Outage (Powerless Nation #1) (17 page)

“Hi, Courtney, it's me. Can we come in? It's Thanksgiving and I've brought you something. Look.” Dee held up one of the eggs.

The door opened wider and the afternoon light shone fully on the young woman. Dee stared – she barely recognized Courtney. Greasy blonde hair was pulled back in a scraggly ponytail, clothes hung from her emaciated body. Her eyes were sunk deep in her head and heavy shadows bruised the skin under her eyes.

“Oh no, Courtney, what happened? Are you okay?” Dee offered her an arm, “Let me help you back inside.”

“Just you,” said Courtney in a raspy voice. “I don't know these other two.”

Mason looked doubtful and Hyrum said, “Are you sure that's a good idea?”

When Dee assured them she'd just be a few minutes, Hyrum and Mason agreed to wait outside and she helped Courtney slowly to the couch. Dee thought her legs might give out at any moment.

“What happened? You look like you've had a rough time,” said Dee.

“You have no idea,” said Courtney.

“Tell me about it.” Dee sat on the edge of the seat, her eyes fixed on the young woman.

“The girls got sick, I think they might have been drinking the water in the ditch. I'm not sure.” Courtney raised skeletal shoulders in a shrug. “But they got me sick too.”

“Are they okay?” asked Dee. She looked around and realized she hadn't seen or heard any of the children. A feeling of dread started to creep over her.

“They got better before I did,” said Courtney. “I'd been giving them more food, you know, so they were stronger than I was. When my fever broke I could heard them crying. I crawled out of my room and found 'em scared and hiding. They said bad men came into the house while I was sick and took the food.”

“What?” gasped Dee. “They just took it?”

“The girls let them in thinking they were here to help, but they came in and took every last bit of food we had. Those animals took it while the girls watched,” Courtney's voice was hard. “They knew there were children here and they took it anyway. All they left us was a box of breakfast bars.”

“How long ago was that?” asked Dee.

Courtney shrugged her thin shoulders again.

Dee put a hand on Courtney's leg. “Where is Sarah now?”

“In bed,” said Courtney. “They're all safe in their beds.”

It was too early for bedtime. “I'm just going to check on them,” said Dee.

She went to Beth's toddler bed first and pulled back the covers but she already knew what she would find. Beth was dressed in her favorite pajama sleeper, the one with the kittens, and her eyes were closed. She was dead, and had been for a while.

“Sleep now, little baby,” whispered Dee, tucking the covers back around the small corpse.

She checked the two other beds and found the same thing. Both young girls wore clean pajamas and were tucked into perfectly made beds with clean sheets. Dee straightened up and considered. The girls were small, but they weren't wasted away by hunger like Courtney was.
 

Dee walked slowly back to the living room, her heart heavy.

“Aren't they peaceful?” sighed Courtney. “My little angels. They would have suffered, you know.”

“What do you mean?” asked Dee. Horror clutched at her throat as an unthinkable idea began to take shape. “What do you mean they would have suffered?”

“I couldn't let them outlive me, Dee. All that time I'd been giving them more food. I thought that's what a good mother does – sacrifices for her children, but I had it wrong. I was going to die first and they would have been alone. This way they didn't have to suffer.”

“They didn't have to die,” said Dee, her voice rising. “You could have come to me! I would have helped you!”

“Look at me. I can barely get to the door. We never would have made it to your place.”

Dee looked and knew she was right. “What about your neighbors?”

“What neighbors?” said Courtney in a flat voice.

“Then your husband. He could still be coming.”

“He's dead. Morty came by bringing mail from Spokane and there was nothing from him. If he was alive he would have written.”

“Tell me about the girls,” said Dee in a low voice. She didn't want to know, but she had to.

“We had a wonderful day that last day,” said Courtney, with a smile in her voice as she remembered. “The girls drew pictures for me, and we played I Spy and did puzzles. They served each other their breakfast bars for a tea party. They were so hungry they didn't taste the pills I mashed up and put inside. Afterwards they told me their bellies didn't hurt any more. Then I tucked them into their beds and sang songs and told them stories about someday when we'll all be together again.

