Ground Zero (5 page)

“Honey, we need to get Lisa and Jake settled a bit, so let’s go into the house to finish this conversation. For that matter, we can all get something to eat while Gilles fills us in on the details.”

Mackenzie nodded abruptly. Instinctively she wanted all the answers right that second, but she knew Neil was right. If Cameron was okay, she didn’t need to go crazy. At least not yet.

“Maybe we should ask Cameron to join us in the kitchen,” Mac said, as they walked into the house.

“You’ll have to radio over to the cabin then. Billy came back from his archery practice saying she was there. Guess she wanted to hang out with her friends,” Gilles said, raising one shoulder in a half-shrug.

“Is she upset then?”

“Not that I could tell, but I don’t really know her that well. She hasn’t been particularly social with any of us since we got here, and she was a baby when we knew her before.”

“She’s had a lot to deal with in the last few months. You know that,” Mac said, her tone defensive.

“Oh, I know. I wasn’t complaining. Just seems weird to me when I think of what you were like at that age. How we all were for that matter. We talked about anything and everything. I remember losing my cousin, getting shit-faced, and bawling on your shoulder one night. Then you did the same with me when you found out one of your old boyfriends died.”

“Yeah, but you’re not her tribe of friends, either. She’s got Kirk and Leigh, and if she’s gone over there she could very well be there to unload. I think you’re right that she’s been holding a lot in over the last few months, but killing someone isn’t something her close friends are really going to understand. She didn’t know I would understand better than anyone.” When she stopped speaking, Gilles gave her a strange look.

“What do you mean?”

“I never told you, I know. It wasn’t until I told Cam that I realized how long I’d been holding it in, and how many people I loved that didn’t know that one big thing about me. I was the one who killed her father. The police knew. It was self-defense. I think,” she finished lamely.

Mackenzie realized then that they’d arrived in the kitchen, and Lisa was staring at her, wide-eyed. She grimaced.

“Relax. I don’t make a habit of it. He’s the only person I’ve ever killed, and it wasn’t done with conscious intent,” she said acerbically.

“Uh, Mac, what do you mean you ‘think’ it was self-defense?” Gilles was giving her the same look Lisa was.

“I mean, he was threatening me with the knife, but I managed to grab it from him. He lunged at me, and the knife was already pointing toward him. I’m just not sure if I had time to move the knife away, and
if
I did, whether or not I
would
have. He was there, threatening to kill me over a lousy thousand bucks, and when I begged him not to leave my daughter without a mother, he got this look on his face like he was going to head off to her bedroom first. That’s when he stopped paying attention to the knife he was holding, and I grabbed it to keep him from doing whatever it was he was thinking of doing to Cam.”

“I would have done the same,” Lisa said, touching her arm gently. “Jake’s birth father wasn’t violent like that, but even thinking about someone being a threat to him fills me with fear. I’ve basically felt like that ever since my mother died. Occasionally I would hear people outside on the street, and the first thing I would do was grab the big knife out of the block on the kitchen counter.”

Gilles’ expression was one of understanding, as well, now that she’d explained things a little bit better. Mac could see he was curious about their new arrival, too.

“Oh, shit. I’m sorry, Gilles. This is Lisa, and the little one is Jake, though I guess you’ve surmised that already. We found them in town. I went to school with her mother, Michelle. But there’s something a little more urgent we need to discuss regarding survivors.”

While Mac was explaining what had happened in town, Neil pulled out the makings for soup and sandwiches. It might not be a full supper, but they were both too tired to do anything major for dinner. Added to that, Lisa wasn’t used to eating full meals anymore, so simple would be better.

“Is Jake eating any solid foods yet? You said you were still breastfeeding him, but I thought maybe you might have been giving him some of your mother’s preserves,” Neil explained.

“Not very much, though it hasn’t been easy. I know he needs more sustenance than he can get from my milk, but there was so little food I was trying to spread it out for both of us. I’d like to start him on solids, but I don’t know what I can give him now.”

By the time Mac had finished telling Gilles about the cannibals, and he’d gotten over his disgust a little bit, Neil had already boiled up some peas and carrots and was just dumping them into the blender.

“Why don’t I feed him the vegetables while you eat? You’re still really hungry, I’m sure,” Neil said.

