The Survivors (Book 2): Autumn (23 page)

“We found them along the way,” I explained
.  “We couldn’t very well leave them behind.  However, you’ll be happy to know we managed to convince five of our big, strapping friends to join us and help clear up your problem.”

“Five?”
The man’s eyes widened.  “Cripes, that’s more than we expected.  We didn’t even know there were that many people left in the Waikato.”

“You’d be surprised,” I answered sympathetically, relaxing now that I was out of harm’s way
.  Sure, he was carrying a gun, but so was I.  Neither of us were aiming at one another.  “My group consists of five people, six if you count Priyanka here, plus our friends have a group of eleven.”

“Bloody hell.”
Jim itched at his balding pate with his good hand.  “Had no idea.  Figured there was maybe a half-a-dozen folks still around, but no more than that.”

“You kept the power going all these years for a half-dozen people?” I asked, incredulous and a bit stupefied.

“Well, I’ve been working here since I was a pup.  Keeping this power station going is all I know.  I ain’t got no family, so when the plague took my mates I just stayed here, kept doing what I’ve always done.” The man absently rubbed his jaw and lifted his good shoulder in a shrug.  “Then I found Rebecca in town.  She’d had a bit of trouble with a few lads further south, so we decided to get married to keep her out of trouble.  Seemed like a good idea at the time.”

I chuckled and shook my head
.  “I’m going to tell her you said that.”

“Hah.”
Jim grunted a laugh as well.  “The old bat already knows.  Bloody nag, never lets me get a moment’s rest.” Despite the aggression in his words, his tone was affectionate.

A shout from the other side of the bridge drew our attention
.  I turned and saw Hemi and his crew gathered on the far side.  With a wave, I beckoned for them to join us despite the wary look on Jim’s face.

He relaxed once introductions were made
.  For some reason, knowing someone’s name made them seem infinitely less hostile.  Besides, we were a generally good-natured crew, and we came bearing booze.  When Jim finally consented to lead us off towards the power station, there was a fair amount of joking and heckling going on between us, which seemed to put him at ease.

Michael and I followed Jim, with the rowdy group of lads, Priya and our dog strung out in a pack behind us
.  I glanced back to check on my small charge, and found her staring adoringly up at Hemi.  Amused, I shook my head and smiled to myself.  Oh, how quickly her opinion of him had changed.

Suddenly, an arm snuck around my waist, and took me by surprise
.  I shot a curious glance at Michael and found him chatting away with our host despite the possessive grip.  Though he was still smiling and joking, I could see a strange tightness around his eyes that confused me.  It took a few seconds for me to realise that it was nervous jealousy.

That was an emotion I had only seen from him once before, when we’d first met Hemi’s enigmatic mother
.  Although I had no sexual interest in women, I found her fascinating to the point of being hypnotic, and Michael had seemed irked by that fact.

Now, I realised it was the fact that, aside from Priya, we were completely surrounded by men
.  I could only imagine he felt some basic animal need to exert his ownership over me, as the only adult female in the group.  I didn’t really mind, per se, but it was a strange feeling and left me a little uncomfortable.  The thought of being claimed like a piece of meat was not a happy one, but I knew Michael didn’t think of me that way.  It was an instinctual thing, and I would probably have felt the same way if we’d been surrounded by a pack of women, and Michael had been the only virile man in sight.  Hell, that made me nervous just thinking about it.

All of a sudden, I felt an overwhelming need to reassure
him that he had my full attention, and I simply wasn’t interested in anyone else.  I placed an arm around his waist and leaned against him comfortably, but I didn’t say anything.  I didn’t have to.  That was enough.

As it turned out, access to the power station was not for the faint of heart
.  Jim led us down the steepest flight of stairs I’d ever seen in my life, a concrete pathway etched directly into the side of the gorge.  Through a mesh of overgrown branches, the river valley opened up below us; it was a sight of unparalleled beauty that took my breath away even more than the steep descent did.