“After they fell asleep I watched them for the longest time in the candlelight. My sweet little angels. And then I…” Courtney's voice finally broke and she sobbed. “Oh Dee, they were my babies. What have I done?”

Dee sat next to Courtney and wrapped her arms around the fragile woman, holding her while she shook with agony. Her heart ached as she tried to imagine the hopelessness the young mother felt. She thought she was going to die and didn’t want to abandon her little girls. It was an impossible situation, and Dee wondered what she’d have done in her place.

When the young mother’s sobs had stilled, Dee looked at her and said firmly, “Listen Courtney – I'm going to send my friends back to Grandpa's to bring down the truck and I'm taking you home with me. We've got enough food for you...”

Courtney interrupted, “I can't leave my girls, Dee.”

“We'll bring them,” said Dee, wiping her eyes. “I know the perfect place. A clear little stream of bubbling water next to a big weeping willow and a field of wildflowers. They will love it, and you can visit them.”

“You don't understand, Dee. I'm not going with you. I don't deserve it.”

“What are you talking about?” Dee said. “If you stay here you'll die. There’s no way I can just leave you here.”

“That's what I want. There's nothing left for me here.” Courtney reached out and took Dee's hand in her frail one. “Please just go. Let me dream about my little girls and slip away. I'm almost there.”

Dee wiped angrily at her tears. If only she'd come a few days earlier. “I don’t leave people behind, Courtney. Don’t ask me to do it. I couldn't live with myself if I just left you here.”

Courtney's eyes were huge in her face as she whispered, “I can't live with myself either, not after what I've done.”

Dee stumbled out of the house, past Mason and Hyrum who were playing cards on the patio. “Hold on Dee,” said Mason, hurrying to catch up.

“What's the matter?” asked Hyrum.

When Dee got to the road she leaned over and vomited into the ditch. If she had come a week ago the little girls would still be alive, and now she’d left their mom to die too. She couldn’t do it. She would bring Angela to talk some sense into Courtney. Maybe together they’d have more luck.

Dee felt sick at the thought of how lucky she was, while children five miles down the road were starving. It wasn't supposed to be like this. She'd helped Courtney get food for her family. They should have had enough to last well into winter.

Whoever had robbed Courtney might as well have pointed a gun at her and her kids and pulled the trigger. Who would steal food out of the mouths of children? How many other families had this happened to? What kind of evil people did this? She was going to find out, and then she was going to put a stop to it.

CHAPTER NINETEEN

W
HEN
D
EE
GOT
HOME
she went straight up to her room. Crying about Courtney had given her a headache and she just wanted the day to be over, but once she was in bed she couldn't fall asleep. She kept thinking about Courtney. If she'd just waited and not given up hope the girls would still be alive. Then Dee tried to put herself in Courtney's shoes. If she was certain she was dying and there was no one left to take care of Sammy and Katy what would she do?
 

It was impossible. Dee tossed and turned and finally fell into a restless sleep.
 

When she woke up a few hours later she still had a headache, but now her stomach hurt and she needed to use the bathroom right away. Afterwards, she wrapped up tightly in her quilt but couldn't get warm. She felt her forehead and thought she had a fever.
I'm sick
, she realized grimly.

Once she realized she was sick, she couldn't get back to sleep.
Please let it just be me,
she silently prayed. But as she waited for morning she heard other feet cross the hallway to the bathroom, and then she heard a child crying in the night.

By the next morning, almost everyone was sick. Each had varying degrees of the same symptoms, which included headache, fever, vomiting and diarrhea, aches and pains, and weakness.
 

Dee came downstairs wrapped in a blanket with one of the bags she'd gotten at the grocery store. Angela looked through it and then hugged her fiercely. “Bless your heart, you got Tylenol.”
 

Dee looked at the small bottle of pills doubtfully. It didn't seem like it would last very long if eight people all needed it. She opened her mouth to say that she'd skip her share so Katy could have it. Then she thought about Courtney and closed it again without speaking. They all had to get better.

