Ground Zero (8 page)

“Seriously, Cam, we’re not going to be gone that long, and we’re sure as hell not telling anyone outside the farm that we’re going. We’ll be back before you know it. Once you start getting some training from Gilles in hunting and bush tactics, you’ll probably feel a lot better. Once Ian’s here, we can work on our little handicap when it comes to close-quarters combat. Ian would be the first to tell you that a gun is a lot more helpful in most cases, but everything you have in your arsenal is a worthwhile tool.”

Now that her mother had reminded her of that one advantage of having Ian on the farm for a while, Cam stopped feeling so whiny about the whole thing. She’d wanted to take martial arts lessons for as long as she could remember, and if she could take them from someone who was an actual master of his style, so much the better.

They walked into the back door of the house to find Billy and Neil sitting with Lisa at the serving counter. Billy was holding Jake while Lisa spoon-fed him an unidentifiable mush. He seemed to like it, though. He was smacking his lips and giggling after every bite.

Cam had to smile. Jake was still at a stage where she found him cute. In a couple of years, though, she’d probably find herself prying him off her leg. For some inexplicable reason, kids loved her. She couldn’t understand it, because for the most part she really didn’t like being around them. She didn’t have the heart to be mean to them, or shout and chase them away, but she avoided them if possible.

In the short time Lisa and Jake had been staying in the house, however, Billy seemed to have become really attached to Jake. Apparently he loved kids, which made Cam very grateful he’d eased off on the hero-worship and puppy-love looks he’d given her for most of the time she’d known him. She wasn’t sure if she would ever love someone enough to want to raise even one kid with them, let alone multiples, and Billy just didn’t do it for her that way. She could handle thinking of him as a step-brother or something, but that was it.

It really was depressing to think that she would probably never find anyone at all now. If decent partners hadn’t been thick on the ground before the world went to shit, they were truly verging on extinction now. Watching Billy with Jake and Lisa was also giving her the sneaking suspicion that at some point even Billy was going to be out of the running. So much for any sort of back-up plan. And although she considered the thought crass and selfish, and felt guilty for it, it was nothing less than the truth. It had been some comfort to think there was at least that possibility, whether he was someone she really wanted or not.

Cam shook her head at her aggravating thoughts. The fact remained that she really had no interest in him beyond a potential fuck-buddy should things get desperate, and so she didn’t deserve to have that comfort from him. He was too decent of a human being for her to treat him that way.

She went past everyone and headed into the kitchen. It had been a really emotional day, especially for someone like her. Cameron wasn’t interested in having emotional days. She liked hers to be as drama-free as possible. If things kept going the way they were, however, she might seriously consider doing some container-gardening in her room, so she could live off those vegetables and never run into another human being as long as she lived. If it weren’t for the lure of eggs, cheese, and mushrooms, it sounded pretty reasonable to her.

Grabbing a container of the latest batch of cheesecake cookies her mother had made, and some milk, Cam decided she was taking her hoard up to her room where she could play non-stop computer games. It was a good thing they had hundreds of them stored on the server, because she was finally getting weary of her self-appointed guard duty.
Let someone else hold down the fort for a while
, she thought.

As she passed by everyone again on the way to the wide, straight staircase, Billy asked where she was going.

“Nunya,” she answered, smirking visibly.

“What the hell is ‘nunya’ supposed to mean?” His frown echoed the confusion in his voice. Neil and her mother were both laughing, though.

“It means, ‘Nunya’ business,” she retorted snappily, and headed on her way.

“Finally,” she heard her mother say, relief in her voice.

“Finally what?” Billy was really confused now.

“Finally she’s getting back to her old self.”

7 ~ Embarkation

“Did Brian and Geraldine seem shifty to you?” Mac’s question was asked to the truck cabin at large. “Maybe we shouldn’t go right now. And what about this year’s crops? We just got those in the ground.”

“For the hundredth time, Mac,” Gilles replied in exasperation, “Brian and Geraldine don’t even know you’re not going to be there. Seeing as we’ve managed to find a motorsailer,
and
convert the two engines to run on vegetable oil, you’re probably only going to be gone for a couple of weeks. If you do ten or twelve hours a day, it should take less than a week to get down there. It’s not bloody likely we’ll get any frost, since we barely had any during what was supposed to be winter, and it’s now past the beginning of April. That’s why we planted early, remember? It’s not like it was when we were growing up, and our parents had to wait until May long weekend to plant. We’ve got a really long growing season now.

“You’ve got plenty of oil, already filtered, both in the main boat and the dinghy. Just remember to switch back to the diesel tank for a few minutes if you’re planning to shut down the engine for more than a few minutes. The oil needs to be run through completely. Then wait a few minutes before switching back to oil when you start up again.

