decide who’s going to man the radio for the first shift, and when we’re going to sleep and all that.”

“I’m not sure I’m going to be able to sleep. For one thing, I slept late like I usually do. I didn’t go to bed until after we got the radio call from our parents, to say they were starting on the next leg. They’d get there a lot faster if they took shifts and sailed at night, but they don’t want to risk it even with the sonar thingy they have on board.”

“I think it’s called a depth-sounder,” Billy said.

“Yeah, that thing. Mom found the manual for it, and for the boat itself, while they were at anchor last night, so she’s probably read everything cover-to-cover, but she’s playing it safe. Means we’ll have to wait longer for them to get back, but we won’t have to worry about them so much.

“As for taking shifts with the radio, if it makes you feel better you can have it for the next four hours, and then I’ll take it. I’m going to be up all night, and you probably got up early this morning. In the meantime, we still have a game to play.” She grinned at Billy, and they both took off running toward the living room.

Kirk, Leigh, and Lisa, were sitting on the sofa, chatting and awaiting their return. It was the sort of game that couldn’t progress without all the players, so they’d been stuck in limbo while Cam and Billy dealt with the sensor issue.

“Just out of curiosity, why the hell did you decide to make a post-apocalyptic survival game, when we’re actually living that nightmare right now?” Lisa’s question made Leigh laugh.

“To stave off panic attacks,” she responded.

“What do you mean?”

“Well, there we were, the world was going to hell, and I was freaking out. I kept thinking we were all going to die, and all these nightmare scenarios kept popping up in my head, so I kept trying to figure out the solution to them ahead of time. In case they actually happened. I talked to Mac a lot about it, too, and she told me what she had in mind. Not only did it relieve me to know that she’d already figured out all that shit, but it gave me the idea that my panic could be used as a sort of learning tool for everyone. My brain already kind of goes in the direction of game development, so it was sort of a natural. I’ve got other ideas, too, but this one became a sort of therapeutic obsession.”

“Oh, okay. You guys are going to have to tell me what all happened with that guy who was here a few weeks ago, though. I know Mac seemed pretty freaked about it for a bit, and then was worried about leaving. Would he be the one making the sensors go off tonight?” At Lisa’s question, everyone looked at Cam. The tension in the air was palpable, because it wasn’t something that was really talked about openly. Cam knew they were trying to be sensitive, but it was time to just talk about it and get it over with.

“It’s possible it’s Brian, but I don’t think so. He seems okay. The reason my mother was worried, was because I killed his son. And he knows it.” Cam held up her hand when Lisa’s jaw dropped open in shock.

“He was stalking my mother and was holding a rifle on Neil when I shot him with the arrow. He was already pulling the trigger by the time my arrow went through him. He fell over, trying to reload his rifle for another shot. He’d have killed my mother, too. Probably after raping her,” Cam said, her tone defiant.

“I already knew you had killed someone, from the conversation your mom was having with Gilles the day I got here. I just didn’t know the whole situation with the intruder,” Lisa said.

“Oh. Anyway, I went to see Brian and Geraldine before mom and Neil left. They both say they know what their son was like, and that they’ve forgiven me. I’m not sure how anyone can forgive someone who kills their kid, but then I’ve never given birth to a potential rapist and murderer. Apparently he tried to rape his own mother, and they’d spent his whole childhood trying to get him straightened out with various kinds of therapy. It didn’t work,” she finished bluntly.

“Holy shit! Like there aren’t enough problems in the world right now,” Lisa replied.

“I know, right?” Cam was smiling. “Still, it was hard after I killed him. I felt guilty for it, and then felt guilty for feeling guilty, knowing if I hadn’t done it that both Neil and my mother would likely be dead, so I figured it was shitty for me to feel guilty at all. Believe me, I was really confused for a while. Then my mother told me something that kind of straightened me out a bit.” Cam wasn’t about to confide in anyone but Kirk and Leigh what her mother had told her, but apparently Lisa already knew.

“Yeah, she told Gilles she’d killed your father when you were a baby.” It turned out Billy was the only one in the room who didn’t know, because his jaw dropped.

