Ground Zero (9 page)

“And apparently you don’t much like your flaws being pointed out, either. Jesus woman. Trim your nails, would ya?”

For good measure she poked him again, grinned like a Cheshire cat, and then leapt nimbly out of reach when he made a grab for her.

“Keep that up and I’m going to tie off the helm so I can have a go at you.”

“Which would mean I’d have to have you walk the plank for mutiny and dereliction of duty. Stay at your post, sailor,” she ordered. Neil just snorted in response.

They had smooth sailing for the day, Mac taking her turn at the helm after Neil had been standing there for a few hours. She’d had a quick meal before taking her shift, despite a mildly queasy stomach, and Neil went to grab some food for himself once he was relieved.

“O captain, my captain,” Neil called out to her when he returned a while later. Mackenzie just laughed.

“Unless we’re putting a north and south dividing line on this boat and changing into grey and blue clothing, I’m not sure that line is appropriate.”

“Huh?”

“You’re quoting civil war poetry, cowboy. It’s got nothing to do with sailing as far as I know. It was written about Abe Lincoln. Don’t ask me anything else about it, though. Poetry isn’t my strong suit. It was one thing I never had any interest in. Aside from a little Poe, and that dying of the light piece from Dylan Thomas, none of them really spoke to me. And you can probably blame Rodney Dangerfield for my love of the Dylan Thomas one.”

“Rodney Dangerfield made you love a poem? That’s just weird,” he said in wonder.

“Oh, shut up. It was that movie,
Back to School
, where he’s a rich guy who falls for an English professor. He performs the poem for an oral exam. Did a good enough job that I just really responded to it. Every now and then I’ll go back and read it, because it reminds me to fight for my survival. Pretty inspirational for a prepper, actually.”

“Yup, still weird.”

“Oh, for cryin’ out loud,” she complained. “Can’t I just like a poem?”

“It’s the Dangerfield connection that weirds me out, not the fact that you like the poem. It’s actually a great one. I like it myself. Isn’t that the movie where he jokes that he’s going to donate his body to science fiction?”

“That would be the one. One of my first RDJ movies, too.”

“RDJ?”

“Yeah,” Mac said, much aggrieved by his lack of understanding. “Robert Downey, Jr. The guy is practically Hollywood royalty. Not that I was ever real keen on the whole celebrity thing, but he’s a hell of an actor. Weird, but funny. I liked seeing him get past a lot of his issues. Did you ever see the video for that Elton John song,
I Want Love
, with RDJ in it? Made me want to cry.”

When Neil gave her a look of skepticism, she got cranky.

“Okay, so what if I did cry? It’s not a crime, is it? I’m allowed to cry at things that move me.”

“I’m not saying there’s anything wrong with it. In fact, I didn’t say anything at all. But no, I didn’t believe you when you said it only made you
want
to cry. I know you too well, honey.”

“Huh. Anyway, what did you want?”

“When?”

“When you started quoting civil war poetry and we got off on this tangent about more of my numerous flaws,” she said grumpily.

“Oh, nothing really. Just seemed like something I should say in greeting. Guess I’ll know better next time.”

“You should have known better this time. Besides, you were just trying to illustrate how bossy I am by calling me captain. It’s not like you actually think of me as your captain.”

“Well, you do have a bit of an impact on the direction of my life, so it’s really not that far off, but you’re not my boss, no.”

“I beg to differ,” she said pertly.

“You can beg all you like. In fact, you could get started now, and then we’ll be ready for tonight when we’re at anchor.”

“You’re quite the comedian. You might even give Rodney Dangerfield a run for his money. Now that he’s dead,” Mac said with a sidelong look.

“I’ll be the one laughing tonight.”

“That’s probably for the best, since certain parts of the male anatomy don’t respond well to laughter.”

“Honey, I guarantee you will
not
be in any mood to laugh,” he spoke into her ear, sending a spear of heat through her body.

“You know, we could stop right here,” Mac began, slightly breathless.

“It’s your call, Captain.” Neil’s voice in her ear again was all it took to convince her.


   
 
   
 


In the grand scheme of things, losing half an hour for sex wasn’t that big a deal. She was feeling guilty, she realized, or she wouldn’t be trying to justify anything. Sex was just sex, Mac mentally lectured. It was a natural, and necessary, function of life. Then again, with Neil it felt more vital. Like breathing. Thankfully things were back on track there, now that she was making a conscious effort not to push him away out of fear for his health.