“You’ve got a radio so you’ll know exactly what’s going on here, too, which means you can still nag us to death. Every single house on the farm has weapons of some sort, in addition to the usual assortment of firearms, and you’ve also got your own. The dinghy is loaded with everything you need in case your boat sinks, including some diving gear we grabbed from another boat. The gauges show that the tanks are full, so if there’s anything you need to check underwater, you’ll be fine. Does that sum it all up for you, or are you determined to rant and fret and worry until you drive us all nuts?”

“Damn it, Gilles!”

“Damn it, Mac,” he returned.

“Mom, I’m going to be fine, the farm is going to be fine, and the ferrets are going to be fine. It’s two weeks, if that. You can probably get there in five days. You said so yourself. By the time anyone even knows you’re gone, if anyone knows, you’ll already be back with Ian.”

“The ferrets,” Mac whimpered. “They’ve never been without me for so long.”

“Yeah, and for the first few days they won’t even notice that you’re not there. It’s you that’s going to miss them, not the other way around.” Cam was getting just as irritated with her as everyone else.

“So what?  If they could swim for hours on end, or at least had life vests of some kind, I’d probably bring them with us. I’m just worried, and I don’t want to leave the farm. There are too many things that could go wrong, with no support services there to back you up.”

“Honey,” Neil began, showing his own annoyance now. “In case you’re forgetting, Gilles and Chuck were both
part
of the support services. Then there’s Annette. She certainly did a great job with me, and that was a gunshot wound. I doubt they’re going to encounter anything as dangerous as that.”

“Yeah, mom. You’re the ones who aren’t going to have any backup, not us. It’s not like there’s a Coast Guard, or whatever the hell it used to be on the Great Lakes. If something happens while you’re on the boat, you’ll be on your own.”

“If y’all don’t stop this endless whining, I’m gonna turn this truck right around … ” Gilles left the joke unfinished, but Mac knew the so-called punch line.

Billy was the only one who wasn’t speaking. Mac could see that he was worried, and Cam’s comment hadn’t helped.

“We’re going to be fine on the water. We know the risks, and the lack of support, which was why we made sure to load the dinghy with everything in advance.” They had made it to the dock by then, so there was nothing left for them to do, other than say good-bye and get going. Gilles had only come along to drive Billy and Cam back to the farm, just in case they were too upset to drive.

Mac didn’t want them off the farm by themselves anyway. There hadn’t been enough time to assess the situation in the surrounding areas. They only knew that there were quite a few people still alive, because they had already been living on farmland. When they got back, Mac was going to see about getting in touch with more people for trading foods and services.

Neil had originally suggested they bring more people onto the farm, but Mac had been very resistant to the idea. At least he’d agreed that it was best to wait and see how things shook out in the aftermath. There had never been such a major test of humanity’s character before, and Mac wasn’t taking any chances.

People could pull together in the worst of times, but they could also turn on one another. It mostly depended on whether or not there were people who felt entitled to more than was fair. That also happened in the best of times, however. Like when there had been a group of
one-percenters
claiming the vast majority of the wealth and privilege. That selfishness was part of what had led mankind to the brink of extinction. And it still might. They were no longer polluting their atmosphere, but there was a lot of damage locked in and waiting to happen.

Mac looked at her daughter, hoping she would have a chance to raise a kid of her own, or at least grow old without struggling to breathe. Cam rolled her eyes when she caught her mother’s look.

“I’ll be
fine
, mother!”

“No,” Mac responded with a smile. “It wasn’t that. Believe it or not I was thinking about something else entirely.” She grabbed the pack with their clothes, while Neil grabbed the electric cooler with Ian’s insulin. They had just picked it up from Sarjit, the pharmacist they traded with. There was enough for a few weeks, just in case they ran into any issues along the way. They still didn’t know how long this stuff would keep, so Sarjit only made it up a month at a time, and his daughter was the only person they knew of that was taking it. Apparently the dosages had taken some fiddling, too. With all the test strips expiring, things were very complicated that way.

That made her wonder if insulin pumps would help. They had to continuously test the blood, so maybe that was a better long-term solution. She would have to find out how they worked if they managed to find one. That could wait until she got back and could talk to Sarjit, or “Sergeant” as most people called him, about it. She’d have to take Ian to see him anyway, so he could be shown how to make his own.

Mac didn’t think he was going to like having to do it himself, but like most people he would do what was necessary to survive. Mackenzie didn’t even like to
think
about what was done to the animals to get insulin from them, and she paid as little attention to that part of things as she could. Growing up on a farm meant she wasn’t naïve in the least. She just didn’t want to be a party to animal torture or killing. Hence the fact that they all lived on milk and egg products instead of actual meat.

It was time to get started, so Mac grabbed Gilles, then Billy, giving them each quick hugs. Then she turned to Cam.

“Try to put on some weight while we’re gone, would ya? I don’t mean this aesthetically, either. Ordinarily I don’t say anything about weight, since it has a lot less to do with health than people used to think it did. It’s more that there’s a very real possibility of people getting sick and not having medical attention, and having a little extra weight on us can mean the difference between life and death. After all, we don’t have to worry about zombies chasing us, and it’s highly unlikely those cannibals will be an issue for us. Be healthy, but pack on some pounds if you can. The fact that you needed all new clothes out of what we brought back worries me.”

