The Quest: Countdown to Armageddon: Book 6 (13 page)

     “Sleep is way overrated.”

     “But if I don’t get sleep I’ll lose my strength.”

     “Okay. Five minutes per day. You’ll have to sleep quickly.”

     “And what if I want to make love to you?”

     “This counts as making love. I love this.”

     “No. What if I want to make love to you the usual way?”

     “Okay. Five minutes per day. No more.”

     He started to whine.

     “But baby, five minutes isn’t long enough.”

     She turned her head and looked at him, with a cocked eyebrow.

     “It never took you more than five minutes before.”

     “Hey, hey! That hurts. And it’s not true, either. I’ve made love to you for ten minutes before.”

      She smiled again.

     “Check your watch, sweetheart. It needs to be fixed. Now then, why did you stop?”

     He went back to running his fingers through her hair and could almost feel the tension coming over her as her mood changed dramatically.

     “Honey?”

     “Yes, sweetheart?”

     “I’m worried.”

     He stopped and leaned to one side to look at her. She turned her face toward his and he could see the strain in her eyes.

     “Whoa! Where did that come from all of a sudden? And what are you worried about?”

     “It didn’t come suddenly, Rhett. It’s been bothering me for weeks now. It comes and goes, but it’s never very far out of my thoughts.”

     “Why are you worried, specifically? Does it have something to do with the baby?”

     “No. At least I don’t think so. Hannah’s been keeping a close eye on my pregnancy. At least she was until John was shot and she started her vigil at his bedside. Since then I’ve seen a nurse at St. Mary’s Hospital a couple of times and she says everything is progressing normally.”

     “Then what’s bothering you?”

     “I don’t know. I just have this weird sense of foreboding. Like something incredibly bad is about to happen.”

     “Honey, I learned a long time ago not to make light of your intuitions. You’ve been right too many times. But don’t you have a clue? I mean, how can we prepare for something if we don’t know what it is?”

     “I don’t know, baby. I’m sorry. As worried as I am, I can’t tie it to anything specific.”

     “How long has this been going on?”

     “Like I said, for several weeks. Maybe a month and a half or so. Why?”

     “I was wondering if your premonition had something to do with John Castro getting shot.”

     “No. That’s not it. I kept feeling the same way after he was shot. If anything the feelings got stronger. Like something terrible is getting ready to happen.”

     Rhett stopped teasing her hair and wrapped his arms around her.

     She said, “Thank you, baby. That was nice. But do you mind if we go inside now? Suddenly I’m very cold.”

-25-

     At the Zavala Public Library Sara and Tom were surrounded by neighborhood kids.

     A bright eyed girl of six or so was particularly mesmerized by the horses.

     “Wow! I’ve never seen a horse before. Not for the real, anyway.”

     Tom was a soft touch.

     “Would you like to sit on him, little one?”

     “Sure! Can I?”

    Tom tipped his hat and in his best Curly Joe impression, said “Why coitainly.”

     Sara chuckled.

     “I hope you know you just opened a great big can of worms.”

     “That’s okay. You don’t need my help in there anyway. You have all the information they need.”

     He turned to the little girl and lifted her onto the saddle.

     “Would you like to ride him, sweetheart?”

     She grinned from ear to ear and said, “Yes, please.”

     Tom took the reins and walked Trigger across the soft lawn of the old library.

     The grass hadn’t been mowed in years, and had grown high and unkempt. Trigger wanted to graze. But he was a good horse and knew he’d be able to in due course.

     He also sensed, as the best horses do, that little riders are more fragile than grownups. And he’d be gentle accordingly.

     As soon as the little girl’s ride started, of course, the other kids started lining up for their turn. Tom called to Sara before she disappeared into the double doors, “Good luck!”

     Sara nodded toward the line of kids and said, “Good luck to you too. You’ll need it more than me.”

    Inside the library, Sara came upon a handwritten sign that said:

ZAVALA LIBRARY

AND

COMMUNITY CENTER

Registration for Missing Loved Ones,

Room 3

     An arrow pointed down the hall to the left.

     She was greeted by a young man who reminded her a lot of Jordan.

     “Hello. May I help you?”

     “Yes. I haven’t seen my mother since the day of the blackout. I have reason to believe she has survived and is out there somewhere. I’m trying to find her.”

     The young man immediately offered his hand and said, “I’m Brad.”

     “Sara.”

     “We’ll do all we can to help you, Sara. Have you registered at any of the other community centers yet?”

     “No. I didn’t even know you guys existed until half an hour ago. Do I need to?”

