The Faithful (40 page)

CHAPTER SEVENTY-SIX

When the sun went down that night, we were past Ranchos de Taos, New Mexico. It lit up the sky in glorious pinks and oranges, and it was without a doubt the most beautiful sunset I had ever seen.

Darkness came bit by bit, until I could no longer see my feet in front of me as we followed along the edge of the road. We were in the high desert, and as soon as the sun went to bed, it grew icy. Biting winds nipped at our exposed skin. Underneath our feet, the earth crunched; our breath steamed in icy puffs around our faces.

“What do you think is going to happen?” Josh asked. His voice startled me; I had grown accustomed to the silence and I couldn’t remember the last time we had spoken.

“Do you really want to know?”

“Yes,” he insisted, although I heard the shakiness in his voice.

“Well, I don’t know exactly . . .” I hedged.

“Your best educated guess is fine.”

“My best educated guess is we’re going to lose millions of human lives around the world.”

“Right, I got that already. But what do you think will happen after? I mean, to those who survive the meteorites?”

I sighed. “Yeah. The meteorites are only the first wave, so to speak. They’ll cause mass destruction and a catastrophic loss of life, but that’s just the beginning. After that, there will be a second wave of casualties. Those who die in accidents, or by starvation, or freezing . . .”

“Jesus.”

“I think we might be dealing with an “impact winter.” That’s a period of planetary cooling that can happen after a massive volcano, enormous wildfires . . . or after a meteorite strike. It happens because of all the smoke and ash thrust up into the atmosphere. The sun gets blocked and the earth cools down. It usually lasts about a year before the atmosphere starts to clear.”

“You’re talking about an ice age, right?”

“Yes. The first things to die out are the plants and animals that rely on photosynthesis. So most of the ocean life would either die off or go dormant. On land . . . well, plants could be kept alive with growing lights.”

“Like the ones in The Ranch’s Underground?”

“That’s right. They have their own version of Noah’s Ark going on down there,” I said bitterly, and then continued. “So most plant life would die off, either from lack of sun or from the cold. And following that would be famine on a global scale. The animals who eat the plants would go first, and then the carnivorous animals, and . . .”

“I get the picture,” Josh said shakily.

“Right. So . . . I really don’t know where that leaves us. Assuming we make it back to Idaho Springs without being struck by a meteorite, we should be able to survive the first year and start to rebuild.”

“If we don’t have some unfortunate accident. Or get
appendicitis
, or something . . .”

“Welcome to the Dark Ages. Too bad none of us has a degree in medicine.”

We walked in silence for several minutes as I worked through the thing that was niggling at my brain. Finally, I spoke up. “I think there will be a third wave after that.”

“What? That’s not enough?” He took a deep breath. “Okay, what’s the third wave?”

“War,” I said simply.

“What do you mean, ‘war’?”

“I think they’re going to wait out the year, let nature take care of as much of the human race as possible, and then they’re going to swoop in and take care of the rest. Call it a ‘mopping up’ operation.”

“Holy shit, Ryanne. Are you serious?”

Although he couldn’t see me in the dark, I shrugged. “I can’t see them leaving the job incomplete.”

“Is this just a hunch? Or do you know this for sure?”

“Let’s call it an educated guess.”

There was nothing but silence and the crunching of the earth under our feet as Josh processed this new horror.

“How do we stop them?” he finally asked.

“That, my friend, is a good question. Imagine whatever is left of the human race struggling to survive in this new world. They make it through a year, but they’re totally focused on doing what they need to do to survive. You know, food and shelter and all that good stuff. They would be completely defenseless against an attack. It would be the last thing they would expect or be prepared for.”

“Well, you sure do paint a pretty picture,” Josh said darkly.

“Yeah.”

My feet, which had been aching for hours, were blessedly numb. My muscles were tight with the cold, and I moved clumsily, keeping as close to Josh as I could manage without tripping him up.

We stopped for a brief water and granola-bar break, but even a few minutes of stillness made us colder than either of us could bear and we began, once again, to move. The hours passed, or at least I assume they did, as both of us trudged along, lost in our own dark thoughts.

For all of my psychic abilities, I had no forewarning. One moment I was stumbling along in the darkness, feeling very much like a human Popsicle, and the next, I was burning up.

The heat exploded around me like a bonfire, and the world was suddenly as bright as the noonday sun. The sky ripped open above our heads, becoming blinding white fire.

I screamed, but the rushing roar of the wind sucked the air out of my lungs and scorched my mouth and eyeballs. The white-blue light streaked across the sky with a mighty roar, moving over our heads and continuing past us to the southeast.

The smoldering wind sucked me up into its angry breath and spun me like a top. It must have pulled me for at least fifty feet before deciding to release me back to the earth. I landed with a bone-crushing thud, and my left arm snapped beneath me. I screamed again, this time in pain.