“I think I’ve already started to gain some of the weight back. I’m not walking miles every day and forgetting to eat anymore.”

Mac pulled her into a tight hug, more relieved than she wanted her daughter to know. In fact, Cam’s emotional state had probably been even worse than she’d suspected, so Brian’s intrusion a couple of weeks ago had turned out to be good for her. It couldn’t have come at a better time.

“Okay, as much as I’d like to just stand here and fret all day, we’ve got a city to discover and a man in potential distress to rescue. Though I’m sure he’d hate being compared to a damsel in any way,” she said with a smirk. Mac got a kick out of teasing Ian with that one. He was so stereotypically masculine in that respect, she couldn’t resist giving him a good poke now and again.

“Good luck, mom. Go save Macho Man. We’ll be fine here, but you be careful.” Cam gave her a quick squeeze before stepping back.

“Don’t worry about us. We’ve taken steps to ensure the survival of this expedition,” Mac said with a wink. “Now, to boldly go where millions have gone before.”

“You ready, honey?”

“Yeah, let’s get this showboat on the road. Water, whatever.”

Mac untied the mooring lines while Neil started up the engines. They hadn’t actually tested them yet, because they hadn’t wanted to attract attention at the marina, so Mac was relieved when she heard them fire right up. The truck drew enough curiosity as it was, but people didn’t know what they were doing when they were driving around. Firing up the boat before they were ready to leave would have advertised the fact that there was a working boat that might have some supplies on board. The supplies could be replaced, but they didn’t want to have to convert more boat motors to vegetable oil. And motorsailers weren’t exactly thick on the docks, either.

She gave her daughter one more quick hug, and then climbed the ladder onto the deck of the boat. She ducked her head into the cabin.

“Get me outta here before I start bawling my head off, okay?” Her cranky order had Neil smiling at her in sympathy.

“Don’t worry. I might just make a fool of myself by joining you. I haven’t spent much time away from Billy since he moved back in with me.”

Since the boat had been left with the bow facing out, Neil didn’t have to try to maneuver backwards. When planning their trip and reading about everything they would have to do, they had both agreed that they wouldn’t try anything too complicated. Neither of them was very skilled or knowledgeable with any kind of motorboat, much less a sailboat, so they wanted to keep things simple and avoid potential mishaps.

One of the things Mackenzie had learned about the learning process throughout her life, was that trying to be really good at anything right from the beginning was a good way to set herself up for failure. She liked to be perfect, and to just know everything, but in practical terms, as opposed to theoretical, everything took time and practice. When she’d first taken up electronics, she’d been so frustrated when it had taken her weeks to learn how to solder. Her first time sweating a plumbing joint had been an unmitigated disaster, and she still didn’t like to think about it. She figured learning to operate a boat was going to run along similar lines, and they could not afford to screw it up, so they would do nothing more than the basics that were necessary to get them from point A to point B.

As the boat slipped away from the dock, Mackenzie shielded her eyes from the sun glaring off the water. It was bad enough that she already had tears burning in them, but the glare was making it worse. She moved to the rear of the boat to keep Cam in sight for as long as possible. Saying goodbye to the ferrets that morning had been just as difficult.  She knew Cam was right, and that they wouldn’t start to miss her for a while, so at least they were okay.

She reassured herself that it would only take a couple of weeks, assuming everything went according to plan. Then again, she rarely assumed anything would go according to plan.
Shit happens, crap occurs
, she thought with a mental shrug. They would get through whatever they needed to get through. When she could no longer see the marina, Mackenzie headed back to the cabin.

“I take it you talked to Ian about meeting us at that yacht club,” Neil said when she joined him.

“Yeah, Edgewater Park at any rate. He knows the way there. It’ll be a bit of a hike for him, so I made sure he still had plenty of insulin for when the extra exercise played around with his blood sugar levels. He’s used to working out every day, but not hiking for a full seven or eight hours. That’s a completely different type of workout.”

“He’ll be fine. You really like to worry, don’t you?”

“No, I really don’t. I just don’t have much choice in the matter. It helps me think of all the little details that everyone else seems to miss, though. Like storing our emergency supplies in the dinghy,” she reminded him with a jab in the ribs.

“Alright, ya got me there. Along with the non-perishable food, and the fishing stuff in case we need more food, though we’ll have to remember to grab the insulin cooler. Good thing we’ve installed a cigarette-lighter plug for it in the dinghy. Cam’s right about us being on our own out here, though. As beautiful and peaceful as it is, it’s a bit disconcerting. I’m glad we’re staying pretty close to the shoreline. We can always head for land if a big storm hits.”

“See?” Her sense of humour was back in full swing. “And who thought about that when they were busy worrying?”

“You know, maybe it’s not that you like worrying so much as you like being right about everything. Not to mention being bossy. Ouch!” His yelp indicated that her jab found its mark once again.