The additional jostling of her body, however, had left her feeling even more nauseous. Mac had made sure to bring Gravol with them, just in case one or both of them failed to adapt to being on the water. The only problem was, taking them usually made her fall asleep.

“Grab the wheel, would ya?”

Neil sort of stumbled over and did what she asked. She took a long look at him, and noticed he was looking pretty pale.

“Oh, shit. Not you, too. Well, this should be fun,” she said, and went out to the dinghy to pull the small bottle out of the medicine kit she’d packed. She used her teeth to pierce the seal at the top after she’d removed the safety cap, and shook an orange tablet into her palm. Mac replaced the cap, put away the bottle, and pulled her KA-BAR from its sheath. Once she’d split the tiny pill in half, she gave one piece to Neil and stuck the other under her tongue. They each downed their portion of the pill with a swallow of water from the bottles they carried clipped to their belts, and then Mac took over again at the helm.

“Go lie down, cowboy. You look like you feel a lot worse than I do,” she said gently, and rubbed his arm. When his shoulders lurched a bit at her touch, she hastily removed her hand and left him to his own devices.

She ignored the nausea as best she could, taking comfort from the fact that it would probably be gone shortly, and concentrated on heading west to Tobermory. They were on Georgian Bay at the moment. Once they rounded Tobermory, they’d be heading almost straight south to Sarnia. They would take St. Clair River through to Lake St. Clair, and then use Detroit River to cut between Detroit and Windsor to Lake Erie. Once they hit Erie there was nothing complicated about getting to Cleveland.

Mackenzie chuckled a bit when she remembered Ian’s initial reaction to her plan to take a boat down to meet him. When she’d first told him that it was possible to get from the marina near her farm all the way to Cleveland, he’d thought she was kidding. He didn’t realize how interconnected the waterways were in the Land of Lakes. Of course, people who didn’t live in the area were often astonished by the sheer volume of water there.

It was actually kind of odd that Mac didn’t have any real boating experience. She didn’t count the canoeing she’d done at camp when she was a kid. Her parents had been more than happy to get rid of her for a couple of weeks every summer, so some of her best memories were of that time. It had only bothered her that the camp had been a Christian one. She’d hated organized religion even then.

She considered herself a spiritual person, but she didn’t believe all the crap written in the so-called holy bible. She had more of a connection with nature than she did incense and crackers, and she would never understand why people, who supposedly believed that their great and wonderful god had created their beautiful planet, would treat an amazing gift like that with disdain. It was like the boss level of hypocrisy and contempt to her way of thinking. And it was a terrible way of saying thanks for the life that they had been given.

When darkness started falling and it was time to drop anchor for the night, they were just past Tobermory. As was the norm for her, a ‘road trip’ was taking longer than planned, but then she was very reluctant to travel at maximum speed just yet. There wasn’t really a rush to be there, and it was better if they took their time and avoided any accidents. Sinking the boat would add more hardship to their journey than she liked to think about, though they were prepared for the possibility. They just wouldn’t be very comfortable if it happened. Especially if they had a third person to bring back in a small dinghy.

Much to her relief, the lights on the boat were solar-powered, so she didn’t have to trip over her own feet in the dark to get the boat ready for the night. Or at least, get it as ready as she knew how to. She had a list of things she was supposed to do, and she followed it, but she wasn’t at all confident that she was getting everything right. Ian would actually be a big help there. He’d had a motorboat at one time. He didn’t know how to pilot a sailboat, specifically, or in this case a motorsailer, but he had some experience otherwise.

Just to be on the safe side, Mac used the radio to contact him. It gave her a chance to let him know where they were, as well as get some pointers for dealing with the myriad tasks associated with safe boat operation. She was just finishing up when Neil poked his head in the door, looking only slightly better than he had earlier.

“Okay, Ian. I’ll let you know when we’re about eight hours out from Edgewater Park. I don’t want you to have to wait there for too long, but by the same token, I don’t want to be sitting there with an obviously working boat that’s drawing unwanted attention. You think Bella’s gonna be okay to walk that far? Over.”

“That dog would walk to China if she could. Over.”

“Just make sure you bring something for her feet, then. Ointments, bandages, and first aid stuff if you’ve got it. You don’t want to end up carrying an eighty-pound dog. Over.”

