Ground Zero (13 page)

“It’s too bad we don’t have an underwater camera. It would make things a lot easier.”

“Damn. I knew I was forgetting something. Should have ordered one from Amazon,” she said, her sarcasm apparently annoying enough that Neil gave her a dirty look.

“You’re hysterical. I was just thinking that maybe the owners might have left one on board somewhere. It wouldn’t surprise me. Makes sense if you’re on the water enough to own a boat like this. From the little I know about boats, even a used one would probably go for a hundred grand, at least. Even double that. We haven’t really gone through their things, so maybe we’ll find something.”

“I suppose. Just feels weird to do that. I know we stole their boat and everything, but invading their privacy just makes it seem worse. The stuff in the cabin was different. It was all related to the boat itself, and provided some valuable information. Their other stuff is more personal.” She held up her hand to stop him from chiding her.

“I know they’re probably dead. Maybe some part of me is still in denial that this is all really happening, which is completely ridiculous. Not spending much time off the farm hasn’t helped. We haven’t seen much emptiness that would provide evidence of most of the world’s passing. Even when we went scavenging, we saw people living fairly close to us. That makes me think we might recover. And maybe someone who is still alive is the owner of this boat, and has a right to their privacy.”

“Okay, honey. If you want to stay out of their stuff, I understand. We can take turns doing quick checks underwater. It’s only for another week, barring further complications.”

“It could very well take us longer than that to get back. We’re operating under engine power, sure. We made sure we had enough oil to get us here and back, so thankfully we won’t have to rely on the current. However, the trip south was the easy route,” she said.

“In what way?”

“We’ve been going with the current. We’ll be going against it on the way back, though there are apparently some eddies on the Canadian side of the two big rivers. The current reverses there, but I don’t want to risk going too close to shore. Especially now. Shallow waters aren’t our friend anymore,” she said, eyeing him balefully.

“Yeah, yeah. I broke the ship. I broke the bloody ship,” he mimicked in a terrible attempt at a British accent. She recognized the paraphrased line from
Galaxy Quest
, and laughed.

“That you did, cowboy. And we have no replacement beryllium spheres on board. Guess we’ll have to find another planet that might have some. Or maybe Ian will be carrying one. But speaking of Ian, I think we’d better get this broken ship moving. He left about five hours ago, which gives us three to get there if we don’t want to leave him exposed. God only knows what things are like in Cleveland.”

“I’m sure he’ll be fine, honey. Worry and fret; that’s all you ever seem to do. Well, when you’re not rescuing those macho men in distress,” he said.

“It’s obviously not that he can’t protect himself, generally speaking. It’s just possible he could be outnumbered if there’s someone alive who thinks he has something they could use. He planned to carry at least one handgun, though, so violence isn’t likely to be something he can’t deal with.

“It’s more the health issue. He’s got insulin with him, but he may have burned too many calories. He won’t know if his sugar has dropped until he starts feeling the symptoms, because he doesn’t have any test strips left. So, yes, I’m worried. That’s why I brought candy bars, granola bars, some milk that’s still frozen, and one of the last remaining cans of frozen orange juice. We might have to get his sugar back up really fast if he’s low. I’ve seen diabetics bottom out, and it’s fucking scary. Not to mention potentially fatal. Besides, if I wasn’t worried about him, I wouldn’t have made this damn trip in the first place, ruining my great good looks just for his benefit,” she said with a grin.


   
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

The worrying and fretting were all for naught. They made it to Cleveland with half an hour to spare, so Neil took the boat in toward the yacht club area very slowly, Mac at the front of the boat to make sure the waters weren’t too shallow. As they approached Edgewater Park, however, Mac shook her head and called out for Neil to stop. She walked awkwardly on the slanted deck until she was able to lower herself and go into the cabin.

“Too shallow?”

“I think so, yeah. I’m looking at the boats they have docked over there at what I assume is the yacht club, and they don’t seem very big. I can’t really tell exactly how deep the water is, either. No point taking chances when we’ve got the dinghy. Probably be safer to row ourselves in, too, rather than make noise with the motor. We’ll still be able to see if someone gets a little too curious and tries to board her.”

They had to unload everything from the dinghy first, because they had made sure it held all their vital stuff in case the boat sank for some reason. Now they didn’t want the extra weight, and wanted more room for three people. Otherwise Ian would have to squeeze in. In addition to a small quantity of insulin, and a syringe, Mac made sure she had everything she needed to bring his sugar up, too.