I managed to lift my head off the ground just in time to see the impact. For a moment, the fireball spread outward, and then the earth around it rose up in a mighty cloud of dust and smoke and fire. The roar was deafening, and the ground thundered beneath me. Artillery fire crashed again and again from the direction of the impact.

BOOM!

BOOM!

BOOM!

I closed my eyes and held on to the surging ground beneath me.

A million years later, the world grew calm. The ground stilled, and a cool silence descended. I managed to pull myself upright. I was blind in the darkness, my retinas seared with the imprint of the meteorite.

I sensed more than heard the snuffling and grunting of animals around me. A large nose butted into my armpit, nudging at my good arm and breathing moist heat through the torn fabric of my coat.

Blindly, I reached up and touched warm silk and rough whiskers. The horse nuzzled my hair and I stroked its long nose absentmindedly. I obviously wasn’t on the road anymore, but where was I?

And more important, where was Josh?

CHAPTER SEVENTY-SEVEN

In the days and weeks that followed, the sunlight dimmed. Sumner sat for hours at the kitchen window, watching the thick blanket of smoke, or dust particles, or whatever the hell it was, choke up the sky. He’d gone outside twice, simply unable to remain indoors a moment longer. The world smelled like an ashtray, and Sumner guessed those promised firestorms were raging somewhere to the south. They were all going stir-crazy, Sumner most of all.

Days passed, and the silence lay like heavy blankets on top of his shoulders, accumulating layer upon layer. Soon he would suffocate within their thick blackness, and that would be a relief.

They had no idea what was going on in the world outside their isolated little home. As far as Sumner could tell, they might be the last humans left on Earth. Well, them and all the crazies on The Ranch. He was sure they were doing just fine.

The Colorado Compound, as Sumner had dubbed their house, was kept warm by fireplaces in the living room and master bedroom, along with battery-powered space heaters.

The sat phone wasn’t working, and no one in a house full of psychics could pull any valuable information out of their asshole brains, either.

“Watch out who you’re calling an asshole,” Phoenix said moodily from across the table, not even bothering to look up from the deck of cards he was carefully balancing into a tower. Sumner suppressed the urge to knock the whole thing over and turned back to the window.

He had no idea if Ryanne and Josh had survived the meteorite. It had struck somewhere to the south of them. Lexy thought it might have hit somewhat east as well. They spent hours hunched over maps, debating. But it all came down to a bunch of guesswork.

And as each day ended, there was no sign of Ryanne and Josh. Ashlyn grew silent, retreating to her room and having to be coaxed out for meals. Sumner had the strong urge to do the same, but somewhere along the way he had been silently elected leader of this crazy group of misfits, and he felt obligated to show a brave face.

“Do you want the stew for lunch? Or the black beans and rice?” Ora asked, holding out the cans for his perusal.

“I don’t care,” Sumner muttered, barely taking his eyes off the window.
Loretta
was hovering nearby with her cool green light, desperate to comfort him, but he ignored her.

“Then stew it is,” she said, and he heard the grinding sound of the can opener behind him.

“I better give Keaton clear broth, though. His stomach is still not right. But he’s shaking less; I guess that’s a good sign.”

There was an unappetizing plop as she emptied the can into a saucepan, and then a whoosh as she lit the propane stove. “Can you believe he had no idea about the meteorites? He got your message and headed straight here. I guess it’s lucky—another day or two and he would have been stuck in a major traffic jam.”

When her attempt at conversation failed, Ora fell silent. She placed a small bowl of stew in front of him, laying a spoon beside it, gave his shoulder a gentle squeeze, and moved away. It felt like the kind of pseudocomforting touch one gives the mourners at a funeral. He had to unclench his jaw in order to eat.

Across the table, Phoenix was staring into his bowl, stirring the contents with his spoon.

“You all right?” Sumner asked.

Phoenix nodded, not looking up. Sumner thought he might have seen a tear plop into the bowl, but he couldn’t be sure. “I was just thinking about peaches,” he said gruffly.

“Peaches?”

“Yeah. Man, what I wouldn’t give for a nice, juicy peach.”

It hit Sumner like a steamroller to the chest. The loss. It was massive, incalculable. He couldn’t process it all at once; his brain just didn’t have enough room inside it. Sumner had lost his appetite, but he spooned the stew into his mouth anyway. There was no wasting food.

“I think we have some canned peaches in the basement,” he finally said.

“Yeah,” Phoenix said, and took a bite of the stew.

Sumner finished his bowl and pushed it aside, belching quietly into his fist. He resumed his surveillance of the front yard and driveway, losing himself in a list of foods he might never taste again. It was depressing, but better than focusing on what was going on in the world outside their little hideaway. And besides, if he could miss food, it meant he was
alive
.

When the horses first appeared at the edge of the driveway, it took a moment to register. His eyes were glazed over with after-lunch lethargy, and he was more asleep than awake. Phoenix was snoring softly into the table across from him.

