Shadows Have Gone (22 page)

“I didn’t get you anything,” she murmured against his lips. “I almost forgot it was Christmas.”

“You give me a present every day,” he said. “I have something else for you. Hold up your hand.”

She did, and he transferred her weight to one arm so he could dig in his pocket. He pulled out the ring and slid it onto her finger.

“It’s an infinity symbol,” he said as she gazed down at it. “I never got you an engagement ring. I know you’re not really a jewelry person, but I thought you might like it. And it’s low enough that it won’t catch on stuff, so you won’t have to take it off when you’re working. I thought—”

She shut him up with a kiss. “I love it. Oh, Justin, I love it!”

“If you ever ask yourself how long I’ll love you, look down at it,” he said.

“An eternity and beyond,” she whispered. She tilted her head up for a kiss, but they froze at the sound of footsteps.

Justin turned and was surprised to see Bryce at the corner of the barn. He lifted a hand in a halfhearted wave before clearing his throat. “I’m sorry to . . . uh . . . but it’s important.”

“What is it?”

Bryce licked his lips. “There’s something I think you should hear.”

Bryce led him into the house, showing him into the room where his radio setup occupied the table.

“I ceased sending messages after we had our . . . um . . . talk.” Bryce ran his hand through his hair. “But I’ve been listening, monitoring the frequencies to see if I could hear anything. I came across this. Here.” He handed Justin the earphones.

Justin sat down and put them on. Bryce turned on the radio.

Immediately the sound filled his ears. Electronic beeps, repeating in a pattern with a small pause at the end of the message, before it began again.

“Morse code,” Justin said, removing the earphones. He laid them down on the table.

“Yeah, I translated it here.” Bryce held up a notebook. Justin knew Morse code, and he’d caught the general gist of the message, but seeing it written out made it stark and solid.

JUSTIN I WANT TO TALK TO YOU
.

“It’s local. I mean, they’re not using a satellite. They’re broadcasting from a regular transmitter. How close I can’t say, but it can’t be too far. I wish I knew more.”

“Thanks, Bryce,” Justin said.

“Should I send any kind of reply?”

“No, not yet.” Justin wasn’t even sure what he wanted to say. “Thanks.”

He headed out onto the porch, closing the screen door behind him. For a long moment, he stood there, staring at Bryce’s yard.

Then he started walking. He headed out without knowing where he was going. His feet took him to the little tree he had planted to mark Tom and Cynthia’s grave.

It was midday, but fortunately, most people were occupied with the day’s work or celebrating Christmas with their families, and the commons was deserted. Justin sat down beside the tree, pulling up his knees to rest his arms over them.

“I can’t deny it anymore,” he said. “It’s him. The bastard found me somehow, and now here he is. Why he came here, I don’t know. What he wants, I have no idea. But it’s him. I know it. Fuck.” Justin rubbed his forehead.

“I don’t want to talk to him. I said my goodbyes to all of that. I’m done. I’m out. I don’t owe him shit.”

The grasses over the graves swayed in the breeze, silvering in the afternoon sunlight.

“Part of me wants to talk to him,” Justin said. “Part of me wants to know if it was some big grand, master fucking plan and what the endgame is. But that’s a very small part. The rest of me doesn’t give a shit. The rest of me wants him to go away so I can live in fucking peace in this community Carly and I have built. All that shit in the past . . . it doesn’t seem real compared to this. Compared to Colby. This is real. This is what matters.”

He picked a weed growing within the stone circle he’d built around the tree and used his fingertips to smooth the disturbed soil.

“But I don’t think he’s going to go away. Not until he’s . . . got what he wants. Whatever that is. And I don’t know what that will mean for Colby this time. I can defend us against gangs of ruffians. Against Lewis and whatever force he’s built? Whatever resources he has? Christ . . . I really don’t know.”

He rubbed the back of his neck. “I don’t think I can kill him. I just don’t think I actually could. He was a master in the skills they trained us in. My five years of training couldn’t even touch his level of skill. He was the best, the one they selected to train the trainers.”

He took a deep breath. “And I might hesitate. Even after all the shit I’ve learned. I might . . . he was the one who saw a worthless street kid and took him from that life. Made something of him. Gave him a purpose, a sense of honor and duty. He gave me the skills I would need to survive. Even without that fucking vaccine, I can say I wouldn’t be here if it wasn’t for him. For that reason, I might hesitate. I just might . . . not be able to do it.”

He stood and paced around the little tree. “It’s not like me to not know what to do. I mean, I usually have some sort of plan, even if I’m just bullshitting my way through, hoping it will work. But this time . . . I can’t hope that ignoring it will make it go away. Not anymore.” He stopped. “I’ve got to tell Carly.”

“Tell me what?”

Justin jumped and spun around. She was standing on the sidewalk, her scarf pulled up around her ears to ward off the chill, her hands stuffed deep in her pockets.

“Hey. I’m . . . I didn’t expect you here.”

“I guess so.” She glanced around the empty, grassy lot where the church had once stood.

They had burned the church after the last of Colby’s residents had died, victims of the plague from which they had isolated themselves until Justin and Carly’s healthy baby convinced them it was safe to open their gates. That was how they had learned they were carriers, that the Infection lingered inside of them. One day, it could mutate again and overcome their defenses. It was like living with a live grenade within, never knowing if or when the pin would be pulled.

“I wanted to know what Bryce had shown you. And I wanted to know why he asked just you to come with him.”