Once they had lowered the dinghy into the water, and climbed down into it, it wasn’t long before they had managed to row themselves to the shore on the east side of what looked like a long pile of giant, asymmetrical stone cubes jutting into the water from the beach. They pulled the dinghy out of the water, but kept it as close to the cubes as possible. They were hoping no one would notice the new addition to the area. Late afternoon gave the place some pretty deep shadows, which Mac knew would help. Ian was supposed to meet them just east of the beach, but from where they were they couldn’t see him.

“That looks like the willow tree he mentioned, where those other big cubes are sitting. Are they supposed to be a retaining wall maybe? I kind of want to call this thing here a breakwater, though I’m not sure if it’s the right word for it. It’s not a dock, that’s for sure, but those cubes can’t be a natural phenomenon,” she said hesitantly. She didn’t like not knowing what she was talking about.

“You’re probably right. It seems like it would be the right word for it, anyway. That other long thing sticking out on the other side of the willow looks like a pier. It’s too far above the water to be a dock,” he said, pointing further east toward the yacht club. “And those concrete things sticking out in the middle of the water would be pretty dangerous for boats.”

“Not that it matters much anymore. The whole world has gone to shit, and I’m sitting here worried about what someone called a pile of rocks,” she said, laughing at herself. Neil gave a soft chuckle.

“Well, we can have fun debating it some other time. Why don’t we go find your friend, so we can get our asses back home some time before summer kicks in.”

“Hey! This is my first time in Cleveland. Give me ten minutes to look around, would you?”

“Does
Wet Foot, Dry Foot
apply, do you think?”

“Hardly matters since I have no intention of becoming an American citizen. Assuming there is such a thing anymore. Be kind of interesting to see what the Peace Bridge looks like in Niagara Falls now, though. If there’s any sort of government left at all, I doubt patrolling the border is a big priority. Though the GPS was still working on the boat, so that could mean the US Army is still maintaining the ground stations, but that’s not a for sure either,” she said.

“In what way?”

“Well, from what little I know about how it works, the ground centres have to adjust the clocks on the satellites to match real-time on the planet, and then there’s the orbits. I guess they don’t stay the same all the time and have to be reset to new location information, and until they’re reset they’re marked as bad data so the receivers don’t use the information for navigation. I didn’t quite understand it as I was reading it, but it told me enough that I knew GPS would eventually become unreliable without the ground stations. Still, I figured it was worth having a receiver anyway. It’s probably going to be the last thing the US military will allow to fall apart, if there’s any kind of organizational structure left.”

“That actually sounds hopeful,” Neil said.

“How’s that?”

“Well, it makes me think that the armed forces would prioritize their needs, such as food, clean water, defense, navigation, and maybe power. I guess I just think they probably made sure right from the start that they had a plan to keep themselves going. They would be thinking of stuff like protecting the ground stations, and how many MREs they had left. It’s possible that the vast majority of civilians were fucked, but there may still be a lot of people who used to be military.”

“Maybe. Neither of us knows anyone we can talk to on the radio who’s still in a major city, so we can’t get any hard information. Which, of course, is what makes this little jaunt a lot more dangerous than we’ve been treating it thus far, so I guess we’d better keep our heads in the game. You were right. Let’s get Ian, and get the hell out of here.”

By unspoken agreement they had both brought their handguns with them. Not knowing if there were humans left alive in the city, or how desperate they might be, they weren’t going anywhere on shore without weapons. Neil’s was a Sig Sauer 1911 Stainless Super Target. It wasn’t her weapon of choice, but they’d hardly gone shopping for it. It had come from a bunch of wannabe thugs who had taken advantage of the early chaos from the collapse of the power grid. Neil had kept it simply because he didn’t already have a handgun. Mac had already owned the Gen 4 Glock 22 she now carried.

Of course, they both carried proper survival knives, too. She had purchased her KA-BAR Becker 22 from Neil, in fact, which was how they had met. It had saved her life a few times since then, so she was even more fond of it than she was of knives in general, and that was saying quite a bit. Neil carried a Cold Steel Leatherneck SF, but she only knew the model because it was stamped on the blade. Not that they had a shortage of knives, since Mac and Billy had emptied Neil’s store of its stock shortly after Neil had been shot. Everyone on the farm had taken a knife from that stock, and there were still plenty to go around.

They were quiet as they walked along the sand toward the elevated rocky area, and kept their eyes peeled for any movement. It wasn’t until they were a few feet away from the willow tree that they heard a whining sound. Mac was instantly alarmed, and ran to the other side as she pulled out her gun.