“I don’t know if he’ll take food from a stranger. Then again, he hasn’t really seen any strangers until now, so maybe he’ll be fine.”

When Neil smiled at Jake, and held out his hands to see if he would reach for him, Mac felt her heart constrict. The kid looked nothing like Neil, but Mac couldn’t help wishing in that moment, that it was possible for her to have more children. Neil would have been the father she’d always wanted for her kids.

“Mac!” The sharp quality of Gilles’ voice indicated that she had missed something he’d said.

“Sorry. What?”

“I asked if Huntsville was the only place you saw people like that.”

“Oh, right. Yeah, they were the only ones that we know of, but then they’re also the only people we interacted with, aside from Lisa. Everyone else just stared as we drove by, so we have no way of knowing how they’ve been surviving. Of course, they were in remote areas, so they could easily have their own gardens and such. Most people did out here, even when there were grocery stores.”

“True,” Gilles responded thoughtfully.

“Gilles, would you mind helping me move the exercise equipment out of that room over there once I’m done feeding Jake here?” Neil nodded his head to indicate which room he meant, and Gilles said he would.

They hadn’t really discussed where they would be putting Lisa and Jake, but for now it was the only thing that made sense. There was a toilet and shower directly off the room, though none of it was really finished yet. Just the floor was down because she’d gone with radiant, in-floor heating when she’d been planning the building.

The other closed-off rooms in the house were already occupied, and there were no spare cabin-like buildings they could move into, though Mac made a mental note to start planning one. She had no problem with sharing land and supplies with people. Not even strangers. But when it came to her privacy she was very leery of sharing her own house for long stretches of time.

It was a good thing it was already the end of February. The lack of snow was also a blessing. They could get started on another building right away. Of course, they had to get the new panels set up, too, so their power reserves weren’t hitting close to empty by the time the sun came up every day. They already had six cabins built for the people who had come along after the power went down, so those eight panels would be a big help. She had originally bought more than enough to supply power to the main building, and the building that was being used to house the ferrets, but circumstances had changed with all the extra people.

“How did you get this place started?” Lisa was looking at Mac, waiting for her answer and spooning up more soup in the meantime. Mac had just taken her first bite of the sandwich Neil had shoved in front of her right before he started feeding Jake, so she tried to swallow it in a hurry. Instead it stuck in her throat.

“Hang on,” she choked out, and ran around the counter to get herself some goat’s milk. Once she’d managed to finish swallowing, she offered some to Lisa who looked like she wasn’t so sure about drinking it. When she did finally try it, the surprise on her face made Mac laugh.

“I know. I was expecting it to be really weird-tasting myself the first time I had it, but in a way I was looking forward to it. It’s lower in lactose than cow’s milk, and I’m lactose-intolerant. I love milk, though, and everything it goes into, so having the goats has been great.

“To answer your question, I’ve been planning this place for about twenty years. My daughter and I bought the land a couple of years ago, finally, and it wasn’t long after that we bought the steel buildings. I waited until they had something appropriate in their clearance section on the website, and then bought what we needed at a huge discount. I had a rough idea of the dimensions I wanted, and what framing style I needed. So, someone ordered this building first, and for one reason or another cancelled the order. I probably only paid about fifty or sixty percent of what it would have cost to order my own building.”

“Yeah, but where did you get the money for it? This couldn’t have been cheap,” Lisa said skeptically.

“It was around a hundred and fifty grand, even with all the solar panels and whatnot, which is way less than most people pay for a house and land. When you don’t have to pay for labour, you can do a hell of a lot more with your money. And I was lucky enough to be making a very good living. I did start-up consulting, among other things, and we lived in a really crappy area of Hamilton while we waited to do this. That allowed us to pay cash for everything, instead of making mortgage payments. Though I suppose now that it would have been fine to take on a mortgage. It’s not like the banks exist anymore to demand payment.

“We had just managed to put in our first garden when I saw things were getting really bad. We weren’t exactly ready, and we had to scramble around to get the goats and chickens we needed. We’ve been breeding the chickens as fast as possible, too, so we can switch the ferrets over from kibble to eggs. I had a lot of kibble already, since I’d always planned to go get the ferrets from the various shelters, but I know it’ll only last so long.

