Shadows Have Gone (13 page)

“I can’t say.” Justin made a deft cut into the rabbit’s belly and began to slice away its skin. Carly didn’t watch. She kept her eyes on the fire. “The infrastructure is all there. I suppose it just takes someone who knows how to operate it. There are ways of generating electricity without coal or oil, like that hydro plant we encountered in Fraser. Windmills and such. Some of those might still be running, but if they break down, who would know how to fix it? Someone in a house might be able to rig up a propane tank to a generator, but unless you had a massive tank of it, that’s not going to last long.”

“There could be towns, though, like Fraser, that have power.”

Justin chuckled. “If there are, they’re gonna have walls and guns protecting them. And, as I said, they can’t count on it for survival. They’ve got to be able to heat their homes and preserve their food without it, or one broken part could be the end of all of them.”

Carly remembered the evening when the power went off in Juneau. She had held her breath for a long moment, waiting for it to come back on. She’d sat in her darkening living room for hours, waiting, hoping, staring at the blank TV screen where she had been watching the last broadcasting news anchor, Troy Cramer, choking and coughing as he struggled to breathe.

“But if we can’t get the electricity going, we won’t be able to communicate with Washington.”

Justin laughed. “Washington? Who’s left in Washington to talk to?”

“The president,” Carly said. “My dad and I watched his last speech, and he was in the bunker when he gave it.”

Justin gave her an odd look. “You know about the bunker?”

“Yeah. Dad told me it’s made to look just like the White House, but it’s in a secret location where the president is taken if anything goes wrong. Dad said he could tell because there was a spot where the curtain was rumpled up that showed a cinderblock wall behind it. So, if the president is still alive, there’s still a government, right?”

Justin shook his head. “Technically, I suppose, but in reality, if he is still alive—which I doubt—he’s just the president of the bunker. I doubt if they even have the city of Washington under control. If they can’t communicate with the outside world, they can’t govern. It’s as simple as that.”

Carly tried to imagine it. The bunker had food and water—enough for years, her dad had said. Their own power generation, air filtration, everything necessary to sustain life. The president, his wife and kids, perhaps some of their staffers, could still be sealed away underground, trying in vain to send out messages to a world that no longer had the technology to receive them. Would they live out the rest of their lives down there? Or would they come back up and try to reestablish order, perhaps combatting the same kind of bandits and insane Infected that Carly and Justin had encountered?

Either way, it was a hellish scenario. The president of an empty nation. A kingdom of bones.

“Maybe I’m wrong,” Justin said. He put the skinned and cleaned rabbit on a spit and braced it over the fire. He tossed the innards to Sam, who lay down in front of the pile and chewed with relish. “Human beings surprise me sometimes. It could be we’ll be having this conversation in ten years over a big plate of McDonald’s french fries.”

Carly woke. She automatically reached out to find Justin, and her hand touched cool sheets. It took a moment for her mind to clear. Was he patrolling tonight? She couldn’t remember.

She rolled over and turned on the lamp. It was one of the few that had a rechargeable battery, which they hooked up to the solar panel when it wasn’t in use by Bryce or David. It cast a surprisingly bright pool of light for such a small thing.

Carly shuffled over to the door to Dagny’s little room and opened it to peek inside. The baby was curled up, sound asleep, her thumb stuffed into her mouth. Carly laid her hand on her back for a moment and felt the strong, steady thump of her heart and the gentle lift of her breaths. She could see Dagny’s eyes moving beneath their lids and wondered what she was dreaming about. Carly hoped it was happy.

She went back into her room and lay down, snuggling into Justin’s pillow. Time passed, though without a clock, she had no idea how long. Their basement bedroom was mercifully cool and dark, but she just couldn’t drift off. She tried to clear her mind, but that was an impossibility, of course.

Miz Marson.

The garden was full of weeds, and the bugs were getting bad again. She needed to mix up more of their homemade pesticide.