Ian was lying on the ground, with his German Shepherd, Bella, lying there with him, alternating between nosing his rib cage and turning her head to lick his face. Mac holstered her gun and dropped to her knees on Ian’s other side.

“Ian? Can you hear me?”

His hazel eyes snapped open, but he seemed to have a hard time trying to form words, so Mac shook her head.

“Just tell me. Is it high or low?”

“Low,” he whispered.

“Kinda figured. Neil, can you help him sit up a bit? His muscles are going to be useless at the moment if he’s this bad. Here, Ian. I’ve got some orange juice for you. We’ll get that into you first,” she said, as she tilted the spout of the plastic bottle until the juice started running into his mouth.

“Hang on. This isn’t coming out fast enough. You’re conscious, so you can swallow it fine. Let me get the lid off.”

She managed to get the entire litre of orange juice into him, and after a few minutes he started coming around a bit. As the extreme lethargy dissipated, she noticed that he was shaking. He still had some way to go before he was back to normal, so she handed him a candy bar.

“We’ve got milk on the boat, but I wasn’t sure if it would keep if we had to wait for you, so we’re keeping that for later.”

“Okay, thanks. Fuck, I hate that feeling,” Ian said. She could still see the sweat on his face, and knew it must have been a bad episode.

“Well, you should be feeling better soon. Did you bring food with you or anything?”

“Not much. Fish don’t keep well in a backpack, and what I did have I had to share with Bella. She has to eat what I do, now that the kibble is gone. We ate a good meal before we left, and had one on the road, but I burned up a lot of energy coming here.”

Ian’s blood sugar was finally back up enough that he could eat one of the granola bars to sustain him, though he gave the second one to his dog. It wasn’t very good for her, Mac figured, but desperate times called for desperate measures, and Bella needed to eat.

It was another twenty minutes before Ian was okay to head back to the dinghy with them, but as they were standing up to go Neil suddenly went rigid. Mac swung around, her gun back in her hand without her even having to think about it.

12 ~ A Jailbird in Hand

“So how did he get here? And if he wasn’t the one setting off the sensors, who the hell is?” Cam’s questions had both Chuck and Gilles shrugging. Unsurprisingly, it was Gilles who chose to answer.

“He came on a bicycle and used the directions your mom gave him last August, which included coordinates. He has a GPS, but he followed the road to get to the driveway. I guess your mother described the concealed entry well enough that he knew what he was looking at, but didn’t know how to get in. Since he knew she had cameras, he just waited for someone to see him, basically.”

“That doesn’t solve our other problem, though. Since it’s the same group of sensors going off every time, I think maybe we’ll have to put at least two people in that area until the person is caught, rather than spreading them out to walk the whole perimeter. I’d really like to know why they aren’t showing up on camera, though. We’ve got stuff missing, and we can’t afford to allow that. Whoever this is, they know we’re here, and if they were a decent person just trying to survive, I think they would have introduced themselves by now,” Chuck said, speaking for the first time since they had gathered to discuss Mitch.

“I agree,” put in Billy.

“I’ve had a thought about the cameras, Cam,” said Gilles.

“What’s that?”

“I think maybe he saw them and changed the direction they were facing. I mean, does any of us know off by heart exactly what tree configuration every camera was pointing at? Would we notice if it was changed, if we didn’t see it while it was being moved? He may not have seen the sensors, which would explain why they’re still picking up the intrusion. If we hadn’t done a basic inventory and found we were missing stuff, I would have thought maybe it was just a sensor malfunction, but no one here has any reason to take anything and lie about it. We’re all well-fed, and nobody is getting anything that the rest of us aren’t getting,” Gilles finished.

“That makes sense. He could have changed the angle, or even moved a camera or two to completely different trees. There’s only one way for us to find out. Mom got maps from the Land Registry Office in Parry Sound, right before all the power grids went down. She made a bunch of copies of our land while she was there. She didn’t make copies of Neil’s at that time, because she didn’t know then that she would need them, but she scanned them in to the server and printed out letter-size copies later. Every single camera is marked on those maps, including the ones that you did right before they left for Cleveland. We’ll have to take the maps and visually confirm each camera. At least the ones in that area.”

Four sets of shoulders slumped at the thought of all the walking they were going to have to do. Not one of them had had a full night’s sleep since the first sensor had gone off. Despite the fact that they knew it was necessary for their own safety, they were all exhausted.