“We have to keep everything balanced, too, and calculate what we really need to feed everyone who lives here, and still supply the livestock. No point in having too many eggs, and then having to feed a bunch of unnecessary chickens. I chose chicken eggs and goat’s milk for our protein, because I can’t bear to slaughter animals. I grew up on a farm, so I should probably be more practical about it, but I still can’t do it,” Mac said ruefully.

“Everyone here feels the same way?”

“Not really, but since there’s been no need so far to make that decision, we’ve all just left things as they are. Gilles knows how to hunt, as do I when it comes to a theoretical standpoint, but we haven’t done so. Neil used to hunt with his mother when he was a kid. I’m sure others are capable, too, but I haven’t asked.”

Mac polished off her sandwich while talking to Lisa about the room she’d be staying in temporarily with her son.

“We don’t have anywhere else to put you until we get another building put up, but you’ll have a bit of privacy still anyway. I’m not real good about having people live with me, since I tend to be pretty solitary, so we’ll have you in your own place pretty quick. There won’t be a lot of furniture in it, until I get a chance to build some for you, but at least you’ll have your beds and a home of your own.”

“You tend to be solitary? I wouldn’t have guessed that from the number of people I saw when we drove up, or the size of this place.”

“I’m lucky enough to have friends who understand me. Anyway, Gilles and Neil are getting your room ready for you, so you can at least get yourself settled for the night. There’s plenty of food in the fridge and cupboards, so feel free to take whatever you need or want. If you throw your dishes in the dishwasher, we’ll get along fine. There are a lot of ways to entertain yourself here, too. Someone will have to show you how to access the server for the movies and TV shows we have stored, but I don’t have time right now. I hate to just leave you on your own like this, but I have a serious situation I need to deal with.”

5 ~ The Truth Will Out

“Okay, Gilles, tell me everything,” Mac demanded.

“It’s probably not as bad as you think, though I’m sure you’re going to want to say something to Cam about her going by herself to check out a sensor without telling anyone she was going.” Gilles went on to explain everything he knew about the situation.

“So you were already on your way to check it out when you heard the shots then? And you didn’t tell him Cam was the one who killed Gerry?”

“No, but you could tell he knew it was her. He’s not the kind of guy to go after her, Mac. He just wanted some answers is all. I hated having to tell him his son tried to kill Neil. It broke his heart, but I don’t think it was unexpected. He knew what his son was, even though he tried to raise that kid right.”

“I still need to meet him and see for myself. I won’t take chances with my daughter like that,” she said.

“I know. I’d be doing the same thing if it were my kid, and it wouldn’t matter to me what anyone said,” Gilles responded, patting her shoulder.

“Fuck. This is the last thing we need right now. I need to be getting ready to head down to Cleveland. Ian’s insulin will be turning toxic soon. Sarjit has managed to make some the old-fashioned way, but it doesn’t do any good to have it here, when Ian needs it down there.”

“Brian doesn’t have a working vehicle, and they live a good twenty klicks from here, so he’s not coming back tonight anyway. You’ve got time to get over there to talk to him. He’s got to work things out in his own head in the meantime. I think he’s more concerned about getting his son’s body back so he can be properly buried.”

“Oh,” Mac said with a cringe.

“Yeah. It’s still at the hospital. The power went down before any autopsy could be done,” Gilles said, his face contorted into a grimace. The thought wasn’t a pretty one. Without freezing or embalming, there wouldn’t be much of a body left. Mac didn’t know much about human decomposition, but she knew it wouldn’t be something any loving parent would handle well.

“He can’t go there and see that,” she said.

“No, you’re right. If he doesn’t have something to bury, though, he just might at that. Not that I really want to see it myself, and I’m sure Chuck won’t either, but we’re probably the two with the most responsibility to do something about it. We chose to be cops, and we knew it wouldn’t always be speeding tickets and community relations. The question is fuel. Do we really want to spare it for something like this?”

“That’s something I wanted to talk to you about anyway. What do you know about vegetable oil conversions?”

“Huh?”

“Okay, well that answers that question. I’m guessing not much.”

“Vegetable oil conversions of what?”

“Diesel engines. Do you remember on the news a few years back, there was a surge of people converting their diesel engines to run on used deep-fryer oil? They were getting it free from the restaurants,” Mac said, trying to prod his memory.