The river was the colour of carved greenstone, still running high after the recent storms
.  It wound between steep hillsides lined with thick bush.  I found myself amazed by the fact that the trees and ferns had managed to survive clinging to the slopes, but not only had they survived, they’d flourished.  The closer to the riverside that we got, the louder the rush of water became.  By the time we reached the landing, it was loud enough that it was getting hard to hear anyone’s voice.

If this is how loud it is when the station is off, how do they get any sleep when it’s running?

I glanced around the massive concrete platform curiously; the power station was enormous, possibly the single largest human-made structure I’d seen in my life.  A relatively narrow concrete walkway ran around the edge of the monolithic structure; although it seemed slender compared to the size of the station, it was easily wide enough to drive two trucks down side-by-side.

There were no trucks, of course
.  I saw no sign of a road or access-way to the lower portion of the station, so there was no way to get them down there.

To our left, a concrete wall rose ten or fifteen metres above my head, perhaps more
.  It was hard to get a sense of scale on a building so impossibly large, particularly when a significant portion of it was buried within the rock wall of the gorge.  Enormous windows glinted in the sun, but they were up too high for me to be able to see inside.

Jim opened a door and led us in
.  I found myself feeling a little like Alice in Wonderland, stepping through a door that looked so tiny compared to the monstrous wall it was set into.  We entered a hallway that was of a more normal scale, and were shown about a dense network of old offices that had been converted into living space.  The thick concrete drowned out the rush of the water, so it was relatively quiet inside.

“Rebecca?” Jim bellowed his wife’s name suddenly, startling me with the volume of his voice inside an enclosed space
.  “Where the hell are you, woman?”

“In here,” a female voice replied through a partially-open doorway
.  Jim shoved the door the rest of the way open and strode in, muttering to himself beneath his breath.

“Visitors,” Jim grunted noncommittally, then promptly left the lot of us in his wife’s care and stomped off about whatever business he thought was so much more important than us.

“Welcome, and sorry about my husband,” Rebecca greeted us, glowering in the direction her antisocial spouse had gone.  Introductions were made, and explanations for the unexpected presence of our new companions.

Unlike her husband, Rebecca Merrit didn’t seem bothered
.  I found myself taking an instant liking to her as she led us through the warren of old offices and storage rooms beneath the power station, assigning us sleeping quarters.

“I’m afraid we don’t have enough beds for everyone,” she admitted, looking apologetic
.  “We weren’t quite expecting this many people.  I’ve only made up two, but we can probably drag a few more out of storage tomorrow.  It’s a little hard, what with Jim’s arm.”

“It’s fine,” I answered, and gave her a smile
.  “I think we’re all used to sleeping on the ground from time to time.  So long as we don’t wake up covered in dew, anywhere you can spare is just fine.”

“That much I can definitely do,” she agreed, smiling back at me.

She was at least a decade younger than her husband, fit and spry with no trace of grey in her long, brunette hair.  Although her hair was pulled back in a practical ponytail and she was wearing men’s clothing, she was slim, vivacious, and full of life – the complete opposite of her portly, grim-faced husband.  The comparison amused me, though I thought it impolitic to mention it to either of them.

“Now, I’m assuming you boys don’t mind letting the ladies have the good beds?” she asked, shooting a pointed look at the men trailing along behind us
.  They’d obviously been well trained by Anahera, so her question was met with noises of consent.

She showed me and Michael to one room, and Priya to another across the hall from us, then left us there to get settled
in.  The ‘good bed’ was nothing more than a narrow cot with a thin mattress, but neither of us minded.  We’d shared a similar sized bed back in Hamilton.  We didn’t mind getting cosy for a few nights.

Priyanka, on the other hand, was thrilled at having a room to sleep in with a real bed
.  “Mine room, for me!” she told us with great glee, bouncing back and forth between the chambers.  As relieved as I was to see her happy again, I found myself wondering about the issue of privacy.

