Barren Waters - The Complete Novel: (A Post-Apocalyptic Tale of Survival) Read online

  Time seemed to move ponderously slow as he raised the butt of his gun to his own temple. The blond officer advanced a half step, his voice softening. “Sir, you don’t want to do that. Come with us and we’ll figure all of this out together.”

  Olivia was amazed at the depth of the policeman’s professionalism. Even after the man had gunned down one of his own, he was somehow able to master his emotions. Let the bastard kill himself, Olivia thought savagely. He was obviously crazy.

  The blond officer continued to speak in even tones. “Sir, drop your gun. We can figure this out. Why don’t you just tell us what happened to her. Lower your gun and let’s talk about it.”

  Olivia heard a faint click as the man cocked his weapon to load the chamber anew. She cast her gaze back to the young boy who’d somehow managed to open the car door and was now tugging on his mother’s sleeve and sobbing quietly. Scanning the scene once more, Olivia returned her gaze to the boy and began to feel an impulse swell within her. It was an overwhelming urge, a force more powerful than fear.

  Now, she though insanely. Go now. While the gunman’s not paying attention.

  Without a moment’s hesitation her hand found the door handle and with a low click, the door opened. Cautiously she leaned against it and slowly slid from the seat.

  Liam lunged for her. “What the hell are you doing?”

  His voice was crazed and the depth of fear in his eyes broke her heart, the terror and shock within them momentarily holding her captive. Her mind whirred and caught on the possible consequences of her actions.

  “Liam, I-” What was she doing? Indeed what the hell? Her thoughts were wild and tempestuous, and she found that she couldn’t find her voice. “The boy …” She turned back toward the child and slid fully from the seat into an awkward crouch, the door now her only shield.

  “No,” Liam hissed. “Get back in here.” He cleared his throat and began fumbling for the catch on his seat belt. “Get back here now. Olivia, please.”

  She turned from him and edged further from the safety of the vehicle as she kept her eyes fixed on the child. She called to him softly.

  “Hey. Son. Over here.”

  She motioned with her hands, kept her movements tiny to keep the others from seeing. She caught his attention and he turned to meet her gaze, but he wouldn’t let go of the hand he was holding. It was macabre, that hand, the appearance of its flesh a contrast between life and death. The hand appeared heavy and lax, the skin unnaturally pale with just a hint of bruised blue. She pushed past her revulsion, motioned to the little boy, and whispered to him in even-keeled tones.

  “Stay with her. It’s okay son. I’m just coming over to visit, all right?”

  She crept toward the front of their vehicle as Liam tumbled out of the passenger door behind her. He was struggling to keep his voice quiet. “Olivia, you need to come back here now.”

  She ignored him and peered around the front of the car to the man who’d caused this catastrophic scene. Again, he was bent at the waist, hands braced on his knees, and she could see the tears that streamed down his face. He’d moved the gun away from his temple, but she could see that his fingers were clenched so tightly to the handle that they were white around the knuckles. She flinched. If he were even to make a quarter turn to the right, he’d catch her.

  Olivia froze as one of the policemen dared a forward step. “That’s it, Sir. We’ll help you. Just come with us and we’ll sort all this out at the station.”

  The man shook his head and moaned. He was muttering to himself in a voice that seemed too high, too extreme. “There’s no fixing this. No going back. She’s gone.”

  The officer was persistent. “We can fix this. We will. Come with me. Set down your weapon and raise your hands above your head.”

  “My weapon?” the man murmured the question under his breath. He raised his hand and peered at the gun in his hand, as if he were seeing it for the first time. “My weapon,” he said, this time with more conviction.

  For Olivia, his next motions were hallucinatory, the images bright and jagged against her eyes. With a smoothness and calm efficiency that ran contrary to his erratic behavior, he lifted the gun once more and placed it firmly against his temple. She gasped, a tiny yet discernable sound that caught his attention. He turned to her, met her gaze, then pulled the trigger and was gone.