“Now that I know what the hell you’re talking about, yeah. I actually know quite a bit about it. I was considering doing that with a car, but unless you could get the oil for free it wasn’t really worth it. I think restaurants started charging for it in some cases, and buying the vegetable oil new cost at least as much as paying for diesel, if not more. So I never bothered. And burning diesel wasn’t any harder on the environment.”

“Not burning it, no. But it was the fact that it was a fossil fuel, rather than something more sustainable like sunflower oil that made the conversion better for the environment. Anyway, I made sure I had seeds I could grow so I’d have cooking oil in the future, and I bought a press for the same reason, so technically we can provide our own fuel if we can find a way to convert the diesels. We’ve got three trucks that run on it. It would have been better to have cars, since they don’t burn as much fuel, but maybe we can find something that’s been abandoned later.

“The real reason I’m asking is for getting down to Cleveland, since we already have pretty much everything we need right here on the farm. A lot of boat motors run on diesel, and I’m pretty sure the waterway goes from here all the way down to Lake Erie. I just have to double-check a book I grabbed from the library to see if there are any locks or canals that might be a problem on the way.” Mac chewed her lip worriedly as she thought about it.

“Weren’t you planning to use a sailboat?”

“I’m not real confident of my ability to operate one without killing myself, and Neil isn’t any more knowledgeable than I am. Sails are a complication I’d rather not deal with if I don’t have to. An engine is something I can understand. I’d like to find something that’s got both, just in case, but if I have to pick one or the other I’d rather go with a motorboat if we can get the fuel together for it. Thankfully diesel doesn’t go bad as easily as gasoline, but whether or not people used it up is another story.”

“Let me think about it, and see what I can come up with. I do remember that the oil has to be pre-heated in order for it to work, so maybe I can jury-rig something,” Gilles said. “How are you planning to get the oil for now, though? It’s gonna be a while before you can harvest enough seeds for that.”

“Looks like I’m going to be breaking into a bunch of fast-food joints. I have to wonder if it’ll matter whether or not the oil is rancid, though. I mean, that oil has been sitting there for a number of months now. Will it break down and become unusable, do you think?”

“No idea,” Gilles said with a shrug. “Guess we’ll just have to find out. If I can put something together to make this work, we should have a test engine to mess around with, not one of the truck engines or a boat engine you’re planning to use. No point fixing something that ain’t broke, until we’re sure we’re not going to be breaking it.”

“Good point. Alright, let me know what you come up with. In the meantime, by all means take Chuck to get Gerry’s body. Wait until I’ve had a chance to talk to his father, though. I’ll let him know what you’re doing and maybe that will ease things between us all. This is a tense situation, and it could get bad if we’re not careful.”


   
 
   
 


“What the ever-loving
fuck
, Cameron?” Mackenzie snapped furiously, the instant Cam walked through the kitchen door. The recipient of Mackenzie’s temper hunched her shoulders.

“Uh, I take it you talked to Gilles,” Cameron said hesitantly. Obviously she didn’t want to get specific, just in case Mac was pissed about something else.

“Did you suddenly become a commando when I wasn’t looking?”

“Uh, no.” The hunch in Cam’s shoulder’s only became more pronounced, and it pissed Mac off even more.

“So, what exactly made you think you should confront a potential intruder all by yourself then? Have we got a hidden supply of testosterone that I’m unaware of?” The sarcastic remark instantly offended the other occupant in the room.

“Bad decision-making isn’t solely the province of masculinity, thank you very much,” Neil cut in.

“Maybe not, but the majority of it is.”

“Okay, well you have me there, but I don’t think that’s the issue this time, so let’s stick with the problem at hand, shall we?”

Mac shrugged a shoulder and turned back to her daughter to await her defense. It was a while before anything came out of her mouth, and what did come out was hardly satisfactory.

“I was pissed off and wasn’t thinking straight.”

“Great. Let me guess. You were still sulking about not being able to go on our little scavenging trip, weren’t you?”

“Something like that,” Cam responded with a half-shrug of her own. “Besides, it’s not like I’m the only person around here who’s made a bad decision.”

Mac almost choked on her ire. And the worst of it was that her daughter was right about her risky choices, which was a very bitter pill to swallow. Not that she felt it excused her. After all, her decision hadn’t led to any disastrous consequences.

