Lady Grace & the War for a New World (Earth's End Book 2) (14 page)

19

The group was out on the ledge when Sam emerged, all of them but her. They’d made a fire and put a grill over it. A tantalizing aroma came from a metal container on the grill.

“Come over here, Sam, and have some coffee,” James said.

“What is
coffee
?”

“It’s the elixir of the gods,” James said, pulling out a metal cup from the stash of kitchen stuff. “We’ve got the Russian Army’s finest coffee. We found it yesterday. I figured we deserve a cup. We even have sugar and creamer.” He handed Sam a big cup with creamer and sugar. “Allow me to introduce you to the joy of caffeine …”

“Go easy, Sam, if you’ve never had coffee,” Mel warned. “It has a stimulant in it called caffeine. It can keep you up all night if you’re not used to it. It can also be addictive—not a hard addiction, but you can get a bad headache if you stop drinking it.”

“Come on, Mel, he’s not going to become a caffeine fiend on one cup,” James said.

Sam took a sip. It was delicious. He liked the sweetness. Nothing in the underworld was sweet.

Henry and Lena also sat by the fire, drinking coffee. When Sam got his cup, they went back to the previous topic of conversation, the nightmares they’d had. Everyone had had the same dream: A monster was searching for him or her.

He knew it was Sam Big, penetrating their unguarded minds. He would catch them so easily. He had to leave so they could live. If he wasn’t there, Sam Big would leave them alone. If he wasn’t there, they’d never find out what he had been to Sam Big.

“I want to take a look at those pictures Jeremy took inside the shelter,” Henry said. “I dreamed of a monster. Terrible looking creature. I wonder if it’s something in the shelter searching for us. Jeremy, can you bring us those pictures?”

“Yeah. I’ll do that, but we have to get the solar panels up today or we won’t be doing anything. Almost everything needs charging. I don’t know how we’re going to anchor them on solid rock. I’ve got tools, but I don’t know how to use them.”

“We need to get the ladder down, too,” Henry said. “I intend to take a bath.” He rubbed his face. “And shave. And I want to cut off all this excess hair.” He indicated his unkempt ‘fro. “I’m sick of looking the way the goldies wanted me to look.”

“Yeah, James. Help me get rid of this Mohawk,” Mel begged.

Henry had one more desire, “I want to catch a fish. I found some fishing gear yesterday. I’m sick of these K rations.”

As they talked, all Sam could think of was how to get out of there and keep Sam Big away from them.

20

Veronica awakened but didn’t move or make a sound. She listened carefully, trying to figure out where she was. She lay on her side with her knees drawn up to her chest. Her hands clutched each other. She felt like she was back in the bunker with the general and all those dead bodies.

After thrashing for hours the night before trying to get to sleep, she had a nightmare. A huge brute was chasing her. He’d almost get her, and then she’d get away.

Then the dream came.

She was in her bed at her family’s house in Manhattan. She had given the building to the Hermitage Academy, Jeremy’s high school, but it had been her family home. She was herself, an adult woman, lying on her back in her childhood bed.

She could see the invisible outlines of a child’s body over her own. Short torso, chubby round thighs, knees pulled up and parted, little feet and calves. The outlines were
her
body as a child. The door to her room opened. Someone entered and came toward her, and then the dream dissolved.

The little girl was still there as she lay in her bed. She could see her, a clear outline like a painting made of water on water. She could hear the child thinking, I’ve got to get away. She didn’t hear the thoughts in words, because the little girl was too young to think in words.

Veronica lay still and searched the camp with terrified eyes. What was happening to her? The sun was well up and everyone was gathered around a campfire. She could smell coffee. The others were talking as though everything was fine.

Her breasts rubbed together. They made her sick. Her belly disgusted her. She felt the way she had in her wild days when she had awakened next to some stranger and he looked at her like he’d scored the best lay in the world. Sometimes the loathing she felt for herself lasted an instant. Sometimes her self-hatred lasted for hours. But she’d never felt it like now, hard in her body, jabbing her the way they had.

What she had done wasn’t the way people thought of it. She wasn’t liberated, free, and powerfully sensual. “She takes men like men take women.” “She’s the modern Cleopatra.” What she did wasn’t sporting or boinking or boffing or a thousand foolish words.

It was physical. It happened inside
her
. They touched her in that deep place where
she
was. In those days, she didn’t care. She’d be fucking some man and feel him ramming her like he was beating her. She liked that, the drubbing, shoving something down. How many times did it have to be shoved down until it stayed down?

She felt her eyes fill and saw tears spreading on her mat. She’d climax and scream, the famous scream that said, “Veronica Edgarton, the most liberated woman in the world, has come again.”

How many times did she have to scream to feel satisfied? How many orgasms until she was full? She’d never felt full. Fury drove her to seek out one after another after another. It wasn’t great sex and she wasn’t liberated. The general had shown her exactly what she was.