Dagny was getting a rash. Could it be from the heat? Maybe Laura knew of some plant salve she could use.

Miz Marson.

There had to be other people out there like Miz Marson with pacemakers and other medical devices inside of them that they couldn’t remove or repair if they stopped working. It was a horrifying thought.

Kross.

Kaden had seemed distant at dinner.

Carly sighed and rolled over, pushing away pesky strands of hair that had escaped her braid. She wasn’t going to be able to get back to sleep.

There was a clatter upstairs and a muffled curse. Justin. He must be home. Carly sat up and shrugged into her light cotton robe.

She slipped up the stairs and down the hall to the kitchen. A new hole had been sawed into her wall, and Justin was working a black stovepipe into it. He turned to face her and looked disappointed for a moment. “I’d hoped to surprise you in the morning.”

Miz Marson’s wood burning stove was in place of the useless electric model.

“I am surprised,” she said. A tiny part of her objected at first, but of course Miz Marson would want her to have it. She was nothing if not practical. She would say that Carly’s instinct to leave her home untouched, like a museum, was sentimental nonsense.

Carly smiled at Justin and went over to take him in her arms. “Thank you. It’s a lovely surprise, and if the chickens will give us any eggs tomorrow, I’ll make you an egg and vegetable omelet as a thank-you.”

“I know another way you could thank me,” he murmured against her hair and then drew back to give her a wicked smile that accelerated her heartbeat.

“I think I got the chimney outside—” Stan froze in the doorway when he saw her. “Oh, hey Carly.” It must have been raining, because he was soaked to the skin, like he’d just climbed out of a swimming pool. “Um, should I, uh . . .”

“Nah, come in.” Carly smiled at him and headed down the short hallway to the first-floor bathroom. She called over her shoulder, “Thanks for helping Justin hook it up.”

“No problem.”

Carly came back with a towel and handed it to Stan. He rubbed the water from his face first and then from his arms.

“How’s Mindy?”

Stan perked up at the sound of his wife’s name, and a soft smile lit up his face. “She’s doing great. She seems to be feeling good. The difficult thing is trying to keep her from being too active. We had an argument earlier this evening over whether she should take naps. It ended when she informed me she wasn’t a toddler and wouldn’t be told that she has to have naptime.”

Carly laughed. “Well, she’s right. Mindy’s a smart lady, Stan. She’ll listen to her body and get the rest she needs.”

“Wait until she gets all weepy and hormonal,” Justin said in a dire tone.

“I wasn’t weepy and hormonal!” Carly swatted his arm playfully.

“Well, you were sort of weepy when I first met you, even before you were pregnant.”

Carly rolled her eyes. “Give me a break. I was in shock. The world had just ended, you know.”

“Well, okay, I suppose you can get a pass on that one.” Justin grinned and pressed a smacking kiss to Carly’s cheek. “Seriously, Stan, don’t worry. Being active is a good thing for a pregnant woman. I’m sure she won’t overdo it.”

Stan nodded, but he didn’t seem very reassured. After he had gone, Carly turned curious eyes back to her husband. “You’re not as confident as you appeared, are you?”

He gave her a small smile. “No. I wish I were, but we’re heading into new territory. We’re starting over from scratch, essentially. We have the medical texts, but without the technology, some of it might as well be unknown. Sure, women have been having babies without the benefits of modern medicine for ten thousand years, but they had skilled midwives to assist, generations of wisdom passed down from healer to healer. I would have sold my soul to have had one of those midwives when you were in labor.”

“Stacy knows a lot,” Carly said. “She can—”

“She can’t do anything until the baby is born,” Justin said. “Carly, while you were pregnant, didn’t you worry about whether the baby was healthy?”

“Well, sure . . .”

“I know I did.” Justin’s voice was grim. “Without ultrasound, we couldn’t know . . . we couldn’t know anything.”

Justin . . .” Carly’s brow crumpled. “Are you okay?”