“Is that how we’re going to start living? Every time someone makes a mistake or a choice the others don’t agree with, everyone else gets to make one, too, just so we’re all even? Is that what you think we should be doing? Or do we play a game of one-upmanship, where we try to outdo one another? Never mind the fact that you made your decision based on a childish need to get back at me for something.”

Rather than shouting at Cam, Mackenzie’s voice went really quiet. Cold, rigid logic poured from her mouth, rather than temperamental fury. The longer she spoke, the less sarcasm she used, until there was nothing left beyond the hard words.

“Did you realize at any point that you were making a mistake?” she finally asked. Cam took her time responding, and Mac knew it was because she was trying to swallow her own temper.

“Yeah, but it was too late by then. Brian was already behind me, telling me to put down my bow.”

“I want the details. All of them. What did you do then?”

“I ducked behind a tree as I was turning around to aim at him.”

“Alright. That was the smart thing to do. What then?”

Cam gave her the whole story, and as Mac listened to her daughter the tension eased from her shoulders. Cam might have made a poor decision, but from that point forward Mac couldn’t find fault with any of the other choices she’d made. She wasn’t even sure if she would have thought to fire a few rounds in the air to bring help herself, and so she nodded her approval.

“Okay. All we can do now is see what this guy has to say for himself. Gilles, Chuck, and even Neil here, think Brian isn’t going to cause problems, but I want to see for myself what he’s like.” Mac glanced apologetically at her husband.

“I’m sorry. I trust you. I do. But this is my daughter, and I don’t even want to trust my own judgment where she’s concerned. I’ve got to do whatever I can to make sure he’s not a threat,” Mac said, appealing to Neil for his forgiveness.

“Honey, I’m not hurt or offended. Your first priority is Cam right now, not my feelings, so do whatever you have to do.”

Mac heard sincerity in Neil’s words, but by the same token she figured he’d prefer it if she was willing to take him at his word. Whatever his preferences, however, she was still going to do what she felt needed to be done. If it caused problems between them, then they’d have to deal with those later. Neil must have seen the doubt on her face, because he went on.

“I don’t know Brian all that well. I’ve given you my impression of him, but I could be wrong, so I’m really not bothered that you want to form your own opinion. We were never close friends. Just enough that I felt comfortable talking to him about his son when he first started stalking you. We didn’t really socialize or anything.”

“Since the world kinda fell apart right after we met, I have no idea what you did to socialize around here. You didn’t talk about having any really close friends, except maybe Carol and Samantha,” Mac said.

“At the time even they were mostly friendly with me simply because I was Sam’s boss. The odd coffee or dinner maybe. I wasn’t anyone’s idea of a party animal,” Neil said with a self-deprecating smirk.

“You sound like my twin. All I did was work and plot and plan. Sort of like a criminal mastermind, but without the criminal element,” she joked. Then she turned back to Cam.

“Since you realized you were making a mistake before anyone had to tell you, can I assume you won’t be doing something like this again? No matter how pissed off you are?”

“I might make mistakes, mom, but I’m not stupid. If there’s another alert, I won’t go out to check it without letting someone know, or taking someone with me. I was thinking I need to learn something about bush tactics, though. Even if I go out with someone else, I don’t want anyone getting the drop on me,” Cam said, her tone hesitant. Mac almost smiled at the lingo her daughter had almost certainly picked up through movies or first-person shooter games.

“I’d rather you didn’t go out to check sensors at all, but it’s not an ideal world. Gilles would probably be the best person to teach you that, or maybe even Neil. What do you think, cowboy? How extensive is your hunting experience?”

“I think Gilles is probably far more capable in that respect. I haven’t gone hunting since I was a little kid. He used to go every season, didn’t he?”

“Yeah, alright. I’ll talk to him. Besides, we won’t be here for a couple weeks. It’s best that she learn what she can, as soon as she can. She and Billy are going to be running this place when we’re not here, so who knows what they’ll have to deal with? When we get back with Ian, though, I’m going to ask him to teach her jiu-jitsu.” Mac watched her daughter’s face light up.

“Seriously?”

“Absolutely. There’s no one I’d rather have teaching you. He was the acknowledged expert and master in his style, so you might as well learn from the best. It’ll keep him out of trouble while he’s here, what with learning how to make his own insulin at the same time,” Mac said with a shrug.

“While he’s here? I kinda figured he would just stay with us like everyone else does,” Cam said.