Veronica smoothed her rumpled black jumpsuit under her blanket. She’d chosen a bad cave. It offered no privacy. A lady couldn’t have a bad morning without everyone knowing. She’d pick another sleeping spot today. Everyone looked toward her when they saw her move. Time to be Mrs. Edgarton again.

“Hello, everyone,” she said. “I know I look like hell. I haven’t been sleeping. I think Ellie being sick last night got me stirred up. And I had nightmares. A monster was chasing me.” She shook her head.

“Well, join us, Veronica,” Henry said. “Everyone had that dream. And what a brute he was. Have a cup of coffee.” A metal percolator sat on top of a grill someone had pulled off the junk heap. Henry fixed her a cup, “One sugar, and a bit of creamer, is that right?”

“Yes, Henry. You remembered.” She took the cup and sipped. “This is the general’s private stash. The best you can get.” She smiled.

“We’re going to get the ladder set up today and go down to the river. We found fishing gear yesterday. I propose a fish dinner.”

“Mom, Ellie’s fine now,” Jeremy said. Don’t worry.”

She looked at him, shivering. She couldn’t get the image of that young girl to go away. But Ellie was OK? “That’s wonderful, dear.”

Henry approached her. “Veronica, I found your wooden box under the coffee. I hope you don’t mind that I opened it—I thought it was more coffee. It’s a box of books. This was in it.” He handed her a large book with roses on the cover.

She snatched it. “Oh, thank you, Henry.” She pulled the dust jacket off to reveal a plain cover with a circular emblem embossed on the front. “This is only thing I’ve got left of him. Is there a knife or scissors around?”

She slit along the top cover of the book and opened it, revealing a hidden compartment. Some brown beads and an ochre-colored shawl made of silk were inside, along with a recorded disk. She took the disk out, wrapped the shawl around her shoulders and looped the beads on her hand. “Oh, thank, God, they didn’t find this.” She looked at Jeremy, but addressed all of them.

“Would you like to see Shri Rinpoche? He’s the monk I met on Mount Kailash. He’s my teacher.” She opened the volume, which was a regular hardback book except for the secret compartment. Veronica flipped through a number of pages showing a spectacular mountain with a pointed, snow-covered top. “Jeremy, do we have any players for disks? I’d like to play this. It’s bulletproofing against nightmares.”

“Yes, let’s listen to it,” Henry said. The rest of them nodded in agreement.

“I found a player inside,” Jeremy went into the storage container to get it while she continued.

She leafed through the pages, searching for ones that were slightly thicker. She cut a sliver off the outer edge of each. The pages proved to be folders. A photograph was hidden in each. She gathered them as though they were jewels.

“See, here we are,” she showed pictures of an elderly man in muted orange robes. Some images had snowy mountains in the background, while others were indoors. The old monk posed with the other monks in a couple of shots. She was in one shot, wearing an orange outfit. “I’m so lucky he let me photograph him. I don’t think he’d ever been photographed before. I’m wearing the garb of a novice.”

Jeremy returned and put the disk on. The sound was unearthly. Human sounds, deep, guttural, rising and falling. Tone upon tone. Unreal. The half dome of the cavern was a perfect concert venue. Its acoustics magnified the haunting and piercing sound.

Veronica let it wash through her. It penetrated, driving her unease away for the moment. “It’s throat singing, Buddhist throat singing. It’s a blessing and a cleansing.” She could see the others were repelled by it. They pulled away, cringing at the sound. “It’s strange when you first hear it. I didn’t like it either, but the droning and vibration gets addictive. You can feel it clean you out spiritually.” She turned off the player. “I’ll spare you. I’ll listen on the headphones.”

The others moved off to get on with the day’s activities. She sat by the fire listening to the disk, entranced. Finally, something gave her relief. Veronica looked at the photos time and again, finally replacing them in the book’s compartment. She felt serene and sleepy. Her haunting fears disappeared in the chant’s guttural sounds.

She went to her little cave and lay down, placing the disk player and book next to her.

21

Sam was shocked when he saw the lady. Sam Big had found her in her dreams. But something else found her, too.

Henry brought her a book. She held the hidden pictures so they could see, but she didn’t pass them around. He wanted to look carefully at the holy man and everything in the book and pictures.

And then she put the singing on.

The music! It was like the music of the underground.
They
sang like that. All of his people sang in their burrows and holes, even in the main rooms. The only ones that didn’t sing like that, deep in their throats, were the Bigs. The singing is what kept the underground whole. It healed his people, and it calmed the Bigs, sometimes.

He relaxed. If he could hear that music, he could stay there. If they could
make
that music, they would be safe. The Bigs couldn’t penetrate it. Sam Big would not be able to find them. Things would be all right. He could feel himself relaxing, but for one thing.