  In that instant, Olivia lunged for the boy. Somehow she lumbered across the distance in several lurching steps, swept him into her arms, and shielded his eyes from the carnage on the other side of the vehicle. She pushed his face into the crook of her neck and ran for the shoulder of the road. Liam’s heavy steps thundered behind her, his voice now loud and insistent, but the danger had passed, she knew, and now all that was left was this tiny little soul. She carried him to the grass, dropped to her knees, and set him to his feet. He seemed uninjured as she searched his body. Somehow he was healthy and whole. Perfect. And utterly defenseless. Though she’d set him on his own two feet, he clung to her pants in desperation as silent tears tracked his cheeks. He raised his face and his arms to her, a wordless plea for the shelter of her embrace, and so she willingly obliged and nestled him against her breast. She turned to Liam.

  “Do you think they were his parents?”

  “What the hell, Liv? You could’ve been killed.” He was breathless and angry, his face red and blotchy in his outrage.

  “I’m fine,” she insisted. “We need to go speak to those cops.”

  He shook his head. “No. You need to stay here and I need to go speak to those cops. Can I trust you to stay here?”

  “Liam, the danger’s passed.” She covered the boy’s right ear with her hand, his left crushed against the curve of her throat. “The man is dead, Liam. I hardly think there’s danger. What we need to do is figure out who those two people were to this boy.”

  His mouth was set firm. “No, Liv. What we need to do is get in our car and head back to the last exit. What we need to do is get to a hotel room and work on obtaining copies of our paperwork so we can cross the border into Tennessee and get to our home before we find that we’re unable to make it there at all.”

  She tightened her arms around the small child. “I won’t leave him, Liam. You know it’s not r-“

  “Excuse me, ma’am?” The blond cop had left the scene, his eyes now fixed on the child in her arms, and Olivia recoiled at the small specks of blood that dotted his face and uniform. “Ma’am, I’ll take the boy now. You and your husband can return to your vehicle. If you’ll just show me your papers you can proceed into Tennessee.”

  He reached for the child, but Olivia held him firm. “I think he wants to stay with me for now.” In response to the conversation, the child’s arms snaked around her neck and locked behind her ears.

  The officer surveyed both woman and child and seemed to come to a decision. “Follow me please.” He turned to Liam. “I’ll need to see your license and car registration. The two of you might as well give us statements.”

  They followed the officer to the back of a police vehicle where an EMT waited, and Olivia perched on the edge and turned the child around. She turned his face toward the EMT, settled him on her knee, and held tight to his waist while the blond officer crouched beside them.

  “Hello son. Have you been traveling with your mother and father?”

  The child’s eyes were wide and Olivia worried that he was going into shock. The EMT must’ve shared her concerns. He laid the back of his hand against his small forehead and draped a blanket around his back.

  Olivia wrapped him in its folds and snuggled him under her arm. “I don’t think we’re going to get much out of him right now.” She peered over at a paneled police van and could make out several occupants within, their hands bound and cuffed behind their backs. “Interesting day, officer.”

  He sighed and lifted his hands to his brow. “Yeah. That’s an understatement.” Reaching for a pen and note pad from his back pocket he asked, “Can you give your names pl
ease?”

  Liam took over. “Liam Colt and this is my wife Olivia. We own a home in Tennessee, and from the looks of all this, once we get there we’re never going to leave it again.”

  “Smart thinking.” He returned his gaze to the boy. “So I take it you don’t know this child.”

  Liam met Olivia’s gaze and she knew he understood what she wanted. “No,” he answered, “we don’t know him. But I have a feeling we’re about to get to know him better.”

  A third officer interrupted them, his expression morose, and held out his hand where a tiny vial glinted in the sun. “There’re needles inside the women’s purse, Rob. Lots of them.”

  The blonde’s brows furrowed. “She’s an addict? She dead?”

  Olivia clutched the child closer to her breast in an attempt to shield his ears from their harsh words. An addict? Not many people could afford drugs these days.

  “Dead, yes,” the other answered sullenly, “addict, no.” He held the small bottle to the light and turned the label toward them. The remnants of a clear liquid were gathered at the bottom. “Insulin.”

