Ground Zero (6 page)

“He’s still got family outside Cleveland, so he’s not going to want to stay. Aside from the insulin, and very limited electricity, he’s got a pretty good situation there. His relatives have a small farm where they have some laying hens. Not sure about veggies and stuff, but we can send him back with plenty of seeds if they don’t already have a garden of their own. He’s got his pond with tons of fish in it, too. He had it stocked years ago, and then never fished in it, so they multiplied like crazy. Must be a pretty deep pond, because Cleveland winters used to be pretty cold. A shallow pond would have completely frozen. Then again, I have no idea whether or not fish survive being frozen. I wouldn’t think so, but what do I know?”

“You’re rambling, mom.”

“It’s your fault. You’ve got me all freaked out,” Mac replied in a snarky tone.

“Hang on,” Cam said, and trotted off toward the hall that led to the main door. Mac looked after her in bemusement, and then glanced at Neil who merely shrugged in response.

“Where did Billy disappear to? I would’ve thought he’d want to be here for when Cam got chewed out. I’m sure he must have something to say about it,” Mac said.

“Maybe he already said something, since we were gone a pretty long time, and Gilles said this happened almost immediately after we left. I’m not sure where he is now, though. I checked earlier to see if he was in his room, but he wasn’t there. Probably hiding from Katherine somewhere. That girl is
tenacious
.”

“I know, eh? Granted, she’s fourteen, so that’s to be expected. Thankfully you raised Billy to be a decent guy who won’t take advantage of her. There are plenty of guys who would, jailbait or not. Of course, that was back when there were actually plenty of guys. Now? Not so much,” she concluded sadly.

“Hey! I’m right here, you know? From my perspective it’s not as though you need a bunch of guys. You’ve already got me.” Mac was saved the need to answer by Cam’s timely arrival, ferrets in hand.

“Here. Have a ferret,” she said, thrusting Pickle at her mother while she nuzzled Squeaker. Mac would have liked to have made some sort of retort, but her daughter knew her well. It was a given that her attention would be drawn immediately to the furry bundle in her arms. It was well known that she was as bad as a dog with a squirrel, when it came to the distraction provided by ferrets. Seeing them reminded her of something, though.

“I take it you got Lisa and Jake settled okay?”

“They’re fine, though I wouldn’t doubt Lisa’s taking a well-deserved siesta,” Neil replied.

“Who are Lisa and Jake?” Cam’s bewilderment made Mac laugh.

“A lot happened while we were gone, and it wasn’t just here on the farm.” So saying, Mac filled her in on the rest of the details.

“So, basically you just encountered the real-life version of the
zompoc
,” Cam said when her mother was finished.

“The what? Oh, wait. You mean the zombie apocalypse?”

“Yeah, that.”

“Near as I can figure, however, they’re nothing more than crazy cannibals at this point. The only way they’re the walking dead, is the fact that they’re most likely going to be dead in a short while. Kind of like that death row thing. You know? Dead man walking,” Mac prompted when Cameron looked blank at the reference.

“Is
that
what that means?”

“Well, yeah. How can you not have known that? You saw Green Mile more than once, did you not?” Mac was incredulous.

“A few times, sure. I guess I just never made the connection. Weird,” Cam said with a shrug. And it hardly mattered anymore. It wasn’t as though there was still any such thing as popular culture. There would have to be enough people in the world for something to actually be considered popular. The few that were left were probably so scattered throughout the world, that what was known in one culture was just as likely to be unknown in another. Movies might be the exception, but properly translating a turn of phrase was a complicated thing.

“Anyhoo, let’s just worry about the world we’re actually living in, shall we? We have more than enough on our collective plates without worrying about a system that no longer exists,” Mac said.

“Okay, so I take it these people will stay on the farm with us? Lisa and Jake, I mean. Not the cannibals,” Cam clarified with a smile.

“Definitely not the cannibals, no. I’m assuming Lisa will want to stay, and we’ve already discussed building another small cabin. The Bowflex and treadmill have been put in here for now to keep Jake safe, though it means not letting Pickle and Squeaker run around. I don’t fancy them having a chew-fest on the rubber part of the treadmill.

“Now, take the boys back to the bedroom for me,” Mac said to Cam, once she’d taken a turn snuggling Squeaker. “Neil and I need to discuss strategy for tomorrow’s little meet-and-greet.” Mac waited tensely, until she was sure Cameron wasn’t going to argue the decision.

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Mac woke up mid-morning, which was unusual for her, but she’d had an anxious sleep waiting for the events of the day to unfold. A quick breakfast of mushroom and goat-cheese omelet was enough to set them up for a few hours, and they were on their way less than half an hour after climbing from their bed.

When they knocked on the Newmans’ door twenty minutes later, her stomach was tied in knots, and her Glock was tucked in its holster, situated very visibly in the front of her jeans. She really hoped Brian was the kind of person everyone was saying he was, but she knew that kind of hope was dangerous. It might lead her to miss things if she wanted so much for it to be true. She stepped to the side after knocking, in case there was a shotgun behind the door, though Neil remained where he was. She glared at him for it.

When the door opened fully, with no weapon in evidence, it was a little anti-climactic for her. Her hand stopped hovering over the Glock after she’d given him a good scan. His son had looked like him, she noticed, though the father was a lot cleaner. It made her wonder what they were doing for water.

“You look like her,” he said, staring straight at her. The similarity of his words to her thoughts was almost enough to make her laugh. Almost.

“Hey, Brian. Mac here wanted to know a little something about you, seeing as it was her property you trespassed on yesterday, on your way to come see me.”

“Mac, eh?” His lips twitched, reminding Mackenzie that everyone in the area still thought of Neil as Mac, because his last name was McKinnon. He didn’t say anything about it. Just told them to come on in.