“Yes, ma’am. Just pretend I’m saluting you like a good soldier. Over.” Mackenzie was not going near the good soldier remark.

“I’ll talk to you later then, Ian. Over and out.”

“I didn’t know you were planning to get in touch with him again,” Neil said in what sounded like a slightly irritated tone, though she figured it was probably caused by the same thing that was turning his face green.

“I wasn’t. I just wasn’t that confident about my boat-handling skills. I didn’t want us to wake up and find ourselves in the middle of some sort of disaster.”

“Probably for the best. Why don’t you radio the old homestead, and let them know we’re okay. We told them what time to expect to hear from us, and it’s getting on that time now. Cam may be tough and cynical, but she’s still going to be worried about you. I know Billy isn’t happy about this trip.”

“Yeah, I noticed he was pretty quiet. Is he mad at me for putting you at risk like this?”

“No, of course not,” Neil snapped. “You’re not putting me at risk. I am. I’m a grown man who does the things he chooses to do, honey, and you don’t make those decisions for me. So it’s me he’s a little pissed at. He doesn’t blame you for wanting to help a friend. Actually he thinks you’re pretty remarkable. He also understands why I had to come with you. For the most part anyway. I think maybe part of him feels I’m choosing you over him, because if something happened to me, then I chose to die rather than stay home with my son. By the same token, you’re my wife, and if you left me behind I’d be in the position Billy is in right now.”

“Cam, too, when you put it like that. But then Cam knows what it means to risk your life to help someone. Not in an extreme way, but in the little things she used to do in her everyday life. When homeless people came up to her to ask her for money, she gave it to them if she had it. It’s considered a risky thing to do, because you have to get close to a stranger who might not have the best intentions. Sometimes it’s a ruse. I made sure she knew the risks in what she was doing, but I never asked her not to do it. She didn’t do it when she was young, of course. It was only as she got older and was working full time that she even had money to give away.

“We take risks in everything we do, and I’m sure Billy knows that. We’re being as careful as we can be, and we’re going to make it back in one piece. But you’re right. They need to hear from us.”

8 ~ Sensory Inundation

“I’m warning you now. We all swear like a bunch of sailors, especially when we’re playing, so you might not want Jake to hear us,” Cam said to Lisa, who merely shrugged in response.

“Not really my biggest concern with him right now,” she replied sardonically.

“Yeah, good point. Though you’re going to be okay, you know? My mother has a habit of taking care of people, even though she hates the very thought of being a caregiver in the normal sense. Like she doesn’t do the nursing or sick thing with people usually, or make giant meals and stuff. Okay maybe she does. She just does it on her own schedule when she feels like it, or when it’s absolutely necessary. So, sure, she’s kind of a failure at not doing the caregiver thing. She’s just weird about it.”

Lisa burst out laughing.

“You have the strangest relationship with your mother, I have to say.”

“You don’t know a tenth of it. We’ve been acting a lot more like normal people in the last few months. Not at all the way we usually do. Man, I can’t even remember the last time I called her a bitch to make her smile. I’ll need to catch up,” Cam said with a grin.

Kirk and Leigh were planning to come over for a gaming night, and the real treat was that Leigh had been developing a new game. Before the world’s freefall, it had been a hobby of hers, and now she had all the time in the world to indulge it. This was the first one she felt was ready for them to play, and they were all excited about just having something new. None of them really cared if it was great or anything, so long as it was different. It sort of felt like a miracle in a way. As if the world hadn’t really ended.

The game console at the cabin had originally belonged to Billy, and it had a mod chip in it so he could play burned games on it, which meant Leigh could burn the games she created and they would actually work. The intent hadn’t been to pirate games in Billy’s case. It was just that his dad had been a prepper, like Cam and her mom, and he’d made backup discs of the games they bought. Without a mod chip the backups wouldn’t have worked if the originals had been damaged in some way.

Cam got the entire stock of cheesecake cookies from the cabinet, grabbed a single big bag of potato chips, and five candy bars – one for each of the adults, since Lisa was joining them. Jake was too young to eat that kind of thing, or at least an entire one by himself, and he wouldn’t know he was missing out on anything. It felt like a massive indulgence for Cam, though, breaking into the junk-food stash, but it had been months since she’d even looked at the chocolate bars. She was just now getting her appetite back.