  Rob lifted his brow. “She’s a diabetic?”

  “Was a diabetic,” the other officer corrected. “Not anymore.” He lifted a wallet from an evidence bag at his hip and rifled through the folds. “Found this too.”

  Olivia’s heart broke as she laid eyes on the small photograph. A beautiful family of three smiled back at her and she felt her throat catch. The child on her lap reached his small hand toward the photo, snatched it, and brought it wordlessly to his chest. He clutched it and wept quietly, and she met the officer’s twin gazes. “I think that answers that.”

  They nodded. “I don’t suppose we could convince you to come to the station with us?”

  Liam answered boldly. “I don’t suppose you could let us pass through Tennessee without paperwork?”

  The cop known as Rob smiled. “I think we might be able to make an exception. Stay here and let the EMT check you out while we clear the scene.”

  Together, they watched the cops return to the bloodstain in the middle of the road. The gunman’s body had already been removed.

  The EMT crouched and gently palpated the boy’s body.

  “I think he’s all right,” Olivia offered. “Physically at least.” She lifted him from her chest and set him on her knee. Liam crouched low beside her as the EMT moved off, and together they made their introductions. “My name is Olivia,” she whispered. “And this is my husband Liam. Can you tell us your name?”

  He didn’t speak, and instead lowered his gaze to his open palm where the picture of his parents lay crumpled. Liam’s voice was thick with emotion.

  “I’m so sorry about your family, son. I’m sure your Mommy and Daddy loved you very much.”

  “I’m sure,” Olivia agreed. “But we have to take you to the police station now.” The boy raised his head and she could see the alarm shining in his eyes. He reached out a hand and caught a lock of her hair. She swallowed past the lump in her throat. “We’ll go with you. We won’t leave you. But I’d really love it if you could tell me your name. I’ve already told you mine.”

  She pushed a fall of dark hair from his eye, and bravely, he met her gaze.

  “Jeremy,” he said softly. “My name is Jeremy.

  There's nothing wrong with enjoying looking at the surface of the ocean itself, except that when you finally see what goes on underwater, you realize that you've been missing the whole point of the ocean. Staying on the surface all the time is like going to the circus and staring at the outside of the tent.

  ―Dave Berry

  Chapter 9

  June 20th, 2175

  Just outside of Knoxville

  Tennessee

  She pushed the food away but didn’t speak. She hadn’t spoken a word in over a month.

  “Sam, you need to eat. He caught her hand and turned it over to examine the meter at the inside of her wrist. “Sixty-two. You’re getting too low. You need to eat something.”

  Jeremy took a deep breath and ladled a steaming cup of tomato soup into a wooden bowl, crumbled several saltine crackers over the top, and pushed it toward her. “Sam, how do you think your mother would feel about this? She sacrificed her life and you’re actively working to destroy your own.”

  Angrily, she snatched the bowl from him and turned away.

  It’d been thirty-four days since they’d lost their cabin. Thirty-four days since he’d lost his wife. Thirty-two days since he’d seen the last remnants of smoke lifting from the tops of the highest trees. In a way that was strangely macabre, he and Sam had clung to those curling tendrils. They’d hugged their knees and stared at them in silence, watched as they’d lost shape then dissipated fully. Somehow those sooty clouds had connected them to the place they were both so reluctant to leave behind.

  Many times since, Jeremy had thought of the men he’d left inside, wondered if he’d put enough distance between them and Sam. They would be angry. Infuriated, really. Jeremy tried to imagine the depths of their rage and couldn’t. To have survived in this ailing wilderness for years and years, and then to have finally found spoils as rich and luxurious as the cabin? Yes. If these men were to ever find he and Sam, the retribution they’d levy wouldn’t be swift. It would be drawn out and painful. Unthinkable. They’d make him pay dearly and he didn’t want to think about that.

  He poured from the steaming pot of soup and elbowed his way onto the couch. They’d found this house a few weeks ago and Jeremy had chosen it to lay down stakes for a bit of recuperation and healing. It was an interval of time they needed to take, as much a mental break as it was a physical one. He also wanted to take stock of their supplies and plot a course for their future. They couldn’t stay here long term, he knew, but it was as good a place as any to carve out a temporary life.