“What the fuck happened? Does my dad know about this?” Cam cringed at his tone.

“Yeah, he knows. It was self-defense. She called the cops right away and everything. Actually, it was even more than self-defense, I guess, because she said it looked like he was going to go after me.”

“You guys really attract some weirdoes,” Billy said in wonder.

“Hmm,” was Cam’s only response.

“Oh, shit, Cam. Sorry. I didn’t mean that the way it sounded. Especially since my dad was obviously someone who was attracted to your mom,” he said, flustered. Cam laughed.

“It’s okay, Billy. There were a lot of weirdoes out there, and believe me, every woman on this planet probably had to deal with them at one time or another. We’ll see what happens in the future, but without some form of law enforcement or legal system to keep violent people away from the general population, who knows? Mom already ran into a bunch of cannibals in Huntsville, and they apparently prefer eating people to other food sources, so I don’t think violence is going to disappear, especially toward women. We’re going to have to be ready to look after ourselves if we get into a bad situation.”

The second she finished speaking, another sensor went off, putting an indefinite hold on game night.

9 ~ Mast Confusion

It had taken them another two days to reach Sarnia, and between the two of them Mac had lost count of the Gravol they’d been forced to take. Neil was now taking a full one every four hours that he was awake, though Mac continued taking only half a tablet. It still made her slightly woozy, but it was the only way she could handle being on the boat.

So far they’d had good weather, but the sky had darkened a few hours before they planned to stop for the night, and between the two of them they figured it might be a good idea to pull the boat closer to the shore, just in case something bad happened. Then at least they could see the shore to swim to it, or take the dinghy. Their complete lack of experience on the water did not make them confident they could handle turbulent weather.

The combination of nausea and pharmaceutically induced exhaustion had them heading for the very nice queen-size mattress tucked in the back of the boat. Mac knew it was called the stern, but she wasn’t going to start speaking in nautical terms as though she knew what the hell she was talking about. She just considered herself lucky to be alive at this point, even with the nausea.

They had talked about heading to shore each night, and sleeping on land, but Mac figured that would only delay their adjustment to the motion of the boat. Neil displayed a great deal of skepticism regarding his ability to adjust, and told her he would have preferred the break from the constant sickness, but he also acknowledged that it was risky to go too near the shore if they didn’t need to.

They both fell asleep almost instantly, but awoke to the alarming realization that the boat was pitching every which way. They had to brace themselves against the wood cabinets surrounding the bed to keep from crashing into them, and into one another. It took Neil several minutes to stand up, and took just as long for Mac to do the same.

“Well, we’re not going to get any sleep that way!” At her smart-ass comment, Neil glared at her, and then headed toward the built-in ladder-like stairs, grabbing a coil of rope as he went.

“We need to make sure everything is still properly tied down. We haven’t opened up any of the sails or anything, and I’m sure the owners tied everything off for storage before leaving it at the marina the last time, but with this movement I don’t want to leave anything to chance,” he said.

“Alright. We’ll check everything, but if I get thrown overboard I’m coming back to this boat as a ghost to kick your ass,” Mac replied in irritation. As a response, Neil jabbed his finger toward a second coil of rope.

“Yeah, yeah. I’ll tie myself off. Doesn’t exactly guarantee anything, really, but it’s better than nothing.”

She had to wait several more minutes before Neil could even get up the ladder ahead of her. She wanted to make sure he wasn’t going to come crashing down on her when she started up.

“Mac,” he hollered. “Would you get your ass up here? There’s shit to do!” She bared her teeth at him, but started up the steps, holding tightly to the metal handrails. Her shoulders bumped into the framing on both sides of her. She tightened her muscles to keep her upper body still, and let her legs bend and flex with the motion of the boat as much as she could. Just as she reached the top, the door swung back and smacked her in the face.

The instant numbness of her lips and nose told her she was really going to feel that when it wore off. She shoved the door back with a growl deep in her throat, and finished her climb up the short steps.