“That’s okay, Mr. Newman. If it’s all the same to you, I’d like to be able to see your face while we’re talking. Your porch here probably has a bit more light.”

“The deck out back is even brighter. You might as well come through the house and see what I’ve got that you might consider a threat. Geraldine’s inside, and it would probably do her good to meet you. This is a difficult situation, especially for her, and I’d like to see it resolved as best it can be.”

“Alright,” she said reluctantly, giving him a nod. “I guess we can do that.”

The house wasn’t particularly dark, so Mackenzie relaxed a little bit more. Brian’s matter-of-fact attitude went a long way toward reassuring her, so she could see why everyone had such a good impression of him. Geraldine was a surprise. Somehow she’d been expecting a flowered housedress. Instead she was wearing a good-quality pair of jeans and a long fisherman sweater. Her hair appeared to be freshly cut in a sassy swing, too, though the streaks were natural.

“You’re the woman my son was bothering?” Her blunt question was another surprise.

“Yes, ma’am. I’m Mac.”

“You might as well call me Geraldine. Why don’t I make us some coffee, and we can talk about all this?”

Mackenzie headed through the kitchen door behind Brian, with Neil following her. The deck out back was stunning. She hadn’t known there would be a lake view from the front. There were a lot of trees on either side, but the land in the back had been cleared long ago, creating a gentle slope down to the water. The late-morning sun reflected almost blindingly from the surface.

“This is really nice,” she commented. Brian nodded agreeably.

“We spend most days out back here. Geraldine has her garden there, and I fish off the dock for our dinner. Breakfast and lunch too now. It’s quiet, and we need that right now.”

“I don’t blame you,” she said softly. “I doubt very much I’d ever want to see another person if I lost my daughter.”

“Sit down and we’ll get to all that in a bit. You’re not going to need your Glock.” He was making sure she understood that he knew a thing or two about weapons, apparently, and she was wondering why. He’d gone to a lot of trouble to assure her he wasn’t planning to pick up one of his own. Unless his wife had one under her sweater, she didn’t think either of them were armed. He was wearing a white undershirt with a button-down lumberjack shirt flapping loosely over it, and Mac could see he wasn’t concealing a piece with it.

“Just the same, I’ve gotten used to carrying it,” she said in warning. “You seem to be doing alright over here. That woodstove I noticed inside helps a lot I’m sure. What do you do for water, aside from the lake I mean.”

“Had to jury-rig a rainwater collection system when the well pump and pressure tank stopped working. Actually set up a system to have a hot water shower in the basement, using a gravity feed and a tank we can set up on top of the woodstove. I can show it to you later if you like. Even used an old bicycle to pedal-power a sort of washing machine and spinner. We’ve got some friends we can trade with, too, though we haven’t really bothered with that. Not much we need so long as we’re clean and fed. I wasn’t gonna have us trying to wash in cold water in the winter, though. How about you folks?”

“We were prepared for it, mostly. Solar power to start, and we got lucky with a flowing artesian well that didn’t really need a pump or pressure tank, but we have those, too. We started working on wind turbines over the winter, which provided a bit of extra power even though they weren’t very efficient, but now that the roads are clear we got some more PV panels and marine batteries. We ended up with more people than we originally planned for, so our power ran down close to nothing every day, but at least we had it.”

It was another mild warning, letting him know about the extra people, but she just didn’t feel a threat coming from him. It was sort of making her feel like an idiot, but she was a mother. Even before she’d become a mother, she’d been ridiculously overprotective of her friends.

“You sound like you’re from the city, but not quite. You mind me asking where you came from?”

“Not at all. I was raised in Muskoka, but moved to the city when I married at sixteen so my first husband and I both had a shot at having decent careers. When it came time to buy land, though, I wanted to be back here.”

“That explains it,” he said, nodding at her. “What family?”

“Thane,” she said curtly. “And if you know who they are, then I’m sure you won’t be too surprised when I say I didn’t remain close to them.”

“Funny how that works, isn’t it?” He was nodding again, thoughtfully, and with more than a little sadness. “We’re generally considered good people, and we tried to raise Gerry to follow that lead. As you saw for yourself, it didn’t work out very well for us. Or for him. You came from a family like the Thanes, who are
not
generally considered good people, and yet you and your daughter both seem to have turned into fine human beings. All the arguments about nature versus nurture don’t answer questions like that. Sometimes people are just good. Sometimes they’re not. And there’s no genetic or environmental reason for it.”

Mackenzie had nothing to add. She knew it was true. Everyone had to be taken for the person they were as an individual, not based on the circumstances of their birth or how they’d been raised. Sure, in many cases nature and nurture had a large impact, but the exceptions still baffled everyone and caught them by surprise.

There were a few minutes of bustle and awkwardness when Geraldine brought out the coffee. Then she sat down and pushed away all of that confusion with a single, bold statement.

“From what my husband says, your daughter most likely did the job that I was afraid to do, I’m sorry to say.” The blunt words from Gerry’s mother made Mac grateful she hadn’t tried to swallow any coffee just yet.

“Our son was an evil little shit from the time he was born. I’m sorry, Brian, for saying that, but you know as well as I do that it was true. In fact, it’s far more true than most people in this area realize. You know all those childhood symptoms they talk about on the true-crime shows? The ones for serial killers?” When Mac nodded, she went on.

“He had them all, except for the bed-wetting thing. He started out with animals. So we sold off our livestock and took him to therapy in North Bay. He started watching extremely violent and graphic sexual content online, so we got rid of the internet and got him to another therapist. When the situation developed with you, we actually hoped that they would catch him and arrest him before he managed to kill someone. The only reason we gave him a place to live here, was because we were trying to keep an eye on him. Otherwise we’d have told him to leave as soon as he turned eighteen.