Redaction: The Meltdown Part II (26 page)

Jillie scratched her cheek, leaving streaks of white behind on her dusky skin. “Can we have a snack and drink?”

“I’ll think about it.” He adjusted the handkerchief over his nose and mouth. A snack and a drink meant another trip to the bathroom later, when he and Falcon wouldn’t be around to watch over them.

Jillie’s shoulders slumped and she stared at the floor. “Adults always say that when they mean no.”

Damn. Why was he disappointing them? He swept the curls out of her eyes and checked her surgical mask. “Not always, but we have to make sure you’re safe.”

Her eyes gleamed with unshed tears. “You are coming back, aren’t you?”

The word yes hovered on his lips. How many adults had said that but had been unable to keep their promise? He scrubbed a hand down his face. He’d broken so many promises at the end. His wife and children hadn’t gotten better. He couldn’t help them to breathe. The nurses and doctors hadn’t been around.

“Of course.” Kneeling on the floor, Falcon wrapped his hands around her waist and spun her around to face him. “I never break a promise.”

She nodded slowly but doubt clouded her eyes.

Olivia slid Toby’s plastic bag shoes over his feet then dusted her hands on her skirt. “You better not.”

Tongue lodged between his teeth, the preschooler bee-lined for the door.

“Get your slicker on.” Papa Rose scooped Toby up, swinging him in a high arch. Warm, wiggling skin and bones. How did children manage to feel so alive?

When his plastic shoes skimmed the metal door, the munchkin screamed and clapped his hands over Papa Rose’s. “Again. Again.”

Something cracked in his chest. His kids had always loved to be swung. He set Toby on his hip. “Later, munchkin.”

Small legs locked around his waist and thin arms wrapped around his neck. “Okay, Papa.”

Falcon zipped up Olivia’s red slicker and carefully tucked her hair under the hood. “Ready?”

She nodded then skipped to Jillie’s side. The two girls clasped hands.

His palm brushed warm metal. He turned the knob and shoved the door open. Water dripped from the eaves and rippled across the puddles dotting the ground. Light blazed across the power plant, turning night into day—just like it had been before the world ended. Rectangular buildings crowded the mushroom-shaped reactors a couple of hundred yards away.

Falcon splashed through puddles as he headed for the two Port-O-Potties near the metal storage sheds. Olivia lifted her hem and jumped over water. Jillie skirted the small pools and slipped on the mud.

Resting his head against Papa Rose’s chest, Toby sucked on his thumb. The door banged shut behind them startling the preschooler, who stiffened in his arms.

The boy’s eyes grew wide and his lips pursed together. “That scared me, Papa.”

“It’s alright.” He stroked Toby’s silky hair. “You’re safe now.”

At least for the next eight hours.

“‘Kay.” The munchkin snuggled against him and resumed sucking his thumb.

He reached Falcon just as the girls disappeared inside the bathrooms. The plastic doors slammed shut and the signed flashed to red-occupied.

Falcon rubbed the preschooler’s back. “How’s he holding up?”

Papa Rose glanced down. Toby’s long lashes lay against his cheeks. Someone had flipped the kid’s switch turning him off. “He’ll be fine.”

“You know B isn’t gonna be able to watch them.”

“I know.” Pressure filled his chest. Did the Special Forces teach soldiers how to read minds? He’d spent the evening chasing after a solution. Falcon wouldn’t like the decision he’d reached. “The squid is still pretty much a kid himself.”

“And he has a mean temper.” Falcon kissed Toby on the head and stuffed his hands into his pockets. “He’ll scar ‘em for life.”

“If he doesn’t kill them first.” He held Toby a little tighter, inhaled the slight floral scent wafting from his hair. “That’s why I’m releasing you from our suicide pact. You need to watch over them, see they get safely to Colorado and join the soldiers.”

“Me?” Falcon rocked back on his heels. “You’re their Papa.”

He shook his head. No, that wasn’t the way it was going to be. He had to stay here to make sure everything worked and they got three more radioactive free days. “Olivia and Jillie like you best.”

And he had too much to atone for.

“Yeah, they do, don’t they?”

He kissed the boy’s head. Maybe Toby would remember him fondly. Maybe in the end someone alive wouldn’t think he’d been such a fuck-up.

Falcon rubbed his jaw, the stubble making a rasping sound against his fingers. “But the munchkin only listens to you. You’ll have to come with us.”