“Because the message was for me.” He rubbed a hand over his face and dropped it down to his side. “It’s Lewis, Carly. I know it. He won’t stop until he gets what he wants.”

A chill gust of wind swept up her hair and tangled it in the air. “What does he want?”

“He says just to talk to me, but I am pretty skeptical to say the least. I know him too well. He didn’t come after me just for a chat.”

“We’ve got to decide what we’re going to do.”

“I know.” Justin shoved his hands in his jacket pockets, not because of the chill but to hide the fists they clenched into. “I don’t know if I can fight him, Carly.”

She nodded. “Maybe you can’t, but I can.”

“Carly, he would—”

“He would
what
? I said I wasn’t going to let anyone destroy what we’ve built here, and that includes Lewis. I know you’ve built him up in your mind until he has this almost mythological status, but he’s just a man, Justin. And like any man, he has weaknesses that can be exploited. I’d guess in his case it’s overconfidence, since he’s managed to convince the people around him he’s damn near invincible. Am I right?”

Justin chuckled. “You just may be.”

She tilted her chin up. “Well, people tend to underestimate me. I can use that, too.”

Beside her, Sam leapt to his feet and gave a soft huff. Almost at the same moment, Carly heard it, someone calling her name. Veronica appeared between the arborvitaes, running toward them. She skidded to a halt, panting. “It’s Mindy—”

Carly didn’t wait for her to finish. She bolted for the clinic. She could hear Justin running behind her. She threw open the door. Mindy sat in the dentist’s chair, her hands clutched around her swollen belly. Stan knelt beside her, his hands also cupping her belly, as though they could protect it.

Stacy pumped the bulb of a blood pressure cuff. She gave a tight smile to Carly as she stepped into the room.

“How are you doing?” Carly crouched down on Mindy’s other side.

“I’m not sure,” Mindy said, and her voice was higher than usual. “I’ve had a backache since this morning and then a really sharp pain about an hour ago. I think I may be going into labor.”

“The babies’ heartbeats sound strong,” Stacy said. “There’s no reason to worry, even if you are, Mindy. We knew they might come a little early.”

Mindy didn’t need to say it. Her worry was written on her face as plain as though the words had been scrawled on her skin. What if it was too early?

Mindy winced. “There’s another one.” She gave a sharp little cry as her water broke.

“It’s okay, it’s okay,” Stacy murmured as she and Carly helped Mindy to her feet and helped her into a hospital gown. Silent tears ran down Mindy’s cheeks and her hands left her belly only for the moments it took to sweep her clothes away and replace them with the gown.

“Carly, stay with me, please.”

“I will. Don’t you worry.” Carly looked back over her shoulder at Justin. She stepped away as Stan and Stacy helped Mindy back into the chair.

“This may be a while,” she said. She took his hand as they stepped into the small waiting room. Carly pushed the door behind her but left it ajar so she could hear if Mindy or Stacy called for her.

“I know it could be a while. I remember your labor.” Justin cupped Carly’s cheek in his hand. “My God, I was terrified.” Through the opening in the door, they could both see Stan and the helpless fear in his eyes.

Justin looked down at the floor, and Carly could see that he was lost in his own memories. “Go home,” Carly turned her face and pressed a kiss into his palm. “Go home and hug our baby. Dagny was worth it.”

He nodded. But he glanced back toward Stan and rubbed the back of his neck.

“Go home,” Carly repeated. “I’ll send you a message if anything . . .”

He leaned down and kissed her, and she cherished the feeling of his warm, firm lips against hers. There was a swirl of cold air in the room as he opened the door to leave. She watched him as he headed across the commons, still rubbing the back of his neck.

She turned and found Sam standing there, looking up at her with a quizzical tilt to his head.

“You probably should wait out here, Sam,” Carly said. “It’s probably not sanitary to have a wolf in the delivery room.”

“I’ll get Buttercup for him to play with!” Veronica said from the hallway, and Carly blinked at the sound of her voice. Had she been in there the whole while? Carly shook her head and sighed.

Veronica darted off to the employee break room where she had set up a little play area for the puppy. Carly started to object, thinking their play might be too noisy, but when Veronica brought the puppy and an old blanket, the two canines simply curled up together on it and snuggled down for a nap. Carly turned the sign on the clinic door to CLOSED and shut the two of them in the waiting room before going back to the delivery room.

“You get a treat,” Stacy said to Mindy. “I actually talked this over with Justin, and he agreed this is a very appropriate use of a battery. We’ve been charging it with the solar panel just for this purpose. Ta-da!”

She opened one of the closet doors and pulled out a television on a rolling stand. A DVD player was lying on the shelf below it, and on the bottom shelf was the battery powering the setup.

“What in the world?” Mindy said.

“I remember you once told me one of your favorite old movies was
Gone with the Wind.
” Stacy poked at the buttons. The FBI warning filled the screen for a moment, and Stacy started the movie. The sweeping theme music began, and they all stared at the screen in awe.

After all this time, it seemed so strange to watch a movie again. Carly had the urge to reach out to the glowing screen and touch it. The music raised goose bumps along her arms. She hadn’t heard anything as sweet as those violins in over two years, hadn’t seen an image on a television since Troy Cramer lay gasping over his desk.

“I’ve never seen this,” Veronica said as the text appeared on the screen explaining the old South. She didn’t seem a bit awed by the resurrection of this bygone technology. “Is it any good?”