“We should figure out how to lock the door,” I commented dryly, shooting Michael a pointed sideways look
.  He instantly took my meaning and laughed merrily.

As though to prove my point, Priya promptly stuck her head in the room to find out what we were giggling about
.  I burst into laughter as well.  Poor little Priyanka just stared at us, bewildered, like all the adults in her life had suddenly gone mad.

There were some things in life that I just wasn’t ready to explain to a cloistered thirteen-year-old yet
.  It was safe to assume someone would have to have The Talk with her at some stage, but today was not the day.

By the time everyone had settled into their rooms and changed out of their grubby travelling clothes, there were only a few hours left until sunset.  We left Jim with his prescription of booze and painkillers, and headed out to inspect the work that needed to be done.

Hemi, Michael and I followed Rebecca, with Hemi taking the leadership role for his group in his mother’s absence
.  It seemed like a natural progression; despite his youth, Hemi appeared to have inherited his mother’s organisational abilities, and at least a little of her charisma.

Rebecca led us out of the building, and along a walkway around the edge of the power station
.  Eventually, we made our way down another narrow set of concrete stairs onto a smaller ledge that ran just above the water line.  About half way between one end of the station and the other, Rebecca stopped and pointed at the concrete beneath our feet.

“These are the intake vents.”
Rebecca knelt down on the concrete and leaned forward.  I joined her, and stared where she pointed.  “There’s a grille over them that normally stops things from getting into the vents, but the storm knocked a big tree over.  Somehow, the tree went right through the grille.  It’s lodged in the intake down there.”

The water was clear as glass near the surface, but it lost its translucence just below the surface due to the turbulence of the recent heavy rain
.  I couldn’t see much, just a few branches and a handful of leaves.

“How big a tree are we talking?”
I glanced at her, curious.

“Big.”
Rebecca sat back on her haunches and heaved a long-suffering sigh.  “It’s an old oak tree, used to grow over the river down by the dam.  We found the stump; it looks like it got split by lightning.  Even with eight able-bodied people, I have no idea how we’re going to get it out.”

“You said you had equipment?” I asked
.  “What kind of equipment?”

“All kinds of equipment, but unless you know how to scuba dive it’s not going to do much good.”

I looked at Michael and he looked back at me.  Sure enough, he nodded.  I found myself fighting a smile.  “We may just have someone that can help with that.”

“What?”
Rebecca stared at me, and then looked around at the others.  It took a moment before she cottoned on to the fact that she was missing a joke.  “You’re kidding me, right?”

“Not at all
.  Michael was a cop,” I explained to her.  “He’s trained in all kinds of different things.”

“Actually, I learnt to scuba dive while I was in high school,” he interjected helpfully, and flashed me that silly grin of his.

“Or he’s just an overachiever.  Something like that.” I shot him a mock-glare for contradicting me, but that just made his grin widen.

“Well.”
Rebecca absently rubbed the back of her neck, staring thoughtfully down at the murky water.  “I guess that does change things, doesn’t it?” A flicker of hope passed through her eyes, and brought a smile to her face.  “I guess we have a chance after all.”

“Let’s hope so,” Michael spoke up, then he glanced around at the rest of us
.  “We’ll need to get down there and have a look before we formulate our plan of attack.  None of us have any experience with hydroelectric power stations besides you.  Which of us can swim?”

Hemi grinned at him
.  “Man, my boys live on the edge of a lake and take our kai from the water.  What do you think?”

“I’ll take that as a yes.”
Michael winked, and then glanced at me.  I simply nodded; I didn’t swim very often, but I could if I had to.  He nodded back, then looked up at the sky to judge the time.  “We probably have enough time to take a quick look.  Is your equipment ready?”

“One set is,” Rebecca answered, easing herself back to her feet nimbly
.  “I’ll go fetch it.”

“I’ll help,” Hemi volunteered cheerfully
.  The pair of them scampered off, leaving Michael and me alone.