He shook his head. Pain hollowed him out, left his heart banging like a drum. “No. You don’t understand…”

“Flight twenty-nine sixty-three.”

His lungs seized. Oh, God! Falcon knew! Falcon who’d lost his entire family to Influenza. Why hadn’t the former Green Beret slit his throat while he slept? “What!”

Toby mumbled something and turned his face in the other direction.

“Flight twenty-nine sixty-three. The airplane that brought the Redaction to Phoenix. You were on it.”

His jaw moved but no sound came out. No wonder the man agreed to the suicide pact. Falcon probably wanted to watch the man responsible for the death of everything he loved die horribly and painfully. Papa Rose swallowed despite his dry throat.

Falcon turned his face up to the black velvet sky. Stars twinkled, but the moon had deserted them. “I was three rows behind you, aisle seat.”

Muscle turned to unset gelatin. His knees buckled and his stomach fluttered in his throat.

Quick as lightning, Falcon swung Toby out out his arms.

“Papa!” Toby squealed.

Water sprinkled the mud as Papa Rose landed in the puddle. Cold saturated his jeans, creeping up his thighs and pebbles gouged his knees. He glanced up. “You were…”

Shadows carved up Falcon’s dark face, masked his expression. The ex-Green Beret set Toby on the ground, mud closed around the boy’s makeshift shoes. He swatted the preschooler’s behind, pushing him toward the latrines. “Why don’t you go potty?”

Toby about faced and squished through the mud to his side. “Papa ‘kay?”

His hands lay like dead wood on his lap and his tongue was spray foam in his mouth. The plane had been full that day, but he’d never thought…

“Papa Rose is just fine.” Falcon mussed up Toby’s curls. “He’s just a little tired. Someone ate his cookies at dinner.”

Toby shoved his face in his. Concern etched lines in the smooth baby cheeks. “I won’t eats your cookies again, Papa.”

Christ Jesus! He’d made a kid feel bad. Papa Rose wrapped his arms around the boy and held him close. The preschooler was as substantial as a hummingbird. “You can eat my cookies anytime, munchkin. Anytime.”

Small hands patted his shoulder. “Are you crying, Papa?”

He sniffed and wiped his nose on his sleeve. “Me? Nah. It’s just the rain, that’s all.”

Except even the preschooler knew that it was no longer raining. Hadn’t been for the last several hours.

He set the lad away from him and forced his lips into a smile. “You go and use the potty, okay?”

Toby’s bottom lip protruded for a moment. After a bit he sucked it back in. “‘Kay.”

With one last glance, the munchkin splashed through the puddles toward the bathroom.

“You gonna wallow in the mud all night?”

“Why didn’t you tell me?” When Papa Rose shoved to his feet, water dribbled down his shins and crept into his socks.

“Thought you knew.” Falcon gestured to a five gallon bucket of drywall mud near the storage shed. “That will make a good toilet.”

No. He didn’t know. He hadn’t really paid much attention to anything after the Influenza had claimed his last child. “We’ll grab the seat off the potty for the girls to use.”

“And let’s not forget the toilet paper. Girls go through a lot of it.”

Jillie exited the john, nearly smacking Toby with the door. He giggled and she held out her hand. They entered the bathroom without exchanging a word.

Mud sucked at his boots as he followed Falcon across the field. Questions simmered inside his head. Some were dismissed as irrelevant, others needed answers. “Is that why you agreed to the pact?”

Squatting next to the bucket, Falcon grabbed the lid and twisted. The green lid twisted off. “I’ve been praying for a sign. Since your…offer came so close to the Doc’s request for volunteers, I figured that was it.”

“Yeah.” It had coincided beautifully. Once they’d taken Colonel Henry Dobbins to safety, his debt had been repaid. There’d been nothing left to live for and death by guilt was a little too slow for his taste.

Falcon’s nose wrinkled at the musty odor and pushed the bucket over. Black mold marbled the white drywall and clouded the water standing on the top. “Still, the Doc’s message hounded me.”

“It was broadcast everywhere. To help the survivors.” A breeze rippled the tarp over a pile of wood. His wet pants molded to his thighs.

“Every time we turned the corner, that one line played. Every one mattered. Now more than ever.”

Papa Rose’s skin tightened. He’d dismissed that as a product of his imagination but if the other man heard it too…

“Then we met the munchkins.”