Cam was really worried, but nowhere near as worried as Chuck. He had three kids to think about, and they had no idea whether or not the thief was a physical threat. Cameron was going to assume they were all in danger, until she knew for certain they were safe. The problem was, there was no way they could be effective if none of them were sleeping. Of course, so far Cam was the only female who was involved in dealing with the problem, and that was going to have to change.

“Gilles, we’re tired. Every one of us, including Kirk, John, and Jim. It would be nice if my dad was here to help, but I haven’t seen him. He keeps disappearing into the bush. We need more people involved in this. Chuck’s wife is already busy with the kids, and Kelly and Annette have their hands full with the animals, but there are seven other people who could at least be watching the monitors while we all get some sleep. If I’m capable of walking a perimeter, they’re capable of watching a screen. They’re not stupid just because they’re female,” she said.

“I never said they were,” Gilles said in surprise.

“Why the hell aren’t we asking them to help, then?”

“I have no idea. It’s weird. It never occurred to me for some reason.”

“Some outdated sense of chivalry or chauvinism would be my guess, but now that you’ve been made aware of it, we need to get them organized so they can help. You can talk to Melanie and Felicia when you go to your cabin. We’ll set up a monitoring schedule that doesn’t conflict with anyone’s chore day, and this way, even if this problem goes on for weeks, we’ll all still be allowed to sleep and take a day off once in a while.

“For that matter, having seven extra people will mean they can each take a night for monitoring. Those of us who have been doing so-called guard duty can switch off every other night. There’s seven of us doing that, too, so four one night and three on another would mean we’ve still got enough bodies actually out there.”

With the help of the other three, Cam had a good schedule worked out a short while later, and she could see that the others were relieved to know they would soon be getting a decent amount of rest. Between the sensors and the worry over her mother while she’d been out of it from her head wound, Cam was tapped out. Mitch had shown up at the wrong time to test her, though it appeared he’d been respectful and cautious since she’d gone off on him. For his second night on the farm she had caved and given him the tent and air mattress they no longer had a need for, along with a sleeping bag for warmth. He hadn’t made any snide remarks, instead muttering a thank you before going off to set up his new temporary home.

They had already decided that he would be shown how to do chores by Gilles the next morning. He’d had three days to get some rest and sate his hunger, so it was as good a time as any for him to start earning his keep. If he wanted a cabin later, they would help him, but he would have to build it right alongside them. He was a freeloader by nature, and Cam had been sick of it long before he’d ever come to the farm.

They broke up their informal meeting, but Gilles remained behind after Billy and Chuck had traipsed down the stairs. Cam looked up from the map she was marking, when he cleared his throat.

“What’s up?”

“I just wanted to say that I’m not the asshole you seem to think I am.”

“I never called you one. If I thought you were, I would have. I’m not shy when it comes to that,” she said with a self-deprecating grin. Gilles laughed.

“No, you’re not. You’re pretty good at speaking your mind.”

“Mitch I called an asshole. At least I think I did. You just tend to take charge of things, and I’m not the type of person who likes someone trying to take charge of me.”

“Don’t blame ya. I just wanted to say that I think you’re doing a decent job. I didn’t expect that you would, but I was wrong. After you went off on your own and ran into Brian, I didn’t think you could handle things after your mother left. It gave me a bad impression, so I didn’t really give you a chance,” he said.

“Well, thanks, but the problem hasn’t been solved, so don’t congratulate me just yet,” she responded, though inside she was glowing with pride at his compliment just the same. Cam still didn’t feel like she knew what she was doing, but she couldn’t let him see that.

“I think we’ll have him soon, whoever it is. This isn’t a giant ranch here with thousands of acres. There’s only so many places the person can go, and with a couple of us concentrated in that area, like you said, it’s unlikely he’ll keep getting past us.” He tipped his cap at her and left.

Gilles’ words proved prophetic. They managed to catch the culprit that same night. When they found a camera that had been moved from its original location, Chuck and Jim climbed a couple of trees and watched the area that the camera’s lens could no longer pick up.

The radio woke Cameron once again out of a deep and exhausted sleep. To keep it out of Squeaker’s greedy paws, she had put it in the drawer of her nightstand after cranking up the volume so she could still hear it. As much as she groaned about being jarred out of the best sleep she’d had in months, she was extremely relieved when she realized it would mean she would be able to go back to sleep without worrying anymore.

“I’m on my way. Wait. Where am I on my way to? Where do you have him?” She was still a little sleep-muddled, she realized.