“No, not really.” Justin rubbed the back of his neck. “It’s something I’ve been thinking about. We’ve been using condoms since Dagny’s birth, and we’ve been lucky with them, but we both remember the accident that led to why she’s here.”

Carly nodded. His raw panic was seared into her memory.

“And since we found out Mindy is pregnant, it’s been circulating in my mind just how lucky we really have been.”

Carly smiled. “Yes, Dagny is wonderful—”

“No, I mean lucky we haven’t gotten pregnant again. And if we’re careful, we can hope it won’t ever happen, but if it does, we can—”

“So, we’re never going to have any more children?” Carly stared at him, unsure if he meant it the way she was interpreting it. “Voluntarily, I mean. You don’t ever want to plan for another baby.”

He blinked, as if he hadn’t thought of it in such bald terms. “I guess that’s what I’m saying.”

She felt her hands clench. “Decided that on your own, have you?”

His eyes widened slightly. “I didn’t mean. Oh shit. I—”

“I don’t even know if I want to have any more children, but it seems like you might have consulted me before making such a huge decision.”

“Carly, I thought . . . you’ve said that our circumstances being what they are . . .”

Carly spread her hands. “Circumstances probably won’t get any better in our lifetime, so it’s not a matter of waiting a few years and things will be more stable. If we waited for perfect circumstances—”

“I know.” He stopped for a moment and let out a slow sigh. “I just . . . I don’t want to run the risk of losing you. Not by something preventable.”

“You make it sound like a death sentence.”

“It could be.”

“So could anything. So could a mosquito bite.” Carly shook her head. “So what are you suggesting?”

“Those seeds Miz Marson suggested to you are a good start, and maybe I can find another backup method.”

“Justin, humanity can’t collectively decide not to reproduce because we don’t have modern medical technology anymore.”

“I don’t give a fuck about the collective humanity. I care about you.” His black eyes burned into hers, and Carly had to look away.

“I don’t think we have a duty to humanity to reproduce, if that’s what you’re getting at, but if it happens, maybe it’s fate.”

“Oh Jesus.” Justin dropped his head into his hands. “Carly, I know you believe—”

“Yeah, I do. Even more strongly than ever. We’re not just drifting along, Justin. There really is something guiding us. I don’t know if it’s God or the universe or some sort of path that was laid out before the foundations of the world were built, but there’s
something.
We wouldn’t have come this far if there weren’t. There’s a reason you were in Juneau, Alaska, when the Infection broke out. There’s a reason those pills you gave me didn’t work. There’s a reason we came here to Colby.”

“Is there a reason Miz Marson died? Is there a reason why Kross is dead? What was his path, Carly? What was his destiny? To be gunned down behind the scenes and buried beneath a pile of stones?”

Tears stung Carly’s eyes. “Yes, there is. I don’t know what it was. Maybe I’ll never know. We don’t always get answers in life, Justin. It’s not like a movie where the plot is neatly tied up in a bow at the end. We spend our lives doing what we’re supposed to do, and sometimes that’s helping someone else achieve their path. Maybe our purpose is to build a safe place for our children to grow up so they can do something important.”

“And maybe there’s no purpose at all.” Justin’s level gaze was a challenge.

“Maybe.” Carly nodded. “Maybe you’re right, Justin. I can’t prove any of this. Maybe I have delusions of grandeur. Maybe I need to feel important in order to get through my day, and this is the fairy tale I tell myself to make it all seem worth it. But it gives me meaning. And in some sense, maybe it doesn’t matter if it’s true. I can feel like I’m working for something, building something, contributing something for the future. And I want us to have that future, Justin. We can’t hold back from living out of fear. Will there be loss? Yes. Loss is a part of life, the same way pain is a part of love. But my hope is what I’m building will be strong enough to get us through those losses.”

“I can’t,” Justin said. With that, he turned on his heel and headed for the basement stairs.

Carly stared after him for a moment and then followed. She found him sitting at the bottom, his arms propped on his knees with his hands dangling down between them.