I watched them go, then looked up at him and playfully raised a brow
.  “So, if you’re going swimming, does that mean you’re going to take your clothes off?” I teased impishly.

Michael just grinned at me and waggled his eyebrows.

***

By the time Rebecca and Hemi returned with the scuba gear, Michael had stripped down to his boxer-briefs and given his clothes to me for safekeeping
.  I folded them up neatly and put them aside, and promptly initiated an in-depth conversation on the weather.  No, really.  For reasons that I couldn’t quite determine, I had started finding it hard to concentrate the moment that he’d undressed, which seemed to amuse him greatly.

“It definitely smells like rain,” I commented, shading my eyes against the setting sun.

“You keep saying that, but I don’t smell anything.” Michael looked at me curiously.  “How can it smell like weather?”

“I don’t know how to explain it, but I can definitely smell it.”
I did my best to explain what my instincts were telling me, but he didn’t seem to fully understand.  “If you draw in a deep breath through your nose and mouth, you can feel a coolness and moisture on the air.”

“I can’t smell anything.”
I heard him sigh sadly, and shot a quick, worried glance his way – except that when I did, I caught him smirking and realised that he had deliberately drawn my eye.

“Damn it!” I complained, swiftly covering my eyes
.  “That’s not nice.  You know how to play me like a fiddle.”

“I think a flute would be a more appropriate instrument, don’t you?” he teased mercilessly, then reached out and grabbed me around the waist to pull me into a playful kiss
.  Suddenly, it was very, very hard to concentrate on the task at hand.

Someone scoffed in mock-disgust
.  Startled, I squeaked and leapt out of his arms, leaving him looking incredibly amused.  With a flash of completely irrational embarrassment and a touch of annoyance, I blushed furiously and stalked off a short distance to cool down while Rebecca and Hemi helped Michael into the diving gear.

“The current is quite strong,” I heard Rebecca warning him, “so be careful
.  The turbines are all off so you can’t get sucked into any machinery, but you could get stuck down there.”

“I’ll be careful,” Michael rumbled
.  The imminent danger distracted me from my strange mood; although I was feeling out of sorts, he was still my Michael and I loved him, so I returned to the group to offer my support.

They hadn’t bothered with a wetsuit since the water would be warm, and he wasn’t going to be down there for long
.  Residual moisture left on the tank and mask sent water droplets rolling down his skin like a gentle caress.  I tried not to see them, but the more I tried to look away the harder it was to focus.  One droplet survived long enough to trek all the way down across his hard belly, to moisten the rim of his shorts; try as I might not to see it, my eyes followed it all the way down.

Thankfully, no one was looking at me as the heat rose in my cheeks again, which was a blessing in disguise
.  My sister taunted me mercilessly about the blushing thing.  My skin was so fair that I turned as red as a tomato at the drop of a hat.  Suddenly, I was very glad that she’d stayed at home.

“If you need us to haul you out, tug the rope sharply three times.”
Oblivious to my distress, Rebecca continued her instructions as she fastened a secure line onto Michael’s weight belt with a heavy-duty clasp, and fed out enough line for him to be able to move freely.

He nodded and slipped the mask over his face, settling the mouthpiece within his lips
.  My heart skipped a beat as he stepped backwards into the water, but he popped up again a moment later and flashed us a thumbs-up sign.  Rebecca tossed him a waterproof torch, and then he was gone into the depths.

We were left to feed out the safety line as he needed it, but other than that all we could do was wait
.  I sat down on the edge of the concrete platform to wait, and slipped off my shoes so I could dip my feet in the river and let the cool water take down the swelling.

I watched the trail of bubbles diminish as Michael moved beneath us; I could imagine his powerful strokes as he swam, even if I couldn’t see him
.  With no other option, I pushed my anxiety aside and tried to relax.  Michael was a competent swimmer and seemed to have an impressive assortment of skills.  He’d be just fine.