Despite the festive atmosphere of a game-and-junk-food night, Cam took her responsibilities seriously. Her laptop would be open beside her the whole time. Gilles and Chuck were technically both keeping watch, but Cam and Billy had been left in charge. She could tell that didn’t sit well with Gilles, though Chuck seemed content with it. He was more of a follower-type, while Gilles was a more assertive kind of guy, and he probably didn’t think he should be taking orders from someone fifteen years younger than he was. Not that Cam cared what he thought about it. He was her mother’s friend, but she barely knew him, even after several months of living at the farm together. They just hadn’t interacted that much. He had his family, and she had been stuck inside her own head after killing Gerry.

Leigh and Kirk arrived and got the console set up in the living room. They had only played for half an hour when a sensor alert sounded on Cam’s laptop. It was a completely different area from where Brian had triggered the sensor, so it concerned her even more. She picked up one of the two-way radios that had been part of the haul from the electronics store, and spoke into it.

“Yo, guys, did anyone get that alert?”

“Hey Cam,” Chuck responded. “Yeah, I’ve got it covered, and Jim is with me. We’ll look into it. Go back to whatever you were doing.”

Cameron stared at the two-way, more than a little insulted. It was the verbal equivalent of a pat on the head, and she’d had enough of being treated like a little kid.

“Look, just let me know what it is when you find out. Nothing is showing on the camera feed, and I don’t like being kept in the dark,” she snapped.

“Okay. Calm down. I’ll keep you posted.”

God, she hated it when people told her to calm down, but it would be stupid to keep the conversation going when he needed to go and check out why the sensor had gone off. Sometimes you just had to swallow whatever it was that you wanted to say, in the interest of getting results. It was one part of being an adult that she didn’t like very much. She’d been taught to speak up for herself, but there was a time and place for that she supposed. She was going to have to make it clear to everyone, however, that patronizing her wasn’t something she was going to put up with anymore.

With the game temporarily suspended until they found out what was happening with the sensor alert, they decided to make something more substantial to eat. Billy offered to do the cooking.

“I can make some stir-fry. Dad taught me to cook, but I don’t get much chance since he usually does it for everyone.”

“That sounds really good. With lots of mushrooms, okay?” She got up and went with him to the kitchen to help.

“I don’t think that’ll be a problem,” he said with a grin. “We’ve got plenty of the damn things. We should probably start making cream of mushroom soup and handing it out to people once our parents get back. It’s kind of hard to use everything up before it goes bad, and those are things we’ve got a lot of. We can freeze it, too. It’s a good thing we all seem to like those foods, but it doesn’t leave us with much variety, except when we tap into the ARKs or canned goods.”

“Yeah, mom doesn’t really like to use anything from those, because the food supplies in those buckets will last twenty years, unlike the milk and fresh stuff. Even when we can or freeze things to preserve them, they only last six months to a year, if we’re trying to play it safe. Still, we need variety. We’ll get more of that when we put in the bigger garden this year, but right now it’s a pain.”

They were in the kitchen, pulling out what Billy needed for the stir-fry, when Cameron was struck by the container of sunflower oil she was holding.

“This is what seems bizarre to me. We use this to cook, but now we’re also using it to run engines. I mean, why were people so stupid about this? We almost completely destroyed the planet pulling fossil fuels out of the ground, and we could easily have been using this for the last however many years. People aren’t just assholes. They’re stupid assholes,” she sneered.

“It’s not just that. Dad was telling me they were fining people in the states for converting their cars to run used deep-fryer oil. The worst part about it was that it was the EPA that was doing it. How does that even make sense? The Environmental Protection Agency was fining people for protecting the environment. When he told me that I almost choked. But then that’s what happens when government is run by corporate interests.”

“Mom complains about the same thing. Even now, when it’s past the point of it being an issue, you should hear her go off on her rants about all those corporations that were destroying the environment. Like the company that was illegally harvesting groundwater from California when the really bad drought started, or the two brothers who were lobbying against anything to do with clean energy.

“Actually, I think she said it was more to do with controlling the media to the point where people just didn’t believe clean energy was possible. I could never wrap my head around how gullible people were. They just believed everything they saw on TV, or on the internet. Those were the real zombies. At least that’s what mom always called them.”

“Dad, too, I think. He wasn’t into trying to buck the system, though, because he didn’t think there was any point to it. People believed the climate change denial messages, because it was easier for them than having to do something about it. They could just relax and sit in front of the TV, and not have to worry.”