“You asshole!” Mac yelled it through her numbed lips and teeth. Neil turned toward her to respond to her insult, but instead of fighting with her his mouth gaped open like a fish.

“Oh my God, honey. What happened?”

“You didn’t latch the door open, that’s what,” she replied, beyond irritated. The worried look on his face, however, mollified her to some extent. It wasn’t until he grabbed the towel they’d been using to clear moisture off the inside of the cabin’s clear plastic windscreen, that she realized there was blood on her face. She still couldn’t feel her mouth, so she hadn’t noticed it.

“Oh for fuck’s sake! Are you kidding me?” She’d looked down by that point, and saw that the blood was even soaking through her jacket.

“Here. Sit down, pinch your nose, and tilt your head back,” Neil said as he led her to the chair in front of the fancy navigation equipment she hadn’t figured out how to use yet, and didn’t know whether or not it still worked. She hadn’t intended to bother with it, but now she stared at it as a way to distract herself from her annoyance.

Neil remember to latch the door open this time, then turned around to go back down the stairs into the living quarters. In a few minutes he’d come back with some ice from the tiny freezer. Mac was constantly amazed by the features on the boat they’d chosen. If she hadn’t felt so shitty for the last three days, she might have been able to enjoy the luxury of it. TVs, DVD players, a combined washer-dryer unit, and enough room for at least four adults, with two toilets, a shower, and two big beds. As it was, she couldn’t enjoy a damn thing, and it didn’t look like she was going to be feeling any better about it in the near future.

“I think you broke my nose,” she whined. “And I actually
like
my nose, damn it. In fact, what I liked most about it was that it was still in the centre of my face. Now it feels like it’s smeared all over it!”

“Yeah, it kind of is. Man, is it ever swelling. More than anything I’d love to be able to stand here and baby you, but at the moment that’s not really an option. The cover on the dinghy is loose, and a couple of sails need to be retied. Or at least that’s what it looks like from in here. I won’t know for sure until I’m up on the deck.”

“I’m coming with you. You’re not going up there by yourself,” she said, when it looked like he was going to protest. “If something happened to you, I wouldn’t be there to help, and I wouldn’t have a clue what was going on.”

“Alright, but we need to make sure you’re not bleeding to death from the nose before we go up then.”

“I’m fine. I might
want
to be babied right now, but I’m not gonna die from a smack in the face from a door. It’s undignified. You can baby me later, if you’re not hanging over the side of the boat, heaving your guts out.”

“That’s just mean. It’s been at least an hour since I did that,” he said indignantly.

“Let’s go tame this bronco, cowboy.”

When they got up on deck, Mac tied herself off on one of the many cleats. She assumed they were there for the sails, and served an important function, but she had no idea what that might be. Nor did she have a clue what sort of knot she should be tying. She’d never been a Boy Scout. So she created something like a noose, tightening it once the loop was around the cleat. If it was good enough for hanging people, she figured it would keep her on the damn boat, or at least she wouldn’t float away from it if she fell over.

She helped Neil tie off the sails, and retie the cover on the dinghy so their stuff wouldn’t go flying everywhere. There was no rain yet, but she didn’t think they’d have long to wait for that. The sky was lighting up, with the thunder rumbling almost ten seconds after. If the lightning and thunder got too close together, they were going to have to try to head closer to shore. She didn’t relish the idea of being hit by it, and had no idea if there was any sort of system on the boat for protection from lightning, or if that were even possible on a boat. She hadn’t seen anything about grounding or lightning rods in the books she’d read.

They were heading back toward the cabin entry door on opposite sides of the deck, when a large wave hit the side of the boat, knocking them both off their feet and half on top of the area in front of the cabin that only jutted partway out of the deck they had been walking on. Mac felt her forehead crack against the mast, and then she was rolling helplessly toward the cable-like railing. Her hip ground into a support, and she continued to roll until her stomach was pressed against the same support, her head and arms thrust, flailing, over the water between different cables, while the cables dug into her collarbone on both sides.