  After emerging from the woods that night, battered and broken of spirit, they’d followed Main Street west. It was an easy road, both straight and wide, and they’d traversed it in silence, heads hung, shoulders slumped. He’d been eager to leave Sevierville proper, and had figured to follow the street west until it became US-441, which they’d follow on foot to Knoxville. But from there he hadn’t really come up with a solid plan. For all the careful controls he and Susan had set in place over the years, they hadn’t thought of a secondary destination. And why would they? The very idea that they’d ever have to leave the cabin was so farfetched that neither had thought to devise a plan. It was inconceivable, absurdly implausible that they’d ever be forced from the confines of that private shelter, yet here they were. Here they were, thrust into the elements with nothing but an industrial-sized laundry cart to keep them alive.

  Jeremy was becoming increasingly concerned that they hadn’t the resources to make a new life. They were well equipped, yes, their position still superior when compared to others, but did they have enough to make a new start of it?

  He turned to Sam and began his nightly ritual.

  “So I was thinking tomorrow we set out for the library and pick out some new books.”

  Though he didn’t expect her to respond, he’d vowed to never stop trying. Like her, he had experienced a range of emotions since that fateful night. First he’d been angry, a deep and bottomless rage that had welled up at unexpected moments. He knew he’d been difficult to live with those first few days, and he feared that he hadn’t behaved the way a responsible adult should. In fact, for a short amount of time, he was certain that he’d withdrawn from her completely, that he’d turned his rage inward, and it was then—probably because of his rage—that she’d fallen silent. At first her silence had only fueled his anger. He’d lost his wife, his partner, his best friend, and now the only person left in his life was choosing not to acknowledge him at all. How dare she shut him out, pretend he didn’t exist? Did she think his pain wasn’t somehow equal to her own? It wasn’t fair! he remembered thinking. What had he done to deserve her taciturnity? Did she blame him for the unexpected path th
eir life had taken? Did she hold him accountable for the actions of criminals?

  Slowly, as her silence remained and deepened, he’d come out of his rage, realizing finally that he was the adult in the room. She needed him. He could grieve, yes. It was his right to do so, but he’d only do so in private. He’d no longer brood and scowl, no longer curse openly or share his worries over their next course of action. That wasn’t what fathers did. Fathers held it together, stoically, and with a steady hand. She had enough to worry about. Since those early nights he’d vowed to turn a new leaf, to keep his concerns to himself, and to only voice things from a place of positivity and hope. He would be the counterpoint to her sadness. He would create a space for her within it and he’d never stop hoping that she’d join him there. They no longer had Susan or the cabin or the ark itself, but they still had each other, and for tonight and many nights to come, they had enough food to eat and plenty of water to drink. Better to focus on that and let the other things fall away. For now.

  “So maybe at the library you can pick up copies of the Twilight series.”

  Wordlessly she slurped at her soup, her eyes fixed on the highest window and the starry sky beyond. Together they sat in the living room of this beautifully appointed home. The kitchen boasted granite countertops, and in the living room, a massive flat-screen television, which was all but useless to them now. But it did have a large fireplace and plush furnishings, bedrooms with thick comforters, and a large plot of land to the rear. They’d been here for a little over two weeks and Jeremy had used the time to organize their supplies. Thankfully Sam didn’t like to be alone, and though she refused to speak to him, she followed him constantly, silently engaging in whatever activity he was doing.

  Together they’d boarded the windows of the house and conducted a thorough search of its grounds. He wasn’t sure why particular homes were ransacked while others were left virtually unmolested. This house had been raided, of course, though not ruined. There were no remnants of food here, no bottles of water, no usable clothing, but the place was clean and safe and somewhat remote. He was surprised that no one had taken up permanent residence here. The home was situated in the center of acres upon acres of land. The nearest neighbor must be at least a mile from here. Perhaps two. It was why he’d chosen it in the first place.