The Survivors (Book 2): Autumn (2 page)

The pallor of death hung over our household like a palpable force in the days that followed.  We decided by universal consensus to put Skylar on suicide watch, just in case.  She was so quiet that it shook me to the very core, and if it hadn’t been for Michael’s gentle strength, I probably would have fallen apart as well.

As far as we could tell, the grief and self-loathing seemed to have been too much for Skylar’s young mind
.  She shut down completely and retreated deep within herself to somewhere the rest of us couldn’t reach her.  Although we stopped in and checked on her regularly, she had nothing to say to any of us; if I asked her a question, all she did was nod or shake her head.  My little sister was usually so verbose and argumentative that seeing her like that was a real shock to the system.

Her depression was infectious
.  At night, I curled up in bed beside Michael and cried myself to sleep, and every morning I awoke feeling exhausted.  Neither of us could summon any interest in the love-play that had filled our evenings not so long ago.  We were just too tired, and it seemed inappropriate somehow.

It wasn’t all bad, though
.  More than once, I had gone to check on Skye and found Madeline sitting beside her.  The child possessed intuition far beyond her years, and seemed to have taken a great interest in helping Skylar to get through her grief.  Once, I even caught them playing together.  It was a sight that filled me with hope.  There was something about Maddy that seemed to be able to reach people in a way that no one else could.

As the week passed, I gradually began to recover
.  There was only so much grief that one person could bear before she either killed herself or clambered back out of the deep, dark hole and got on with her life.  With Michael’s unwavering support, I eventually dug myself free.  It was not in my nature to sit around and mope, so he encouraged me to find active things to do.

To keep myself occupied, I decided to improve our fortifications
.  I’d managed to install a ladder up to the roof, but the weather had been intermittently foul all week and hampered my plans to build a railing around the edge.  The general idea was to provide a safe area where we could position a watcher, to keep an eye out for danger or visitors.

On the seventh day after the baby died, I climbed up to sit on the roof of the motel and watch the sun rise
.  The morning was clear, but I sensed more rain to come.  I’d spent a good deal of time living off the land over the years, and had developed a keen nose for the natural world as a result.  Still, even knowing that the rain was coming back, the sunrise was beautiful.  The deep clouds along the horizon glowed pink when the dawn’s rays struck them, and sent creeping tendrils of rose and gold across the arc of the sky.

The sound of someone climbing the ladder behind me attracted my attention, but I wasn’t concerned
.  The ladder could only be accessed from inside the motel, which meant that the climber had to be one of my companions.  Sure enough, it was.

“I was wondering where you went,” Michael said as he clambered up onto the roof.

I glanced back over my shoulder and watched him pick his way cautiously across the slanted tiles towards toward me.  “Yeah, I didn’t feel like sleeping in today.”

He sat down beside me, then jerked in surprise when he suddenly discovered that the roof was wet
.  I hid a smile behind my hand and struggled not to laugh.

“Ah, damn – these jeans were clean.”
He shot me a mock glare, but I could see in his eyes that there was no real anger behind it.  “You could have warned me.”

“Oh, it’s just a little water
.  They’re still technically clean.”

He smiled at my joke, even if it wasn’t really a very good one
.  My gaze lingered on him, studying the contours of his profile in light of dawn.  I’d heard that sunrise was referred to as the photographer’s golden hour, and I could see why.  The gentle light softened the hard angles of his face and made him look almost angelic.  Emotion surged up within my chest, an overwhelming wave of affection towards the man that had worked so hard to save both my life, and my humanity.

“Michael,” I whispered his name and reached over to take his hand.

His gaze shifted to me, a faint smile on his lips and a quizzical look in his eyes.  “Yes?”

Ah, he was such a good man
.  Such a sweet, kind, wonderful man.  What on earth had I done to deserve someone like him? I snuggled against him and reached up to trail my fingers along his jaw.  For once, there was no stubble there; he must have shaved just before he came looking for me.  I found myself just the tiniest bit disappointed.  I had grown fond of him with a touch of scruff.  I’d grown fond of him in a lot of ways, really.

He watched me with those dark eyes of his, as if he was trying to figure out what I was about
.  I smiled cryptically up at him, and his brow furrowed.  “Are you feeling okay, Sandy?”

I couldn’t help but giggle
.  I was feeling a little giddy, actually.  A little girlish.  A little silly.  I hadn’t felt that way about someone in a very long time.

“I feel a bit peculiar, actually,” I said, then quickly finished my sentence before he started worrying about me
.  “Like maybe I might be in love.  I think I am, actually.  I think I’m in love with you, Michael Chan.  I’m not sure if I should offer you congratulations or condolences.”

He stared back at me while my words sank in, so many different emotions flickering across his face that I couldn’t keep track of them all
.  Finally, just when I was about to start getting concerned, the tiniest, sweetest little smile crept across his face, and he hugged me tight.

“Congratulations, definitely.”
His voice was even huskier than usual and hardly more than a whisper.  One gentle hand caressed my jawline, and then he planted a tender kiss on my lips.  It lingered for just a moment before he drew back to speak again.  “I love you, too.  And… thank you.”

“Eh?
For what?” This time he had me confused.

“Well.”
Suddenly, he seemed very interested in looking anywhere but at me.  “When I told you how I felt last week, and you didn’t say it back… I was worried.  I thought perhaps I’d misunderstood your intentions, and that I was the only one who felt like that.  I thought that maybe you didn’t…”

He trailed off, and my heart just about broke looking up at him
.  In a sudden flash of overwhelming emotion, I threw my arms around his broad shoulders and hugged him as tight as I could.