     “No, not at all. I was going to tell you that if you already registered with another community center, then you don’t have to again. We all send representatives to a city-wide meeting once a week, where we share all of our new information with each other.

     “It’s a pain in the neck, because we have to write it all down manually. But it’s easier for us to do that than for you to go to thirteen different places to register.”

     “Good point. And thank you for that. What do you have to do to register?”

     He produced a card and a pencil.

     “Just fill this out. We started using pencils a couple of weeks ago because all of our pens dried up and quit working. They tell me pencils will never dry up, even a thousand years from now.”

     Sara nodded blankly and looked at the card.

     It asked for basic information about Stacey. Her description, her habits, the place and date she was last seen.

     One question in particular troubled her.

     It asked if the missing loved one used any medication.

     And it dawned on her for the very first time that her mother probably hadn’t had her blood pressure medicine since the blackout.

     Stacey had taken a beta blocker called Timadal for many years. She wondered how the lack of medication affected her mother, and what the long term effects of not using the drug might be.

     The young man saw the concern on Sara’s face as she wrote “Timadal” on the information card.

     “Don’t be too stressed. That might actually work out to be a good thing.”

     “How so?”

     “The SAPD has been trying to get the word out for months that the hospitals are passing out free medicine to those who need it. Not all medicine, of course. Some of it has expired and couldn’t be renewed.

     “But a surprising amount of medications in pill form don’t break down for many years. Many of them can be extended for two or three more years as long as they were properly stored. And many others don’t go bad, they just get weak. So in many cases the hospitals dispense them and tell the patients to double up on the dosage.”

     Sara was a bit confused.

     “I don’t understand. How is that a good thing?”

     “Well, besides the fact that your mom may still be getting her medication, it also gives you another place to look. All the hospitals require a photo ID to dispense medications, and they all share information so that no one tries to obtain more than their fair share. If you show up at one of the hospitals and explain your situation, they can tell you if your mother has been in to get medicine, and when she’s due to come back again.”

     “Oh, well in that case, thank you for the information.”

     He smiled, winked, and said “no problem.”

     “So what do I do next, after I fill this out?”

     “You just wait around here for a few minutes. I already gave the girls in the back office your name and they’re running it through their records. It takes a while, because they’re all just logs full of handwritten notes.”

     “They’re running
my
name? But why?”

     As if on cue, two young women stepped from a room in the back, smiling broadly and clapping their hands. Immediately, everyone else in the room did likewise.

     Including Brad.

     Amid cheers and catcalls, Brad explained.

     “They always do this when they get a hit.”

     “A hit?”

     “Yes. They have a message for you from your mom.”

-26-

     A few minutes later Sara went running through the double doors, laughing and shouting.

     “Tom! Tom! She was here, right here, just five months ago. She left a message for me in case I came looking for her!”

     Tom had a haggard look on his face. He was shortening the line by doubling up on the pony rides, putting two kids onto his horse at the same time. The bigger kids rode bareback across Trigger’s rump, holding onto the smaller children in front of them.

     Luckily Trigger had a great disposition.

     Tom’s face instantly brightened at Sara’s news.

    She went on to explain, “Mom said she heard that Jordan’s family might have moved to a place called Castroville, so she was going there to look for me.”

     “Castroville? Never heard of it.”

     “I haven’t either. But they looked it up on a map for me. They said it’s due west of San Antonio, about thirty miles or so. They said all we have to do is follow Highway 90.”

     “Thirty miles? That’s only two days ride. Hot dog!”

     The good news gave Tom a renewed patience. He’d thought about telling the rest of the children in line that the pony rides were over, but he didn’t want to disappoint them.

     “Tell you what, doll. How about you take the girls and put them on Nellie? I’ll put the boys on Trigger. Otherwise we’ll never get out of here.”

     “Are we going to start out tonight?”

     “No. We’ll bed down across the street in the park and set out fresh in the morning. It wouldn’t be fair to Trigger not to let him graze for a while after he’s given so many free rides.

     Sara wasn’t disappointed.

     She was too excited to be.

     But she was brought back to reality by a girl of eleven named Millicent.

     “Who is it you’re looking for, ma’am?”

     “My mother. Her name is Stacey.”

     The girl grew sad.

     “I hope you find her. I really miss my mommy. She died about a year ago.”

     “Oh, honey, I am so sorry. Do you still have your daddy?”

     “No, he died just before mommy did. So did my sister Amy.”

     “Do you have anybody?”

     “Nope. It’s just me. Well, me and Charles. He’s my friend. We kinda take care of each other.”

     Sara wanted to break into tears.

     She looked at Tom, who said nothing but slowly shook his head.

     She understood. But she didn’t like it.