“Okay, so I amend my earlier statement then. People are lazy, stupid assholes. Or they were. This had to be one hell of a wake-up call for anyone who’s still alive. Then again, anyone who’s still alive probably has a working understanding of what it means to provide for themselves. Like farmers and preppers.”

Once everyone had eaten, including Jake with his usual puréed vegetables, Cam left the room to pace beside the open kitchen counter. They needed to find whatever was causing the sensor issue before darkness fell. If they didn’t, it would mean everyone remaining armed and on guard until the sun rose again. There was also a smaller sensor perimeter in place around the occupied portion of the property, which was all well and good, but people needed to be awake and aware if someone got that close to the house. Besides, those were only passive infrared sensors, and with their current low-sensitivity setting she didn’t want to rely on them.

Instead of continuing to pace uselessly, Cam started to pull together a plan in her brain. By the time Chuck radioed back to her, she was ready with it.

“Hey, Cam. We got nothin’ here. I’m not saying there isn’t anything out here, but we’re not finding it if there is.”

“Okay, could you grab Gilles and come to the back of the main house then? Have Jim stay out by the sensor, and maybe get his son out there with him. I don’t want to leave him by himself, just in case. We’ll need to talk about what we’re going to do here. I’ll bring Billy with me.”

“Uh, sure. Okay, Cam.”

Cam could hear the amusement in his voice, and it very nearly set her off, but she held her temper in check. As soon as they were gathered together, she was going to have to make them understand a few things, or nothing would get done. She went back to the living room for Billy, and as they went through the greenhouse off the kitchen, she spoke to him softly.

“From Chuck’s tone of voice, he’s not taking me very seriously as a person in charge on this farm, so I’m guessing it’ll be the same for you. That’s something we have to fix right now, because someone needs to be in charge so everyone is cooperating. So, can you do me a favour and just go along with me for a few minutes while I act like a dictator?”

“Don’t I always?” He grinned at her.

“Very funny,” she said, but she was smiling.

She wasn’t smiling anymore when no one made an appearance at the back door. More than fifteen minutes had already gone by, and she knew from first-hand experience walking the property that there was no way they shouldn’t be back by that point. After twenty-five minutes she’d had enough.

“Where the
fuck
are you two? Did you think I was fucking joking about needing to talk?” Even her eyes felt hot as she stared at the radio and waited for a response.

“Oh, sorry Cam. We just got to talking. We’ll be there in a second,” Chuck responded.

Again Cam found herself staring at the offending radio. This time in disbelief. They just
got to talking
? Either they weren’t taking the sensor breach seriously, or they were making plans of their own without consulting her or Billy. She was just going to have to ask when they got there. It didn’t take long.

“Exactly what did you think was more important than discussing the safety of everyone on this farm?”

“That’s what we were discussing,” Gilles said with a shrug, his arrogance implicit in his tone.

“And you didn’t think Billy and I were necessary to the conversation. Is that it? You do remember whose farm this is, don’t you Gilles? Has it slipped your mind that this is not your property, and that you’re living here, surviving, because me, my mother, Billy, and his dad, were prepared and ready to go when disaster struck … while you and Chuck were not?

“Have you forgotten, Gilles, that you called my mother paranoid for thinking she needed a self-sustaining property? Because I haven’t. My mother knows you, and trusts you, but I don’t even remember you from before. Either of you. So I have no interest in blindly putting my safety, or the safety of everyone we’re responsible for, in the hands of someone I barely know. Billy and I are the ones who are responsible if something happens, and until we’re certain you two are something more than small-town cops who did nothing but give out speeding tickets, the decisions are going to come from the two of us.

“You don’t have to like it. You don’t have to agree with everything. And when you disagree feel free to say so, but you don’t get to pat us on the head and ignore everything we say. We’ll listen to whatever comments or suggestions you have to make, because you were cops at one time, so you could very well know something we don’t.

“Now, for tonight I have a plan. Billy, I haven’t discussed it with you yet, so if you disagree let me know. We need people on watch. Four-hour shifts of three or four people. No one here is used to long hours keeping watch, so we can’t ask them to patrol any longer than that. They could fall asleep, or simply miss something. We don’t have enough people to keep watch over a big area, so we’ll circle just outside the inner sensor perimeter. Get in touch with one another every hour. When it’s daylight again, we’ll need to go back to that sensor and take a look for anything that would indicate another person. You’ve got hunting experience, Gilles, so I already know you can handle that.”