All the breath had been knocked out of her. She tried to inhale, but couldn’t. Her diaphragm had been sent into a spasm, and there was nothing she could do but wait for it to stop. To keep herself from rolling anymore, and accumulating further damage to her various body parts, she brought her hands back to grab the cables. Then she waited. There was nothing she could do until she was able to breathe again.

“Mac! Honey! Please tell me you’re okay. I can’t see you,” Neil called out, and even though she knew he was terrified there was no way for her to allay his fear. Speaking required air. Her vision was starting to darken at the edges, too, and she wondered vaguely just how much damage had been done by the mast when she’d slammed into it. Her grip slackened without her realizing it, and the next roll of the boat had her tumbling toward the back of the boat.

It wasn’t until her hair caught on something that her momentum was abruptly halted. It kept her from falling down to the lower level, and possibly off the back of the boat, but the pain as her scalp tore made her wish she’d just gone over. She couldn’t even scream from it, because she still couldn’t breathe. The hot blood on the back of her neck had her very worried.

Mac reached back to try to free her hair from whatever had caught it, but she wasn’t able to release it by the time the boat pitched once again. She nearly blacked out from the agony from the additional tearing of her scalp. Her hand floundered at her hip for a moment before she was able to bring her knife up to slice her hair off at the back of her neck. Still gripping her knife, Mac plunged it into the fibreglass of the deck and held on.

“Honey, please! Will you answer me?” Neil sounded frantic, and despite the pain her breath was starting to come back to her, so she let out a sound that was a cross between a moan and whimper. It wasn’t until she felt his hand on her shoulder that she was even sure it had come out loud enough for him to hear.

“Oh, fuck, there’s blood everywhere! What happened? Can you tell me?”

Mac wished she could have shaken her head to let him know she really didn’t have it in her to explain anything at the moment, but there was no way she was moving her head if she didn’t have to.

“Hit my head. Got scalped.” It was all she could get out, since she was still gasping for air. His understanding, or lack thereof, was no longer of any concern to her, however. Reddish-black flooded in from the edges of her vision once again, but this time it continued its trek across her eyes until not even a pinprick of light could be seen.


   
 
   
 


“Open your eyes, honey. Come on now. You have to look at me. I need to know you’re alright.”

The voice was familiar, but it annoyed her. She didn’t want to be in this place right now. It hurt too much. She wanted to let go for a while, maybe catch her breath, before she went to the trouble of opening her eyes. Even hearing the voice was painful.

“If you don’t come around soon, I’m turning the boat around and heading back to the farm. I don’t know how else to help you,” the voice said, and it was telling her something she didn’t want to hear, but she had no idea why that should be the case. Why wouldn’t she want to go to a farm? Still, it felt important enough that she forced herself to speak.

“Can’t,” she rasped.

“What do you mean? Do you mean you can’t open your eyes, or we can’t go back to the farm?”

“Both. Don’t know why. Just can’t.” Those few words cost her all her strength, and she began to fade again.

“Oh, Jesus,” said the voice, as she let herself slip away again.


   
 
   
 


“Tell me what the hell to do, Annette! I have no experience with this kind of thing,” she heard the voice say. A man, she realized. Someone she knew, but for some reason she couldn’t remember his name, or how she knew him. And it hurt so much to try to remember.

“There’s not much I can tell you from here, other than make suggestions, because I can’t even look at her wounds to see what kind of injuries she might have. Where, exactly, is the bruise, Neil?” A female voice this time, and crackly, which had her picturing someone talking into a microphone. A radio?
Sure hope they don’t put on any music
, she thought. She was pretty sure music would hurt her. A lot.

“It’s right in the middle of her forehead, and I didn’t see any others on her scalp. Hard to tell with all the blood still matted in her hair, though. What’s left of it,” he muttered.

“Did you have to cut it off when you used the Superglue to close her scalp?”

“No. She’d already cut it off to free herself when I got to her, and by that point she was out of it. Doesn’t matter anyway. I just need to know how to take care of her. It’s been hours, and she’s only said a handful of words. Words that told me she had no idea what the hell was going on. Please, just tell me what I have to do to keep her alive,” he begged.