All kinds of different skills
. 
I trailed a toe in the water as I mulled over the idea. 
You might even call them talents.  He’s… a very talented man…

“Are you still blushing?”
Rebecca’s comment made me jump.  When I glanced up, I saw both her and Hemi watching me with amused expressions.

“No,” I retorted sharply and looked away, suddenly embarrassed beyond words.

“Uh-huh.” Rebecca did not sound convinced.  I could practically hear her rolling her eyes.  My embarrassment deepened, and anger rose within me.  Michael shouldn’t have put me into that position.  He knew very well I was shy and cautious around strangers, though he had made it his life’s mission to draw me out of my shell.

Embarrassing me in public was certainly not the way
.  He must have seen them coming and decided to assert his position of ownership over me right when they could see it.  It was the only logical conclusion.  For once in his life, I felt like he had made a very serious judgemental error.  I glared at the water and kicked it absently, gritting my teeth in brooding silence.

I heard the other two wander away a short distance, and then a whispered conversation between them that ended in muffled laughter
.  I felt sure that I was being gossiped about, and I didn’t like that feeling at all.  Sulking, I stared off into the water, willing my boyfriend to return so that I could kick his shapely backside all up and down the river for leaving me in this state.

My annoyance grew in leaps and bounds the longer I was left to think about it
.  Then Worry reared its ugly head, and smacked Annoyance aside.  To say that my emotions were at war would be a misstatement; it was more like a vicious barroom brawl going on inside my head.  My conflicting emotions were locked in a catfight for dominance.

Concern won for the time being, but I wasn’t sure how long that would last
.  As annoyed as I might be, I loved Michael more than I had any means to express.  I worried about him all the time.  Even though he was technically still close to me, it felt like he was a million miles away, in a whole other world.  I estimated it had been about ten minutes, maybe fifteen.  I leaned forward, staring down into the murky water, willing myself to be able to see more than a few feet down.

Something moved, a shadow in the depths
.  I leaned out further, straining to make out what it was, but I couldn’t see it clearly.  Then, suddenly, something cold and slippery fastened onto my ankle and pulled; before I could even scream, I was yanked bodily into the cold river.  My head went under, then I popped up spluttering and fighting the current.

Michael grabbed me around the waist to keep my head above the surface
.  It took a second before I realised that he was the one who had pulled me into the water, then I let out an inarticulate shout and smacked his shoulder.

He just laughed playfully and helped me back to the river’s edge, where strong hands grabbed me and hauled me back out of the soup
.  As soon as we were back on dry land, I planted my hands on my sodden hips, and fixed Michael with a dark glower.

“Dammit, Michael; that water is cold, you know,” I complained, soaked from head to toe
.  The breeze chilled me and left me shivering.

“I know, but you made me wash the dog so it’s only fair,” he answered cheerfully, as he shed his mask and stripped off the tank and weight belt, leaving himself clad only in a pair of distractingly wet shorts.

And with witnesses, too.  Annoyance sprang back on the offensive and bitch-slapped Worry with her purse.

Thankfully, Michael knew when to quit
.  He must have seen something in my face that told him enough was enough, because he settled down and put his serious face back on.  Rebecca handed him a towel, but rather than use it on himself he put it around me and rubbed my shoulders to dry me off.  The gesture relaxed me a little, but I was still feeling cantankerous and had to bite my tongue to keep from saying something smarmy.

“Let’s head back inside,” he suggested, glancing at the others
.  “Once we’ve dried off and changed, we’ll gather the troops and formulate a plan of attack.”

They took the hint
.  Relieving us of the scuba gear, the two of them hurried off, leaving Michael and me to follow at a more sedate pace.  Sensing something was amiss, Michael gathered his clothes under one arm and put the other around me, but I was stiff and unresponsive as the fight continued inside my head.  I felt him watching me but I didn’t make eye contact.  Instead, I glared down at the ground by our feet.

He waited until the others were gone to point out the obvious
.  “You’re mad at me.”