“Right where we’d found the fuel.” And a portable generator that they would actually need to delay the inevitable meltdown.

“And no other survivors to take care of Toby, Jillie or Olivia.” Falcon turned the bucket upside down and thumped on the bottom. Chunks of drywall mud vomited to the ground. “I began to think I’d misread the signs.”

He scanned the ground for a stick. And the coward had hi-tailed it to the trailer to hide. “So you left me alone with them.”

Damn, he was slowing up in his old age.

“Thought it would be easier to stick to the plan that way.”

He crossed to the tarp and lifted one edge. Two by fours. He could use them. The plastic flaked off in places when he threw it aside. Webs netted the smaller cuts of wood in the center. Black spiders dotted the surface. He selected a two foot long piece and tapped it on the pile to dislodge the inhabitants. “Then came the last ten hours.”

Falcon accepted the wood then scooped out the remaining goo. “I was a goner the moment I picked up Olivia and tore her away from her mother.”

He smeared the cobwebs on his pants. “You know what this means, don’t you?”

The door to the potty banged shut.

“Yeah.” Falcon tossed the board away, grabbed the handle of the bucket and rose to his feet. “We’re gonna owe the Colonel a debt we’ll never repay if he helps us to deal with the guilt.”

“The old man is gonna love it.” Papa Rose’s boots barely touched the mud as he returned to the potties. “I’ll get the seat.”

“Don’t forget the toilet paper.”

“Hey!” Brainiac stuck his head out of the building. “We need to get a move on. A chiller to the cooling pools is malfunctioning. We now have four hours.”

Chapter Twenty

“Can’t sleep?” Eddie whispered from his chair next to the door.

Audra rolled on left side to face the vestibule he guarded. No matter how much she blinked, shadows didn’t emerge from the darkness. “How did you know I was awake?”

“Just did.”

On her right, Mrs. Rodriquez mumbled in her sleep. Further in the tent, Principal Dunn snored. Others slumbered quietly on the cots lined up in neat rows. She raised her wrist but couldn’t see the time. How long would she have to lay here? “When is dawn?”

A pale green light washed over Eddie’s face—there and gone just when she picked out his profile. “In a couple of hours.”

“You still have the flashlight?” She shoved aside the blankets. A chill washed over her, sowing goosebumps up her arms. Rubbing them away, she tugged on her boots. Cold leather felt stiff against her skin.

There was a soft click and a small ball of light raced across the floor and up her legs. “Going to do a little exploring?”

“I’m awake.” And thinking and thinking and thinking but not accomplishing anything. Pushing off the cot, she gathered the blanket in her hands. The coarse material slipped through her fingers. She matched the corners and folded it, over and over until it matched the size of her pillow.

Eddie chuckled.

She smoothed the sheet over the mattress, tucked in the sides. “What’s so funny?”

“You’re always so proper.” The light bounced around, growing bigger until the edges stretched across her narrow cot.

After a quick tweak to the pillow, she ran her fingers through her hair. Thank goodness no one could see the rat’s nest. “Things should always be returned in the same condition or better as when you borrowed them.”

Fabric rustled, then warmth enveloped her shoulders. “You’ll need your jacket.”

Her fingers brushed his; he pulled away. “Thank you.”

“Can’t have our Princess getting sick on my watch.”

She stiffened. Why did he always have to be so odious and call her
princess
? She stuffed her arms into her sleeves and zipped up her fleece jacket.

“What’s so urgent that it couldn’t wait until morning?” Eddie spotlighted her hand, clasped it and tugged her toward the door.

“I just need to know what I have to work with.” She dragged her boots over the wooden floor, hoping not to trip. God knew, Eddie probably wouldn’t let her live it down if she did a face plant at his feet.

The beam shone along the creased green floor covering. Hinges whined when he pushed open the first door. Cold air twined around her ankles and caressed her cheeks. “Always prepared, huh?”

Using her free hand, she turned up her collar against the chill. Gracious. It must be fifty degrees out. She caught the door before it banged shut and eased it into the jamb.

“Were you a Boy Scout?” Eddie held open the outside door and stepped to the side, allowing her to precede him.

She tugged her hand free and stepped across the threshold. Her boot squished into the mud. “In case you hadn’t noticed, I’m a girl.”

“I know exactly what you are, Princess.”

She didn’t ask him to elaborate. It would no doubt be unflattering to actually hear what he thought of her. Especially since what he did say was nasty enough.