There were two of them, one a sleek black and the other a pretty chestnut. They were pulling a wagon piled high with hay. The person leading the horses was hobbling, wrapped in a quilt against the bitter cold. A wool cap was pulled down to just above the eyes, a scarf wrapped around the mouth and nose.

He let out a strangled cry that made Phoenix jump, and his tower of cards collapsed. Sumner ignored the clatter of the chair falling to the floor behind him. He pulled Chicky out of his waistband and moved to the door. His heart had taken up residence in his throat.

“What?” Phoenix squawked.

“There’s someone coming up the driveway,” Sumner hissed. “With a couple of
horses
.”

“Shit!” Phoenix leapt to his feet and reached for the rifle on the kitchen counter. “Is it someone from The Ranch?” Phoenix had just voiced Sumner’s own fear.

Sumner shrugged, watching the person approach through the half-moon window at the top of the kitchen door. The blanket obscured the details. He couldn’t even tell if it was a man or a woman.

“Should we go find out?” he suggested with more bravado than he felt.

Phoenix pushed up beside Sumner and nervously watched the stranger approach. “Is that a cow?”

Sure enough, as the group rounded the curve in the driveway, Sumner saw the black-and-white rump and twitching tail. There was indeed a cow tied to the back of the wagon. She followed along at a morose distance, clearly displeased with her situation.

“What are you two doing?” Ora asked, bustling into the kitchen with an armful of empty stew bowls and making both men jump.

“We’ve got company,” Phoenix explained, turning back to the window. “What do you thi—”

But Sumner was no longer listening. One dirty tangle of hair had escaped from the wool cap, but it was enough for him to know. Even the dull gray outside couldn’t hide the telltale flicker of cinnamon. The door almost hit Phoenix in the nose, but Sumner didn’t stop to apologize.

His feet didn’t touch the porch steps. He went flying toward her, kicking up snow and skating across the icy patches like Milan Lucic coming in for a hit.

“Homegirl!”

With as much self-control as he could muster, he pulled her into a gentle hug. The blanket fell away, exposing the dirty sling on her left arm. She was thin and frail, her nose red from the cold. He bent down and kissed her grimy cheek.

“I have never been so happy to see somebody in my
whole damned life
!” He danced around her like a puppy, unable to contain his excitement, and she gave him a watery smile in return.

“Where’s Josh?” Ora asked breathlessly from behind him.

“In the wagon.” Ryanne’s voice was raspy, almost nonexistent. “His leg . . .”

They moved to the back of the wagon. Josh was swaddled in a pile of hay and dirty blankets. He threw them aside, straining to greet them. His teeth flashed white through the black tangle of his beard. His eyes were hollow and rimmed with dark circles, like bruises. Sumner and Phoenix helped him off the wagon, mindful of his leg, which was clearly broken. It was splinted with a tree branch, which had been tied on with filthy rags.

“Josh!” Ora moved forward, grinning, but Mrs. Metcalf got there first.

“My boy! My boy!
Thank God!
” She was weeping, and Josh wrapped his arms around her and pulled her into his chest. He leaned down, black head to gray, and muttered reassurances. Sumner had to look away.

Ashlyn had found Ryanne, and the two were locked in an embrace. Ryanne’s tears fell on the girl’s head as Ashlyn sobbed into her mom’s chest.

Sumner had to swallow several times before he could speak. “Maybe we should take this party indoors?”

“I’ll take the animals to the garage,” Phoenix offered, and Ryanne nodded gratefully.

“There are more horse blankets and a curry comb in the wagon. I’m sure they’ll be hungry. And thirsty.”

“No problem. I’ll make them a nice home in there.” Phoenix took the reins and guided the animals toward the rear of the property.

“Where did you get them?” Lexy asked.

“I wanted to steal a car, but apparently Ryanne is more comfortable hot-wiring horses,” Josh joked.

“Better gas mileage.” Ryanne smiled, her good arm around Ashlyn’s shoulder. Sumner guessed it would be a long time before she let her daughter out of her sight.

“It’s The Ranch in you, homegirl.”

“They’ll come in handy,” Ora said. “If we can find enough food to keep them alive.”

They trooped up the porch steps and into the house. Sumner entered last and closed the door behind him. He turned and pressed his forehead against the rough wood, leaning in like a felled tree. He listened to their chatter as they moved away into the living room, shaking with the effort to contain himself until they were out of hearing.

The tears came in a hot gush, searing a path down his cheeks. Some trickled into his mouth and others fell off the tip of his nose or the end of his chin to land softly on the floor at his feet. He stayed that way for several minutes, alone in the kitchen. Finally he managed to pull himself upright, and he scrubbed his face with the rough flannel of his sleeve.

“Thank you,” he whispered. “Thank you.”

He turned to join them in the living room.