“We brought him into the central yard between the two big buildings. We didn’t figure there was any point keeping him out, since he’s already been in here to steal,” Jim said.

“True. Be right down.” Two minutes later Cam was in the yard, facing a man she couldn’t quite place. She knew him, somehow, but beyond that she couldn’t remember.

“I assume you followed him to find out how he was getting through the inner sensors without getting picked up,” she said to Jim.

“Yup. I don’t think he even knew they were there. It’s just how the sensors are positioned. There’s a tree on the ground right there that he was climbing over, so he  never tripped them. We’ll have to move the tree,” he concluded. Cameron nodded.

“I’ll make sure that’s taken care of tomorrow. I think I’ll walk both perimeters and check that none of the other sensors are in a position like that. I doubt it, because my mother is pretty careful about stuff like that. I can’t believe she would make that kind of mistake in the first place. It’s not like her.”

“Actually, I don’t think she did. The break looked fresh. The tree was probably still standing when she put them in place.”

“Okay, that makes sense. Anyway, now that we’ve found our intruder, all we need to do is keep an eye on him. You can call in the others so everyone can get some sleep. I’m going back to bed. You can decide between you who watches him for how long, so long as he’s kept under guard. Give him food and water for now. Once we’ve all slept enough that we can think, we’ll talk about what to do with him.”

Their thief hadn’t spoken during the entire exchange, but had glanced back and forth between Cam and Jim as they spoke. Now he finally opened his mouth.

“I was here before. You don’t remember me kid? I sure remember you,” he leered. Cam narrowed her eyes. That leer didn’t bode well for his future, she decided. He was not only a thief, he was a creep, too.

“Shut up,” she said, and walked away. She would figure out where she knew him from later. Right now she was just too tired.

Minutes later, Cam was lying between Egyptian cotton sheets with both ferrets climbing all over her. And she was perfectly okay with that.


   
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

“I think we’d all like to know how you wound up back here, Mike,” Cameron said to the thief. She had been in the shower when she had finally placed him. He had been at the farm with his wife, Lianne Langston, in a van full of ferrets from the shelter in Ottawa.

She was pretty sure twenty-eight of the fifty ferrets her mother had taken in, or brought home herself, were from that shelter. And she remembered something else, too. She remembered being relieved that they hadn’t planned on staying, because this guy had been drunk and he had leered at her and Leigh even then. No, this guy was
not
going to be staying on the farm, whatever she had to do to make sure of it. For now, though, they would see what he had to say for himself.

“Well, see, it’s like this. Lianne and me weren’t getting on so good. We were supposed to stay with her parents on their farm, and they never liked me. First time something bad happened, I got the blame for it. Her dad ran me off with a shotgun, saying if I came back he’d use it.”

Cameron could easily believe what he said was truth, as far as it went, but it was an awfully short story for about seven months’ worth of events.

“What was it they blamed you for?” Gilles asked from beside her.

“Accused me of nasty stuff with my wife’s niece, and I never touched her,” Mike responded.

“I’m sure they had good reason to think you had,” Cam said in disgust. “You don’t exactly act like an innocent man. You hit on me the last time you were here, right in front of your wife, and did the same with a friend of mine. You were drunk then, but it doesn’t look like you’re any better when you’re sober.

“You fucked with our security camera so you could get in and out without being seen, and you stole our food. And even now that we’ve caught you, you’re trying to act like you haven’t done anything wrong. You could have come to the house and asked for food the honest way, but you chose to steal it instead, which tells me you’re not the kind of person we want around here.”

“Well, I doubt very much it’s up to you, little girl,” he sneered.

“And that would be where you’re wrong, asshole,” Gilles said. “She and Billy run this place, and if one of them says you’re gone, then you’re gone. One way or another.”

Cameron felt a huge wave of relief that Gilles was backing her this way, but then she figured he would. There was no way he would want this lecherous piece of shit anywhere near his family, and of course Chuck had a teenage daughter to worry about, so she knew his silence meant consent. Nobody really knew this Mike guy, or anything about him, beyond the fact that he’d been married to someone who ran a ferret shelter.

The problem she was having had nothing to do with whether or not to get rid of him. She already knew they couldn’t let him remain on the farm. The problem was that she didn’t know
how
to get rid of him. He hadn’t done anything that deserved a death sentence, so killing him, or kicking him off the farm without a way to survive, weren’t choices she could justify. Not even in her own mind. Well everyone else had a brain, too, so she decided to take advantage of that.