A buzz of energy played with his insides. He trembled a bit, feeling like he needed to do something. Work. Dig. He wanted to dig. But this was solid rock, how could he dig here? He watched the cup jiggle in his hands. Coffee! He’d never had coffee before. He poured what was left on the fire. He’d never drink it again.

“Sam?” Jeremy stood beside him. “Can you help me set up the solar panels? I do electronics, but I’m no good at mechanical stuff.”

“No, the ladder should go over here.” Sam took over the installation of the chain ladder and solar panels. He did it naturally and easily; he was the one who did the maintenance in the underground.

The group had wanted to set the ladder up on the side of the cliff closest to the east, the side where the underground shelter was located. “They will see you going up and down over there, if they’re coming.” He showed them where it should go on the other edge of the cliff, close to his rooms. He didn’t like that, but if he wanted to leave in a hurry, it would be good.

“We have to get the solar panels going. We’re running out of juice.” Jeremy was insistent.

Sam had seen solar panels from the bottom in the underground. The shelter had many of them, sealed in glass and metal. They had worked for the 105 generations. He looked at the solar panels that had been in the container carefully, admiring their workmanship. Tools were arrayed around them. He loved tools. What was here was so much better than what he had underground.

Sam took out the instructions. He could not read any of the words. He could follow the pictorial instructions, but he wanted to make sure he was doing the right thing.

Jeremy was watching him and moved closer, whispering, “I can help you read that. Most of this is in Russian, but there’s an English translation.” He leafed through the booklet and found the English part.

Sam flushed. Jer the Tek was offering to help him. The Great Tek, whom he had worshipped as a god and now saw was a man. A very skilled man, a brilliant man, but just a man. He was also a nice man, who had a wife what many might shun, and who understood that Sam was embarrassed because he couldn’t read.

They worked together most of the day. Sam figured out a way to get the solar panels to work without being mounted permanently. Once the solar was functioning, they had power to charge up all the computers and equipment, especially the drill.

Jeremy looked at the big drill bit and said, “They must have intended on using it to cut through the ice.”

It worked fine on rock, as they found out in the early afternoon when it was charged. He drilled the holes for the anchors for the solar system, set the anchors and grouted them. Then he drilled holes for the anchors for the ladder, setting a second set. They had enough chain ladder for two stepladders, which might be useful in an emergency. The grout had to set before they could use any of it.

“This is great, but we want to get down today,” Henry said. “Isn’t there a temporary way to set up a ladder?”

“Yes,” Sam said. He looped a chain around a boulder near the edge of the ledge and bolted the ends to the ladder. “This will be good for today. Tomorrow, I will fix the ladders right. And the solar panels.”

Sam had never had such a good time. He could barely comprehend the overwhelming plenty of tools and things around him. Working with them was a joy.

He and Jeremy were putting the tools inside the computer/medical container when Jeremy said, “Sam, what’s going on with you and my mom?” Sam froze. “Don’t tell me ‘Nothing,’ because I know there is. You were friendly when we first got here, and now you don’t even talk.”

“She does not like me,” Sam managed to say.

“Why?”

“Because I threw her bottle.”

“I don’t think that’s it.” Jeremy thought a moment. “I’ll ask her what the deal is.” He stumbled over his words. “I wanted to tell you that I’m glad you’re here. I couldn’t do what you did today. None of us could. Uh. I wanted you to know that I wanted to tell you, like … Well, you and my mom. You know, if … Like … Well …

Sam wondered what Jeremy was talking about. Was he saying that he approved of his mother and him, if they were friends? Or more than friends?

“Are you going to the river, Sam?” Jeremy seemed relieved to change the subject.

“Yes.”

“Tell the rest of them that I’ll be right down. I need to print some stuff.”

When he came out of the container, the group was climbing down the ladder for a picnic by the river. They let the fishing gear down with a rope.

“Hey, Sam, good job!” said Mel and showed him how to do the “high five” salute.

Sam smiled. “I will finish tomorrow, when the grout is dry.” Earlier that day, he didn’t know what grout was. Now he could high five and talk about grout.

Sam intended to go down to the river, but when he looked over the edge of the cliff, everything seemed to move. He stepped back fast. Such height was unimaginable. He couldn’t go down the ladder. His feelings about leaving were changing. He didn’t want to leave.

He’d had an idea about something for his rooms. He’d found chisels and rock carving tools in the container. He thought of something that would make him feel safe. Perhaps he could rough it out by that night. He picked up the tools, and looked around for the lady.

She was sleeping in her cubby. He felt the atmosphere around her. Not good. Her book and music-playing thing were lying next to her, as were the beads and scarf. He took them as silently as only a digger from the underground could. He’d have them back to her before she awakened.

He took a piece of charred wood from the fire and went to his room.