The only two not showing symptoms were Angela and Sammy. Angela insisted that everyone needed to rest and save their strength for fighting the illness. She and Sammy would take over the chores as best they could. She made Hyrum and Mason stop sleeping in the barn until they felt better, and they shared the fourth bedroom upstairs.
 

Since almost no one in the house had any appetite Angela was spared much cooking. As the weather turned colder the farm animals had stopped producing so the chores were reduced too. Grandpa even suggested Angela get Jasper to help her take the cows out to the hay pasture and let them graze.
 

The woodpile was still high, but the laundry piled up quickly, and they were using a lot of water for disinfecting sheets and anything else the sick people came in contact with, as well as for pouring into the toilets to make them flush.

Dee wanted to see Grandpa. Her limbs were weak and heavy, and it took a surprising amount of effort to get across the house to his room, but when she got there his sheets were crumpled and empty. She waited, thinking maybe he was in the bathroom, but he didn't return so she went looking for him.
 

She found him behind the desk in his office with a thick medical encyclopedia open in front of him. The pages were thin and yellow, and Grandpa had his glasses on to read the tiny print.

“Why aren't you in bed?” she leaned against the door.

“I'm trying to figure out what we've got,” said Grandpa, peering over his glasses at her. “I expected cholera, but it doesn't fit. The diarrhea isn't severe enough.”

Dee made a face. “That's really disgusting. And anyway, it seems pretty severe to me.”

“Do you have a headache and a fever?” He rubbed his own temples. “Definitely not cholera. No fever with that.”

Dee didn't think she could hold herself up any more. “All right, I'm going to go rest for a few minutes. Let me know if you need anything.” She didn't make it upstairs. She got as far as the couch and decided to sit down for a minute, then fell asleep. Her sleep was fitful and she woke up feeling like there was something she was forgetting. She knew it was important but she couldn't put her finger on it. Something about Courtney.

She got up on wobbly legs and managed to get to the kitchen. Angela was sitting at the table with her head on her arms.
 

“What's wrong?” Dee asked, alarmed at the woman's flushed cheeks.

Angela sat up and quickly wiped away tears. “Oh hi, Maddie. What are you doing up? You should be resting.”

“I was just wondering if there's something I could do to help.” Dee clutched the doorframe for support.

“Look at you, you can barely stand up. Let's get you back to the couch.” Angela put an arm around Dee and helped her into the living room. Dee could feel the heat radiating from her body.

“Are you okay? You feel hot.”

“You don't worry about anything except getting better. Sammy and I can take care of things around here.”

Dee knew that she should stay up and help Angela, but her head was splitting and she slipped back into sleep as soon as she lay down.

She didn’t know how long she’d slept when she awoke to the sound of Grandpa calling from his room. She tried to sit up and her vision swam. Dee swung her legs to the floor and closed her eyes to stop the room from spinning. Her head felt like it weighed a thousand pounds and was ready to roll off her shoulders and onto the floor. Angela must have heard him call; she could take care of it. Dee leaned forward and rested her head on her knees.
Come on Angela
, she thought.
 

Grandpa called again and Dee knew she had to go to him. She tried to stand up but the room tilted dangerously and she sat down quickly. It seemed cold. Was there a fire in the stove? She was having hot and cold chills and couldn't tell. Dee got down on her hands and knees and crawled toward Grandpa's room. Crawling didn't help her headache, but at least if she fell she wouldn't have far to go.
 

The floor stretched out endlessly in front of her. She'd never make it all the way to Grandpa's room. She set her sights on the front door instead. It was slow going, but she made it. When she got there she let herself rest for a moment before moving to the hallway. When she passed the bathroom she looked in and saw the bottle of Tylenol so she stopped to take two for her head, thinking she needed more like fifty. Then she went on, stopping just inside his door, and tried to process the scene.

“Oh no,” she breathed, crawling to where Angela was collapsed on the floor. She felt her face – she was burning up. Dee shook her, “Angela, wake up! You've got to get up.”

Angela's eyes flew open and she cried out, “I'm coming, Katy!” She strained for a moment to sit up but then fell back to the floor. Dee didn't think Angela had even seen her. Her fever was so high she was delirious.