“Oh, no.”
I squeezed his firm body with every ounce of my strength.  “No, no, no.  I just needed time.  You know how I am.”

He laughed and squeezed me back; the sound of his laughter made me feel a surge of happiness that I hadn’t experienced since before Skylar’s illness
.  With it, came a feeling of hope.  With Michael at my side, it felt like somehow everything
had
to work out in the end.

***

After we finished our sappy moment, Michael volunteered to help with my project while the weather was still fine.  I was glad for the assistance, not just because that it would get the work done faster, but also because it gave me an excuse to spend time with him.  That, and he had twice my physical strength, which was handy in construction projects.  A girl had to be practical in our day and age.

With his help, we managed to get a railing up around half of the south-eastern side of the roof before the weather started to close in again
.  I barely heard the distant rumble of thunder over the sound of my own hammering, but Michael did.

“Storm’s coming back,” he informed me as I wriggled out from beneath the construction we were erecting
.  He helped me to my feet, and together we watched the clouds gathering in the distance.

“Looks like a bad one,” I said
.  He nodded his agreement.  A strong gust of wind blew, almost knocking me off my feet.  All of a sudden, I was glad that I’d put a few extra nails into the new railing.

“We should get everything that’s not nailed down inside,” Michael suggested.

“Yeah, and let’s do it fast,” I agreed immediately.  After ten years on my own, I’d learned to read the weather like a book, and this one had the smell of trouble all over it.  It was late summer heading into autumn; while we often got storms at that time of year, this one felt different. 

We both hurried to gather up our tools and the left-over wood, and raced back down the ladder to the relative safety of ground level.

There, we found the doctor had anticipated our next step and was in the process of covering up our little garden with a frame I’d made for just that purpose.  We tossed our tools into the safety of one of the downstairs storage rooms, and then ran over to help him.  We had the garden battened down and protected by the time the first of the rain started to splatter down around us.  Thunder rumbled ominously, getting closer with each passing moment.

Michael froze and looked over his shoulder towards the lobby
.  “Wait, what was that noise?”

“What noise?”
I followed his gaze, but didn’t see anything.

“I could have sworn I heard engines,” he mumbled, half to himself
.  He headed off towards the front door to check, so I followed him.  The wind caught the door as soon as he opened it, forcing him to put his weight behind it to get it to open all the way.

I shoved my hair back out of my face as the wind tried to blind me with it, and peered off into the distance
.  “I still don’t hear anything.”

A blur of tabby fur bounded past us as Tigger took the opportunity to escape from the incoming storm
.  She danced between our feet, and then vanished into the depths of the motel.

“I’m sure I heard something.”
Michael frowned, leaning heavily against the door to keep it open.

“I really don’t—” Then I paused and tilted my head, straining to listen
.  “No, wait, you’re right – I hear it too.  That sounds like farm bikes.”

Sure enough, it was
.  A pair of figures on little motorcycles skidded around the corner a heartbeat later, struggling to keep their balance against the surging winds.  I waved to them and beckoned them towards us as soon as I recognised the riders as friends: Anahera and Hemi, members of the Maori group that lived not far away.  They came to a stop a half-dozen meters from the entrance.  I hurried out of the safety of the building to help Anahera with her bike.

The leader of the Maori tribe was bundled against the weather in a heavy anorak with the hood pulled up over her head, but the wind was so strong it tugged her glossy black curls in every direction
.  I fell in beside her and helped her wheel her bike into the safety of our lobby, with her son close behind us.  Once we were all safely inside, Michael eased the door closed and bolted it shut behind us.

“We may have underestimated the weather,” Anahera said, sounding out of breath as we rolled her bike over to a corner and leaned it against the wall
.  Once it was safely stowed, she leaned back and heaved a sigh, plucking a few long strands of hair out of her eyes.

“No kidding,” I answered dryly
.  Like a good little hostess, I offered her a hand to help her get out of her coat, which she accepted.

“I hope you don’t mind that we arrived unannounced.”
She shot an apologetic glance towards me.  “We hoped to consult with your doctor on something, and if we waited then it would only get worse.”

“The doctor?”
I frowned at her, feeling a stab of concern.  Although we had only met once before, I considered Anahera and her son to be our friends.  She’d shown herself to be a good, loyal person and had helped me at my lowest point; I felt a sense of gratitude toward her that I wasn’t sure I could ever repay.  “Of course, Anahera.  You’re always welcome here.  What’s wrong?”

“Ah, my boy has gone and gotten himself hurt.”
Anahera sighed and shot a look at her son, drawing my attention to the young man; for the first time, I noticed he was moving strangely, favouring his left side.

“Aw, mum!
It’s not like I did it on purpose,” Hemi protested, but his mother wasn’t having any of it.  She stomped over to him and yanked up the hem of his shirt to show us the blood-soaked bandages beneath.

“Ouch.”
Michael grimaced at the sight of the blood.  “What did you do, lad?”

“Someone took a pot-shot at me from the bush while I was out possum hunting
.  Tane and Iorangi chased him off, but we didn’t get a good look at the bastard.” He flicked a sheepish-looking glance at his mother.  “Sorry, Mum.”

“It’s
fine, dear.  I understand.” Anahera patted his arm, then turned and looked at the two of us.  “I suspect it was an air rifle rather than the real thing, but it got him at a bad angle.  We don’t have the tools to get the pellet out without doing more harm than good.”

“I’ll go find the doctor,” Michael said, then shot a glance at me to make sure I was okay with being left alone
.  I nodded and gave him a reassuring smile; he smiled back and hurried off, leaving me to tend to our guests.